ST PAUL, Minnesota: Barack Obama said Thursday the US troop surge in Iraq had succeeded beyond anybody’s “wildest dreams” prompting Republicans to say he showed poor judgment by at first opposing the operation.
The Democratic White House nominee argued however that there still had not been sufficient political reconciliation in the US-occupied country, in the latest tussle over the war ahead of the Nov. 4 election.
Obama’s Republican opponent John McCain has repeatedly hammered Obama for his initial opposition to the troop surge, of which he was an early and outspoken proponent.
“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said in an interview on Fox News show “The O’Reilly Factor.” “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”
Republicans pounced on Obama’s comments, arguing that his opposition to the surge, which is credited with helping reduce raging violence in Iraq, proved he did not have the judgment required of a potential US commander-in-chief.
“There was someone who believed we could win in Iraq and anticipated the success additional men and women in uniform could have — John McCain,” said Danny Diaz, spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “Obama is on the wrong side of history and left to his own devices, America would have lost a war, retreated from the enemy, and ceded Iraq to the terrorists.” US defense officials meanwhile said yesterday that the United States would make only modest cuts in US force levels in Iraq early next year under a plan presented to President George W. Bush that calls for a shift in forces to Afghanistan.
A senior defense official confirmed that the plan would shrink the number of US combat brigades in Iraq to 14 from 15 and reduce the overall size of the force by some 8,000 troops by March. “There will be well over 7,500 personnel reduced, with the reductions taking place as units complete their missions between now and early next year,” a senior US military official said.
