McCain calls Obama’s Iraq strategy ‘audacity of hopelessness’

DENVER – Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., launched a blistering attack on Sen. Barack Obama’s foreign policy Friday, saying that his Democratic presidential rival’s “audacity of hopelessness” in opposing the troop surge would have lost Iraq and left the United States weaker.

“Senator Obama told the American people what he thought you wanted to hear,” said McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. “I told you the truth.”

McCain supported the move to bolster U.S. ground forces in Iraq.

His speech to a Hispanic war veterans group here covered familiar ground but was unusually critical of Obama – who, to the frustration of the McCain campaign, has dominated headlines this week with his trip to the Middle East and Europe. More than one-third of McCain’s 26-minute address consisted of harsh language targeting Obama.

“Fortunately, Senator Obama failed, not our military,” McCain said.

Then, in a play on the title of Obama’s best-seller “The Audacity of Hope,” he added: “We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right.”

Obama was traveling in France and Britain on Friday, but his campaign issued a statement accusing McCain of stepping out of bounds.

“The American people are looking for a serious debate about the way forward in Iraq and Afghanistan, and angry, false accusations will do nothing to accomplish that goal,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

McCain spoke in a Denver hotel banquet hall to supportive members of the GI Forum, who frequently interrupted his speech with cheers and gave him a standing ovation.

McCain contrasted his own support for the troop surge – an unpopular strategy, according to the polls – with what he described as Obama’s politically calculated opposition to it.

He pointed out that Obama had voted against funding troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in May 2007, a move the Democratic candidate’s campaign said was in response to President Bush’s veto of an Obama-backed troop funding bill with withdrawal timelines. Obama, of Illinois, has voted to fund troops three times since that lone no vote.

“He didn’t just advocate defeat,” McCain said, “he tried to legislate it.”

Nonetheless, McCain tried to steal some of Obama’s thunder on troop withdrawal. Obama has pledged to pull troops out of Iraq within 16 months if he is sworn in as president.

McCain has attacked that pledge as reckless and argued that a pullout can only be dictated by conditions on the ground. But on Friday, he forecast a similar reduction.

“I’m confident we will be able to reduce our forces in Iraq next year, and our forces will be out of regular combat operations and dramatically reduced in number during the term of the next president – I think you know who I’m talking about,” he added. “We have fought the worst battles, survived the toughest threats, and the hardest part of this war is behind us.”