Iraq Study Group Report Includes $25 Million Reward for Exit Strategy

Washington, D.C., December 11, 2006 -- After nine months of intensive deliberations, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group has finally released its long-awaited Iraq Study Group Report in which the prestigious think tank concludes: "The Iraq Study Group will offer $25 million to anyone who can come up with a viable solution to the Iraq quagmire because, frankly, we're stumped".

ISG co-chairs James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton

President George W. Bush is said to be "real happy" about the findings.

"It was my choice to go into Iraq three and a half years ago, and it's my job to start thinking about coming up with a plan for eventually getting us out of there," President Bush said at a White House Rose Garden press availability timed to coincide with the report's release. "And that's what Jimmy [James A. Baker III] and the Iraq Study Group have been doing."

The Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan think tank co-chaired by James A. Baker III (R) and Lee H. Hamilton (D), was created on March 15, 2006 at the behest of a bipartisan group of members of Congress. Its mandate is to provide "a positive, forward-looking assessment of the hopelessly bungled Iraq imbroglio, including policy suggestions, hints, tips, and decorating advice."

The Iraq Study Group Report was finally delivered to President Bush and the US Congress, as well as released to the public, this morning. The two-page report included several innovative recommendations arranged in the popular bullet-point format for easy reading, and was adorned by a decorative logo custom-designed for the group.

"We're very proud of our report," James A. Baker III said, "in particular our cool logo. Do you see how it's part camel, part eagle, depending on where you focus your eyes? That required real artistry to create. Reminds me of those Magic Eye things I can never get to work right. Must be my myopia."

According to Mr. Baker III, the Iraq Study Group Report "really only took about a day to write. The other nine months – the 'gestation period' of the report, if you will – were for typing, logo design, and fine-tuning the recommendations until the midterms were safely over."

During that time, the Iraq Study Group reportedly met at 7:00 PM every second Thursday in the cafeteria of the Barkley Pubbletop Memorial Library (South Campus), for two hours of intensive group study of Iraq before proceeding to festivities at the regular Alpha Kappa Alpha kegger.

"Midterms are serious business, but studying Iraq for two hours usually made us thirsty as hell – it's mostly desert – and you can't beat five dollar pitchers," former attorney general Edwin Meese III (no relation to James A. Baker III) said.

The key findings of the Iraq Study Group as presented in the Report are:

1. Iraq is a complete disaster
2. We [the Iraq Study Group] don't have a freaking clue how to fix it
2a. We [the Iraq Study Group] pretty much agree it isn't fixable at this point
3. A little help, anyone?

As a corollary to Finding #3, the ISG announced a nationwide call for "suggestions for resolving the Iraq mess", with a $25 million reward offered for "information leading to the stabilization of Iraq and the establishment of a peaceful, secular, America-friendly representative democracy with less daily bombings."

American citizens wishing to participate in the "freedom brainstorm", as the initiative is referred to in the report, are asked to "write the suggestion down in ink on a 3x5 index card and mail it to Iraq Study Group, c/o United States Institute of Peace, 1200 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Please write legibly if you want your suggestion to be considered."

"Don't forget to put your own name, address and telephone number on the back of the card," former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, an ISG member, said, "so we can contact you if your suggestion wins the $25 mil."

The ISG has also called for inventors in the United States and abroad to turn their able minds to the development of a working time machine that could conceivably be used to "revert" President George W. Bush's fatal decision to invade Iraq, or at least allow Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, L. Paul Bremer and others to go back in time and reverse some of the more catastrophically half-witted decisions that led to the current disaster. $100 million is being offered to the creator of such a machine.

"If a time machine is invented in time, then we won't need the other suggestions and the $25 million won't be paid out," Mr. Eagleburger said.

President Bush praised the Iraq Study Group's report, calling it "a breath of fresh wind beneath the sails of a ship that's already been coasting like the breeze," and stated his intention to take the ISG's recommendations into account as he continues to stay the course on Iraq policy.

"Heck, I might even write down a few suggestions of my own," President Bush said. "I could sure use that $25 million."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor