McCain Discusses Iraq Market Visit

Senator John McCain says the House, the Senate and the majority of the American people are all wrong when it comes to Iraq. He set out to prove it last week by walking into the heart of Baghdad. What he said about security after that walk set off front page outrage in the media. Correspondent Scott Pelley and a 60 Minutes team were the only reporters with McCain.

McCain is gambling his bid for the White House on success in the war. When Pelley sat down with him in Iraq, he said Americans can't lose their nerve now, just when he thinks there's reason to hope.

"I wonder at what point do you stop doing what you think is right and you start doing what the majority of the American people want?" Pelley asks.

"Well, again, I disagree with what the majority of the American people want. Failure will lead to chaos, withdrawal will lead to chaos," McCain replies.

With pressure to withdraw building at home, McCain landed in the midst of the Baghdad surge and did something that would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago.

The new commander, Army General David Petraeus, sealed McCain inside the latest armored Humvee, soldiers call it a "Full Up Frag 5," and took McCain on a Sunday drive to the market.

Gen. Petraeus wrote the book on the Bush administration's new strategy. He started eight weeks ago, moving U.S. troops off bases and into neighborhoods to clear and hold the streets. The centerpiece is the al Shorja market. Two months ago it was devastated by a car bomb. Now the Army has banned vehicles and laid on extra security.

Petraeus brought McCain to a rug shop, an ordinary scene, until you step back to see the 22 soldiers outside. Inside, McCain did his own reporting, asking the rug merchant, "In the last two months are things better or worse?"

The merchant said things are better, but, he said, there are snipers in the neighborhood that sometimes paralyze the market. The tour of the bazaar seemed, well, a little bizarre. The delegation played the role of tourists while surrounded by enormous firepower. The guns, though, couldn't protect McCain from his own words.

The week before, trying to build support for the surge, he said this on television: "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee."

And he said this on the radio: "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today."

Those words came back to haunt him in a Baghdad news conference. And he made it worse.

"Senator McCain, I just read in the Internet that you said there are areas in Baghdad that you can walk around freely," a reporter asked.

"Yeah, I just came from one," McCain replied.

But backing up that stroll through the market were ten armored Humvees, soldiers with rifles, and two Apache attack helicopters circling overhead.

"I understand why they would provide me with that security but I can tell you if it had been two months ago and I'd asked to do it, they'd a said, 'Under no circumstances whatsoever.' I view that as a sign of progress," McCain tells Pelley.

"You mentioned in an interview that General Petraeus sometimes goes into Baghdad in an unarmored Humvee, and that there were neighborhoods you can walk though without being concerned for your safety," Pelley asks the senator.

"There is no unarmored Humvee, obviously that's the case," McCain says. "I'm trying to make the point over and over and over again that we are making progress. There are signs of progress. But it's long and it's hard and it's tough."

"You were a little annoyed with yourself, I think," Pelley remarks.

"Of course I'm going to misspeak and I've done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do in the future. I regret that when I divert attention to something that I've said from my message but you know that's just life, and I'm happy frankly with the way I operate, otherwise it would be a lot less fun," McCain says.

He's worried that the market misspeak is distracting from his conviction that the strategy is working after years of mismanagement by the Bush administration.

McCain describes former Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as one of the worst secretaries of defense in the history of the country. Asked why he says so, McCain says, "Well, the war was just very badly mismanaged, there's ample evidence of that."

"But the secretary of defense is not commander-in-chief," Pelley remarks.

"No, he's not," McCain agrees.

"What responsibility does the president bear for this?" Pelley asks.

"Again, I think the president has great responsibility for it, the buck always stops there," McCain says.

"But you seem to give President Bush a pass even though you are so hard on how this war was managed you don't seem to criticize the president for that," Pelley says.

"I say that he is responsible and I'll continue to say he is responsible. Should I look back in anger or should I look forward and say 'Lets support this new strategy, support this new general, and let's give it everything we can to have it succeed,'" McCain replies.
Success of the surge is critical to the campaign. But at home, for the moment, voters aren't convinced.

Pelley caught up with McCain on the campaign trail, in New Hampshire. He was once the frontrunner but now, nationwide, he's running behind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. And in fundraising, he's last among major candidates. Nine months before the primary, he's working retail politics with Cindy, his wife of 27 years, the wealthy heiress to a beer fortune.

On stage, he's a Republican who doesn't always keep company with his party. He says he's against abortion, but for stem cell research. He warns that global warming is a threat and that the country needs more nuclear power.

And above all is the McCain mantra that the Republican party has been spending the country into ruin. "We let spending get out of control to a degree where it led to corruption," he says.

How did it happen?

"We lost our way. We began to value power over principle," McCain says.

