Word: iraq
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...years, Barack Obama's behind-closed-doors morning briefings have dealt with his battles against Hillary Clinton, John McCain and other political rivals on the road to the presidency. But starting Thursday morning, those morning meetings will concern two more intractable foes: America's enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with whatever other intelligence droppings the nation's spies have gleaned overnight. The hour-long CIA briefings are an early-morning ritual for Presidents, and they will begin for Obama even before he has named the national-security team - the Secretaries of Defense and State, and the National Security Adviser...
...earlier this week, continued strikes will fuel "anti-American sentiments." Such ire could doom Washington's efforts to rid Pakistan's lawless frontier of the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces that regularly launch attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in nearby Afghanistan. Highlighting how Afghanistan has eclipsed Iraq as a strategic issue, Baghdad didn't demand anything more of Obama than, in the words of a government statement, to work together to achieve "security and stability in Iraq, to preserve its sovereignty and protect its people's interests...
...Obama will start filling the senior national-security posts in the new Administration. Candidates for secretary of state are believed to include former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Chuck Hagel, a GOP senator from Nebraska who did not seek re-election and has been critical of the war in Iraq. A spokeswoman for John Kerry denied rumors that the Massachusetts senator and failed 2004 presidential nominee was also seeking the job. In the running to serve as Obama's national security adviser are James Steinberg, who served as Clinton's deputy national security adviser, and James Jones, a retired Marine...
...Obama's biggest immediate challenge overseas will be to scale back the 150,000 U.S. troop contingent now in Iraq, and shift some of them to reinforce the 32,000 American soldiers now in Afghanistan. While national-security experts agree such a shift needs to happen, the key question is its timing. If U.S. forces are pulled out of Iraq too soon, U.S. commanders there argue, the fragile gains achieved the over the past 18 months could erode, and ultimately bring on a civil war. Obama has said he would like to pull up to 10,000 troops a month...
...remain in his position, at least for the first year of the new Administration. Backers of such a move say the new commander-in-chief could use the continuity Gates would offer, but critics counter that keeping him on could delay Obama's promised U.S. troop pullout from Iraq and fail to signal a clear break from Bush's policy...