Iraq Pullout on Target: Obama, Maliki

President Obama met with Nouri al-Maliki today and vowed to keep to his timetable that has all US forces out of Iraq by 2011, the Washington Post reports. The Iraqi prime minister said that his country’s security forces are now “highly capable” of handling the threat posed by insurgents—what Iraq needs now, Maliki said, is economic aid and foreign investment.

Obama glossed over complaints by US commanders that the Iraqi military has been limiting the movements of US forces as “differences in strategy.” The president urged Maliki to make sure that the Iraqi government serves all its ethnic and religious groups. The US, Obama said, “continues to support efforts to integrate all Iraqis into Iraq's government and security forces." (More Nouri al-Maliki stories.)