BAGHDAD (AFP)
Democratic White House candidate Barack Obama was in Iraq on a fact-finding tour on Monday, days after confirming plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in 16 months if he takes office next year.
He will meet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and senior U.S. military commanders, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.
It is Obama's second trip to Iraq after a similar Congressional fact-finding tour in January 2006.
He had spent the night in Kuwait after a visit to Kabul, where he pledged to downsize the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and commit at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan.
Obama's camp has said the aim of his tour is to make an on-the-ground assessment of the war in Iraq and to meet the country's leaders, whom he has criticized for not doing enough to rebuild their country.
"Iraq's leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the (U.S. troop) surge," Obama wrote July 14 in The New York Times.
Obama also confirmed his pledge to declare an end to the Iraq war from the first day of his presidency if he wins in November, and to withdraw most U.S. combat troops within 16 months.
Maliki and U.S. President George W. Bush have agreed to include a "time-horizon" for the withdrawal of U.S. forces in a security pact still being negotiated.
The Illinois senator, who voted against the March 2003 war to topple Saddam Hussein, is in Iraq at a time when violence has fallen to a four-year low -- partly on the back of the controversial troop "surge" which he had strongly opposed. |
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Refocus on Afghanistan After more than five years at war, with more than 4,100 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, Obama said on Sunday it was time to refocus U.S. policy on the region which spawned the September 11 attacks in 2001.
"They have sanctuary here," he said of al-Qaeda in an interview with CBS in Afghanistan.
"They are gathering huge amounts of money as a consequence of the drug trade in the region. And so, that global network is centered in this area."
Obama called for at least two additional brigades, up to 10,000 troops, to be sent to Afghanistan.
"I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq," he said.
Republican presidential rival John McCain has lashed out at Obama for announcing his foreign policy even before his fact-finding visits.
"Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable," he said.
Bush and key ally British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have consistently resisted calls to set a definite timetable for military withdrawals from Iraq. |
