A senior Iraqi official on Thursday explicitly backed U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's plans to withdraw combat troops from the country by mid-2010, Reuters reported. The outgoing administration of President George W. Bush presented Iraq with a "final text" of a pact accepting Baghdad's demand that troops leave in three years, but Baghdad said it wanted more talks on questions that were still unresolved. Asked to comment on Obama's pledge to pull combat troops out within 16 months of taking office, National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told Al-Arabiya television: "We think 16 months is good."
