McCain Sees U.S. Troops Leaving Iraq by 2013

He Still Opposes Firm Date

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 15 -- Sen. John McCain on Thursday offered for the first time what he hopes will be an end date for the war in Iraq, part of a vision he presented in which his policies lead to peace and prosperity at home and abroad by 2013, the end of what would be his first term as president.

McCain's goal of a large-scale troop withdrawal within four years was the highlight of a wide-ranging speech that sketched a world in which Democrats would join with him to approve his domestic and foreign policy agendas.

The Iraq comments appeared designed to blunt the political toll of the presumptive GOP nominee's unwavering support for the unpopular war. Democrats have spent months pillorying McCain for saying that U.S. troops could remain in Iraq for as long as 100 years -- a reference the candidate later said was intended to describe an American presence like those in Germany or South Korea.

But he quickly dismissed the suggestion that he was abandoning his criticism of Democrats and their plans for a precipitous departure.

"I think it's dangerous for the future of America to set a date for withdrawal," he said. "We are succeeding in Iraq. We will have succeeded further in Iraq in 2013."

McCain's advisers disputed any likeness between his goals for Iraq and the positions of the Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. While Democrats want to withdraw troops without any regard for the military situation in Iraq, aides said, McCain would leave troops on the ground beyond his first term if he thought it was necessary.

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

Said Mark Salter, a top McCain aide: "He's not saying 'Win or lose, they come home in four years.' "

Speaking to reporters, McCain rejected the idea that he would set a firm date for withdrawal, saying that he is "promising that we will succeed in Iraq" but not promising that troops would come home if success did not occur.

"I'm not putting a date on it. It could be next month. It could be next year," he told reporters on his Straight Talk Express campaign bus. "I said by the end of my first term we will have succeeded in Iraq. . . . This is what I want to achieve. This is what I believe is achievable."

He repeated, as he has throughout the campaign, that setting a date for withdrawal would lead to "chaos, genocide and we will be back with greater sacrifice."

The speech was immediately mocked by McCain's political rivals, military experts and Iraqis, who described it as fanciful and said his decision to promise a date for the end of the war was a flip-flop designed to appeal to voters who oppose the continued U.S. involvement in the conflict.