The Iraq Study Group's (ISG) recommendation to increase the number of U.S. military advisers for the Iraq army while decreasing combat units would require significant air support, one of the panel's co-chairmen said Dec. 7.

"Air support is clearly needed in large quantities," Democrat Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The ISG report, released Dec. 6, recommends increasing the number of U.S. forces serving as advisers to Iraqi troops to as many as 20,000, from the current level of about 3,000 to 4,000. The report also recommends embedding those advisers in Iraqi units all the way down to the company level. The aim is to develop "a real combat capability" in Iraqi army units. The U.S. military should assist deployed Iraqi brigades with intelligence, transportation and logistical support, as well as providing some key equipment, the study group said. The report also said most combat brigades could be withdrawn from Iraq by the first quarter of 2008, except for those needed for force protection.

The other co-chairman, Republican James Baker, a former Secretary of State, said those combat troops could include Special Operations Forces and rapid reaction forces.

But Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) noted that "nothing is really said about air support" in the report, adding: "as we're drawing down, we're going to lose some of our capability to take care of our F-16s, our A-10s and other equipment that's going to provide ground support." Hamilton acknowledged that air support may be needed in "even larger quantities if we go to this embedded idea, and so that equipment has to be available and the people have to be trained for that."

The most controversial of the bipartisan study group's 79 recommendations appeared to be a call for the U.S. to reach out to Iran and Syria as part of a new diplomatic offensive to address key regional issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the U.S. should try to engage them constructively," the 10-member, blue ribbon panel said.

Several senators, like Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), have objected to that recommendation, worried that Iran would exact too high a price for its cooperation: an end to U.S. and United Nations' pressure over its nuclear program.

But Baker said the report "specifically excludes any linkage to the nuclear proliferation issue. We say that should not be taken up in any discussion we might have with Iran."