Senator John McCain stepped up his critique of Senator Barack Obama on Thursday by accusing him for the second consecutive day of a willingness to hand over Iraq to Al Qaeda, as the Democratic contenders released record-breaking fund-raising figures.At a news conference at Hobby Airport in Houston, where Mr. McCain was endorsed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Mr. McCain opened with a formulation of why he contended Mr. Obama is not ready to be commander in chief.
“On the issue of my differences with Senator Obama on Iraq, I want to make it very clear: This is not about decisions that were made in the past,” Mr. McCain said. “This is about decisions that a president will have to make about the future in Iraq. And a decision to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq will lead to chaos.”
Mr. McCain, the likely Republican nominee for president, was reacting to Mr. Obama’s response to a hypothetical question in a debate in Cleveland on Tuesday night, when Mr. Obama said that although he intended to withdraw American forces as quickly as possible, he reserved the right to send troops back if Al Qaeda were forming a base in Iraq. “Al Qaeda is there now,” Mr. McCain said in Houston, with a tone of belittlement in his voice. “So to state that somehow if Al Qaeda were there that he would consider going back militarily is really a remarkable comment, and I don’t think displays an understanding of the size of the threat and what’s at stake in Iraq.”