Iraq Panel To Call For Gradual Pullback

(CBS/AP)  A bipartisan commission next week will unveil long-awaited recommendations for a new U.S. policy in Iraq, which call for a gradual pullback of U.S. troops there and direct diplomacy with Iran and Syria.

The Iraq Study Group will recommend that all 15 American combat brigades — that's about 75,000 troops — should be pulled out of action and either back to base camps or entirely out of the country within 16 months, a source close to the study group tells CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. During that time, the mission of U.S. soldiers and Marines currently patrolling the streets would change to that of trainers and advisers embedded with Iraqi soldiers and police.

"Our goal is a change in the primary mission from combat to support," the sources told Martin. "This must happen even if the Iraqis don't make the changes we want them to. We have to let these people know they have to get their act together or we are getting out of there."

Such recommendations would require a shift in policy for the Bush administration that President Bush has shown no hint of implementing.

"This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all," he said Thursday at a news conference in Jordan.

Without any specific reference to the commission, Mr. Bush acknowledged a general pressure for U.S. troop withdrawals but said, "We'll be in Iraq until the job is complete, at the request of a sovereign government elected by the people."

The New York Times reported on its Web site Wednesday night that the study group will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American brigades now in Iraq, but will stop short of setting a specific timetable for their withdrawal.

The Times, citing unidentified people familiar with the report, said it does not state whether the brigades, numbering 3,000 to 5,000 troops each, should be pulled back to isolated bases in Iraq or to neighboring countries.

"I think everyone felt good about where we ended up," one source told the newspaper, describing the final report. "It is neither 'cut and run' nor 'stay the course.'"

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman the National Security Council traveling with Mr. Bush in Jordan, said the White House had not yet been given any advance briefing about what the group would recommend and had no comment on the Times report.

"We had to move the national debate," one study group member told the Times, speaking anonymously, "from whether to stay the course to how do we start down the path out."

Defense officials, meanwhile, said the Pentagon is developing plans to send four more battalions to Iraq early next year, including some to Baghdad. The extra combat engineer units of Army reserves would total about 3,500 troops and would come from around the United States, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deployments have not been announced.

The study group also will suggest that the United States hold talks with Iran and Syria, CBS News reported Wednesday night.

"With the Iraq Study Group set to propose an exit strategy that involves negotiations with Iran and Syria, the timing of the letter to the American public by the president of Iran was designed to set some preconditions — such as a larger Middle East settlement involving an independent Palestine state and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

There are currently about 139,000 U.S. troops in Iraq; some 20,000 are in and around Baghdad.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton said violence in Iraq now fits "the normal definition of a civil war." He spoke in an interview on CNN to be broadcast Friday. The Bush administration has refused to label the Iraq conflict a civil war, in part out of worry that the definition would further erode support for the war in the United States.

Several hours after bits of the report began leaking out, President Bush met in Amman, Jordan, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Mr. Bush told him that the United States is willing to make changes to better support the unity government in Baghdad.

President Bush also said that he and al-Maliki agreed — in a meeting that was put off Wednesday, as reports swirled in Washington about a lack of confidence in the Iraqi leader — that Iraq should not be partitioned into separate, semi-autonomous zones.

At a news conference Wednesday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not say whether more troops were planned for Baghdad. He did say that was among the ideas that commanders were debating.

He also said there was no plan to shift all troops from the volatile Anbar province into Baghdad.

[bushrocks1]

Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to World War II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front being a big one. Now those traitors have apparently occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq. Why?...I'm waiting.

[bushrocks1]

Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to World War II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front being a big one. Now those traitors have apparently occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq. Why?...I'm waiting.

[frankly6]

".....because six years of Bush's foreign policy has had the presumably unintended consequences of elevating radicals and theocrats into positions of dominance throughout the region, from Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and even, this past week, to the oil emirate Bahrain, where Shiite and Sunni radical Islamists split elections in an upset."

