U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

i 

27–563 2018

[H.A.S.C. No. 115–60] 

SECURING THE PEACE AFTER 

THE FALL OF ISIL 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

OCTOBER 3, 2017 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri, Chairwoman 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

MATT GAETZ, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

TOM O’HALLERAN, Arizona 

THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York 

JIMMY PANETTA, California 

ELIZABETH CONRAD, Professional Staff Member 

BARRON YOUNGSMITH, Counsel 

ANNA WATERFIELD, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Hartzler, Hon. Vicky, a Representative from Missouri, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations ...................................................... 1 

Moulton, Hon. Seth, a Representative from Massachusetts, Ranking Member, 

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations ................................................ 2 

WITNESSES 

Panel 1: 

Crocker, Hon. Ryan, Former Ambassador to Iraq (2007–2009), Diplomat 

in Residence, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University ....................... 4 

Lynch, Dr. Marc, Professor of Political Science, The George Washington 

University .......................................................................................................... 6 

Pollack, Dr. Kenneth M., Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute .. 5 

Panel 2: 

Pennington, Joseph S., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq, Bureau of 

Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State; and Pamela G. Quanrud, 

Director, Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Department of State .................. 23 

Swayne, Mark, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Stability and Humanitarian Affairs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, Department of Defense; and BGEN James 

Bierman, USMC, Director of Middle East Division, Joint Staff J–5, Department of Defense ......................................................................................... 23 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Crocker, Hon. Ryan .......................................................................................... 44 

Hartzler, Hon. Vicky ........................................................................................ 41 

Lynch, Dr. Marc ................................................................................................ 69 

Moulton, Hon. Seth .......................................................................................... 42 

Pennington, Joseph S. ...................................................................................... 84 

Pollack, Dr. Kenneth M. .................................................................................. 52 

Swayne, Mark ................................................................................................... 79 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Moulton ...................................................................................................... 91 

Mr. Suozzi ......................................................................................................... 91 

(1) 

SECURING THE PEACE AFTER THE FALL OF ISIL 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, Washington, DC, Tuesday, October 3, 2017. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:26 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vicky Hartzler (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VICKY HARTZLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, CHAIRWOMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Good afternoon. This hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome the ranking member who is here. Started seeing subcommittee members—we are starting a few minutes early. 

And I know that they will be coming in. And we want to thank all 

the witnesses for being here today. 

So in connection with today’s hearing, I want to ask for unanimous consent that any committee members who may be joining us 

be able to participate in the hearing with the understanding that 

all sitting subcommittee members will be recognized for questions 

prior to those not assigned to the subcommittee. So ordered, and 

without objection. 

We convene today to consider how the United States intends to 

secure the peace once ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] 

is defeated. This is a very important issue to the committee, to this 

subcommittee, and to me, the Ranking Member Moulton, and other 

members. It is essential and appropriate that we exercise proper 

oversight as our country’s plans are formulated and funding is authorized. 

Following Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States worked to 

reestablish civil institutions and rebuild the military and police 

forces in Iraq. Nonetheless, conditions in the country deteriorated, 

leaving a security void that ISIL managed to exploit. We owe it to 

our men and women in uniform to learn lessons from that experience so that history does not repeat itself. 

It is critical that we do all we can here in Congress to ensure 

a stable Iraq after ISIL is defeated. Today’s hearing will offer members an opportunity to learn more about how the administration intends to achieve success beyond the battlefield. 

Our first panel of very insightful outside experts will discuss the 

broader strategic issues associated with ISIL’s loss of territory and 

highlight critical issues that should be considered as the administration’s Iraq policy evolves. Our second panel today will address 

the numerous challenges associated with stabilization and rebuild-
2 

ing in Iraq and discuss the status of U.S. government efforts to improve the political and security environment in Iraq. 

I now turn to my colleague, Ranking Member Moulton, for his introductory remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Hartzler can be found in the 

Appendix on page 41.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. SETH MOULTON, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MASSACHUSETTS, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And I want to 

echo the comments on how fortunate we feel to have such a talented and distinguished panel here to help us understand these 

problems. 

Today the subcommittee will focus on the critically important 

task of securing the peace in Iraq after the defeat of ISIS [Islamic 

State of Iraq and Syria]. I echo Chairwoman Hartzler’s frustration 

at securing appropriate administration witnesses to answer the full 

gamut of questions the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 

is within its purview to raise, but I am grateful for everyone’s presence here today and ongoing service to our country. 

I also appreciate our outside witnesses who will bring considerable depth of expertise to bear on this subject, including Ambassador Crocker, whom I first met in Iraq while serving under General Petraeus. I think that is where I met you, as well, Ken. 

As we convene here today, Iraqi security forces supported by the 

U.S. advise and assist mission have succeeded in retaking most 

major population centers once controlled by ISIS—Fallujah, Ramadi, and Mosul, ISIS’s power center in Iraq. Most recently, coalitionsupported Iraqi forces seized back the city of Tal Afar in the northwestern corner of Iraq and only isolated ISIS strongholds remain 

outside of Hawija, Qaim, and other pockets along the Syria-Iraq 

border. 

Such victories have not been without a human toll. ISIS’s brutal 

tactics, employing civilians as human shields, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, and booby-trapped residential areas resulted in over 1,400 Iraqi troops killed and at least 7,000 wounded, 

according to our embassy in Baghdad. During the campaign, two 

American service members were killed and over 20 were wounded. 

The U.S. commander of the Combined Joint Task Force in charge 

of the counter-ISIS campaign, Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, called it the, quote ‘‘worst fighting he had seen in 35 years’’ 

end quote, of combat experience and likened it to Fallujah 2004 on 

steroids. Civilian losses have been greater still, with the latest 

U.N. [United Nations] estimates at 8,000 killed and 1.2 million 

rendered homeless, displaced by the fighting. 

Despite the tragic human toll, I am encouraged by the progress 

we have made in partnership with Iraqi forces to defeat the 

scourge of ISIS and look forward to hearing from our witnesses an 

update on the final stages of the military campaign. As important 

and necessary as these operations are to militarily defeat ISIS, I 

remain concerned that without sufficient post-conflict planning and 

resourcing we will find ourselves and Iraqi forces condemned to re- 
3 

fighting the same battles so many have already given their lives for 

in the past. 

At its core, what troubles Iraq are fundamentally political questions. Just as I disagreed with the Obama administration, I am 

again concerned that this new administration is not sufficiently 

prioritizing such underlying political dynamics. 

What does this mean? First and foremost, I am concerned Iraqi 

security forces may be woefully unprepared to provide security to 

Iraqi civilians and ensure displaced persons can return to their 

homes without fear of attack or retribution. Experts I have heard 

here from Washington and in Iraq have expressed worries of insufficient hold forces and police, compounded by the beleaguered state 

of Iraqi military units, reeling from the toll of the brutal counterISIS campaign. 

Without sufficient local security arrangements, we cannot expect 

for Iraq to be stabilized, for civilians to return to normalcy, and for 

communities to be defended against the emergence of a, quote 

‘‘ISIS 2.0’’ or other militant groups. Moreover, without capable and 

professional security forces, we risk seeing a repeat of the same 

sectarian tensions leading to Sunni embitterment that provided fertile ground for the growth of ISIS in the first place. 

Beyond the provisioning of civilian security, key gaps and problems remain to be addressed, such as acute food insecurity, insufficient access to health care, destroyed infrastructure, degraded public services and utilities, newly inflamed grievances among local 

communities, and insufficient plans for governance arrangements 

in many areas. 

Both as a Marine infantry officer who worked side-by-side with 

Iraqis to turn the tide of the insurgency and now as a Congressman and ranking member of this Oversight and Investigations 

Subcommittee, I look forward to your testimony and hope to hear 

a proactive, whole-of-government strategy that represents the only 

chance of success. 

I cannot tell you how painful it is as an Iraq war veteran to see 

us fighting and refighting the same battles we fought and for which 

so many of our friends gave their lives. At this rate, my children 

will be fighting these same battles. We must hear from this administration how this time will be different, how this time you will ensure a political resolution so that the U.S. military doesn’t have to 

keep coming back and cleaning up the mess every time Iraqi politics falls apart. 

Thank you, Chairwoman Hartzler, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moulton can be found in the Appendix on page 42.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Moulton. 

So I am pleased to recognize our witnesses we have for our first 

panel. They are very distinguished and we appreciate their time. 

We are joined by the Honorable Ryan Crocker, former Ambassador 

to Iraq, and currently serving as diplomat in residence in the 

Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. We have Dr. Kenneth Pollack, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, 

and Dr. Marc Lynch, professor of political science at the Elliott 

School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. 
4 

So, welcome. Ambassador Crocker, we will start with your statement. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RYAN CROCKER, FORMER AMBASSADOR 

TO IRAQ (2007–2009), DIPLOMAT IN RESIDENCE, WOODROW 

WILSON SCHOOL, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 

Ambassador CROCKER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Moulton, members of the subcommittee. It is an honor 

to be here today. 

I must say it is a lot more fun being on the outside panel than 

on the panel that will follow us. I think you both have hit on the 

essential fact here. The Islamic State is, in essence, not a military 

problem. Its existence is a symptom of a much deeper problem. 

I went through a couple of years in Iraq, 2007 to 2009, the time 

of the surge. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of Islamic State, was 

a key target of ours and the Iraqis. But even at the height of the 

surge, we could never absolutely eliminate them. Badly weakened, 

but still there, parts and pockets of Mosul, and a fluid presence up 

the Euphrates River Valley. 

Why? Because, again, with all that the surge achieved politically, 

as well as militarily, we saw a period there when the Iraqi Arab 

Sunnis came back into government, when Prime Minister Maliki 

took on the Sadrist forces in Basra, throughout the south, and in 

Baghdad itself, but there still lingered an abiding mistrust on the 

part of some communities, the Sunni Arabs in particular, of what 

would happen next. 

And that gave Al Qaeda in Iraq space enough to survive. So here 

we are on the brink of a decisive military difficulty—or victory. But 

what we have to be able to do is win the peace. Madam Chairwoman, that is not going to happen unless this administration decides that Iraq is a national security priority. 

Sadly, if there is a chance to get this right, it will be in Iraq. 

Syria has, I am afraid, quite a ways to burn before you can talk 

about an effective political process there. And that is going to take 

a lot of sustained effort. It will require a Secretary of State who 

is willing to go to Baghdad, spend time there, get to know the politicians, get a feel for what is possible and what isn’t, and in so 

doing have the full backing of the President. 

If we do less than that, I fear that we will see another slide 

downhill. We can look at Iraq itself or we can look at another example, say, Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets. We decided 

our work then was done. We pulled out. On the way out, we sanctioned Pakistan, who had been our most allied of allies, and that 

act incidentally reverberates today why the Pakistanis hedge their 

bets. They think we are going to pull out again. And I do commend 

the administration for making it quite clear that we are not talking 

about calendars anymore, but we are talking about conditions. 

So it is going to take a formidable political effort to bring things 

to a better place in Iraq. Madam Chairwoman, we are hardwired 

into their political system. I found during my time there that we 

could be the catalyst that made good things happen, but we would 

have to get something from one party conditionally, take that to 

the other party, and we found that when we did that some of the 
5 

time they would give things to us to work that they couldn’t do directly with each other. 

So, Madam Chairwoman, I understand that people in this country are tired of the never-ending wars in Iraq, now in Syria, that 

the Hill is tired of this conflict. I get it about being tired. I spent 

7 years of my life post-9/11 in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. So 

I know about tired. 

But there are worse things. When we decided that we would not 

intervene or continue our presence in Afghanistan, the totally predictable civil war broke out between rival Afghan factions, culminating in the victory of the Taliban, and that was the road to 

9/11. Policies have consequences. The absence of policies have consequences. So again, I commend you, Madam Chairwoman, the 

ranking member, for bringing us together at this time to concentrate on how we might get it right. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Crocker can be found in 

the Appendix on page 44.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Ambassador. 

Dr. Pollack. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KENNETH M. POLLACK, RESIDENT 

SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Dr. POLLACK. Like my predecessor, Ambassador Crocker, and as 

you all pointed out in your opening statements, I too am very concerned about the political repercussions of the future of Iraq and 

American policy there. 

I guess I am heartened that we Americans now duly intone that 

victory in Iraq or any of the Middle East wars will not be won by 

military forces alone. But I am nevertheless disappointed and frustrated that we rarely ever walk—sorry, walk the walk even though 

we have learned to talk the talk. The one time when we actually 

got it right was, of course, when Congressman Moulton and Ambassador Crocker were in Iraq. And I do not see the willingness of the 

level of preparations on the part of this administration that we saw 

at that time. 

I would like to use my opening statement to just lay the groundwork for what I envision as being necessary for a post-Daesh [ISIS] 

American commitment to Iraq. And I am going to be very brief to 

just sketch out the broad framework. But I think it is important 

to start talking through the details of what is going to be necessary, because again, as Ambassador Crocker knows better than 

any of us, in Iraq in particular, the devil is in the details. To talk 

about things just kind of in a broad airy-fairy way and simply say 

that we need to be there is not going to be helpful. 

We need to talk about what it means to be there. We need to talk 

about what engagement looks like and in particular—and, again, 

as both you, Madam Chairwoman, and Congressman Moulton, and 

Ambassador Crocker have all emphasized—we need to be focused 

on Iraq’s politics and how the United States can help move Iraq’s 

politics forward. 

Now, all that said, it does start with the military side. Yes, we 

have won an important victory over Daesh. That is a useful step 

forward. But we all know that Iraq’s security is not going to simply 
6 

be perfect moving forward. It is going to require residual efforts, 

and in particular it is going to require a residual American force 

in the country. 

That force’s mission will be primarily political. Yes, there are 

military things that it can and should do, but we need to focus on 

its political role as being the most important of all, and that—it 

needs to be able to reassure Iraqis that force will not be used 

against them, including by their own government or by quasi-governmental entities. 

That force needs to be able to prevent the re-politicization of the 

Iraqi military. And it needs to maintain the combat and logistical 

capabilities of the Iraqi military that we have so painstakingly 

built and then abandoned and rebuilt repeatedly but that is critical 

to allowing the Iraqi government to maintain a monopoly on the 

use of violence. 

All of that is going to require a stay-behind American force, and 

I would argue that it needs to be bigger rather than smaller to 

serve these political purposes. If you said to me we would put 

25,000 or keep 25,000 troops in Iraq, I would throw a party. I 

imagine that that might be a bridge too far politically, but I think 

the 10,000 would be perfectly adequate. But we need to be thinking 

fairly large for these political reasons. 

Shifting quickly over to the political and economic dimensions, 

which are, as we have all agreed, far more important, we need to 

recognize that we have a moment now. Iraqis are gleeful that they 

have defeated ISIS. They are desirous of a better future. They want 

their government to work better. And they are hopeful that they 

will get it, but they have been frustrated so many times in the 

past, we shouldn’t assume that they are going to remain patient for 

all that long. And the problem is, when they grow frustrated, they 

begin taking unilateral actions that lead them back down the path 

of civil war. 

We need to help the Iraqi government to start to deliver right 

now, soon, in particular, before their elections. We can’t rebuild the 

country completely. We cannot even help the Iraqis do so. We can’t 

turn it into Switzerland. What we can do is to start programs that 

are going to give the Iraqis a sense of progress moving forward, a 

sense that their government can deliver, a sense that the United 

States is committed to them and their government, and the hope 

for a better future. 

If we can do that—and I have outlined a number of specific 

projects in my written testimony—if we can do that moving forward, we will keep the Iraqis committed to this political process. 

That is what we have to have, that is what we need for Iraq to succeed over the long term, that kind of a start. If we don’t, we are 

likely to be repeating our mistakes all over again. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Pollack can be found in the Appendix on page 52.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much. Dr. Lynch. 

STATEMENT OF DR. MARC LYNCH, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL 

SCIENCE, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

Dr. LYNCH. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and Ranking Member Moulton. It is a real honor to be here on a panel with Ambas-
7 

sador Crocker and Ken Pollack. And it is quite an experience to be 

sitting here in 2017 and largely agree with each other on the major 

issues, which would not have happened in 2007. And that I think 

is grounds for hope, that there actually is, I think, a bipartisan 

sense now of the urgency of having a sustained commitment to getting Iraq right. And I think that is something to build upon. 

What is more, as we have heard, I think there is also almost a 

unanimous consensus among analysts across all stripes that if we 

hope to actually contain, degrade, and defeat ISIS, we are going to 

need some kind of sustained political economic reconstruction strategy and the idea of the primacy of the political is something which 

I think was not present before. And again, this is grounds for hope. 

I think we agree on the diagnosis in ways which I think was not 

true before. 

So in my written testimony, I offer I think some fairly detailed 

discussion of a number of issues. I just want to highlight several 

which I think would be useful for us to think about now and hopefully have time to discuss. 

The first is, as Ken said, that there is a window of opportunity 

now, but it won’t last for long. I think that we recently published— 

in the page I edit for the Washington Post, we published a piece 

by an Iraqi pollster who found really quite remarkable findings, 

found 51 percent of Sunnis now saying that the country is going 

in the right direction, 71 percent of Sunnis saying that they had 

favorable views of Prime Minister Abadi. In 2014, the same pollster 

found 5 percent of Sunnis said the same about Prime Minister 

Maliki. 

This is directly and clearly tied to the national campaign to defeat ISIS and liberate those areas. But it also is fleeting, because 

the conditions under which these people who have been liberated, 

conditions they are living in are terrible. They are being sustained 

by a massive international humanitarian effort which has been 

supported and coordinated extremely well by the coalition, but in 

a sense it is standing in for the Iraqi state and providing the necessary means of survival for the millions of people who would be 

liberated from ISIS. 

This is a testament to a successful coordination of an unprecedented humanitarian response, but it is also dangerous, because 

when the next humanitarian crisis emerges and the international 

NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] move on, who is going to be 

taking care of all of these people who are not currently being tied 

to the Iraqi state? 

And so one of the most important things I think we need to have 

on the agenda is a sustained transition strategy moving from disaster relief and crisis relief to a sustainable standard for providing 

services, goods, and critically, governance for the people in these 

liberated areas. I know planning of that kind is going on now. It 

is extremely important that it be fully funded and made equal and 

parallel to the military track. 

I think that we all probably have thoughts on the impact of the 

Kurdish referendum and the crisis that I think it has sparked. I 

think at this point all we need to say is that it is urgently necessary that we take whatever effort is needed to calm things down 

and to try and stop the politicians on all sides, both inside the 
8 

country and outside the country, from taking escalatory steps. We 

have to keep the dialogue going. And I think this is pretty important for maintaining the campaign against ISIS. 

I think that for all of the military issues, I think that I would 

come back again and again to the fundamental problem, which is 

a crisis of state capacity in Iraq. We have consistently seen the inability to construct state institutions which are accountable, effective, authoritative, and honest. 

And I think this is at the root of Sunni alienation; this is at the 

root of the inability of the government of Iraq to provide vital services, electricity, health, everything that you might think of, not necessarily in the capital, but in the rural areas and the Sunni areas, 

the places where you are likely to see a reimagined ISIS insurgency take root. 

And so I think that it is easy to say that we need a whole-of-government approach, we need to have the politics and the economics, 

along with the military, but I would actually hope that we take seriously as a government the actual primacy of these issues. If we 

do not find ways to actually have the Iraqi government with our 

assistance provide sustainable and meaningful quality of life, accountable, transparent, and honest governance to the people across 

the core constituencies of the regime, then we are going to see almost inevitably major problems to come. 

The other point that I would like to make, which I think is the 

one area where we might have some disagreements on the panel, 

is that of course what happens in Iraq is unfolding in the midst of 

ongoing political tension and competition with Iran. And there are 

major issues in how we should be thinking about our relationship 

with Iran, the nuclear deal, the spread of Shiite militias. These are 

important and vital issues. 

But I would simply put out there for discussion that Iraq is the 

single worst place where we could attempt to push back on Iranian 

influence in the region, and that we should prioritize the stabilization of Iraq and trying to maintain the fragile Iraqi political consensus first, and find other arenas where we might try and push 

back or contain Iranian influence. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lynch can be found in the Appendix on page 69.] 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Dr. Lynch. And you hit on there in 

your last comment a point that I was going to start off with my 

questioning, and that was dealing with Iran. 

It has been interesting to watch their burgeoning role there in 

this recent conflict and then taking so much control of various militias and ‘‘assisting’’ quote, unquote. But, Ambassador Crocker, I 

thought you had some interesting comments in your testimony that 

says some in the country believe that cooperation with Iran in confronting ISIL is possible and desirable. He said it is neither; Iran 

does not feel threatened by ISIL. 

And then you go on that these units are potentially greater 

threat to Iraqi stability and our interests than ISIL was. That really—this paragraph jumped out at me. So I would like to hear from 

you your thoughts on the threat potentially of Iran and the advances that they have made in the country of Iraq and then how 
9 

you think we ought to deal with that, and then I will probably turn 

to the other witnesses, too, to kind of get an overview of this situation, because as you said, Dr. Lynch, this is a very important issue 

we have to deal with. 

Ambassador CROCKER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. It is indeed a critical issue. 

What we find today is that Iranian influence in Iraq is at an alltime high, both directly and indirectly through the so-called Popular Mobilization Units that are far more under the control of 

Tehran than they are of Baghdad. It is important, I think, to take 

a step back and ask why. Why are the Iranians doing this? 

Biography and history are important. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, their external operations element, commissioned in the Iranian army a couple of months before Iraq invaded 

Iran. He served through 8 years of that horrific war. It would be 

like a British subaltern going through the Western Front not for 

4 years, but for 8. 

So what do people like Qasem Soleimani think about when they 

think about Iraq? Never again. Never again will there be an Iraq 

that could present an existential threat to the Iranian nation. So 

their interest is not stability in Iraq. It is the opposite, to maintain 

a maximum level of influence, but also to ensure that the Iraqi government can never quite get its balance. And they are doing a pretty good job of it. 

So while I certainly don’t urge a military confrontation with Iran 

in Iraq, I do think we need to be clear-eyed about this. Their objectives in no way harmonize with ours. And we are going to have to 

figure out how we can ramp up and give the Iraqi government and 

people some choices over influence that they currently don’t have, 

because with our absence, the Iranian presence is really the only 

game in town. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Dr. Pollack, do you have some 

thoughts on that? 

Dr. POLLACK. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

I feel like I may be somewhere in between my two panelists both 

on this issue as well as physically. I start by agreeing with Ambassador Crocker that Iran’s interests are ultimately not our interest 

in Iraq, that Iran’s influence there has grown disproportionately, 

and that ultimately it should be a goal of American policy to limit 

Iran’s influence in Iraq, recognizing that it will never be zero because of their proximity to one another. 

That said, I also felt very strongly about some of Marc Lynch’s 

comments. I think that Dr. Lynch is absolutely correct that we are 

in a precarious moment. And I don’t think that Ambassador Crocker was saying otherwise. This is part of the trick moving forward 

in Iraq, which is right now Iran does have enormous influence in 

Iraq. Right now, a great many Iraqi politicians are very frightened 

of the Iranians. And it is going to take them a lot to get them to 

the point where they trust us enough to simply give the stiff arm 

to the Iranians. 

I also agree that while I am a strong proponent of pushing back 

on the Iranians across the region—in fact, I am testifying tomorrow 

before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on exactly that topic— 
10 

I agree with the statement that Dr. Lynch made that Iraq is not 

the place for that, right? 

There are a lot of things that we need to do in Iraq. They are 

important to us on their own terms. Iraq is not the right arena for 

competition with Iran because of Iran’s greater influence there and 

the fragility of the Iraqi system. 

I will simply say that I think that where we ought to focus our 

efforts, and again I think this is very much consonant both with 

Ambassador Crocker’s remarks and with his own experience, is on 

building up the Iraqi government and helping the Iraqis to reachieve their own unity, certainly among Arab, Sunni, and Shia. 

You know, the moment where we had the greatest success 

against Iran in Iraq after the 2003 invasion was in the spring of 

2008, when the Iraqi government then led by Prime Minister Nouri 

al-Maliki, sent mostly Sunni brigades down to Basra to drive the 

Shia Jaish al-Mahdi, backed by Iran, out of the Shia city of Basra. 

And what was so amazing to me—and I was in Basra right after 

the operation—was how the Shia welcomed these mostly Sunni 

troops, because they saw them as simply Iraqis who were here to 

drive out the foreigners, the Persians. If we can get the Iraqis back 

to that point, where they once again feel like Iraqis and not just 

Sunni and Shia, they will do a far more effective job than we can 

in driving the Iranians out. 

