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Baker's Iraq report is a study in appeasement David Warren - Ottawa Citizen Published: Saturday, December 9, 2006 I was rewriting history, while walking along some cold lakeshore the other day. My thought was: if Churchill had only come to power in 1937, Chamberlain would have been installed to replace him in 1940. Had Churchill been in power, and refused to sign Munich, he would have been blamed for the outbreak of war. I can just hear the prattle in an English pub, circa 1950. "He pushed Hitler to it! Had it not been for Churchill, Hitler would have...

Iraq yesterday rejected recommendations that America aim to pull its forces out of the country by early 2008, saying such a move would be an "insult" to the Iraqi people.Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, firmly denounced proposals in the Iraq Study Group to scale down the war effort. His comments came as Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing US defence secretary, made his final visit to the country. President Talabani also angrily accused the report's co-author, former secretary of state James Baker, of attempting to restore Sunni Muslim power with the report's suggestion that Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party loyalists be offered positions of...

Bush seeks advice on Iraq policy Mr Bush is to make a televised address on Iraq before Christmas US President George W Bush has opened three days of intensive talks on Iraq, as he weighs possible policy changes. Without mentioning Iran and Syria by name, Mr Bush said Iraq's neighbours also bore responsibility for helping foster Iraqi security and democracy. His comments came after consultations with senior State Department officials. The talks follow a recent report on US policy in Iraq that called for urgent action to stop "a slide towards chaos", including talks with Iran and Syria. The...

I’ve taken several pot shots at Jim Baker and the Iraq Study Group, but after watching the appearance of Baker and Lee Hamilton on Fox News Sunday, I’m thinking of changing my mind.

Will inviting Iran and Syria to join an "Iraq Support Group" reduce Iranian influence in the region?   "The United States must build a new international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. In order to foster such consensus, the United States should embark on a robust diplomatic effort to establish an international support ... [which] should include every country that has an interest in averting a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq's neighbors - Iran and Syria among them. Despite the well-known differences between many of these countries, they all share an interest in avoiding the horrific consequences...

  Reading the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq reminds me of a weird experience I once had. I've never told anyone about it before, but I'm going to share it with you to show the underlying problem with that panel's conclusions. Many years ago I was participating in a blue-ribbon panel on future US foreign policy in the Middle East. This group's bipartisan members came up with a report that was a compromise, but with a strong strategic theme. Best of all, it recognized how the region's actual situation ensured that not much could be accomplished there. We were all staying...

Democrats aren't scrambling to endorse recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a tactic that largely leaves President Bush alone to salvage the war. Instead, the party that will control Congress in January plans to focus on stepped-up oversight of Bush's plans for the war. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who will take over the Armed Services Committee, says he'll hold three hearings on Bush's plans for Iraq and is prepared to subpoena documents to review past missteps. Democrats also are eyeing ways to attach conditions to war funds that won't hurt troops and may even attract Republican support. Sen. Robert...

Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip welcomed the report of the Iraq Study Group, presented by former US Secretary of State James Baker, which recognizes Islam as the “new giant of the world.” “The report proves that this is the era of Islam and of jihad,” said Abu Ayman, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad from Jenin. Islamic Jihad has been responsible for every suicide bombing in the past two years. Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing, said Baker's report is a victory for Islam brought about by “Allah and his angels.”

Not much about Iraq can be predicted with confidence, but this much can: for the foreseeable future, it will be a messy country with a weak central government, a divided society and regular violence. At worst, as the Iraq Study Group report warns, Iraq will become a failed state racked by civil war that could spill over and engulf several of its neighbors. Either way, the human, economic, political and military costs of the Iraq war will mount. Scenes of chaos and human misery in Iraq would fuel bitterness against the U.S., first for having initiated the war, then for...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejected the Iraq Study Group's report Sunday, calling it "very dangerous" to Iraq's sovereignty and constitution. "We can smell in it the attitude of James Baker," Talabani said, referring to the report's co-chair who served as secretary of state under President George H. W. Bush during the 1991 Iraq war. Talabani blamed Baker for leaving then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power after that conflict, which ousted Iraqi troops from Kuwait. He also criticized the report for recommending a law that would allow thousands of former officials from Hussein's ousted Baath party to...

