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Obama Wants 'Bold' Action On Iraq War

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By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL R. GORDON, The New York Times

Published: September 13, 2007

Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday presented his most extensive plan yet for winding down the war in Iraq, proposing to withdraw all combat troops by the end of next year and leaving behind a force of unspecified size to strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests.

Speaking in Iowa, Obama combined an attack on both parties in Washington for having gotten the United States into the war with the outline of an approach for getting out that immediately drew criticism from the left of his party for being too timid and from Republicans as being irresponsible.

'What's at stake is bigger than this war. It's our global leadership,' Obama said. 'Now is a time to be bold. We must not stay the course or take the conventional path because the other course is unknown.'

Obama, of Illinois, used the speech to highlight again his early and consistent opposition to the war and to compare it with the votes in 2002 by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and John Edwards, then a senator from North Carolina, to give President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq.

But Obama's strategy for where to go from here, especially in maintaining an American military presence in Iraq and the region, is similar to the plan embraced by Clinton, who is leading the Democratic field in most opinion polls.

'The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops,' Obama said. 'Not in six months or one year - now.'

Obama proposed removing U.S. combat troops from Iraq at a pace of one or two brigades a month, which is about twice as fast as American commanders in Iraq have deemed prudent. There are about 20 combat brigades in Iraq, to which Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq, has committed reducing to 15 next summer.

Under the Obama plan, no more than 10 brigades would be in Iraq at that point. Military experts who supported the administration's 'surge' strategy called the troop levels proposed by Obama insufficient.

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