The trick is exactly as Ambassador Crocker pointed out to be 

able to do that and to do it at a moment when the Iranians are 

very influential in Iraq and watching to see what our next move 

is. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much. Dr. Lynch. 

Dr. LYNCH. Great, thank you. And I think I am not as far away 

from Ken on the analysis as I am physically. So that is good. 

So I think that you have to begin from the recognition that as 

Ambassador Crocker said, Iran’s role in Iraq is not going to disappear, for reasons of geography, of sectarian affiliation, of deep 

economic investment, widespread personal relationships, and their 

cultivation of a portfolio of political allies and proxies not only the 

Shiite side, but across the entire spectrum. Iran I think has done 

a very good job of embedding itself deeply in the texture and the 

fabric of Iraqi politics. 

But this is not uncontroversial. And we actually are in a moment 

where there is increasing sign of resistance within unexpected communities to a dominant Iranian role; not the existence of an Iranian role, but a dominant Iranian role. And here I think is where 

the place for the United States is less, in my opinion, about pushing back on Iran directly as it is building up the Iraqi state and 

giving a professional bureaucracy, a professional military, which 

can become the foundation of the kind of national politics that Dr. 

Pollack was describing. 

And there I think there are real things that we can do which do 

not have to be cast in a confrontational way and don’t, hopefully, 

have the risk of overturning this extremely delicate political moment. Of course, Ambassador Crocker is right about this, as he is 

about all things, in terms of the lack of strategic harmony between 

the United States and Iran in Iraq, but I would say that in the crisis moment of 2014, I think this was less the case. 
11 

When it appeared that Baghdad was at the brink of falling and 

that there was a real perception that the whole thing could come 

falling apart, there was a convergence on the need to protect the 

Iraqi state, prevent the advance of ISIS, and work together in a 

pragmatic way. 

And this was something which was never going to last, but if you 

hadn’t seen the Popular Mobilization Units going to the front at 

the time they did, we could be having a very different conversation 

right now about a shattered and lost Iraqi state. And that is an important thing to remember. 

Not all of the PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces] units are the 

same. Some of them are I would say functionally the equivalent of 

the Sahwa, the Awakening Brigades. Some of them are straight-up 

Iranian proxy forces. And having a differentiated view of that is 

quite important. 

When you have Muqtada al-Sadr going to Saudi Arabia, when 

you have the appearance of outreach from key Shia constituencies 

out into the Sunni Arab world, these are important things which 

I think should be used diplomatically and not dismissed purely on 

sectarian grounds. 

And so I think that what we should be thinking about is creating 

a place for the United States to be the actor that is supporting governance in Iraq and providing services and supporting a project of 

state first, politics first, rather than trying to compete with Iran on 

its own terms in those sorts of ways. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. I am going to turn to the ranking 

member now, but I will want to follow up at some point if you don’t 

address it in—the willingness of the Iranians to allow for a consolidated government to form with significant amount of Sunni involvement in that. But we can come back later. 

Now turn to Ranking Member Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Chairwoman Hartzler. 

And as someone who witnessed firsthand the influence of Iran in 

Iraqi politics and, frankly, in military affairs, I just want to emphasize my agreement with the importance of these questions. It is 

hard, I think, to see how if Iran is fundamentally opposed to our 

interests in building an Iraqi state, we are going to make this work 

without confronting that threat, as well. So thank you very much. 

Gentlemen, you have I think all agreed, remarkably so, on the 

importance of the primacy, to use one of your words, of a political 

effort here and in building the Iraqi state. You have also—Ken, you 

talked about—Dr. Pollack, you talked about the value of 10,000 

troops, maybe even 25,000 troops. We are going to ask the administration from their witnesses how they are prepared to execute such 

a political plan or if they are prepared to do so at all. 

But could you talk for a minute each of you about why this is 

worth it? Why is it worth the United States investment to put in 

10,000 troops if their effort—even if their effort is mainly political? 

Why is it worth the investment of State Department resources and 

aid and development resources to build up the Iraqi state? 

We have been there a long time. And many Americans are asking, why don’t we just pull out and go home? And, Ambassador 

Crocker, you referred to this a little bit in your introduction, but 

just explain to the American people why this investment is worth-
12 

while and why now is the right time to make it. Ambassador 

Crocker, you are welcome to start. Thank you. 

Ambassador CROCKER. Thank you, Congressman Moulton. What 

we are seeing in the region, potentially in Iraq, is not just the overthrow of regimes, but the collapse of states. And sadly, when states 

collapse, other forces will fill the void, as we have seen. I would call 

it a failure of governance throughout the region. The modern Middle East is about 100 years old. In that time, that chronic failure 

of governance has led to crisis after crisis, and I would argue has 

brought the region to the point it is at today, which is deeply dangerous not only for the region, but for the world, including ourselves. 

So there is a fundamental choice here. Either we continue as we 

have been doing, in which case I think you are going to see Islamic 

State 2.0, as Islamic State was Al Qaeda in Iraq 2.0. That is not 

in our interests any more than watching Afghanistan spiral down 

in the 1990s, again, the rise of the Taliban and the road to 9/11. 

Congressman, I have heard much in my career about a failure 

of intelligence leading to this or that. There is some truth in it. But 

it is not the whole truth. I call it a failure of imagination that we 

cannot imagine how bad things can really get. We couldn’t imagine 

that Iranian- and Syrian-backed elements in Lebanon would blow 

up first the American embassy—I was a survivor of that attack— 

and later the Marine barracks. 

We can’t imagine how Iran could move into Iraq through the creation of these proxies. And Dr. Lynch is absolutely right, there is 

a spectrum here. But the weight on that spectrum is toward the 

Iranian-influenced units. We—— 

Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Ambassador, is there anyone in the United 

States government who imagined how bad Syria would be today? 

Ambassador CROCKER. In a word, Congressman, no. And that is 

what I mean about a failure of imagination. Analysts need to think 

outside the box. They need to think as though there were no box. 

I could not have imagined when I left Iraq in the early spring of 

2009 that it would descend to the point it is at now. And it is a 

sharp reminder that you don’t end wars by withdrawing your 

forces. You simply cede the battlespace to others more determined. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Dr. Pollack. 

Dr. POLLACK. Thank you very much, Congressman. I am privileged to get to go around this country and give talks on the Middle 

East, and I get asked this question frequently. And I will give you 

the answer more or less that I give them. 

The first answer that I give is the relationship to our economy. 

And I have got to use a four-letter word. It is actually a three-letter 

word, but it comes out as a four-letter word, and that is oil. We 

are all infatuated with shale. The truth of the matter is, though, 

that the world still runs on oil and that Middle East is a major producer of oil, and Iraq currently is the fourth-largest oil producer in 

the world. 

Now, could North American shale make up for the complete loss 

of Iraqi oil? Maybe. I don’t think that anybody really wants to find 

out. And what we have seen in the past is that oil crises have been 

major problems for the U.S. economy, causing some of the worst 

post-war recessions that we have experienced. Until we can do bet-
13 

ter with weaning ourselves off of oil and finding new sources of it, 

the Middle East is going to matter and Iraq is going to be critical. 

Beyond that is the point that Ambassador Crocker was making. 

When I go around the country, I typically—you have a line that I 

have been using for over a decade about how the United States is 

not like an American city in the southwest. But given the tragic 

events that have unfolded there in the last couple of days, I am 

going to refrain from making that comparison and simply say that 

the problem that we have found with civil wars is that they spread. 

They don’t stay contained. 

There is a very extensive body of scholarly work that demonstrates what scholars call the contagion effect, that civil wars in 

one country destabilize and then cause civil wars in neighboring 

states. As you pointed out, Syria helped push Iraq back into civil 

war, and together they have created a mini-civil war in Turkey. In 

its day, civil war between Israelis and Palestinians caused civil war 

in Jordan, which then caused civil war in Lebanon, which then 

caused civil war in Syria. 

And as you also alluded to, Ambassador Crocker’s point about a 

failure of imagination, I have got a pretty good imagination. And 

back in 2012, having studied deeply on the literature of civil wars, 

I was thinking about what the Syrian civil war could mean for the 

Middle East and for the world, and I remember as I was writing 

a piece asking myself, should I point out that if this got really bad, 

it could start to affect Europe? And I decided I shouldn’t, because 

people would think my imagination was running away with itself. 

Well, it not only affected Europe, it helped cause the British to 

pull out of the EU [European Union], okay? Even I couldn’t imagine that. Right? But that is the problem with these kinds of civil 

wars. They don’t stay contained. They spill over. If we simply walk 

away from Iraq and allow it to descend back into civil war, we 

don’t know what comes next. Kuwait, Jordan, maybe Iran, maybe 

we would think that was good, at least in the short run. Saudi Arabia. These are countries which at some point we can’t possibly accept. They will gut our economy. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Dr. Pollack. Dr. Lynch. 

Dr. LYNCH. Thank you. So for the record, I don’t agree that we 

should have 10,000 troops in Iraq or 25,000 troops. I don’t think 

that we have to go to zero, and I think there is a good argument 

made for the residual—kind of a residual force of trainers and embedded kind of small units. 

But I don’t think that we should be thinking about it in terms 

of putting a long-term 10,000, 25,000 permanent U.S. military garrison in Iraq. I think that would actually put us back in an 

unhealthy place where we were before the withdrawal. 

I think what we have now is a situation where we are there at 

the request of the Iraqi government. There is actually political support at a fairly wide level for the American presence there. And we 

have a bipartisan support for what we have in Iraq now. So the 

politics are in some ways right for a small residual force for the 

United States in both the United States and in Iraq. 

But moving to have this kind of long-term, large-scale U.S. military presence I think risks unsettling both of those consensuses 

that have become a flashpoint for political controversy here in the 
14 

United States and would draw a great deal of unwanted attention 

inside of Iraq to this renewed notion of a permanent American 

military presence. I actually think that is not a good idea, but we 

can continue to discuss that. 

On the question of why it is worth it, I want to also perhaps be 

a little contrary here, as well, to break the comity that we have 

had to this point. I think that this is ultimately up to the Iraqis 

to choose. This is not an American decision. If the Iraqis choose to 

create a sectarian and exclusionary state, to not confront corruption, to allow the rural and Sunni areas to go without governance 

and to not try and meet the needs of their Sunni population, then 

nothing we do can help them. We could have 10,000 troops, we 

could have 50,000 troops. We could do almost anything and it won’t 

help. 

The choice is up to them. And the hope that we have is that after 

having faced the crisis of 2014, they are now willing and able to 

make those choices, to create the kind of functional state which can 

partner with the United States on equal terms. And I think that 

is the direction we need to be moving in, is having a partnership 

which is based upon not just keeping a presence in Iraq no matter 

what, but to have it based on the notion that this is the type of 

state that we want to support and giving the types of assistance 

that can actually support that kind of state. Different way of thinking about it, but I think an important difference. 

Mr. MOULTON. Dr. Lynch, I think I understand your position. Do 

you agree that we have a national security interest in the Middle 

East and in Iraq? 

Dr. LYNCH. Oh, absolutely. And I agree 100 percent with—— 

Mr. MOULTON. But do you think ultimately we should let the 

Iraqis decide on whether we pursue that national security interest? 

Dr. LYNCH. No. My point is that if the Iraqis make the wrong 

choices in terms of the type of state they build, then we can waste 

an enormous amount of American blood and treasure accomplishing very little, because ultimately if they recreate the sectarianism, corruption, and state failure which led to 2014, then we 

cannot achieve our national security goals as I think we all agree 

that they should be defined. 

Mr. MOULTON. Do you think we can have any influence on that 

decision? 

Dr. LYNCH. We can have influence on it. And that I think is what 

I was trying to say about the political underpinnings that now exist 

for a sustained partnership between this Iraqi government and the 

United States. And otherwise I wouldn’t be recommending that we 

have this kind of long-term commitment and focusing on building 

the economic, political, and military degrees of cooperation. I absolutely think that this is a moment where we do have that kind of 

influence and we certainly have the interest to sustain it. 

But I want to warn against unconditional commitment even if 

you don’t have the foundations that would make it possible. That 

is what I am most worried about, is that by giving a blank check, 

we could enable exactly the kinds of dysfunction that created 2014 

in the first place. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you. And if I may just conclude with one 

very brief question, if you could answer in one sentence or less, just 
15 

each of you, you have agreed so much on the need for the primacy 

of a political commitment and how that must lead our efforts in all 

that we do. 

I was a frequent critic of the Obama administration because I 

didn’t feel that they understood this. And they responded to the 

ISIS crisis by just sending military trainers in, which didn’t really 

do much to fix Iraqi politics. We got lucky with the new prime minister, but I don’t think that we can claim much credit for the political improvement that has happened there. 

Do you think this administration understands this and is prepared to make a political commitment the prime commitment? Ambassador Crocker. 

Ambassador CROCKER. Yes. I do think that is the case. When you 

look at leaders like Secretary Mattis, he certainly knows Iraq up 

close and personal. The national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, 

the same, both Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Mr. MOULTON. Dr. Pollack, do you agree? 

Dr. POLLACK. I will perhaps refine Ryan’s answer slightly and 

say I think that there are those in this administration who absolutely understand it and are absolutely committed, but they don’t 

seem to yet have a decision made about what their policy is going 

to be. 

Mr. MOULTON. Dr. Lynch. 

Dr. LYNCH. I have no idea. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Representative Scott of Georgia. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Madam Chair. Gentlemen, thank you for 

being here. 

As we talk about securing the peace, it seems to me that the 

more pressure we put on these groups in one area, they simply 

move to other areas of ungoverned territory, and there is certainly 

a tremendous number of areas where they can go in northeast Africa, the Middle East, where they can—it seems remobilize, re-equip, 

and come back with maybe a different goal and different strategy. 

So my question revolves around that challenge. As we—what 

would you suggest the best path is to stop what I would call the 

remobilization or the relocation of the terrorist organizations, 

where they are able to regroup and come back and attack in another country? 

Ambassador CROCKER. It is an important question, Congressman. 

In one sense, if we can keep them moving around, that keeps them 

off-balance, but we would have to, again, have the resolve, if they 

are relocating somewhere else where there is no effective state, 

pursue them there, not by sending in the 101st, but there are other 

platforms. You know, the more we can keep them on the defensive, 

the less likely they are to have the time and the space to plan another major attack into Europe or, God forbid, into this country. 

So, again, I would like to say that we could find a way to eliminate this scourge. I don’t think that is going to happen anytime 

soon, but we sure as heck can keep them off-balance, we can trip 

them so that they have no safe place ultimately in which they can 

plan strategic-level attacks. 

Dr. LYNCH. I think, Representative Scott, that is a great question. And I think it gets to the heart of having to place Iraq within 
16 

a full-scale regional and international strategy. And so what my 

comments about trying to build the capacity of the Iraqi state 

should be read as part of a much wider strategy of trying to rebuild 

states across the region, and that includes not just rebuilding militaries and counterterrorism units, but actually building governance 

and actually building accountable states which are responsive to 

their people that can provide and deliver services. 

And so I think that I would absolutely think that you are putting 

your finger right on the problem with a shattered Middle East, not 

just a shattered Iraq. That said, I think Iraq is actually a distinctively important place for both Al Qaeda and for ISIS. This is 

where Al Qaeda transformed for the first time into a serious insurgency back with Zarqawi. This is where the remnants of that insurgency became the Islamic State and were able to move into Syria 

and take over these parts of Iraq. 

I think that a defeat and removal or at least a strategic defeat 

of the Islamic State in Iraq will have much greater impact on its 

appeal and attractiveness and power across the rest of the world 

than pretty much any other place. 

Dr. POLLACK. Congressman Scott, I will simply add, first, I agree 

very much with the points that Dr. Lynch made. I think he has got 

it spot on. I will start by saying that we need to separate out two 

different problems, the problems of the civil wars in Iraq, Syria for 

that matter, and the problem of transnational terrorism. They are 

ultimately related but distinct topics. 

And I will start by saying the line—to use a line from a friend 

of mine within the Trump administration, it is not the case that 

Iraq and Syria are in civil war because ISIS is there. ISIS is there 

because Iraq and Syria are in civil war. 

Mr. SCOTT. That is right. 

Dr. POLLACK. And so point number one is, we do need to stabilize 

these different countries. At the end of the day, though, you are absolutely right, Congressman, there will always be ungoverned 

spaces on the map. And the terrorist groups will always seek refuge there. 

The hope has to be that if we can deny them recruits, because 

there aren’t large numbers of people in places like the Middle East 

who are desperately unhappy and looking to kill someone as a result of that, you can cut off the flow of oxygen, you can diminish 

their strength, and then both defensive measures, like those that 

we put in place after 9/11, and offensive measures, such as special 

forces operations, drone strikes, et cetera, can diminish the threat 

to the point where it isn’t significant at all. 

Mr. SCOTT. Madam Chair, I am almost out of time. One of the 

other things I think that we need to talk through is whether or not 

when we have small pockets where we have 10 or 15 or 20 that 

we believe to be or know to be through intelligence part of one of 

the terrorist organizations, that we should go ahead and take them 

out prior to them recruiting and becoming a significantly larger 

and more capable group. It seems to me that we would do better 

to—if we know they are what they are, we are not going to fix that, 

so we might as well help the rest of the world. Thank you. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Mr. O’Halleran. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 
17 

Dr. Pollack, you stated about the stay behind and an indeterminate amount of time. This is the second time today we have heard 

the issue of our troops staying behind. Afghanistan was the other 

issue earlier today. 

And I don’t know what is going to happen in western Syria especially, but if we have potential there, then we have the Kurdish 

Iraqi situation, and are we going to be peacekeepers along that? Or 

how are we going to get the U.N. involved? 

So what does stay behind mean? And what is the implications of 

that on the geopolitical issues within that area? 

Dr. POLLACK. Thanks very much, Congressman. And I think this 

is an important set of questions for this committee in particular to 

dig into. 

As I noted earlier, Iraq is a quintessential civil war. We know a 

lot about these civil wars. We know a lot about how to bring them 

to peaceful ends and prevent them from recurring. What the history of these civil wars have demonstrated over and over and over 

again is that you need to have three conditions in place. One, what 

is called a hurting stalemate, where none of the groups believes 

that they can win a military victory, and in fact they have real incentives to stop fighting. 

Second, there needs to be a political power-sharing arrangement. 

And third, there needs to be some institution that remains in place 

for a period of time, typically 10 to 20 years, that guarantees or at 

least reassures people that conditions one and two will continue to 

obtain. Historically, the best institution for that is an external 

peacekeeping force. 

And I would argue that that is, at least in Iraq—I am not an Afghan expert, I am not going to speak to Afghanistan—that is a different mission. It is a war in a very different state of affairs. But 

in Iraq, that is how we should be thinking about the U.S. force 

there, as a peacekeeping force. 

What we have seen is, peacekeeping forces need to start with a 

certain size to establish presence. And my point about the numbers 

is driven by State Department—sorry, by CENTCOM [U.S. Central 

Command] and DOD [Department of Defense] planning for the stay 

behind force. In 2009, 2010, 2011, the actual military force in Iraq 

led by General Lloyd Austin formulated a plan. They believed that 

the right number was somewhere between 22,000 and 25,000 

troops to maintain that presence. The Department of Defense refined that and said we think we can do it with 10,000 troops. 

I think that those numbers are more or less correct, given where 

Iraq is today. Now, over time, I suspect that those numbers can 

come down, because what you see in these civil wars is that over 

time the communities rebuild their trust and that presence can become increasingly symbolic. So this is not Korea. We are not going 

to need a large force there ready to fight a major war at a moment’s notice. 

But what we do need to be thinking about is the political role 

of these troops in reassuring Iraqis that they are not going to have 

violence used against them, that their military is not going to be 

re-politicized, and their military isn’t going to lose the capability to 

put down bad actors when it is necessary to do so. 
18 

And as I said, I think that the numbers formulated first by USF– 

I [U.S. Forces–Iraq], General Austin and his men, and then refined 

by the Department of Defense, are exactly where we ought to be 

thinking. Those were the right numbers at exactly the same moment in time. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, Doctor. 

Ambassador Crocker, Mr. Scott brought up the issue concerning 

other locations in the world about terrorism. And we have a significant amount of—a lot of this is going to be requiring State Department work. The military can’t do everything, and we would rather 

have no war than a war. 

So do you feel that the current proposed cuts to the State Department, given North Korea and all the other issues going on 

around this world, are a position that we should be taking? 

Ambassador CROCKER. Thank you for asking that, Congressman. 

In a word, no. What we are seeing, frankly, is not simply a budget 

cut in megatons. We were seeing, I think, an effort to deconstruct 

the State Department and the Foreign Service. 

And I can tell you, if that is not reversed, this is something we 

are going to be paying for, for a very long time. If we have to cut 

back our intake, then you are going to have that gap moving forward for the next 20 years, where you don’t have the senior officer 

cadre who are fluent in foreign languages, who know these countries and cultures, who know how to deal with it. 

So I can’t put it strongly enough. This is a very, very serious 

issue. If we don’t want to have to fight a whole lot more wars, then 

you need a strong, well-resourced Foreign Service to go out there 

and do what may be possible to see that the troops don’t have to 

come in. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Representative Cheney. 

Ms. CHENEY. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thanks very 

much to all of the witnesses here today. 

Ambassador Crocker and I had the privilege of serving together 

in the State Department. And, Ambassador, you know that I think 

you are one of the wisest, most thoughtful members of the Foreign 

Service we have. And I am very grateful for your appearance here 

today and for your testimony. 

Could you talk a little bit about the connection and the relationship between our ability as a nation to influence political events in 

a place like Iraq and our troops? And in particular, I am thinking 

about as we surged in 2007, what that meant in terms of our leverage in the country, and how you try to replicate that same kind of 

political leverage in an environment in which we are not going to 

have that number of troops on the ground, certainly. 

But how do you make sure that the United States, in addition 

to the—reversing the kinds of cuts that you have talked about, but 

having the political leverage, is it possible to have the kind of political leverage with all the sides that would be necessary for a political solution in the absence of the kind of military presence that 

we saw at the moment when our leverage was highest? 

Ambassador CROCKER. Thank you, Congresswoman. And I must 

say, it is very nice to see you sitting there. 
19 

We will not have that level of leverage again. But I think we may 

not need that level. The Iraqi forces after their horrific collapse in 

2014 have pulled themselves back together. It is true that the 

Counter Terrorism Service is carrying out a major part of this. But, 

you know, there has been progress over these last 2 or 3 years with 

the Iraqi army generally. So we want to be in a position to continue 

to encourage that. 

We are the United States of America. We do have leverage, 

should we choose to use it. But that is why, again, I would not 

make any suggestions on troop levels at this point. We need to see 

a President engage. We are a Presidential system. If the President 

isn’t decided on what he wants to do, then you start to lose that 

kind of influence. 

So, again, I would like to see the President ask his Secretary of 

State to go out to Iraq, spend more than 12 hours there, start a 

process of engagement with not just the current government, but 

political leaders across the board, and then report back on what is 

possible and what isn’t possible, and to go from there. 

Ms. CHENEY. Thank you. And, Dr. Pollack, I walked in as you 

were saying that there will always be ungoverned areas. And in 

keeping with the great tradition up here in the House of Representatives, I am not going to let the fact that I walked in two-thirds 

of the way through stop me from asking you a question. 

Talk about the extent to which—you are not saying that we 

shouldn’t be denying safe haven, are you? 

Dr. POLLACK. No. 

Ms. CHENEY. And so when you—what is that balance? In terms 

of—we have got to deny safe haven. We have also got to deny recruits. But how can you ensure that we are going to deny safe 

haven in the absence of, you know, some basic level of troops, 

American troops on the ground? 

Dr. POLLACK. Thank you very much, Congresswoman. It obviously depends on what we are talking about. In places like Iraq, 

where I think the United States has a clear national interest that 

goes beyond the mere terrorism problem, I think the presence of 

troops is warranted, at least for a certain period of time and probably longer than Dr. Lynch believes is necessary. 

There are going to be places, though, like Mali, where I don’t 

think that we are necessarily warranted American military presence because our interests are much narrower, no offense to any 

Malians who are here or may be thinking about this. But it simply 

does not rise to the same level as Iraq. 

