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LIBYA’S DESCENT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Serial No. 113–218

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

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

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

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

SEAN DUFFY, Wisconsin 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

The Honorable Gerald Feierstein, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, U.S. Department of State .................................. 6

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Gerald Feierstein: Prepared statement ....................................... 8

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 38

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 39

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 41

(1)

LIBYA’S DESCENT 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

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

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to ask if the members of the 

committee could take their seats and the witnesses as well. This 

hearing, entitled ‘‘Libya’s Descent,’’ will come to order. Less than 

3 years ago Libya, at the time, if we think back, was hailed as a 

successful example of multilateral engagement—NATO and our allies all working together to stop the slaughter of civilians and to 

free an oppressed people from dictatorship, as was articulated at 

the time, to chart a prosperous path forward for this country in 

North Africa. 

Unfortunately, in the ensuing years we have a situation since 

that date where the reality is that Libya has become chaotic, violent, awash in terrorist organizations and more militias than we 

can count. Its porous borders allow for the easy transit of people, 

of weapons, of money from conflicts across North Africa to Gaza to 

Syria to Iraq, and you have rival governments now in Tobruk and 

Tripoli making competing claims of legitimacy. Four months of 

fighting by the militias there—the last 4 months we have seen an 

additional 1⁄4 million people flee Libya and ‘‘bring a climate of 

fear’’—those are the words of the U.N. special report—‘‘a climate 

of fear’’ across the country. 

Given this downward spiral, it was not surprising that our Embassy in Tripoli had to be evacuated early this summer, and last 

week some of us saw the online videos of militants occupying that 

building. I think it reminded Americans of the deadly terrorist attack on our facility in Benghazi that took place 2 years ago when 

you see that occupation. 

But you also saw these individuals doing belly flops into the pool. 

It was a reminder that you can’t have a policy of neglect that then 

plays itself out into a humanitarian crisis and what, frankly, is a 

national security crisis. 

So a U.N. Security Council has called for a cease fire and sanctions on those involved in the violence. But at the end of the day 

the rhetoric has not been matched up with leadership here and 

perhaps we should not be surprised that regional states conducted 

the air strikes on Libya last month. 

2

Regional states are now attempting to affect their interests. They 

are hoping to help their favorite proxy in this conflict. Some suggest that Libya may even be headed for a partition or that neighboring Algeria or Egypt may intervene. We cannot allow Libya to 

become the Lebanon of the 1970s and 1980s. We remember what 

happened in Lebanon. We remember how long society struggled 

with the aftermath of that situation, and what happened in Lebanon was that regional states played out their feuds at the expense 

of the local population. And if that is to be avoided, then Libya 

needs immediate attention. As we will hear today, the administration is pushing all sides toward a political solution. 

But I don’t see this happening without real pressure on the factions, real leverage on those factions. Others advocate for cutting 

off outside support for militias and compelling their disarmament 

through threat of force. Such action would have to be coupled with 

programs to unlock Libya’s wealth in order to train a security force 

for all Libyans. 

But given how poorly the U.S. and coalition partners have 

worked on Libya to date, it is tough to see such an effort coming 

together. We have not really had a desire to lead in Libya and it 

is an absolutely necessity, I think, right now, that the administration lay out a strategy to lead in Libya. 

We need to hear testimony today on the administration’s plan to 

respond to the very real threats to national security that a failed 

Libya represents, and we need to also hear about the different proposals for action in Libya that are being discussed at the United 

Nations, at NATO, and among other North African countries. 

We need to hear what those options are, what those discussions 

are. Libya and every conflict is, of course, rooted in local conditions 

but the many Middle Eastern conflicts do share a driving force of 

extremism, jihadists fueled by radical ideology, armed and funded 

from outside the immediate area. 

In this case, again, not surprisingly, Qatar is up to its elbows in 

funding terrorist activity there or funding some of these militias 

but other countries as well have their proxies. 

It is a deadly accelerant that the administration has been slow 

in recognizing and countering and part of this hearing today is to 

bring some focus on it and bring some strategy into it. 

So I would now like to turn to our ranking member, Mr. Ted 

Deutch of Florida, for his opening remarks. I would mention that 

Eliot Engel was in New York for Primary Day yesterday so he is 

on his way back and so ranking today is Mr. Ted Deutch. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What began in Libya as 

the successful overthrow of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi has 

tragically devolved into an environment that appears to have put 

the country on the brink of becoming a failed state. 

There were plans in place after the revolution in 2011 that offered promising signs such as the formation of national institutions, the reintegration of militias into a new national military 

force. 

But the Libya we see today is not the Libya that the Libyan people who suffered so long under Gaddafi nor the world envisioned. 

In late June of this year, the Subcommittee on the Middle East and 

3

North Africa held a hearing on Libya, entitled ‘‘Libya at a Crossroads.’’

Now, just months later it appears that Libya is on a path away 

from democracy and stability and toward increased violence and 

fragmentation. The fracturing of Libya’s elected and state institutions has left the country incapable of producing or implementing 

any effective policies. 

The recently elected House of Representatives has fled to the 

eastern city of Tubruk while the unrecognized reformed General 

National Congress dominated by Islamist former MPs sits in the 

capitol of Tripoli. 

The National Security Force had never achieved sole control over 

security within its borders and has now suffered from defections 

and divisions. Most of the country is now dominated by various 

militant groups vying for control, weaving an inconsistent patchwork of loyalties throughout the country. 

The security situation has deteriorated to the point that Libya’s 

airport and much of Tripoli are dominated by Islamist militias. The 

U.S. Government has relocated our Embassy staff amid reports 

that a force aligned with a Libya Dawn coalition is now claiming 

to be guarding our abandoned Embassy. Fear that unrest inside 

Libya will not be contained within its borders is permeating the region. 

The instability has created an environment where transnational 

extremist groups can easily travel in and out of the country and porous borders have allowed for the easy flow of weapons and foreign 

fighters. 

Following their respective revolutions, Egypt to Libya’s east and 

Tunisia to the northwest have worked hard to resist the pressures 

of radical militant groups from causing significant unrest and moving their countries backward. 

But having a failed state as a neighbor, in which terrorist groups 

are free to consolidate and grow and are given free access to significant amounts of weapons and resources, is not a reality that either 

country can accept. So the question now remains: Who on the 

ground can be a partner for the international community? 

There is no neat division of loyalty among the Libyan people and 

it is difficult to determine which parties share our interests. The 

members of the House of Representatives were elected only a few 

months ago, albeit with a very low voter turnout. 

Possibly for this reason it lacks recognition and legitimacy for 

many Libyans. The alternative body, the GNC, defied the political 

roadmap in the Libyan constitution by creating a parallel government separate from the elected body. 

General Haftar’s forces have been fighting Islamist groups including Ansar al-Sharia, the group responsible for the attack on 

our Benghazi mission nearly 2 years ago that led to the tragic 

death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. 

But his forces have faced recent setbacks and his political intentions are not entirely clear. 

It also remains unclear what role other countries in the region 

are playing in Libya’s internal affairs. Nevertheless, I believe the 

United States must remain engaged in Libya. 

4

We must encourage a political process that results in the recognition of one legitimate government and continue to offer support 

through good governance, democracy assistance, and rule of law development programs. 

We must remain ready to assist in the training of a Libyan General Purpose Force that is capable of reclaiming security control in 

the country and encourage the Libyan Government to take steps to 

finally commence this program. 

As I have said, Libya’s neighbors have a vested interest in restoring stability to Libya. The United Nations has committed a point 

person to work on negotiating a cease fire between the various factions. 

But the international community must be clear that continued 

support for extremist Islamist groups by regional actors cannot be 

tolerated. 

Libya has a long way to go to repair the 42 years of Gaddafi’s 

rule, in which he tore down any semblance of democratic governance and functioning institutions and ultimately the future of 

Libya is in the hands of the Libyan people. 

