When did Obama arrive at his current Iraq Troop Withdrawl position?

MethuenProgressive

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Thu Apr-10-08 01:36 PM
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When did Obama arrive at his current Iraq Troop Withdrawl position?

First it was March 31st 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001586.html

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 31, 2007; Page A04

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, one of the most prominent Democrats in the 2008 presidential field, proposed for the first time setting a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq, as part of a broader plan aimed at bolstering the freshman senator's foreign policy credentials.
Obama's legislation, offered on the Senate floor last night, would remove all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008. The date falls within the parameters offered by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended the removal of combat troops by the first quarter of next year.

{If you're wondering whatever happen to Obama's Big Bill, it was never voted on, it was sent back to Obama's own committee where it never saw the light of day again.)

Then it was not until sometime after 2012
http://action.richardsonforpresident.com/page/content/2013/obamarecord/

Refuses to Pledge to Get Our Troops Out by 2013, the End Of His First Term
RUSSERT: "Will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term, more than five years from now, there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq?"

OBAMA: "I think it's hard to project four years from now, and I think it would be irresponsible. We don't know what contingency will be out there.

What I can promise is that if there are still troops in Iraq when I take office -- which it appears there may be, unless we can get some of our Republican colleagues to change their mind and cut off funding without a timetable -- if there's no timetable -- then I will drastically reduce our presence there to the mission of protecting our embassy, protecting our civilians, and making sure that we're carrying out counterterrorism activities there. I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises, not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out."
-- From 9/26 DNC Debate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Would Leave a Residual Force of Up to 60,000 troops in Iraq
"My plan for ending the war would turn the page in Iraq by removing our combat troops from Iraq's civil war."
-- Speech in Clinton, Iowa 9/12/2007.

Under the Obama plan, American troops may remain in Iraq or the region. These American troops will protect American diplomatic and military personnel in Iraq, and continue striking at al Qaeda in Iraq. If Iraq makes political progress and their security forces are not sectarian, we would also continue training othe Iraqi Security Forces.
-- Barack Obama: Turning the Page in Iraq. BarackObama.com

The Center for American Progress estimates that such an undertaking in Iraq would require a force of around 60,000 troops.
-- "Strategic Redeployment 2.0: A Progressive Strategy for Iraq." The Center for American Progress. By Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis. May 2006.

Claims to Want to End War, but Votes for Half Measures
Senator Obama has again and again advocated ending the war in Iraq, but has settled for half measures, including an amendment proposed by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) that, by Senator Levin's own admission, would only, "cut troop levels in Iraq by more than half."
-- From "Senate Blocks Bill on Combat Tours." Associated Press. By Anne Flaherty. 19 September 2007

And then the other day it was:

"Nobody's asking for a precipitous withdrawal,"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89490004&ft=1&f=1012

So what exactly is his "position" now? No quick withdrawl, even though that's what he's been promising in his stump speeches?