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Washington: An independent panel studying US policy in Iraq has unanimously agreed to a report that will call for a gradual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
The report which could be used to help guide US President George W Bush’s conduct of war, will be a compromise between calls from Democrats for a timetable to withdraw US forces and Bush’s insistence that forces remain until Iraq is fully stabilised.
Recommendations of the panel, which is co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a close Bush family friend, and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, will be much harder for Bush to resist than if the group were divided, experts and study group advisers say.
The report stops short of setting a firm timetable for withdrawal, but the Iraq Study Group will recommend that Bush make it clear that he will start the troop withdrawal ‘relatively soon’, indicating sometime next year.
The commission will release its conclusions on December 6.
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