Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, targeting a potential Republican rival in 2008, dubbed plans for a short-term U.S. troop increase in Iraq "the McCain doctrine," in an interview aired on Sunday.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, considered likely to be a Republican candidate for president, has been "the most prominent spokesperson for this for some time," Edwards said in an early salvo of the 2008 campaign.
Edwards, a former senator who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, made his remarks in an interview on the ABC News program "This Week."
I actually, myself, believe that this idea of surging troops, escalating the war -- what Senator McCain has been talking about -- what I would call now the McCain doctrine ... (is) dead wrong," said Edwards.
The former senator from North Carolina launched his run for the White House on Thursday with a call to withdraw 40,000 to 50,000 troops from Iraq, about one-third of the current force, to spur Iraqis to quell their own mounting communal violence.
Edwards is the third candidate to jump formally into a Democratic race in which he may have to compete for funds and support with leading prospective contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.
McCain, a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in public opinion polls, long has urged sending more U.S. troops to or else face "sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq." Continued...
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