it and see if some of the analysis doesn't track with the current analysis going on in the pentagon but it looks to me like the numbers aren't far apart in your recommendation and this recommendation that we did the gentleman  you've you've already served this country effectively and we appreciate you we appreciate your commitment and dr gates thanks for taking on this extraordinarily difficult challenge now last night the president outlined a new strategy for iraq and he told us that in this plan as a part of the plan he is going to be calling up reinforcements to carry out the plan let me just state that i intend to support him strongly for thousand of those reinforcements are going to be going to unbar province i've talked to the marine leadership they have requested those of those persons that increase in marine strength  the seventeen thousand five hundred are going to be utilized in other provinces primarily baghdad and primarily to carry out what i refer to as the baghdad plan and i think the baghdad plan offers a bolder use of iraqi military forces and an innovative use of american forces and i want to go especially to the point that that i understand that the plan involves a commitment by the iraqi government to  deploy nine additional iraqi battalions into the heart of battle within that city those battalions coming from the north in the south of iraq coming from some of the peaceful areas that we've noted are the are the  provinces in which twenty seven iraqi battalions have been stationed and that those nine battalions will be joining in operation baghdad i recommend going further and working with the iraqi government to ensure that all iraqi battalions participate at some point and what i would call combat tours of these hot spot or contentious areas as our witnesses know i strongly believe that such redeployment will battle hardened iraqi units it will also reinforce a billion control of the military that is when that battalion commander gets gets a call from the ministry of defense to move out and he doesn't saddle up and move out that he is then replaced with a commander who will move out it will also help develop the military chain of command and minimize what we're seeing now in localized militaries that have what i would call a community bias in their area of operations today i wrote a letter to the president  recognizing the positive aspects of this new strategy and in particular what i called the baghdad three to one plan and please tell me during your testimony if it's other than as i understand it through the briefings that we've had the three to one plan uses a combination of three iraqi battalions and one u s battalion in a backup and mentoring role in each of nine security sectors in that city i recommended to the president that if that is in fact is the case and it works in baghdad that we use this plan as a blueprint for handing off security responsibilities throughout iraq as i told the president this plan leverage is the iraqi military's unique ability to operate in the urban environment that doesn't require high tech it is obviously important that they have the cultural understanding of the language capability to do that which americans don't have and it allows the americans to support the operations by moving to what i would call our leverage special operations intelligence firepower precision strike and logistics capabilities the iraqis that are in baghdad will gain combat experience they'll improve their military capabilities they'll increase operational competence through these combined u s iraqi operations and i would see if this works in baghdad mr secretary i would see the opportunity to employ it throughout the country but particularly in these contentious areas where you have three iraqi maneuver battalions with one american backup italian and after the iraqi forces hit their stride and are operating efficiently the american battalion can and and talk to the combatant commanders in theater and see if we can't utilize it throughout the country understanding of course that we are we have used this partnership this combined arms and combined forces in a number of operations so let me just offer that to you and we'll we'll give you some backup data on this on this recommendation let me just conclude by saying this i think that this  this operation in iraq is is following the basic blueprint that we've followed in this country for sixty years in bringing freedom to other nations whether you're talking about japan or the philippines or salvador or dozens of other nations that i stand up a free government number two you stand up a military capable of protecting that free government and number three the americans leave and right now we're involved in the most difficult challenge which is standing up that military which is capable of protecting the government the president has a plan he's vetted it with his military leadership he has requested reinforcements to anbar and to baghdad to make this plan work and i think it's incumbent upon us in light of the fact that we are engaged in combat right now that reinforcements have been requested that they are needed and this twenty one thousand five hundred person increase takes us essentially to the same level that we were last year at this time i recommend strongly to my colleagues that we support the military leadership we support the commander in chief and mr chairman that we support the call for reinforcement and thank you m saying my friend from san diego did i get it right i got it right thank you so much secretary gates the floor is yours mike there you go thank you mr chairman congressman hunter members of the committee let me say at the outset that it is a pleasure to appear before this committee for the first time as secretary of defense and i might add on the anniversary of the conclusion of my third week in the job the house armed services committee has long been a steadfast friend an ally of our men and women in uniform and a source of support and meeting our nation's defense goals i thank you for that and i look forward to working with you i may begin by advising you of two announcements that i made this morning first the president announced last night that he would strengthen our military for the long war against terrorism by authorizing an increase in the overall strength of the army and the marine corps i am recommending to ham and total increase in the two services of ninety two thousand soldiers and marines over the next five years sixty five thousand soldiers and twenty seven thousand marines the emphasis will be on increasing combat capability this increase will be accomplished in two ways first we will propose to make permanent the temporary increase of thirty thousand for the army and five thousand for the marine corps then we propose to build up from that basis over a five year period and annual and commence of seven thousand troops per year for the army for a total of as mr hunter said five hundred forty seven thousand and five thousand a year for five years for the marine corps until they reach two hundred two thousand i am aware that this committee has been leading the national debate over the proper size of the military and accordingly i hope that you will join us and supporting this important initiative it will take some time for these new troops to become available for deployment but it is important that our men and women in uniform know that additional manpower and resources are on the way second for several months the department has been assessing whether we have the right policies to govern how we manage and deploy members of the reserves the national guard and our active component units based on this assessment and the recommendations of our military leadership by i'm prepared to make the following changes to the department of defense policy first mobilization of ground force ground reserve forces will be managed on a unit basis instead of an individual basis this change will allow us to achieve greater unit cohesion and predictability in how reserve units train and deploy second from this point forward members of the reserves will be in voluntarily mobilized for a maximum of one year at any one time in contrast to the current practice of sixteen to twenty four months third the planning objective for the guard and reserve units will remain one year of being mobilized followed by five years demobilized however today's global demands to be renewed will require a number of selected guard and reserve units to be re mobilized sooner than this standard our intention is that such exceptions will be temporary the goal for the active force rotation cycle remains one year deployed for every two years a home station today however most active units are receiving one year at home before deploying again mobilizing select guard and reserve units before their five year period is complete will allow us to move closer to relieving the stress on the total force fourth i'm directing the establishment of a new program to compensate individuals in both the active and reserve components who are required to mobilize or deploy early or to expand beyond the established rotation policy goals with and finally i'm directing that all commands and units review how they administer the hard work hardship waiver program to ensure that they are properly taking into account exceptional circumstances facing our military families of deployed service members it is important to note that these pollard policy changes have been under discussion for some time within the department of defense and would be needed regardless of the president's announcement on iraq last nine finally i'm pleased to report that all of the active branches of the united states military exceeded their recruiting goals for the month of december with particularly strong showings by the army and the marine corps our nation is truly blessed that so many talented and patriotic young people have stepped forward to defend our nation and that so many servicemen and women have chosen to continue to serve a few words on the new iraq strategy last night the president described a new way forward in iraq a new approach to overcome the steep challenges facing us in that country and in that part of the world i know many of you have concerns about the new strategy in iraq and in particular are skeptical of the iraqi government's will and ability to act decisively against sectarian violence and are skeptical as well about a commitment of additional american troops the president and his national security team have had the same concerns as we have debated and examined our options in iraq going forward and yet our commanders on the ground and the president's intended nominee as the new commander in baghdad believe this is a sound plan in no small part because general casey and other senior military officers have worked closely with the iraqi government in developing it further the president add and general casey have had prolonged and extremely candid conversations not just with prime minister maliki but with other senior leaders of the iraqi government and i've come away persuaded that they have the will to act against all instigators of violence in baghdad and this is i think the pivot point in iraq as the iraqi government insists on assuming the mantle of leadership in the effort to regain control of its own capital i want you to know that the timetable for the introduction of additional u s forces will provide ample opportunity early on and before many of the additional u s troops arrive in iraq to evaluate the progress of this endeavor and whether the iraqis are fulfilling their commitments to us with apologies for the miscommunication mr chairman at the end of my remarks general pace will summarize the military aspects of the of the plan but let me make just two points first this strategy entails a strengthening across all aspects of the war military and nonmilitary including the economic governance and political areas overcoming the challenges in iraq cannot be achieved simply by military means no matter how large or sustained without progress by the iraqis in addressing the underlying issues dividing the country second we must keep in mind the consequences of an american failure in iraq multiple administrations of both political parties have concluded that what happens in southwest asia the gulf region and the middle east is a vital interests of security and prosperity of the american people as i said in my confirmation hearing developments in iraq over the next year or two will shape the future of the middle east and impact global geopolitics for a long time to come whatever one's views of the original decision to go to war and the decisions that have brought us to this point there is seems to be broad agreement that failure in iraq would be a calamity for our nation lasting historical consequences the violence in iraq if unchecked could spread outside its borders and draw other states into a regional conflagration in addition one would see an emboldened strengthened iran a safe haven and base of operations for jihad us networks in the heart of the middle east a humiliating defeat in the overall campaign against violent extremism worldwide and an undermining of the credibility of the united states the actors in this region both friends and adversaries are watching closely what we do in iraq and will draw conclusions about our resolve in the reliability of our commitments and should we withdraw prematurely we could well leave chaos in the of gratian of iraq behind us further governments in the region already are asking themselves if the americans withdraw in defeat from iraq just how much farther and form where else might we withdraw i would not have taken this position if i did not believe that the outcome in iraq will have a profound and long lived impact on our national interest and the stakes have certainly been made by the united states in iraq just like  virtually every war in human history that is the nature of war but however we got to this moment the stakes now are incalculable your senior professional military officers in iraq and in washington believe efficacy of the strategy outlined by the president last night they believe it is a sound plan that can work if the iraqi government follows through on its commitments and if the nonmilitary aspects of the strategy are implemented and sustain our senior military officers have worked closely with the iraqis to develop this plan the impetus to add u s forces came initially from our commanders there it would be a sublime yet historic irony if those who believe the views of the military professionals were neglected at the onset of the war we're now to dismiss the views of the military as irrelevant or wrong mr chairman that conclude committee thank you for this opportunity to be with you i would like to echo the secretary's thanks to all of you for your very strong consistent bipartisan support of all of us in the military thanks to to you many of you who have traveled overseas to see your troops and many of you have gone to see our troops in the hospitals your attention to that your concern makes a difference to all of us in uniform and we thank you for that i'd also like to thank the incredible young men and women who serve in our armed forces it's my honor to sit before you as their representative as they continue to amaze us all with the way that they strap on the duties of dave sworn to uphold in the way that they do it and especially our family their families every decision to deploy forces impacts families and this one will as well you know our our military families serve this country as well as anyone who's ever worn the uniform and i'd like to thank them publicly the military planners spend developed has been developed jointly by general casey and his u s commanders and his counterpart in the iraq army and his commanders and have worked through in great detail in support of prime minister maliki's initiative in the number one most important difference between this plan and other plans is the political environment in which it will be executed but to the plan itself calls for the appointment of in iraq the commander of all of baghdad that has been done the assignment of two iraqi division commanders one for east of the river and one for west the selection of those commanders was done jointly by the iraqi group the ground forces commander and by general casey to have baghdad divided into nine districts each of those districts will have a iraqi brigade in it those brigades and their leaders were also jointly selected by the iraqi and american leadership in support of each of battalion and in each sector there will be three or four police stations that will serve as the hub of operations from which the forces that are located there will be a mixture of iraqi army iraqi national police iraqi local police and u s and coalition forces from which they will do their daily patrolling the door to to to come before from those stations will be conducted the raids that might may be necessary and from those stations will be the quick reaction forces should some of the iraqi forces  get into trouble in analyzing what we call troop to task meaning what do you need to do and how many folks you need to do it in analyzing that general casey and his iraqi counterparts have determined that there are more forces needed more iraqi forces for sure in a prime minister and his government have promised that they will allocate three more iraqi brigades into baghdad the first of those is already moving in the next two are scheduled within the month that the commander will have freedom of operations do to impose the rule of law on all that will be no political interference with those troops on the ground who are carrying out the mission that they've  that the rule of law in the rules of engagement will apply to all criminals regardless of which community they come from that mixed communities and sunni communities and shia communities will all be to do this we're going to need additional u s forces general casey and general abizaid have asked for those additional forces as have the commanders below them the additional forces will do what i've mentioned which is to be able to have a battalion of our forces available with each iraqi brigade but they will also strengthen the size of the invade teams that we have each iraqi brigade battali province the marine commander out there has asked for and general casey and general abizaid have asked for an increase of about four thousand troops out there the sunni sheiks in that region have led the way in fighting al qaeda they have recruited their own sons in the thousands to join their local police forces in fact about one thousand sunni youngsters right now from a lot of our are in jordan at the police academy and these additional u s forces that are now on bar well no shakes and the iraqi armed forces that are out there to provide continuing security to take advantage of this one of opportunity that's been presented by the leaders out there so collectively the military commanders both u s and iraqi have asked for this increase and those of us in advisory positions agree with their request will save any further comment about how i got to my own conviction about this to to the answer that you and i faced but i do want to state for the record that i am of conviction that this military plan properly part of new political emphasis and new economic plus up can provide the success we're looking for thank you  general thank you very much we all know the conflict there's not going to be one on the battlefield we know it's going to be a matter of will among the political leaders of iraq as well as the iraqi people and you spoke both of you spoke about combet moments by the iraqi government and prime minister maliki mr secretary are there any additional code amendments made by the iraqi prime minister or the iraqi government other than the ones general pace just outlined for us mr chairman i think that those are the principal ones clearly the ones that have been most important to our forces are that  the iraqi military will be in the lead and in these operations another is that no parts of the city will be mean that that there will be no more calls from government offices to iraqi or u commitment that they made we all know the importance of governments as well as individuals living up to commitments mr secretary what the iraqi government does not live up to those commitments what is the punishment or the outcome of such violation of their commitments and i think