WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama instructed his national-security team Wednesday that it had a new mission to end the war in Iraq, nearly six years after U.S.-led forces invaded, but he agreed to hear the concerns of military commanders before ordering a troop withdrawal.
On his first full day in office, Obama summoned senior civilian and uniformed officials to the White House to begin fulfilling his campaign promise to pull combat forces out of Iraq in 16 months.
Among those meeting with Obama was Gen. David Petraeus, who had not seen him since the Nov. 4 election.
“I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq,” Obama said in a statement after the meeting. He added that he planned to “undertake a full review of the situation in Afghanistan in order to develop a comprehensive policy for the entire region.”
While the economy has overtaken Iraq on Obama’s agenda, his opposition to the war was the original foundation of his presidential race, and ending it stands as perhaps the most salient test of his commitment to his campaign promises.
The meeting was mainly to brief Obama on the state of affairs in Iraq. Officials said Obama would meet in coming days with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The New York Times
