True on the day the ad was released

An ad for Sen. John McCain makes the case that Sen. Barack Obama is a foreign policy lightweight who has voted against funding for troops.

"Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan," an announcer states. "He hasn't been to Iraq in years. He voted against funding our troops — positions that helped him win his nomination. Now Obama is changing to help himself become president. John McCain has always supported our troops and the surge that's working."

See our story for details about the ad's other claims. Here we'll look at the statement that Obama "hasn't been to Iraq in years."

The McCain campaign released this ad on Friday, July 18, 2008, a day before Obama was to leave for a widely anticipated trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel. Before that, the last time Obama had been in Iraq was in January 2006. McCain, on the other hand, has been to Iraq eight times as of this writing. The McCain-Obama Iraq tally is now 8 to 2.

Featured Fact-check

Chris Dodd

stated on May 23, 2007 in a TV ad.

"Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have changed their positions (on the Iraq war withdrawal) to follow Chris Dodd."

One catch to this claim is that it was accurate when the ad was released on Friday, but was no longer accurate by Monday, July 21. Because the campaign knew its claim was going to be invalidated in a few days, we deduct one point and call it Mostly True.