Newspaper Page Text
4A Friday, December 28, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
WASHINGTON/POLITICS
Iraqi lawmakers demand US withdrawal
BY PHILIP ISSA
Associated Press
BAGHDAD — President Donald
Trump’s surprise trip to Iraq may
have quieted criticism at
home that he had yet to
visit troops in a combat
zone, but it has infuriated
Iraqi politicians who on
Thursday demanded the
withdrawal of U.S. forces.
“Arrogant” and an “a
violation of national sov
ereignty” were but a few
examples of the disap
proval emanating from
Baghdad following Trump’s meet
ing Wednesday with U.S. service
men and women at the al-Asad
Airbase.
Trips by U.S. presidents to con
flict zones are typically shrouded
in secrecy and subject to strict
security measures, and Trump’s
was no exception. Few in Iraq or
elsewhere knew the U.S. president
was in the country until minutes
before he left.
But this trip came as curbing for
eign influence in Iraqi affairs has
become a hot-button politi
cal issue, and Trump’s
perceived presidential
faux-pas was failing to
meet with the prime min
ister in a break with dip
lomatic custom for any
visiting head of state.
On the ground for only
about three hours, the
American president told
the men and women with the U.S.
military that Islamic State forces
have been vanquished, and he
defended his decision against all
advice to withdraw U.S. troops
from neighboring Syria, He
declared: “We’re no longer the
suckers, folks.”
The abruptness of his visit left
lawmakers in Baghdad smarting
and drawing unfavorable compari
sons to the occupation of Iraq after
the 2003 invasion.
“Trump needs to know his lim
its. The American occupation of
Iraq is over,” said Sabah al-Saidi,
the head of one of two main blocs
in Iraq’s parliament.
Trump, he said, had slipped into
Iraq, “as though Iraq is a state of
the United States.”
While Trump didn’t meet with
any officials, he spoke with Prime
Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi by
phone after a “difference in points
of view” over arrangements led to
a face-to-face encounter between
the two leaders getting scrapped,
according to the prime minister’s
office.
The visit could have unintended
consequences for American policy,
with officials from both sides of
Iraq’s political divide calling for
a vote in Parliament to expel U.S.
forces from the country.
The president, who kept to the
U.S. air base approximately 60
miles west of Baghdad, said he
had no plans to withdraw the 5,200
troops in the country. He said Ain
al-Asad could be used for U.S. air
strikes inside Syria.
The suggestion ran counter to
the current sentiment of Iraqi poli
tics, which favors claiming sover
eignty over foreign and domestic
policy and staying above the fray in
regional conflicts.
“Iraq should not be a platform
for the Americans to settle their
accounts with either the Russians
or the Iranians in the region,” said
Hakim al-Zamili, a lawmaker in al-
Saidi’s Islah bloc in Parliament.
U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq
as part of the coalition against
the Islamic State group. Ameri
can forces withdrew in 2011 after
invading in 2003 but returned in
2014 at the invitation of the Iraqi
government to help fight the jihad-
ist group. Trump’s visit was the first
by a U.S. president since Barack
Obama met with then-Prime Min
ister Nouri al-Maliki at a U.S. base
outside Baghdad in 2009.
Still, after defeating IS militants
in their last urban bastions last
year, Iraqi politicians and militia
leaders are speaking out against
the continued presence of U.S.
forces on Iraqi soil.
Supporters of the populist cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr won big in national
elections in May, campaigning on a
platform to curb U.S. and rival Ira
nian involvement in Iraqi affairs.
Al-Sadr’s lawmakers now form
the core of the Islah bloc, which is
headed by al-Saidi in Parliament.
Qais Khazali, head of the Iran-
backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia
that fought key battles against IS in
northern Iraq, promised that Par
liament would vote to expel U.S.
forces from Iraq, or militias would
force them out by “other means.”
Trump
California primary voting to
have impact in 2020 election
BY NICHOLAS RICCARDI
Associated Press
Go west, 2020 presidential
candidates?
Early voting in California’s pri
mary will overlap with the tradi
tional early nominating contests in
Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and
South Carolina. That could force the
sprawling field of Democrats to navi
gate those states as well as Califor
nia’s notoriously complex landscape,
where campaigning is done through
paid political ads.
Strategists estimate it could cost
at least $5 million for a candidate to
compete in California, an amount
that could be prohibitive for all but
the best-funded contenders. Nascent
campaigns are asking themselves if
they should gamble on California.
“Everyone’s going to play in Iowa,
everyone’s going to go to New Hamp
shire,” said Ben Tulchin, a San Fran-
cisco-based pollster who worked for
Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential
bid. “But there are only 3-4 of the top-
tier candidates who will compete in
California.”
The nation’s biggest and second-
most-diverse state has long com
plained about being effectively shut
out of the presidential nominating
process because its primary usually
comes months after the initial four
contests in Iowa, New Hampshire,
Nevada and South Carolina. Last
year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill
moving the state’s primary up to the
earliest date permissible.
California is slated to vote on
March 3, the first day allowed for a
state that’s not in the traditional early
state lineup. And because of Califor
nia’s early-voting system, voters will
get primary ballots starting 30 days
before the primary, which coincides
with the Iowa caucuses.
