Obama touts withdrawal in Iraq war. Does he sound like Bush?

On Sunday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Fox News Sunday that he “commended the president” for “basically ignoring his own campaign rhetoric in 2008 and adopting the program of the Bush administration to wind down the war.”

Obama is indeed carrying out an agreement reached by the Bush administration that laid out the timetable for withdrawal.

The 50,000 troops that will remain in Iraq will continue training programs with the Iraq military, and will support Iraqi security forces in counterterrorism operations – operations that in some instances are likely to expose troops to the combat risks of past years. Taking note of that, Obama said in his speech, “The hard truth is we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq.”

At the same time, that “American sacrifice” has shifted to some degree to Afghanistan, as suggested by rising casualty figures that made July the deadliest month for US forces in Afghanistan.

Seeking to blunt the rising protests over Afghanistan the president faces from his own liberal base, the White House noted in a fact sheet Monday the kinds of figures depicting over-all progress in the wars that Obama will be citing in the coming weeks.

The fact sheet notes, for example, that even with Obama’s addition of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, the total number of uniformed Americans in the two countries will be down about 30,000 by the end of August from where it was when he took office.

IN PICTURES: Fighting continues in Afghanistan

Related:

• The Monitor's View: What is a 'responsible' end to Iraq war? Obama must define it after this withdrawal.
• Defense budget: After Afghanistan and Iraq withdrawal, a peace dividend?
• Obama to West Point grads: Success in Iraq, progress in Afghanistan

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