Mr. McCain also said he would seek to attract corporate leaders to improve management of the Pentagon, citing figures like Frederick W. Smith, the chief executive of FedEx Corporation, and John T. Chambers, the chief executive of Cisco Systems. “I would go to these people and say ‘Look, you’ve made a billion dollars. Come on now, and do what David Packard did years ago. Serve your country,’ ” Mr. McCain said, referring to the co-founder of the Hewlett Packard Company who served as deputy defense secretary in the first Nixon administration.

Mr. McCain also described Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander and Marine general, as one of his closest friends, adding he expected he would “play a key role.”

Mr. McCain discussed Iraq during an hourlong session on Thursday at his Senate office, sipping cappuccino and talking in measured if intense tones in the presence of two aides. He ended the interview to go to the White House for a meeting with Mr. Bush.

“One of the things that I’m going to tell him, and I don’t often talk about my conversations with the president, is that the American people need to be told more often what’s happening,” he said. “Where we’re succeeding; where we’re failing; where we’ve made progress; where we haven’t, here’s the state of readiness, here’s why we continue to see suicide bombers.”

“There’s got to be more communication with the American people,” he added. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt did it.”

Mr. McCain said that the increase in American forces had led to a decline of sectarian killings in the Iraqi capital. Despite claims of progress in Iraq, however, Mr. McCain acknowledged that the American strategy would falter unless the Iraqis moved quickly to establish a more inclusive government. He expressed disappointment that the effort to enact a new law that would allow more former Baathists to serve in the government was stalled and said it was vital to arrange provincial elections so that Sunnis could join the political process.

“So how do you motivate the Maliki government? Well, one of the ways is go sit down and have dinner with him like Lindsey Graham and I did last week,” he said, alluding to his Republican colleague from South Carolina. He said that he and Mr. Graham had warned Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the patience of the American public was running out. Many members of the Bush administration and other lawmakers have met with Mr. Maliki to make the same point.