Dems pound McCain for new Iraq quote

By MIKE ALLEN | 6/11/08 10:34 AM EST Updated: 6/11/08 11:49 AM EST

 

The Obama campaign and Democratic leaders accused Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of being confused and heartless after he told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that it’s “not too important” when U.S. troops return from Iraq.  .Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said on a quickly organized Obama conference call that McCain’s comment was “unbelievably out of touch with the needs and concerns of most Americans,” saying that to families of troops in harm’s way, “To them, it’s the most important thing in the world.”

Kerry claimed “an enormous, fundamental flaw in his candidacy for the presidency, which supposedly has hung on his strength as commander in chief and his understanding of foreign policy.”

Susan Rice, an Obama foreign-policy adviser, accused McCain of “a real disturbing, even disconcerting, pattern of confusing the basic facts and reality that pertain to Iraq.”

The “Today” show statement, which McCain went on to explain, is damaging because  Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has pledged to immediately begin withdrawing combat troops.McCain, trying to mitigate the fallout from his January remarks that U.S. troops might be in Iraq for 100 years, predicted last month that “most” troops would be home by the end of his first term.  Trying to take the offense, McCain’s campaign posted a YouTube clip of the exchange.

  “As John McCain has always said, that is not as important as conditions on the ground and the recommendations of commanders in the field. Any reasonable person who reads the full transcript would see this and reject the Obama campaign’s attempt to manipulate, twist and distort the truth.”The exchange that has Democrats licking their chops began when co-host Matt Lauer asked about the surge strategy in Iraq: “If it’s working Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?”

McCain replied: “No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq, Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine. American casualties and the ability to withdraw; we will be able to withdraw. General [David] Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are.

“But the key to it is that we don’t want any more Americans in harm’s way. That way, they will be safe, and serve our country and come home with honor and victory, not in defeat, which is what Senator Obama’s proposal would have done. I’m proud of them. And they’re doing a great job. And we are succeeding and it’s fascinating that Senator Obama still doesn’t realize that.”

Kerry, saying McCain is “really having a debate with himself” on Iraq, said the “Today” show comment was part of a “policy for staying in Iraq” and “underscores … the broad array of contradictions in John McCain’s statements about Iraq.”

“It is really becoming more crystal clear to a lot of Iraq that John McCain simply doesn’t understand it – that he confuses who Iran is training, he confuses what the makeup of al-Qaeda is, he confuses the history … of what has happened between Sunni and Shia and how deep that current runs,” Kerry said.

 

 Rice criticized “real confusion and lack of understanding of the situation in Iraq and, indeed, the larger region, that John McCain evidenced yet again in his comments on the ‘Today’ show.”

Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was first out of the gate with a statement, calling McCain’s comment “a crystal clear indicator that he just doesn’t get the grave national-security consequences of staying the course. … We need a smart change in strategy to make America more secure, not a commitment to indefinitely keep our troops in an intractable civil war.”

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) said McCain had “displayed a fundamental misunderstanding about the situation in Iraq, our strained military, and American troops and their families.”