Perspective: Advisers to Iraq group criticize its report

The Iraq Study Group

NEW YORK: The military recommendations issued by the Iraq Study Group run counter to assessments made by some of its own military advisers.

Ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has struggled in vain to tamp down the violence and to build up the capability of Iraq's security forces. Now the study group is positing that the United States can accomplish in little more than one year what it has failed to carry out in three.

In essence, the study group is projecting that a rapid infusion of American military trainers will so improve the Iraqi security forces that virtually all of the American combat brigades may be withdrawn by the early part of 2008.

"By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq," the study group said.

Jack Keane, the retired chief of staff who served on the group's panel of military advisers, described that goal as entirely impractical. "Based on where we are now we can't get there," Keane said in an interview, adding that the report's conclusions say more about "the absence of political will in Washington than the harsh realities in Iraq."

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