Lee H. Hamilton, a Compromiser Who Operates Above the Partisan Fray

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 — The choice before the Sept. 11 commission in late 2003 was whether to subpoena the Pentagon to turn over classified documents, and four of the panel’s five Democrats were eager to do so.

The dissenter was the commission’s vice chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, a retired Democratic House member from Indiana, who had come to be trusted by the Bush administration as an honest broker. He told the other Democrats that he wanted to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, an old friend from Congress, time to cooperate.

Mr. Hamilton’s disdain for partisan battle, often to the annoyance of fellow Democrats, and his willingness to work toward compromise on national security policy, are likely to be on display again on Wednesday with the release of the findings of the Iraq Study Group, the independent panel established by Congress to rethink American policy in Iraq.

Panel members say the co-chairmen, Mr. Hamilton and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Republican, have formed a close partnership that has allowed the group’s five Democrats and five Republicans to transcend what might have been bitter partisan differences over the conduct of the war. The group’s report is unanimous.

Read more on Lee Hamilton and the Iraq Study Group at the New York Times Online.