ABOUT FIRST READ

First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



McCain says Iraq approaching normalcy

Posted: Monday, April 07, 2008 1:34 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:

From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
KANSAS CITY, MO -- In a speech at the National World War I Museum here this morning, McCain gave a relatively optimistic appraisal of the situation in Iraq, saying that the recent reductions in violence have returned the country to something "approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi."

"Political reconciliation is occurring across Iraq at the local, provincial, grassroots level," McCain said. "Sunni and Shi'a chased from their homes by terrorist and sectarian violence are returning. The 'Sons of Iraq' and Awakening movements, where former Sunni insurgents have now joined in the fight against Al Qaeda, continue to grow."

But McCain also reemphasized the growing influence of Iran and warned of the risk of increased Iranian power if America were to withdraw its troops from the region. "Iran's influence in Iraq -- especially southern Iraq -- and throughout the region would increase substantially and encourage other countries to seek accommodation with Tehran at the expense of our interests," McCain said about the effect of withdrawal. "What they are really proposing, if they mean what they say [about withdrawal], is a policy of withdraw and re-invade. For if we withdraw hastily and irresponsibly, we will guarantee the trouble will come immediately."

Finding time to attack his Democratic opponents over their plans to end the war, McCain said that it was the Democrats' "responsibility" to be honest about the consequences of a decreased American presence, and "the American people deserve the truth from their leaders."

Regarding Obama's oft-made argument that McCain's initial support for the war demonstrated poor judgment, McCain tried to keep the discussion on the future. "Some political leaders close their eyes to the progress that the surge has made possible, and want only to argue about the past," McCain said, clearly referring to Obama. "But the question for the next president is not about the past, but about the future and how to secure it."

Obama, however, responded with this statement: “It's a failure of leadership to support an open-ended occupation of Iraq that has failed to press Iraq's leaders to reconcile, badly overstretched our military, put a strain on our military families, set back our ability to lead the world, and made the American people less safe. John McCain was wrong about the war from the beginning, he's wrong to call for more resources in Iraq while the American people are struggling, and he's wrong to support a 100 year occupation of a country that needs to take responsibility for its own future. No amount of tough talk will change the Bush-McCain record of poor judgment, or bring us one day closer to ending a war that is not making us safer."

Missing from McCain's speech this morning was a key paragraph included in the remarks distributed to reporters earlier in the day. After McCain accused his opponents of focusing too much on the past, this paragraph was supposed to follow: "We can have that debate. I profoundly disagree with those who say we would all be better off if we had left Saddam Hussein in power. Americans should be proud that they led the way in removing a vicious dictator and opening the door to freedom, stability, and prosperity in Iraq and across the Middle East."

Apparently, McCain felt comfortable shifting the discussion from the past to the future, -- but not as comfortable defending the past and calling for Americans to be "proud" of decision he supported.

MAIN PAGE

Email this EMAIL THIS

Comments

Rasmussen noted that one bit of bad news for Obama is that 56 percent of Clinton supporters said they would not be likely to vote for Obama in a race against McCain.  

So can I assume that these 56 % want to continue with the IRAQ war? Overturn Roe v Wade? Losing the Democratic majority in both houses?  I guess these people are not loyal Democrats.  The Democratic party will be lost for a long time if these attitudes continue as they are now.  

Louis (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 4:09 PM)

BAWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!  McCain & the 'slanted talk express' keep rolling out the hits!

By the way, Obama's response absolutely ripped McCain's whole argument to shreds.  Anyone who can't see that (regardless of if you like Obama or not) is a fool, and a contributor to the foolishness that our country has fallen ill from during Bush's 2 destructive terms.

Matt, Las Vegas, NV (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 4:10 PM)

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that death, destruction, chaos, ethnic cleansing, and a culture of continuous fear is becoming the norm in Iraq?

John B, Des Moines, IA (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 5:34 PM)

WOW......Its "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" again.....Thanks McMeat Head....

Bring the soldiers home now if it normal.....We dont need another 95 years of this normalcy.

I suppose all the 2 million who left and who are living on the streets are back in their high rise apartments.....

