The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – A New Approach is the report of the Iraq Study Group

Iraq Study Group

The Iraq Study group , 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...

, as mandated by the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

. It is an assessment of the state of the war in Iraq as of December 6, 2006, when the ISG released the report to the public on the Internet and as a published book. The report was seen as crucial by Bush, who declared: "And truth of the matter is, a lot of reports in Washington are never read by anybody. To show you how important this one is, I read it, and [Tony Blair] read it.".

According to the Executive Summary of the report, page 16, as quoted, "The Iraqi government should accelerate assuming responsibility
for Iraqi security by increasing the number and
quality of Iraqi Army brigades. While this process is under way,
and to facilitate it, the United States should significantly increase
the number of U.S. military personnel, including combat
troops, imbedded in and supporting Iraqi Army units. As
these actions proceed, U.S. combat forces could begin to move
out of Iraq." "The situation in Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 is grave and deteriorating." The report recommends that the U.S. should eventually end combat operations in Iraq and help in training Iraqi troops. It does not, however, endorse a complete removal of troops from Iraq by a specific date.

A Portable Document Format version of the Iraq Study Group's final official report was made available on the website of the U. S. Institute of Peace. The Iraq Study Group Report sold 35,000 copies during the week ending 10 December 2006 (its first week of release), according to Nielsen BookScan

Nielsen BookScan

Nielsen BookScan is a data provider for the book publishing industry, owned by the Nielsen Company. BookScan compiles point of sale data for book sales.-History:...

.

Scope and task

The U.S. government formed the Research Group under the auspices of bipartisanship

Bipartisanship

Bipartisanship is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system such as the United States, in which opposing political parties find common ground through compromise. The adjective bipartisan can refer to any bill, act, resolution, or other political act in which both of the...

 due to growing concern from officials about hostilities in Iraq and possible civil war

Civil war

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....

. Members of the Study Group and staff spoke with officials from various governments, seeking their views regarding the state of Iraq.

As a matter of political expediency, the group did not assign blame or causality for the state of Iraq's security, by focus on the 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

, the Occupation of Iraq, or subsequent actions taken by the U.S. Military. It researched and outlined problems in Iraq, how such problems relate to each other, and what steps could be taken to fix the problems.

Pre-release expectations

The public expected the ISG to present two overall, alternative policies in their report. The first option, "Redeploy and Contain," would call for the phased withdrawal of U.S. troops to bases near Iraq where they could be redeployed against new threats in the region.
Stability First would call for maintaining a presence in Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

 and encouraging insurgents to enter the political arena, while asking Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 and Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, Iraq's neighbors, for help ending the fighting.

According to The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, the report would call for a gradual pullback of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 forces from Iraq beginning in 2007.

The now defunct New York Sun

New York Sun

The New York Sun was a weekday daily newspaper published in New York City from 2002 to 2008. When it debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of an otherwise unrelated earlier New York paper, The Sun , it became the first general-interest broadsheet newspaper to be started...

 reported that an expert adviser to the Iraq Study Group expected the panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 to make concessions so as to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference on Iraq.

Contents

The final report has 79 separate policy recommendations in its 160 pages. Its central points had for the most part been reported on before its release. The report deals with domestic issues such as budget funding and economic processes, military issues including bringing U.S. troops out of Iraq and how to integrate more of them into Iraqi army units, the foreign political issues of nurturing an effective and unified Iraqi government, and diplomatic issues such as calling for direct talks with Iran and Syria.

The report begins by laying out the difficulties surrounding the Iraq war and the current U.S. position. It warns that its policy recommendations are not failsafe, but that the deteriorating situation in Iraq could lead to political and humanitarian consequences if not dealt with immediately.

Military concerns

The report contains many recommendations concerning the continued usage of military forces to achieve the goals of the United States. Only five pages of the report address U.S. troop levels, however: "More than 30 pages of the report consist of biographies of commission members and lists of people they interviewed; we counted just five pages devoted to the matter of U.S. troop levels in Iraq. . . ." Increasing those levels was not considered in depth as it was not considered a viable option. Panel members say they were not given a mandate to consider increasing the number of American troops in Iraq because their military briefers dismissed out of hand the premise that it was possible to increase the number of American troops in Iraq, on grounds that not enough were available. The report recommends instead envisaging the removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by 2008.

