Barack Obama visits Iraq

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flew into Iraq on Monday, thrusting U.S. strategy in the country and troop levels to the centre-stage of the November election race.

Obama has called for the removal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office should he win the election. He visited Afghanistan over the weekend, the other big foreign policy challenge the next American president will face.

Obama has come under attack from Republican candidate John McCain for not making a recent visit to assess conditions in Iraq, where violence is at a four-year low. McCain has been to Iraq eight times while Obama's only other trip was in 2006.

The U.S. embassy said Obama, who is visiting Iraq as part of a U.S. congressional delegation, would meet senior Iraqi officials, U.S. military commanders and American troops. He does not have any news conferences scheduled while in Iraq.

Seeking to boost his foreign policy credentials, Obama will travel to other countries in the Middle East and also visit major powers in Europe this week.

Obama courted controversy on July 3 when he said he might "refine" his views on withdrawing combat troops from Iraq within 16 months but later said his stance had been unchanged for more than a year and that he intended "to end this war".

McCain says a U.S. troop build-up last year helped boost stability in Iraq and has criticised Democrats' vows for a quick withdrawal as "reckless".

But with violence down dramatically, Baghdad has become increasingly assertive about its own security capabilities.

Indeed, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President George W. Bush agreed late last week to set a "time horizon" for reducing American forces in Iraq.

It was the closest the Bush administration has come to acknowledging the need for a timeframe for U.S. troop cuts. Bush has long opposed deadlines for troop withdrawals.

OBAMA WELCOMED MALIKI'S TIMETABLE IDEA

Maliki earlier this month suggested setting a timetable for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, although he had given no dates.

Obama has welcomed Maliki's suggestion but some Iraqis insist the army and police cannot go it alone and that a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops could open the door to the sort of violence that nearly tore Iraq apart not so long ago.

On Sunday the Iraqi government denied Maliki told a German magazine in an interview that he backed Obama's plan to withdraw combat troops within 16 months. The government said Maliki's remarks to Der Spiegel were translated incorrectly.

In a speech last Tuesday, Obama said a "single-minded" focus on Iraq was distracting the United States from other threats, and he promised to shift resources to fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Obama called the situation in Afghanistan "precarious and urgent" on Sunday and said Washington should start planning to transfer more troops there from Iraq.

Bush ordered 30,000 extra troops to Iraq in early 2007 to try to drag the country back from the brink of all-out war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

The last of those reinforcements depart Iraq this week, still leaving 140,000 U.S. soldiers in the country, or roughly the same number as when Bush ordered the so-called surge.

Obama has criticised McCain and Bush for making Iraq the centre of the battle against terrorism and said he would pursue a new national security strategy to rebuild foreign alliances and regain global goodwill destroyed by the war.