Iraq panel to recommend U.S. shift from combat role

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraq Study Group will recommend the U.S. military shift away from combat and toward more of a support role in Iraq over the next year or so, a source familiar with the panel's recommendations said.

The recommendation by the independent panel would be to pull U.S. fighting forces back to bases inside Iraq, and in the region, as the U.S. military sought to withdraw from the daily fighting, the source said late on Wednesday.

He said the group would also recommend a regional conference that could lead to direct U.S. talks with Iran and Syria, which U.S. officials accuses of fomenting the sectarian violence that kills scores of people die every day in Iraq.

"The main thing is (the group is) calling for a transition from a combat role to a support role," said the source, who asked not to be identified because the recommendations won't be released until Wednesday. "It's basically a redeployment."

The idea appeared to be to try to leave the fighting to Iraqi forces and for the U.S. military to concentrate more on providing training, intelligence, advice and equipment.

Many in Washington have held out hope the bipartisan group's report would provide a way for the United States to extricate itself from an increasingly deadly and unpopular war or, at least, a set of ideas on how to move forward that could attract support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Their conclusions are likely to carry significant political weight even if President Bush chooses to ignore them, especially after his fellow Republicans lost control of the U.S. Congress in November 7 elections largely because of deep public discontent with the Iraq war.

The report did not include a hard timetable for the proposed U.S. pullback but the source said: "There is a kind of indication in the report as to when that ought to be completed ... sometime within the next year."

The conclusions of the 10-member panel, which is led by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican and close Bush family friend, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, are widely seen as giving Bush political cover to change course if he wishes.

Some Democrats have urged a phased withdrawal beginning in four to six months. There are roughly 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and more than 2,800 have been killed since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The idea of a pullback rests on questionable assumptions that Iraqi forces will be able to fill the gap, analysts said.

"If there isn't a political solution, I don't think any amount of training is going to solve the problem," said James Steinberg, a former deputy national security adviser under U.S. President Bill Clinton.

NO GRACEFUL EXIT

After meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Amman on Thursday, Bush called for speeding up the training of Iraqi forces but said the United States should not make a hasty withdrawal.

"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq. We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done," Bush said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told ABC News that his government will increase Iraqi troop training in January with the goal of assuming power from U.S. forces in June.

A source close to the group stressed that the study group's report would have political and diplomatic components.

Israel is expected to be part of the proposed regional dialogue, including the international conference, sources close to the group said. "They live in the neighborhood ... The aim is to engage the neighborhood, including addressing the Israeli-Palestinian issue," one source said.

Many experts feel the group's political proposals may be more important than its recommendations on U.S. troops levels.

"I'm concerned the Iraq Study Group may miss the most important point: the need for a strategy to build a sustainable political settlement," Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), a Delaware Democrat and the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said. "Bringing the neighbors in and starting to get our troops out are necessary, but not sufficient."

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Matt Spetalnick, Carol Giacomo)

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