IRAQ: Prominent former US officials announced a high-powered task force yesterday to look at alternatives for US policy in Iraq amid plummeting support for the conflict that has killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis since it began three years ago.
The study group is headed by former secretary of state James Baker, a Republican, and former Democratic representative Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the September 11th commission that examined those attacks.
Mr Baker said the panel was created at the urging of Congress members who felt a need for "an honest assessment of where we are and how we go forward and take this out of politics".
A large group of senators and congressmen, including Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner and Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat of Delaware who is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, attended the launch of the group to lend it political weight.
Mr Baker said one of the group's first tasks would be to evaluate the situation on the ground.