BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promised the people of war-torn Iraq on Saturday that they would not be abandoned by the Obama administration as it begins to pull out U.S. troops.
Clinton flew to the country Saturday morning on the heels of four suicide bombings in two days that killed more than 160 people. The violence signaled the difficulties that the Obama administration might face as it tries to shift troops from this country to the escalating war in Afghanistan.
“I wanted to come today to repeat the commitment that President Obama and I and our government have to the people and nation of Iraq,” Clinton said at a town-hall-style meeting at the U.S. Embassy that was broadcast on Iraqi television.
“As we make this transition, the United States will stand with the people of Iraq,” she said.
Violence in Iraq has dropped dramatically since the worst days of the war, from an average of 180 attacks per day in June 2007 to 27 a day in January, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. But the death toll has spiked lately, with insurgents demonstrating that they are still able to obtain explosives and outwit Iraqi security forces.
The latest attacks occurred two months before U.S. forces are to withdraw from Iraqi cities under a treaty signed with Iraq in December. The Obama administration is planning to slash the troop presence from about 140,000 to 50,000 or fewer by the summer of 2010.
The trip was Clinton’s fourth to Iraq but her first as secretary of state. She met with Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, to discuss the security situation and with Iraqi government leaders, who had enjoyed a close relationship with the Bush administration.
