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.