Posted on 09/15/2008 2:03:51 AM PDT by Enchante
WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.
"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.
Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It must be so ingrained in the conservative psyche to be completely fair that so often someone gives the opposition a damaging sound bite. It is so infuriating when a conservative comments about an egregious act by the left and then adds a little bit of but-both-sides-do-it.
As soon as Karl Rove said what he did about McCain's ads not being completely honest, I knew that would be the only thing the MSM would pick up on.
I do not recall any Dem or Dem supporter even mentioning that their side does anything wrong. Case in point, their "Culture of Corruption" campaign winning mantra for 2006 while they had William Jefferson blythly staying in office.
“This alone will blow his credibility out of the water as far as the msm is concerned.”
This has nothing to do with who wrote the article!
I don’t think they can get away with that so quickly.......apparently the Washington Post thinks the guy that said Obama did this is a ‘dedicated Iraqi Leader’:
“....To do that, the Democrat needs to listen more to dedicated Iraqi leaders like Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister — who, it seems, didn’t hold back during their telephone conversation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/17/AR2008061702034.html
Book mark
Come on, be serious. Wishfull thinking. If the Clintoon got away with what he did IN the WH, this will simply be ignored by MSM, made to look like a “mistake”, or presented as not rising to the level of being a reason for him to be removed from the dem ticket. The only way it has a chance of sticking is if Bush prosecutes him for illegally negotiating with a foreign government. Do you really think W will do that? I think not. The law and the Constitution are irrelevant to the left. Heck, there isn’t even legal documentation proving where Onada was born and he is the dem’s presidential candidate. Remember these dems are people who take their daughters to Monica Lewinski book signings. Brain dead.
She was just playing Devil’s Advocate.
She is getting ready to grill Obama spokesman Bill Burton the same way.
Also.. if you listened to her arguments carefully.. she was on our side.
“Why does McCain’s ad say Obama is going to raise taxes on the middle class? It might have a trickle down effect and hurt the middle class that way”
by anywhere I meant in the press.
Thank God for places like Free Republic where we get to know what the real news is.
No, get Sec Defense or Condoleeza Rice to respond. Better yet: Petraeus. Not Bush, not Cheney.
The MSM would ignore Rice or the SecDef though.. hmm
Karl Rove does and says whatever gets him media attention, just like all the other talking heads.
nice!
However, in this case, he does quote a source: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
Wow.
Matt’s got it up!!! Top left on Drudgereport.com
Obama aide signals shift on Iraq policy
Washington Times, The (DC) - July 8, 2008
Author: Donald Lambro, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A top defense adviser to Barack Obama is recommending that significant “residual” U.S. military forces remain in Iraq to ensure its stability, an emerging policy shift that is angering the Democratic Party’s anti-war left and has Republicans charging “flip-flop.”
As the level of violence has dropped dramatically in Iraq and receded as a top issue in the 2008 presidential election, the Obama campaign and its advisers are sending what Democratic defense analysts describe as “tantalizing hints” that his troop withdrawal plan will be far more flexible and gradual than his earlier calls for a complete pullout regardless of the situation on the ground.
“Rather than unilaterally and unconditionally withdrawing from Iraq and hoping the international community will fill the void and push the Iraqis toward accommodation - a very unlikely scenario - the United States must embrace a policy of ‘conditional engagement,’” writes Colin Kahl, a leading national security scholar at Georgetown University who is the chief coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq policy.
“This approach would couple a phased redeployment of combat forces with a commitment to providing residual support for the Iraqi government if and only if it moves toward genuine reconciliation,” Mr. Kahl writes in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Kahl told The Washington Times that his article and similar proposals in previous papers reflect his own views and do not necessarily represent the position of the presumptive Democratic nominee. But other Democratic foreign policy analysts say that statements by Mr. Kahl and the senator’s other advisers signaled the kind of advice he is getting - and considering - as he prepares for a fact-finding trip to Iraq later this summer.
The Iraq policy working group Mr. Kahl heads is made up of about two dozen people who include academics and former government and military officials, many from the Clinton administration. It includes foreign policy adviser Susan E. Rice, an assistant secretary of state under President Clinton; Richard J. Danzig, secretary of the Navy under Mr. Clinton; and Sarah Sewell, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Mr. Clinton.
Other Obama advisers have similarly differed with the freshman senator’s plan to withdraw all combat forces over a period of 16 months.
Samantha Power, Mr. Obama ‘s former foreign policy adviser, told the British Broadcasting Corp. in March that “You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009. He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. senator. He will rely upon a plan ... that pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn’t have daily access now.”
Mr. Obama revealed Monday in an interview with the Military Times that he was now rethinking his unilateral call for a complete military pullout. Instead, he said any withdrawal would be “in a deliberate fashion, in consultation with the Iraqi government, at a pace that is determined in consultation with General [David H.] Petraeus and the other commanders on the ground.”
