DUBUQUE, Iowa -- Senator Barack Obama of Illinois yesterday said the United States will have to abandon its efforts in Iraq, regardless of the costs, if serious reforms are not made by the Iraqi government.
"In the absence of those conditions we're just throwing money away," Obama said during a campaign stop in Dubuque.
"We have to be honest that, in the absence of these changes, if these changes aren't made, there is not much we can do" to help the Iraqi people, he added at a later appearance.
More than 2,000 people attended a town hall meeting to hear Obama on the first of two days of campaigning in Iowa that was to include stops in five eastern Iowa cities.
Aides said Iraq would be the focus of the trip, and members of the audience were given copies of a speech Obama gave opposing the war in 2002, when he was still a state senator.
"It's time to end this war and bring our troops home," Obama said yesterday, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd in the Loras College Field House.
He said there are no good options left in Iraq. "We only have bad options and worse options," he said.
Obama also called for changes in funding for veterans, saying the country is not doing enough to support troops returning from Iraq. "We need to put veterans services on equal footing with other social services in this country," he said. "A veteran shouldn't have to come hat in hand to get the services they deserve."
Obama, speaking in a city with a high number of union workers, criticized companies for trying to diminish the role of organized labor.
On healthcare, Obama did not outline a specific plan -- though he promised one would be offered by his campaign soon. He said the current healthcare system is broken and that is it an issue that must be addressed.
Obama's Democratic rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, was scheduled to address the New Hampshire Democratic Party's annual "100 Club" fund-raising dinner in Nashua last night.
She also met yesterday with Governor John Lynch and longtime Democratic activist Mary Louise Hancock at Hancock's home in Concord.
A Suffolk University New Hampshire phone survey released last week found that Clinton had the highest percentage of support from Democrats surveyed in the state.
In a separate development, organizers of back-to-back Republican and Democratic debates in the first-in-the-nation primary state said they have moved them from April to June to accommodate candidates' schedules.
Several of the top-tier White House hopefuls had decided to skip the debates, originally scheduled for April 4 and 5, citing schedule conflicts or trips to Iraq.
Those who are barely registering in the polls, however, had said they would show up next month -- even if they're all alone on stage.
The WMUR-TV-New Hampshire Union Leader-CNN debates are now set to air nationally during the first week of June. Exact dates weren't announced.
Some top candidates were staying away from the April debates, recognizing a potential gaffe could plague them for the 10 months before New Hampshire voters cast their ballots. Others said simply appearing beside candidates down in the polls only elevates them.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said last week that Iowa voters understand his strong opposition to the Iraq war and they might have moved on.
"I think Iowa caucus-goers are on the front edge of the curve and I think a lot of the people who were here today could have told you what my position is on Iraq," Edwards said in an interview.
Edwards, who spoke after an event on healthcare, wasn't asked once about the war.
In part, Edwards said, that could be because of the event's topic, but he said Iowans might have heard enough about his views on Iraq.
