And the report has finally come...

Today is the day, 6 December 2006, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (see this post) released their report.

Of course, even before the full ISG report released today, the group itself had already given some recommendations to President Bush.

From a Washington Post article:

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend to President Bush that he threaten to reduce economic and military support for Iraq's government if it fails to meet specific benchmarks intended to improve security in the country, a source familiar with the report said yesterday.

The congressionally chartered panel, which is due to deliver its much-anticipated report to Bush at the White House this morning and then unveil it to the public, outlined diplomatic and military ideas intended to change the course of the 44-month-old war. Among other things, the source said, the report urges Bush to aggressively tackle the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to reduce the broader regional tensions fueling the Iraq conflict.

The latest details to emerge from the commission's report help flesh out a plan that also calls for the United States to withdraw nearly all combat units by early 2008 while leaving behind tens of thousands of troops to advise, train and embed with Iraqi forces. The report suggests that the Bush administration open talks with Iran and Syria about ways to end the violence in Iraq and proposes holding a regional conference to bring together all of Iraq's neighbors.

--

Not since the 9/11 Commission has a report generated so much public scrutiny and widespread speculation in Washington.

Says a CFR article.
--
Continuing with my usage of three letter acronyms today, a CJR article penned by Paul McLeary says the media may have more presidential influence than the report they are "obsessively" covering. Well, it's not like the Group is new news, Baker and Co. have been working for a while now, only really reported after the elections. The word "Iraq" is one the GOP tried to keep out of its midterm lexicon, not for the least a group recommending a realistic stance on Iraq. Article summary:

...in the end it may be inevitable and incessant buzz surrounding the report's findings, more than the findings themselves, which spur presidential action.

technorati tags: bush, iraq, iraq+study+group, james+baker, baker, hamilton, lee+hamilton, news, politics, current+affairs, foreign+policy, cfr, cjr, wahington+post, press, in+perspective, clearthought

Studied up on Iraq, group set to report findings

The New York Times reports

President Bush said today that American troops would stay in Iraq unless its government asks them to leave, using a joint news conference with the Iraqi prime minister to push back against a reported decision by an independent bipartisan panel to call for a gradual withdrawal.

Who in the Iraqi government actually wants the US in their country? Besides those who use American military as a reason and often scapegoat (excuse to citizens/constituents) for their bloody, sectarian skirmishes. The most powerful military on earth: used as an excuse for people to fight as if they were pissed four-year-olds with weapons and vendettas. Add that to the reasons the US should "stay the course", President Bush...

The Iraq Study Group (Wikipedia article) is a major topic.

The Iraq Study Group, which wrapped up eight months of deliberations yesterday, has reached a consensus and will call for a major withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, shifting the U.S. role from combat to support and advising, according to a source familiar with the deliberations.

Though he stated he would listen and take into strong consideration the reportings of the bipartisan (which is technically accepted, but, in reality, the label of 'bipartisan' is disputed) panel advising on the situation in Iraq, Bush seems to have altogether dismissed the idea of gradual withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq.

Just a couple weeks ago:

President Bush on Monday praised a bipartisan commission on Iraq for asking him good questions but said "I'm not going to prejudge" the report the panel soon will issue.

I guess he uses the same dictionary to define "prejudge" as he does to define "torture". The Iraq Study Group, sometimes named after its co-chairs, James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton (or just the former), will issue its final and full report on 6 December. See the independent group's website.

See this post and this post for more on Iraq, plans for withdrawal and my pick, and the Iraq Study Group.

UPDATE: Speak of the devil, the Iraq Study Group is the top-blogged thing in Slate's daily round up of blogosphere buzz and views.

technorati tags: bush, baker, hamilton, iraq+study+group, news, politics, usa, united+states, iraq+war, baker+commission, james+baker, in+perspective, clearthought, current+affairs, iraq+withdrawal

Some news in brief...

Maybe I'll post more later.

