De Washington Post bericht:
'Iraq Panel Calls Conditions ''Grave and Deteriorating.''
Conditions in Iraq are "grave and deteriorating," with the prospect that a "slide toward chaos" could topple the U.S.-backed government and trigger a regional war unless the United States changes course and seeks a broader diplomatic and political solution involving all of Iraq's neighbors, according to a bipartisan panel that gave its recommendations to President Bush and Congress today.
In what amounts to the most extensive independent assessment of the nearly four-year-old conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, the Iraq Study Group bluntly warns that "current U.S. policy is not working." Citing rising violence and the Iraqi government's failure to advance national reconciliation, the panel paints a grim picture of a nation that Bush has repeatedly vowed to transform into a beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
Despite a list of 79 recommendations meant to encourage regional diplomacy and lead to a reduction of U.S. forces over the next year, the panel acknowledges that stability in Iraq may be impossible to achieve any time soon.
"We do not know if [Iraq] can be turned around, but we think we have an obligation to try," former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), a co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, told a Capitol Hill news conference after the report was made public. "The task ahead of us is daunting . . . but it is not by any means lost."
The group's Republican co-chairman, former secretary of state James A. Baker III, said the report "doesn't bind anyone," but he suggested that its recommendations carry extra weight because they have "complete bipartisan support."
"We do not recommend a 'stay the course' solution," Baker said in summarizing the group's findings at the news conference. "In our opinion, that approach is no longer viable." But he said the group "also did not recommend a precipitous withdrawal of troops because that might not only cause a bloodbath, it would also invite a wider regional war."'
Lees verder: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/06/AR2006120600419.html
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