The US bipartisan Iraq Study Group has reached a consensus on a
final report and will call for a gradual withdrawal of US forces
from Iraq, shifting the US role from combat to support and
advising, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
The group, however, would stop short of setting a firm timetable
for the troops' withdrawal, the newspaper said, quoting people
familiar with the panel's deliberations.
The report is a compromise between distinct paths that the group
has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has
been opposed by President George W. Bush, but making it clear that
the American troop commitment should not be open-ended.
The recommendations of the group, to be presented to Bush and
Congress next Wednesday, are nonbinding.
The report would recommend that Bush make it clear that he
intends to start the withdrawal relatively soon, and people
familiar with the debate over the final language said the implicit
message was that the process should begin sometime next year.
The bulk of the report focused on a recommendation that the
United States devise a far more aggressive diplomatic initiative in
the Middle East than Bush has been willing to try so far, including
direct engagement with Iran and Syria, according to The New
York Times.
Initially, those contacts might be part of a regional conference
on Iraq or broader Middle East peace issues, like the
Israeli-Palestinian situation, but they would ultimately involve
direct, high-level talks with Tehran and Damascus.
Although the diplomatic strategy takes up the majority of the
report, it was the military recommendations that prompted the most
debate, the newspaper said.
If Bush adopts the recommendations, far more American training
teams will be embedded with Iraqi forces, a last-ditch effort to
make the Iraqi Army more capable of fighting alone, it said.
The report also would offer military commanders -- and therefore
the president -- great flexibility to determine the timing and
phasing of the pullback of the combat brigades, the Times
reported.
The 10-member Iraq Study Group, which was established in March
this year, consists of five Republicans and five Democrats and is
led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Republican,
and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton, a Democrat.
(Xinhua News Agency November 29, 2006)
