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Obama Meets With Al-Maliki

Posted on: Monday, 21 July 2008, 18:00 CDT

Barack Obama met with Iraq's prime minister Monday and an Iraqi official indicated later Obama's proposed U.S. troop pullout was in an appropriate range.

Obama, who proposes withdrawing U.S. combat forces from the war-torn Middle Eastern nation by April 2010, called his discussion with Nouri al-Maliki very constructive, The Guardian reported.

Ali al-Dabbagh, the main Iraqi government spokesman, said after the meeting, We cannot give any timetables or dates but the Iraqi government believes the end of 2010 is the appropriate time for the withdrawal of forces.

But, al-Dabbagh said, Iraq may change its position if violence worsens following a troop draw-down.

Obama, the likely Democratic U.S. presidential nominee who is traveling overseas to improve his image in handling foreign affairs, told the CBS Early Show earlier Monday commanders in Afghanistan told him they could use two or three more brigades -- 10,000 to 15,000 troops -- to stabilize the situation.

Obama repeated his belief it is time to withdraw troops from Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, which have re-emerged as threats to the struggling Afghan government.

The U.S. senator from Illinois also urged Pakistan to do more to rout insurgents and said allied forces should be able to cross the border if there is actionable intelligence against high-value al-Qaida targets and the Pakistani government was unwilling to go after those targets.

Source: United Press International

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