Iraq backs Obama plan, upsetting White House

WASHINGTON - The White House expressed unhappiness yesterday about Iraqi leaders' public backing for Barack Obama's troop withdrawal timetable. It also said that Baghdad may be trying to use the U.S. presidential election as leverage in talks about the future of American's military presence and obligations in the war.

Washington and Baghdad probably will miss a July 31 target for reaching an agreement, said White House press secretary Dana Perino, characterizing the negotiations as "hard-driving."

"We don't think that talking about specific negotiating tactics or your negotiating position in the press is the best way to negotiate a deal," Perino said after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was quoted in a magazine article supporting the 16-month troop-withdrawal timeline proposed by Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate. "However, we understand that they're a sovereign country and they'll be able to do that," Perino said. "We're just not going to do it on our end."

Al-Maliki's spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh initially appeared to try to discredit the magazine report, but yesterday expressed hopes that U.S. combat forces could be out of Iraq by 2010, the time frame proposed by Obama. Buoyed by a sharp reduction in violence, Iraqi leaders have become more assertive about the country's sovereignty, giving rise to demands for a specific plan for American forces to leave.

"Let's squeeze them," Al-Maliki was quoted by the Associated Press as telling his advisers. Bush last week reversed course and agreed to set a "general time horizon" for bringing home more U.S. troops based on Iraq's ability to take care of its own security.

"The key issue," Perino said, "is that they understand it will not be arbitrary; it will not be a date that you just pluck out of thin air; it will not be something that Americans say, 'We're going to do - we're going to leave at this date,' which is what some have suggested," she said. *