WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday that he had failed to understand how much violence would decrease this year in Iraq, but he contended that President Bush and Sen. John McCain, the Republicans’ presumptive presidential candidate, had made the same mistake.
Meanwhile, McCain insisted on ABC’s “This Week” that he had not shifted his support of an American exit in 2010, despite remarks he made Friday that the 16-month withdrawal plan espoused by Iraq’s prime minister “is a pretty good timetable.”
Addressing what has become one of his most difficult campaign issues, Obama said that the violence “has gone down more than any of us have anticipated, including President Bush and John McCain.”
But the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” contended that the decline was brought about not just by the U.S. troop increase, but also by a combination of factors, including Iraqi Sunnis’ decision to turn against al-Qaeda.
“To try to single out a single factor in a messy situation is not accurate,” he said, while also emphasizing that U.S. combat forces had made “an enormous difference.”
The Illinois senator, who returned to the United States late Saturday after a week in South Asia, the Middle East and Europe, has struggled to explain his opposition to a troop increase, strongly supported by McCain, that has come to be viewed widely as an important contributor to improved Iraqi security.
Obama also sought to rebut charges that his speech in Berlin, to an enthusiastic crowd estimated at 200,000 people, was largely free of substance or any specifics that would displease his audience. He pointed out that he had called on Germany to do more in Afghanistan and Iraq, and had decried the reflexive anti-Americanism in Europe.
“That wasn’t an applause line in Germany,” he said.
McCain’s comments on the timetable for withdrawal were hailed by Obama’s campaign as a sign that McCain, like Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, was moving toward the Democrat’s position.
But McCain insisted on the ABC program that he would favor any timetable as long as it was justified by improved conditions in Iraq.
“I like six months, three months, two months. I like yesterday. I like yesterday, OK? That seems really good to me. But the fact is, the conditions on the ground have not dictated it,” he said.
McCain strongly defended his original support for the war, which has become another key point of contention between the two.
As had been predicted in 2003, “We were greeted as liberators,” he insisted. He added, though, that the Bush administration mishandled the war “in a way that was so harmful that I stood up against it.”
Obama repeats call for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan
CHICAGO — In his first public appearance since returning to the U.S., Barack Obama said Afghanistan’s weak government and rampant drug trafficking are hampering efforts to fight al-Qaeda terrorists who often take refuge in Pakistan.
But conditions in Iraq are improving, the Democratic presidential hopeful told hundreds of minority journalists at a Unity conference Sunday after returning from Europe and the Middle East.
U.S. troops have helped stabilize Iraq and consolidate political progress among that country’s factions. But Obama said that in Afghanistan, more American troops are needed to stabilize the area and that Pakistan must do more to deny terrorists a safe haven.
