WASHINGTON. President Barack Obama yesterday lauded the pullout of U.S. forces from towns and cities in Iraq as an important step toward a full U.S. troop withdrawal by 2012, but warned of “difficult days” ahead.
“Today’s transition is further proof that those who have tried to pull Iraq into the abyss of disunion and civil war are on the wrong side of history,” Obama said at the White House.
Obama, who has made ending the 6-year-old Iraq war a top foreign policy priority, was speaking hours after a car bomb in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed at least 32 people and wounded 100 others.
The bombing underscored the fragility of Iraq’s security.