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Candidates' Divide on Iraq War Widens

Dodd said he was "disappointed" that Obama "didn't include a firm, enforceable deadline for redeployment," and dismayed that neither he nor Clinton "will give an unequivocal answer on whether they would support a measure if it didn't have such an enforceable deadline."

Said Richardson: "Leaving behind tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for an indefinite amount of time is nothing new. This plan is inadequate and does not end the war."


Republican presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks during a rally on the first day of his
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)

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In South Carolina, Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani criticized the top Democratic presidential candidates.

"The only way to deal with terror is not the way Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama want to do it," he told more than 100 people jammed into a country restaurant in Bluffton, a coastal town near Hilton Head. "They want to run away. They want America to be on defense."

Giuliani and McCain also criticized Clinton for her skeptical comments about Petraeus' congressional testimony. Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had told Petraeus and Crocker: "The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief."

"Why would you say that about an American general?" Giuliani asked after a brief campaign stop in Akron, Ohio. The former New York mayor said there was no reason for Clinton "to make personal attacks on the general."

McCain also criticized Clinton.

"First of all, it's a willing suspension of disbelief that Senator Clinton thinks she knows more than General Petraeus about events on the ground in Iraq," he said at an American Veterans post in Des Moines.

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Associated Press writer Mike Glover reported from Clinton, Iowa. Associated Press writers Liz Sidoti and Nedra Pickler in Washington, Thomas J. Sheeran in Akron, Ohio, and Bruce Smith in Bluffton, S.C., contributed to this report.


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© 2007 The Associated Press