Baker, promoting a new volume of his memoirs in a recent flurry of television interviews, including an appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," offered his views on issues under consideration by the panel. He also appeared on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," PBS' "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and PBS' "The Charlie Rose Show."
After the publicity blitz drew quiet grumbles from other panel participants, Baker canceled a scheduled breakfast with newspaper reporters and declined a request from The Times for an interview.
In his interviews, Baker said he did not support calls for an early withdrawal of U.S. troops. "I think that if we picked up and left right now that you would see the biggest civil war you've ever seen," he said.
He also said he did not agree with proposals to divide Iraq into three states for Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds. "Most all the experts we've talked with think that might ... trigger a civil war."
And instead of trying to bring democracy to all nations in the Middle East, he said, the U.S. should define success as achieving "representative government, not necessarily democracy."
Another participant, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the panel was considering whether the United States should warn the Iraqi government to get its "act together or else," a threat to withdraw troops unless the government's performance improved.
An administration official was skeptical that the panel would uncover new policy options, but said the White House would welcome ideas.
"If an independent group like the Baker panel can come up with some good ideas, we're all for it," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because his comment had not been approved.
Participants in the Iraq Study Group said an additional goal was to identify options that Republicans and Democrats could endorse.
The commission is scheduled to meet again in mid-November. It hopes to deliver a report to Bush, Congress and the public by early 2007.
Some members of Congress, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), asked Baker to provide a report after next month's congressional elections, but Baker reportedly concluded that he would need more time to build a bipartisan consensus on significant recommendations.
Baker and Hamilton noted that the panel had consulted more than 150 experts, including representatives of Iran and Syria, and that its members spent four days in Iraq this year.
Administration officials also have briefed the panel.
"You can't come out of those briefings and not have a sense that things are in real bad shape," one participant said. "The bottom line is, it's not working. They know that. And they know that time is not on their side."
doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com
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Times staff writers Paul Richter and Peter Spiegel contributed to this report.
