Word: bakers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Meanwhile, Iraq kept deteriorating, and there was a risk that the panel's proposals would be obsolete before consensus was reached. "It overshadowed everything," says an aide to one member. "They were constantly dealing with new developments over there." Baker turned up last Monday with a draft report he wanted panel members to consider or amend and then get into the President's hands. Democrats led by Hamilton, Perry and Leon Panetta, Clinton's ex--chief of staff, were adamant that the report recommend a firm starting point for troop withdrawals. When the Republicans again refused, members agreed on language...
...WORD IN WASHINGTON THESE days is bandwidth, as in, Does this Administration have the bandwidth to solve all these problems? Even those who back the Baker plan worry about whether there is anyone inside the Administration who can carry it out. There is widespread doubt that the Bush team is emotionally or ideologically able to execute a plan that is so at odds with its collective instincts and that many of its supporters might resist. Of particular concern to members of the study group is the state of the U.S. State Department. Although Rice has restored some of the department...
Bush will put a few weeks between the big Baker-Hamilton rollout and his own restart. White House officials worry that anything faster would look too reactive--a curious instinct, given the public's overwhelming desire for change and the positive response Bush received when he tossed Rumsfeld over the side after the elections. Says a former government official who has known Bush for 20 years: "If he is going to take political advantage of things he might have done anyhow, why not do them fast instead of slow?" It may be that the President is not yet ready...
...White House won't wait for the Baker-Hamilton road show to signal that it is changing course. A White House official told TIME over the weekend that the new path the President will outline in coming weeks is "significantly different than what we've been doing. When the President says we're going to get the job done, that doesn't suggest it is an open-ended commitment forever." The inevitability of serious change, it emerges, had become clear even to one so dug in as Rumsfeld. The New York Times reported last week that two days before...
...over the next few weeks as part of an effort to deepen connections to a greater variety of Iraqi political figures. And aides say Bush may call for what were already being dubbed "reciprocal obligations" with the Iraqi government: trading troop deployments for progress on sectarian violence, just as Baker and Hamilton are expected to propose. But there will be no ultimatums. A senior Administration official says, "Bush's plan is eventually going to call for reductions in troops. They're going to do whatever they can to get the security to a level at which it's sustainable...