Iraq
Report Sees "Grave And Deteriorating" Crisis
By Arshad Mohammed
& Steve Holland
08 December, 2006
Reuters
WASHINGTON - U.S. troops should begin withdrawing from
combat and Washington should launch a diplomatic and political push
to halt a "grave and deteriorating" crisis in Iraq, a high-level
panel studying the war said on Wednesday.
President Bush said he would take the highly-anticipated report "very
seriously" after meeting with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group,
but the White House has made clear he will not be bound by its conclusions
and has begun its own review of Iraq policy.
"The situation in Iraq
is grave and deteriorating," the five Republicans and five Democrats
in the group said in the report. "There is no magic formula to
solve the problems of Iraq," the report, to be released formally
at 11 a.m. (1600 GMT), added.
"Our most important
recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts
in Iraq and the region and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces
in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat
forces out of Iraq responsibly," the report said.
More than 3-1/2 years after
the March 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, about 140,000 American
troops remain in Iraq fighting an insurgency and trying to stop savage
sectarian strife between Shi'ites and Sunnis.
The report also called for
the United States to engage with Iran and Syria, whom U.S. officials
accuse of fomenting the insurgency in Iraq, in an effort to stabilize
the country. The White House has resisted such talks.
"This report gives a
very tough assessment of the situation in Iraq," Bush said after
meeting for about an hour with the group's members, who include two
former secretaries of state. "I told the members that this report,
called 'The Way Forward,' will be taken very seriously by this administration."
The report called for a new
commitment by the Bush administration to press for a "comprehensive
Arab-Israeli peace," arguing that the United States cannot meet
its goals in the Middle East without addressing the festering conflict.
NO HARD TIMETABLE
The report also recommended
that the U.S. military launch a rapid effort to train Iraqi forces to
defend their country and said U.S. forces should gradually move to a
supporting role.
It set no hard timetable
for the transition but said, by the first quarter of 2008, depending
on conditions, U.S. combat troops not needed for "force protection"
could be out of Iraq.
The report stresses that
Iraqis need to take on a larger share of the military role and suggested
the United States should begin to withdraw support if Iraq's government
does not make major progress toward national reconciliation, improved
security and better governance.
"The United States must
not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American
troops deployed in Iraq," it said.
The conflict in Iraq, which
is increasingly unpopular in the United States, has lasted longer than
U.S. involvement in World War Two and killed more than 2,900 American
troops.
Hundreds of Iraqis are being
killed in sectarian violence every week, raising debate over whether
the country has descended into civil war and whether the U.S.-backed
government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki can stem the carnage.
In Baghdad on Wednesday fierce
clashes erupted between Shi'ite militias and residents of a Sunni neighborhood
in western Baghdad following a mortar barrage that wounded five people
and mortar rounds fell on the central Midan district of the capital,
killing 10 people and wounding 54.
Bush has been under added
political pressure to change course in Iraq since the November 7 elections,
when U.S. voters, soured on the war, ended Republican control of Congress.
The White House has sought
to blunt the impact of the Iraq Study Group's work by conducting its
own review of the war. Bush aides have said he is likely to take weeks,
rather than months, to decide how and whether to change his policy.
In the clearest sign Bush
is searching for solutions, a day after the Republicans' humiliating
election losses he tapped former CIA Director Robert Gates to replace
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the war who became
a favorite target of critics.
Gates on Tuesday said the
United States was not winning in Iraq and dismissed the prospect of
quick solutions. "It's my impression that, frankly, there are no
new ideas on Iraq," Gates told his Senate confirmation hearing.
Additional reporting by Ross
Colvin in Baghdad
© 2006 Reuters Limited
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