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98–887 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–78] 

OUTSIDE VIEWS ON THE U.S. STRATEGY 

FOR IRAQ AND SYRIA AND THE 

EVOLUTION OF ISLAMIC EXTREMISM 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JANUARY 12, 2016 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

ALEX GALLO, Professional Staff Member 

WILLIAM S. JOHNSON, Counsel 

BRITTON BURKETT, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Sanchez, Hon. Loretta, a Representative from California, Committee on 

Armed Services ..................................................................................................... 1 

Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Chairman, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Ford, Robert S., Former Ambassador to Syria ...................................................... 8 

Morell, Michael J., Former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency 3 

Vickers, Michael G., Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence ......... 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Ford, Robert S. .................................................................................................. 67 

Morell, Michael J. ............................................................................................. 51 

Vickers, Michael G. .......................................................................................... 59 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no answers provided to Questions submitted during the 

hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Franks ........................................................................................................ 79 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 79 

(1) 

OUTSIDE VIEWS ON THE U.S. STRATEGY FOR IRAQ AND 

SYRIA AND THE EVOLUTION OF ISLAMIC EXTREMISM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC, Tuesday, January 12, 2016. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ 

Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. 

The committee is very pleased today to welcome three distinguished public servants to help offer us some insights on ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and the general direction of radical 

Islamist terrorism. Each of these gentlemen have served not only 

in the Obama administration but in previous administrations in a 

variety of agencies, and I am certainly very grateful that they 

would be willing to come today to help share their insights on this 

threat that we face, on what we can and should do about it, and 

the direction that this ideology, this threat that we have dealt with, 

especially since 9/11, should be. 

Certainly we know that there is some success in reclaiming 

towns in Iraq, but at the same time ISIS seems to spread and 

deepen its hold in sections of Libya all the way across to Afghanistan. So this broader direction is something that I think we need 

to understand and try to get our arms around. 

In addition, this threat extends to us here at home, as we have 

seen in recent days and weeks. We are not exempt from its reach. 

So we need the expertise that these gentlemen can provide and the 

guidance that they can provide us in carrying out our responsibilities, and we are glad to have them today. 

Mr. Smith is not here today, so I would yield to the gentlelady 

from California, Ms. Sanchez, for any comments she would like to 

make. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LORETTA SANCHEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CALIFORNIA, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. I will read a few of these comments, 

Mr. Chairman, only because Mr. Smith wanted to make sure 

that—I want to make sure that we provide some of his voice while 

he is gone. 
2 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being before us today, and I welcome 

you. And I hope that you can in fact shed light on what is a very 

complicated situation. 

No longer is this just about whether we send in ground troops 

to counter ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] or not. We 

see ISIL’s influence permeating into so many different countries, 

permeating through the Internet, in the dark spaces of the Internet 

that none of us really can understand. We see it in the violence 

that we have in Europe, in the Middle East. And, of course, we saw 

its influence in my home State, just 20 miles away from where I 

live, in San Bernardino. 

So the influence of ISIL is spreading; I think we have to get our 

heads around that. And we also see other extremist groups that are 

beginning to align or coordinate with ISIL from North Africa, and 

this is a problem. 

So, in general, I would say that the international community, the 

U.S., the Democrats, Republicans, we are trying to really grapple 

with how we define, how we handle, what is the best way in which 

we defeat this evolving situation of ISIL and aligned groups. 

And although we have seen progress on ISIL—for example, Iraq’s 

reclaiming of Ramadi—the situation appears to be growing even 

more complex, and I am worried that it may get even more difficult 

given the situation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, for example. 

I am also concerned—I think we need a clearer strategy. And I 

don’t know that that strategy is one we want to make public, Mr. 

Chairman, because I am always one of those people that says, if 

you are going to battle someone, you want the upper hand, but I 

think we, as the representatives of the people, need to understand 

what the strategy is. Because if we can understand how we go 

about this, then we can agree, as Democrats and Republicans, as 

Americans really, to put in the resources that are required to get 

the job done. 

As I have stated before, defeating ISIL will require a broad commitment that will take many years to take the effect that we want. 

But we cannot allow ourselves to be pulled into the same types of 

mistakes that we saw in the Iraq war. ISIL is out to get us, and 

we need to understand that. It is not just about over there; it has 

now come here. So we have to figure out how to expose the dark 

and the hopeless nature of ISIL’s vicious and morally bankrupt 

agenda, and we have to do everything to delegitimize ISIL’s twisted 

and lurid appeal. 

And it is beyond my comprehension—let me end with this, Mr. 

Chairman—beyond my comprehension how, in today’s world, we 

can have such a massive humanitarian crisis occurring in Syria 

and where we could have 40,000 civilians in the city of Madaya 

starving to death as a result of ISIL and Assad and the confluence 

of what is happening there. 

So I am interested in your views today, trying to find some answers, trying to find that nugget of what is a real strategy that we 

and our allies—because it will take more than just the U.S. to resolve this issue. 

I yield back, and I look forward to your testimony, gentlemen. 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee is pleased to welcome with us 

today Mr. Mike Morell, former Acting Director of the Central Intel-
3 

ligence Agency; Dr. Michael Vickers, former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Mr. Robert Ford, former Ambassador to 

Syria. 

Committee members have their complete background information. Those were only the last jobs of these guys. 

Again, thank you all for being here. Without objection, your complete written statement will be made part of the record, and we 

would like to hear any oral comments that you would like to make 

at this time. 

Mr. Morell. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. MORELL, FORMER ACTING 

DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

Mr. MORELL. Thank you. 

Chairman Thornberry, Congresswoman Sanchez, members of the 

committee, good morning, and thank you for the invitation to be 

here today to talk about an extremely important national security 

challenge facing our Nation. 

It is an honor to be here. Indeed, I am humbled that you have 

asked me here to hear my thoughts. And it is good to see so many 

old friends, both on the committee and here at the table with me. 

I plan on keeping my opening remarks short. Over the years, I 

have come to understand that questions and answers are a much 

more effective way to get to understanding than hearing somebody 

read a long testimony. 

Let me start with the bottom line: I believe ISIS poses a significant strategic and lethal threat to the United States of America. 

That is a very strong statement. Let me walk you through why I 

believe that. 

The nature and the significance of the threat posed by ISIS flows 

from the fact that ISIS is at the same time a terrorist group, a 

quasi-state, and a revolutionary political movement. We have not 

faced the likes of it before. 

As a terrorist group, ISIS poses a threat to the U.S. homeland. 

In mid-2015, so just 6 months ago, that threat was largely indirect—ISIS’s ability to radicalize young American men and women 

to conduct lone-wolf attacks here. That indirect threat remains 

today. 

There are thousands of ISIS sympathizers in the United States, 

more than Al Qaeda ever had. The FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] has over 900 open investigations into homegrown extremists, the vast majority radicalized by ISIS and a large number of 

which relate to individuals who may be plotting attacks here. 

Such attacks have already occurred in the United States, including the attack in San Bernardino last month, which in terms of fatalities was the largest terrorist attack in the United States since 

9/11. There are other ISIS supporters who have been arrested before they could act. 

Today, in addition to that indirect threat, we face a direct threat 

from ISIS—an ISIS capability to plan and direct attacks in the 

homeland from the group’s safe haven in Iraq and Syria, largely 

from Raqqah in Syria, just like the group did in Paris in November. 

The Paris attack, as you know, was the largest attack in Western 
4 

Europe since the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the first ISISdirected attack in the West ever. 

What is the difference between the direct threat and an indirect 

threat? Why does it matter? A lone-wolf attack, while horrific, is 

likely to produce fairly limited casualties on the order of the Boston 

Marathon bombing in 2013—3 killed—or the shootings at Fort 

Hood in 2009—12 killed. 

A directed attack, however, carries the potential to be more complex and more sophisticated—multiple simultaneous attacks, for 

example—and, therefore, more deadly, again, just like Paris—130 

killed—or London in 2005—56 killed—or even 9/11 itself. 

The attack in Paris was the first manifestation of an effort that 

ISIS has made to put together an attack capability in Europe, an 

effort they began less than a year before the Paris attack. More attacks in Europe are likely. The head of the U.K.’s [United Kingdom’s] domestic security agency has warned that ISIS is planning 

mass casualty attacks in Britain. ISIS has said that it wants to 

conduct similar attacks in the United States. 

One of the things I learned in 33 years in the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] is sometimes it is really important to listen to what 

your adversary tells you. Sometimes they tell you exactly what 

they are going to do. ISIS has told us they are going to attack us 

here. 

Now that they have the attack capability in Europe, they are almost certainly working to do the same thing here. And unless they 

are degraded, they will succeed. I don’t have any doubt about that. 

Switching from terrorist group to quasi-state, as a quasi-state, 

ISIS poses a threat to regional stability. ISIS is a state in every 

respect of the word except one: It does not have foreign recognition 

or relations with other states. But in every other respect it is a 

state. It has an executive, it has an army, it has a police force, it 

has a set of laws, it has a judiciary, it provides social services, it 

takes care of its poor, and it raises taxes. 

Why does it matter that ISIS is a quasi-state? Two reasons. 

One is that, as a state, it can utilize all of the resources, human 

and otherwise, within the area that it controls in the pursuit of its 

objectives. The best example of this is the tens of millions of dollars 

a month in revenue that ISIS earns from taxing the people that are 

inside the caliphate. They actually earn more in taxes than they 

do in oil sales. 

And, two, the second reason it is important that it is a state is 

that it is going to make it more difficult to dislodge them. They 

have become deeply rooted in the areas that they control. The ISIS 

threat to regional stability is a threat to the very territorial integrity of the current nation-states there, a threat to inflame the entire region, I think, in sectarian war. 

All of this—all of this—in a part of the world that still provides 

almost a third of the world’s oil supply; a region that is home to 

one of America’s closest allies, Israel; and a region that is home to 

a set of close American allies, the Gulf Arab states, that are a bulwark against Iran’s push for hegemony in the region. 

Third, as a revolutionary political movement, ISIS is gaining affiliates—this was mentioned in the opening statements—ISIS is 

gaining affiliates among extremist groups around the world. These 
5 

groups are signing up for what ISIS desires as its objective: a global caliphate where day-to-day life is governed by extreme religious 

views. In the mind of ISIS, its global caliphate would extend to the 

United States of America itself. 

When they join ISIS, these affiliates evolve from focusing on local 

issues, local grievances, to focusing on establishing an extension of 

the caliphate themselves. They want their own little caliphates. 

And their targets evolve from local to international ones. This is 

the story of the bombing of the Russian airliner by an ISIS group 

in the Egyptian Sinai, only the third airliner brought down by a 

bomb in the last 25 years. It is remarkable. 

ISIS has gained affiliates faster than Al Qaeda ever did. From 

nothing a year ago, there are now militant groups in nearly 20 

countries that have sworn allegiance to ISIS. They have conducted 

attacks that have already killed Americans, and they carry the potential to, themselves, grab large amounts of territory. 

Libya is a place where this could happen in the near term. ISIS 

controls territory in Libya. They are currently expanding that territory, and foreign fighters are beginning to go to Libya to fight with 

the ISIS group there. I would not be surprised if we woke up one 

morning and ISIS in Libya had grabbed a large part of Libyan territory, the same kind of blitzkrieg on a smaller scale that we saw 

in Iraq. 

Degrading and ultimately defeating ISIS will both require removing the leadership from the battlefield and will require the shrinking and the eventual elimination of the safe haven, the elimination 

of the quasi-state, which is currently the size of Great Britain. 

The safe haven, the state, is a key part of the ISIS narrative that 

it is winning. As long as they have it—right?—they have a narrative that they are winning. This narrative is absolutely critical 

to them. It is absolutely critical to radicalizing homegrown extremists here and absolutely critical to creating affiliates among other 

militant groups around the world. 

The safe haven provides security for ISIS to plot and to train. 

There are two things that are necessary for a successful attack on 

the homeland: a desire to do so and the capability to do it. And the 

safe haven allows for the building of that capability. 

And the safe haven provides a place for foreign fighters to gather. No safe haven, no place to gather. Nearly 30,000 individuals 

from over 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight. 

Some are homesteading there to help create the caliphate. Others 

will die on the battlefield. But still others will return home, carrying with them the potential to conduct attacks. This has already 

happened in Europe, as you know. This creates the potential for attacks that cause more casualties because the individuals who return home will have battlefield experience. 

Removing the leadership is easier than eliminating the safe 

haven. The former requires good intelligence and the military assets to turn that intelligence into action. The latter requires complex military operations in both Iraq and Syria, and it requires a 

political solution in Damascus to the problem of Bashar al-Assad 

and a political solution in Iraq to the problem of the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis there. 
6 

Mr. Chairman, let me close with this. Early last month, during 

a debate in the British Commons over whether Parliament should 

authorize British air strikes against ISIS in Syria, the Labour Party’s shadow minister for foreign affairs, Hilary Benn, gave a remarkable speech. Some of his colleagues called it one of the greatest speeches in the history of the British Commons. 

Benn, breaking with his own party leader and supporting British 

air strikes in Syria, said, and I quote, ‘‘We are here faced by fascists, not just their calculated brutality but their belief that they 

are superior to every single one of us in this chamber tonight and 

all of the people that we represent. They hold us in contempt. They 

hold our values in contempt. They hold our belief in tolerance and 

decency in contempt. They hold our very democracy in contempt.’’ 

Benn went on, and I quote, ‘‘What we know about fascists is that 

they need to be defeated. It is why this entire house stood up 

against Hitler and Mussolini. We must now confront this evil.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, I associate myself with Hilary Benn’s remarks. 

That is the picture as I see it as a former intelligence officer who 

spent years watching Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. I look 

forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Morell can be found in the Appendix on page 51.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Vickers. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL G. VICKERS, FORMER UNDER 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE 

Dr. VICKERS. Chairman Thornberry, Congresswoman Sanchez, 

distinguished members of the committee, good morning. It is a 

privilege and pleasure to be with the House Armed Services Committee to provide an outside view on U.S. strategy for Iraq, Syria, 

and the global jihadist threat. 

My former colleague and dear friend, Michael Morell, has described the threats that ISIS, or ISIL, poses. The ISIS threat is 

nested in several other conflicts that are raging across the Middle 

East—civil war and sectarian conflict, the global jihad, and then 

proxy war between Saudi Arabia and its allies and Iran and its allies. 

In my opening statement this morning, I would like to offer a few 

thoughts on how I believe U.S. strategy needs to be intensified and 

accelerated to deal with these challenges. 

The aims of U.S. strategy in the Middle East should be threefold: 

one, to prevent a major attack on the U.S. homeland and defeat the 

global jihadist threat; two, to reassure our allies and partners and 

contain Iran; and, three, to restore a favorable balance of power 

and greater stability across the Middle East. 

