GOP senators take aim at Steele

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 4 (UPI) -- Two U.S. senators spending July 4 in Kabul criticized Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's calling Afghanistan a "war of Obama's choosing."

Taking to the airwaves on Sunday talk shows, Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.-S.C., also disputed the GOP chairman's suggestion the war cannot be won.

"Those statements are wildly inaccurate and there's no excuse for them," McCain said on ABC's "This Week."

Neither senator called for Steele's resignation, as some other Republicans have, but McCain said, "I think that Mr. Steele is going to have to assess as to whether he can still lead the Republican Party as chairman of the Republican National Committee and make an appropriate decision."

Graham said on CBS's "Face the Nation" he was "dismayed, angry, upset" with Steele. "It was an uninformed, unnecessary, unwise, untimely comment," he said.

On the day U.S. Gen. David Petraeus formally took command of the Afghan war pledging "we are in this to win," Graham said, "I want to let my Republican Party know that we need to stand behind President Obama, criticize when we must, but this is America's war and we can win this war. We must win this war."

In Steele's videotaped comments, he said: "This was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."

The U.S. military entered Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks under President George W. Bush.