Barack Obama Committed to US Withdrawal in Iraq

Barack Obama said he is committed to a 16-month Iraq withdrawal plan.

Barack Obama was speaking in the Jordanian capital as part of a tour of the region in which he has sought to shift the focus of U.S. military efforts from Iraq to Afghanistan, where al Qaeda and the Taliban continue to shed violence.

Obama has made his opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 a centerpiece of his election campaign.

"What I have proposed is a steady, deliberate draw down over the course of 16 months," Obama said during a news conference in Amman.

The Illinois senator has said the draw down would enable more troops to be deployed in Afghanistan, where insurgent attacks in the past two months have killed more U.S. soldiers than in Iraq.

"In Afghanistan and the border region of Pakistan, al Qaeda and the Taliban are mounting a growing offensive against the security of the Afghan people and increasingly the Pakistani people, while plotting new attacks against the United States," he said.

The presidential candidate said that the key to progress in Iraq to boosting stability and security would come from reconciling Iraq's feuding political groups.