Obama gets support for troop withdrawal
BAGHDAD - Face to face with Iraq's leaders, Barack Obama gained fresh support Monday for the idea of pulling all U.S. combat forces out of the war zone by 2010.
But the Iraqis stopped short of actual timetables or endorsement of Obama's pledge to withdraw American troops within 16 months if he wins the presidency.
The Democratic presidential contender also got a military briefing - and a helicopter tour - from the top U.S. commander in the region, Gen. David Petraeus, and he met with a few of the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops now well into the war's sixth year.
Back in the United States, Republican rival John McCain said he hoped Obama's visit would open his eyes to the danger of withdrawal timetables.
"When you win wars, troops come home," said the Arizona senator, who was meeting with President George W. Bush's father, the former president George Bush, in Maine.
"He's (Obama) been completely wrong on the issue."
In Washington, the White House expressed displeasure with recent public comments by Iraqi leaders on the withdrawal question and suggested they might have the U.S. election on their minds.
As Obama visited Iraq for the first time in more than two years, comments Monday by the Iraqi government spokesman roughly mirrored the Illinois senator's withdrawal schedule and offered a glimpse of Iraq's growing confidence as violence drops and Iraqi security forces expand their roles.
"We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said after Obama met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - who has struggled for days to clarify Iraq's position on a possible timetable for a U.S. troop pullout.
Iraq's Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, said after meeting Obama that Iraqi leaders share "a common interest ... to schedule the withdrawal of American troops."
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