The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward - A New Approach [Paperback]

The Iraq Study Group (Author), James A. Baker III (Author), Lee H. Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 6, 2006

On March 15, 2006, members from both parties in Congress supported the creation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to review the situation on the ground and propose strategies for the way forward. For more than eight months, the Study Group met with military officers, regional experts, academics, journalists, and high-level government officials from America and abroad. Participants included George W. Bush and members of his cabinet; Bill Clinton; Jalal Talabani; Nouri Kamal al-Maliki; Generals John Abizaid, George Casey, and Anthony Zinni; Colin Powell; Thomas Friedman; George Packer; and many others. This official edition contains the Group’s findings and proposals for improving security, strengthening the new government, rebuilding the economy and infrastructure, and maintaining stability in the region. It is a highly anticipated and essential step forward for Iraq, America, and the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Recent residence on Mars would be the only excuse for someone being unaware of this document, delivered by the Iraq Study Group to the Bush administration and simultaneously and inexpensively published for the general public. And there is no excuse for any public library, large or small, not to own a copy. Whether or not the report's recommendations will be adopted by President Bush in whole or in part is a question to be answered in upcoming months. As it stands at this moment, the report is the orphan of all documents, unembraced by beltway Republicans and Democrats alike. Nevertheless, every citizen should read it. It is a gloomy experience to enter its pages, to be sure; the opening line is now famous: "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." But it is also a surprisingly crisply and clearly written report, an incredibly cogent look at where we are in Iraq and how we should proceed. The text is divided into two primary sections: "Assessment" and "A New Approach," with the second section including 79 precise recommendations to the administration for "moving forward." Agree with the points made or not, no reader can come away from this trenchant account without a more enhanced opinion. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

James A. Baker, III — Co-Chair
James A. Baker, III has served in senior government positions under three United States presidents. He served as the nation’s 61st Secretary of State from January 1989 through August 1992 under President George H. W. Bush. During his tenure at the State Department, Mr. Baker traveled to 90 foreign countries as the United States confronted the unprecedented challenges and opportunities of the post–Cold War era. Mr. Baker’s reflections on those years of revolution, war, and peace—The Politics of Diplomacy—was published in 1995.

Mr. Baker served as the 67th Secretary of the Treasury from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. As Treasury Secretary, he was also Chairman of the President's Economic Policy Council. From 1981 to 1985, he served as White House Chief of Staff to President Reagan. Mr. Baker’s record of public service began in 1975 as Under Secretary of Commerce to President Gerald Ford. It concluded with his service as White House Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to President Bush from August 1992 to January 1993.

Long active in American presidential politics, Mr. Baker led presidential campaigns for Presidents Ford, Reagan, and Bush over the course of five consecutive presidential elections from 1976 to 1992.

A native Houstonian, Mr. Baker graduated from Princeton University in 1952. After two years of active duty as a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, he entered the University of Texas School of Law at Austin. He received his J.D. with honors in 1957 and practiced law with the Houston firm of Andrews and Kurth from 1957 to 1975.

Mr. Baker’s memoir—Work Hard, Study . . . and Keep Out of Politics! Adventures and Lessons from an Unexpected Public Life—was published in October 2006.

Mr. Baker received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 and has been the recipient of many other awards for distinguished public service, including Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award, the American Institute for Public Service’s Jefferson Award, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government Award, the Hans J. Morgenthau Award, the George F. Kennan Award, the Department of the Treasury’s Alexander Hamilton Award, the Department of State’s Distinguished Service Award, and numerous honorary academic degrees.

Mr. Baker is presently a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts. He is Honorary Chairman of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and serves on the board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. From 1997 to 2004, Mr. Baker served as the Personal Envoy of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to seek a political solution to the conflict over Western Sahara. In 2003, Mr. Baker was appointed Special Presidential Envoy for President George W. Bush on the issue of Iraqi debt. In 2005, he was co-chair, with former President Jimmy Carter, of the Commission on Federal Election Reform. Since March 2006, Mr. Baker and former U.S. Congressman Lee H. Hamilton have served as the co-chairs of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel on Iraq.

Mr. Baker was born in Houston, Texas, in 1930. He and his wife, the former Susan Garrett, currently reside in Houston, and have eight children and seventeen grandchildren.

Lee H. Hamilton — Co-Chair
Lee H. Hamilton became Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in January 1999. Previously, Mr. Hamilton served for thirty-four years as a United States Congressman from Indiana. During his tenure, he served as Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (now the Committee on International Relations) and chaired the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East from the early 1970s until 1993. He was Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran.

Also a leading figure on economic policy and congressional organization, he served as Chair of the Joint Economic Committee as well as the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, and was a member of the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee. In his home state of Indiana, Mr. Hamilton worked hard to improve education, job training, and infrastructure. Currently, Mr. Hamilton serves as Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University, which seeks to educate citizens on the importance of Congress and on how Congress operates within our government.