Ambassador Feierstein, I look forward to your testimony to hear 

how the State Department is determining the best approach for the 

United States to take to prevent Libya from indeed becoming a 

failed state, and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Deutch. We go to the chair of 

the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, Ms. Ileana 

Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, for 1 minute. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for holding this timely hearing. As Mr. Deutch pointed out, our Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa held a hearing 

with State Department officials on Libya’s faltering transition 

months ago and here we are again, only Libya’s deteriorating situation has gotten worse and Libya is teetering on the brink of becoming a failed state. 

After the air campaign in Libya in 2011, the Obama administration turned its back on the long-term engagement that Libya desperately needed for a smoother transition. 

The political narrative that all was swell in Libya created a 

breeding ground for the terrorist attack against Americans in our 

consulate in Benghazi. After this void it was replaced by militias, 

terrorist organizations, and other nonstate actors that are ripping 

this country apart. 

We want a concrete plan from the administration to address how 

it is working to prevent Libya from turning into a larger safe 

haven for terrorists and posing a serious threat to the region and 

U.S. national security. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Chairwoman. We are going to go 

to—for 1 minute to Gerry Connolly of Virginia with the Middle 

East Subcommittee and then to the chairman of the Subcommittee 

on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, Judge Ted Poe of Texas, 

for a minute. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Mr. 

Ambassador. 

5

I very much respect my dear friend, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, 

but I cannot accept the gratuitous potshot at the administration as 

if this President and the administration are responsible for what 

has transpired in Libya. 

Many of the same current critics criticized the administration for 

not being more active in Libya at the time of the revolution. 

There are internal forces in Libya that have to be understood 

and that are far beyond American control and the reign of militias 

is one of them. When I went to visit Libya, security at the airport 

was provided by a militia. That was over 2 years ago, and unfortunately the situation seems to have deteriorated. 

So I think it is really important, and this I do agree with Ms. 

Ros-Lehtinen—we can’t look at the Libya situation with rose-colored glasses. We have got to figure out what are our next steps forward and what, if anything, can be done to try to put us on a path 

toward stable governance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. Mr. Poe. 

Mr. POE. No question about it, Gaddafi was a bad guy. But when 

the United States decided to remove his legitimate government and 

overthrow him, that was, to me, a strategic political mistake that 

has consequences we see today. 

Now, such decision, of course, was made without congressional 

approval. When the United States gave the green light to Qatar to 

send weapons to Libya and spread the conflict, it spread throughout North Africa including to the terrorist group AQIM. 

AQIM used those weapons to take over a gas plant in Algeria 

and kill one of my constituents, Victor Lovelady, and two other 

Americans. Of course, we know about the U.S. Ambassador and 

three other Americans killed in Benghazi. 

When Gaddafi was gone, radicals of different stripes including 

some affiliated with al-Qaeda had filled the vacuum. The Government of Libya cannot govern because it has no functional army and 

to me it is a failed state. 

The people support the militia groups because they are the 

ones—they provide the security so people support them. Now the 

United States has pulled out of Libya, leaving terrorists to play in 

the swimming pools owned by the United States. 

Libya today is a result of a policy of removing a government 

without congressional approval because we don’t like them. We are 

not safer because Gaddafi is gone. The world is not safer and Libya 

is in chaos, and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. This morning we are pleased to be joined by 

Ambassador Gerald Feierstein, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. 

Prior to his current position, he was the United States Ambassador to Yemen from 2010 to 2013—tough post—and he joined the 

Foreign Service in June of ’75 and has served overseas in eight different postings including Islamabad, Tunis, Riyadh and Beirut—

tougher posts. 

The Ambassador also served as principal deputy assistant coordinator and deputy assistant coordinator for programs in the Bureau 

of Counterterrorism from ’06 to ’08. 

Without objection, we are going to have the witness’ full prepared statement be made part of the record and members here will 

6

have 5 calendar days in which they can submit any statements or 

questions or any extraneous material for the record. 

So Ambassador Feierstein, if you would please summarize your 

remarks. We will go 5 minutes and then ask you questions. Thank 

you. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GERALD FEIERSTEIN, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF NEAR 

EASTERN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Thank you very—thank you very much, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Deutch, members of the committee, 

for giving me this opportunity to come here today and to discuss 

the situation in Libya and the administration’s response. 

Since the 2011 revolution, millions of Libyans have expressed 

high hopes that the country will seize the opportunity provided by 

the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime to build a new state based on 

strong democratic institutions and providing a secure, stable framework that would put Libya’s vast energy resources to work on behalf of the Libyan people. 

Instead, Libya’s new political institutions and leaders have failed 

to beat Libya’s challenges. Despite the efforts of many brave Libyans as well as the active engagement of the United States and our 

international partners, too many of Libya’s power brokers and militia commanders have rejected principles of dialogue, consensus 

building, and compromise in favor of pursuit of narrow-minded interests and a scramble for control of Libya’s resources. 

The weak central government ravaged by 42 years of Gaddafi’s 

misrule has proven incapable of providing security, governance or 

access to economic opportunity. In the absence of capable government, opportunistic criminals, militias, and terrorist groups are 

battling for control. 

Internecine clashes have been fuelled by domestic weapons stockpiles and flows of fighters and weapons as a result of the government’s inability to secure Libya’s long porous borders. 

In recent months, hundreds of Libyan civilians have died as a result of the conflict and the United Nations reports that 1⁄4 million 

people inside Libya have been displaced since the recent clashes 

began. 

Critical Libyan public infrastructure including Libya’s major airports in Benghazi and in Tripoli have also been targeted by rival 

militias. Indeed, the conflict in parts of the country is best understood primarily as a struggle over resources and power and only 

secondarily over ideology. 

Clearly, Libya cannot move forward without addressing its lawlessness and violence and it cannot address the violence without 

achieving a basic political framework for the path forward. 

But Libya’s political transition has stalled and in recent weeks 

the government itself has fractured into two competing groups 

based in different cities, Tripoli and Tubruk, even as most of the 

international community has been forced by the violence to leave 

the country. 

As fighting escalated in the Tripoli neighborhood where our Embassy is located, the United States decided to suspend operations 

temporarily and withdraw U.S. personnel from the country. AmVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Nov 06, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\091014\89740 SHIRL
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bassador Jones and a small team have relocated to our Embassy 

in Malta from which they continue to carry out their diplomatic 

and assistance duties. 

It remains in United States interests to help remove Libya from 

this cycle of violence. We want to see the fighting end and competing factions commit to settling their differences through a process of dialogue and negotiation. 

In fact, despite the violence, we do see a potential path forward. 

There are still many in Libya who understand that their country 

needs an inclusive government that shares power and resources in 

a fair and transparent way. 

We are working closely with the United Nations, the European 

Union, and other European partners to advance a unified approach, 

encouraging all Libyans to adopt basic principles of nonviolence 

and commit to a democratic state. 

We are working to promote these principles directly with Libyans 

from across the country and the political spectrum. We and our allies also have a number of coordinated assistance programs designed to help Libyans build a secure, democratic and prosperous 

state that continues to operate through local staff and existing networks on the ground. 

Libyan spoilers need to understand that there are consequences 

for violence and for actions that threaten Libya’s democratic transition. Consistent with that, we were able to work with the members 

of the U.N. Security Council 2 weeks ago to secure unanimous approval of a new resolution, U.N. SCR 2174, that provides for targeted U.N. sanctions against those who undermine the political 

transition process. 

We also are reaching out to Libya’s neighbors and to others in 

the region and beyond who have a strong interest in seeing a stable, secure and democratic Libya. Our goal is to seek these countries’ support in pushing all Libyan factions into a productive political process. Envisioning a peaceful and prosperous Libya can be 

challenging, particularly when the trajectory is negative. But if 

Libya could overcome its discord, it has unique advantages that 

could support the advancement of the democratic transition process 

and facilitate building the state. If Libya’s political factions were to 

work together instead of fighting, they could boost oil and other exports to capacity and use the proceeds to invest in Libya’s infrastructure, its health and education systems and, most importantly, 

its people. 

