McCain Reveals Confusion Over Petraeus Role

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona may not have been paying the closest of attention last week during hearings on the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

Speaking Monday at the annual meeting of the Associated Press, McCain was asked whether he, if elected, would shift combat troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to intensify the search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

“I would not do that unless Gen. [David] Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that,” McCain said, referring to the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Petraeus, however, made clear last week that he has nothing to do with the decision. Testifying last week before four congressional committees, including the Senate Armed Services Committee on which McCain is the ranking Republican, Petraeus said the decision about whether troops could be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan was not his responsibility because his portfolio is limited to the multi-national force in Iraq.

Decisions about Afghanistan would be made by others, he said.

“I’ve been sort of focused on another task,” Petraeus said when pressed about whether more troops should be diverted to Afghanistan rather than Iraq.

McCain did not stay for the full Petraeus appearance before the armed services committee, so he might have missed that explanation.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Michael Mullen, has talked about the possibility that reducing troop levels in Iraq would make it easier to send more U.S. forces to Afghanistan.

In his remarks at the Associated Press meeting, McCain said he is concerned about stress on the force.

“I understand how tough things are,” he said. “I understand the stress on the military. I hear from people all the time, God bless them, including our Guard and Reserve. We need to have a larger Army and a larger Marine Corps. The Army and Marine Corps are a third smaller than they were at the time of the first Gulf War.”

McCain said that as president, he would try to inspire service-aged youths to serve in the military, in the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps.

“Radical Islamic extremism … is going to be with us for a long, long time, and it’s going to require the goodwill and the patriotism of every single American,” McCain said during a question-and-answer session with AP reporters and editors.