AFL-CIO ad criticizes McCain on war, veterans

The AFL-CIO plans to begin airing an ad in six presidential battleground states on Thursday that features a Vietnam combat veteran criticizing John McCain's stance on the war in Iraq and on veterans issues.

The ad is part of a new union political effort to reach the 2.1 million military veterans or active-duty personnel who are members of the AFL-CIO.

"Every vet respects John McCain's war record," Navy veteran Jim Wasser says in the ad. "It's his record in the Senate that I have a problem with."

Wasser, an electrician from Illinois, served with John Kerry aboard Navy Swift Boats in Vietnam and helped the Massachusetts senator rebut attacks on his war record during the 2004 presidential campaign.

In the ad, Wasser says McCain "wants us to keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. Just like Bush."

"That's money we could use to build schools and roads and create needed jobs here at home," Wasser says. "He even took sides with Bush against increasing health care benefits for veterans. People should let John McCain know. His agenda is not what we need. Not now."

While McCain has supported increases in spending for veteran's health, the union's criticism is based on McCain's opposition over the past four years to Democratic amendments that would have added more money to veteran's health programs.

The ad will air in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin for three weeks. Union officials would not disclose the amount spent on the ad, but they described it as a "significant targeted buy" in "places where the current economic slowdown is particularly acute."

The ad represents the entry of yet another outside group seeking to influence the presidential election.

On Wednesday, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans that has been critical of Obama began airing an ad that asserts that the troop escalation in Iraq that McCain supported has reduced casualties and "decimated" al-Qaida in Iraq, and that the Iraqi Army "controls most of the country."

The ad, a $1.5 million buy airing on national cable and in Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia, does not mention the presidential candidates, but its views certainly coincide with McCain's.

"The surge worked," one of the veterans in the ad says.

In a swipe at Obama's campaign slogan, another veteran ads, "That's change we can believe in."

The ad concludes, "We need to finish the job no matter who is president."

The Associated Press