Again the most recent interview I read by Obama is, and I quote: Q: Can we talk about your Iraq policy for a moment? Particularly where you talk about withdrawing one or two brigades every month soon after you are elected as a process to get us down quickly. What will you do if your military commanders advise against that and they tell you you cant do that? Like [Army Gen. David] Petraeus I think said before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee you were there that this is going to put everything at risk, my God you cant do that.
A: Look, Ive said this repeatedly from the start, and so I welcome the opportunity to correct the record. This whole notion that I would initiate a precipitous withdrawal just isnt borne out by anything that Ive said. What I have repeatedly said from the start, when I introduced my first piece of legislation on this issue in January of 2007 is that we should be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. That we should send a clear message to Iraqi leadership that we are not going to engage in a permanent occupation in Iraq and that we are not going to have permanent bases there. That we want to bring a gradual withdrawal of our combat forces, that we would maintain a counter terrorism force in the region that could continue to keep al-Qaida on the run. That we would continue to have a protective force for our embassy, our civilian and humanitarian forces and that we would continue to train Iraqis both army and police, so long as those who are being trained were not falling back into sectarian patterns. And I have always said that as commander in chief I will absolutely seek the advice and counsel of our generals and our commanders on the field, not just our generals, but our mid-level officers and those who are on the ground doing the fighting. But what I have said is that it is the job of the commander in chief to set strategy. One of the differences that Ive had with the Bush administration has been the tendency to say, that well Im just going with what General Petraeus says. Which in fact was oftentimes the excuse they gave before General Petraeus was in place. Every time something went wrong well Im just doing what the generals tell me to do. Thats an abdication of responsibility. My job as commander in chief will be to set strategy. I have to set strategy with respect to Iraq in light of a range of other potential threats and situations. If we have only one battle-ready brigade available outside the Iraq rotation to respond to other risks, thats not good strategic planning by the commander in chief. If we have a situation in Afghanistan where we are seeing more and more violence in the eastern portion of Afghanistan, at a time when weve actually increased the forces down there and weve got some of the best battle-tested operations deployed there and were still seeing increases in violence, what that tells me is that weve got real problems. And Im going to have to make a series of strategic decisions if Im commander in chief, and Iraq is just one part of that overall decision-making. In fact I would argue at this point that part of General Petraeus job now is to think about not just Iraq but how the entire alignment of threats in [Central Command]. My point is I will always listen to them. But what I wont do is abdicate my responsibilities to make the final decisions about strategy in consultation with them about how we effectuate this broad-based strategy. I don't see anywhere here where he offers a time line. Entire transcript is here: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/07/070708mt_obama_transcript/ Gruss Gott wrote: > > You can count on me to be honest, to the best of my knowledge, about > everything all of the time. Behold the wonder of Gruss. > > As for the topic at hand, the question is the definition of "the > security situation". My understanding is thus: > > * McCain: When Iraqis, as a unified country, have a unified security > mechanism in place to prevent a coup and keep the streets safe. (This > is infinity IMO). > > * Obama: When the Iraqi government has had a reasonable period to > unify their government and deploy a unified military and security > force. "reasonable" = 12-24 months from today. > > Si? > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:264312 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
