Obama pledges end to Iraq war
Tuesday, 15 Jul 2008 16:54
Barack Obama declares he will end Iraq war if he becomes next president
Pakistan In Focus
Pervez Musharraf's resignation leaves a big hole in Pakistani politics – one which analysts expect the west will look to the military to fill. Full Story
Democrat candidate for the White House, Barack Obama, has declared that he will end the war in Iraq if he becomes the next president of the United States.
He said the Iraq war had cost US taxpayers trillions of dollars in a country which had nothing to do with the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Mr Obama added the war had led to the loss of thousands of lives and caused the US to alienate its allies.
He said the war "distracts us from the threats we face" and had "diminished our standing in the world".
Instead he called for a new direction in Iraq, where Iraqis would take responsibility for their own futures and where all US troops, bar a "residual force", would withdraw from the country by the summer of 2010.
Mr Obama said the US had to be "as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless in getting in".
The Democrat candidate claimed that it was Afghanistan that should be the main target for the US' war against terrorism.
He claimed if he became the next president he would make the fight against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan the military's principal objective.