McCain hits Obama hard on the surge
Posted: Friday, July 25, 2008 3:58 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
2008, Security, McCain, Obama
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
DENVER, CO -- McCain gave a speech here today at the American GI Forum National Convention that served as a wide-ranging defense of his position on the Iraq war -- as well as a biting condemnation of Obama’s war policy.
“Sen. Obama and I also faced a decision, which amounted to a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief,” McCain said of the 2007 debate over the surge. “America passed that test. I believe that my judgment passed that test. And I believe that Sen. Obama's failed.”
According to McCain, American voters should look at how the two candidates’ handled that decision and use that to make their decisions in November. “Because of the choice we made and all the surge has accomplished, the time will soon come when our troops can come home,” he said.
“But we face another choice today. We can withdraw when we have secured the peace and the gains we have sacrificed so much to achieve are safe. Or we can follow Sen. Obama's unconditional withdrawal and risk losing the peace even if that results in spreading violence and a third Iraq war. Sen. Obama has suggested he would consider sending troops back if that happened. When I bring them home in victory and with honor, they are staying home.”
In response to McCain's remarks, the Obama campaign released this statement from former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who like McCain is a Vietnam vet. "As is often the case in politics, the most important questions do not get debated while the most trivial ones are pushed front and center. Such is the case with the current attacks by Sen. McCain's supporters purporting that Sen. Obama's failure to support the surge demonstrates he has been wrong on this important foreign policy question," Kerrey said.
"Assessing all facts available to us today, Sen. Obama's judgment six years ago looks a whole lot better today than either Sen. McCain's or mine was back then.
McCain’s declaration last week that the surge has succeeded has led him to become increasingly optimistic about future troop withdrawals, meaning that he is now emphasizing the criteria for such withdrawal as the major distinction between himself and his opponent. Today, he predicted that American “forces will be out of regular combat operations and dramatically reduced in number during the term of the next president of the United States,” but McCain pressed that this will only happen if such withdrawals are predicated on commanders.
While Obama is traveling overseas -- doing his best to appear ready for the White House -- McCain used his speech today to try argue that Obama’s positions on the war are far from presidential: “Sen. Obama said just this week that even knowing what he knows today that he would still, still would have opposed the surge. In retrospect, given the opportunity to choose between failure and success, he chose failure. I cannot conceive of a commander-in-chief making that choice."
