Baker-Hamilton Report

   Named for former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and former U.S. Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton and also known as the Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report. Issued in December 2006 during the height of the horrific Iraqi civil war, some of the Baker-Hamilton Report's 79 recommendations on how the United States should proceed were hostile to the interests of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). These hostile recommendations concerned the weakening of federalism, postponing the implementation of Article 140 on Kirkuk, changing the Iraqi constitution, and the controlling of oil resources. The intent of the report was to strengthen the central Iraqi government, but the Kurds felt that if implemented the result would be similar to the situation in 1975 when the Algiers Agreement (Accord) between Iran and Iraq caused Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq to collapse. Although U.S. president George W. Bush decided not to accept the Baker-Hamilton Report, the entire episode illustrated once again to the Iraqi Kurds how fragile their situation remained.