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Obama: Stability ultimately in hands of Iraqis

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday that he was pleased with the reduction of violence in Iraq since the deployment of more U.S. troops but added that it was a result of several factors, not just the surge.

We don’t know what would have happened if the plan that I preferred in January 2007 — to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation, to begin a phased withdrawal — what would have happened had we pursued that strategy, Obama said after landing in Amman, Jordan.

I am pleased that as a consequence of great effort by our troops — but also as a consequence of a shift in allegiances among the Sunni tribal leaders as well as the decision of the Sadr militias to stand down — that we’ve seen a quelling of violence, he said.

But, Obama said, a functioning Iraq ultimately will depend on the capacity of the Iraqi people to unify themselves, get beyond sectarian divisions and set up a government that works for the people.

There is security progress. Now we need a political solution, he said. Watch Obama describe his plan for Iraq

Obama’s stop in Jordan is the latest on his trip through the Middle East. Obama also has been through Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. The senator from Illinois visited Israel before embarking on the European leg of his trip, which will take him through Germany, France and the United Kingdom. See the stops on Obama’s trip

Back in the United States, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has been criticizing Obama for his opposition to the surge, which began in 2007 when President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq as part of a campaign to secure Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.

He railed against it. He voted against the surge, and he said it would fail, McCain told CBS. He was wrong there, and there’s very little doubt in my mind that he will see for himself that he had a gross misjudgment and he will correct that.

The McCain campaign continued its criticism in a statement released after Obama’s news conference in Jordan.

By continuing his opposition to the surge strategy long after it has proven successful and by admitting that his plan for withdrawal places him at odds with Gen. David Petraeus, Barack Obama has made clear that his goal remains unconditional withdrawal rather than securing the victory our troops have earned and the surge has made possible, spokesman Tucker Bounds said.

Asked whether he would have supported the surge knowing what he knows now, Obama said no.

These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult, Obama told ABC’s Nightline on Monday. But I think that what I am absolutely convinced of is that, at that time, we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.

On Tuesday, Obama reiterated his call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops in Iraq in 16 months upon taking office if he were elected and said he welcomes the growing consensus in the United States and Iraq for a timeline.

Obama turned the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, which he called a perilous and urgent situation.

If we responsibly end the war in Iraq, we can strengthen our military, step up our efforts to finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future, he said.

Obama underscored the need to redeploy combat troops from Iraq and shift resources to Afghanistan.

That is where the 9/11 attacks were planned, and today in Afghanistan and the border region of Pakistan, al Qaeda and the Taliban are mounting a growing offensive against the security of the Afghan people and, increasingly, the Pakistani people while plotting new attacks against the United States.

Obama said he is pleased about a growing consensus back home that we need more resources in Afghanistan.

While in Amman, Obama will meet with King Abdullah and other Jordanian officials.

Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally that relies greatly on regional stability, is sandwiched between two conflict zones: Iraq on one side and Israel and the Palestinians on the other.

The kingdom was one of the first countries to feel the impact of the war in Iraq; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled to Jordan.

And Jordan, which along with Egypt has diplomatic relations with Israel, has worked to end the hostilities and promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

found here.

Police fight a rash of vacant home burglaries

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — When Atlanta police officers Bryan Ernest and Bernatt Collins get a burglary call, they know the house they walk into will probably be stripped, right down to the materials inside the walls.

They are part of a special burglary detail formed to watch the increasing number of vacant houses resulting from unpaid mortgages.

Drawing their guns, the officers approach an empty house and shout Atlanta police! before entering. It’s a burglary call and they have to expect the worst.

But the officers usually get to a home long after the thief has gone, leaving behind Sheetrock hanging from the walls like shredded cardboard, giant holes in the ceilings and exposed wiring minus its valuable copper parts. Watch foreclosed homes gutted by thieves

This is all copper that they are taking out down the walls, Ernest said. You can see where the outlets were, any bit of copper they take.

The Atlanta Police Department doesn’t know how many homes have been hit. The police are not yet keeping records that differentiate between thieves who steal from occupied homes and those who rip out copper and appliances from vacant houses, many of them the result of the nation’s foreclosure crisis. See foreclosures across the country

Across the country, law enforcement officials report more empty houses are being burglarized. Developers are unable to sell newly built homes and landlords have trouble renting properties. Atlanta is one of the few police departments that has formed a special vacant home burglary team.

Rising copper prices are driving some of the thievery, but that’s not all the burglars are taking.

Wanda Vaughn and her mother, Vera, operate a contracting service. Banks and homeowners hire them to fix what’s been broken and/or replace stolen items after a thief strikes. Sometimes they replace everything in a home and board it up to prevent more burglaries.

Wanda Vaughn has seen water heaters ripped out and dumped on hardwood floors and carpet. This has to be torn out and replaced, she said while walking through a burglarized house in Atlanta. The baseboards have to be torn out because of mold on all the carpet padding and sub-flooring.

Estimated damage: Between $15,000 and $20,000 for only about $40 worth of copper.

They took the stove, the refrigerator, the cabinets, everything, including the kitchen sink! said Vaughn.

While some areas Ernest and Collins have patrolled over the past year are areas typically targeted by criminals, the burglaries are becoming more prevalent in affluent neighborhoods.

The neighbors have been calling and saying they are hearing banging or seeing a vehicle that’s parked at a house that’s supposed to be vacant, Ernest said.

Some thieves carry book bags full of copper. Others push baby carriages and shopping carts full of stripped building materials. Whatever they can push or pull to get this stuff out, they use, Collins said.

County code enforcement departments often have difficulty locating homeowners. Some live out of town and others have abandoned the houses after being unable to make mortgage payments, police said.

House investor Bob Forbes said it’s a constant battle when a home he owns is burglarized. Forbes usually installs steel cages around the air conditioning units outside the houses, but thieves take the air conditioner apart and pull the smaller pieces through the cage, leaving an empty concrete slab and padlock dangling off the bars of the cage.

found here.

With spotlight on Obama, McCain steps up attacks

(CNN) — As Sen. Barack Obama makes his headline-grabbing trip overseas, Sen. John McCain is arguing that he’s best equipped to make the tough calls at home and abroad.

McCain is expected to slam Obama’s position on Iraq ahead of a town hall in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Tuesday.

McCain will make the case that Obama’s failure to support the surge and his refusal to see the success on the ground show that he doesn’t have the judgment to move American troops forward to victory, a McCain aide said.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee will also argue that all Obama has ever supported is withdrawal and defeat, according to the aide.

Shrugging off the attention surrounding Obama’s trip, the McCain campaign is doing what it can to keep their rival from using the trip to burnish his foreign policy credentials.

As Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki discussed a general time frame for troop withdrawal, McCain was quick to say that the surge, which Obama opposed, is the reason there’s been progress on the ground.

When you win wars, troops come home — and we are winning. And the fact is that if we had done what Sen. Obama wanted to do, we would have lost, and we would have faced a wider war, McCain said Monday as he campaigned in Kennebunkport, Maine, with George H.W. Bush. Watch McCain criticize Obama’s trip

McCain aides are trying to protect one of the few areas where McCain polls much better than Obama — the ability to be commander-in-chief.

According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, 72 percent think McCain would be a good commander in chief, while less than half — 48 percent — say Obama would.

The poll, conducted July 10-13, surveyed 1,119 people and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

McCain and Obama have different ideas for how to handle the situation in Iraq. McCain says troop withdrawal should be based on conditions on the ground, while Obama advocates removing all combat brigades within 16 months of taking office.

Americans are split between the two positions, according to the poll.

Al-Maliki appeared to back the idea of a timetable in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel over the weekend, but an Iraqi government spokesman said that the prime minister’s comments to the magazine were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.

The Bush administration has opposed timetables for troop withdrawals, but al-Maliki and President Bush last week agreed to a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals on troop cuts.

McCain shrugged off the suggestion that Obama’s talks with al-Maliki undercut his message.

It doesn’t in the slightest undercut the fact that it’s based on the conditions on the ground, he said.

McCain pointed to comments made by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, who said Sunday that the consequences of Obama’s withdrawal plan could be very dangerous.

I hope [Obama] will pay attention to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, particularly someone who has no military experience whatsoever, McCain said.

In a conference call Monday, the McCain campaign wrote off Obama’s trip as chiefly political in nature.

Sen. Obama has said this is going to be a listening tour. We certainly hope very sincerely he listens to the advice of our military commanders, McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said.

The question is whether he will listen to them. Or will he ignore their military judgment on the importance on having a conditions-based withdrawal and supplant it with his own military assessment — which is really based on a political calculation rather than any experience he has.

McCain made similar comments in an interview on ABC, taking subtle jabs at Obama for failing to meet with the top U.S. general in Iraq, David Petraeus, until now.

