The Iraq Study Group report (.pdf) has now been released.
What are your thoughts on it?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Thoughts?
“Pffffffft….”
Empty study.
Empty mind.
The Zen of Reactive Politics.
AG
A complete and utter farce that cost the taxpayers over a million bucks(could have used that million for oh say body armor)….anyone here could have come up with those suggestions and it wouldn’t have taken 9 months to do it.
It’s smoke and mirrors to presumably show bush is doing something/anything.
I also wonder why the public doesn’t wonder just why a study group was needed..if your fighting a war you’re supposed to have up to the minute facts about how a war is going from all the military experts sooooo this would seem to prove bushco and the military didn’t have a clue.
About the only thing this study group was good for is that it gives the idiot news channels and all the talking heads something to blather on about for days on end. While Iraq barrels full speed ahead to almost complete destruction.
I think it has some limited value in that it presents a mostly unvarnished assessment of the facts on the ground, and in simple laymen’s terms.
But isn’t that what we’ve been getting all along from the msm? /snark
Right. This has to do with salvaging the Bush legacy & providing major political cover.
Don’t know how many days/weeks were spend on writing the 142 pages, but it encapsulates some of what we expected to make clear with the mid-term candidates we supported. The report begins with the sentence that success in Iraq “demands a tremendous amount of political will and cooperation by the executive and legislative branches of the US government.” I know we all know that, but at least it forms the basis of what they are presenting.
The report is very sympathetic to the US military forces, and they are donating proceeds from the sale of the book to a charitable military family support organization.
There are clear explanations of many puzzling aspects, such as why some Iraqi army contingents refuse to serve in certain areas of the country. In addition, weaknesses in the police and facilities protection services are identified. A major suggestion put forward by the Iraq Study Group is to form an International Support Group to assist in carrying out all the recommendations that follow. Over 70 recommendations cover internal (18) and external (60 or so) matters that require attention.
Statistics I haven’t seen elsewhere: it has been 1,300 years since the Shia have had any power in Iraq. The economic growth rate is only 4%, inflation is 50%, and unemployment ranges from 20-60%.
They criticize the budget handling as Bush has seen fit to use supplemental budgets to fund the war. They even call for the State Department to establish a Foreign Service Reserve Corps, to do “civilian tasks outside of the traditional embassy setting.”
The Study Group interviewed many active and retired military, all of whom are listed in the appendices. Group members plan to testify before Congress, the 110th of course. They also stress that this is a “unitary” report, that the several efforts must be done in conjunction, and as a total effort, not cherry-picked.