BAGHDAD, July 21 (Reuters): US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flew to Iraq Monday to get a first-hand look at security conditions in the country, where violence is at its lowest since early 2004.
His visit thrusts US strategy in Iraq and troop levels to the centre-stage of the November election race between the first-term senator from Illinois and Republican candidate John McCain. There are more than 140,000 US soldiers in Iraq.
Obama has called for the removal of US combat troops within 16 months of taking office should he win the election.
He was expected to meet Iraqi leaders and US commanders, the US embassy in Baghdad said without giving details.
Obama visited Afghanistan over the weekend, the other big foreign policy challenge the next American president will face. Obama called the situation in Afghanistan "precarious and urgent" and said Washington should start planning to transfer more troops there from Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki earlier this month suggested setting a timetable for US troops to leave Iraq, although he has 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 US 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.
McCain has attacked Obama for not making a recent visit to get a first-hand look at conditions.
The Republican candidate has been to Iraq eight times while Obama's only other trip was in January 2006, a month before militants blew up a revered Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in an attack that plunged Iraq into vicious sectarian fighting.
The US embassy said Obama, who is visiting Iraq as part of a US congressional delegation, would also meet American troops. Commanders are likely to tell Obama that security gains are fragile and could be jeopardized by a hasty troop drawdown.
