From WBUR: The Great Debate Heats Up
Iraq Study Group casts new light on territory covered in BU’s 22nd Great Debate
The debate about the best course of action for American forces in Iraq was ratcheted up this week with the release a report from a bipartisan committee known as the Iraq Study Group. The study group, whose report offers 79 recommendations and pushes for the withdrawal of most U.S. combat troops by 2008, considered many of the same issues that were discussed several weeks ago at Boston University’s 22nd Great Debate, sponsored by the College of Communication department of journalism.
That discussion, titled Should the United States "Stay the Course" for Victory in Iraq, presented arguments in the affirmative by Adib Farha, senior policy advisor to the American Lebanese Coalition and vice president of Cardiovascular Hospitals of America, and Air Force Lt. General Thomas McInerney, Ret., founder of the consulting firm Government Reform through Technology and currently the military affairs analyst for Fox News. Arguing in the negative were Peter W. Galbraith, political consultant and former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, and Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.
The 22nd Great Debate can be heard in its entirety on Boston University World of Ideas on WBUR, BU’s National Public Radio station. To hear more about the Iraq Study Group report, listen to WBUR’s On Point from December 6 with moderator Tom Ashbrook, Barbara Bodine, former coordinator for post-conflict reconstruction in Baghdad, and Michael Duffy, assistant managing editor of Time magazine.