Guy Raz: Jim, let's move to Iraq. The president announced a full US withdrawal by the end of the year. His take is that this is a fulfillment of a campaign promise but there's a bit of spin there, isn't there?
James Fallows: Oh sure. It's not at all the way he expected to fulfill the promise. The reason there's going to be this complete -- or near complete withdrawal-- of US troops by the end of this year is not so much the commitment of the US government to wind things down as the view on the Iraqi side that they are not willing to keep US forces in their country any longer than the end of this year and the reason for that of course is the disagreement about whether US uniformed troops and also contractors would be subject to Iraqi law for things that went wrong while they were serving in that country.
-- All Things Considered (NPR) host Guy Raz and James Fallows discussing Iraq Saturday.