Report from Iraq Study Group is out!

Well, the final report from Jim Baker's Iraq Study Group is out. Here is the full 160-page report through the New York Times.

And here is the report broken down by the Washington Post into the Full Text, Appendices, and the Executive Summary.

I have yet to read the entire report, but from what I've read in both the New York Times and Washington Post stories, it appears to be bleak. I'm going to start with the Washington Post story:

Faced with what it described as "deteriorating" conditions in Iraq and the prospect that a "slide toward chaos" could topple the Baghdad government, a bipartisan panel urged President Bush today to fundamentally change the U.S. military mission in Iraq and launch a new diplomatic effort involving the country's neighbors, including Iran and Syria.

In a long-awaited report presented to Bush and Congress, the Iraq Study Group warned that "current U.S. policy is not working," and it recommended shifting the basic U.S. military mission in Iraq from combat to training.

Surprise, surprise, surprise--the current U.S. policy is not working. Anyone with half a brain, who has been regularly reading the news reports--and perhaps even the blogs--would have probably realized that that Iraq has been a disaster for the past year. I looked back at what I said in my first posting regarding Iraq on Oh Well, dated May 30, 2005:

This war has been a failure. Created by a Bush Administration controlled by neoconservatives with their own imperialist ambitions, and marketed to the American public using lies, deceit, and terrorism fears, the Bush White House has dragged this country into a wasteful war which has killed some of our best young citizens and wasted so many countless billions of dollars. We did not need to invade Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was not a hotbed of terrorism--it is now after the invasion. Saddam was never a global threat--he may have been a regional threat in the Middle East, but he was also contained by a U.S. military in the region and the no-fly zone. There have been so many lies out of the White House, that the American public seems almost de-sensitized to it. The White House continues to link terrorism to Saddam Hussein while bludgeoning the American public with terrorism fears and warnings. The American media doesn't challenge any of the statements from the Bush Administration, but rather they follow along complaisantly reporting the lies. It is a never-ending story.

Looking back at this comment, I realize that it is still as relevant today as it was when I wrote it--the 11th posting in my blog. The main difference in that first post is that I never saw Iraq exploding into a civil war that we have today. And now we have this Iraq Study Group finally saying that the "deteriorating" conditions are causing Iraq to "slide towards chaos."

I'm almost tempted to say there is nothing of value in reading this report.

But perhaps there is some good to come from this report. Consider this from the WaPost:

[Former secretary of state James A,] Baker, the group's Republican co-chairman, said the report "doesn't bind anyone," but he suggested that its recommendations carry extra weight because they have "complete bipartisan support."

"We do not recommend a 'stay the course' solution," Baker said in summarizing the group's findings at the news conference. "In our opinion, that approach is no longer viable."

In other words, Jim Baker has pretty much shredded Bush's "stay the course" arguments. That has been the only argument that the Bush White House could even make as Iraq descended into chaos--stay the course to keep Iraq from falling into the control of al Qaeda terrorists! Stay the course to create a stable democracy in Iraq. Stay the course to stabilize the government of Iraq. Stay the course and not allow Iraq to explode in civil war! Stay the course.

There is just one small problem. Baker's Iraq Study Group doesn't go far enough. Continuing with the WaPost article:

Except for the recommendations on Iran and Syria, the panel appeared to steer away from language that might inflame the Bush administration, which has said that it will consider the Iraq Study Group report as part of its own review of strategy and tactics in Iraq. The panel did not, for instance, set a formal timetable for troop withdrawal, instead setting 2008 as a goal for the withdrawal of U.S. combat brigades based on an estimate by U.S. commanders for when Iraqi forces will be ready to take charge of the country's security needs.

In other words, Jim Baker's ISG report pretty much backed down from confrontation on the Bush administration's "stay the course" policy. Instead of demanding a timetable for an American withdrawal from Iraq, we get this "goal" of withdrawing American troops before the 2008 presidential elections--like this administration has succeeded in accomplishing any of its post-war Iraq reconstruction goals. And the Bush White House even knows that they can shove Baker's ISG report in the trash. Also in the WaPost:

For his part, Bush thanked the Iraq Study Group and described its report as "an opportunity to find common ground." But he offered no immediate endorsement or rejection of any of its recommendations.

And from the New York Times here:

While the panel was careful to modulate its wording to avoid phrases and rigid timelines that might alienate the White House,’ it also clearly attempted to box the president in, presenting its recommendations as a comprehensive strategy that would only work if implemented in full. That appeared to be a warning to Mr. Bush, who in recent days has said he would consider the independent panel’s findings alongside studies by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council, and has suggested he would pick the best elements of each of them.

You can bet that the Bush White House won't do anything regarding this report. And what is even more amazing is that the ISG members even know how much of a failure Iraq has become. Here's the New York Times article on this report:

Members of the commission said they believed their recommendations would improve the prospects for success in Iraq, but they said there was no guarantee that the American effort there would not end in failure.

“The current approach is not working, and the ability of the United States to influence events is diminishing,” [retired Democratic congressmen from Indiana, Lee H.] Hamilton said at the news conference on Capitol Hill. “Our ship of state has hit rough waters. It must now chart a new way forward.”

[....]

Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton wrote that “there is no magic formula to solve the problems of Iraq.”

I seriously wonder if both Baker and Hamilton know that the Bush White House will not do anything to endorse the ISG's recommendations for resolving Iraq, or even develop a withdrawal timetable. I'm pretty much betting that the Bush White House will support the recommendations from their own National Security Council report, or from the Joint Chiefs of Staff report, which will probably provide a more upbeat assessment of Iraq over that of the ISG report. So I seriously wonder if this report has been a complete dud.

Perhaps is is through the Washington DC circuit. But if the report does continue to educate the American people at just how much of a disaster Iraq has become, then perhaps there could be some good to come out of it--certainly if the American people start to pressure both the Bush White House and Congress to pull out of Iraq over the next two years. But until then, we'll just have to see.