The US must start showing signs of success in Iraq, or risk losing support from people at home and other world nations that joined the fight, US Senator John McCain said in a speech laying out his suggestions for how to win the war.
Despite the Bush administration's efforts to get other countries, particularly NATO allies, to offer more help in Iraq, McCain said, the US likely will not be able to rely on that unless it can show clear progress toward stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq.
"Iraq is for us to do, for us to win or lose, for us to suffer the consequences or share in the benefits," the Republican said in a speech on Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute.
A possible candidate for president in 2008, McCain made his suggestions as many in the US and the world are questioning the future of the mission in Iraq. Last month, US deaths in the conflict exceeded 2,000, and the war has grown increasingly unpopular at home.
Some critics, including Cindy Sheehan, a California woman who camped outside US President George W. Bush's Texas ranch after her son was killed in Iraq, have called for the US to pull troops out.
McCain said that to win, the US must increase ground forces and enlarge the military. A proposal by former Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry to draw down 20,000 US troops by the end of the year represents "a major step on the road to disaster," he said.
On Thursday, Kerry said he had suggested gradually withdrawing troops over a 12 to 15 month period tied to specific benchmarks and pursuing a political settlement with the goal of undermining the insurgency, which he said feeds on the notion that the US is occupying Iraq.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
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