Bush's campaign companion casts doubt on Kerry's troop reduction plan

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - President Bush opposes Democratic rival John Kerry's timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq and Sen. John McCain suggested Wednesday that even more troops may be needed.

Kerry said this week that he hoped to begin reducing U.S. troop strength in Iraq within six months of taking office, if elected, but that it would depend on broader international assistance, better stability in Iraq and other factors.

Bush dismissed the plan as a politically driven one that would cut short the mission and aid the enemy.

"The key is not to set artificial timelines," Bush said Tuesday while campaigning for re-election in Niceville, Fla. He said the Massachusetts senator's plan would signal the enemy that, "Gosh, all we've got to do is wait them out."

McCain, who accompanied Bush, said both he and the president would love to bring the troops home tomorrow, but that any such plan depends on the situation in Iraq. On Wednesday, a roadside bomb exploded near a Baghdad market, killing at least six Iraqis, as insurgents battled U.S. forces in the seventh day of fighting in Najaf.

"I think the events on the ground right now indicate clearly that we cannot bring anybody home," McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview Wednesday. "In certain areas we may even have to strengthen our troop presence in the form of special forces and others.

"So I just don't know how you do that. I just don't know how you achieve it without knowing the facts on the ground six months from now," the senator said from Bush's ranch, where he spent the night after a bus tour with the president on Tuesday through the military rich and heavily Republican Florida Panhandle.

Bush was likely to show McCain around the ranch and ride his bicycle, aides said, before they leave for campaign events Wednesday in Albuquerque, N.M., and Phoenix just days after Kerry passed through the region.

Bush lost New Mexico by 366 votes in the 2000 presidential election. He managed a narrow win in Arizona, which has voted for the Democrat only once in the past 14 White House campaigns.

In New Mexico, the number of registered Hispanic voters has increased by about 35,000 since the 2000 presidential election, and that segment of the electorate traditionally votes Democratic by a margin of roughly 2-to-1.

But the president's strength there is "basically a question of Bush's style compared to the Bostonian style of Kerry," says University of New Mexico political science professor F. Chris Garcia.

"Hispanic people in every survey I've seen and from my own contacts I know feel more comfortable about Bush as a person than Kerry," said Garcia. "Bush has lived in Texas, he's more comfortable among Mexican-Americans, he speaks everyday common man's Spanish, he has Latinos in his family."

Political analysts point to a rally-round-the-flag factor among Hispanics regarding the terror war in favor of the current administration. A new Bush ad focuses on that idea, with him saying his most solemn duty is to protect America.

"I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September the 11th," Bush says, sitting beside his wife, Laura. "We cannot hesitate, we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again."

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