After Visit, Obama Defends Iraq Plan

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Obama: Iraq Now Needs a Political Solution

Sen. Barack Obama says there have been security gains in Iraq, but the country needs a political solution. Obama is continuing his overseas trip with stops in Jordan and Israel.

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There is a growing consensus, he said, to send more troops to battle al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, something that he has long proposed and that he reiterated in the news conference. He also spoke of rising support for a time frame for pulling troops out of Iraq. Obama got an unexpected boost while in Iraq when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for a withdrawal timetable that would have U.S. combat forces leave that country by the end of 2010.

"The message we heard from Iraq's leaders is that they're ready to do more, and they want to take more responsibility for their country," Obama said.

Asked whether he had learned anything on the trip that had changed his mind about future policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama responded by saying the trip to Afghanistan had given him an even keener appreciation that without cleaning up the porous border with Pakistan, defeating the Taliban will be difficult.

Obama spoke to reporters from the historic Citadel archaeological site, which provided a stunning backdrop overlooking the Jordanian capital. The news conference, his first since leaving Washington last Thursday, came a few hours after he and Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) landed in Jordan from Iraq.

The three senators concluded two days of meetings in Iraq with a stop in Anbar province, once the heartland of a Sunni insurgency that bedeviled U.S. forces. There, the visitors met officials including the provincial governor and the police chief, as well as top figures in the U.S.-backed Awakening movement, made up of tribal fighters who turned their weapons against the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

U.S. officials acknowledge that the Awakening movement was vital to bringing levels of violence down in Iraq during the past year, along with a cease-fire ordered by Sadr and the influx of thousands of U.S. troop reinforcements into Baghdad.

Police chief Tariq Yousef al-Asaal said the local officials told Obama about their success in tamping down the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq and invited U.S. companies to invest in Anbar. But Obama, Asaal said, appeared more interested in discussing troop cuts and the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces.

By Asaal's account, there was no discussion in the meeting about whether Iraqi security forces are ready to take over security responsibilities. "If he had asked me about whether my forces were ready or not, I would have said you could leave, you and your forces," Asaal said. "I can control the province with my police forces, and I challenge al-Qaeda to come to take back one square meter."

In a separate meeting, also inside the heavily guarded provincial government complex, Obama met with Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Awakening Council, who took over after his brother, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, was assassinated in a bombing last September.

In the meetings in Ramadi, Obama saw firsthand Iraq's bitter political rivalries. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a top Awakening tribal leader who was at the meeting, said his group asked Obama to support the tribes -- and not the Sunni Islamic parties that rejoined Iraq's government over the weekend.

Awakening members also told Obama that a security pact being negotiated with the United States should wait until a new U.S. administration is in office "because the Iraqi parliament does not represent Iraqis well."

Obama asked the tribal leaders whether Iraq's security forces are ready to take over security, Suleiman said. They told Obama that while Iraq's forces have improved, the province is still fragile and faces threats from al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"You can pull out and withdraw all the forces in Iraq, but you have to keep the Marines in our province because we still have problems with the Islamic parties and we can face a bad situation at any moment," Suleiman said they told Obama.

Raghavan reported from Baghdad. Special correspondent Qais Mizher in Baghdad contributed to this report.