I will discuss, in turn, what I believe are the needed adjustments 

to our strategy in Syria and Iraq against the global jihadists and 

against Iran, beginning with Syria. 

Syria is the center of gravity for Middle Eastern conflict. It is 

where the battle for the future of the Middle East is largely being 

waged. A coalition victory in Syria would roll back Iranian power 

and deal a significant blow to the global jihadist movement. 
7 

I believe we need to adjust our strategy in Syria in two principal 

ways. 

First, U.S. strategy has treated Syria as a secondary theater of 

war in the Iraq-Syria war. In my judgment, we need to shift to a 

Syria-first strategy and reinvigorate our efforts to remove Assad 

from power. 

Second, we need to significantly intensify our operations. Strike 

sorties and the weight of strikes need to be significantly increased, 

as does coalition support, both quantitative and qualitative, for the 

moderate Syrian opposition. It is not too late to decisively support 

the opposition. We did not develop a war-winning strategy, for example, until the sixth year of our covert war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in President Reagan’s second term. 

Let me now briefly turn to Iraq and make four points. 

First, as the retaking of Ramadi shows, a more intense application of airpower and more aggressive use of U.S. combat advisers 

is also a good strategy in Iraq. 

Second, the key to a Sunni tribal uprising against ISIL or ISIS 

is decisive U.S. engagement. The key to sustaining that uprising is 

the devolution of political power in Iraq across sectarian lines. 

Third, we are in a competition with Iran for influence in Iraq. 

How sectarian identity, politics, and a post-war settlement will 

shape the future of Iraq and Syria remains to be determined, but 

our competition for influence with Iran is one we should seek to 

win. 

And then, fourth, more broadly to both Iraq and Syria, raids by 

special operations forces will contribute an important line of effort 

to our strategy, but to be effective the tempo of operations needs 

to dramatically increase. For this to happen, the Iraqi Government 

must approve an increase in the number of U.S. special operations 

personnel on its territory. 

Now turning to the global jihad, global jihad has metastasized, 

and time is not on our side, as Michael mentioned. Global jihadists 

cannot be contained. They must be defeated and continually disrupted while they are in the process of being defeated. Sanctuaries 

must be denied. 

There are three points I would like to make. 

First, disrupting and defeating the global jihadists in Syria and 

Iraq and beyond will require roughly the same ways—precision air 

strikes exploited by indigenous ground forces led by U.S. advisers— 

and sufficient means. The global jihadists will not be defeated until 

the ungoverned space in which they operate is eliminated, their 

ideology is discredited, and stability is returned to the Middle East. 

This will require a significant long-term investment in capacitybuilding of indigenous forces, irregular as well as regular, and sustained U.S. engagement. 

Second, the Predator has been our most effective weapon in our 

campaign against the global jihadists, and the size of the Predator 

fleet will remain a critical limiting factor in the conduct of our campaigns. 

Third, intelligence is our first line of defense, and, accordingly, 

investments in this area should have top priority. 

I would like to conclude by saying a few words about U.S. strategy for Iran and the need to reassure our allies. Iran remains on 
8 

the offensive in its quest for regional hegemony, and our Gulf Arab 

allies feel increasingly under siege as they confront a multi-front 

war with Sunni radicals and Iran and are increasingly estranged 

from us. Further estrangement would pose a serious challenge to 

our campaign against the global jihadists and will result in our allies becoming more vulnerable to Iranian and radical Islamic aggression. Reassuring our Gulf Arab allies, strengthening our fraying Arab-Turkish-Kurdish coalition, and containing Iranian expansion are thus critical to our broader efforts in the Middle East. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look 

forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Vickers can be found in the Appendix on page 59.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ambassador Ford. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT S. FORD, FORMER AMBASSADOR 

TO SYRIA 

Ambassador FORD. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the 

invitation to address you and the honorable members of the committee today. It gave me an excuse to come down from the cold 

winter up in northern New England. 

I would like to in my remarks speak, above all, about the politics 

that is underway in Iraq and in Syria. I am going to avoid the 

strict military discussion because, to me, the Islamic State is more 

than the sum of its fighters. It is actually, as Mike Morell was saying, it is a quasi-state. But it builds support, it recruits, it replaces 

fighters who are killed, it even trains little children. 

And so, confronting something like that, we need to think about 

what is a sustainable solution over the long term. And I am going 

to therefore talk about resources, and I am going to talk about the 

politics of national reconciliation. 

First, Iraq. I visited Iraq a couple of months ago. It was my first 

time there on the ground in 5 years. I worked in Iraq for 5 years 

with the American Embassy and before that with the Coalition 

Provisional Authority. 

My sense is that in Iraq on the military side there is progress, 

but there are two big challenges. 

First, on the resource side, both the Iraqi Government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government in Irbil, both are heavily 

dependent on oil and oil sales. And low oil prices are really crunching their ability to mobilize resources in the fight against the Islamic State. 

It was very noticeable to me that the Kurdish leadership, whom 

I have known since 2004, was genuinely concerned about their 

budget abilities to sustain the fight against Islamic State. Some of 

their Peshmerga fighters had not been paid for 3 months. But even 

in Baghdad, the authorities were concerned about the resources. 

Second issue on Iraq: the politics of national reconciliation. Mike 

Vickers just mentioned the importance of devolution and decentralization. I certainly agree with that, and I am hopeful on that, 

because the Sunni Arab leaders, again, whom I have known since 

2004, have really come around 180 degrees. They used to be in 
9 

favor of a tight, strong central government, and now they are arguing for devolution of power. 

That is what the Shia and the Kurds always wanted 10 years 

ago. For the first time, I have actually seen the Sunnis, the Shia, 

and the Kurds in Iraq all talking about, sort of, the same system 

of government. That is new, and that is hopeful. 

But, at the same time, as events in Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, yesterday showed, there is serious sectarian tension. The Islamic State yesterday exploded several car bombs in the weary city 

of Baqubah, and there was immediately concern among the local 

Sunni Arab population that Shia irregular, Shia militia, would retaliate. There was actually a fear that they would attack Sunni 

Arab mosques. 

In order to mobilize Sunni Arabs to contain the Islamic State, 

there must be efforts at national reconciliation. And this is important because we don’t want the Islamic State to be put down militarily and then revive, as happened between 2011 and 2013. I really don’t want to see an Islamic State version 2.0. 

It is important for the Americans, therefore, to maintain pressure on the Shia militia problem in Iraq. There are Iraqis, such as 

Prime Minister Abadi, Ayatollah Sistani, a superb religious leader 

in the Shia community, people like, on the Sunni side, Speaker 

Jabouri, who are all working for national reconciliation. 

And so, in Iraq, we need to help mobilize resources for both the 

central authorities in Iraq, Baghdad, for the Kurdish regional government in Irbil, and we have to be engaged on the national reconciliation, working with the gentlemen I pointed out. 

On the Syrian side, Mr. Chairman, I am much less upbeat, much 

less optimistic. There has been some progress on the ground in 

northeastern Syria, but that has been led by Syrian Kurds, who 

have a separate political agenda. And their political agenda is, 

first, autonomy, and second, fight the Islamic State. Make sure we 

all understand that: first, autonomy; second, fight the Islamic 

State. 

Because their first priority is autonomy, in that heterogeneous 

area of northern Syria, these Syrian Kurds have already stirred 

substantial resentment among local Arabs. I would note that 

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both issued 

reports accusing the Syrian Kurdish militia, the ones we are helping—they have accused them of ethnic cleansing and war crimes 

against the local Arab communities. That does not help national 

reconciliation. That does not help build local Sunni indigenous 

forces to contain the Islamic State. We don’t need to help the Islamic State recruit. 

As Michael Vickers just noted, the only way really to generate 

more indigenous forces is to help the Syrian opposition and to see 

the removal of Bashar al-Assad at some point and the creation of 

a new national unity government. The sooner that can be done in 

Syria, the better. Only a new national unity government in Syria 

is going to be able to mobilize enough Syrians to fight and destroy 

the Islamic State. 

In both countries, in both Iraq and Syria, as territory is cleared 

of the Islamic State, local authorities who are trying to keep the 

electricity going, trying to keep hospitals operating, trying to keep 
10 

the water going, are going to need help. The Islamic State operated 

these things. As Mike Morell just said, it acts as a state. When it 

is gone, services must be contained. 

That will be a job for the U.S. State Department, its people in 

Turkey and in Jordan, and for the U.S. Agency for International 

Development. They will need resources to do that, and they are 

going to have to be able to move around despite the security risks. 

Finally, if I may, one last word about North Africa. I served in 

Algeria as Ambassador, and I was also in Algeria in the mid-nineties during a horrible civil war there, where the Algerian Government had to confront a very nasty sort of pre-Al Qaeda insurgency. 

I am watching what is happening in Libya with concern. Even 

if the Islamic State, which is capturing oil facilities, even if it can’t 

sell oil the way the Islamic State affiliates in Iraq and Syria have 

done, they may be able to use the oil assets they have locally to 

generate revenues. They are an administration. They have an increasing ability to project military power out of their base at Sirte, 

and they have a safe haven space to organize, plan, and recruit. 

Just as the attack in Paris was organized in Syria, so they have 

space in Libya to do the same kind of thing. 

It will be important, therefore, Mr. Chairman, to help a new Libyan Government and to help it control territory. And we will need 

to be ready to do that. 

Thank you very much again for the invitation to address the 

committee, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford can be found in the Appendix on page 67.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all. Much to think about and much 

to follow up on. 

All committee members received notice that Mr. Smith and I 

agreed for the purpose of this hearing that, after the chairman and 

ranking member’s questions, that members would be recognized in 

reverse order of seniority if you were here at the time of the gavel. 

Then we will proceed according to when you entered the room, as 

we normally do. 

To get that started, I am going to yield my 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. MacArthur. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I thank all three of you for being here. It was very helpful, 

listening to you. 

Mr. Morell, you painted a bleak and, I think, compelling picture 

of why ISIS poses a real threat, a strategic threat and a lethal 

threat, to the United States. 

And if I heard you correctly, you mentioned three things: One, 

they are capable of completing indirect and direct attacks against 

us and our interests, and if we don’t stop them, they will succeed. 

Two, they are really a state in every sense that matters. And I 

would add on that that I think it might serve us better if we recognize that. We call them a quasi-state, but they really are a repressive or an illegitimate state but they are a state, and they act as 

one. And then, thirdly, you said they have a growing network that 

will spread their influence. 

It seems that the bottom of all of that is their control of land and 

people and resources. And so I wanted to ask you if you believe 
11 

that we are doing everything necessary to get them out of that territory. And if not, briefly, what would you suggest that we add to 

what we are doing? 

Mr. MORELL. So I agree with both of my colleagues here that we 

need to do more. I also believe very much what Robert said, that 

we really can’t have military success—and there is a lot we need 

to do on the military side, but we really can’t have military success 

without political solutions in both places. That has to come first. 

Airpower alone is not going to win it. We need to do more than 

airpower. You know, Mike can talk about that. There is more we 

can do with airpower, but airpower is not going to win this thing 

alone. We need a ground force. There is a strategy in Iraq to get 

that ground force. Ramadi showed that that strategy has potential. 

There is no ground force on the Syrian side that carries the same 

kind of potential as the Iraqi military carries. 

And, you know, we can do more, I think, with the moderate opposition, but at the end of the day, I think Assad has to go. And we 

have to take Syrian military security resources, as degraded as 

they have become, and turn them into a force that the international community supports in taking on ISIS. 

So I think we need to be more aggressive on the military side to 

put pressure on both ISIS and Assad in the short term while we 

get very, very aggressive on the political side, on the diplomatic 

side, to force political solutions in both places. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. Let me segue on that comment, because Dr. 

Vickers also made it clear that he sees a Syria-first strategy in 

which Assad’s departure is at the center of it, and now you have 

said the same. 

And maybe I will start with you, Ambassador, because you have 

spent a good deal of time there. What follows Assad? And while I 

agree with you he is a bad actor that ideally would not be there, 

sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t 

know. And what potentially follows Assad in that region, in that 

state? 

Ambassador FORD. Very briefly, we don’t know exactly who 

would follow Bashar al-Assad. It has to be a negotiation. I think, 

had we asked the question who would follow Saddam Hussein, we 

wouldn’t have known the answer to that in 2003, obviously. So it 

will also be the subject of a negotiation among Syrians. 

And I suspect, frankly, it will be a very wobbly initial national 

government, if the Syrians can ever have a serious negotiation. 

And that is a big ‘‘if,’’ Congressman. Therefore, a wobbly government like that, just as the wobbly government in Iraq in 2004, 

2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 needed help, that will be the case also 

in Syria. 

I do not believe that, if Assad goes, only the Islamic State takes 

over. I think that is wrong on multiple levels and is indicative of 

a sense that there is no hope, whereas, actually, there is quite a 

bit of hope. As big as the Islamic State is in Syria, it is actually 

not the biggest force fighting Assad right now. The other elements 

of the opposition are actually much bigger than the Islamic State. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. I thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 
12 

Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, ISIL has successfully expanded its influence and has 

received oaths of allegiance from groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, France, Belgium, the 

U.S., and so many others. 

I recently read an article where a supposed expert says that the 

goal of ISIS is the establishment of sharia law through Muslim 

lands, but they have actually created a caliphate and are trying to 

establish a government, with the caliph and they have taxation, 

garbage services, et cetera, et cetera—a government, if you will. 

So my first question is, where or what is ISIL’s center of gravity? 

Where should we be focusing our time and resources? That is my 

first question. 

The second one is, if you can talk a little about the worries or 

what we need to do about the Saudi-Iran Government issue going 

on. 

Thank you. 

Dr. VICKERS. So, first, their center of gravity is really their capital in Raqqah. That is where they administer their caliphate from. 

They draw a lot of power from Iraq’s second-largest city, in Mosul, 

where they seized a lot of assets. Generally, the Sunni areas of 

western and northern Iraq and northeastern Syria is where they 

comprise, but Raqqah is really the center of gravity. And that is 

why I advocated a Syria-first strategy that really tries to take that 

on sooner rather than later. 

The Iranian-Saudi competition is something that dates back to 

1979. It has ebbed and flowed; it has intensified very dramatically. 

Probably even predates that, with the Shah, but certainly it intensified in 1979. 

And, you know, from the Gulf Arab point of view, and particularly the Saudis, the Iranians, you know, have allies all around 

them, with Lebanese Hezbollah, with Syria, with their influence 

with the Government in Baghdad, and then in Yemen. And then 

they see a threat to their kingdom, as well. And so they see themselves fighting a multi-front war in this area and also against 

Sunni Islamic radicals. 

Robert, I don’t know if you want to add anything. 

Ambassador FORD. I think Michael is exactly right, Congresswoman. Raqqah in Syria, the capital, and Mosul are the two centers of gravity physically, geographically. But the Islamic State’s 

fighters have a saying, which is—I will translate it from Arabic. It 

is, ‘‘We are surviving, and we are expanding.’’ 

If they lose Raqqah and if they lose Mosul, they will still be 

there. Their predecessor organization, the mother organization, if 

you will, basically operated almost underground for a long time, for 

several years, in Iraq before it popped back out in both Syria and 

Iraq. And they have experience doing that, Congresswoman, and 

they will do it again. 

That is why I was saying it is important to have indigenous 

forces who are staying and will keep it under control and grind it 

out of its holes little by little by little. I think grinding it out of 

its holes will take much longer than retaking Ramadi or retaking 

Raqqah or retaking Mosul. 
13 

I worry, frankly, that we do not yet have enough people, friendly 

indigenous fighters, in places like Ramadi, Anbar province, Diyala 

province to do that. I think right now the numbers that the administration is talking about are 30,000 Iraqis. I am not sure if 30,000 

is going to be enough to secure that Syrian border and control 

those towns. 

Mr. MORELL. Ma’am, I think you hit on something really important at the beginning of your question when you talked about what 

are these guys after, what do they want. And as an intelligence officer, I think it is really important to understand your enemy. 

And what these guys are all about is they believe that Allah has 

chosen them personally to prepare the world for the coming of the 

Mahdi. And that preparation involves giving people the choice between becoming a Muslim, a good Muslim in their definition, or 

being killed. And then, once all of that work has been done—that 

is the establishment of the caliphate—then the Mahdi comes and 

the end of the world happens and God sorts out the good from the 

bad. 

That is what they believe. They believe that based on, you know, 

not very good readings of the Koran, not very particularly good interpretations of what it is they are looking at. It is exactly—exactly—what the Al Qaeda leadership believed, exactly the same, 

about what their ultimate goals are and their ultimate objectives. 

And we need to understand that. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In the interest of time—I mean, I just think we really have to 

get to what it is they want before we come up with a strategy of 

how—we can no longer contain them. If what you are saying is 

true, they go down a hole and they wait. 

Now, something that someone had said was, now that they have 

established the caliphate, they have the caliph; this is really the 

lynchpin for them to be able to do this sharia law and everything 

else that comes with it, or, as you said, maybe the coming. 

So I think, as members, we need to really begin to understand 

what moves before we can understand that not just bombs will get 

rid of this. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Ambassador FORD. Congresswoman, can I add a point? 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Yes. 

Ambassador FORD. I think this is important, since you want to 

talk about what they want. 

The establishment of the caliphate was very controversial within 

jihadi circles, very controversial. Why? Because many jihadi clerics, 

including Al Qaeda, said you can’t declare a caliphate if you can’t 

hold territory and apply sharia law. You can’t declare a caliphate; 

it is illegitimate. That is still the position of Al Qaeda today with 

respect to the Islamic State. 

Holding territory, therefore, taking it back from them, taking 

back Raqqah, taking back Mosul, taking back the other cities, matters. It will put a big dent in their recruitment because they will 

lose a great deal of the legitimacy that they have enjoyed within 

jihadi circles. They will still go underground, and they will still 

have to be routed out, but it will be easier if they can’t recruit as 

well. 
14 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you for that enlightenment. I mean, I have 

really been one of those who has been trying to understand what 

is the root of this. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. McSally. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your service and your testimony 

today. 

In my time in the military, one of the things that was most concerning as far as threat was the combination of a terrorist organization with weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. 

I serve on Homeland Security. I am the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communication. We have done some hearings on the threat of chemical 

and biological terrorism. And if you look at what ISIS has said, you 

know, they have stated in open source that they want to use these 

types of weapons and export their terror on us. Obviously, that 

could potentially be a game changer, not just small-scale physical 

attacks, but then actually using chemical, biological, radiological, 

or nuclear capabilities. 

And what we have seen with ISIS, as you know, is that they are 

not just trying to acquire them—and there are reports they have 

used them on the battlefield—but they try and recruit individuals 

with the expertise so that they can create those capabilities themselves, not from scratch but just by importing those with the experience. 

So I was wondering if you could comment, Mr. Morell, on the 

WMD threat with ISIS and your concerns about that and what to 

do about that. 

Mr. MORELL. So I share your concerns. 

They have made two things very clear publicly in documents that 

have come out. One is that if they acquired these weapons that 

they would use them, and they wouldn’t care that the vast majority 

of those killed were civilians. And they have also provided a religious justification very similar to Al Qaeda’s—in fact, I think it 

was identical to Al Qaeda’s—justification for using such weapons. 

I have no doubt that they are pursuing such weapons. I do not 

know how far along they are. I don’t have access to intelligence 

anymore. 

But one thing—you know, the safe haven here is so important for 

many, many reasons, and one of the reasons is exactly this— 

right?—is, when you have safe haven, it gives you opportunities to 

work on weapons like this. Al Qaeda made significant advances in 

anthrax research because they had a safe haven. 

And so I am concerned that as long as they have a safe haven 

they will have the space. And because they are a quasi-state they 

can use the human resources within that state—right?—as they 

pursue these things. 

So I don’t know where it stands at the moment, but I am deeply 

concerned about it. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thank you. 

I have been extremely critical about the military campaign 

against ISIS. The caliphate was declared 19 months ago. This socalled air campaign has been going on. I have some good friends 
15 

that are still at the Pentagon and are involved in it, and they sarcastically call it ‘‘Operation Shade,’’ which means they literally 

have fighters stacked up on top of each other and they are providing mostly shade to those on the ground as opposed to using airpower for all it brings to the fight. 

It has been very two-dimensional. It has been very sequential, 

very reactive, as opposed to using airpower for all it brings to the 

fight, by identifying those centers of gravity, which you mentioned, 

and taking them out and unleashing airpower in order to destroy 

their capabilities. And it has been very much a gradual approach, 

as you guys noted in your testimony. 

When we had the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman here 

a couple months ago, they stated they had just started talking to 

the State Department single-digit months ago to look at a comprehensive strategy. They just started looking at the oil infrastructure and figuring out how to hit it, when we know it has been $1 

million, minimum, a day. 

What is going on here? I mean, we know from, again, our intelligence understanding it is not that difficult to figure out where 

their resources are coming from and go after them using airpower. 

And I just would like definitely, Dr. Vickers, and really any of 

your comments on what needs to change from the military strategy, because we do need to destroy their capabilities. There is a political solution, obviously, but we have to destroy their capabilities. 

Dr. VICKERS. So to put some numbers on it, if you compare—I 

think the best air campaign analogy to what we face in Iraq and 

Syria is Afghanistan, 2001–2002. And the number of strike sorties 

that we did a day in Afghanistan in 2001 is a factor of about eight 

above what we have done in Iraq and Syria. And then, furthermore, two-thirds of coalition efforts have really been against Iraq, 

not against Syria, where the more dangerous threat has existed. 

So I think those are the two fundamental problems with the air 

campaign, that it has essentially been a fraction of what it should 

be in mass. And, you know, as we have shown since really 1990 

but certainly through—when you start putting precision weapons 

on bombers, you can combine mass without sacrificing precision. 

As Michael said, though, airpower alone is not enough, and Ambassador Ford as well. We have to have an indigenous ground force 

to exploit the effects. And, certainly, you know, if you want to deny 

a sanctuary sooner rather than later, just like in 2001, having 

some ground force that can exploit the effects of airpower makes 

a big difference. And there, U.S. advisers matter. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thanks. 

And my time has expired, so if you need to elaborate, maybe 

when another question comes up. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you very much for your long years of service. 

I regret that you still have so many opportunities for your service 

continuing now. 

I feel somewhat the same way. I had a much shorter period of 

service in the Marines, but when I was a part of the surge in Iraq, 

I very much felt like I was a part of finishing the job. We had 
16 

messed it up for years, we got it right, and then I went home. And 

now I am back here watching us have to return to Iraq just 5 years 

after we left. 

And so, while we can debate—and there is much to discuss— 

about the military strategy to defeat ISIS in the short term, the 

focus of my questions today is about how we ensure we don’t find 

ourselves continually going back and having to apply military 

power against ISIS or the next ISIS successor in the long term. 

And we have heard many people testify before this committee 

about the importance of a long-term political strategy. General 

Petraeus joined us last week and emphasized that. General 

Dunford, as Representative McSally pointed out, talked about the 

importance of State Department coordination and how it hasn’t 

been happening for a long time. 

So, to begin, I just wanted to see if we are on the same page with 

a few high-level points. 

Is there any one of you who disagrees with, from the Iraq perspective, the need to empower the central Iraqi Government, that 

that is the best strategy we have on the table right now for a longterm political solution in Iraq? 

Ambassador FORD. I think the Iraq Central Government Prime 

Minister Abadi is someone who believes in national reconciliation, 

and I think he has a political vision. But I worry when you say 

‘‘empower,’’ Congressman, because I think so much of the sustainable solution—you were in Anbar—so much of the sustainable solution will not come just from Baghdad but will come from local 

Sunni communities who feel that they have a stake—— 

Mr. MOULTON. Fair enough. 

Mr. FORD [continuing]. In Iraq. 

Mr. MOULTON. So, unquestionably, more federalism. But we are 

not talking about dividing up the state at this point. 

Ambassador FORD. No, I hope not. 

Mr. MOULTON. Okay. 

Do we all agree that Assad needs to go in Syria? 

Ambassador FORD. Yes. 

Mr. MOULTON. Is there any disagreement with that? 

Okay. 

And I was struck, Ambassador Ford, by your point about the 

Kurds. I think it is very tempting from Americans to say, let’s just 

get on board with the Kurds because they are great allies, they are 

strong fighters, and they share many of our values. But that is not 

enough. We have to empower the Sunnis, as well. 

Is there any disagreement with that? 

Okay. 

And then taking this all together, what type of time commitment 

are we talking about? So the American people understand what 

this will take, diplomatically and politically, after we leave and perhaps with a residual military presence so we don’t find ourselves 

in the situation where, after we militarily defeat ISIS, we have to 

send young troops back to fight them or their successor again in 

the next 5 or 10 years. Are we talking about a Germany and Japan 

type of commitment? What will this take? 

Mr. Morell, perhaps we could start with you. 
17 

Mr. MORELL. So I think it is a long-term commitment. I can’t 

give you, you know, a number of years, but I think it is a long-term 

commitment. 

I think the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011 is a big 

part of the story here of why we are where we are. I am not casting 

blame in any direction here. I am just saying I think it is a big part 

of why we are sitting here today. 

Mr. MOULTON. General Dunford made that point as well, that if 

we had stayed more integrated in Iraqi politics as well, we wouldn’t 

have this great vacuum that has allowed ISIS to take over. 

Mr. MORELL. You know, I would point out that we needed to be 

in South Korea for a very, very, very long time to maintain stability on the peninsula. So I think you are looking at, you know, 

10, 15, 20 years of U.S. commitment to this region in a very, very 

significant way. 

Mr. MOULTON. Dr. Vickers, if I could just go to you, and I just 

have a minute left. Based on your experience with past conflicts, 

what kind of additional political support can we be providing in 

Iraq and Syria? 

When we say there needs to be more political/diplomatic support, 

there needs to be that kind of strategy, what kinds of resources has 

the U.S. used in past conflicts that we are not using today to ensure longer-term success? 

Dr. VICKERS. Well, this is honestly an area where we have struggled since 9/11. You know, the Korea, Germany, Japan models are 

all good ones, but very, very different strategic context. 

You know, as Michael mentioned, shifting to a security assistance model, an embassy-based presence where we lost our political 

influence, but, also, frankly, the Iraqis’ work in progress and working out power-sharing I think has got us to where we are. 

I think we require a long-term political and security commitment 

but not necessarily in large numbers, just in terms of enablers and 

advisers. Because, as Ambassador Ford said, even if you get a national unity government in Syria, you know, it is going to take time 

to make that government strong. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you. 

I am out of time, but, gentlemen, if you would be willing to follow 

up—— 

Dr. VICKERS. Sure. 

Mr. MOULTON [continuing]. With details of what that more robust political strategy might look like, I think it would be helpful 

for us if you could do that in written testimony. 

[The information referred to was not available at the time of 

printing.] 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, gentlemen, for your thoughtful testimony. 

Earlier on in this Congress, last March, we had a hearing with 

Ms. Wormuth, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and I 

asked her a question related to what is the administration’s policy 

toward Syria. And it was quite clear in her testimony that there 

was no coherent strategy toward Syria, and I think that is clearly 

still the case today. 
18 

I agree with your assessment that we must have a Syria-first approach to much of the regional instability in the Middle East, but 

one significant player that has not been brought up today is the 

role of Russia. 

I would love to get your feedback on the fact that the vacuum 

that the United States has left has allowed Russia to fill that vacuum, propping up the Assad regime, and how that will play into the 

geopolitics of phasing Assad out. 

Mr. MORELL. So I will start. 

You know, I think that Vladimir Putin’s objective, main objective—there are a lot of different objectives in what he did, but his 

main objective was to prop up Assad, who, when Putin made his 

move, Assad was at his weakest point since the fall of 2012. And 

Putin believes that he needs to prop up Assad because Putin is concerned that, if Assad goes, there will be chaos in Syria and there 

will be more running room for ISIS. 

And like Robert, I don’t necessarily believe that. Right? It depends on what comes next. Right? So what we need is a transition 

from Assad to a government that all Syrians can agree with. That 

is the transition we need. And if that happens, then Putin is 

wrong. Then Assad going is not a bad thing; Assad going is a good 

thing. 

And what Putin has done is now made that potential transition 

much more difficult. Because Assad was on the verge—right?—of 

falling, essentially, and allowing us to get to that new government, 

right? And now Russia has made that so much more difficult. And 

what he has done is also now made Russia a player at the table, 

right? So Russia is now going to get to determine how that negotiation goes because of what he did. 

I will let others comment, as well. 

Dr. VICKERS. Yeah, I agree with all that. And I don’t think our 

interests are very well aligned with Russia. There is some commonality, but I don’t think it is as much as some have said. 

And I don’t think we should be deterred, you know, from our objectives in Syria from the relatively modest Russian intervention. 

If you look at the few thousand troops and 36 aircraft and the 

number of strike sorties, you know, it is not the world’s biggest 

combat power there. 

And so there is a lot of Syria they can’t control, and, you know, 

our policy will drive—you know, having had experience with the 

Russians in Afghanistan with a much, much bigger force, this is 

pretty small by comparison. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Ambassador Ford. 

Ambassador FORD. We need to get to peace talks. And getting to 

peace talks, by itself, isn’t the answer. That is just a venue. What 

really is needed is deep concessions, deep compromises on the two 

sides to the conflict, Assad’s government and its opposition. 

I think the Russian intervention has made it infinitely harder to 

get the concessions needed from the Assad side of the table, which 

will impede getting to a new national unity government. And so, 

therefore, I don’t see what the Russians have done so far as very 

positive. 

If I thought the Russians were going to use their new and improved leverage against Assad in the peace talks, then I would feel 
19 

better. But the fact that they are using cluster bombs, the fact that 

they are targeting civilian areas regularly, the fact that they are 

targeting aid convoys, humanitarian aid convoys regularly, this 

does not look like a Russian policy designed to extract concessions 

from Bashar al-Assad to advance a peace process. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Great. 

And in my last 39 seconds, I want to shift gears here. One of the 

proposals that has been introduced by some of the leaders, military 

leaders—General Petraeus is one—do you think an additional fourstar commander headquarters under CENTCOM [U.S. Central 

Command] is necessary for effective command and control of Operation Inherent Resolve? 

Dr. VICKERS. Well, we have a unified three-star now, with General Sean McFarland, who is a very, very capable officer, who as 

a colonel led the operations in Ramadi in 2007. 

You know, we don’t go to war anymore with our combatant commands; we form a task force underneath them. So whether that is 

three-star or four-star is really a function of bureaucratic politics 

and the weight in the building—and I guess I am more agnostic— 

than picking the right three- or four-star that will get us to victory. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Any other feedback? 

Thanks. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Walz. 

Mr. WALZ. Thank you, Chairman. 

And, again, I thank you gentlemen for being here. 

I would like to build a little bit on where Mr. Moulton was going 

on this broader strategy. And I think the timeline of this—I had 

the opportunity to be in Damascus in 2009, and I know Ambassador Ford early on challenged the Assad regime, at great personal 

risk. 

And I thank you for that. You were articulating this clearly. 

In 2013, when President Obama made the now-infamous ‘‘red 

line’’ statement, I held periodic town halls or whatever, and on that 

one hundreds of people showed up. And I had never seen anything 

like this, the involvement of getting into Syria to take Assad out 

because what he was doing with chemical weapons was unacceptable. And in that group of people that showed up, all 100 percent 

of them were opposed to any intervention. 

Trust me, I have held them on health care—it does not quite 

work that way—and other things. It was an amazing thing, that 

the American public at that point, weary of war, weary of this, not 

committed to the strategy, didn’t know what to say. 

And I bring this up because I think where Mr. Moulton was getting at—and, Mr. Morell, you answered it—you are talking decades, and I think you are absolutely right. I think your assessment 

is correct, and I agree with that. What I think we need to understand here is that there are multiple administrations. Some you 

will like, some you will dislike. 

And our commitment of that overarching strategy of smart 

power, what are the things we can put in place that can start to 

ensure that that transition is more coherent and more stable? Because I worry about that, because if you wait around here long 

enough, you will blame somebody else for where this happened. 
20 

My concern is that we get the strategy in place, and if it is 25 

years, that needs to be clearly articulated to the American public 

with a strategy that they can get behind. Because if hundreds of 

people show up in a small grocery store in Minnesota and all say 

no, it is very difficult to make this work. 

So I would be interested to hear your thoughts on implementation of smart power and broader thinking, how do the Chinese factor into this, some of the things that we should be thinking about. 

Whoever wants to take that one. 

Mr. MORELL. I will start. It is a great question. 

You know, I believe—and I am going to broaden out here from 

just ISIS in Iraq and Syria to the extremist problem in general— 

since 9/11, the United States of America has done a remarkable job 

at protecting the homeland from another attack. We have done a 

remarkable job, up to now with ISIS I would say, disrupting, degrading terrorist organizations so that they can’t conduct an attack 

here. We have put intelligence resources on it in a substantial way, 

military resources on it in a substantial way. If you are plotting an 

attack against the United States, we are going to find you and we 

are going to do something about it. 

What we have done a horrible job at, an absolutely horrible job, 

is dealing with the fundamental roots of the problem. 

Mr. WALZ. Yeah. 

Mr. MORELL. You know, for every thousand hours that I sat in 

the Sit [Situation] Room talking about what to do about terrorists 

who already exist, I spent maybe an hour talking about how do we 

prevent the creation of terrorists in the first place. And I am just 

making up these numbers, but for every $1 million that the United 

States of America spends on dealing with terrorists that already 

exist, maybe we spend a dollar on how do we prevent the creation 

of terrorists in the first place. 

And it is not something the United States can do on its own. You 

know, we need the leadership of Muslim countries, we need clerics 

in Muslim countries, we need teachers in Muslim countries, and 

parents in Muslim countries. 

There needs to be a big strategy to get our arms around this. It 

is economic, it is political, it is social, and it is religious. We and 

our allies need a strategy to deal with the radicalization problem, 

or, as quickly as we deal with one group, another group is going 

to pop up somewhere and we are going to have a problem somewhere else. 

So I would say that the next administration really needs to take 

a really hard look at how we deal with radicalization in the first 

place. 

Dr. VICKERS. And I would just enlarge the problem a bit more 

and say, you know, we are at a real turning point in our Nation’s 

history if you look at the post-9/11 era and the Cold War, in the 

sense that we have three challenges in three critical regions—rise 

of China, resurging Russia, and then a Middle East in chaos—that 

are not amenable to short-term solutions in either case. You know, 

like the Cold War, you are going to be at these things for decades. 

And so you have to come up with not only a strategy that allows 

you to contain the problem but eventually resolve it, but that is 

sustainable across administrations, much as our Cold War strategy 
21 

was. I liken the current period that we are heading into now as 

like 1947 with new actors. 

Ambassador FORD. Congressman, I take to heart what you said 

about the reticence of the American public to get involved in 2013. 

I remember that vividly. Now, however, we are flying daily combat 

missions in Syria and Iraq, so it is funny how things work out. 

I have a couple of thoughts on the long term. I think the long 

term, especially in Syria, is going to take decades. Syria is now a 

completely failed state, and it is basically—what is left of the government is propped up by foreign militia, mainly out of Iraq, organized by Iran as well as Lebanese Hezbollah. Rebuilding all of that 

is going to take years and years. 

And it should not be and it cannot be something that only Americans do. I think part of a political strategy is to get an agreement 

among all of the regional states, as well as Russia and China, to 

stop promoting individual clients that in turn then degrade the 

ability of the central state to operate. And we have seen that historically in Iraq. We have seen it in Lebanon. We certainly see it 

in Syria. We see it in Libya, where different regional countries are 

taking different sides. That is one part. 

Second part is, reconstruction should not be an American responsibility solely, but I don’t think any country can lead an international effort to rebuild in places like Syria or Libya better than 

the United States. We have the diplomatic tact. But that means 

bringing a lot of regional states to the table. It means bringing organizations like the World Bank to the table, as well. 

And then, finally, as I mentioned before, there has to be an effort 

to get local services running. This was always a big problem in 

Iraq, as I am sure Congressman Moulton will remember, getting 

things like electricity and water. It is not that USAID [U.S. Agency 

for International Development] has to go in and do all of that, but 

there may be areas where we can help local people. Syria has a lot 

of engineers, Syria has a lot of planners, but they may be able to 

use help in some of the planning. And so that is a third thing for 

the United States to do. 

Mr. WALZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Zinke. 

Mr. ZINKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I do agree with your assessment of ISIS, but I also don’t think 

Al Qaeda is out of the game. And my fear is, being number two, 

Al Qaeda will strike in a larger way because they are in a battle 

for influence. 

But I would like to turn the attention to Iran. Since Congress 

failed to stop the President’s Iranian deal, we have watched Iran 

launch two ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles], we have 

watched them deploy missile strikes in Camp Liberty, we have 

watched them embolden and, to a degree, influence the Shia militia. 

To your point about reconciliation between the Sunnis and the 

Shia, as Iranian influence begins to be emboldened, I don’t see how 

a Sunni reconciliation can occur without checking Iran. 

And there are reports, and I believe they are valid, as the Shia 

militia went through its anti-Sunni rallying cries and battle cries. 
22 

And my fear in Ramadi—although I think that we were wise to put 

the Iraqi military in charge of that operation rather than the Shia 

militia—as that territory is gained, if the result is simply the Shia 

militia and a greater Iranian influence in the Anbar Province, I 

think that is perilous. 

How concerned are you about Iranian influence in Iraq and 

Syria? 

Mr. MORELL. So I will go first here. 

You know, I am deeply concerned about Iran. The nuclear issue 

is not the only problem that we have with the Iranians. We have 

a long list of problems with the Iranians. 

Number one, they want to be the hegemonic power in the region. 

They want to call the shots. They want the influence. It is not incorrect to say that they want to reestablish the Persian Empire. 

And it is not just this government; it is not just this Supreme 

Leader. It goes way back in Iranian history. The Shah wanted to 

do it. 

So that is number one. That is not in our interest, in my view. 

Two, I think it is fair to say—Michael will correct me here if I 

am wrong. I think it is fair to say that Iran is the only country on 

the planet that still, itself, conducts terrorism as a tool of statecraft 

against its neighbors, around the world. The IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps] Quds Force conducts terrorist acts. That is 

not a good thing. 

Three, Iran supports international terrorist groups. Hezbollah 

could not exist without the support it gets from Iran. And just a 

reminder: Prior to 9/11, Hezbollah killed more Americans than any 

other terrorist group on the planet. 

Four, it is Iranian state policy—it is Iranian state policy for the 

state of Israel to be the wiped off the face of the planet. And if you 

don’t believe me, just listen to the Supreme Leader; he says it all 

the time. He actually has a 9- or 10-point plan to destroy Israel. 

You can Google it, ‘‘Supreme Leader, Iran, Israel, nine-point plan,’’ 

and you will see it. He claims it is nonviolent. I don’t know how 

you remove a country from the planet without violence, however. 

And then you put the nuclear program on top of all that. 

So this is, I believe, a strategic threat to the region and a strategic threat to the United States of America. 

Mr. ZINKE. Do you see any indication that Iran has changed their 

tune? 

Mr. MORELL. No, not at all. And I think the proper response is 

that we push back on malign behavior in the region by Iran. We 

have to show them that we are going to stand up to them. That 

will send them a very powerful message, and it will send our allies 

a very powerful message. Right now, our allies think that they are 

all alone against their version of the Soviet Union. And that is not 

too strong a statement, Congressman. 

Mr. ZINKE. Thank you. 

And really quick, because I am running out of time, a question 

directed to you, Mr. Ambassador, is—and thank you for being 

here—is that, talking to our allies, there seems to be a problem 

with trust. I would say that our allies don’t trust us and our enemies don’t fear us. 
23 

But I do believe a solution, both political and a military solution, 

is called for, but part of the military solution cannot be just a U.S.- 

only force. It has to be made of—because this is a war between 

Islam as much as it is East and West. 

Are you concerned about the level of trust in our allies? Because 

I agree with your assessment, that only the U.S. can lead this successfully. And yet, how do we gain the trust back of our allies 

should we decide to bring a force in and allies—a group of allies? 

And I think you know the members. 

Ambassador FORD. Congressman, I think it is possible that some 

of the states in the region, Gulf States, Jordanians and others, 

would be willing to insert ground forces into a place like Syria, but 

they are not going to do it without the blessing and even the support of the United States. 

Mr. ZINKE. That is very clear. 

Ambassador FORD. And what the mission of that force would be 

would have to be defined. And I don’t think it is the answer by 

itself. It might be one part of a longer list of things to be done. By 

itself, it is not enough. 

But in terms of your question about how do you rebuild trust, I 

think two things: Number one, the administration needs to show 

people in the Gulf, and, in particular, Saudi Arabia, but also countries like Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, that we may disagree on a lot of things—human rights issues and other things, the 

influence of the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, where we have a deep 

disagreement—but, fundamentally, we stand for their security. 

In the tit-for-tat between Iran and Saudi Arabia, I have not 

heard the administration come out and say, ‘‘We may disagree with 

the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, but the stability and security of Saudi Arabia is a vital American national interest.’’ I have 

not heard that said. 

Second, just on an operational level, I would actually like higherlevel envoys to take that message out to the Gulf. I would like to 

see some people from Washington, and not just people in uniform, 

as important as they are to this, but I would also like to see highlevel envoys from the Department of State and/or the White House 

go out and deliver that message so that you could begin to have 

a conversation, a really frank conversation, about what we are all 

trying to do in the region. 

Mr. ZINKE. Thank you. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Castro. 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you, Chairman. 

And thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. 

As you know, there was a suicide bomber who attacked Istanbul 

at about 10:15 a.m. Tuesday morning in Turkey. And because of 

that, I want to ask a few questions related to Turkey. 

And the first one is really a preface question. How effective do 

you believe or have you seen that Turkey has been to stem the unwanted flow of fighters and goods into and out of their country? 

Ambassador FORD. Congressman, it was more or less an open 

border in 2012 and 2013. The Turks have taken a lot of measures 

to tighten that border. It is very different from what it was 3 years 

ago, 4 years ago. 
24 

That said, that border is still not completely shut. There are lots 

of little goat paths and donkey trails that date back hundreds of 

years. Smugglers know them, and the Turks can know them. But 

it is a manpower-intensive operation, and the Turks need to assign 

enough manpower to do it. 

Mr. CASTRO. Secondly, Turkey recently decided to seal its border, 

create a buffer zone in northern Syria, and allow U.S. aircraft to 

use the Incirlik Air Base for bombing missions in Iraq and Syria. 

What additional role do you foresee Turkey having in the fight 

against ISIL? 

And I ask this question also because of the instability in the region and their recent tension with Russia over the downed jet. 

Dr. VICKERS. Well, you mentioned the major contributions. You 

know, again, Turkish policy primarily puts the defeat of Assad 

ahead—or sees them intertwined, certainly, in a major way. And 

that is one area where we have had some disagreement. 

Ambassador FORD. Congressman, I think that one thing—two 

things the Turks can do. 

Number one, as I said, they can put more manpower down on 

that border and shut the last smuggling trail. 

The second thing that they can do is increase their assistance to 

Syrian rebel groups that are, themselves, fighting the Islamic State 

right now—for example, north of Aleppo, where there is quite a 

dogfight going on between the Islamic State on one side and moderate Syrian rebel forces, called the Marea Front, on the other side. 

The Americans could actually help the Turks in that effort by directing some of our air strikes against Islamic State in coordination 

with those Syrian rebels that the Turks are trying to help. 

Mr. CASTRO. And then let me ask you, I know there has been a 

lot of discussion about how we stop ISIS and other terrorist groups 

from recruiting folks, whether it is in the region or in Europe or 

the United States. I think everybody here would agree that terrorism has essentially become a franchise in the Middle East and 

North Africa and growing in other places in the world. 

And so, Mr. Morell, I think you mentioned that there were about 

900 cases the FBI is investigating of folks who have been recruited 

towards terrorism by ISIS. 

You know, essentially, have you seen a difference in what Europe 

is doing to address that problem and what the United States is 

doing, or a difference between the United States and any other region of the world, with respect to the Internet specifically? 

Mr. MORELL. Yeah, I don’t know the answer to the question, 

Congressman. I don’t know if the Europeans are doing something 

that we are not. 

I do know the problem is bigger in Europe than it is here. Their 

radicalization problem is much worse. Muslim communities in Europe are simply not as well integrated into the European society. 

Muslims in America are much better integrated. 

The Internet is a huge problem, but the bigger problem than the 

vehicle for the message is the resonance of the message. And it is 

a very powerful message. It is a very powerful message that the 

West, led by the United States, is trying to destroy our religion, 

and we need you to fight for us, we need you to fight for your religion. 
25 

And we don’t have a lot of credibility, we or the Western European governments, don’t have a lot of credibility in pushing back 

against that message because we don’t have any credibility because 

we are not Muslim. So there are others who have to get the right 

counter-narrative. 

So it is more the message than it is the vehicle for it. 

I will also say, just to reiterate something that Robert said earlier, the fact that they have a safe haven gives them great credibility in spreading their message. It makes them the center of mass 

in the jihadi movement. People want to join the winners. And if 

you put the message with that, that is where the power comes 

from. 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Byrne. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, gentlemen, for your patience and your very good 

insight. 

If I had done—and I did do—town hall meetings 2 years ago, the 

people in my district would have been, at best, ambivalent and 

probably pretty negative about any idea of further intervention in 

Syria. But a lot has happened over the last 2 years, and I can tell 

you from my town hall meetings, that is not what I am hearing 

anymore. People are worried, because if you watch the course of 

events, these events have come closer and closer to home. San 

Bernardino, a lone-wolf attack but nonetheless inspired, if not indirectly directed, by the people of ISIS, have got my constituents’ attention. 

But I am from Alabama. We believe in winning. We know you 

can’t win unless you have the right coach—Roll Tide—you can’t 

win unless you have the right coach. I am not asking you to comment on the coach. And that coach has got to have a plan. And the 

plan has to be a plan to win. And you have to train the team to 

win on that plan. 

Now, my constituents come to my town hall meetings and say, 

where is the plan, the winning plan? This President has not articulated a plan at all, whether it is a winning one or not. 

So we are going to be changing coaches, changing Presidents in 

a year. And, once again, my question is not directed at who that 

should be. But if you were advising that next President of the 

United States on what the winning plan is, how we win this war, 

what would the elements of that plan be? 

Dr. VICKERS. So, first, as an Alabama grad, let me say ‘‘Roll 

Tide’’ back at you. 

Mr. BYRNE. There you go. Roll Tide. 

Dr. VICKERS. So I tried to outline some of them, with respect to 

Syria and then the global jihad and then the broader competition 

between regional powers in the Middle East. But, again, these 

things will take time. You know, it is a question of reducing our 

risk, denying the sanctuary. 

But these operations—you know, if you think of it as a series of 

campaigns that eventually lead to a winning strategy that eventually lets you win the war, winning the war is going to take an 

awful long time until you get governance in the Middle East. 
26 

And so then you have to think of it in terms of a Syria campaign, 

Iraq campaign, campaign against the global jihadists in Libya and 

elsewhere to make sure, you know, you are progressively defeating 

them while you, you know, accelerate efforts in some areas. But, 

again, the problem is just too big for a single knockout blow. 

Robert. 

Ambassador FORD. I think the biggest problem with our Syria 

policy is we have a strategy, which is to get to a new national unity 

government, but we have no tactics to get there. It is like a hope. 

It is a wish. And it has been a wish since 2012, but we are not getting any closer, frankly. As I mentioned before, the Russian intervention probably pushes it even further back. 

So, to me, the fundamentals of the strategy are: We want an indigenous force in Syria, and in Iraq, able to eventually grind out, 

eliminate the Islamic State and other extremists. I take the Congressman’s point that Al Qaeda is still there. 

In order to do that, you have to have governments that basically 

promote national reconciliation on some level. I think we are seeing 

that emerge in Iraq. We are nowhere near it in Syria. 

And I think if the press reports of what I read of what General 

Petraeus said to the committee last week are accurate, I subscribe 

fully to the sorts of things that he was talking about, in terms of 

putting pressure on in order to get to a serious negotiation. So far, 

the administration has declined to do that. 

Mr. BYRNE. Let me ask you a follow-up question, Ambassador. If 

we are going to rebuild that country, we have to rebuild it with 

Syrian people. Yet we have seen a wholesale outflow of refugees 

from Syria—I would argue, probably the very people we need to depend upon to rebuild the country. 

Shouldn’t we be pursuing a policy that brings those people back 

to Syria, closer to Syria, so that we can bring them into rebuilding 

of that country, and not continue to see these efforts to welcome 

them to places away from Syria? 

Ambassador FORD. I think you want to be careful here, Congressman. Why did they leave Syria? The opinion polls that I have read 

of Syrian refugees themselves, somewhere between 70 and 80 percent say they left because of the aerial bombings of their neighborhood, the barrel bombs. And some fled the Islamic State, although, 

actually, the numbers that fled the Assad government’s aerial 

bombing are much, much, much higher than the number who fled 

the Islamic State, as brutal as the Islamic State is. 

So you have to deal with that root cause in order to convince people to go back. There could be reconstruction. We might be able to 

find ways to generate the resources to help the country rebuild. 

But you can’t do any of that as long as the war goes on, so I go 

back to what I said about that. 

With respect to keeping them closer versus farther, yes, there is 

big debate about Syrian refugees right now. I would just say this: 

Having refugees in camps indefinitely, even near Syria, in Lebanon 

or Turkey or Jordan or Iraq, where there is no hope, also breeds 

resentment and actually helps the Islamic State recruit, as well. 

And so as we, the Americans, think about whether or not we 

should take refugees, I think we also need to bear in mind that 

choosing not to take refugees plays into an Islamic State recruiting 
27 

effort. And so we will have to judge a whole series of factors as we 

make that decision about refugees. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you, sir. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank our witnesses for your service to the country and 

also for your appearance today, in particular, Mr. Morell and Dr. 

Vickers. In my 8 years on the Intelligence Committee and also my 

years here on the Armed Services Committee, I always appreciated 

your candid testimony before me in both those areas. 

I think, clearly, obviously we have extraordinary challenges in 

our efforts to defeat ISIL, both on the military front and on the political front. And you all have outlined some concrete steps on both, 

particularly on the military front. The bigger challenge that we see 

is going to be defeating ISIL on the political front, especially given 

the fact that there are countless examples throughout the Koran 

that ISIL uses to justify their actions. 

What are the most effective ways for us to delegitimize ISIL, in 

particular, you know, given the headwinds we are up against when 

ISIL or Al Qaeda are using the Koran to justify what they are 

doing? 

Now, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee has 

recently held several hearings and briefings on countering extremist messaging, also authorizing a counter-messaging demo program 

last year. And on Friday the White House announced a new task 

force for this very purpose. 

So as we work to bolster information operations in our fight to 

delegitimize ISIL’s ideological messaging, what capabilities do we 

need, and what tactics and techniques and procedures should the 

military and the new task force employ? 

Dr. VICKERS. So I will start. 

I think the most immediate thing we can do in the near term is 

to take away their narrative that they are on the path to victory. 

As we were talking about earlier with Congresswoman Sanchez, it 

really is this caliphate on the path to end times that I think is our 

most promising opportunity. 

It won’t end the war, it won’t destroy their ideology, but it will 

certainly put a big dent in it, much as you saw right after 9/11 

when Al Qaeda was expelled from Afghanistan. You know, Al 

Qaeda’s stock went down in terms of public opinion in the Islamic 

world for a while. You know, they were seen as suddenly a loser 

rather than a winner. 

Mr. MORELL. Congressman, I would just add that, you know, I 

think the illegitimating of the religious justification for what 

jihadists are doing, whether they are ISIS or Al Qaeda or anybody 

else, has got to come from the Muslim leadership. 

President Sisi in Egypt gave a remarkable speech a year ago, a 

year ago this month, where he basically said that there needs to 

be a revolution inside of Islam. He has not done any follow-up to 

that, as far as I am aware, but it was a remarkable speech at the 

time, and it was absolutely right. 

There are plenty of verses in the Bible that would seem to justify 

violence, but there aren’t a lot of—there is not a significant number 
28 

of Christians who act on that. We moved beyond that. Islam needs 

to do the same. And that is what President Sisi was saying. 

And we don’t have credibility in making those arguments. We 

just don’t. And so we need to have conversations with the leadership in the Muslim world about how they need to take this on 

themselves. But I think that is something that America’s diplomats 

need to talk to the leadership of those countries about. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Ambassador, do you have anything to add? 

Ambassador FORD. Yes, I do. 

The most effective social media video that I have heard about in 

the last 6 months to delegitimize the Islamic State came out of the 

Free Syrian Army. And it got a lot of play on social media. And, 

basically, if I can sum it up in 15 seconds, the video shows victorious Free Syrian Army soldiers marching a bunch of orange-clad 

Islamic State prisoners and says, we are now going to execute 

these guys because they are infidels, they are apostates, which is 

exactly what the Islamic State has been doing to Free Syrian Army 

soldiers they have captured. 

But at the very last moment, as they are about to behead them, 

a screen comes on and it quotes several verses from the Koran saying, ‘‘God says grant mercy. God says don’t kill people. They have 

intrinsic value.’’ And so the knife is pulled back and their chains 

are set free, and they say, ‘‘Join us.’’ That video has been viewed 

tens of thousands of times in the Middle East. 

My point in this is it was indigenously produced, and, in a sense, 

it played to themes that they understand better than I ever would, 

even though I spent 30 years in the region. 

What we can probably most do is help people like that get their 

messages out. But it can’t be put on a dot-gov Web site because 

young Arabs aren’t going to get a lot of guidance, shall we say, or 

they are not going to take a lot of advice from a dot-gov Web site. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

My time has expired, and I want to thank you all for your testimony. 

One thing, if you would, in writing if you could respond, just 

identifying our most significant intelligence gaps and what we 

should do to close those now. I know my time has expired, so I will 

yield back, but if you could respond to those in writing, it would 

be very helpful, especially given your experience and years of service in those areas. 

[The information referred to was not available at the time of 

printing.] 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank you all for being here today. 

You know, as I look at what we are facing and what you have 

talked about so well today, you know, I believe that the United 

States needs to lead on this, but we can’t lead and do things alone, 

that we need to develop our coalitions wholeheartedly with our European allies and with our allies in the Middle East. You know, you 

see what happened in Paris, and then France wants to become 

more involved. And I think that we need to establish that. 
29 

And my concern is that we are not doing enough; we are not 

doing enough to establish these diplomatic ties with our allies. Possibly, we need to share more information, coordinate better, and 

certainly could possibly do more as far as trying to disrupt them 

economically. And then, of course, there is the component of what 

we are going to do militarily. 

And, Ambassador, I appreciate what you just shared with us because that has been one of my concerns all along, is what we are 

doing. I have seen some of their videos and how they try to recruit, 

and I am like, are we doing anything to counteract that, to get people that go online, to pay attention to these things, to get another 

point of view? And I would hope that we would do something more 

like that to counter how effective they have been in that regard. 

But I would like to just to ask each of you, what more do you 

think we should be doing, militarily and non-military, and maybe 

even more non-military, as I discussed, as far as diplomacy and 

trying to hurt them economically? 

You know, you mentioned before how much they collect in taxes. 

I mean, that is pretty incredible. And I don’t know that many people realize that. That was kind of a new revelation to me. You 

know, I thought most of the revenue was coming from oil. 

So what are some of the things that we can do, both militarily 

and non-militarily? And how should we develop our coalitions? Because, to me, this is a global good-versus-evil event that is taking 

place in this time. 

I will start with you, Mr. Morell. 

Mr. MORELL. So I will answer the intelligence question now because it is an area that we need—I don’t know if it is put more 

emphasis on, because I know there is a lot of emphasis, but it is 

an area we need to improve on significantly. 

We need two types of intelligence out of ISIS. We need intelligence on their plans and intentions and specific plots that they 

are planning, both in the region and in Europe and the United 

States, if we are going to be able to disrupt those. 

And we need intelligence that will give us a lot more targets on 

the ground. You know, Mike talked about our success against Al 

Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan post-9/11. It was because we 

had very specific intelligence on what the target should be. All 

right? 

So I think we need a much better intelligence in those two areas. 

It is very difficult to get because we are not on the ground in the 

caliphate. So we are going to need partnerships with a lot of different people in order to get the assets that we need to get inside 

the ISIS leadership and to get those targets on the ground that we 

need. And it probably needs to be the most important thing that 

the intelligence community is doing at the moment. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Dr. Vickers. 

Dr. VICKERS. Yeah, I agree with that. And if you look at our 

counterterrorism campaigns where we have had a lot of success, 

that approach has worked generally well, where we have really 

built up our assets over time, from Afghanistan and on into the 

Pakistan tribal areas, et cetera. It has paid big dividends, and then 

it started to pay in Yemen, as well, and, you know, we are trying 

to close the gap in Syria. 
30 

As far as the outlines of the strategy, the military side, I think, 

again, more intense going after ISIS as a state. You have to take 

that state down for political reasons, but, also, that is one thing our 

military really knows how to do. And then to exploit the effects of 

that, you have to have an indigenous ground force. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. And I appreciate that. And so, I guess, what do 

you see that looking like? Because it is something we are good at, 

let’s say, but I don’t think in this situation, having served in Iraq, 

I don’t want to be seen as occupiers, I don’t want to be there by 

ourselves. I think we need to have people from the region, as well, 

that are holding that ground. 

Dr. VICKERS. I agree with you. I think, you know, our role should 

be limited to being advisers, one, for the reasons that Robert talked 

about, about national reconciliation and the rebuilding task, which 

is really the hard task afterwards. And if we try to do that, one, 

we will fail, but, two, we will subject ourselves to a lot of unnecessary pain. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Ambassador, do you have anything to add? 

Ambassador FORD. Can I shift just slightly? 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Sure. 

Ambassador FORD. I think there are two—I talked about Saudi 

Arabia and the Gulf and reassuring on our shared interest in their 

stability. I think, two other things on the diplomatic side that need 

to be done. 

Number one, I think there is a need for a much more frank, 

high-level discussion with Turkey. I am very happy every time I 

see that our President has talked to their President. I wish they 

would talk all the time. Because Turkey is probably the most important country in the Syria conflict, aside from Iran, and it has 

an ability to really help and it has an ability to really be a spoiler. 

And so we just have to have a really frank, behind-closed-door 

discussion with them. I think the Vice President is planning to go 

to Turkey. I certainly hope he does. And I think the message needs 

to be blunt, but it needs to be behind closed doors. That is not an 

argument that should be aired in public. 

And to be fair to the Turks, they have interests. I mean, they 

have interests with what is happening with the Kurds, and they 

have interest with the neighbor to the south in Iraq and in Syria. 

And so, second, and related to that, Turkey and Qatar are backing one side in the Libyan conflict, and the Egyptians and the 

Emirates are backing a different side. And just the fact that they 

are pulling in opposite directions, Congressman, just makes the 

whole Libya problem more difficult. 

There are other countries that have interests in Libya too. Algeria shares a very long border, and Algeria has a problem itself with 

Islamic extremists; Tunisia, where there have been multiple terrorism attacks; the European Union. 

There just has to be a greater sustained effort on the Libya diplomacy side. Secretary Kerry was with the United Nations in Rome, 

where they talked about putting together a Government of National Accord. It is not a one-time-meeting kind of thing. There 

needs to be a sustained, high-level effort. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. My time has expired. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis. 
31 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for bringing your expertise to us today. We appreciate your distinguished service. 

I wanted to sort of respond to some of the conversation that we 

have had. And I think that we all acknowledge and understand one 

of the first things that we need here, I think, on the committee but 

also in the country is patience. It is very difficult to push when we 

know that the timeline is out. I remember one of the Iraqi generals 

saying something to the effect of, well, we think we might be operational by 2020. And everybody looked at him like, you know, come 

back another day. And so that is important for us to acknowledge. 

And the other thing that you have all mentioned, and I think 

particularly Ambassador Ford, is reassuring our allies. 

So I wanted to ask you, Ambassador Ford, because you highlighted, in talking to Syria, issues of conditionality, particularly as 

we are working with those who are fighting with the opposition, 

where is it that we have fallen short in seeking more conditionality 

moving forward? How could that be done differently? 

And, certainly, this is a whole-of-government approach to a large 

extent, and you have been talking about sustaining the efforts in 

terms of the State Department. And, at the same time, we know 

that, whether it is funding or whatever that may be, we often don’t 

engage at the level that we should. Where should those efforts be, 

specifically, in terms of Syria? 

Ambassador FORD. I think, Congresswoman, on two levels. 

On a national geostrategic level with countries of the region— 

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, who are big players in Syria, and Iran. And 

I assume the Secretary of State is now having some frank conversations with the Iranian Foreign Minister. Of course, the Iranian Foreign Minister doesn’t control Iranian policy in Syria. There 

is another man in the Iranian Government named Qasem 

Soleimani from the Revolutionary Guard Corps who controls it. So 

it is awkward, but there needs to be sustained engagement there. 

And I think when you talk about conditionality, to me, one of the 

basic elements is we tell the Turks and the Saudis that we are not 

interested in helping extremists in the Syrian opposition who will 

reject a political solution and insist only on military victory. Any 

assistance we give to any Syrian opposition group should be conditioned on their acceptance of an eventual political deal, not military 

victory. 

Second level for conditionality engagement has to be at a more 

local level. I mentioned that there are areas that are being liberated, whether it is from the Islamic State or sometimes from the 

Assad regime. You would need to keep the services going. 

And State Department has tried to do this. I have to be honest; 

my colleagues who are still in government tell me it is becoming 

more difficult because of security. And I certainly hope, and I know 

Chris Stevens would hope, that what happened in Benghazi does 

not prevent colleagues from doing their jobs, going forward and engaging with people locally, in the case of Syria or Iraq, to help national reconciliation and the restoration of capable local governance. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you for that. 
32 

I don’t know whether, Mr. Morell or Dr. Vickers, you wanted to 

comment on that area of conditionality, but I wanted to just follow 

up quickly. 

I know, Dr. Vickers, you spoke about trying to look at the Afghan 

strikes initially and kind of taking a look at that. What happened 

after, obviously, was a far greater problem. But are you suggesting 

that we really do need to have far more strikes than we are having? And issues of collateral damage, issues of greater radicalization of the area that can occur, are these the considerations that 

come into this equation? And how does this play into, really, the 

issues around a no-fly zone, as well? 

Dr. VICKERS. Thank you. 

So, yes, I am arguing for a more intense air campaign, much like 

we did in Afghanistan in 2001. And, as you said, that didn’t end 

the war. That just eliminated Al Qaeda’s sanctuary in Afghanistan 

and, you know, toppled the Taliban regime, you know, and the 

Taliban lived to fight another day, and Al Qaeda fled somewhere 

else. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Right. And, unfortunately, we went to Iraq. 

Dr. VICKERS. Yeah. So, you know, all sorts of things. 

But one of the things you see in these campaigns is that—collateral damage is, obviously, a critical concern. It does not go up linearly with the intensity of strike, mainly by the way we operate. 

So if you look at areas where we have had more relaxed rules 

of engagements in our counterterrorism campaigns and we have 

done more strikes, we have had more liberal policy, versus others 

where we have been more restrained, you know, you occasionally 

make mistakes, and so you have that 1 percent where, no matter 

how hard you try, you are not perfect, but there is not this correlation by a factor of 10. 

And that was true—now, again, you know, war zones are different from areas outside of hostilities. But, you know, we are in 

generally a precision world right now, and so I think that you can 

responsibly intensify the air campaign. 

Because, as you said, if you do have collateral damage, you will 

defeat your purpose. You know, you will turn more people against 

you and everything else. And so that is just driven into our operations right now. 

I don’t know if my colleagues want to address that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I am sorry, I think I am out of time. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. 

And I know we have talked a lot about Syria and other parts of 

the world outside the U.S. I want to get back to the U.S. for a couple of minutes. 

Mr. Morell, you said that the FBI has over 800 open investigations in this country? 

Mr. MORELL. 900. 

Mr. SCOTT. 900. Okay. I am, quite honestly, surprised that it is 

not even higher than that, with what we have seen. 

Do we know what percentage of those investigations are U.S. 

citizens and what percentage are not U.S. citizens? 
33 

Mr. MORELL. I think, Congressman, the vast majority are U.S. 

citizens. 

Mr. SCOTT. The vast majority are U.S. citizens. 

Of those who are not U.S. citizens, do we know how they got to 

the United States, whether it was refugee or visa, or what gaps? 

Did they come across the border illegally? 

Mr. MORELL. Congressman, I just don’t know that data. 

Mr. SCOTT. Those are certainly things that I think we should follow up on and try to find what the commonalities are of those who 

seem to desire to be a part of that organization. 

The other thing that there seems to be uniform agreement on is 

that, as long as ISIS maintains large blocks of territory, then they 

will be a power in that region of the world. How many countries 

do they claim to have territory in today? 

Dr. VICKERS. I want to say it is about 8 to 10, something like 

that. 

Mr. SCOTT. Eight to ten. That is—— 

Dr. VICKERS. There is Nigeria, Algeria, Libya, the Sinai—— 

Mr. MORELL. There are militant groups in about 20 countries 

that associate themselves in some way with ISIS. ISIS does not 

have—— 

Mr. SCOTT. Do they claim territory in all of those areas, or—— 

Mr. MORELL. No. 

Mr. SCOTT [continuing]. Do they just—— 

Mr. MORELL. No. No. They claim territory in a handful of them. 

Dr. VICKERS. They call them provinces. 

Mr. SCOTT. Right. 

Mr. MORELL. And some of those have no contact with the ISIS 

leadership in Raqqah. Some of them do. ISIS has sent emissaries 

to some of these places to interact with these guys. 

Mr. SCOTT. Would you agree that an area where they actually 

claim territory, that is different than having an operation, the actual claim of physical territory and land? 

Mr. MORELL. You know, we all three of us—right?—have made 

points about how important safe haven is, how important territory 

is. And that is true for those militant groups who associate themselves with ISIS, as it is for ISIS. 

Mr. SCOTT. So is one of the countries that they claim to have a 

safe haven in Saudi Arabia? 

Mr. MORELL. No. 

Mr. SCOTT. It is not? 

Mr. MORELL. No. They have cells, they have terrorist cells in 

Saudi Arabia. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. So which one of those territories, or nations 

that they claim to have territory in, would their operation be the 

smallest in? 

Ambassador FORD. Algeria. 

Mr. SCOTT. Algeria. 

Ambassador FORD. They have an affiliate, the Wilayat al-Jazair, 

the Algeria Prophet, they call it, and it is basically a group called 

Jund al-Khilafah. It is not very big, probably maybe 50 to 100 

fighters. They murdered a Frenchman—— 

Mr. SCOTT. Let me stop you right there. You hit on the point I 

was trying to get to: It is not very big. 
34 

Ambassador FORD. Right. 

Mr. SCOTT. So while we are trying to figure out how to carry out 

these extremely complex military operations and diplomatic operations in countries like Syria, why shouldn’t we destroy them in 

these other countries that they claim territory in, start to get small 

victories against them? Why shouldn’t we just wipe them out in 

there? 

If they only have 100 people, why can’t we—why don’t we, I 

should say—wipe them out so that instead of claiming land in 10 

countries they claim it in 2 or 3? And you defeat the small ones 

first, and then you defeat the big ones. That way, you are not playing Whac-A-Mole when you go in and take on the big one. 

Ambassador FORD. With respect to a place like Algeria—two 

comments. 

Number one, the Algerian Government is vigorously pursuing 

this group. They hate them. They despise them. They have been 

fighting groups like this since the early 1990s. 

That said, the Algerians, in particular, are quite sensitive about 

the deployment of foreign forces on their soil. They are hypersensitive. It would probably be easier, Congressman, to deploy special 

operations forces—politically, it would be easier, politically, to do it 

in a place like Tunisia or Yemen. 

Mr. SCOTT. And if I can finish up, with the 15 seconds I have 

left. That is what creates the challenge with the authorization for 

the use of military force, is that they are in so many countries 

which are sovereign states, and us, as a country, operating militarily in those states without their permission is a tremendous 

challenge. 

And so any suggestions that you have—I am out of time, but, 

certainly, in how the authorization for use of military force could 

be drafted that allowed us to carry out those operations. But you 

are talking about multiple countries, not just one or two, and that 

makes it an extremely complex issue. 

Congratulations on the national championship, Dr. Vickers. We 

look forward to beating you—— 

Dr. VICKERS. There is always next year. 

Mr. SCOTT [continuing]. Next year. 

Dr. VICKERS. Yeah. That was a great game. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Gabbard. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you. 

Good morning—good afternoon. 

Mr. Morell, you spoke about President el-Sisi in Egypt and that 

great speech that he gave and the need for leaders within Islam 

to combat and counter this radical extremist ideology that is driving groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. And you very eloquently drew 

that line between connecting groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda and 

how that ideology is exactly the same. 

I had a chance to meet with President el-Sisi in Egypt in November. I spent close to 2 hours talking with him and heard from him 

how he is continuing to meet with imams and gatherings of religious Muslim leaders and continuing this effort but remains frustrated about the cold shoulder that he is getting from the United 

States and, really, the lack of action on our part about recognizing 
35 

the need to, as you said, identify and understand your enemy and 

the ideology that is driving them. 

So when we understand and know that ISIS has the same ideology of this radical political Islamism that Al Qaeda has, that alNusrah has, and many of these other groups that are fighting in 

Syria to overthrow Assad, to establish their caliphate, why is it, in 

your opinion, that the U.S. in Syria is only targeting ISIS and is 

not, to my knowledge, targeting any of these other variety of Islamic extremist groups who adhere to and who are fighting under 

and motivated by this exact same radical Islamic ideology? 

Mr. MORELL. We are. In particular, the Khorasan Group, which 

is associated with al-Nusrah and is the external operations arm of 

al-Nusrah. 

Ms. GABBARD. Do you know when the most recent attack on the 

Khorasan Group was? 

Mr. MORELL. I don’t. I know there was a flurry of attacks on 

them early. 

Ms. GABBARD. A couple years ago, I think. 

Mr. MORELL. Those attacks were successful. 

You know, the focus is on ISIS for obvious reasons, but my sense 

is that we are targeting other groups in Syria. 

Just to go back to what you said about Egypt, which I think is 

very, very important, Congresswoman, I agree with what Robert 

said earlier, that it is very important for the United States to be 

able to segregate. It is very important for us to be able to say to 

President Sisi, here are the things that you are doing that we don’t 

like, but here are the things that we are going to support you on 

100 percent. 

And I think it is very important to be able to have those conversations and to separate your policy in a way that you can be 

supportive of the very, very important things that a leader might 

be doing even though you have some other problems with him. 

Ms. GABBARD. Well, I think even folks who are working within 

Egypt on our side recognize that there is still a lot more that needs 

to be done—— 

Mr. MORELL. Yes, they do. 

Ms. GABBARD [continuing]. In order to form that partnership that 

is mutually beneficial for both of us. 

Just to your point about your sense is that we are targeting Al 

Qaeda, I have been asking that question multiple times of multiple 

people and have not gotten that sense, that we are targeting Al 

Qaeda and al-Nusrah. 

And one of the reasons that I see—and some of you have been 

talking about the opposition forces. It has become very clear to me 

that we are ignoring, the United States is ignoring the fact that the 

most effective fighting force within that opposition that you and 

others are referring to who are trying to overthrow Assad are Al 

Qaeda, they are al-Nusrah, they are these Islamic extremist 

groups, who have been reported, as they have taken over territory, 

to be implementing and enacting this political Islam, forcing 

women to wear burqas, and implementing this religious law on the 

society that they have in the same way that we have seen ISIS in 

the territory that they have regained. 

Go ahead, Dr. Vickers. 
36 

Dr. VICKERS. So, one, I think—I generally agree, but I think you 

need to draw a distinction between the external plotting arm of alNusrah, whether they call them Khorasan Group or Al Qaeda veterans. A number of those attacks, which began in September 2014, 

have continued as those targets have been developed. I think 

Sanafi al-Nasr or somebody—you know, there have been—David 

Drugeon—I mean, there were a series of them over the past year, 

I would say. 

Al-Nusrah proper, which is, I don’t know, some 6,000, 9,000 

troops or so, but they are spread across the country. I would agree 

that a lot of the foot soldiers have done tactical alliances with other 

parts of the opposition and have not been targeted in the same 

way. Partially, I think it is an intelligence issue, and, you know, 

the big focus has really been on these external plotters, I believe. 

Ms. GABBARD. Well, I think that—and I will just close with 

this—to me, the problem is very clear that there are two contradictory U.S. wars that we are waging. One is to overthrow the Syrian 

Government of Assad, which is also the objective of ISIS and Al 

Qaeda and these other groups. And the other is the war to defeat 

ISIS, without a clear strategy or a clear action that I have seen, 

at least, against Al Qaeda and al-Nusrah and these other groups. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Fleming. 

Dr. FLEMING. Thank you. 

Gentlemen, I have listened to your testimony, and it is all very 

interesting and informative. 

Let me ask you this: Have all three of you worked within the 

Obama administration? 

Dr. VICKERS. I have. 

Dr. FLEMING. I believe you have. 

And I listened intently as you, in particular, Mr. Morell, outlined 

eloquently how the current state of the Islamic world is an apocalyptic sort of view coming out of their religious studies out of Iran. 

Many believe that if you are an infidel, if you are not a believer, 

that you should be put to death and that there will be a messianic 

figure to come and kind of rule over the world. 

I guess my question is, have you had these conversations with 

our President? 

Mr. MORELL. Sir, I would say that there is not much that I have 

said here today that my former organization hasn’t shared with the 

President of the United States. 

Dr. FLEMING. Okay. 

Would you say the same? 

Dr. VICKERS. I would. 

Dr. FLEMING. The reason why I ask that question is because the 

American people, I think, just listening through the media, reading 

newspapers, agree with what you have to say, but our President 

seems to think that it is merely a coincidence that terrorists happen to be of the Islamic faith. And the problem with that, of course, 

is that limits how we deal with the core issues behind all of this. 

I also heard you articulate, very importantly, how non-Islamists 

like ourselves, we don’t have quite the credibility to say, ‘‘Guys, you 

know, these beliefs are not consistent with the Koran and it is not 
37 

consistent with how we should live together in this world. You really need to turn away from this philosophy.’’ We need to rely on the 

Muslim world to do that. 

But yet it seems to me—and I will tell you that most people in 

my State of Louisiana seem to feel that, even though there are 

many Muslims around the world, both domestically and abroad, 

who may not be in the fight, they still agree with the philosophy, 

the basic philosophy. And that is the reason why there is a resistance for them to come through and say, ‘‘Look, we need to cut this 

out. We need to stop killing people just because they are not believers in Islam.’’ 

I would love to have your response on that. 

Mr. MORELL. I mean, I do think there are the guys who actually 

are acting on the beliefs, and then there is another group who 

share those beliefs and aren’t acting on them, and then there is a 

not insignificant number—it is not a majority, but not an insignificant number—who are comfortable with all of it. And you see it in 

polls. Absolutely, you do. 

And it just reinforces—right?—what we talked about earlier, the 

importance of getting your arms around the creation of terrorists 

in the first place—right?—and not just dealing with them once they 

have been created. 

Dr. FLEMING. Right. 

The other gentlemen, would you like to add to that? 

Ambassador FORD. Congressman, some of the opinion polls that 

I have read done by the Pew organization, Pew Research, have 

some statistics that are actually kind of shocking. The number of 

people in countries like Egypt and Jordan who support, for example, chopping the hands off thieves sometimes goes up to the 70- 

and 80-percent range—for a variety of, sort of, things which the Islamic State already does. 

And that is not to say those people are all believers in what the 

Islamic State is trying to do, but it is to say that they are religiously conservative. 

Dr. FLEMING. Right. 

Ambassador FORD. That is just one of the complications of dealing with the Islamic State. 

That said, Michael Morell was talking about the role of President 

Sisi. I was very struck that, about a year and a half ago, 300 scholars, some of them quite well known within the Islamic world, 

Sunni, came out with a very, very strong denunciation of the Islamic State and the caliphate. It was about 3 months after it was 

announced and after they had done the first really gruesome beheadings of foreigners, as well as Syrians and Iraqis. 

And I think it is always good to remember that the vast majority 

of victims of the Islamic State are themselves Muslim. Christians 

have suffered, unquestionably, and others, but the vast majority 

are Muslim. And that is why I think the most effective people to 

talk back to the Islamic State are not Americans who are not Muslims but other Muslims. 

Dr. FLEMING. Well, I am running out of time, but I would just 

end by saying that it seems absolutely necessary that we energize 

and stimulate the Muslim world to see this for what it is and that 

it is only going to make life difficult for everyone until they get in-
38 

volved and actually begin to counter these terrible philosophies 

that are really keeping us away from peace around the world. 

And I thank you, gentlemen. 

And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Ford, I would like you to comment on a relatively 

recent development, which is the U.N. Security Council outline for 

a peace process in Syria. And I would like you to do so within the 

context of everyone’s agreed goal of ultimately seeing Assad replaced. We want to make sure that we minimize any threats to the 

United States and to our allies. We would like to see stability in 

that region. We want to minimize the loss of human life and suffering. And I think we all, the United States and the world community, would like to see justice served for some truly horrific crimes 

in that area. 

Train and equip hasn’t really worked to that end so far. It has 

been an abysmal failure. Mr. Morell, prior to saying at the end of 

the day we have to get rid of Assad, or Assad has to go, said we 

don’t have a credible ground force in Syria. 

So tell me, Ambassador Ford, your thoughts on the prospects for 

this process, how aggressively we should commit to it, if you agree 

that it is the path to take, and what we can do most effectively, 

militarily, diplomatically, economically, or otherwise, to get to our 

goals through a more peaceful process. 

Ambassador FORD. Thank you, Congressman O’Rourke. 

In brief, I don’t think the process is going to go anywhere. And 

I didn’t think that a month ago before this Saudi-Iranian latest 

spat erupted. 

There is nothing in the documents that came out of Vienna, 

where Secretary Kerry was with other foreign ministers, nor is 

there anything in the Security Council resolution that says that 

Bashar al-Assad must go. It is just simply not addressed. 

Second—by the way, I would just say that, to me, is something 

the Syrians ought to negotiate. It shouldn’t be a precondition, but 

it ought to be on the table. 

Second, right now, there is a lot of goofing around going on about 

who should represent the Syrian opposition. And the Russians are 

trying to put their friends on the opposition delegation; the Iranians are trying to put some of their friends; and, frankly, the 

Turks and the Saudis are trying to put some of their friends. Syrians are not in control of this. 

That, to me, spells disaster, especially if the really serious armed 

opposition guys, who accept a political solution, if those serious 

armed opposition guys are excluded from the negotiation, I can’t 

imagine they will sustain their support for a political deal. 

There has been a lot of talk about getting a cease-fire. You know 

the pictures of the starving people in Madaya? Madaya had a 

cease-fire. You can see what a cease-fire looks like. So if you are 

in one of those areas where there is a cease-fire and then you begin 

to criticize the regime, you don’t want to appear on TV in their 

propaganda, which is what happened in Madaya; then, suddenly, 

food gets cut. 
39 

So I think, in all of this, it is not to say we shouldn’t pursue a 

political process with this U.N. Security Council resolution, but it 

only works if there is pressure on all the sides—and I do mean 

pressure—on all the sides to make a compromise. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. So be explicit about that. In terms of pressure, 

are you suggesting a greater military pressure from the United 

States? 

Ambassador FORD. Well, I am not saying that the United States 

should be bombing the Assad regime. I have never advocated for 

that. But I do think that there are people in the Syrian opposition 

who accept the need for a political solution, and they need more 

support than they are getting. They always have, and they still do. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. And you think some additional support will get 

us to where we need to be—— 

Ambassador FORD. Absolutely. 

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. So when 

the Russians intervened, started bombing, suddenly more anti-tank 

missiles appeared on the battlefield in the hands of the opposition, 

and they blunted a series of Assad offenses. That is what I am 

talking about. 

It is not that the opposition is going to win a military victory. 

That would take forever and destroy whatever is left of Syria, not 

that there is much left. But the point is to inflict enough pain on 

the Assad government and its supporters that they will negotiate 

seriously at the table. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. So what Syria is missing right now is more pain. 

There hasn’t been enough pain in the last few years. 

Ambassador FORD. There hasn’t been enough pressure put on the 

Assad regime to accept major compromises. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yeah. 

With everyone on the panel agreeing that Assad should go—and 

I think he should also go, but I think you also said that should be 

a decision of the Syrian people—do you think the United States 

should be willing to accept his staying for some short period of time 

in order to achieve some of our other goals? 

There is no perfect solution to the situation right now that is at 

least within our control. Should we be willing to concede some 

things, including Assad’s presence, in order to get less suffering, 

more peace, more stability, serve our interests in the region? 

And I am out of time, so I will take that response for the record 

from the panel. 

[The information referred to was not available at the time of 

printing.] 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I served in Iraq with the United States Marine Corps 2005–2006 

in Al Anbar province as a civil affairs officer. And I recall the problems with that 20 percent population, the Sunnis, who were the 

ruling elite in the country and were no longer and, for a time, certainly didn’t see any path to being equitably treated. Then you 

have, later on—I think we gave them that path, and then Maliki, 

I think, pushed them out again and created an opening for ISIS. 
40 

And so I think that, in looking at a post-ISIS Iraq, that there 

needs to be some kind of political accommodation for the Sunnis. 

And what I remember is the Kurds had gotten a provision within 

the constitution whereby they could form a semiautonomous region, 

and they have done so. 

Wouldn’t that make sense—if we look at the areas that have fallen to ISIS, they are all Sunni Arab areas—wouldn’t that make 

sense, that there be some sort of a push in that direction to show 

the Sunni Arabs that there is a path, a political accommodation, 

where they could coexist with a Shia-dominated Baghdad government? 

And I wonder if any of you could answer that question. 

Ambassador FORD. This is exactly what I was talking to Sunni 

Arabs when I was in Iraq last October. And, you know, there was 

a time when they wouldn’t have accepted it, but they have changed 

180 degrees. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Good. Good. 

Ambassador FORD. So I think it would have been negotiated, obviously. And there are provisions in the Iraqi constitution, the 

same one that the United Nations and the United States helped 

them draft, but there are provisions to do that. And so, given that 

it is constitutionally possible and political stars are sort of starting 

to align that way, I could see that. 

Of course, there is a real fear, Congressman, among Iraqi Shias 

that if you just arm a bunch of Sunnis they will come back after 

us again. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Sure. 

Ambassador FORD. And that is not an entirely unreasonable fear. 

And so that is why I said it has to be negotiated. 

But I would hope that the American Embassy and our people 

here at the State Department are keeping an open mind about this 

eventuality and are prepared to engage on it. If that builds enough 

Sunni Arab support, then we will have more Sunni Arabs in Iraq 

going after the Islamic State. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Would anybody else like to comment on that? 

I just think it is very—I mean, it is a vertically integrated form 

of government where, without that regional autonomy, all decisions 

are made from Baghdad, even down to whether it is public education or it is local police or any decision. So I think there are no 

teeth in terms of provincial or municipal power at this point. And 

I think that when we talk about the Sunnis pushed out of the government, the current structure really exacerbates that. 

I have a question about, it seems to me that the targeting is fairly limited. And one thing that was discussed earlier was the fact 

that their greatest revenue source for ISIS is their ability to tax 

economic activity within the territories they control. 

And so it seems to me that, you know, things like these trucks 

that move the oil, the crude oil, those industries that are controlled 

by ISIS, that we should have a broader target list, not simply to 

hit which is a direct asset to the regime, like, say, the selling of 

crude oil, but also to understand that, quite frankly, their capacity 

to govern is based on, in part, the sustainment of that economy. 

And I think we have to look at degrading that economy in order 
41 

to deny them that economic activity and, you know, the capacity 

to govern. 

And I wonder if any of you can comment on that. 

Dr. VICKERS. Yes. I think, you know, all the aspects of state 

power that ISIL has need to be targeted. And I think there actually 

is some intensification in that area recently. 

Now, you know, you would like to destroy as much as possible 

their field army, but they are not making themselves as visible. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Sure. 

Mr. MORELL. I agree, but I do think you need to be very careful 

about collateral damage. Right? I do think you need to be very 

careful that we don’t create a bigger problem than we solve by 

broadening the target set. So agree that it should be broadened, 

but broadened within the context of minimizing collateral damage. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Sure. But if you—Mr. Chairman, can I just end 

it on one note for the record? 

The CHAIRMAN. Briefly. 

Mr. COFFMAN. It would seem that if you—let’s say those fuel 

trucks are not only central to revenue for the ISIS government but 

they are also essential for economic activity within their territories, 

sustaining that economy—and so, right now, we are only hitting 

those that we discern are directly related to ISIS. But I would 

argue that anything—if you say, if it moves it, we are going to hit 

it, and it is a tangible target, then my hope is that it wouldn’t 

move. And that would, quite frankly, damage the economy and 

deny them a source of revenue from that economic activity. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Vickers, you have used the term ‘‘global jihadist movement’’ 

and thus identified the global jihadist movement as the focus of 

America’s fight against terrorism. 

Isn’t it a fact that the global jihadist movement is very closely 

linked to the teachings of Wahhabism? Yes or no? 

Dr. VICKERS. Yeah, I would say they draw inspiration, in a perverted sense. But, yes, I would say—Robert may want to elaborate 

on that, but the two big global jihadists are Al Qaeda and ISIL. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And they draw their inspiration from the Wahhabi 

strain of Islam. Isn’t that correct? 

Dr. VICKERS. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And Wahhabism is an 18th-century offshoot of 

Sunni Islam, which began in the land that has come to be known 

as Saudi Arabia. Isn’t that correct? 

Dr. VICKERS. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And Wahhabism seeks to purify Islam by getting 

rid of a number of human behaviors and practices that it considers 

to be sins against Allah, correct? 

Dr. VICKERS. Correct. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And Wahhabism is a strict, fundamentalist, highly 

intolerant strain of Islam, correct? 

Dr. VICKERS. Yes, correct. 
42 

Mr. JOHNSON. And, now, isn’t it a fact that the Saudi ruling monarchy derives its legitimacy by reliance on the ideology of Wahhabism? 

Dr. VICKERS. Do you want to—— 

Ambassador FORD. The Saudis are riding a tiger. 

Mr. JOHNSON. The? 

Ambassador FORD. The Saudis are riding a tiger. 