Mr. Hamilton remains an important and active voice on matters of international relations and American national security. He served as a Commissioner on the United States Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (better known as the Hart-Rudman Commission), was Co-Chair with former Senator Howard Baker of the Baker-Hamilton Commission to Investigate Certain Security Issues at Los Alamos, and was Vice-Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission), which issued its report in July 2004. He is currently a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, as well as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Advisory Board.

Born in Daytona Beach, Florida, Mr. Hamilton relocated with his family to Tennessee and then to Evansville, Indiana. Mr. Hamilton is a graduate of DePauw University and the Indiana University School of Law, and studied for a year at Goethe University in Germany. Before his election to Congress, he practiced law in Chicago and in Columbus, Indiana. A former high school and college basketball star, he has been inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

Mr. Hamilton’s distinguished service in government has been honored through numerous awards in public service and human rights as well as honorary degrees. He is the author of A Creative Tension—The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress (2002) and How Congress Works and Why You Should Care (2004), and the coauthor of Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (2006).

Lee and his wife, the former Nancy Ann Nelson, have three children—Tracy Lynn Souza, Deborah Hamilton Kremer, and Douglas Nelson Hamilton—and five grandchildren: Christina, Maria, McLouis and Patricia Souza and Lina Ying Kremer.

Lawrence S. Eagleburger — Member
Lawrence S. Eagleburger was sworn in as the 62nd U.S. Secretary of State by President George H. W. Bush on December 8, 1992, and as Deputy Secretary of State on March 20, 1989.

After his entry into the Foreign Service in 1957, Mr. Eagleburger served in the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, and the U.S. Mission to NATO in Belgium. In 1963, after a severe earthquake in Macedonia, he led the U.S. government effort to provide medical and other assistance. He was then assigned to Washington, D.C., where he served on the Secretariat staff and as special assistant to Dean Acheson, advisor to the President on Franco-NATO issues. In August 1966, he became acting director of the Secretariat staff.

In October 1966, Mr. Eagleburger joined the National Security Council staff. In October 1967, he was assigned as special assistant to Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach. In November 1968, he was appointed Dr. Henry Kissinger’s assistant, and in January 1969, he became executive assistant to Dr. Kissinger at the White House. In September 1969, he was assigned as political advisor and chief of the political section of the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels.

Mr. Eagleburger became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in August 1971. Two years later, he became Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. The same year he returned to the White House as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Operations. He subsequently followed Dr. Kissinger to the State Department, becoming Executive Assistant to the Secretary of State. In 1975, he was made Deputy Under Secretary of State for Management.

In June 1977, Mr. Eagleburger was appointed Ambassador to Yugoslavia, and in 1981 he was nominated as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. In February 1982, he was appointed Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

Mr. Eagleburger has received numerous awards, including an honorary knighthood from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II (1994); the Distinguished Service Award (1992), the Wilbur J. Carr Award (1984), and the Distinguished Honor Award (1984) from the Department of State; the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal from the Department of Defense (1978); and the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service (1976).

After retiring from the Department of State in May 1984, Mr. Eagleburger was named president of Kissinger Associates, Inc. Following his resignation as Secretary of State on January 19, 1993, he joined the law firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman and Caldwell as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor. He joined the boards of Halliburton Company, Phillips Petroleum Company, and Universal Corporation. Mr. Eagleburger currently serves as Chairman of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.

He received his B.S. degree in 1952 and his M.S. degree in 1957, both from the University of Wisconsin, and served as first lieutenant in the U.S. Army from 1952 to 1954. Mr. Eagleburger is married to the former Marlene Ann Heinemann. He is the father of three sons, Lawrence Scott, Lawrence Andrew, and Lawrence Jason.

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. — Member
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., is a Senior Managing Director of Lazard Freres & Co. llc in New York. He works with a diverse group of clients across a broad range of indust...

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Authorized Ed edition (December 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307386562
• ISBN-13: 978-0307386564
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #805,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars You Break it, You Bought it January 4, 2008

By Edwin C. Pauzer VINE™ VOICE

With an economy of words, the book begins: "There is no guarantee for success in Iraq. The situation in Baghdad and several provinces is dire.... There is great suffering and the daily lives of Iraqis show little or no improvement." It then details the problems with security, politics, economics, and international support that transcend a purely military solution to Iraq.

The problems of security begin with the factions of Shiite leaders who do not want to surrender their new-found power and disarm their militias. The Sunni Arabs, long the rulers of Iraq are not ready to abandon their insurgency, al-Qaeda must be progressively pursued and destroyed, and the Kurds are not willing to give up their autonomy.

The politics is equally bleak. The Iraqi government is unable to provide essential services. There is no security for key infrastructure. Corruption is rampant and capacity is inadequate. Their elected representatives "treat ministries as political spoils." The judiciary is also weak and intimidation against them has been ruthless.

