Obama, al-Maliki, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Monday morning to discuss the future of security in Iraq, the Associated Press reported.
Obama and al-Maliki will visit Arlington National Cemetery Monday afternoon in honor of the American troops killed in Iraq.
Since the war in Iraq began in March 2003, 4,487 Americans have died there and 32,226 were wounded, according to Pentagon figures as of Dec. 9.
When it passes a fiscal 2012 defense appropriation, Congress will have authorized at least $823 billion for Iraq military operations, $47.6 billion for State Department and Agency for International Development reconstruction and an additional $7.2 billion for Veterans Administration Iraq-related medical issues, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The Pentagon has spent $720 billion of its authorized funds through Sept. 30, according to comptroller data.
The U.S. military is withdrawing its remaining 8,000 military personnel and 5,000 contractors from Iraq as the year- end deadline nears. That is down from a peak of about 300,000 Americans in Iraq in 2007, including almost 170,000 uniformed personnel as well as civilians and contractors.
Iraq remains deeply troubled and restiveness in the Persian Gulf may have consequences for the oil market and the global economy.
“Iraq remains weak and fractious,” Pollack, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony on Nov. 15. “It is not ready to be without an external peacekeeping presence” and “its political leadership has not demonstrated anything like the maturity that will be required to prevent the country from sliding back into civil strife.”
Obama said the two nations will have an active military-to- military relationship, from training Iraqi pilots on the 18 Lockheed-Martin Corp. (LMT) F-16 fighter jets that Iraq has agree to buy to ensuring that sea lanes “in and around Iraq and through the region” remain open for international commerce.
“We’ve got to train their pilots and make sure that they’re up and running and that we have an effective Iraqi Air Force,” he said.
$2.3 Billion Deal
The deal to sell Iraq additional F-16s, which the administration formally announced today, is worth about $2.3 billion, according to the White House.
The U.S. will maintain its embassy in Baghdad and affiliated consulates after Dec. 31. About 16,000 personnel will serve under the embassy’s umbrella next year, according to State Department figures.
Obama said that the embassy’s diplomatic and technical staff is “going to be comparable to other countries that we think are important around the world.
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