WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The independent, bipartisan panel studying U.S. policy in Iraq has unanimously agreed to a report that will call for a gradual pullback of American combat troops in Iraq but stops short of setting a firm timetable for withdrawal, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The commission is to release its conclusions on December 6 in a report that could help guide U.S. President George W. Bush's conduct of the war.

Citing people familiar with the panel's deliberations, the Times said the Iraq Study Group will recommend that Bush make it clear that he will start the troop withdrawal "relatively soon," indicating sometime next year.

That recommendation would be a compromise between calls from some Democrats for a timetable to withdraw U.S. forces and Bush's insistence that forces should remain until the mission to stabilize Iraq was completed.

Recommendations of the panel, which is co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker -- a close Bush family friend --and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, will be much harder for Bush to resist than if the group were divided, experts and study group advisers say.

Hamilton earlier told the liberal Center for American Progress: "We reached a consensus," but gave no details.

Bush is under growing political pressure to change policy in Iraq.

Bush has been adamantly opposed to a phased withdrawal, and reiterated his position again on Tuesday in a speech at the University of Latvia. "There is one thing I'm not going to do. I am not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said.