The Same Ole Faces: The Iraq Study Group
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published December 11, 2006, 11:19 am in Military / Foreign policy.
Consider this the first in a series of articles on the Iraq Study Group Report, which was released on December 6, 2006. I may have to break in to discuss events such as Pinochet's death or other trivial things like that, but I want to spend a few articles talking about this important document, and what it may mean for American and international politics.
In this first column, I want to talk about the group itself.
It was officially created by Congress at the urging of Virginia Republican Representative Frank Wolf on March 15, 2006. It has ten members. It's goal was to study Iraq and Iraq war, including the implications of U.S. failure in the region and how to keep that failure from happening. The group is set to receive over $1 million from Congress, although none of the members will be paid. It is directed under the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP), and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
Sounds good so far. Anything bipartisan has my vote. Even if there are some irreconcilable belief systems governing Republican and Democratic decisions, there are also some things that the two groups can agree on. And as much as I like consensus, I love it when there is informed consensus that includes honest debate. Nothing better.
But all of this is old news. Let's get to the good stuff.
First, there are the five Republicans: James Baker III, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Edwin Meese III , and Sandra Day O'Connor. This is an accomplished group. Baker was Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush, as well as numerous other posts. Lawrence Eagleburger was Secretary of State after Baker resigned. Edwin Meese was Attorney General under Reagan. Alan K. Simpson was a Republican Governor and Senator. And Sandra Day O'Connor was an Associate Supreme Court Justice, appointed by Reagan.
That's a good group of Republicans, if I do say so myself. I'm really happy about the inclusion of Sandra Day O'Connor, mainly because of her swing status. She was one of the wild cards of the Supreme Court, especially in her later service, often going toward the liberal side. And Alan Simpson has been a supporter of liberal causes, as well, especially abortion and gay rights. As a whole, though, the group has the typical problems of Republicans.
They are generally old Reagan and H.W. Bush cronies. Heck, James Baker's law firm was the one who helped Bush fight the legal battles with the 2000 Presidential election.
And Edwin Meese, well, I don't even like to get started on that guy. No, wait, maybe I do. He's the one who formed the "Meese Commision" on pornography and managed to get pornography off the shelves of convenience stores until the courts overruled him. And then there was the Iran-Contra controversy (why does that keep coming up here?). The guy's now with the Heritage Foundation, not exactly a bastion of bipartisanship.
These Republicans aren't generally heavily invovled in industry, however, which surprises me. Meese was an executive of several large corporations, but that's really about it.
Then there are the Democrats on the panel: Lee Hamilton, Vernon Jordan, Jr., Leon E. Panetta, William J. Perry, and Charles S. Robb. I'm less familiar with this group, for these aren't the big names like Baker, Meese, and O'Connor.
They're still good guys, I'm sure. Lee Hamilton was a Representative for 34 years. Vernon Jordan was a prominent figure in many civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, before becoming an advisor to Bill Clinton. Leon Penetta is a former Representative and White House Chief of Staff under Clinton. William Perry was Secretary of Defense under Clinton. Chuck Robb is a former governor and Senator.
These guys aren't without their problems. Robb, for example, seems to always have been invovled in some kind of scandal.
What gets me is that these guys are heavily invovled in industry. Vernan Jordan is on the board of directors of several companies, including American Express and the Dow Jones. He was formerly on the board of Revlon, Sara Lee, Corning, Xerox and RJR Nabisco. William Perry has run an investment banking firm.
And Leon Penetta, well, this guy used to be a Republican. He switched to the Democrats because the Republicans didn't support civil rights.
So what am I saying? Well, the jury seems tilted a bit, doesn't it? The Clinton Democrats are a lot like Republicans, but then the Republicans are sometimes like Democrats. So maybe this is a good panel after all. If you read this column with any regularity, you know I'm always looking for bias. It's one of the things I have been trained to do. So I see it here, definitely, but it seems mutual. The biases seem to cancel each other out, and we end up with what seems like a decent panel.
I'm not sure if I would call any of these people "experts" on the Middle East or Iraq, although most of them had some experience with the region. But then again, that wasn't the point of the study. The point was to get advisors together from both sides to go in and study the situation. They interviewed tons of experts so that they didn't have to be experts. If you want the list, it is printed in the report available on their website.
Speaking of which, the Iraq Study Group has made the entire report available to the public on the internet, which made me feel silly for rushing out to buy it. But it's a good move. They want the report to be part of an open access government, and it makes sense. If the goal is to force a change, there is no better way than to make the recommendations available to everyone. That way, there is full accountability. I think that's one of the things the administration failed to do at the beginning of the conflict. I remember hearing a lot of people say that the administration had to have good reason for going in there in the first place, and they just thought that the public wasn't privy to all of the classified stuff. But they had a good reason, they were sure. We just had to trust the government that it was doing the right thing, these people said. But that was just a couple years after 9/11. We're much more jaded now, and we want to know everything our government is doing. It's a good thing for everyone, too, including those in power.
Based on the Iraq Study Group itself, meaning the group of people and their mission, I applaud the effort. Stay tuned to see what I have to say about the actual report...
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