A Way Out

It was serendipitous that Freda Payne was being interviewed on a local jazz radio station yesterday. One of Payne’s hits, "Bring the Boys Home," was playing in the background as I watched TV coverage of the release of the Iraq Study Group’s report, "The Way Forward."

While the Baker-Hamilton report is not a quantum leap forward, it’s clear that "stay the course" is an unmitigated disaster (and here).  Indeed, James A. Baker III declared: "We do not recommend a stay-the-course solution.  In our opinion, that approach is no longer viable."

If President Bush is smart isn't as dumb as he looks, he will embrace the study group's recommendations. He will also accept House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi’s offer to help find a way out of the Iraq quagmire whose "costs could rise well over $1 trillion."

In a statement, Pelosi said:

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has concluded that the Presidents Iraq policy has failed and must be changed. As the November elections clearly demonstrated, that is an assessment shared by the American people.

Months ago, House and Senate Democratic leaders suggested to the President that he implement one of the Study Group’s chief recommendations - to change the primary mission of U.S. troops in Iraq from combat to training and support, which would enable the redeployment of U.S. forces to begin. Now that the Study Group has endorsed this proposal, I hope that the President will recognize that he must take our policy in Iraq in a new direction.

If the President is serious about the need for change in Iraq, he will find Democrats ready to work with him in a bipartisan fashion to find a way to end the war as quickly as possible. We are committed to ensuring that the ideas of the Iraq Study Group, as well as the ideas of other thoughtful people inside and outside of government, are given full consideration in that process.