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Obama says he may 'refine' plan to bring troops home

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 4, 2008

FARGO, N.D. - Barack Obama opened the door yesterday to refining his plan to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq in 16 months based on what he hears from military commanders during his upcoming trip there.

"I am going to do a thorough assessment when I'm there," he told reporters on the airport tarmac here. "I'm sure I'll have more information and continue to refine my policy."

During his presidential campaign, the presumed Democratic nominee has gone from the hard-edged, vocal opposition to Iraq that defined his early candidacy to more nuanced rhetoric that calls for a phased drawdown of all combat brigades that, at a rate of one or two a month, could last 16 months. He has said that if al-Qaida builds bases in Iraq, he would keep troops either in the country or the region to carry out "targeted strikes."

Republicans, who have been goading Obama to return to Iraq to see conditions for himself, yesterday pounced on his latest statements.

"There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience," said Alex Conant, a Republican Party spokesman.

John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, has been a vocal supporter of the Iraq war, and war policy has been a central disagreement between the two candidates.

Obama insisted that his position has not changed.

He said he is saying now what he always has: The war was a mistake and needs to be brought to "a responsible end," but "we need to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." This means, he said, that his 16-month timeline "was always premised on" not endangering either U.S. troops or Iraq's stability, which he had previously been told by commanders was possible.

"I'm going to continue to gather information to see whether those conditions still hold," he said. "My goal is to end this conflict as soon as possible."

Obama's Web site contains this direct promise about Iraq: "Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq ... If al-Qaida attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al-Qaida."

Although he did not specifically mention his 16-month timeline yesterday, Obama called it "pure speculation" to suggest he has been softening or even backing off his position as violence lessens in Iraq.