NEW YORK, July 9 (UPI) -- Presumptive Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama says he hasn't changed his goal of getting U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months.
Political observers and Obama supporters had sensed the U.S. senator from Illinois was shifting his stance on the war and moving toward a centrist position on the conflict. But Obama, appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday, said his position is still the same.
"I have been as crystal clear now as I was a year ago, as I was six months ago, that we will get out of Iraq carefully, deliberately, at a pace that is safe for our troops," he said, adding he'd remove troops "at the pace of one to two brigades per month.
"At that pace, we would have our combat troops out in 16 months," he told ABC News.
In the interview, Obama referred to Iran as "a grave threat," and said that the United States had to both tighten economic sanctions and institute "the kind of direct diplomacy that can lead to them standing down on issues like nuclear weapons."
