WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: OBAMA MISSES DINNER IN IRAQ
By Jennifer Loven
AP
8 April 09
BAGHDAD (AP) — One thing missing from President Barack Obama’s
whirlwind visit to the capital of Iraq? Dinner at the president’s
residence.
Before he disappeared behind closed doors to meet with President Jalal
Talabani, Obama said the meal was one thing he missed. The two shared
dinner at Talabani’s house when he visited Baghdad as senator.
Tuesday’s unannounced visit to Baghdad was Obama’s first to the Iraq
war zone as president.
___
Obama also commented on Talabani’s health, telling the president,
"You look very well."
"Are you feeling better?" Obama asked.
Talabani had surgery on a heart valve last summer in the United
States, after initially going to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.,
for knee surgery.
Several months before that, he collapsed and was hospitalized in Jordan
and the U.S. after suffering from what aides said was exhaustion and
dehydration caused by lung and sinus infections.
___
Obama suggested he had another reason for visiting Iraq besides
thanking U.S. troops for their work.
The reporters who cover him hadn’t traveled enough.
"I thought you guys hadn’t been on the road long enough," Obama
told them after he stepped out from a meeting with Gen. Ray Odierno,
the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
"I know that you didn’t feel like going home, we had under-worked y
ou. So I figured one more stop," he said.
The eight-day trip also took Obama, and the reporters who cover him,
to England, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Turkey.
___
Let’s hear it for "Mom Rule."
In Turkey, Obama said just put mothers in charge and all will be fine.
Obama was answering a question during a round-table discussion
with Turkish college students when he said he believes mothers of
Palestinian children and mothers of Israeli children want the same
thing: for their children not to be victims of violence or to suffer
indignities because of who they are.
"And so sometimes I think that if you just put the mothers in charge
for a while, that things would get resolved," Obama said.
___
Obama avoided the term "genocide" when he addressed Turkish lawmakers
about the widespread killings of Armenians in the final years of the
Ottoman Empire.
He used the word Tuesday while recognizing the 15-year anniversary
of the genocide in Rwanda.
The White House released a statement in which Obama said the memory
of the killings of more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus should
deepen the commitment of the U.S. and its world partners to never let
such an atrocity happen again. He also said the U.S. is committed to
lasting peace in the African country.
As a candidate for president, Obama said America deserved a leader
who speaks truthfully about the Armenian gen ocide.
Turkey rejects the widely held view that there was a systematic
campaign to wipe out the population of Armenians early in the 20th
century.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
