McCain camp criticizes Obama's refusal to admit he was wrong about Iraq surge

John McCain's campaign today jumped on Barack Obama's refusal to admit he was wrong about the surge of troops to Iraq.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said on a McCain conference call that it would be the right thing "for Sen. Obama to say, 'I was wrong.' That's how you learn."

Traveling in Jordan today, Obama told reporters it was clear the surge was a military success.

But in an interview Monday night with ABC's Nightline program, Obama said he would not have voted to support the surge even if he knew then what he knows now.

"These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult," Obama said in the interview. "Hindsight is 20-20. But I think that what I am absolutely convinced of is, at the time, we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration was one that I just disagreed with and one that I continue to disagree with, (which) is to look narrowly at Iraq and not focus on these broader issues."

Brownback said Iraq would look much worse if Obama had prevailed in his oppositon to sending more troops. "We would be looking at heightened violence of a segmented country being run by different groups..an expanded terrorist base...We don't know any of that for certain. But we do know that the surge worked."

Instead, the military success in Iraq is setting up the country for a possible further withdrawal of U.S. troops, added Rep. Heather Wilson, R-NM, another McCain surrogate.

"We never would have gotten here had we followed is (Obama's) leadership," she said.

Comments

[Josh_T]

Obama could never use expressions that deal directly with the concept of “winning the battle but losing the war” since that would be slighting the all-volunteer armed forces members who must always be seen as successful. However, he does have to make it clear that whatever positive results can be seen coming out of the ‘surge’, these have very little relationship to solidifying the Iraqi political process or winning Bush’s War on Terror. The shadow diplomacy of al-Sadr, Maliki, and the Iranians have more to do with any recent decrease in violence between political groups in Iraq, and while attacks on U.S. troops may be down, I don’t think those who want to resist U.S. occupation have surrendered. The army has had to extend tours of duty, fewer combat brigades are available for rotation, and violence in Afghanistan, the original front in the war against those who attached the U.S. on September 11th, 2001 is on the rise. Obama can never say that the effort of U.S. troops was without meaning, and McCain knows this, but if Obama can make people see that McCain’s preoccupation with high U.S. troop-levels somehow being key to Iraqi’s “finding themselves” and forming a government he can further decrease McCain’s credibility with Americans and Iraqis.

[MPinFlorida]

The Real Surge Issue: The real surge issue is the surge in Mr. Obama's popularity, and why it it causes Mr. McCain to become a casualty of his own sour grapes mentality.