Obama to keep poll promises - pull out of Iraq, crush Al-Qaeda, close Cuba prison

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Washington, Nov 17 : US President-elect Barack Obama has reportedly said that hw would keep his poll promises of pulling out troops from Iraq, crushing Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and shutting down the Guantanamo Bay camp.

In his first major post-election radio interview, he signaled no retreat from expansive campaign promises that had pleased US allies, even while adding little detail to how he would fulfill them.

Repairing the stricken US economy will be priority number one, and at least one Republican will fill his cabinet, Obama said in the broad-ranging interview broadcast Sunday.

Obama said, "as soon as I succeed Bush on January 20, I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops from Iraq. Particularly in light of the problems that we're having in Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We've got to shore up those efforts."

He also said that finishing Al Qaeda was another top priority for him. "It is a top priority for us to stamp out Al-Qaeda once and for all, and killing or capturing the group's mastermind Osama bin Laden was critical to US security".

Obama also pledged to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, and harsh interrogations of captured terror suspects. "I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that," The News quoted the President-elect as saying in the interview.

He added: "I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world."

But, he did not elaborate on where the Guantanamo prisoners would be taken, whether they would be transferred to civilian custody in the United States itself, put on trial, or released.

Obama said that in the US Congress, his first legislative priority was getting another stimulus package passed to prop up the enfeebled economy if Democrats in the outgoing legislature fail to overcome Republican opposition.

ANI

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