WASHINGTON — Some bipartisan commissions try to move public opinion on contentious national issues. Others try to help Congress find compromise solutions to thorny problems.
The Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), had a different, and unusual, goal: persuading President Bush to change his mind about staying the course in Iraq.
"This is highly unusual," an advisor to the group said Wednesday after the panel released its report. "It's one thing for people inside the administration to tell the president what to do. But for an outside group to say, 'Here, son, let us give you a road map for your foreign policy,' that's remarkable."
To try to make it easier for Bush -- a man who prides himself on consistency and who consequently is criticized by opponents as stubborn -- the 10-member commission delivered its report in two parts and two different tones.
The first part was an assessment of the situation in Iraq as "grave and deteriorating" -- tough language that Baker and his colleagues deliberately chose in order to break through the shield of defiant confidence that Bush often has deployed concerning the war.
"At least, after this report, Bush will now be prevented from painting a rosy picture," said the advisor, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the commission.
The second part, by contrast, was a carefully calibrated list of relatively moderate recommendations for the future, many of which gave the president considerable leeway to choose specific policies.
For example, while the report recommended that the United States should seek to complete its military training mission in Iraq by the first quarter of 2008, it noted that it was echoing a date that U.S. military commanders already had projected. And it added that the timetable could be extended if there were "unexpected developments."
It was part of a concerted effort by the commission to make it as comfortable as possible for Bush to adopt some version of its ideas, members said.
"We're not here to vex or embarrass," former Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) said as the panel presented its findings to Bush at the White House on Wednesday morning.
Baker gave Bush a preview of the report's findings in a one-on-one lunch Tuesday, both to avoid blindsiding the president and to make a sales pitch for its recommendations.
