Iraq Study Group chairs defend report
Source: Reuters
(Updates with Hamilton, Baker, Biden) By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The chairmen of the Iraq Study Group on Sunday defended their report as a "responsible way" out of the war, while President George W. Bush prepares to unveil his new strategy later this month. Bush has shied away from embracing the major recommendations of the report, which call for accelerating training of Iraqi forces and pulling back U.S. combat troops by early 2008, and including neighbors Iran and Syria in a regional dialogue aimed at stabilizing the country. "What we're saying in this report is we want to conclude this war, we want to conclude it in a responsible way," former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, a co-chair of the high-level bipartisan study group, said. He said the report's recommendations offered the best option, amid divergent calls for increasing troop numbers in Iraq and pulling forces out immediately. "We do not want American forces involved in sectarian clashes or violence, that's not our business," Hamilton said on the "Fox News Sunday" television program. "We do have some business there and that's to get rid of al Qaeda and the terrorists and of course to protect our own forces," he said. The report, released last week to mixed reaction, was expected to carry some weight in Bush's deliberations because the panel's 10 high-level Republicans and Democrats unanimously endorsed the 79 recommendations. Bush has promised to consider the findings "very seriously," but the report has prompted heated criticism. At a hearing last week on the report, Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has proposed sending more troops, said: "I believe that this is a recipe that will lead to, sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq." Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd, on Sunday called the recommendations dangerous and insulting. "The report has a mentality that we are a colony where they impose their conditions and neglect our independence," he said. Former Secretary of State James Baker, also a co-chair of the panel, said Talabani's comments were disappointing. The future of Iraq depended on Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunnis coming together and sharing oil proceeds on the basis of population was an "indispensable element" of national reconciliation, Baker said on CNN's "Late Edition." Hamilton said Talabani may be balking at the recommendation to make aid conditional on the Iraqi government reaching a number of milestones. "Up until this point, we've given a blank check to the Iraqis," he said. "And I'm not surprised that the president would like that sort of a deal." Bush will meet this week with officials from the State Department, Pentagon and outside experts on Iraq, and hold a video teleconference with military commanders. After the administration's internal review is completed, Bush hopes to address the nation on a new Iraq strategy before Christmas. "Our information is that some of those studies call for some of the things we've suggested here," Baker, who has long ties to the Bush family, said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Bush is under pressure to change U.S. policy on Iraq after his Republican Party lost control of Congress in November elections to Democrats who campaigned that a new direction was needed in the unpopular war. More than 2,900 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. "I don't believe he (Bush) has the capacity to change," said Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat who will be the next chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "He has this wholesome but naive view that Western notions of liberty are easily transposed to that area of the world," Biden said on ABC's "This Week" program. "I think the president ... thinks there's a Thomas Jefferson or a (James) Madison behind every sand dune waiting to jump up and there are none," he said referring to former U.S. presidents. (Additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington and Mussab Al-Khairalla in Baghdad)
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