Under those circumstances, I think the United States does need 

to use other tools available to it, whether it be diplomacy or assistance to the host nation, to try to make these places as unhospitable 

as possible. I want to agree with Dr. Lynch that the best way to 

do it is to help these countries repair themselves, an effort that you 

were trying to lead at least for the Middle East when you were at 

the State Department. You know better than I do that if you have 

functional societies—— 

Ms. CHENEY. You don’t cost us votes in here today. 

Dr. POLLACK. If you have functioning societies, you are going to 

have far fewer terrorists. 
20 

Ms. CHENEY. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I yield 

back, Madam Chairwoman. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much. 

Representative Panetta. 

Mr. PANETTA. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Gentlemen, thank 

you for your time, your preparation, and your testimony today. I 

apologize for being late. 

In regards to that sort of infrastructure development, I guess I 

saw something—or the RAND Corporation did something about 

Mosul’s infrastructure, when—its water, its sanitation, its power 

capacity is not doing that well. What are the current efforts right 

now, be it through the United States government or be it through 

the Iraqi government, anything at all to help develop that? Because 

clearly that will play a part in its self-governing. 

Dr. LYNCH. There have been pretty massive efforts to deal with 

the humanitarian crisis dimension of it. There is over 150 NGOs 

on the ground working, coordinated by the coalition, and there has 

been a really quite remarkable effort at the humanitarian relief 

side. But the reconstruction side is still a blank slate. And I think 

that in the midst of crisis, it is very difficult to plan for the long 

term and to begin reconstruction when the fighting is still going on, 

which I think is why having this hearing right now is so important, 

because now is the time to get those plans into place, make sure 

they are fully resourced and coordinated. 

One of the other problems is that is going to have to be linked 

up to the political development inside of Iraq. In other words, there 

has to be some sense of what governance is going to look like in 

Mosul, who is going to be responsible for the administration of 

these reconstruction projects, who will get political credit for them, 

and how will they be linked into the broader Iraqi political system. 

To me, this is the absolute most important thing for us to be looking at right now. 

Mr. PANETTA. Okay. 

Ambassador CROCKER. Well, thank you, Congressman. It is an 

important question, obviously. 

One of the problems the Iraqis confront, and their friends with 

them, is a diminution of resources. There just isn’t that kind of 

money floating around anymore. They are running a horrific deficit, and you see the consequences. 

During my time there in 2007, a decade ago, the prime minister, 

Nouri al-Maliki, extended the first supplemental budget increase— 

we taught them a lot of bad habits, and supplemental budgets, of 

course, would be among them. The prime minister allocated $250 

million to the province of Anbar, because he was finally persuaded 

that if you really want to turn the tide out there against Al Qaeda, 

support the Awakening. And it worked. 

Well, Prime Minister Abadi doesn’t really have $250 million to 

push up to Mosul. So I think the emphasis is going to have to be 

on, you know, a hard-eyed analysis of what really needs to be done 

and done quickly to provide momentum for political solutions, but 

at the same time to be pressing on the issue of governance, because 

I think we have all said this in one way or the other. 

Again, if you want to look through the 100-year history of the 

modern Middle East, there is one single word that I use, govern-
21 

ance, the failure thereof. And that goes back to colonialism and imperialism, the French and the British, and it runs right up to 

today. Now we have Islamism, also a failure to govern. 

So if you—even if you do have the money for resources, you have 

got to get the governance thing down and down right, and it is 

enormously difficult and it is going to take a lot of time. I just hope 

we are prepared to make that commitment. 

Dr. POLLACK. Congressman, if I could just add one point, which 

is this stuff is very hard to do in the moment, right? We are once 

again trying to build an airplane in mid-flight, something that we 

have repeatedly tried to do in Iraq. I would actually argue the time 

to have dealt with the governance issue in Mosul—in fact, I was 

arguing it then—was 18 to 24 months ago, when it would have 

been far easier to deal with. Unfortunately, we didn’t, and it is getting harder and harder. 

We are coming up on elections in Iraq. Inshallah, there will be 

elections at some point in the spring. The closer we get to those 

elections, the harder it is going to be for us to deal with many of 

Iraq’s political problems. And as again, Ambassador Crocker knows 

better than anyone, after those elections, we could face a long and 

painful process of governance formation. It is why doing this now 

is so critical and why it is so wonderful that you are taking up this 

issue now and hopefully can push the administration to engage 

with it more fully. 

Mr. PANETTA. Understood. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, 

Madam Chair. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Sure, thank you. And we have more questions, 

but I know, Dr. Lynch, you have indicated you had a hard stop at 

4:30, so if you need to leave, we certainly want to give you the 

grace to do that. And thank you for coming. Appreciate it. 

Dr. LYNCH. Thank you, Chairman. I think my students will understand if I stay for the last few minutes. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay, very good. Well, thank you. Representative Suozzi. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you to 

the witnesses again. And I apologize, like the previous few Congress Members, for being late here today and for missing so much. 

And I apologize if I am repeating some things that you have asked 

earlier. 

I am concerned about two complicating factors for the long term 

in the area. One is the close relationship between Iran and Iraq 

based upon the fact that major Shia religious sites are located 

within Iraq. And it is normal for tourists from Iran to come into 

Iraq on a regular basis. And there is a lot of cultural friendships 

and relationships based upon these religious sites that have been 

established over centuries, and how complicating is that factor? 

The second factor has been the genocide of Christians and 

Yazidis and other minority groups within Iraq and Syria. And I 

just want to get a quick insight from each of you about how complicating a factor that will be, those two factors will be going forward. 

Ambassador CROCKER. On the first, Congressman, I would certainly never recommend that Iraq take steps to bar Iranian pilgrims from the holy sites in Iraq. You are quite right, those are 
22 

major pilgrimage destinations, just as we see Muslims from around 

the world flock to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. 

My colleagues have said quite rightly Iran will certainly have influence in Iraq. It is natural, one neighbor to another. But we also 

need to keep in mind that an agreement on—that they are all Shia 

together is significant, but there are many, many differences, linguistic, Arabs versus Persians, lots of constraining elements at 

work, too. So in countering Iranian influence in Iraq, I would go 

nowhere near an effort to block Iranian pilgrims. 

On the plight of the Christians in Iraq and, indeed, in Syria, no 

question about it. We are reaching the point where we may see the 

critical weight of the Christian communities, particularly in Iraq, 

get below the level necessary to sustain their presence. And I 

would think that that would need to be a very important issue for 

the administration to take up. But it has to be done delicately. We 

cannot create a public impression that we are there to defend the 

Christians. That is sadly only likely to increase the pressures on 

them. 

So this is all tough. It is all complicated. As Dr. Pollack says, you 

can’t do it in the moment. You have got to make the commitment 

to a long-term, high-level sustained political effort in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. 

Mr. SUOZZI. And how do you militate against the influence of the 

Popular Mobilization Units? I mean, that is—those are all Iranianbacked, right, for the most part? 

Ambassador CROCKER. No, sir. I think as Dr. Lynch and Dr. Pollack have both said, they run a spectrum. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Okay, you don’t have to answer that, then. Anything 

you want to add, Mr. Pollack? 

Dr. POLLACK. I think they are both excellent points, Congressman. And I will simply make some broader points. First, as you 

point out, as we have talked about repeatedly this afternoon, there 

are deep interlinkages between Iran and Iraq. And there is nothing 

that we are going to do that are going to end those. 

Likewise, the problems of genocide and intercommunal violence 

in Iraq are also pervasive. And it is important to remember the 

words of a very wise man who used to repeatedly say that Iraq is 

very, very, very, very, very hard and it is very, very, very, very 

hard all the time. Did I get all the verys? 

That said, we also—you know, one of the most remarkable things 

about Iraq is the ability of this country to overcome all of those 

problems and all of those interlinkages. We need to remember that 

in 2007, 2008, when the United States started to reverse the perverse incentives that we created in 2003, 2004, it was incredible 

how fast Iraq started to turn around. 

Now, Iraq was never Switzerland, right? Iraq was not exactly, 

you know, ready for EU membership. But the change, the direction, 

the delta was remarkable, and it was incredible to see Iraqis coming together out of a recognition that hanging together was much 

better than hanging apart. 

So it is simply a way of saying that you are right, there are problems, there are complications, we need to be aware of them. That 

is exactly why we need to plan ahead, why we need to make a big 
23 

effort, work with the Iraqis, but we also shouldn’t just throw up 

our hands and say this is impossible. 

Dr. LYNCH. If I may, the problem of the minorities in Iraq has 

been an enormous since 2003. You have seen the devastation of minority communities across Iraq, not just Yazidis and the Christians, but beyond. The best protection for minorities is to have a 

strong and capable Iraqi state that can protect all of its citizens. 

Trying to single out particular communities for protection I think 

is very difficult to do, and it is not sustainable in the long term, 

but making that part of a broader package of building state capacity I think is absolutely vital. 

Mr. SUOZZI. I have exceeded my time. Thank you very much, 

Madam Chairwoman. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. You bet. Thank you to each and every one of 

you. We very much appreciate this. We have more questions we 

could ask, but we are going to have votes in about a half an hour. 

We want to get to our second panel. But thank you so much for 

all your insights and all of your devotion to our country and helping out today. 

So let’s go ahead and I would like to invite the second panel to 

the witness table. So we will invite them in. 

So as they get settled, I will make some brief introductions. We 

want to welcome this Department of Defense panel. We have Mr. 

Mark Swayne, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Stability and Humanitarian Affairs in the Office of the Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. 

We have Brigadier General James Bierman, director of the Middle East division on the Joint Staff J–5. 

We have Mr. Joseph Pennington, Deputy Assistant Secretary for 

Iraq in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the Department of 

State. 

And we have Ms. Pamela Quanrud, Director of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at the Department of State. 

Due to the time that we have, I think we will forego the opening 

statements, if we could, since we only have a half an hour before 

votes. And we want to get right to your thoughts and your insights 

on things. So thank you so much for being here. 

Mr. Pennington, I think I would like to start with you. What can 

you tell us about conversations between the United States and the 

government of Iraq? How long do you anticipate having a large 

military footprint in Iraq? And what is the prospect of executing an 

agreeable status of forces agreement with Iraq? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank 

you for the opportunity to be here today to testify. 

I think I will—on the first part of your question, I will kick a 

large chunk of that to my DOD colleagues, but I will just comment 

that I think the success that we—and when I say we, I mean the 

coalition supporting Iraqi partners on the ground—have had in the 

fight against ISIS has convinced Iraqi leaders or Iraqi partners, including Prime Minister Abadi, of the efficacy of partnership with 

U.S. and coalition forces. 

The prime minister is open to and enthusiastic about the prospect of continuing that partnership going forward to meet new 
24 

challenges in Iraq, once the active military operations against ISIS 

wind down. 

Again, I want to not get into too much of the DOD territory here, 

but I think there is a very good prospect for continuing a security 

partnership under the strategic framework agreement that we have 

in place with Iraq. And I think there is a good appetite for that 

on both sides. 

With regard to the part of the question about status of forces, as 

you may know, we have an exchange of notes that regulates military presence in Iraq now. We believe—and I think my colleagues 

would say the same—that that is sufficient for our presence as it 

currently stands, given the purpose and the scope of that relationship. 

Maybe I will stop there and invite other comments. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Sure, appreciate your perspective from the Department of State. Department of Defense want to weigh in on 

that? 

Mr. SWAYNE. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking 

Member Moulton and all subcommittee members for having us 

today. For the issue of the SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement], I 

agree completely with my State colleague. U.S. forces in Iraq are 

operating under the 2014 exchange of notes with the government 

of Iraq. This exchange of notes provides U.S. forces with the appropriate protections and not further commitments—no further commitments are required, so we feel that that exchange of notes is appropriate for right now. Thank you. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Yes, very good. Well, thank you. Mr. Swayne, 

given continued budget pressures, readiness crises across the military and competing national security interests, how do you expect 

to achieve our objectives in Iraq? 

Mr. SWAYNE. Thank you very much. As we—the DOD mission in 

Iraq is focused on dealing with ISIS and to deliver them a lasting 

defeat. I think that is a critical issue for the United States Department of Defense. It is clear that our objective is to defeat ISIS 

wherever it exists, and in Iraq is a very critical portion of where 

ISIS remains. Once they are defeated, we think that that defeat 

will not occur immediately after ISIS loses its territorial control. 

ISIS is likely to continue to plot or inspire external attacks, and 

to deal with that threat, the United States Department of Defense 

is going to have to have a relationship with the government of Iraq 

and the Iraqi security forces to require continued training and to 

effectively secure liberated areas. 

Now, the last 3 years of fighting have effectively secured liberated areas, and we have focused on conventional operations. And 

a new ISIS threat will require proficiency in wide areas of security 

operations in counterinsurgency, and that is an area I think that 

we can work with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military to 

determine what the needs are going forward with the Iraqi security 

forces, and that includes the United States and also our coalition 

partners as we look for the advise-and-assist teams and to work for 

the future training missions. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. But the question was dealing with our budget 

situation that we have and the readiness crises that we have encountered. So do you have what you need in order to be able to fin-
25 

ish the mission there and carry it out? What are areas of concerns 

that you have or needs that you may have? 

Mr. SWAYNE. Yes, ma’am, thank you. With the actual budget 

numbers and the actual numbers of our troops going forward, that 

is something that in this unclassified open hearing, we are not prepared to discuss the particulars. It is ongoing right now for the 

planning within the Department of Defense and to look at what the 

requirements are with our Iraqi partners and then come back and 

work with the committee to determine, once we have that plan, in 

a classified, closed session, then I think we will be ready for an 

open discussion after that. 

But at this time, the details on the budget or the numbers are 

certainly things that we are concerned about, thinking about. It is 

very clear to us that in the defeat of ISIS, the long-term defeat of 

ISIS and a lasting defeat of ISIS, we need to have a strong Iraqi 

government and a strong Iraqi security forces. And that is certainly 

at the top of our priority list within the Department. Thank you. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay, thank you. Ranking Member Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much. 

Thank you all for joining us here today. As an Iraq war veteran 

myself, I know that I am joined by several others both in the room, 

and, General, thank you for your service on the panel. We were in 

Hillah about the same time in 2003. 

I can’t tell you how painful it is as an Iraq war veteran now sitting on this committee to see us fighting and refighting so many 

of the same battles that we fought, that our friends gave their lives 

for. And so the question that we must ask is, how will this time 

be different? How do we know that now that ISIS is about defeated 

there won’t be an ISIS 2.0, just as ISIS in many ways is Al Qaeda 

in Iraq 2.0? 

We heard from the expert panel that preceded you how important it is that Iraqi politics be the primary effort. The primacy of 

the political effort is the phrase that several of the panelists used. 

But I am not hearing that from you yet. I am hearing about how 

we are going to ensure we clean up the rest of ISIS and we train 

the Iraqi military. I haven’t heard anything about how we are 

going to ensure the success of Iraqi politics, which ultimately will 

prevent us from having to come back and clean up the mess when 

Iraqi politics fails. 

Just before this hearing, I discussed this with Secretary Mattis 

and General Dunford. And the Chairman and the Secretary agreed 

that we have to have a political plan. So where is that political 

plan? How will it be better and different than the political effort 

in the past to ensure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes and 

find us coming back to Iraq to refight these same battles yet again? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Thank you very much for the question, Congressman. Maybe I will start on that. And I think just as we have 

approached the military issue—the military side of the relationship 

with Iraq in this fight against ISIS in a somewhat different way, 

what we will call by, with, and through, supporting, but having 

Iraqi partners lead on the ground, building that partnership from 

the ground up, we believe that the same kind of approach on the 

political side is the right strategy going forward. 
26 

And so we have focused our efforts, our immediate efforts on 

strengthening Iraq’s ability to govern the liberated spaces, and by 

that I am referring to our efforts towards stabilization. 

Mr. MOULTON. Can you just give us an idea of what those efforts 

are? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Sure. So by stabilization, it is a fairly broad 

concept, but the way I would define it is to create the conditions 

on the ground to enable those who have been displaced by the 

fighting and by the ISIS terrorism to make the decision to return 

to their homes and live in security, reestablishing their communities, with the support of the Iraqi government. 

Behind that Iraqi government support is the United States and 

our coalition partners. And so we, on the one hand, have spent 

more than $1.7 billion to deal with the immediate emergency of humanitarian displacement, making sure people can survive when 

they are displaced, and beyond that and more recently, have 

worked with our coalition partners through the U.N. Development 

Program, something called the Funding Facility for Stabilization, 

to help the Iraqis to go into liberated areas, to rebuild the infrastructure, basic services, water, electricity, schools, health clinics, 

clearing rubble from the streets, getting some cash into the economy. 

Mr. MOULTON. So with all due respect, if we had been here in 

2004 or 2005 or 2007 or 2008, it would have been the same thing. 

How is this time different? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Well, I would suggest, Congressman, that it is 

a matter of reestablishing government authority in areas where 

they have been absent, through our consistent support to help 

strengthen governing institutions, to partner with Iraqis, and we 

have an excellent partner. 

Mr. MOULTON. Sir, I was there last in 2008. We did exactly the 

same things. How is this time different? How will we ensure that 

when we do all those same things as we did as the previous panelists mentioned actually quite successfully in 2007, 2008, with over 

100,000 troops to assist in the effort, how is this time going to be 

more successful so it doesn’t fall apart again? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. On the political side, Congressman, as you 

know, we are approaching an election season in Iraq. That is something that is going to be—the politics of this are going to be fought 

out by Iraqis. We have, of course, contacts across a broad range of 

Iraqis, Sunni, Shia, Kurd minorities. 

We are encouraging full participation of all segments. We believe 

we have the—and there is some polling data to bear this out—that 

Iraqis are increasingly seeing their governing challenges as requiring national solutions, and so there is a greater sense of an Iraqi 

national identity, a greater cross-fertilization across sectarian lines. 

We would expect in this election to see alliances and coalitions 

built across sectarian lines which would build a more inclusive governing structure. 

Mr. MOULTON. So I appreciate the hopeful description of Iraqi 

politics. You still haven’t said a single thing that we are doing differently. What is the United States doing differently? General, 

would you care to comment on this, please? 
27 

General BIERMAN. I will make a couple comments. And thanks 

for the question. Based off of the events in 2014, the Iraqi government invited us in. And what occurred with the rapid spread of 

ISIS was a representation to Iraqis across the spectrum of how bad 

things could be. 

And we have established a trust relationship, military-to-military, but we would be the first ones to tell you that the ultimate 

success and future of Iraq is political, is economic, and is diplomatic. 

Some of the things that I would tell you that I see is different, 

like you, having made several trips back and forth, I think we have 

a fragile but responsible Iraqi government. And I think they want 

a long-term relationship with us, and they have voiced across the 

military and civilian governance that they want us to stay, because 

the events of the last 2 years have showed them that they need us. 

The other thing I would say is the Iraqis, contrary to some of the 

experiences you and I have had in the past, not to take anything 

away from the great efforts of the U.S. military to enable the Iraqi 

operations, they are fighting their own battles. Over the last year, 

the Iraqis have suffered tens of thousands of casualties in the 

fights to liberate their countries. 

And I take nothing away from those extraordinary U.S. and coalition service men who have been killed or wounded. God rest their 

souls. But the Iraqis are carrying this fight on their backs. We are 

going to have significant challenges as we near the end, as we approach the end of physical ISIS. That has been a unifying factor 

that has united a lot of disparate elements across the spectrum in 

Iraq. And we are going to have to work very, very hard politically, 

diplomatically to knit this fragile Iraqi ecosystem together. 

One of the key components of strong governments is going to be 

efficient and professional Iraqi security forces. So while we stay, 

you know, focused within our military lane, we very much see that 

as a means to an end that one of the key factors in enabling the 

Iraqi government is what we are doing on the military side. Thank 

you. 

Mr. MOULTON. And, General, I agree with everything you said. 

And that was my experience on the ground in Iraq, too, is I understood how important it was for the politics to follow through. But 

back in 2008, I felt like we had a lot of political resources in country. As I have been to visit Iraq more recently as a member of this 

committee, I have repeatedly heard from our State Department and 

officials on the ground that—and our military—that they don’t 

have the political resources necessary. 

Chairman Dunford just a couple of hours ago said—talking about 

Afghanistan—that we need to push State Department resources 

further down into the Afghan political system, but we are not doing 

that yet. Again, has anything changed? Are we doing it now in Iraq 

where we weren’t doing it 6 months or a year ago, so that ultimately where we have not been able to ensure the political success 

of Iraq in the past, you can now tell me that you have the confidence that we will? 

General BIERMAN. I would just simply agree with what you just 

heard from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that we 

would certainly advocate an increased and stronger role from—— 
28 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, General, for your candor. 

General BIERMAN [continuing]. From the Department of State. 

And I think that the folks that they have on the ground are doing 

remarkable things, but we would support increased efforts in that 

area. 

Mr. MOULTON. Would anyone else on the panel care to comment? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. If I might, Congressman, just following up on 

the general’s comments, I think in terms of what is different now, 

I think one thing that is different is that the Iraqis have seen the 

terrible cost of political failure up close and the destruction of communities, the destruction, the genocide that has been carried out 

against various groups by ISIS, and ultimately the destruction of 

largely Sunni cities, I think has been a very sobering experience for 

Iraqis across the political spectrum and across sectarian divides. 

And I think that is what is driving what I referred to as a more 

hopeful political picture. There are no political guarantees. And 

this will be a process that is Iraqi-driven. And we will support in 

every way that we can, but I think that level of destruction and 

the level of terror that the population has endured has changed attitudes in Iraq. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you. Director Quanrud, do you have anything to add? 

Ms. QUANRUD. No. 

Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Swayne, if I may just briefly ask, do you 

agree with the consensus of the expert panel that the primary effort must be political in Iraq at this stage? 

Mr. SWAYNE. Yes, absolutely. I think there is no doubt about, for 

sustainable security, for sustainable stability in Iraq over the next 

few months, years, we have to have a clear—so I agree with that 

wholeheartedly and to respond a little bit to the question before, 

DOD, it is our whole-of-government approach working by, with, 

and through. We certainly have to work very closely—we, the Department of Defense, must work very closely with the Department 

of State and USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] 

as they work to support the Iraqi government. 

And we must stay committed, we must be working with our 

international partners. The U.N. is doing quite a bit in Iraq right 

now on not only the humanitarian assistance issues, but also stabilization. They are doing that under and with the Iraqi government. I think that is important that we support the Iraqi government for their viability, and I think if there is anything a little bit 

different, we are all focused on supporting that government, that 

Iraqi security force, and working holistically from our government. 

And to answer your question, we absolutely need to work more 

closely and support our State colleagues on what the needs are, 

what the whole needs are for that long term. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Swayne. I mean, I am pleased to 

hear that, because earlier you had said that the DOD effort is to 

defeat ISIS and that was it. We need a whole-of-government approach. 

Mr. SWAYNE. No, sir. And I apologize if we didn’t—I didn’t have 

my opening remarks. I didn’t get to—— 

Mr. MOULTON. Fair enough. 
29 

Mr. SWAYNE [continuing]. Say those points. So I had to go back 

and review those and get that. But there is no doubt about it. It 

is a whole-of-government approach. 

Mr. MOULTON. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much. 

Mr. SWAYNE. I apologize if I—— 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Representative Banks, Indiana. 

Mr. BANKS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. Pennington, can you talk a little bit about the security cooperation budget for Iraq in a post-ISIS environment? What does 

that budget look like today? What are the strategies for what that 

budget might look like tomorrow moving forward? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Congressman, I know there have been discussions between others from the administration, from the Department about budget issues, and I am not really prepared to talk 

about specifics of the budget. 

We have a robust security cooperation program with Iraq 

through foreign military financing [FMF] that I know the subcommittee is aware of. We are continuing that. There is also a 

train-and-equip element to this that is DOD-run that my colleagues 

may wish to comment on. But in terms of what budgets look like 

going forward, I think we need to leave that to other briefers. 

Mr. BANKS. So is it safe to assume, though, that the FMF budget 

might look different in a post-ISIS environment than what it does 

today? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Congressman, I am just not in a position to 

say what it is going to look like. 

Mr. BANKS. Okay, that is disappointing. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Representative Gallego. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Swayne, why isn’t the OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Policy’s Middle East office or the office of the 

ASD [Assistant Secretary of Defense] for International Security Affairs presented here or presenting here today? 

