McCain: Iraq War Can Be Won By 2013
By Michael D. Shear

COLUMBUS,Ohio, MAY 15--Sen. John McCain will pledge this morning that the Iraq war can be won and most American troops can come home by 2013 if he is elected president, a position that closely resembles those of his potential Democratic rivals.

According to speech exerpts released in advance, McCain will say that only a small contingent of troops in non-combat roles would remain in Iraq five years from now. He predicts the drawdown will be possible because al Qaeda in Iraq will be defeated and a democratic government will be operating in the war-torn country.

In the excerpts, McCain describes in detail the "conditions I intend to achieve" by the time his first term in office ends. He says he will "focus all the powers of the office; every skill and strength I possess," to make that future a reality.

McCain until now has resisted offering a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops, saying that to do so would be tantamount to giving terrorists a timeline for defeat.

During the Florida primary, McCain blasted former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for what he said was support of a withdrawal timeline. Democrats, meanwhile, pilloried McCain for saying American troops could remain in Iraq for up to 100 years -- a reference McCain later likened to the presence of U.S. bases in Germany or South Korea.


Just last month, McCain said that "To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility. It is a failure of leadership.''

But the speech he will give this morning envisions an America that, by 2013, "has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won."

By that time, the speech says, "the United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role."

Asked to make a similar pledge during a debate last September, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama declined, saying that "it's hard to project four years from now and I think it would be irresponsible. We don't know what contingency will be out there."

But more recently, Obama has said he will remove all combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months of becoming president and will leave "some troops" in Iraq to protect U.S. embassy personnel there and carry out targeted strikes on terrorists.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said during the same debate last year that it was her "goal" to have all of the U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013, though more recently she has said she would begin a phased withdrawal immediately.

McCain's advisers this morning sharply disputed any similarity between their candidate's goals for Iraq and the positions of Democrats. They said McCain's promise is to win the Iraq war by the end of his term while his rivals vow to begin pullouts regardless of the conditions in the country.

"There is no similarity," said McCain adviser Steve Schmidt.


In the speech, McCain also describes the America he hopes will exist after four years of his administration.

In that future America, he promises that taxes are lower, congressional earmarks are eliminated and robust economic growth has returned. He promises a new international "League of Democracies" that will have stopped the genocide in Darfur. He promises that construction will have begun on 20 new nuclear plants and that there will be a free-market plan to reduce greenhouse gasses. And he promises to have secured the country's southern border and offered a temporary worker program to illegal immigrants.

To accomplish those goals, McCain pledges cooperation with Democrats, saying that he will "listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse."

In the speech, McCain disavows "signing statements" often used by President Bush to alter the implementation of laws, saying that "I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like."

And McCain says he will ask Congress to hold regular Q & A sessions with him, much like the feisty exchanges that take place regularly between the British Prime Minister and members of the House of Commons.