McCain rips Obama's Iraq pullout timetable

By Steve Holland

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Thursday ridiculed Democrat Barack Obama's vow to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in 16 months as a political tactic aimed at getting votes.

McCain, an Arizona senator, attacked Obama as the Democrat prepares to go on a foreign trip to the Middle East and Europe that the McCain camp called a rolling overseas campaign event.

Obama in a speech this week stuck by his pledge to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq in 16 months, a policy McCain said would sacrifice the security gains that have recently brought a measure of stability to parts of the country.

"This success that we have achieved is still fragile and could be reversed," McCain said on his campaign bus. "And if we do what Sen. Obama wants to do, then all of that could be reversed," and leave behind chaos and Iranian influence, he said.

In a town hall meeting in Kansas City, McCain said troop withdrawals must be governed by the situation on the ground, "not some artificial, politically inspired" timetable.

Obama is expected to soon go to Iraq and Afghanistan, the two major foreign policy challenges the next president will face. McCain called the visit "long, long overdue."

McCain, who is running behind Obama in public opinion polls, was trying to make a major campaign issue of Obama's Iraq policy in hopes of convincing Americans that the Illinois senator is too inexperienced to be trusted to lead the country as commander in chief.

On his bus, he said he hoped Obama will listen not only to commanders on the ground in the two war zones but also to the troops.