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Iraq war over, US troops coming home, Obama says

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flounder

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Iraq war over, US troops coming home, Obama says



By BEN FELLER

The Associated Press

Updated: 4:26 p.m. Friday, Oct. 21, 2011

Published: 11:32 a.m. Friday, Oct. 21, 2011



WASHINGTON — America's long and deeply unpopular war in Iraq will be over by year's end and all U.S. troops "''will definitely be home for the holidays," President Barack Obama declared Friday.

Stretching more than eight years, the war cost the United States heavily: More than 4,400 members of the military have been killed, and more than 32,000 have been wounded.

The final exit date was sealed after months of intensive talks between Washington and Baghdad failed to reach agreement on conditions for leaving several thousand U.S. troops in Iraq as a training force. The U.S. also had been interested in keeping a small force to help the Iraqis deal with possible Iranian meddling.

The task now is to speed the pullout of the remaining U.S. forces, nearly 40,000 in number.

Staying behind in Iraq, where bombings and other violence still occur, will be some 150-200 U.S. military troops as part of embassy security, the defense attache's office and the office of security cooperation. That's common practice but still a danger to American forces.

Obama, an opponent of the war since before he took office, nevertheless praised the efforts of U.S. troops in Iraq. He said American soldiers would leave "with their heads held high, proud of their success."

For Obama, Friday's announcement capped a remarkable two days of national security successes, though there's no indication how much they will matter to re-election voters more concerned with economic woes at home.

On Thursday, the president heralded the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and a day later the end to one of the most divisive conflicts in U.S. history.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the U.S. more than $1.3 trillion.

Obama did not declare victory.

He did speak, though, about the string of wins on his watch — none bigger than the killing of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader behind the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attacks. The Afghanistan war still rages, but there, too, Obama has moved to end the combat mission by the end of 2014.

This was, in essence, the third time Obama had pronounced an end to the war, allowing him to remind the nation he had opposed it all along — a stance that helped his White House bid in 2008.

Shortly after taking office, Obama declared in February 2009 that the combat mission in Iraq would end by Aug. 31, 2010. And when that milestone arrived, he said it was "time to turn the page" on Iraq and put the focus back on building up the United States. On Friday, he said: "After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over."



snip...



http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/iraq-war-over-us-troops-coming-home-obama-1927011.html



The president used the war statement to once again turn attention back to the economy, the domestic concern that is expected to determine whether he wins re-election.

"After a decade of war," he said, "the nation that we need to build and the nation that we will build is our own."



http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/iraq-war-over-us-troops-coming-home-obama-1927011.html?page=2
 
But it wasn't Buckwheat's idea............................

BWWWWWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
U.S. Troop Withdrawal Motivated by Iraqi Insistence, Not U.S. Choice

By Yochi J. Dreazen

Updated: October 21, 2011 | 4:21 p.m.

President Obama's speech formally declaring that the last 43,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year was designed to mask an unpleasant truth: The troops aren't being withdrawn because the U.S. wants them out. They're leaving because the Iraqi government refused to let them stay.

Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House -- anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq's continuing political and security challenges -- publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension. As recently as last week, the White House was trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000-3,000 troops to stay beyond the end of the year.


Those efforts had never really gone anywhere; one senior U.S. military official told National Journal last weekend that they were stuck at "first base" because of Iraqi reluctance to hold substantive talks.

That impasse makes Obama's speech at the White House on Friday less a dramatic surprise than simple confirmation of what had long been expected by observers of the moribund talks between the administration and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which believes its own security forces are more than up to the task of protecting the country from terror attacks originating within its borders or foreign incursions from neighboring countries.

The White House said Obama was pleased with the coming troop withdrawal because it kept to his "core commitment" – frequently enunciated during the campaign – of pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. "We never wanted a residual force in Iraq," a senior administration official insisted.

In Washington, many Republican lawmakers had spent recent weeks criticizing Obama for offering to keep a maximum of 3,000 troops in Iraq, far less than the 10,000-15,000 recommended by top American commanders in Iraq. That political point-scoring helped obscure that the choice wasn't Obama's to make. It was the Iraqis', and recent interviews with officials in the country provided vivid evidence of just how unpopular the U.S. military presence there has become -- and just how badly the Iraqi political leadership wanted those troops to go home.
 
first obama rejects the timeline to get voted in, by people like flounder and then he follows the timeline that he criticized and the people like flounder that voted for the rejection of the original timeline give obama credit for it.

:lol: :lol: :lol:


Obama rejects Bush Iraq withdrawal plan

The first-term Illinois senator has also campaigned on a pledge to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months of becoming president, and Bush's announcement allows him to refocus attention away from Palin and onto the two wars being fought by American troops, an issue that U.S. voters have turned away from in their anxiety over the shaky economy.

Bush said Tuesday that he would keep the U.S. force strength in Iraq largely intact until the next president takes over and outlined what he called a "quiet surge" of additional American forces in Afghanistan. Obama fired back that the announcement means taxpayers "will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq while the Iraqi government sits on a $79 billion surplus."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26621558/#.TqH6N7Lcy_I


President Barack Obama told disabled veterans in Atlanta on Monday that he was fulfilling a campaign promise by ending U.S. combat operations in Iraq "on schedule," by Aug. 31.

But the timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops in Iraq was decided during the Bush administration with the signing of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) by U.S. and Iraq officials on Nov. 16, 2008. The Iraqi parliament signed SOFA on Nov. 27, 2008.

The agreement, which had been in negotiations since 2007, set a timetable calling for most U.S. troops to leave Iraqi towns and cities by June 30, 2009, with about 50,000 troops left in place until the final withdrawal of all U.S. military forces by Dec. 31, 2011.

http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/5/1/remarks_by_the_president_at_disabled_veterans_of_america_conference_in_atlanta_georgia/
 
Trolldog_d06d89_2728617.gif
 
obama tried to get Iraq to let the troops stay longer than the Bush timeline, but couldn't negotiate a deal.


