By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD, April 1 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain toured a Baghdad market on Sunday and said afterwards the American people were not being told the "good news" about the war in Iraq.

McCain, a strong supporter of President George W. Bush's plan to send nearly 30,000 more troops as part of his new strategy in Iraq, said the media had a responsibility to report both the positive and the negative in the four-year-old war that is growing increasingly unpopular in the United States.

His comments come days after the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate joined with the House of Representatives in backing a timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, a move McCain has said would set "a date certain for surrender".

"I believe we have a new strategy that is making progress. That is not to say things are well everywhere in Iraq. Far from it, we have a long way to go," he told journalists after spending a day touring Baghdad with a congressional delegation.

Most of the 30,000 additional troops are being sent to Baghdad, where American troops have joined Iraqi forces in sweeping neighbourhoods and setting up outposts in a major security crackdown to curb rampant sectarian violence.

"You read every day about suicide bombings, kidnappings, rocket attacks and other terrible acts. What we don't read about and what is new is a lot of the good news -- the drop in the murders in Baghdad, the establishment of security outposts throughout the city ... the deployment of additional Iraqi brigades to Baghdad," McCain said.

"These and other indicators are reasons for very cautious optimism about the effects of the new strategy," said the 70- year-old senator from Arizona, who has been a vocal critic in the past of the Bush administration's handling of the war.

"Just as we read about all the negative events in Iraq the American people must be aware of the positive developments under this new plan, and the media has a responsibility to report all aspects of what is taking place."

AIRPORT DRIVE

The former Vietnam prisoner of war was the Republican front runner for 2008 but has been overtaken by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in part because of McCain's staunch support for Bush's unpopular Iraq war policy.

He pointed to his drive from Baghdad airport into the city and an hour-long visit to the main wholesale Shorja market in central Baghdad, where multiple car bombings killed 71 people in February, as two signs of improved security.

"Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able to go out into the city like I did today. The American people are not getting the picture of all that is happening here. Things are better ... but I am not saying mission accomplished."

Visiting VIPs are normally flown by helicopter from the airport to the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses the government and U.S. embassy to avoid using the airport road, once one of the most dangerous roads in Baghdad and still a place where attacks frequently occur.

One shopowner in Shorja, which was closed to traffic after the February bombings, said there had been a heavy security presence, with many U.S. soldiers on the ground and U.S. helicopters overhead.

Another member of McCain's delegation said the group had travelled in armoured Humvees with the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who had encouraged them to take off their helmets as they chatted to locals and bought carpets.

McCain said there was "no guarantee" the new strategy in Baghdad, which focuses on holding cleared areas and then building them up with economic development, would work, or whether "the Iraqi government will do everything necessary".

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