Iraq's national security adviser on Sunday said that Iraq needs more "strategic patience" from Washington to defeat terrorist violence that threatens to swarm the region if the U.S. pulls out too soon. "If we don't act to contain al-Qaida, the violence will spread like hell, not only to Saudi Arabia and the GCC (Gulf Arab) countries but to Syria, Iran and beyond," al-Rubaie told the International Institute of Strategic Studies conference in the Bahraini capital. "We in Iraq would like you to exercise some strategic patience for this paradigm shift," al-Rubaie said. "We need some time to retreat to our...

While the White House remains wary of the proposal to talk with Iran, Tehran sources tell TIME that the regime believes such talks are in the country's best interest...

Fighting Jihad in Cyberspace -Full Story- The setting is familiar to anyone who watches the evening news. A large, executive-style desk, a laptop perched on top, a logo in the background and a screen showing shifting images to reinforce the newsreader's message. The only difference is the presenter, who is swathed in an Arab headdress and masked to hide his identity, and the subject of the broadcast, a call for an Islamic state for Iraq and a vow to use Iraq as a launching pad to crush the "Zionists" in Israel.Welcome to the "Voice of the Caliphate", the latest...

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH Hon. George W. Bush The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: You have just received the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) with its 79 recommendations for policy changes, force redeployments and other course corrections with respect to the conflict in Iraq. We believe you have responded properly in welcoming this product -- but reserving judgment as to whether you will accept its suggestions. This is especially important because of the argument being made in some quarters that, in light of the unanimity exhibited by the distinguished Republican and Democratic...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejected the Iraq Study Group's report Sunday, calling it "very dangerous" to Iraq's sovereignty and constitution. "We can smell in it the attitude of James Baker," Talabani said, referring to the report's co-chair who served as secretary of state under President George H. W. Bush during the 1991 Iraq war. Talabani blamed Baker for leaving then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power after that conflict, which ousted Iraqi troops from Kuwait. He also criticized the report for recommending a law that would allow thousands of former officials from Hussein's ousted Baath party to...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The Iraqi president said Sunday the bipartisan U.S. report calling for a new approach to the war offered dangerous recommendations that would undermine his country's sovereignty and were "an insult to the people of Iraq." President Jalal Talabani was the most senior government official to take a stand against the Iraq Study Group report, which has come under criticism from leaders of the governing Shiite and Kurdish parties. He said the report "is not fair, is not just, and it contains some very dangerous articles which undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and the constitution." He singled...

I know a Marine. He sits in a bar in North Carolina. He came there by way of Fallujah. The same close-cropped blonde fuzz glimmers on his head in the dim light as burned under the hot sun of Iraq. He’s the greatest storyteller I know, spinning tales about his overseas exploits, both combat and otherwise—only with the express permission of the mixed company present, of course. He speaks with a wit and color that would surprise John Kerry. He is not a quiet man. But I wonder what he would say this week. I wonder what he would say...

Steady condemnation from conservatives for the Iraq Study Group report may be providing some cover to the Bush administration as it completes its own review of strategy in Iraq, apparently with little enthusiasm for the panel's prescription of U.S. troop withdrawal and dialogue with Syria and Iran. The criticism of the panel, co-chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), has burst forth from the leading institutions of the right: the National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Weekly Standard; conservative talk radio; and scholars at some of...

Iraq's dinar currency has risen to a nearly two-year high against the U.S. dollar, thanks to trading by the central bank at its daily auction, the bank said Thursday. Most of all the money the Iraqi government earns it gets in U.S. dollars because oil exports are the main source of its income, and the bank has about US$14 billion in foreign assets, said Mudher Qassim, the Central Bank of Iraq's director of statistics.

The release of the report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group this week exposed deep fissures among Republicans over how to manage a war that many fear will haunt their party — and the nation — for years to come. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page described the report as a “strategic muddle,” Richard Perle called it “absurd,” Rush Limbaugh labeled it “stupid,” and The New York Post portrayed the leaders of the group, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic member of Congress, as “surrender monkeys.” Republican moderates clung to the...