Withdraw US troops in Iraq, Bush told

US TROOPS should begin withdrawing from combat and Washington should launch a diplomatic and political push to halt a “grave and deteriorating” crisis in Iraq, a high-level panel studying the war said yesterday.

US President George W Bush said he would take the highly anticipated report “very seriously” after meeting with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, but the White House has made clear he will not be bound by its conclusions and has begun its own review of Iraq policy.

“The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating,” the five Republicans and five Democrats in the group said in the report. “There is no magic formula to solve the problems of Iraq.

“Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region and a change in the primary mission of US forces in Iraq that will enable the US to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly,” the report said.

Since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein about 140,000 American troops remain in Iraq.

The report also called for the US to engage with Iran and Syria, whom US officials accuse of fomenting the insurgency in Iraq, in an effort to stabilise the country. The White House has resisted such talks.

“This report gives a very tough assessment of the situation in Iraq,” Bush said after meeting for about an hour with the group’s members, who include two former secretaries of state.

“I told the members that this report, called The Way Forward, will be taken very seriously by this administration.”

The report called for a new commitment by the Bush administration to press for a “comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace,” arguing that the US cannot meet its goals in the Middle East without addressing the festering conflict.

The report also recommended the US military launch a rapid effort to train Iraqi forces to defend their country and said US forces should gradually move to a supporting role.

It set no hard timetable for the transition but said, by the first quarter of 2008, depending on conditions, US combat troops not needed for “force protection” could be out of Iraq.

The report stresses that Iraqis need to take on a larger share of the military role and suggested the US should begin to withdraw support if Iraq’s government does not make major progress toward national reconciliation and improved security and governance.

“The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops deployed in Iraq,” it said.

Bush has been under added political pressure to change course in Iraq since the November 7 elections, when US voters, soured on the war, ended Republican control of Congress.