According to a report released by the Iraq Study Group on December 6, 2006: ” ‘The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating…’ This grim finding, the consensus view of political and military experts from across the spectrum, ultimately was the real contribution of the group. ‘It stopped all the happy talk about how well things were going and how the press was reporting it wrong,’ noted former defense secretary [William] Perry, one of its members.”
– Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble, Page 114