Obama Drops 2009 Pledge to Withdraw Combat Troops from Iraq

[unhappycamper]

Obama Drops 2009 Pledge to Withdraw Combat Troops from Iraq
by Gareth Porter
Published on Tuesday, August 3, 2010 by the Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON - Seventeen months after President Barack Obama pledged to withdraw all combat brigades from Iraq by Sept. 1, 2010, he quietly abandoned that pledge Monday, admitting implicitly that such combat brigades would remain until the end of 2011.

Herson Blanco carries a mock coffin draped in an American flag during a protest march calling for an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on March 2010 in Washington, DC. US public support for the Iraq and Afghan war and President Barack Obama's handing of the conflict has hit an all-time low after the leak of secret military documents, a poll showed Tuesday.

Obama declared in a speech to disabled U.S. veterans in Atlanta that "America's combat mission in Iraq" would end by the end of August, to be replaced by a mission of "supporting and training Iraqi security forces".

That statement was in line with the pledge he had made on Feb. 27, 2009, when he said, "Let me say this as plainly as I can: by Aug. 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."

In the sentence preceding that pledge, however, he had said, "I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months." Obama said nothing in his speech Monday about withdrawing "combat brigades" or "combat troops" from Iraq until the end of 2011.

[SunsetDreams]

1. He did not drop his pledge, all combat troops will be out by August 31st

Troops remaining will be in a supportive role, NO combat.
This article is disingenuous.

President Obama Ending Combat: In Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOkayW8BG0U&feature=related

[DrDan]

2. interested in this bridge I have for sale???

[zipplewrath]

3. Um, you didn't listen to Obama

They will still be involved in combat, and they will still be dying. He warned you just the other day.

[Bonobo]

4. Yeah, 50,000 regular-army diplomats plus our private paramilitary diplomats

That's a lot of diplomacy!!!

All handled out of our permanent military bases, err, embassies.