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.
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