Candidates' Divide on Iraq War Widens

Republican presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks during a rally on the first day of his "No Surrender Tour", Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007, in Sioux City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) (Charlie Neibergall - AP)

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton pressed Wednesday for greater troop withdrawals from Iraq, while Republican John McCain sought to win the hearts and minds of voters in favor of staying the course.

After two days of congressional testimony from Gen. David Petraeus, the military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the gap between the positions of the candidates on the war, the campaign's top issue, was as great as ever and may even be widening.

McCain, who has begun to inch back up in opinion polls after suffering serious setbacks to his candidacy this summer, spent his second day traversing Iowa in a bus festooned with a banner that said it all: "No Surrender."

The Arizona senator and former Vietnam POW was warmly received by veterans of five wars at a VFW post in Council Bluffs.

"We have suffered enormous losses and Americans are frustrated and angry ... but we do have a new strategy and a new general and it is succeeding and we ought to give it a chance to succeed," McCain told about 100 people in the VFW's red-white-and-blue-theme basement.

Across the state at Ashford University in Clinton, Obama called for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq, with the pullout being completed by the end of next year.

"Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was," Obama said in a speech to about 500 people.

"The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year _ now," the Illinois senator said.

Obama said the troop withdrawal should begin immediately and be completed by the end of next year.

"We will need to retain some forces in Iraq and the region," said Obama, who contrasted his long opposition to the war with rivals who voted to authorize the conflict. "I welcome all the folks who have changed their position over these last months and years."

Obama joked about making the speech in a city named Clinton.

"I hope the headline when we leave is 'Clinton endorses Obama,'" he said.