WASHINGTON (Reuters):
The chairmen of the Iraq Study Group yester-day defended their report as a "responsible way" out of the war, while President George W. Bush prepares to unveil his new strategy later this month.
Bush has shied away from embracing the major recommen-dations of the report, which call for accelerating training of Iraqi forces and pulling back United States combat troops by early 2008, and including neighbours Iran and Syria in a regional dialogue aimed at stabilising the country.
"What we're saying in this report is we want to conclude this war, we want to conclude it in a responsible way," former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, a co-chair of the high-level bipartisan study group, said.
He said the report's recom-mendations offered the best option, amid divergent calls for increasing troop numbers in
Iraq and pulling forces out immediately.
"We do not want American forces involved in sectarian clashes or violence, that's not our business," Hamilton said on the 'Fox News Sunday' televi-sion programme.
Heated Criticism
"We do have some business there and that's to get rid of al-Qaida and the terrorists and, of course, to protect our own forces," he said.
The report, released last week to mixed reaction, was expected to carry some weight in
Bush's deliberations because the panel's 10 high-level Republi-cans and Democrats unani-mously endorsed the 79 recommendations.
Bush has promised to consider the findings "very seriously", but the report has prompted heated criticism.
At a hearing last week on the report, Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has proposed sending more troops, said: "I believe that this is a recipe that will lead to, sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd, yesterday called the recommendations dangerous and insulting. "The report has a mentality that we are a colony where they impose their conditions and neglect our independence," he said.
Former Secretary of State James Baker, also a co-chair of the panel, said Talabani's comments were disappointing.
