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Study Group to Call for Pullback
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President Bush said earlier this fall that he looked forward to receiving the study group's report to bring fresh perspective to the Iraq crisis. But as some of the options under consideration began to leak out, the White House also ordered its own crash policy review, which began two weeks ago. The administration does not want to be in the position of having to adapt all of the Iraq Study Group report's recommendations, U.S. officials say, and its own review will provide an opportunity to pick and choose options.
The release of its report next week will combine with the Dec. 5 Senate confirmation hearings for Bush's nominee for defense secretary, former study group member Robert M. Gates, to bring new emphasis to the intensifying debate over the future of the U.S. presence in Iraq.
The issue now may be timing. Even expert advisers to the panel expressed concern that the report may be too late. Congressional sources voiced similar fears yesterday. "I don't think we have a great deal of time," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.). "I think there's still an opportunity, but that opportunity is rapidly closing on us."
The panel, which began deliberations in April, was organized jointly by four think tanks and funded with $1 million from Congress. It is run by the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The group consists of five Democrats -- Hamilton, former Virginia governor and senator Charles S. Robb, former defense secretary William J. Perry, Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan, and former Clinton chief of staff Leon E. Panetta -- along with five Republicans: Baker, former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Reagan administration attorney general Edwin Meese III, former senator Alan K. Simpson (Wyo.), and former secretary of state Lawrence S. Eagleburger, who was a late replacement for Gates.
Forty experts from fields such as warfare, the Middle East, reconstruction and Islamic militancy were asked to put together options for the group but did not take part in the policy debates.
The group also interviewed Bush and former president Bill Clinton and spoke with other distinguished outsiders, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem and Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif.
It traveled to Iraq only once, and most members generally stayed within the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
