Baker agrees reluctantly to testify on Iraq (before Congress)

James A. Baker III, the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, has ended weeks of resistance and today will testify before Congress on the war, avoiding a split with his fellow co-chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.).

Sources familiar with the efforts to persuade Baker to testify said he did not want to appear to be lobbying against President Bush at the height of his push for 21,500 additional troops in Iraq.
Baker will answer senators’ questions today during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which includes three Democratic presidential hopefuls and Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), the chamber’s most forceful Republican critic of the war, who also is mulling a White House bid.

Opponents of Bush’s plan to send more troops are likely to ask Baker about the study group’s conclusion that “(s)ustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation.”

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