Senators Obama and McCain Clash Over Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Thank you, Wolf. Tonight Senators Obama and McCain facing off over the conduct in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the two senators offering voters very different outlooks for how to win. And tonight an issue the presidential candidates simply aren't talking about, the escalating violence from Mexican drug cartels now spreading across the border into the United States. And tonight compelling new evidence the so-called Department of Labor is really nothing more than the Department of Cheap Labor. We'll have that special report on the Bush administration's failure to protect working men and women, all of that, all the day's news, and much more with an independent perspective straight ahead here tonight.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is</s>LOU DOBBS TONIGHT: news, debate, and opinion for Tuesday, July 15th. Live from New York, Lou Dobbs.</s>DOBBS: Good evening, everybody. Senator Obama today trying to convince skeptical voters that he would be a better commander in chief than Senator McCain. Obama declaring the war in Iraq has become what he called a dangerous distraction as he called for a new strategy to fight al Qaeda. Senator McCain ridiculing Obama's speech, calling it naive and premature, McCain announcing a new plan to defeat radical Islamic terrorist in Afghanistan, saying he knows how to win wars. We have extensive coverage tonight of both speeches, and we begin with Candy Crowley in Washington -- Candy.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know Lou, there are a lot of differences between these two candidates, but there is probably no brighter red line than Iraq.</s>CROWLEY (voice-over): The Iraq war, says Barack Obama, distracts from every threat the U.S. faces.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq and it never was. And that's why the second goal of my new strategy will be taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.</s>CROWLEY: Obama's foreign policy speech came as he prepares for an expected trip to the Middle East. After a couple of weeks of criticism that he was wavering on his plan to withdraw troops and as new numbers suggest he needs to power up his foreign policy pitch. An ABC/"Washington Post" poll found 72 percent of Americans think John McCain would be a good commander in chief for the military; 48 percent say that of Obama. And even though the vast majority of Americans are against the war, McCain has a marginal lead when respondents were asked who do they more trust to handle Iraq.</s>OBAMA: George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq. They have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They say we couldn't leave when violence was up, and they now say that we can't leave when violence is down.</s>CROWLEY: Continued reports that increased U.S. troop levels decreased violence have given McCain a chance to pressure Obama for refusing to change his position on withdrawal. Obama concedes the surge successes but focuses on broadening the discussion.</s>OBAMA: The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike in Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I will not.</s>CROWLEY: The message he hopes to send, Barack Obama is willing to use U.S. military muscle if the time and place are right.</s>CROWLEY: His battle also included a little word from the oval office when President Bush got into this fray, suggesting that, when Obama does visit Iraq, he listen to the commanders on the ground because, Bush said, he understands that sometimes politics drown out the voices of the commanders -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Well, one of the things that is drowned out here is the meaning of not tolerating a terrorist sanctuary. Is Senator Obama saying preemptively that he would attack Pakistan?</s>CROWLEY: He has said before -- and he repeated again today -- that if Pakistan will not or cannot strike at al Qaeda members that are across the border in Pakistan, that he would strike, that he would go ahead and do that if he had intelligence to show that there was an al Qaeda nest there. He would go ahead and go in, or, obviously, he could launch some sort of aerial assault.</s>DOBBS: Broadening the war as a way in which to end it is, I think at best, a questionable strategy. What has been the reaction to that?</s>CROWLEY: Well, he has -- Barack Obama has always said the war was never in Iraq. It was always in Afghanistan. We're now seeing increased deaths there. We need to take some of the brigades out of Iraq and put them over in Afghanistan. Now, John McCain is now also saying, yes, we need to put more troops into Afghanistan. Afghanistan has always been a part of it. This is now kind of a change in emphasis from Obama. As you know, what's happened is that the surge has been somewhat successful in bringing the violence down in Iraq. That's kind of taking it off the front pages at least, and now Obama's trying to kind of switch that subject over to Afghanistan.</s>DOBBS: Yes, I think we can state without any qualification, rather than somewhat successful, I think, Candy that we can say it has been dramatically successful in reducing the number of American lives lost there. Extraordinarily so, I think, in the minds of most. Candy, thank you very much -- Candy Crowley. Well Senator McCain strongly criticized Senator Obama's speech. McCain declaring sending more troops to Afghanistan by itself is not enough to achieve victory. McCain presented a new strategy for Afghanistan based on the principles behind the surge in Iraq. Dana Bash has our report from Washington.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The next president will inherit a situation in Iraq...</s>DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Experience is his calling card, and on a day both candidates talked national security, John McCain laid this down as a basic test.