McCain rebukes Democrats' views on Iraq withdrawal

WASHINGTON — Republican John McCain, chiding his Democratic opponents for promising a hasty withdrawal from Iraq, said today that it was "imprudent and dangerous" to leave the combat zone too quickly.

"I do not believe that anyone should make promises as a candidate for president that they cannot keep if elected," he said. "To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility" and "a failure of leadership."

In a preview of the political fireworks surrounding this week's Capitol Hill appearance by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, McCain challenged Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to be honest about the consequences of withdrawal.

"Doing the right thing in the heat of a political campaign is not always the easiest thing," he said. "But when 4,000 Americans have given their lives so that America does not suffer the worst consequences of our failure in Iraq . . . we must put the nation's interests before our own ambitions."

Hailing last year's "surge" in U.S. troops as "a critical moment in our nation's history," McCain told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas that Congress should reject, as it did last year, calls for what he called "a reckless and irresponsible withdrawal of our forces just at the moment when they are succeeding."

The Arizona senator called on U.S. politicians to shun a policy of "withdraw and re-invade." And he called on Iraq to use its surplus budget funds to create jobs, and to encourage reconciliation between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. "Much more needs to be done," he said. "Iraq's politicians need to know that we expect them to show the necessary leadership to rebuild their country, for only they can."

McCain did not predict how long U.S. troops would need to stay in Iraq, saying only that he hopes to withdraw them at the earliest opportunity and that security needs "will require that we keep a sufficient level of American forces in Iraq until security conditions" improve. During a New Hampshire town hall meeting in January, McCain said that U.S. troops might have to stay in Iraq for 100 years, prompting both Clinton and Obama to question his judgment.

Today, acknowledging that the situation in southern Iraq remains unsettled, McCain said that the U.S. troop buildup had produced a glimmer of "something approaching normal" in Iraq.