the this committee should know should that come to pass first of all i think it's important to note that  the commitment is not just a commitment that has been made by prime minister maliki the president the ambassador and others have talked to president  sunni representatives in the government to other shia representatives such as mr hakim and made it quite clear that this is not just a burden on the prime minister but on the entire iraqi government as i indicated in my testimony i think that we will see fairly early whether the iraqi government is prepared to complete its carry out its commitments and i know there was another one that i should have mentioned and that is that they have committed to spend up to ten billion dollars of their own money on economic development as part of this effort because we will know that fairly early on before very many american additional troops have  been sent to iraq we will be in a position obviously to go back to them and point out their failure to live up to their commitments if we see that in a tactical situation in one place or another or if we hear that there's been a call from a government office i think the i think the thing to remember about this is it's going to unfold over time and so you're likely to see perhaps a small violation of these commitments perhaps somewhere along the road and that's the point at which we quickly go back to the iraqi government and make sure that they enforce discipline in their own in their own house the president beyond that the president made has made very clear both in his speech last night and in his talks with the iraqi government that american patience is limited and and obviously if the iraqis fail to maintain their commitments we will have to have to revisit our strategy but i would say this and it's an import and difference this time it is the iraqis who have come to us with this plan it is the iraqis who are insisting on leading this undertaking it is the iraqis who are insisting that they have to get control of their own capital and that they need some help from us to do that so i think this is really when i referred in my remarks to a pivot point it is the apparent willingness of the iraqis finally to step up to their responsibilities in this arena that we think is a change that their willingness to make these commitments in itself is a change and we all will be watching very closely to ensure that they adhere to the commitments that they've made mr secretary bottom line answer to my question is we would revisit our strategy is that it's or if the iraqis fail to keep their commitments i think we would have to do that thank you very much mr hunter think it's going to be crucial in these sectors in the city in these urban areas to ensure that the american forces are used efficiently in the in the way that the agreement proposes with iraqi forces in the lead americans and backup and secondly that there be a lot of attention to detail with respect to force protection of american forces in this situation and i would just ask you have you have you scrubbed have you looked at the details of the plan as it exists now with respect to those two factors sir i haven't i'm very confident in what is laid out first of all very importantly all u s forces will remain at all times under u s command second as we u s forces down to lower levels down to the battalion and company level they'll be large enough size to protect themselves as they go about doing the advisory work that they're dealt third as an example of the way this would work the last couple of days of operations in baghdad on t v you see iraqi units mr spratt like you both for your testimony i understand that on a smaller scale these tactics whole building clear have been tried before and in this past august in baghdad in august see an issue play for several reasons one was that the battalions to be provided by the iraqis didn't show up to the full of the six that were promised never showed and secondly the police showed up but they also showed their sectarian colors and were to take the side of the sect the forces that were part of the problem number one how do we overcome these problems this time and number two is there some way that we could test this on a smaller scale just before we throw fire brigades into it to see if these problems are still going to play the understand it the problem with clear build and hold last year was that the clear part of the operation went fairly well and fairly smoothly the problem is that there were insufficient forces both iraqi and american for the hold phase of the of the operation and so one of the lessons learned the president referred to last night is the need for additional forces to hold these areas and keep the violence at bay long enough for some of these immediate and then near term economic development opportunities to  begin to kick in whether it's making the quality of life better quickly by getting some electric power in there connecting the sewers or picking up the trash on down to job creation and so on so the clear part was well done the whole part there were insufficient forces in the analogy that i've used is that the tide came in and the tide went out and there was no at the end at the end you couldn't tell there was a difference the difference is this time to try and get some time under the hold phase for the build actually to take place one of the things that's different this time is the additional forces another thing that's different this time is that there is considerably more focus on the build a phase in terms of our own efforts but also in terms of the iraqi understanding of the need for them to show up and with their money begin to take some actions on the economic front so i think though that very quickly is sort of my assessment looking time this time the first brigade of iraqis is already en route to their capital and some of them are there our first brigade as we speak is moving forward into iraq the second and third iraqi brigades are due to arrive in baghdad before our second brigade arrives in baghdad so as this force flow is laid out that we reserve the right  inaccurate however all of what the iraqi leadership is saying is different and all of what has happened to date has been positive with regard to the things they said they would do and what has happened everything  consideration in developing this plan a plan i'd like to just frame the question if i may this seems to me to be a very very serious part of our problem in our efforts that are geared toward solving the problem i have here a letter that was written zawahiri of course the second in command of al qaeda to as a car we the letter is dated july ninth two thousand and five and it was declassified by the director of national intelligence on october eleventh two thousand and five and i just want to read some very brief parts of it after the perfunctory opening it says it has always been my belief this is of course talking writing has always been my belief that a victory of islam will never take place until a muslim state is established in the levant in egypt and in the neighboring states of the peninsula and in iraq and then he goes on in another part of the letter to talk about our long term strategy said it has four stages the first day just to expel the americans from iraq the second stage is to establish an islamic authority and then to develop it into  level of a callous light the third stage is to extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring iraq and the fourth stage is to clash with israel have another document here from that is comes out of west point from the combat and terrorism center writing by brian fishman of that organization and it says that on october fifteenth two thousand and six al qaida in iraq announced that it had succeeded from iraq and declared an independent state in the country sunni dominated western regions this new political entity is called the islamic state of iraq i wanted to bring this question to you in that context because i believe that this is an extremely syri part of the problem that we face and is in fact at the root of much of the sectarian violence that is currently going on in iraq would you comment on that for for some time to try and stoke sectarian warfare in iraq and they finally succeeded last february with the bombing of the smart mosque and so the notion that th sectarian warfare and they finally succeeded one of the areas where we actually see some positive signs already is in anbar province which is the province that you  referring to in the correspondence that you read as general pace indicated the local shakes have decided to try and contest al qaida ambitions and anbar they have they have allied themselves and allied with us and we are seeing some signs of success and weakening al qaida in that area and in fact it was during general pace's in my visit to baghdad a couple of weeks ago that general odierno talked to us about the successes and indicated that he thought he could reinforce this success with the addition of some additional forces some additional more and anbar province and that was the that was really the origin i think of the request for the additional forces for and our province so it's clear that and are as critical to this to the ambitions of al which is secretary congratulations on your new position and general pace good to have you with us today i ask my question on behalf of the three thousand soldiers and through that have been killed and the twenty thousand wanted in the past three years in this war or years ago secretary white told the administration and this congress that winning our mission in iraq would require several hundred thousand troops we went into this fight with significantly less than congress had heard repeatedly from soldiers on the ground that they needed more troops to accomplish their mission yet senior commanders that's the fight no additional troops were necessary in that time the armed forces women stock has been damaged and he's in a constant state of disrepair putting our troops at risk not with your new way forward we are ask a lady in the number of troops in iraq this means deployment will be extended you and is will deploy earlier with less by train and equip and here are my questions you know why now and what is different from three and a half years where our first responders are going to be most of the policemen and firemen and doctors belong to a human at a resort of unit or a national guard and you know i've had twenty five young men killed in my district since the war started from afghanistan i go and i talked with their families and i this is the type of question but they ask me why now why didn't we give the proof daughter fifty thousand troops when they wanted them off when they recommended by general shinseki and secretary white i think when they do answer this question so that our public knows why this new strategy is now why not in the beginning thank you i'll  demurred several times but when asked the third time about how many troops were take he said he thought several hundred thousand in the delivery which was the answer he gave the iraqi government is taking the lead and they are prepared to set the proper stage for success i have been one who  said frequently do not send extra troops just to do what the troops there now are already doing but if there is a defined military mission and if it is supported and supporting political initiatives and economic initiatives then it would be useful in that context this plan meets those criteria and that is what is different now for me sir than what it was just a couple of months ago see you thank you both for your service let me say that i i'm encouraged somewhat by the words i hear as to the intention of the iraqi government here are the words of mr my colleague i just have my doubts there ickes will show us the track record isn't there and words are fine but actions are what count here so let me rephrase a question that's been a couple of different times let's concede they'll show up what do we do if they don't act we've talked about benchmarks the president talked marks i think those have been sorely missing i think they are critical where in the benchmark time frame does the disarmament the disarming of the militias occur and what if they don't meet that  i think that the again what we will see is this unfolding over time and i think that the operation that we saw just the other just in the last couple of days and the case their willingness to fight  as i understand it and i'll invite general pace to add on the operations will began in mixed neighborhoods both shia and sunni that will provide an early indicator  and i think the notion that the iraqis are sitting on their hands while we're doing all the fighting is a mistaken notion i was informed by one of our military folks a couple of days ago that now more than half of the casualties coming into our military hospitals in iraq are iraqi army i don't want to be employed sir but the chairman's going to be very strict on this clock i've been to iraq six times and i never suggested or meant to suggest iraqi army is not stepping forward taking heavy casualties i was that forward operating base point when they brought in three helicopter loads to the hospital there couldn't agree more when i want to be clear so you can direct your comments the politician the prime minister what if they order us again as they did just a number of weeks ago to remove the barriers that we had placed in soccer city to control controlled traffic and flow there what do we do and at what point that's what i'm concerned about because i view this at best is the last opportunity in the last hope and i'm just wondering if being too dramatic about that well as i indicated in my response to the chairman the i think the first reaction if we discovered that they were not fulfilling their commitments would be to go back at them hard in terms of the commitments that they had made to us and in terms of the of the entire leadership of iraq and if at the end of the day they don't keep the commitments that they have made to us as i indicated before we would clearly have to relook at the strategy may i ask when the day comes what is the what's the let me rephrase it of what is the timeframe of the surge a year eighteen months six months and where do the benchmarks fit in that surge timeframe i don't think anybody has a definite idea about how long the surge would last i think for most of us in the in our minds we're thinking of it as a matter of months  not eighteen months or two years we clearly will know as i indicated i think within a couple of months or so whether this strategy is in fact beginning to bear fruit it's going to take a while we are at the mercy of anyone willing to strap on a bomb and blow themselves up in terms of more bloodshed and more violence but we will obviously be monitoring it just as i know you all will be monitoring  it as this situation unfolds i think that one of the one of the benefits if you will of the way we will be sending our forces and the way we will the iraqis will be sending their forces in is that we will have a pretty good indication whether they are keeping their commitments and we can assess at the time what we need to do surge of i made to two key benchmarks one command of iraqi forces nine of the ten iraqi divisions are due to be under direct iraqi command by the end of march the tenth by the end of june and then of the eighteen provinces all eighteen provinces are due to be under the direct control of iraq to curate in the eighteen provinces under the direct who believes in what he's trying to achieve here the frustration i think some of us feel is certainly not with our military god love them for the challenges they face and the sacrifices they have made with the with the civilian leadership in iraq and frayed still raise questions about their commitment but i hope i hope this is a step in the right direction thank you gentlemen mr taylor general pace for being here and thank you both agreeing to serve our country a poll published by the booking institute just last month shows that are really an appalling ninety two sunni's approve of attacks on u s led forces sixty two percent of all the shiites leads to total throughout the country sixty one percent of iraqis approve of attacks on u s forces now to secretary you've only been here a few weeks but i'll remind you that early on taxpayer funded polls of iraq show that we had about an eighty percent approval rating within about a year and a half that number has flip flopped to about eighty percent disapproval of the u s presence when the numbers went our state department furnishing those numbers to congress on a regular basis so if your numbers are contracted out like to hear them but if your numbers are anywhere close to this what i'd like to know is how the addition of twenty one thousand troops changes a situation where sixty one percent of iraqis approve attacking american forces how do you turn that  around i think that first of all those are the first poll numbers like that i've heard and i haven't seen any that are independent i have i have no reason to if it was done to the best of my knowledge by an alpha dog paid for by american the only thing i can imagine and i would confess i'm no expert on iraq but if they rockies are on happy with our presence and they are willing to attack us my view would be that it's because the overall situation in iraq has become so on satisfactory particularly in places like anbar and baghdad in particular deila north of baghdad  probably the fact that many of those iraqis blame the united states for the mistakes that were made after the original ouster of saddam hussein that contributed to making life in iraq much more difficult for many of them even though they've been liberated from their oppressor it seems to me though that it's very  even a the sense of the reception that our troops receive in different parts of the country the way that our that the iraqi military has partnered with us the relationships between many of the units that have developed i think that the key is is right now turning around the attitude of of iraqis is increasingly the turning over of the governance of their country to their own elected government which is something new in the last year and trying to establish the security situation and which life can begin to get better for the a large number of iraqis in the two or three or four provinces that are the most violent right now so it seems to me that the iraqi leadership of this campaign iraqi investment in their own economic development  iraqi control of their own military forces and over time a dam and new ssion of american presence are all key to the long term relationship that the united states will have with a rock my i have some confidence that if we can we don't want permanent bases in iraq how hard would it be for the present united states to say that publicly because i have been waiting for three years for the president ited states to say that publicly if you encourage them to do so now sir i have not would you i think that the president was very forthright last night an egg knowledge in th recall him saying that last night now think this is a key factor in the eyes of a lot of these people who are proving or of attacks on americans and i think that can turn some of them around it's not a hard thing to do but for the men and women you represent again going back to the same thing we've got some date certain where the iraqis are to show up in baghdad meant a new plan are you both confident that they are going to show up in the prescribed numbers so i'm confident that the plan we have is a good plan when they do show up there are no guarantees and i cannot guarantee what the iraqi gunners going to do i can simply tell you what they have said they're going to do and if they see if they do what they say they're going to do then this will succeed so far on appointing the commanders on collaborating between the u s commanders in iraq the commanders on selecting the units to move from other places to baghdad and i'm moving those troops troops on the things they should have done by now they have done it now appreciate that it's very important i think going forward for people understand it's a new plan it's a new team it does have the support of this committee and the congress because as we speak brigade combat team of airborne folks from fort bragg eighty second are in baghdad as are other units from other locations them and their families particularly in the folks back home they didn't know that we are supporting them which we are we were not supporting added withdrawing funds for folks in the field having said all that follow up on what ranking member hundreds said we've been t instead of numbers my ass gives us a four to one iraqi match to every new u s military commitment in iraq can you be a little more specific or can you  today when you add together iraqi army iraqi national police in iraq the local police there are some forty two thousand iraqi security forces allocated to baghdad today we have about twenty four thousand u s troops allocated to the baghdad region and then there are three brigades in our two brigades will be added to that mix when you get through  many iraqi new troops from save areas drawing in equipped by u s forces have any new ones are coming in the forty two thousand iraqis in baghdad right now will be augmenting by about eight thousand more iraqis taking that to fifty thousand to twenty four thousand us in baghdad right now will be augmented initially by two brigades total seven thousand taking it up to thirty one thousand in the pipeline will be another three brigades of us another ten thousand five hundred that can go to baghdad and go to alan barr not go at all depending upon the situation on the ground math is still not clear but again i'm trying to determine and reinforce my notion and the three hundred notion that the american people this is becoming much more of an iraqi fight we're going to occupy territory with iraqis not with americans either we can hold it once we went  military is done before any clarification that you can give there would be again very helpful sort about two to one right now is about as clear as i can make it two to one on the record that's that's abercrombie thank you mr chairman general pace thank you for giving us the opportunity to actually see how this thing is supposed to work at the gut level now speaking as a former probation officer and as someone who  had jurisdiction of the city columns and over a police department i want to know but i have to try and get this because we didn't have anything written in front of us did you say that this plan that you're talking about in the local communities came from the iraqis or did it come from americans the initial plan was put forth by prime minister maliki to our president when they met well they should have had at least one police chief from somewhere to give them some guidance this is the craziest dumbest plan i've ever seen or heard of in my life you are proposing a mixture your word is a mixture of national police local police national army and u s military to operate out of local police stations to go into neighborhoods to apprehend criminals to clear and build that and you haven't the slightest idea of how many days weeks or months it's going to take what on earth or the president or the prime minister or anybody in the joy of such a plan will work anywhere in the world s commanders and the iraqi commanders sat down together iraqi police iraqi army and u s and coalition commanders together general casey and his subordinates generals still rocky are the iraqi brigade commanders who are responsible for everything and there are nine separate districts in the region those iraqi brigade commanders are partnered with our u s battalions and they will operate in those areas just like they're operating in the streets of baghdad right now with the iraqis doing the patrolling the rockies doing the sweeping and when they need the kinds of skills and capacity they don't have like air power we will do it like we've been doing the last couple of days in baghdad provided to them but the u s will stay under u s command and the iraqis will be under iraqi command and general casey and his counterpart iraqi partner will work together on the command and conquer command control of that how is it any different than what's been done since november of two thousand and five the main difference is the political atmosphere in which they're allowed to operate there is no number there is no number of additional u s troops that will make a difference absent a long term difference absent the political will of iraqi leadership and the religious leadership thank you secretary gates i suggest it won't take you eighteen months to figure that out and will take you six months to figure that out i don't think there's going to be any change i'm sorry to say that is likely to take place in the next six days let alone the next six months or eighteen months finally secretary gates if there's time for it in all of the discussions so far let's suppose that general pace's description of this plan works for conversation's what's the exit strategy the exit strategy is that as the level of violence goes down and as the iraqis gain control of the restore control in baghdad that the presence of the united states would diminish if that doesn't occur is there an exit strategy the question then we go to welcome and look forward to working with you over the next couple years and general pace it's always great to see you i want to focus on a specific impact of the surge owner of our forces into baghdad in al anbar province and and that's the risk to our readiness associated not only with increasing troops but also their equipment and i want to if you can give me a risk assessment of the proposed surge on the strategic posture posture of our forces in other words would this increase of troop levels in two thousand and seven prevent or degrade the military's ability to respond in other parts of the world if we're called upon and i think most of us on this committee understand that resetting the force is going to take years and a large amount of funding but i want to make sure that we're not backing ourselves into some sort of corner given the situation that we've got in other parts of the world besides just in iraq you know from the information that that's been provided today you know i understand brigades are being extended some units are deploying early and others will be mobilized in the coming months and i'm very glad to hear that d o d is doing what we on this committee of asked and that's to increase in strength of the army and marine corps i just wish it had been done a lot sooner and i believe that we're asking our military to do much more now than we've ever asked of them and for that reason i think that the growing force is very necessary in my second question is when would be the earliest impact of the proposed increase and strength and would it be funded in the plussing up and the other has to do with other contingencies around the world we have today eighty two brigades are active force and in our reserve and guard of which we are at at the conclusion of this we'll have twenty temporally in in baghdad in iraq scuse me the risk in iraq to the active force is that right now we have have our troops one year over one year back one year over so as you go to increase the size of the current force in iraq and you use the active force to do the increase because they're the ones who are most ready to go then you are taking people who are in the in this train to be deployed over the next year and moving moving them forward so you're  shortening the time that they have at home and you're beginning to use up their time that they would have spent in iraq next year using up this year so when you do this you already know that yes we need to have this size commitment next year fifteen brigades twenty brigade whatever is going to be if you are going to need that then you know you need to backfill this time next year with guard and reserve forces to do that it is doable but you have to understand what you're spending today and what you may have to spend to morrow to do it that's very different than from a an attack somewhere else in the world where we still have the enormous might of our navy and our air force and we can mobilize all of our reserves at one time and go do what the nation needs us to do will be slower to cross the line of departure than we would like to be to respond to that second event we will probably have to be more blunt in the use of our military power meaning less precise because some of the things used to guide precision weapons will be used in iraq but there is zero doubt that any potential competitor on horizon would meet defeat at the hands of the us military given twenty brigades plus stop into iraq and some other threat someplace else that does not mean it would be easy it does not mean it would be pretty but it can get done me feel any confidence that increasing troops is the right thing to do and i want to point out i heard the secretary say a few months we're going to try this for a few months device for that so this entire war was going to last a few months and every general that i've met with in iraq or in washington has been saying that not more troops were not necessary the longest period of time i think general abizaid was before the senate armed services committee that two months ago saying that more troops wouldn't help the situation so i really don't have much confidence at this but i'm interested in a couple of things mrs secretary you said if the iraqis don't follow through and god knows they haven't followed through on very much fear over a period of time but if they don't follow through on this plan you're going to go back at them hard what does that mean while the first the first of would clearly be in baghdad and terms of reminding us of our commitments and and causing them and telling them that they had to meet the commitments that they had made to us i mean the first the first response is going to be a diplomatic military and political one but that's been going on for a long period of time now what happens if the iran able to meet their commitments i don't understand it one point what point do we say then then we're going to back off here if you can't live up to you committed to the iraqis can't live up to their commitments at what point do we say enough is enough we're going to start not bringing more troops and we're going to start to reduce the upfront presence of american  american troops the statistics atmos detail again have been consistent over a period of years we're an occupying force there i heard the general talk about about this force it's important to point out the force is an occupying force it's not a training for forty three which i thought everyone agreed military priorities that iraq must change with the highest priority given to the training equipping advising and support mission to counterterrorism operations you  i don't see how this is consistent with that priority of training our troops i think the primary primary mission of the american forces in iraq we've all agreed is going to stand up a viable security of security force and i don't see how this is going to help us with that it seems to me the president is clinging to this whole that the war can be won militarily and i don't know anyone that thinks a war can be won militarily it can be won politically but we can't get the iraqis to to step up to the plate on very much and i hear you say we're going to go back hard at them it hasn't worked for a period time at some point there comes a judgment day when we're going to have to make a decision i'm just wondering what it is when it is after four years would you agree that this isn't going to do you would you would you agree with the military priorities being highest regard to training as the  baghdad has reached a point where it was difficult for the political process and baghdad to go any further and it is but that's also the product problem with reconstruction economic development we've spent billions of dollars in iraq with little or nothing to show for it because the contractors have been hired to be put in it's to a violent there's too much violence they can't they can't have contractors going because they get killed why is it going to be any different now we're going to take a billion dollars more i just pretty my own view is that the one source of optimism is that for the first time in this process you have the iraqis insisting on taking the lead insisting on being out in front and insisting on beginning this attempt to get control of their own capital with us only in a support role as i indicated at the beginning we will know fairly quickly i think whether they are prepared to follow through on these commitments yell at i think one of the things we sometimes lose sight of is that there was an election for the first time in iraqi history just a year ago a little over a year ago this government wasn't stood up until last spring these are people have never run anything in their lives they've been in opposition frankly  it's the challenges that have faced them in trying to deal with the problems they have i think i've been pretty extraordinary in the fact that it has taken them some period of time to get themselves in a position where they think they're ready to take the lead and take charge of this thing is not surprising to do the vote but with three is going to be impossible try to keep hearing this three go as long as we can and try to make the recesses short as we can but with your indulgence in general with your indulgence please stay when we do follow up on what my friend congressman hayes was asking a little bit ago about some of the math that's involved we see people come in they're testifying they're writing articles one person says we need more troops another person says we need less troops were oftentimes just kind of caught in between saying what do you base that on and what i want to try to do in the few minutes that i've got is get my hands on what you're basing the twenty thousand plus up u n and let me just go back general to your numbers as i understand them and perhaps i did the math wrong but you indicated in the total iraqi security personnel today in baghdad we had about forty two thousand that after the full implementation of the plan we'd have about fifty thousand total for our troops we have about twenty four thousand to do another seven thousand which brings us up to thirty one thousand and then another ten thousand five hundred we could put wherever we could let's assume we put them all there that would give forty one thousand five hundred u s troops that's a total of ninety one thousand five hundred troops as i look at the only way that i could get my hands around numbers that make sense is to look at previous conflicts and where we were if you look across the united states for police personnel that we have we have about two point three sworn police officers per thousand if we look at the situation that the british had in northern ireland in the malaysian counterinsurgency in the mid twentieth century if you look at bosnia and cost of we had stability forces whenever you were warning doing outside intervention that were closer to about twenty per thousand which would be if we took those numbers we'd be at about one hundred forty thousand troops we'd need in baghdad to do the job can you explain to me the difference between the situation we have on the ground today in baghdad and northern ireland cost of even the malaysian situation because it looks like to me that situation is as bad or worse than the and what we base this twenty thousand figure on some point out is at least we have a pattern and we have to some way base some of what we do one facts and object and we look at those four situations to be about this miracle bases what makes us think s advisors so the math isn't always good for the situation but specifically for baghdad with general casey and his commanders in iraq he's did was take a look district by district what would what do they need to do how many patrols do they need to have how many patrolmen out on the street that they need to have how much door to door knocking when they need to do how much reinforcing force is what they need quick reaction forces and the like and take each of the tasks that they would have to do every day twenty four hours a day seven days a week and just do the pure math that tells you how many folks you need when they did that they came up with the need for three more iraqi brigades and two more u s brigade anbar the math added one more u s brigades for a total of six what we then did in response to that request from the commanders in the field which is ok understand how about if you know addition to that we provide you additional forces available to you so that when the enemy takes whatever action he takes when opportunities present themselves for reinforcement of success you have forces available available to you so the twenty thousand is a combination of what the commanders on the ground specifically asked for based on their math plus an additional factor for the unknown so i know you're familiar with the term being snookered i hope we're not being snookered again by prime minister maliki here and i say that because he's got a track record of saying one thing to us and saying other things for consumption to his political base there in iraq what concerns me about what i what i believe the administration and you think frustrated as my colleagues here when we when we don't have some substantial consequences if they fail to perform nobody here or anywhere else wants to see this fail either this plan or our our presence in iraq because personally i don't want iraq to become the next afghanistan under the former taliban government but one question that i have and you said mr secretary that very early on we'll be able to tell or to evaluate whether or not they're holding up their end of the bargain what are the what are the consequences or have we come up with consequences that have been articulated to the maliki government and by that i mean if if you fail to do this if the brigades or battalions don't show up on the part of the iraqis then we will stop the flow of u s troops or then we will change course and start a redeployment or exactly what are the real consequences something besides we're going to go back at iraq i think it is quite clear to the iraqis what our expectations are and the president growing impatience and his statements to them that our patience has its limits the reality is back and answer to several of the other members question and that is first of all we have to determine if there are if there are and stances where the commitments are not being fulfilled whether it's a local official who's not doing it whether there's a pattern to these to these failures or whether it becomes clear that it's the government that itself that is at fault and if it becomes clear that the government has a fault and that the government of iraq is not going to fulfill its commitments then as i indicated earlier the united states would have to read the united states government would have to revisit the strategy and i think that the iraqis know that full well what it would mean what exactly does that mean does  mean we stop the flow of troops we we take a step back and initiate redeployment exactly what does that mean i think that's a decision we'd have to make at the time but that would be our decision but you've given it some thought i mean and it's ok if you can't publicly say what the consequences are that's well and good because then maybe we can have a closed hearing and we can get some assurance that in fact there have been some consequences articulated privately or that we've thought about these are the kinds of things we're going to do if they don't perform our focus at this point is trying to make the strategy that has  agreed with the iraqis work i think we're going to expand our energies on that and deal with failure or deal with their deficiencies if those deficiencies come to pass all the signs that we're seeing so far is that in the commitments that they've made in terms of this strategy so far they have fulfilled everything that they said they would do but mr secretary this again we have to look at the potential for success of this this commitment based on the historical record that the maliki government has had and it's frankly it hasn't been a very stellar track record and that's why we can't afford to get snookered again because we're putting another twenty one twenty two thousand troops in harm's way and there have to be real consequences i see that my time is up thank you mr chairman i'm going to ask one  was very pleased when forbes were able to establish that in baghdad that there would be substantially more iraqi forces than american forces this is indeed a joint  general please