Obama Gets Look At Afghan War Zone

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Obama's International Tour

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has embarked on a weeklong tour of the Middle East and Europe designed to deepen his foreign policy credentials, confront questions at home about his readiness to be commander in chief and signal the possibility of a new era in U.S. relations with the rest of the world.

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Hours after Obama's arrival, a NATO soldier was killed when a supply convoy struck a roadside bomb in the southern province of Kandahar, the cradle of the Taliban movement. NATO officials in Kabul did not release the name or the nationality of the soldier. In the nearby southern province of Zabol, NATO soldiers killed nine Taliban insurgents after an attack on another supply convoy, the Associated Press reported.

Obama has said he wants to send two additional U.S. combat brigades, about 7,000 troops, to Afghanistan. He has advocated reducing the U.S. force in Iraq so that troops can be redeployed to Afghanistan to quell the rising threat there.

Before his departure, Obama had accused McCain of waffling on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, criticizing the decorated Vietnam War veteran for voting to go to war in Iraq. He called the loss of focus on the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan a "grave mistake."

On Saturday, McCain said he, too, supported sending more troops to Afghanistan, from both NATO and the United States. But he said he also favors strategic and organizational changes in the mission there, patterned more directly on what has worked in Iraq. He also pledged to appoint a White House-based official with principal responsibility to oversee Afghanistan policy.

The Arizona senator offered a stinging critique of Obama for laying out his withdrawal strategy in Iraq before even embarking on his upcoming fact-finding visit to the war zone. "Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy," McCain said. "Remarkable."

He also cited his experience in the military and in Congress to draw a contrast with Obama's far more limited exposure to national security issues. "In a time of war, the commander in chief's job doesn't get a learning curve," he said. "And if I have that privilege, I will bring to the job many years of military and political experience."

In his Spiegel interview, Maliki said he preferred to see U.S. troops leave "as soon as possible" and then added: "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Maliki, who will soon meet with Obama, quickly noted that he was not endorsing the presumptive Democratic nominee's candidacy, saying that was a decision for voters in the United States. But he implicitly criticized McCain, who has opposed such timetables, by saying that any effort to prolong the U.S. mission "would cause problems."

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh later issued a statement saying that Maliki's remarks had been misinterpreted and mistranslated, adding that the Spiegel article did not accurately convey his view of Obama's timetable. Dabbagh's statement did not elaborate on the prime minister's position.

Obama had no comment on the interview, but according to foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, he "welcomes Prime Minister Maliki's support for a 16 month timeline." She called Maliki's comments "an important opportunity to transition to Iraqi responsibility, while restoring our military and increasing our commitment to finish the fight in Afghanistan."

McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann offered a different interpretation of Maliki's comments. "The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama advocates an unconditional withdrawal that ignores the facts on the ground and the advice of our top military commanders," he said. "John McCain believes withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground. Prime Minister Maliki has repeatedly affirmed the same view, and did so again today.

Obama is expected to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, but a number of local politicians seized the opportunity provided by the visit to jump into the U.S. presidential campaign. On Saturday, leaders of the United National Front of Afghanistan, an agglomeration of 18 political parties led by former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, vigorously endorsed Obama's candidacy.

Rabbani, the conservative Islamist leader of the Jamiat-i-Islami party who was overthrown by the Taliban in 1996, has been critical of the corruption that has spread through the Afghan government since Karzai came to power in 2002 after the fall of the Taliban. Rabbani's party has been equally critical of the Bush administration's policy in the country. The party has given cautious support to Obama's call to put more Western troops on the ground while pushing for more humanitarian aid and development assistance.

Some Afghan politicians, however, reserved judgment. Abdul Jabbar Sabit, a former attorney general who was fired by Karzai in the past week after declaring his run for the Afghan presidency, said he is impressed by both Obama and McCain. A onetime adviser to Taliban leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Sabit said he agreed with Obama's insistence that the United States increase the number of troops in Afghanistan.

But he said he had met McCain several times and found him to be an equally compelling candidate.

"I hope the American people get someone who will listen. As an Afghan, I'm grateful to the Americans for coming such a long way to fight corruption and to fight terrorism here," Sabit said. "They've shed their blood to make Afghanistan safer."

Balz reported from Chicago. Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.