January 31, 2008
News from New Hampshire:
IRAQ
-- McCain: 100 YEARS IN IRAQ 'WOULD BE
FINE WITH ME,' EVEN 'A MILLION YEARS':
During a town hall meeting in Derry, New
Hampshire last night, Sen. John McCain
(R-AZ) told a crowd of roughly two hundred people that it "would be
fine" with him if the U.S. military
stayed in Iraq for "maybe
a hundred years." "We've been in
Japan for 60 years.
We've been in South
Korea 50 years or so," added McCain. Asked about the
remark later by Mother Jones's David Corn, McCain reaffirmed it,
"excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in
Iraq for
'a thousand years'
or 'a million years,' as far as he was concerned."
McCain's embrace of an indefinite presence in
Iraq modeled on South Korea
contradicts what he told PBS's
Charlie Rose in late November. "Do you
think that this -- Korea, South Korea
is an analogy of where Iraq might be?"
asked Rose. "I
don't think so," replied McCain. "I think because of
the nature of the society in Iraq and
the religious aspects of it that America eventually withdraws."