explain to the family members what it means that the iraqi forces are in the lead and how at this work practically forces are facing the enemy in the streets of  baghdad means that they are the ones who are doing the day to day patrolling they're the ones who are doing the knocking on the doors to do the census work and to tally inhabitants of that home that the iraqi armed forces are there for their protection they're the ones who will be the responders to any kinds of phone calls tips and the like but we will be the ones that will give them the additional capacity that they don't have and i repeat what i said today about what's happening in haifa street the last couple of days the iraqis who are sweeping through that area the iraqi army was they came they got into a  firefight they needed additional fire support they got that from our helicopters in our fixed wing so those are the kinds of things will be out that does not mean that u s forces will not be patrolling it does not mean that u s forces will not be doing the things we need to do for our own self protection and for the stability of the area around which we are living but it does mean that most of that work will be being done by the iraqis with our backing and this is substantially different from what's being done now what substantially different will be the armed forces of both countries will be able to do it throughout baghdad up until now each time we've tried this when we were operating in sunni neighborhoods that was ok we're going to nix neighborhoods that got a little bit dicey and when we try to going to a woods often the iraqis are told to stop or we capture somebody and we're asked to give them back what is substantially different is the intent to apply the rule of law across baghdad without regard to which neighborhood the criminal lives i was happy to hear the president indicate and you just indicated too in terms of rules of engagement that they'll be changes in terms of catch and release what about i've had troops express concern to me about safe houses that they go to and they secure terrorist and then they  leave the home and then the next week it's restored again as a safe house for terrorism and the experience and many countries is those homes are demolished what will be how can i answer that part of then the people came back to that to that house with this plan there are sufficient troops to be able to do the clear and the hold and most importantly to do the building primarily with iraq money so that the citizens start seeing progress and decide because of that progress to become part of the community as opposed to trying to kill each other and again thank you very much and i've visited iraq six appreciate the indulgence of our well this is we'll be back as soon as possible wall there are copies in front of each member and think you will find them of interest there as to date as possible all of the information was not available in some managers don't make their money when things go well they make their money when things are struggling and you're going to have a lot of might not a law pertaining to earn your money in this job and that the troops are count on the american people are counting on you one of the chores that you have is coming before these committees and frankly we have had difficulties in my opinion with the kind of forthrightness that i think the american people in this congress deserve it i know that at times sometimes as members of congress we say dumb things stupid things wrong things partisan things angry things but when all this comes out in the wash our process is better because of the kinds of questions and a variety of questions that come out of these hearings and the interactions that we have with you i encourage you in that i guess in the spirit of a college president to have that kind of relationship with us of forthrightness because i gave an example it was months before we could get anyone to acknowledge at this table is find them essentially as a couple years ago that there was actually a an insurgency going on finding the word guerrilla war was used but and it was the whole world knew there was a problem that's the kind of problem we've had so i we look forward this relationship with you in your written statement on page secretary you say above all i want you to know that the timetable for the introduction of additional u s forces will provide ample opportunity early on and before many of the additional u s troops arrive in iraq to evaluate the progress of this endeavor and whether the iraqis are f illing their commitments to us and quote and then a while ago you talked to said he thought to be a couple of months to be able to evaluate how things were going are you saying here today that we may not get twenty one thousand five hundred additional troops if in your here you will have ample opportunity before many of the troops arrive in iraq that you may conclude that we should not put additional troops and first of all let me say that while we have while the barr and it will be it will be i think and i'll defer to general pace on this but i think it will be the decision of the commanders on the ground whether the whether to move the additional brigades on into iraq whether they are needed and what their role in their mission would be but we have committed the president has committed part of that evaluation presumably will be whether iraqis are keeping their commitments but it will also frankly be i think the success of the operation but the i assume when you talk about evaluating the progress of this endeavor you're not just talking about the the military progress you're talking about the whole package which i assume would be made that decision we made at the presidential level i would think i think that the the progress that we will see on the military side and whether the iraqis have kept their commitments in terms of being able to go after all lawbreakers in terms of of the brigades that they've promised showing up in terms of going into all neighborhoods we will see fairly early on in that couple of months period whether they're keeping those i think that the hold and build part so the clear part we will know pretty quickly within a couple of months whether the iraqis are fulfilling their commitments to hold and build parts are naturally going to take a little longer just in terms of creating jobs of getting economic assistance and there and so on so i'm not saying that we will have a good good picture within a couple of months on the on the build side of it but i think that we will begin to we will have a pretty clear pretty good idea on the clear part of the strategy i think we will have some important early indications on the hol part of the strategy i think that's probably a little early on the on the build side general general pace that you mentioned earlier on that general abizaid was part of the group that supported with those additional troops how does that jive with his testimony november fifteenth respected by this committee so i've had many conversations i was a on the phone and sector and i was with he and general casey in baghdad when they both asked for these additional troops as with all of us in uniform who had been saying don't just add troops to do more of what the troops have been doing if there is a difference if there is a definable mission if there is a new political environment it is going to be economic activity then it makes sense so with the commitment of the political side with the commitment of the economic side it does make sense to provide additional troops for this military piece of that three importance of iraq a performance and how you measure it and you have made the point in separate context of sunni sheikhs cooperating with us in al anbar that's a welcome development from a shia government  baghdad that seems to be stepping up a little bit more than we've seen how many instances do you see the sunni and the shia cooperating with one another because that's really the gist of our problem here we were to have a much better year in many ways  there is perhaps a greater mix there what we have seen is the the minister of defense if i remember correctly is a sunny certainly one of the vice presidents is a the iraqi army the rocky governor has gone to great lengths to recruit and build mixed units and the iraqi army has proven itself to be loyal to the central government and for the most part doing the central government submitting in the police it's a little less well defined so differently in the police there are still some units that are more sectarian and nonpolitical  itself the army is leading the way i would say with regard to cooperation in the ranks amongst different shia sunni kurd in the police or behind them as far as you can tell this looking at the numbers at the end of the day if i understand the calculations there's around fifty some odd thousand iraqi security personnel of all sorts not just military and just over forty thousand american troops potentially engaged assuming your ten five were all deployed in baghdad that's a five to four ratio and frankly a much bigger kick up on our side in terms of personnel involved in this operation than on the why is it two to one or three to one do they not have the forces or why aren't those forces being committed in addition to simply eight thousand additional people on top of forty two when the troop to task analysis is done the determination the commanders on the ground was that they needed about eight thousand more iraqis and about seven thousand more u s if if the commanders get when the commanders get what they've asked for the be fifty thousand iraqis and about thirty one thousand u s what we have done in the u s pipeline because it takes us a month to get the gear shift over or is to put the additional three brigades into the pipeline so they can arrive and be available to the grass on the ground at the same time we're doing that not yet asked for by the commanders but it's available to them the iraqis are looking at the other units around the country to see what they might add as well so we put our insurance policy into our plan because it takes us a while to get there and he's close with a quick point i appreciate very much  what you had to say in particular your emphasis on the importance of the iraqi participation here and frankly not just military but political and we don't see things like reasonable distribution of the oil money if we don't see prevention elections we don't see a resisting you secretary gates general pace for being here first of all concur with mr snyder you have a very difficult job and to get a very difficult time and we thank you for stepping up and doing that i share my colleagues skepticism about this plan for a number of ways i mean the two biggest ones are that when you do a classic counterinsurgency strategy of clear hold and build you have to have the hearts and minds of the populace that sort of at the top of it mr taylor pointed out we have lost that i have no confidence whatsoever that will be able to get it back and i think that undermines a lot of what we do and second because of the points mr forbes raised about the numbers we don't have the numbers of the long term sustainability to really implement that strategy at this point  think you address those concerns that have been alleviated but my bigger concern is even if we succeed in what we're doing here it's sort of then watch and what exactly does success look like it is virtually impossible for me to imagine and i would imagine you would agree that in six months eight months time there is not still violence in baghdad it's impossible imagine that mr sauder is simply going to blow up and disappear or that his forces are we may be able to sort of simmer it down for a little while  but i don't think there's any real prospect of a long term we dock in the causes of the violence in baghdad so we're doing all of this to sort of wind up in a similar place because because of the violence by and large will still be there one of them will be exacerbated and that our presence has been pointed out i don't think emphasized enough a lot of the insurgents the terrorists are motivated by driving us out and our unwillingness to even say that we're leaving at some point adds fuel to that and certainly adding more troops and launching a military campaign in baghdad isn't going to reduce that so that will still be there we will still have the problem with syria and iran which i want to ask about in just a minute and it's also reasonable to assume we will still have conflicts between shia and sunni and even within the two groups so i don't see us really making a lot of progress in there is an enormous cost to us in terms of american lives at risk and the further strain on a military that is very strained as  both know so i'm just not sure that at the end of this we wind up in a in a much better place and that is what i'm very concerned about and i also want to make a point it was referenced about you know we can't afford to fail one  concerns me in launching a plan is when we start spinning out nightmare scenarios if we don't do this whenever that sort of at the top of your list for arguments as to why you're doing something that's a warning sign to me to basically say well we can't really get behind our plan but we can tell you if we don't all these horrible things are going to happen and i'm not saying that they're not possible but they're not as guaranteed as the president said last night as you yourself have said i mean one of the scenarios i've heard is that well iran will effectively take over iraq and at the so i would are just sort of tone that rhetoric down just a little bit to understand the true consequences of going forward are not going for the political solutions aren't easy either no doubt about that but there are a lot less costly than continuing to rely on the military at a time when it doesn't seem like they can bring security for many of the reasons that have been raised to quite syria and iran they are a major problem porous borders either allowing them to pass back into or actively sending them this plan doesn't address that at all i'm curious how you think we stopped that and your feeling about how critical it is and lastly where do you see sautter in his forces at the end of this first with respect to iran as you will have noticed over the last couple of weeks we are moving beginning to move aggressively to try and identify and root out the networks  who are involved in activities that cost the lives of american soldiers are going to be subject to actions on the part of the united states inside iraq our view is that that we need to deal we can and will deal with this problem inside iraq with respect to the syrians clearly a lot of this going on on the border of syria in terms of trying to control what as a limit on our success as we go forward with this recommendation of increasing troops if you look at the the assessment from the iraq study group they say sustained increases in u s troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in iraq which is the absence of national reconciliation a senior american general told us that adding u s troops might temporarily help limit violence in a highly localized area however past experience indicates that the violence would simply rekindle as soon as you as forces are moved to another area now it seems to me as you've been answering these questions that you've been contrasting this recommendation from what you're actually proposing although they sound as if they are in conflict could you please respond to what the iraq study group said about adding more troops and the plans for this proposed s and then also i'd like to be interested in the additional recommendations of the iraq study group i know that a significant amount of intellectual capital went into this and i would certainly hope that the remaining recommendations are continuing to be reviewed by the administration first of all a number of the iraq study group's recommendations have have been incorporated into the president's strategy and we can we can talk a little bit about that of you all want  to i would say that in this recommendation that you mentioned i don't know anybody in the administration who disagrees with the notion that a military force alone cannot win this thing and that no matter how many american forces you put into iraq if there is not a political reckons the willingness to work together on the part of the iraqis there will be there won't be a solution to the problem that we face there and the premise of the strategy is is fundamentally that the iraqis have come to us and said that the different parts of their government have decided to come together work together to do these acts of reconciliation that  apart from the military campaign prevent elections well revenues and so on so i think i think that there's very little disagreement with the premise of the study group that military action alone can solve this thing i agree completely with the statement that adding any number of u s forces will simply have a temporary effect absent political reconciliation and economic progress and that is why we have been so concerned and attentive to the other two parts of this three legged stool because military action by itself will not have a long term effect and it is the government's commitment to the other two legs of that stool and our own government's commitment to the other two legs of that stool give me confidence in our capacity to make this military plan as part of the overall plan succeed although let me just add that although i was a member of the study group until i ended up being nominated for this position i think it's important to remember that they were writing their report at the time that the last effort to clear hold and build was going on in baghdad and it was failing to clear the hold and build part of it wasn't there and so i think that the conclusion that they drew was based on that failure and frankly i think the president's drawn the same conclusion in the other parts abizaid said i believe more american forces prevent the iraqis from doing more taking more responsibility for their own future i've met with every divisional commander general casey the corps commander general dempsey we all here folks so now you are telling me there's a political change going on with the government in iraq and they're going to do more i mean it's hard for me to imagine that the prime minister sits around and says  want to be the guy that's holding onto the power in a failed country so i think he's been trying to do as much as he can so i'm not doing that then i'm thinking he's got five ministers that are  sevier people thirty percent of his a third of his parliament are also their positions they are his power base in a lot of ways so my question is why now what change conditions would lead you to believe that our operations can succeed when they failed so recently someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result control over these militias who are going out at night decapitating people and scaring the rest of the population what measures are going to how is he going to change that if he hasn't done it yet given that  as part of a political and economic surge that more troops would be useful in after he spoke in november the prime minister and our president met the prime minister proposed a way ahead in baghdad and throughout a lot of our our commanders along with the iraqi commanders were given the responsibility to come up with the plan on the ground and to make that work they came up with a way to succeed and had very specific stipulations to include a the prime minister needed to be the one going out in the country and saying this is what i'm going to do he has done that the prim needs to pick a overall commander who would have the authority to operate over all of baghdad and to have subordinate commanders who are going to work for him and that has been done that the iraqi forces that failed to perform because they when they were told stop by their political leaders at those iraqi forces would not be stopped that they would be allowed to apply the rule of law across all of baghdad in sunni  and shia neighborhoods so given the change in leadership and political atmosphere and the commitment of ten billion dollars of a rocking money for reconstruction this military plan was developed as a part of that there are no guarantees we are going to pursue this on the assumptions that the promises that have been made will be deliver so