AFP: President Barack Obama convened his national security team Wednesday to discuss the situation in Iraq, with just three weeks to go before the official end of the US combat mission there.
WASHINGTON, August 11, 2010 (AFP) – President Barack Obama convened his national security team Wednesday to discuss the situation in Iraq, with just three weeks to go before the official end of the US combat mission there.
About 20 senior civilian and military officials were expected to attend the meeting with Obama in the super-secure White House situation room to consider the road ahead in a country whose leaders have still not formed a government five months after legislative elections.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Obama’s national security adviser Jim Jones were joining the talks, as is the new director of national intelligence, James Clapper.
The US military, which currently has about 64,000 troops in Iraq, is supposed to conclude it combat mission August 31, in keeping with a timetable announced by Obama shortly after taking office in 2009.
The 50,000 US troops who will remain in the country beyond the deadline will be withdrawn by the end of 2011.
Despite an overall decline in violence, Iraq remains the scene of deadly attacks, which just last weekend left 60 people dead.
On Wednesday, eight Iraqi soldiers were killed in a explosion in a booby-trapped house in northeast Baghdad, military sources said.
