By any definition, Mac clear on Iraq

The Boston Herald has gleefully offered to run the Op-Ed the NYT declined.

By any definition, Mac clear on Iraq
By John McCain Tuesday, July 22, 2008 http://www.bostonherald.com Op-Ed

The following is the op-ed originally offered by Sen. John McCain to The New York Times [NYT]. The Times rejected it, demanding that, “The article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Sen. McCain defines victory in Iraq.” The Times published an op-ed on Iraq by Sen. Barack Obama on July 14. This piece has been edited slightly for space.

In January 2007, when Gen. David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, violence has fallen by up to 80 percent to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling. The situation is full of hope, but hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Sen. Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on Jan. 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Sen. Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies any political progress there.
Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s newfound willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists.

The success of the surge has not changed Sen. Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and speech, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact-finding” trip there in three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been.

Now he thinks Iraqis no longer need our help.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Sen. Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Sen. Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Sen. Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any drawdowns must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Sen. Obama.

He has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major Gen. Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: That leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by al-Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback. I find it ironic that Sen. Obama is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war - only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy, not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan, with the goal of creating self-sustaining democratic allies.