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THE GROWING STRATEGIC THREAT OF ISIS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Serial No. 114–17

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable James F. Jeffrey, Philip Solondz distinguished visiting fellow, 

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy ................................................ 6

Rick Brennan, Jr, Ph.D., senior political scientist, RAND Corporation .............. 11

Dafna H. Rand, Ph.D., Leon E. Panetta fellow and deputy director of studies, 

Center for a New American Security ................................................................. 23

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable James F. Jeffrey: Prepared statement ......................................... 8

Rick Brennan, Jr, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ...................................................... 13

Dafna H. Rand, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .......................................................... 26

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 80

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 81

(1)

THE GROWING STRATEGIC THREAT OF ISIS 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m., in 

room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. If members would take their seats. We are 

going to begin this hearing and I will ask all members to take their 

seats at this time. 

This morning the committee continues our focus on the growing 

threat of ISIS. Of course, this hearing takes on added significance 

as yesterday the President requested that the Congress formally 

back military action against this jihadist organization, an organization which has beheaded Americans and which has sold and raped 

thousands of women in Syria. 

And this is not a new threat for the members of this committee. 

One year ago, this committee took testimony from one of the few 

administration officials then sounding the ISIS alarm. That was 

Ambassador Brett McGurk. 

He told us that that group’s mission, that ISIS’ mission was 

clear. As he said, they wanted to ‘‘carve out a zone of governing territory that would run from Baghdad to Syria to Lebanon.’’ And, of 

course, at that point in time we were seeing a situation where ISIS 

was just beginning to expand into towns in Syria. 

And members of this committee on both sides of the aisle called 

for air strikes against ISIS so that they could not begin that process of expansion. 

Unfortunately, we went month after month after month. Town 

after town fell to ISIS across Syria and then across Iraq. Over the 

past 12 months, through a dozen hearings we have seen the ISIS 

threat only grow. Now we have three American hostages dead, including Kayla Mueller. 

Not only have they been killed but ISIS has beheaded two Japanese hostages and immolated a downed Jordanian pilot for the 

world to see. 

And this, again, is on top of what they have done in terms of raping, as I said, by now tens of thousands of women across Syria and 

other minorities, killing their husbands, raping the wives and the 

daughters. 

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This group occupies a vast territory. It holds an estimated $2 billion in assets. Now, I don’t think there has ever been in history a 

terrorist organization as well funded as this terror group. 

ISIS has used the ‘‘virtual caliphate’’ on the Internet to recruit 

foreign fighters at an ‘‘unprecedented rate.’’ Twenty thousand foreign fighters from 90 countries now make up the ranks of ISIS and, 

according to intelligence estimates, this includes 3,400 from the 

West and more than 150 Americans on the ground fighting for ISIS 

today. 

Over the past year, this committee has pressed the administration to intensify and accelerate its response. Some pieces are being 

put together, but too slowly. 

Of a 60-member coalition, 85 percent of all air strikes are from 

U.S. fighter jets, and this air campaign isn’t pummelling the enemy 

as it should. 

It is not intense enough. All of us were glad to see Iraq Prime 

Minister Maliki go, but with respect to reports of Shi’ite militias 

wreaking havoc, the jury is still out on the Abadi government’s 

ability to field a competent and inclusive security force there. 

The training and equipment of Iraqi forces also continues to lag, 

and we aren’t likely see the 12 Iraqi brigades envisioned for several 

more months. Sunni tribal fighters are becoming more supportive 

of the national force, but the question is will they be in it for the 

long haul. 

And after 6 months of fighting, the committee is still deeply concerned to receive reports that the Kurdish peshmerga are 

outgunned on the front lines, occasionally running out of ammunition on the front lines, underarmed and under equipped by the 

United States. This has to change. 

Last fall, Congress voted to authorize training and equipping the 

Syrian opposition forces. But that is still not up and running and 

Assad looks more comfortable by the day. And, of course, this has 

left key allies in the region distraught and questioning the administration’s strategy, as many here do. 

Despite these problems, Kurdish forces on the ground and concentrated air support from coalition forces in the air helped take 

back Kobani. Some 6,000 fighters there were killed—ISIS fighters. 

The Kurds have showed tremendous bravery and they deserve 

more and timely delivered aid to their cause of fighting ISIS. 

Jordan’s tragedy is galvanizing the coalition. Getting Jordan to 

step up its role in the air campaign and to commit ‘‘thousands’’ of 

troops to the border area with Iraq is a show of force. 

Last week, the committee met with retired General John Allen, 

the State Department’s lead to counter ISIS, and pledged our support to get Jordan the equipment that it needs in this fight. The 

UAE has also recommitted fighter planes to Jordan. 

It is these Arab forces and voices that must be central in this 

fight. But they need to see and feel American leadership. I am 

pleased that the President has formally requested that Congress 

act on an authorization for use of military force against ISIS. 

Now he needs to make the case to the American people and this 

committee as we work to examine this proposal in depth. This 

won’t be easy. 

3

But I am comforted by the fact that Ranking Member Engel and 

I are united in our desire to see bipartisan backing behind a proposal that ensures that the commander in chief has the authority 

needed to decisively defeat the enemy. 

And so Mr. Engel is joining us a little later and I would like to 

now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Sherman of California, for 

his opening statement. 

I thank our witnesses for being with us as well. Thank you. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I think I am the second ranking member, Mr. 

Chairman. I view this as our first hearing on the President’s request for an authorization to use military force. 

I hope we focus on that request as the main duty of this committee and that we have not only hearings but that we move to a 

markup, and perhaps prior to moving to a markup we move to a 

discussion where members can take 5 minutes to explain what they 

would like to see in an ultimate resolution. 

We are all aware of the evil of ISIS. ISIS almost asks us to take 

military action against them. If they had a Madison Avenue marketing firm and tried to say what can we do to provoke Americans, 

this is exactly what they would do. 

What is interesting is that the Shi’ite alliance, what I would 

argue is at least as equal a danger, has done everything possible 

to avoid America taking military action. Whether they will bargain 

in good faith in Geneva I have no idea. 

I haven’t seen it yet. But they know that going to Geneva 

dampens down American concerns and, of course, they were quite 

successful in avoiding bombing of Syria by the United States and 

ultimately willing to give up most of their chemical weapons to do 

so. 

Of course, America calls out for the immediate destruction of 

ISIS. I think we will see again in these hearings that to achieve 

that goal it would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible and 

certainly involve tremendous American casualties. 

We can contain ISIS. We can work for its eventual destruction. 

We can push things in the Middle East in the right direction, to 

some degree, without enormous American casualties. 

But if we think we can remake the Middle East in our own 

image, we are certain to incur incredible American casualties and 

I am not sure that the Middle East will ever be what we want it 

to be. 

Mr. Chairman, we had in this very room just yesterday hearings 

on Iran and I think that the Shi’ite alliance, led by Iran, and including many of the forces in Baghdad including the Shi’ite militias 

of Iraq, including Assad and Hezbollah, is more dangerous and 

more deadly than ISIS. 

They have killed far more Americans, starting with the Beirut 

Marines back in the 1980s. They have carried on operations on virtually every continent. They are more capable of killing Americans 

in the homeland than is ISIS. They have killed far more people in 

the Middle East. 

Assad alone has killed nearly 200,000, and if we are going to 

focus on ‘‘destroying ISIS’’ we shouldn’t just focus on that. We need 

to ask what comes next—who fills the physical space, the ideological space and the cyber space. 

4

Al-Qaeda is well positioned to fill the ideological space. They are 

an older organization but they may also learn social media to the 

level of ISIS. And as to the physical space, we see a Shi’ite alliance 

from Tehran to southern Lebanon that would be emboldened by the 

destruction of ISIS. 

Believe it or not, I don’t have a longer statement. I didn’t—I expected Mr. Engel to be here. I will look down the road to see if 

someone wants me to yield them a minute. I see no one and I yield 

back to the chair. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We go now to 1 minute for Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the 

Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and we 

all are deeply saddened by Kayla’s appalling murder by ISIL terrorists. She made it her mission to care about humanity in a region 

that seems to no longer value human life and our prayers go out 

to her family. 

The brutality of ISIL truly knows no bounds and this cancer continues to metastasize throughout the region. The President has finally given us a draft AUMF that may actually limit our engagement in the region. 

So I look forward to a robust debate here in our committee on 

it. But I firmly believe that no matter what happens with the 

AUMF, solving the problem of ISIL cannot happen without simultaneously addressing the problems of Assad and Iran. 

The administration’s de facto partnership with Assad ensures 

that Syria will continue to be a terrorist breeding ground for 

groups like ISIL and we will never be victorious that way. 

A big part of the administration’s ISIL strategy is to train and 

equip a program that seems to enhance the capability of moderate 

Syrian opposition leaders. Yet, Mr. Chairman, that program hasn’t 

really started yet. 

The administration has said these fighters would be trained for 

defensive, not offensive, action and we are not engaging the Assad 

regime directly, only ISIL. 

I worry that this policy is not going to be a victorious one. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go to Mr. Keating of Massachusetts, ranking member of the Terrorism Subcommittee, for his 

opening statement. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The confirmation of the death of American Kayla Mueller marks 

yet another tragic fatality at the hands of the terrorists, and while 

it is undoubtedly true that she would have gone on to personally 

enact great change, that her courage and empathy impacted far 

more lives than it can ever be counted and my prayers are with 

her loved ones at this time as I think all of us on the committee 

feel very strongly about. 

Along with Kayla, our country has lost James Foley, Steven 

Sotloff, Peter Kassig, while our allies overseas have lost David 

Haines, Alan Henning, Haruna Yukawa, Kenji Goto, Moath alKasasbeh. 

All of these people died tragically, and going forward it will be 

important for our continued response to contain a well-developed 

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and multifaceted strategy with the support of our trusted partners 

within an international coalition. 

As we now turn to the question of a new authorization for the 

use of military force, these are the metrics that I expect to be debated and continually reviewed and never forgotten. 

It is critical and it is clear that we consider this matter as the 

most serious of decisions that all of us make as a congress. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now for 1 minute to Judge 

Ted Poe, chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

There is not a comprehensive strategy to defeat ISIS. The training and equipment of moderate rebels, whoever they may be, has 

not even started but when it does start it will not be enough to 

make a difference. 

The rebels probably will end up fighting Assad, not ISIS. The air 

strikes on ISIS have taken a toll but no one believes they alone will 

be enough to defeat this group that is embedded in the local population. 

The effort to turn Sunnis in Iraq against ISIS has also not shown 

any real significant progress. The Kurdish forces are the only group 

that has a record of battlefield successes against ISIS. They don’t 

cut and run. 

For some reason, we refuse to give them adequate weapons they 

need to fight against ISIS. We seem to be more concerned about 

Baghdad and even Turkey and what they think than about helping 

the Kurds. 

My amendment to last year’s intelligence authorization bill required a strategy to defeat ISIS. As we debate to give the President 

the power to go to war against ISIS, it would be nice if we knew 

exactly what the strategy was to win that war. What is the plan? 

And I will yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

I will go to Mr. Deutch later when he joins the committee for his 

opening statement. But in the interim this morning we are pleased 

to be joined by a distinguished group of experts. 

Ambassador James Jeffrey is a visiting fellow at the Washington 

Institute for Near East Policy and he previously served as Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and to Albania. 

Dr. Rick Brennan is the senior political scientist at the Rand 

Corporation and prior to joining Rand he served as a senior advisor 

to the U.S. military in Iraq for 5 years. 

Dr. Dafna Rand is the Leon Panetta fellow and deputy director 

of studies at the Center for a New American Security. Previously, 

she served on the staff of the National Security Council. She was 

a professional staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as well. 

And we welcome them all and without objection the witnesses’ 

full prepared statement will be made part of the record and the 

members here will have 5 legislative calendar days to submit statements and questions and any extraneous material for the record. 

So, Ambassador Jeffrey, if we could start with you and ask you 

to summarize your remarks in 5 minutes. Thank you, sir. 

6

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMES F. JEFFREY, PHILIP 

SOLONDZ DISTINGUISHED VISITING FELLOW, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Sherman, 

members of the committee. 

First of all, I think it is very important to note what we are 

doing today, as you said, considering an authorization for the use 

of military force. 

It is fitting and just that the Congress as well as the executive 

branch undertakes such grave decisions as this and I am proud to 

be here today to provide whatever help I can. 

Let me start with ISIS, and they have already gotten a lot of 

help from the three—four of you who have spoken. ISIS is a unique 

threat for all of the reasons you laid out, Mr. Sherman. I won’t repeat them again. 

But we haven’t seen anything quite like this before, particularly 

the hold on territory, the people, the conventional military capabilities and its appeal to many people in the region. 

But, secondly, ISIS is a threat in a unique sense because it is 

coming at a time of even more than usual disruption in the Middle 

East. It reflects the longer term trends and dangers in that region, 

a state system under extraordinary stress with its legitimacy questioned by the region’s populations and with pan regional Islamic 

movements competing for the loyalty of these people. 

It will require time and great effort by the governments and peoples of the region to free themselves of ISIS and of the thinking 

that is behind it, as Mr. Sherman discussed a few minutes ago. 

In the end, they are going to have to do this. We can’t. We can’t 

tell them what their religion preaches and doesn’t preach. We can’t 

reach into the social structures of that part of the world. We have 

tried that. It didn’t work very well. 

But there is a point here and that is we can’t expect them, much 

as they want to help us, to do all that much because they are engaged in conflicts and struggles, ideological and sometimes physical, within their own societies. 

Thus, the President’s goal to degrade and eventually destroy ISIS 

with America taking the lead is the correct mission. The campaign 

which the U.S. and a coalition of some 60 countries is implementing is basically sound. 

The campaign has had considerable success of late from the 

pushback of ISIS in some areas to its containment in others and 

further success in the near future is actually quite possible. 

Still, this campaign could well face tough sledding when the coalition begins major ground defensive operations and it hasn’t done 

that yet. A lot of questions remain open. 

As Representative Ros-Lehtinen said, we have got a lot of questions about Syria. What we have learned from Vietnam forward is 

you cannot defeat an insurgent group if it has a refuge in a neighboring country. 

You have to do something about Syria and you can’t do anything 

about Syria without having a better policy toward Assad. 

We don’t know whose boots on the ground are going to actually 

dig these guys out of places like Fallujah and Mosul. We don’t 

7

know what the day after is going to look like. These are pretty 

tough questions. 

In sum, we should not assume that time is on our side. Given 

this extraordinary threat, I urge the administration to move faster, 

take more risks and apply more resources. If our commanders on 

the ground want it, and that is the question, they should have the 

weapons systems they need. 

If they need forward observers on the ground, if they need advisory teams out with local forces, they should get that despite the 

higher risks and costs. 

Likewise, if our diplomats need more active top level U.S. pressure on various partners and players, including Iran, we should follow their advice. 

In considering this authorization, I urge the Congress to give the 

administration maximum flexibility in timing and the use of forces. 

As one who has spent 4 years in Vietnam and Iraq, I am totally 

opposed to any enduring ground offensive presence if that means 

long-term counter insurgency campaigns. 

We have tried them repeatedly. They haven’t worked. But if necessary to meet the President’s very valid mission of defeating ISIS, 

we should not rule out operations such as U.S. ground action to liberate Najaf and Fallujah in 2004. 

While I hope it doesn’t come to that, such a step could become 

necessary. The thing we should avoid above all else is putting limitations on our actions that will lead to us containing, not defeating 

and destroying, ISIS. 

That will be seen by ISIS and many people in the region as a 

victory against the U.S., the West and the international order and 

it will stimulate support throughout the world for this awful organization. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Jeffrey follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Ambassador. 

Doctor? 

STATEMENT OF RICK BRENNAN, JR, PH.D., SENIOR POLITICAL 

SCIENTIST, RAND CORPORATION 

Mr. BRENNAN. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel and 

members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak to 

you about this important subject regarding the growing strategic 

threat of ISIS. 

My argument today is straightforward and can be summarized in 

four key points. First, the key strategic threat that we face today 

is not from ISIS, al-Qaeda or any other group that is committing 

acts of violence or even genocide. 

Rather, it is the radical Islamist ideology that gives these groups 

cause and for this we need a grand strategy that applies all means 

of U.S. national power to address it. 

But to understand the scale of the challenge, one can look at the 

rapid expansion of the number of Sunni-inspired Salafi jihad 

groups during the last 25 years. 

In 1988, only three groups existed. By 2010, the number of 

groups had expanded to 32. Then, as a result of the turbulence created by the Arab Spring, the number rapidly increased from 51—

to 51 by 2013, a 62-percent increase in just 3 years. 

It is also important to highlight that the Islamist movement has 

a Shi’a variant—the Islamic Republic of Iran. The theological interpretations of the Ayatollah Khomeini continues to inspire Iran’s aggressive actions against the United States, Israel and the Sunniled countries in the region. 

