Last week, the New York Post accused Obama of having urged Iraqi leaders in a private meeting in July, "to delay an agreement on a drawdown of the American military presence." Right-wing blogs have seized on the story and are now claiming that Obama's alleged actions violate the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.
I've spoken with an adviser on the Obama campaign and have done a bit of research. The Obama fans among you will be glad to hear that this one is a nasty smear. Contrary to the Post's flaming headline, Obama did not urge Iraqi leaders to delay the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Although the New York Post and right wing blogs don't mention it, Obama's July meeting with the Iraqi government officials was not private. Indeed, it was attended by Bush administration officials such as Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, and Richard Haughton, the Baghdad embassy's legislative affairs advisor Rich Haughton, and also by a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel. Attendees of the July meeting affirm Obama's account of the meeting and have stated that the Post story is not true. Moreover, officials of the Bush administration who were briefed on the meeting by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad also support Obama's account and dispute the Post story.
Since my conversation with the adviser on the Obama campaign, an ABC news correspondent did some investigating and ran a story debunking the Post's story. For the story, ABC News interviewed a couple of the meeting's attendees and officials of the Bush administration:
The Post story is "absolutely not true," Hagel spokesman Mike Buttry told ABC News. . . . .
Buttry said that Hagel agrees with Obama's account of the meeting: Obama began the meeting with al-Maliki by asserting that the United States speaks with one foreign policy voice, and that voice belongs to the Bush administration. . . . .
Two officials of the Bush administration say that if Obama had done what the Post story asserted –- which they believe to be untrue -– Crocker and embassy officials attending the meeting would have ensured that the Bush administration heard about it immediately. If such an incident occurred in front of officials of the Bush administration, it would have constituted a foreign policy breach and would have been front-page huge news; it would not have leaked out two months later in an op-ed column.
In addition to the July meeting, Obama had a June phone conversation with Iraqi minister Hoshyar Zebari. In a second article,the New York Post claims that even if Obama did not interfere with Bush policy at the July meeting, he did interfere with it in the June telephone conversation.
As proof, the Post quotes an MSNBC report of a June 16 press conferencein which Obama discussed his conversation with Zebari:
[Obama] said he told Zebari that negotiations for a Status of Forces agreement or strategic framework agreement between the two countries should be done in the open and with Congress's authorization and that it was important that that there be strong bipartisan support for any agreement so that it can be sustained through a future administration. He argued it would make sense to hold off on such negotiations until the next administration.
Does this amount to an interference with U.S. policy, as the Post suggests? Well, the Bush administration doesn't seem to think so. The report regarding the June 16 press conference has been available to the Bush administration -- and the entire world -- for the past three months. If the Bush administration had considered Obama's words or actions in the June telephone conversation to be an interference with Bush policy or problematic in any way, it would have said so -- and should have said so. Not only did the Bush administration not object to Obama's actions, but it also gave its blessing to Obama's meeting with Iraqi officials a month later. And as I noted above, representatives of the Bush administration have disputed the Post's claim that Obama has interfered with U.S. foreign policy.
Certainly the Bush administration has motivation to complain if it had objected to Obama's words or actions. Bush may not love McCain, but he wants McCain to win and Obama to lose this election, and what better way to attack Obama than to claim that he's attempted to interfere with U.S. foreign policy? It would certainly be more effective than complaining that Obama called Palin a pig, don't you think?
And by the way -- the New York Post conveniently did not quote a portion of the June 16 press conference in which -- contrary to the Post's allegation -- Obama discussed the need for speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops:
"I emphasized to him how encouraged I was by the reductions in violence in Iraq, but also insisted that it is important for us to begin the process of withdrawing U.S. troops, making clear that we have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq," the senator said. "I gave him an assurance that should we be elected, an Obama administration will make sure that we continue with the progress that's been made in Iraq, that we won't act precipitously, but that we will move to end U.S. combat forces in Iraq in a manner that's as careful as we were careless getting in."
The need to withdraw is twofold, Obama said. Reprising an argument he has been making for months, he cited the need to encourage the Iraqi government to make the political accommodations on matters like oil revenues and provincial elections, which the surge was supposed to help happen. He argued that the progress made in the South and in Sadr City showed the need not for a longer commitment but a shorter one, because they indicate a greater capacity on the part of Iraqis to deal effectively with their security. Obama said the second reason was the $10- to-12 billion being spent each month in the country, a statistic he often cites when discussing the need to withdraw.
So there you have it. Obama did state his belief that negotiation of the strategic framework and status of forces agreements should be delayed, but he did not urge that troop withdrawal should be delayed -- quite the contrary. (Those agreements deal with many aspects of the U.S.'s continuing military presence in Iraq; they do not need to be negotiated in order for some U.S. troops to be withdrawn.) And the Bush administration has, both tacitly and overtly, given its blessing to Obama's words and actions. There's no Logan Act violation here, folks.
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There is, however, a contradiction that I'd like to see the Obama campaign address and correct. In the aftermath of the first Post story alleging that Obama had attempted to stall troop withdrawal, Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi issued a blanket denial that goes a little too far:
Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri's article bore "as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial."
In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.
In the face of resistance from Bush, the Democrat has long said that any such agreement must be reviewed by the US Congress as it would tie a future administration's hands on Iraq.
"Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades," Morigi said.
The problem is, Obama himself said in the June 16 press conference that in the June telephone conversation with Zebari he had opined that negotiation of both the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Status of Forces agreements should be delayed.
This contradiction really troubled me at first (actually, it's what made me begin to look so closely into this issue). However, while I think Obama should straighten out Morigi's statement, I also don't think it's a smoking gun pointing to wrongdoing.
What matters here are two issues: (1) Did Obama secretly try to delay withdrawal of troops from Iraq, while at the same time grandstanding politically about how troops should be withdrawn? And the answer is no -- all evidence points to Obama having consistently advocated speedy troop withdrawal in his conversations with the Iraqi officials, just as he has argued in his campaign. (2) Did Obama try to secretly negotiate behind Bush's back? And the answer is no -- Bush administration officials were with Obama in July, and the content of Obama's June telephone conversation with the Iraqi minister has been openly available to Bush (and everyone else) for months, and there's been no objection from Bush.
But do me a favor, Obama -- please correct Morigi's denial anyway, OK?