January 17, 2007
The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. With these terse yet understated words the Iraq Study Group begins its Report. The Group is a ten-person consensus committee headed by former Congressman Lee H. Hamilton and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Its Report was released to the world on December 6.
The Report is a quick read — its 79 recommendations are introduced and presented in about 100 pages. If Mr. Bush were to read it, he’d find little new information about Iraq. Rather he would find a counter-assessment of the war — one he wouldn’t hear from the yes men and chickenhawks and ideologues with whom he surrounds himself. The Report would reveal the thinking and anxieties of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. It would reflect their disenchantment with the President’s Iraq “strategy.”
