Sadrists call on Obama to withdraw troops from Iraq

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Sadrist bloc on Wednesday called on the newly-elected U.S. President Barack Obama to withdraw troops from Iraq. “We demand Obama and other American officials to interact with the Iraqi and U.S. people to pullout troops from Iraq,” the Sadrist bloc’s Spokesman Ahmed al-Massoudi told IraqiNews.com. “Obama’s victory is an internal affair and he made promises to pull out troops from Iraq. The Iraqi people do not care about who will lead America, they only care about their independence,” he explained. The spokesman for the Iraqi government Ali al-Dabagh had said earlier that the government welcomes the election of Senator Barack Obama as the new U.S. president. Barack Obama won the U.S. elections, defeating Republican John McCain to make history as the first black U.S. president. Obama will be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president on January 20, 2009 and will face a crush of immediate challenges, from tackling an economic crisis to ending the war in Iraq and trying to overhaul the U.S. health care system. SH (P) 1