Obama drops visit to wounded U.S. troops in Germany
PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama dropped a plan to visit wounded U.S. troops in Germany on Friday amid concerns the stop would be viewed as a political event.
Planning for a stop at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center had been in the works for three weeks. But an Obama adviser said he was told in recent days by the Pentagon that the military would consider it a campaign event.
"Senator Obama had hoped to and had every intention of visiting our troops to express his appreciation and gratitude for their service to our country," said retired Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, who advises Obama on national security matters.
"Senator Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perceived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go," Gration said.
Obama was to have stopped at Landstuhl after visiting Berlin on Thursday. He flew to Paris on Friday and will wrap up his trip abroad in London before heading back to the United States on Saturday.
Obama's trip abroad, rare for a presidential candidate, is aimed at burnishing his credentials on foreign policy. His rival in the November election, Republican John McCain, has labeled the first-term U.S. senator as too inexperienced to lead on foreign policy.
The 46-year-old Obama has also visited Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
NO PARTISAN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
The Pentagon, in a statement, cited longstanding Defense Department policy that prohibits military personnel or facilities from association with partisan political campaigns and elections.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman took issue with Gration's statement, saying that the Defense Department did not object to Obama visiting in his role as an Illinois senator but it did not want campaign staff or the media present.
"The Pentagon certainly did not tell the senator that he could not visit Landstuhl," Whitman said. "The issue here is that if you are both a sitting senator and a political candidate, when you are doing things like a visit to Landstuhl, you need to do it in your capacity as a sitting senator."
The visit to Landstuhl had not been announced on public schedules but the Obama campaign said it was planned for Friday morning and that Gration would have been the only adviser to accompany Obama and no media coverage would have been allowed.
The Landstuhl medical center near the city of Kaiserslautern is the largest American hospital outside the United States. It provides treatment to casualties injured in Afghanistan.
Senior Obama aide Robert Gibbs noted the senator had visited troops during the earlier part of his foreign tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a stop at a combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Obama also visited wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed military hospital in Washington last month.
"The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign," Gibbs said.
Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the McCain campaign said: "It is never inappropriate to visit and comfort our brave men and women who have served in combat."
In an open air speech to more than 200,000 people in the center of Berlin, Obama urged Germany Thursday to stand by the United States in stabilizing Afghanistan.
(Additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Sami Aboudi)