Iran continues to be the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the 

world. Moreover, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran engaged in 

what could be called a covert war against the United States military and civilians operating in Iraq, using their proxy militias 

working at the behest of the Quds Force. 

According to one military estimate, Iranian-supported militias 

likely caused as much as 50 percent of U.S. casualties in Iraq during the 8 years that we were there. 

My second point is that ISIS is much more than a terrorist 

group. It is a revolutionary insurgency organization that seeks to 

establish new social, political and economic order without regard to 

internationally sanctioned state boundaries. 

Its rapid success in Iraq and Syria has caused an explosion of 

volunteers from around the world who have joined the fight in 

places such as Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

By 2012, with nearly 8 years of experience fighting both U.S. and 

Iraqi military forces and 2 years’ experience fighting Syrian military and Iranian proxy militias, ISIS has become an experienced 

and hardened military force. 

In January 2014, ISIS used the growing Sunni alienation within 

Iraq as an opportunity to seize control of Fallujah, located just 50 

miles west of Baghdad. Following this early success, ISIS began an 

aggressive infiltration of Iraq that set the stage for the June offensive. 

12

By August 2014, ISIS was in control of approximately 35,000 

square miles of Iraq and Syria, a land mass that is approximately 

the size of the state of Indiana, and had begun to establish structures of governance and now calls itself the Islamic State. 

My third point is that a number of factors contributed to the failure of the Iraqi military in 2014. Many of these were known in advance. One key factor was Prime Minister Maliki’s efforts to consolidate and control the Iraqi military and security forces and replace incompetent officers with officers who were personally loyal 

to him. 

A second factor was the endemic corruption that permeates the 

Iraqi political system and military establishment. Finally, it is also 

important to highlight that from 2009 to 2011 the U.S. military 

had consistently reported that the Iraq military had significant 

shortfalls in virtually all areas that were needed to conduct complex military operations without direct U.S. military assistance. 

In part, this was the reason that General Lloyd Austin, General 

James Mattis and Admiral Michael Mullen recommended a residual force remain in Iraq of between 14,000 and 20,000. 

My fourth point is that the administration’s initial response to 

ISIS—the ISIS offensive in 2014 was a necessary first step to blunt 

the assault. 

However, in my professional opinion as a career Army infantry 

officer and military planner who spent 5 years in Iraq between 

2006 and 2011 as a senior advisor to the U.S. military, our current 

efforts are insufficient to enable Iraq to regain control of its territory and the key cities of Fallujah, Tikrit and Mosul and defeat 

ISIS either in Iraq or in Syria. 

I believe that in addition to what the U.S. military is doing today 

the following would be required to achieve success. 

First, develop a more robust advise and assist mission using conventional forces—the forces that we have there now are insufficient 

due to rapidly giving ISIS time to develop; second, enhance the size 

and scope of the command and control mission; third, employ U.S. 

special operations forces with attached tactical air control parties 

and other coalition ground forces down to the battalion level to enable them to assist in the conduct of an enhanced air campaign; 

and finally, to deploy U.S. special operations forces to conduct targeted counter terrorism missions in both Iraq and Syria. 

In conclusion, there is an understandable reluctance to once 

again put American ground forces in Iraq. But if the threat to the 

region and the United States is as grave, using the wording of the 

AUMF, as the President indicated in the proposed AUMF, it is a 

mission that must be undertaken and, as Ambassador Jeffrey said, 

we should not have constraints on the AUMF and that we are 

going to have to be willing to use the ground forces if we are going 

to have success. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brennan follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Dr. Brennan. 

STATEMENT OF DAFNA H. RAND, PH.D., LEON E. PANETTA FELLOW AND DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF STUDIES, CENTER FOR A 

NEW AMERICAN SECURITY 

Ms. RAND. Thank you. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, 

members of the esteemed committee, thank you for holding this 

hearing and for inviting me to testify on the timely topic. 

I would like to discuss three key questions that Americans are 

asking today about the AUMF and the threat that ISIS poses. The 

questions are pretty simple. They come down to what, why and 

how. 

What is ISIS, they are asking. Although ISIS has its roots—alQaeda offshoot—in both its brutality and its battlefield successes, 

it represents a new type of threat. I will just mention three particular characteristics of ISIS because many have been articulated 

already by the members of this committee. 

First, the savagery is at the core of the ideology. While al-Qaeda 

justifies individual suicide bombing attacks against civilians 

through fatwas explaining the conditional necessity, ISIS has 

adopted an entirely new ideology, manipulating select stories from 

Islamic history and modern jihadi texts to redefine jihad. 

It has generated a blanket justification for violence including 

against women and children. Second, the group, as already mentioned, has adopted a military doctrine that is not based on the 

typical terrorist logic of the weak fighting the powerful. 

Instead, ISIS aspires to fight states and their militaries as a 

peer. It believes in the necessity of full blown military campaigns 

and seeks to control as much territory as possible. 

And finally, ISIS is not bound by the same political concerns or 

need to appeal to the public. We just saw that with the horrific images of the Jordanian pilot who was immolated by ISIS last week. 

With a violent approach that has little regard for political strategy, ISIS is now a decentralized defused aspirational social movement that follows few orders and few chains of command. 

The second question that Americans are asking is why does this 

matter to us, to our interests, to our role in the world. After 14 

years of deep U.S. military engagement in the broader military 

East, Americans have a right to a strong, clear and convincing answer to this question—why should our resources and our U.S. military be deployed in this fight. 

The best answer is that we are trying to degrade and destroy 

ISIS to achieve three very specific national security objectives—to 

prevent ISIS attacks against the United States and our direct interests abroad, to degrade the organization’s ability to control populated areas from which it can recruit foreign fighters and to protect 

the sovereignty of U.S. partners against ISIS. 

The third question is the most complicated and we will discuss 

it today. The question is how—how do we defeat ISIS or at least 

how do we degrade this threat enough to achieve the three basic 

goals that I just enumerated. 

The overall strategy to defeat and degrade ISIS will necessarily 

entail coercive and noncoercive tools of U.S. statecraft. In other 

words, the use of U.S. military power is just one tool and it must 

24

be integrated with a set of other tools, particularly multilateral and 

bilateral diplomacy. 

For example, perhaps the greatest success we have seen so far 

against ISIS is this administration’s ability to mobilize a diverse 

and significant international coalition. Over 60 nations have not 

just committed to fighting the threat in words but they are acting. 

They are participating in the air strikes, they are countering 

ISIS’ financing, they are stopping the flow of foreign fighters and 

they are responding to the humanitarian catastrophe. 

The use of military force is therefore a necessary but not sufficient part of the strategy. The draft language offered by the President yesterday, in my view, suggests a very carefully tailored strategy based directly on the advice and counsel of the military leaders 

and also the evidence of what is working so far in the past 5 

months. 

What have we seen in the past 5 months that is effectively degrading ISIS’ capabilities in Iraq and Syria? We have seen evidence 

that since September we are making significant progress in degrading ISIS by using a combination of air strikes by the coalition coordinated with local forces on the ground. 

Through this partnership approach, we have eliminated nearly 

6,000 ISIS fighters in Iraq and 1,000 in Syria. We are diminishing 

supply lines and manpower and, probably most importantly, we 

have decreased the group’s momentum. 

We have three main military partners on the ground. We have 

the Iraqi security forces, the Kurdish fighters, as has been mentioned associated with the KRG, and then we have our Syrian opposition forces which include both Arab and Kurdish factions. 

These groups are committed to fighting ISIS and have deep connections with the local populations in the region. They are best 

placed to understand the social-political contacts that has allowed 

ISIS to incubate itself and thrive in these tribal areas in the first 

place. 

Therefore, in conclusion, I believe that a limited tailored use of 

U.S. military force in this operation reflects a larger strategy, one 

that has preliminarily been working, a strategy that prioritizes the 

role of the partners on the ground in ultimately defeating ISIS and 

filling in the vacuums left behind upon ISIS’ retreat. 

The limited tailored approach suggests to the war-weary American public and the Muslim world that we are not interested in another decade-long U.S. presence on the ground in the heart of the 

Middle East. Degrading ISIS and reducing the threat it poses simply does not require that kind of approach. 

In conclusion, force is one element of our strategy and we should 

use it wisely, judiciously and in a way that is most effective. This 

one element is certainly insufficient to degrade ISIS in a sustainable long-term manner. 

So I urge you, even as Congress is focused on the appropriate use 

of force, it must not lose sight of the larger political strategy and 

the urgent diplomatic work that will be necessary. 

I look forward to your questions so that we can talk more about 

these nonmilitary objectives which differ across three distinct theaters—Iraq, Syria and in the broader global context to diminish the 

appeal of ISIS ideology. 

25

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rand follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Dr. Rand. 

To get to a real world example, Ambassador Jeffrey, you raised 

the question. So ISIL has taken Mosul, and who is going to dig 

them out of there? 

And this committee raised the issue before they got to Mosul that 

we should have used air power while they were on the open desert 

to decimate that force. But that wasn’t done at that time. 

So as of this morning, the peshmerga forces had surrounded ISIS 

in Mosul on three sides. They are working to cut ISIS’ ability to 

maneuver in the area. 

The greatest problem right now is the area south of Mosul where 

Iraqi Government forces and where the Sunni tribes are struggling 

to gain control of Saladin Province. 

So when we look at the authorization just sent down to the committee, we are the committee of jurisdiction, so from the White 

House they sent to Congress an authorization that would provide 

the flexibility to conduct ground combat operations in limited circumstances and we go through some of the lists, the use of special 

operations forces to take military action against ISIL leadership 

and for intelligence collection and sharing and missions to enable 

kinetic strikes, in other words, on the ground in order to call in air 

strikes, and I guess there’s about 3,000 special forces involved in 

that right now, or the provision of operational planning and other 

forms of advice and assistance of partner forces. I want to get to 

this question of assistance for our partner forces because I am concerned about the situation that the Kurds face. 

We have had numerous meetings with them in which they have 

called repeatedly for anti-tank weapons that they could use, for artillery, for long-range mortar, you know, armor, and that has not 

been done. 

And so as they surround Mosul this gets to the question of what 

kind of leadership on the ground would be given, what kind of 

weaponry would be given and what kinds of air strikes will be, you 

know, called in by our spotters on the ground. 

And maybe we can open with that, Ambassador. Would you like 

to give us your thoughts on some of this? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. 

It is, to some degree, two separate questions. Arming the Kurds 

is an important issue and there are two elements to it. 

One is what they need and, secondly, the political ramifications 

in the longer term because there will be an Iraq and there will be 

a lot of problems in the Middle East after we defeat ISIS, and one 

of the problems is keeping Iraq together. 

So the administration’s position—and it makes sense, it was the 

position we had when I was there—is to give these weapons 

through the Iraqi Government at least with a pro forma check to 

the Kurds. 

We just have to try a lot harder to ensure that weapons go to 

the Kurds. It is easier for what I call defensive weapons. 

These are MRAP and Humvee armored vehicles that are basically for counter insurgency. These would be anti-mine equipment, 

night vision goggles, armor and all of that thing. 

34

The question is long-range artillery, as you mentioned, and 

armor because that can not only be used in an urban situation 

against ISIS, it can also be used in a conflict with Baghdad. 

That is a tricky question. For the moment, I would focus on giving them better equipment to do what they are doing now to ensure that they have the ammunition, that they have the armor to 

move around the battlefield. 

I am not sure that giving them artillery and tanks is such a good 

idea. Assuming they can hold their ground now, and they have 

been, including in a quite difficult attack in Kirkuk last week, in 

terms of the Kurds—the Peshmerga taking Mosul—there are various opinions on that. 

Part of Mosul was always considered Kurdish in the sense that 

there was a Kurdish element to the population in east Mosul, and 

they may be willing to fight in or near that. I am not so sure they 

would be willing to take heavy casualties, and they would take 

heavy casualties to fight to take over——

Chairman ROYCE. Look, they are taking heavy casualties now. 

They are taking it against artillery when they don’t have artillery 

to match. Only 25 of the 250 MRAPs that we sent through Baghdad got through. 

So I am just—I am just pointing out that the weaponry is not 

getting through to the Kurds and I think on both sides of the aisle 

here—you know, the fighting is going to be done by Kurdish, by 

Jordanian, by Sunni tribes, by, you know, Arab troops and Kurdish 

troops on the ground. 

And if we are not giving them the assistance they need, you 

know, this allows ISIS not to be rolled back. We need to see them 

decisively rolled back. 

But let me go to Dr. Brennan just for a minute in terms of some 

of your thoughts on this because I know that you have written 

about peshmerga and coalition ground forces, the necessity to help 

them on the ground. Would you like to elaborate? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Thank you—thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My view is that in order to assist these organizations, whether 

they be the peshmerga or coalition forces that we bring on the 

ground, we have got to put U.S. forces with them. 

And that is the perfect mission that we have—the United States 

Army special forces. I would be putting A teams down at the battalion level to help them plan, get intelligence, to help them organize and to allow them to bring in the type of air support that is 

necessary at the precision level. 

The problem that you are going to have as you go into cities is 

there will be a great reluctance to use air support as you are in 

there because of the potential for collateral damage. 

Having our troops on the ground gives the sense of confidence 

that you can then bring those weapons where they are needed, and 

I think without having putting our boots on the ground to do that 

will be extremely difficult to win this battle. 

Chairman ROYCE. We have about 3,000 special forces now, U.S. 

personnel, on the ground in theater and they are calling in air 

strikes right now. You are saying as you get into these cities they 

need to be forward deployed in order to make certain that the ISIL 

targets are the targets that are hit. 

35

Mr. BRENNAN. Exactly, and they need to be engaged with all the 

coalition military so we have an integrated air campaign, an enhanced air campaign much greater than we have right now. 

Chairman ROYCE. My time has expired. 

I will go to Mr. Engel, the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs 

Committee. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank—

I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. Our hearing 

today takes place in the wake of President Obama sending his request for the use of force to the Congress yesterday. 

The AUMF lands squarely in the jurisdiction of this committee 

and I look forward to working with Chairman Royce and all of our 

colleagues on both sides of the aisle to thoroughly review the President’s proposal and our overall strategy to defeat ISIS in the days 

and weeks ahead. 

We are, obviously, trying to deal with the appalling humanitarian situation including the 3 million Syrians and hundreds of 

thousands of Iraqis who have been driven from their homes as well 

as the spillover effect in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt. 

We have worked to cut of ISIS’ funding stream, cracking down 

on their efforts to smuggle oil and kidnap for ransom, and I am 

working on legislation to provide cultural properties so that groups 

like ISIS cannot steal a country’s heritage and sell it to pay for the 

weapons of terror. 

We are attempting to stem the flow of foreign fighters, helping 

to ensure that when we remove an ISIS extremist from the battlefield there isn’t another recruit from France or England or the U.S. 

waiting to take his place, and the coalition is pushing back against 

false, dangerous and violent ideology preached in ISIS propaganda. 

Coalition military operations are making some progress and 

under the cover of coalition air strikes we are seeing some reversals in ISIS gains. 

As the chairman spoke about, we continue to advise and assist 

the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga, and I share 

the chairman’s thoughts on the peshmerga and the Kurds. 

Isis has been driven out of Kobani and we continue to prepare 

for training and equipping moderate vetted Syrian opposition, 

though this effort is slow moving and long, long, long overdue, in 

my opinion. 

So the coalition is working on a multilateral, the way a multilateral effort should and when questions arise we are trying to meet 

concerns. 

We are able to bring the UAE back into this effort as one of our 

most reliable allies in the region and that is why Jordan has doubled down on the commitment—on its commitment after the aftermath of the horrific murder of Captain al-Kasasbeh. Obviously, we 

are not out of the woods. 

I want to start by talking about the AUMF. The President put 

his language as a starting point on the AUMF so I would like to 

hear from our witnesses what their thoughts are. 

Should this AUMF be limited to a certain geographic area? 

Should it limit U.S. combat troops on the ground? Should we consider a sunset clause for an AUMF? Why don’t we start with Ambassador Jeffrey? 

36

Ambassador JEFFREY. I would urge the committee to give as 

much latitude as possible to the administration, particularly on 

timing. I am very concerned about the 3 years because having been 

in the administration it is going to be very difficult. 

As they come in—the next administration comes into office and 

they are just getting their people confirmed in May or June 2017, 

to have to think about a resolution while also thinking about what 

their overall strategy is going to be—if there has to be a time limit 

on it, and I understand why people would want it, I would urge a 

broader one. 

I am also a bit concerned about the enduring offensive ground 

operations because that can be interpreted to mean no ground operations. 

Certainly, the kind of operations by special forces advisory teams 

and such that Dr. Brennan has talked about are very feasible and 

are the normal procedure in such campaigns—we have used them 

many times before—and if the commanders on the ground need 

them I think they should. 

