Obama may be set to announce combat troop withdrawal from Iraq over next 19 months

During the campaign, President Barack Obama talked about an end to combat operations in Iraq within a sixteen month timeframe of his taking office.  Reports tonight from the media, including this one from the Washington Post, are saying the U.S. troop withdrawal may end up on a 19 month timetable.

I was a little surprised to hear a little disappointment from Rachel Maddow tonight on MSNBC over taking an additional three months to extricate our war fighters from Iraq.  She said there could be some outcry from anti-war liberals.  Why?

Three additional months is not much time when measured against a war that is now nearly six years old.  You can’t expect Obama to be bound by a candidate’s promise when this is ultimately a decision which can be made only by a president – with presidential information.  Three additional months is hardly an about face on a promise.

There are lots of us who believe the Iraqi war was folly, but believe it would be doubly so to leave the innocent people in Iraq – for whom we’ve created a climate of danger and instability – left completely in a lawless vacuum created by a hasty withdrawal.

From the Post:

President Obama is expected to announce as early as Friday that he will remove all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, three months later than promised during his campaign, U.S. officials said.

Obama has not made a final decision on the matter, but it could come during a trip to give a speech in North Carolina on Friday, the officials said. …

… There are about 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, including 14 combat brigades of about 4,000 troops each and tens of thousands of support forces. The Obama withdrawal plan would leave a residual force of as many as 50,000 support troops that would advise Iraqi forces and perform other security missions, the officials said.