One possible reason for him doing this would be to make himself look better. Consider how good it would look for him if he won the election and then within the first 90 days of his presidency, he was able to "negotiate" a troop withdrawal plan that his predecessor wasn't able to accomplish. By asking the Iraqis to wait, and if he had managed to keep it secret, he was setting himself up for accolades early in his presidency.

Of course doing so is running the risk that the Iraqis wouldn't disclose his talks (which they did) and that nobody would find out.

He may have had other reasons as well, but none of them would really go well with his well known stand on the issue.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan