Five More Years, Says Half-Reconstructed Iraq Study Group

It seems there was an attempt to reconvene the Iraq Study Group. You remember it. The somewhat bipartisan group that last December, after nine months of work, offered 79 recommendations to the Cheney-Bush Administration for changing Iraq Policy. Almost all of which were ignored. But, writes Robin Wright in the Washington Post today, Mister Bush kept the reconvening from occurring by dissuading James Baker III from participating.

So, the U.S. Institute for Peace did a go-around and got together many of the experts from the ISG, "two dozen former U.S. officials and ambassadors, former CIA analysts, and Iraq specialists from think tanks and universities" who drafted another set of recommendations under the scintillating title "Iraq: A Time for Change." The panel's report will be released tomorrow.

Among other things, it calls for a 50 percent reduction of U.S. troops in three years, and a complete handover of security matters to the Iraqi military in five years.

As Steve Benen at TPM notes, the USIP proposal sounds mighty appealing when compared with General Petraeus's 9- to 10-year estimate and Steven Biddle's suggested 100,000 troops for 20 years.

Not to mention the NeoCon plan to stay for at least the rest of the century.

Ah. The soft imperialism of lowered withdrawal expectations.