With a population of only 6 million, Libya offers enormous opportunities. Supporting a political resolution to the current impasse so 

that we can advance Libyans’ efforts to build a democratic state remains one of the United States’ top foreign policy goals. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I stand to answer questions from 

the committee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Feierstein follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Ambassador, thank you. Thank you very 

much. A couple of quick questions. 

One has been, how to pronounces this—Khoms, the town 125 

miles east of Tripoli that we read about where it is sort of the favorite jumping off point for these fighters that are headed to ISIL. 

Can——

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. There is Derna. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, the region—let us just talk about the region in general in the east. That is where so many of these key alQaeda fighters came from in the past and now we see these ISIS 

fighters coming out of that area. 

Can you provide any more detail there about the route that they 

are taking, you know, to get into the Iraq-Syria fight? And then 

last week, we saw the story about the plane from Sudan landing 

near the Libyan-Sudanese border and the government in Libya 

claims that the plane was full of weapons, destined for the Islamist 

Libya Dawn and for that militia, and in response you saw the Sudanese military attache being expelled. 

The Sudanese Government denied it, but at the same time you 

had a situation where President Bashir warmly received the 

Islamist party representative, the President of the former Libyan 

General National Congress in Khartoum last week. 

So we see that internecine situation where they are engaged. You 

see that Qatar, which is not only engaged here but with al-Nusra—

funding al-Nusra, and then 90 percent of Hamas—they tell us that 

90 percent of Hamas’ funding is now coming from Qatar. 

What can you tell us about these outside countries’ interests and 

who they are funding here and also the connection to these young 

fighters getting whipped up and ending up enlisting with ISIL? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and all of those are 

important questions. 

In terms of the flow of foreign fighters, I don’t think that there 

is one single route that they—that they pursue to get to Syria or 

to Iraq. There are a number of different ways that they transit 

from Libya into Europe, into Turkey, directly into Syria. 

So one of the things, of course, that we are talking about in 

terms of what we are going to try to accomplish in confronting ISIL 

and, as the President said, in defeating ISIL, is, in fact, to work 

with our friends and partners around the world to cut off this flow 

of foreign fighters and there are a number of different steps that 

we need to take to do that and the State Department—Ambassador 

Bradtke—is very much involved in visiting and particularly in 

North Africa where we do have serious concerns about the movement of foreign fighters. 

Chairman ROYCE. Yes, but what is happening is that Sudan and 

other countries are playing this role in creating absolute chaos and 

out of chaos is coming, you know, more enlistments. 

What role is Sudan playing right now in Libya? In the past, we 

have talked about the role Sudan played, you know, in supporting 

groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army—Joseph Kony—in trying to 

destabilize the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda and Central African Republic. 

Well, you know, here is Sudan again playing a role. What can 

you tell us about that role? 

13

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Yes, sir, and certainly the reports that you mentioned of flights from Sudan bringing weapons into Libya—we are 

very aware of those. 

It is a serious problem. We have taken a broad position not only 

with the Qataris and the Sudanese but across the board that foreign intervention inside of Libya is unhelpful, it is deepening divisions within that society. 

It is provocative. It is promoting the very conflict that we believe 

is the major obstacle and so we are looking—there is a process 

under way—it is called the Tunis process—that brings together 

Libya’s neighbors in ways that we think are constructive and helpful, and they met 2 weeks ago in Cairo and issued a very helpful 

statement which basically said that they are opposed to foreign involvement, foreign intervention in Libyan affairs. Sudan is part of 

that process and we will be looking to them for—to stop. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, I understand. Ambassador, I wish your 

testimony made me feel better about the direction we are headed. 

I think that the reality is whatever our protestations and whatever people are signing in terms of these statements of disapproval, 

the reality is that Qatar and Sudan and other states are pouring 

in weapons, pouring in money and creating the instability, the 

chaos, out of which comes the threat, and I think we need a strategy for what we are going to do—not say—but what we are going 

to do with respect to the emir of Qatar. 

We need a strategy in terms of what we are going to do with 

Khartoum. But anyway, my time has expired. I will go to Mr. Ted 

Deutch. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador Feierstein, 

understanding that this might be classified, can you comment on 

the reported action taken by the Egyptians and the Emiratis in 

Libya and what are the ramifications of this kind of foreign action 

at this point, given the internal chaos within the country? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Deutch, and as you suggested, 

it is difficult to talk about that issue in this setting. But we would 

be happy to come back and speak to you in a classified setting and 

provide you with a fuller brief on what we know about those issues. 

But I would say that, as a general principle whenever there are 

allegations like this, we do investigate them and we will try to 

make sure that we understand what happened. 

But, again, it goes back to the general principle, which is what 

we see as the—as the danger of this foreign engagement and the 

fact is that as long as we have this conflict going on inside of Libya 

it is going to invite unhelpful engagement by outside parties who 

are going to use this as an opportunity to pursue their own goals, 

their own agendas. 

And so the strategy that we have is to try to bring the Libyans 

together, end the conflict inside of Libya and the violence and begin 

a political process that will close off the opportunities that outside 

actors have to engage unhelpfully inside of Libya. 

Mr. DEUTCH. All right. Thank you. I hope we have the opportunity to pursue that further in the appropriate setting. The prospect of Libya as a terrorist safe haven isn’t just a U.S. problem. It 

is a problem for the international community, particularly our European friends, given the proximity. 

14

What is our assessment of the links between the militants in 

Libya and other al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and do we know at this 

point whether Libyan fighters are joining ISIL’s ranks? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. The links, of course, we do have—as was mentioned in the opening statements, we do have a longstanding issue 

with al-Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb—AQIM—which has been 

a concern for many years. We watch very closely. 

There have been some who have expressed interest in joining 

their programs, their organizations with ISIL. We haven’t actually 

seen that happen yet. 

We are certainly concerned about Libyan fighters who are going 

to Syria or Iraq to join the fight there. It goes back to the concern 

that we have overall about the flow of foreign fighters and the need 

to stop that. 

So all of these remain concerns and issues that are high in our 

agenda. In terms of what we are doing, absolutely correct that the 

Europeans are extremely concerned about this. 

We have the European Union’s border assistance organization, 

EUBAM, that has established and has been trying to push a program inside of Libya that would help secure Libyan borders. 

In terms of our own activities, we are supporting EUBAM but we 

are also working with Libya’s neighbors—with the Egyptians, with 

Tunisia, with Algeria—to try to help them strengthen their border 

security. 

We are also, of course, very concerned about the flow of weapons 

and trying to remove weapons from Libya and prevent the flow of 

new weapons, and the U.N. Security Resolution 2174 includes new 

language on preventing the flow of weapons inside of Libya. 

So we are working across a number of different avenues of effort 

to try to prevent the flow of fighters and weapons in and out of 

Libya and to provide greater security. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you. I am—I hope over the course of this 

hearing you will have an opportunity to speak to the broader issue 

of the reason that we should continue to be involved in Libya. 

Hopefully, you will have a chance to speak to the State Department’s view of not just why Libya is important—you have spoken 

about that some, we have all spoken about that—but what is—

where are we going. 

All of our discussions, understandably, are focused on the near 

term and the intermediate term. Long term, though, what do you 

expect Syria to—Libya, rather, to look like in 5 years? In 10 years? 

What is the best that we can actually hope for? And I am out 

of time but I do hope that you will have a chance to speak to that. 

I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Deutch. Welcome, 

Mr. Ambassador. 

As Mr. Deutch pointed out, our subcommittee held a hearing 

months ago on Libya, the same day that elections were being held 

in that country, and while there may have been a cautious optimism that the June 25 elections could have been an important step 

toward stability in Libya, during the hearing I made it clear that 

the timing of the elections was rushed because it was announced 

only 1 month before the elections were going to take place. 

