The ISG report--I read this stuff so you don't have to.

The Iraq Study Group, the Cliff Notes version, my interpretation.

1. We’re not winning, not going to win and the best we can hope for is to lose less badly and only if we do every bit of this right.

2. Friggin’ talk to other countries in the region!! All of ‘em. They don’t want millions of refugees pouring over their borders, get ‘em involved. Work with your enemies, you don’t need to convince your friends---oh, that’s right, we don’t have friends anymore.

3. Make the Israel/Palestine conflict part of the package. No peace anywhere ‘til there’s peace with Israel. Pursue a two state solution and stop blindly supporting the Israelis no matter what they do. Show ‘em a stick to go with the carrot of unlimited military sales.

4. Tell the Iraqis we’re leaving. Period. If they make progress in setting up a government that works and if their army & police show promise and if the economy begins to function we may continue to help train them. Otherwise, we’re outta’ here. In 2007. Adios, so long, sianora, g’bye!

5. Remove the combat troops ASAP. Triple the number of trainers. Train the trainers to speak the friggin’ language before sending them over. Keep only enough combat troops in-country to protect the trainers.

6. Give the Iraqis some equipment for God’s sake! They have no vehicles other than Toyota pick ups, not one helicopter, a mish mash of small arms and no way to even get from one place to another when need be.

7. Assure the region that there will be no permanent US presence in the country. No permanent bases. No troops on Iraqi soil. Scale back Disney World, uh, I mean the US embassy. Show the Muslim world that we are not imperialists. Really, we’re not. We promise! Scout’s honor!

8. We broke it, we fix it. Increase infrastructure funding to $5 billion a year and let the Iraqis hire Iraqis to re-build. We do nothing but advise and neither does Halliburton.

9. Give the Iraqis their oil. No US involvement in developing their only natural resource. They dig it, they pump it, they sell it.

10. Move combat troops to Afghanistan. After all, that’s where the bad guys started and where we should have been all along.

11. Stop lying about what’s really going on. Stop under-reporting violence by screwing around with semantic definitions of Attack. It is all about what the definition of “Attack” is. Tell the American people the truth. What a novel concept.

12. Start rebuilding our military the right way. Repair and replace the stuff we tore up, let the troops rest a bit. Prove to the troops that we’re not gonna’ just mess around with ‘em forever in two bit egomaniacal wars that we can’t possibly win in third world countries. Maybe the re-up rate will improve and so will enlistment so we don’t have to lower our standards and solicit 50 year olds to enlist.

13. Hunker down and hope to hell that some of this stuff sticks and that the whole region is not FUBAR forever.

There ya’ have it. Moving Forward; the short version.

on edit--fixed grammer

that the US invasion is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the survivors are very, very angry.

Otherwise great summary.

Add.

:kick: MKJ

Will we really not occupy a few permanent bases or are we just going to say we aren't? Any idea?

The ISG made an issue of not staying in the region forever and that reassuring the peoples of the area that we would leave was important.

We were forced out of Saudi Arabia and probably will be out of Iraq for the same reasons--the US in Muslim counrties is a magnet for Islamic terrorism and the Arab countries have figured that out.

It's just not in the press (surprise...).

I'm leaving town tomorrow and was thinking about taking it with me to read. At the US "Peace"(cough-war-cough) site, there is a version but it's only 84 pages. I heard the report was 160 pages. Maybe its because the book is smaller than 8 1/2 x 11 but I wasn't sure.

Do you know if the 84 page download is the complete "real" deal? Or do you know someplace else where I can download it?

Love your synopsis, but I'm a geek.

Democracy Now
Thursday, December 7th, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/07/1452236

What the OP needs to realize is that what sounds like innocent stuff in the ISG report may mean something completely different in the world of international oil politics.

The devil is always in the details.

Boy, ain't that the truth!

...and even more so when bushworld and the neocons are involved. x(

bookmarking this thread.

NEVER would I have believed that thie ISG would come out with such a hard-hitting, HONEST piece of work. Never. Never could I have imagined Bush Family consigiere James Baker rapping knucklehead on the head IN PUBLIC and in no uncertain terms. Bush got taken to an International Wood Shed and everybody can see his red butt now.

What a colossal embarrassment for him, tho I doubt he'll acknowledge or perhaps even recognize it.

But what also amazes me totally is thinking about the inevitable fallout -- all those die-hard Bush and war supporters, and what THEY must be thinking about now, esp. if they heard anything James Baker said publicly. Their heads must be exploding.

Imagine fallen soldiers' families who had still supported the war up to now. Maybe they'll continue to support the war, but the things in this report have GOT to shake some of their faith. My heart hurts for them. It's not easy to lose a loved one, but believing in the necessity of the sacrifice serves at least as a justification.

and thanks!

What's sad is that Georgie's already digging his heels in, ignoring the first rule of Fight Club "Don't pick and choose -- do it all or it won't work." Not to mention it looks like he's about to throw a tantrum right in the middle of the department store if he doesn't get to see Santy Claus RIGHT NOW!

What was that quote attributed to the WH today? Baker can go back to his day job?

Sadly, as good and sensible as most of these appear to be, he ain't gonna do shit about it unless dad twists his ear. Also, as a post above said, who knows what a lot of these really mean underneath the surface.