COLUMBIA - U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, is coming to Aiken to discuss his plans for the Iraq war. storyPhotos();

Preliminary plans call for him to speak at 3 p.m. Saturday at South Aiken High School.

His Iraq proposal includes:

- Immediate drawdown of troops, to be completed by the end of next year

- A new constitutional convention in Iraq, in coordination with the United Nations

- Increased use of diplomacy

- Limited use of the U.S. military in Iraq going forward

In preparation for his Aiken visit, Mr. Obama - who is campaigning in Iowa for the Democratic presidential nomination - spoke with Morris News Service.

Excerpts from Wednesday's phone conversation:

MORRIS NEWS SERVICE: How do you sell your message in South Carolina, a pro-military state?

MR. OBAMA: You sell it by explaining that my Iraq policy is pro-military. I have been a champion of our troops since this war began. ... It is my clear belief that our military has done everything that has been asked of them, and they have performed brilliantly. ...

I think they've been given a mission (to oversee) a civilian war, a sectarian war that doesn't have a military solution, and the most important thing we can do is to reset that mission.

MNS: Why won't you commit to a total troop withdrawal by the end of your first term?

MR. OBAMA: There are going to be missions that are going to have to be carried out. ... I've defined the missions very specifically. How many troops it will require will obviously depend on recommendations from commanders on the field. But what I know is we won't have 100,000 troops there.

MNS: You've consistently differentiated yourself from the other candidates by saying that you were opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning.

And yet you've also said that you don't know how you would have voted had you been in the Senate at that time. So is it fair to criticize other candidates who were?

MR. OBAMA: The only thing I said was I didn't want to judge, at the time, (Sens.) John Kerry and John Edwards, who were the nominees for the Democratic Party in terms of judgments that they had made.

But I don't think there's any doubt of where I stood, and that on this most-important policy issue in our generation, that I got it right, and most of my competitors got it wrong. And that's relevant not in terms of looking at the past, it's relevant in looking towards the future.

MNS: The bipartisan Concord Coalition has been talking to college students about the national deficit, and their contention is that while the war in Iraq and Afghanistan contribute, the real problem with the deficit is entitlement programs. Given that, what is your plan to address the deficit?

MR. OBAMA: Well, I think the single most-important thing we can do in terms of our long-term deficit is to institute my health care plan (which includes coverage for everyone and aims to focus more on prevention). ...

The real crisis we have is with Medicare and Medicaid, and the reason that is true is not only because the population is getting older and they need more health care but we are seeing 10 percent health care inflation every single year. ...

Unless we really focus our attention on health care and reduce our spending on health care, then we're going to have problems. Now, the way to do that is not to cut benefits and procedures. The way to do that is to get more bang for our health care dollar.