15

So it is not surprising that the elections ultimately failed to bring 

about a large turnout nor the much desired path toward democracy 

and the rule of law in Libya, and during that hearing Ambassador 

Patterson was optimistic that the elections in Libya, which were 

the third in less than 2 years, would be an important step forward 

toward Libya’s stability. 

Now we see that that was misplaced optimism as the situation 

is worse than ever. I cautioned then that as long as the security 

situation remained tenuous in Libya so too will the political will 

and the transition stall and that Libya’s economy would continue 

to falter. 

So given the fact that your testimony admits that there is an absence of a capable government, why were elections rushed at the 

time when we knew that it wasn’t sustainable for the long term? 

And I agree that elections are important but it is just one part 

of a democracy and only when there is a political will to govern effectively and inclusively. 

The fighting in Libya continues to be overshadowed by a struggle 

between secular forces against Islamists, but with over 1,600 militias in this country this characterization is actually oversimplified, 

but just in terms of trying to grab the enormity of the problem—

1,600 militias. 

In our subhearing, Assistant Secretary Patterson said, ‘‘The most 

urgent objective we have is for counterterrorism.’’ Yet, 3 years after 

Gaddafi and over a year after the U.S. committed to train the General Purpose Force, GPF, not a single one of the 5,000 to 8,000 

planned forces has in fact been trained. 

Seeing the need now more than ever for a security force in Libya, 

why has this project not gotten off the ground? 

How else do we plan on combating the terrorist threat that is 

growing within Libya, short of direct U.S. intervention? And not 

only has the internal fighting deteriorated but it has already become a regional conflict. Unsecure borders allow extremists and 

weapons smugglers unhindered access into the country. 

And then my third question is about the Friends of Libya Summit. I know that these entities have been meeting off and on. It 

was announced earlier that the U.N. General Assembly, the African Union, and the Spanish Government will hold this Friends of 

Libya Summit in Madrid. 

Is this going to happen or is it just a continuation of what has—

the meetings that have already taken place? Is Egypt trying to get 

support for its 10-point plan on Libya? Because I notice that in 

your testimony you don’t highlight that. Does the State Department endorse this plan or not? 

So my questions are the three questions: The General Purpose 

Force training, what is the status of that?; looking back, do we feel 

that we were rushing the election process and being too enthusiastic about it?; and the Friends of Libya Summit, Egypt’s 10-point 

plan—are we endorsing that and what is happening? 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Thank you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. In terms of the 

three specific points, the General Purpose Force is still something 

that we want to pursue. 

16

It is something that we have discussed with Prime Minister alThani and the other senior leadership. We had an opportunity to 

talk about that when he was here for the Africa Summit a couple 

of weeks ago. 

They, subsequently to those meetings, actually signed the letter 

of agreement for the GPF and, of course, a part of the issue there 

is the funding for it and their obligation to pay for the training. 

But we are working on that and we hope to move forward. 

So as soon as circumstances permit, it is still our commitment 

and our—and our desire to move forward on the General Purpose 

Force. We continue to see that as an important element of the overall security framework for Libya, going forward. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, sir. I asked too many questions 

and I blab on too much. So I hope that you get to the answers 

through another venue. Thank you so much. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Dr. Bera of California is recognized. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Chairwoman. Libya continues to show the 

difficult transition from autocratic authoritarian regimes to democracy or some form of democracy. 

I mean, we have seen it—seen the difficulty in Iraq and we have 

seen the turmoil for decades in Lebanon and, again, Libya proves 

that it is not a straight shot. 

You know, I think playing off of the question that my colleague 

from Florida, Mr. Deutch, asked, what does the long term look like 

in Libya as well as some of these other states that are making this 

transition? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Thank you for the question, and I think that as 

I alluded in my opening statement, our view is that Libya is still 

a country with enormous potential. It has, of course, as we know, 

huge energy resources and established infrastructure that can—

that can export those resources primarily to Europe, which is their 

major customer. 

It is a relatively small population. We believe that with the proper investment in health and education it is a population that will 

be able to manage Libyan affairs very successfully. 

We believe and are committed to trying to help Libya develop the 

governmental institutions that would allow it to build a stable 

democratic society and we also believe that this is what the majority of Libyans desire. 

So I think that our view is that the path forward, if we can stabilize the situation now; end the violence, get a political process 

moving that allows Libyans to come to a negotiating table and 

work out their differences, if we can do those things then the international community including the United States, including Libya’s 

neighbors and the countries of Europe are standing by to support 

the development of the institutions that will allow them to move 

forward successfully into the future. 

Mr. BERA. So you touched on a key point. So if we look at our 

own democracy here in America, time and time again we have 

demonstrated when threatened we are willing to step up and fight 

and die to protect our freedom and democracy. 

You mentioned that, Ambassador, that the Libyan people desire 

that democracy or that stability. Do you have a sense that they are 

17

willing to step up and fight against, you know, the militias that, 

you know, potentially are tearing their country apart? 

I mean, again, democracy, for it to have long-term stability, has 

to come from within and the people have to be willing to fight for 

it. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. We couldn’t agree more and I think that the 

Libyan people demonstrated during the resistance in 2011 to 

Muammar Gaddafi and the clique around him that they are prepared to stand up and to fight and to die in defense of their values 

and I do think, again, that what we see is still the critical mass 

of Libyans who are ready to do that, who are ready to work with 

us, the international community, ready to work with each other to 

try to build the kind of society that they would like to see for the 

future. 

Mr. BERA. Great, and I have got two last questions. I will try to 

get them in here. What percentage of the destabilizing forces in 

these militias are actually coming external from Libya, that are not 

fighting for the interests of the Libyan people? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. To the best of our knowledge and understanding, sir, we believe that there are not very many foreign fighters inside of Libya. This is mostly militias who were drawn from 

the Libyan population. 

Mr. BERA. Okay. And lastly, if we look at the Arab Spring in 

total, it is interesting. The one country where the Arab Spring purportedly started—Tunisia—while not without its own challenges, 

appears to be relatively stable in this. Are there any contrasts that 

we can draw or lessons that we can learn from Tunisia? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Tunisia is, of course, in our view, as you said, 

one of the states that has most successfully moved into this political transition period. 

I think that you could say that Tunisia, over the course of its 

independent history, had a number of governmental institutions 

that continue to function and that continue to provide a framework 

for this successful transition. 

I think also we should credit the wisdom of the Tunisian political 

leadership, the people who actually came to power after the Arab 

Spring, after the revolution there, made a number of very smart 

decisions about how they were going to work together—exactly the 

same kind of initiative that we would like to see the Libyans demonstrate in terms of their own transition. 

Mr. BERA. Great. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Bera. Dr. Yoho. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Sir, I appreciate you being here. You know, I always get a kick 

out of you guys when you come in and we talk about promoting democracy over there and, you know, if you look at the traditional democracies they only last about 200 years, and a democracy is mob 

rule. It is majority rule. 

The thing that has worked with our country is it is a constitutional republic—that we go through a democratic process to elect 

leaders—and, you know, when we look at the history of these democracies, we are trying to promote something that is 

unsustainable because they always fall into decay and it has been 

proven over and over in history. 

18

So I hope we change that dynamic. With saying that, you know, 

when I look at what we have done in the Middle East over the last 

40 or 50 years, you know, we have spent over—we have invested 

over $78 billion in Egypt, you know, and they are struggling now, 

and the other countries that we have entered we have seen them 

struggling. 

One of my questions is how effective is the U.N. Security Council 

in initiating and carrying out the cease fire that they brokered at 

the end of August? I mean, do you see that as something that is 

going to hold? 

Is it going to be effective and is it going to lead to some stability 

in that country? We have seen it so many times where they go in 

there and just—it decays, and the thing that made our democracy 

work, our republic work, is we had a group of people that laid everything on the line to fight for freedom and liberty. 

