"Today, I have come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end," President Obama said in a formal announcement of a new Iraq strategy at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, on Feb. 27.

Under the new plan, Obama said, the United States will remove all combat troops by Aug. 31, 2010.

The plan came about, Obama said, after a comprehensive review of the U.S. strategy in Iraq by a national security team that included the defense secretary, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and commanders on the ground in Iraq. The plan to "transition to full Iraqi responsibility" begins, he said, with the "responsible removal of our combat brigades from Iraq."

"As a candidate for president, I made clear my support for a timeline of 16 months to carry out this drawdown, while pledging to consult closely with our military commanders upon taking office to ensure that we preserve the gains we"ve made and protect our troops," Obama said. "Those consultations are now complete, and I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months.

"Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."

While that will effectively end the combat mission, Obama said, he plans to keep 35,000 to 50,000 military personnel in Iraq through 2011 for the purpose of "training, equipping, and advising Iraqi Security Forces as long as they remain nonsectarian; conducting targeted counterterrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq."

There are currently about 142,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq, according to the Defense Department. Under terms of an agreement reached with Iraqi leaders last year, the U.S. must remove troops from Iraqi cities by the end of June and, as the Obama plan reinforces, withdraw its forces altogether by the end of 2011.

The timetable for withdrawal was a major campaign issue — the McCain campaign accused Obama of flip-flopping, a claim we said was False — but as Obama noted in his Camp Lejeune speech, he often talked of a 16-month timeline. Obama's current plan goes two months beyond that. There will be some who will say even a day longer than 16 months should constitute a broken promise. We're not ready to make that call because many things can change between now and August 2010, so for now, we're rating it In the Works.