The major media widely reported the January 5, 2006 meeting President George W. Bush had with current and former secretaries of State and Defense at the White House to discuss the war in Iraq. In fact, President Bush and the other participants posed in the Oval Office for a group photo (above).

Note:  14 of the 17 policymakers in the picture currently belong to the Council on Foreign Relations. Two others (Rumsfeld [currently a member of the Trilateral Commission] and Laird) are formers members of the CFR. Of the 17, George W. Bush himself is the only one who has not belonged to the organization.

Starting on the left:  Former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former Secretary of State James Baker, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen.