Sen. Barack Obama, in an op-ed columnin Monday's New York Times, embraced Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's recent call for a timetable for American forces to leave Iraq as "an enormous opportunity."Obama repeated his promise that "on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war."
The Democratic presidential nominee's piece, titled "My Plan for Iraq," repeated his pledge that "on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war." Obama wrote that U.S. troops would be redeployed from Iraq to "focus on the broader security challenges that we face" and that "unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea."
Ending the Iraq war is necessary so that the United States can focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, "where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven," he wrote. "Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been," he wrote.
Meanwhile, seven people were killed in attacks across Iraq on Monday, security sources said. Among the dead were four shepherds targeted outside the main northern city of Mosul. In Baghdad, three people, including a policeman, were killed after a motorist threw a hand grenade at a police checkpoint, an interior ministry spokesman said.