I would not rule out using American ground troops to take territory if that is necessary to defeat ISIS. What I would rule out myself, but that is a political decision, is long-term American presence 

on the ground as we saw in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Vietnam. It 

does not work, Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Isn’t enduring—people on the other side worry that 

enduring might be allowing troops for a longer period of time than 

people would like? So you have got people on both sides of the divide worrying about the nebulous term enduring. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. It is a bad idea to have enduring ground 

troop presence almost anywhere in the Middle East and we have 

traditionally not done that before 2001, 2003 and that’s a good rule 

to get back to generally, with exceptions. 

Advisory teams, air power, perhaps, in the long term but you 

don’t want to keep a large ground presence because that is perceived as a threat by various actors in the region. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Let me ask Dr. Brennan and then Dr. 

Rand to comment. 

Mr. BRENNAN. I would agree with what Ambassador Jeffrey said. 

The other point I would like to make, though, is that limiting the 

President of the United States to—not allowing him to have enduring ground operations sends a signal not only to our friends but 

also to our enemies. 

We have to go into this—if this is a grave threat to U.S. national 

security, I believe the Congress ought to authorize the President to 

do what is necessary and, more importantly, while there may be no 

plans to do an enduring operation, we do not know where the war 

is going to evolve in 6 months and we have to be able to have the 

flexibility of the President and commanders on the ground. 

And I see this as somebody who has been with troops on the 

ground to say that the lawyers are going to be wrestling with this 

every day, trying to understand what is an enduring offensive operation or is it defensive, it is going to cause so many problems, that 

I think that it would be a mistake to keep a clause like this in the 

AUMF. 

37

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Dr. Rand, you said a lot about this in 

your written testimony. 

Ms. RAND. Overall, I think the AUMF strikes the right tone in 

terms of balancing between the flexibility requirement and reflecting the strategy, as I mentioned, that is working in a preliminary 

way. 

The most important clause here, I think, is the sunset provision 

because, as my colleagues have mentioned, so much is changing 

and is fluid on the battlefield that the question of how extensive 

the ground forces need to be, the question of the geography, the 

question of what is an affiliate or associate of ISIS—these are questions that in 2 years, 3 years we will have to reevaluate. 

Congress and the executive branch will have to reevaluate. So I 

see that, some type of prevention, as the most important limitation 

on the use of force because it demands a reevaluation of the strategy and demands questions such as metrics of success and progress 

that Congress will require based on reporting requirements in here. 

The only final question I would add is the geographical scope in 

terms of the global—the global authorization for the use of force 

against ISIS’ affiliates and associates. That might need to be clarified. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The Obama administration states that the training of Syrian 

moderate fighters is a large part of our strategy. But as of yet, we 

have not seen much evidence of this success. 

Former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said in our Middle 

East Subcommittee that the administration doesn’t bother to coordinate or discuss strategy with Syria’s moderate fighters at all 

and won’t strike ISIL near Aleppo, the moderate stronghold. 

If this force does eventually get up and running, what should its 

mission be and who will—who do you think will set and coordinate 

the strategy? Will it be the United States or the coalition partners? 

Can these forces fight against Assad and ISIL simultaneously? 

And, Ambassador Jeffrey, you testified that Iran’s policies almost 

drove Iraq apart between 2012 and 2014 and also that we won’t be 

able to defeat ISIL over the long term without a more forceful U.S. 

policy toward the Assad regime. 

What can you tell us about Iran’s goal and the activities in Iraq 

and the region and how does this impact our fight against ISIL? 

Do you suspect that we are not going after Assad because we are 

negotiating with Iran on nukes? And, lastly, when Iran violates 

Iraqi airspace, did or will Prime Minister Abadi, the U.S. and our 

coalition turn a blind eye because it is not convenient? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

First of all, I agree with you that we need to do much more to 

explain how Syria fits in to this whole equation. The campaign is 

correct in putting the priority on Iraq because there we do have allies. 

There we do have—we are engaged and Syria is a longer term 

question. But that doesn’t mean you can now not answer questions. 

Our allies in the region—most of them want us to do more against 

38

Assad. Assad contributed to the creation of ISIS. Assad is allied 

with Iran. 

As my colleague Dr. Brennan said, we are dealing not just with 

one extreme Islamic violent movement in the region with ISIS. We 

are dealing with a whole series of them and one of them is the 

Wilayat al Faqih side of the Iranian establishment—the religious 

establishment. 

It is both a country and a cause, and the poster boy for the cause 

is Qasem Soleimani, who has done a great deal to drive Iraq into 

the disunity that ISIS was able to exploit in 2014 by allowing and 

in some cases encouraging Maliki and other members of the Shi’a 

governing coalition to oppress the Sunnis and disagree with the 

Kurds such that the country was not holding together very well, 

and then ISIS came on the scene and we saw what happened. So 

we have to simultaneously deal with all of these problems. 

We have a lot of friends in the region. I can’t say that the administration doesn’t do more against Iran or even Syria because of the 

negotiations. I hope that isn’t the case. But I think that we need 

to separate the two out. 

That negotiation on nuclear weapons has to rest on its own merits, whatever they may be, and our policy toward providing security 

in this region with our allies has to be moved forward without consideration of other exterior questions. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much. The other witnesses? 

Mr. BRENNAN. We need to approach this issue from a regional—

develop a regional strategy to address this. As Ambassador Jeffrey 

said, we have got a lot of partners in the region that are being 

threatened by what has taken place. 

If you look at the rapid expansion of what Iran has done recently, currently they have—Hezbollah in Lebanon they have the 

large number of Shi’a militias in Iraq, perhaps as many as 5,000 

to 10,000, and when we look at the success in Iraq, a lot of the success is being done by the Shi’a-led militias and Qasem Soleimani 

in Iran inside Iraq that will tend to distort Iraqi politics in the long 

run. 

You have got the Houthi in Yemen and you have got Assad in 

Syria. You essentially have the creation of a Shi’a crescent that is 

threatening all of our allies in the region and it is no wonder that 

these allies, when we ask them to join us, come to us and are concerned because they see Iran as a primary threat. 

And we have to come together and develop a strategy that takes 

consideration of our allies’ concerns and moves on from there rather than just trying to look at, solely, at the issue of ISIS, although 

I agree with Ambassador Jeffrey——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Mr. BRENNAN [continuing]. ISIS in Iraq has got to be the first 

priority. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Sorry I ran out of time. Thank 

you. 

Chairman ROYCE. The ranking member of the Subcommittee on 

Terrorism here, Mr. Brad Sherman of California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have now become the ranking 

member on Asia but——

Chairman ROYCE. Congratulations on the promotion. 

39

Mr. SHERMAN. For purposes—but I believe ISIS is a lesser threat 

to the United States than the Shi’ite alliance. Ground troops, if 

necessary to take territory, will be necessary to hold the territory. 

The peshmerga are not going to be welcomed in Sunni Arab areas 

and the Iraqi army, we saw what they did. 

It was the greatest transfer of weaponry to a terrorist organization in history. The Shi’ite—the Iraqi Government has some effective fighting units. They are the Shi’ite militias that have engaged 

in murderous ethnic cleansing of Sunnis under reported in the 

American press and so it is—so I don’t see who we have that will 

be a ground force to take Sunni areas. 

I do know that I don’t want to vote to have American soldiers 

going house to house in Mosul in a bloody hand to hand combat 

role because no other ground forces are available. 

As to the AUMF, we have got the text the President sent over 

leaves in place the 2001 AUMF—in effect, republishes, reaffirms it. 

Well, what is that that we would be reaffirming 15 years later? 

Unlimited in time, unlimited in what weapons or tactics or 

ground forces. It authorized over 100,000 forces—soldiers in Afghanistan. Last decade it would authorize 100,000 U.S. soldiers to 

be deployed on the ground next decade and, of course, unlimited in 

geography. 

So if we republish rather than repeal that, it is hard to say that 

the President doesn’t have enough authority to do all the things 

that many of us hope he does not do. And then as to the timing 

issue, it would—if Congress is doing its job and there’s a 3-year 

AUMF, after 2 years we passed something else rather than waiting 

for 2 days while we have soldiers in the field wondering whether 

Congress will pass the bill. 

But I want to focus with my time on economics. This is the richest terrorist organization in history. They got a huge quantity of 

Iraqi currency. I don’t know if our witnesses have qualifications to 

focus on this. 

What some countries have done is they have done currency exchanges. Your—you know, your blue money is going to be void because you got to change it for purple money. 

This inconveniences the corrupt, tax evaders, et cetera, and 

therefore is extremely unpopular with governments that are dominated by corrupt tax evaders, which may very well describe Baghdad. 

Do any of you—are any of you qualified to talk about whether 

Iraq should do a currently exchange designed to invalidate the 

many billions of dollars’ worth of Iraqi currently that ISIS seized 

in the Mosul Bank? Well, we will move on to another question. 

Chairman ROYCE. For what it is worth, Ranking Member, I think 

it is a—I think it is a good idea and I would suggest maybe after 

you reflect on it if you could have a written response to the congressman’s question that would be helpful. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes. And let me establish just a policy for this 

committee. I will yield automatically to any member who wants to 

say, ‘‘I have a good idea.’’

Chairman ROYCE. So it won’t happen all the time. 

Mr. SHERMAN. It is unlikely to interrupt me very often. In World 

War II, the French lived under enemy occupation and we regarded 

40

those areas as areas to be bombed and constricted. Obviously, you 

couldn’t—the Vichy government wasn’t allowed to buy Argentine 

wheat and just bring it in a ship across the ocean. 

We regarded occupied France as an asset of the Nazis. Yet, I am 

told and news reports indicate that the Iraqi Government is paying 

the civil servants in Mosul and, of course, ISIS then takes as much 

of that money as they want. Do any of you have a comment about 

that and whether it should continue? Ambassador. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Certainly, Mr. Sherman, that is a tough 

question. I know that the Embassy is focused on that. They saw 

the news reports as well. It gets also to the question of can you just 

change the currency. 

We did that from time to time in Vietnam. It had—when I was 

there—it had a lot of second and tertiary level impact on a lot of 

people. I think that the reason that the Iraqi Government is continuing these payments is, first of all, you know, it is hard to explain this but it is their legal obligations of the government to their 

civil servants. The second thing is that——

Mr. SHERMAN. Somehow the government in exile of France did 

not feel it necessary to pay the teachers of Vichy. Go on. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Right, but the government in exile in 

France was not considered the legal Government of France, 

deGaulle including, by us. That is a whole other complicated question. 

The Iraqi Government is, and I think that is important, but the 

most important thing is it gets to the questions you have asked 

about who is going to do the liberating. 

The answer is much of it by the Sunni population, the Sunni 

tribes, the Sunni members of those communities. They need to feel 

a certain loyalty to Baghdad. I am not so sure cutting off their 

money is going to give them that loyalty. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Every penny that goes to ISIS-controlled areas is 

scooped up by ISIS. But just take 30 seconds to say in addition 

there are news reports that we are providing free electricity—the 

Iraqi Government provides free electricity to the ISIS areas. 

So in World War II where we took it seriously we bombed the 

electric generation facilities in occupied France. Here, the Mosul 

Dam, I believe, provides electricity to Mosul. The Mosul Dam was 

retaken by Iraqi forces. 

So it is not—it is not free electricity because the consumer has 

to pay. They pay ISIS. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Smith of New 

Jersey, chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Human 

Rights. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for convening 

this important hearing. 

I want to thank our three panelists for their extraordinary service to our country and providing this committee and by extension 

the American people the benefit of your insights and recommendations. 

Ambassador Jeffrey, if I could ask you, you say you do not think 

a campaign of strategic patience is appropriate. How do you think 

President Obama defines that? 

41

You also point out that—in your testimony that the stress when 

the coalition begins a major ground offensive operations would 

occur. 

You talked about day-after scenarios and a containment mission 

that would eventually—would eventually crater the coalition to 

lead to new ISIS threats and then you say time is not on our side 

and that the administration has to move faster. 

Has the administration moved fast enough years to date and 

does the President’s AUMF meet the criteria to move faster? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, the administration moved not at all after my colleague, Brett McGurk, came up here and talked to you over a year 

ago and that has led to a tragedy—first, Fallujah in January and 

then Mosul in June. 

I will say, as having worked with this administration, that I am 

surprised at how rapidly the administration responded in August 

when Erbil was threatened, and since then I think that the administration and the Central Command has done a very good job putting together this coalition, getting a lot of steel on target and stopping and in some cases pushing back ISIS. 

My problem is more what is going to happen next. This gets to 

the question of strategic patience. President Obama has laid this 

out last week in his national security strategy. 

He laid it out in his interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria and 

he laid it out in his State of the Union speech. The President is, 

clearly, very nervous about the use of military force, particularly 

ground forces, without a lot of allies, without a lot of legal backing, 

without the support of you and everybody else. 

Sometimes that is necessary. Sometimes that is smart. We could 

have used a little bit more of that a decade ago. But there are 

times when action is necessary. I am concerned we may not be 

moving fast enough. 

Mr. SMITH. Could I just ask you as well how do you think ISIS—

the ISIS leadership and other interests who are completely antithetical to our interests in the region look at what is happening at 

the White House and what is happening up here? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. That is a very good point, and I was about 

to use it saying any restrictions on the authorization is going to encourage the enemy—don’t encourage the enemy. But fear is fear. 

These guys are so busy dodging precision munitions right now 

that I don’t think they are going to spend a lot of time. What I 

worry about is Iran, Russia, China. 

In all of our conversations, members of this committee, that we 

talk about with ISIS we have to take this in the context of a whole 

extraordinary variety of challenges we have seen over the last year. 

China, Russia, al-Qaeda elements on the march, particularly in 

North Africa, ISIS itself, Syria and Iran—they are all watching us. 

ISIS probably won’t respond the most to any signs of weakness but 

others might, and I am concerned across the board with all of these 

challenges. 

Mr. SMITH. With all due respect to the administration, I have repeatedly asked that they designate Boko Haram a foreign terrorist 

organization. We had several hearings on it. Finally, I introduced 

legislation. 

42

On the day when we were having another hearing after visits by 

myself and others to both Jos and Abujah, we were getting ready 

to mark up the bill. The administration announced it a day late 

and a dollar short but welcomed it nevertheless. 

The parallels to Boko Haram—if we don’t train, in my opinion, 

and secure the cooperation of the Nigerian military, I was in Jos. 

I saw how they had firebombed so many churches. 

They are going after Christians with a vengeance but they are 

also going after Muslims who stand in their way. Your thoughts on 

the parallels—again, what we do vis-a`-vis ISIS as well as training 

up battalions who are human rights vetted Nigerian soldiers to 

combat Boko Haram. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Again, and I would go back to some of my 

responses I made earlier and perhaps modify them on the 

peshmerga, basically, you have to find allies who are willing to 

fight. 

If they are willing to fight, I wouldn’t worry all that much about 

vetting them. I would give them weapons. In the case of Iraq, it 

is a bit complicated but—and it is very complicated about sending 

the peshmerga into certain areas. But, certainly, they deserve more 

support from us. 

They are doing well and I hope they get it. People who are fighting Boko Haram deserve support from us, the same kind of support 

that we are giving the folks in Iraq. 

This is a region wide struggle with a many-headed enemy and 

I think that if you are a day short and a dollar behind and only 

at the last minute you take action such as declare Boko Haram, obviously, a terrorist organization you have just defined strategic patience. 

Mr. SMITH. Again, thank you for your testimony and for your 

leadership. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Meeks of New York, ranking member of 

the Subcommittee on Europe. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank the 

witnesses for your testimony today. 

I look at these hearings as I did back in 2001 when we were endeavoring to try to decide what was the best thing to do there and 

I also try to utilize where we are now, understanding what took 

place in 2001 and so that we could have learned from it. 

And sometimes I think what the President is talking about when 

you say patience, et cetera, we didn’t have any patience. In fact, 

we thought that and sometimes we think that it is a quick hit. 

I remember very well when Shock and Awe happened, and then 

a few days later we saw the President of the United States say 

mission accomplished. We thought that that was going to be it. 

Many members of this committee said once we got in there that 

individuals will be waving a flag and saying, thank you, America 

and we are bringing all of our values to them and they would just 

embrace it and that would be the great thing and everything would 

be different. Ten, eleven years later, we still had troops on the 

ground, are still there. 

We committed—we have committed more in the region than anyone else and still yet I hear folks say we didn’t do—no one has lost 

over 6,000 lives in military combat. 

43

It is us, and then I still hear and I have heard some testimony 

here today where our allies said, well, you, United States, you need 

to get back out there and get some more folks. Yet, in their region 

they are the ones that are the immediately threat. 

