Senators push for public hearing on Iraq report
Leaders of Senate defense panel invite study group heads to testify Thursday, a day after the group releases its findings.
The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee are attempting to squeeze in a public hearing on the Iraq Study Group's much-anticipated findings before the 109th Congress adjourns, likely later this week.
In a Monday letter to the co-chairmen of the bipartisan group, Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., and ranking member Carl Levin, D-Mich., urged the group's heads to appear before the committee in public session Thursday morning, one day after the release of their report.
"The report from the Iraq Study Group will be an important contribution to the ongoing dialogue on possible changes to United States strategy in Iraq," Warner and Levin wrote. "The Senate Committee on Armed Services invites you and members of your group to testify about (1) your findings; (2) the process the Iraq Study Group drew upon to study the current and prospective situation in Iraq; and (3) the approaches you applied to achieve bipartisan consensus."
The request, the senators wrote, reiterates an invitation offered in October. A spokesman for the study group said its co-chairmen will consider the request, but nothing had been decided by presstime.
The Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., was created earlier this year at the urging of Congress to evaluate strategy and policy options in Iraq. News reports have indicated it supports a gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq but does not specify a timetable.
House and Senate leaders expect to hold a bipartisan closed-door meeting early Wednesday, along with the chairmen and ranking members of several committees with jurisdiction over Iraq, congressional aides said. Senate leaders plan a similar, separate closed-door briefing that day.
Should the study group grant the Senate panel's request, the Thursday hearing would likely conclude Warner's term as chairman and bookend a hectic week for the committee, which also is holding a confirmation hearing for former CIA Director Robert Gates, President Bush's nominee for Defense secretary.