Obama vows to exit Iraq and rebuild US 'moral
stature'
AFP - 25 minutes ago, 17 November
2008
WASHINGTON, (AFP) - - US President-elect Barack Obama
vowed to pull troops out of Iraq, crush Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and
shut down the Guantanamo Bay camp as part of a dramatic foreign
policy break with George W. Bush.
Repairing the stricken US economy will be priority number one,
even at the cost of still-bigger budget deficits, Obama said in his
first major post-election interview broadcast on CBS program "60
Minutes" late Sunday.
Following his election triumph of November 4, Obama said at
least one Republican would be in his cabinet and confirmed that he
had met former Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton last
week.
But the president-elect refused to comment on speculation
linking the former first lady to the job of secretary of state.
The man who will be the first black US president is accelerating
his transition to inauguration day, resigning his Senate seat
Sunday and appointing three more top aides to serve in his White
House once he succeeds Bush.
As soon as that happens on January 20, Obama said, "I will call
in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and
we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops" from
Iraq .
"Particularly in light of the problems that we're having in
Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We've got to shore up
those efforts," Obama said in the interview, which was taped
Friday.
On the campaign trail, Obama vowed to pull one or two combat
brigades out of Iraq every month until after 16 months, only a
residual security force of unspecified size remains. Some of those
brigades would head to Afghanistan.
He told CBS that "it is a top priority for us to stamp out
Al-Qaeda once and for all" and that killing or capturing the
group's mastermind Osama bin Laden was "critical" to US
security.
Obama pledged to tackle controversial offshoots of Bush's "war
on terror" -- the US military's internment camp at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, and harsh interrogations of captured terror suspects.
"I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I
will follow through on that," the president-elect said.
"I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm
going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel
of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world," Obama
added.
But he did not elaborate on where the Guantanamo prisoners would
be taken, whether they would be transferred to civilian custody in
the United States itself, put on trial, or released.
A command to redeploy troops out of Iraq or shut down Guantanamo
could be done in short order under Obama's presidential
prerogatives, and he is expected to reverse a slew of other
contentious "executive orders" signed by Bush.
Obama said that in Congress, his first legislative priority was
getting another stimulus package passed to prop up the enfeebled
economy , if Democrats in the outgoing legislature fail to overcome
Republican opposition.
As already shown in excerpts released by CBS, Obama said it
would be a "disaster" for the government to stand by and let the
cash-strapped General Motors and the auto industry in general
collapse.
In line with the outcome of a summit Saturday of the world's 20
biggest economies, the president-elect said forging new regulation
of the financial markets was essential to restoring the trust of
consumers.
Obama appeared unconcerned about the red ink blotting the US
government's finances, arguing economists from left and right
agreed that "we have to do whatever it takes to get this economy
moving again."
"And that we shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even
the year after. That short term, the most important thing is that
we avoid a deepening recession," he said.
Joined by his wife Michelle in the interview, Obama said their
two young daughters would get their promised dog, and expressed
hope that Michelle's mother Marian Robinson would move in with them
at their new residence.
Obama, a gifted writer who has authored two best-selling
memoirs, turned wistful as he anticipated life in the White House
fishbowl.
"That's something that I don't think I'll ever get used to. I
mean, the loss of anonymity," he said. "And this is not a
complaint, this is part of what you sign up for."
On Monday, Obama will meet in Chicago with his former Republican
rival, Arizona Senator John McCain.