In the section in which the report assesses "the Current Situation in Iraq," in considering "Security" (Section A.1.), it states:

Attacks against U.S., Coalition, and Iraqi security forces are persistent and growing. October 2006 was the deadliest month for U.S. forces since January 2005, with 102 Americans killed. Total attacks in October 2006 averaged 180 per day, up from 70 per day in January 2006. Daily attacks against Iraqi security forces in October were more than double the level in January. Attacks against civilians in October were four times higher than in January. Some 3,000 Iraqi civilians are killed every month. (3)

In the same chapter, discussing "U.S., Coalition, and Iraqi Forces," the report suggests several causes for these consequences, chiefly the difficulties facing "the Multi-National Forces–Iraq under U.S. command, working in concert with Iraq's security forces," in
"confronting this violence." In its subsection on the "Iraqi Forces," the report observes that while "The Iraqi Army is making fitful progress toward becoming a reliable and disciplined fighting force loyal to the national government," some "significant questions remain about the ethnic composition and loyalties of some Iraqi units––specifically, whether they will carry out missions on behalf of national goals instead of a sectarian agenda" (8), detailing these problems (8-9). The Report observes, for example, a significant gap in funding for the Iraq defense forces: "The entire appropriation for Iraqi defense forces for FY 2006 ($3 billion) is less than the United States currently spends in Iraq every two weeks" (9). It observes that the Iraqi Army "is also confronted by several other challenges": the "units" of the Iraqi Army lack adequate "leadership," "equipment," "personnel," "logistics and support," including "the ability to sustain their operations," "the capability to transport supplies and troops and the capacity to provide their own indirect fire support, technical intelligence, and medical evacuation." The Iraq Study Group predicts that the Iraqi Army "will depend on the United States for logistics and support through at least 2007."

Diplomatic concerns

The report also presents the "goals of the diplomatic offensive as it relates to the regional players":

RECOMMENDATION 2: The goals of the diplomatic offensive as it relates to regional players should be to:

1. Support the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq.
2. Stop destabilizing interventions and actions by Iraq's neighbors.
3. Secure Iraq's borders, including the use of joint patrols with neighboring countries.
4. Prevent the expansion of the instability and conflict beyond Iraq's borders.
5. Promote economic assistance, commerce, trade, political support, and, if possible, military assistance for the Iraqi government from non-neighboring Muslim nations.
6. Energize countries to support national political reconciliation in Iraq.
7. Validate Iraq's legitimacy by resuming diplomatic relations, where appropriate, and reestablishing embassies in Baghdad.
8. Assist Iraq in establishing active working embassies in key capitals in the region (for example, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).
9. Help Iraq reach a mutually acceptable agreement on Kirkuk.
10. Assist the Iraqi government in achieving certain security, political, and economic milestones, including better performance on issues such as national reconciliation, equitable distribution of oil revenues, and the dismantling of militias.

In this report, however, the goals of the United States take precedence over the interests of the population of Iraq:

Recommendation 41: The United States must make it clear to the Iraqi government that the United States could carry out its plans, including planned redeployments, even if Iraq does not implement its planned changes. America's other security needs and the future of our military cannot be made hostage to the actions or inactions of the Iraqi government.

Economic concerns

The report focuses heavily on the oil industry in Iraq.

For example, according to Recommendation 62 in part:

• As soon as possible, the U.S. government should provided technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law that defines the rights of regional and local governments and creates a fiscal and legal framework for investment. help draft an oil law that creates a fiscal and legal framework for investment.

and that...

• In conjunction with the International Monetary Fund
  International Monetary Fund
  The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
  
  , the U.S. government should press Iraq to continue reducing subsidies in the energy sector, instead of providing grant assistance. Until Iraqis pay market prices for oil products, drastic fuel shortages will remain.

Recommendation 63 says in part that

• The United States should encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.

as well as...

• The United states should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability.

Suggested flaws in some alternative courses

The report outlines three alternative courses that have been suggested and explains possible flaws in these courses:

Precipitate Withdrawal

• Because of the importance of Iraq, the potential for catastrophe, and the role and commitments of the United States in initiating events that have led to the current situation, we believe it would be wrong for the United States to abandon the country through a precipitate withdrawal of troops and support. A premature American departure from Iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions, leading to a number of the adverse consequences outlined above. The near-term results would be a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization, and a threat to the global economy. Al Qaeda would depict our withdrawal as a historic victory. If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return.

Staying the Course

• Current U.S. policy is not working, as the level of violence in Iraq is rising and the government is not advancing national reconciliation. Making no changes in policy would simply delay the day of reckoning at a high cost. Nearly 100 Americans are dying every month. The United States is spending $2 billion a week. Our ability to respond to other international crises is constrained. A majority of the American people are soured on the war. This level of expense is not sustainable over an extended period, especially when progress is not being made. The longer the United States remains in Iraq without progress, the more resentment will grow among Iraqis who believe they are subjects of a repressive American occupation. As one U.S. official said to us, “Our leaving would make it worse. . . . The current approach without modification will not make it better.”

