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The Report

America Faces Up to the Iraq Disaster

By Bernhard Zand and Georg Mascolo

In the US on Wednesday, all eyes were on the members of the Iraq Study Group. And in Iraq? Ten more soldiers died, at least 50 Iraqis lost their lives, power came on for only an hour in Baghdad and another 2,000 refugees left. Just an average day as the country disintegrates.

The members of the Iraq Study Group were the heroes of the day. They were the stars -- to be admired on every TV channel from early morning onward. Nine men and one woman were received in the White House by US President George W. Bush before an appearance on Capitol Hill, where they briefed members of the US House of Representatives, the press and the ambassadors of US allies. A secure video connection hooked them up with the Iraqi government for yet another conference. But they weren't done. Visibly exhausted, they took to the airwaves once again in the evening to talk to US citizens about what has been called the "new way forward" for Iraq.

In Baghdad, people got to see only a few, disjointed bits from this marathon of public appearances. The power was out almost the entire day, except for a brief hour between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. As usual, the US military was under fire all day long -- attacked by Shiites when helping Sunnis, and by Sunnis when helping Shiites.

Ten soldiers lost their lives in the fighting according to the US military. Many more Iraqis were also killed; some 50 corpses, roughly the daily average, were delivered to the morgue. A number of the dead had been tortured with drills and then shot execution-style. The number of refugees was also the usual average: Two thousand Iraqis are reported to have fled the country on Wednesday, crossing the borders to Jordan and Syria. A normal day in Iraq.

The situation in the country is catastrophic. The Iraq Study Group Report has now merely given this interpretation its official seal of approval. But this condemnation of Washington's foreign policy seems a bit late. Those on the streets of Baghdad, after all, have known the bitter reality for months.

"Chaos" and "civil war"

The Iraq Study Group Report hit the bookshelves in the US on Wednesday at 11 a.m. and doesn't look unlike a similar commission report -- that produced by the 9/11 commission. This time though, the report isn't nearly as bulky -- the point, after all, was to look forward, not backward. The study group's mandate was clear: It was not to look into the causes of the current havoc in Iraq. Without such a limitation, there likely would not have been any White House support for the report.

Still, the message is clear. "Serious," "bad," "chaos" and "civil war" are the most frequently used words in the report. The entire region is threatened with instability, it warns. Former US Vice President Al Gore said it clearly: Iraq is "the greatest strategic disaster in US history."

All 10 members of the commission made an appearance at the presentation of this sombre conclusion before the US Senate -- in room 216, where the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations normally meets. The choice of location sent a clear signal. This is the very place where Bush and his associates liked to wax eloquent about peace and stability in the Middle East -- and where they declared civil war in Iraq impossible as recently as the beginning of the year.

Losing patience

Today, Iraq is much more dangerous for Americans than it ever was under Saddam Hussein. As it is for the Iraqis themselves. What to do? The commission has produced fully 79 foreign policy suggestions. A greater emphasis on diplomacy. Negotiations with old enemies such as Iran and Syria. The resumption of the Israeli- Palestinian peace process. Speedier and better training for Iraqi troops. And an amnesty for the death squads.

It's not an easy list for Bush to swallow, resembling as it does exactly what diplomats and Middle East experts have been saying for years. It is, in fact, a masterpiece of sober, level-headed political realism. Actually acting on the recommendations would mean closing the books on the Bush revolution for good.

Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the study group with James Baker, calls the Iraq Study Group's proposals "achievable goals." And there are some novelties. The hidden threat to the Iraqi government, for example. The report calls for providing Baghdad with further political, military and economic support only on condition that the divided political factions make progress in cooperating to help build a future for the country.

Baghdad interpreted the message the way it was supposed to: The United States is losing patience.

But who in Iraq has the power today to end the daily bloodshed? What started as rivalry between Shiites and Sunnis has become a civil war like the one that once shook Lebanon -- with a number of rival factions sometimes fighting for individual streets and neighborhoods. Bush officially supports Nouri Kamel al-Maliki, Iraq's Prime Minister, but US military officials stopped trusting him long ago. The prime minister's power rests on the support of Muqtada al-Sadr, head of one of the most brutal Shiite militias around. Al-Maliki won't allow police raids against al-Sadr's men.

Too late?

The situation has become so desperate that even the wildest of ideas are being circulated. Bush's National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley recently issued a memorandum considering the possibility of the United States using US funding to help build a new basis of support for al-Maliki. They would be recruited from "moderate groups that have been seeking to break with larger, more sectarian parties."

Such a project of national reconciliation seems impossible given the atmosphere of today's Iraq. Even as the Iraq Study Group continues its march through Washington, many worry that the group's suggestions may simply be coming too late.

Wayne White thinks that is the case. He's one of 44 experts who helped Baker and Hamilton arrive at their conclusions. A sober-minded analytical thinker, he's been in the US State Department for 26 years and was Deputy Director of its Office of Middle East and South Asia Analysis until March 2005. White was one of the first to warn about what could happen in Iraq, a man who was already likening possible Sunni-Shiite conflicts to the battle of Stalingrad at a time when the White House was still insisting on happy talk.

So can the war still be won after all? Or, at the very least, can an acceptable end be found? Baker, an old supporter of the Bush Administration, says he's no fortune teller. "I never put the presidents I work for on the couch," he says.