WASHINGTON - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama Wednesday demanded a withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq by late 2008, using a new war plan as a prism to attack his top rival Hillary Clinton.
Obama, who trails the New York senator in the race for the party's presidential nomination, laid out a blueprint to "turn the page" in Iraq in a speech, ironically in Clinton, Iowa.
He took a swipe at Clinton and her 2002 Senate vote to authorize a war he always opposed.
"Unfortunately, conventional thinking in Washington lined up for the war," he said in remarks not specifically mentioning Clinton, but targeting the Washington political class of which she is a leading member.
"Despite -- or perhaps because of -- how much experience they had in Washington, too many politicians feared looking weak and failed to ask the hard questions," Senator Obama said.
Turning to the Bush administration's strategy, Obama warned "the bar for success is so low that it is almost buried in the sand."
"The American people have had enough of the shifting spin," he said.
"We've had enough of a war that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged."
The speech reflected an intersection of two themes of Obama's campaign: that he has the capacity to end the unpopular war, and that he, unlike Clinton, is a fresh voice, untainted by the cynical insider politics of Washington, DC.
"I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002, I opposed it in 2003, I opposed it in 2004, I opposed it in 2005," Obama said.
Obama said if he were president now, he would immediately begin pulling combat troops out of Iraq at the rate of two brigades -- around 4,000 troops each -- a month, to be completed by the end of next year.
He would call a new constitutional convention in Iraq, convened with the United Nations, and not allow it to end until Iraq's leaders had reached a new accord on reconciliation.
Then he would use "presidential leadership" to "surge" diplomacy with Iraq's regional neighbors and take immediate steps to confront the "humanitarian disaster" in Iraq.
Obama scheduled his speech a day after war commander General David Petraeus and US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker wrapped up testimony to Congress.
On Thursday, President George W. Bush is due to address Americans on the war, and accept Petraeus's plans to reduce troops levels by around 30,000, to where they were when the current "surge" operation started.
Petraeus testified that further decisions on cutting the 130,000 strong baseline troop presence will have to wait until next March.
col/ksh
09/12/2007 21:15 GMT