McCain profits in Iraq as Democrats brawl
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican White House hopeful John McCain profited from Democratic infighting to project statesman-like credentials on a trip to Iraq ahead of the US-led invasion's fifth anniversary.
While the war remains deeply unpopular in the United States, McCain was able to flag his national-security experience by leaving the campaign fracas behind on a surprise trip to Baghdad.
The campaigns of Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton kept up their warring, as the former first lady prepared Monday to deliver a "major policy address" on Iraq ahead of Thursday's anniversary.
The Illinois senator meanwhile headed to Pennsylvania, the battleground state that is the next to vote in the Democrats' nomination marathon on April 22.
Obama has distanced himself from his fiery Chicago pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who argues in a newly unearthed video that the September 11 attacks of 2001 showed that "America's chickens are coming home to roost."
While the Democrats feuded over who would be the better commander-in-chief, McCain arrived Sunday in Iraq on the first leg of a tour that is also taking him to the Middle East and Europe.
In Baghdad, McCain was due to meet US ambassador Ryan Crocker, and to see firsthand the effects of the troop "surge" for which he has been a fervent advocate even as US public support for the war has slumped.
On CNN, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy accused McCain of heading over for a taxpayer-funded "photo op" instead of asking "hard questions" of the Iraqi government.
Although the trip is officially by members of the Senate armed services committee, Democratic critics noted that McCain was accompanied only by two other senators -- both ardent advocates of the military surge.
"Obviously the world's going to watch it, and we'll know whether it's exploited for other reasons. I don't believe it will be, but we'll see," said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Clinton backer.
Obama has repeatedly skewered Clinton for voting in 2002 to authorize the Iraq invasion. The New York senator has never renounced her vote, but argues she was supporting more diplomacy, not conflict.
Clinton's speech in Washington was to be closely watched for any sign that she is willing to go further in rejecting her 2002 decision, as she battles Obama for the Democratic nomination.
"Now Senator Feinstein, to her credit, said the vote was a mistake. Senator Clinton has never said it was. You have to learn from mistakes," argued Leahy, an Obama supporter who voted against the Iraq resolution.
While the Democrats slug it out, McCain appears to have enjoyed a bounce in the polls since becoming the Republican nominee-elect with victories in Ohio and Texas a fortnight ago.
In a hypothetical match-up against Clinton, a weekend Zogby poll gave the Arizona senator 45 percent to her 39 percent. Against Obama, McCain led by 44 percent to 39.
In both scenarios, consumer champion Ralph Nader enjoyed sizeable support -- six percent if Clinton were the Democratic nominee, and five percent if it were Obama.
Nader was accused by many Democrats of siphoning off enough support to hand victory to Republican George W. Bush in the razor-thin election of 2000.
On Sunday, Clinton's White House campaign lashed out after the Chicago Tribune reported that Obama was preparing a "full assault" on her after disowning some embarrassments to his own campaign, such as Reverend Wright.
"It is disappointing that a campaign that began by promising a politics of hope has come to this, that it is signaling and reveling in attacks on Senator Clinton's character," her communications director Howard Wolfson said.
Obama aides kept up a barrage of questioning over Clinton's tax returns, her records from her White House days, and possible ties to donors who gave generously to her husband Bill's presidential library.
"You get the feeling they are literally trying to do anything to win this nomination," Obama strategist David Axelrod said of Clinton's bid to overturn her delegate deficit with help from the pariah states of Florida and Michigan.
