McCain Sees U.S. Troops Leaving Iraq by 2013

Speaking to a small group in this critically important swing state, McCain described the "conditions that I intend to achieve" by the time his first term would end. He said he would "focus all the powers of the office, every skill and strength I possess" to make that future a reality.

By 2013, McCain predicted, "America 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." He said that only a small contingent of troops, in non-combat roles, would be needed, because al-Qaeda in Iraq would be defeated and a democratic government would be operating.

He said that by the end of his first term, taxes would be lower, congressional earmarks would be eliminated and robust economic growth would have returned. He promised an end to the genocide in Darfur and a solution to the Social Security crisis. He said that construction would have begun on 20 nuclear plants and that Osama bin Laden would be captured or dead.

"For too long now, Washington has been consumed by a hyper-partisanship that treats every serious challenge facing us as an opportunity to trade insults, disparage each other's motives and fight about the next election," McCain said. "We belong to different parties, not different countries. We are rivals for the same power. But we are also compatriots."

Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for Obama, said in a statement that "you cannot embrace the destructive policies and divisive political tactics of George Bush and still offer yourself as a candidate of healing and change. That's simply not straight talk."

McCain offered no starting point for drawing down troops in Iraq under his presidency, and he has said previously that he would continue the current Bush administration policy, which has scheduled withdrawals only through the end of July.

"What the hell's the strategy?" asked Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a former presidential candidate who has not endorsed Obama or Clinton. "I like John's dream, I like the goal. But I've not heard John say anything about how we're going to accomplish that goal."

Even some of McCain's admirers expressed puzzlement about the speech. "I think John McCain has been one of the most important voices on national security policy for many years now," said Leslie H. Gelb, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who described the speech as "almost in la-la land."

"It is unsupported generalizations and predictions that he would have scoffed at as the old John McCain," Gelb said.

The reaction to McCain's speech highlights the bind that his support for the war has created for him in courting moderate Democrats and independent voters for this fall.

Obama has said that he would remove all combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months of becoming president and that he would leave "some troops" in Iraq to protect U.S. Embassy personnel there and to carry out targeted strikes on terrorists. Clinton said during a 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.