Obama Criticizes Bush, Says President Doesn't Understand Role As Commander In Chief

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) _ Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Friday that President Bush grossly misunderstands his role as commander in chief. <br/><br/>Addressing a New Hampshire audience,

Friday, July 20th 2007, 4:09 pm

By: News On 6

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) _ Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Friday that President Bush grossly misunderstands his role as commander in chief.

Addressing a New Hampshire audience, the Illinois senator commented on the president's repeated statements that he would rather listen to military leaders than politicians in Washington on U.S. strategy in Iraq.

``When President Bush says, 'I just want to give the commanders what they want, listen to the generals,' he doesn't understand how we work here in America. Civilians control the military and we are supposed to set the mission for the generals and then the generals should carry out the mission,'' Obama said at an outdoor town hall meeting.

``The military has done all we asked. We just asked the wrong things of them. That's not their fault. That's the president's fault. And we've got to stop enabling him to do it.''

Obama has been a frequent critic of Bush's policies and opposed the war from the start. He said negotiations might be pointless with some terrorists.

``There are only about 20,000 _ let's say _ activist extremists. I don't have the precise number, but it's in that range. Most intelligence estimates are there are 10,000 to 30,000 people who are actively involved in extremist movements,'' he said. ``We are not going to be able to negotiate with them. We have to hunt them down and take them out.''

Earlier, in Hampton, Obama told voters the change in direction needed to end the war in Iraq begins with them. He also said he opposed any move to withdraw from Afghanistan.

``I do not believe we get out of Afghanistan now. Al-Qaida is gathering there and they are a tremendous threat. Bin Laden is still there, un-captured. We haven't handled Afghanistan well because we've been distracted,'' Obama said.