Mr. SWAYNE. Thank you, sir. My office was asked to come represent—because my area of specialty is stabilization and humanitarian assistance. And it was determined that the aim of this particular committee, subcommittee discussion would be to focus in 

that post-ISIS—what we can look to do, the Department of Defense 

supporting other interagencies in that area. That is the reason, sir. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Okay. Interesting. Is there a disagreement in policy or is there a lack of engagement, in your opinion, by the regional office leadership at the Pentagon on ISIL’s life cycle, especially post-Mosul? We just actually had another briefing before this 

discussing this, also. 

Mr. SWAYNE. No, sir. I see no lack of—we are certainly coherent 

in policy. I think that is—they feel comfortable that they can send 

somebody besides the DASD [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense] for Middle East up here to brief on our activities. When we 

talked about the last question by Congressman Banks was to talk 

about the—what is the budget for the Department of Defense 2017, 

we have $1.1 billion for the training and equipping through NDAA 

[National Defense Authorization Act] section 1236 authority, and in 

2018, we are planned $1.27 billion. 
30 

So it is certainly as the number of dollars and our commitment 

to working with the Iraqi security forces, not lessening, it is increasing, we certainly see the need—again, as we talked about we 

have a plan to defeat ISIS, but the seeds of the next resurgence 

of ISIS are in the rubble of where the ISIS-controlled areas right 

now, the areas that ISIS destroyed, and we need to be diligent and 

work closely with the Iraqi security forces, working with our interagency partners, as we sustain that stability so that ISIS 2.0 

doesn’t grow out of those seeds that are in the rubble. 

So we are certainly committed to it, Congressman. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you, Mr. Swayne. Who is the acting or current—or who is the current DASD for the Middle East? 

Mr. SWAYNE. Yes, sir. The current DASD for—is an acting 

DASD—— 

Mr. GALLEGO. Acting. 

Mr. SWAYNE [continuing]. Brigadier general rank. I believe that 

is also another reason we have two—we would have two military 

uniformed officers up here. And I felt that—I believe the leadership 

felt that it would more appropriate if a civilian representative of 

OSD Policy—brigadier general rank is certainly in tune with all of 

these activities. I talk to him every day about Iraq, Syria, and the 

de-ISIS efforts. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Just in closing, Madam Chair and Ranking Member, I think it is—for me, it shows a certain level of disagreement 

and also lack of commitment when we have so many acting positions that are being filled in a policy area that we all think is extremely important. 

Thank you. I yield back my time. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Representative Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Madam Chair. General, you talked about, 

if you will, a unifying enemy that has brought people together. Assuming that we are able to defeat that enemy in the near future, 

one of the issues that will have to be addressed is the issue of the 

Kurds. 

They have recently had an overwhelming referendum on independence. And my question revolves around that. How do you see 

stability in the region for the Kurds after the defeat of ISIS? 

General BIERMAN. You would agree with me, sir, it is a very concerning development. It is one we tried to forestall across the whole 

of government. Secondary to the political and diplomatic interactions we had with the KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government] 

leadership, we certainly messaged that at the military level, as 

well. 

It has occurred now. You know, the referendum has come and 

gone. And we are watching that very, very closely. One of the key 

factors in the battlefield successes that we have had against ISIL 

in Iraq has been Kurdish and Iraqi security forces cooperating and 

working together, most recently demonstrated in the liberation of 

Mosul. 

And we can’t afford to have this referendum and whatever follows destabilize us as we are on the brink of defeating physical 

ISIS. We are watching events very, very closely on the ground. 

There has been some political maneuvering that is occurring. 
31 

So far, we have not seen any elevation of violence, but, you know, 

secondary to what is going on, on the diplomatic side, we certainly 

in the military are messaging both Iraqi and Kurdish military leaders that we have established very strong relationships with over 

the last couple years. It is a concern. 

Mr. SCOTT. What are Iran’s intentions in Iraq and Syria? I mean, 

do they intend to just try to continue to foster chaos? What do you 

think the end game for Iran is? 

General BIERMAN. I think the Iranians want to ensure that they 

create conditions in Iraq so that they are never threatened like 

they were during the 1980s, which was a horrific and bloody war, 

and both countries suffered significantly. 

I think the Iranians want to establish a land bridge that goes 

from Tehran all the way into areas of Syria and Lebanon where 

they can threaten and potentially apply pressure to Israel. But I 

think ultimately I would walk back to the first of my answer and 

say the Iranians seek a neighboring Iraq which cannot threaten the 

revolution and the Iranian regime. 

Mr. SCOTT. Madam Chair, I know we are short on time. I will 

yield the remainder of my time so that other members can ask 

questions, as well. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much, and those were very good 

questions on Kurds and Iran. Representative O’Halleran. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

General, thank you for your service to our country. You had mentioned a fragile government. What defines that fragile government? 

And in your mind, what can we do to change that? 

General BIERMAN. Yes, sir, I want to make sure I stay in my 

lane, but I think Iraq is a country made up of a lot of very different, disparate cultural, religious, demographic elements. During 

my five trips back and forth to Iraq, I have been in Shia land, I 

have been in the Sunni areas, and I have been in Kurdistan. And 

I think it is a tremendous challenge to any government to try to 

knit together people with those kind of different interests and 

agendas, and then to provide responsible and inclusive governance. 

I would, sir, go back to what I said before at the risk maybe of 

repeating myself a little bit. We are very, very focused on ensuring 

that our efforts to enable the Iraqi security forces, you know, address any internal or external threat, that that buys the time for 

the Iraqi government to continue to coalesce, improve, and provide 

that responsible governance to the people of Iraq. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, General. Luckily, we have Mr. Pennington here. And if you can expand on that question and also 

identify what the current staffing levels are in Iraq for the State 

Department. Are there additional needs that you look into—have? 

And what are the funding levels for assistance into the area? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Thank you, Congressman. On the question of 

governance and fragility of governance, I think it is fair to say that 

the United States government has been very actively engaged in 

trying to shore up the Iraqi government on a number of fronts. I 

mentioned the support for Iraqi priorities of humanitarian assistance and stabilization of liberated areas. That is the prime minister’s focus. That is what helps him politically and helps the government strengthen institutionally. 
32 

I would also point out the support that we have provided to the 

Iraqi government in terms of getting its fiscal house in order on the 

economic side. The economic pressures that Iraq has been under, 

because of the conflict, the presence of ISIS, the collapse of oil 

prices, the humanitarian crisis, that created an economic crisis 

both in Baghdad and Irbil of massive proportions. 

We and other G–7 [Group of Seven] partners stepped forward to fill the fiscal gap. We through a sovereign loan guarantee, a $1 billion sovereign loan guarantee, which the Iraqis then followed up by 

borrowing in the private market, that would not have been possible 

without our support. And getting a deal with the IMF [International Monetary Fund], which provided the additional financing 

necessary to close that gap and keep the government on its feet 

during this time of tremendous challenge, again, would not have 

been possible without U.S. support. 

And that—the IMF program has been the key to starting the 

government on a path of significant economic reform, which they 

are complying with the conditions of the IMF program. So on all 

of those fronts, we are being both responsive to the needs, the political needs of the Iraqi leadership, supporting them where it is most 

important to them, and also strengthening the institutions. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. And do you feel that the staffing levels are adequate and that—the funding levels, are the question I asked. 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Congressman, in terms of staffing, there was 

a decline in staffing following the incursion of ISIS into Iraq for security reasons. A lot of those numbers have now trended back up. 

The chief of mission has—is continually making recommendations 

on staffing levels to respond to needs that he sees on the ground. 

Washington has been fully responsive to those requests, and so we 

work those issues on a daily, weekly basis. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. And funding? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Funding, in terms of our economic support 

funding for Iraq, has been holding steady. We are well resourced 

for this year for the activities that I described. Again, not going to 

get into a discussion of budget levels going forward, but we think 

for the moment we have what we need, particularly when you factor in that coalition partners on the civilian side and support—actually the ratio is roughly 3 to 1. For every dollar we put up for 

stabilization, humanitarian efforts, our coalition partners come up 

with about three times that. And so put all that together, and I 

think the support has been quite robust. 

Mr. O’HALLERAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Representative Panetta. 

Mr. PANETTA. Thank you, Madam Chair. Lady and gentlemen, 

thank you very much for being here. Appreciate your testimony, 

your preparation, obviously. 

I admit you know a heck of a lot more about this topic than I 

do. And so my question is going to be pretty broad and pretty easy. 

But I think in order to accomplish a lot of the goals that you are 

talking about, you not only need money, you not only need military 

help and diplomacy, but you need credibility. And so based on your 

experience, what is the United States reputation in Iraq with the 

government, with the people? And does that affect our ability to accomplish our mission? 
33 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Maybe I will start, Congressman. That is a 

great question. I will be happy to start, but I would welcome other 

comments. 

I think we have built up since the incursion of ISIS, the coming 

to power of the Abadi government in summer of 2014, and the way 

that the military and now subsequently the humanitarian, the support has played out in Iraq, I think there is a recognition that the 

United States role has been indispensable in allowing Iraq to make 

the progress that it has made. And I think it is hard to quantify 

in terms of public support, but I think what we do see is a broad 

spectrum of support across sectarian lines in Iraq that understand 

the benefits of an America—of a strong relationship with the 

United States and American presence. And this goes Shia, Sunni, 

Kurd. 

And so when we talk about a future relationship, whether it is 

security, economic partnership, commercial relationship, I think it 

is safe to say that there is broad support across the Iraqi political 

spectrum. And I believe that does translate at the popular level, as 

well. It is harder to measure. 

Mr. PANETTA. Despite what happened, you know, after 2003, 

what happened with the Iraq war? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. I think our absence from Iraq or our pulling 

back from Iraq in 2011, for all—and that is another topic that we 

probably won’t get into here today—but it did—and then our coming back to Iraq in a sense in 2014, when Iraq was faced with the 

most grave crisis, has really I think changed minds in Iraq or—of 

course, there are some who will never accept that presence. But I 

think most Iraqis want the U.S. to be with them, want our support, 

welcome our support, and look for a long-term relationship with the 

United States. 

General BIERMAN. I would just, sir, add to that good answer by 

saying we have gained a level of credibility in the way we have 

conducted the campaign. You know, looking back at where we were 

at 2014, when ISIS had overrun much of western and northern 

Iraq, working by, with, and through the Iraqi security forces, we 

have steadily over a period of 2 years, we have stayed focused, we 

have stayed committed, we have made common cause with the 

Iraqis, and we are seen in some respects as winners. 

But I would say—and, you know, it is a soft pat on the back if 

at all—that is not going to be enough in the long term. And one 

of the drumbeat themes from all of you is, it needs to be political 

and it needs to be diplomatic. And I think we could very easily lose 

some of the credibility we have gained by battlefield military success if we don’t translate those gains into stabilization, you know, 

still a million displaced Sunnis who—they think it is great that 

their city has been liberated, but if their homes, their neighborhoods, their infrastructure is wrecked, whatever goodwill time we 

have bought for the Iraqi government, we have got to follow up on 

that rapidly. And that is going to be a big determinant of our longterm credibility. 

Mr. SWAYNE. My answer to that question, Congressman, is in the 

past after 2003 we were the—I would put it in the terms of we 

were the big brother and we had a little brother in the last few 

years. It is a partnership. They have an established government. 
34 

They have an established Iraqi security force. We are not the big 

brother. We are a partner along with other coalition members who 

are coming in working with side by side. I think that is also a bit 

of a difference that it is not this paternalistic relationship. It is a 

specific. 

Mr. PANETTA. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Representative Suozzi. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you to all 

of you for your service to our country. We are very grateful to you 

for your good work. 

I traveled to Afghanistan in the spring, and there was a very 

clear military five-point plan as to what the strategy was going to 

be from a military perspective. And I am certain that there is a 

clear military strategy that has been documented by the Department of Defense related to Iraq and Syria. 

My question is, does the Department of State have a good document that I can read as to what the long-term plan is over the next 

4 or 5 years related to both Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria? Ms. 

Quanrud? No? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Thank you, sir. Just to clarify. Are we talking 

on the military side? 

Mr. SUOZZI. No, on the Department of State side, on more the civilian side. 

Mr. PENNINGTON. We do have a—we have had strategy documents that are not time-limited that define our interests and longterm strategies in Iraq. Afghanistan is outside of, I think, any of 

our purview. Those are things we could discuss in a different setting. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Okay, but I would like to get that document, if I can. 

Give me a good document to read. Okay? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. We will take that back. 

Mr. SUOZZI. Thank you. I yield back my time. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. Just wondering, how many of you 

have read the testimony from the first panel before? Have you had 

access to that or have you had an opportunity? Raise your hand if 

you have. You have. Good, good. I thought it had a lot of good suggestions, a lot of good insights to be considered in there. So I am 

glad to hear that you did that. 

General, there was some discussion in the last panel about the 

number of troops that we should have remain to stabilize once ISIS 

is defeated. Do you have an opinion on that? What do you think 

that we need, as far as numbers of troops? 

General BIERMAN. Yes, ma’am. And I know you will understand 

if I talk probably generally without specific numbers. We want to 

ensure that there is a balance that we need to strike. Coming back 

to the discussion of plans, our focus after the defeat of ISIS in 

terms of reliable partnership, building Iraqi capacity, is going to be 

on training, equipping, intelligence, counterterrorism, and security 

assistance. 

And I would say we want to leave just enough, but we also need 

to ensure that we remain very aware of the Iraqi political environment and that we don’t wear out our welcome. The Iraqis continue 

to signal that we want us there, and we are having some very positive talks in terms of what is the right amount. 
35 

There was a comment made earlier about some of the resource 

challenges we are seeing with all our commitments across the 

globe. So we are very focused on what is the smallest amount that 

we can leave in terms of residual capacity that will have the effect 

that we need to build Iraqi capacity. 

I think the conversations which are not in our lane, but we are 

a part of have been very positive back-and-forth between U.S., 

Iraqi governments, and some of the participating coalition governments. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Pennington, along those lines, one of the 

most important things that needs to occur is this political solution. 

It is the very difficult job of putting together an inclusive government that has Sunni and Shia and Kurds and is going to, you 

know, respect all the minorities, Christians, Yazidis, et cetera. 

What efforts are being made by the Department of State now to 

help force this discussion and this relationship? And with the presence of Iran there, how successful do you think this would be, to 

be able to get this together and get it right? 

Mr. PENNINGTON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Again, we 

are now heading into an Iraqi election season, so these issues are 

going to be debated during the course of that process. We can’t, of 

course, control how that process comes out, but we can, of course, 

make sure that we are in connection with those across the spectrum in pushing them toward our central ideas of how governance—how we see governance in Iraq, which is inclusive, which is 

responsive, which is service-oriented, and which is cognizant of all 

sects, including minorities and their interests. 

So we have discussions with all sides, Sunni, Shia, Kurd minority across the spectrum about those issues. They know that support 

from the United States depends on inclusive governance. We have 

made that very, very clear. We see the prime minister as someone 

who is governing Iraq from—and despite all the challenges, from 

a nationalist, from an Iraqi perspective, not from a sectarian perspective. 

And so we see that he has developed, we believe, support from 

populations including many of the communities who have been liberated, which are mostly Sunni communities. And so the—if you 

look at public opinion polling in Iraq, for example, the attitudes toward the central government in Baghdad among Sunni populations 

have increased significantly in the last 6 to 12 months, because of 

the effort against ISIS and the effort to get people to return to 

their homes. 

And so we definitely have influence on the process and on the actors, but in the end, these are Iraqi political decisions. There will 

be coalitions formed, alliances formed. Our preference, of course, is 

that those alliances include cross-sectarian groupings. We think 

that in the current environment that that is possible and even likely. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Very good, thank you. Do you have any secondary questions? Yes, Representative Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Just a concluding comment. And I want to, first 

of all, thank you all for participating in the panel. Just as I expressed the responsibility that I feel as a member of this committee, but especially as an Iraq war veteran, to ensure that we 
36 

don’t waste more lives in Iraq, that we finally get this right after 

many times of getting it wrong and repeating our same mistakes, 

I hope you will feel that responsibility, as well. 

And I know that it is difficult working under an administration 

and having the constraints of that environment, where not everybody in the administration may see eye to eye with you or may 

agree with you. But I hope that you will remember the troops on 

the ground, the State Department folks on the ground, the people 

who are trying to get this right and need your support to succeed. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SWAYNE. Congressman, can I just make a point about that? 

Mr. MOULTON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SWAYNE. I pledged my allegiance to the Constitution, and I 

support the President of the United States and all the people appointed over me, but I come to work every day because of all the 

soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that are out there, and also 

our State Department people. So I take that commitment to heart. 

And I think we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that 

we are deeply saddened, but on October 1st, just most recently in 

Iraq, a service member lost his life to an IED [improvised explosive 

device]. Another service men was a casualty to that. So our heartfelt condolences go out to their families. And that is not lost on me 

or anybody on the panel. So we appreciate you saying that, and we 

certainly think about it, sir. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Swayne. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. I just wanted to thank each of you for coming 

today. And thank you for your commitment to the issue at hand 

and getting Iraq—having an opportunity to have success there for 

the future and remembering the troops. I think we have lost—over 

4,500 American soldiers have given their lives to give the people 

of Iraq an opportunity to have freedom and to keep us safe here 

at home. 

And so thank you for remembering that every day and for keeping that in mind. I am encouraged by the polling and some of the 

things we are seeing, the gains that have been made the last few 

years. But we need to make sure and get this right moving forward. 

We have a wonderful opportunity ahead of us to chart a new 

path for Iraq. It is not going to be easy, but I know us here in Congress and on this committee are committed to doing what we can 

to help support this effort, because we want to see it succeed from 

here on out. 

And so we appreciate your commitment to that, look forward to 

working with you, and thank you for coming today, for your testimony. And with that, our hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:31 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

OCTOBER 3, 2017 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

OCTOBER 3, 2017 

(41) 

Opening Remarks of Chairwoman Vicky Hartzler 

Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations Hearing 

"Securing the Peace After the Fall of ISIL" 

October 3, 2017 

Good afternoon. This hearing will come to order. 

Welcome to our subcommittee members and witnesses testifYing 

before us today. 

We convene today to consider how the United States intends to secure 

the peace once ISIL is defeated. 

This is a very important issue to the Committee, to this subcommittee, 

and to me, to Ranking Member Moulton, and to other Members. It is 

essential and appropriate that we exercise proper oversight as our country's 

plans are fonnulated and funding is authorized. 

Following Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States worked toreestablish civil institutions and rebuild the military and police forces in Iraq. 

Nonetheless, conditions in the country deteriorated, leaving a security void 

that ISIL managed to exploit. We owe it to our men and women in uniform to 

learn lessons from that experience so that history does not repeat itself. It is 

critical that we do all we can here in Congress to ensure a stable Iraq after 

ISIL is defeated. Today's hearing will offer Members an opportunity to learn 

more about how the Administration intends to achieve success beyond the 

battlefield. 

Our first panel of very insightful outside experts will discuss the 

broader strategic issues associated with ISIL's loss of territory, and highlight 

critical issues that should be considered as the Administration's Iraq policy 

evolves. Our second panel today will address the numerous challenges 

associated with stabilization and rebuilding in Iraq and discuss the status of 

US government efforts to improve the political and security environment in 

Iraq. 
42 

Ranking Member Moulton Opening Remarks 

House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Oversight & 

Investigations 

Hearing on "Securing the Peace After the Fall ofiSIL" 

October 3, 2017 

Thank you, Chairwoman Hartzler and thank you to all of our witnesses. 

Today, the subcommittee will focus on the critically important task of 

securing the peace in Iraq after the defeat ofiSIS. r echo Chairwoman 

Hartzler's frustration in securing appropriate administration witnesses to 

answer the full gamut of questions the Oversight and Investigations 

Subcommittee is within its purview to raise but am grateful for everyone's 

presence here today and ongoing service to our country. 

I also appreciate our outside witnesses who bring considerable depth of 

expertise to bear on this subject, including Amb. Crocker who 1 first met in 

Iraq while serving under Gen. David Petraeus. 

As we convene here today, Iraqi security forces, supported by the U.S. 

advise and assist mission have succeeded in retaking most major population 

centers once controlled by ISIS-Falluja, Ramadi, and Mosul, ISIS' power 

center in Iraq. Most recently, coalition supported Iraqi Forces seized back the 

city Tal Afar in the northwestern comer oflraq and only isolated ISIS 

strongholds remain outside ofHawija, Qaim, and other pockets along the 

Syria-Iraq border. 

Such victories have not been without a human toll. ISIS' brutal tactics, 

employing civilians as human shields, vehicle-borne improvised explosive 

devices, and booby-trapped residential areas resulted in over 1,400 Iraqi 

troops killed and at least 7,000 wounded according to our embassy in 

Baghdad. During the campaign, two American servicemembers were killed 

and over 20 were wounded. 

The U.S. Commander of the Combined Joint Task Force in charge of the 

counter-ISIS campaign, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, called it "worst fighting 

he had seen in 35 years" of combat experience and likened it to "Falluja 2004 

on steroids." 

Civilian losses have been greater still, with latest UN estimates at 8,000 

killed and 1.2 million rendered homeless, displaced by the fighting. 

Despite the tragic human toll, I am encouraged by the progress we have made 

in partnership with Iraqi forces to defeat the scourge of1SIS and look forward 

to hearing from our witnesses an update on the final stages of the military 

campmgn. 

As important and necessary as these operations are to militarily defeat 

ISIS, I am concerned that without sufficient post-conflict planning and 

resourcing we will find ourselves and Iraqi forces condemned to fighting the 

same battles so many have already given their lives for. 
43 

At its core, what troubles Iraq are fundamentally political questions. Just 

as I disagreed with the Obama administration, I am again concerned this 

administration is not sufficiently prioritizing such underlying political 

dynamics. 

What does this mean? First and foremost, I am concerned Iraqi security 

forces may be woefully unprepared to provide security to Iraqi civilians and 

ensure displaced persons can return to their homes without fear of attack or 

retribution. Experts I have heard from here in Washington and in Iraq have 

expressed worries of insufficient hold forces and police, compounded by the 

beleaguered state ofiraqi military units, reeling from the toll of the brutal 

counter-ISIS campaign. 

Without sufficient local security arrangements, we cannot expect for Iraq 

to be stabilized, for civilians return to normalcy, and for communities to be 

defended against the emergence of an "ISIS 2.0" or other militant groups. 

Moreover, without capable and professional security forces, we risk seeing a 

repeat of the same sectarian tensions leading to Sunni embitterment that 

provided fertile ground for the growth ofiSIS. 

Beyond the provisioning of civilian security, key gaps and problems 

remain to be addressed such as acute food insecurity, insufficient access to 

healthcare, destroyed infrastructure, degraded public services and utilities, 

newly inflamed grievances among local communities, and insufficient plans 

for governance arrangements in many areas. 

Both as a Marine infantry officer who worked side-by-side with Iraqis to 

turn the tide of the insurgency and now as a Congressman and Ranking 

Member of this Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, I look forward to 

your testimony, and hope to hear a proactive, whole-of-government strategy 

that represents the only chance of success. 

I cannot tell you how painful it is as an Iraq war veteran to see us fighting 

and re-fighting the same battles we fought and for which our friends gave 

their lives. At this rate, my children will be fighting these same battles. 

We must hear from the administration how this time will be different, how 

this time you will ensure a political resolution so that the U.S. military doesn't 

have to keep cleaning up these messes. 

Thank you, Chairwoman Hartzler, l yield back. 
44 

Testimony of Ryan Crocker before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on 

Oversight and Investigations 

September 12, 2017 

Room 2212 Rayburn House Office Building 

Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Moulton, members of the Subcommittee, It is a great 

honor to testify before you on a matter of vital concern for our national security, the need to 

secure the peace after the fall of ISIL 

The military defeat of ISIL is assured. It is a question of time, and people of the region have 

been asking themselves for the past year or more a fundamental question: then what? Iraqis 

and Syrians have understood for some time that what happens after ISIL's defeat may be more 

important than the defeat itself. 

It is roughly a century since the modern middle east was created from the rubble of the Ottoman 

Empire. The region has witnessed turmoil throughout this period, but nothing on the scale of 

what we see today. Coups and revolutions always have been part of the landscape. But what 

we are seeing today is the collapse of states and the parallel rise of non-state actors such as 

ISIL. In this sense, ISIL is the symptom of a deeply rooted problem, not the problem itself. That 

problem is a chronic failure of governance. 

