Thaier al-Sudani
/ Getty Images-pool
Here's a dispatch from Larry Kaplow and Lennox Samuels in Baghdad:
Sen. Barack Obama
got a red-carpet greeting in the Green Zone. The Democratic
presidential contender, who was in Baghdad Monday, was seated
one-on-one with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
at the end of his marble-lined salon, while Obama's senate colleagues
sat at the side with the aides. But the greatest gesture of Iraqi
hospitality came just after Obama and the Americans had zipped off in
their convoy of armored SUVs. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told
a scrum of the assembled press that the Iraqi government hopes U.S.
combat troops can go home by the end of 2010 – perhaps leaving advisers
and trainers behind. It puts the Iraqis' schedule – or at least in
their publicly-stated preference—close to the mid-2010 date that Obama
has proposed. And it is a timeline–something the Bush administration
has opposed until just last Friday, when it allowed that a "time
horizon" might be plausible.
Maliki aides brushed off
questions about whether the date was discussed by the prime minister
and the presidential contender during their talks. Also sitting in the
meeting were key administration figures on IraqU.S.
Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and top adviser for Iraq David Satterfield,
as well as Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and Democratic Senator Jack
Reed, D-RI. But the 2010 timeline seemed to catch embassy staff off
guard later as they called back to verify the comment when NEWSWEEK
requested an American response. They could be expected to be a little
frustrated. Maliki's office had spent much of the weekend trying to
clarify his stand on troop withdrawals after a German magazine reported
that he endorsed Obama's timeframe – an apparent break with President
George W. Bush, who has been a staunch Maliki supporter.
There's
growing support within Maliki's Shiite Muslim constituency for a
timetable on a U.S. departure as the government seeks to consolidate
power without interference from outside. But Maliki surely also
realizes that, for now, he relies on American backing—most recently
seen in March with the crucial support U.S. troops gave his forces when
they faced tough fighting the southern city of Basra. Maliki could also
be hedging his bets in case Obama is the next president.
Either
way, perhaps it's no surprise that Obama strode out of the hour-long
meeting with Maliki calling it "a very constructive discussion." The
candidate made no other comment at the time but was expected to do a
television interview later tonight—perhaps the only in-depth exchange
he will have with media while on the Iraq leg of this week's Middle
East and European tour.
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