Per the AP, John McCain is in Iraq today and will meet with important allies later this week:
McCain met with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh on Sunday and planned to meet with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, according to the U.S. Embassy. Further details of McCain's visit, which had been anticipated, were not being released for security reasons, the embassy said.
McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was accompanied by Sens. Joe Lieberman, an independent, and Republican Lindsey Graham, two top supporters of his presidential ambitions.
The week-long trip will take McCain to Israel, Britain and France, and include his first meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He also is expected to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials.
McCain's trip to Iraq is his eighth. Last November, he met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
Violence has dropped throughout the capital since, with an influx of some 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers sent to Iraq last year. The U.S. military has said attacks have fallen by about 60% since last February.
McCain's trip comes as new polling numbers over the weekend shows trepidation towards Iraq. Only 40% of Americans still think victory in Iraq is possible, while 52% want to "Withdraw Most Troops by 2009." While those numbers are not reassuring, the more interesting tidbit parsed from the poll is the trend in the numbers.
Over the past year those who think victory is possible has steadily ticked upward. Similarly, those who want to withdraw has ticked steadily downward. The trend seems to coincide with the progress in Iraq.
The key word in the poll is "Most." ElephantBiz thinks that if the poll asked if Americans were in favor of 'Immediate and Complete Withdrawal,' support would be much lower.
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