Democratic White House hopeful Senator Barack Obama said he might visit Iraq after taking a barrage from Republican candidate Senator John McCain over his single previous trip to the war zone.
Obama, who opposed the war from the start, and accuses McCain of wanting to prolong “failed” US policies, told the New York Times on Wednesday that he was considering an overseas trip after securing the Democratic nomination.
“Iraq would obviously be at the top of the list of stops,” Obama told the paper, but declined McCain’s offer of a joint trip, saying he wanted no part of a “political stunt.”
McCain, an advocate of Bush’s troop surge strategy who has made multiple visits to US troops and commanders, said Obama’s possible visit to Iraq was “long overdue.”
“It’s been 871 days since he was there,” McCain told reporters during a campaign stop in Beverly Hills, California.
“I’m confident that when he goes he will then change his position on the conflict in Iraq, because he will see the success that has been achieved on the ground,” McCain said.
He lashed the first-term senator’s qualifications to be commander-in-chief, saying Obama had only gone to Iraq once just over two years ago.
“This is about leadership and learning,” the Republican said in Reno, Nevada.
McCain, who criticized early US post-war policy, hit out at Obama for failing to sit down in Iraq with US commander General David Petraeus, while offering talks with leaders of Iran.
And he took issue with Obama’s criticisms of his own trips to Iraq, which included one when he walked through a Baghdad market with a heavy US security detail, and the Democrat’s critique of the surge.
“That is a profound misunderstanding, a profound misunderstanding of what’s happened in Iraq, and what’s at stake in Iraq,” McCain said. “If we set a date for withdrawal, as Senator Obama wants to do, there will be chaos, there will be genocide, there will be increased Iranian influence there.”
Obama says on the campaign trail he would end the Iraq War next year, and accuses the Iraqi government of failing to take advantage of the US escalation to make political progress.
His spokesman Bill Burton led a counter-attack, saying: “It seems odd that Senator McCain, who bought the flawed rationale for war so readily, would be lecturing others on their depth of understanding about Iraq.”
“Senator Obama challenged the president’s rationale for the war from the start, warning that it would divert resources from Afghanistan and the pursuit of Al-Qaeda and mire us in an endless civil war,” he said.
“Senator McCain stubbornly insists on pursuing the failed Bush policy that continues to cost so much, while Senator Obama believes it’s time to begin a deliberate, careful strategy to remove our troops and compel the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future,” Burton said.
Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Clinton launched an 11th hour bid to deprive Obama of the nomination, five days before the final voting clashes.
Clinton wrote to nearly 800 top party officials or superdelegates to try to persuade them she was more likely to beat McCain.
“I believe I am best prepared to lead this country as president, and best prepared to put together a broad coalition of voters to break the lock Republicans have had on the electoral map,” she wrote.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
RSS