We are going to help our allies because they are in our strategic 

interests. But the ones that are in immediate danger are those that 

are right around there. So we need to back out and say, look, you 

all got to do something, too. 

We are losing our lives. We put our lives on the line. We are 

ready to give you all the strategic help that you can get and I think 

that we should. 

The President was very clear—keep our special ops—and if we 

find that there is somebody over there from ISIL, that their organization and some of our allies cannot get to them, well, that is when 

we want to use that limited number that is in the AUMF so that 

they can go after those guys and absolutely destroy them. 

And I do think, you know, clearly, and I think that became more 

evident than ever that this is not a malicious group because if you 

see what they did to the Jordanian pilot that is so anti-Islam and 

if you see how they are acting that is so anti-Islam. 

These are thugs and terrorists, and so we have got to make sure 

that is out there with reference to delegitimizing their ideology and 

I think, you know, someone else said well, you know, they are—

what they are doing with their PR folks maybe, you know, they are 

just asking us to come in. 

They want to us—because I think they do because they would 

love for us to have people on the ground on a continuous basis. 

Why? That is their best recruitment. 

If it was us on the ground and they can recruit more folks to 

fight against us because then they can say it is them against us 

and that is why we have got to resist that temptation because otherwise when people start to—we start to delegitimize their ideology 

then their recruitment will begin to rescind. 

Now, I happen to agree and I think, Dr. Rand, with your testimony because I think we have got to do a whole lot of things on 

a multilateral basis—diplomacy, you know, some military, some 

this—and it is not all about and mostly what I am hearing is military. We have got to do some other things. 

So let me just ask this question because I did agree with Dr. 

Rand in her opening statement. Ambassador Jeffrey, what was 

wrong with Dr. Rand’s testimony this morning? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Nothing at all. It was really good testimony and I agree with it. What I would say is, again, if we are 

getting back to strategic patience, if strategic patience means not 

making the mistakes of the last decade, I will sign up to strategic 

patience. 

If strategic patience, however, means—and it is not only this administration who has looked at it this way—that it means no casualties and no risk of casualties it means assuming that the people 

in the region not only have more at stake than us—that is a debatable thing—but assuming that they can carry a big part of the burden I don’t see anything in our history. 

At the beginning of this meeting or hearing, Chairman Royce 

talked about us doing 85 percent of the strikes, I believe. 

44

I would say if you look at Libya 4 years ago, if you look at Bosnia, if you look at Kosovo where we had all of NATO, you will 

find—if you look at the Korean War other than the Koreans themselves you will find similar statistics for the last 70 years. 

We can complain about that but that is how we have maintained 

international security. Where we have run into trouble and three 

times going into North Korean, Vietnam and Iraq have been, as 

you pointed out, we thought that we could do regime change and 

we could change populations. 

We are not going to do that but I don’t think anybody up here 

today is suggesting that. What we are suggesting or at least two 

of us are that we be—at least consider if our military commanders 

and if our diplomats need it a more aggressive policy militarily but, 

as I said, a more aggressive set of diplomatic actions. 

Mr. MEEKS. Let me just—Dr. Rand, what do you have to say? 

Ms. RAND. Sure. Just to clarify the testimony in my opening 

statement, I am not advocating for a more aggressive use of force 

than has been suggested by the AUMF text. 

I also look at the lessons learned from the past 10 years and the 

fight, particularly in Iraq. This is the 25th year that the U.S. is involved in some military combat operation in Iraq if you think about 

it—if you count all the operations in the 1990s. 

And so it is quite remarkable that we are still talking about Iraq 

and we are still talking about the proper use of American force. 

There are two lessons learned, and I would agree with you, Congressman. 

The first one, in my mind, is don’t make Americans part of the 

story. You know, you are not leading from behind. You are not taking a back seat role. 

But you don’t want to insert our presence to change the dynamic 

and create an insurgency against American power. That was clear 

in the 2003–2004 situation. 

The second, and my colleagues have alluded to it, is the importance of the ISF being sustainable or the ISF peshmerga—most of 

the ISF—the Iraqi Government and security forces need to be 

multi sectarian, professional and less susceptible to the penetration 

by outside actors like Iran, like the Shi’ite militias. 

That is the only way to sustain and protect Iraq as a sovereign 

country over the long term. You know, we have had the Sons of 

Iraq, the awakening. 

We have had problems with the Sunni region and its connectivity 

with central Baghdad. This is the second time, third time this has 

happened and so we need to create a force that will really think 

of itself as representing the security of all Iraqis and that will take 

time and that is part of the strategic issues. 

And that is what the trainers are doing, by the way, and it is 

better and more effective to train them with our Arab allies, which 

is what we are doing, and our European allies all over Iraq right 

now. We are training 12 new brigades, as you know. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Rohrabacher of 

California, chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and 

Emerging Threats. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

want to thank the witnesses for coming here. We have—this is a 

45

discussion between us and the witnesses about what direction we 

should go and we appreciate your advice. 

Dr. Brennan, let me just note that I agree with your basic assessment that we are not just talking about ISIL or ISIS, whatever—

which one we want to call it—that this actually is an enemy that 

has been 10 years or 15 years around us and its radical Islamic fanatic terrorism or groups that are willing to use terrorism to terrorize the Western world and this goes back all the way to even 

before 9/11 when we lost 3,000 Americans, murdered, to try to terrorize our country. 

So these groups, whether we call them ISIL or whether they are 

burning somebody to death there to try to say—show us how mean 

and nasty they are or whether they are trying to bring down buildings in New York, it is that—is the same enemy whether those—

whatever they want to call their organization at whatever particular moment. 

So with this I would suggest that that is the primary threat that 

we face in the Western world faces today. That is our primary 

threat to our security and our safety and the United States needs 

to recognize that and figure out how we defeat these type of enemies. 

Let me just note that I personally will not and I don’t—I can’t 

speak for my colleagues but I don’t believe that I will be giving the 

President of the United States and I don’t think the Congress will 

give the President of the United States a blank check on the use 

of American military force in the Arab World or in the Gulf, wherever it is, and by the way it is maybe not specific enough, in the 

territory much less the timing of this. 

We are not going to give him a blank check for a given period 

of time. We need to know exactly—if that means that he would be 

willing to commit major forces on the ground or not that needs to 

be part of any agreement that we have. 

So I don’t see this just, you know, being oh, the President is asking, thus he is going to get whatever he wants. We need to work 

it out—work out the details. 

I personally don’t believe this is going to be settled by the military. When we eliminated the Soviet Union, which was then the ultimate threat to peace and stability in the world, it was done by 

not by deployment of large numbers of troops and we need to create a dynamic that will end with the defeat of this threat to Western civilization. 

We need to create that dynamic and that means what we did to 

defeat communism we made that our number-one goal and we 

worked with anybody who would work with us to defeat that goal 

and that made it, by the way, possible four us to defeat them without a conflict—direct military conflict with the United States. 

Let me just note that I think this President has not reached 

out—we have already heard about the Kurds and to other people 

and other groups in the world and especially in that region who 

should be our best friends and mobilize them in this effort whether 

it is General Sisi or whether it is the people who are fighting 

against the—who marched against radical Islam in Tehran where 

the President couldn’t get himself to say anything about that in 

support of those kids earlier on. 

46

So we need to have that dynamic created rather than just having 

the President come to us and asking for military—for a military 

blank check, and the question I have—I know, I am—we are just 

about out of time here but let me just note this. 

I would like to ask about shouldn’t we be working with Assad? 

We worked with Stalin to defeat Hitler. We had all sorts of questionable allies when we were going against the Soviet Union. 

Shouldn’t we work with Assad? Shouldn’t we be working with 

Putin in order to defeat this threat that you have capsulized for us 

of radical fanatic Islam? And that is my question to you, sir. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I ask unanimous consent that he be able to 

answer. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. No objection. 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think we need to be able to talk to all the countries in the region. But I think if you go back to my earlier argument, Assad is actually a part of this broader Islamist movement 

that is supported by Tehran. 

So we have—we have in the Middle East today what is the 

equivalent of Sunni-Shi’a civil war that is taking place and at one 

level we need to determine which side of this we are on and how 

are we going to try to pull together these various countries in order 

to address the issue. 

You are absolutely right. It is a radical Islamist ideology writ 

large, Sunni and Shi’a. We have to—but we need a grand strategy 

for it. Military is just one component of that. 

But that is where we ought to be going and I think if there is 

one thing that comes out of this committee it could be a process 

of thinking about how do you move forward to confront this global 

threat to our interests, not just ISIS or one of the other groups. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. 

Mr. Sires of New Jersey. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Madame Chair, and thank you very much 

for your service to the country and for being here. 

You know, every time I sit here and I hear witnesses talk to me 

about training the Iraqi army, it just gives me the shivers because 

of the experiences that we have had with this idea of training. 

I don’t know where we get the confidence that if we train this 

army it is going to solve our problems because, you know, we have 

spent billions. When they took a shot at them then they ran. 

So to go back and start training people again and spending all 

that money, you know, I am just concerned that at the end of all 

this people are going to say the only people that can solve the problem is us putting troops on the ground and I would never vote for 

that. 

We lost 6,000 lives. We have countless people coming back. We 

have soldiers coming back committing suicide and for what? We 

solve one problem, one group—another one pops up. You know, I 

don’t know the answer, obviously. You know, you are the experts. 

You know, I just take your word for it, you know, what you are 

saying. 

But I do agree with you that we should fund the Kurds and we 

should give them the weapons that they need, and I am wondering 

47

where—a few years ago President Biden said that maybe Iraq 

should be divided in three—I wonder how viable that is. I mean, 

all these groups—maybe it is not viable now but just seemed like 

an idea back then. 

And I am concerned about Jordan. You know, I am concerned 

about the impact that the refugees are having on the economy of 

Jordan and more and more people keep coming, and I am concerned are we doing enough to make sure that our friend, Jordan, 

is well prepared to deal with what they are dealing now. 

I mean, they have taken a big step. They have stepped forward. 

So maybe you can just comment a little bit. 

I don’t know if some of the things that I may be wrong about. 

Training the Iraqis may be the only option but I got to tell you, 

it is hard for me to accept that. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Good questions, Mr. Chairman. The Iraqi 

troops ran in Mosul. The Iraqi army did not really run in Anbar 

Province. 

Maliki pulled the troops out of Fallujah in January because of a 

political dispute and they rushed in and took over the police, who 

were in many cases much weaker than the military. 

The military—they have had some bad days in Anbar Province 

but they haven’t upped and ran. My experience in a good number 

of laws on various levels including out there trying to train them 

is that you can train forces to do well. 

It helps a hell of a lot if you have American troops, advisory 

teams and American air power with them. The Vietnamese ran in 

1972 when the North Vietnamese came in until we put in massive 

air strikes and we had our advisory teams out there fighting with 

them and the result was they turned the tide and pushed the 

North Vietnamese back. 

I have seen this also in Iraq in 2010–2011. Iraqi troops did well 

against hard core al-Qaeda but particularly when they had American advisory teams with them. 

So that is the first question. In terms of popping up, having 

been—spending much of my life since the 1974 Yom Kippur War 

where I was almost deployed to the region with a lot of other 

American troops I have a feeling of popping up too because it is 

what is—the history of my life over the last 40 years is constantly 

being redeployed to the Middle East in one or another capacity. 

My take away from this is this is something we are not going to 

fix. We can provide multipliers to the people fixing it and the most 

important is assuring that really radical violent elements do not 

get a hold of large territories. 

That is the Iranians, that is ISIS, that is al-Qaeda, that is Assad. 

And to contain and beat back those forces so that the people of the 

region have the chance to eventually move on the way people in the 

Balkans, the way people in Central America and the way people in 

other places where we have been successful have moved on. 

But you are right. This is a long struggle and it is frustrating 

and because it is a long struggle we shouldn’t tie a lot of troops 

down in a high casualty effort to fix this once and for all because 

we won’t. 

Mr. SIRES. How about Biden’s idea then? 

48

Ambassador JEFFREY. I am sorry. He has recanted, first of all, 

and secondly, the problem with that is I know of no border in the 

Middle East and, frankly, no border in any area I have ever been 

stationed in the Balkans or elsewhere that you can just break up 

into three parts because there are overlapping groups living in 

those areas. 

There are overlapping historical memories and what these people 

will do is they won’t agree to a piece of paper. They will fight, and 

it just creates evermore chaos. You change one border in the Middle East, they are all going to start being shaky and we will have 

yet another even bigger problem. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you. Thank you, Madame Chair. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Sires. 

And now we turn to Mr. Salmon, and our deepest condolences to 

all of the residents of Arizona for Kayla. 

Mr. SALMON. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. 

I guess my question is to anyone on the panel that would like 

to take a stab. But, Ambassador, I would really appreciate your 

thoughts first on it. 

Let me just say first, for the record, that I very much support 

a very robust AUMF being given to the President which gives maximum flexibility to our generals so that they can prosecute this effort until we win and we do it quickly—as quickly as possible. 

But the President and his advisors have been clear for the last 

several months anyway that they believe that they have full legal 

authority under the 2001 AUMF to prosecute ISIL. 

My question is why would the President be submitting to Congress or asking Congress to give him an AUMF that ties his hands. 

I have never heard of a President sending that kind of a request 

to Congress—please time my hands and give me a time limit and 

also, you know, limit my ability to use ground forces. 

I get really frustrated. I marvel, in fact. I can’t imagine Franklin 

Delano Roosevelt standing up before the American people and saying here is the five things I am not going to do to the Japanese. 

It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to telegraph what we are willing to do and what we are not willing to do and if the President 

believes that he has the authority, and I believe he has said that 

many times—some of his advisors—that he has the authority, why 

would he want a further limiting AUMF? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Very quickly, so my colleagues can—he 

does have the authority under the existing legislation but it is an 

awkward fit and he is absolutely right to come back here and ask 

for more specific from all of you. 

In terms of why would he limit it, that is his philosophy and I 

have to be fair to him. I have worked for him. He doesn’t think that 

military force can often be a solution and he thinks that we have 

gotten very committed, almost like a drug, to using military force 

rather than other means of national power. 

I disagree with him but it is an honest position. He can point to 

areas from marching into North Korea to Vietnam to Iraq that I 

and others have cited where we have gone astray and it is something to really worry about. 

But while I wouldn’t support that position myself, I mean, I understand why he has it and a lot of Americans agree with him. 

49

Mr. SALMON. Let me just modify that, Dr. Brennan, before you 

do speak. I also believe that one of the reasons for the conflicts that 

you cited that we were not very successful is that the politicians 

micro managed the whole damn thing. Dr. Brennan? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I agree with Ambassador Jeffrey. We need to put 

something on the ground that is wide enough, that gives the President the ability to make the decision. He may choose he doesn’t 

want to do that but—and that is a legitimate choice that he should 

make. 

But I think that if the issue is as I portrayed in my testimony—

I think as the others have, I think that this is a great threat to 

U.S. national security. 

If it is a grave threat, as the President put in his AUMF, then 

we need to be giving the President everything that he needs and 

you don’t know what is going to happen 6 months from now, and 

to have a complete going back and forth on this I think just ties 

his hands. 

And I agree with you, Congressman, that I think that it makes 

most sense to look back and perhaps the 2001 AUMF could be 

cleaned up or amended to provide the types of capability that are 

needed. 

It is not a perfect fit but whether or not we need to restrict the 

hands I would be very concerned about that as a commander as 

well as somebody who is trying to look about how the country 

moves forward on this. 

Mr. SALMON. I am going to run out of time and I do have one 

other question because I am deeply concerned that the administration isn’t very serious about this fight. 

With only 250 coalition sorties flown a month versus the roughly 

1,000 air strikes a day we flew in previous conflicts in the region, 

couldn’t we do more with the air power that we have to at least 

degrade ISIL or ISIS and couldn’t additional air power support further attack ISIS’ impressive funding streams that they are using 

to support their caliphate? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I believe that we ought to be putting—having a 

much more robust air campaign. But to do that you need to have 

more targetable intelligence and you get that kind of targetable intelligence by having troops out forward with our allies. 

And without having that then I think that you run the risk of 

having collateral damage which will run counter to our policy, 

counter to our strategy and counter to the interests we have in 

Iraq. 

Mr. SALMON. So it gets back to the ground forces and the support 

again? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I believe so. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Salmon. 

Mr. Higgins of New York. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Madame Chair. 

I just—you know, it amazes me in all of these hearings how 

quickly we just kind of bypass the fact that the United States paid 

about $25 billion to build up an Iraqi army and the first test of 

that army was against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and 

they essentially ran. 

50

And we were told that the reason that they were not committed 

to the fight was because the previous prime minister, Nouri alMaliki, was not inclusive of the Shi’a-Sunni population and therefore didn’t feel as though it was a fight worth committing to. 

And now we are told that there is a new prime minister who is 

also a Shi’a but more inclusive of the Sunni community and therefore we should have confidence again in the Iraq national army. 

Twenty-five billion dollars, thousands of lives lost and no commitment. Who are the most effective fighters in Iraq today? 

The peshmerga—190,000—and the Shi’a militia. The new prime 

minister has said that there are about 1 million Shi’a militias who 

are trying to fill the void of the ineffectual Iraqi army. 

Mr. Brennan, you had said earlier—you talked about the Shi’a 

militias who recently experienced success against ISIS. You also 

made reference to Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Quds Force’s leader who really negotiated the second term of Nouri al-Maliki with 

one condition—that the Americans leave—that the Americans 

leave. 

And now we have a President who has a resolution before Congress asking for authorization to engage, again, militarily. You 

know, the Shi’a militias are not there to prop up the Iraqi Government. 

They are there to do what Soleimani and others in asymmetrical 

warfare try to do and that is create a proxy in places that they 

want to control be it in southern Lebanon, be it in Syria or be it 

in Iraq. 

My concern is that if we commit American forces, and there is 

no passive wing of the American military—everybody has weapons 

and everybody fights and they die courageously when they do—we 

are continuing a situation in this country that has been going on 

for way too long. 

You know, Tom Friedman, the author and New York Times columnist, once said is Iraq the way it is because Saddam was the 

way he is, or is Saddam the way he is because Iraq is the way it 

is. And I think it just speaks again to the sectarian tribal nature 

of a place that we are trying to impose a political solution to. 

You know, we are told that the American military with extraordinary courage, extraordinary commitment, extraordinary effectiveness, could only do one thing—create a breathing space within 

which the Shi’a, Sunni and Kurdish community could achieve political reconciliation including the sharing of oil revenues and we saw 

a hopeful sign in December that that was occurring between the 

central government in Baghdad and Kurdistan with the 17-percent 

sharing of the national revenues and also $1 billion to equip and 

train the peshmerga. 

But I will tell you, where our investment has been made financially, where our investment has been made morally, has been an 

abject failure and what we are proposing to do with this resolution 

by the President is continue that failed policy without any clarity 

about what it is we are going to achieve because when there is no 

political center—here is what we know in that part of the world—

when there is no political center there are only sides to choose and 

right now there is no political center. 

51

And don’t argue that the changing of a Shi’a prime minister in 

Iraq is going to fundamentally change the will and the commitment 

of the Iraqi national army. You know, let us just acknowledge that our investment of $25 

billion in the Iraqi national army failed—failed miserably—because 

when you say they all ran, 250,000 of them, in the face of 30,000 

ISIS fighters, well, certainly because Iraq is a majority Shi’a country, many of those fighters would be Shi’a. So at least they 

wouldn’t run. 

So I don’t know really what is going on here but I know where 

this is leading and I think most Americans know where this is 

leading, and it is not in a good place because, again, America is essentially going it alone for the third time in two different countries 

and unless there is a recognition of minority rights, unless there 

is a recognition of the pluralistic nature of Iraq, there will never 

be peace there and——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Thank 

you, Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Yield back. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Issa of California. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, being this far 

down the dais is of some help because a lot of—a lot of good questions have been asked. 

One that I don’t think really has been covered, because we are 

considering the authorization for use of military force, is sort of 

what we have and what we need, and let me just run through it 

quickly. 

In 2001, the AUMF basically said global war on terror, alQaeda—go anywhere, get them. 2002, it was specifically Iraq—liberate Iraq. I think it is fair to say that whether we like the way 

Iraq is or not, it has been liberated. 

Any new problem in Iraq very clearly is a new Iraq, and that is 

where I have some real challenges with the President’s belief that 

he has any authority under the 2002. But leaving that aside, they 

are both obsolete. 

Al-Qaeda, as we knew it, is no longer al-Qaeda as we knew it. 

Would I get your agreement that as we defined it in 2001 it is really a different organization? Is that fair to say? 

And anything we do in Iraq and Syria and other areas in which 

derivative organizations including ISIL or Daesh is in fact at least 

fundamentally different or expanded and fits a slightly different 

definition. So we all agree on that part, I think. 

So let me—let me ask the broader question. Aren’t we dealing 

with two ideological groups, both of whom are a threat to regional 

security, to democracy and to the West, to a certain extent? One 

of them, Daesh, is a radicalized derivative of what we once knew 

as al-Qaeda. 

The other, the Shi’a activist, whether it is Hezbollah, Tehran directly or various groups at any level, are ultimately a group that 

looks at the 12th Imam Mahdi—Muhammad Mahdi—and his proclamation of what you have to do which is more or less take the 

Holy Lands and bring back all the glory and peace. 

And I listened to the former President of Iran at the U.N. in 

2012 and he may be crazy but that is what he was saying is the 

52

12th Imam is going to bring this all back and it was a call for jihad 

for the Shi’a. 

Question, and I will start with Dr. Brennan but all of you can 

answer it, aren’t we really dealing with the need to be targeted 

against both as appropriate and at the same time—and I will use 

Syria, an area that I have worked a little bit in, as the poster 

child—we have, if you will, the Mahdi 12th Imam crowd on one 

side backing Assad and then we have ISIL. 

Aren’t we in a position in which we have to make sure that we 

give a nimble authority to the President but one in which he 

weighs the comparative balances, one in which he clearly does no 

harm to one group, however reprehensible, that simply advances 

the other? 

And isn’t that really the Shi’a—and Doctor, this is why I want 

to go to you first—the Shi’a-Sunni conflict that we are now in the 

middle of? It is not just ISIL. It is not just Bashar Assad. It is not 

just Hezbollah. 

We have metastasized into a conflict in which in many cases we 

are fighting on one side and empowering our enemy on the other 

side. Doctor? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Congressman, I agree with your assessment on 

that. I think that as we are looking at the conflict between Sunni 

and Shi’a, we have to be—understand that this Islamist movement 

is a cancer that has evolved from—metastasized from various elements of Islam but it—and we need to go back and take a look at 

and reinforce those people who are really helping us. 

King Abdullah has made some courageous stands. You look at 

King—President al-Sisi in Egypt. This has got to be done through 

them and we have to be working politically to encourage them and 

all of our neighbors, all those neighbors that have been our allies 

for the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. 

So the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia—they need to change internally 

to stop what is going on but we can encourage them to do that. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. Let me narrow the question because I think you 

said it very well. 

Isn’t the President’s obligation with whatever authority we give 

him to work with those who will be forces for moderation or at 

least tolerance in the region and you mentioned President al-Sisi 

who has been disrespected by this administration in an amazing 

way. 

They were quick to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood and very 

slow to even call the President after he was legally elected in internationally recognized elections and, obviously, King Abdullah, as 

an example of a Sunni leader who is simply trying to bring back 

a moderate Sunni border to his near Jordan. But, quickly—I know 

my time has expired—this, for me, is the important part. 

I don’t want to topple a Syria that Iran has power in to get at 

ISIL but I don’t want to defeat Sunni extremists only to empower 

a Shi’a aspiration paid for out of a dictatorial Iran that since 

1975—1979 has consistently managed to ruin country after country 

and continues doing so. So please——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Issa. 

Mr. Cicilline. 

53

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for your testimony and for your excellent written testimony 

as well. It was very helpful. 

I want to just build for a moment on the gentleman from New 

York’s last questions. One of the things I am very concerned about 

is that I don’t think we have a clear understanding of what the end 

game is or what success even looks like and I think it builds on 

what you are saying, Dr. Brennan, that it is more than just defeating and killing individuals who are members of a terrorist organization but it is really do we have the ability to kill an ideology—

a radical Islamist terrorist ideology. 

So I think one of the things that I am struggling with is I have 

deep skepticism that continued or deepening military engagement 

is the solution and in fact real questions about whether it will in 

fact make it worse and more long term in part because of what you 

raised, Dr. Brennan, in your testimony. 

But if you think about the role of the Iraqi security forces and 

you think about the money that we have spent and now we have 

embarked on a training of the Syrian opposition—the so-called 

moderate Syrian opposition—how can we have confidence that 

there will be any different result and over what period of time? 

I mean, we are talking about beginning this training process 

now. Presumably, ISIS and ISIS fighters will not remain—you 

know, stand still while we sort of get up to speed. 

So how should we tell the American people that we should have 

any confidence after having spent $25 billion and training hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers that somehow this time it is 

going to be different, that they are going to take up the fight. So 

that is my first question. 

My second question is that, you know, we talk a lot about the 

role of our international partners in this coalition and then we 

learn that 85 percent of the air strikes are by the U.S., and is it 

just impossible to imagine that the UAE and Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Egypt who are in the region will actually take on the responsibility, the chief responsibility, for this ground operation and 

for the air strikes? 

Do they just not have the capacity? Do they not have the interest 

because of the political context? But, you know, everyone seems to 

suggest it is going to require air strikes and ground operations to 

be successful, whatever that means, but nobody seems to have 

identified who the ground troops are and we talk about peshmerga, 

which is great, and they are doing a terrific job. 

But there are all these allies in the region who have real resources and real armies. Do they just—you know, I am interested 

in why they are not playing a greater role. 

So those are my first two questions. I have one more but I want 

to be sure you have time to respond to those two. 

Mr. BRENNAN. Just real quick on the last one you had. The reason the United States provides so much air support is because we 

have a capacity to do that. 

The other allies in the region, Jordan being one of the more—the 

stronger ones—has capacity but it is limited and I think what they 

are doing now is probably as much as they can. 

54

In terms of the ground forces, as the Ambassador commented 

earlier, each one of these countries has an Islamist problem in 

their own country and those armies that are there that they have 

are being used to maintain security in those countries. 

So they can deploy some but they still need to maintain security 

within their own borders and so that is a challenge for them. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. First of all, I have a lot of sympathy to 

what you have said because I have been out there and I have lived 

this. But it is not just in the Middle East. 

Again, since World War II, we have had conflict after conflict 

where the number of Saudis, the number of infantry companies on 

the ground, have been somewhere between 50 and 90 percent 

American, where our allies often flee or leave behind their American equipment they were doing that, as I said, in June 1950 in 

South Korea and we have seen it ever since. 

We have also seen though, including in Korea, including in Vietnam—I have seen it with my own eyes—including in Iraq, I have 

seen it with my own eyes, where they turn around and go back. 

Often, we, including small numbers of we, can make and do 

make a difference. But there I will agree with Mr. Higgins. Particularly in the Middle East, in my 18 years counting Turkey that I 

served there I never felt one day that I was in a good place compared to even the rest of the world——

Mr. CICILLINE. Ambassador Jeffrey, I want to just give Dr. Rand 

a moment to also respond, please. Sorry to interrupt you. 

Ms. RAND. I would just finally add that these are two excellent, 

excellent questions, Congressman, and I think the answers are actually linked, right. What is different about this enterprise right 

now is actually the partners that are involved. 

So if you consider in November and the December the reformation of the Iraqi Government, these Arab neighbors were not at all 

interested in the formation of the Iraqi Government post-Saddam. 

They were not there. The Ambassador can attest to that. 

They in fact were distancing themselves from Iraq. They sent no 

Ambassadors. They had no Embassies. It was really unprecedented 

in some way that all the neighbors were quite involved unanimously in helping Prime Minister Abadi get started and adding political capital and that is—to me, none of this is particularly promising but that is a source of promise that suggests to me that there 

could be a chance for this new Iraqi Government that will be different than the mistakes of its predecessors. Thank you. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline. 

Mr. Brooks of Alabama. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

I want to follow up on some of the comments of my colleagues, 

David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Darrell Issa of California, and 

some of the responses plus some of the written testimony that we 

have had the benefit of. 

Dr. Brennan stated in a response to a question from Darrell Issa 

that the Islamic State has ‘‘metastasized from various elements of 

Islam.’’ Further, in Dr. Brennan’s written testimony, I am going to 

read some quotes:

55

‘‘While the threat is often portrayed as terrorism, the true 

danger is the ideology that provides the logic of extremism, violence and acts of inhumanity.’’

Next, another Dr. Brennan quote:

‘‘While bin Laden has been killed, the ideology of Salafi 

jihadism continues to spread and the global threat posed by alQaeda, ISIS and affiliated groups is greater than ever.’’

Next, again, from Dr. Brennan:

‘‘While the tactic of terrorism is frequently the immediate 

threat focused upon by political leaders, I think it is critical to 

note that the ideology underlying these actions seeks revolutionary change of the existing political and social order. 

‘‘Thus, the strategic challenge of our generation isn’t one particular group of insurgents or terrorists. It is the ideology that 

gives them cause. Defeating this ideology will require the development of a grand strategy that employs all elements of national power and influence.’’

And then, finally, Dr. Rand—I am going to quote from her written remarks:

‘‘ISIL’s savage tactics are at the very core of its ideology. 

While al-Qaeda justifies individual suicide bombing attacks 

against civilians and civilian areas through fatwas explaining 

the conditional necessity, ISIL has adopted a new ideology, manipulating select stories from Islamic history and modern 

jihadi texts to redefine jihad and to generate a blanket justification for violence including against women and children.’’

If we take these remarks of Dr. Rand and Dr. Brennan on face 

value, Dr. Brennan, can America permanently defeat the Islamic 

state and other Islamic terrorist organizations without also defeating the underlying ideology that attracts so many fighters to their 

cause? 

Mr. BRENNAN. The short answer to that is no. I mean, I think 

that what we find is that the—this is an ideology of revolution and 

during the late 20th century we had Marxism provided the ideology 

of revolution that went around the world. Today, this is it. We have 

to confront the ideology. 

Mr. BROOKS. Dr. Rand, do you concur that the answer is no, that 

we have to defeat the ideology that breeds so many reinforcements 

to the Islamic state and other Islamic terrorist organizations? 

Ms. RAND. Certainly, Congressman, and we are. This is one of 

the nine pillars and the areas where the coalition is working on the 

counter radicalization countering violent extremism and what is 

promising in this regard is some of the—our Arab partners are beginning and starting programs in their own countries to counter 

this ideology. 

Recently, in Egypt, for example, a fatwa was issued against some 

of the ISIS ideology. It was unprecedented, in fact. Thank you. 

Mr. BROOKS. With respect to Ambassador Jeffrey, Dr. Brennan 

and Dr. Rand, how can America best conduct itself to defeat the 

underlying Islamic ideology of the Islamic state and its brethren, 

Islamic terrorist organizations? Whoever wants to answer. 

56

Ambassador JEFFREY. I will start. I agree with the problem. I 

would be very skeptical of the idea of we, the United States or the 

Western world, defeating a philosophical concept or distortion of a 

religion. 

That is a very tricky thing. The vast majority of Muslims around 

the world are not our enemies. They look at their religion differently than the Salafists and the ISIS people and the people 

around the——

Mr. BROOKS. Okay. I am not asking for kind of an overall picture 

of what is going on. I am asking for what has to be done to defeat 

it. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Right. 

Mr. BROOKS. I have limited time—40 seconds. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Fair enough. Stop the military manifestations of it, which is what we are doing with ISIS, which is what 

we are trying to do with Iran on nuclear weapons, and give the 

people of the region the space and support those who are strong in 

fending off this threat among themselves. That is all we can do. 

Mr. BROOKS. Dr. Brennan, a few seconds left. How do we defeat 

the ideology? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Continue to work with people like King Abdullah 

and President al-Sisi and develop that in other countries so that 

we have—the cure from this cancer comes from within Islam. 

Mr. BROOKS. Dr. Rand, just a few seconds left. Any additional 

words? 

Ms. RAND. I would add that the people in the Sunni heartland 

across Iraq and Syria they are mostly tribes. They don’t necessarily 

inherently subscribe to this ideology. 

So what we’re trying to do is give them a chance. You know, they 

have been exploited too by the ISIS groups that are in their midst. 

So we are trying to help them. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for the additional 15 

seconds. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. 

Dr. Bera. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank the witnesses. 

Dr. Rand, was I correct in hearing you say we have been involved in 25 years of continuous engagement in Iraq? 

Ms. RAND. To clarify, on and off for 25 years. I was counting the 

time at the beginning of the Gulf War, you know, which is—we are 

coming on to the 25th anniversary of the invasion. 

Mr. BERA. Great. So on and off, and as we look at this current 

engagement it is accurate to say we are not talking about yours. 

We are talking about, you know, prolonged periods of times, perhaps decades. So no one disagrees with that. 

Dr. Brennan, in answer to my colleague from Rhode Island, Mr. 

Cicilline, when asked about who can provide the numbers of 

ground troops in order to maintain stability, to create that open 

space, I think you characterized it as, you know, our allies in the 

region have limited capabilities, limited ground troops, and those 

ground troops largely are tied up within their own countries. Is 

that an accurate assessment? 

57

Mr. BRENNAN. They are tied up but that doesn’t mean that they 

can’t provide some. What I think we have to have is reasonable expectations about what they can do based upon their own internal 

security interests. 

Mr. BERA. So in this larger debate, you know, much of the debate 

is, you know, what the United States involvement is, what our 

troops’ involvement is and no one is discounting that, you know, 

ISIL is—these are monsters. 

These are despicable individuals. These are folks that are distorting a religion and we do have national security threats and we 

do have an interest in, you know, ridding the region of this ideology. 

But it is not going to be easy and it is going to be prolonged and 

it is going to take decades. And, you know, I—you know, I disagree 

with my colleague, Mr. Salmon. I do think that it is our responsibility as Members of Congress to be engaged in defining the context 

of what this engagement looks like, not in prosecuting this—that 

is up to our military commanders, our diplomats and so forth—but 

engaging and I think the public wants us to be engaged in this definition. So I think that is a good thing. 

This is not going to be easy and there, clearly, is a scenario. I 

think, Ambassador Jeffrey, you talked about, you know, some of 

the bad guys here—Assad, Iran, others. 

But you can, clearly, see a scenario where you defeat ISIL, you 

drive them out, where you see this change from Iran to a Shi’adominated Iraq to Assad to Hezbollah to Hamas which, you know, 

we have to be conscious that that is one outcome here, which is not 

an outcome that I desire. 

I think it is an outcome that, you know, puts some of our closest 

allies in a very precarious position and maybe even creates a worse 

scenario in this. So as we, Members of Congress, engage in this debate we have to be very conscious of all possible scenarios. 

Ambassador Jeffrey, you touched on, you know, the lessons from 

Vietnam that, you know, I can imagine a ground campaign in Iraq 

with, you know, Shi’a militia, with Iraqi forces, with Kurdish fighters, a prolonged ground campaign that drives out Iraq. But the real 

challenge here is what happens in that bordering country, in Syria. 

You know, there isn’t a moderate Syrian force that can, you 

know, cut off that line of retreat. That then draws us into another 

rabbit hole and another prolonged scenario. 

So, you know, I guess in the minute I have I think, starting with 

Dr. Rand, these scenarios that I am laying out are they inaccurate 

and the questions that we should be thinking about and asking? 

Ms. RAND. Sure. Obviously, none of this is clear and that outcomes are not predetermined. You know, this is a very difficult region. 

It is undergoing generational change in the form of the popular 

uprisings that have weakened state authority across the region. 

We don’t need to get into here all of the factors that are making 

this an unprecedented moment in the region and, of course, there 

is dangerous potential. 

But, you know, the strategy is trying to figure out the political 

end game as I, you know, said in the written testimony in each of 

these particular feeders, and in Syria the idea of inserting a 

58

trained moderate opposition faction of 5,000 fighters is smart because this is the type of fighters that we could ally with. 

These are the type of fighters that have a chance of reclaiming 

the territory once ISIS has been weakened in the areas. 

Mr. BERA. But it will—it will take time. It will take time to train, 

to equip, to create this capable fighting force. Ambassador Jeffrey, 

and again, as I am thinking about this am I not laying—you know, 

am I thinking about this in the correct context? 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Bera, but your time is going 

to be limited. 

Mr. Perry of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I would like to thank the panel for your service. Dr. Brennan, an 

additional thanks to you for your time in uniform. 

I would like to associate myself with my colleagues Issa, Brooks 

and Higgins and their remarks, and just before I get started, regarding the contention that none of what we have tried in this 

arena has worked in the past and we tried to provide the breathing 

space, I think you must acknowledge that America was providing 

the support for the breathing space. Of course, it is not going to 

work when you walk away and no longer provide the support. 

That having been said, to Dr. Brennan I think we have already 

agreed that, I think, ISIS—you know, we have agreed that ISIS is 

a symptom of a portion of—you know, a portion of a larger challenge. 

Would you agree with that? I mean, I think you have said that 

before but I just want to clarify. 

Mr. BRENNAN. I would. 

Mr. PERRY. All right. And you said that it should be the first priority. I mean, you particularly said that. 

Would it be fair for me to characterize—I think everybody is 

looking for a way to characterize it as a global violent jihad movement. Could that be a way of characterizing it? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think it is, but I think when you do that you also 

need to ensure that it addresses both sides of the equation. 

Mr. PERRY. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I mean, we also have kind of 

acknowledged that we are in the middle of a Shi’a-Sunni civil war, 

wahabiism, Sharia dogma. But let me ask you this. I mean, they 

fight each other. 

They hate each other on occasion, what have you, but they see 

us, the West—the United States—as a common enemy where they 

will get together and fight us. Is that true or not true? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think if we are there in a large capacity that we 

will attract those forces who attack us. We had that situation in 

Iraq where we were both being attacked by the Shi’a extremists——

Mr. PERRY. But even if we are not there in large forces, I mean, 

they travel the globe looking for us and the West. 

Mr. BRENNAN. We don’t need to do anything for them to attack 

us. 

Mr. PERRY. Right. We have already proven that, right? I mean, 

yeah. And people that say we have incited this and caused it I 

think that is a little specious. 

59

Further, Dr. Brennan, the—you know we have already kind of 

broached the question the AUMF, why now, Article 2 powers, the 

first AUMF and, you know, I look at the administration’s track 

record—look at it from a Member of Congress’ standpoint. 

Libya, Syria, Yemen, the side they chose in Egypt, what has happened in Iraq. We declare, he prosecutes. In my mind, he hasn’t 

prosecuted very well. No disrespect intended but I just went down 

through the list. 

Is there some rationale to thinking that the President might be 

looking for a complicitor in what has been in many people’s minds 

a failed, an ineffective policy, strategy? I don’t want to call it a 

strategy because I don’t—a plan, an execution is something. I don’t 

really see a strategy. 

But we are going to get to that quickly. Is it—that a fair rationale? I mean, I am not saying it is not the end result but is it reasonable to think that people could feel that way? 

Mr. BRENNAN. And not going to the motivation of the President——

Mr. PERRY. Sure. 

Mr. BRENNAN [continuing]. I think it is fair to say that he is 

looking to have Congress as a participant in this process. 

Mr. PERRY. Agreed. Can I stop you there, if I could? Ambassador, 

I agree with you that military force is not the only answer. You 

know, tediously, I am a student of Clausewitz. It is an extension 

of diplomacy. 

That having been said, what about and where is the proper place 

for the associated actors here, here in this country and abroad, that 

enable, that fund, that support through fighters and material how 

should they be dealt with in an AUMF and if not where? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. You mean the people who are supporting 

the ISIS movement? 

Mr. PERRY. The people that support the global jihadist movement. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. I think that the——

Mr. PERRY. And the organizations that have vowed publicly, that 

we let walk around among us, that we have in this building and 

down the street? What about them? Where do we deal with them 

if we are in this fight committed to winning and where is that in 

the strategy? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. It is in the strategy, as my colleague pointed out. It is actually a nine-track strategy which internationally is 

a five-track strategy. But it is actually—it includes all of that. 

The problem is some of this is political. Some of it is legal. For 

example, pursuing a lot of these people requires American laws and 

judicial action. 

Mr. PERRY. With all due respect, so we have a couple hundred 

maybe or more unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial. They are walking around among us here and if you 

say this is a strategy that includes going after these people and 

deal—and that American laws are stopping us, there is one person 

that is stopping us. 

It is the attorney general because he refuses to prosecute them. 

How do we feel—how do you explain to me that this is an authorization without a strategy—that strategy is an aspirational goal of 

60

defeating the enemy? That is it, because in reality we are not really 

going to do the hard things that need to be done. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. I think the Congressional Record of Declarations of War and things like Declarations of War including this 

one have not tried to expand into these very complicated ideological, legal and other things but rather authorize the use of military 

force as part of that strategy. You need an explanation of that 

strategy. 

You need an explanation of why those people have not been arrested and what we are doing about them as part of your analysis 

of our whole process here. But I wouldn’t stick it in the legislation. 

Mr. PERRY. Appreciate your thoughts. 

Chairman ROYCE. Lois Frankel of Florida. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the panel. 

And let me just start. There are many folks on this panel who 

served our country. I want to thank them and those of you who 

have. 

I come from a little different perspective because I have a son 

who I saw go to two wars. Sorry if I babble or get emotional. But 

I want to just say that I am lucky he came home safely. 

I cannot tell you how horrific it was for his family. I don’t even—

so when I went to—and I think of the families who lost their children, their loved ones—the morbidity of the thousands of soldiers 

who returned and then we have to say what for. 

So for me to make a decision of whether to send someone else’s 

child into harm’s way is, I think, the biggest decision or most important one that I will make in Congress. And I feel like we have 

been given this huge jigsaw puzzle where the pieces do not fit and 

my colleagues today have made a lot of—asked a lot of good questions, a lot of comments. 

I can’t repeat all of them but I have a number that I would ask 

you. You can just pick which ones you want to answer. I feel like 

we are in conflict all over the world and we have to have some 

strategy. 

What is the most important enemy to be focused on? We are trying to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Obviously, they 

are a player against ISIL. 

We are trying to weaken Russia. Obviously, they are a player 

with Assad. That is just two examples. You have identified that we 

have to go after al-Qaeda as well. How does the—what we—the 

past AUMFs affect that and repealing that? 

What about—is military action the only thing? I mean, how does 

humanitarian aid fit into this or educating women? I mean, is this 

the only way out and where does it leave us? 

Who fills the void if we get ISIL? I mean, I could ask a lot more 

questions. So start with those and go at it. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. While I criticized it earlier, the President’s 

national security strategy does talk about that and it does a pretty 

good job and, you know, while I am a doom and gloom buy because 

that is where I have been deployed for many years, I will have to 

say this is a much safer better world now than it was when I started in this business as an army lieutenant in 1969 and that is largely because of the United States, the executive branch, the congressional support and the American people and what we have done. 

61

So we—even though it is a jigsaw we don’t like working in this 

jigsaw any more than you do observing it. We wish we could give 

you a clean sensible way forward and we are painfully aware we 

are not. 

But that is how we have lived with and what we have seen in 

our lives—in my case, over almost 50 years now. We have seen a 

lot of progress and we have seen that smart use of military force 

with all of the other things you said combined, working with allies, 

actually does work. 

We usually don’t have the end game spelled out because we 

never know. We didn’t have it spelled out with communism. We 

thought that we would contain it, push it back, go against it and 

hope for the best and it worked out. 

That is about all I can tell you. But I am pretty optimistic in the 

long run. But I share your frustration at the jigsaw. 

Ms. RAND. I agree about the complexity, Congresswoman, and I 

think you raise a lot of good—I like the image of a jigsaw puzzle. 

I think that is apt. 

I would just offer that in this particular AUMF and that ISIS 

threat, in some ways there are three different theaters. I alluded 

to them before and it is helpful to me to think about them in terms 

of the partners and the objectives in Iraq, which differs significantly from Syria, which is much more complicated than Iraq in 

some ways—in many ways. 

And then, finally, the third, which is the global contestation of 

ideas where there is a marketplace of ideas and change and social 

movements and Twitter and all kinds of youth bulges all over the 

world, not just the Arab world, that are leading to some of the 

radicalization causes so that the tools of U.S. statecraft need to be 

refined and specific to each of these three domains where our partners will be different, where our foes will be different, where the 

patrons of other foes will be different, et cetera. 

Mr. BRENNAN. I would just add that it is a jigsaw puzzle. It is 

a very complex issue. But I think that that leads back to a piece 

I put in the paper, which is that we need to be thinking about how 

do you develop a grand strategy that moves us for the next 30 

years as we address this issue. 

I mean, we have the strategy of containment that came out of 

NSC–68 and the work of George Kennan and others. 

We need to be doing that same type of thinking about this current world that we are in, how do we—how do we carry this forward using all elements, not just the military. The military is just 

one piece of the pie. 

Chairman ROYCE. Okay. We go now to Mr. Reid Ribble of Wisconsin. 

Mr. RIBBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This has been really an insightful hearing and I thank all three 

of you for being here. 

I would like to start with Dr. Brennan. We have heard from 

some of our colleagues here today that almost an implicit idea that 

we should just leave this to the region. 

If we leave this fight to take care of ISIS to our regional partners 

and we just kind of step back out of it, one, what do you think 

62

would happen as a result of that strategy and would the U.S. 

homeland be put at risk implementing that strategy? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Thanks for the question, Congressman. I think 

that since President Carter the United States has taken on the responsibility being the guarantor of regional security in that part of 

the world and we have vital interests both with our partners as 

well as in Europe and our own economy that are at stake here. 

If we pull out it will create a huge power vacuum that will be 

filled by these very organizations that we wish to stop, so I think 

that would be the exact worst thing to do. 

And the perception, unfortunately, from withdrawal of U.S. 

forces in 2011 by many of our partners in the region is that we are 

disengaging from the region. 

We have to convince them that that is not true. Part of the way 

of doing that is by being more active in what we are doing in Iraq, 

showing that we are a commitment, the argument I made on putting troops on the ground, unless you put troops on the ground you 

aren’t showing commitment or resolve and I think if nothing else 

that is one of the big benefits we will get out of this. 

Mr. RIBBLE. Thank you. 

Ambassador Jeffrey, in your written testimony in the second 

paragraph you talked about the campaign with our coalition partners and its strategy and I am going to quote out of here: ‘‘Building 

up political capacity with our partners in Iraq and Syria’’ is one 

thing you wrote, and then you wrote, ‘‘Combatting the violent extremist ideology that fuels ISIS.’’

Could you give us some specific ways that our partners along 

with the United States are combatting the violent extremist ideology and also could you tell us how successful our political capacity efforts in Syria are? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. To start with the latter, they are not very 

successful. We don’t have a good argument for the Sunni Arabs 

who are fighting against the Assad regime and simultaneously 

against the ISIS people, and our long-term program just to train 

a few thousand people is not an answer. What is our long-term vision of Syria? 

We have a long-term vision for Iraq. I mean, I can spell it out. 

It is not too different than it has been since 2003 and it is sometimes 1⁄2, 1⁄3, 60 percent there. 

That is a unified Iraq with the three groups living in something 

approaching harmony and the people we are supporting in Iraq including Prime Minister Abadi, the Kurds, many of these Sunni 

tribes, many of the other Sunni politicians I know, are working together to some degree better than in the recent past, certainly, and 

they are all opposed to this kind of violent extreme perversion of 

religion that we see in ISIS and that we see in Qom and Iran and 

they are our allies. 

But they need a lot of support because if we did just walk away 

the bad guys win, as Dr. Brennan said. 

Mr. RIBBLE. Is there a specific strategy, though, that you can use 

to combat the extremist ideology or is this just kind of flowery language that ended up in a strategy statement because it sounds 

good? 

63

Ambassador JEFFREY. It is kind of like, only even more complicated, how did we—how did we respond to communism. There, 

that was different because it was an alternative vision of how we 

should live. 

This is how these people should live and what they should draw 

from their religion. The basic—the first thing is fight those people 

who are coming out after us and coming out after the moderates. 

Secondly, make it clear that this is not a war against Islam. We 

are not trying to take anybody’s territory. We want to live in peace 

with the 1.4 billion Muslims around the world and support people 

who understand and get that—support them politically, support it 

through our propaganda, by our words, support it through our economic assistance and our diplomacy, and I think that this will 

work. 

Mr. RIBBLE. Thank you. 

Dr. Rand, a question specifically for you. You seem fairly supportive of the President’s language in the AUMF. Why would it 

necessarily be bad for Congress to give broader authority than the 

President is even asking because he then would still have the ability to choose to restrain himself or not? Why is that a bad idea? 

Ms. RAND. The AUMF is filling a lot of roles and we have talked 

about a lot of them today. 

Mr. RIBBLE. Could you please move that closer to you so we can 

hear you? 

Ms. RAND. The AUMF is serving a lot of roles and we have 

talked about a lot of them today, policy and legal. We haven’t really 

hit on one of them, which is the legitimizing role it is playing and 

the message it is sending to our partners in this coalition and to 

the people in the region. 

So there—enter the American public, which, by the way, public 

opinion shows—public opinion polls show are majority opposed to 

more extensive use of ground forces in this fight. So I think it hits 

the right target. 

It balances between the need to send the message that we are 

not going to re-enter, re-engage the same kind of engagement boots 

on the ground that we have had for the past 10 years. It was deeply unpopular at home here in the United States and in the region. 

Mr. RIBBLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Gerry Connolly 

of Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the panel. 

By the way, Ambassador Jeffrey, where are you from originally? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Just north of Boston. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Where? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Saugus. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. I am from Boston. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Okay. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thought I heard something similar. All right. 

Dr. Brennan, I want to make sure I understood what you were 

saying about boots on the ground. Where and how many? 

Mr. BRENNAN. What I have suggested that we would be able to 

do is——

64

Mr. CONNOLLY. And, again, if you could pull the microphone closer. Thank you. 