More Troops for Iraq

• Sustained increases
  Iraq War troop surge of 2007
  In the context of the Iraq War, the surge refers to United States President George W. Bush's 2007 increase in the number of American troops in order to provide security to Baghdad and Al Anbar Province....
  
   in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation. A senior American general told us that adding U.S. troops might temporarily help limit violence in a highly localized area. However, past experience indicates that the violence would simply rekindle as soon as U.S. forces are moved to another area. As another American general told us, if the Iraqi government does not make political progress, “all the troops in the world will not provide security.” Meanwhile, America’s military capacity is stretched thin: we do not have the troops or equipment to make a substantial, sustained increase in our troop presence. Increased deployments to Iraq would also necessarily hamper our ability to provide adequate resources for our efforts in Afghanistan
  Afghanistan
  Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
  
   or respond to crises around the world.

Underreporting of violence in Iraq

The report also finds that the U.S. government intentionally misled the world by systematically distorting information about the violence in Iraq. As Associated Press Military Writer Robert Burns reports:

• The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases ... Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.

Reactions to the report

The release of the report garnered swift and sometimes contentious reaction from across the political spectrum. In general, critics of the Bush Administration's handling of the war,including liberal media outlets and think tanks, applauded the report's recommendations, particularly those related to troop withdrawal

Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq

The withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq has been a contentious issue within the United States since the beginning of the Iraq War. As the war has progressed from its initial 2003 invasion phase to a multi-year occupation, U.S. public opinion has turned in favor of troop withdrawal...

 and increased diplomacy with Syria and Iran. Supporters of the war effort, including conservative media outlets and neoconservative think tanks, were highly critical of the report.

Praise

Leading Democrats

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 praised the report as a vindication of their longstanding criticisms of the war's progress, especially their calls for troop withdrawal. Speaker of the House designate Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

 said that "the bipartisan Iraq Study Group has concluded that the President's Iraq policy has failed and must be changed." Senator Evan Bayh

Evan Bayh

Birch Evans "Evan" Bayh III is a lawyer, advisor and former Democratic politician who served as the junior U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1999 to 2011. He earlier served as the 46th Governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1997. Bayh is a current Fox News contributor as of March 14, 2011.Bayh first held...

 (D-IN) echoed this sentiment, saying "Today's report offers the kind of changes we need to improve the current situation in Iraq."

Several Republicans, including Senators Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel

Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel is a former United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002...

, Susan Collins

Susan Collins

Susan Margaret Collins is the junior United States Senator from Maine and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the Senate in 1996, she is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs...

 and Olympia Snowe

Olympia Snowe

Olympia Jean Snowe , née Bouchles, is the senior United States Senator from Maine and a member of the Republican Party. Snowe has become widely known for her ability to influence the outcome of close votes, including whether to end filibusters. She and her fellow Senator from Maine, Susan Collins,...

, also applauded the report's conclusions. Snowe said that "It gives impetus to both the Congress and hopefully the president" and that "The time has come to change our course and to support a plan… that ultimately leads to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq." Even more forcefully, Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), a longstanding supporter of the war, responded to the report by publicly breaking with the Bush Administration's, calling Bush' Iraq Policy "absurd" and possibly "criminal".

International media outlets, long critical of the Iraq war and the Bush Administration in general, also gave the report positive reviews. The BBC called the report "scathing," and The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

s Martin Kettle wrote that: "The ISG report is a repudiation of the Bush administration's foreign policy. But it also repudiates the way the Bush administration works internally." Claude Salhani, editor at UPI wrote that the "ISG’s report comes as a lifeline thrown to a sinking policy after more than three years of war and with no end in sight. It offers Bush an honorable exit strategy from the Iraq quagmire. The question is will the president grab it?"

Criticism from U.S. conservatives

Longstanding supporters of the war and President Bush were harshly critical of the Iraq Study Group report. The cover of the December 7 New York Post depicts the heads of James Baker and Lee Hamilton superimposed onto the bodies of monkeys, with the headline "Surrender Monkeys: Iraq panel urges U.S. to give up." Neoconservative media pundit Bill Kristol called the report "an evasion" and "not a serious document". Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...

 said that he "wanted to puke" while listening to the panel members, and asserted that the members of the "Iraq Surrender Group" are "doing everything they can to unite the American people" in "defeat" and "surrender"; and Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...

 called the report "Operation White Flag."

