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Barack
Obama in Baghdad to Meet with US Commanders
 (AP) - A U.S. Embassy official said
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama arrived in Iraq on
Monday where he will meet with commanders and troops in a war he has
long opposed. Obama was expected to meet Gen. David Petraeus as well as
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki while in the country, although
aides provided few details, citing security concerns.
Obama arrived as part of a congressional delegation that also included
Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., following stops in
Kuwait and Afghanistan. The delegation met Sunday in Kuwait City with
Kuwait's emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, and other senior
officials, the Kuwait News Agency reported.
All three are longtime critics of the U.S. involvement in the war in
Iraq. Obama has called for withdrawing American troops at the rate of
one or two brigades per month, and an end to combat operations within
16 months. He has said he favors leaving a residual force in the
country to provide security for U.S. personnel, train Iraqis and
counter attacks by al-Qaida.
The delegation arrived amid controversy over al-Maliki's published
comments in a German magazine that appeared to endorse Obama's 16-month
timetable. The Iraqi leader's aides have since said his remarks were
misunderstood, and he is not taking sides in the U.S. election.
Obama's trip occurred less than four months before the presidential
election. It is Obama's second trip to Iraq, but conditions are quite
different from when he visited in January 2006. Obama's first tour was
treated as a footnote, while the country was caught in a growing Sunni
insurgency and was moving toward a flood of sectarian violence. But the
bloodshed has declined significantly since Bush sent thousands more
troops last year to help quell the rising violence.
McCain has been critical of Obama's position on Iraq, saying the
decision to pull out should be determined by progress, not a timetable.
He supports the war, and has been critical of some aspects of its
handling. But he was a vocal supporter of the decision to send in more
troops.
McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, said Obama "is
stubbornly adhering to an unconditional withdrawal that places politics
above the advice of our military commanders, the success of our troops,
and the security of the American people."
"Barack Obama is wrong to advocate withdrawal at any cost just as he
was wrong to oppose the surge that has put victory within reach,"
Scheunemann said in a statement.
U.S. commanders have begun withdrawing some of those additional troops
and Obama argues they should be sent to Afghanistan, which he says is
the "central front" in the fight against terrorism, to reinforce
efforts there against a resurgent Taliban and to control spiraling
violence.
McCain also supports sending troop reinforcements to Afghanistan.
"There's starting to be a growing consensus that it's time for us to
withdraw some of our combat troops out of Iraq, deploy them here in
Afghanistan, and I think we have to seize that opportunity. Now is the
time for us to do it," Obama said in a CBS News interview broadcast
Sunday after a two-hour meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"I think it's important for us to begin planning for those brigades
now. If we wait until the next administration, it could be a year
before we get those additional troops on the ground here in
Afghanistan, and I think that would be a mistake," Obama said in the
interview. "I think the situation is getting urgent enough that we have
got to start doing something now."
Obama has made Afghanistan a centerpiece of his proposed strategy for dealing with terrorism threats to the United States.
He has said the war in Afghanistan, where Taliban- and al-Qaida-linked
militants are resurgent, deserves more troops and attention than the
conflict in Iraq.
U.S. military officials say the number of attacks in eastern
Afghanistan, where most of the foreign troops are American, has
increased by 40 percent so far in 2008 compared with the same period in
2007.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told the AP on
Saturday that after intense U.S. assaults there, al-Qaida may be
considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan,
where American casualties are running higher than in Iraq.
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