Cover of the report
The
Iraq
Study group (ISG), was a ten-person
bipartisan panel appointed on March 15,
2006, by the United States
Congress, that was charged with assessing the situation in
Iraq and the US-led Iraq War and
making policy recommendations. It was first proposed by
Virginia
Republican
Representative
Frank Wolf.
The Iraq Study Group was facilitated by the
United States Institute of
Peace, which released the
Iraq Study Group's final report on
their Website on December 6, 2006.
Members
The ISG was led by co-chairs
James
Baker, a former Secretary of State (Republican), and
Lee Hamilton, a former U.S. Representative
(Democrat).
Republicans
In addition to Baker, the panel's Republican members were:
Democrats
In addition to Hamilton, the panel's Democratic members were:
Former members
Two of the panel's original members (both Republicans) resigned
before the group's final report was released:
- Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, resigned on
May 24. He had missed most of the group's
meetings, and in his resignation letter, he cited "previous time
commitments" as his reason for resigning. (During the first month
of meetings of the panel, Giuliani had received $1.7 million for
giving 20 speeches to various groups.) When the group's report came
out in December 2006, Giuliani gave a different reason - that he
didn't think it was right for an active presidential candidate to
take part in such an "apolitical" panel. He was replaced by Edwin
Meese.
Funding and support
The panel's work was facilitated by the
U.S. Institute of Peace and
supported by the Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Center for the Study of
the Presidency (CSP), and the James A.
Baker III Institute for Public
Policy. It was expected to receive a US$1.3 million
appropriation from Congress.
Activities
Domestic
The ISG met members of the U.S. national security team, along with
President Bush, on
November 13. Before
this announcement it was reported that Baker was in regular contact
with the White House, especially with National Security Advisor
Stephen Hadley and President
Bush.
International
On 11
November 2006, it was announced that UK
Prime Minister Tony
Blair, who has supported President Bush in the Iraq war, was to
give evidence to the ISG. A Downing Street
spokesman said that Blair would give his
submissions via video link on 14
November. It was believed at the time that the UK Prime
Minister would outline his ideas on Iraq in a major foreign policy
speech on Monday,
13 November.
Internal arguments
According
to a report in late November (2006) in Newsday, internal strife, the assassination of
a cabinet minister in Lebanon
, and
opposition from President Bush to the
group recommending negotiations with Iran
and Syria
was
challenging the commission's intent to issue a consensus
report. An Iraq expert told
the newspaper that there "has been a lot of fighting" among the
expert advisers to the group, mainly between conservatives and liberals.
Recommendations
Although the final report was not released until December 6, 2006,
media reports ahead of that date described some possible
recommendations by the panel.
Among them were the beginning of a phased
withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq and direct US dialogue
with Syria and Iran over Iraq
and the Middle East. The Iraq
Study Group also found that the Pentagon has underreported
significantly the extent of the violence in Iraq and that officials
have obtained little information regarding the source of these
attacks. The group further described the situation in Afghanistan
as so disastrous that they may need to divert troops from Iraq in
order to help stabilize the country. After these reports began
surfacing, co-chair James Baker warned that the group should not be
expected to produce a "magic bullet" to resolve the Iraqi
conflict.
According
to a report in late November, the Iraq Study Group had "strongly
urged" a large pull back of American troops in Iraq. The
final report released on
December 6, 2006 included 79 recommendations and was 160 pages in
length.
By March 2007, the ISG report had been downloaded more than 1.5
million times, according to the US Institute for Peace website. The
Report is readily available for direct reading. Some (of many)
results include: assessing stability as 'elusive' and the situation
as "deteriorating", that all of Iraq's neighbors (including Iran
and Syria) must be included in an external diplomatic effort to
stabilize Iraq, that worldwide commitments limit the U.S. from
greatly increasing troop strength in Iraq, and that U.S attention
on Iraq diverted resources from Afghanistan (an imbalance which the
Report says the U.S. should restore to prevent Taliban and
Al-Queada resurgence). There are many more recommendations.
Among these, one significant recommendation was the suggestion that
there should be a substantially increased transfer of power to the
'new ruling elite' in Iraq. This, according to Toby Dodge, was
recommended 'in the hope that they could succeed where the US
government and military ha[d] so far failed', and with the notion
that it would in turn enable a more imminent withdrawal of some US
forces from Iraq (as mentioned), with one effect of decreasing the
number of US soldiers being killed or injured.
Views about the report
At a news conference with the British Prime Minister
Tony Blair in Washington on December 6, 2006
President
George W. Bush commented on the Iraq Study Group's
report and admitted for the first time that a
"new
approach" is needed in Iraq, that the situation in Iraq is
"bad" and that the task ahead was
"daunting".
President Bush said he would not accept every recommendation by the
ISG panel but promised that he would take the report seriously.
President
Bush waited for three other studies from the Pentagon
, the U.S.
State Department and the National Security
Council before charting the new course on Iraq. On US
foreign policy, President Bush warned that he would only talk to
Iran if it suspended uranium enrichment and bring Syria on board if
it stops funding the opposition in Lebanon, extends support to the
Lebanese government of Prime Minister
Fouad Siniora and provides economic help to
Iraq.
Frederick Kagan, scholar at the
American Enterprise
Institute (AEI) along with General
Jack
Keane, U.S. Army (retired) introduced the idea for a troop
surge in Iraq at a 14 December 2006 event at
AEI and again at a 5 January 2007 event attended by Senators
John McCain and
Joseph Lieberman. The report "Choosing
Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq" was released at the latter
conference. While the ISG report was ostensibly the driving force
for a policy change in Iraq, the AEI report outlined the actual
policy adopted by the Bush Administration.
Antonia Juhasz noted the study's
focus on Iraqi
oil in the opening chapter
and in Recommendation 63 and concluded that the Iraq Study Group
would extend the
Iraq War until American
oil companies have guaranteed legal
access to all of Iraq's
oil fields.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called the group's conclusions
"very dangerous" to Iraq's sovereignty and constitution. "As a
whole, I reject this report," Talabani said.
The International Crisis Group, who produced their own report on
the Iraq Study Group's findings and the situation in Iraq more
broadly following the ISG report, argued that the study represented
a belated and necessary shift in the American political elite's
thinking on US policy in Iraq. As such, they suggested it should be
welcomed. The report's apparent recognition of many of the failures
of the US-led invasion, especially in security terms, and its
recommendation of a changed approach to American foreign policy in
the Middle East generally, also received support from significant
sections of the academic community in the US who had increasingly
grown more critical of the nature of American involvement in Iraq
(albeit from varying perspectives) as the situation in the country
appeared to be deteriorating further.
Support from the
International Crisis Group (ICG)
came, in particular, for most of the Iraq Study Group's major
recommendations mentioned above, and also for its further
conclusions that a re-engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, a 'reintegration' of former
Baath
Party members, and efforts to allow a more inclusive political
process in Iraq, were all necessary steps towards addressing the
country's - and the region's - problems. However, the praise from
the ICG was qualified. Its report argued that the study failed to
match its conclusions with sufficiently radical proposals for
bringing about fundamental policy change. For example, the ICG
criticised the Iraq Study Group for not having stressed the
centrality of multi-lateralism in processes attempting to address
the situation in Iraq. In terms of building regional co-operation,
which it views as vital to the long-term resolution of the
conflict, the ICG also advocated 'altered strategic goals' on the
part of the US, 'renouncing in particular ambitions to forcibly
remodel the Middle East'.
See also
References
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