The Iraqi leadership has backed US presidential candidate, Democrat Barack Obama over his plan to pull American combat forces out of Iraq in 2010.
The response upset the Bush administration and drew heated criticism from rival Republican John McCain.
Obama's visit to Iraq, including briefings and a helicopter ride above Baghdad with US commander General David Petraeus and meetings with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other government leaders, forced the five-year-old war back to the top of the presidential campaign agenda.
McCain was battling to stay in the campaign spotlight as Obama's travels drew huge media attention at home and abroad. The four-term Arizona senator, appearing wrong-footed by the Iraq developments, hotly disagreed on troop withdrawals, saying any pullout "must be based on conditions on the ground", not arbitrary timelines.
Iraq - the third destination on the foreign tour largely aimed at bolstering Obama's foreign policy credentials - followed a challenge from McCain, who complained that Obama was wrong to plan for troop withdrawals without having visited Iraq since January 2006. McCain has visited Iraq eight times since the war began and says Obama's foreign policy initiatives are naive and that he is untested.
The deep fissures between McCain and Obama were only deepened when Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabagh, emerged from the Obama-al-Maliki meeting to say: "We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq."
Obama repeatedly has said he wants to have those forces out of the country by the middle of that year.
Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, said after a subsequent session that Iraqi leaders share "a common interest ... to schedule the withdrawal of American troops".
"I'd be happy if we reach an agreement to say, for instance, the 31st of December 2010" would mark the departure of the last US combat unit, he said, noting the date would depend on security and the pace of training for Iraqi forces. That date would be some seven months later than Obama's 16-month timeline.
Obama said almost nothing to reporters following him, but promised fuller impressions after he finishes in Iraq and heads to Jordan.
Obama is due to arrive in Israel late Tuesday. He is to meet with Israeli leaders and, unlike McCain, an avid Israel supporter who visited in March, he will travel to the West Bank for talks with Palestinian leaders, too.
He released a statement noting that Iraqis want an "aspirational timeline, with a clear date", for the departure of US combat forces.
"Prime Minister Maliki told us that while the Iraqi people deeply appreciate the sacrifices of American soldiers, they do not want an open-ended presence of US combat forces. The prime minister said that now is an appropriate time to start to plan for the reorganisation of our troops in Iraq - including their numbers and missions. He stated his hope that US combat forces could be out of Iraq in 2010," Obama said in a joint statement with senators Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, and Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, who accompanied him to the war zone.
The senators also acknowledged a significant decline in violence in Iraq, and said that while their has been some "forward movement" on political progress, reconciliation and economic development, there has not been "nearly enough to bring lasting stability to Iraq".
Obama told US ABC News that military leaders have "deep concerns" about a timetable that doesn't account for changing conditions.
"I don't think that there are deep concerns about the notion of a pullout per se," he said in the television interview.
"There are deep concerns about, from their perspective, of a timetable that doesn't take into account what they anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."
Obama also said that knowing what he knows now he still would have opposed sending more troops to Iraq last year.
Late last week, al-Maliki said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that he was not supporting either presidential candidate but felt Obama's plan to remove combat forces within 16 months was in line with his government's wishes.
Aides later said the prime minister's remarks were misunderstood, but al-Dabagh reinforced the 2010 timetable again on Monday.
McCain was quick to respond, hitting Obama again with a reminder that the Democrat was opposed to the 2007 addition of 30,000 US troops - all now gone from the country - in a move credited with a major decline in violence.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino appeared displeased by the Iraqi leaders' statements, implying that talk of a 2010 timetable was part of the Iraqi government's public negotiating stance as Washington and Baghdad struggle over an agreement that would define the US role in Iraq beyond the end of the year.
The UN mandate that has allowed the American presence in Iraq expires on December 31 and will not be renewed, according to the wishes of the Baghdad government.
The White House had hoped to have an extended bilateral agreement in place by month's end, but that now appears unlikely.