Do they have that same sentiment? So go back to the U.N. first. 

Do you see them initiating and carrying this out to be effective? Go 

ahead and answer that first. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Congressman, first, let me say I couldn’t agree 

with you more that, really, the ability to sustain democratic governance is really based on the stability of the institutions that support it and then the reason—I mean, we can talk about the reason 

that the U.S. has been successful that way is because we had 

strong institutions that managed and guided that democracy and 

kept it from deteriorating into mob rule. 

Where we are right now, of course, is that we have a new 

SRSG—Senior Representative for the Secretary General, 

Bernardino Leon, who has just taken over from Tarek Mitri as the 

U.N. representative for Libya. 

He has visited Libya over the last several days and held talks 

with a number of the leading Libyan politicians and is working 

very hard with our support and with the support of the rest of the 

international community to try to get the violence to stop and to 

move into that political dialogue. 

Mr. YOHO. Okay. And then right now how effective or successful 

will Khalifa Haftar be, in your opinion, since he has an antiIslamist view, versus the people that are fighting that are of the 

more Islamic, maybe radical view? 

Do you see that being successful, you know, because you have got 

a divergence of ideologies and what we have seen developing in 

Turkey and what you have seen developing in Qatar, you know, 

those people are standing—like Turkey realizes they can’t survive 

without being a Muslim Islamist state, and when you have somebody that is trying to develop that in Libya, I just see that as a 

no-win. What is your opinion on that? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Sir, I think that Khalifa Haftar actually put his 

finger on something that was of concern to a great number of Libyans, which was the drift of the country toward an Islamist agenda, 

and I think he was successful at that. But, unfortunately, his solution—his channel has been a violent one. 

He has pursued a very aggressive stance toward some of these 

groups and he has ended up promoting a more polarized society 

and in fact has led to the reaction to his position and that has contributed directly to the violence. 

19

Mr. YOHO. Let me interrupt you here because I am about out of 

time. You said the country was drifting to the Islamist view and 

he stopped that. 

If it is drifting that way, is that not public sentiment of what 

they want and so there is going to be resentment and there is going 

to be that internal conflict? I don’t see—I don’t see a good solution 

in that. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. And this is exactly right—that there are differences of view within that society. There are some people who are 

supporting a more Islamic vision for their future and there are 

some who are more secular. 

So and, again, we believe that the important thing is that there 

are elements on both sides of that divide who are committed to a 

democratic future, who are committed to a more open tolerant society. We want to support them. 

Khalifa Haftar, unfortunately, has deepened the polarization in 

the society through violence and has deepened the divisions and 

made it more difficult to reach a political negotiated solution. 

Mr. YOHO. Okay. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Yoho. Mr. Connolly of Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. Ambassador, in your testimony—in your written statement 

you refer to the fact that our Embassy has been relocated to Malta. 

So what is its mission? How does it function? Malta is not that far 

away but it ain’t in Libya. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Absolutely. The good thing, of course, obviously, 

our intention is to get back to Libya as soon as the security circumstances permit. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So the purpose of relocation was a security purpose? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. The reason that we withdrew from Tripoli in the 

first place was because there was fighting in the area, immediately 

around the Embassy to the point where the security of our personnel was in danger. Their ability to move around and do their 

jobs was very, very limited. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, let me—let me ask about that. I get the 

point. Even from Malta, is there a central governor? Are there ministers to whom they can relate and do their job? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Yes, sir. Ambassador Jones is able on the phone 

and also in person—because many of the Libyan leaders come 

through Malta on a regular basis and so she has been able to meet 

with the foreign minister. 

She has been able to meet with the prime minister. She was here 

during the Africa summit and participated in all those conversations. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But let me—but I guess what I am getting at is 

it is not just our functionality but the functionality of the counterpart. I mean, to what extent would it be fair to say that is all mythology? I mean, yeah, they may have that title but they are not 

functioning as the minister of foreign affairs. 

You know, it is almost a Potemkin government, given the role of 

the militias, given recent history in Tripoli in terms of a takeover 

of the city for a while by an Islamist-oriented militia. 

20

What are we—I mean, are we going through sort of the motions 

of diplomacy as if we are dealing with a real structured government when in fact we are not? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. No, sir. I think—first of all, of course, Ambassador Jones is able to be in touch with a broad spectrum of political 

leaders in Libya—not just the government, not just the prime minister but across the board. So she is able to carry out our efforts 

to mediate, to promote political resolutions, to try to bring the parties together. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. What is it you think is the critical sine qua non 

for trying to see a functioning government, if not a stable government, emerge from this morass? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. The sine qua non would be, one, an end to violence; two, we would like to see full participation in the House of 

Representatives, which is the Libyan Parliament. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. We Democrats would like to see that here in our 

House of Representatives as well. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. And, three, of course, we would like to see the 

formation of a new government in Libya that would reflect fairly 

the full spectrum of political representation inside the House of 

Representatives. And so——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Wouldn’t that be an Islamicist-dominated legislature, though, if it did what you just said—only represented a spectrum of opinion? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. No, sir. I think that if you look at the election 

of the House of Representatives in June, it was a fairly good cross 

section of what we consider to be the entire political spectrum. 

Most of the members are independents and we believe that it is a 

fair representation of the Libyan population. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So that is a hopeful analysis. Final question, because I am going to run out of time, one of our goals is to create 

a General Purpose Force. Is that correct? 

And the reason for that, obviously, is to substitute that ordered 

government force for roving militias, some of which may have good 

intentions, some of which may have an agenda with which we 

would disagree. But you can’t have a stable functioning government if you don’t have the ability to police in a normal functioning 

way. 

What are the prospects for us to succeed in training 5,000 to 

8,000 members of the GPF and to have it hold together and not, 

you know, disintegrate as we have seen in some other countries? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. That is absolutely still our objective. As I mentioned earlier, the Libyans have now signed the letter of agreement 

that would allow us to go forward. There is still the funding issue 

that we are waiting to resolve. 

But as soon as the security conditions permit, we continue to 

hold out as our objective to set up that force and to see it take on 

its responsibilities for security in the country. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. My time is up. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, sir. 

Mr. Perry is recognized. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you, Ambassador. I got to tell you, while I listened to your testimony I feel 

21

like I am living in some kind of twilight zone of altered reality 

here. 

You know, even when you just speak of the last questioners—you 

know, how do we expect to train these folks—and you say well, we 

have an agreement with the Libyans to do this, and I am thinking, 

you know, we have an—there is all these militias. 

They are having, essentially, a civil war. Like, what agreement 

do we have and have you ever tried to train troops under fire? I 

mean, it sounds—it sounds patently absurd. Let me just ask you 

this. 

You know, articles in the New Yorker and the Washington Post 

essentially said that the administration has a policy regarding 

Libya in particular and, in my opinion, in many other things of 

leading from behind. 

Assuming maybe that has some truth or not to it, in your opinion, first of all, is there any truth to that? Is there any—have we 

led from behind? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Sir, I think that if you look at the history of our 

engagement with Libya since 2011, since the uprising against 

Muammar Gaddafi, you will see that the United States has been 

extremely engaged, beginning in September 2011 with Secretary 

Clinton’s leadership at a meeting in Paris. 

Mr. PERRY. But forgive me for interrupting. Engaged is one 

thing. Leading is another. Leading is a whole different paradigm. 

So are we engaged or are we leading? And for leading show me 

or demonstrate—display to me how the oversight of our leadership 

has contributed to the success or the failure of what has happened 

in Libya. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. What I would say, sir, is that the United States 

remains the focal point—it remains the center of gravity for the 

international community. 

When the United States stands up and demonstrates resolve and 

demonstrates direction, the international community generally supports and falls into place behind. And so I think in the case of 

Libya, if you are looking at what we have tried to do in terms of 

promoting democracy and governance, building institutional capacity, addressing some of the security issues through the General 

Purpose Force and as well as border security and some of the other 

activities, I think those are all areas where the United States has 

played a leadership role in coordinating and bringing together the 

full international community. 

