Barack Obama mourned the death of nine US soldiers in Afghanistan on Sunday, even as he said John McCain’s numerous visits to the region do not leave the Republican better equipped to deal with its volatility as president.
Preparing to embark on only his second visit to Iraq, as well as his first to Afghanistan, the Democratic senator told reporters: “I will recall the visit he made last year in which he was surrounded by helicopters and SWAT teams and he came back and reported how safe everything was in Baghdad. And I don’t think that that was indicative of what was actually happening on the ground at that time.”
McCain, a Vietnam War veteran, has chided Obama for the dearth of time he has spent in the region, failing to meet with General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, and not holding a congressional oversight hearing on US security matters.
Asked about such criticism, Obama said: “John McCain has been in Congress 25 years, no doubt about that. If this is a longevity measure, then John McCain wins. On the other hand, before we went into Iraq, I knew the difference between Shia and Sunni.”
That was a dig at the Arizona senator, who once confused the majority and minority religious groups in Iraq.
Obama also said that “on the big strategic issues that are at stake,” there’s no case where he “has been proven wrong.”
The McCain campaign pounced on the comments.
“If Barack Obama believes that visiting Iraq and meeting with commanders will not give him any new perspective, then we can only assume he’s going just to smile for the cameras,” spokesman Tucker Bounds said.
McCain has said that an Aug. 2003 visit to Iraq — just five months after US forces invaded — convinced him of the need to change strategy following the fall of Baghdad. And he has said that a Dec. 2006 visit persuaded him to support a surge of additional US forces to reduce violence and stabilize key regions.
McCain also said throughout the primary campaign he would rather lose the election over his position than lose the war — and today argues his adherence to principle shows he puts the country above himself. He has suggested Obama is adhering blindly to an antiwar position for political gain.
Obama opened his news conference with a tribute to the soldiers, who were killed in a raid by militants in eastern Kunar Province, the deadliest single attack for the US in Afghanistan since June 2005. Fourteen more US troops were wounded.
“The main thing I want to communicate is that our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these extraordinary heroes,” Obama said. “And we need to make sure that we’re providing them with every bit of support that we can.”
The Illinois senator has called for redeploying US forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, a point he underscored on Sunday.
“Part of the job of the next president is to look at our overall strategic landscape and make certain that we are using the most precious resources we have — which is the extraordinary young men and women in uniform — in a way that maximizes American security, and that’s not something I believe that we’ve done over the last several years,’’ he said.
On Saturday, during a news conference aboard his campaign plane, Obama revealed he would be accompanied on his upcoming battlefront tour by Senators Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed, military veterans who are often mentioned as potential vice presidential running mates.
Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, served as an Army sergeant in Vietnam and was twice wounded in 1968, earning two Purple Hearts.
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