Dec 6th 2006 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com

The Iraq Study Group reportedly calls for American troops to withdraw from combat operations in Iraq and for new diplomatic efforts in the Middle East

THE 9/11 Commission set the standard, in recent memory, for a group of grandees advising a president. The commissioners’ political weight, and the support of victims’ families, made their policy recommendations hard to ignore. Some, like a reorganisation of intelligence, are now law, despite initial opposition from George Bush’s administration.

It is a different story today. On Wednesday December 6th some details emerged from the long-awaited report of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission headed by James Baker, a former secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman. The group was due, later the same day, to release a set of recommendations on the conflict in Iraq. These appeared—according to ABC News—to include suggestions that American troops should withdraw from combat operations and instead just offer support to Iraqi soldiers, and that America “must not make open-ended commitments to keep large numbers of troops there in Iraq”. The latter may be a cumbersome way of arguing that many soldiers should be pulled out of the country, perhaps in 2008.