McCain targets Obama on Iraq

John McCain's campaign is pressing one line of attack today on Democratic rival Barack Obama as he readies to visit Iraq and Afghanistan -- that his policy is determined by politics, not facts.

This afternoon in Washington, some of McCain's top surrogates unveiled a documentary titled, "The Obama Iraq Documentary: Whatever the Politics Demand."

"As we see progress in Iraq because of the Surge strategy that John McCain advocated, many questioned whether Barack Obama would maintain his steadfast refusal to recognize the facts on the ground and continue his stubborn call for immediate withdrawal," Randy Scheunemann, McCain's senior foreign policy adviser, said in a memo. "Barack Obama has now answered those questions by tossing aside the facts in favor of an ideologically-driven approach that puts unconditional withdrawal above all other considerations. He has done this without even bothering to see the facts on the ground.

"Unlike Barack Obama, John McCain believes it is critical to make national security decisions based upon the reality of conditions on the ground," the memo continues. "In August 2003, John McCain traveled to Iraq to determine the facts about what was happening inside the country. Based on what he learned there, he warned of failure and called for a change in strategy. For that, he was criticized by Republicans, Democrats and the media, but because of what he saw in Iraq, he knew the strategy had to change. When it wasn't popular, John McCain said he would rather win a war that we were losing than win an election. Politics came second; country came first.

"Barack Obama has determined that he would rather lose a war that we are winning than lose an election by alienating his base. This is the reason Obama did not have to wait until his trip to declare his strategy. Iraq is fundamentally a political decision for Barack Obama, not a national security decision."

At a campaign event this afternoon in Kansas City, Mo., McCain went after Obama for opposing the surge of US troops in Iraq and for detailing a withdrawal plan before visiting.

McCain reminded voters that when he called for adding 30,000 troops and employing a new anti-insurgency strategy, he was one of the few who did so and that pundits were writing his political obituary.

The crowd stood and applauded when he repeated what he said then: that he would much rather lose a political campaign than lose a war.

"This strategy has succeeded," he said. "....I am confident we will win this war."

McCain also retold the story about receiving a bracelet that a Wolfeboro, N.H., woman wore in honor of her son, Army Corporal Matthew J. Stanley, 22, who was killed by a roadside bomb in December 2006 -- and promising that his death would not be in vain.

Obama's campaign, for its part, has criticized McCain for an open-ended commitment to keep US forces in Iraq and has accused him of a muddled policy toward Afghanistan, where Obama argues that the US needs to send more troops to take on the Taliban and al Qaeda.

While standing by his plan to withdraw most US troops within 16 months of taking office, Obama has also said the size of a residual force would be determined by the situation on the ground.

The Democratic National Committee responded with a harsh missive of its own:

"Today, more McCain surrogates and a web video attacking Barack Obama which could have been produced on "Fantasy Island," will be trotted out in an effort to distract attention from John McCain's real record on Iraq--a record of being inconsistent and being wrong, just like President Bush. What you won't hear today: that Senator McCain was part of the propaganda machine that misled us into war, that he predicted that we'd be greeted as liberators, that he parroted the Bush talking points from the start, that he praised President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld's conduct of the war and that he echoed the Bush Administration's rosy rhetoric even as the reality indicated otherwise.

"The McCain-Bush Iraq strategy has failed to pressure Iraqis to take responsibility for their future, stretched our military to the breaking point, sacrificed investments in critical domestic priorities here at home and has distracted us from tracking down the terrorists who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Because McCain and Bush insisted on launching a war that should have never been waged, and then doubling down on a failed strategy, the war in Afghanistan has been ignored and the Taliban and al-Qaeda are as strong now as any time since just after the U.S. invasion in 2001. Senator McCain has supported a strategy in Iraq that has compromised our security and made us less safe at home and abroad."

The DNC also resurrected two web videos criticizing McCain for allegedly trying to rewrite history and for having no plan to bring US troops home.