Spring Break
Obama in Baghdad, tells troops Iraq must take over
Associated Press
Issue date: 4/8/09 Section: News
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With violence diminished but hardly disappearing - a car bomb killed eight Iraqis just hours before Obama's arrival - the president met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and emphasized that "we strongly support" steps to unite political factions, including integrating minority Sunnis into the government and security forces.
Iraqis "need to take responsibility for their own country," Obama told hundreds of cheering soldiers gathered in an ornate, marble palace near Saddam Hussein's former seat of power.
"You have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country. That is an extraordinary achievement," he told some 600 troops, saluting their efforts during six years of American fighting and losses.
"We love you," someone yelled from the crowd of photo-snapping men and women in uniform.
"I love you back," responded the president, repeating a sequence that played out at hundreds of campaign stops on his successful run for the White House last year.
Obama met with top U.S. commanders as well as senior Iraqi leaders on a visit of a little more than four hours that was confined to Camp Victory, the largest U.S. military base in a war that began in 2003 and has cost the lives of 4,265 members of the U.S. military. Many thousands more Iraqis have perished.
A helicopter flight to the heavily fortified Green Zone a few miles distant was scrapped, but White House aides attributed the change in travel plans to poor weather rather than security concerns.
Al-Maliki, appearing alongside Obama after their meeting, told reporters, "We assured the president that all the progress that has been made in the security area will continue."
American commanders told the president the country is experiencing a relatively low level of violence, although the car bomb explosion in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad was evidence of a recent resurgence. Obama flew from Turkey, the next-to-last stop on an eight-day itinerary that also included Britain, France, Germany and the Czech Republic.
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