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Americans relieved as Obama pledges Iraq winddown
2009-02-28
DALLAS (Reuters) - Bring 'em home. Or send them to Afghanistan, where things are getting worse. American public opinion is broadly on the side of President Barack Obama's decision to end U.S. combat operations in Iraq in 18 months, leaving 50,000 troops behind for stability. "I think it's time to bring 'em home," said Dallas-area dentist Andre Ellis, 46. "We can't afford it, that's the bottom line. The country's broke," he said. The timetable, promised by Obama during his campaign for president, marked the beginning of the end to a war that cost the United States tremendously -- financially and in prestige -- and defined the presidency of George W. Bush. The war has killed 4,250 U.S. soldiers since it began in March 2003. Withdrawing resources from Iraq will allow Obama to boost troop numbers in Afghanistan, which he has declared central to the U.S. fight against terrorism. He hopes it will also help him slash a ballooning $1.3 trillion budget deficit. Lynn Kartchner, a Vietnam War veteran and gun shop owner in Douglas, Arizona, said it was time to turn to Afghanistan now that the raging violence in Iraq has subsided. "It's time to pull out and focus on the war in Afghanistan," said Kartchner, who supported the Iraq war. Obama has ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to try to secure the country against an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency. The United States ousted the Islamic militant protectors of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001, attacks. "I think our biggest mistake was focusing on Iraq and taking attention off Afghanistan because that whole place has completely flipped around again. The Taliban's coming more into control," said Stan Montijo, 23, a political science student in San Francisco. The United States now has 142,000 troops in Iraq. Obama said 35,000 to 50,000 troops would stay to train and equip the Iraqi forces, protect civilian reconstruction projects and conduct limited counterterrorism operations. Obama stressed he intended to remove all U.S. troops by the end of 2011, in line with a deal signed with Iraq last year. For many Americans, the Iraq war has been overshadowed by a deep recession that has left many struggling to make ends meet and millions jobless. The day of Obama's Iraq announcement, government figures showed the U.S. economy suffered its deepest contraction since 1982 in the fourth quarter. "I am very relieved that the troops are coming home. The sooner they come home we will have no more fatalities," said Atlanta lawyer Ivory Brown. "The world's attention has turned away from fear of terrorism and is focused more on day-to-day survival." (Additional reporting by Peter Henderson in San Francisco, Matthew Bigg in Atlanta and Tim Gaynor in Arizona; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
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