McCain says Obama Advocated Failure in Iraq
by FOXNews.com
Friday, July 18, 2008
John McCain speaks at a campaign stop in Warren, Mich., Friday. (AP Photo)
John McCain said Friday that Barack Obama would have brought the military to the brink of failure in Iraq as his campaign continued to hammer Obama’s foreign policy views in the run-up to his trip abroad.
McCain also moved a step closer to declaring victory in the war, telling reporters for the second day in a row that the U.S. military has “succeeded.”
The presumptive Republican nominee, in effect, cast the difference in the candidates’ military strategies as the difference between success and failure. He blasted his opponent for opposing the so-called troop surge, and said his trip to Iraq and Afghanistan would be a lot different if the military had followed his advice.
“So he would be going to a very different Iraq if we had done what he wanted to do,” McCain told reporters after a campaign stop in Warren, Mich. “There would be chaos. There would be an increase in sectarian violence. There would be widening Iranian influence, and we would be facing disaster — certainly if not disaster, a lost war.
“And we have succeeded. … I hope he gets the message this time that we have succeeded and we need to continue the strategy.”
By using the word “succeeded,” McCain was making somewhat of a rhetorical shift. The presumptive GOP nominee usually couches his language and argues the troop surge is “succeeding.”
On Thursday he emphasized that strategic success already has been achieved.
“I am happy to stand in front of you to tell you that this strategy has succeeded. It has succeeded. It has succeeded,” McCain said first at a Kansas City, Mo., town hall meeting.
He then reiterated the line for reporters aboard his campaign bus.
“I repeat my statement that we have succeeded in Iraq — not we are succeeding — we have succeeded in Iraq,” he said. “The strategy has worked and we now have the Iraqi government and military in charge in the major cities in Iraq. Al Qaeda is on their heels and on the run.”
Obama has in recent days argued that the Iraq war is a distraction, and that more U.S. resources must be devoted to fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and securing loose nuclear material. Democrats accuse McCain of wanting to prolong a war with virtually no end.
McCain on Thursday described progress on the ground as tenuous.
“This is a fragile victory. This is a fragile success. … If we will continue this, we will win this war,” he said.
Asked whether any recent event led him to the declaration, McCain didn’t cite any specific developments, instead noting that he has witnessed “dramatic” military, economic and political improvement on the ground during recent weeks and months.
Asked if he thinks the war is won, McCain responded: “I can say that the war will be won when we will have a majority of Americans … returned.” |
