McCain stakes bid on winning war
Says failure would be 'catastrophic'
WASHINGTON -- Senator John McCain will launch a high-profile effort this week to convince Americans that the Iraq war is winnable, embracing the unpopular conflict with renewed vigor as he attempts to reignite his stalling bid for the presidency.
With the Virginia Military Institute as a backdrop, the Republican from Arizona plans to contend in a speech on Wednesday that victory in Iraq is essential to American security and that President Bush's war machine is finally getting on track after four years, aides and advisers said.
McCain's rosy assessment of safety on Iraq's streets was mocked after his recent visit to a Baghdad marketplace, prompting him to tell a television reporter that he "misspoke" and now regrets the comments. But, in the interview to be broadcast today, the senator sticks by his defense of the overall war effort, predicting that failure there would be "catastrophic."
It is a gamble at a critical time for the former front-runner for the Republican nomination, the political equivalent of a "double-down" in blackjack, as one supporter close to the campaign put it. A candidate once seen as the almost inevitable winner, McCain is struggling in the polls and this week placed dead last in fund-raising among the six top contenders from both parties.
McCain's supporters say that though he is not declaring "mission accomplished," he has little choice but to enthusiastically renew his support for the war.
"You can't get around the elephant in the room, which is Iraq," said Representative Rick Renzi , Republican of Arizona, who discussed the speech with McCain as the pair flew back together from a congressional visit to Iraq last week.
In the interview on CBS's "60 Minutes," McCain responds to criticism of the marketplace comments by saying, "Of course, I am going to misspeak, and I've done it on numerous occasions, and I probably will do it in the future," according to excerpts released by the network.
But McCain also says, according to excerpts, "I believe we can succeed." And he urges viewers to "support this new strategy, let's support this new general and let's give it everything we can to have it succeed."
The Iraq speech will be the first of three major policy addresses McCain will give in the coming weeks as he prepares to officially announce his candidacy, with stops beginning in New Hampshire and ending in Arizona at the end of the month.
He will give a speech about taxes, trade, and government waste on April 16 and a lecture on domestic policy, perhaps emphasizing energy issues, a week later, according to advisers.
Together, aides hope the speeches and remarks will serve as a reintroduction of McCain to voters, helping to ignite some of the same kind of passion his candidacy evoked in 2000.
They are also hoping to recapture the limelight from his GOP rivals, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Giuliani is leading in national polls, and Romney raised $10 million more than McCain in the first three months of the year.
"This is about moving forward and doing what's necessary to make John McCain president," said Terry Nelson, his campaign manager. "We want to talk broadly about the challenges this country faces. That has not been done in a systematic way by any candidate, so far."
The immediate focus, however, is the Iraq war, which McCain has said for weeks will be the issue that defines his campaign.
In early drafts, he criticizes the pace of political progress under Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki but argues that the price of defeatism is lower morale among US troops, according to Renzi and advisers familiar with preparations for the speech.
McCain plans to praise the "measurable progress" made by the top US commander in Iraq, Army General David H. Petraeus , particularly in Ramadi , and to urge the public to leave more time on the clock for achieving success.
"This gives him an opportunity to put a marker down on what his foreign policy vision will be and how important it is to win the war in Iraq, and do it in a very specific, cogent way," said one top adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because McCain was continuing to work on the speech this weekend. 