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McCain and Obama clash over strategy in Iraq

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-15 10:58

CHICAGO - Presidential foes John McCain and Barack Obama clashed on Monday over the US role in Iraq, with McCain questioning his rival's judgment as Obama pushed for a new strategy to boost troop levels in Afghanistan.

US Republican presidential candidate John McCain speaks in Washington, July 8, 2008. McCain, who has hectored Democratic rival Barack Obama to visit Iraq, now says Obama should go to South America as well. [Agencies]

Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois and early war critic, defended his opposition to President George W. Bush's troop increases in Iraq and repeated his call for a 16-month timetable for withdrawing combat troops.

His campaign said he will make a speech on Iraq on Tuesday, before a scheduled visit to Iraq and Afghanistan sometime within the next few weeks.

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"Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven," Obama said in a column in The New York Times.

Obama proposed adding two US combat brigades, about 9,000 troops, to the 36,000 troops already in Afghanistan.

"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been," he said. "I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq."

McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona and advocate of the war, criticized Obama's stance on Iraq, particularly his opposition to the surge of US troops there.

"Senator Obama was wrong when he said it wouldn't succeed, he was wrong when he said we've lost the war and he is wrong today when he says that Iraq is not the central battleground," McCain said in Phoenix.

The future of Iraq promises to be a central issue in the November election battle for the White House between McCain and Obama. Most public opinion polls rank it as the second most important issue, behind the economy, for US voters.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Monday found Americans evenly divided on the candidates' positions on Iraq with 47 percent of those polled saying they trust McCain more to handle the war, and 45 percent having more faith in Obama.

Obama's visit to Iraq, where he has only been once, and Afghanistan follows repeated criticism from McCain that he should visit the area and talk to commanders.

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