linked - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti
the carefui use of the conditional, could
- by the first quarter of 2008.
So while Bush called the report "an
opportunity to come together and work
together," it was no surprise on Capitol
Hill that Democrats were quieker to embrace
it than Republicans, who seemed
to be adopting a kind of wait-and-see
posture, praising the report for its seriousness
and depth as they searched for
cIues about just what Bush would do.
"ln a sense," said Dennis Ross, a
Middle East envoy who worked for both
President Bill Clinton and the first
President Bush, "what you have here offers
the Democrats a ready handle to
show, 'We're prepared to be bipartisan
on the issue of Iraq, because we'Il embrace
the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.
Are you prepared to be bipartisan as
well?' I1'san asymmetrical situation, because
he has the policy, and he's the one
who has to change the policy."
Bush has spent weeks trying to shape
the politieal cIimate in whieh he would
receive the report. He ordered up a Pentagon
study, and commissioned his own
White House review. He went to Amman
to meet with the prime minister of
Iraq, then retumed to Washington to receive
a powerful Iraqi Shiite leader at
the White House. •
Those moves have been aimed at giving
Bush the flexibility he needs to do
pretty much whatever he wants; the
president himselfhas repeatedly said he
would consider aIl advice. But, meeting
with him in the Oval Office on Wednesday
moming, the commissioners made a
pointed appeal to Bush to give their
study greater weight than the others, if
only because it bas the backing of both
sides. "This is the only bipartisan adviee
you're going to get," the Democratie cochairman
of the panel, Lee Hamilton,
told Bush, according to an account from
the president's press secretary, Tony
Snow. Commissioners said afterward
that the president - who later proclaimed
the report "an opportunity to
come together and work together" -
seemed to absorb that plea.
"1 don't want to put too much in his
mouth now," said Lawrence Eagleburger,
who was secretary of state under Bush's
father, "but there was not one bit of argument.
He didn't come back on us."
v.s. panel caUs the Iraq
situation 'grave'
James Baker 3rd, left, and Lee Hamilton, the co-chairmen of the bipartisan commission,
on Capitoillill on Wednesday.
ln rebuke to Bush, report maps
a troop pullback over 15months
By David E. Sanger
WASHINGTON: Â' bipartisan commission
wàmed Wednesday that "the
situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating,"
and handed President George W.
Bush both a rebuke of his current
strategy and a detailed bl)leprint for a
fundamentally different approach, incIuding
the puIlback of aIl U.S. combat
br~gades over the next 15months.
ln unusually sweeping and blunt
language, the panel of 10 Republicans
and Democrats issued 79 speCifie recommendations,
including direct negotiations
with Syria and Iran and à clear
declaration to the weak and divlded
Iraqi govemment that if it does not
"make substantial progress" on reconciliation
and security in coming
months, "the United States should re.
duce its political, military or economic
support of the Iraqi govemment."
Bush has taken the opposite approach,
commission members note d,
and as recently as last week, he assured
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki
that the U.S.commitment to Iraq wouId
be undiminished until victory is
achieved, and that he was not looking
for a "graceful exit."
But the commission headed by former
Secretary of State James Baker 3rd and
Lee Hamilton, a retired D~mocratic
member of congress from Indiana, made
clear that while Amencans will be in
Iraq for years to come, the Iraqis must
understand that the American military
commitment is not "open ended."
It is time, they concluded, to "begin
to MOyeits combat forces out ofIraq responsibly,"
and they acknowledged
that their detailed prescription of a far
more aggressive diplomatie agenda in
the Middle East, incentives for reconciliation
and reform in Iraq and an
overhaul of the U.S. military role may
end in failure.
"The current approach is not working,
and the ability of the United States
to influence events is diminishing,"
Hamilton said Wednesday moming at
a news conference on Capitol Hill,
after the panel presented its conclusions
to Bush and leaders of Congress,
and prepared to do the same with Iraqi
leaders by video conference. "Our ship
of state has hit rough waters. It must
now chart a new way forward."
The report was presented to Bush a
day after the Senate Armed Services
Committee unanimously recommended
confirmation of Robert Gates to succeed
one of the war's main architects,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
While Washington is awash in advisory
panels, what played out Wednesday,
from the White House to Capitol Hill,
was a remarkable condemnation of
Ameriean policy drift in the biggest and
MOst divisive military conflict to involve
U.S.forces since Vietnam.
It was aIl the more unusual because
Baker was the secretary of state to
Bush's father, and because the group itself,
as its members noted repeatedly,
came up with a strategy that was embraced
by both parties.
23