http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_iraq/2008/05/28/99668.html
Obama Considering Iraq Visit
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
WA****NGTON -- Barack Obama is considering a visit to Iraq this summer,
his first to the war zone since becoming a presidential candidate.
Obama revealed his plans to The New York Times. He has been under
criticism from Republican rival John McCain for failing to visit Iraq
since 2006. Obama also declined McCain's invitation for a joint trip.
"I just don't want to be involved in a political stunt," Obama said,
according to a re****t on the newspaper's Web site Wednesday.
"I think that if I'm going to Iraq, then I'm there to talk to troops
and talk to commanders," he said in the interview. "I'm not there to
try to score political points or perform. The work they're doing there
is too im****tant."
Obama's campaign has been considering an overseas trip since last year
to beef up his foreign policy credentials, but the extended fight for
the Democratic nomination with Hillary Rodham Clinton has delayed
those plans.
"A trip is under consideration but no final plans have been made,"
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Wednesday.
Obama took his only trip to Iraq in January 2006, when he traveled as
part of a congressional delegation. McCain has been criticizing him
for not returning, and the Republican Party joined the attack
Wednesday by launching an online clock to count the days since Obama
last visited.
"This is about leader****p and learning," McCain said in Nevada, where
he was campaigning. "To say that we're failing in Iraq and not
succeeding does not com****t with the facts on the ground, so we've got
to show him the facts on the ground."
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