International Herald Tribune
WASHINGTON: Democrat Barack Obama won endorsement from Iraq's leadership during a Baghdad visit for his call to pull American combat forces out of Iraq in 2010, irking the White House and drawing heated criticism from Republican John McCain.
Obama's Iraq stop, including briefings and a helicopter ride above Baghdad with U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and meetings with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other government leaders, forced the five-year-old war back to the top of the presidential campaign agenda.
McCain was battling to stay in the campaign spotlight as Obama's travels drew huge media attention at home and abroad. The four-term Arizona senator, appearing wrong-footed by the Iraq developments, hotly disagreed on troop withdrawals saying any pullout "must be based on conditions on the ground," not arbitrary timelines.
Iraq — the third destination on the foreign tour largely aimed at bolstering Obama's foreign policy credentials — followed a challenge from McCain, who complained that Obama was wrong to plan for troop withdrawals without having visited Iraq since January 2006. McCain has visited Iraq eight times since the war began and says Obama's foreign policy initiatives are naive and that he is untested.
The deep fissures between McCain and Obama were only deepened when Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabagh, emerged from the Obama-al-Maliki meeting to say: "We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq," Obama repeatedly has said he wants to have those forces out of the country by the middle of that year.
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