far the promises made that should have been delivered by now have bad thanks john kline thank you mr chairman thank you gentlemen for being here the question has been answered asked and answered now many times what's different so i will not ask that question it'll probably ask again beyond saying this one of the things that it seems to me has changed in this strategy and whether it's a strategy or tactic i don't think is  matters it's a new way of doing business is the increased presence of u s forces imbedded in and partnered with iraqi army soldiers we know that better when we're with them so i that alone i think is go make a change in how the iraqi army performs but let me move to another side of this and that's the impact on our soldiers and marines and families back here when you extend tour links you create hardship plain and simple for the soldiers marines and their families as it happens the minnesota national guard has got a fairly sizable presence in iraq and their tour links are going to be extended and i can i can feel the pain even where i'm sitting here to those families  r secretary you talked about doing some things to enhance benefits or pay or compensation for these extensions that i mishear that could you talk about that and what is it that you're doing to those early deployments or worst the worst of all is when you're there and you've been anticipating coming home you've got your reception has already planned and now you find you're going to be there for an additional one t three months what do you think that addition is going to be and what are you doing about either one or both of mr klein we are very sensitive to the impact particularly in this transition time from going from individual volunteers and to the unit called up we believe that the that they've changed to the unit call up plus the limiting the mobilization time for those mobilized in voluntarily to a year instead of eighteen months to two years will in fact makes service more attractive because it will be more predictable once this transition from the way things have been done for the last several years to unit call ups is that we'll be able to give people six nine months or more advance notice before they're going to deploy so we're in this and we will try and with the increase and the end strength of both the marines and the and the and the army we will try to get back as quickly as possible to the ratio of one year deployed five year five years one year mobilized five years of the mobilized for the guard reserves and one year deployed two years  at home base or home post for the army with respect to units like the brigade that is headquartered in minnesota we are very sensitive to the human impact of these decisions we know that there have been soldiers are worried about graduation dates for their children we know that some of them had cruisers planned we had to have vacations planned and things and we are as of today  sense that that brigade although headquartered in minnesota actually draws on soldiers from i think about seven or eight different states and we are sending people from the army to every one of those states into one every one of those places to sit down with those folks a family at a time and figure out how we can help them and we have some we have some financial resources to help them but to try and mitigate the consequences of this call up because we know that it leads to a lot of hardship a lot of personal hardship and disappointment when these when these tours are disciplined are extended like this but we have to go through this transitional period to get to a more rational use of our guard and reserve forces general i don't know if you want to add sure it's not about money for sure but certainly for the families to alleviate some of the hardship for those units that are being extended beyond a tour length that they were sent on each month or part there they will get a thousand dollars more per month in their pay so it's a least a way to recognize that there's additional hardship on top of that as we look at how to resources for the next for the next couple of months we're paying very close attention to how to balance probably between those units that are home right now and bringing them up sooner and at least giving them giving them at least a year before we take them back into theater and those units that are in theater right now have the experience on the ground and but would have to be extended to stay so the minnesota unit is the first one the on the my son's unit is the second so i appreciate your consideration and thank  had said earlier today that the iraqis are staged for success in his testimony before this committee last month in december general i've said that and i quote it was disappointing close quote when i directly ask him about the training of the iraqi police in fact he mentioned that actually we had lost some ground with regard to the quality of training and what the iraqi police were supposed to be doing i know that part of the big concern is that local government governance and local control is going to be dependent upon those local police doing their job can you tell us what are the specific benchmarks that you will be gauging to see if we are having success with the training of the iraqi police in these local communities or my comments about success were primarily and i think i differentiated between the rockey army the iraqi national place and iraqi local police and if you would expect the local police are taken from the local community and therefore normally are from one community or another to get higher up the chain into national police and the national army you have to better opportunity to to mix forces we have with our  teams not only the training that we give them but the oversight of how they perform and as units do not perform well they are taken off the line by the iraqi government those who have performed not like police but like sectarian individuals are fired new people are hired unvetted and the unit is retrained is a long process and it is currently more successful with the army than it is with the police but both our embedded trainers and especially the iraqi government are attuned to that problem and are working on it it is a slow process or second question i want to ask on record on reconstruction mr secretary the president's proposed four hundred million dollars  quick response funds for local reconstruction rebuilding projects however a recent report by the special inspector general said that the violence coupled with a lack of security was preventing reconstruction because of the danger to the lives of construction workers and also the contractors what will be done specifically to change this scenario and also are you in favor of keeping the special inspector general for reconstruction to answer the second part of your question first as i told the other house during my confirmation hearings i do support that when and when we were when i was on the iraq study group the special inspector general briefed us and it seemed to me then  that he was making a very valuable contribution in helping the department identify department of defense identify where there were weaknesses in the effort the efforts that were being undertaken with respect to the commander's emergency  reconstruction program i think we all believe that that's a critical element of of of the hold and and build process it is the immediate money that can be made available for putting people to work whether it's reconnecting sewer lines or picking up trash or beginning some modest projects but what is clear is that it is it is of  greatest value immediately after the military has complete after the clearing operations have have left because they doesn't really create jobs for the most part it's it's it gives people it puts people to work  and clean up and things like that and some projects but it's not long term economic development or reconstruction and so a big part of the ten billion dollars that the iraqis are talking about and a big part of what these p r tees are going to be doing is focusing on what i call the near term part of it of the economic reconstruction and that is actually beginning to start some longer term projects and activities that actually provide real jobs for people but the surge money is very important in coming right after the clear operations that the comment that that you can't do reconstruction if the security isn't there is very important that's why the whole part of this operation is so important and as we've discussed that's the part that clearly didn't work last year so what is what is the difference in this near the does what i was asking in regard to you're going to protect those workers the most important part is maintaining the troop presence in the home where you are able to keep control of the security situation while the reconstruction begins this is miller thank you very much mr chairman and secretary gates and general pace we certainly appreciate you gentlemen coming today and certainly thank you so very much for your service to our nation i had a number of questions about timeframes and benchmarks which has been ask and ask and asked so i think i will follow up with my time here what my colleague just asked about the reconstruction and in the build and hold a portion of this new strategy and let me preface this by telling you i come from michigan and very quickly during during the civil war actually abraham lincoln was walking out of the white house and looked down pennsylvania avenue and watched the michigan militia marching up pennsylvania avenue and said thank god for michigan and during world war two our state was known as the arsenal of democracy because we literally had the manufacturing capability to build the armaments that led the world to peace my county has the largest vietnam veteran chapter in the entire nation we will always support our troops in every way that we can but i must tell you because of the transitional economy that we are now living through with the worst unemployment in the nation the lowest personal income growth in the nation  eccentrics cetera et cetera i have a question i'd like you to flesh out a bit of this build and hold if you can when we look at iraq that has natural resources like oil we don't really have it in michigan and my people are wondering how we can continue to support monetary the reconstruction of iraq when you're building new schools and transfer transition grid lines cetera in the ten million dollars that you spoke of iraqi money is it truly iraqi money or was that money oil ok let me quickly ask one other question then everything that we're talking about here is predicated on the ability for us to another switch gears here to to train the iraqis to stand up to embrace their own freedom and they are iraq study group as well has indicated that that is a priority and i'm just wondering if you could enlighten me a bit about what the training that we are doing to the iraqis actually entails when you look at our army and marine troops and how long it takes them to get through boot camp nine months nine weeks eleven weeks thirteen weeks and at what point they're ready to be combat ready how long is it taking us to train the iraqi  mohammad and train train him up to the standard of being able to protect himself on the battlefield and then take them to the field and learn to work in teams  four then teams of twelve or thirteen then teams of about thirty or forty then teams of about one hundred fifty once they get up to about the potassium level which is about five or six hundred troops then they are put into the iraqi army  available forces and that's where the embedded u s teams stay with them do on the job training basically as they go on about starting with lesser intense missions like patrolling in the like learn through doing and learn through coming home and say ok what went right what didn't go right just like we do with our own with our own people the leaders then go to some of the leadership academies assist with the nato training teams are there helping with some of the assistance some of the leadership training and countries like jordan have schools to which we send people so it's very much modeled similar secretary general pace it's good to see you on tuesday i was with you about in a dozen democratic members at the white house and at the time i spoke i think pretty passionately about my deep concern about being able to support any kind of escalation and increasing troops going into iraq and i am increasingly agitated and upset about what i consider to  be a lack of clarity as to exactly what this is all about i listened very intently to the president's speech last night and as your secretary i read your remarks quite a few times and i'm struck by the third paragraph from the end of your speech  where you say significant mistakes have been made by the u s in iraq just like in virtually every war in human history this is the nature of war but however we've got to but however we got into this moment the stakes are now incalculable and i have to tell you that i have deep respect for you and your service but it is about the most trite statement stunningly trite statement i've ever heard in my entire life we didn't get into this war in any kind of conventional way and we certainly are not at this moment because this is where we intended to be and i find it just absolutely ridiculous after the colossal and catastrophic failures of your predecessor which is by the way the reason you're sitting here is because secretary rumsfeld is no longer with us and the complete op use cation of the administration as to what is going on in iraq that we are thinking that a solution could possibly be when we've had failure on clear hold and build that it should be bait and switch and the truth of the matter is why should we consider to do anything puts one more american at risk until the iraqis step up and do the things they are have to and we know they have to do the idea that we should add more military force to enable a political solution that they cannot articulate and frankly we don't believe that they really intend to do is just folly so i'm sitting here trying to understand how i can look anybody in the eye and say anything other than i cannot support this i can't i'm going to help lead an effort to make sure that we don't do this and what are we going to do to be straight with each other i appreciate that your new on the scene it's three weeks and i appreciate the fact that mr secretary that you've taken a very tough job you didn't do this this is something that you're doing for public service but we've got to be straight with people adding more troops now to a failed policy is not going to bring our troops home soon or this congress insisted in the two thousand defense bill that we would bring our troops home and that we would begin to do that two thousand and seven that can't happen by adding more troops and until we have guarantees that the iraqis going to stand up and fly right and stop in fact and fight for their country as well as we're fighting for them then we shouldn't be doing this and i actually don't have any questions mr secretary but i really hope that the american people will begin to get out very soundly about this or we're going to find ourselves here over and over that i've seen in my years on this committee is both democrat and republican members have been pushing your predecessor mr secretary and general screw maker to dramatically grow the engine and i'm hoping that we start seeing that now your implement that would affect the restructuring of that to be more utilitarian but what i want to talk about additional manpower is equipment and specifically the m one three three family of currently in iraq now but i understand now that in the upcoming supplemental that funding is the road out and it will be a wait so my question is what changed and what is your position on the andrews thank you mr chairman mr secretary mr chairman thank you for the sacrifices that you have made and are making for our country general pace and your professional opinion what's the optimal number of troops to have to secure and pacify baghdad  i've looked at this plan i've looked at the analysis that the commanders have done they are saying that the combination of about fifty thousand iraqi and about thirty one thousand u s is sufficient given the right political and economic climate to do the job i agree with that assessment but i also believe we need to have an insurance policy so that when we commit to doing this we ensure a better probability of success which is what the additional troops beyond what the commanders on the ground ask for is all about i according the earlier testimony there are twenty four thousand u s troops deployed in baghdad presently why don't we just put fifty seven thousand more troops in to make it eighty one why do we a more american troops on top of that why aren't there fifty seven thousand iraqi troops ready to do this job or air force first lieutenant robert gates has no expert on military matters and frankly that is the judgment the numbers on both the iraqi side and on the american side are the result of conversations between the commanders in the field who are on the ground and familiar with the situation their recommendation how much hav spent training iraqi security forces in the last four years you know so i don't know the answer is that we've trained three hundred twenty five thousand we're going to train thirty seven thousand more i do not know the exact number it's available i just don't have department data from your department indicates the defense forces of the iraqis is now hundred thirty seven five thousand give or take as distinguished from the interior forces stand the difference in quality are there you know are there you have sixty six thousand and now you need to wrap up fifteen thousand or fifteen thousand trained and competent iraqi defense forces that could be shifted into baghdad as these additional american and if not why not sure there are well trained iraqi forces there are fifteen relatively stable provinces right now we've learned in the past that when you take forces whether they're coalition or rocky from one place to another to continue to cover this that was stable that it becomes stable number one number two you need take a look at the mixture of the forces you have versus where they're going to be employed it does not make good sense to take a mostly shia organization and put it into action in a mostly sunni neighborhood for example we have capacities in the u s military that the iraqis do not do not yet have so the combination of where they are in their current capacities and our ability to reinforce that he's how we came up with these numbers of seven thousand additional us in baghdad to help the fifty thousand again that explains some of our skepticism that i think accurately that putting shia forces in a sunni neighborhood is a problem well that the plan ever going to succeed if we're eventually going to turn this over to a military force supposedly loyal to this government or we eventually going to have to put shia forces in sunni neighborhoods and vice versa absolutely and we're going to have to do that over time and build the confidence i do not understand the kind of hatred that f neighborhoods and sunni sunni neighborhoods and taking care of criminals builds the confidence of the iraqi people in their own armed forces and that's going to take time because of the way that they think about each other and we just droid i have two questions one major and one relatively minor but before that i'm going to give a short speech and do all that within the in the time limits of five minutes you know we hear a lot about the president's speech last night immediately after he spoke for twenty minutes all the pundits political and media types on both sides of the issue words were giving him a grade and whether or not he delivered a good message and all of that but in the final analysis of course this is not about him this is not about how he delivered the message it's not about secretary gates it's not about general pace it's not really about the combatant commanders it's about the plan and i think people the people of the united states and the people of the world and the whole middle east so that sort of leads to my major question i heard you say earlier in response to  secretary of defense has planned the president's plan our combatant commanders plan general abizaid plan and maybe to some extent prime minister