Obama ponders visit to Iraq, minus McCain

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama is considering a visit to Iraq this summer, his first since becoming a presidential candidate.

The Democrat, who has been criticized by Republican rival John McCain for not visiting Iraq since 2006, revealed his plans to the New York Times. He also declined McCain’s invitation for a joint trip.

“I just don’t want to be involved in a political stunt,” Obama said, according to a report on the newspaper’s Web site Wednesday.

“I think that if I’m going to Iraq, then I’m there to talk to troops and talk to commanders,” he said in the interview. “I’m not there to try to score political points or perform. The work they’re doing there is too important.”

McCain said he was pleased to hear that Obama was considering making the trip.

“It’s long overdue,” he told reporters in Los Angeles.

But that apparently welcome news gave the rivals another opportunity to engage each other on major campaign issues – the war in Iraq and who possesses the leadership and judgment to be the next commander in chief.

McCain supports continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq; Obama opposes the war and wants to bring home the troops.

McCain said Obama “was driven to his position by ideology and not by the facts on the ground. And he does not have the knowledge or the experience to make the judgments. Presidents have to listen and learn. Presidents have to make judgments no matter how popular or unpopular they may be.”

Obama, who spoke to reporters on his airplane Wednesday night as he flew home to Chicago, said it’s “not relevant” that he hasn’t been to Iraq since 2006 and that McCain was using the argument as a diversion.

“I don’t think John McCain or the Bush administration have a very strong argument to make about their foreign policy, so they’re going to try to come up with diversions or distractions and not argue the substance,” Obama said.

The Illinois senator made his only trip to Iraq in January 2006 as part of a congressional delegation. McCain, a senator from Arizona, has been to Iraq eight times, most recently in March.