On January 5, 2007, the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute

American Enterprise Institute

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...

 released a rival "hawkish" report written by Frederick Kagan

Frederick Kagan

Frederick W. Kagan is an American resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute , and a former professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated from Hamden High School before earning a B.A. in Soviet and East European studies and a Ph.D. in Russian and...

 and entitled Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, which is also the title of the 14 December 2006 AEI event. The event was titled "Iraq: A Turning Point" and was attended by Senators McCain and Lieberman. The AEI report advocated a troop surge in Iraq, in direct contrast to the Iraq Study Group's call for phased withdrawal. Salon's Mark Benjamin, along with many other commentators, called the AEI group the "Real Iraq Study Group," and noted that "these are the people President Bush listens to." Other AEI events followed this work throughout 2007, including "Sustaining the Surge" on April 25, "Assessing the Surge in Iraq" on July 9, and "No Middle Way - Two Reports on Iraq" on September 6.

Criticism from Iraqis

Many leading Kurdish politicians were highly critical of the report, particularly its recommendation that the Iraqi central government should maintain tight control over the nation's oil revenues. Qubad Talabani, the Kurdistan representative in Washington and the son of Jalal Talbani, complained that "Many of us feel that centralized tyrannies have led us to what we have today, which is a failed state." Massoud Barzani, the president of the northern Iraqi Kurdistan region, offered similar criticisms, as did Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman.

Other Iraqis chastised the report for putting American interests over Iraqi interests and for linking issues in Iraq with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Sheik Mohammed Bashar al-Fayadh, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni Arab group said that the report "guarantees for an exit (from Iraq) but without paying heed to preventing a civil war from breaking out?" Abdul Aziz Hakim, a Shiite and leader of the largest bloc in Iraq's parliament, said that "the problem in Iraq (has) specifically nothing to do with the situation in the middle east today."

Criticism of proposal to privatize Iraqi oil

Critics of ties between Iraq Study Group members and oil companies were highly critical of the report's recommendations to privatize the Iraqi oil industry. Author Antonia Juhasz argued that this recommendation amounted to a statement that this recommendation amounted to a call for "extending the war in Iraq to ensure that US oil companies get what the Bush administration went in there for: control and greater access to Iraq's oil." Similarly, activist Tom Hayden

Tom Hayden

Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...

 noted that the Iraq Study Group represents the interests of the US oil industry. James A. Baker, III's law firm has interests in debt repayment to Kuwait

Kuwait

The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...

 and other Gulf States. Lawrence S. Eagleburger has ties to Halliburton

Halliburton

Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....

 and Phillips Petroleum

Phillips Petroleum

Phillips Petroleum Company was founded in 1917 by L.E. Phillips and Frank Phillips, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Their younger brother Waite Phillips was the benefactor of Philmont Scout Ranch....

, and is a former head of Kissinger Associates

Kissinger Associates

Kissinger Associates, Inc., founded in 1982, is a New York City-based international consulting firm, founded and run by Henry Kissinger, and Brent Scowcroft...

, a corporate consulting firm. (Paul Bremer was managing partner of Kissinger Associates.) Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. is a lawyer at Akin Gump who is closely associated with the Bilderberg Group

Bilderberg Group

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from...

. The expert working groups for the ISG include leaders of Bechtel

Bechtel

Bechtel Corporation is the largest engineering company in the United States, ranking as the 5th-largest privately owned company in the U.S...

, two representatives of Citigroup

Citigroup

Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Citigroup was formed from one of the world's largest mergers in history by combining the banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate...

, and PFC Energy, an energy consulting firm.

See also

• U.S. Institute of Peace (facilitator of the Iraq Study Group)
• Iraqi insurgency
  Iraqi insurgency
  The Iraqi Resistance is composed of a diverse mix of militias, foreign fighters, all-Iraqi units or mixtures opposing the United States-led multinational force in Iraq and the post-2003 Iraqi government...
  
  

External links

• Iraq Study Group
• Iraq Study Group Report - Abridged (Wikipedia)
• Iraq Study Group Report Notes
• Iraq Study Group report: Excerpts - BBC World News
• Iraq Study Group Report (PDF, direct download)
• Searchable Version of Report
• New Strategy in Iraq: An Overview
• Fun, fun, fun till Daddy took the Iraq war away - Salon.com article
• Annotated web edition of the ISG Report - published by Lapham's Quarterly and the Institute for the Future of the Book
• Iraq: A Turning Point - AEI event
• Choosing Victory - A Plan for Success in Iraq - Kagan's AEI Report