Now that the Iraq Study Group's come out with it's report (Full report here, key excerpts here), I think there's a good chance that it'll be treated with as much reverence by the Bush administration as the 9/11 Commission report was. Reports which have report findings the Bushies like tend to get a lot of praise, then thrown in the trash when no one's looking.
And they're not going to like this. "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating," it tells us, and, "By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq." In a major bitch-slap to administration policies, the James Baker tells us, "We do not recommend a stay-the-course solution." Which is good, because there is no course. Iraq policy is completely rudderless.
President Bush made happy talk about acting on the ISG's recommendations:
White House Press Office:THE PRESIDENT: I just received the Iraq Study Group report, prepared by a distinguished panel of our fellow citizens. I want to thank James Baker and Lee Hamilton and the panel members for spending a lot of time on this really difficult issue. And I thank you for coming into the White House today to give me a copy of this report.
I told the members that this report, called "The Way Forward," will be taken very seriously by this administration. This report gives a very tough assessment of the situation in Iraq. 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.
Golly, that gets me all nostalgic for the happy talk about the 9/11 Commission report:
MSNBC:
"The 9/11 commission's recommendations will help guide our efforts," said the president. "We will carefully examine all the commission's ideas on how we can improve our ongoing efforts to protect America and to prevent another attack."
In fact, Bush said there'd be action on the 9/11 Commission report "within weeks." That was July, 2004. By December of 2005, the commission released it's final report. It had been tasked with recommending changes, then following up with a report tracking action on its recommendations. The final report wasn't good...source
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Tags: 9-11 Commission | war | Politics | opinion | news | Congress | Bullshit | Washington | U.S. | Iraq Study Group | Iraq | Bush
