Obama to draw down Iraq troops – CBS

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said he plans to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq after he settles in the White House on January 20, according to CBSnews. “Well, I’ve said during the campaign, and I’ve stuck to this commitment, that as soon as I take office, I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops. Particularly in light of the problems that we’re having in Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We’ve got to shore up those efforts,” Obama said in an interview to CBS’s 60 Minutes TV program on Sunday. Commenting on the statements, the network said Obama, who has been critical opponent of the invasion, would withdraw the largest part of U.S. forces in 16 months until the summer of 2010 while some forces would stay to combat “terrorists”. It added that the period set by Obama remains shorter than that provided in Sunday’s agreement approved by the Iraqi cabinet to legalize U.S. presence in Iraq. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that the Iraqi cabinet approved the status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) with a majority of 27 votes to one. “The agreement will be referred to the Iraqi parliament today for voting,” Ali al-Dabbagh said in a press conference on Sunday, not saying when the 275-member House would vote over the document. The Iraqi and U.S. sides have been negotiating a long-term security deal, known as SOFA, during the past months. The pact should determine the legal framework for the U.S. presence in Iraq after the end of this year, when the international mandate granted by the UN Security Council to the U.S. army to intervene in Iraq is due to expire. AmR (S) 1