maliki's plan come put me a little bit so that i can be a little more assured that this is a good plan it has a chance for the say yes and then the matter question is a regard to command as a bird as a response program i don't say that it's not a good plan but i want to know if there's been some accounting if they'll continue to be accounting and how this money is spent so that we'll know what works and what doesn't work or i would tell you first of all i wasn't in the government yet when the i'm on meeting took place and so i don't know exactly what what  prime minister presented to the president whether it was a set of ideas whether it was a concept what i do know is that that plan has been extensively examined by our own commanders on the ground  leadership of general casey and general odierno we have had a significant effect on how it's to be done how best to implement it we have had influence as the as general pace indicated at the outset and the selection of the iraqi commanders that are going to be involved in this so i think that whatever set of concepts or ideas or or rudimentary plan that the prime minister may have presented in fact that that whatever he presented has has undergone enormous scrutiny by american commanders both on the ground and and here has been very helpful in this and we and we thank you for it because we would give one of our troops a ninety thousand dollar weapon and tell him the fire when he needs to and then we wouldn't give him five bucks to go higher in iraq to go police something being here general pace and secretary gates before following up on my colleagues questions i was fine to get kind of a simple response if i may mr secretary there's some question about the about that can you clarify that for us for that reason it's important you get an accurate answer and so let me turn to general pace from this day forward based on what the secretary decided when a reserve restored guard member called to active duty it will be for no more than twenty four months from the time they mobilize at home station until the time they station irrespective of any previous service twelve months maximum from the time of mobilization to the time of demobilization from today forward would you say for those families and then this is a shorter you're not extending the length of time than for any reserves that are mobilized in an involuntary fashion there are reservists but exist today there are reservists who are currently serving on active duty specifically the reserve guard members from the minnesota guard who are currently in iraq whose duty will be extended but for those who are going to be called to duty from today forward their total time  twelve months on that call to duty and then the policy they should have five years before they would come back up into the bin to be potentially called back to active duty ok thank you very much if i could go on and  just mention a few other issues i think that your clarification of the makeup of the iraqi forces did cause some of us some concern and particularly because you police forces that would be combined with the iraqi forces partly because we know that there's been a massive corruption within the police forces and that they weren't well trained my colleagues have mentioned what concerns me so there is a key operational shift in the rules of engagement from being more restrictive to more permissive does that cause you any concern given the fact that those police forces may not be necessarily as well trained and does that increase what pace to do or not do guard to his or her ability to engage the enemy or protect themselves that is not changing and what is changing inside the iraq government and the authority that they are going to allow their forces and our forces to do what we must do to impose the rule of law regardless of what neighborhood so we confuse the issue a little bit by using rules of engagement which has a very precise military meeting with what we're really talking about which is freedom of action inside of the community so we're talking about where they go and where they ok that's helpful i wanted to clarify that there hasn't been much focus in the discussion today about the training camps and what we might do to disrupt the operations there there was an activity in about mid november in turkey out of province where there was an assessment made that in fact the sunni insurgents there were more discipline better trained than they had anticipated can you respond to what in addition to the hold tactics that we're talking about what we will be doing to disrupt any of those training camps and in fact are those troops are we discovering that those troops are well far better discipline and able to have a good chunk of our resources applied to the al qaeda problem we are working every day and every night and we will continue to work against the al qaeda elements and foreign elements in iraq absolutely clear with regard to mrs davis is question because this thing has gone out over television out of the whole to the whole country in clear terms at least the way i understood it  that will be for those units that are mobilized in the coming period some of the units that will be mobilized in the coming period will not have had five years since their last mobil gates i think you've got to clearly delineate after this hearing is over precisely what the policy is thank the gentleman mr conaway thank you mr chairman and gentlemen thank you for being here today  trying not to be more redundant than everybody else has been prime minister maliki is getting immense pressure from us and others can you comment briefly on pressure from within a groundswell of pressure from and within his country  also decisions that we make have consequences and in spite of what was previously said by one of my colleagues i think it is very important that we understand the consequences of failure in iraq when the chairman and i were in iraq late last month we asked the state department cia and others what they thought the doomsday scenarios were like none of them are acceptable and i think it's important for the american people to understand what those consequences can be and in all likelihood could be so if you could inside that there are a number of elements of the government and political factions that are dissatisfied with the violence dissatisfied with the failure of the government to perform in a number of different areas and one might speculate saying i could do a better job than he can so i think he is feeling some internal pressure is feeling internal pressure to try to perform with respect to the consequences of failure first of all ought to be clear the consequences of failure that i described were not necessarily those of the failure of this plan but the but a failure by leaving iraq in chaos and a disintegrating state and those are where you get the more dire descriptions of the kinds of things that could happen and that includes not necessarily iraq being a  subordinate state to to iran but clearly iran having enormous influence and southern bag and southern iran and probably in baghdad you would have neighbors trying to interfere not only the iranians but potentially the turks the syrians the various other sunni states feeding money so you could have a significant ethnic cleansing problem and you would then have  questions on the part of countries that have been supportive of the united states in terms of our commitment to them in the gulf area so those are some of the consequences that we could talk about general pace asked the last question or you're right about we do not want more mili we want current militias and integrate we want the elected government to have the monopoly on the use and availability of power what is encouraging in the sunni  kopper secretary thank you for being here welcome before the committee general thank you for being back i think most people the average person would see what's happening in iraq and say that i'm military is in the middle of a war and that would babysitting a civil war and it would appear that in many ways our military is acting more as a police force than than the war fighters and that they are is the president using our military as a police force in iraq the second part of my question is secretary gates in your testimony you called for a significant expansion of our army and marine corps do adapt to existing and emerging missions this committee is strongly supported increasing and strengthen our joint your willingness to pursue that approach but one question i have is how the new  sufficient to be that military specific mission requirement in iraq let me answer your first question and ask general pace to address your second question with respect to whether the united states military is being used as a police force in iraq in a civil war i would i would make two observations the first is i think in many respects there are four wars going on in iraq at the same time the first issue on shia violence in the south the second is sectarian violence and baghdad and its environments the third is an insurgency and the fourth is al qaida whatever was the case in two thousand and three the reality is that all the bad actors in the region are now active in iraq hizbollah trainers iran syria and so on so i think that to call it a civil war frankly oversimplifies the complexity of the problems in iraq today and i think that the u s forces are not being used as a police force but but are in fact being used in an effort to try and first of all and over the past couple of years train and bring up an iraqi military force able to exercise the writ of the government around the country and now under this to support an iraqi effort to try and get control of the  the sectarian violence in baghdad sure the additional troops are for combat and to strengthen our combat units the know the numbers which you have right now is sufficient for have one we're in combat in iraq home for a year and back over what happens then in that year your home is after you take leave and had to people who are going to get out get out and people join join you have enough time left in that year to train your unit to be well trained for the kind of operations are going to be doing in iraq but you don't do the kinds of combined arms training that you may need elsewhere in the world  adding to the strength of the army and strength of the marine corps you'll be able to have more time between deployments for units and then to be able to train them not only for missions like they're doing in iraq but also for the kinds of capacities and capabilities we need to be able to defeat on the list and you will be back with us in three weeks as i understand it with the concurrence of the gentleman from california mr hunter priority will be given to those who please all right then i would economist frank's five minutes i thank you mr chairman and thank you mr secretary general you know sometimes i think that those of you who carry the shield of freedom for the rest of us do so  often in such a noble and affective way that it's easy for us to forget the challenges and logistics you face in a war situation and i am absolutely convinced that that is the case in this circumstance that you face a changing dedicated committed enemy that is perhaps the most dangerous ideology and fighting force that that we've ever really dealt with in terms of ideological  commitment they change so quickly that you've had to change your strategy you as you go and it's been my observation you've done that and yet somehow the american people to a large degree seem able to understand some of those doomsday scenarios that everybody points out that it occurs to me that failure in iraq will ultimately lead to terrorists gaining control of that area of that oil rich  province and possibly threaten the entire human family if this ideology is germinated into the the greater populations of islamic countries throughout the world i don't think any of us can overstate the danger of that happening with that said i'm convinced that the greatest challenge those of you in the in the military and those of us here at home face is the potential loss of will among the american people and it occurs to me that that's something that has to be addressed and it is a nonmilitary approach it is something to to help not only our people understand just how serious and dangerous this enemy is and how serious the challenges that you face are but just somehow also suppress the fallacy and propaganda that the other side puts forth so effectively through al jazeera and other places so my question is really basically twofold how can we help the world and even our own citizens understand the danger and the potential of the enemy that we face and the challenges you faced more clearly so that they were all on the same page and how can we suppress the false propaganda that seeks to recruit additional terrorists to this growing danger to the world first of all i think  t one of the ways to help educate the american people quite honestly are through hearings like this and through the hearings that this committee and its counterpart on the senate side and other committees will hold on matter and this kind of a dialogue and i've not had the opportunity to respond to a couple of things that have been said but let me assure this committee one of the things that i'm proudest of is the relationship that i  congressional overseers in the intelligence business when i became acting director in one thousand nine hundred six there was never a single additional scandal or conflict or or major conflict between chairman of the senate intelligence committee and i worked very closely with mr hamilton when he was chair of the house intelligence committee this committee will not get spin from me it will not get canned it will get straight answers and i'm not afraid to tell you what i think i didn't take this job as i told the senate to be on a bump on a log and i didn't take it to compromise my reputation for being a straight talker so that's what you'll get from me so i think the first answer to your question is that  that the hearings like this the speeches like the president's the more dialogue we can have the more questions that you all can ask that are that what is on american minds of the american people i think contributes to public education one of the sad things that we did after the end of the cold war in answer to your second question the second part of your question was dismantle the entire apparatus and the american government for communicating the message about what this country is about and what goes on in this country and we're trying to reconstitute that now but right now until very recently we've had very limited capability the old capabilities we had through the voice of america radio free liberty and those things had largely disappeared and we're trying to rebuild those but we have to we have to have that you know the view of mt constitution farther away than three thousand miles and i know today is one of those days for you and for me but i have a couple questions for the both of you first actually for general general pace and i want to plan a quick image here in its image of the it's the image of the can you hear me now verizon wireless guy because he's just a guy holding the phone and is this huge network behind him that's the image that verizon is trying to perpetrate and like that image iraqis are supposed to take the lead but i think for many of us they're like the guy holding the phone and us military is a network behind the guy making everything work and taking all the  baghdad you mentioned earlier that right now the iraqis have forty two thousand security folks variety of folks allocated to baghdad does that mean that they are there or that there are there are forty thousand people iraq is that are supposed to be there but it's actually a lesser number or is it forty two thousand of a higher base that didn't show up first second we expect three brigades iraqi brigades additional equally eight thousand personnel what is the current unauthorized absence rate or a wall rate for iraqi military personnel and how many of those eight thousand do we actually expect to show up and will we stop sending brigades if the iraqis do not show up trained of iraqi forces about eighty nine percent are still on active duty given the attrition rate and i don't know the absent without leave number  be put into baghdad do we have an expectation that eight thousand will show up or do we have an expectation that will be fewer than that based on what we know about f they perform to normal standard and they have some of their folks on leave probably two thousand per twenty five hundred will will be on duty so probably about six thousand you know i'm i don't what do you mean by say five hundred per brigade being on leave does that mean they're not showing up or does that mean they're if they're going to if they're going to be ordered to baghdad we will we want them in baghdad we don't want them on leave big bucks sure they're going to get the first month before they leave to give to their families and they'll get the multiple of one fifty per month for the deployment time when they get when they get back there is no leave i misspoke but the normal before the red light goes on i'm also going to understand that there's potential for lots of things to to change if the situation changes but i can only reiterate that each of the commitments that they've made to date like to welcome you to our committee and certainly to thank both of you for being here especially in such a timely manner when we're discussing such a new strategy so thank you for that truly i believe that it  painful for everyone to have american troops serving in harm's way and especially to be here talking about increasing the number that would be currently serving there but i would argue that we don't aka enough about such threat to america and the threat to the world if the terrorists are successful in their goal of taking over iraq and controlling those very vast oil resources general pace i'd like to take a moment and thank you and every man and woman that has served in iraq or afghanistan for your determination that this fight with this enemy will take place on their soil and not on our soil and i thank god every day that you've been successful in keeping our enemy busy in taking out their leaders and shutting down their money and that we have not had another attack here now one of the problems with being at the end of the list  most of the questions have been asked and so i've been sitting here thinking that there's something even more i want to ask you and that is one of the things we talk about often in here is what's the greatest threat to america we identified in one of our gap that we think is the greatest threat is that the american people grow weary of this war and demand of their leaders that we leave before the iraqi people can accomplish what you working on right now and i wonder do you think the intent of our enemy is as intense right now to attack us again or are they waiting until they accomplish the thing we're most concerned of and that's wearing the american people down knowing that they would grow tired everyone's familiar with the quote that said when the americans cut and run like they did in vietnam they leave their agents behind so is that another reason that we haven't had an attack on this soil is they know they would awaken the resolve of the american people and that we would understand the threat or do you think we've just been successful with the things that we're doing in the  brave military men and women ma'am i do not know what i don't know about what they've tried i do know that thanks to the good lord and a lot of hard work and probably a good bit  that since nine eleven we have not had another attack here it is clear to me based on things we do know about like those who tried to put explosives on multiple planes  leaving europe several months ago and other intelligence so we have that our adversaries continue to look for ways to attack us now while they try to set themselves up to destroy our way of life long term so this fight is worth it and if we leave where we're fighting them now they will fight they will follow us home right so those of us in uniform although we do not like to fight are proud of the controversial contribution we're making right now to the safety of this nation thank you and we're very grateful for that thank you very much thank you mr secretary we appreciate your candor and