Iraq panel to recommend US pull back from combat

WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (Reuters) The Iraq Study Group will recommend that the US military shift from a combat role to a support role in Iraq roughly over the next year, a source familiar with the panel's deliberations said.

The recommendation by the independent panel would be to pull US fighting forces back to bases inside Iraq, and in the region, as the US military sought to withdraw from the fighting, the source said yesterday.

He said the group would also recommend a regional conference that could lead to direct U.S. talks with Iran and Syria, which Washington accuses of fomenting violence in Iraq.

''The main thing is (the group is) calling for a transition from a combat role to a support role,'' said the source, who asked not to be identified because the recommendations won't be released until Wednesday. ''It's basically a redeployment.'' Many in Washington have held out hope the bipartisan group's would provide a way for the United States to extricate itself from an increasingly deadly and unpopular war or, at least, a set of recommendations on how to move forward that could attract support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Their conclusions are likely to carry significant political weight even if US President George W. Bush chooses to ignore them, especially after his fellow Republicans lost control of the US Congress in November 7 elections largely because of deep public discontent with the Iraq war.

The New York Times reported that there was no hard timetable for the proposed US pullback, but the source said: ''There is a kind of indication in the report as to when that ought to be completed ... sometime within the next year.'' The newspaper said the pullback of the 15 US combat brigades in Iraq could still leave more than 70,000 American trainers, logistics experts and members of a rapid reaction force in the country.

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