WP, pg1: Baker panel will recommend pressure on Iraq -- but many advisers concluded war is lost

[DeepModem Mom]

Panel To Urge Pressure On Iraq
Study Group to Present Its Report to Bush Today
By Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 6, 2006; Page A01

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.

Some proposals in the report track measures that the administration is already carrying out or is considering, but several directly challenge Bush in areas in which he has refused to compromise. The president has rejected talking with Iran and Syria and has resisted linking the Iraq war to the Palestinian issue. He has dismissed timetables for troop withdrawals, although the panel cites 2008 as a goal rather than a firm deadline. He has also declined to punish Iraqis for not making progress in establishing security.

Although the study group will present its plan as a much-needed course change in Iraq, many of its own advisers concluded during its deliberations that the war is essentially already lost, according to private correspondence obtained yesterday and interviews with participants. The best the commission could put forward would be the "least bad" of many bad options, as former ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer wrote....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/05/AR2006120501531.html

[Hissyspit]

1. Yes, the talk of the day tomorrow will be what we all here figured out three years ago. n/t

[whathappened]

2. little piss ant

he just won't come clean and tell us the people that he has a second army of merks fighting there as contractors , and just keeps making it look like our men and women serving have everything under control , and our congress has let this little man go on and on with our tax dollars

[H2O Man]

3. Perhaps the most

significant paragraph in the article is this one:

"In private e-mail exchanges over the past two weeks, members of the commission's working group, including former ambassadors, military officers and CIA analysts, expressed equally bleak outlooks for Iraq and skepticism that Bush would accept the panel's recommendations."

[Straight Shooter]

4. "44-month old war"

Psychological manipulation of words. That sounds like a shorter time than to call it "more than 3 and a half years" and certainly better than "almost 4 years."

Way to go, WaPo. :eyes:

[Binka]

5. No Shit Once A Kid Hits Two Years Of Age You Stop Referring To It In Months

Nobody calls an almost four year old a 44 month old kid. NOBODY. What sacks of shit these news whores are.

[nolabels]

19. With the CIA installed Sadam it has been decades of war for Iraq

When they eventually all get kicked out the price we have paid for this astronomical failure will eventually have to be assessed. All these government imbeciles that caused all this mess still can't fathom the mess they have made but many if not most of us common Joes can.

[ClintonTyree]

6. So, they'll set unreasonable goals....

and then when the Iraqis fail to meet them.........CUT AND RUN! It'll be a great way for Bush to "save face". You see this takes all the blame off Bush's slumped shoulders and puts it squarely onto the Iraqis'. If THEY fail to live up to Bush's expectations then it's ALL THEIR FAULT and Bush comes away looking like the exasperated world leader who's ideas were sound but not backed up by Iraqi action. BULLSHIT! It's been a clusterfuck right from the start. Bush IS and will always REMAIN an abject failure who's war of aggression will go down in history as one of the all-time major screw-ups by a world leader.
We might as well start withdrawing immediately. How many more will die while exercising this ruse upon the American public, the Iraqis and the world? The end result will be the same: we'll leave Iraq in shambles and in the throes of civil war. They're merely postponing the inevitable.
GET OUT NOW!

[Sapere aude]

7. Basically the report says, give up on PNAC and return to the place we were in

1998 when Clinton refused to go along with PNAC.

[erpowers]

8. Published Version

Will there be a published version of the report? I would like to read the full report.

[beltanefauve]

16. Hope this works for you:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/pdf/2006-12-06-studygroup.pdf

Looks like it's 160 pages long.

[Kikosexy2]

9. Time to pressure Congress....

NO MORE FUNDING FOR THIS WAR!!!...CUT OFF THE BLOOD LINE OF FUNDS!!!

[Roland99]

10. I wonder how much of that report will end up being redacted?

[confludemocrat]

11. "they labored mightily and brought forth..." another crock

leave behind "tens of thousands to advise"? what a pack of geniuses. like Kerry said, who wants to be the last to die for a mistake. Geezus fucking Christ.

[Frank Nata]

22. We need our OWN report

Anyone putting together one? I mean something that doesn't give the neocraps the ability to call cut and run?

[gasperc]

12. Holy brick bat to the head

no shit sherlock!
wasn't it Kerry who said during the debate in 2004 that Iraq was "an incredible mess" fast forward two fucking years and these hopeless pathetic boneheads tell us the same fucking thing.

CON-servative, never again!!!!!!!!!!!

[NNadir]

13. They say "there's no magic formula!" And all the time I thought there was.

The magic formula for the war in Iraq would have been - as is usually the case in wars - not to have had the war at all.

[wake.up.america]

14. Well, if brains were dynamite, Bush could not blow his nose...

Bush acts as if he is actually going to have someone read him the report.

[lebkuchen]

15. Hey Jimmy! We lost ten today! Just who is pressuring whom?

Christ, why does the US keep drudging up slithering lowlifes to solve problems created by the same slithering lowlifes?

[Lilith Velkor]

17. "declined to punish Iraqis for not making progress"?

What fucking definition of "punishment" are these clowns using?

:argh:

[civildisoBDence]

18. The Vietnam syndrome has been resurrected

Heckuva job, DUHbya.

Newsprism

[katty]

20. decribes bush: "grave and deteriorating" -#1 problemo

[illinoisprogressive]

21. Rove is part of why Bush won't pull out

Rove thinks he's such a great student of history that he's convinced bush that the great presidents do not change thier minds and stick to thier guns. He convinced him of this along time ago. It's now part of him. and with cheney pushing his zealotry, I doubt Bush will listen or do anything.
He may know it's lost but,