humility thank you gates the bottom line of page for your testimony you say the president about general casey are persuaded that prime minister has the will to act against all instigators of violence in baghdad now as a shia supported leader maliki has been that he has that maliki prime minister maliki has given to the president and to general casey and to others is that the coalition forces and the iraqi forces will be permitted to go into all parts of the city to go after all lawbreakers regardless of their sectarian allegiance there seems to be a disconnect here because david brooks in today's new york times has a pretty tough column saying that basically the plan put forward by the president last night is the opposite of the plan the prime minister maliki was proposing he suggested we exit all u s troops from baghdad and so david brooks who's usually pretty friendly with the the impression the administration is trying to giving is trying to give is quote the opposite of the truth and in his final paragraph mr brooks goes on to say the enemy in iraq is not some discrete group of killers it's the maelstr violence and hatred that infects every institution including the government and the military instead of facing up to this core reality the bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin is mr brooks wrong well i don't know what was as i indicated earlier i don't know exactly what prime minister maliki gave to the president but my recollection is that within the last few publicly to the iraqi people that he welcomes the additional u s help general pace it's my understanding that the regular training regimen for iraqi forces three weeks of training then they get one week off to take their pay back to their families and we don't really don't know where they go and there was no punishment for a wall iraqi soldiers so we don't really know as a practical matter whether all this training if we train as you said three hundred twenty five thousand iraqis we don't really know whether we've really just trying to a lot of militia members if we don't know where they are one week a month and there's no punishment for being a wall how is that effective training there is punishment for being a wall which is dismissal from the service they do take their paychecks home once a month because they don't have a functioning banking system and if we want to help increase the size of the iraqi army by twenty five percent it would be good to help them build the banking system inside their country so i don't have to have all their troops carry their money home  comparison for our getting our folks we have four weekends a month normally when we're home they are on duty twenty twenty one plus days and then they're off for seven days  the best answer i can give you is that eighty nine percent of those who have been trained have are still in the armed forces the rest have either completed their time or have been dismissed for as you mentioned being  general with the limited language capacity of our troops do we even know the sunni and shia or which tribe individual iraqis belong to so i can't imagine that all of our troops know what each of voyage we look forward to seeing you in three weeks and we wish you all the best it's a tremendous challenge that you have for a country and we look forward to seeing investing with you three weeks now  let me say that general pace we appreciate your staying for the record we are keeping the notes staff as keeping notes as to who did not have the opportunity to ask questions of the secretary today we will lead off with those three weeks from now general pace is going to stay and let me tell our new members this joint base that chairman join the word may cause a look at up the other day general he may advise us as well he is not a policy maker he is the chairman joint chiefs of staff and consequently if a policy question  at least i would know about so we could make the announcement but we appreciate your indulgence and i'm sorry we had the votes in the middle of everything else i think we would have gotten through this chairman's pleasure to be here with you today  reserve general pace properly described our reserve mobilization process one year mobilized five years the mobilized is our policy goal however there will be this transition period during which some units will be mobilized sooner than the five year demobilisation period our intention particularly through the growth of the services and so on is to is to get to the one to five rotation site and get back to the one to five rotation cyclist soon as possible but the important point is that even though they may be mobilized re mobilized sooner than the five forward to seeing you very shortly thank you again d and snipers and things like that every single day excuse me the republicans are meeting at five o'clock to choose subcommittees m again mr cooper raised this issue and others have spoken about it also the commitment of iraqis to this effort and that's terribly important i think we both agree on that in fact it would be very nice if we c say that this is an iraqi idea entirely iraqis are taking the lead we are retaining our discretion to say no we are following their lead and assisting them with their effort to regain control of their capital we've talked about a number preconditions that are being set by us and have been a lot of references to prime minister malaki having agreed and yet it's clear he initially proposed a different plan he did welcome additional u s forces but those forces were to surround baghdad not to be inside baghdad his units were going to take care of what was going on inside baghdad and that was just going to be shia and kurd units principally focused on suni's so it's a different plan altogether and it would be very helpful to all members of this committee if you could provide us with translations of a video of prime minister malaki actually saying to the iraqi people that the plan that's been described by the president is the plan he supports that he does contemplate mixed units of iraqis working with americans in shia neighborhoods in soccer city without restraints you know the sorts of things that we've heard that's terribly important to building our confidence that this plan can work and so if it is it possible for you to maybe provide that to members of the committee sure i think i can if i can help search the record i know he gave a speech on six january the initiative this is an iraqi initiative and the plan to implement that initiative has been developed jointly between the our us officers and his so as we have worked together we have changed some of our thoughts about what was possible they have changed but what as possible but both our leaders our president and their prime minister have agreed that this is the proper way forward is american and needs to understand that the iraqi government iraqis generally have not proposed anything as significant is this it's a real indication of the progress that's being made in the development of their security forces their confidence in themselves and their commitment to to secure their own country and they're the ones that have to do it we all know that and so it's very positive you could help all of us if you could give us more ammunition and i just don't have it if it was not in the armed services address that he made on january sixth or just in the last couple days be very useful to all of us as we talk about concerning funding between defense and state has that been resolved are you familiar with it vaguely familiar with it it has as i understand it has to do with a lot of our laws of our land which make it very difficult on forces to provide any kind of living accommodation food support in the like for other members of our own government so when the p r t he's for example want to live upon one of our bases that we know we have for them to go to our mess halls for them to be living in our in our areas for whatever reason the laws of our own land make it difficult for us to support them i'm familiar with the problem here i'm more interested in whether or not it's been solved the present references fact we're going to double up the artes that only goes for forty eight so that's not really a very impressive total if we're just doubling forty eight but before we have right now suffer from that problem at least last time i was there advance with precision and i assume that the understanding is that you enter into with the with the government will contemplate that things can change that the bench and benchmark has to be modified a plan has to be women that wear uniform as well as my constituency i heard a lot today about the need to be solved politically not militarily sometimes and i guess that would bow that there would be those that would that twenty one thousand politicians to iraq as opposed to our military it might make some people very happy that when i was when i was asked in my district about iraq my my comments were plan in the near future will produce less violence fewer roadside bombs that iraq will be closer to freedom because i think the president said h was freedom and democracy but they'll be closer to democracy and probably most important that this plan will bring america closer to a time when where peace if you could touch on that i'd appreciate  first no guarantees because the enemy gets a vote and the iraqi government has to perform a second with regard to violence because they will be increased presence of troops in baghdad it will be most likely increasing violence not a decrease in violence for the short term and he said that as a clear and hold you can expect and violence to go down the goal of a free baghdad that supports its people will be closer and our ability to bring our troops home will be closer but i have a need to look in the eye and tell you at least short term there is much probability that there be more violence because of the more troops as are is that there be less violence thank you general eighty from kansas boiler thank you and skelton it's an honor for me to serve with you on this committee and i look forward to working under your stewardship to support our working men and women and their families i can graduate president bush last night for saying that our troops in iraq have fought bravely and they've done everything that we've asked them to do secretary gates excuse me general pace kansas is rightly proud of their service and their sacrifice and it's with the welfare of their families foremost on my on my mind that i address you today i'd like to go back to my colleague mrs davis's question a little earlier about the guard and reserve and try to make my my my question as clear as i possibly can here and i'd like you to i'd like to tell you what i thought i heard and let me if you would respond for there i did or did not hear that correctly right now are garden reserve have been told they will be called up for no more than twenty four months cumulative over the course of the current operations we're going to change that to be one and every five years for people who are recruited from this point on did i hear you say that for let me just preface to that i'm i'm very pleased to have been on the personal subcommittee this morning so i asked the question as a member of the personnel committee but quite honestly as someone who gets so many questions back in the district from family about their their families that are current there their family members that are currently serving of the guard and reserve that are currently serving in iraq will we extend them for more than twenty four months cumulative during this operation and i'd appreciate a yes or no on that no ma'am we will not however  total of twenty three months on the time it started told time is finished and that's not good which is why the secretaries commitment to those who are going to be mobilized now is to be no more than one year from the time they leave their front door until the time they bet walk back through their front door so when we're making the transition to want to five and we're going with units now and not personnel and vigils you don't see a time when they're going to be overlapping when someone's unit might be deployed when in fact they've already gotten their twenty four months of service and will they be exempt from that unit  this is a problem we started out in afghanistan with volunteers which was wonderful then we went to iraq so the unit that had to go to iraq already had people had volunteered in afghanistan we took them out and replace them with two or three units where the people to fill it unit up geometric progression now we are literally taking ten fifteen twenty units to build one unit to go to iraq that has to stop for the safety of our troops and because unit integrity important patient so you so you stop that now we say unit one you're going to go inside of that unit you may very well have an individual who has already been mobilized i can my question well any one of those individuals be asked to serve more than twenty four months cumulatively it is possible when you do that when you do that when you do the math yes ma'am it would seem that it would be i didn't know whether you were going to be making exceptions or when we hit the twenty again i feel quite certain that i'm going to get this question not only of personnel on the personnel committee subcommittee but as well as so many of the guard and reserve and let me just clarify to the people of kansas as well as i'm sure the rest of this nation want to serve this country admirably faithfully bravely but they just need to understand what their futures are and how where how we plan to to roll this out so when you look at the planet it's difficult to understand how some individual might unfortunately be caught up in the your your is going your unit is going and we're going to ask you to go to so could i ask again do we think that there is going to be any individual that will be on guard and reserve unit that will be asked to serve more than twenty four months cumulative on this operation it is possible ma'am the numbers will be small and that's why the secretary also made it very clear that there's going to be hard decisions so there's a hardship to that family that will be taken to consideration i certainly hope the army rules that out baghdad miles south central by that day our steeds check section that one point five million iraqis that's the same size is my home town of philadelphia my father served in uniform as a police officer put off for twenty two years he served commanded by a brigade commander in those nine days be a total of the iraqi army and police for gauge the math is not exactly two per district but over so it's very clear the american people what should be in store and is that plan going to be monthly every other month quarterly survey you know if there's a plan and either d o d s or or it's a good idea to  show how we're doing and i'll take a note and see if we can come up with a way that makes sense that doesn't confuse people ok thanks or i have a couple other questions were quick when i was  saw firsthand and i have pictures that are up on this wall sir there's two pictures the color photos over there i was able to train we train six hundred iraqi civil defense corps members now iraqi national  army we all noticed in that picture sir is that they didn't have you this is in late two thousand and three and i was there we didn't baiting them uniforms and we took the initiative as good troopers do big by chicago white sox hats so they could be recognized thirty basically places where they do basic training is there any thought of training them outside so it's not necessary nine to five where they go home training outside either iraq or in remote iraq where there's one commingled place i mean i  remember when i went before knox kentucky over a decade ago sir i wasn't on the jersey shore in a weekend i was going to basic training because it's a profession it's something that you have to take very seriously you can be worried about your family back at home or you're a mom back at home  to give you a little bit of comfort now we are in fact giving each soldier helmet flak jacket the uniform rifle machine guns the communications gear and the lights that when they go into the field they have the protection that you would expect them to have to be able to fight as soldiers feel like soldiers act like soldiers fight like soldiers but i take your point on the training sir thank you how about the since i today and i want to thank you for serving your country as well as all the other military personnel throughout the globe that has served this country and it's i'm speaking to you today which is the same day that president bush is in my home state of georgia speaking to the very troops which will be subject to this escalation or surge as some call it it's the second and third the great  third infantry division based respectively in fort stewart and fort benning georgia and both those brigade would be deployed to iraq a little sooner than originally planned they would make up approximately one half of the proposed troop surge and and it's been it's been our strategy in iraq at least since i would say probably two thousand and four to clear hold and build is that in that effect and we seem to have no problem when it comes down to clearing and we can clear for a certain period of time before we get a new you know new impact from the insurgency com over the last four years since we've been in iraq and now we're being asked to dedicate another twenty two thousand troops to hold in baghdad for twelve  months we should have cleared the whole area and able now for the iraqis what then for the iraqis to hold the police indefinitely while at the same time we will have some money and to build the place up to build baghdad baghdad anyway and hope the situation in fallujah would not deter any further as well as other parts of iraq so how much is it going to cost us you may not be able to answer this question how much will that hold and beeld part cost in dollars given the fact that i think folks say that about nine and i have billion dollars is missing in iraq right now missing in action in iraq  how much are we talking about for the hold and build part and how much is it going to take to put this surge of troops for the next we're talking about twelve eighteen months but even through being that there were enough iraqi troops who are allowed to do their job and they are in a very successful would have been allowed to perform their mission and those troops by the way we don't know whether or not they go home at night and take off the military uniform and put  going to spend ten billion of their money dollars in baghdad so that amount is about all i could project for you there before hold and build and i heard the term of a billion dollars is what we're tell you that the cost of this operation for the if all twenty thousand troops and up going if they were to stay through thirty september this year then the additional cost to us is five point six billion dollars all right thank you sir are you finished we finished the next would be mr courtney december twenty seventh actually had a funeral at st patrick's cathedral in norwich because we lost a guardsman and afghanistan another brave example of human excellence which i think saddened the whole state and but also reminded us it was a very harsh reminder that there's still a pretty nasty situation still going on in afghanistan and my question to you really is about the impact of the president j i'm pronouncing his name right but who indicated that a u s army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks to deploy to iraq where president bush is expected to announce the dispatch thousands of additional troops as a stopgap measure and the general also went on to state that this spring the taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut a vital road between and that the taliban intended to seize kandahar the second largest city of afghanistan where the group was organized in the one nine hundred ninety s i guess my question is number one is that correct that we are actually  taking troops out of afghanistan and deploying him to iraq as part of this plan and frankly the second question is that very wise given the fact that it's a pretty tenuous situation the nato commander says it i actually don't have sufficient troop levels there and the number of attacks by the taliban has tripled in the last two years and i just i think a lot of people would have a great concern about