"Two Pinocchios. That's what Washington Post fact-checker Salvador Rizzo figured Joe Biden's claim was worth, that the former Veep was personally "responsible" for getting 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq." . . .
. . . "But that's not what happened.
"In 2008, President Bush had made a temporary Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, "with the expectation that the next president would seek an extension that after 2011 would leave in place 40,000 service members for training and logistics." But Obama more or less sabotaged the negotiations on the follow-up agreement. Obama allowed the talks to stall on the single issue of legal immunity for U.S. troops in Iraq, claiming that "there was no support in the Iraqi parliament for that." Immunity is boilerplate stuff, standard issue for our troops in Europe, Korea, Japan, etc, but the Obama Administration refused to press it. In fact, immunity could have been made part of an executive codicil not subject to the whims of the Iraqi parliament.
"But Obama wanted out before his reelection campaign, and sabotaging the Status of Forces Agreement was a underhanded way to get just that. Biden however, Rizzo reports, was "apparently was one of the officials arguing to keep troops in Iraq," but eventually came along to Obama's position." . . .
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