Alex Padilla, California’s secretary
of state and a Democrat, said there
are already “a heck of a lot more
calls for people who know California
to join certain teams. ”
Especially for Democrats, Califor
nia is a fixture on presidential aspi
rants’ itineraries because of the trove
of high-end donors there. But Padilla
and other California politicos hope
candidates now feel they must reach
out to the state’s voters, too.
“The voters of California deserve a
larger role in selecting the nominees
of both parties,” Padilla said.
California won’t be the only state
voting on March 3. It will join at least
eight others — including another
behemoth, Texas — on what’s known
as Super Tuesday. It’s possible that
more states will move their primary
dates up to increase their clout, espe
cially since California has jumped to
the front of the pack.
The enormous amount of votes up
for grabs that day, coupled with the
astronomical price tag of competing
in California, may end up increasing
the importance of the early states
— especially overwhelmingly white
and rural Iowa and New Hampshire,
which are least like California.
That’s because winners in those
states are likely to receive heavy
attention and, with that, donations
that could fund a California opera
tion. Once Super Tuesday is over, a
huge percentage of Democrats will
have voted, making it hard for candi
dates who aren’t in first to catch up.
“You win early or you go home,”
said Josh Putnam, a professor at
the University of North Carolina-
Wilmington who tracks presidential
primaries. The massive number of
delegates up for grabs on Super Tues
day “doesn’t mean it’ll settle things,
but it’ll get us a measure of the way
there,” he said.
Bob Shrum, a veteran of several
Democratic presidential campaigns
who is now director of the Center for
the Political Future and the Unruh
Institute of Politics at the University
of Southern California, said Iowa and
New Hampshire will still be critical.
“They winnow the field,” he said.
Paradoxically, Shrum added,
California could also be a bulwark
for President Donald Trump, who’s
made it a perennial political target
and symbol of what’s wrong with lib
eral America. The president remains
popular enough among the GOP that
it’s unlikely he’ll have a serious pri
mary challenge. But if he did and lost
an early state, the state’s beleaguered
Republican voters would help him.
“As it has shrunk,” Shrum said
of the California GOP, which is
now outnumbered by both Demo
cratic and independent voters in the
state, “it has gotten more and more
Trump-esque.”
Several potential Democratic
presidential candidates hail from
California — most prominently Sen.
Kamala Harris, Los Angeles Mayor
Eric Garcetti and billionaire Tom
Steyer — and that state’s earlier pri
mary date could help them.
But there’s no guarantee that loy
alty to a local will overcome a candi
date who catches fire with the party’s
base after Iowa and New Hampshire.
Just ask Florida Sen. Marco Rubio,
who was trounced by Trump in his
state’s Republican presidential pri
mary in 2016.
“If Beto O’Rourke held a rally at
Los Angeles or San Francisco City
Hall, he’d get a larger crowd” than
Garcetti or Harris, said Mike Trujillo,
a veteran Democratic operative in
Southern California.
Trujillo added there’s no guarantee
that O’Rourke, the Texas congress
man who narrowly lost his challenge
to Sen. Ted Cruz, can maintain that
level of grassroots enthusiasm in
2020. But he said candidates who
have that support will gain the edge
in California, regardless of whether
it’s their home state.
RICHARD SHIRO I Associated Press
Police officers react during a funeral service for fallen Florence
police officer Sgt. Terrence Carraway Monday, Oct. 8, at the
Florence Center in Florence, S.C.
Deaths of police on
duty increased in 2018
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - More
police officers have died in on
duty this year in the United
States than in 2017, according
to data released Thursday. Most
were killed by gunfire, and
vehicular accidents claimed
nearly as many officers’ lives.
The National Law Enforce
ment Officers Memorial Fund
said in a report 144 federal,
state and local officers have
died in 2018. That figure rep
resents a 12 percent increase
from the 129 who died in 2017.
The majority of the officers
who died were either shot —
52 this year, up from 46 in 2017
— or fatally injured in car or
motorcycle crashes, which
accounted for 50 deaths. Other
fatalities involved heart attacks,
strokes, drownings and cancer
and other illnesses among those
who responded to the 9/11
World Trade Center attack.
Of the officers who were
shot, eight were killed during
investigative activity and six
were killed while responding to
calls of a disturbance, accord
ing to the report. Two were shot
while serving warrants, two
died while handling prisoners
and two others were inadver
tently shot by other officers.
Craig Floyd, the fund’s chief
executive officer, called the
increase in deaths disappoint
ing after a decline in 2017.
“Sadly this reminds us that
public safety is a dangerous job
and can come at a very steep
price,” Floyd said in a state
ment. “We must never take
the service and sacrifice of
law enforcement officers for
granted, and we must remem
ber the families of the fallen
who are left behind.”
Of the officers who died in
traffic incidents, 32 were killed
in crashes involving another
vehicle and 14 were struck out
side their vehicle.Four were
killed in a motorcycle accident.
The officers who died in
2018 include a sheriff’s deputy
in Sacramento County, Califor
nia, killed in a shootout at an
auto parts store; a Greensboro,
North Carolina, police offi
cer killed in a car crash while
responding to a call for a rob
bery; and a Greene County,
Missouri, sheriff’s deputy who
drowned when his car was
swept away by water.
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