I think that in the—in the period immediately before Ramadan, 

right after the elections in June, you saw the United States with 

our friends and partners in the international community working 

very aggressively, trying to work out—the chairwoman mentioned 

the 10-point plan. 

We were very much involved in developing and negotiating that 

10-point plan with the Libyans. So I think over and over again you 

see a——

Mr. PERRY. Well, let me offer this conjecture. With all due respect to the administration and the State Department, if it is as 

you say, that we are leading and the international coalition is behind us, that this is a breathtaking failure at this point. And I 

don’t know how it is going to end up but at this moment it seems 

22

like a breathtaking failure of leadership and actualization and implementation. 

I mean, I look at 110, 111 EU personnel charged with securing 

the border and I look at the size of the border of—you know, I don’t 

know what kind of program anybody is on that think that that is 

going to work. 

But to me just simple arithmetic says that it has no absolutely—

it is preposterous. That having been said, you know, I think about 

some of the other comments that have been made here regarding 

programs and sanctions. 

Do you think that rebel forces fighting one another with heavy 

weapons that they have procured from the failed state care about 

sanctions? And what programs are working under the auspices of, 

you know, thousands and hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians trying to live among, you know, a war-tattered country and a 

war zone with foreign fighters coming in and arms coming in and 

going out? 

I mean, that is this altered state of reality that I feel like I am 

hearing here, and you say if we—if we can stabilize. We are not 

stabilizing anything. 

We are sitting here watching this thing burn down and we are 

milling around with all these foolish policies that we can’t implement and we can’t expect them to implement because there is no 

governance there. 

I mean, I am sorry but that is—I am listening to this rhetoric 

here and it sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo that means nothing on the ground. Am I wrong? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Sir, I don’t want to underestimate the challenges that are in front of us and, of course, they are huge and it 

is a very difficult environment in which we are trying to work. 

But the fact of the matter is that there are opportunities. The 

EUBAM mission that you mentioned, the border assistance mission, is not to guard the border but to train the Libyans to take 

on that responsibility themselves and at the end of the day the 

Libyans are going to be responsible for what happens in their country and they are going to have to do these things. 

So we can work with them. We can help them. We can support 

them. I think that many of the programs that we are—that we are 

pursuing now, particularly on the governance side—trying to build 

institutional capacity—are things that are going to succeed over 

time. 

But there is no—there is no getting around the basic point that 

you are making, I think, which is that this is an extremely difficult 

and challenging environment at this time. We need to stick with 

it. 

We need to try to push through this particular period and to get 

the Libyans into a situation where many of the things that we are 

trying to accomplish actually become effective and implementable. 

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

Mr. Kennedy of Massachusetts. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Madame Chair. Mr. Ambassador, 

thank you very much for your service. Thank you for your testimony today. 

23

A couple of points that I would love to get your clarification on 

or just flush out to the extent that you can in this setting, sir. First 

off, as you have just indicated, the situation on the ground in Libya 

is very complex and very complicated, going to take a period of 

time. 

We are seeing instability throughout and a failure of institutions 

throughout and governing institutions throughout the Middle East 

and other parts of the world as well. This is not a short-term solution. 

Do you have—are you comfortable giving any sort of ball park assessment? Is this months? Is this years? Is this a decade? What 

type of forecast are we looking for—are we looking at here, to the 

best you can assess at the moment? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Mr. Kennedy, I must say that it is something 

when I was in Yemen we had the same question. We dealt with 

the same things. To be entirely honest, I think that this is a very 

long-term investment of time and effort and energy. 

The fact is that we are dealing with a society here that had no 

institutional capacity, that had no governing capacity, and so if we 

are going to succeed it is going to require a very long-term effort 

on the part of the Libyans primarily, of course, but also with the 

support of the international community. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And, Ambassador, I know there was some talk a 

few moments ago about some of the weapons that, at this point, are 

rampant throughout Libya. 

To the extent that you can say and can say in this setting, are 

you aware of any of those weapons being transferred through the 

Sinai into either—into Gaza or into other settings that are being 

used to basically foment violence in Israel and the surrounding 

areas, or into Syria, for that matter? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. I couldn’t say specifically that I know whether 

they are going to Gaza. I can say that the concern about the flow 

of weapons out of Libya into other troubled regions—into Syria, 

Iraq or potentially into Gaza or the Sinai—is something that we do 

watch very carefully and we are very concerned about. 

We actually have, with the support of the Congress and based on 

congressional appropriations, we actually have a very aggressive 

program of trying to recover a lot of these conventional weapons. 

We have, for example, secured over 5,000 MANPADS that were 

in Libya. So we are working to try to dry up that resource and also, 

of course, the new U.N. Security Council Resolution 2174 strengthened the arms embargo on Libya so that we are not seeing a lot 

of weapons coming in. 

Mr. KENNEDY. And, Mr. Ambassador, I apologize if I am going 

to ask you to repeat something. But given, as you just forecasted, 

the length of the commitment, the challenge that you are—you 

have outlined, this is not something, I don’t think, the United 

States can do alone. 

Clearly, as you indicated, this is going to be the responsibility 

primarily of Libyans but there is evidence, certainly, at least from 

the U.S. press that there is other nations that have been involved 

military in this conflict. 

24

What is the appetite of other nations in the Middle East or the 

surrounding nations there to actually help sustain—to build up 

some of the civil society there? 

This is not something that the United States is going to be able 

to have the deciding outcome nor should we be, I think, rebuilding 

an entire Libyan state. We have tried that once recently. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Absolutely, and I think that there is a broad 

agreement between the United States, the United Nations, of 

course, our friends in the European Union as well as in the region 

about what kind of society we would like to see emerge in Libya. 

We may not always agree on the tactics but I think that we 

agree on the end state and I think that some of the Gulf States, 

the Emiratis and some of the others, are absolutely willing and 

committed to contributing to that. 

Mr. KENNEDY. The type of commitment, sir, that would actually 

get us to where we need to go or where you believe we need to—

we need to get to? 

I mean, the resources, whether it is military troops, civil society 

funding that is going to be necessary to build up a functioning government in Libya, is massive and that is—I hesitate to believe that 

we here in the United States are going to appropriate the sufficient 

funding to do that. 

I hesitate to believe that other nations in the region are going 

to hesitate to do that and if they are not then we are going to be 

looking at a series of instability for or a sequence of instability for 

an awfully long time. 

Is there a commitment from other countries to actually do this 

or to do it in a very real way or to just see what happens? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Well, I think one thing—one point to make, of 

course, is that Libya is not a poor country and so a lot of the funding, a lot of the investment for these changes can come directly 

from the Libyans. 

I think in terms of institutional capacity building, the United 

States, along with our partners in the European Union primarily, 

are committed to taking on this—taking on this obligation, this 

commitment to work with the Libyans to try to achieve that. 

I think also we can work with some of our friends in the Gulf. 

Secretary Kerry is going to be meeting with the group that includes 

our European as well as our—GCC and the Turks in New York in 

2 weeks to have exactly these kinds of conversations. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Madame Chair, 

thank you for the extra time. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. One of our many 

wonderful vets serving on our committee, Mr. Kinzinger, is recognized. 

Mr. KINZINGER. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ambassador, for being here. I am going to say on the outset I was a 

supporter of intervention in Libya. I thought we did the right 

thing. 

I have, obviously, been very disappointed with the follow through 

and what it looks like today and I think it is important to kind of 

discover, as we are having this hearing, you know, what a post-war 

looks like, especially as, you know, what appears likely there will 

be intervention in Syria and there are questions, rightly, about 

25

what Syria looks like post-Assad which, hopefully, there is a postAssad time in Syria. 

I am sure it has probably already been touched on when I wasn’t 

here but, you know, the idea of leading from behind—and I know 

that is something that has haunted the administration. They probably wish they never would have said it. 

