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McCain Blames Cheney and Rumsfeld
Sen. John McCain has for the first time blamed Vice President Cheney for what he calls a "terribly mishandled” war in Iraq that the U.S. is close to losing. "The president listened too much to the vice president,” the Arizona Republican said in an interview with Roger Simon, chief political columnist with the just-launched newspaper The Politico and its Web site politico.com. "Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the vice president and, most of all, the secretary of defense,” McCain complained, referring to ousted Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Back in June 2004, McCain described Cheney as "one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had.”
Story Continues Below But now McCain is "making clear his frustrations” with the Bush administration, the Iraqi military and "bureaucratic resistance” in the Pentagon to the troop surge President Bush has called for, Simon reports. "There is still enormous bureaucratic resistance in the Pentagon, and it bothers me a great deal,” said McCain, a strong supporter of U.S. military action in Iraq. "The bureaucrats in the military are saying this is a terrible strain on the Guard and the active duty forces, and it is. There is only one thing worse than an overstressed military, and that’s a defeated military. And we are on the verge of that.” If the troop surge fails to achieve the president’s goal of stemming sectarian violence, the U.S. may have to pull back the troops to the borders of Iraq "to try to keep other countries from interfering,” McCain said. Sen. McCain, who is expected to run for president in 2008, told Simon he is aware that his continuing support for the Iraq war is making him increasingly unpopular.
"The irony of all this for me is that I am the guy that for three years – more than three years – has said, ‘You don’t have enough troops there! And you are not running this war right . . .’ "Now I find myself the object of scorn because I think we can’t afford to leave.”
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration Inside Cover Stories
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