WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- Sen. John McCain, known for criticizing Democrats for seeking to cut off funds to Iraq, 15 years ago urged Congress to cut off money to U.S. forces in Somalia.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as a freshman senator in 1983 also tried to block President Ronald Reagan's efforts to deploy U.S. forces in Lebanon, and when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, McCain initially wanted to limit the response to an air war.
In 1993, he opposed the U.S. military intervention in Haiti, while in 1999 he favored sending U.S. troops to halt the "ethnic cleansing" of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the newspaper reported.
McCain's mixed record on foreign policy issues has raised questions among some observers, the newspaper said.
"Who is the real John McCain?" asked Dmitri Simes, president of the conservative Nixon Center, a Washington think tank.
Simes said McCain, who is one of the Nixon Center's advisers, has privately assured prominent supporters that "his more exuberant statements don't necessarily reflect his real views."
McCain, an ex-Navy pilot and Vietnam POW, "unites the Republican foreign policy spectrum," said Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy adviser.
He rejects the idea that McCain has moved to a more neo-conservative position on foreign policy in recent
years. He said the differences on foreign policy among McCain's supporters simply reflect his wide appeal.
