Presenting the best chance for changing the White House's ill-fated war policy, the Iraq Study Group delivered its long-awaited report to President Bush this week, the results of eight months of work. The question is whether the president will continue to turn a tin ear toward sage advice.

As significant as the report's unflinching conclusions was the makeup of the study group itself. It was a blue-ribbon bipartisan effort, not the usual politicized fun and games that often come from Washington. The 10-member group included respected Americans who have retired from distinguished careers in public service -- for example, two Republican secretaries of state, a Democratic secretary of defense, a president's chief of staff, an attorney general and a Supreme Court justice.

The contents of their 96-page report were striking. It said that the United States' policy in Iraq was not working and that a drastic change of course was necessary after nearly 3,000 U.S. dead, 22,000 wounded and $350 billion spent on a war that has dragged on for three years and nine months, longer than the nation's involvement in World War II.

The document contained 79 recommendations, including approaches the Bush administration had previously spurned. One of them was that political negotiations to bring the war to an end must involve all of Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran, which are not friendly with the United States, as well as the more amicable Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait.

The report correctly placed resolution of the Iraq war in the context of a larger Middle East whose primary issue is the Arab-Israeli conflict. The group called for a renewed effort by the Bush administration toward the peace process, particularly through a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

It suggested a major change in the use of U.S. forces in Iraq, from a combat role to one of training Iraqi forces to take the place of American troops in maintaining order. Left unanswered was the question of whether Iraqi troops are indeed capable of being trained and performing such duty. The report failed to issue a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, but it did recommend that American combat brigades begin a gradual pull-out next year, to be concluded by early 2008. That would still leave up to 80,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

The study group proposed that a higher standard of accountability be applied to the Iraqis themselves, with the United States no longer making an open-ended commitment to its presence.

The next step, obviously, is for the White House to apply the recommendations. But President Bush, who met yesterday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, remained obstinate on the idea of pulling out U.S. soldiers. Still clinging to hope for a military victory, Mr. Bush said, "If we were to fail, that failed policy will come to hurt generations of Americans in the future." Mr. Bush said he will deliver a policy speech later, after looking at in-house studies by the military and his own National Security Council on how to proceed in Iraq.

That is natural. He does not want to appear to be stampeded into adopting even this sound and cogent report. Yet the president should not harbor any reservations due to the ISG co-chairman, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and earlier ISG member and new Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, having served in his father's administration. Mr. Bush should understand that, given the gravity of the Iraq situation, which is spelled out clearly in the report, Americans are in no mood to see Bush family pathology become a justification for his not taking rapid action on these recommendations.

It is well past time for a major U.S. policy shift to bring the Iraq war to a prompt end. American troops have given their all, and members of their families have suffered enough. The report of the Iraq Study Group provides a useful guide to help do that.