Obama aide: Iraq speech not a victory lap

[mike r]

Source: CNN

When President Obama steps into the Oval Office to deliver his prime-time address on Tuesday, he won't be taking a victory lap and won't utter the words "mission accomplished, a top aide says. Instead, the president will have a "change of mission" moment, where he explains the way forward in Iraq and thanks U.S. troops for their sacrifice. The address, which is expected to last between 15 and 20 minutes, will mark what the White House is calling an important "milestone" and a campaign promise accomplished.

While the president's remarks have not been released, top aides say Americans will hear about the end of the combat mission in Iraq, about the challenges of forming a unified and stable government, and about the new role for the fewer than than 50,000 U.S. troops remaining to advise and assist Iraqi security forces. "We will be their ally, but the responsibility of charting the future of Iraq first and foremost belongs to the Iraqis," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told CNN's "American Morning."

The August 31 drawdown and end to the U.S. combat phase is a new page in what has been a controversial seven-year conflict. Weapons of mass destruction, the justification by the Bush administration for going to war, were never found. Saddam Hussein was toppled along with his massive Baghdad statue, but sectarian violence soon erupted. The war in Iraq has so far claimed the lives of more than 4,400 U.S. troops.

Obama will place a call to President George W. Bush before his address, Gibbs said, but he stopped short of saying whether Obama would give his predecessor credit for the surge, which is widely believed to have helped curtail some of the violence...

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/08/31/obama.oval.offic...