superbrowns's Blog

Obama Hopes to Visit Iraq Before Election Share -->by Bonney Kapp

Just days after Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari met with Republican candidate for president, John McCain, he took a phone call from Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

The two spoke as the Senator drove from his home in Chicago to Midway Airport this morning. When the candidate landed in Flint, Michigan, for his speech on competitiveness, Obama shared with reporters details about his conversation.

Obama said during the conversation, “We discussed a broad range of issues I thought it was very constructive. He emphasized to me his belief that as a consequence of the extraordinary efforts and sacrifice of US military forces, we’ve made significant progress in quelling the violence in Iraq. And that the Iraqi government is deeply interested in negotiating an effective Status of Forces agreement and a strategic framework agreement with the United States.”

Of course Obama is the candidate in the race who will begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, and has campaigned on such a platform since he got into the race. He said he told Zebari that while he was encouraged by the reduction of violence in Iraq, he “insisted that it is important for us to begin the process of withdrawing US troops, making clear that we have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq, that any negotiations for a Status of Forces agreement or strategic framework agreement should be done in the open and with Congress’s authorization, because I believe that it’s in the interests of both Iraq and the United States that any such critical negotiations have strong bipartisan support and that they can be sustained through a future administration.”

He also stressed the need for  “political accommodations” and the importance of engaging nearby countries. Finally, he said, “I gave him an assurance that should we be elected, an Obama administration will make sure that we continue with the progress that’s been made in Iraq, that we won’t act precipitously, but that we will move to end US combat forces in Iraq in a manner that’s as careful as we were careless getting in.”

When the Senator was asked if the Foreign Minister expressed concern for withdrawal, Obama replied, “No - he did not express that. He did emphasized his belief that we’ve made real progress and I think was eager to see political accommodations between the factions follow up in the wake of this progress.”

And on the much ballyhooed visit to Iraq, Obama said, “I told him that I look forward to seeing him in Baghdad.” A reporter asked if the trip might be before the Democrats’ August convention. “You know, we’ll make an announcement about that, but as I said, I’m interested in visiting Iraq and Afghanistan before the election.”

The RNC, which has been tracking the days since Obama’s last visit to the country in 2006, welcomes such a trip. “In the nearly 900 days since Barack Obama visited Iraq, the facts on the ground have changed dramatically – but his ideologically-driven position has not. When Obama visits Iraq, he’ll see that he was wrong to oppose the surge, wrong to continue to ignore our commanders’ advice and wrong to demand premature withdrawal. America cannot afford a Commander-in-Chief who needs on-the-job training,” said spokesman Alex Conant in a statement.