Iraqi official says Obama urged a delay in troop agreement

The Washington Times is reporting tonight that Obama urged Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on US presence in Iraq until a new administration was in place. From the Times:

At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn’t be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval.
Mr. Obama’s conversations with the Iraqi leaders, confirmed to The Washington Times by his campaign aides, began just two weeks after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June and stirred controversy over the appropriateness of a White House candidate’s contacts with foreign governments while the sitting president is conducting a war.
Some of the specifics of the conversations remain the subject of dispute. Iraqi leaders purported to The Times that Mr. Obama urged Baghdad to delay an agreement with Mr. Bush until next year when a new president will be in office – a charge the Democratic campaign denies.
Mr. Obama spoke June 16 to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari when he was in Washington, according to both the Iraqi Embassy in Washington and the Obama campaign. Both said the conversation was at Mr. Zebari’s request and took place on the phone because Mr. Obama was traveling.
However, the two sides differ over what Mr. Obama said.
“In the conversation, the senator urged Iraq to delay the [memorandum of understanding] between Iraq and the United States until the new administration was in place,” said Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq’s ambassador to the United States.
He said Mr. Zebari replied that any such agreement would not bind a new administration. “The new administration will have a free hand to opt out,” he said the foreign minister told Mr. Obama.
Mr. Sumaidaie did not participate in the call, he said, but stood next to Mr. Zebari during the conversation and was briefed by him immediately afterward.

Provided Mr. Sumaidaie is correct, the actions by Mr. Obama were out-of-line – some would say worse that out-of-line. Conducting foreign policy is not within the resume of a Presidential candidate.

4 thoughts on “Iraqi official says Obama urged a delay in troop agreement”

  1. BTW – did anyone hear recently about the new Intelligence Report that came out saying we are losing ground in Afghanistan? The ONE place we SHOULD Be winning.

  2. Do you ever read past page 1? From page 2…

    A recent article in the New York Post quoted Mr. Zebari as saying that Mr. Obama asked Iraqi leaders in July to delay any agreement on a reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq until the next U.S. president takes office.
    Miss Morigi denied this. She said the request for Senate vetting was bipartisan and noted that the first Obama-Zebari conversation took place 12 days after four other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – including Republican Sens. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska – wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urging consultation over any agreements committing U.S. troops and civilian contractors to Iraq “for an extended period of time.”
    When Mr. Obama spoke to Mr. Zebari, he was speaking in his capacity as a senator and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Miss Morigi said. “It’s obvious that others are trying to mischaracterize Obama’s position, [but] on numerous occasions he has made it perfectly clear that the United States only has one president at a time and that the administration speaks with one voice.”
    Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who accompanied Mr. Obama in Iraq along with Mr. Hagel, said they made “no suggestion of any type of delay” in any agreements.

    And on page 3…..

    As a U.S. senator, Mr. Obama “has a foot in both camps,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “It’s within the jurisdiction of his committee and something he’s entitled to speak about. It doesn’t raise a red flag for me.”

    To the credit of the W.Post, they mention the Agnew/Chenault affair in South Vietnam. But gloss over the likely secret Reagan talks with Iran.
    So I guess you’re happy that an Iraqi has tried to throw our electoral process to the republican camp. And all perhaps at the behest of the Bush administration. So Zebari at his request called Obama, but now only Sumaidaie is now talking and only about Zebari told him. Sounds like a set-up. Wonder what Bush gave them.
    Oh what a wicked web we weave, when we first practice to deceive…. so much for a frank discussion of the issues. I’m still voting for Madman McCain’s, “That one.”

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