With inflation at more than fifty percent and unemployment running from 20-60 percent, Iraq is not ripe for international investment. Oil production has fallen because of a lack of security, investment, and technical expertise. With corruption and negligible security accounting for as much as 500,000 barrels of oil a day being stolen, international support and investment are not likely to occur in the near future.

The Study Group adds seventy-nine recommendations for change in Iraq. First and foremost, it would be wrong for US forces to leave, which has consequences if we do stay, and consequences if we don't. It's the classic lose-lose situation. Unfortunately, the study does not go into any depth how these recommendations are to be accomplished.

Initially, I was skeptical of a board that was co-chaired by James A. Baker III, the virtual Bush family lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court that the all the votes had been recounted when they hadn't been. Seeing the name of Edwin Meese didn't allay my suspicions that this study group might end up throwing soft balls George Bush's way, or would not hold him accountable. On the contrary, they have made it clear that this administration made many mistakes and severely underestimated the situation after it declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

The study group makes it abundantly clear that Iraq is a complex problem that goes far beyond simple-minded phrases of "stay the course," or "we will not leave until victory is achieved."

For anyone wishing to get a thorough and concise description of the complex problems we face in Iraq, this is an excellent compendium.

It's not surprising that George W. Bush rejected the report.

ECP
01.04.08: 1,710 days since major combat operations in Iraq have ended.

P.S. Also recommended:

"The Battle for Peace" by General Anthony Zinni
"Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas E. Ricks

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A must read for anyone interested in contemporary affairs January 31, 2007

By bryan12603

Format:Paperback

This is a review of The Iraq Study Group Report by James A. Baker, Lee H. Hamilton, et al.

If you have any interest in having an informed opinion about the war in Iraq -- regardless of your political orientation or current level of knowledge -- I highly recommend this book. This book is still worth reading despite the fact that the President has chosen not to implement its primary recommendations.

First, this book is an easy read. It's 142 pages long, but the real content of the report is the "Executive Summary" on pp. xiii-xviii (read this if you read nothing else and you'll get the gist) and the main body of the report on pp. 1-96. The rest of the book is a series of Appendices, which include some helpful maps, but also some less crucial information like biographies of the Study Group members.

Second, whatever your political orientation, this book gives you a quick, readable overview of what problems face us (and the Iraqis).

Third, the President's proposal to inject signifiantly more combat troops was considered and rejected by the Study Group. Even if you disagree, it is worth knowing why they considered this a losing strategy.

The Report gives a series of recommendations aimed at achieving a stable, democratic Iraq that no longer needs the support of the US military. After reading the Report, I am personally not optimistic that this can actually be achieved. (Most of the criticisms of the report focus on the likelihood that its recommendations would succeed.) However, I suspect that the Study Group felt it was not politically viable to simply declare that Iraq cannot be saved. Consequently, they had to suggest some actionable policy besides immediate withdrawal. But the Report makes clear that the US must gradually withdraw from Iraq, and what continued US support there is must be contigent on the Iraqis taking substantive steps toward resolving their own problems. If the President had followed these recommendations, we would have been out of Iraq within a couple of years at most -- one way or the other.

Again, one may not agree, but the Report gives many interesting and pertinent facts. Shia, Sunni and Kurds do not trust one another, and divide the military and police forces along sectarian lines. Because of the lack of reliable central political authority, "Sunni insurgents will not lay down arms unless the Shia militias are disarmed. Shia militias will not disarm until the Sunni insurgency is destroyed" (20). Furthermore, 61% of Iraqis APPROVE of attacks on US forces (35).

The Study Group argues that increasing the US military presence (as suggested by the President) will not help the current situation because of three facts. (1) More troops would strengthen the impression that the US plans a long-term "occupation" of Iraq. (This impression will, in turn, increase anti-US sentiment and violence.) (2) Maintaining forces in Iraq will decrease US readiness to deal with problems in other parts of the world, including Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. (I would add myself that a crisis could erupt between Taiwan and China within the next few years.) (3) As long as the US is propping up the Iraq government, it has no incentive to undertake the fundamental reforms that are necessary to achieve peace and stability.

To put it really simply, if we put a US soldier beside every man, woman and child in Iraq, it would (probably) stop the violence for as long as we could maintain it. However, the second we turn away, the violence will start up again, unless and until the Iraqis decide that they want to end the violence themselves. We cannot make them do that, and they have no incentive to do it as long as we are propping their government up.

Even if you are sure the President is right, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to be well informed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy and very worthwhile read. January 11, 2007

By J. P. Barnes Jr.

Format:Paperback

The book arrived in excellent condition and in short order. It was fascinating to see the degree to which the media distorted the study group report by selection. eg. Did you ever hear that the committee recommended a surge of 20,000 troops as part of its report? Neither did I, but its right there in the executive summary and in the internal options section of the report. And there are 77 other recommendations, not just the three or four that the media keeps talking about.