Day 39: Obama Lays Out Iraq Withdrawal Plan
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
The president said that he would remove all combat troops from Iraq by August 31st of next year (though up to 50,000 “non-combat” troops will remain) and that all troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011 (though Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. should be prepared to have troops there longer).
“We cannot sustain indefinitely a commitment that has put a strain on our military, and will cost the American people nearly a trillion dollars,” the president said. “America’s men and women in uniform have fought block by block, province by province, year after year, to give the Iraqis this chance to choose a better future. Now, we must ask the Iraqi people to seize it.”
Check out Chip Reid’s CBS Evening News report on the withdrawal plan below.
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
