Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson says it’s time for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Richardson, a former U.N. Ambassador who is now New Mexico’s governor, says it’ll take diplomacy and dialogue to ensure Iraq doesn’t slip into chaos once the U.S. military presence is gone.
"A reconcilation of the three groups in Iraq — the Sunni, the Shi’ia and the Kurds. You put ’em in a room. You say there’s going to be a coalition government as part of the American withdrawal," Richardson says. "You’re going to divide up oil revenues…and there will be an all-Muslim peace-keeping force to enforce the peace."
Richardson made his comments today during a campaign appearance in Bettendorf, shortly after rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had given speeches in Des Moines on the same topic.
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards held a telephone conference call with reporters this afternoon and he talked about this week’s senate debate over Iraq war funding.
"They need to use that funding authority to submit a bill to the president that supports the troops, funds the troops, but also has a timetable for withdrawal and they should not back down from that," Edwards said. "It is the only way this president is going to start drawing troops out of Iraq."