CNN: Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says

CNN: Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says
September 13, 2008

(CNN) -- Sarah Palin did not visit troops in Iraq, a spokesperson for the Republican vice presidential nominee confirmed Saturday, as new details emerged about the extent of the Alaska governor's foreign travel.

In July of last year, Palin left North America for the first time to visit Alaskan troops stationed in Kuwait. Palin officials originally said her itinerary included U.S. military installations or outposts in Germany and Kuwait, and that she had visited Ireland.

A Palin aide in Alaska said Iraq was also one of the stops on that trip.

The Boston Globe reported Saturday that Palin visited the Iraqi side of a border crossing -- but never journeyed past the checkpoint. Earlier, campaign aides confirmed reports that Palin's time in Ireland on that trip had actually been a refueling stop.

The Obama campaign -- which has increasingly accused the McCain campaign of deliberately lying in ads and on the stump -- was quick to highlight that story, along with a news report that explored whether the McCain campaign has been sending out wildly inflated crowd estimates.

The McCain team has twice pointed to law enforcement as the source for those estimates -- but the same officials denied to Bloomberg News that they had provided the numbers cited by the Republican nominee's campaign.

"The McCain campaign said Gov. Palin opposed the bridge to nowhere, but now we know she supported it," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor in a statement. "They said she didn't seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn't lying about?"

A Palin spokesperson also confirmed that the governor had visited Mexico on a personal vacation. She has also visited Canada.

The Palin revelations Saturday are the latest in a series of barbs between the two presidential campaigns.

McCain, appearing Friday on ABC's "The View," was aggressively pressed on Palin's qualifications to be vice president as well as his new campaign ads that several independent fact-check groups have called misleading...

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CNN: Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says