withdrawal

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Barack Obama met with U.S. troops and received a military briefing on conditions in Afghanistan on Saturday during the opening leg of an overseas trip designed to showcase his appeal in foreign capitals and reassure American voters that he would make a reliable commander in chief.

Obama’s trip is scheduled to include a visit to Iraq, and his foreign policy judgment got an unexpected boost from that country’s leader, Nouri Maliki, who praised the Democratic presidential candidate’s plan for withdrawing U.S. troops over a 16-month period.

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Maliki embraced Obama’s plan, saying: “That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

Maliki said he was not making an endorsement in the presidential race.

The presumed Republican nominee, John McCain, has said that conditions in Iraq could worsen if troops were removed at the pace his rival has advised.

Obama’s high-profile trip caps a week on the campaign trail during which he focused on national security and U.S. commitments abroad — areas that are considered special strengths of McCain.

Seizing on Maliki’s favorable comments, the Obama campaign put out a statement from his senior foreign policy advisor, Susan Rice: “Sen. Obama welcomes Prime Minister Maliki’s support for a 16-month timeline for the redeployment of U.S. combat brigades. This presents an important opportunity to transition to Iraqi responsibility, while restoring our military and increasing our commitment to finish the fight in Afghanistan.”

In a speech last week, Obama said that troops should be drawn down in Iraq and two additional combat brigades deployed in Afghanistan, a war he said the U.S. couldn’t afford to lose.

His visit to Afghanistan comes at a time of sharply deteriorating security across the country. Suicide bombings are an everyday occurrence, and the number of foreign troops killed last month was the highest since the start of the war.

The presumptive Democratic nominee and senator from Illinois is part of an official congressional delegation that includes Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). The lawmakers made a brief visit to Jalalabad airfield in eastern Afghanistan, greeting American troops from their respective home states.

At Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Obama and the others met with senior military officials and got a briefing from the commander of American forces in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser. The decision to have the delegation meet with Schloesser probably reflected growing U.S. concern over infiltration of fighters from tribal lands on the Pakistani side of the frontier, which borders Afghanistan’s eastern provinces.

Although Afghanistan’s south is the traditional heartland of the insurgency, the eastern front, where U.S. forces are concentrated, has heated up dramatically in recent weeks. American troops suffered their worst single-incident loss in three years last Sunday, when about 200 insurgents staged a well-organized assault on a remote base near the Pakistani border manned by U.S. and Afghan troops; nine Americans were killed and 15 wounded.

On Saturday, a NATO soldier was killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province. The soldier’s nationality was not released, but nearly all Western troops in that area are Canadian.

On the eve of his trip, Obama told reporters he wanted to make a firsthand evaluation of the Afghan and Iraqi war zones.

“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is,” he said Thursday. “I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense — both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad — of, you know, what . . . their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they’ve been doing.”

In the Afghan capital, where constant power disruptions limit people’s access to radio and television news reports, many residents were not aware of Obama’s arrival. He is to meet with President Hamid Karzai today.

Obama caused a stir this month with remarks about the struggles of the Karzai government.

“I think the Karzai government has not gotten out of the bunker and helped to organize Afghanistan and [the] government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence,” Obama told CNN.

Yet there is considerable enthusiasm here at the prospect of a change in the American administration. Many Afghans, while grateful for the U.S.-led invasion more than six years ago that drove the Taliban from power, are disappointed that the country still faces violence and poverty.

Obama “has good ideas about Afghanistan, and I hope he becomes the U.S. president,” said university student Hafeez Mohammad Sultani, 23. “He is young and full of energy.”

Others, however, were more skeptical.

“Bush couldn’t provide security in Afghanistan, so that will be difficult for Obama too,” said telecommunications worker Shams ul-Rahman, 38. “This is a very big challenge for America — maybe there will be some changes in the way Obama is thinking about Afghanistan.”

Obama’s companions on the trip are considered possible administration appointees should he win the presidency. Reed is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Hagel is a Vietnam veteran who, like Obama, has opposed the Iraq war.

Recent polls show that most Americans see McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as the more seasoned of the two candidates when it comes to foreign policy.

To close the gap, Obama has been trying to shore up his credentials. In speeches and opinion pieces, Obama has argued that invading Iraq was a mistake, that Iraqi officials also favor a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal, and that Afghanistan is the real front in the war on terrorism.

In that respect, Maliki’s remarks gave Obama a boost and left McCain in an awkward spot.

The Arizona senator has said that U.S. troops should leave Iraq when the Maliki government and U.S. commanders on the ground deem the country secure. But McCain has dismissed Obama’s 16-month timeline as politically motivated and said it was an invitation for more chaos in Iraq.

McCain’s senior foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, said in a statement Saturday: “The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama advocates an unconditional withdrawal that ignores the facts on the ground and the advice of our top military commanders. John McCain believes withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground.

“Prime Minister Maliki has repeatedly affirmed the same view and did so again today. Timing is not as important as whether we leave with victory and honor, which is of no apparent concern to Barack Obama.

“The fundamental truth remains that Sen. McCain was right about the [U.S. troop] surge and Sen. Obama was wrong. We would not be in the position to discuss a responsible withdrawal today if Sen. Obama’s views had prevailed.”

The Republican candidate also has ridiculed Obama for making pronouncements on Iraq and Afghanistan in advance of his visit.

In a radio address Saturday, McCain said: “My opponent . . . announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable.”

Obama is scheduled to visit the Middle East and Europe in what will probably become a media spectacle, with television news anchors covering each stop as though Obama were a head of state.

Images of adoring crowds greeting Obama in Germany and elsewhere feed into a campaign strategy to demonstrate that as president he would improve the United States’ beleaguered reputation in Europe.

