The New York Post reports:
WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.
“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.
(Via Instapundit.)
UPDATE: Added a question mark to the title, since there’s apparently some question about the reliability of the reporter.
Also, Jonah Goldberg asks if Obama has violated the Logan Act. There’s no question he has, if this story is true:
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent . . . to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Nevertheless, no one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act.
UPDATE: Obama denies it. Of course, he also (falsely) denied the Goolsbee meeting. We’ll wait and see.
UPDATE: The McCain campaign has a statement.
UPDATE: Confirmed by the Obama campaign’s own denial, oddly enough.
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