| |
| |
![]() |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
AMMAN : White House hopeful Barack Obama said on Tuesday after a high-profile tour to Iraq that he wanted US troops out in 2010 but stressed that the country also need a political solution to the conflict.
"I welcome the growing consensus in the United States and Iraq for a timeline. My view is we can safely deploy in 16 months so that our combat brigades are out of Iraq in 2010," Obama told reporters after flying in to neighbouring Jordan.
"There is security progress, now we need a political solution," he said.
In Iraq, Obama said he and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki shared a common vision of withdrawing US forces from the country by 2010.
Obama criss-crossed volatile areas of the war-wracked country during a two-day trip to meet Iraqi leaders, US military commanders and former insurgents who switched allegiances to battle Al-Qaeda.
"The prime minister said that now is an appropriate time to start to plan for the reorganisation of our troops in Iraq - including their numbers and missions," Obama said in a statement released with the two other senators travelling with him, Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed.
"He stated his hope that US combat forces could be out of Iraq in 2010."
A separate statement from Maliki's office after the two met on Monday said Obama supported the gains achieved by Iraqi and US forces in areas of security and stability.
"I congratulate you (Maliki) on the achievements of your government ... I am supportive and committed to preserving the gains the Iraqi government achieved under your leadership," the statement in Arabic quoted Obama as saying.
The Illinois senator, however, for the first time conceded that he had not anticipated how well the US troop "surge" would work - a key political flashpoint with his Republican rival John McCain.
McCain, lining up for battle against Obama in November elections, has slammed the idea of what he calls artificial timetables for a US withdrawal and says a longer term presence is vital to preserving security gains.
Obama had opposed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as the deployment of extra forces in a troop "surge" last year.
Asked in Amman whether he now believed the surge had been a success, he said: "I believe that the situation in Iraq is more secure than it was a year and a half ago," but added that the definition of success "depends on how you look at it."
Earlier, he told ABC News that he had not anticipated the combination of the surge, the formation of Sunni Awakening groups which saw Sunni tribal fight Al-Qaeda, and a fall in Shiite militia activity.
"So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops."
McCain said on Monday that the Baghdad visit would show Obama he was wrong to oppose the surge, and he hoped his White House rival would "admit that he badly misjudged the situation."
Before winding up his Iraq visit, Obama met anti-Qaeda fighters from the Awakening Council in the former rebel stronghold of Anbar province.
Anbar was the epicentre of an anti-American insurgency after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, but the province has become a symbol of stability since the local tribes sided with US force against Al-Qaeda.
Obama has confirmed that if he became the next US president he would shift the focus on Afghanistan from Iraq.
With domestic electoral pressure growing on Maliki, he and US President George W. Bush have agreed to include a "time-horizon" for the withdrawal of troops in a security pact still being negotiated.
The highly sensitive pact would decide the long-term presence of US forces in Iraq once the present UN mandate expires in December. But the White House insists the pact would not include a specific pullout date.
The pact was expected to include an "aspirational date" for Iraqis to control security in all 18 provinces,. the White House said on Monday, adding that the pact would be delayed beyond its target date of July 31. - AFP/de
|
