Iraq yesterday rejected recommendations that America aim to pull its forces out of the country by early 2008, saying such a move would be an "insult" to the Iraqi people.
Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, firmly denounced proposals in the Iraq Study Group to scale down the war effort. His comments came as Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing US defence secretary, made his final visit to the country.
President Talabani also angrily accused the report's co-author, former secretary of state James Baker, of attempting to restore Sunni Muslim power with the report's suggestion that Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party loyalists be offered positions of power.
He said: "We smell in this report the attitude of James Baker. We see this as an insult to the people of Iraq."
The report, presented by Mr Baker and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, urged more centralised control of Iraq's oil wealth and embedding thousands more US advisers in Iraq's security forces to quicken their training. "It asks that they put foreign officers in every unit, which is a violation of Iraq's sovereignty... What will remain of our sovereignty?" the president said.
America did not have the right to demand concessions from the Iraqi authorities in return for its co-operation, he went on. "This is not within their authority or their powers, to set these things for the Iraqi people. Iraq is a sovereign state. The report has a mentality that we are a colony where they impose their conditions and neglect our independence."
In an interview in Bahrain, Iraq's foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari also lashed out at the ISG report, telling The Daily Telegraph it threatened the survival of the Baghdad government. "We do not like it, in fact we think it is very dangerous for us," he said. "There are some proposals in it which mean American is giving up."
But Mr Hamilton said yesterday that changing the primary US military mission in Iraq from combat to training Iraqi forces was the best option for stabilising the country. "If you put Americans in with Iraqi forces, one thing that is sure is you improve the quality of the Iraqi forces," he said on NBC's Meet the Press.
Mr Baker's 79 recommendations amount to a demand that American forsake the fight against insurgent terrorism in Iraq. It also proposes inviting Syrian and Iranian mediation with insurgent groups and militias.
Mr Zebari, like Mr Talabani, a Kurd and a US ally for a decade, said the report would result in Washington working against Shia Muslims and Kurds for the benefits of the Sunni community. "It's a very bad thing that they start picking up one community and trying to weaken the other two. It's very dangerous."
Mr Zebari, the only foreign minister of Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, disclosed that the governing coalition is close to announcing a reshuffle of key ministers.
Mr Rumsfeld, who arrived in Iraq at the weekend for a farewell visit, spoke to Marines at an air base in the western province of Anbar at the weekend. He said: "The enemy must be defeated. We can certainly walk away from this enemy, but they will not walk away from us. This conflict is new and unfamiliar and complex, it is understandable that there will be differences about the direction our country should take."
A Newsweek poll shows that 65 per cent of Americans believe that the US should threaten to withdraw economic and military aide to Iraq unless the Iraqi government meets "benchmarks" for improving security in Iraq.
A majority of Americans want the US to set a firm date for withdrawing troops from Iraq and 48 per cent want US troops home within the next 12 months.
Just 21 per cent of respondents said they believe the US is making progress in Iraq.