Simply put, the neoconservative geniuses who believed invading Iraq would bolster both U.S. and Israeli interests in fact have accomplished the exact opposite %u2014 handing both military and public-relations victories to their sworn enemies. Similarly, the international movement to restrain the proliferation of nuclear weapons has been struck a possible death blow as a desperate United States may be forced to accommodate Iran's nuclear ambitions, just as it did those of Pakistan.

Robert Scheer

[frankly6]

"As the Bush-appointed and James Baker-led Iraq Study Group has telegraphed, the cooperation of these two pariah states is essential to an effective exit strategy. In reality, this is not so much a change in policy as it is an acknowledgment of a truth-on-the-ground that has been clear since the invasion 44 months ago: Our sworn enemies were the biggest beneficiaries of our overthrow of Iraq's secular dictatorship."

from a CBS opinion peace on this site

[frankly6]

As Bush sees it right now, his biggest problem is how to repackage "stay the course" into another bumper sticker slogan that the American people will buy. His ultimate strategy is to keep Halliburton in Iraq as long as possible.

[marshhendrix]

Yeah, like bush is going to listen to ANYONE opinion other than the one he was hearing when marched thousands of our Brother and Sister Americans off to die for.

The idiot will say that he does not care what those guys say and point to one of his YES MEN who happen to be making millions and millions of dollars killing innocent civilians and American soldiers alike. "See, Cheyney agrees with me, I'm staying the course."

I wish I could find something to admire in gwb, but I just don't find anything to shows me that he has an intellect above a 8th grader.

Please let our fellow American's come home...all of them....now...alive...please, Mr. President.

[bushrocks1]

Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to World War II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front being a big one. Now those traitors have apparently occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq. Why?...I'm waiting.

[getcentered]

"bushrocks1" is as out of touch as the complete idiots that put us in the war in Iraq.

"An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East"
Bushrocks1, what is Israel? It is in the Middle East, is it not a democracy?

"They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front being a big one."

First of all the Bush Administration new plenty about what was going to happen if we went to war with Iraq, and with that knowledge what did they do? They sent way to few troops to begin with. When the majority of US war planners said it would take 300,000 to 400,000 troops, we sent only 140,000. Also, when it was time for diplomacy to get support from the world, our President and the most cursory and secretive administration in history took a bullies stance and ignored the opinions of many of our allies.

See, the fools wanting this war in Iraq needed it to begin quickly for POLITICAL REASONS ONLY. If we did not rush into going to war then the dissent in America (which is about half of us, "traitors") would have actually had a voice, and the war in Iraq might have never come to pass.

I WANT FAMILY OF MINE TO COME HOME ALIVE FROM IRAQ. I NEVER WANT CURSORY LEADERS PUTTING MY FAMILIY IN HARMS WAY, WHEN I DON'T KNOW WHY OR FOR DISPUTED REASONS.

Shame on Republicans for their lack of imagination, their poor performance as leaders and their willful ignorance when adapting policies that effect the lives of every American.

[observantx]

President Bush also said that he and al-Maliki agreed %u2026that Iraq should not be partitioned into separate, semi-autonomous zones.

Guess what Fearless Leader. Iraq is already three separate autonomous zones. You have the Kurds in the mountains up north who seem to be making a constructive go of it. There is the Sunni Triangle of Death and the surrounding area to the North West, and you have the southeast half pretty much all to the Shiites.

The sectarian civil war is escalating migration of the Sunnis and Shias to their respective regions seeking some measure of safety. Baghdad is the largest city in the most mixed area of the country and that is where bombing, kidnapping, torture and murder are growing like a malignant tumor.

So it doesn%u2019t matter what you and al-Maliki say. It%u2019s done. You have three distinct regions, two of which are battling it out in Baghdad and the other larger cities in the middle of the country. Nice work guys. Heck of a job!

[rsoxfan1123]

frankly6-good post.