Iraq report seeks 2008 withdrawal

December 6, 2006

A bi-partisan top-level report has advised the withdrawal of most US combat troops from Iraq by early 2008.

The Iraq Study Group also recommended the US engage with Iran and Syria over the conflict.

It calls for direct talks between Israel and Syria as part of a revived US commitment to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace "on all fronts".

The report was presented to George Bush by James Baker earlier on Wednesday

The report said: "By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq."

George Bush, the US president, said he would take the long-awaited report "very seriously".

The panel, co-chaired by James Baker, a former US secretary of state, said the main mission of US troops in Iraq "should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations".

"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."

'Rough waters'

At a press conference in Washington following the official release of the report, Lee Hamilton, the Democrat vice-chair of the panel, said:

"Our ship of state has hit rough waters, it must now chart a new way forward."If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress in achieving milestones ... the US should reduce its military, political and economic support.

Q&A: Iraq Study Group

"The US must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of troops in Iraq."

Baker said US policy "must be focused more broadly than on military strategy alone or on Iraq alone".

Read: IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT

He called on officials in Washington to seek the "active and constructive engagement of all governments that have an interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq - including all of Iraq's neighbours."

Questions raised

Marwan Kabalan, a political analyst at Damascus University, told Al Jazeera that a closer relationship with the US "would be a welcome development".

Syria has been saying that it is a key regional player. It could help by talking to its allies and friends in Iraq and could urge them to lay down their arms."

Hoda Abdel-Hamid, Al Jazeera's Iraq correspondent, says that the major question raised by the report is how Iraqi security services can be trained in time for the proposed withdrawal.

Sectarian killing in Iraq is spiralling out of control

"Only about one-third of the army is capable of doing its job - the police are not capable of doing their jobs and have been infiltrated by militias."

Violence continues

The conflict in Iraq, which is increasingly unpopular in the US, has lasted longer than US involvement in the second world war and killed more than 2,900 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

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 US-backed government of Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, can end the carnage.

In Baghdad on Wednesday fierce clashes erupted between armed Shia groups and residents of a Sunni neighbourhood in western Baghdad following a mortar barrage that wounded five people.

Mortar rounds fell on the central Midan district of the capital, killing 10 people and wounding 54.

Source

Links:

The Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal

The Oil Connection in Iraq Study Group Report