McCain attacks Rumsfeld record

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said the Iraq conflict had been mismanaged and former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would be remembered as one of the worst in history.

“We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement of Donald Rumsfeld,” the Arizona senator told an overflow crowd of more than 800 at a retirement community near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

“The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously.”

Mr McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained that Mr Rumsfeld never put enough troops on the ground to succeed in Iraq.

“I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defence in history,” Mr McCain said.

The comments were in sharp contrast to Mr McCain’s statement when Mr Rumsfeld resigned in November, and failed to address the reality that President Bush was the commander in chief.

”While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans’ respect and gratitude for his many years of public service,“ McCain said last year when Mr Rumsfeld stepped down.

On a two-day campaign swing in South Carolina, Mr McCain fielded questions from the crowd for more than an hour and said the United States could succeed in Iraq with additional troops and a new strategy.

Mr McCain has been a strong proponent of using more troops and favours Bush’s increase of 21,500 US forces in the nearly four-year-old war.

Mr McCain’s bid for president was sidetracked in South Carolina in 2000 after a victory in New Hampshire. George Bush won the primary and went on to win the nomination and White House.

“In life, one of the worst things you can do is hold a grudge,” he said. “I felt the important thing for me to do with my life was to move forward after we lost our race. You have seen other people who have lost who mire themselves in bitterness and self pity. That’s not what my life is all about.”