Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday said that the 2007 U.S. troop buildup in Iraq moved the country towards normalcy. In a speech prepared for delivery on Monday, McCain said that the U.S. troop “surge” brought “something approaching normal” to Iraq, adding that “we are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success.” McCain, who is closely tied to the now widely unpopular 5-year-old war, was a vocal advocate of the troop increase strategy eventually adopted by U.S. President George W. Bush, and is seeking to convince people that the strategy is working. McCain is set to face either Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton (from New York), or Senator Barack Obama (from Illinois). Both Clinton and Obama dispute the claims of success in Iraq and seek a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Republican candidate's comments also come before General David Petraeus' highly anticipated Congressional testimony. Petraeus, who is the top commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's testimony will serve as an official update on the current situation in Iraq. McCain planned to highlight a sharp drop in violence in recent months in his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the National World War I Museum. He said that from June 2007 until last month, when McCain visited Iraq, violence fell by 90 percent, and deaths of civilians and coalition forces fell by 70 percent. “The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi,” McCain said. Despite the positive numbers he cited, 2007 was the deadliest yet. McCain warned against the swift withdrawal of troops advocated by Obama and Clinton, saying Iraq could quickly become a terrorist haven. “These likely consequences of America's failure in Iraq would, almost certainly, require us to return to Iraq or draw us into a wider and far costlier war,” he said. McCain said that in the next 18 months, as Iraq conducts elections for its local and national governments, it will need more help from the U.S. and other allies. The country will need “a sufficient level” of U.S. troops until commanders on the ground believe it is safe to reduce American forces.
