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Report Recommends Strategy Shift but No Timetable

By Ann Scott Tyson and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 6, 2006; 4:24 PM

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The Iraq Study Group report proposes a fundamental shift in the U.S. military mission in Iraq over the next year, substantially expanding the American effort to train fledgling Iraqi security forces while pulling U.S. troops back from combat and patrols.

The 96-page bipartisan report calls for urgently increasing the number of U.S. trainers embedded with Iraqi units, from the current 3,000 to as many as 20,000, while steadily reducing the number of American combat brigades through early 2008. Only those required for force protection would be retained.