Mr. BRENNAN. What I have suggested——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Perfect. 

Mr. BRENNAN [continuing]. Is that the commanders on the field 

be allowed to have the types of capabilities that they need. I 

think——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Which—I am sorry—which field are we talking 

about? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I am talking—we are talking about Iraq today. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. 

Mr. BRENNAN. And I believe what we need is to put—have a 

greater advise, train and assist role. We need to be able to put special operations forces down at the tactical level with our allied 

forces using A Teams and B Teams like they were meant to be 

used. 

We may need to put supporting elements that are out there. In 

my view, we are probably looking at a package of somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 troops. But, again, that is kind of a general 

range. 

But the bigger issue is that is today, based on today’s situations 

and conditions. As we get into the situation of having to take back 

Mosul, there might be a different need and different determination 

as necessary for that mission and I think the commanders need to 

be able to have the flexibility to come back and say this is what 

we need for success. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you so much. And just a 

real quick question for you and then I want to go to Dr. Jeffrey, 

and do you agree that an AUMF is in order, holding in abeyance 

what should be in it and what shouldn’t, but that the President is 

correct to seek one and we are correct to authorize one? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think it is very useful to go through this discussion and have this debate in terms of whether or not to deploy 

forces and if so how they should be utilized. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Ambassador Jeffrey, I heard you say, you know, we want to send 

the message to 1.4 billion Muslims around the world that we are 

on your side, this is, you know, not an adversarial relationship, 

there are some bad apples and let us all work together, Muslim 

and non-Muslim alike, to deal with the barbaric violence being perpetrated and the insanity being perpetrated by this group ISIS, 

and that certainly sounds good to an American audience. 

But aren’t we somewhat unwittingly the handmaidens of the creation of ISIS in that we so long supported the al-Maliki government that was perceived as absolutely hostile by the Sunni majority and in fact that hostility even today continues to fuel support 

even with the barbarity of ISIS and the violence of ISIS in the 

Sunni population because they are looking at what are my choices. 

They are not looking at the nuance of the violence. They are 

looking at where do I throw my lot—where is my future and the 

choice is a hostile Shi’a government that absolutely is seeking to 

exclude me, if not worse, versus at least a Sunni group that is 

fighting on my behalf, allegedly, however violent it may be. 

65

I am not justifying that but isn’t that really what is going on in 

terms of what is fueling ISIS? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. You are right, that is—that is how a lot 

of Sunnis think both about the Maliki government and about us. 

It is how the Muslim Brothers think about us in Egypt. 

It is how, ironically, much of the Egyptian military who threw 

them out think about us. That is the problem and it is centered in 

your phrase supporting them. 

We, and we means American Foreign Service Officers specifically 

as well as the administration and a lot of the pundits in the media, 

have given the impression that we actually make or break governments. 

We really have very little control over them in the Middle East. 

The Iraqi people overwhelmingly voted for either a Shi’a party, a 

Shi’a coalition that Maliki was basically the head of, or a Kurdish 

coalition that for its own reasons in the end wanted to form a coalition with that Shi’a coalition. 

That led to Maliki being in power. It was a democratic legally 

done thing. Although people argue about it, it is about as democratic and legal as anything gets in the Middle East. 

The question is were we going to withdraw our support, overthrow it? How were we going to do that? I didn’t have an answer 

and I was there. I tried as long as I could to find alternative candidates to—I was, to the extent I could, getting involved in the internal machinations of that society because we all saw problems 

with Maliki. 

But we have Malikis all over the Middle East that we have to 

do business with because there are even worse people out there. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, and just to end on the note, you make a 

very good point. There is this assumption in large chunks of the 

world that we are somehow omnipotent and we most certainly are 

not. 

Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go to Mr. Lee Zeldin of New York. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I believe personally that it is good that the President has brought 

an authorization for the use of force against ISIS. My litmus test 

is going to be very simple—are we doing absolutely everything in 

our power to ensure that we win. I have some questions and concerns. 

The President, in his original strategy back in September when 

he gave a speech, he was talking about dropping bombs and a reliance on Iraqi military and law enforcement to finish the job. 

When I was in Iraq in 2006, it was an accomplishment to get 

them to show up to work. Expecting no threat that day, to get them 

to show up to a precinct that is a quarter mile from their house 

we were trying to get them to show up. 

So relying on elements on the ground who have no morale, no patriotism, they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the training, they don’t have the will is something that we have to take into 

account. 

In that speech, the President said this was going to be different 

than past wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because there will be no 

66

boots on the ground, and in the same exact speech he says, tonight 

I am announcing I am sending 495 additional troops to Iraq. 

Someone shows me a picture of their grandson in the Air Force. 

He is in Baghdad. He is wearing the uniform. He is carrying a 

rifle. He is wearing boots. Those boots are on the ground. 

The use of this term ‘‘boots on the ground’’ here in Washington—

the reality is is that we have boots on the ground right now and 

I think that we need to not worry about what polls say what wording sounds the best. 

We also have to understand that we have some of the greatest 

special operation forces in the entire world. We have the best special operation forces in the entire world—Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALS, Marines, Delta Force. 

When we talk about boots on the ground we are not talking 

about an enduring occupation. No one is talking about that. I don’t 

support that. 

But I will tell you what I do want—for a member of ISIS to sleep 

with one eye open because they fear an Army Ranger may be visiting their house or their fellow terrorist’s house to put a round of 

lead between their eyes. We have to cut off logistics, command and 

control. 

We have to find their funding streams and figure out how to cut 

them out. We need to increase our intelligence gathering abilities. 

These are all critically important. American exceptionalism isn’t 

about strategic patience right now. American exceptionalism is 

about instilling fear in an element that does not respect weakness. 

They only respect strength. 

Understanding that if we wait 5 years what we are going to be 

up against is going to be 100 times greater than what it is right 

now. I want to support the President’s use of force. 

I also want to do my due diligence. I want to know how many 

troops, which troops, what are their missions, who is in charge. Are 

they going to be given the flexibility and resources that are necessary to accomplish the task? 

The President talks about necessary and appropriate in his resolution. What, to him, is necessary and appropriate? I’m going to 

read a letter that I just received, with my remaining time. I received this letter from someone who is watching. So there are people at home who watch these hearings. 

He says,

‘‘Lee, as a parent of a lieutenant in the Marines I have no 

doubt that if deployed he will do his duty with valor and distinction. However, unless, one, the President can specifically 

articulate our goals, two, the President explains the strategy 

specifically designed to achieve those goals and those goals include the utter destruction of ISIS wherever they function, and 

three, our troops are given whatever they need for however 

they long—however long they need it without limitation both 

as to weapons and tactics, I request that you vote against the 

authorization. 

‘‘The document as drafted appears to me to be an attempt to 

codify a failed strategy of limiting our ability to prevail. It is 

a political document which allows the President to say he cannot do more because Congress will not let him. 

67

‘‘He knows his strategy is failing and he needs someone else 

to blame. I will be damned if my son is going to be asked to 

risk his life for a failed strategy simply to allow the President 

to avoid the consequences of his incompetence. War is an all 

or nothing thing. 

‘‘Either authorize the full force, political, military and economic of the United States or do not send our troops in harm’s 

way. We must fight to win or not fight at all.’’

Our military has been outstretched. Lives have been lost. Limbs 

have been lost. Missed birthdays, missed anniversaries, missed 

holidays. We are not looking for conflict but conflict has found us 

and it is time for us to defeat ISIS. 

We can’t half ass it. We need to go all out and get the job done 

or not send our troops at all into harm’s way. I yield back my time. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Ms. Grace Meng of New York. 

Ms. MENG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Ranking Member Engel, and for all of our honorable 

witnesses for being here today. 

I sort of want to piggy back off of what Mr. Ribble had previously 

asked about what coalition members should be prepared to do to 

continue delegitimizing ISIS’ ideology. For example, a recent report 

indicated that around 4,000 foreign fighters have joined ISIS since 

the air strikes began. 

Are there specific strategies that coalition members should be 

employing to further prevent the flow of foreign fighters into Syria 

and Iraq? And part two of that question is often talked about. ISIS 

calls themselves an Islamic state. 

What name might you suggest we in America and around the 

world and in the media use to describe this barbaric group so as 

not to confer any undue sense of legitimacy? And anyone can——

Ms. RAND. Those are excellent questions, Congresswoman, and I 

would just add that I will defer the second one to my colleagues 

but the first one it is very interesting the types of political capital 

that is needed to be invested by leaders in the Arab Muslim world 

to fight—to counter radicalization, counter ideology. 

Some of the examples I mentioned earlier were the leaders in 

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have helped their clerics issue fatwas condemning ISIS’ violence, which is unprecedented. 

There is also the importance of social media and the United 

States Government is not the only government that has the technical capacity to sort of tweet against ISIS. In fact, this is one sort 

of less reported part of the technical capacity building that is being 

done is we are helping our coalition governments build these antisocial media Web sites, et cetera. 

It is a small thing but it is an important thing, given the percentage of the youth who are being radicalized in many of these societies. On the foreign fighters, my understanding is that the foreign fighters flowing into Syria and Iraq has been slowed in the 

past 3 or 4 months based on a couple of factors. 

One is Turkey. We have increased our diplomacy or the coalition 

has increased its diplomacy in technical capacity building efforts 

with Turkey, and Turkey has improved its border security processes. So there is a lot of this that is technical that you need to 

do with partners. 

68

It is better if it is done in a coalition so it is not just the United 

States telling people how to do better border security, how to fight 

foreign fighters. 

And finally, I will just mention the U.N. Security Council resolution that the President introduced in September that was basically 

condemning and urging all member states to stop the flow of foreign fighters. 

Mr. BRENNAN. Let me just go back to your question on the name. 

I think we should join our friends—our Arab friends in the region and start calling them Daesh. They are not the Islamic state. 

They do not represent Islam. 

They are an offshoot of that religion but they do not represent 

it and I think that we should—that would be a good way for us 

both in government and academia and others to try and show solidarity with our Arab allies. 

But defeating the ideology goes back to talking—working with 

those leaders in those countries, helping them, supporting them, 

giving them the type of support that they need in the case of Iraq, 

and Iraq has a lot of problems and I am not certain where it is 

going to go. 

Half the time I think it is going to survive and the other half I 

think it is going to fracture. But the reality is that we have invested $1 trillion and 1 million man years of labor and that there 

is a possibility that this may be saved, and I think if that is the 

case that we should continue to work on it and while—let me just 

go—take us just a little bit off for a second. 

We missed a great opportunity in 2006 when the Maliki government needed us the most and didn’t—and we did not push for reconciliation. I think at this point in time when the Iraqi Government needs us that a part of strategy has got to be and our support 

for them has got to be honest to goodness reconciliation that is not 

going to walk away from them as soon as the problem is over. 

Ms. MENG. Thank you. And I will try to ask my last question 

fast. 

Secretary Kerry previously testified that the U.S. would be resupplying the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga going through Baghdad as 

so not to undermine the central government. 

Has this arrangement prevented the Kurdish peshmerga from 

getting what they need to effectively fight ISIS and how would the 

central government in Baghdad view an effort to provide military 

equipment directly to the Kurds? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. It did prevent the transfer of equipment 

when I was Ambassador. I don’t have the statistics now but the 

Kurds certainly believe that it has. 

They cite, as we heard earlier, only 25 of hundreds of MRAP armored vehicles that have been provided to them and while there 

are some pretty good reasons why we are careful in what we give 

them the point is they are fighting. 

They are the allies of Baghdad and a lot of these weapon systems 

are no threat to Baghdad but they are a threat to ISIS and they 

should be flowing. 

Chairman ROYCE. We will go now to Mr. Tom Emmer of Minnesota. 

69

Mr. EMMER. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will try to be brief. I 

apologize for going back and forth. There seem to be a whole bunch 

of things going on at the same time, and I don’t want to cover old 

ground but I am afraid I might touch a little bit. 

My understanding, first, we are here because the President has 

requested renewed authorization for military force and it seems everything that I have read and everything that I have been listening 

to including your testimony everybody agrees that ISIL must be defeated. 

There seems to be absolutely no disagreement. I heard today and 

I think this is for you, Dr. Brennan, if you would, and the others 

can certainly expand on it, you must first start by stopping the 

military manifestations and we have had reference to you have got 

to cut off the revenue sources, you have got to—I just wrote another one down listening to the testimony—we have got the ability 

to interrupt or interfere with Internet, social media, the like. 

I would love to know to the extent this new authorization of military force, is that something that the administration is planning on 

doing on every level and how are we going to know what the strategy is? 

Because I will tell you, I agree with my colleague, Mr. Zeldin 

from New York. I would offer that the executive should have all the 

authority that he needs to make sure that whatever the situation 

is, as fluid as it may be, you can deploy whatever resources are 

necessary to take the action that is necessary to win, not just hold 

something at bay, because—and I guess I will add this for the Ambassador. 

I thought I heard you say earlier that we have never ventured 

into—that our country has never ventured into combating such a 

complex ideology, and all that came to mind was fascism and Marxism, and I would just ask you to help me with that because you 

have got that background. So, Dr. Brennan, could you fill us in? 

What needs to be done? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think the first thing that we need to do, and I 

think the President is doing this correct, is this is an Iraq first 

issue. How do you defeat ISIL—ISIS in Iraq? Do you go after their 

finances to the extent we can? 

Much more complex than it was when we were there earlier because they now have $2 billion and they have their own revenue 

stream. But you use the Internet, the social media. You attack the 

ideology——

Mr. EMMER. Continue the air strikes? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Enhance air strikes. I think we need to do much 

more in the way that we have been doing and but that will require, 

again, back to my point, you got to put boots on the ground, our 

forces with those forward leaning elements, not necessarily do the 

direct fighting but to be able to reach back and pull the resources 

of the U.S. Government. 

I mean, one of the things on the AUMF that said the President 

was going to use our unique capabilities and I read that as being 

air enabled, and I got to tell you that U.S. ground forces capabilities, whether it be special forces, conventional forces or Army or 

Marine, are unique because it is not that one individual that you 

put out there. 

70

It is that joint capacity that you bring to the battlefield, and that 

if we are going to make certain that our allies are going to be successful we got to be out there with them. 

Mr. EMMER. So my question then, Dr. Brennan, because we are 

so limited on time, is if Congress is going to authorize the additional military force that the executive is asking for, why wouldn’t 

Congress authorize the executive to take whatever action with 

whatever unique resources are available because this is such an 

immediate and dangerous threat not just to this country but the 

entire globe? 

Why wouldn’t the authorization be that broad? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I, personally, think it probably should be that 

broad. Again, the President can restrict what he chooses to do but 

I think this AUMF is going to continue beyond this presidency and 

I think that what we shouldn’t do is limit the next President based 

upon what this President may not want to do. 

Mr. EMMER. Last question. And Mr. Ambassador, I am sorry if 

I am getting pinched. But that is what I would expect is the answer. Just common sense would tell me, not necessarily the experience, because I don’t have yours. 

But the only limitation—I am going to ask you if this is accurate 

or if you would disagree with this—the only limitation if there was 

one should be in the amount of time so that it has to come back 

to Congress for reauthorization and a discussion of what the strategy has been, where it has been. I mean, would that be the 

only——

Mr. BRENNAN. I think that would be perfectly acceptable to put 

a period of time. 

Mr. EMMER. How long? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I would go beyond the 3 years, maybe 4 years so 

the next President has some time to look at it, to revise the strategy and make the changes he needs before it comes to you. 

Mr. EMMER. Thank you, and I—my time has expired. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Alan Grayson of Florida. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Thank you. 

Section 2(c) of the President’s draft authorization for the use of 

military force reads as follows:

‘‘The authority granted in subsection A does not authorize 

the use of U.S. armed forces in enduring offensive ground combat operations.’’

Ambassador Jeffrey, what does enduring mean? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. My answer would be a somewhat sarcastic 

one—whatever the executive at the time defines enduring as, and 

I have a real problem with that. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Dr. Brennan? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I have real problems with that also, not only because it is—I don’t know what it means. I could just see the lawyers fighting over the meaning of this. 

But more importantly, if you are looking at committing forces for 

something that you say is either vital or an important interest of 

the United States and you get in the middle of a battle and all of 

a sudden are you on offense or are you on defense, what happens 

if neighbors cause problems? Wars never end the way that they 

71

were envisioned and so I think that would be a terrible mistake to 

put it in the AUMF. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Dr. Rand? 

Ms. RAND. Enduring, in my mind, specifies an open endedness. 

It specifies lack of clarity on the particular objective at hand. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Dr. Rand, is 2 weeks enduring? 

Ms. RAND. I will leave that to the lawyers to determine exactly. 

Mr. GRAYSON. So your answer is you don’t know, right? How 

about 2 months? 

