Obama Advisor Recommends Troops In Iraq Through 2010

An adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign recommends that we keep 60,000 - 80,000 troops in Iraq through 2010.

Colin Kahl, the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq, makes the recommendation in a paper written for the center-left Center for a New American Security -- “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement:”

Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”

According to the Sun, Kahl's paper does not represent the Obama campaign’s Iraq position. Nevertheless, the Kahl's paper could provide clues as to the size of the residual American force the Obama has said would remain in Iraq after his "withdrawal." Obama has repeatedly said some U.S. troops would remain for an indefinite period for "counterterrorism activities," which means combat troops. For example, as I posted here, Obama said it during the Democrats' presidential debate at Dartmouth on September 26, 2007:

RUSSERT: Will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term, more than five years from now, there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq?

OBAMA: I think it's hard to project four years from now, and I think it would be irresponsible. We don't know what contingency will be out there.

What I can promise is that if there are still troops in Iraq when I take office -- which it appears there may be, unless we can get some of our Republican colleagues to change their mind and cut off funding
without a timetable -- if there's no timetable -- then I will drastically reduce our presence there to the mission of protecting our embassy, protecting our civilians, and making sure that we're carrying
out counterterrorism activities there.

I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises, not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out.

Obama repeated it during the November 11, 2007 edition of NBC's "Meet The Press:"

MR. RUSSERT: I had asked you in one of the debates whether you’d make a commitment to have all American troops out of Iraq by the end of your first term, and you said you couldn’t do that. You said you had to fight al-Qaeda, had to make sure there was not genocide, try to secure the country. How, how many troops do you envision would have to remain in Iraq for some time to come?

SEN. OBAMA: Here’s what I’d do as president: We can get one to two brigades out per month safely. At that pace, we would have all our combat troops out in about 16 months from the time we initiate it. I would like to see it start now. It is not clear that that’s possible, given George Bush’s posture. But 16 months from the time we initiate it, we could have our combat troops out.

The only troops I would have in Iraq would have a very limited mission. Number one, to protect our embassy and our civilian, diplomatic corps. I don’t want Blackwater to be providing that security; I want our U.S. military to providing—to provide that security. I’m very skeptical about the use of private contractors when it comes to our national security. The only other mission, and this is a very narrow one, would be to engage in counterterrorism activity. If al-Qaeda in Iraq is reforming bases there, we should have the capacity to strike them. That would be it. Those would be the only troops that we would deploy.

Barack Obama's military adviser Gen. Tony McPeak, the former Air Force Chief of Staff also said we could be in Iraq a hundred years:

We’ll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right.

The Sun also reports that Kahl is not the first Obama adviser that has differed with the candidate’s stated Iraq policy:

In February, Mr. Obama’s first foreign policy tutor, Samantha Power, told BBC that the senator’s current Iraq plan would likely change based on the advice of military commanders in 2009.

Power has since resigned her position as a formal adviser.

So what is Obama's position on the number of troops that he would withdraw and how many troops he would keep in Iraq? Is his obfuscation an attempt to move toward the right because he is accused of favoring a hasty surrender/retreat in Iraq?