Obama campaign: McCain flubs on Iraq timeline

But Obama's campaign says McCain was wrong about the war's timeline during a nationally televised interview Tuesday.

Asked about Obama's contention that a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida combined with the addition of thousands of U.S. combat troops that were sent to Iraq contributed to the improved security situation there, McCain scoffed.

"I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened," McCain told "CBS Evening News," adding that Col. Sean MacFarland was contacted by a major Sunni sheik.

"Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening," McCain said, referring to the U.S.-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida in Anbar province. "I mean, that's just a matter of history."

The problem with McCain's statement--as Obama's campaign quickly noted--was that the awakening got under way before President Bush announced in January 2007 his decision to flood Iraq with tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to help combat violence.

In March 2007, before the first of the additional troops began arriving in Iraq, Col. John W. Charlton, the American commander responsible for Ramadi, a city in Anbar province, said the newly friendly sheiks, combined with an aggressive counterinsurgency strategy and the presence of thousands of new Sunni police on the streets, had helped cut attacks in the city by half in recent months.

A spokesman for McCain did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Obama, who opposed the war from the start and says he will pursue a 16-month timetable for withdrawing combat troops if he is elected, toured the war zone this week.

"If he had his way, we would have been out last March," McCain, who supports U.S. military involvement in Iraq, said Tuesday. "We would have never succeeded and we would have had defeat. ... He was wrong then, he is wrong now."