New Round Of Violence As “Desperate” Al Qaeda Flushed From Last Strongholds
Al Qaeda flag captured in Diyala
WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain, back from a Thanksgiving visit to Iraq, said Monday there are signs of progress though the country still deals with corruption and U.S. commanders anticipate increased violence from a desperate al-Qaida.
The Republican presidential candidate said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “was more upbeat than I’ve seen him in the past.” Still, McCain said he and other members of a congressional delegation made it clear that al-Maliki needed to show political advances.
“So we’ll see what the Iraqi government does,” McCain said at a lunch with reporters at his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va.
He said Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, in joining other Democrats critical of the troop increase early this year, had referred to the shift as the “McCain strategy, the McCain surge.”
“He doesn’t anymore, but I wish he would,” he said, chuckling.
At another point, he said: “I’m the one that got criticized by Republicans because I had no confidence in Rumsfeld, that I thought the strategy was failing and that we ought to have a new strategy, None of the others who are running for the Republican nomination, much less the Democrat, pointed this out.”
McCain said top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus was expecting a new round of violence because al-Qaida was being flushed out of its strongholds.
“He thinks they are not finished,” McCain said.
McCain offered reasons for a measured optimistic view of conditions in Iraq. He said local city councils were beginning to govern effectively and members of the Sunni minority were being integrated into the military and were obtaining jobs. But he said corruption was still common in the country, noting that oil destined to Iraq’s northern regions was being illegally siphoned off.
(AP)
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