Iraq Study Group Gives Report to President Bush
by John Little on 6/12/2006The President has the report:
President Bush got a preview Tuesday of the Iraq commission’s ideas for changing war policies, as the White House sought to dampen the report’s impact by emphasizing that Bush will be listening to other voices as well.
Over lunch at the White House, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the Iraq Study Group’s Republican co-chairman, gave Bush a private briefing on the general outline of the conclusions, said Dana Perino, a presidential spokeswoman.
The report — which Baker referred to during the lunch, Perino said — will be released Wednesday morning. The full commission, led by Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, will give a copy of the report to Bush at 7 a.m. EST.
Following the presentation to the president, the group is to brief Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his team via secure videoconference from the White House.
Leaked accounts don’t lead me to believe that there’s anything earth-shattering in the report. That won’t stop the media from selecting relatively minor points and sensationalizing them. One important point, which Democrats will manage to overlook:
“What we recommend demands a tremendous amount of political will and cooperation between executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government,” the report says. “Foreign policy is doomed to failure — as is any action in Iraq — if not supported by broad sustained consensus. The aim of our report is to move our country towards such a consensus.”
That might be the bleakest assessment in the report.
Update:
The report has been released and is available for download in PDF format.
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