I’m glad that Sen. Obama’s going to get a chance for the first time to sit down with Gen. David Petraeus and understand what the surge was all about, why it succeeded and why we are winning the war, McCain said.

And that is because we carried out a strategy which has succeeded, and Sen. Obama rallied against, voted against, and used his opposition to the surge as a way of gaining the nomination of his party.

Obama last week said that McCain is wrong to think the Illinois senator should change his commitment to end that war based on the gains of the surge.

found here.

India’s government faces confidence vote

NEW DELHI, India (AP) — India’s government faces a too-close-to-call confidence vote Tuesday that could scuttle a landmark nuclear energy accord with the United States and lead to early elections.

The vote caps a week of intense politicking that has seen the government rename an airport for a lawmaker’s father, promise a high-level job to another, and — two rival politicians allege — hand out millions of dollars to many others in an effort to survive.

But hours ahead of Tuesday’s vote, observers said the Congress Party-led coalition that has governed India since 2004 was anywhere from one to 10 votes short of the 272 it needs in a full house and was banking on as many as 10 opposition lawmakers to abstain.

Keenly aware that another government fell a decade ago after losing a confidence motion by a single vote, both the Congress party and its opponents were doing whatever they could to muster their forces.

Hospitalized lawmakers were being wheeled into Parliament to vote and a handful jailed for crimes ranging from murder to extortion had been temporarily released from prison.

If the government loses, the nuclear pact — seen as the cornerstone of a budding strategic partnership between New Delhi and Washington — will likely be finished, and early elections will probably be called for later this year, months before the government’s term ends in May.

With inflation running at nearly 12 percent and economic growth slowing, the government is desperate to avoid such a scenario.

But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had no choice but to call the confidence vote after communist political parties withdrew their support for his government to protest the nuclear deal, which they fear will draw New Delhi too close to Washington.

Singh has argued that India, which imports 75 percent of its oil, needs the deal to power its energy-hungry economy.

Under the agreement, India would open its civilian reactors to international inspections in exchange for nuclear fuel and technology, which it has been denied by its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and testing of atomic weapons.

Singh opened the debate on the confidence motion Monday, telling lawmakers the deal was taken in the full confidence that we are doing so in the best interests of our people.

But the agreement has also challenged the views of many in India’s political class, whose wariness of the United States dates back to the Cold War, when New Delhi had warm ties with the Soviet Union.

That has left the government facing its former communist allies, who have lined up alongside the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and a smattering of increasingly powerful regional and caste-based parties to bring down the government.

found here.

India’s government faces confidence vote

NEW DELHI, India (AP) — India’s government faces a too-close-to-call confidence vote Tuesday that could scuttle a landmark nuclear energy accord with the United States and lead to early elections.

The vote caps a week of intense politicking that has seen the government rename an airport for a lawmaker’s father, promise a high-level job to another, and — two rival politicians allege — hand out millions of dollars to many others in an effort to survive.

But hours ahead of Tuesday’s vote, observers said the Congress Party-led coalition that has governed India since 2004 was anywhere from one to 10 votes short of the 272 it needs in a full house and was banking on as many as 10 opposition lawmakers to abstain.

Keenly aware that another government fell a decade ago after losing a confidence motion by a single vote, both the Congress party and its opponents were doing whatever they could to muster their forces.

Hospitalized lawmakers were being wheeled into Parliament to vote and a handful jailed for crimes ranging from murder to extortion had been temporarily released from prison.

If the government loses, the nuclear pact — seen as the cornerstone of a budding strategic partnership between New Delhi and Washington — will likely be finished, and early elections will probably be called for later this year, months before the government’s term ends in May.

With inflation running at nearly 12 percent and economic growth slowing, the government is desperate to avoid such a scenario.

But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had no choice but to call the confidence vote after communist political parties withdrew their support for his government to protest the nuclear deal, which they fear will draw New Delhi too close to Washington.

Singh has argued that India, which imports 75 percent of its oil, needs the deal to power its energy-hungry economy.

Under the agreement, India would open its civilian reactors to international inspections in exchange for nuclear fuel and technology, which it has been denied by its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and testing of atomic weapons.

Singh opened the debate on the confidence motion Monday, telling lawmakers the deal was taken in the full confidence that we are doing so in the best interests of our people.

But the agreement has also challenged the views of many in India’s political class, whose wariness of the United States dates back to the Cold War, when New Delhi had warm ties with the Soviet Union.

That has left the government facing its former communist allies, who have lined up alongside the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and a smattering of increasingly powerful regional and caste-based parties to bring down the government.

found here.