McCain Bashes Cheney Over Iraq Policy

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2390.html

McCain Bashes Cheney Over Iraq Policy

By: Roger Simon
January 22, 2007 11:40 PM EST


With his presidential hopes tied to an administration whose Iraq policy he supports but cannot control, John McCain for the first time blamed Vice President Cheney for what McCain calls the "witch's brew" of a "terribly mishandled" war in which U.S. forces are on the verge of defeat.

McCain also for the first time opened the door to the possibility of a U.S. troop pullback to the borders of Iraq should the president's planned troop surge fail.

Although McCain had once lavished praise on the vice president, he said in an interview in his Senate office: "The president listened too much to the Vice President . . . Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense."

McCain added: "Rumsfeld will go down in history, along with McNamara, as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history." Donald Rumsfeld served as President Bush's secretary of defense from January 2001 to December 2006. Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War.

McCain has long criticized Rumsfeld, but in July 2004 at a campaign rally in Lansing, Mich., McCain said he had "known and admired" Cheney for more than 20 years and described him as "one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had.''

But that was then and this is now, and now McCain is making clear his frustrations with the Bush administration, the Iraqi military and "bureaucratic resistance" in the Pentagon to a troop surge.

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a back door way to get his desired prize--the Presidency, when bush is impeached or resigns. McCain's certainly covering all angles. What a wily guy----he sure has made the most of his ONLY 'claim to fame' of being a pow.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/22/mccain-cheney/