Bill,milwaukee,wi. (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 5:36 PM)

It is a shame that John McCain uses ‘honesty’ and ‘success’ together to describe the current status in Iraq as in reality that is only defensive rhetoric made necessary by the corner he has painted himself into.  Regrettably ‘honesty’ has never been what the Bush administration has given us about Iraq, starting with the original false justification, and the rationalizing offered now is just more of the same.  The ‘surge’ has a whole lot less to do with the quieting of the violence in Iraq than our recruiting, paying, arming and encouraging War Lords/Iraqi faction leaders to stop fighting each other and to instead fight the insurgents.  The trouble with that is clear when it is recognized that we have now created a country of several small armies, with politicians who have failed to make any political reconciliations, with everyone competing for control and advantage and we simply now have a country on the very edge of an all out civil war.  We have been played and used, at costs unimagined (in people killed and injured, in costs for our troops being there and for their support, in reconstruction costs, in monies paid to all the different factions, in corruption and in stolen dollars and resources,,, ) without experiencing any real success and with only Special Interests and a select few benefiting (while forgetting that the original promise was that the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil money).  When Iraq explodes into a civil war our troops will be caught in the middle and will then simply be wrong no matter what they do.   Add to all of that the costs in neglecting other priorities, including Afghanistan (as admitted by the Bush administration now begging NATO to increase their help) and you have the total realization that the word ‘success’ is out of place in describing any of this.  To advocate the continuation of this status, being more of the same (as with any of the Bush administration’s private agenda benefiting only a special few) would undoubtedly be the real failure in leadership.  A different answer, amounting to real change, is desperately needed as what we have witnessed to date is literally ‘failed leadership’ (arrogantly and self-indulgently perpetrated).

REG in AZ (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 5:38 PM)

Bartender, I'll take what he's havin'!

Ol' Lefty, Maryland (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 5:39 PM)

This is what McCain actually said, "The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi." Obviously, this is much different that what MSNBC reported, and many of the comments are without merit because of the inaccuracy of the article.

Jason Spangler, Arlington, VA (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 5:41 PM)

It is a shame that John McCain uses ‘honesty’ and ‘success’ together to describe the current status in Iraq as in reality that is only defensive rhetoric made necessary by the corner he has painted himself into.  Regrettably ‘honesty’ has never been what the Bush administration has given us about Iraq, starting with the original false justification, and the rationalizing offered now is just more of the same.  The ‘surge’ has a whole lot less to do with the quieting of the violence in Iraq than our recruiting, paying, arming and encouraging War Lords/Iraqi faction leaders to stop fighting each other and to instead fight the insurgents.  The trouble with that is clear when it is recognized that we have now created a country of several small armies, with politicians who have failed to make any political reconciliations, with everyone competing for control and advantage and we simply now have a country on the very edge of an all out civil war.  We have been played and used, at costs unimagined (in people killed and injured, in costs for our troops being there and for their support, in reconstruction costs, in monies paid to all the different factions, in corruption and in stolen dollars and resources,,, ) without experiencing any real success and with only Special Interests and a select few benefiting (while forgetting that the original promise was that the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil money).  When Iraq explodes into a civil war our troops will be caught in the middle and will then simply be wrong no matter what they do.   Add to all of that the costs in neglecting other priorities, including Afghanistan (as admitted by the Bush administration now begging NATO to increase their help) and you have the total realization that the word ‘success’ is out of place in describing any of this.  To advocate the continuation of this status, being more of the same (as with any of the Bush administration’s private agenda benefiting only a special few) would undoubtedly be the real failure in leadership.  A different answer, amounting to real change, is desperately needed as what we have witnessed to date is literally ‘failed leadership’ (arrogantly and self-indulgently perpetrated).

REG in AZ (Sent Monday, April 07, 2008 5:41 PM)



SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.): 

 Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private)

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=866287

First Read e-mail alerts


Sign up for First Read alerts
The first place for key political news and analysis

More First Read

Recent Posts:

Archives:

Topics:

Political Links

Syndicate This Site

Add First Read to your news reader:
live.com xml
myyahoo msn
bloglines newsgator
google

MSNBC Weblogs