John McCain told fellow veterans on Monday that his Democratic rival Barack Obama tried to legislate failure in Iraq and has refused to admit he erred when opposing the military increase there last year.

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McCain said Obama placed his political self-interest ahead of his country's, a theme the Arizona Republican has often repeated. McCain told a friendly convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that Obama's positions have changed as his political ambitions grew.

Obama has acknowledged the surge reduced violence in Iraq but says it has failed in the goal, stated by the White House, of facilitating a reconciliation among contentious Iraqi factions.

"With less than three months to go before the election, a lot of people are still trying to square Sen. Obama's varying positions on the surge in Iraq. First, he opposed the surge and confidently predicted that it would fail. Then he tried to prevent funding for the troops who carried out the surge," McCain said.

"Not content to merely predict failure in Iraq, my opponent tried to legislate failure."

However, the Iraqis themselves are seeking specific timelines for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

In July, Iraq's national security adviser said his country would not accept any deal for a prolonged U.S. presence in his country unless the agreement sets specific dates for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

Mouwaffak al-Rubaie told reporters that the country "will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces."

Al-Rubaie said the timetable would be conditioned on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security.

The comments by came a day after Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Malaki, said publicly that he expects the pending troop deal with the United States to have some type of timetable for withdrawal.

In August, U.S. officials acknowledged progress has been made on the timelines for a U.S. departure but offered no firm date. Another U.S. official strongly suggested a 2010 date may be too ambitious.