As Barack Obama begins the foreign policy portion of his campaign with an op-ed piece on the Iraq war and a planned trip to the Middle East, he and Republican John McCain Monday engaged in a bare-knuckle fight over Iraq.
Hoping to counter accusations that he is a flip-flopper or weak on foreign policy, Obama said in the New York Times that he would have troops out of Iraq by the summer of 2010, following a 16-month withdrawal in consultation with U.S. military commanders. Obama also criticized the 18-month-long surge in Iraq, saying Iraqi leaders “have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.”
He accused McCain of “refusing to embrace” withdrawal and of avoiding “useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.”
In a press conference with reporters on Monday, McCain returned fire, saying Obama “refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong” about the success of the surge and that Iraq remains “the central battleground” for fighting terrorism.
“We are winning there, and his proposals would jeopardize the fragility of the success we’ve achieved,” McCain said. “And his refusal to acknowledge that success is remarkable.”
Obama, who is to deliver a speech on Iraq today in Washington, will travel to Iraq and Afghanistan this month with two fellow senators, Republican Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska, and Democrat Jack Reed, of Rhode Island.
The Illinois freshman senator has been accused recently of changing his stance on Iraq after saying earlier this month he could “refine” his policy on the war after meeting with U.S. military commanders on the ground there.
In a conference call Monday, Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice said Obama has not changed his position.
“He has consistently said he will listen to what commanders on the ground have to say. But ultimately it is his decision,” Rice said.
The exchange between the two camps became heated in dueling conference calls. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a McCain supporter called Obama’s op-ed piece a “brazen effort of a politician to reinvent history.”
Later, the Obama camp held a call in which Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., D-Del., said McCain has “no notion what is going on,” in Iraq and he criticized McCain’s comparison of the Iraq war with the ending of World War II and the Korean War.
“He just doesn’t get it,” Biden said, adding, “It demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the problems America faces.”
The McCain camp came out with a response to theattacks hurled by Biden, attacking the Delaware senator’s support of a plan to break Iraq up into three parts.
“Senator Biden’s comments about John McCain and Iraq are as absurd as they are wrong,” said Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s foreign policy and national security adviser. “He opposed the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy and instead proposed partitioning the country.”
