New York Times Interview with Barack Obama

[illinoisprogressive]

Q. When you formulate your position for where we go from here in Iraq, which experts to you consult with? What informs your judgment and assessment of the next steps?

Senator Barack Obama: Well, we have a pretty wide circle of advisers. We talk to everybody from the usual suspects in Washington – various foreign policy experts – to mid-rank military officers, many of whom have served in Iraq, to higher ranking officers like General Scott Gration who flew repeated combat missions and has helped to advise us on a range of these issues and people like Richard Danzig, who is one of our key foreign policy advisers. So it’s a pretty wide circle.

Obviously, I keep up with the reports that are coming directly from the field as well, although, we’re usually one step removed. My former foreign policy adviser is a Naval intelligence officer who is stationed in Anbar – he’s obviously doing his thing, he’s not reporting his observations – we don’t have people on-line reporting to us on a regular basis so the information is coming back to us a month late, two months late, depending on the rotation.

But we are certainly taking into account what we are hearing in the field, from mid-level officers and a general assessment that we’re receiving from them, is the same assessment that you’re reporting in the newspapers, which is that the surge has had some impact that is to be hoped for. We put in an additional 30,000 troops that there has been some lessoning of the horrific violence that we were seeing last year and earlier this year, but that we still have a situation which there is an ongoing sectarian conflict, that violence is still occurring.

The way I view my roll as a candidate and as president is to look at the broader strategic concerns that this country has to face. My plan is premised on those broader strategic concerns, understanding that I’m going to be in constant consultation with the military in terms of how we tactically execute a strategy that’s been put forward, a strategy’s not going to be formed in a vacuum and we’re going to have to listen to the actual troops in the field.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/politics/02obama-transcript.html

[Colobo]

1. Great read!

[Colobo]

2. For the people who are judging Obama erroneously.