Obama, McCain renew debate on ending war in Iraq

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday he would end the war in Iraq by the summer of 2010, saying his Republican opponent, John McCain, had offered a misguided strategy of "war without end."

"True success will take place when we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future," Obama said in a speech here in advance of an overseas trip. "That's victory ././. That's what's best for Iraq, that's what's best for America, and that's why I will end this war as president."

McCain, campaigning in Albuquerque, N.M., fired back almost immediately, warning that Obama would ensure a U.S. defeat in Iraq. "Senator Obama will tell you we can't win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq," McCain told a town hall meeting. "In fact, he has it exactly backwards."

"I know how to win wars," asserted McCain, a Vietnam War veteran. "And if I'm elected president, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory."

Obama's speech, heavily publicized by his campaign as a "major" policy address, came on the eve of a discussion on weapons of mass destruction that he plans Wednesday with former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., both widely viewed as possible running mates for the Democratic candidate.

The renewed debate on Iraq also came as bombers killed around 40 people and wounded scores in several attacks in northern Iraq, days after the government vowed to expand a crackdown against militants in a region where al-Qaida retains influence.

Both candidates called for sending roughly 10,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, where resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida forces have challenged the 36,000 American forces already there and their NATO and Afghan allies.

Obama and McCain clashed sharply, though, over their approach to Iraq, where 4,121 U.S. troops have died and more than 30,000 have been wounded since President Bush launched the invasion in March, 2003.

But a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday found Americans evenly divided on the candidates' positions on Iraq, with 47 percent of those polled saying they trust McCain more to handle the war and 45 percent having more faith in Obama, a statistical dead heat.

Obama stuck by his plan - first unveiled nearly two years ago - to order the Pentagon to withdraw most U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the summer of 2010.

"By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe," Obama said, reiterating his long-standing argument that Afghanistan, not Iraq, should be the centerpiece of the war on terrorism. "As should have been apparent to President Bush and Sen. McCain, the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was."

But he left himself some margin on the 16-month withdrawal time line, saying he would make "tactical adjustments" as needed, in consultation "with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government."

Some analysts, though, faulted Obama for sticking with a strategy he unveiled at a time when the prospects for stabilizing Iraq seemed remote. Since then, the U.S. troop surge has combined with Sunni cooperation and improvements in the Iraqi security forces to drive down violence dramatically across much of Iraq.

"Getting all of our combat troops out within 16 months is the plan he's had for two years, which was originally premised on failure, not some measure of stability," said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow in foreign policy studies with the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "Pulling all the troops out by mid-2010 would be a mistake."

A McCain campaign aide was even harsher on Obama.

"He is expressing what amounts to a preference for defeat in Iraq," McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann told reporters during a conference call. "He has pledged to give an order unprecedented in American history, an order no U.S. commander in chief has ever issued: withdraw from Iraq and lose this war."

Other analysts, though, say Obama's approach would free U.S. combat forces for duty in Afghanistan, while maintaining the flexibility for U.S. commanders to tailor reduced force levels to respond to security conditions in Iraq.

"It's an end of the war, not an end to the relationship," said retired Air Force Col. P.J. Crowley, a foreign policy analyst with the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington think tank.

"Obama is pushing for a transition from occupation to a long-term relationship, but one that is, I think, more realistic and more consistent with what the Iraqis have in mind," said Crowley, who served as a former National Security Council official during the Clinton administration. "The Iraqis want an end to what they perceive as an occupation."

With roughly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq - down from last year's peak of 170,000 - McCain has said additional troop cuts should come only as Iraqi security improves and that country's own army expands.

It's possible, said O'Hanlon, that Iraqi security forces would be able to sustain stability by the summer of 2010. Prematurely mandating the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces by that time, though, could spark renewed violence.

"Why would we want to take the chance, given how much progress we've seen and how high the stakes are?" O'Hanlon asked. "Why not work with them and gradually hand over responsibility, instead of doing it abruptly according to a pre-determined schedule?"

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On Tuesday, McCain also laid out a blueprint for intensified military efforts in Afghanistan, proposing an increase of three U.S. brigades and doubling the Afghan army to about 160,000 troops. "The status quo is not acceptable. Security in Afghanistan has deteriorated, and our enemies are on the offensive," he said. "From the moment the next president walks into the Oval Office, he will face critical decisions and crucial decisions about Afghanistan."

Obama laid out his approach to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during a far-reaching foreign policy speech, during which he reiterated his call for direct U.S. negotiations with Iran, to try to urge Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions.

The speech coincided with the airing of a new Obama campaign ad highlighting his work with moderate Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, a longtime Capitol Hill ally of Nunn, to combat nuclear proliferation. "We are a beacon of light around the world. At least that's what we can be again," Obama says in the ad. "The single most important national security threat that we face is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists."

The ad, which features a photo of Lugar, is running in 17 states, including Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Lugar's home state of Indiana.

Nonproliferation advocates praised Obama's call for reducing the number of nuclear weapons - thought to be more than 2,000 on each side - that the United States and Russia have placed on alert, meaning they are already aimed and could be launched against each other within minutes.

"It's a good start," said Bill Hartung, a foreign policy analyst with the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. "Taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert is long overdue ././. to some degree it's a hangover from the Cold War that just hasn't been addressed."

Obama's call for a doubling of the U.S. foreign assistance budget - to a total of $50 billion a year by 2012 - reflects a goal long pressed by the foreign policy community. Analysts and diplomats alike have long held that the United States can do much to repair its image overseas by increasing its spending on poverty reduction, combatting disease and other priorities across the developing world.

"It's smart," said O'Hanlon. "Foreign aid is fairly cheap compared to other tools of American foreign policy."

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Next week, Senator Obama is scheduled to travel to Europe, Israel, and the West Bank, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many details of the trip have been kept secret for security reasons.

Bush, at a White House news conference Tuesday, urged Obama to "listen carefully to Ryan Crocker and General Petraeus" in Iraq – and to ignore political interest groups who are "banging away on these candidates."

"There's a temptation to let the politics at home get in the way with the considered judgment of the commanders," Bush said. "That's why I strongly rejected an artificial timetable of withdrawal."

"And so I would ask whoever goes there, whatever elected official goes there, to listen carefully to what is taking place, and understand that the best way to go forward is to listen to the parties who are actually on the ground," he added. "And that's hard to do. I understand for some in Washington there's a lot of pressure; you got these groups out there, MoveOn.org, you know, banging away on these candidates, and it's hard to kind of divorce yourself from the politics."

Bush told reporters he is "glad" that "a lot of these elected officials are going over there, because they'll get an interesting insight, something that you don't get from just reading your wonderful newspapers or listening to your TV shows."

Meanwhile, The New York Daily News reported that the Obama campaign altered its Web site to remove a statement that Bush's surge of troops in Iraq "is not working." Over the weekend, the site was changed to describe an "improved security situation" at the cost of U.S. lives.

Obama campaign aide Wendy Morigi told the newspaper that Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

Bob Deans' e-mail address is bobdeans@coxnews.com.

Scott Shepard's e-mail address is sshepard@coxnews.com.

(White House Correspondent Ken Herman contributed to this report.)