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'Somber analysis of Iraq's future.

11/11/06 "MediaNews " -- - WASHINGTON - The situation in Iraq is ``even worse than we thought,'' with key Iraqi leaders showing no willingness to compromise to avoid increasing violence, said Leon Panetta, a member of the high-powered advisory group that will recommend new options for the war.

The Iraq Study Group, including Panetta, plans to meet with President Bush and his national security team Monday at the White House, and gather more data on the war through briefings and interviews next week. Panetta was chief of staff in the Clinton White House.

The blue-ribbon group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, plans to make recommendations to the Bush administration and Congress next month on new ways to handle the war. Members said they wanted to wait until after the election, to remove a debate about Iraq from campaign pressures.

After the election, their influence grew and their job became more urgent.

Fueled by discontent over the war, the Democrats scored a sweeping victory, retaking the House and the Senate. U.S. casualties have mounted in recent weeks. Bush signaled new flexibility on Iraq this week by replacing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with former CIA chief Robert Gates -- a member of the Iraq Study Group before accepting his new job.

Many officials in Washington hope that this group of insiders will offer a way out of Iraq, and give some political cover to Bush and a Democratic Congress.

``This week, the pressure on us just went up a few hundred degrees,'' Panetta said Friday. He is a former Democratic congressman who heads the Panetta Institute at California State University-Monterey Bay.

Panetta would not discuss the options the group is considering, noting that members have not reached a consensus yet, but talked about what he has learned about Iraq. The group spent three days in Baghdad in early September and has been briefed by military, intelligence and diplomatic officials.

Private assessments by government officials are much more grim than what is said in public, Panetta said, ``and we left some of those sessions shaking our heads over how bad it is in Iraq.'''

Lees verder: http://www.thestate.com/mld/mercurynews/news/15987947.htm