McCain says Democrats make "reckless" Iraq promises

By Jeff Mason

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain accused his Democratic rivals on Monday of making "reckless" promises they cannot keep by pledging speedy U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq.

McCain's comments drew withering reactions from Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a measure of the deep divide they have over Iraq a day ahead of congressional testimony in Washington from the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

"I do not believe that anyone should make promises as a candidate for president that they cannot keep if elected," McCain said to applause in a speech to a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention.

Arizona Sen. McCain and his Democratic rivals, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, are all scheduled to be on Capitol Hill for the Petraeus testimony.

Petraeus is to provide an update on a five-year-old war that has cost more than 4,000 American lives and has been a major issue on the U.S. campaign trail.

McCain said U.S. forces should be given time for political reconciliation to take hold, saying the year-old "surge" overseen by Patraeus has led to dramatic reduction in violence and "opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi."

Clinton said McCain was pushing "four more years of the Bush-Cheney-McCain policy of continuing to police a civil war while the threats to our national security, our economy and our standing in the world mount."

"We simply cannot give the Iraqi government an endless blank check. It is time to end this war as quickly, as responsibly and as safely as possible," she said.

McCain used the word "reckless" four times to describe the Democrats' position, saying they are promoting an easier course of action to try to get an advantage in the election.

Obama had a withering response, saying McCain was "wrong about the war from the beginning."

WITHDRAWAL TALK

"It's a failure of leadership to support an open-ended occupation of Iraq that has failed to press Iraq's leaders to reconcile, badly overstretched our military, put a strain on our military families, set back our ability to lead the world and made the American people less safe," he said.

Obama and Clinton, engaged in a closely fought battle to determine which Democrat will face McCain in the November election, have vowed to begin pulling out U.S. troops from Iraq quickly after taking office in January 2009.

With security gains in Iraq still tenuous, Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were expected to say in congressional testimony that further withdrawals of American troops should be put on hold after 20,000 come home by July.

This could leave more than 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq through the end of the Bush administration.