Another way to look at the issue as a failure of isms, beginning with imperialism. The French 

and British, who divided the region between them at Versaille in 1919, had no interest in the 

development of stable institutions, respect for the rule of law or the preparation of the peoples of 

their for self-governance. The United States, on the other hand, was focused on precisely those 

issues through the report of the King-Crane Commission in 1919 which recommended that the 

sole purpose of a mandate should be to prepare the people of the region for self-determination. 

It recommended a single mandate held by the United States for a finite period. The 

Commission's report never saw daylight, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Other isms followed: monarchism in countries like Iraq, Egypt and Libya where links to the 

mandatory powers compromised their legitimacy, Arab nationalism personified by Nasser in 

Egypt, Arab socialism (Baathism) in Iraq and Syria, communism in south Yemen, and undiluted 

authoritarianism followed. All failed to provide good governance and its benefits. Now we are 

witnessing the emergence of yet another ism, Islam ism. It too will fail, and it too has failed to 

provide good governance. Interestingly, ISIL seemed to understand this during its brief 

ascendancy seeking to take over health clinics in Syria and projecting a focus on rule of law in 

Mosul. These efforts soon fell by the wayside, victims of coalition pressure and ISIL's own 

extremist ideology. 

When I was ambassador to Iraq from 2007- 2009, a key coalition and Iraqi government priority 

during the surge was the elimination of AI Qaida in Iraq, the predecessor of ISIL We could 
45 

never quite get there. Small pockets remained, in Mosul and and up the Euphrates river valley. 

Why? Elements of the Sunni population feared the Shia - led Iraqi government more than they 

feared AQI. This was at a tirne when significant progress had been made toward stabilizing the 

country politically as well as militarily, Sunnis had rejoined the political process, and a second 

provincial council election left defeated incumbents crying fraud, but also cleaning out their 

desks and vowing to do better next time. 

Conditions are far less propitious now. Budget shortfalls have severely impacted reconstruction 

efforts in predominantly Sunni cities. Our absence has been filled by an Iranian presence, both 

direct and indirect through the activities of Iranian backed Shia militias over which the Iraqi 

government has very little control. These are not circumstances favorable to the establishment 

of good governance. 

I understand that the American people are tired of US involvement in distant wars that consume 

blood and treasure and that seem to have no end. I understand that. I have spent seven years 

since 9/11 in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, so I know what tiredness feels like. But there are 

worse things than being tired. These are issues that directly affect our national security. 

I learned several lessons very painfully in the middle east. They are simple but have profound 

impact. One is be careful what you get into. Military interventions in the region have major and 

extended consequences, consequences of not just of the third and fourth order but of the 

thirtieth and fortieth order. I learned this not in Iraq but in Lebanon when I was posted to Beirut 

in the early 1980s including the Israeli invasion of 1982. It is widely believed that the US gave a 

silent nod to the Israeli plans. And who could argue with the aim of ending Palestinian terror 

attacks across the Israeli-Palestinian border? But the consequences were enormous. This was 

the catalyst for a strategic partnership between Syria and the new Islamic Republic that endures 

to this day. Out of that partnership came Hizballah and its precursors, far more deadly than the 

PLO ever was. I am a survivor of the April 1983 bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, 

and was present when the Marine barracks were blown up six months later. We often speak of 

intelligence failures. I tend to see most such instances as failures not of intelligence but of 

imagination. We are unable to imagine such unintended consequences. 

When I arrived in Baghdad in March 2007, I had the eerie feeling of being transported back to 

Beirut a quarter of a century earlier. The sarne antagonists, Iran and Syria, were inflicting pain 

on us with the same instruments. The lesson they absorbed from Lebanon was that if you cause 

them pain, the Americans will leave. And it almost worked. 

The other lesson I learned, therefore, is that if we need to be careful about what we get into, we 

need to be at least as careful over what we get out of. Disengagement can have consequences 

as profound and unpredictable as those set in motion by one's initial intervention. One does not 

end wars by withdrawing one's troops. That simply cedes the battle space to adversaries more 

determined and more patient, in this case to Iran and its proxies and to ISIL. 
46 

Let me say something about Iran. Some in this country believe that cooperation with Iran in 

confronting ISIL is possible and desirable. It is neither. Iran does not feel threatened by ISIL. 

They do see it as a valuable justification for actions such as the formation of the Popular 

Mobilization Units which are controlled by Tehran much more than by Baghdad. These units are 

potentially a greater threat to Iraqi stability and our interests than ISIL was. I would suggest to 

you that Iran's main strategic goal in Iraq is to insure that whoever rules in Baghdad will never 

again be able to threaten Iran's existence as Saddam did when he invaded Iraq in 1980. Few in 

this country remember that horrific eight year conflict; even fewer in Iran and Iraq will ever forget 

it 

So what do we do to secure the peace after ISIL is defeated? First, we need to understand this 

is in its essence a political problem, not a military one. There are some security issues on which 

there is remarkable continuity between the Trump and Obama Administrations. Unfortunately, 

one of them is treating ISIL only as a security issue. When the last bastion of ISIL falls,l fear we 

will declare our work in Iraq and Syria done. The reality is that it is the beginning of a complex 

political process, not its end. I very much hope that we will realize that US leadership is 

essential for any prospect of long term stability in Iraq. We need to make that commitment, 

much as the President did recently with Afghanistan.This need not involve the dispatch of 

substantial numbers of additional US forces. It does mean the need to signal that Iraq is a 

presidential level priority. It would mean substantial engagement by the Secretary of State with 

Iraqi leaders, with regional states and with the international community, and this engagement 

will need to be maintained for an indefinite period of time. We have the Strategic Framework 

Agreement signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki in 2008 as a framework to work 

within. The agreement lays out the principles of US- Iraqi cooperation in a wide variety of fields, 

and we should use it as a guide for a long term relationship with Baghdad. 

None of this is easy and it certainly won't be quick. But perceptions of US disengagement during 

the Obama Administration has not brought Iraq or the region to a better place. A century ago, a 

US withdrawal from the world effectively produced a two decade truce in one long world war 

and set the stage for the disfunction we are now witnessing in the middle east The US did 

exercise a global leadership role after World War II, and it was that leadership over seven 

decades that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union and prevented another global 

conflagration. The world is not yet ready to run by itself. 

I have focused my attention primarily on Iraq where a political process is not only possible but 

necessary. Syria is clearly not at that point It is a fire that will burn for some time to come, and 

we certainly need to do what we can to contain it But the day when political solutions are 

feasible is far from dawning. 

With our sustained commitment, and that of regional and international allies, the Iraqis may be 

able to achieve a degree of political and economic inclusion that will produce long term stability. 

Developments since our disengagement in 2001 make painfully clear that they will not get there 

on their own. Just as the absence of good governance fueled the rise of ISIL as AI Qaida in Iraq 
47 

version 2.0, so too will it lead to the emergence of something we cannot yet imagine. To 

paraphrase the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats, what rough beast, its hour come at last, 

slouches toward Baghdad to be born? 

Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Moulton, members of the Subcommittee, I thank you 

again for the privilege of testifying before you today. 
48 

Ryan Crocker 

Ryan Crocker is a Diplomat in Residence at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton 

University, for the academic year 2017-2018. He is on a leave of absence as an executive 

professor at Texas A&M University where he served as dean of the Bush School of 

Government & Public Service until August 2016. He also has had appointments as the 

James Schlesinger Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia and as the 

t1rst Kissinger Senior Fellow at Yale University. 

He retired from the Foreign Service in April 2009 after a career of over 37 years but was 

recalled to active duty by President Obama to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in 

2011. He has served as U.S. Ambassador six times: Afghanistan (20 11-2012), Iraq (2007-

2009), Pakistan (2004-2007), Syria ( 1998-2001 ), Kuwait ( 1994-1997), and Lebanon 

(1990-1993). He has also served as the International Affairs Advisor at the National War 

College, where he joined the faculty in 2003. From May to August 2003, he was in 

Baghdad as the first Director of Governance for the Coalition Provisional Authority and 

was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from August 200 I to 

May 2003. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1971, he also has had assignments in Iran, 

Qatar, Iraq and Egypt, as well as Washington. He was assigned to the American Embassy 

in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the bombings of the embassy 

and the Marine barracks in 1983. 

Bom in Spokane, Washington, he grew up in an Air Force family, attending schools in 

Morocco, Canada and Turkey, as well as the U.S. He received a B.A. in English in 1971 

and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2001 from Whitman College (Washington). 

He also holds an honorary Doctorate in National Security Affairs from the National 

Defense University (20 I 0), honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Gonzaga University 

(2009) and Seton Hall University (2012), as well as an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters 

degree from the American University of Afghanistan (2013). He is a member of the 

Council on t'oreign Relations, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the Association 

of American Ambassadors. In August 2013, he was confirmed by the United States Senate 

to serve on the Broadcasting Board ofGovemors which oversees all U.S. governmentsupported civilian intemational media. He is also on the Board of Directors tor Mercy 

Corps Intemational and is a Trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. 

Ambassador Crocker received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest 

civilian award, in 2009. His other awards include the Presidential Distinguished and 

Meritorious Service Awards, the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award (2008 

and 20 12), the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Civilian Service ( 1997 and 

2008) and for Distinguished Public Service (2012), the Award for Valor and the Americ<m 

Foreign Service Association Rivkin Award for creative dissent. He received the National 

Clandestine Service's Donovan Award in 2009 and the Director of Central Intelligence's 

Director's Award in 2012. In 2011, he was awarded the Marshall Medal by the Association 

of the United States Army. In January 2002, he was sent to Afghanistan to reopen the 

American Embassy in Kabul. He subsequently received the Robeti C. Frasure Memorial 

Award for "exceptional courage and leadership" in Afghanistan. In September 2004, 

President Bush conferred on him the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in 

the Foreign Service. In May 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the 

establishment of the Ryan C. Crocker Award tor Outstanding Achievement in 

Expeditionary Diplomacy. In July 2012, he was named an Honorary Marine, the 75th 

civilian so honored in the history of the Corps. 
49 

I 

DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

INSTRUCTION TO 11. clause 2(g)(5), of the Rules of the U.S. 

nongovernmental witnesses 

appearing before House committees to in written statements a curriculum 

vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants 

(including snbcontracts and subgrants), or contracts or payments originating with a 

foreign government, received during the cmTent and two previous calendar years either 

by the witness or by an entity represented by the witness and related to the subject malter 

of the hearing. This form is intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House 

Committee on Armed Services in complying with the House mlc. Please note that a copy 

of these statements, with appropriate redactions witness's personal privacy 

(including home address and phone number) will made publicly available in electronic 

fonn not later than one day after the witness's appearance before the committee. 

Witnesses may list additional grants, contracts, or payments on additional sheets, if 

necessary. 

Capacity in which appearing: (check one) 

0 Representative 

If appearing in a representative capacity, name of the company, association or other 

entity being represented:----------------------

Federal Contract or Grant Information: If you or the entity you represent before the 

Committee on Atn1ed Services has contracts (including subcontracts) or (including 

subgrants) with the federal government, please provide the 

2017 

Federal gran!/ Federal agency Dollar valu.e -Subj~~t~f contract or 

contract g:rant 

i \-l ~"' p_ 

-~~~"-
50 

2016 

Foreign contracif Foreign Dollar value Subject of contract or 

payment government payment 

'No 1'\P --

' 

--

2015 

j Foreign contracif Foreign Dolla:rvalue Subject of contract or 

1 payment - government ---- Eayment 

\-J.oV\ec--

3 
51 

2016 

I Federal granlf Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract grant 

None_ 

2015 

Federal gran!/ Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract grant 

~hLcV\e. 

Foreign Government Contract or Payment Information: If you or the entity you 

represent before the Committee on Armed Services has contracts or payments originating 

from a foreign government, please provide the following information: 

2017 

Foreign contraclf Foreign government Dollar value Subject of contract or 

payment payment 

None. 

--------· 

2 
52 

US Policy Toward Iraq 

AMERICAN 

ENTERPRISE 

INSTITUTE 
53 

Madame Chairwoman and distinguished Members, I am honored to be able to appear 

before you to discuss U.S. policy toward Iraq. 

Every year since 2003, knowledgeable Americans have been warning that the cun·ent 

year is absolutely critical in Iraq. They have been right every time and 2018 will be no 

exception. The next year is likely to see the final defeat of ISIS and national elections that will 

be crucial as both bellwether and determinant of Iraq's future course. As we look to the next 

phase of American policy toward Iraq in light of these impending events, we must remember that 

the United States has made too many mistakes in Iraq in the past, and both Americans and Iraqis 

have paid too high a price for those mistakes, for us to make yet another. 

Iraq remains a complicated country. It's military, bureaucracy, politics, economics, and 

civil society are all weak, contested, and in desperate need of refonn. Its constitution is flawed, 

in part because of the enforced inclusion ofthe Kurds in a country where they are a liability, not 

an asset. It is beset by stronger neighbors seeking to dominate the Iraqi state and manipulate its 

multiplicity of constituent groups. 

Yet all is not lost in Iraq. Indeed, there are many useful building blocks from which to 

erect a strong new state and society. When I was last in Baghdad this spring, I was struck by 

how many Iraqis are unhappy about their present, but optimistic about their future. Many are 

proud of their military forces in defeating ISIS, confident that their upcoming elections will 

produce a more functional political system, and committed to avoiding another civil war. None 

of that is a guarantee against future problems, but taken together, it can be a starting point for 

future progress. 

Consequently, U.S. policy toward Iraq after the defeat of! SIS demands close attention 

and careful planning. It cannot be made up on the fly. It should not be made by tweet. It will 

not work if done slapdash. However, if it is handled properly, and in close coordination with 

America's allies in Iraq, elsewhere in the region, and among the wider international community, 

there is every reason to believe that Iraq can eventually be brought to a stable and peaceful new 

equilibrium that will allow it to become a force for positive change in the region and a benefit to 

America's interests. If not, we are likely to find ourselves sucked back into yet another Iraq war. 

U.S. Interests in Iraq Today 

As always at seminal moments like this, it is important to remind ourselves of what our 

interests are in Iraq. The first is that we need an Iraq that is stable and at peace-with itself and 

its neighbors. Because of its location and oil wealth, Iraq remains a critical nation in the Middle 

East and a critical element of the international economy. Before 2003, a reckless and aggressive 

Iraq under Saddam Husayn created one set of external threats to American interests. After 2003, 

an endless parade of American mistakes produced reinforcing civil wars that created a different, 

but equally dangerous set of internal threats to U.S. interests. 

So peace and stability in Iraq are our paramount interests there. But we need to be 

careful about what that means. For decades in the Middle East, there has been an addiction to 

the intertwined notions that "stability" is best achieved by dictatorship, and that dictatorship is 
54 

therefore the easiest solution to instability. The Arab revolts of20ll and the instability and civil 

wars they spawned ought to be sufficient evidence of the fallacy of this idea. Nevertheless, in 

the specific case of Iraq, it should be understood that autocracy will not create the peace and 

stability we seck. 

For the past century, Iraq has suffered through a staggering list of coups, internal revolts, 

domestic massacres, and civil wars. Even the totalitarianism and genocidal levels of violence 

employed by Saddam were not enough to prevent constant internal conflicts-from his many 

wars with the Kurds (including the 1989 Antal campaign), to the 1991 Shi'a Intifada, to his 

violent suppression of Sunni tribes in the 1990s. Since then, we have seen how Nuri al-Maliki's 

efforts to consolidate autocratic power triggered the ISIS invasion of2014 and the latest Iraqi 

civil war. 

Instead, ensuring peace and stability in Iraq requires pluralism. Only a democratic 

system of some kind, one governed by the rule of law and incorporating formidable protections 

for groups not in power, will reassure Iraq's fractious and fearful communities. Likewise, only a 

system with a high degree of representation and transparency will ensure that Iraq's economic 

wealth is equitably distributed, eliminating that as another source of conflict and corruption. In 

short, when we think about peace and stability in Iraq, it is critical to recognize that both require 

a pluralist system and while dictatorship might seem like the easier path, it will not get us to 

where we and the Iraqis need to go. lt is a blind alley leading nowhere but back to civil strife. 

For that reason, functional pluralism in Iraq must itself be seen as an American objective 

there, because it is the only realistic way to secure our interest in a peaceful, stable Iraq. 

Finally, the United States should seek an Iraq that is not dominated by Iran or Iranian 

proxies as Lebanon and now Syria increasingly are. At the most obvious level, it would be a 

humiliation for over 4,500 Americans to have given their lives to make Iraq safe for Iranian 

dominion. In a more tangible sense, despite repeated American efforts to begin a rapprochement 

with Iran-including most recently under the Obama Administration-the Iranians continue to 

define their foreign policy as one of explicit enmity with the United States. 

Although Iranian and American interests overlap in important areas despite this, we need 

to accept that the Iranian regime regards us as their principal adversary and treats us as such. We 

may not like it. We may wish to change it. We may think it gratuitous or misguided, but we 

cannot change it. We have tried repeatedly, but the leadership in Tehran is not interested. And 

as a result, all across the Middle East, Iran aggressively pursues policies harmful to the United 

States. The Iranian regime is not our friend, and it works hard to do harm to us in a range of 

venues. We should be loath to sec Iraq fall under Tehran's sway. 

Moreover, abandoning Iraq to the Iranians would terrify and infuriate our regional allies. 

The Israelis would be alarmed that Tehran's possession of a contiguous land route from Iran to 

Lebanon and the Golan Heights would presage new Iranian attacks on Israel-especially once 

the last embers of resistance to Iran's Syrian ally have been snuffed out. Indeed, the recent 

Israeli airstrike against Syrian regime bases appear intended to deter and diminish future Syrianlranian attacks on Israel as the regime regains control of Syria. 

Likewise, the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs would fear that if Iran were allowed to 

dominate Iraq, it would usc Iraqi territory as a base (and Arab Iraqis as agents) to expand its 

intluence, stoke internal unrest, and intimidate them and other Sunni-dominated Arab states like 

Jordan and Egypt. In the past, we have consistently seen that when our Gulf Arab allies feel 

threatened by Iran and fear that the United States is not adequately protecting them, they 

generally overreact and take aggressive actions themselves. In many cases, like the GCC 
55 

intervention in Yemen since 2015, they lack the capability to execute the missions they take on, 

making the situation far worse, rather than better. Especially at this moment, when it is so 

important to American interests that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states concentrate their 

resources and energy on domestic refonns, we cannot afford to create potentially ruinous 

external distractions. 

Walking away from Iraq to risk renewed internal conflict and/or Iranian domination 

could only be a tragic, and utterly unnecessary mistake for the United States, especially when we 

have just achieved so much and could use this oppmtunity to do so much more to secure 

American interests in the Middle East. 

U.S.-Iraqi Security Assistance after ISIS 

As this committee understands well, fashioning a future American policy toward Iraq has 

to begin with security cooperation and an enduring American military commitment. President 

Trump was absolutely correct when he argued that the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq 

in 2011 was a critical element in Iraq's slide back into civil war with the ISIS invasion of2014. 

His Administration cannot atTord to make the same mistake all over again. 

Accordingly, even after the defeat of ISIS, the United States should aim to retain a 

considerable military mission in Iraq, ideally on the order of at least I 0,000 troops. Truth be 

told, going back to General Lloyd Austin's plan to retain 20,000-25,000 troops would be better 

still, although I recognize that that may be a bridge too far for both Washington and Baghdad. 

Although there are useful military missions that a force of roughly 10,000 U.S. troops can 

and should perform, it is important to understand that its primary tl.mction would be political: 

Their presence in country would serve as the ultimate guarantee that any Iraqi government would 

be unable to oppress its people and would reassure all Iraqis that they do not have to fear their 

security forces, their government, or one another. Especially in current circumstances, with the 

Hashd ash-Shaabi militias out there and not always responsive to Baghdad's control, such 

reassurance is critical to Iraq's security and stability. Indeed, this peacekeeping function of U.S. 

troops is the most important ingredient that was removed from Iraq after 20 II. It is a role that 

scholars have repeatedly identified as critical to preventing the recurrence of civil war. 

As part of that, a future American military presence in Iraq needs to be employed to 

prevent future Iraqi governments from politicizing the Iraqi security forces (!SF) the way that 

Saddam did and Nuri ai-Maliki tried. Here again, Maliki's actions after 2009 are instructive. 

From 2006 to 2009, the United States painstakingly rebuilt the Iraqi officer corps, identifying 

good, honest, nationalistic commanders and promoting them, while weeding out the corrupt, the 

incompetent, and the agents of foreign governments. This effort resulted in an Iraqi military that 

was not only more capable, but more professional and apolitical. It was a key and 

underapprcciated element of the success of the Surge. It is why predominantly Sunni units of the 

Iraqi army were welcomed in Basra in the spring of2008 to eject the Shi'a Jaysh al-Mahdi 

militia. However, as soon as he had the political space to do so, Maliki went about deliberately 

reversing that process to ensure that the Iraqi military was wholly subservient to him. He 

systematically removed the officers the U.S. had appointed, and put in their place those who had 

been sidelined by the Americans-which ensured their loyalty to him. As a result, by 2012, the 

Iraqi security forces (ISF) were widely derided as "Maliki's militia." He was able to use them in 

unconstitutional fashion against his political rivals. To make matters worse, the political hacks 

Maliki put in charge allowed the ISF to simply stop training, and as a result they lost all cohesion 

and capability. 
56 

American military forces are also needed in Iraq to balance the Iranian (and Lebanese 

Hizballah) presence that will inevitably persist, along with their allies and proxies among the 

Hashd ash-Shaabi militias. One of the most important battles Iraq will wage in coming years 

will be over the status of the Hashid, whether they are properly integrated into the !SF or they 

become an Iraqi version of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards: a separate military standing apart 

and reporting to their own masters through a discrete chain of command. The latter would be 

disastrous, but it cannot be ruled out at this time. 

Because of their domestic power and Iranian backing, the Hashid cannot simply be 

handled by fiat. They need to be slowly assimilated into Iraq's security forces at the individual 

level. Most of their leaders need to be rewarded for their service to Iraq and given respectable 

positions within the Iraqi government or else significant pensions for their service. Any attempt 

to break them or disband them, let alone punish them, could break Iraq instead. But a key will be 

to build up the power and popularity ofthe Iraqi government to the point where its leaders can 

negotiate with the militia leaders (and the Iranians) from a position of much greater leverage. 

The best way to do that would be to accomplish this will be to take the steps enumerated below 

to help strengthen the Iraqi government. However, in this area as well, retaining a significant 

American military presence in country will make it infinitely easier for the Iraqi government to 

integrate the Hashid into the ISF, and will limit the Hashid's ability to cause mischief (and so cap 

their political power) if they aren't. 

With all of this in mind, Washington should plan to have U.S. troops perform missions in 

Iraq for at least a decade both to build Iraq's military capabilities and ensure that they are not 

used against the Iraqi people. A basic list of their specific missions and responsibilities should 

include: 

• U.S. troops need to continue to train the Iraqi military. This means not only those Iraqi 

brigades that have not yet been retrained by the current U.S. military mission to Iraq, but 

the entire force repeatedly, in perpetuity. Unfortunately, in the past, whenever the U.S. 

has ceased to oversee (if not run) the training, the Iraqis have stopped training altogether. 

• U.S. advisers should be deployed down to at least army battalion and air force squadron 

level across the entire !SF, both to help them learn, increase their combat capability, and 

serve as governors on their behavior. I can remember in 2005 when Iraqi civilians told 

me that they were always frightened when Iraqi army or police would show up in their 

towns because they never knew who the soldiers might kill; but they were always 

reassured if Americans showed up with them, because they knew the Americans would 

prevent the Iraqi soldiers from causing any harm. Iraq's military has gotten much better 

since those dark days, but the reassurance function of American forces remains critical as 

Iraqi society slowly rebuilds trust among its communities. 

• U.S. military personnel should continue to assist the Iraqis with tactical intelligence, not 

only because it will greatly improve its accuracy and utility, but also because it will help 

the U.S. to monitor developments and prevent internal problems from recurring. 

• U.S. military personnel will be necessary to help train the Iraqis with new weaponry, but 

even more than that to help with the logistics and maintenance of the security forces more 

broadly. Although in the past the Iraqis were quite adept at logistical operations, since 
57 

2003 they have proven utterly hapless (in part because of the computerization of their 

logistical system by the United States) and without Americans to help, the entire system 

might grind to a halt. 

