Obama's visit to Kabul begins tour
Visit to Kabul, Baghdad kicks off tour of Mideast, Europe
Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan early Saturday, landing at the Kabul airport after a stop in Kuwait to visit troops, the start of a weeklong international swing that will take his presidential campaign to Iraq, the Mideast and European capitals, in extraordinary foreign travel to win U.S. votes.
Because of intense security concerns, the Obama campaign did not make public details of the trip to Afghanistan and related visit to Iraq, though Obama had shifted focus to the war-torn region in a series of speeches and interviews in the last few days.
(AP)
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs sent out an e-mail Saturday shortly after he got word, at about 2:15 a.m., Chicago time, that Obama was in Kabul. Obama left his Chicago home Thursday morning for the first leg of the trip, flying in an executive jet to Washington before boarding an unmarked military aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base.
Obama was asked by pool reporters what he hoped to learn on this mission.
“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is,” he said. “I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, ah, their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they’ve been doing.”
Then he was asked whether he plans to deliver some tough talk to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about doing more to stand up the instruments of self-governance in their own nations.
“I’m more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking,” he said. “And I think it is very important to recognize that I’m going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time, so it’s the president’s job to deliver those messages.”
Though the Iraq and Afghanistan swings are official taxpayer-funded congressional business, everything Obama does in the run-up to the election is political.
Obama was in Afghanistan and Iraq after being prodded by GOP rival Sen. John McCain.
McCain and GOP allies have questioned Obama’s qualifications to call for a phased pullout of combat troops from Iraq in 16 months since he has made only one visit to Iraq in 2006 — and none to Afghanistan.