Hagel, McCain tangle over Iraq war and troop surge

DONNA CASSATA , The Associated Press

Posted: Thursday, January 31, 2013, 12:35 PM

WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. John McCain is tangling with Chuck Hagel over his past statements about the Iraq war. The Arizona Republican says that his dissatisfaction Hagel's answers could affect whether he votes for or against the former Republican senator who is President Barack Obama's choice for secretary of defense.

McCain, a strong backer of the 2007 troop surge, on Thursday pressed Hagel whether he was right or wrong in his opposition to the influx of 30,000 troops. Hagel declined to give a simple answer, seeking to elaborate and saying that Iraq took the U.S. focus off Afghanistan.

The two, who know each other well from Hagel's time as a Republican senator from Nebraska, talked over each other during Hagel's confirmation hearing. Hagel faces opposition from some other Republican senators as well.

DONNA CASSATA The Associated Press

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Comments (1)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:21 PM, 02/01/2013

Of course, McCain wants to rewrite history and discuss nothing but the surge. It was not just the surge that turned things around by McCain didn't want to hear that. It is questionable if the impact of the surge was worth the 1200 American lives. What is fact is that there were no weapons of mass desctruction, there was no link between Iraq and terrorist, Americans were not greeted as liberators, the war was not over within a few months, the cost of the war was atronomically more than what McCain claimed and was not funded by oil revenue. McCain was WRONG in 99% of what he predicted.

— MikeP