Iraq's President Jalal Talabani (R) meets with U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (L) in Baghdad July 21, 2008.

On Monday morning, Obama arrived in Iraq, where he welcomed the security gains achieved by Baghdad in battling al-Qaida and Shiite militias in his talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

In a seeming endorsement of Obama's pullout timetable, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said after Obama's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that Iraq hopes the U.S. troops would end its combat role and pull out by 2010, a clear timeline after the vague "time horizon" the two countries just agreed on.