McCain sharpens attack on Obama

John McCain today launched his harshest, most detailed assault to date on Barack Obama's Iraq policy, saying that Obama failed the commander-in-chief test by opposing the surge of additional troops and would risk defeat by withdrawing most troops by 2010.

McCain, one of the biggest supporters of sending 30,000 additional troops to Iraq last year, asserted that Obama "not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn't just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops."

"If Senator Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire," McCain told the national convention of the American GI Forum, a Hispanic-American veterans group. "....Fortunately, Senator Obama failed, not our military. We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right."

And that defeat, McCain suggested, could have led to genocide in Iraq and a wider war in the Middle East.

"The Iraqi Army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically," he said. "Al Qaeda would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the "Sunni Awakening" would have been strangled at birth. Al Qaeda fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners, and turn Iraq into a base for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been likely.

"Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened. Our military, strained by years of sacrifice, would have suffered a demoralizing defeat. Our enemies around the globe would have been emboldened. Terrorists would have seen our defeat as evidence America lacked the resolve to defeat them. As Iraq descended into chaos, other countries in the Middle East would have come to the aid of their favored factions, and the entire region might have erupted in war."

The surge helped reduce violence in Iraq, but Obama also credits the rebellion of Sunni leaders against al Qaeda and political developments. Now, he want to pull out most combat troops within 16 months of taking office, though he says he would redeploy them if the situation in Iraq deteriorated into civil war and possible genocide.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton responded to McCain's speech in a statement: “The American people are looking for a serious debate about the way forward in Iraq and Afghanistan, and angry, false accusations will do nothing to accomplish that goal. Barack Obama and John McCain may differ over our strategy in Iraq, but they are united in their support for our brave troops and their desire to protect this nation. Senator McCain's constant suggestion otherwise is not worthy of the campaign he claimed he would run or the magnitude of the challenges this nation faces.”

UPDATE: The Democratic National Committee and Obama's campaign also highlighted McCain's response, in an interview that aired today on CNN, that the 16-month proposal by Obama -- and generally supported by Iraqi leaders this week -- was "a pretty good timetable."

"MCCAIN ENDORSES OBAMA'S PLAN FOR IRAQ?" the DNC suggested.

But in the CNN interview, McCain quickly added his usual caveat that any pullout has to "based on conditions on the ground."

"This success is very fragile," he said. "It's incredibly impressive, but very fragile. So we know, those of us who have been involved in it for many years, know that if we reverse this, by setting a date for withdrawal, all of the hard-won victory can be reversed."

McCain is trying to make the war the defining issue of the presidential race, and trying to compete for attention with Obama's high-profile foreign trip.

Asked what he has learned on the trip, Obama said at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy that he had no "blinding insight," but rather a deepening understanding.

"There was nothing I saw that caused me to change my basic strategic assessment," Obama said.

He said he saw first-hand that conditions are worsening in Afghanistan, and more troops need to be deployed. In Iraq, conditions are improving and will allow a withdrawal of US troops "at a steady, prudent pace."

McCain argues that US forces should not leave until Iraq is stable and secure.

"We can withdraw when we have secured the peace and the gains we have sacrificed so much to achieve are safe," McCain said. "Or we can follow Senator Obama's unconditional withdrawal and risk losing the peace even if that results in spreading violence and a third Iraq war. Senator
Obama has suggested he would consider sending troops back if that happened. When I bring them home in victory and with honor, they are staying home.

"Senator Obama might dismiss defeat in Iraq as the current president's problem. But presidents don't lose wars. Nations do. And presidents don't fight wars. You do, the men and women of the greatest fighting force in the history of the world."

The Obama campaign also responded by issuing a statement from former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who, like McCain, supported the Iraq war.

"As is often the case in politics, the most important questions do not get debated while the most trivial ones are pushed front and center," Kerrey said. "Such is the case with the current attacks by Senator McCain's supporters purporting that Senator Obama's failure to support the surge demonstrates he has been wrong on this important foreign policy question.

“Assessing all facts available to us today, Senator Obama's judgment six years ago looks a whole lot better today than either Senator McCain's or mine was back then. Barack Obama understands that moving from the U.S. being an occupying force to strong ally is an urgent necessity both for Iraq and the United States. He also sees that the growing consensus in the United States and Iraq for a timeline that will allow the responsible redeployment of our combat brigades out of Iraq while preserving our commitment to remain a strong ally of the Iraqi people is an opportunity that we must seize. Finally, Barack Obama is right in his judgment that this redeployment will accelerate the political progress Iraq so desperately needs to lock in the security gains delivered by our military forces.

“Let's not re-fight the past. From what I've seen of the two candidates, Senator Obama has the better strategic vision and judgment to meet our challenges moving forward."

The Republican National Committee responded to Kerrey's statement by noting a May 2007 op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal in which the former senator declared that Iraq is the primary battleground against radical Islamists.

"The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the US in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically 'yes,' Kerrey wrote.

"This does not mean that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11; he was not. Nor does it mean that the war to overthrow him was justified--though I believe it was. It only means that a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory."