This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Here's what the polls and pundits say: John McCain's position on Iraq - he has advocated sending more troops as Americans increasingly are calling for withdrawal - is hurting his chance to be president.

Here's what McCain says: "I'm not concerned."

Speaking to reporters Friday in Utah, the Republican presidential contender said he recognized Iraq as "the dominant issue" in American politics and promised that his political ambitions would take a back seat to advocating what he believes is the correct course for victory in the war.

And that course, McCain said, involves more troops.

"The McCain plan for the last 3 1/2 years is to get more troops over there,'' the Arizona senator said. "For 3 1/2 years, I bitterly complained about a failed strategy that has cost us so much in American blood and treasure."

President Bush announced last month a plan to send an additional 21,500 military members to Iraq in an attempt to quell worsening sectarian violence. While expressing some skepticism over whether the recent "surge" is enough, McCain said military leaders have ensured him the new plan is sound.

"I still believe we can succeed," he said. "We have the right general; we have the right plan."

Americans don't appear as confident. Less than a quarter approve of Bush's management of the Iraq war, according to a recent CBS News poll, and more than half believe the United States should begin a withdrawal of its troops, according to an ABC News survey.

McCain, once a front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination, has recently lost ground to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, with a recent Fox News poll giving Giuliani a 2-to-1 edge over McCain. Giuliani has touted himself as a "crime fighter," "business leader" and "tax cutter" but has thus far given little indication of where he stands on Iraq.

McCain said he is not going to change his position to conform to the country's current distaste for the war.

"Any political ambition I might have is negligent compared to what has already been sacrificed and is being risked by young Americans," he said. "So any impact it might have on my political ambitions I'm not concerned about."

McCain said he hoped to see "some indication whether the new strategy is succeeding or not" in the upcoming months and said that if security in Iraq improved, he believed Americans' current anti-war passions would subside.

"Americans aren't so much worried about troops in Iraq - they're worried about troops in Iraq dying," McCain said. "We've had troops in South Korea for 50 years and nobody complains about it."

But McCain also said the nation needed a larger military, noting that the current pace of deployments has left the military "very badly stretched." For that "terrible failing," he blamed former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who advocated a smaller, stealthier and more technologically advanced military.

Advocating Bush's recent plan to increase the overall size of the military, McCain said Americans would join the military given the right mix of economic and patriotic incentives.

McCain said the consequences of losing in Iraq would be "chaos, genocide," and the ultimate return of American troops to the war-torn nation.

"The only thing worse than an overstretched military is a defeated military, and if we fail in Iraq, we will see a defeated military,'' he said.

The Vietnam veteran and a former prisoner of war said he returned home from that war as part of a defeated military. "And it took decades to repair our military," he said.