BAGHDAD -- Iraq's prime minister said Saturday that U.S. troops are leaving Iraq after nearly nine years of war because Baghdad rejected American demands that any U.S. military forces to stay would have to be shielded from prosecution or lawsuits.

"When the Americans asked for immunity, the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible," al-Maliki told reporters in Baghdad. "The discussions over the number of trainers and the place of training stopped. Now that the issue of immunity was decided and that no immunity to be given, the withdrawal has started."

Nearly 40,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, all of whom will withdraw by Dec. 31 – a deadline set in a 2008 security agreement between Baghdad and Washington.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/2 ... 26306.html
 
Whitewing said:
First closing Gitmo, now this. Kudos Obama!!!

did they just send all the Gitmo terrorists to Yemen or did they divide them up between Pakistan and Yemen?

or are they all being given US citizenship by Napolitano?
 
Steve said:
Whitewing said:
First closing Gitmo, now this. Kudos Obama!!!

did they just send all the Gitmo terrorists to Yemen or did they divide them up between Pakistan and Yemen?

or are they all being given US citizenship by Napolitano?

Nope didn't you hear they are going to sell them a $500,000 house and as a closing gift the terrorist will get a visa and a fast track to US citizenship. All they have to do is promise to vote for a Democrap in thanks for the party that believe there are redeaming qualities in EVERYBODY :roll: . THINK OF IT Coming to a neighborhood near you a suicide bomber funded by a foreign state out to see your demise in the name of religion. Film at eleven on how the Obama Administration saved the Housing market by incouraging immigration. :roll:
 
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — President Obama declared the beginning of the end of one of the longest and most divisive wars in American history on Friday as he announced that he would withdraw combat forces from Iraq by August 2010 and all remaining troops by December 2011.
The decision, outlined before thousands of camouflage-clad Marines here, underscored the transformation in national priorities a month after Mr. Obama took office as he prepared to shift resources and troops from increasingly stable Iraq to increasingly volatile Afghanistan.

But it also marked a sharp change in America's attitude about Iraq after years of wrenching debate over war and peace. Despite some grumbling on the left and right, Mr. Obama's pullout plan generated support across party lines on Friday, including from his rival in last year's election and advisers to his predecessor, indicating an emerging consensus behind a gradual but firm exit from Iraq.

The plan will withdraw most of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq by the summer of next year, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 to train and advise Iraqi security forces, hunt terrorist cells and protect American civilian and military personnel. Those "transitional forces" will leave by 2011 in accordance with a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office.
 
You want'em to stay WITHOUT the S.O.F.A?


Idiots............... :roll: :roll:
 
jingo2 said:
You want'em to stay WITHOUT the S.O.F.A?


Idiots............... :roll: :roll:


Who said that? Whether "we" or anybody wanted them to stay or come home has nothing to do with the failure of the obama administration's foreign policies.

obama was negotiating for them to stay and failed. They were kicked out by the Iraqis.

The last 10 years seems all for naught now. Iran will probably fill the vaccuum that obama's failure has created


and in Afghanistan, obama also seems to have squandered all good will that was fostered with the Afghanis.

they said they will side with Pakistan, if hostilities were to break out between them and the US.

So much for repairing the US image that obama promised
 
hypocritexposer said:
jingo2 said:
You want'em to stay WITHOUT the S.O.F.A?


Idiots............... :roll: :roll:


Who said that? Whether "we" or anybody wanted them to stay or come home has nothing to do with the failure of the obama administration's foreign policies.

obama was negotiating for them to stay and failed. They were kicked out by the Iraqis.

The last 10 years seems all for naught now. Iran will probably fill the vaccuum that obama's failure has created
The plan will withdraw most of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq by the summer of next year, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 to train and advise Iraqi security forces, hunt terrorist cells and protect American civilian and military personnel. Those "transitional forces" will leave by 2011 in accordance with a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office.


Sounds like you are you now saying GW screwed up again by negotiating a bad agreement with the Iraquis :???:

So you think Obama should have broken the agreement made by Bush :???:
How would that repair the US image :???:
 
Oldtimer said:
hypocritexposer said:
jingo2 said:
You want'em to stay WITHOUT the S.O.F.A?


Idiots............... :roll: :roll:


Who said that? Whether "we" or anybody wanted them to stay or come home has nothing to do with the failure of the obama administration's foreign policies.

obama was negotiating for them to stay and failed. They were kicked out by the Iraqis.

The last 10 years seems all for naught now. Iran will probably fill the vaccuum that obama's failure has created
The plan will withdraw most of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq by the summer of next year, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 to train and advise Iraqi security forces, hunt terrorist cells and protect American civilian and military personnel. Those "transitional forces" will leave by 2011 in accordance with a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office.


Sounds like you are you now saying GW screwed up again by negotiating a bad agreement with the Iraquis :???:

So you think Obama should have broken the agreement made by Bush :???:
How would that repair the US image :???:


obama was trying to "re-negotiate", or break, if you will, the deal made by Bush, he failed in those negotiations, and the Iraqis said that they would stick to the Bush timeline and the troops need to go.

obama tried to "renege" on the deal made by the US. It damaged the US's image.......the original agreement made by Bush has been kept and is intact, albeit a little slower (troop numbers), under obama. Why would Iraq trust obama.....? He's definitely not trustworthy and that has been proven time and time again.

Under obama, the US is starting to look like a bunch of "backstabbers". If you have an agreement, you honor it, not to -re-negotiate it, substantially, as obama tried to do.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Egypt, Sryia and Israel, just to name a few
 

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