March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Senator John McCain, returning to the U.S. after a trip to Europe and the Mideast, accused Democrats of refusing to acknowledge gains being made in improving security in Iraq.
``My Democratic opponents who want to pull out of Iraq refuse to understand what is happening,'' McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, told a group at a veterans town hall in Chula Vista, California. ``We are winning in Iraq.''
McCain said allied forces are taking the fight to al-Qaeda in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and are making progress that would be undermined by pulling out U.S. forces. Insisting he isn't ``painting to you the most rosy scenario,'' McCain said, ``If we set a date for withdrawal, the way Senator Clinton and Senator Obama do, all of that will be lost.''
Democratic presidential rivals Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois support what they call an orderly withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
McCain, conceding that U.S. alliances in Europe are frayed, said his call for a new treaty to slow global warming was well received in London and Paris. He also said that President Nicholas Sarkozy of France expressed support for committing more NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Health Care, Economy
McCain talked about health care and the economy at today's meeting before turning to a recent audio recording in which al- Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden described Iraq as the center of Muslim global jihad against the West.
``For the first time, I have seen Osama Bin Laden and General Petraeus in agreement,'' McCain said. ``The central battleground is in Iraq today.'' General David Petraeus is the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said in an e-mailed statement that ``John McCain's only plan for Iraq is 100 years of President Bush's open-ended commitment to a failed strategy.''
McCain is on the West Coast this week to raise campaign funds and appear at town hall meetings.
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