January 15, 2007 -- 11:23 AM EST // //
MCCAIN'S LATEST RUSE: IF BUSH "SURGE" PLAN FAILS, REMEMBER THAT I WANTED EVEN MORE TROOPS SENT!
Incredibly, it appears that John McCain is already laying the groundwork to subtly distance himself from President Bush's escalation plan, should it fail.
Here's how: Though full-throatedly backing Bush's plan, McCain is also starting to put out the word that he'd prefer that Bush were sending more troops to Iraq than the President has announced he'll send. This means, of course, that if escalation fails McCain may be able to dilute its impact on his political fortunes by saying success might have been possible if escalation had been carried out completely to his liking.
McCain put this new one out there over the weekend in interviews with both the New York Times and the Washington Post, letting it be known in both that he'd rather have sent more troops. This happens to be directly at odds with some of his own public statements in the past. Will he be allowed to skate on this one, too?
Here's the Times' version:
Mr. McCain embarked on a high-profile television tour announcing his support for Mr. Bushâs move. In an interview, he said he would have preferred that the White House send in even more troops, and noted that he had pressed this position on the White House, unsuccessfully until now, for more than two years.
The Washington Post lays it out even more clearly:
"There are two keys to any surge of U.S. troops," he said at a forum at the American Enterprise Institute. "To be of value, the surge must be substantial and it must be sustained."Does the new policy meet those tests? McCain offers an equivocal answer. He said he has been assured by Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the president's choice to take over command in Iraq, that 20,000 additional troops should be enough, but that if they are not, Petraeus can ask Bush for more.
You'd of course prefer to have direct quotes from McCain here, but given that both papers reported similar comments, it seems safe to assume that these depictions are accurate. So now we have McCain being "equivocal" about whether he thinks the President's "surge" is adequate. And McCain's so worried that it may not constitute enough troops that he's spoken about it to Patraeus, who's "assured" him that if worst comes to worst, he can "ask for more."
But hang on a second. McCain in the past has said unequivocally that he thought the right number of troops would be 20,000 -- which by the way is slightly less than what Bush has proposed sending. And not only that, but McCain has volunteered this number as being the right amount.
Here's McCain in October, 2006:
"Roughly, you need another 20,000 troops in Iraq," Mr. McCain said Friday during a visit to northern New Hampshire. "That means expanding the Army and Marine Corps by as much as 100,000 people. ⦠It's just not a set number."
Here's McCain speaking at an appearance in January:
McCain outlined what he viewed as the minimum levels necessary to make a surge work: three to five additional brigades in Baghdad and one brigade in Anbar Province in western Iraq, a Sunni insurgent stronghold.That would amount to between 18,000 and 27,000 soldiers, because an Army brigade consists of about 4,500 soldiers.
In other words, McCain said he viewed a number as low as 18,000 as the minimum level "necessary to make a surge work."
Though McCain has offered varying prescriptions for how many new troops should be sent, McCain has steadily presented the 20,000 number either as being what he sees as the right size of an increase or as being at the low end of what he thinks would be enough. Yet now -- while not backing off his support for Bush's proposal -- he's clearly starting to put out the word that he's equivocal about whether Bush's increase will be sufficient.
To its credit, the Post explains the politics behind McCain's latest move, suggesting that he may have "shrewdly left himself room to argue that Bush's plan for more troops was not substantial or sustained enough to ensure success." The Times, to its discredit, didn't bother offering this simple context. It's just ruse after ruse with this guy -- and let's face it, he'll probably skate on this one, too.
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