The U.S. bipartisan Iraq Study Group planned to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the Iraqis, The Washington Post reported Friday.

The plan would shift the U.S. mission in Iraq to a secondary role as the fragile Baghdad government and its security forces take the lead in fighting insurgency and trying to halt sectarian violence.

As part of major changes in the U.S. presence, the plan recommends embedding U.S. soldiers directly in Iraqi security units starting as early as next month to improve leadership and effectiveness, the newspaper quoted sources familiar with the proposal as saying.

The call to pull out combat brigades by early 2008, however, would be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it, the sources told the newspaper.

But panel members concluded that it is vital to set a target to put pressure on Iraqi leaders to do more to assume responsibility for the security of their country, the report said.

Pulling out combat units would not mean the end of the U.S. military involvement in Iraq, which could continue in a different form for years.

The choice of early 2008 as a goal could also, intentionally or not, change the nature of the debate over the war at the height of the U.S. presidential primary season.

If the commission's plan is successful, the war might recede as an issue, as many strategists in both parties hope. But if U.S. commanders do not meet that goal, or if they do but violence only escalates, it may inflame the struggles for both parties' nominations, according to the report.

Democrats, who captured control of both houses of Congress in last month's mid-term elections, and some Republicans have pushed strongly for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops, but President George W. Bush has firmly resisted such demands, warning that it would amount to surrender and could destabilize Iraq even further.

The Iraq Study Group, created in March and co-chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton, concluded its deliberations this week with a draft report about 100 pages long. The report is scheduled to be released next Wednesday and will include a variety of conclusions and recommendations about the region.

Among other things, the commission considered proposals to reach out to Iran and Syria and to convene a regional conference to bring all of Iraq's neighbors into the process of stabilizing the country, the report said.

Source: Xinhua