McCain: Obama's Plan Could 'Reverse' Progress in Iraq

July 23, 2008 — -- Sen. John McCain warns that Sen. Barack Obama's troop withdrawal plan could reverse progress in Iraq, forcing Americans to return to Iraq to fight a wider war.

"We have succeeded but it's still fragile. Senator Obama's strategy could easily reverse all the hard-fought gains we made," McCain told ABC News' David Wright on Wednesday in an interview that will air in part on "World News with Charles Gibson."

"If we do what Senator Obama wants us to do, we will risk having to come back and risk a wider war and defeat in the first major war since 9/11," McCain said. "And that could be, have, is fraught with consequences of the United States of America's security."

Watch David Wright's interview with Sen. John McCain tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson at 6:30ET.

McCain's comments come a day after the Republican presumptive nominee unveiled new, harsh language in his attacks on his Democratic rival for not supporting President Bush's 2007 troop "surge" policy in Iraq -- a policy advocated by McCain. The policy is credited in part with helping to reduce violence in Iraq in the last year.

"I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign," McCain told a crowd of 400 on Tuesday in Rochester, N.H. McCain repeated the line Wednesday at a campaign event in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Asked today whether he believes Obama would actually prefer losing in Iraq so that he could win the White House, McCain pointed to Obama's comments made to ABC News' Terry Moran Monday, in which he acknowledged that the surge succeeded in providing greater security, but that he stands by his original opposition to it.

"I cannot believe that any objective observer can conclude that the surge did not work and is not succeeding," McCain told Wright. "It has succeeded and it is and we are winning this war and we will come home with victory and with honor."

"We are responsible for our records. I was right. Senator Obama was wrong. So therefore, I think I have more credibility about what the future should be as opposed to Senator Obama, who if he had had his way, we would very likely be involved in a wider war today if we had done what he wanted to do," McCain told Wright.