If we heard it once during the campaign. we heard it a thousand times; candidate Obama promising his anti-war base that he would bring the troops home on a set timetable unlike President Bush who had an "open ended" commitment to staying in Iraq "for 100 years."

Funny how things look a little different once you're sitting in the Big Chair, eh Mr. President?

Of course, everyone not a rabid anti-war nutcase told him at the time that it was stupid and dangerous to make such a commitment. And then candidate Obama started to hedge a bit by saying he would "listen to the generals on the ground" - unlike that stupid Bush who never did. The base swallowed hard at that one but continued to believe that Obama would fulfill his promise of getting US combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months.

It now appears that while it will be safe for American troops to leave most of Iraq's urban areas (no thanks to Obama who opposed the military action that made that possible), negotiations have begun to leave American troops in place in some areas that have recently seen an uptick in violence.

Rod Nordland writing in the New York Times reports:

The United States and Iraq will begin negotiating possible exceptions to the June 30 deadline for withdrawing American combat troops from Iraqi cities, focusing on the troubled northern city of Mosul, according to military officials. Some parts of Baghdad also will still have combat troops.

Everywhere else, the withdrawal of United States combat troops from all Iraqi cities and towns is on schedule to finish by the June 30 deadline, and in many cases even earlier. But because of the level of insurgent activity in Mosul, United States and Iraqi military officials will meet Monday to decide whether to consider the city an exception to the deadline in the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, between the countries.

"Mosul is the one area where you may see U.S. combat forces operating in the city" after June 30, the United States military's top spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. David Perkins, said in an interview.

In Baghdad, however, there are no plans to close the Camp Victory base complex, consisting of five bases housing more than 20,000 soldiers, many of them combat troops. Although Victory is only a 15 minute drive from the center of Baghdad and sprawls over both sides of the city's boundary, Iraqi officials say they have agreed to consider it outside the city.