Before landing in Afghanistan, the delegation stopped in Kuwait.

Obama relaxed there with U.S. troops, taking to the basketball court for a game of H-O-R-S-E.

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Times staff writer Nicholas reported from Washington and special correspondent Faiez from Kabul. Times staff writers Laura King in Istanbul, Turkey, Michael Muskal in Los Angeles and Nicholas Riccardi in New York contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

What Maliki said

Here is a part of Iraqi leader Nouri Maliki’s interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he supported Barack Obama’s timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq:

Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the U.S. troops will finally leave Iraq?

As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.

Is this an endorsement for the U.S. presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?

Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business. But it’s the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that’s where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.

Source: Der Spiegel

Reporting from Washington — President Trump, as he often does, had a few things to say.

After admitting that he had been lonely over the holidays, Trump took advantage of his first public appearance of the new year Wednesday to air lingering grievances, make multiple false claims and reinforce recent decisions that have rattled financial markets and his party’s leaders.

As he held forth for more than 90 minutes before a small pool of reporters and photographers, members of his Cabinet, ostensibly called to the White House for a meeting, sat quietly around a long conference table.

Trump defended his decision last month to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and sharply cut the deployment to Afghanistan, moves that disturbed Republican allies in Congress and prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. In doing so, he contradicted his own recent claim that the U.S. had achieved its objectives of total victory over Islamic State militants in Syria.

“Syria was lost long ago,” he said.

“Look, we don’t want Syria,” he continued. “We’re talking about sand and death. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about vast wealth. We’re talking about sand and death,” he said, seemingly contrasting the war-wracked country with Iraq and its vast oil reserves.

Iran “can do what they want there, frankly,” he added, a comment likely to unnerve officials in Israel, who have worried that a U.S. withdrawal from its positions in eastern Syria would allow Iran to expand its influence there.

“It’s not my fault,” he said. “I didn’t put us there.”

Trump offered little further clarity on the U.S. withdrawal from Syria, which he initially said would take place in 30 days, saying now that the pullout will “take place over a period of time.”

Later, in a long riff about Afghanistan, Trump seemed to endorse Moscow’s 1979 invasion of the country — an act that the U.S. viewed as an attempt to spread communism and waged a long, covert operation to combat during the Carter and Reagan administrations.

“The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia,” Trump said, making a case to leave the policing of hot spots in the Mideast and Central Asia to countries in the region. “They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight.”

The Soviet Union eventually was bankrupted by its Afghan war, Trump added. “Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan.”

Historians generally agree that the Russian invasion and subsequent occupation of much of Afghanistan was one of several factors that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, although the country never went bankrupt.

For years, Republicans have credited President Reagan with bringing an end to the Soviet Union by his aggressive increase in U.S. military spending.

Trump’s comments stood in stark contrast to the view Mattis espoused in the resignation letter he presented last month after failing to convince the president to hold off on withdrawing from Syria.

“We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances,” Mattis wrote.

Mattis’ comments clearly stung Trump, who responded last month with criticism of his former Pentagon chief. On Wednesday, he stepped that up, claiming that he fired Mattis.

“What’s he done for me? How had he done in Afghanistan? Not too good,” Trump said. “As you know, President Obama fired him, and essentially so did I.”

Obama did not fire Mattis, although the general did retire several months early in 2013 from his position as the head of the military’s Central Command after dissenting from Obama administration policy decisions.

Tuesday was Mattis’ final day at the Pentagon. Trump, in a fit of pique after the resignation letter became public, had moved up Mattis’ termination date

In addition to his foreign policy comments, Trump also downplayed December’s stock market losses, which erased all positive gains for the year, as “a little glitch” and asserted — wrongly — that there are “probably 30-35 million” immigrants in the U.S. illegally. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center estimates that as of 2016, there were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country, a number that has declined in recent years.

Trump repeated his call for Democrats to agree to $5.6 billion in funding for a border wall, and expressed surprise not to have received overtures from them over the holidays to negotiate an end to the government shutdown.

“I was in the White House all by myself for six or seven days,” he said. “It was very lonely. My family was down in Florida. I said, ‘Stay there and enjoy yourself.’ I felt I should be here just in case people wanted to come and negotiate the border security.”

Trump, who met later in the day with congressional leaders away from TV cameras, has already dismissed a funding proposal from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi that includes $1.3 billion in border security funding.

While leaving the door open to a compromise, Trump continued to argue for the importance of a wall, pointing to other examples of barriers. He incorrectly asserted that Obama’s Washington residence is surrounded by a 10-foot wall and cited the Vatican, which he said “has the biggest wall of them all.”

“When they say the wall is immoral, then you better do something about the Vatican,” he said. “Walls work.”

As Trump spoke, a “Game of Thrones”-style movie poster teasing Iran sanctions — “SANCTIONS ARE COMING,” it read — lay unfurled across the table directly in front of him. But he made no remarks on the subject.

He did, however, comment on Sen.-elect Mitt Romney of Utah, who wrote in the Washington Post on Tuesday that he was troubled by Trump’s “deep descent in December” and that his deficit in “presidential leadership in qualities of character … has been most glaring.”

“I wish Mitt could be more of a team player,” Trump said. “And if he’s not, that’s OK too.”

Seeming to warn Romney about the fate that lies ahead for Republican lawmakers who vocally criticize him and his presidency, Trump boasted that he “got rid of” former Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, both of whom opted not to seek new terms last year.

Accusing both men of seeking publicity in taking stands against him, Trump suggested that Flake would be seeking a job as a paid cable news contributor — or perhaps in another profession that Trump himself once plied.

“Jeff Flake is now selling real estate or whatever he’s doing,” he said dismissively.

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