• It would also be useful to retain some American combat formations in country. The most 

obvious role they could play would be to assist counterterrorism missions, the need for 

which is likely to persist for some years to come. More than that, it would be extremely 

helpful to have American brigades, battalions, and air squadrons rotate into Iraq for 

lengthy training missions to work with Iraqi forces in realistic exercises, provide the 

American forces with exposure to the Iraqi operating environment, and serve as an onhand reserve in the event of foreign aggression or domestic conflict. 

Although many of these missions could be performed by relatively small numbers of 

troops and there is a lot of flexibility in the range I noted above, the number of American troops 

committed to an enduring, post-ISIS security relationship is very important. The force needs to 

be big enough to convince Iraqis that the United States remains committed to their security and 

stability, and committed in ways that it was not after 20 II. It is also important because too small 

a training mission will not be able to maintain (let alone improve) the capabilities of a military as 

large as the !SF, prevent the re-politicization of the Iraqi military, or monitor developments 

across most of the country. Such a force would be unlikely to convince any Iraqis that it could 

keep the peace or strengthen their own military enough so that it could do so itself. That would 

represent mission failure. It would also create the circumstances for yet another round of civil 

war. 

As a final point regarding a new security cooperation agreement, the U.S. should not get 

wrapped around the axle about having the Iraqi parliament ratify a Status of Forces Agreement 

as the Obama Administration did. There are many ways to skin that cat, most entailing far fewer 

political obstacles, starting with just retaining U.S. forces under the current exchange of letters 

between Baghdad and Washington from 2014. 

Beyond the Security Sector 

I am heartened by the fact that it has become a cliche to say that military victory will not 

be enough to achieve lasting results in Iraq. But l am disheartened that the statement never 

seems to translate into meaningful U.S. policy. Even the Obama Administration, which so easily 

could have learned from the mistakes of the Bush 43 Administration, set up II "lines of effort" 

for the Coalition war against ISIS but only fully pursued the two military lines. 

This is a shame because Iraq is doing surprisingly well in some areas, even as its basic 

problems linger ominously in the background. There is still a lot of good material to work with, 

and some very important positive trends. For instance, most Iraqis want an end to the sectarian 

violence and arc wary of the fcarmongering of warlords and militias that led them to civil war 

twice in the past. Prime Minister Abadi appears to know what has to happen to move Iraq 

forward and has shown real courage in pursuing it at numerous times in the past, even if his lack 

of political experience means he sometimes missteps. Moreover, many Iraqis know that the 

liberation of northern Iraq from Da'ish and the stabilizing oflraq's economy were only possible 

because of American assistance and there is a noteworthy consensus among Iraqi leaders 

(including those most closely tied to Iran) that a residual American military presence and 

continued American assistance are useful, if not essential. 
58 

The Iraqi economy has even shown some modest, positive developments. On my most 

recent trip to Baghdad in late April20 17, life in the capital had improved noticeably since my 

previous trip in 2016. The city felt vibrant. There were fewer checkpoints and those I saw 

appeared to be manned by members of the Iraqi security services, not the Hashd ash-Shaabi as in 

the past. Billboards thanking Iran for saving Iraq from IS IS were largely gone. The stores 

appeared to be doing reasonably good business throughout central Baghdad. Goods were 

flowing in. There were people in the streets and lots of cars on the road. While traffic was bad, 

it was not crippling. What's more, Iraqis treated it as an inevitable annoyance and rarely let their 

anger get out of hand. All of this reflects a sense among Iraqis that things are economically 

okay. Even the usual Iraqi grumbling about shortages seemed diminished-and even when it 

came to electricity. 

The Iraqi oil sector is expanding at a prodigious pace. Production has reached 4.6 million 

barrels per day (mbd), although Baghdad is keeping its exports below 4 mbd to remain within the 

current OPEC agreement. By most accounts, the Iraqis plan to keep expanding production to try 

to reach 5 mbd by the end of the year, although they also insist they will continue to respect any 

OPEC agreement as long as everyone else does too. 

Iraq's financial sector is stable for the moment, but remains problematic and could 

worsen in the future. The recent financial infusions arranged by the Obama Administration from 

the World Bank, IMF, and the Coalition, coupled with U.S. Joan guarantees have collectively 

taken the pressure off the Iraqi budget. This has been hugely important. Most civil servants 

(who represent an excessive percentage of the work force) are getting paid, albeit at lower levels 

than before 2014. The government is also able to pay key costs for many of its contracts, which 

has similarly restored salaries for many in the private sector who live off government contracts. 

But the loans will prop up Iraq's finances for only a few years. Iraq can't keep borrowing 

at this rate, and the U.S., IMF, and World Bank shouldn't let it. All need to continue to monitor 

Iraqi debt carefully to ensure that Iraq doesn't push itsel r into crisis by overborrowing. 

Moreover, as a result of corrupt currency exchange policies, Iraq is suffering from a crisis of 

liquidity. There simply isn't enough money in circulation and the Iraqi central bank is part of the 

problem, not the solution. As a result, many Iraqis do not have money to purchase anything 

beyond basic needs, and there is virtually no domestic investment because it is more profitable 

for the banks to trade currency than to loan money to entrepreneurs. In addition, because of the 

widespread corruption in the bureaucracy, successful entrepreneurs are systematically fleeced by 

civil servants unless they have a powerful political figure who can protect them-although in 

that case, the protector typically robs them to an only slightly lesser degree. 

What Iraq Needs from the U.S. Moving Forward 

Over the next ten months and the next ten years, where Iraq requires the greatest 

assistance is in the realm of politics. Iraq's political dysfunctions have been the primary drivers 

of its internal conflict. They threaten to derail the significant progress made on security matters 

and the more modest alleviation oflraq's economic problems. lflraq cannot get its politics 

right, then nothing else will matter. 

Iraq's political problems can be overcome, but it will be difficult and unlikely that the 

Iraqis will be able to do it themselves. They need considerable external assistance, principally 

from the United States, as one of the very few actors with both the capability and the potential 

willingness to do the right thing for Iraq. That is why the security assistance plan I have outlined 

above is primarily focused on achieving political goals, not strictly military ones. 
59 

Iraq remains badly divided-both in organization and perspective. Its minority Sunni 

community desperately needs help rebuilding its key towns and cities after their destruction 

under ISIS. Moreover, they need to see real political reconciliation if they are going to trust 

Baghdad not to oppress them as the Maliki government did in 2009-2013 (which paved the way 

for ISIS in the first place). In stark contrast, Iraq's majority Shi'a population is fixated on the 

need for political, bureaucratic, and economic reform so that they can live the better lives they 

have been promised since 2003. For their part, Iraq's Kurds are focused on the longer term goal 

of independence from Iraq and the near-term desire to extract more resources from Baghdad to 

address their own (even-more-severe) economic problems. 

Yet Iraq's political class, particularly its Sunni and Shi'a Arab leaders, are focused on 

something else entirely: national and provincial elections expected to be held in spring 2018. As 

a result, most are wholly absorbed with electioneering and political maneuvering and very few 

actually want to do the hard work of governing--both because it is a distraction and because 

failure would undermine their election prospects. Consequently, Iraq's communities are all 

focused on very ditTerent goals, all of them diflicult to attain on their own, far more so given the 

lack of unity among them. 

There are a welter of other political and politically-inspired problems in Iraq. For 

instance, the absence oflraqi security forces has left southern Iraq largely in the hands of tribal 

militias, organized crime rings, and branches of the Hashd ash-Shaabi militias. This in turn has 

led to pervasive corruption and growing levels of violence across the south. But all of these 

other issues, serious as they are, ultimately derive from the core political problems described 

above. Moreover, they can only be addressed in a meaningful way iflraq's core political 

problems are resolved. 

The need to help Iraq address these core political problems should therefore guide the 

fonnulation of a new, post-ISIS American policy toward Iraq. Moreover, it automatically 

establishes a set of short and long terrn goals around which a new American Iraq policy should 

be organized. 

Immediate Priorities 

In the near term--the next 6-12 months--the United States should focus on four critical 

political objectives: 

1. Ensuring that Iraq has fair and free elections in spring 2018. 

2. Beginning a process of national reconciliation between Sunni and Shi'a to give both a 

reason to continue negotiations rather than pursue unilateral solutions to their differences. 

3. Beginning a process to determine a final, sustainable status for Iraq's Kurdish population. 

4. Convincing the Iraqi people that it is possible to reforrn their corrupt and sclerotic 

bureaucracy, as well as the wider political system. 

After ISIS has been militarily defeated, Iraq's elections are the next critical item on the 

agenda. They need to be fair and free and that will mean working with the United Nations, our 

Coalition partners, and the Iraqis themselves to ensure that Iraq's Independent High Election 

Commission is truly independent-and is seen as such by the Iraqi people and political 
60 

leadership. Of even greater importance is that the United States cannot make the same mistake it 

made in 2010. As Emma Sky has so eloquently and passionately explained in her book The 

Unraveling, in those elections, the United States failed to insist that Iraq abide by its own 

democratic regulations in forming a new government. That failure to stand behind Iraq's rule of 

law convinced all of Iraq's leaders that the new rules no longer applied and power would instead 

be apportioned according to Iraq's old rules: com1ption, bribery, coercion, and extortion. That is 

what enabled Nuri al-Maliki to remain as prime minister and freed him to act in ever more extraconstitutional or unconstitutional fashion. 

At virtually the same time, Iraq's Sunni populace needs to be reintegrated into its 

political system, its administrative apparatus, and its economy. It was Maliki's alienation of that 

Sunni community-his arrest of so many of its political leaders, his exclusion of a great many 

Iraqis from jobs in the government and security services, his deprivation ofSunni provinces of 

funding and govemment services-that drove them into the arms of!SIS in the first place. 

Preventing a recurrence of civil war will mean doing the opposite, or at least getting started to 

the extent possible, to give Sunnis a reason to remain patient and not take other precipitous 

action. Consequently, in the short term, until a wider national reconciliation and political 

restructuring can take place, that is likely to mean apportioning ministries and other key 

positions to Sunni leaders, integrating more Sunnis into the security services, designating various 

public sector jobs for Sunnis, allocating funds via provincial govemments for reconstruction, and 

initiating government contracts (particularly infrastructure development) in predominantly Sunni 

areas of the country. 

Beyond this, it is critical to the interests of both the Iraqi and American govemments that 

Baghdad be seen as addressing the most pressing needs of all of its people and doing so in the 

next 6-12 months, preferably before the Iraqi elections. That does not mean that Baghdad needs 

to fix every problem. Just that they need to be seen as trying to fix the most important ones. The 

best way to do that would be for the U.S. and Iraqi govemments to identify a handful of 

important, high-profile projects that can show tangible progress in a year or less and that would 

have a meaningful impact on Iraqi lives. 

To their credit, some within the Iraqi government are thinking in smart and creative ways 

about how to make such moves. Prime Minister Abadi has made this a priority, and the 

economic reform planning team in his office is looking at further subsidy cuts, pro-growth 

policies, and anti-corruption measures including the introduction of extensive "e-government" 

practices that would improve efficiency. The Ministry of Planning is pushing forward a scheme 

to build several major roads, including a new super highway from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan 

that would include tributary roads to connect the many towns of Anbar province, and financing 

for business development to tum the entire network into a major economic pathway, something 

like an Iraqi "Route 66." (This would also be a great example of a government intrastructure 

project in the Sunni areas.) 

Other Iraqi technocrats are pushing for a major overhaul and upgrade of the banking 

system, to shut down the corrupt currency exchange practices, create an electronic banking 

system, and push cash back into the economy to revive both consumption and investment. Some 

Iraqi expatriates have argued for an intemational effort to build hospitals and health clinics 

across Iraq. Iraq's healthcare sector has been decimated by the wars and sanctions and it would 

make a major and immediate impact on people's lives if they had access to better quality 

healthcare. However, all of these plans remain in their infancy and all will be major lifts for 

Iraq's weak bureaucracy and paralyzed political system. Given Baghdad's record over the past 
61 

14 years, no one should bet heavily that any of them will come to fruition without major 

assistance from the international community. 

Broader Goals of a New U.S. Policy Toward Iraq 

Over the longer term, the United States needs to invest its resources and energy into three 

related but overarching issues: 

I. Mediating a national reconciliation process among senior Iraqi leaders (primarily Sunni 

and Shi'a); 

2. Helping to reform the Iraqi bureaucratic and political systems to improve the 

e!Tectiveness of Iraqi governance and enable a decentralization of authority and resources 

from Baghdad to the provinces; 

3. And overseeing talks between Baghdad and Erbil over the status of Iraqi Kurdistan. 

National Reconciliation, Power-Sharing, and Decentralization. Iraq's communities have (once 

again) lost their trust in one another. Trust is always the first casualty of civil war, and Iraq had 

only started to rebuild it in 2007-2009 before the American withdrawal allowed Maliki to pursue 

a sectarian agenda and destroy Sunni trust of the Shi'a all over again. Now and for the 

f(Jreseeable future, rebuilding that trust must be a top priority. 

In part for that reason, Iraq will almost certainly need to transition (eventually) to a 

combination of federalism and either confederation with the Kurds or, more likely, eventual 

independence for an Iraqi Kurdish state. 

As with the short term, so over the long term, the United States needs to take on board the 

difficult task of helping the Iraqis forge a new national reconciliation agreement, either formally 

or informally. There is simply no way around this foundational requirement. Iraqis need a new 

power-sharing agreement that will allow all of the rival communities, but particularly the Sunni 

and Shi'a Arabs, to begin cooperating again. Without this, the military successes against ISIS 

will evaporate. 

In recent months, both the United States and the government of Iraq have trumpeted local 

reconciliation efforts as a bottom-up substitute for a top-down process of national reconciliation. 

While such grass-roots efforts can be very useful, historically they are no substitute for highlevel reconciliation. Without the latter, local etTorts are typically undone by rivalries among 

senior leaders and the result, once again, is renewed civil war. Yet the United States has made 

far too little effort to bring Iraq's senior leadership together, hiding behind Baghdad's desire to 

handle this itself and the self-fulfilling prophecy that Iraq's leaders are too fragmented. The 

current, Iraqi-led "process" has so far achieved nothing. On the other hand, it is worth noting 

that in 2007-2008, my friend and co-panelist today, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, faced a similar 

problem of fragmented leadership, yet he and his team brokered exactly the kind of (informal but 

effective) national reconciliation that Iraq desperately needs once again 

As part of such an agreement-and because the opposite approach had failed miserably 

by 2014, paving the way for ISIS-Iraq will have to develop a federal structure (as envisioned in 

the current Iraqi constitution) that delegates greater authority and autonomy to its various ethnic, 

sectarian and geographic components. The traumatic experiences of three and a half decades of 

Saddam's tyranny, two bouts of civil war, and Maliki's brutal attempt to consolidate power in 
62 

between, have made it inconceivable that Iraq's communities will accept a return to an allpowerful, highly-centralized Iraqi state. 

However, in fittingly ironic fashion, the goal of a more decentralized, federal political 

system now requires a dedicated effort to strengthen Iraq's central government. The problem is 

best understood this way: Decentralization can take two forms, empowerment or entropy. 

Obviously, the latter is a positive that can produce a functional state, the latter a disaster likely to 

produce war and misery. Decentralization via empowerment requires a reasonably strong and 

functional central government that grants specific authorities and the power to execute those 

tasks to subordinate and/or peripheral entities. Decentralization via entropy, in contrast, occurs 

when the central govemment lacks the strength to control its constituent parts-let alone to 

empower them-and so subordinates, peripheral entities, and actors outside the system 

altogether simply grab authority and resources and do with it whatever they like. Not only does 

such anarchy invariably dissolve into chaos and conflict, but the actors atTogating power to 

themselves are rarely as strong as they would be if their power were delegated by an effective 

central government. One example of the distinction is the United States created by the Articles 

of Confederation compared to the United States created by the U.S. Constitution. Under the 

fotmer, the central govemment was too weak and so the federal structure did not work, even 

though the states were far more powerful than they were under the Constitution. The result was 

anarchy, chaos and internal conflict. The Constitution provided for a stronger central 

government, which paradoxically made a stable federal system-with still strong states-both 

practical and functional. 

Unfortunately, what has been happening in Iraq for the past several years is largely 

decentralization by entropy, not empowerment, and that is another factor that could produce 

renewed conflict in the future. It is this entropic pull that is causing the fragmentation that is 

now the leitmotif of Iraqi politics. The Sunnis have long suffered from a badly atomized 

leadership, but even that has worsened in recent years, exacerbated by Maliki's brilliance in 

targeting any moderate, capable and charismatic Sunni leader who might have unified that 

community. Yet the Shi'a leadership is also fracturing. Iraqis often like to argue that the 

Marja'iye (the Shi'a religious establishment centered in Najaf) provides the Shi'a with a unified 

voice, but if that were ever true, it is proving less and less so. Now, dozens of Shi'a figures can 

claim leadership over important constituencies, including dozens of new militias, many of which 

operate outside the control of the central government. This centrifugal trajectory simultaneously 

paralyzes the Iraqi political system and pushes the country toward chaos and renewed conflict. 

The Kurdish Question. Although I am certainly open to the prospect of a Kurdish-Iraqi 

federation or confederation if the Kurds truly want it, I strongly suspect that Kurdish secession is 

the only real solution to the problem. The Kurds constitute a separate nation who have made 

cleat· for the past century that they do not want to be a part of Arab Iraq. Their forced inclusion 

in the Iraqi state has resulted in nothing but conflict and misery for both the Kurds and the Arabs. 

I say that as someone who considers himself a friend to both, and believes that Kurdish secession 

would benefit both peoples. As I noted earlier, Kurdistan is a liability to Iraq, not an asset. 

If Iraq and the Kurds would both be better off with an amicable divorce, ensuring that 

such a separation does not provoke a war of its own is going to be a challenge. The Kurds and 

Iraqis have a great deal to hash out and both sides have conflicting claims and passionate 

attachments to their own positions. Likewise, as we have seen in the latest drama over last 
63 

week's Kurdish referendum, the Iranians are likely to oppose Kurdish secession, and the Turks 

and Sunni Arab states may do so as well. 

Thus, ensuring the amicability of a Kurdish-lraqi divorce will take time, goodwill and 

constructive diplomacy that seem in short supply right now. 'I'he United States has important 

interests in seeing this separation happen peacefully, but little else. How the Kurds and Arabs 

will choose to define their borders, handle territorial issues (including the status of Kirkuk and 

the distribution of oil fields), and decide the fate of displaced persons are not issues on which the 

United States needs to take a position. However, it will be critical that Washington serve as 

honest broker in helping the parties find solutions that both can accept. Tt may also be necessary 

for the United States to help each side make painful concessions, in part by providing bilateral or 

multilateral aid as compensation. Allowing the Kurds to opt out of Iraq would also increase the 

demographic (and therefore electoral) weight of Iraq's Shi'a Arab community, which will make 

it all the more important for the United States to help Arab Iraq devise a more stable, equitable 

and self-regulating political system of its own. 

The Obama Administration put considerable effort into handling the pressing troubles 

between Baghdad and Erbil, and this helped achieve a certain political stability and some 

remarkable military cooperation. However, without the framework of a long-term plan that 

creates the circumstances for peaceful Kurdish secession (along the lines of the Czechoslovak 

model) these near-term gains will erode and eventually collapse as they have so regularly in the 

past. 

Consequently, the United States should inaugurate Iraqi-Kurdish talks on two parallel, 

simultaneous tracks: One focusing on a long-term process for eventual, peaceful Kurdish 

secession, and a second focusing on Baghdad-Erbil relations in the short term, to include sticky 

issues like security cooperation, administration of Kurdish occupied territory, oil revenues, and 

fiscal policy. The latter might produce an agreement on a new federal or con federal structure by 

which Kurdistan would remain part oflraq until the longer-term process produced a workable 

solution that all sides could accept. 

Leverage 

None of this can happen if the United States doesn't preserve and continuously rebuild its 

leverage with Iraq. Many Iraqis and some foreign governments will oppose aspects of the short 

and long-term agendas outlined above and the United States will have to be able to push back on 

them directly or empower Iraqis to do so. Similarly, few Iraqis will embrace the tasks that are 

needed to build a better Iraq-and secure America's interests by doing so-if they are not given 

the help they need and the tools they lack. 

Part of preserving America's influence in Iraq comes from preserving a robust American 

military presence there. There is no better way to "empower" the Iraqis we seek to aid than by 

protecting them, creating a peaceful environment in which they can work, and giving them the 

strength to take on the bad actors who seek to employ violence, ignore the rule of law, and 

otherwise work outside Iraq's democratic system. Other Iraqis will benefit from that presence in 

a variety of ways, from securing contracts with the U.S. to enjoying the security created by that 

presence. Indeed, many bad actors will lose influence as a result of that presence since it will be 

harder tor them to use force as an element of their own leverage. 

Economic assistance would be a superb adjunct to an ongoing American security 

commitment. As I noted above, the bilateral and international financial assistance arranged for 

Iraq by the Obama Administration have been very helpful in stabilizing Iraq's finances in the 
64 

short term, but they are not a long-term solution. Additional foreign aid could also have an 

outsized etTect in Iraq because Baghdad is so inefficient, corrupt and bottlenecked that external 

assistance provided directly to those who will spend it comes taster and is of greater utility than 

trying to squeeze dinars through the Iraqi political process. 

Moreover, as with a 10,000-man military commitment, an economic aid program of 

(ideally) $1-2 billion per year for five years would reinforce to Iraqis that the United States is 

making a long-term commitment to Iraq's stability and development. Symbolically, that is worth 

far more than the practical impact of the dollars spent. It is also the case that, if that money is 

spent wisely, it can be used to empower moderate Iraqi leaders looking to move past sectarian 

differences and break the deadlocks suffocating the Iraqi political system. 

Beyond the possibility of American economic assistance looms the tantalizing prospect 

ofGCC aid. Obviously, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and conceivably Saudi Arabia could provide 

even greater economic support to Iraq, and do so more easily than the United States. The recent 

moves by the Saudis to dramatically expand their ties with Iraq are therefore an extremely 

hopeful development. Riyadh appears to have finally recognized that Iraq is not lost to Iran, and 

is now trying to ensure that it does not become another Iranian dominion. GCC economic aid 

~:,>uided by American know-how and secured by an American military presence would be an ideal 

way of providing Iraq with the resources it needs to succeed. Consequently, U.S. policy to Iraq 

should continue to push for GCC economic assistance to Iraq. 

The Iranian Dimension 

Although American inl1uence in Baghdad has grown significantly over the past two 

years, Iran is still the most important foreign power in Iraq. We may not like it, but the reality is 

that the United States is unlikely to accomplish much there if Tehran is determined to thwart us. 

It would require a massive commitment of American resources to Iraq to allow Washington to 

replace Tehran as the most influential external player in Baghdad. 

However, Iran has always demonstrated that it has a hierarchy of interests in Iraq and is 

nothing if not ruthlessly pragmatic. Without going into a long explanation ofiranian motives in 

Iraq and the evidence for them, what is most important is that Iran has not tried to stop the 

United States from doing what it has been doing in Iraq since 2014. Moreover, on several 

occasions Iran has provided critical, if tacit, assistance for those eftorts. What Tehran appears to 

see as its principle interest in Iraq is having a unified Iraq under a democratic governmentwhich is the best assurance that Iraq will be both stable and dominated by its Shi 'a community, 

which will always want to be on decent terms with Tehran. 

Although significant differences over Iraq could arise in future between the U.S. and Iran, 

especially over the role of the Hashd ash-Shaabi, there is nothing about the steps I have outlined 

above that runs contrary to Iran's core interests in Iraq, and much that is entirely consistent with 

them. It would even be useful for the United States to see if some degree of coordination out of 

shared interests may be possible. That would be especially helplul to try to secure Iranian buy-in 

for longer term American objectives such as a greater political role for the Sunni Arab 

community and eventual independence for Iraq's Kurds, both of which Iran opposes at present. 

Moreover, influential as it is, Iran is not all-powerful in Iraq and has not been since the 

Battle of Qadisiyah in 637 AD. Left to their own devices, most Iraqis would shut out the 

Iranians altogether, and they have done so whenever they were strong enough, despite all of 

Iran's levers for wielding influence in Iraq. That then is the key for those seeking to diminish or 

eliminate Iranian influence in Iraq: building a strong, cohesive Iraq that has the confidence to 
65 

show the Iranians the door. And that, of course, is precisely the goal of the approach 1 have 

outlined above. 

