McCain: Iraq 'Unraveling' Under Obama Pullout
Friday, 06 Jan 2012 02:58 PM
By Jim Meyers
Arizona Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain says President Obama has placed the United States in “great peril” with his policy on troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
McCain charges in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV that the pullout of all U.S. troops from Iraq was politically motivated to please his liberal base.
“Our Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said we always envisioned a residual force of some 20,000 people. They played the duplicitous game of never telling the Iraqis the number of troops we wanted to keep there until it got down to the negligible number of 3,000,” McCain says.
“He claimed Iraq is a stable and democratic situation and obviously it’s unraveling, because he refused to try to keep a residential force in Iraq.
“In Afghanistan, over the objections of his generals — who he appointed — he has put Americans in greater risk, and the chances of succeeding in Afghanistan are greatly diminished, because we needed the second fighting season.
“This is all leading from behind, and in my view it places this country in the greatest peril since the presidency of James Earl Carter.”
McCain charges in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV that the pullout of all U.S. troops from Iraq was politically motivated to please his liberal base.
“Our Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said we always envisioned a residual force of some 20,000 people. They played the duplicitous game of never telling the Iraqis the number of troops we wanted to keep there until it got down to the negligible number of 3,000,” McCain says.
“He claimed Iraq is a stable and democratic situation and obviously it’s unraveling, because he refused to try to keep a residential force in Iraq.
“In Afghanistan, over the objections of his generals — who he appointed — he has put Americans in greater risk, and the chances of succeeding in Afghanistan are greatly diminished, because we needed the second fighting season.
“This is all leading from behind, and in my view it places this country in the greatest peril since the presidency of James Earl Carter.”