Something I have been waiting for — it was swept under the carpet until after US midterm elections — is the James A. Baker III-led nonpartisan Iraq Study Group. They will probably offer, like the 9/11 Commission, some good advice only to be ignored by the president and unknown by the public (not that they can't read it, multiple factors, societal and political, surround the public ignorance on such matters). Bush meets members of Iraq Study Group:

President George W. Bush cautioned Democrats wanting to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Iraq to consider conditions on the ground as he met on Monday with a bipartisan group expected to offer a plan for changing course in Iraq.

The group's work has attracted great interest from both parties after the opposition Democrats' sweeping victory last week that gave them control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Injecting a note of caution into the possibility of a major shift in strategy, Bush said: "I believe that it's important for us to succeed in Iraq, not only for our security but for the security of the Middle East, and that I'm looking forward to interesting ideas."

On the same topic (news from yesterday but all the more relevant today), the Iraq Study Group may have some good options to offer:

After meeting with President Bush tomorrow, a panel of prestigious Americans will begin deliberations to chart a new course on Iraq, with the goal of stabilizing the country with a different U.S. strategy and possibly the withdrawal of troops.

More politics. Man, Rove has a lot of nerve! (This article has a lot of great metaphors, by the way.) "Rove remains steadfast in the face of criticism":

For a man still climbing out of the rubble, Karl Rove seemed in his usual unflappable mood.

The Architect, as President Bush once called him, has a theory for why the building fell down.

[Rove retrieved] a single sheet of paper that had been updated almost hourly since the midterm elections with a series of statistics explaining that the "thumping" Bush took was not such a thumping after all.

The theory is this: The building's infrastructure was actually quite sound. It was bad luck and seasonal shifts in the winds that blew out the walls -- complacent candidates, an ill-timed Mark Foley page scandal and the predictable cycles of history. But the foundation is fine: "The Republican philosophy is alive and well and likely to reemerge in the majority in 2008."

Rove encouraged [(challengers to his political forecasting formula)] with supreme confidence. "You are entitled to your math, and I'm entitled to the math," he told a National Public Radio interviewer who suggested Democrats might win.

The question is, did Rove really believe the sunny optimism he resonated leading up to the elections, or did he know all along that this past midterm would not result in the GOP getting a grade A?

UPDATE: I can picture the partly laid-off Dateline NBC staff, doing a show called "Inside the mind of Karl Rove: the architect, the sorceror" or "To catch Bush's brain, the Karl Rove story", trying to probe the mystery that is the somewhat-placid and underpaid presidential adviser. Rove is slightly under-credited too; he is probably just one of the politicians doing it for power and glory... what happened to those guys? K-street, that's what happened — immense lobbying and special interest groups.

technorati tags: quotes, news, politics, foreign+policy, current+affairs, iraq, middle+east, iraq+study+group, rove, Bush, White+House, United+States, Republicans, Democrats, clearthought, us+elections, elections, midterm+elections, dateline, nbc, in+perspective, karl+rove

North Korea, Iraq situations: an analysis (part 2)

Iraq
See part 1 too.

As Iraq is getting worse for civilians, many Iraqi government officials, and foreign military, Americans may have to wait for a possibly very influential report, the Baker report (chaired by US Secretary of State James Baker), which may change the White House's strategy in Iraq.

There is hope that the Bush administration is finally seeing some of the reality of the dreadful Iraq situation and changing some of its views, as the president's political capital is almost in the red. More on civilian deaths here. Here is a previous post I had on American foreign policy.

I think a great exit strategy has been outlined by George McGovern and William Polk in their new book, Out of Iraq. I read an excerpt in a Harper's Magazine article; here is a post by a blogger named "paradox" (cross-published with the Daily Kos) on the article. As another Kos post states:

As George McGovern and William R. Polk cogently argue in the October issue of Harper's (subscription only), a withdrawal of troops (to be completed at the end of 2007) would not only save American lives but tens of billions of dollars.

technorati tags: out+of+iraq, kos, daily+kos, book, mcgovern, polk, james+baker, USA, united+states, bush, iraq, insurgent, foreign+policy, secretary+of+state, 2006+elections, iraq+roadmap, politics, commentary, opinion, in+perspective, clearthought, news, in+the+news, current+affairs, harper's, harper's+magazine