Iraq Panel Set to Urge Major Withdrawal

Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the Iraq Study group and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission, and former Democratic leader in the Senate Tom Daschle, right, talk about the current state of homeland security and other issues during an internet webcast at the Center for American Progress in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert - AP)

WASHINGTON -- A leader of a bipartisan commission on U.S. options in Iraq said the group has agreed on a set of recommendations due next week, and published reports said the panel will urge a major withdrawal of U.S. forces but set no firm deadlines.

Such a withdrawal would gradually shift the U.S. military role from combat to support. On Thursday, days ahead of the report's release, President Bush seemed to reject the idea of pulling out troops.

"This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all," he said Thursday at a news conference in Jordan with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by his side.

The New York Times and The Washington Post reported Thursday that the much-anticipated report from the congressionally chartered Iraq Study Group will recommend far more aggressive diplomacy to enlist other nations in helping to curb violence in Iraq. That outreach could include a regional conference among all of Iraq's neighbors, or a wider gathering of Middle East nations that would also address separate Middle East peace issues.

The Times reported that the study group will recommend direct, high-level American diplomacy with U.S. adversaries Iran and Syria, a path that the administration has also rejected so far.

The group's reported agreement on a general strategy for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq represents a compromise among Republican and Democratic members who went into final deliberations this week with differing views on the value of timelines and deadlines for U.S. military engagement. The result, the newspapers reported, is a recommendation that the United States make clear that its troop commitment is not open-ended, while leaving the timeframe for withdrawal vague.

The Times, citing unidentified people familiar with the report, said it does not state whether U.S. combat brigades, numbering 3,000 to 5,000 troops each, should be pulled back to isolated bases in Iraq or to neighboring countries.

Their redeployment would still leave tens of thousands of American troops in the country, including 70,000 who would advise Iraqi forces, provide logistical support and serve as a rapid reaction force, the Times said.

The study group's members _ five Democrats and five Republicans _ had been split over the appropriate U.S. troop levels in Iraq, and whether and how to pull American forces out, according to one official close to the panel's deliberations.

A second official had said the commission was unlikely to propose a timetable for withdrawing all U.S. troops, but that some members seem to favor setting a date for an initial withdrawal. That is an idea favored by many congressional Democrats. The commission's recommendations are nonbinding.

The reported compromise strategy would allow the U.S. government to put al-Maliki's fragile governing coalition on notice that it must settle its own differences, tamp down sectarian violence and prepare to assume growing responsibility for the country's security. It could also give the Republican Bush administration political cover to step back from red lines it has set in the Iraq conflict, such as Bush's statement this week that he will never "pull the troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."

Bush offered a slightly toned-down statement of resolve at Thursday's press conference with al-Maliki. The chaotic summit with al-Maliki was hastily arranged by the White House last week, as tit-for-tat violence in Iraq reached new levels. It took place against the backdrop both of the coming recommendations for a shift in U.S. policy and a leaked memo outlining U.S. doubts about al-Maliki's job performance.