Obama: Will he or won’t he support compromise?

ABC News’ Jonathan Greenberger reports: At an Iraq-themed town hall meeting in Davenport, Ia., tonight, Sen. Barack Obama refused to say whether he would he might support a troop funding bill that would not have a defined deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq, as some Democrats have recently begun discussing.

When asked if he would “tell leadership that a vote to continue to fund this war without a concrete timetable for withdrawal is wrong,” Obama would not tip his hand.

“I’ve already told them that,” said Obama, referring to his vote in late May against a troop funding bill that lacked a concrete timetable.

But Obama then seemed to leave the door open to a compromise bill that would fund the troops while making troop withdrawal merely a goal, although an Obama spokesman later said he was not intending to speak about any hypothetical legislation.

“You know, as I said, there is going to be, without some shift in the Republican Congress, we’re going to have a difficult time,” said Obama. “That’s just a fact. And it’s a fact that we’re not going to be able to avoid. That’s why we’ve got to put pressure on the other side.”

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Chris Dodd first began putting pressure on Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton last week to decisively come out against such a possible compromise bill. Dodd renewed his call today.

In a statement released this afternoon, Dodd said he was “dismayed that neither [Obama] nor Senator Clinton will give an unequivocal answer on whether they would support a measure if it didn’t have such an enforceable deadline.” Dodd went on to say he would “urge Senators Obama and Clinton not to backtrack on the need for a firm, enforceable deadline and state clearly and directly whether they will support an Iraq measure if it does not include one.”