BAGHDAD — After Barack Obama met with Iraqi leaders here on Monday, the Iraqi government outlined a possible schedule for a U.S. troop withdrawal that is similar to the plan the Democratic presidential candidate has pledged to follow if he is elected.
Its announcement bolstered Obama's credibility on a key foreign policy issue, early in a weeklong trip to the Middle East and Europe that was designed to reassure voters concerned he lacks the experience to be commander in chief.
It also gave him a boost in his debate with Republican presidential candidate John McCain over how to end the war in Iraq. McCain has repeatedly insisted that setting a firm withdrawal date ignores conditions on the ground and could prevent the U.S. from winning the war.
The renewed debate over troop withdrawals is one measure of how Obama's trip -- his second to Iraq and his first as a presidential candidate -- is reverberating at home and abroad. Proposals by political candidates are usually given little weight, but the Iraqis appear to be taking seriously Obama's plan to remove most U.S. combat troops within 16 months of taking office.
An Iraqi government spokesman said Monday that if security continued to improve, the government hoped the troops could leave by the end of 2010, about eight months later than Obama's target. The spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, stopped short of endorsing Obama's specific proposal or suggesting a firm deadline for the troops' departure, but his remarks appeared to bolster Obama's stance, proving awkward for McCain and the Bush administration.
On this trip, Obama will also meet the leaders of Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Germany, France and Britain. Since his travels began this weekend, television images and photographs have shown him with U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in Baghdad. On Monday, the Illinois senator was photographed in a helicopter touring Baghdad with Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq.
McCain in recent days has appeared with familiar Republican officials at home; on Monday, the Arizona senator was seen on television riding in a golf cart with former President George H.W. Bush at Bush's oceanfront estate in Maine. On Sunday, he attended a Yankees game with former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, his onetime rival for the GOP nomination.
