McCain Campaign Doing Damage Control After His Latest Statements on Iraq; Al Qaeda Executions Prompt Backlash in Iraq
ROBERTS: 27 minutes after the hour. The Republican nominee in waiting. Senator John McCain holds town hall meetings today in Nashua, New Hampshire. Later in New York City. The McCain campaign is doing damage control after his latest statements on Iraq troop withdrawal. CNN's Dana Bash joins us now. This is one line out of a quick interview yesterday that's making all kinds of news today.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're exactly right. And you know, it's interesting what the McCain campaign's goal right now is to do what you were just talking about is to get him away from frankly some awkward settings he's been in lately and getting back into his comfort zone. And that of course for him is a town hall meeting. I can guarantee you it was not to get into a war of words with Democrats over whether he wants troops to come home from Iraq.</s>BASH (voice-over): John McCain came to Pennsylvania looking for votes his advisers called crucial to fall victory. Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton here.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I don't agree with Senator Obama that they cling to their religion and the constitution because they're bitter.</s>BASH: He spoke off the cuff, surrounded by supporters at a town hall, instead of a planned speech on climate change. An attempt to recover from what advisers admit has been a presentation problem. Last week's green backdrop, teleprompter stumbles a day earlier.</s>MCCAIN: I will veto every single bill with earmarks.</s>BASH: But finding his general election mojo hit a bump earlier in the morning, when McCain was asked if he knows when troops can come home from Iraq.</s>MCCAIN: No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan.</s>BASH: Not a new theme for McCain who consistently argues the emphasis should be on stability in Iraq before troop withdrawal. But Democrats heard the phrase "not too important" and pounced with a deluge of statements. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying, "He just doesn't get the grave national security consequences of staying the course." It was reminiscent of another McCain line Democrats made infamous when he was trying to make the same point.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our saying in Iraq for 50 years.</s>MCCAIN: Maybe 100.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that what --</s>MCCAIN: We've been in South Korea -- we've been in Japan for 60 years.</s>BASH: The McCain campaign scrambled a conference call with allies to fight back.</s>VOICE OF SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN: I view the attacks on Senator McCain this morning as another partisan attempt to distort John McCain's words.</s>BASH: McCain chose his words on Iraq more carefully at the town hall.</s>MCCAIN: Is it long and hard and difficult and are the casualties painful to us, even one? Of course.</s>BASH: McCain's blunt statement that it's not too important for how long U.S. troops are in Iraq, really, John, obviously was a gift to Democrats. It's interesting because many of them are looking at what's going on in Iraq and admit that there is, at least for now, progress because of the surge strategy that John McCain initially pushed. And they're wondering whether or not the war in Iraq may not be as much as a political liability for McCain as they hoped.</s>ROBERTS: Back to the issue of the town hall versus the scripted speech. He does so much better in the town hall than he does in the scripted speech. But it can't be all town halls between now and November.</s>BASH: Absolutely. And that is part of the problem that the McCain campaign has. You know, for the past three months while a lot of focus has been on Democrats, John McCain has given speech after speech, laying out his policies and he's been doing it on the teleprompter because he wants to give very specific, very scripted speeches, laying out what he wants to do as president. But they realize that it's definitely not the best setting for him at all. So they're trying to have this combination of that and these town hall meetings. That's one of the many reasons why they want to have these very high-profile town hall meetings with Barack Obama because they recognize that, bar none, that is his absolute best setting. Another quick thing, you hear more and more from the McCain campaign, them saying, you know, we understand that our candidate isn't somebody who gives eloquent speeches that Barack Obama is perhaps the most eloquent politician ever. They're trying to lower the expectation for McCain, raise the bar for Obama and say for him it's about substance. They realize there's not much more they can do.</s>ROBERTS: We look forward to your reporting later on today on this town hall meeting. Dana, thanks.</s>PHILLIPS: Continue to follow breaking news across the Midwest, right now rivers are rising from Minnesota to as far as Missouri, straining a number of aging levees, bridges and dams and the rain, it just keeps coming. Evacuations are in effect for downtown Cedar Falls, Iowa as well, neighboring Waterloo and parts of Indiana. And in western Iowa, a tornado cut a path of destruction right through a Boy Scout camp. Four teens ages 13 and 14 were killed, three were scouts, one was a staff member. That same weather system also spawning tornadoes in Kansas. Two people were killed there. Something you'll only see on CNN, top secret files from al Qaeda in Iraq, revealing the group's extreme brutality may have led to its own unraveling. Those papers and never seen before execution videos fell into civilian hands after fighters started switching sides. A warning that some of you to or a lot of you rather, these images you're about to see are pretty disturbing. CNN's Michael Ware has the exclusive report from Baghdad.</s>MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: : What we're about to share is a window inside al Qaeda in Iraq like we've never seen before. In fact, only members of al Qaeda itself or a few within the U.S. intelligence community have ever had such a snapshot. This comes from a trove of documents, the largest collection of al Qaeda materials in Iraq to fall into civilian hands, which were taken from a headquarters overrun by U.S.-backed militia and given to CNN. Al Qaeda gunmen brought this man here to die, staged for maximum impact, he's to be executed on this busy market street. We don't know why. The al Qaeda members who recorded this tape offer no explanation. But the anticipation is agonizing, leading to a moment we cannot show you, a punishment for betraying al Qaeda or for breaking their strict version of Islamic law? Either way, it was public executions like this that would help lead to the unraveling of al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda knew it. Its leaders recognize their greatest threat was not the U.S. military, but the men in the crowds who witnessed the slaughters and who would eventually turn against them. In fact, in this secret memo three years ago, a senior al Qaeda leader warned against a backlash for the public executions. They were being carried out, he wrote, in the wrong way, in a semi-public way. So a lot of families are threatening revenge and this is now a dangerous intelligence situation. But it took U.S. intelligence more than a year to understand al Qaeda's weakness. Most of these men were once insurgents or al Qaeda themselves. Now they're on the U.S. government payroll, assassinating al Qaeda and patrolling the streets. And it was one of these U.S.- backed militias as unforgiving as this one who overran an al Qaeda headquarters. They discovered computer hard drives with thousands of documents and hours upon hours of videotape and passed them all on to the U.S. military and to CNN. This gives us an insight into the inner workings of al Qaeda in Iraq. It reveals an organization far more sophisticated, far more bureaucratic. Indeed in one headquarters alone, there were 80 execution videos that were never put on air or used for propaganda. They were merely used to verify the killings to their superiors. So we get an insight on the like we've never seen into an organization more menacing than many had feared.</s>PHILLIPS: You can see Michael Ware's entire exclusive report on "AC 360" tonight 10:00 Eastern.</s>ROBERTS: You're watching the most news in the morning. Are wives fair game? Barack Obama supporters say enough is enough with going after Michelle Obama. A look at the attacks that we've seen so far.</s>PHILLIPS: And the United States giving more than a billion dollars to Mexico to try and keep that country's current drug violence from coming across the border. We're going to talk live to our Zain Verjee.