Baker Institute joins Iraq Study Group

Baker Institute joins Iraq Study Group

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy is one of several think tanks supporting the Iraq Study Group, a new bipartisan effort to make an independent assessment of the current and future situation in Iraq.

At the urging of Congress, the group was organized to have people outside the government take a fresh look at the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region and the consequences for U.S. interests.

Leading the Iraq Study Group (ISG) will be former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who is honorary chair of the Baker Institute, and former Congressman Lee H. Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Other members are also well-known Americans who have distinguished themselves in service to their nation: Robert Gates, Rudolph Giuliani, Vernon Jordan Jr., Leon Panetta, William Perry, Charles Robb and Alan Simpson.

The group’s deliberations will be supported by experts from the private sector, including military experts, leading public-policy and academic institutions, and humanitarian-assistance organizations. The group will consult with members of Congress and the Bush administration, as well as with individuals and officials in Iraq and the region.

The United States Institute of Peace, an independent, nonpartisan national institution established and funded by Congress, helped to organize the ISG with the Baker Institute and two other think tanks: The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for the Study of the Presidency.

“The Baker Institute will be working closely with the other prominent policy institutes engaged in this very important initiative on the part of the United States Congress,” said Edward Djerejian, director of the Baker Institute. “The Baker Institute’s energy fellow, Amy Myers Jaffe, will be a member of the ISG’s economic reconstruction working group. There can be no more pressing national security issue for our country than the future course of Iraq, and we will be lending all our expertise and organizational support to the work of the Iraq Study Group.”