Despite Barack Obama's claims that his Iraq position is unchanged, on MSNBC this morning, Barack Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, continued to retreat from Obama's plan to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq, saying 16 months was only "a goal".
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I don't mean to cut you off, but the question is, is 16 months a hard out? Will Barack Obama be breaking his promise to the American voters if it's 20 months or 24 months or 36 months? That's the clarification I think a lot of people want to hear.
DAVID AXELROD: 16 months is the goal and he believes that that is a reasonable goal.
SCARBOROUGH: Okay.
AXELROD: But obviously any president is going to listen to, listen to the commanders on the ground and look at what the conditions are at the time. And that's, I think, that's a position that I think anybody would want him to take.
SCARBOROUGH: Of course. That's a very reasonable position. 16 months is a goal, not a hard out. (MSNBC, 7/8/2008 8:23 AM)
Axelrod's latest statements come less than a week after he told CNN that Obama was "not wedded to" getting "one to two brigades out a month".
AXELROD: "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." (CNN's "The Situation Room," 7/2/2008 5:40 PM)
Meanwhile, Obama's website says he will immediately withdraw from Iraq and "have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months."
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. (http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/)
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