McCain camp: Obama shortchanged injured troops

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-27 09:00

In turn, Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama and McCain both believed that troops should be honored and noted that the Illinois senator had visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan last week and had made numerous trips to Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Obama still didn't want injured soldiers "pulled into the back-and-forth of a political campaign," Vietor said in a statement.

"That's why we imagine Sen. McCain would be surprised that his campaign released this wildly inappropriate accusation that politicizes the issue," Vietor said.

On Thursday, the day Obama gave an evening address to an estimated 200,000 people in Berlin, his campaign issued two written statements about the canceled trip to Ramstein Air Base and the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. In the first, no mention was made of Pentagon misgivings, only that Obama "decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a US military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign." A second statement, by retired general and Obama adviser Scott Gration, mentioned the Pentagon's involvement.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Friday that a trip from Berlin to Ramstein had been planned for weeks, with Obama expecting to leave most staff and reporters at the airport while he went to the hospital to avoid appearances of a campaign event. After the Pentagon raised concerns within two days of the visit, it was scrapped, he said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Obama would have been required to conform to the Defense Department prohibtion of political activity, but that the senator was never told he couldn't visit the hospital.

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