
In their first head-to-head debate, Sen. John McCain criticized Sen. Barack Obama as a candidate who "doesn't understand" the key issues the country faces, and Obama linked McCain to President Bush on several issues.
I'm afraid Sen. Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy,"
McCain drew from his experience overseas as he tried to portray himself as the more qualified candidate.
"Incredibly, incredibly Sen. Obama didn't go to Iraq for 900 days and never asked for a meeting with Gen. [David] Petraeus," he said.
McCain slammed Obama for not supporting the surge, an increase of about 30,000 troops to Iraq in early 2007. Bush sent the additional troops as part of a campaign to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.
McCain said Iranian nuclear weapons would be an "existential threat to the state of Israel" and would encourage other countries in the Middle East to seek nuclear weapons as well.
"We cannot allow another Holocaust," he said.

Obama agreed that the United States "cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran," calling for tougher sanctions from a range of countries including Russia and China.
McCain called for a new "league of democracies" to stand firm against Iran
McCain said the next president will have to decide when and how to leave Iraq and what the United States will leave behind.
The Republican candidate said that the war had been badly managed at the beginning but that the United States was now winning, thanks to a "great general and a strategy that succeeded."
"Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq," McCain said.
Obama responded, "that's not true; that's not true."
Obama called for a re-evaluation of the United States' approach to Russia in light of the country's recent military action in the Caucasus.
"You cannot be a 21st-century superpower and act like a 20th-century dictatorship," he said.
McCain accused Obama of responding naively to Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia last month by calling on both sides to exercise restraint.
McCain said he would support the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in NATO.
McCain that another attack on the scale of the September 11 hijackings is "much less likely" now than it was the day after the terrorist attacks.
"America is safer now than it was on 9/11," he said, "But we have a long way to go before we can declare America safe."
Obama agreed that the United States is "safer in some ways" but said the country needed to focus more on issues such as nuclear non-proliferation and restoring America's image in the world.
Obama said that the United States was facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
McCain said he was encouraged that Republicans and Democrats were working together to solve the crisis.
Transcript of presidential debate