Doing the Right Thing . .. Finally 

President Obama liked to intone that Americans cannot do what Iraqis need to do for 

themselves. At best, that statement was a tautology and therefore useless as a guide to policy. In 

truth, it was merely an incorrect excuse for American inactivity. Time and again since the 2003 

invasion, we have seen that the Iraqis cannot do the most important things that they need to do 

on their own, but have been able to do them with American help. 

It is equally wrong to believe, as many in the previous Administration once claimed, that 

American assistance allowed the Iraqis to indulge their worst habits and avoid taking the hard 

steps they needed to for the good of their country. These same olTicials insisted that removing 

the United States from the equation would force the Iraqis to finally do the right thing because 

they had no other choice. In reality, whenever the Iraqis have found themselves in such 

circumstances, they invariably have made the worst choice, to their detriment and ours. 

They do so not necessarily because they are knaves or fools (although some undoubtedly 

are). They do so because they are caught in a Hobbesian state of nature, the war of all against 

all, in which self-preservation argues for taking actions that marginally improve one's own 

position at the expense of everyone else's. That, in turn, forces everyone else to do the same and 

so renders everyone less and less safe and secure. It is the common path to civil war. 

Escaping such circumstances typically requires an external actor capable of creating 

better, more cooperative outcomes for everyone. That is the role the United States successfully 

played during the Surge of2007-2008 and also at times since 2014. Tt is a role we must continue 

to play in the future if we arc to prevent Iraq sliding back into the civil war trap. 

I am very lond of Winston Churchill's famous quip that, "You can always count on 

Americans to do the right thing~after they've tried everyihing else." Tn Iraq, haven't we tried 

everything else? Isn't it finally time to do the right thing? 
66 

Kenneth Pollack 

Resident Scholar 

Middle East political-military affairs (>vith an emphasis on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi 

Arabia) 

US-Middle East security and foreign policies 

Kenneth M. Pollack is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where 

he works on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, focusing in particular on Iran, Iraq, 

Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf countries. 

Before joining AEI, Dr. Pollack was affiliated with the Brookings Institution, where he 

was a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Before that, he was the 

center's director and director of research. Dr. Pollack served twice at the National Security 

Council, first as director for Near East and South Asian affairs and then as director for 

Persian Gulf affairs. He began his career as a Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA, 

where he was the principal author of the CIA's classified postmortem on Iraqi strategy and 

military operations during the Persian Gulf War. Among other recognitions, Dr. Pollack 

was awarded the CIA's Exceptional Performance Award twice and the Certificate of 

Distinction for Outstanding Performance of Duty, both for work on the Persian Gulf War. 

Dr. Pollack has also worked on long-term issues related to Middle Eastern political and 

military affairs for the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he was a senior research professor at the 

Institute for National Security Studies at National Defense University. 

Dr. Pollack is the author of nine books, including "Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and 

American Strategy" (Simon & Schuster, 2013), named one of the "Best Books of2013" by 

The Economist and one of the "100 Notable Books of2013" by The New York Times; "A 

Path out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East" (Random House, 

2008), a Washington Post and Foreign Affairs bestseller, which was chosen as one of The 

Washington Post's "Best Books of the Year" for 2008 and as an editor's choice of The 

New York Times Book Review; "The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and 

America" (Random House, 2004); and "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading 

Iraq" (Random House, 2002), a New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. 

Dr. Pollack is the author of numerous articles and has been published in The Washington 

Post, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic, among others. 

He received his bachelor's from Yale University and a doctorate in political science from 

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
67 

DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

INSTRUCTION TO WITNESSES: Rule II, clause 2(g)(5), of the Rules of the U.S. 

House of Representatives for the 1151

h Congress requires nongovernmental witnesses 

appearing before House committees to include in their written statements a curriculum 

vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants 

(including subcontracts and subgrants), or contracts or payments originating with a 

foreign government, received during the current and two previous calendar years either 

by the witness or by an entity represented by the witness and related to the subject matter 

of the hearing. This form is intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House 

Committee on Armed Services in complying with the House rule. Please note that a copy 

of these statements, with appropriate redactions to protect the witness's personal privacy 

(including home address and phone number) will be made publicly available in electronic 

form not later than one day after the witness's appearance before the committee. 

Witnesses may list additional grants, contracts, or payments on additional sheets, if 

necessary. 

Capacity in which appearing: (check one) 

D Individual 

~Representative 

If appearing in a representative capacity, name of the company, association or other 

entity being represented: American Enterprise Institute 

Federal Contract or Grant Information: lfyou or the entity you represent before the 

Committee on Armed Services has contracts (including subcontracts) or grants (including 

subgrants) with the federal government, please provide the following information: 

2017 

- Federal grant/ Subject of contract or Federal agency Dollar value --~-~~~!I.!J!ti!.~-- grant . ·-·-- n/a 

c---
68 

2016 

Foreign contracl;l Foreign ct of contract or 

r~~--'p'-'<a~ylm=e=n:::t:_..__4-_g12!0;;_v.'-'e=r"n,=m: .. :.: e,,n,::.t_··f----~· ·---·······~·-·-·~····-~+·-··················--P<I:Y_!!Ice!l! ....... ____ ..... . nla 

2015 

fForeign c-;;;;tracl;l Foreign --~·~--~---- ------~--~---·- Dollar value Subject of contract or 

--~P~~ment government - ;eaxment -- nla 

---~-----~·· 

3 
69 

Securing the Peace after the Fall of ISIS 

Testimony Prepared for House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on 

Oversight and Investigations 

Dr. Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science at The George Washington 

University and Nonresident Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace Middle East Program 

27 September 2017 

Thank you, Chairman Thornberry and Ranking Member Smith of the House Armed 

Services Committee, and Chairman Hartzler and Ranking Member Moulton of this 

Subcommittee, for this invitation to speak about the critically important question of 

Iraqi stability after the fall of ISIS. The U.S.-led coalition has made impressive 

progress over the last three years towards containing, degrading, and ultimately 

defeating the Islamic State in Iraq. It is heartening that this committee is paying 

serious attention to what comes next. Nothing could be more important in order to 

consolidate these successes and avoid yet another recurrence of insurgency and 

state failure in Iraq. Representative Moulton has led the way on this with his 

presentation last year of a "Plan to Secure the Peace in Iraq."1 

The campaign against ISIS has benefited from impressive bipartisan support. The 

Trump administration wisely chose to continue the strategy against the Islamic 

State designed by the Obama administration. The Global Coalition against ISIS has 

effectively coordinated a broad international and regional group, while the CJTF of 

Operation Iraqi Resolve has executed an effective military strategy of building and 

supporting the Iraqi Security Force. The campaign stopped the Islamic State's 

advance, and then systematically closed off its borders, degraded its capabilities and 

steadily recaptured its territory. Critically, it worked to create both Iraqi and 

regional political support for the campaign, paying careful attention to the urgent 

needs of civilians in the areas liberated from ISIS and worked closely with a wide 

range of international NGOs to assist the displaced. The pace of military advances 

has accelerated since the liberation of Mosul in july and of Tel Afar last week. It is 

likely that in the relatively near future the remaining ISIS strongholds in Iraq will be 

recaptured. The accelerated pace of the campaign in turn increases the urgency of 

addressing numerous looming challenges to stability and peace in a post-ISIS Iraq. 

There is a near consensus among analysts that military victory against ISIS must be 

followed by a political and economic reconstruction strategy in order to prevent 

another resurgence of insurgency or Iraqi state failure. 2 The U.S. should assume that 

1 Rep. Seth Moulton, "A Plan to Secure the Peace in Iraq," 13 September 2016. 

z Several major recent reports make this point. For examples, see Shelly Culbertson 

and Linda Robinson, Making Victory Count After Defeating ISIS (Washington, DC: 

RAND Corporation, 2017); International Crisis Group, Counter-terrorism Pitfalls: 

What the U.S. Fight Against ISIS and al-Qaeda Should Avoid (Special Report #3, 22 

March 2017); Am b. Ryan Crocker, Report of the Task Force on the Future of Iraq 

(Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council, 31 May 2017). 
70 

after its territorial defeat, ISIS will attempt to re-embed, regroup, and continue a 

violent insurgent campaign at a lower leveJ.3 If the defeat of ISIS leads to another 

round ofShi'ite sectarian governance, unmet promises of political accommodation 

to the Iraqi Sunni community, and reconstruction aid siphoned off into corruption, 

then this insurgency is more likely to gain traction and the Iraqi state is likely to 

prove far less resilient. 

The military success against ISIS has created a political opening to strike a new 

political compact In an April2017 survey carried out by the leading Iraqi polling 

organization IIACSS and just published in the Washington Post, 51% ofSunnis say 

Iraq going in right direction and 71% of Sunnis say they support Prime Minister AIAbadi.4 This is a far cry from the alienation reported in the summer 2014 survey, 

carried out just before ISIS swept through Mosul, in which only 5% of Sunnis said 

they supported then Prime Minister Maliki. But this optimism is fragile: in the 

IIACSS survey, 61% ofSunnis fear ISIS could return to liberated areas. There are 

rampant reports of sectarian abuses against Sunnis in these areas and of 

shortcomings in reconstruction and governance. Furthermore, the Sunni political 

class has been decimated, the Shi'ite political landscape is fragmented, and there are 

widespread indicators of youth alienation from the political process.5 

There are innumerable issues confronting the Iraqi state in the coming months and 

years. In addition to the immediate crisis over the future of the KRG within Iraq, I 

would like to highlight three other issues critical to the post-ISIS period: 

institutionalizing relations between the U.S. and Iraq in a conditional partnership; 

helping to anticipate and address persistent failures in governance and state 

capacity, particularly given the possibility of reduced presence by international 

humanitarian organizations; and balancing competition and cooperation with Iran 

in the Iraqi theater. 

(1) Managing the Kurdish Referendum Fallout: While Iraq's Kurds have a 

powerful case and strong internal support for national independence, the 

independence referendum held on September 25, 2017, risks significantly 

disrupting the anti-ISIS campaign and the stability of the Iraqi political system. The 

United States was correct to oppose the referendum on strategic grounds, but at this 

point the imperative must be to mitigate its impact on Iraqi stability. Politicians in 

Baghdad have been engaging in highly inflammatory rhetoric and escalatory actions 

which could spin out of control. Regional actors such as Turkey have also inflamed 

3 Michael Knights, "Predicting the Shape of Iraq's Next Sunni Insurgency," CTC 

Sentinel (August 2017). 

4 Munqith Dagher and Karl Kaltenthaler, "Iraqi Sunnis Are Impressed by the Defeat 

of ISIS. Here's What That Could Mean." Washington Post (Monkey Cage), 11 

September 2017. 5 On the importance of Iraqi youth alienation, see the report by the International 

Crisis Group, Fight or Flight: The Desperate Plight of Iraq's Generation 2000 (Middle 

East Report 169,6 August 2016). 
71 

the situation with military and political threats. Calming down the situation and 

laying foundations for a longer-term political process now must be a top priority. 

U.S. efforts to leverage its strong military and political relationship with the Iraqi 

Kurdish leadership, including unusually public U.S. warnings, against holding the 

referendum failed to prevent it. Rather than retaliate, at this point the U.S. should 

focus on managing the fallout. It should urge Kurdish leaders to avoid provocative 

moves in the aftermath of the referendum, to engage directly with Baghdad on 

future steps, and to remain focused on the need to finish the campaign against ISIS. 

At the regional level, the U.S. should urge neighbors such as Turkey to restrain from 

military threats and show restraint, and to scale back threatened economic boycotts 

and air travel bans. The U.S. should also engage with Iraqi politicians across the 

political and identity spectrum to calm the sharply spiking anti-Kurdish politics, 

urging the Iraqi Parliament and government to avoid the extreme forms of 

retaliation which are currently being publicly discussed. 

(2) Conditional Partnership: Looking beyond the immediate crisis, the United 

States should make clear its commitment to supporting a durable and sustainable 

post-ISIS Iraq. This commitment should not be open-ended, however. It should be 

defined through a conditional partnership which reinforces positive trends without 

enabling destructive possible paths. Such a conditional partnership, cemented in a 

mutually agreeable Memorandum of Understanding and Status of Forces 

Agreement, should allow the U.S. to constructively support the Iraqi government 

without being drawn ever deeper into unsustainable military commitments. 

This partnership should be based on clear expectations about political reforms. Such 

political reform is inextricably linked with enduring security. A primary driver of 

the return of the Islamic State as a potent insurgency after 2012 was the opening 

created by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's sectarian and failed governance. 

Both before and after the U.S. withdrawal, Maliki consistently resisted U.S. pressure 

to incorporate Awakening and Sons of Iraq fighters into the security forces and the 

implementation of agreements towards political accommodation. 

The situation today is more conducive to an effective, conditional partnership. The 

U.S. military returned to Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government to meet a 

common threat, and its strategy is designed to support the Iraqi military rather than 

taking the lead role. This has reduced the salience of anti-American sentiment, 

offering greater freedom of political maneuver for defining the U.S.-Iraqi 

relationship. After the bitter experience of 2014, Iraqi political leaders today can 

have few illusions about the costs of losing American military and political support. 

Prime Minister ai-Abadi has proven more sympathetic to the needs for political 

reforms, despite his relatively weak position and the significant challenges from 

competing Shi'ite parties and movements. Victory over ISIS has given Abadi a 

significant if fleeting political boost, and the opportunity to take a stronger position 

within Iraq's fragmented political system. This will not last long, however. Political 
72 

rivals such as former Prime Minister Maliki have been exploiting the Kurdish 

referendum and other contentious political issues to undermine Abadi. The U.S. 

should reward Abadi's partnership with a commitment to a long-term, 

institutionalized relationship which allows him to translate success against ISIS into 

more enduring reforms. Conditioning future military support on clear political 

expectations will give the U.S. greater leverage, while allowing it to remain actively 

engaged in Iraq without either endlessly expanding military commitments or 

unconditional support to a corrupt and unaccountable political elite. 

U.S. expectations and contributions should include continued support for building 

state capacity in vital sectors. Security sector reform remains essential, including 

rebuilding Iraq's depleted elite counter-terrorism forces and reorienting training of 

conventional forces to deal with a low-level insurgency in ways that do not alienate 

local populations.6 The U.S. should also help find a path for properly integrating, and 

professionalizing portions of the Shi'ite PMF (Hashd) within the structures of the 

Iraqi state, to avoid a replay of the costly failure to manage the Sunni Awakenings 

and "Sons of Iraq" after the Surge. The PMF represent a variety of political and 

institutional interests and should not be treated as a monolithic grouping of proIranian militias. Some PMF units provided essential manpower in the early days of 

the campaign against ISIS when the Iraqi Security Forces were in disarray, and 

continued to play a role in subsequent campaigns. Indeed, their future has become a 

key dimension of intense intra-Shi'a political battles which should be carefully 

followed. The U.S. should support efforts to integrate those PMF units willing to be 

included within a unified and nonsectarian state, while supporting state efforts to 

disarm and demobilize those aligned with hardline sectarian forces.? 

The priority of political accord should inform the execution of the final stages of the 

anti-ISIS military campaign. The careful attention to civilian casualties, careful pace 

of military advance, and preparation for post-liberation security and assistance over 

the first few years of the campaign were key to the building of popular support. The 

rising civilian casualties in recent months are driven by multiple factors: an 

intensifying air campaign, ISIS strategy of preventing civilian flight, the nature of 

urban combat in populated areas. Whatever the cause, these well-publicized civilian 

casualties risk undermining the political support which has been so essential to the 

long-term durability of the campaign and feed support for a revived insurgency. 

The U.S. should redouble its efforts to sustain a cautious and patient approach 

designed to minimize civilian casualties and to deny effective propaganda to future 

insurgents. 

(3) Governance and State Capacity: Weak state capacity and failed governance 

has long been at the root of many of Iraq's problems. The inability of the state to 

6 On the degradation of the elite counterterrorism forces, see Kirk Sowell, "Mosul 

and the Limits of State Capacity," Sada (Carnegie Endowment for International 

Peace, 30 March 2017). 7 Renad Mansour and Faleh Jabar, The Popular Mobilization Forces and Iraq's Future 

(Carnegie Middle East Center, April 2017) 
73 

provide security, services or accountable government feeds public alienation and 

undermines economic recovery. Pockets of state failure strike particularly hard in 

Sunni-majority areas, rural areas, and in communities with large numbers of 

Internally Displaced Persons. Persistent electricity shortages, water problems, and 

inadequate services have driven popular protests. Budget shortfalls, administrative 

incapacity, rampant corruption, and ongoing violence and displacement have 

impeded even well-intended efforts to improve state services. 

The shortcomings of the Iraqi state have proven resistant to external solutions. 

Corruption, sectarianism, and ineffective bureaucracies erode the state from within, 

and undermine state legitimacy. In a 2013 survey carried out by the highly 

respected Arab Barometer, 88.3% of Iraqis agreed that there is corruption in state 

institutions. This complicates international efforts to build state capacity, since 

external money for reconstruction risks being lost into a vast pit of corruption or 

misdirected for the purposes of political patronage. Even without such corruption 

challenges, Iraqi oil production is barely sufficient to cover government operating 

costs, much less to finance reconstruction.s 

The very urgency of the challenges has provided a strong incentive for the Iraqi 

state to work effectively with their international counterparts. The anti-ISIS 

coalition has done an impressive job coordinating the humanitarian response with 

international non governmental organizations. Nearly 150 international NGOs have 

supported civilians displaced from Mosul and other areas liberated from ISIS, but 

the needs remain overwhelming.9 The Office for Coordinating Humanitarian Affairs 

in Iraq estimates that there currently 3.4 million displaced overall, with more than 

11 million Iraqis in need of assistance.1o 

The very success of the international humanitarian response creates another 

potential risk, however. Their high level of commitment has alleviated the burden 

on the Iraqi state. But the high level of international assistance could easily dry up as 

international attention and funding moves on to other crisis areas. This could be 

fatal for post-ISIS Iraq, if these areas experience a precipitous decline in essential 

services following liberation. The United States and the Global Coalition must work 

to ensure continuity in services, so that such a vacuum does not appear and that 

Iraqis in liberated areas experience improved lives rather than abandonment and 

heightened misery. These services must be connected directly and visibly to the 

Iraqi state, not only to NGOs, in order to help build the legitimacy and accountability 

of local and national government. 

The focus on state capacity and governance should emphasize the importance of 

decentralization and local autonomy. Prime Minister al-Abadi has been receptive to 

8 A recent evaluation of Iraq's oil production found systematic shortfalls in its ability 

to cover regular government operating expenses, with no surplus for capital 

investment. See Inside Iraqi Politics 159 (21 July 2017), p.8. 

9 !OM-Iraq Sitrep #30, 10-23 August 2017. 

1o Most recent figures from OCHA-Iraq Humanitarian Dashboard (July 2017) 
74 

such moves, which command significant support across the Iraqi political spectrum 

and the international community alike. Drafting a new provincial elections law has 

proven challenging, however, and the elections have been postponed until2018.11 

Such a focus on local governance could help to meet the urgent demands of youth 

protestors who complain of persistent unaccountability and dysfunction of the 

central state, and could also facilitate more systematic addressing of the needs of the 

internally displaced. 

( 4) Finding the Right Balance With Iran: Iraq's relationship with Iran should not 

be allowed to become a fatal obstacle to the anti-ISIS campaign or the long-term 

relationship with Iraq. Given the urgency of the threat posed by ISIS after the fall of 

Mosul, the U.S. wisely chose to prioritize the battle against ISIS over competition 

with Iran in the Iraqi theater. Forcing the government of Iraq to choose between 

Iran and the United States would have guaranteed failure in the campaign against 

ISIS. It would be natural for the Iranian-US tacit cooperation to fray as the IS threat 

diminishes, but this would be a critical mistake which would undermine all which 

has been so patiently achieved. The commitment to prioritizing the fight against ISIS 

should extend to the post-ISIS struggle to support a sustainable Iraqi political 

accord. The potential for deterioration of relations with Iran over the JCPOA is 

beyond the scope of this testimony, but must not be allowed to spill over into Iraq. 

More broadly, the United States should contest Iranian influence in Iraq, but it can 

not end it. A sharp deterioration of relations with Iran, whether over compliance 

with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Agreement or over its proxies in Iraq, would 

have devastating and rapid effects on the anti-ISIL campaign. The U.S. must 

therefore continue to seek an appropriate balance between contesting Iranian 

influence in Iraq and working with Iranian-backed forces towards a common 

interest in defeating ISIS and sustaining a stable Iraq. The restoration of Saudi 

presence in Iraq could be a positive, as long as it contributes to the rebuilding of the 

Sunni community as part of a shared political project and not towards harnessing 

them to a destructive confrontation with Iranian-backed groups in Iraq. 

In conclusion, the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq has produced 

significant positive results, with bipartisan support. A comprehensive approach to 

partnership with Iraq should now prioritize institutionalizing that relationship, 

protecting Iraqis in newly liberated areas, encouraging political reforms, building 

state capacity, and sustaining international humanitarian assistance. These steps 

will be essential to building the resilience of the Iraqi state in the face of the Islamic 

State's likely return to new forms of insurgency following the collapse of its state. 

11 Kirk Sowell, "Wrangling over Iraq's Election Laws," Sada (Carnegie Endowment 

for International Peace, 20 April2017). 
75 

Marc Lynch 

Marc Lynch is professor of political science at The George Washington University, where 

he served as director of the Institute for Middle East Studies from 2009-2015. He is the 

founder and director of the Project on Middle East Political Science, a Nonresident Senior 

Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Middle East Program, and a 

2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. He is also a contributing editor to the Washington Post's 

Monkey Cage political science page. His most recent book, The New Arab Wars: Anarchy 

and Uprising in the Middle East, was published last year by Public Affairs. 
76 

DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

INSTRUCTION TO WITNESSES: Rule 11, clause 2(g)(5), of the Rules of the U.S. 

House of Representatives for the ll51

h Congress requires nongovernmental witnesses 

appearing before House committees to include in their written statements a curriculum 

vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants 

(including subcontracts and subgrants), or contracts or payments originating with a 

foreign government, received during the current and two previous calendar years either 

by the witness or by an entity represented by the witness and related to the subject matter 

of the hearing. This form is intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House 

Committee on Armed Services in complying with the House rule. Please note that a copy 

of these statements, with appropriate redactions to protect the witness's personal privacy 

(including home address and phone number) will be made publicly available in electronic 

form not later than one day after the witness's appearance before the committee. 

Witnesses may list additional grants, contracts, or payments on additional sheets, if 

necessary. 

Witness name:..,.M...,a;.;,.r..;;c .... L"'yc..n..,.c...,h _______________ _ 

Capacity in which appearing: (check one) 

~Individual 

D Representative 

If appearing in a representative capacity, name of the company, association or other 

entity being represented:-----------------------

Federal Contract or Grant Information: If you or the entity you represent before the 

Committee on Armed Services has contracts (including subcontracts) or grants (including 

subgrants) with the federal government, please provide the following information: 

2017 

Federal grant/ Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract grant 

N/A 
77 

2016 

Federal grant/ Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract grant 

N/A 

2015 

Federal grant/ Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract grant 

N/A 

Foreign Government Contract or Payment Information: If you or the entity you 

represent before the Committee on Armed Services has contracts or payments originating 

from a foreign government, please provide the following information: 

2017 

Foreign contract/ Foreign government Dollar value Subject of contract or 

payment payment 

N/A 

2 
78 

2016 

Foreign contract/ Foreign Dollar value Subject of contract or 

payment government payment 

N/A 

2015 

Foreign contract/ Foreign Dollar value Subject of contract or 

payment government payment 

N/A 

3 
79 

WRITTEN TESTIMONY ON "SECURING THE PEACE AFTER 

THE FALL OF ISIL" 

HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

Tuesday, October 3, 2017 

Chairwoman Hartzler, Ranking Member Moulton, Subcommittee Members: 

Thank you for inviting Department witnesses to testify here today, and thank you 

for your steadfast support for the men and women of the Department of Defensemilitary and civilian alike-who serve and defend our country all over the world. 

Our focus this afternoon will be on Iraq, and we are pleased to discuss the 

Department of Defense's efforts to enable Iraq to achieve and maintain stability 

following the recent liberation ofMosul. The Iraqi Security Forces led the way in 

defeating ISIS in Mosul, liberating that city and freeing its people. The Iraqi 

Security Forces carried their winning momentum to the next ISIS stronghold in Tal 

Afar, delivering a swift victory there. One year ago, virtually all ofNinewa 

Governorate was controlled by ISIS. In late August, Baghdad announced the 

complete liberation ofNinewa Governorate. Every day, Iraqi Security Forces fight 

to return their country to the Iraqi people, and out of the hands ofiSIS terrorists. 

