Galbraith hits McCain

Former ambassador and potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter Galbraith is hitting John McCain.

“Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign rests on the false premise that the surge in Iraq is working,” Galbraith says. “As part of the surge, the Bush Administration began financing Sunni militias called the Awakening.  While they have fought al-Qaeda, they consist mainly of unreconstructed supporters of Saddam Hussein.  They have no interest in democracy, a supposed American goal in Iraq, and bitterly oppose Iraq’s government.  Senator McCain boasts of a drop in violence in Iraq but this may be only temporary.  After a brief lull, suicide bomb attacks and sectarian killings are again increasing in Iraq.  Senator McCain, who has spoken of a hundred year U.S. presence in Iraq, would have the U.S. continue to support an Iraqi government that is Iran’s closest ally in the world and a Sunni militia filled with supporters of Saddam Hussein as these two groups prepare to fight a civil war against each other.  Vermonters sensibly reject President Bush’s disastrous Iraq War that John McCain would continue.”