Ahem:Doctor Fate wrote:Also, how about the whoppers Obama told last night? Too numerous to bother listing, but the SOF agreement in Iraq stood out. He implied he never wanted to keep troops in Iraq. That's just false. He put Biden in charge of negotiating the Status of Forces agreement and . . . we ended up with none.
March 19, 2008 in Fayetteville, North Carolina.Obama, March 2008 wrote:So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on Day One: I will end this war. Not because politics compels it. Not because our troops cannot bear the burden– as heavy as it is. But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer.
In order to end this war responsibly, I will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. We can responsibly remove 1 to 2 combat brigades each month. If we start with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today, we can remove all of them 16 months. After this redeployment, we will leave enough troops in Iraq to guard our embassy and diplomats, and a counter-terrorism force to strike al Qaeda if it forms a base that the Iraqis cannot destroy. What I propose is not – and never has been – a precipitous drawdown. It is instead a detailed and prudent plan that will end a war nearly seven years after it started.
and...
Obama, February 2009 wrote:Let me say this as plainly as I can - by August 31 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.
From this article Obama sets out his exit plan...
Almost six years after the invasion of Iraq, the end is finally in sight for America's involvement in its longest and bloodiest conflict since Vietnam. Barack Obama yesterday set out a timetable that will see all US combat units out by summer next year and the remainder by the end of 2011.
So, his intentions before and just after his election were to draw down troops over a period of 16-18 months, ending major combat operations, and leave a small rump (of about 50,000) that would be pulled out by the end of 2011.
What happened...
Well, from a starting point of 142,000 troops in Feb 2009, the deployment was drawn down, to 120,000 by Oct 2009, to under 100,000 in Mar 2010, 80,000 that July, and to 50,000 at the end of August. When major combat operations ceased.
And then the last troops left a couple of weeks before the end of 2011.
Wikipedia on MNFI, and the link at the bottom of the page to - MNFI Data
Who wanted to keep troops there longer? Not Obama (from the previous link):
The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, who had served in the post under Bush and was kept in office by Obama, introduced an element of doubt to the president's insistence that all US troops will be gone. Talking with reporters after the speech, Gates said he would like a "some very modest-sized presence for training and helping" Iraqi forces after 2011, but only if the Iraqi government requested this and there was no indication that it would.
If you are going to call someone a liar, DF, it's probably not a good idea to choose an example where their policy from 4 years ago matches pretty much what they did, and what they say they did.
By the way, I did not use a 'factchecker', I just googled 'Obama on Iraq 2008' , 'Obama on Iraq 2009' and then compared to the Wikipedia to see what happened to troop numbers.