McCain Sees U.S. Troops Leaving Iraq by 2013
Michael D. Shear and Karen DeYoung - Washington Post Staff Writers
COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 15 -- Sen. John McCain on Thursday offered for the first time what he hopes will be an end date for the war in Iraq, part of a vision he presented in which his policies lead to peace and prosperity at home and abroad by 2013, the end of what would be his first term as president.
McCain's goal of a large-scale troop withdrawal within four years was the highlight of a wide-ranging speech that sketched a world in which Democrats would join with him to approve his domestic and foreign policy agendas.
The Iraq comments appeared designed to blunt the political toll of the presumptive GOP nominee's unwavering support for the unpopular war. Democrats have spent months pillorying McCain for saying that U.S. troops could remain in Iraq for as long as 100 years -- a reference the candidate later said was intended to describe an American presence like those in Germany or South Korea.
But he quickly dismissed the suggestion that he was abandoning his criticism of Democrats and their plans for a precipitous departure.
"I think it's dangerous for the future of America to set a date for withdrawal," he said. "We are succeeding in Iraq. We will have succeeded further in Iraq in 2013."
McCain's advisers disputed any likeness between his goals for Iraq and the positions of the Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. While Democrats want to withdraw troops without any regard for the military situation in Iraq, aides said, McCain would leave troops on the ground beyond his first term if he thought it was necessary.
"There is no similarity," McCain adviser Steve Schmidt said.
Said Mark Salter, a top McCain aide: "He's not saying 'Win or lose, they come home in four years.' "
Speaking to reporters, McCain rejected the idea that he would set a firm date for withdrawal, saying that he is "promising that we will succeed in Iraq" but not promising that troops would come home if success did not occur.
"I'm not putting a date on it. It could be next month. It could be next year," he told reporters on his Straight Talk Express campaign bus. "I said by the end of my first term we will have succeeded in Iraq. . . . This is what I want to achieve. This is what I believe is achievable."
He repeated, as he has throughout the campaign, that setting a date for withdrawal would lead to "chaos, genocide and we will be back with greater sacrifice."
The speech was immediately mocked by McCain's political rivals, military experts and Iraqis, who described it as fanciful and said his decision to promise a date for the end of the war was a flip-flop designed to appeal to voters who oppose the continued U.S. involvement in the conflict.
Speaking to a small group in this critically important swing state, McCain described the "conditions that I intend to achieve" by the time his first term would end. He said he would "focus all the powers of the office, every skill and strength I possess" to make that future a reality.
By 2013, McCain predicted, "America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq war has been won." He said that only a small contingent of troops, in non-combat roles, would be needed, because al-Qaeda in Iraq would be defeated and a democratic government would be operating.
He said that by the end of his first term, taxes would be lower, congressional earmarks would be eliminated and robust economic growth would have returned. He promised an end to the genocide in Darfur and a solution to the Social Security crisis. He said that construction would have begun on 20 nuclear plants and that Osama bin Laden would be captured or dead.
"For too long now, Washington has been consumed by a hyper-partisanship that treats every serious challenge facing us as an opportunity to trade insults, disparage each other's motives and fight about the next election," McCain said. "We belong to different parties, not different countries. We are rivals for the same power. But we are also compatriots."
Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for Obama, said in a statement that "you cannot embrace the destructive policies and divisive political tactics of George Bush and still offer yourself as a candidate of healing and change. That's simply not straight talk."
McCain offered no starting point for drawing down troops in Iraq under his presidency, and he has said previously that he would continue the current Bush administration policy, which has scheduled withdrawals only through the end of July.
"What the hell's the strategy?" asked Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a former presidential candidate who has not endorsed Obama or Clinton. "I like John's dream, I like the goal. But I've not heard John say anything about how we're going to accomplish that goal."
Even some of McCain's admirers expressed puzzlement about the speech. "I think John McCain has been one of the most important voices on national security policy for many years now," said Leslie H. Gelb, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who described the speech as "almost in la-la land."
"It is unsupported generalizations and predictions that he would have scoffed at as the old John McCain," Gelb said.
The reaction to McCain's speech highlights the bind that his support for the war has created for him in courting moderate Democrats and independent voters for this fall.
Obama has said that he would remove all combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months of becoming president and that he would leave "some troops" in Iraq to protect U.S. Embassy personnel there and to carry out targeted strikes on terrorists. Clinton said during a debate last year that it was her "goal" to have all of the U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013, though more recently she has said she would begin a phased withdrawal immediately.
Karen Finney, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said she doubted McCain's sincerity on the issue.
"If John McCain is serious about dropping his willingness to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years and embracing a timetable for bringing our troops home after criticizing everyone who offered similar ideas, he should outline a specific plan for bringing the war to a responsible end. If he fails to do so, the voters will see this for the political posturing and empty rhetoric it is."
In Iraq, political leaders were skeptical as well.
"2013?" said Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, who burst into laughter after a reporter described the speech. "I don't expect the United States will leave Iraq for another 50 years. They might withdraw their forces from the cities and streets, but they will not leave Iraq."
Some Iraqi lawmakers said they were disappointed that McCain, who is widely admired among the Iraqi political class, offered a quasi-deadline at all.
"I was surprised when I heard McCain's speech. I thought he was aware of Iraq's situation," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish parliament member. "Unfortunately, it's only electoral propaganda. Nobody could guess what Iraq's situation will be five years from now."
Staff writer Amit R. Paley in Baghdad and special correspondents Zaid Sabah in Baghdad, Othman al-Mokhtar in Fallujah and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
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