Obama 'to set deadline for Iraq withdrawal'

President Barack Obama plans to remove all US combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, administration officials said, a move which would end the war that defined his upstart presidential campaign three months later than he had promised.

The withdrawal plan could be announced as early as this week. It could help Mr Obama turn his attention to another campaign pledge: deploying more troops to Afghanistan, a region he calls the central front in the war on terrorism.