“If, on the other hand, you’ve got a deteriorating situation for some reason, then that’s going to have to be taken into account,” he said.
The Illinois Democrat appeared to be wavering on his Iraq pullout plan when he told reporters in Montana last week that he was in the process of making changes in his withdrawal policy. “When I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I am sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies,” Mr. Obama said.
Sen. John McCain’s camp immediately pounced on that statement, saying his “changed course” proved “his past positions to be just empty words,” showing “once again that his words do not matter.”
“It’s clear Obama is rightly trying to reverse the central premise of his campaign: his pledge to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq,” said Alex Conant, spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs dropped further hints of a more gradual withdrawal strategy Monday, telling CNN, “Obviously you have to give commanders on the ground flexibility. We’d be crazy not to.”
Signals of a coming change on his Iraq policy, plus shifts on other positions he has staked out in the primaries, have infuriated many of his leading liberal supporters in the past week.
“There is a line between ‘moving to the center’ and stabbing your allies in the back out of fear of being criticized. And, of late, he’s been doing a lot of unnecessary stabbing, betraying his claims of being a new kind of politician,” said Markos Moulitsas, founder of the leftist Daily Kos Web site that has been a driving force in the party’s opposition to the war.
In an earlier policy paper on Iraq that Mr. Kahl prepared for the center-left Center for a New American Security in March, he wrote: “The U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).” A copy of his paper, which Mr. Kahl said Wednesday did not represent campaign policy and was “not meant for public consumption,” was first reported in the New York Sun.
Mr. Obama , whose candidacy was fueled by his anti-war position on Iraq, has since softened the way he describes his pullout plan, saying he would be “as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.” He began his campaign by calling for a total pullout, then changed that to all U.S. combat troops, which would leave thousands of other special forces behind.
In a lengthy telephone call last month with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari , Mr. Obama appeared to send a signal that his plan was far less rigid than he earlier suggested. Mr. Zebari said the presumptive Democratic nominee “reassured” him that he would do nothing to jeopardize Iraq’s security gains. “He will not take any drastic decisions, or reckless actions,” he said.
In his Foreign Policy article, Mr. Kahl specifically rejected the views of those Democrats who “are calling for a unilateral timetable for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces, regardless of the conditions on the ground.”
“This policy of unconditional disengagement also gives up too much leverage, because it provides no ability to the Iraqi government to affect the pace of redeployment or the nature of U.S. support in exchange for making tough choices,” he said.
In sharp contrast to Mr. Obama ‘s withdrawal timetable of two brigades a month from the 15 combat brigades there now, Mr. Kahl suggests, “the new administration should signal its intention to transition to a ‘support,’ or ‘overwatch,’ role by announcing the near-term reduction of U.S. forces to perhaps 12 brigades.”
Under his proposed troop drawdown scenario, “Once U.S. forces have reached a sustainable overwatch level, the primary mission of the U.S. military in Iraq will switch to counterterrorism, training and advising of the Iraqi security forces, and force protection for U.S. civilians and advisers.”
These and other statements by Obama advisers have convinced several top Democratic Iraq analysts that the senator is softening his withdrawal posture but is not willing to flatly say that for fear of alienating his large anti-war base of support.
“Three or four of his other Iraq advisers are hinting of greater flexibility, though speaking for themselves. That indicates the potential for some change in his previous positions,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution.
All of this has sparked a debate in the Obama campaign Tuesday when it was asked to respond to a report in the New Yorker that the senator’s withdrawal plans were open to change.
Mrs. Rice suggested that his position was flexible and open to changed circumstances in Iraq. “Senator Obama has said on numerous occasions he will listen to his commanders on the ground; he will follow and heed their advice, as he decides how at the strategic level we must proceed.”
But Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat and a campaign co-chairman, insisted last week, “No, he will not [change course.] And Senator Obama fundamentally disagrees with that assessment.”
Mr. McCain, a supporter of the Iraq war from the beginning and a defender of the U.S. military surge, backs a continued military presence there until the Iraqi government and its military can ensure the country’s safety and stability on its own.
The Iraqi government first assumed Barrack was going to win. Now that the election is in play they’re throwing the Messiah under the camel and are going for their chosen one.
He's got no clue whatever as regards the Constitution -- only look to his comments a few weeks ago, "We need good and decent folks in Congress ... and when I'm president, I'm going to get them there." Oh really? And just how do you plan to do this, 0bama? Last time I checked, it is We The People who *get folks* in Congress, they are not appointed by a president. How about his reassurance to those in the back of the room, "Don't worry about your guns, even if I wanted to take them away, I don't have the votes in Congress." Oh, that pesky Amendment II, just what has that to do with things, eh Barry??
Worse yet, hsalaw, is the staggering number of Americans, voters, who themselves see nothing wrong with what he's saying on the stump, these pronouncements.
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