Obama Goes For Withdrawal

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, one of the most prominent Democrats in the 2008 presidential field, proposed for the first time setting a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq, as part of a broader plan aimed at bolstering the freshman senator's foreign policy credentials. Obama's legislation, offered on the Senate floor last night, would remove all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008. The date falls within the parameters offered by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended the removal of combat troops by the first quarter of next year.