On today's Morning Joe, Barack Obama's communications director Robert Gibbs took questions about a potential trip to Iraq for the Illinois Senator. Gibbs made it clear that Obama had no intention of making a joint trip with John McCain, but that a trip was nonetheless being considered. The upshot? Troop withdrawal will be the pre-eminent concern behind any Iraq trip. As Gibbs laid it out: "I think we would want to go over there and talk to [the troops] and see what sort of difficulties they're facing and see how it is that we can begin to carefully remove them and carefully bring them back to their families and bring them back to the United States."
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BRZEZINSKI: And, Robert, is your candidate -- I mean, just this whole Iraq thing is now being revitalized a bit because of the book. But is your candidate going to go to Iraq? Is that in the plans?
GIBBS: Well, as he said yesterday, Mika, it's under discussion about going overseas and going to Iraq sometime between now and the campaign. You know, I don't think we'll be taking that trip with John McCain because as Senator Obama said yesterday, the work that the men and women in our military are doing over there is just far too important for them to be props in some sort of political stunt or photo-op. You know, what they're doing over there is separated from their families, giving for their country. It's truly, truly amazing. And I think we would want to go over there and talk to them and see what sort of difficulties they're facing and see how it is that we can begin to carefully remove them and carefully bring them back to their families and bring them back to the United States.