re james baker
"The Bush family adviser, James Baker, a former secretary of state, is said to be preparing to offer Mr Bush a route out of Iraq in a report to be published in December. The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group, chaired by Mr Baker, is seeking a middle way between continued deployment of 15 brigades of US troops and a sudden pullout, leaving Iraq's neophyte forces to contain a civil war."......
Party elders put pressure on Bush to withdraw from Iraq
By Damien McElroy in Washington
(Filed: 18/10/2006)
Leading elder statesmen in the Republican party have stepped up pressure on George W Bush to begin a phased withdrawal of American troops from Iraq by the end of the year. Senior senators, including Chuck Hagel and John Warner, have publicly warned that the White House must change tack if there is not a dramatic improvement in Iraq's security situation within weeks.
Mr Hagel said: "The American people are not going to continue to support or sustain a policy that puts American troops in the middle of a civil war."
The clamour has become so great that the president was forced to telephone the Iraqi leader, Nuri al-Maliki, to assure him that the White House was not prepared to change its strategy. In an interview with Fox News, Mr Bush maintained his determination not to withdraw from Iraq was a point of principle.
advertisement"I don't think that's the right way to go," he said. "I think that will increase sectarian violence."
The Bush family adviser, James Baker, a former secretary of state, is said to be preparing to offer Mr Bush a route out of Iraq in a report to be published in December. The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group, chaired by Mr Baker, is seeking a middle way between continued deployment of 15 brigades of US troops and a sudden pullout, leaving Iraq's neophyte forces to contain a civil war.
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