Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, on January 10 2007 predicted (watch HERE) that the surge of troops in Iraq would fail. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he told MSNBC. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
Four days later he told CBS's Face the Nation, that "we cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality -- we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground."
Asked about these predictions on Sunday's Meet the Press, Obama told NBC's Tom Brokaw that "I know that there's that little snippet that you ran," referring to the MSNBC clip, "but there were also statements made during the course of this debate in which I said there's no doubt that additional U.S. troops could temporarily quell the violence. But unless we saw an underlying change in the politics of the country, unless Sunni, Shia, Kurd made different decisions, then we were going to have a civil war and we could not stop a civil war simply with more troops."
This has become an Obama meme -- that during the debate over the surge he acknowledged that more US troops would mean a temporary reduction in violence.
But is it true?
Want the answer?
Go over and read Tappers piece at ABC's Political Punch.
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