From the Los Angeles Times McCain rebukes Democrats' views on Iraq withdrawal
In advance of Gen. Petraeus' testimony before Congress, the Republican candidate challenges Clinton and Obama to be open about the consequences of leaving too soon.
By Johanna Neuman Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
9:35 AM PDT, April 7, 2008
WASHINGTON — Republican John McCain, chiding his Democratic opponents for promising a hasty withdrawal from Iraq, said today that it was "imprudent and dangerous" to leave the combat zone too quickly.
"I do not believe that anyone should make promises as a candidate for president that they cannot keep if elected," he said. "To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility" and "a failure of leadership."
In a preview of the political fireworks surrounding this week's Capitol Hill appearance by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, McCain challenged Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to be honest about the consequences of withdrawal.
"Doing the right thing in the heat of a political campaign is not always the easiest thing," he said. "But when 4,000 Americans have given their lives so that America does not suffer the worst consequences of our failure in Iraq . . . we must put the nation's interests before our own ambitions."
Hailing last year's "surge" in U.S. troops as "a critical moment in our nation's history," McCain told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas that Congress should reject, as it did last year, calls for what he called "a reckless and irresponsible withdrawal of our forces just at the moment when they are succeeding."
The Arizona senator called on U.S. politicians to shun a policy of "withdraw and re-invade." And he called on Iraq to use its surplus budget funds to create jobs, and to encourage reconciliation between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. "Much more needs to be done," he said. "Iraq's politicians need to know that we expect them to show the necessary leadership to rebuild their country, for only they can."
McCain did not predict how long U.S. troops would need to stay in Iraq, saying only that he hopes to withdraw them at the earliest opportunity and that security needs "will require that we keep a sufficient level of American forces in Iraq until security conditions" improve. During a New Hampshire town hall meeting in January, McCain said that U.S. troops might have to stay in Iraq for 100 years, prompting both Clinton and Obama to question his judgment.
Today, acknowledging that the situation in southern Iraq remains unsettled, McCain said that the U.S. troop buildup had produced a glimmer of "something approaching normal" in Iraq.
"We are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success," McCain said. "Success in Iraq is the establishment of a generally peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists."
With Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to testify before Congress on Tuesday, all three presidential candidates will have an opportunity to ask questions -- McCain and Clinton on the Armed Services Committee in the morning, Obama on the Foreign Relations Committee in the afternoon.
Clinton famously told Petraeus when he appeared before the committee in September that his report on the progress in Iraq required "a willing suspension of disbelief." Obama, a freshman senator from Illinois, said Friday that he liked the question asked of Petraeus last time he appeared before the committee, posed by Virginia Sen. John W. Warner: "How has this effort in Iraq made us safer and how do we expect it will make us safer in the long run?"
The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, was picking up the pieces after Sunday's staff shake-up in which pollster Mark Penn was ousted as her chief strategist. Campaign manager Maggie Williams said today that Penn will continue "to provide polling and advice to the campaign," but that communications director Howard Wolfson and pollster Geoff Garin will direct the campaign's message.
In keeping with the new message focus, the New York senator today unveiled a $300-million-a-year proposal to increase government funding on breast cancer research. On "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," aired today, Clinton said she thinks the government should also fund research on racial disparities in diagnosis and treatment for the disease, which she hopes will be effectively cured within 10 years.
Meanwhile, Obama picked up the endorsement of another superdelegate -- Montana state legislator Margaret Campbell, the 69th superdelegate to back Obama since the Super Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5. During the same period, Clinton has a net loss of two superdelegates, with some 330 still uncommitted.
johanna.neuman@latimes.com