MERRIMACK – Sen. John McCain yesterday said the civil unrest and political crisis that have enveloped Pakistan after the recent assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto show the importance of electing a President with foreign policy experience.

McCain, an Arizona Republican, said the United States could not afford to let Pakistan, the second-largest Muslim country in the world, slide into Islamic extremism because it has nuclear weapons and borders Afghanistan, where American armed forces are still fighting the war on terror.

"Right now this is a serious situation and another argument why you need someone with experience and knowledge and background and judgment in order to be able to handle some of these challenges that we face around the world," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Merrimack.

As president, McCain said he would secure the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, insist that the political process move forward in a fair way, and urge the police and military to be as humane as possible in putting down the riots that have ensued since the assassination of Bhutto, who was an opposition leader against President Pervez Musharraf.

"I know Musharraf," McCain said. "I've met him many times and I can tell you personally that he is a very honest person and he does a lot of the things that we have asked him to do."

McCain also reminded voters that he is the only candidate running for president who saw that the Donald Rumsfeld approach to the war in Iraq was doomed to failure and advocated the surge strategy which he said is now succeeding in Iraq.

"If you forget everything I said to you today, please remember this," McCain said. "Al Qaeda is on the run but they're not defeated. They're on the run but they're not defeated ... so if we have a premature withdrawal of troops, then it could jeopardize the fragile success that we have achieved."

On the home front, McCain blasted Congress and President Bush for signing a bill with 9,000 pork-barrel earmarks worth billions of dollars. He said wasteful spending needed to come to an end before Social Security and Medicare could be fixed.

McCain was equally passionate about improving health care for veterans. He said the Veterans Administration needs to be expanded and, under his administration, individual veterans would receive plastic cards that would allow them to go to their own doctors for routine medical care.

"There is no reason why a veteran should drive for two hours to get to a VA facility to get in line to get in line to get an appointment to get an appointment," McCain said.

The town hall meeting drew more than 350 people to the Merrimack VFW Post 8641 and was one of 11 McCain campaign stops scheduled in New Hampshire between Saturday and Monday.

Barry Flynn, the New Hampshire press secretary, said the campaign had seen an uptick in attendance at town hall meetings in the past month. Polls now show McCain within a few points of former New Hampshire frontrunner and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Several voters said the town hall meeting in Merrimack had solidified their support for McCain.

"He's talking from the heart," Rob Gregory of Merrimack said. "He's not flip-flopping but he's very stable in his views. He's someone I feel I can trust."