Word: baghdad
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...Obama was visiting Afghanistan as part of a multi-stop tour through the Middle East and Europe that is calculated in part to bolster his foreign policy credentials. He will also be stopping in Baghdad, which will be the Senator's second visit to Iraq. Obama started his visit to Afghanistan with a briefing at Bagram Air force Base on Saturday, followed by a quick helicopter trip to the eastern province of Nangahar where he met with the provincial governor. He returned to Kabul in the evening and stayed the night at the U.S. embassy. In an interview aired Sunday...
...tour of Europe and the Middle East, Iraq seems unsure of just how to receive him. "Obama is a well-liked person. You feel it when he talks because he's genuine and passionate about what he says - he's not acting," says supermarket attendant Bassam Obeid in central Baghdad. "But this visit is just for election publicity, and 16 months [for U.S. combat troop withdrawal] is an exaggeration." Leila Mohammed, a housewife in Baghdad's Karrada district, also shrugged at the significance of the visit, the first Obama will make to the war zone since clinching the Democratic nomination...
...send more forces to the country. Before he left Washington for Afghanistan, Obama told a pool reporter that "I'm looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is. I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing...
...Obviously, the visiting VIPs can't shake off their military security and go roaming in the Red Zone - that would be taking an absurd risk. Nor is there much point to the military's high-security walkabouts; remember John McCain's farcical visit to a Baghdad marketplace last year? In light of the security constraints, the only way to get a real sense of life outside the Green Zone is to meet with ordinary Iraqis - the people outside the protected bubble, who live the consequences of U.S. policy...
...First, he should invite a group of Baghdad journalists - mostly Iraqis, but also a few Westerners who've been in Iraq for several years - for a chat. This would not be a press conference; Obama would be asking all the questions. The majority of journalists live in the Red Zone and see much more of Iraqi life than anybody in the Iraqi government or the U.S. embassy. Iraqi journalists don't need to "embed" with U.S. troops in order to get to dangerous districts like Sadr City or Amariyah - they live in those neighborhoods, and they could tell Obama...