Mr. JOHNSON. So if you will answer my question—— 

Ambassador FORD. What I am saying is—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Isn’t it a fact that—— 

Ambassador FORD. No, I wouldn’t put it that way. I would say 

it is not a fact that they depend solely on Wahhabism for their legitimacy. They derive their legitimacy from a variety of things. One 

of them is Wahhabism, but it is not the only one. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, is it fair to say that Wahhabism is the statesponsored religion of Saudi Arabia? 

Ambassador FORD. Yes. The Saudi Government sanctions 

Wahhabi imams in their major mosques. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, as a matter of fact, the Saudi monarchy promotes Wahhabism through official state-sponsored mosques and 

through religious schools known as madrassas all over the world. 

Isn’t that correct? 

Ambassador FORD. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And isn’t it true that the Saudi Government promotes Wahhabism throughout the world based on its oil and gas 

revenue? 

Ambassador FORD. Absolutely, the government’s revenues, directly or indirectly, help the proselytizing that you mentioned. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And the Wahhabism ideology lines up with the 

ideology of ISIL. Isn’t that correct? 

Ambassador FORD. I would say no. For example, the Wahhabis 

in Saudi Arabia, the official ones, do not kill Shia. They persecute 

them. They do not have equal rights. They do not have equal 

rights, but they don’t kill them. However, a Shia in Mosul or a 

Shia in Raqqah is liable to be killed. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, yeah, but it is true, though, that the ideology 

of ISIL lines up with Wahhabism. 

Ambassador FORD. I would say it is a starting point, and then 

the Islamic State has taken it several steps farther. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. 

And is it fair to say that Saudi support for the teachings of 

Wahhabism create fertile ground for ISIL recruitment efforts? 

Ambassador FORD. I think Saudi promotion of Wahhabism is absolutely a problem in terms of Islamic State recruitment. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And so we will be unable to defeat the global 

jihadist movement, which is based on largely Wahhabism, which is 

a state-sponsored religion of Saudi Arabia, without somehow enlisting the support of the Saudi royal family in withdrawing its financial support for Wahhabism. Is that a fair assessment? 

Mr. MORELL. So, in the discussion we had earlier about dealing 

with radicalization in the first place—that is what you are talking 

about, right? I think Saudi Arabia is a center of where that needs 

to take place. So there needs to be a discussion with the Saudis 
43 

about their support for Wahhabism and how it should be treated 

and how they should think about it. So, absolutely right. 

Mr. JOHNSON. What was the latest amount of arms that we sold 

to Saudi Arabia, the latest shipment? I think it was, what, $100 

million worth of arms? 

Dr. VICKERS. Well, there is support for the campaign in Yemen, 

but the arms sales that occur periodically are in the billions of dollars. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gallego. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Like Rep. Coffman, I, too, am a graduate of the University of Al 

Anbar with the Marines and a graduate degree—I like to boot to 

that sometimes. From my experience there, just operating out in 

that area, mostly the, kind of, Haditha, Al Asad, Al Qayyim corridor, I operated a lot with ING [Iraq National Guard], and they 

were decent infantry soldiers. 

Earlier this year, you know, Secretary Carter stated that, while 

air strikes are effective, we are going to need a good, reliable Iraqi 

ground force to be able to take back a lot of this territory from 

ISIL. In your estimation—it doesn’t matter which one of you all 

three want to answer this—are we seeing an effective Iraqi force 

on the ground right now? 

There are some conflicting reports I have read about Ramadi, 

how there was an overreliance on air strikes and, I think, the special forces of that counterterrorism. And what does this mean in 

the larger relations of us being able to push them out of Mosul and 

other parts of Al Anbar too? 

Dr. VICKERS. So I think the Iraqi Army did make improvements 

in the last year, as the Ramadi campaign shows, but, as you said, 

there is still a heavy reliance on the elite forces of the counterterrorism service and its subordinate elements. 

And then Mosul is a—I mean, one, to take an area, to clear an 

area, is the first part of the problem, as you know from your own 

experience—— 

Mr. GALLEGO. Right. Hold it. 

Mr. VICKERS [continuing]. Then you have to hold it. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Yeah. 

Dr. VICKERS. And so the problems will multiply there. And then 

Mosul is, you know, a factor of five, at least, more complicated than 

Ramadi. 

Mr. GALLEGO. In further following up—and I had questions last 

time we were meeting; I think it was just last week—any idea how 

many bridges and crossways over the Euphrates are controlled by 

ISIL at this point? 

By what means are they resupplying Mosul? From what I understand, it is getting more difficult but they still have the capability 

of resupplying Mosul, going through the desert up through Al 

Anbar. 

Dr. VICKERS. Yeah, that is my understanding too. You know, as 

Sinjar and some of the other areas on the direct supply routes have 

been cut, they have been forced to go around, which, you know, 

adds time and difficulty, but it doesn’t eliminate it. 
44 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Veasey. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to ask you a question about ground coalitions or Arab 

allies coming together to help defeat ISIL, particularly in Syria. 

You know, last week, we heard from General Petraeus, and he 

basically implied that the U.S. needs to take more of a support role 

and help them to defeat ISIL. And then Secretary James Baker, 

also a Texan, he has said the fact that the Arab allies needing to 

come together to create a coalition to build a ground force. 

If you were going to build a ground force of—an Arab coalition 

ground force, particularly with Sunni soldiers that would go into 

Syria, to be able to go door to door and tell people in these towns 

and in these cities and communities that ISIL is basically an insult 

and gives Islam a bad name all around the world, what would that 

ground force look like, with the U.S. obviously only providing air 

support? 

Dr. VICKERS. So I don’t know where that outside-Syria Sunni 

ground force would come from. Most of those countries do not have 

large ground forces, and they are engaged already. So the UAE 

[United Arab Emirates] and Saudi Arabia really are engaged in 

Yemen in defense of their own territory. You know, the Turks are 

the ones who have significant manpower. But I think for practical 

political reasons, you know, our best option for a Sunni ground 

force in Syria is with Syrians, not with outside forces. 

Mr. VEASEY. And the reason why I brought that up is because 

one of you had mentioned a little bit earlier about the fact that, 

more than social media, the fact that there—or the perception of 

Western forces are in there influencing really is more of a danger 

than the social media itself. 

Mr. Morell, I wanted to ask you a question also. You had made 

mention a little bit earlier, you talked about the Crusades and the 

fact that Christianity has, you know, come to a point now to where 

it is not—that, you know, we have moved beyond that in Christianity and that Islam needs to be able to get to that point at some 

time. 

But I want to ask you, more so than the teachings of Islam—and 

there has been a lot out there about whether or not there is a certain percentage of Muslims around the world that subscribe to 

more of a violent form of Medina Islam versus, you know, the 

Mecca that is more commonly known. 

But don’t you think that really the problems that we are seeing 

in the Middle East and the radicalization really stems from a shift 

that happened in the 1970s with the Ayatollah and other religious 

leaders in that part of the world basically trying to, you know, put 

more of a radical form of Islam throughout their countries? 

Mr. MORELL. So, Congressman, I think that extremism has been 

a problem within the religion for a very, very long time, since its 

birth actually. 

I think modern Islamic extremism can be dated to 1979. I think 

that is when modern Shia extremism started, with the revolution 

in Iran and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy and the direction the 

Iranian Government took as a result. 
45 

And I also think that modern Sunni extremism started in 1979, 

with the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by a group of 

Sunnis who believed that Saudi Arabia was modernizing way too 

quickly. 

So, yeah, I do think it has its roots in the late 1970s. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. It is interesting to think, if we could go back and 

do something different, could we? Would we? I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. O’Rourke, you had another question. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to follow up on the great response from Ambassador Ford on my question about what a peace process would look like. 

And you are much closer to this and have much greater experience and expertise on why the current U.N. Security Council process may not be a serious one. And if I heard you correctly, you said 

our strategy should be to arrive at a point of greater leverage 

against Assad, Iran, and Russia by better supporting and supplying 

those forces in opposition, excluding ISIL. And that will allow us 

then ultimately to enter negotiations on our terms, including, potentially, Assad stepping down. 

What do we expect, reasonably, Russia to do? If we escalate, does 

Russia say, ‘‘All right, you guys win,’’ or do they escalate? And then 

what does the next round of escalation look like? In other words, 

could you set our expectations on length of time, cost, and potential 

reactions to the other players in Syria? 

Ambassador FORD. Congressman, first, let me answer your question about Bashar al-Assad and should the United States accept 

him. 

As I said, I don’t think it is up to us to say he should stay or 

he should not. The man has no legitimacy, but that is a different 

question from whether or not he should stay. 

I think we should judge whether or not Bashar al-Assad stays on 

this one criteria: If he stays, will the new national government 

under him be better able to mobilize Syrians to fight extremists or 

not? Will most of the armed opposition fighters, who are not extremists, will they then turn around and fight the extremists under 

a Bashar al-Assad-led government or not? That, to me, is the criteria. 

So with respect to your question about Russian and Iranian reactions, I think for a time they will also escalate. Already, I think the 

Turks and the Saudis are escalating in response to what the Russians and the Iranians have done. I can imagine that this will go 

up several levels more. 

It doesn’t mean you can’t have the peace talks start in the meantime, I think. Obviously, we would want that. I just don’t think we 

are going to get very far in terms of mutual concessions and compromises until the Syrian Government and its allies feel more pain. 

I am sorry to say that, but it is what it is. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. My understanding of the peace process as adopted by the Security Council is that, within 18 months after the talks 

begin, elections are to be held that include the Syrian diaspora. 
46 

Now, that would, I think, arguably, result in the election of someone other than Bashar al-Assad. 

And, you know, however complicated it is to perform those elections, if you could in some way allow Syrians in Syria and outside 

of Syria to rally behind some person, then that might solve the concern that you raise there. 

Now, getting there, you know, that is quite a challenge. I would 

like to see us, to the degree we can, help to facilitate that process 

to get to where you argued we should be, which is Syrians deciding 

this for themselves. 

I don’t know if either of the other panelists would like to comment on this. 

Dr. VICKERS. No, I agree. And, you know, I think Russia’s power 

to really escalate is somewhat limited. And you see strains right 

now in Iran and Hezbollah, but I think the two of them could actually probably do more, and they probably would, before they, you 

know, give up on this regime that has been so great to them for 

three decades. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Mr. Morell, any thoughts on Russia’s response to 

additional escalation on our part? 

Mr. MORELL. I agree with what both Robert and Mike have said. 

I am much more concerned about Iranian escalation than I am 

about Russian escalation. 

I think the key to getting the Russians on board with the strategy that you eloquently outlined here is to get the Russians to 

twist the arm of the Iranians. I think that is how the process has 

to go. Bring enough pain to the Russians where they see the solution that we all see, and then get them to twist the Iranians’ arm. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Okay. 

Thank you for your responses and for being here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. As you all have heard from a number of members, this has been tremendously helpful and insightful on some 

very difficult problems. 

Dr. Vickers, I need to publicly confess that I am quoting you a 

lot these days, when you said we ought to figure out what we 

would do after the next big 9/11-style attack here at home and do 

that before the attack. It seems to me to be a measure of common 

sense. I am not sure the President is on the same page with us, 

but it could certainly alleviate a lot of casualties here at home. 

But I think, Mr. Morell, you are exactly right; ISIS is a significant strategic and lethal threat. And, Ambassador, we have to deal 

with it in a way where it doesn’t return in a new, even more virulent form in the future. It is a big challenge, as you all have said. 

It is going to take a while to do, but it is that serious and that significant. 

So thank you all for being here, for being willing to answer our 

questions. 

With that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:37 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JANUARY 12, 2016 

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JANUARY 12, 2016 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JANUARY 12, 2016 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The situation on the so-called ‘‘Mara Line’’ in northwest Syria has 

been problematic for some time. From the failed train-and-equip of Syrian fighters 

which were then captured by the Nusra Front, to infighting between opposition 

groups, to continued advances by regime forces and ISIL, is it possible for the U.S. 

to change course in this strategic area and find new local or regional forces to lend 

support? If so, what forces would be best equipped and motivated to achieve U.S. 

goals? 

Mr. MORELL. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The situation on the so-called ‘‘Mara Line’’ in northwest Syria has 

been problematic for some time. From the failed train-and-equip of Syrian fighters 

which were then captured by the Nusra Front, to infighting between opposition 

groups, to continued advances by regime forces and ISIL, is it possible for the U.S. 

to change course in this strategic area and find new local or regional forces to lend 

support? If so, what forces would be best equipped and motivated to achieve U.S. 

goals? 

Dr. VICKERS. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Dr. Vickers, you have stated that we are attempting to ‘‘play the 

long game’’ in Iraq and Syria, but that we need a ‘‘more rapid and disruptive strategy’’ instead. How do you believe we can best implement a more rapid strategy in 

light of escalating involvement by Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, for example? 

Dr. VICKERS. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The situation on the so-called ‘‘Mara Line’’ in northwest Syria has 

been problematic for some time. From the failed train-and-equip of Syrian fighters 

which were then captured by the Nusra Front, to infighting between opposition 

groups, to continued advances by regime forces and ISIL, is it possible for the U.S. 

to change course in this strategic area and find new local or regional forces to lend 

support? If so, what forces would be best equipped and motivated to achieve U.S. 

goals? 

Ambassador FORD. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FRANKS 

Mr. FRANKS. You do an excellent job pointing out why ISIL has been much more 

successful than Al Qaeda at recruiting allies and affiliates across the globe and that 

it presents a new and unique threat. Should the president authorize all of our combatant commanders to conduct status-based targeting of all ISIL affiliates in order 

to prevent or at least slow the spread of the ISIL? 

Mr. MORELL. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FRANKS. You have spoken of the urgency and necessity to shift our focus to 

Syria and that until we do so we will not be successful. Should we establish a nofly zone in Syria? [If ‘‘no’’]: Isn’t establishing a no-fly zone a precondition to stabilizing Syria and assisting groups who are both anti-Assad and anti-ISIL? 

Mr. MORELL. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FRANKS. You do an excellent job pointing out why ISIL has been much more 

successful than Al Qaeda at recruiting allies and affiliates across the globe and that 

it presents a new and unique threat. Should the president authorize all of our combatant commanders to conduct status-based targeting of all ISIL affiliates in order 

to prevent or at least slow the spread of the ISIL? 

Dr. VICKERS. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FRANKS. You have spoken of the urgency and necessity to shift our focus to 

Syria and that until we do so we will not be successful. Should we establish a nofly zone in Syria? [If ‘‘no’’]: Isn’t establishing a no-fly zone a precondition to stabilizing Syria and assisting groups who are both anti-Assad and anti-ISIL? 

Ambassador FORD. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. FRANKS. Is the Iraqi government in Baghdad currently making good-faith attempts at political reconciliation with the Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds? 

Ambassador FORD. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Æ