</s>MCCAIN: I know how to win wars.</s>BASH: He offered proof, a new proposal for Afghanistan, where violence has spiked.</s>MCCAIN: And I'll turn around the war in Afghanistan just as we have turned around the war in Iraq with a comprehensive strategy for victory.</s>BASH: McCain was an early supporter of the military surge in Iraq, which he repeatedly tells voters is working. He said he would apply those lessons to Afghanistan, more troops and a better strategy for how to use them.</s>MCCAIN: A nationwide civil military campaign that is focused on providing security for the population. Today know such integrated plan exists. When I'm commander in chief, it will.</s>BASH: Specifically, McCain would send three more brigades to Afghanistan, called for a doubling of the Afghan Army to 160,000 troops, and said a unified military commander must be in charge of all forces there. But this was as much about slamming Barack Obama's war plans as presenting his own. Obama wants to take troops out of Iraq and send them to Afghanistan.</s>MCCAIN: Senator Obama will tell you we can't win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards. It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan.</s>BASH: He mocked Obama for outlining his plan for Afghanistan before ever visiting the country.</s>MCCAIN: Fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around. First you assess the facts on the ground then you present a new strategy.</s>BASH (on camera): Later on his bus, McCain continued to hit Obama on his national security credentials. McCain reminded reporters that Obama is chairman of the Senate committee that oversees NATO, which has command in Afghanistan, but Obama has never held a hearing -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Nor has Senator Obama ever been to Afghanistan. Dana, thank you very much. Dana Bash from Washington. Insurgents in Afghanistan killed another of our troops. The soldier was killed by a roadside bomb. Fifteen of our troops have now been killed in Afghanistan so far this month; nine of our troops killed during that attack on a combat outpost Sunday; 473 of our troops have been killed in Afghanistan since that war began; 2,204 of our troops have been wounded in Afghanistan; 1,380 of them seriously. Violence in Afghanistan, as we've been reporting here, is escalating. More of our troops being killed in Afghanistan each month than Iraq. And today a top U.S. commander in Afghanistan told CNN that he urgently needs more troops and more armored vehicles. Barbara Starr has our report.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan, new indications of just how bad things are this summer. CNN has learned that top U.S. military officials are considering whether to recommend Afghanistan should become as high a military priority as Iraq. Until now, Iraq has always been the major combat arena. U.S. commanders in Afghanistan are asking for more troops to be sent within weeks. Until now, more troops were not expected until next year. In an exclusive interview with CNN, the U.S. military's operations chief in Afghanistan says he also needs more MRAP, mine-resistant armored vehicles.</s>BRIG. GEN. MARK MILLEY, DEPUTY CMDR., 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION: Our estimate is, is that additional forces are needed during this fighting season. We've asked, you know, the folks back home to -- in the Pentagon, in the big Army and elsewhere, to produce and ship over more MRAPs.</s>STARR: Commanders say the threat is deeper than just a growing number of insurgents. The Taliban have more money and better organization.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are exhibiting a better level of training and leadership than they have in previous years.</s>STARR: The general also says he's fairly sure he knows which insurgent leader was behind the attack that killed nine U.S. troops and that local Afghans know more than they're telling about how nearly 200 insurgents were able to assemble.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no doubt in my mind that the local villages had to know something was up, exactly who and when and how many, et cetera, that kind of stuff is probably unknown.</s>STARR: A senior U.S. military official says the most worrisome sign, those 200 insurgents may have crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan undetected and unstopped. Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.</s>DOBBS: As Barbara just reported, our military commanders in Afghanistan now want more troops and within weeks. Senators Obama and McCain have both promised to send more troops to Afghanistan next year. Obama says he will deploy at least two additional combat brigades, some 7,000 troops. McCain says he would deploy even more troops, three additional combat brigades, more than 10,000 of our troops. Those plans are not too different, however, from proposals that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is already considering, Secretary Gates preparing to send two more combat brigades to Afghanistan early next year. A deadly bomb attack today in Iraq, in fact, the worst in weeks, two suicide bombers killed at least 28 Iraqis outside an Army recruiting station in Baquba, north of Baghdad. More than 60 people were wounded. Insurgents frequently targeted Army recruits who gather outside Army bases looking for jobs, and a separate suicide bomb attack in Mosul in northern Iraq killed nine people there. Up next, more on the conduct of these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, also tonight, a war that some say is as bad as the war in Iraq, the out of control drug cartel violence that is sweeping across Mexico into the United States. And the Department of Labor proving again it is the Department of Cheap Labor, putting business interests ahead of the interests of working men and women. We'll have that special report and a great deal more. Stay with us. We're coming right back.