Ms. RAND. It would—again, I think it would depend on the particular objective. Enduring, in my mind, is not having a particular 

military objective in mind. 

Mr. GRAYSON. So you don’t really know what it means. Is that 

a fair statement? 

Ms. RAND. Enduring, in my mind, means open ended. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. Section 5 of the draft authorization of 

the use of military force reads as follows:

‘‘In this joint resolution the term associated persons or forces 

means individuals and organizations fighting for, on behalf of 

or alongside ISIL or any closely related successor ending hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.’’

Ambassador Jeffrey, what does alongside ISIL mean? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. I didn’t draft this thing but——

Mr. GRAYSON. Nor did I. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Nor did you, but I would have put that in 

there if I had been drafting it and the reason is I think they went 

back to 2001. 

Of course, this is the authorization we are still using along with 

the 2002 one for this campaign, and these things morph. For example, we have had a debate over whether ISIS is really a element 

of al-Qaeda. 

It certainly was when I knew it as al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2010 to 

2012, and these semantic arguments confuse us and confuse our 

people on the ground in trying to deal with these folks. You will 

know it when you see it if it is an ISIS or it is an ally of ISIS. 

Mr. GRAYSON. How about the Free Syrian Army? Are they fighting alongside ISIL in Syria? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. No, they are not fighting alongside ISIL. 

In fact, often they are fighting against ISIL and ISIL against them 

in particular. 

Mr. GRAYSON. What about Assad? Is he fighting for or against? 

It is kind of hard to tell that scorecard, isn’t it? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. It sure is. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Yes. What about you, Dr. Brennan? Can you tell 

me what alongside ISIL means? 

Mr. BRENNAN. No, I really couldn’t, and I think that what—you 

know, it might be—the 9–11 Commission uses the phrase radical 

Islamist organizations and I think maybe if we went to wording 

like that it includes all of those 52 groups that adhere to this type 

of ideology that threaten the United States. 

But we are putting ourselves in boxes and, as you said, Congressman, I am trying to understand that means, what the limits 

are, who we are dealing with. It is very confusing. 

72

Mr. GRAYSON. Dr. Rand? 

Ms. RAND. Well, first of all, I believe that the confusion is probably a function of the fact that this is an unclassified document so 

it is not going to specify exactly which group or consider associates. 

That would be for a classified setting. But, second, as I said in 

the testimony, the nature of the alliances within ISIL are changing 

and are fluid and those who are targeting—the military experts 

know exactly who is a derivative or an associate or an ally of ISIS 

at any given moment. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Why are you so confident of that? It seems to me 

it is a matter of terminology, not a matter of ascertainable fact. 

Ms. RAND. Based on my public service. I have seen some of the 

lawyers and some of the methodologies and——

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. Here is the $64-billion question for you, 

Ambassador Jeffrey, and then if we have time, for you others. If 

you can’t tell us—you three experts can’t tell us what these words 

mean, what does that tell us? Ambassador Jeffrey. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. That it is very difficult to be using a tool 

basically designed to declare war or something like war on a nation 

state which has a fixed definition against a group that morphs, 

that changes its name, that has allies and other things. 

Do we not fight it? We have to fight it. Are we having a hard 

time defining it? You bet. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Dr. Brennan? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I would agree with the Ambassador. I think the 

issue that we need to be looking at is trying to broaden terminology 

and understand that it is the tenets or organizations and groups 

that adhere to this ideology and make it broad enough that if one 

pops up in a different country that is doing the same thing that 

is a sister of this organization the President has the authority to 

act. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Dr. Brennan, I think you just described a blank 

check, which I am not willing to give to the President or anybody 

else. But thank you for your time. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Ron DeSantis of Florida. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

When the President addressed this issue in September, the 

White House said that he had authority to act based on the 2001 

and 2002 AUMF, and so the media is reporting that he is asking 

Congress for authority. 

But by their own view, he is asking Congress to restrict and limit 

the authority both by whatever—and I agree these are—these 

terms are nebulous but having some prohibition on the use of 

ground forces and having a time limit and I agree with the witnesses, I don’t think that that is an effective way to fight an 

enemy. 

I think you need to determine the enemy, determine the strategy 

and then bring all force to bear or be willing to do that and, obviously, the commander in chief needs to make these decisions. 

But so I am trying to figure out what is motivating this and I 

think it is because if you look at the way things are going, if you 

look at the strategy that is in place or lack of strategy, this is not 

going to succeed and I think everybody understands that. 

73

And so I think the President is looking to get Congress as imprimatur on his strategy so that he can then point the finger at us 

and say well, these guys limited me—I am just, you know, we all 

thought this was a good idea and right now he is kind of out there. 

Congress is urging him to do different, and he gave an interview 

this week where he said look, you know, terrorism—the news 

makes a big deal about it—it is just something like a big city 

mayor—you know, you got to deal with criminals and such. 

So I am thinking, like, Guiliani when he used to get these guys 

with the squeegees who would do that, I am, like, is that really 

how you are seeing it. So I am skeptical of the motivation for doing 

this now. 

Let me ask you this, Dr. Brennan, because I think that this kind 

of informs where we are going. Is the problem a group of violent 

extremists who happen to be—go by the name of ISIS or whatever 

you want to call them, or is this a global jihad that presents national security implications and threatens our national security and 

our allies, not just in this part of Syria or that part of Iraq but 

really in countries across the globe? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think it is useful to look at this as not as a terrorist organization. It is a global phenomenon that we are seeing 

and I think you can also look at it as a global insurgency where 

you have sister organizations sprouting up all over the world fighting in support of the same type of ideology even though they may 

not have direct linkage or direct command and control. 

Again, and I may use loosely the analogy of the 20th century 

when we had Marxist revolutions all over the world, many of them 

didn’t like each other, didn’t work with each other but they supported each other in different ways and I think that is the way of 

looking at it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Dr. Rand mentioned, I think, accurately that a lot 

of these Sunni tribesman in Iraq, certainly, when I was serving 

there, they are really not jihadists. They are Sunni Arabs and if 

they think that back then AQI was better than the deal they get 

with the central government then they were out to do that and if 

they think it is a Shi’ite government then that is going to push 

them further. 

So I guess my question is is if you look at the administration’s 

policy there is a clear attempt to have a major rapprochement with 

Iran. If you look at Yemen now it could potentially be an Iranian 

client state. 

The Assad—I know we have been through different machinations 

there but I think the administration is content to leave Assad 

there. And so if you are just the average Sunni Arab wanting to 

figure out should you kind of work with the Americans and whatever forces that we may be supporting or should you work with 

some of the Sunni jihadist groups, if they see us as a facilitating 

Shi’ite domination of the region isn’t that going to push some of 

these Sunni Arabs who are not necessarily jihadists into the arms 

of the more radical Sunni groups? Ambassador? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Absolutely, which is why we can’t pick a 

side in the Sunni-Shi’a struggle any more than we can pick a side 

in the Christian-Muslim struggle in the Balkans. 

74

We have to have a set of values and friends who accept them and 

go after everybody who is violating them, whether they are coming 

out of Mosul or they are coming out of Tehran or they are coming 

out of Damascus. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So if you have, for example, ISIS fighters threatening the outer Baghdad belts and you have Shi’ite militia groups, 

which we have considered to be terrorists when we were in Iraq 

and that are supported by Iran’s Quds Force, some have said well, 

there is kind of an alliance with the U.S.—you know, we were supporting some of the anti-ISIS forces in other parts of Iraq and we 

were essentially relying on the Iranian-backed forces to keep ISIS 

out of Baghdad, is that a sustainable strategy? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. In the long run, no. But there is a saying, 

you slay the wolf closest to the sled. Right now, when ISIS is moving forward we should be working with anybody that can stop 

them. But they have really not moved forward anymore. Now we 

got to figure out how to go get them and that is not——

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Ted Deutch, the ranking member of the 

Middle East Subcommittee. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the witnesses 

for your willingness to come and stay through all these questions. 

I would like to associate myself with many of my colleagues’ comments on the tragic death of Kayla Mueller. I would also like to 

thank the chair and ranking member for working to ensure the 

committee has a strong voice in this AUMF process. 

I welcome the President’s request for an authorization for the use 

of military force against ISIL. We deserve to have a real and robust 

debate in Congress over the use of our military in order to ensure 

that our mission is clear and to ensure that past mistakes are not 

repeated. 

I would like to follow up actually the last two members, both of 

my Florida colleagues had said, and I want to start by asking Ambassador Jeffrey in this discussion about whether ground troops 

are needed to combat ISIS. 

We talk a lot about—the President has spoken a lot about letting 

our partners in the region take the lead. The question is what 

would be the impact of having Jordanian or Emirati troops on the 

ground. 

What would the United States’ role be in getting back to the 

back and forth that all of you had a little while ago? How would—

would our role serving aside those troops in a—in something less 

than an enduring or could our role be described as anything less 

than an enduring end offensive role? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. I think that—again, I didn’t draft this 

thing but the drafters probably wanted to link enduring and offensive because we have an enduring presence in the Middle East. We 

have had combat troops in Kuwait for over a decade since I was 

there in the mid-90s. So it isn’t a question of enduring. 

It gets to could we use Jordanian troops. Absolutely, but there 

are lots of political problems and, frankly, we have never seen Arab 

troops on the offensive in any of our earlier wars, not in Iraq and 

not 2003 with a few exceptions, not in Afghanistan and not in Kuwait. 

75

There are huge taboos about that in the Arab world. Some of 

them might be broken with some countries. My——

Mr. DEUTCH. Well, do you think—I am sorry. Do you think they 

have been? Do you think in light of recent events we wouldn’t face 

those same political hurdles? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. If I were advising the President I would 

say be very careful about that because the main value of these allies is their political support which plays well here and what they 

are doing in their own societies to deal with this violent Islamic 

manifestation. 

If they start taking a lot of casualties in ground combat against 

ISIS, and they will—look at the Kurds, 500 or 600 killed—that is 

going to be very hard for them to sustain in their publics. 

Again, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, these are countries that are very weak states. They have lots of problems internally. 

Mr. DEUTCH. All right. So do you think, and I—Dr. Brennan and 

Dr. Rand—do you think, given the concerns Ambassador Jeffrey 

just laid out it is realistic to believe that a ground war could be 

fought by those troops without U.S. troops? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I think U.S. troops have got to be there, and with 

the peshmerga we need to be—get out up front but even with the 

Iraqi military. As we start pushing into Anbar Province and especially as we start moving into some of the key cities and most importantly Mosul, it will be critically important to have our troops 

with them. 

Exactly what that composition of troops is I think it depends on 

the situation at the time and the commander’s analysis. But I 

think that if Congress is going to look at this and believe that this 

is something worth fighting for, then we need to give the commanders on the ground some flexibility. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Doctor, and let me ask you something else, because 

I only have 1 minute left. This AUMF only deals with the 2002 

AUMF. It doesn’t touch the 2001 AUMF. 

So the real question that I think a lot of us have is, as Congressman DeSantis said earlier, if the argument is that everything we 

are doing now we can pursue pursuant to the 2001 AUMF, then 

should we assume that whatever the limitations are that ultimately might be included in this AUMF, however broad those limitations are, that ultimately we could wind up doing anything we 

want pursuant to the existing 2001 AUMF anyway? 

Ms. RAND. No, I don’t believe that is the intention. I believe the 

intention is to make——

Mr. DEUTCH. No, no, no. I understand—I am not talking about 

the intention. I am asking whether you could still rely upon the 

2001 AUMF to conduct whatever operations regardless of what is 

contained in here. 

Ms. RAND. ISIS is a different threat than al-Qaeda. The 2001 

AUMF——

Mr. DEUTCH. I—so you think no. Ambassador Jeffrey, you think 

yes? 

Ambassador JEFFREY. Of course. The President has done everything he has done up to now, 2,000 air strikes drawing on that, and 

76

it is a very broad thing. I actually like it but I am having to give 

you an honest answer and, yeah, that is a problem. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Okay. We go now to Mr. Ted Yoho of Florida. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, ma’am, I appreciate you all being here. 

Dr. Brennan, you said since the Carter presidency the U.S. have 

been the guarantors of peace in the region, and I look at Israel and 

Palestine, Syria with 220,000 dead plus, and we know the situation 

in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon. Jordan is a bright 

spot and let us not forget Iran. How do you assess we have done 

since the Carter administration? 

Mr. BRENNAN. Well, I think our success rate has not been high. 

Mr. YOHO. Okay. And I heard our President the other day say 

that if a failed policy like Cuba has not worked after 50 years it 

has to change. 

I agree with that statement. I am not going to go into the Cuba 

debacle right now. Our whole process in the Middle East has to 

change because where do the ISIS come from? Dr. Brennan, you go 

ahead. 

Mr. BRENNAN. Originally, it came from al-Qaeda in Iraq, then 

morphed into ISI, then later into ISIS. 

Mr. YOHO. And then if we go back to what the President is saying here, that we are going to degrade and defeat ISIS, I remember 

those statements in the Iraq War, Mission Accomplished. But we 

weren’t done. 

I remember this President saying al-Qaeda is on the run, they 

are the JV team, they are gone. And the question I have for all 

three of you is what is the definitive definition of defeat of ISIL. 

Because ISIL is an ideology. 

We are not fighting a nation state. It is like fighting a tumor 

that metastasizes and we are going after the metastasis—we are 

not going at the root cause. 

So I would like to hear a definition of defeat, a definitive one, 

and then I would like to hear what your root cause is of why there 

is an ISIS, why there was an al-Qaeda, and I have got one other 

question after that. Ambassador, if you would go first. 

Ambassador JEFFREY. It is a good point and it is the major flaw 

of this draft. The draft doesn’t tell. You give this back to the President and it doesn’t authorize the President to do anything more 

than using armed forces against ISIL. 

It doesn’t say defeat, although that is one of the things that he 

says is his goal or working to defeat in the Whereas. So there is 

no goal. One of the reasons we have all been debating about how 

long this thing should be or whether—what kind of troops and 

what enduring the hell means is that there is no goal. 

My goal is to defeat ISIS, is to destroy its hold on Tehran and 

Iraq and Syria. That is what should be in this thing. That is a military mission. We can do it, if possible, with our allies. 

Potentially, we will have to use our own forces. If that is a vital 

mission that is what the President should be tasked to do by you. 

Mr. YOHO. I think you are absolutely right, and if we don’t define 

what ISIL is as a radical Islamic jihadist group you can’t—you 

can’t defeat it. 

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It is like let us build a house and I give you a bunch of two by 

fours and the material and you are, like, well, what is the plan—

I don’t know, just build a house, and that is what I see here. I 

know that is a simple analogy or a bad analogy but I see us wanting to commit but not really wanting to commit. 

It is like you are not playing to win—you are playing not to lose. 

And it is just if we are not going to go in there with a very specific 

strategy this is a bad idea. Dr. Brennan, what is your opinion? 

Mr. BRENNAN. I agree with that and I think that what you need 

to do to defeat Iraq and Syria or ISIS is to understand that we are 

putting, at some level an artificial distinction, at the border between Iraq and Syria. 

We have to look at the entire organization. I agree Iraq first, but 

we need to be thinking about how do we attack this entire organization and make certain that it no longer controls territory. And 

the Ambassador is exactly right, that is a military objective. 

But it means that we have to be able to move into Syria also. 

Mr. YOHO. Which is attacking a sovereign state. It may be a 

failed state but we are attacking that and that just opens up a 

whole another can of worms. 

Mr. BRENNAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. YOHO. Dr. Rand, go ahead and weigh in on that. 

Ms. RAND. I would just disagree with my colleagues in the sense 

that I——

Mr. YOHO. Did you say disagree? 

Ms. RAND. I would disagree in the sense that I think the strategy—there is, again, preliminary evidence that it is working. This 

is what the military advisors to the President are recommending 

as a way to defeat the enemy, right. 

So this combination of limited U.S. force with air strikes paired 

with the coalition partners on the ground has killed 7,000 ISIS 

fighters out of an organization that——

Mr. YOHO. How many have grown out of that, though? Every 

time you kill one you get 10 or 20 more that join the cause. So are 

we winning? 

Ms. RAND. And has helped the Iraqi forces—the partners—the 

Kurds and the Iraqi security forces retake key strategic areas. So 

in my mind, the strategy should be assessed based on how well it 

is working and so far in 5 months I think there is limited and preliminary but significant evidence that this combination of limited 

U.S. force and partners is working. 

Mr. YOHO. I appreciate your time. I am out of time. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. I thank the member from Florida. 

Well, we appreciate the time of all of our witnesses here today 

and this was a start of a very important conversation. 

So I think as we deal with this—deal with this growing threat 

from ISIS and as we deal with the President’s request we thank 

you again. 

We are going to be submitting some additional questions to our 

panel. I appreciate your response, and we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:01 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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