But I think it is a reality and something that, you know, is smart 

to understand that, you know, America does best when it leads 

from the front and when America understands and, frankly, I don’t 

know why that is something we are ashamed of. 

I mean, we ought to be very proud of the fact that if there is a 

problem in the world people look not to Russia, not to China, not 

to chaos. They look to the United States, and while we can’t do everything, I like to be in that position. 

I like to be in the position where people look at us as a force for 

good and a force for stability. So anyway, that said, as the war 

raged, Gaddafi was killed and we saw a post-war. 

Where I found a lot of concerns was in terms of being able to 

build maybe a NATO mission afterwards or even a short time period that the United Nations mission lasted. So let me ask you a 

bit about the U.N. mission. 

Why was the UNSMIL’s mandate only for 3 months and then it 

was extended for an additional 3 months? Did the administration 

insist on a longer mandate tied to goals and objectives rather than 

an arbitrary time line? 

I was just in Liberia, for instance, and that has been a mission 

that is successful but it is, obviously, quite ongoing. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Sir, I believe that the mission was organized initially for 3 months and then an additional 3 months, as you said. 

My understanding is that that is not uncommon for these kinds of 

missions to get that done. 

Since March 2012, it has now been rolled over each time for a 

1-year period. So after the initial start-up, we have moved into a 

more stable annual review. 

Mr. KINZINGER. And do you think the administration was being 

overly optimistic or unrealistic in its assertion of the Libyan—the 

capacity of the Libyan Government and what accounts for the administration’s misunderstanding of the commitment needed to assist the Libyan transition? 

And I don’t mean that accusatorialy but was it just we maybe 

thought they could get their act together faster or what was it? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. I think that is absolutely a fair question and I 

would say that in all fairness probably there was an optimism, an 

over optimism perhaps, not only on the part of the United States 

but also on the part of the Libyans themselves and I think that it 

took a little bit of time before people realized really how weak the 

institutions were inside of Libya and how serious the internal divisions were so that as we moved along, remembering, of course, that 

initially the Libyans themselves did not want the foreign intervention. 

They didn’t want a lot of engagement on the part of the international community and it was really only as these—the situation 

became clearer did they begin to turn to the international community and did we begin to respond. 

26

Mr. KINZINGER. And I think that is a fair point. Is that the 

same—why would the—how come the U.N. was not given a peacekeeping mandate? 

You know, if you look at, for instance, our experience in Kosovo 

with KFOR and the NATO model engagement there, I mean, it 

seems to be that, I think, is largely seen as a very successful mission. 

What is the reason? Is it the Libyans’ request? What was it that 

we didn’t implement something like that? Is it a lack of will on our 

side? Was it the lack of will on our NATO partners? I think that 

is important, again, especially as we look to Syria and the future 

there. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. I think that very clearly the Libyans themselves 

said that they would not welcome or support a peacekeeping mission. 

Mr. KINZINGER. Do you think there would have been—let us say 

the Libyan—I know we are playing games, in essence, in asking 

this but had the Libyans said we need a peacekeeping force here, 

do you think there was the will not just in the United States but 

in Europe to provide that? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. It is a hypothetical question, of course——

Mr. KINZINGER. Right. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN [continuing]. Hard to answer, but I believe that 

there would have been interest had that been a request from the 

Libyans. 

In fairness, of course, we have seen some talk in recent days and 

weeks about some kind of an international stabilization force and 

I can tell you that Secretary Kerry is very interested in exploring 

that, although the divisions within Libya are still an obstacle and 

still may prevent something like that from happening. 

Mr. KINZINGER. Good. And that is where I was going to go with 

that and I appreciate it. Thank you for your service. Thank you for 

being here, and I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, sir. Mr. Lowenthal of 

California. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you. As someone who is not on the African Subcommittee and new to the Congress and learning about 

Libya, this is a very depressing hearing, you know, and I am not 

pointing fingers. 

I am not saying anything that we have done. It is just I am not 

sure I understand what a country—if this is a country on the brink 

of a failed state what a failed state would look like—I mean, this 

seems to me. 

So I want to—before I ask you something I want to state two 

things. One is I want to follow up on something that the ranking 

member, Mr. Deutch, said. 

I would like to have a classified hearing. I would like to know 

what that role has been in terms of the Egyptians and just what 

the United States knew about that and understood about that. 

That is one, and also, I too would—while you lay out, and I think 

it is a very positive thing, a potential dialogue on how we could 

bring people together and how the Libyans—there is tremendous 

potential—it still eludes me how we get there and that leads to my 

question. 

27

Could you give me—maybe others know—a little bit more detailed explanation of who are—what are the political factions that 

you have mentioned? 

What are the militias? Can—you know, can you tell us a little 

bit more about what is really there today and what exists and who 

is the most powerful? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Well, a lot of the militias, of course, Mr. 

Lowenthal, are a holdover from the resistance to Muammar 

Gaddafi. So the two—the two militias that you talk about mostly 

in terms of Tripoli are the Misratans and the Zintan. 

Those are two towns inside of Libya, Misrata and Zintan, and 

they both had militias that fought against Gaddafi in 2011, and 

since 2011 they have kept the militias together. They have occupied various parts of Tripoli. 

The Zintan were the ones who were in control of Tripoli International Airport and the conflict that erupted in Tripoli a couple 

of months ago, which eventually led to the departure of American 

diplomats as well as most of the other diplomats in the city and 

most of the foreign community, were clashes between the 

Misratans and the Zintan. 

Now, you know, and we need—because there is not a clear hard 

line and as I tried to say earlier on, I think that on both sides of 

the political divide within Libya you see different gradations, different ideas. 

And so although the Misratans tend toward the more Islamist 

side, that does not mean that they are Islamists—that they are 

hardcore Muslim fundamentalists. 

But they tend that way, and the Zintan tend more toward the 

secular side. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are entirely, you know, liberal democrats. They have various gradations 

also. 

So you see a number of different elements. And then, of course, 

you have Khalifa Haftar, who emerged in the area around 

Benghazi who also has been extremely active and pushed what he 

calls Operation Dignity, which he claimed was a move toward defending secular elements, secular ideas inside of Libya, which 

struck a very positive chord with many Libyans but also, as I mentioned earlier, because he has chosen a violent path has deepened 

the polarization in the society. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Is there any one group that is on the ascendency? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. The Misratans have fundamentally succeeded in 

eliminating Zintan control inside of Tripoli but, overall, our assessment is that none of the actors inside of Libya have the capacity 

or the ability to succeed militarily. 

We think, at the end of the day, that the forces are roughly in 

balance so that they could not win an outright victory. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Ron DeSantis 

of Florida. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the Ambassador for coming. I am glad we are examining this because I 

think and, understandably, a lot of the focus of both the media and 

our time in Congress focuses on what is happening with ISIS, the 

28

Gaza-Israeli conflict, Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon and those 

are all very, very critical issues. 

I think Libya really represents a catastrophic failure in policy. If 

you look back in 2011, U.S. intervention was really on the side of 

a lot of these Islamist rebels and I think that that was a cruel lesson that we learned 2 years ago tomorrow when our Ambassador 

was murdered by Islamic militants in Benghazi. 

Simply removing a dictator, no matter how unsavory that individual is, is not, in this part of this world, going to lead necessarily 

to anything better and it can actually sometimes lead to more 

chaos. 

In our policy we need to reorient it so that we are vindicating 

our national interest but doing it in a way where we are skewing, 

trying to socially engineer these societies. 

It is just beyond our capacity to do. I think it is—I think it creates a lot of unintended consequences. And so if you look today, 

seems to me that there are far more Islamic jihadists operating not 

only in Libya but in North Africa today than there was prior to the 

intervention in 2011. 

