Report: Obama didn't want media at visit

WASHINGTON, July 30 (UPI) -- Likely Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama never planned to bring media when he sought to visit wounded U.S. troops in Germany, witnesses say.

The incident at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany during Obama's week-long foreign trip has become a political football, with the campaign of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain portraying it as a snub of U.S. troops.

Some Republicans said Sen. Obama, D-Ill., called off the visit when U.S. Department of Defense officials told him he couldn't bring in cameras, implying he was only interested in using the wounded soldiers for publicity.

But even as McCain's backers were sticking with that version Tuesday, The Washington Post reported its investigation found no evidence that Obama planned to bring media with him on the visit, only a military adviser Gen. J. Scott Gration, who was part of his campaign staff.

In a reconstruction of the events before and after the Landstuhl incident, the Post said none of the reporters or officials there could support the McCain campaign's characterization of the events. The McCain camp produced an ad referring to the visit and depicting Obama as unconcerned with the welfare of U.S. troops, the newspaper said.