Let me tell you what I mean by `institutions'. The institutions first of all are political types from Bush I, and some of their counter-parts from from Clinton I and II . The Carter people do not seem to be represented too much, except types like Zbig Brzezinski --but the former President's book which is getting headlines and making a fuss, is quite timely--, and nor do the religious right people, neither are the neo-cons, but Jeff Huber is the expert on them, and I may not recognize some other names, and the Zionist Lobby types don't seem to be there either. Anyone who wants to do a little exercise could compare where the most vociferous opposition is coming from to those who are not represented in the report.

Then there are some think tanks, the  Georgetown CSIS, which is one of the premier foreign service ones, home of Anthony Cortesman, critic of the way the war has gone for a while now, and others, and the Institute for the Study of the Presidency, and probably one or two others.

There are retired military people, including names of people who have signed statements attacking Bush's policies, like Zinni, the former Cent-Com chief. Intelligence community people. Diplomatic people. Citbank and other reps from the corporate world. Senate and Congressional leaderships. I didn't see Lieberman.

Discussions have been held, and contacts established with European politicians and governments, and with all all the neighboring countries in the area. I think the world may be about to get another lesson in how US "democracy" actually works. No indication of Russian presence, or China. I don't think I saw Japan either.

This is all capability and memory going back to the time of Nixon. It is the people who have been pushed out by the lunatics who know how to make everything work right. The fact that such a group has been organized around this effort, I think, is a major indicator of really how bad everything has gotten, and how near the U.S. international position has been brought to collapse.

I should think it took so long to put together the report because there has been a lot of stuff going on in the background. The prospective report, with its different sections reflects both negotiations with international parties to define a possible, workable pathway hopefully to at least appear to, and maybe actually cool things down a bit, by getting other countries in to a process with a political role, and involvement, whether Bush wants them to or not.

There are serious changes recommended to the `Iraqi' policy These include an amnesty law for insurgents, US opposition or not. The end of De-Ba'athification, with  re-integration of Ba'athists.  Settlement of the oil money question on the basis of national per capita considerations, not religious and ethnic ones, without regard to distinguishing new production or anything else. The Iraqi govt supported this approach on Saturday. A new round on the Iraqi debt aimed at Saudi Arabia and Kuweit who have not forgiven what they are owed. Like they have said, in congressional testimony and press conference, it may be too late, but if it isn't these are the kind of things  that would need to be done, or the Iraqis would need to do, and they seem to have started doing them.

On the other side, they want the Iraqi central bank to increase interest rates  to 20% by the end of the year,  and to appreciate the currency, they want price increases on domestic refined petroleum products, and moves toward world prices for imports. That though may have to do with the Kuwietis and Saudis and their holdings of Iraqi debt.

They want rights protected for women, and for all religious minorities, which reverses some of the legacy of Bremer, at least in words.

There are incentives to get all the neighbors drawn into a diplomatic process, starting with getting the Turks involved in the north. They want to pull together an Iraq Support operation, which will involve the countries in the area and the Europeans, and may be others.

I've checked some Israeli press over the last couple of days. Ohlmert doesn't like it one bit, and is saying he knows Bush will never do any of it, and that Israel will not give back the Golan Heights, nor negotiate UN242 etc. The Kurds don't like it. They don't want to lose Kirkuk and its oil, which they don't have yet, and don't want the Turks involved. Talabani doesn't like it. There are respectable websites out there, like  www.robertdreyfuss.com reporting on negotiations between sections of the Sunnis and Shi'as to form a new government. Dreyfuss was, if I remember rightly, the one who broke the story about this commission a few months ago.

The report does identify what others should be doing. Gates' job is to rebuild relations between the civilians and the military. The intelligence community is supposed to start putting out stuff about what is really going on, and organize the set up to do that, including beefing up in Iraq. They document that because of the way reports are constructed, violence is probably ten times what anyone thinks, on a daily basis.