whether we're not only risking a lot in iraq in terms of if there's a failure there but we may be actually putting at risk a very tenuous situation afghanistan as well it is not correct it would not be wise we have twenty two thousand five hundred troops in iraq and afghanistan today about half of those are in the nato command about the other half are in u s command doing the training equipping that number is not going to change i do not know where that rumor came from about a unit that is currently in afghanistan being moved over to iraq that is not going to happen and i am aware of the plans for replacements in afghanistan we're going to maintain our current strength in afghanistan so  troops i was very frustrated about the fact that we were rounding up members of the militia and then in many cases releasing them for what appeared at least to this gentleman son to be for political reasons which was about as demoralizing and frustrating for his so we do have a problem with the capacity of iraq a penal system to maintain the population that they should maintain in captivity and then to prosecute them to my knowledge has not been because of politics but because of the system unable to handle the load that on fortunately some of the folks who are kept on the battlefield after about two to three weeks if there's not enough evidence against them to prosecute them in iraq the system that they are set free that is extremely frustrating to our troops and we're working as fast as we can with our state department and with the with the iraqi government to be able to have enough capacity in their system both judicial and in their prison system to handle the load of these folks mr chairman thanks very much before i introduce jill brand questions let me  speak today i begin my remarks with just an expression of gratitude to the men and women in the armed forces who have served so ably and given so much sacrifice to our nation and i am very grateful to you for your sacrifice general and thank you for being here to answer the questions of the committee my first question is throughout this testimony both you and secretary gates have said statements such as with the commitment of political and economic side troops makes sense adding any number of u s forces will not succeed absent political reconciliation and progress given the right economic and political climate to do the job and in the president's speech last night he talked about giving every iraqi citizen a stake in the country encouraging iraq to pass legislation to share or oil revenues amongst all iraqis and then show commitment to devote to deliver a better life by spending ten billion dollars on reconstruction infrastructure projects for jobs this may not be your area of expertise but to the extent you have been briefed on these issues with regard to the iraq oil revenues who currently controls them and when will this process take place of transferring the control to the iraqis the iraqi my belongs to the iraqi people and is controlled currently by the iraqi government i believe that the money is held for the iraqi government in banks in new york city i believe but they control the expenditure of those funds i was also told that in the during the time of the recess of their assembly that their parties work through the wording of the law that they are working on right now in their assembly that would allocate the resources of their oil revenue to iraqi families so that families actually got x amount of money per month from the oil proceeds that it's about as far as i know so you're saying that the u s currently does not control the iraqi oil  controls about which i know nothing that apply to that and with regard to the reconstruction contracts presently the public understands that majority of those contracts are being managed by u s companies is there a plan or as part of this economic development change for those contracts to be transferred to iraqis so that their twenty year olds have the jobs to rebuild the roads in the schools and the hospitals ma'am i don't know that state for my business but that makes sense to me ok  let me talk about strategic issues that may be more in your area is there a plan b there was discussion in the new york times today that the administration staff have intimated there is a plan b that may include some measure of redeployment or containment our breakup of the country have you been briefed on that or part of those discussions man you're asking a marine who's focused on winning whether or not he's a plan in case he doesn't win so my answer to you is we're going to focus on winning ok and we are allocating enough resources to be able to handle the unexpected under the first bush administration the president had a strategy that there always had to be an exit strategy is that something that's been discussed under this administration as part of your your normal policy for military operations the term strategy it sounds like you're leaving them out a while that's not the plan the plan is to be successful and then to be able to come home because the rockies are able to take her themselves ok and my last question with regard to this current deployment of twenty thousand troops is there an estimation of how long they will be deployed for during the testimony today we've heard a few months several months will reconsider after six months do you have a sense of what your timing is for that need for escalation i do have a sense of that i'd be happy to talk to you offline general along that line it was at a previous hearing that i raised the issue with the recollection of former secretary point that out to you and i'm sure my recollection is correct you may wish to go back and refresh your recollection that your convenience he was not a marine you're right general thanks for staying late this evening so i understand that the prime minister came to us with this idea of this plan what we had done if he had not in view of the president saying the situation was intolerable to him had had an effect on the population that we had not predicted it was about that time that we realized that instead of being able to do what we thought we would do this year which is cut back our troops significantly that we were not going be able to do that clearly and around july or august of this year we were saying we are not where we thought we wanted to be by now our goal is over here what do we need to change to attain our goal we then began in washington the joint chiefs working separately central command working separately and the guys in baghdad working separately to take a look at the various options we worked that for a couple of months we called and we called it outside experts we called in the guys and gals who just recently been in combat and we came up with what we thought were some good ideas we shared those both down and up the chain of command general i was he was doing the same thing he was doing the same thing in doing that we were sharing information between general casey and his iraqi counterparts so the fact that the prime minister came forward was not done in a vacuum we had been thinking about how we might be able to do this better what might the next steps be a primaries prince will step up that was iraqi leadership iraqi taking charge and we shared that information with iraqi counterparts very pleased when the prime minister came forward his initiative and then asked us to help him plan how to do that general you had touched upon the readiness for forces in view of iraq to be able to handle the rest of our global security environment did you particularly since you had over the past two years have been fairly instrumental in this series of efforts to try to have a war plans changed to where time meant something more than it ever did  have two point four million americans in uniform active guard and reserve we've got about two hundred thousand plus of those currently in the gulf we have our reserves were fantastic with the time factor comes in is when you have a chunk of your force employed in a good part of your pursuit both intelligence precision and application of force persuasion engaged if you are called upon to respond to another to another act of aggression then you're going to go with less precise weaponry there will be soon potentially more bombs have dropped to do the same target there potentially will be more casualties on both sides because it does take you longer to mobilize get it over and do the job so they are not the risk of being successful it's the timeline that you would  prefer to do it on and the perception with which you prefer to do it sir would you have absent in view of what you just said absent iraq has asked for an increase in the size of the army and marine corps then we can handle the situation it's a bit more blunter and how little more difficult but absent iraqi that hadn't happened do you what you said how we can handle it now not too badly what we had to ask for an increase in  gentleman but i have been trying to get forty thousand more army soldiers since one thousand nine hundred five and we've struck paydirt they're going to do better than that in recommending and i think this committee will do it supposition that really i would not want to try to apply to the future but i can tell you this you have we have problems the world has problems in pakistan afghanistan iran iraq syria levanon somalia chad sudan and keep on coming around the globe so as you look  at whether or not you no matter what you think about iraq is going to be a need for us strength for the foreseeable future and based on that with or without iraq then yes i would want a larger army and marine corps back to the necessity of having two plus up or oc has caused me to get to that conclusion sooner than i might might otherwise have come without the stimulus general thanks for your answer just because my major concern about iraq is not iraq in isolation is iraq and what it's doing to the rest of our security around the world not just the regional contingencies you plan for but chad other places where we're not able to engage or be able to respond to a smaller contingency and that's my major worry about putting more troops in iraq that in my belief we are in a tragic misadventure and i'm concerned about the security interest in the rest of the world thanks for t mr chairman thank you general be honored to be here today if you can imagine this is my first hearing in the house armed services committee and let me assure you it will be a memorable one i'd like to start by asking you a couple of questions that pertain to my district i now represent the eighth congressional district of arizona and in my district is fort huachuca an army intelligence post but also does train beyond the army of course i imagine that in order for any plan to work in iraq reliable and timely intelligence will be essential would this new plan include proportional requirements for intelligence services assets for on the u s side to have more intelligence about what's going on a bad what we need is more citizens of baghdad to come forward with human intelligence to tell us what we need to know and what the iraqis need to know to be able to do our job more efficiently but we should not need more intelligence of the kind of what you could provide mr chairman general my concern that we've perhaps lost the hearts and minds of the iraqi people what can we do to iraqis to come forward with that information i think the right thing for us to do is to provide security for them so that they can have the comfort of knowing that if they come forward today that we're not leaving two days from now and some are going to come into their house and kill them for giving us the information interesting the hotlines that we have the call on a cell phone and just leave information those get about four thousand tips per month but we need more individuals come in and tell us about the person in that house or the activity down the block so we understand where the bombs are being made who the guys are doing it people know in their neighborhoods what's going on but they're fearful of coming forward and if we can provide security that they can depend on then they'll drop some of their fear thank you general air force base is also in my district and is actively involved in many aspects of the war on terrorism in particular it's home of only one of five combine air operations centers i'm curious to what extent will navy and air force personnel be in lieu of army and marine corps personnel primarily in ground combat support transportation units the navy and air force have been very proactive in seeking ways that they can help god bless the sailors and airmen out there i mean they are wonderful and doing a the soldiers and marines could go do other things everything from driving trucks to very complex things like electronic warfare officers we have navy officers who normally fly electronic warfare aircraft who are with our ground troops on the ground who are helping him deacon flick all the spectrum that's out there all the jammers and the radios and all the other things that make the battlefield so so complex electronically so we have found that the air force and the navy have unique skills that are being applied in a new way that's actually helping our force protection on the ground general do you have a concern for future recruitment for example of the air force for a young man or woman who signs up with the air force and then find themselves doing some sort of ground transportation or something they really didn't sign up for initially i think as long as we are up front and honest with people about what they're volunteering for that we will get the right amount of recruits example the air force in the army used to be primarily european point all over the world all the time folks who join the army now understand that so as long as we ensure that we properly advertise what job we're asking them to do we'll be ok more significantly and to the point yes i do worry about recruiting because we're asking our young men and women to go in harm's way and we need to make sure that the missions we ask them to do are worthy of their sacrifice and that's what we need to continually pay attention to that when we ask them to serve we have to serve for a reason that's vital to this country thank you general thank you that completes the round as far as i know  strength of the marine corps from one seventy five to one eighty and the the this review that we did this committee defense review that we did last year for the new gentleman from pennsylvania concluded that that we needed nine more marine battalions and eight more army brigades and depending on how you mix that with with the in the army particularly with with reserve an active that's not too far from what the administration is requesting according to the the secretary's statements to us today with respect to the munitions this committee has led the effort and we have more than  in the year two thousand general i've got to i've got a question and i think it goes more to what you can do for us later what you can do for us now there's a lot of complex city to this combined arms operation with the iraqi forces in baghdad and we've had necessarily with the big committee we've had and you've made the statements following the president you've you've given briefings to the press and you've given us a good statement on this  we're going to need to have more detail on on the on the operation i think that the operation in general is a good concept of the idea of the iraqi brigade and again the brigade from the the  charge that i saw were three maneuver battalions in iran and iraq a brigade although it may not be as full up with personnel as a u s brigade three maneuver battalions and one backup american battalion is that is that your general concept in each of these nine sectors in baghdad eighteen total nine army nine nine police brigade so it's going to be three four five are there but will there be at least one iraqi brigade in each of the nine district or army brigade i have a check casey has i have not heard ok we need to look at that to know what kind of what so when we look at the match of the u s versus versus iraqi what the match is going to be because i presume that our battalions coming in will up and what i think we don't want to see is a is a situation where the iraqis are to take the lead and then because of because they don't have the firepower or they don't have as many folks showing up  they may be able to plant the flag they may not be able to take the lead so i think we need what we need right now i think is more detail on this plan nonetheless let me just say thank you for common and to all my colleagues i was here to some degree i've been here before i was here when when ronald reagan was responding to the to the soviet union ringing france and germany with s s twenty meshal moving ground launch cruise missiles and and pershing tuesday to the theater offset some of the editorials and said that world war three was on its way and we had to acquiesce immediately and this was on when a ball and then the russians picking up the phone and saying can we talk and ultimately brought the wall down i was here when el salvador was on when a bull our next vietnam we were told by the last and today salvadoran soldiers are supporting us in the iraq theater there are a lot of challenges here this is a new world and bringing freedom even a modicum of freedom to this new world with the ethnic fractures and the tribal fractures fractures is very difficult but i think we've got a good chance of winning here and that i think we can have a government that's got a modicum of freedom is a friend not an enemy of the united states and will not be a state sponsor of terrorism and i think this government can hold which is the main thing we want to see a free government that can hold and has a military apparatus  can protect it so so general i'm going to strongly support this request or that is not really a request it's an action by the president to send in reinforcements into this theater both in anbar province and in baghdad let's work closely in the next couple weeks to let us look at the details because the details here are pretty important especially around but baghdad area so if you could accommodate us on that i would certainly appreciate understand your thank you very much thank you m chairman i thank the gentleman just a footnote and i appreciate your mentioning the in strength situation as i understand it general the increase of which chairman hunter mentioned of thirty thousand army and five thousand marines thank you will be recommended in the base budget this coming year plus an additional am i correct seven thousand soldiers am i correct and how many marines are can you say at this the thirty thousand army plus seven thousand for the new year that's got it all right and a five thousand marines plus five thousand for the new year one advantage of the well it gets funded i'm not sure if that is question mr davis wrapping up so as we move these new forces forward we need to be very careful about ensuring that they have the proper equipment to go into harm's way in the army we're going to very hard with an eleven seventeen armored vehicles going to be available to them which man the latest in the armored vehicles are they going to be available to them there there will be a mixture of the what we call level one which is the latest version used you just mentioned and level two which is just a little bit less capable than that because the production line has just delivered about the ninety five percent level to the for the forces that are now there are for example about eight hundred marines vehicles that have been replaced by the new vehicles that are up armored and almost as protective that are parked there right now that can and will be used by our troops and we will make sure through the use of the vehicles that those that are going into harm's way have the best equipment we can give them and that is something that the army and marine leadership is very attentive to to make sure that p f c pace is getting as good equipment whether he's in a unit that is there now well when it's about to arrive thank you general thank you for being here thank you ma'am it's a very much formal those who have questions for the record should get them to our staff i would strongly suggest by the end of tomorrow general pace thank you again  express our appreciation to secretary gates it's been a even five hours since we started thanks so much