A panel of U.S. experts is releasing a report that calls for cutting U.S. forces in Iraq by half within three years and a total withdrawal in five years, U.S. media reported on Sunday.
"The United States faces too many challenges around the world to continue its current level of effort in Iraq, or even the deployment that was in place before the surge," the report says.
"It is time to chart a clearer path forward," it concluded.
The panel was assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace and includes many of the experts that advised the Iraq Study Group panel led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Democratic congressman Lee H. Hamilton, which issued its report last December.
The news report, namely "Iraq: A Time for Change," is the last of several reports published in the run-up to the Bush administration's assessment of Iraq this week.
It also calls on the United Nations to immediately begin " intense negotiations" among Iraq's squabbling politicians.
The new report says the United States should block Iranian attempts to control Iraqi politics and interdict its arms supplies to Iraqi militias, while also continuing to talk to Teheran directly and accommodating some Iranian interests in a neighboring state.
In contrast to a growing number of recent calls for various forms of breaking up Iraq along religious and ethnic lines, it strongly stands against partition of one of the geo-strategic powerhouses in the Middle East, but leaves the question of decentralizing power to the Iraqis.
Source: Xinhua
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