Washington - A veterans group critical of the war in Iraq accuses John McCain of wanting to occupy Iraq indefinitely, against the wishes of the country's leaders, in an ad that will air later this week.

    The group, VoteVets.org, calls attention to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's desire for a troop withdrawal timetable. The group will spend $100,000 to run the ad on the MSNBC and CNN cable channels from Friday through the middle of next week.

    In the ad, Iraq war veteran Brandon Woods of New York says: "What did we fight for in Iraq? I have some idea. I fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom. And 'freedom' means when the Iraqi people and their Prime Minister ask us to make a plan to leave, we do. But Senator McCain would occupy Iraq indefinitely, against their wishes. That's not what freedom means. That's not what we fought for. Senator, I thought you would know better."

    Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama was in Baghdad earlier this week when Iraqi officials said they envisioned a U.S. combat troop withdrawal in 2010. That's generally the same 16-month timetable Obama has recommended.

    McCain has opposed a specific target date for pulling out troops.

    In an interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric on Tuesday, McCain said: "We've succeeded. And we will come home in victory. And it'll be based on conditions. But al-Qaida is not defeated. They're on the run, but they're not defeated. So we have to be prepared to continue to do what's necessary to succeed. ... But we have succeeded in the strategy. There's no doubt about it."

    A Republican party spokesman said Obama was putting politics before victory by supporting the surge and rejecting the advice of General David Petraeus, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. "Rather than attacking John McCain for listening to General Petraeus, this group should ask why Obama lacked the strength to stand up for our troops during a time of war," the spokesman, Alex Conant, said.

    A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 60 percent of registered voters believe a timetable for withdrawing troops is a good idea and 30 percent say it is not.

    VoteVets Action Fund, the 501(c)4 nonprofit organization that paid for the ad, is one of several outside groups airing ads critical of either McCain or of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Both McCain and Obama have criticized such groups.

    This week, two conservative groups began airing anti-Obama ads. One, by the group Citizens United airing on Fox News, features former Ohio secretary of state J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Rev. Joe Watkins, a Republican strategist, and television political analysts Tucker Carlson and Dick Morris decrying Obama's policies and his coverage by the news media. The ad coincided with the McCain campaign's own Web video, called "The Media is in Love," that protests what it calls the media's "bizarre fascination" with Obama.

    The second ad, by a nonprofit group called "Let Freedom Ring," plans to run an ad on national cable networks this week depicting Obama as duplicitous. The ad, called "Both Ways Barack," contends Obama is worse than a flip-flopper because "he holds two positions at the same time."

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