McCain's new ad and General Petreus rock wimpy Obama with hard one-two punch over his Iraqi flip flops

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Source Boston Globe



John McCain continues his assault on Democratic rival Barack Obama's stand on Iraq in a new TV ad unveiled today that is to air on national cable and nearly a dozen battleground states.

The spot, McCain's first explicitly negative ad of the general election campaign, points out that Obama has not visited Iraq since January 2006, accuses him of voting against funding for the troops, and argues that he opposed the war to win the nomination.

"Now Obama is changing to help himself become president," the announcer says.

On the other hand, McCain "has always supported our troops and the surge that's working,"
the announcer says, before concluding: "McCain: Country first."


Obama is about to visit Iraq, has acknowledged that the surge has reduced violence, and this week forcefully stood by his plan to withdraw most US troops within 16 months after taking office.

Republicans also pointed to the response General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq and architect of the so-called surge, gave today when asked whether 16 months for withdrawing troops was reasonable.


"It depends on the conditions, depends on the missions set, depends on the enemy," Petraeus, who is to meet Obama when he visits Iraq soon, told NBC News today. "The enemy does get a vote and is sometimes an independent variable. Lots of different factors I think that would be tied up in that. The dialogue on that and the amount of risk, because it eventually comes down to how much risk various options entail. That’s the kind of discussion I think that is very important as we look to the future."

McCain said in a statement issued by his campaign in response to President Bush's announcement of a "general time horizon" for a US drawdown: "Progress between the United States and Iraq on a time horizon for American troop presence is further evidence that the surge has succeeded. Most of the U.S. forces used in the surge have already been withdrawn. When a further conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. forces is possible, it will be because we and our Iraqi partners built on the successes of the surge strategy, which Senator Obama opposed, predicted would fail, voted against and campaigned against in the primary. When we withdraw, we will withdraw with honor and victory. An honorable and victorious withdrawal would not be possible if Senator Obama's views had prevailed. An artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat. If we had followed Senator Obama's policy, Iraq would have descended into chaos, American casualties would be far higher, and the region would be destabilized."