John McCain
Town Hall
Concord, NH 12/17/07
TRANSCRIPT:
MCCAIN: "My timetable for Iraq is not distinct. My view of Iraq and success in Iraq is what we are achieving now.
"It's not American presence in Iraq that matters. What matters is American casualties. We have American troops in Bosnia, and Korea, in Japan. We have American troops all over the world. And I'm glad they're there. I'm glad I'm they're there. And Americans are very satisfied that they are there.
"What matters is American casualties. And in the last several months you have seen a dramatic drop in the attacks, in the casualties, in the deaths. And all of the indicators that show that this strategy is succeeding. And I emphasize over and over and over again, Al Qaeda's on the run, they're not defeated. You will probably see spectacular suicide events take place. But the Maliki Government is barely starting to function a little better, we got a little good news today. On the local level, their governments are functioning much more effectively. And what is going to happen, we just turned over another province to the Iraqi military to take over the primary responsibilities. So as the security environment improves, Americans withdraw to their bases and into support roles. And eventually we would withdraw if that's what's necessary. By the way we have a base in Kuwait as you know, we have a base in Oman, and other places.
"So my timetable is that in the coming months that the enemy knows that we are there until they are defeated, or the Iraqi military and government is able to handle this insurgency. And to set a timetable for withdrawal then sets a timetable for al-Qaeda to lay back and just wait for us to leave and resulting in chaos and genocide in the region. So all I can say is we are succeeding , it's still gonna be a tough row to hoe.
"I think that, with certain blips, you're gonna see continued success and American casualties go down to extremely low levels or completely eradicated. And again, I want to mention to you the consequences of failure.
"The consequences of failure in Iraq are catastrophic. And as General Betraeus has said, the battleground, the key battleground in Islamic terrorism today is in Iraq. Because if we leave, Al-Qaeda will have established bases. And if you, when we lost, when we left Vietnam the Vietnamese didn't want to follow us home. If you lead Zarkowi, Bin Ladin, all of these people, they want to follow us home. Their object is not Iraq, it's the United States of America. "
LABEL: JM NH 12-18 (BH#33) GIHAD- Clip A
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