Barack Obama from his stump speech on July 19, 2007:
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there…
“There’s no doubt there are risks of increased bloodshed in Iraq without a continuing U.S. presence there.”
Barack Obama from Meet the Press on May 4, 2008:
MR. RUSSERT: The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said that a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq could result in genocide. Would you factor that in? And if that began to emerge as an issue, would you stop the withdrawal?
SEN. OBAMA: Tim, I would–of course I would factor in the possibilities of genocide, and I factored it in when I said that I would begin a phased withdrawal. What we’ve talked about is a very deliberate and, and prudent approach to the withdrawal, one to two brigades per month…