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McCain Speaks on Middle East Oil Tied to War

ABC News

ABC News' Bret Hovell Reports: At the end of his Friday town hall meeting in Denver, Colorado, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., seemed to imply that an energy policy less dependent on Middle Eastern oil might have prevented fighting in the region.

"My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East," McCain told a crowd of 300 at a Jewish Community Center in Denver.

"That will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East."

McCain's comments came as he was discussing his Democratic rivals' plans to remove troops from Iraq immediately, which he opposes.

"I believe that that would lead to catastrophe and chaos," he said. "And that we would have the whole region including the country [of Iraq] in such turmoil that we would be required to come back to the region."

McCain's commitment to stay in Iraq has caused anti war activists to portray him as a war monger, and comments that he made earlier this year in New Hampshire – in which he argued for a long term troop presence after the war in Iraq is over that could last decades – have drawn criticism from both Sen. Barack Obama, and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

But today's comments, nestled in a conversation about the war, but couched as a preview of his energy policy, expressed clearly McCain’s belief that the economic entanglement of foreign oil could lead to war.