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Two months after Congress called for the re-launch of the Iraq Study Group, congressional leaders have shown little enthusiasm for the proposal and let it languish, said Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the study group.
But some Democrats have blamed the White House for the stall. One senior Democratic aide said the instructions from the Congress are crystal clear and that White House officials have brought the process to a halt. Other Democrats say the White House is posing an obstacle because James Baker, the Republican co-chairman of the study group, has postponed his participation until receiving approval from President Bush.
Either way, neither Democrats nor Republicans are clamoring to hear again from the Iraq Study Group after President Bush steps down from office and presents the biggest opportunity to date to change the course of the war in Iraq.
The winner of November’s election, whether it be Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), or Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), would likely feel pressure to heed the group’s findings.
Two House Republicans, Reps. Frank Wolf (Va.) and Christopher Shays (Conn.), took the lead in placing a little-noticed provision in the fiscal 2008 omnibus spending bill calling for the rebirth of the Iraq Study Group. The problem is no one from Congress bothered telling members of the Iraq Study Group, raising questions over how much support the proposal has among congressional leaders.
Lawmakers added the study group’s new mandate to language appropriating $25 million for the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank that funded the group’s earlier work.
“The puzzle is that you’ve got the money and the joint explanation and nothing’s happened,” said Hamilton, a former House Democrat, referring to the instructions Congress appended to the spending bill asking for the group to be reconstituted.
“There’s been no contact of me by anyone associated with the Congress that I have not initiated myself,” said Hamilton. “That’s my puzzle. Nobody’s been in touch with me.”
Leon Panetta, another Democratic member of the 10-person study group, said that Congress has been so quiet about its request that he was not even aware of it until recently.
“I didn’t know the language was there; it’s of those little sentences that makes its way into the omnibus appropriations bill,” said Panetta. “Everyone was caught a little bit by surprise by the language.”
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