They show, if Jeff Huber's ratio of  fighters to  logistics tail prevails in the Rumsfield "New Model Army" at 1:10, that all our fighters have been deployed to Baghdad, where they say we now have 15,000 and the situation has gotten worse.

Meanwhile the U.S. general in charge in Afghanistan has been calling for more troops since September. His calls have been unanswered, because there are not so many left for him to have.

I should think they have now a profile from the inside of how Cheney's operation worked, and believe it would be interesting to see the Appropriations committee, Porter Goss ouster, Scooter Libby indictment, Woodward book preparation in light of what is now coming to the surface. But that would be silly, and I wouldn't want to look like a silly conspiracy theorist.

People I have heard speak, vets from Iraqi Vets Against the War, talk of 600,000-900,000 Iraqis dead since the invasion (out of a population of 26-27 million). In this report 4 provinces around Baghdad, where 40% of the people live, see most of the fighting. The Shi'ite south, and Kurdish north are not part of it. 40% of the population is about about 11 million people. Most of the deaths will therefore be from those four provinces. Most of the 2 million people who have been displaced, and become refugees, internally or internationally, according to the ISG report will be from those same provinces, most of the million or so who have gone to Jordan etc, will be from there. There are possibly nearly 3 million dead or displaced out of a population of 11 million in those 4 provinces. Hmm.

This Baker report shows more refugees on a permanent basis than I was writing about when Bush sent his Israeli proxy against Lebanon over the summer.

At some point someone is going to want to compare this death toll with other comparables. There are a number which come to mind. Not least the number Saddam killed. Did so many have to die to replace that one? Are they so much better off for all the help they got?  Rumsfield is facing `war crimes' problems in Germany, and there are sure to be others who will. The numbers in the Baker report, and others like them, will probably be used by people working on those kind of dossiers.

Otherwise, the budget comes in for a lot of scrutiny. Remember the Iraqi police who are standing up while we are standing down? The Republican congress never provided any money for them. Bush must know about that, and must not have asked, because the Congress  pretty much gave him what he asked for, when he asked, for the war.

The off budget financing of the war is under scrutiny. They want the Inspector-General positions, where financial malfeasance is investigated reopened and funded by reversing what the Republicans did. No doubt it will be readily shown as soon as anyone starts to lokk that much of that $400 billion did not go where people thought it was going. They have questions about the so-called reconstruction money, the contractors' money, and all that good stuff. But Bechtel was involved in putting the report together.

The financial side of things, peculation, will for sure be investigated thoroughly beginning early next year

More by way of background though, I'm old enough, I think, to remember how certain functions associated with the U.S, government got passed over to outfits in Europe in 1973 and 1974. The Bundesbank became much more important in international monetary policy. Britain and Germany, in particular, on international monetary policy, and detente with the Russians, (Willy Brandt and then the Brandt Commission report on Third World Development  etc.).

The Trilateral Cssn, remember them? was formed for that reason, and it all made 'management' much easier while the Nixon problem was being dealt with. Though there had been the break-in, and Nixon did win massively in 1972, impeachment was not really on the cards as long as Nixon kept on stone-walling. If I remember right, it was the same kind of discussion as today in some ways. Events were determining, not what people said or thought, most people didn't really think he would be impeached, it had never happened. Baker was involved with stuff back then.

I think this report has been put together as the public side of organizing something similar. Britain, and others in Europe will step up to get what they can get off the ground, and move with it, with countries in the area like Turkey and the Saudis and Eygpt. Blair will adapt, if he can (seems to be a pretty flexible fellow) or meet his "Cromwell". Maybe the world has gone so far down hill those old ways will no longer work, and this will all turn out to be a pipedream from the 'over-the-hill' gang. Bush will continue to pretend he's in control as long as he can.

The institutions will start leaking again, properly. Congress will get in on the act. And the parade will start on its way. This is just the view of an old curmudgeon sitting here in Northern Virginia, taking a break from his college homework. Of course, as they say, none of it may work at all. I think we may all be in for a whole lot more trouble than many of us would like to think about if that turns out to be the case.