As Iraqi Security Forces maintain the initiative and continue to bring the fight to 

ISIS, they are backed by strong Iraqi leadership in Baghdad and unwavering 

support from a 73-member global Coalition. 

Although we are pleased that ISIS's military defeat is within sight, we recognize 

that the military effort is only one part of the Defeat ISIS campaign. The key to 

preventing the re-emergence in Iraq ofiSIS, or any other violent extremist 

organization, is effective and inclusive governance. For this to develop, the United 

States and our Coalition partners must continue to work by, with, and through the 

Government oflraq to consolidate military gains and stabilize liberated areas. This 

approach places the military instmment of power in a supporting and enabling role. 

To empower the possibility for long-term peace in Iraq, the United States and our 

Coalition partners are bolstering the Government of Iraq, enabling their security 

services, and promoting local reconciliation amongst the Iraqi people. In the fight 

to defeat ISIS, we saw unprecedented cooperation between the Kurdish Peshmerga 

forces and the Iraqi Security Forces- fighting and taking casualties to achieve a 

common goal for Iraq. The recent Kurdish referendum on independence presents a 

challenge to this cooperation, but hopefully this can be overcome. 

1 
80 

The military defeat of! SIS is only the first step in a long-term commitment to rid 

the world of violent extremist organizations. The seeds of the next extremist 

resurgence lie in the rubble of the Defeat ISIS campaign. Following the defeat of 

ISIS's physical caliphate, it is vital that the Government of Iraq, with the support 

of the USG and the international community, continues to prioritize humanitarian 

assistance and stabilization efforts in order to allow the expedient return of 

internally displaced persons. While millions oflraqis have returned home, over 

3.2 million remain displaced as a result of the ISIS occupation. 

We are working closely with the Department of State, the United States Agency 

for International Development, the United Nations, and our Coalition partners on 

near-term stabilization activities to support the Government of Iraq. Some 

examples of U.S. supported activities include demining, rubble removal, and 

restoring essential services and access to potable water. Although DoD does not 

possess the authority to conduct stabilization activities on its own, we continue to 

support our interagency partners in their efforts to stabilize Iraq, and the results 

speak for themselves. Over 2.2 million Iraqis, including more than a quarter 

million Mosul residents, have returned home. As significant as this 

accomplishment is, there is more work to do with our Iraqi partners. Part ofiSIS's 

success is derived from its ability to capitalize on sectarian grievances and 

disenfranchisement. Allegations of abuses, extrajudicial killings, and other Law of 

Armed Conflict violations feed ISIS's narrative that the Government oflraq is 

illegitimate. For this reason, we continue to advise the Government oflraq on the 

importance of transparency and investigating all credible allegations of abuse. 

Prime Minister Abadi is personally committed to this effort, and has stated that he 

will thoroughly investigate any such allegations and hold those deemed responsible 

accountable in accordance with due process and Iraqi law. 

Upon the physical destruction ofiSIS's caliphate, we will continue the global 

campaign to defeat ISIS. This effort will bolster long-term stability within Iraq by 

engaging ISIS globally and preventing the flow offoreign fighters back to the 

region. The whole-of-government global campaign will continue to attack ISIS 

and its affiliates to further degrade their ability to recruit and maintain a fighting 

force. We will also continue, alongside our Coalition and interagency partners, to 

pressure the international community to counter the radical salafi jihadist ideology 

that fuels many of the world's violent extremist organizations. All of these efforts 

will serve to help prevent a resurgence of ISIS, provide an opportunity for 

inclusive and effective governance at all levels to thrive, and promote long-term 

stability. 

Again, thank you for having us here today, we look forward to your questions. 

2 
81 

Mark ,J. Swayne 

Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Stability and Humanitarian Affairs (SHA) 

Mark Swayne is the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Stability and Humanitarian 

Affairs (SHA) within ASD for Special Operations/Low- Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) in the 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (OUSD) for Policy. SHA develops defense 

policy for embassy security, humanitarian assistance, disaster response, peacekeeping, 

stability operations, international rule of law, prevention of atrocities, human rights, lethal 

autonomous weapons systems, and women, peace and security. 

Mark previously served as the Director for North-West-Central Africa and Horn of Africa 

Regional Director in OUSD Policy. Mark retired from the U.S. Navy in 2008, and he has 

been working defense policy issues since January 2002. Previous to working at OSD 

Policy, Mark was the State Department and Interagency Liaison officer for the U.S. Africa 

Command's Pentagon Office. 

His active duty defense policy assignments included: 

• Special Assistant to the Commander, U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany; 

• Deputy POLAD for Africa, U.S. European Command; 

• Director for African Affairs, White House National Security Council; 

• Central and West Africa Branch Chief, Joint Staff 15 Africa; and 

• Congressional Fellow to Senator John Warner. 

Previous to working on defense policy issues, Mark's Naval Flight Officer assignments 

included: 

• Admiral's Aide, Commander U.S. Second Fleet; and 

• Radar Intercept Officer, F-14 Tomcat and Bombardier-Navigator, A-6 Intruder 

with 2,500 flying hours, 650 carrier traps, 4 aircraft carrier deployments flying over 

Iraq, Bosnia, and Somalia, and he led combat missions over Iraq. 

Mark was commissioned through Naval ROTC at Norwich University with a B.S. in 

Mechanical Engineering and he has a Master of Business Administration. He and his wife 

Veronica have been married for 28 years and have two sons in college. 
82 

Brigadier General James W. Bierman Jr. 

Deputy Director 

Political-Military Affairs Middle East, J5 

Brigadier General James W. Bierman, Jr. was born in Camp Lejeune, and attended the 

Virginia Military Institute. Upon completion of The Basic School and Infantry Officer's 

Course in 1988, he reported to the 2d Marine Division and was assigned as a Rifle Platoon 

Commander in Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) 4-88. While in this billet he 

participated in contingency operations in the Persian Gulf. 

In December 1988, Brigadier General Bierman was assigned to 2d Battalion, gth Marines. 

While with 2/8 he served as an Anti-Armor Platoon Commander, Adjutant, and 

Commanding Officer of Headquarters and Service Company. In 1991 he deployed to the 

Mediterranean with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and participated in operations in 

Northern Iraq as part of Operation Provide Comfort. 

In February 1992, he began a tour in the Intelligence Field and was assigned to 1st 

Surveillance Reconnaissance and Intelligence Group for duty as an Analyst in the lst 

MAGTF All Source Fusion Center. In December 1992, Brigadier General Bierman was 

attached to the 1st Marine Division for duty as an Intelligence Analyst in Mogadishu, 

Somalia during Operation Restore Hope. In May 1993 he assumed duties as the 

Intelligence Officer for the 1st Marine Regiment. 

In June 1995, Brigadier General Bierman returned to Quantico to attend the Amphibious 

Warfare School. After graduating, he returned to Camp Pendleton where he served as the 

Commanding Oftlcer of Company C and Battalion Operations Officer in 1st Battalion, I st 

Marine Regiment. During this tour he participated in contingency operations ashore in the 

Central Command Area of Operations with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. 

From July 1999 to June 2002, Brigadier General Biennan served as the Commanding 

Officer of Recruiting Station Richmond, Virginia. Following recruiting duty, he attended 

the School of Advanced Warftghting in Quantico. While a student there he was assigned to 

I Marine Expeditionary Force, and participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom as a planner. 

After graduating from the School of Advanced Warfighting, Brigadier General Bierman 

returned to I Marine Expeditionary Force. In the summer of2003, he deployed to AI 

Hillah, Iraq where he served as an Action Officer during Phase IV of Operation Iraqi 

Freedom. In the spring of2004, he deployed to Fallujah, Iraq where he served as the 

Deputy G-3, Future Operations Officer during Operation Iraqi Freedom 1!. 

In July 2005, he assumed command of 1st Battalion, 3d Marine Regiment. During the 

winter of2006, he deployed with the battalion to eastern Afghanistan during Operation 

Enduring Freedom VI-VII. In the spring of2007, he deployed with the battalion to 

Haditha, Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom 06-08.1. 

He relinquished command of 1st Battalion, 3d Marines in November 2007. Shortly 

thereafter he reported to the College ofNaval Warfare in Newport, Rhode Island. In April 

2009, he assumed the responsibilities as Commanding Officer, 3d Marine Regiment 

Remain Behind Element. In November of2009, Brigadier General Bierman assumed 

command of the 3d Marine Regiment, a billet he held until of May of 20 II. 

From 2011 to 2013, he was assigned as the Military Secretary to the Commandant of the 

Marine Corps. 
83 

ln July 2013, Brigadier General Bierman assumed command of Marine Corps Recruit 

Depot, San Diego and the Western Recruiting Region, a billet he held until 15 July 2016. 

On l September 2016, he assumed his current duties as the Deputy Director for PoliticalMilitary Affairs for the Middle East, Strategic Plans and Policy Direction (.15), on the Joint 

Staff. 

Brigadier General Bierman's personal decorations include the Legion of Merit with gold 

star, the Bronze Star with combat distinguishing device and two gold stars, the Meritorious 

Service Medal with two gold stars, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with 

gold star, and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with gold star. 
84 

Statement for the Record 

.Joseph Pennington 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq 

House Armed Services Committee 

Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 

October 3, 2017 

Chairwoman Hartzler, Ranking Member Moulton, and Subcommittee members, 

thank you for inviting me to testify today. The State Department recognizes that 

stabilizing Iraq and Syria requires more than battlefield success. In Syria, it also 

requires a political transition, and in areas liberated from ISIS, strengthened local 

governance, unfettered humanitarian assistance, and economic prosperity. In Iraq, 

it requires political stability and economic growth. We are working with our 

partners in the 73-member Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS to promote stability and 

prosperity in areas liberated from ISIS, so that we can cement the military gains 

my colleagues discussed earlier, help ensure that groups like ISIS do notreemerge, and prevent Al-Qa'ida from filling the gap as ISIS collapses. Achieving 

stability and prosperity also helps blunt the appeal and influence of malign actors, 

like Iran. Despite challenges, we see significant progress with some of our key 

initiatives. 

As a result of the stabilization component of our U.S.-led Coalition's efforts to 

defeat ISIS, more than 2.2 million Iraqis have returned home. The returns include 

over 280,000 who have gone back to Mosul, a city that was only recently liberated. 

In eastern Mosul, more than 97 percent of those displaced during the military 

campaign have already returned home. The numbers are similar in Tikrit, Ramadi, 

and Fallujah. Unfortunately, more than 3 million Iraqis remain displaced, but we 

will continue to work to help set conditions so that they can return home safely. 

We will also continue to provide support for those who remain displaced, including 

members of minority communities. The United States remains the largest donor to 

the Iraq response, providing nearly $1.7 billion in humanitarian assistance for 

Iraqis in Iraq and the region since 2014. 

To help stabilize areas liberated from ISIS, the United States has contributed $115 

million through USAID to the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) 

Funding Facility for Stabilization (FFS), and in July announced an additional $150 
85 

million. Nationwide, UNDP has implemented over I, 100 stabilization activities 

focused on restoring basic services and livelihoods in areas liberated from ISIS, 

including nearly 350 projects in Mosul. FFS has supported scores of projects in 

the Ninewa Plains and Sinjar, centers of Christian and Yezidi communities. These 

projects, many of which are ongoing, total $22 million in Sinjar and $34million in 

the Ninewa Plains. These projects include the repair of 15,000 homes and scores 

of schools; 18 water and 26 electricity projects; cash grants for families to restock 

animals and assets; and cash-for-work projects. 

Demining is critical to stabilization and returning Iraqis to their homes. Since 

April2016, U.S.-funded programs have cleared over 10 million square meters of 

land and removed over 12,000 IEDs and other explosives. 

As Secretary Tillerson has said, "As a coalition, we are not in the business of 

nation-building or reconstruction." We know that Iraq will need to diversify from 

oil, right-size its public sector, reduce corruption, and pave the way for foreign 

investment to promote economic development and longer-term reconstruction. 

U.S. businesses are ready to invest in Iraq if Baghdad makes necessary reforms to 

improve the business climate. 

Iraqi politics have been characterized by positive, if halting, momentum since the 

formation of the Abadi government in 2014. The upcoming national and 

provincial elections scheduled for spring of2018 provide another opportunity for 

Iraqis to make their voices heard. 

However, Iraq is also facing a major challenge as a result of the destabilizing 

September 25 referendum held in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and parts of the 

disputed territories. Baghdad-Erbil coordination against ISIS has continued, but 

the tenor of that cooperation has suffered. Prime Minister Abadi is under 

tremendous pressure from Iraq's parliament and hardliners to respond to Erbil's 

action and preserve the unity of the Iraqi state. While high-level negotiations on 

the future of Baghdad-Erbil relations may prove difficult in the near tenn, we 

strongly believe Baghdad-Erbil dialogue on more constrained matters, such as air 

transportation and border control, can begin to rebuild trust. 

Although Iraq continues to suffer from ethno-sectarian divisions, it is notable this 

election season that Iraqi nationalists, who do not wish to see their country under 
86 

the thumb of! ran or any other power, are increasingly coming to the fore. We 

expect to see a significant number of cross-sectarian political coalitions or alliances 

during the next election and the government formation process that follows. Iraq's 

Sunnis are increasingly engaging in the political process. 

Finally, the United States supports Iraq's efforts to reintegrate into the region, and 

we applaud the recent opening of Iraqi border crossings with Saudi Arabia and 

Jordan. We will support the planned Iraq-Saudi coordination committee that offers 

economic and security advantages for both countries. 

In Syria, although the Assad regime is not a trusted host nation partner nor is there 

a UN stabilization coordinator, U.S.-supported UN agencies and NGOs continue to 

provide critical humanitarian assistance. We have also initiated stabilization 

assistance activities in areas that legitimate opposition groups have liberated from 

ISIS that have enabled tens of thousands of Syrians to return home. We continue 

to encourage our allies and the international community to focus stabilization 

efforts on liberated areas, and to refrain from providing assistance that will shore 

up the Assad's regime's dictatorial control and strengthen his resistance to a 

political transition. I will not say more on Syria at this point, but my colleague 

Pam Quanrud, from the Department's Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for 

the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, is here to take any additional questions on that 

subject. 

I want to thank the Subcommittee again for the opportunity to discuss our 

initiatives to cement the significant military gains made in the fight against ISIS. 

welcome your questions on Iraq. 
87 

Joseph S. Pennington 

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq 

BUREAU OF NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS 

Term of Appointment: 12/2015lo present 

Joseph Pennington, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, began his current assignment 

as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq, in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, in December 2015. He 

also served as Director of the Office of Iraq Affairs after returning from a two-year assignment (2013-

15) as Consul General at the U.S. Consulate General in Erbil, in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. 

Mr. Pennington served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic 

(2010-13) and held the same position in Yerevan, Armenia (2007-10). He worked as the U.S. 

Embassy Spokesman in Ankara, Turkey (2002-06), political-economic officer in Naples, Italy (2001-

02), and headed the U.S. Embassy Branch Office in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina (2000-01). He 

served as an economic officer at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo (1999-2000), and as politicaleconomic officer at the U.S. Consulate in Adana, Turkey (1995-98). Mr. Pennington has also worked 

in the State Department's Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and at the U.S. Embassy in 

Moscow. 

Mr. Pennington is a graduate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), where he 

earned a BA in political science. He subsequently earned an MA from Columbia University in New 

York City. 
88 

Pamela G. Quanrud 

Director 

Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS 

U.S. Department of State 

Pamela Quanrud assumed her duties under Special Presidential Envoy for the Global 

Coalition to Defeat ISIS General John Allen (now Brett McGurk) in July 2015. In that 

capacity, she and her team provide guidance and overall coordination to the 73 member 

Global Coalition to advance this international effort. 

Prior to taking up this position, Ms. Quanrud served as the Regional Energy Counselor 

for Africa from 2013 to 2105, advancing energy issues across both geographic and 

technology spectrums. From 2012 to 2013, she served as Chief of Staff to Deputy 

Secretary of State William J. Burns. From 2011 to 2012, she served as Principal 

Deputy Executive Secretary. From 2009 to 2011, Ms. Quanrud was Deputy Assistant 

Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. In this capacity, she oversaw 

bilateral relations with the 19 countries of the Nordic, Baltic, Central European and 

Germanic-speaking regions. 

Ms. Quanrud came to the European Bureau following a tour as Deputy Chief of Mission 

at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland. Prior to her assignment in Poland, Ms. 

Quanrud served as Economic Minister Counselor in Moscow, Russia from 2004 to 

2007, which followed by a decade her first tour in Moscow. From 2001 to 2003, Ms. 

Quanrud was Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, with 

responsibility for U.S. - EU relations. Her earlier assignments include the U.S. Mission 

to the UN and Embassy Bonn at the time of German unification. Ms. Quanrud brings 

with her an extensive background in D-ISIS CT efforts, energy, trade and finance, 

countries in transition, the European Union, and Eastern European and Soviet studies. 

She has a Bachelor's Degree from Dartmouth College and a Master's Degree from the 

London School of Economics. She is married and has two children. 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

OCTOBER 3, 2017 

(91) 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. MOULTON 

Mr. MOULTON. General Bierman and DASD Swayne, in your testimony you alluded to the importance of demobilizing and reintegrating Shia militias (including 

but not limited to the Popular Mobilization Forces)—what role does DOD have in 

supporting this process and ensuring demilitarization proceeds? 

Mr. SWAYNE and General BIERMAN. Securing peace in Iraq will require a coordinated and strong whole-of-government approach that works by, with, and through 

the Government of Iraq. This approach continues placing the U.S. military in a supporting role, including in efforts to demobilize and reintegrate Shia militias. In November 2016, Iraq’s parliament passed a law that stipulates that the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) are an independent military institution within the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), which will be an obstacle to dissolving the PMF. Prime Minister 

Haider al-Abadi supports the law and is working to consolidate PMF factions not 

allied directly with Iran into the ISF. 

As defeat-ISIS operations succeed in liberating ISIS-held territory in Iraq, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) security force assistance will shift to broader institutional efforts that ensure ISF are both effective and legitimate. U.S. building partner capacity efforts will prioritize counterterrorism, critical infrastructure protection, and border control capabilities. Civil-military operations will be a critical supporting effort for each line of effort. Working closely with the Department of State, 

the U.S. Agency for International Development, and international partners, DOD 

will support the Government of Iraq’s efforts to solidify viable roles for the PMF 

within the ISF that are not duplicative or provocative of sectarian tensions. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SUOZZI 

Mr. SUOZZI. Please provide a strategy document that outlines the Department of 

State’s long-term goals and interests in Iraq and how the Department plans to implement them. 

Mr. PENNINGTON. The Department of State’s 2015–2017 Integrated Country Strategy (ICS) Chief of Mission Priorities for Iraq is included below. The ICS is the formal document in which the Department of State articulates its goals and countryspecific policies. We will update this document in the next planning cycle to account 

for this Administration’s priorities, including maintaining military gains against 

ISIS, countering malign Iranian influence, and promoting American trade and investment ties in Iraq. 

Begin 2015–2017 Iraq Integrated Country Strategy Chief of Mission Priorities: 

‘‘Over the next three to five years, the U.S.-Iraq relationship will remain a key 

priority for the United States, grounded in our shared Strategic Framework Agreement and impelled by our shared imperative to degrade and ultimately defeat the 

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). We are committed to helping Iraq 

counter ISIL by providing U.S. military advice, assistance, and training, and by supporting inclusive governance, democratic institutions, advancing human rights protections, and improving relationships with the country’s Sunni neighbors. Iraq has 

the potential to become one of the largest oil suppliers in the world over the next 

20 years, endowed with energy resources that offer the possibility of economic selfsufficiency. It also has the potential to become an influential international actor and 

U.S. ally, if it can overcome the sectarian violence, political division, and corruption 

that have characterized the last decade. 

Our immediate focus in Iraq is to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL. Mission 

Iraq priorities for the next three years will be: enhancing Iraq’s ability to secure and 

defend itself and its borders; bolstering Government of Iraq (GOI) revenues, improving financial management, and encouraging effective and equitable service delivery; 

providing humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees, 

and vulnerable populations; and assisting in post-conflict stabilization in areas retaken from ISIL. 

Mission Iraq will also implement relevant parts of the Administration’s overall regional strategy to help Iraq combat ISIL. Outreach and diplomatic efforts will sup-
92 

port political reform, disrupt and constrain ISIL’s financing, address the humanitarian crisis, and expose ISIL’s true nature. We will continue to facilitate coordinated security assistance and military sales, as well as provide necessary support 

to Iraq to implement a comprehensive strategy to isolate ISIL from the Iraqi population and develop a longer-term plan for sustainable security. Our efforts will focus 

on rebuilding the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to take the fight to ISIL, while integrating tribal fighters. Mission Iraq will work to advance the eventual transition of 

these fighters and other local forces into a National Guard, as well as continue to 

provide targeted technical assistance to strengthen the institutional and organizational capacity of the Ministry of Defense as it regenerates Iraqi Army units. We 

will continue to encourage Iraqi political and security leaders to ensure that the 

fight against ISIL is conducted in a manner that protects civilians, minimizes the 

impact of the conflict on them, and adheres to the rule of law. And we will continue 

to engage Iraq’s next generation through educational and cultural exchange and social media outreach programs that offer an alternative vision to ISIL’s violent extremism. 

Our engagement with the GOI will continue to be broad and intense, covering a 

wide range of political and economic interests. While the GOI concentrates its resources and efforts on fighting ISIL, we will encourage prudent budgetary and fiscal 

practices that Iraq must employ to ensure it has the ability to finance the fight 

against ISIL, as well as to develop crucial infrastructure and deliver services in sectors such as oil and gas, electricity, housing, education, agriculture, public works, 

and health care. Through targeted technical assistance, we will work with key Iraqi 

interlocutors to encourage and support prudent financing mechanisms and multiyear budgetary planning to foster Iraq’s long-term economic stability. 

Humanitarian assistance, in the context of the current crisis, remains an ongoing 

priority as the GOI struggles to cope with the millions of displaced persons residing 

in Iraq. Continued U.S. and international support in the form of humanitarian assistance and stabilization is critical to ensuring that Iraq can alleviate prolonged as 

well as emergency displacements. An important component of this effort is a focus 

on Iraq’s religious and ethnic minority communities, which have been disproportionately affected by ISIL’s violence. 

As the ISF, working with the international coalition against ISIL, begins to push 

ISIL out of areas over which it exercises control, the GOI will need to be prepared 

to fill the potential gap in government administration and services that will be left 

in ISIL’s wake. While the GOI’s primary focus now must be to concentrate on defending territory that it holds and reconstituting its capacity to retake lost terrain, 

Mission Iraq will begin discussions, as appropriate, with GOI partners to conceptualize a strategy for quickly reestablishing local government, relying primarily on 

the efficient application of GOI assets to ensure that government institutions and 

activities are rapidly established, held accountable, and sustainable. 

In the medium to long term, Mission Iraq will continue to encourage the development of ‘‘functional federalism,’’ aimed at decentralizing administrative and fiscal 

authority from Baghdad to the provinces; promoting local governance; and ensuring 

Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish buy-in to Iraq’s democratic institutions. We will advocate 

for long-term resolution of the disagreements between Baghdad and Erbil regarding 

oil exports and revenue management and will support Iraq’s efforts to pass comprehensive hydrocarbons legislation. 

Also in the medium to long term, Mission Iraq will work with the GOI to increase 

oil production capacity. Poor project administration, procurement capacity, limited 

political will and inefficient policies have led to a lack of onshore pumping and limited storage capacity threaten Iraqi oil production and exports from reaching their 

full potential, stifling government revenue growth. Iraq also has a tremendous opportunity to harness its significant natural gas resources, which could help the 

country meet its domestic electricity needs. In addition to partnering to share best 

practices on fossil fuel production and exports, we are engaged with the GOI on capturing gas for power generation and hydrocarbons revenue management. We will 

encourage the GOI to continue the reforms necessary to accede to the WTO as their 

implementation would create an environment more welcoming to foreign investment. These reforms would open a path to Iraq’s economic diversification, allowing 

the country to eventually become less dependent on oil revenues as the nearly solesource of GOI income.’’ 

Æ