"It's not the party that you hoped it would be?" Pelley asks,

"Absolutely," McCain says. "Nor is it the party that Ronald Reagan hoped we would be."

On the road to the primaries, 60 Minutes found one issue he doesn't like much, but one that shadows his campaign.

"CBS News did a poll in March, and asked people, 'How old do you think the President of the United States should be?' More than half said in his 50s. Would you hazard a guess how many thought the president should be in his 70s?" Pelley asks.

"I don't like this line of questioning at all. I find it offensive. I'm sure that it was a small, it was a small number. But, let me respond to that right away," McCain replies.

"It was zero, Senator," Pelley points out.

"Okay, zero. But, the fact is that it's how you display yourself. I work seven days a week, 12, 14, 16 hours a day. I didn't see anybody in that town hall that was worried about my age. It's how you conduct yourself that's gonna be the key to it," McCain says.

At 70, he works even on the way to the barber. He seems inexhaustible. If McCain is stiff, it's from the crippling injuries he suffered after he was shot down and then tortured in North Vietnam in 1967. There has been no return of the skin cancer that he battled seven years ago, but it left him with long scars which he covers with a joke.

"It's my barber Mario that did that, butcher," McCain jokes.

In his office, American history is a family portrait, five generations at West Point or Annapolis. Relatives include generals and admirals.

"This is my father in Vietnam when he was commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific," McCain says, pointing out a photo.

And now McCain's family is serving again. He has a son in the Naval Academy and another son, 18 years old, headed to Iraq.

His son Jimmy volunteered to serve. Why?

"'Cause he's a fine, patriotic American," McCain says.

Asked if he tried to talk his son out of it, the senator says, "No. But I really don't talk about him or my other son very much. I think my son is no different than the thousands and thousands of other sons and daughters who decide they wanna serve their country. And I'm not sure it's much more complicated than that."
What is complicated for McCain is, ironically, the politics. The ugliness and compromises don't suit him. He's seen lust for the Oval Office bring out the worst in his opponents and, he admitted to 60 Minutes, the worst in him. Both happened in the year 2000 after the New Hampshire primary. He had beaten George W. Bush and South Carolina was the showdown.

"In the 2000 campaign in South Carolina, there was a whispering campaign that you had fathered a child, a black child, and it was a vicious slander against you, your wife Cindy, and your daughter, who you adopted from Bangladesh," Pelley says.

Asked if he believes the Bush campaign was behind this, McCain says, "I do not know whether the Bush campaign was behind it or not. I know that there were most likely supporters of the Bush campaign that were behind it. But I don't have hard evidence that the Bush campaign was behind it. And, yes, I was angry about it. And, yes, I remained angry for some period of time. And, yes, I'm over it. You move on in life. You can't dwell on past injustices."

"How is that forgivable?" Pelley asks.

"Many injustices have been done to me in my life. And people have come to me and said, 'I wanna move on,'" McCain says.

By 2004, McCain moved on to a tight embrace of the president. He supported making permanent the tax cuts he once opposed and he's the president's most important ally on Iraq.

"Let me bring up another issue that surrounded South Carolina in the year 2000. There was a political issue, a local issue about whether the Confederate flag should fly over the Capitol. You waffled on that," Pelley says.

"Yes. Worse than waffled," McCain acknowledges.

Asked what he means, McCain says, "Well, I said that it was strictly a state issue and clearly knowing that it wasn't."

"That's not what you believed in your heart?" Pelley asks.

"No," the senator says.

"What did you believe in your heart?" Pelley asks.

"That it was a symbol to many of, a very offensive symbol to many, many Americans," McCain says.

Why did he say that in 2000?

"I'm sure for all the wrong reasons," McCain says.

Asked what those wrong reasons would be, McCain tells Pelley, "For ambition."

Was it ambition this week that caused him to star in the show in the Baghdad market or worry that the American audience is leaving the theater even as the Bush administration is rewriting the script?

60 Minutes flew with McCain to Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency. On a U.S. base there he met with a Sunni sheikh whose father and two brothers were killed by al Qaeda. The sheikh told McCain that his tribe and others are now joining the U.S.

"Whoever points a gun at any American soldier, it's like he points a gun at our families, at our military, and it's the same thing," the sheik said.

To McCain it was a sign of progress, but he understands there's still a war to fight. Over the two days of his visit, eight Americans were killed in action.

"Senator, are you betting your candidacy that the surge strategy is going to work?" Pelley asks.

"Oh, I think that may be the case. But I don't worry about it or think about it," McCain says. "There's too many young people who have sacrificed too much for our country and their sacrifice is far more important than any than any ambitions of mine. And I've said a few times I'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war."

Produced By Tom Anderson