Obama to Deliver Speech on Iraq, National Security
(WASHINGTON) As he prepares to head to the Middle East and Europe later this month, Barack Obama will deliver a speech on Iraq and national security at the Reagan Building today, where he will outline his goals to make the United States safer. According to excerpts released by the campaign, the goals include ending the war in Iraq, wrapping up the fight against al Qaeda, securing nuclear weapons from rogue states, achieving energy security and rebuilding alliances.
"As President, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy – one that recognizes that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin," Obama is expected to say.
Obama's speech will largely focus on the need to redeploy troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, where nine U.S. soliders were killed on Sunday. While emphasizing that the Taliban is in control of parts of Afghanistan and Al Qaeda is expanding in to Pakistan, Obama will say, " If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned. And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan."
Pakistan is an essential part of Obama's national security plan, and he will highlight the importance of U.S. cooperation with the country. Obama, who supports a bill to triple non-military aid to Pakistan, will say, "We must move beyond a purely military alliance built on convenience, or face mounting popular opposition in a nuclear-armed nation at the nexus of terror and radical Islam."
McCain will criticize Obama later today, according to his campaign, hitting the Democrat for delivering a speech which laying out his Iraq plan before meeting with the military leaders on the ground there.
"I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy," McCain will say in Albuquerque, N.M., according to speech excerpts released by his campaign.
Obama's speech today comes after a tough couple of weeks for the presumptive Democratic nominee, who has been accused of changing his position on the war in Iraq. Obama has come under fire recently for saying that he intends to "refine" his Iraq troop withdrawal plan after he meets with commanders on the ground later this summer. The McCain campaign has portrayed Obama's Iraq policy as "puzzling" and confusing.
Although Obama maintains that his position on Iraq has not changed, he has been noticeably focusing on the issue.