McCain April 22, 2004...if the US were asked to leave Iraq, it's obvious we'd have to leave

[maddezmom]

PETERSON: We're now ready for questions. Please wait for the microphone, identify yourself, keep your questions to the point, if you would, and try to remember we have only one speaker here, speaker McCain. Our distinguished new head of the Washington office asked me to kick off one or two, senator, and let me try.

Let me give you a hypothetical, senator. What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there? I understand it's a hypothetical, but it's at least possible.

McCAIN: Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because— if it was an elected government of Iraq— and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.

PETERSON: A second and final question from me. As you know—

McCAIN: By the way, could I— if we do it right, that's not going to happen, but we will be there militarily for a long, long, long time.

more:http://www.cfr.org/publication/6973/


Security conditions must dictate Iraq withdrawal: McCain
Published: July 08, 2008

(AFP) Republican White House candidate John McCain on Tuesday warned security conditions must dictate troop withdrawals from Iraq, after Baghdad said it wanted a timetable for US soldiers to leave.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's comment on Monday that Iraq was seeking such a timetable in talks with Washington on the future US force structure in the country reverberated across the White House race.

~snip~

"The Iraqis have made it very clear, including the meetings I had with the president and foreign minister of Iraq, that it is based on conditions on the ground," McCain said in an interview with MSNBC.

"I have always said we will come home with honor and with victory and not through a set timetable," he said, adding that Iraqis would act in their national interest and the United States would act in its own interests.

"We will withdraw, but ... the victory we have achieved so far is fragile and (the redeployment) has to be dictated by events and on the ground," McCain said, mirroring the Pentagon's line on the issue.

more:http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/07/08/security_conditions_must_dictate_iraq_withdrawal_mccain/afp/

[freesqueeze]

1. that is unless

they don't say "pretty please."

The GOPeople are sounding totally out of touch on this one.

Look for the tow truck to be backing up the the goal post again.

beep beep beep beep

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Bush and McCain said the same thing

Bush said it just last year.