Senator Barack Obama said Thursday that he might “refine” his policies for Iraq after meeting with military commanders there later this summer. But hours later he held a second news conference to emphasize his commitment to the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
His two statements in Fargo, N.D., reflected how the changing dynamics in Iraq have posed a challenge for Mr. Obama, who is trying to retain flexibility as violence declines there without abandoning a central promise of his campaign: that if elected, he would end the war.
His remarks came as Republicans — including his all-but-certain opponent this fall, Senator John McCain of Arizona — have been arguing that Mr. Obama would most likely change his position on the phased withdrawal. They suggest that with violence dropping in Iraq, bringing the troops home would risk erasing the fragile gains that have been made.
Mr. Obama said at his first news conference on Thursday that he planned a “thorough assessment” of his Iraq policy when he visited that country this summer.
“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability,” he said. “That assessment has not changed. And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”
Mr. Obama has long spoken of consulting with commanders in the field as part of his plan for a phased withdrawal, but his shift in emphasis in the way he spoke about the situation on Thursday — after weeks in which Republicans and even an outside Iraq policy adviser to his campaign argued against a withdrawal along the lines he had proposed — fueled speculation that he might not be wedded to his timetable.
So the Obama campaign scheduled a second news conference to try to clarify his remarks. “We’re going to try this again,” Mr. Obama said. “Apparently, I wasn’t clear enough this morning on my position with respect to the war in Iraq.”
The evolving situation in Iraq has, in fact, tested both candidates.
Mr. McCain, whose support for the war helped him win the Republican primary campaign, now finds he must explain his position to an electorate largely weary of the war. And for Mr. Obama, who recently changed his positions on campaign finance and a wiretapping law, the suggestion that he was also changing course on a central premise of his candidacy holds particular peril.
In his second news conference, Mr. Obama laid out his proposal in less ambiguous terms.
“Let me be as clear as I can be,” he said. “I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war — responsibly, deliberately, but decisively.
“And I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring our troops out safely at a pace of one to two brigades a month, and, again, that pace translates into having our combat troops out in 16 months’ time.”
Mr. Obama added that when he had spoken earlier about possibly refining his policies, he was referring to questions about how big a residual force should be left to train Iraqi forces and conduct counterterrorism operations, not the overall timeline for withdrawal.
Mr. Obama’s positioning on this issue has been a critical component of his candidacy from the beginning. He, almost alone among the major candidates, opposed the war from the start, and that helped him beat a crowded Democratic field. And while he has long said he would consult commanders in the field when withdrawing troops, that point might have been lost on many Democratic primary voters who supported his call to end the war.
With violence ebbing in Iraq, however, he has recently spoken less about withdrawal and has increasingly emphasized the failure to achieve political reconciliation in that country. In recent weeks he has also spoken more of the economic costs of the war and the fact that it limits the United States’ ability to send troops to fight what he considers the nation’s primary security threat: Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mr. McCain’s support for the war, meanwhile, could pose problems for him in November. To that end, the Arizona senator, too, has shifted his emphasis. After being criticized for saying he would keep troops in Iraq for up to 100 years if necessary, Mr. McCain gave a speech this spring suggesting he would remove most troops by 2013, without offering specifics. He now talks more about withdrawing, as he did last week when he said “we will withdraw, but we will withdraw with victory and honor.”