Obama: no timetable, no vote

Barack Obama addresses Democrats yesterday at Senator Tom Harkin's steak fry fund-raiser in Iowa.(AP)

One question after last week's Congressional hearings on progress in Iraq was whether the two leading Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, would commit to voting against any war funding bill that lacked a clear timetable for withdrawing American troops.

Obama answered that over the weekend in Iowa, saying he would not vote for any funding bill unless it contained such a schedule. "'We are going to bring an end to this war and I will fight now in the United States Senate to make sure that we don't pass any funding bill that does not have a deadline to start bringing our troops out," Obama said yesterday at the famous steak fry in Indianola hosted by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

Both Obama and Clinton voted against a funding bill earlier this year that did not have a timetable for withdrawal.