Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Barak Obama made it a point to speak to New Hampshire reporters shortly after delivering a speech on the floor fo the Senate on Wednesday. He spoke in support of his bill to start the pull-back of U.S. troops from Iraq on May 1 of this year, with a March 1, 2008 deadline for completion of the task.
Obama's bill does not, however, bring all the troops home. It retains an as yet undetermined number of military units in the region to continue fighting in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and to engage Al Qaeda. The number of American forces that will involve will be determined after conversations with military commanders in the area, Obama said.
The Illinois Senator also had no answer to what would happen in Iraq after the U.S. pull-back is complete. "I don't think anyone has an answer to that," he told reporters.
What Obama hoped was that U.S. diplomats would work within Iraq and with the "international community" to find solutions to the problems that country is now facing.
Obama refrained from attacking the his two major opponents for the Democratic nomination - New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards - at least directly. He did note, however, that his speech in 2002 against involvement in a war in Iraq, delivered while he was still a Illinois state lawmaker, was made on the basis of information that was available to everyone at that time. Edwards and Clinton, both of whom were in the Senate and voted for the war.
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