WASHINGTON - An influential bipartisan panel is expected to recommend on
Wednesday that US forces withdraw from combat over the next year and focus on
training Iraqis, offering President George W. Bush the outlines of an exit
strategy from the unpopular war.
![Former US secretary of state James Baker (L) and his Iraq Study Group co-chair Lee Hamilton. The Iraq Study Group is to release an eagerly awaited plan for a change of course in Iraq, as US leaders grope for a way out of the country's bloody slide into chaos US President George W. Bush got a preview of a high-powered commission's report on overhauling his Iraq strategy, as the White House encouraged Baghdad to talk security with Iran and Syria.(AFP](xin_59120306152081627031.jpg) Former US secretary of state James Baker (L) and his Iraq
Study Group co-chair Lee Hamilton. The Iraq Study Group is to release an
eagerly awaited plan for a change of course in Iraq, as US leaders grope
for a way out of the country's bloody slide into chaos US President George
W. Bush got a preview of a high-powered commission's report on overhauling
his Iraq strategy, as the White House encouraged Baghdad to talk security
with Iran and Syria. [AFP]
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The Republican president has
not said if he will take the advice of the Iraq Study Group, which CNN reported
also calls for a comprehensive Middle East peace plan in a broader regional
approach to stabilizing Iraq.
Quoting excerpts of the report, which is to be released at 11 a.m. (1600
GMT), CNN said it stopped short of recommending a specific timetable for
withdrawal but did stress that Iraqis had to take on a larger share of the
military role.
"The primary mission of U.S. forces should evolve to one of supporting the
Iraqi army," CNN quoted the report as saying.
In other details to emerge, The Washington Post said the panel recommends
that Bush press the Iraqi government to meet specific goals for improving
security or face the threat of a cut in U.S. economic and military support.
More than three-and-a-half years after the March 2003 invasion that toppled
Saddam Hussein, about 140,000 American troops remain in Iraq fighting an
insurgency and trying to stop savage sectarian strife between Shi'ites and
Sunnis.
The conflict has lasted longer than US involvement in World War Two and has
killed more than 2,900 American troops.
Ethnic fighting has killed thousands of Iraqis, raising debate over whether
the country has descended into civil war and whether the US-backed government of
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki can stem the carnage.
Bush is under added political pressure to change course in Iraq since the
November 7 elections when voters, who had soured on the war, ended Republican
control of Congress.
The president, who was briefed on the report on Tuesday, has said he will
listen to the group's ideas but the White House said it doubted the panel's five
Republicans and five Democrats would provide a "magic bullet."
Robert Gates, a former CIA director and commission member until Bush
nominated him last month to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, said
the United States was not winning in Iraq and dismissed the prospect of quick
solutions.
'NO NEW IDEAS'
"It's my impression that, frankly, there are no new ideas on Iraq," Gates
told his Senate confirmation hearing.
Still, the group led by Republican former Secretary of State James Baker and
former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana is expected to influence the
debate over the war because its members were unanimous in their advice.
Sources familiar with the group's deliberations said the report would
recommend the U.S. military shift away from combat and toward a support role in
Iraq over the next year or so.
It is also expected to call for a regional conference on stabilizing Iraq
that could lead to direct U.S. talks with Iran and Syria, an option that the
White House has opposed.
Pulling back combat forces to focus on providing training, advice, logistics
and intelligence would still leave tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
Bush has given little sign he will contemplate any quick exit from Iraq,
saying repeatedly that U.S. forces would stay until the job is done.
"It's in our interests to help liberty prevail in the Middle East, starting
with Iraq. And that's why this business about graceful exit simply has no
realism to it at all," Bush said after he met Maliki in Jordan last week. "We'll
be in Iraq until the job is complete."
The White House has sought to blunt the impact of the Iraq Study Group's work
by conducting its own review of the war. Bush aides have said he is likely to
take weeks, rather than months, to decide how and whether to change his
policy.