A Gift for the President
Former Clinton Defense Secretary Bill Perry started writing some draft language for withdrawal by early 2008. Baker balked, wanting to leave the dates to the White House. Perry refused to back off; it took hours of one-on-one negotiations to come up with the final language. Each word was crafted and recrafted, because the high stakes were clear: Without unanimous agreement, there would be no report. That was the deal the commission members had struck at the outset.
And in the end, that was the deal that mattered the most. There is no way the president can avoid paying attention to a bipartisan report, and White House sources say that's not his intention. While he's not likely to endorse any plan to engage in direct talks with Syria and Iran, the rest is open for debate. "I think he really was impressed by the fact that 10 of us agreed," Panetta tells me. "We came to consensus, and that doesn't happen in this town anymore." Sources close to the White House say that "in the short run, the headlines were hurtful." But in truth, the Iraq Study Group gave the president a remarkably useful and helpful holiday gift: political cover. Unwrap it.
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