"Obama calls war in Iraq 'ill-conceived'"

AP (Kentucky.com) :

In Louisville, says it distracts from war on terror. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama spoke last night to a crowd of at least 3,000 supporters who waited nearly two hours for him to arrive for his first campaign stop in Kentucky.

The Illinois Democrat apologized for the delay, saying snow in Chicago kept him from arriving sooner.

"We had a blizzard up in Chicago," Obama said. "It was snowing and sleeting and blizzarding."

"There was no way I was not going to make 3,000 people coming out," he said to audience members who paid $25 a ticket for the event. A higher dollar fund-raising event was scheduled later at the nearby Henry Clay Hotel.

Obama talked about concerns that as a freshman U.S. senator, he is too inexperienced to be president.

"Some people might ask, 'How can this guy be president? He's only been in Washington for two years.' Let me tell you, I've been in Washington long enough to see that things need to be changed," he said.

Obama touched upon the issues that he has focused on in stump speeches during his two-week-old campaign: education, health care, energy policy, economic policy and the war in Iraq.

Loud applause rose from the crowd each time he said, "At the end of my first term as president."

On Iraq, he called the war "ill-conceived" and said it is "distracting attention away from the war on terrorism."

He called for a phased redeployment beginning May 1 and a complete pullout of combat troops by March 31, 2008.

"We cannot bring about change in Iraq militarily," he said. "What we can't do is put our young men and women in the middle of a sectarian war. It won't work."

Obama is considered among the early front-runners for the Democratic nomination with U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards.

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, appeared on stage with Obama, but said his appearance wasn't an endorsement.

"I would be here for any of the Democratic candidates," he said. "But if he's the nominee, I will be extremely enthusiastic."