OBAMA FLIP FLOPS ON IRAQ TROOP WITHDRAWAL

OH Boy George Soros is going to be pissed off. One of the reason's for Senator Obama's early support base was his promise for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq:

"The stated purpose of the surge was to enable Iraq's political leaders to reconcile. They have not done so. . . . Our troops fight and die in the 120 degree heat to give Iraq's leaders space to agree, but they are not filling it. . . . The bar for success is so low that it is almost buried in the sand." "There is no military solution in Iraq. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to begin immediately to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year – now."Obama Campaign brochure September 2007

In an interview with BBC's HARDtalk on March 6, 2008, Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power stated that Obama's pledge to "have all [US] combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months

That was then...This is now or as Maxwell Smart would say "Would you believe...." The Senator and his staff has been spending the past few days backing away from those statements:

Obama rewrites Iraq plan

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) promised primary voters a swift withdrawal from Iraq, in clear language still on his website: “Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

Not anymore. Heading into the holiday weekend, Obama and his advisers repudiated that pledge, saying he is reevaluating his plan and will incorporate advice from commanders on the ground when he visits Iraq later this month.

A top Obama adviser said he is not “wedded” to a specific timeline, and Obama said Thursday he plans to “refine” his plan.

“I am going to do a thorough assessment when I'm there," he told reporters in Fargo, N.D., according to CBS News. "When I go to Iraq and I have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."

But he went on to maintain: “I have been consistent, throughout this process, that I believe the war in Iraq was a mistake.”

David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, went even further during remarks Wednesday on CNN’s “Situation Room,” telling guest host John Roberts that Obama has actually advocated “a phased withdrawal, with benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet, that called for strategic pauses, based on the progress on these benchmarks, and advice on the commanders on the ground.”

“He's always said that he would listen to the advice of commanders on the ground that that would factor into his thinking,” Axelrod said. “He's also always said that we had to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. So he's been very consistent on this point. ...

“I think he will take the advice, not just the advice of the commanders on the ground but his general assessment of conditions on the ground, in calibrating that withdrawal. He said he thought we could get one to two brigades out a month. But he's not wedded to that in the face of events. No president would be. And he's always said that he's never said that this withdrawal would be without any possibility of alteration based on events on the ground. That would not be a prudent thing to do for any president.