Troops out by ’08: Baker report

WASHINGTON, DC: The much-awaited report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton, will be delivered to President George W Bush on Wednesday, and will recommend a total pullout of all its 15 combat brigades by 2008, according media reports in Washington and New York. The report also recommends that the US retain part of its military presence in the form of advisers, trainers and embedded troops.

 

Portions of the report were selectively leaked to various US media outlets, thus generating a nationwide debate on continued American military presence in Iraq. The report suggests that the pullout begin as early as 2007, and that the US mission in Iraq should be move to a secondary role by allowing the Iraqi government to take the lead in fighting the insurgency. However, the 100-page report stops short of setting a specific timetable for the withdrawal or even the final date.

 

The 10-member ISG, also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, was set up in March this year and was charged with delivering an independent assessment of the situation in Iraq and the US-led Iraq war. It is funded in part by the United States Institute of Peace, a Washington-based think tank. Though it has no direct authority to change America’s Iraq policy, it has been given the right to give policy recommendations that the US president may or may not accept.

 

A source from the panel was quoted by The Washington Post as saying: “It’s really about transitioning from a combat to a support role, and basically making very clear that this is no longer an open-ended commitment and we’re going to get this done whether the Iraqis like it or not. Everybody understands that we’re at the end of the road here.”

 

In a related development, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told ABC News’ This Week on Sunday that “President Bush is open to several previously rejected possibilities because he realises things are not proceeding well enough or fast enough in Iraq. We have to make some changes.” The same day, he appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press, where he told host Tim Russert that Bush will weigh recommendations from various quarters including outgoing Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and the ISG. “His (Bush’s) hope is that it is a way forward that the American people can support,” he said.

 

Bush is under intense public pressure to come up with an alternative strategy for Iraq, especially one that involves troop withdrawal. The US has lost nearly 3000 soldiers in Iraq since the war began in 2003, while Iraqi casualties have amounted to 6,50,000 according to a joint study by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the British medical journal Lancet.

 

On the reconciliation front, the ISG report suggests a direct dialogue between the US and Iran and Syria. The US has repeatedly accused both Syria and Iran of fomenting trouble in the Middle-East with their alleged support to Hizbollah and other militant groups. The US is also concerned about increasing involvement of the Shia-dominated Iran in Sunni-majority Iraq, where intense sectarian violence has killed hundreds of civilians and scores of American troops in the last six months.