Obama: World wants to see U.S. lead

Written on 4:18 PM by yahoo

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday that the most important thing he could achieve as president would be to deal with Iraq and the threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan while improving "our influence around the world."

In his first interview since the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Obama said he thinks the United States' influence around the world has been diminishing.

"The world wants to see the United States lead. They've been disappointed and disillusioned over the last seven, eight years," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview on "The Situation Room."

"I think there is still a sense everywhere I go that if the United States regains its sense of who it is and our values and our ideals, that we will continue to set the tone for a more peaceful and prosperous world."

Obama said he thinks the way the war in Iraq has been handled has kept the United States from focusing on key issues like energy policy, global warming and the economy.

Americans want to succeed, he said, "but we're going to have to make some investments and ensure that the dynamism and the innovation of the American people is released."

"It's very hard for us to do that when we're spending close to $200 billion a year in other countries, rebuilding those countries instead of focusing on making ourselves strong," he said.

Obama downplayed headlines and stories, such as the cover of Time magazine, that have declared him the Democratic presidential nominee.

"I don't want to be jinxed. We've still got some work to do," he said.

Obama predicted that he and Sen. Hillary Clinton would probably split the remaining contests and said Clinton would win the upcoming primary in West Virginia by a "big margin."

Obama won North Carolina by a 14-point margin Tuesday. Clinton squeaked out a win in Indiana by 2 points.

In the days after those contests, some top Democrats have called on Clinton to step aside.

Obama deflected a question about a potential joint ticket with the New York senator, saying it's too early to start thinking about running mates.

"Sen. Clinton has shown herself to be an extraordinary candidate. She's tireless, she's smart, she's capable, and so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate," he said. "But it would be presumptuous of me at this point ... to somehow suggest that she should be my running mate."

Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and a co-chairman of Clinton's campaign, commented Thursday on the possibility of a joint ticket.

"I think what she's interested in being the nominee of the party. ... We're fighting hard for it. This woman has been working tirelessly through this campaign. ... Hillary has earned the right to do whatever she wants to do."

Obama said he's ready for what would be the next phase if he becomes the nominee: a matchup against Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP candidate.

Obama said he was offended when McCain said last month, "It's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president."

"I think it's disappointing because John McCain always says, 'Well, I'm not going to run that kind of politics,' and then to engage in that kind of smear I think is unfortunate, particularly since my policy on Hamas has been no different than his," Obama said.

"And so for him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination."

When asked to respond to McCain supporters -- such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- who have said Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, the senator from Illinois said he thinks what people are looking for is "good judgment."

"I think I've consistently displayed the kind of judgment that the American people are looking for in the next president," he said.

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About 8,000 'surge' troops will remain in Iraq, Pentagon says

Written on 9:02 PM by yahoo

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- About 8,000 of the 30,000 "surge" troops sent to Iraq in 2007 will not go home as planned this summer, the Pentagon said Monday.
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President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January 2007 as part of a troop surge.

Support troops -- including helicopter crews, supply units, military police and headquarters staff -- will still be needed when the additional combat units return home, said Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, the chief of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In particular, U.S. troops are still needed to guard Iraqi prisons, he said.

"The transfer of responsibility for detention operations has not progressed as rapidly as we would like to the Iraqis, so there's a need to have that force sustained, as well," Ham said.

President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January 2007 to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces. When the last of the five Army combat brigades and two Marine battalions ordered in as part of that campaign leave Iraq by July, 140,000 troops will remain -- about 8,000 more than the 132,000 U.S. troops stationed there before the surge, Ham told reporters at the Pentagon.

"This will be very much conditions-based, but that's our projection as of today," he said.

He said top U.S. commanders are debating whether to make further withdrawals after July. The U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is scheduled to issue another report on the progress of the war in April, and Ham said it would be "premature" to discuss further withdrawals now.
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The Bush administration has touted a sharp reduction in the sectarian warfare that wracked Baghdad throughout 2006 -- and an accompanying drop in American death tolls -- as signs of the campaign's success. But Ham said the support troops are still needed to preserve that progress.

"Rather than look at this negatively, I would say there is an opportunity now to take advantage of the security that has been established by the five surge brigades," he said. "And you want to sustain that and not jeopardize the gains that have been achieved."

Critics say the political goals of the surge -- an Iraqi settlement of the nearly 5-year-old war -- have not yet been accomplished. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, said Sunday that Iraq remains far from stable.

"If we've had so much success, then why are our commanders concerned about pulling troops down and wanting to freeze them at at least the level that we had before the surge?" Hagel told CNN's "Late Edition."

But Ham said the campaign has encouraged Iraqis to take steps toward reconciliation and to turn against Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda, which is blamed for some of the war's worst attacks on civilians.

"I would say that there is increasing pressure on al Qaeda in Iraq everywhere inside Iraq," he said. "Again, it is premature to declare victory or anything, but it is very clear that, wherever al Qaeda in Iraq tries to operate, they are increasingly being resisted by Iraqi security forces, clearly by the U.S. and other coalition members, and most importantly by the people of Iraq -- and that's really what's making the difference."

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