Washington - Presented with a high-level panel's 'very tough' assessment on Iraq, US President George W Bush pledged Wednesday to take action in response to its proposals.
Iraqi (L) and U.S. soldiers salute during the hand over ceremony in Mosul, north of Baghdad, on Monday, 04 December, 2006. The Iraqi army assumed security responsibility for the western area in Mosul during the ceremony. EPA/NAWRAS AL-TAEI
The recommendations, to be made public later Wednesday, were expected to propose a gradual withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq and US diplomatic overtures to Iran and Syria - countries Bush views as part of the problem in Iraq.
Bush received the highly anticipated report at the White House from a group of US political heavyweights co-led by James Baker III, who served Bush's father as secretary of state.
'This report gives a very tough assessment of the situation in Iraq,' Bush said. 'It is a report that brings some really very interesting proposals. And we will take every proposal seriously and we will act in a timely fashion.'
Yet Bush, who has vowed to fight until victory in Iraq, said Wednesday he was unlikely to accept all of the recommendations, drafted in nearly eight months of secretive deliberations.
Baker, appearing with lawmakers from Bush's Republican Party and the Democratic Party that will take control of Congress next month, held out hope that the report can unite the nation behind a new approach in Iraq.
'We think it offers the basis for a common ground forward,' he said.
Bush aides have rejected speculation that the report will offer a fig-leaf for a retreat from Iraq, where months of gruesome sectarian killings and a fractious government have blighted US hopes for a stable democracy.
Bush will weigh the 10-member panel's ideas as part of a broader review of strategy in Iraq, which includes an assessment by US military commanders, the White House said.
Bush, while saying he is open to fresh ideas, has staunchly refused to set a timetable for a US pullout and has held tight to his goal of an Iraq that can 'sustain, govern and defend itself.'
Pressure to bring US troops home or at least move more of them out of harm's way has grown dramatically since his centre-right Republican Party lost November 7 congressional elections to the centre-left Democrats, who campaigned for an exit strategy from Iraq.
Alternatives floated by Bush's critics include starting a US withdrawal next year, splitting up Iraq among its three main factions and launching a major diplomatic push to involve regional powers - including US foes such as Iran - in the search for a solution.
Bush has given no sign of what new ideas he is considering, if any. But frank talk by his nominee to succeed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who resigned last month, conveyed what Democrats welcomed as a new sense of realism about the situation in Iraq.
Defence secretary nominee Robert Gates, at his confirmation hearing Tuesday in the Senate, said that the US is 'not winning' in Iraq. He said he would explore a 'wide range' of ideas to conclude the war and insisted that 'all options are on the table,' though he avoided specifics.
Gates, a former head of the CIA spy agency with long experience in government, was tapped when Rumsfeld quit on the day after the election, making way for what Bush pledged would be a fresh approach at the Pentagon after three-and-a-half years of war in Iraq.
Bush has kept his distance from Baker, a Texas lawyer, veteran diplomat and Washington power broker who served in the cabinet of Bush's father.
Baker, 76, masterminded US diplomacy before the 1990-91 US-led war that ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and has never expressed regret about the decision at the time to leave Saddam Hussein in power.
The panel, co-chaired by Democratic ex-congressman and foreign policy expert Lee Hamilton, was launched in March by lawmakers from both parties, partly reflecting Republican fears that the war in Iraq and Bush's low approval ratings could help the Democratic Party win the presidency in 2008.
Baker warned that there are no easy solutions.
'Expectations are totally out of control,' he told the Houston Chronicle daily last week. 'There is no magic formula for our difficulties in Iraq.'
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
Rodney AshfieldDec 6th, 2006 - 18:20:18
Hanging by his chads...
Along with a geart many others, I find it both tragic and ironic that Mr. Bush would justify not having a detailed timetable to extract combat troops from Iraq by suggsting that, first, Iraq must prove it can 'govern, sustain and defend' iteslf... All this from a President who conducted an illegal war on false pretense and whose very own election was subject to significant question and doubt...
So much for governance.
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