WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has distorted America’s foreign policy, cost it thousands of lives, tarnished its image and emptied its treasury, Senator Barack Obama said on Tuesday. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee pledged that he would swiftly end the war and reorient America’s approach to the world to address the challenges of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change and energy dependence.
A short time later Senator John McCain, the probable Republican opponent, accused Mr. Obama of pursuing a strategy of defeat and drawing judgments without adequate facts.
“What’s missing in our debate about Iraq, what has been missing since before the war began, is a discussion of the strategic consequences of Iraq and its dominance of our foreign policy,” Mr. Obama said in a 38-minute speech at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center here. “This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe.”
For his part, Senator McCain said during a campaign stop in Albuquerque, N.M., that while he and his opponent “agreed the Bush administration had pursued a failed strategy there and that we had to change course,” he added that they “disagreed, fundamentally” on how to proceed.
“I called for a comprehensive new strategy — a surge of troops and counterinsurgency to win the war. Senator Obama disagreed,” he said. “He opposed the surge, predicted it would increase sectarian violence, and called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible. Today we know Senator Obama was wrong.”
Mr. Obama acknowledged in what was billed as a major foreign policy address that the addition of tens of thousands of combat troops to Iraq early last year had lowered violence there. But he said that only strengthened his case for a rapid withdrawal, not weakened it, because the surge had increased the strain on American forces and had cost lives and money as the situation in Afghanistan grew worsened.
“George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq, they have a strategy for staying in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said. “They said we couldn’t leave when violence was up, they say we can’t leave when violence is down.”
In a series of interviews, statements, advertisements and speeches over the past week, Mr. Obama has been laying out a broad vision of America’s role in the world in an Obama presidency in which he has emphasized the application of soft power — the use of diplomacy and economic aid — over the use of force. And he has spoken of reducing American combat forces in Iraq and adding as many as 10,000 more troops to battle al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He said that as president he would try to mend alliances that have frayed in the seven years of the Bush-Cheney administration.
Mr. Obama plans to make his first overseas trip as a presidential candidate at the end of the week, visiting Iraq and Afghanistan with two like-minded senators, Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska. Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, will then move on to Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Germany, France and England.
In a news conference this morning, President Bush approved of Mr. Obama’s travels, saying it would help him understand the realities on the ground, and he encouraged him to listen intently to the generals in charge of American operations.
“The question really facing the country is will we have the patience and determination to succeed in these very difficult theaters,” Mr. Bush said. “We’re at war, and now is not the time to give up.”
In his remarks, Mr. Obama said that he would look beyond the immediate crisis in Iraq.
“As President, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy — one that recognizes that we have interests beyond Baghdad, in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin,” he said. “I will focus this strategy on five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
Senator McCain, who had criticized Senator Obama for questioning the current Iraq policy though he had not been there since the surge, took his opponent’s trip as an opportunity to tyweak him yet again.
“Senator Obama is departing soon on a trip abroad that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mr. McCain said at his town hall meeting in Albuquerque. “And I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy.”
Mr. McCain agreed with Mr. Obama that the anti-terror efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan could require more troops, and proposed adding at least three more brigades — about 3,500 troops in each — in that region. “I think we need to do whatever is necessary” in Afghanistan, he said on Monday.
But Mr. Obama said the evidence was overwhelming that the pre-eminent focus on Iraq, where the United States has five times more troops stationed than in Afghanistan, has distracted the nation from what he called “the central front in the war on terror” — terrorists led by al Qaeda and supported by the Taliban.
“It is unacceptable that almost seven years after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on our soil, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large,” he said. “Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahari are recording messages to their followers and plotting more terror. The Taliban controls parts of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has an expanding base in Pakistan that is probably no farther from their old Afghan sanctuary than a train ride from Washington to Philadelphia. If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely
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