Iraqis say report offers little hope

BAGHDAD, Iraq --Iraqi citizens said Thursday a U.S. advisory's group recommendation that Washington move toward military disengagement offered little hope of an improvement in their lives anytime soon.

The Iraqi government said that the Iraq Study Group's recommendation was in line with its own plans to stop the rampant violence, but cautioned that there was no "magic wand" to solve the country's problems.

"The situation is grave, very grave in fact, and cannot be tolerated," Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said Wednesday on the pan Arab satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya. "Absolute dependence on foreign troops is not possible. The focus must be on boosting the Iraqi security forces."

But he warned that improving the battlefield capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces would not be "the magic wand that brings a solution in one day."

The bipartisan blue-ribbon panel said all U.S. combat brigades "not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq" by the first quarter of 2008, but it said "could," not "should" or "must."

A prominent Kurdish lawmaker criticized the panel for failing to include Iraqis, calling the recommendations "superficial and inaccurate."

"I think this report was written in the first place to generate agreement among the Americans themselves and to find cooperation between the Democrats and the Republicans in order to achieve U.S. interests," Mahmoud Othman said. "The absence of an Iraqi representative on the panel is a shortcoming."

"It seems those who wrote it have little knowledge about the situation in Iraq," he added. "They only visited the Green Zone for some days, they did not go to the south or to Kurdistan to ask the people there. This is the reason why their outcome and recommendations are superficial and inaccurate."

On the streets of Baghdad, skepticism seemed widespread.

"This report is no different than others we have received from national unity conferences or regional conferences in the last three years, ones that came up with nice words that had no effect," said Khalid Abdel-Rahim, 42, a Sunni Arab employee of the Industry Ministry.

"U.S. officials have long discussed training more Iraqi troops, but they have not been able to control widespread attacks by insurgents and militias. ... I don't expect this latest report will solve our problems," he said.

Hadi Muhsin, 50, the Shiite owner of a stationery shop in Baghdad, said: "This report comes after the deaths of tens thousands of Iraqis. It doesn't recommend the total withdrawal of U.S. forces or set a timetable. ... I don't think this report will bring positive change. We don't even know if President Bush will follow it."

Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, echoed Saleh's comment that the report's recommendations were "positive on the whole." He told The Associated Press they conformed with the government's own plans to deal with the rampant violence engulfing the country since 2003.

"The parts I read were very positive," he said.

Iraqi newspapers focused on the report's recommendation that Bush put aside misgivings and engage Syria, Iran and the leaders of insurgent forces in negotiations on Iraq's future.

The study, written under the leadership of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., painted a dire picture of the situation in Iraq more than three years after the war started.

"Baker panel recommends direct talks with Syria and Iran and speeding the handover of security issue to the Iraqi forces," read a headline in the independent newspaper Al-Mashraq.

Another independent Iraqi newspaper noted that the commission called for Washington to reduce "political, military or economic support" for Iraq if the government cannot make substantial progress toward providing for its own security.

"Baker panel advises Bush to reduce economic and military support in order to pressure al-Maliki to improve security situation," said the Azzaman newspaper.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni Arab group suspected of links to some insurgency groups, sharply criticized the report and cast doubt on whether one of its major recommendations -- training and equipping more Iraqi security forces -- could produce results.

Speaking on Al-Jazeera, Sheik Mohammed Bashar al-Fayadh said the recommendations in their entirety gave precedence to U.S. interests over Iraq's and sought "guarantees for an exit (from Iraq) but without paying heed to preventing a civil from breaking out."

"The report recommends the training of Iraqi forces, but will it reach the level of the American army? The answer is 'no.' If the American army is unable to settle the question and get out of this predicament, so how can that be?" he said.

Al-Maliki's office said Baker and Hamilton had briefed the government on the report via video link. The government said the briefing focused on the strengthening of Iraq's national unity government, calling for a regional diplomatic offensive but rejection of international conference and changing the mission of the multinational force to assume a supporting role for Iraqi forces in addition to speeding up the equipping and training of the Iraqi forces.

It also said al-Maliki will read a full text of the report at a later date.

On the highly emotional issue of troop withdrawals, the commission warned against either a precipitous pullback or an open-ended commitment to a large deployment.

Bush's policy in Iraq "is not working," the panel said, urging the administration to embrace diplomacy to stabilize the country and allow withdrawal of most combat troops by early 2008.

------

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Qais Al-Bashir in Baghdad contributed to this report.