Leaving Iraq Would Lead To Chaos, McCain Says

Leaving Iraq Would Lead To Chaos, McCain Says



Article Excerpt

With another Senate debate looming this week on a deadline for withdrawing from Iraq, Arizona Sen. John McCain said abandoning that country would lead to chaos and a period of national suffering at the hands of "evil, evil people."

Midway through his three-day "No Surrender" tour, McCain focused his brief remarks on Iraq in a packed VFW hall here, scarcely mentioning his Republican presidential candidacy.

"The strategy is succeeding," but hasn't had enough time to develop, McCain said of President Bush's troop surge.

"A date for withdrawal, I view as a date for surrender, that we would choose to lose. I don't believe we should choose to lose," he said.



McCain said that Democratic critics have "lost sight of a fundamental fact, that presidents don't lose wars and political parties don't lose wars, but nations lose wars and when nations lose wars, nations suffer."

Precipitous withdrawal, he said, would create chaos "that almost certainly would require us to come back" when Iran almost certainly moves to fill the void.

Islamic extremists are "evil, evil people ... dedicated to the destruction of everything we stand for and believe in," McCain said.

In heavily Baptist South Carolina, McCain told reporters that despite having long been identified as an Episcopalian, he has been a Baptist for some time.

By Dan Hoover, Greenville News September 17, 2007

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