But that will be a question I ask to you. Do you acknowledge 

that today there are more Islamic militants that are armed and operating inside of Libya than there were prior to 2011? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. It is a hard question to answer. Let me make 

a few points, if I may, sir. One, of course, is that the reason that 

the United States and the international community intervened in 

2011 was because of the brutality of the Gaddafi regime’s——

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, that was the posited initial reason but that, 

surely, and I think you would have to acknowledge that very quickly evolved into a regime change mission. 

I mean, that may have been the initial pretext. But listen, and 

I appreciate you wanting to clarify that. I do have a few other 

questions. 

I don’t want—I just don’t want to relitigate that. I was just setting up kind of my posture on it just for the record and I appreciate 

you wanting to engage. 

But since my time is limited, can you just speak to the number 

of militants? Do you think that there are more terrorists operating 

in Libya today than there were prior to 2011? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. And, again, and I appreciate that and the specific—the specific answer is that it is very hard to say because alQaeda and the Islamic Maghreb is not new and is not a result of 

2011. It was there many years ago. 

We know that there was a brutal war inside of Algeria for a 

number of years in the 1990s which was driven by Islamic extremism in that society and so those people were there and that has 

been a factor in North Africa for many, many years. 

So this is a longstanding challenge. I think that the concern that 

we have and maybe the concern that you are touching on is the 

fact that Libya is an ungoverned space now and so that there is 

an ability of these organizations and these groups to operate in 

Libya in a way that they perhaps couldn’t before. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Do you—understanding that and I agree, the administration is proposing to lift longstanding restrictions on Libyan 

29

nationals conducting flight training and nuclear training in the 

United States. 

Given this fact that you have acknowledged, doesn’t that seem 

like an odd time to want to do that, given that we know there are 

Libyans inside of Libya who are very much hostile to the United 

States? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Sir, I think and, of course, this is an issue for 

the Department of Homeland Security, but we support the lifting 

of that because Libya is the only country in the world on which 

that restriction is applied, including countries that are designated 

as state sponsors of terrorism, don’t have that restriction applied 

to them. 

And even if we lift that particular restriction, of course, Libyans 

who are coming or applying to come here would still be subject to 

all of the regular safeguards that we would apply to any visa applicant. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Let me ask you this, a final—my time is close to 

being expired. President el-Sisi of Egypt has really been strong to 

target Islamic groups in Egypt and throughout the region and, of 

course, there are the reports that Egypt conducted air strikes along 

with the United Arab Emirates. Seems to me that a lot of the 

Islamist groups they try to appeal for outside help to Turkey and 

Qatar. So what is the administration’s position? 

Are we firmly in the side—on the side of Egypt and the UAE and 

do we recognize that Turkey and Qatar are not playing a constructive role in Libya or are we aligning ourselves differently? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. The position that we have taken both in public 

and in private with all of those parties is that we believe that unilateral foreign military intervention in Libya is polarizing in that 

society, deepens the divisions and makes it more difficult to try to 

achieve the kind of political way forward. A negotiated solution to 

these differences that, in our view, is the only way that we are 

going to resolve this problem inside of Libya. 

So we are opposed to all outside intervention that supports any 

faction in its pursuit of a violent outcome to the situation there. 

Mr. DESANTIS. My time has expired and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Karen Bass of Los Angeles, California. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for clarifying our original reason for intervening in Libya. I think sometimes when groups come to our attention here we think they might 

be emerging for the first time. 

You know, an example is Boko Haram. We heard of Boko Haram 

for the first time but we know Boko Haram has been around for 

a long time. I wouldn’t want it left that we intervened on behalf 

of Islamic jihadists. 

But I did want you to address the regional implications because 

part of what my colleague was saying, you know, certainly was accurate. I think of the coup that happened in Mali and its direct relationship to the destabilization in Libya. 

So I wanted to know if maybe you could give me an update on 

what is happening in Niger and Chad that might be related to 

Libya. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Well, we are very concerned, of course, on precisely this issue of the potential bleed over of instability in Libya 

30

to all of its neighbors and, certainly, we have had a number of conversations with the Tunisians, who are very concerned, as well as 

the countries of the Sahel. 

During the Africa Summit, Undersecretary Sherman actually 

had a session on security in the Maghreb and the Sahel that discussed many of these issues and, you know, one of the things that 

we are trying to do is to build up border security and the capacity 

of those states to prevent the bleed-out of instability in Libya into 

their societies and that would affect the stability of those countries. 

So we have the Trans-Sahel Counterterrorism Program. We have 

a number of other initiatives that will help address border security 

and, of course, more broadly we have a number of counterterrorism 

initiatives and other initiatives in the Sahel region to help build up 

the security and stability of those societies. 

Ms. BASS. You know, do you know what has happened to the—

there were many sub-Saharan Africans that were in Libya that, 

right after Gaddafi fell, came under some brutal repression by a 

variety of the militia forces, and do you know the status of those 

groups—whether they were able to safely leave Libya? 

Are they still there? Are they still going through what they were 

going through after the fall of Gaddafi? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Ma’am, I am sorry. I remember the situation 

very well. I don’t know the answer to your question but will be 

happy to get the answer and get it back to you. 

Ms. BASS. All right. I would appreciate that. And then I am not 

sure if this has come up before but understanding what has happened in Tripoli, what is the status of the airport now? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. The status of the airport is that it is still closed. 

We believe it has been heavily damaged and that it will require a 

great deal of reconstruction once the situation stabilizes. 

Ms. BASS. Are there planes that the militia groups have access 

to? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. No, ma’am. We have seen the reports. There 

were some assertions that 11 planes had been taken from the airport. We have actually had an opportunity to examine that issue 

and we can say categorically that that is absolutely without foundation. 

Ms. BASS. Gaddafi’s son? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Another question I am going to have to take 

back and get back to you. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. All right. Thank you. I yield. 

Chairman ROYCE. Okay. Ms. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Ambassador, I appreciate you spending your time here with 

us this morning. Do you have any State Department personnel left 

in Libya? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. No, ma’am. 

Ms. GABBARD. It is—I have got a couple of questions here. I will 

try to get through them quickly. There have been some different 

references to the fighting forces on the ground in Libya. Some are 

calling them rival militias. 

There has been some talk of a sectarian civil war, others of Islamic extremists of varying names, whether they are al-Qaeda or 

other—go by other names. Which is it? 

31

Is it Islamic extremists who are trying to take over territory? My 

understanding is that this isn’t a sectarian civil war necessarily, 

and how would you characterize it? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. I think that that is absolutely correct, although 

as I mentioned earlier, the different groups have different colorations in terms of where they fall on the political spectrum. Some 

are more secular. 

Some are more Islamist. But it is not necessarily a sectarian conflict. Our view is that primarily it is a fight for power and for resources and for influence. 

Ms. GABBARD. I think it is difficult to see any so-called political 

solution on the horizon, given the situation on the ground, given 

there is no State Department personnel, and I see from what occurred since 2011 with the lack of governance there that, really, as 

has been noted earlier today, change needs to come from the Libyan people, that we don’t have a good track record of nation building 

in other countries and that this needs to occur organically within 

that country. 

AFRICOM commander—U.S. AFRICOM Commander General 

Rodriguez recently warned that al-Qaeda adherents and affiliates 

there in Libya are gaining strength as ‘‘arms, ammunition, explosives from Libya continue to move throughout the region in northwest Africa,’’ and others within the Department of Defense have 

stated that if this situation is left unchecked then we will continue 

to see the threat to the United States and our interests heightened 

as we are seeing in other areas in the Middle East. What are we 

doing to prevent that? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Well, I think that, again, all of the programs 

that we have—I think that your basic point is exactly the right 

one, which is that this is something that the solutions need to come 

organically from inside of Libya from the Libyan people, and actually we are seeing some positive signs that there is a dialogue 

going on among the Libyan people that we hope would lead to some 

kind of a political path forward. 

It is nascent, it is very low key, but it is there and we believe 

that over time hopefully the Libyans on both sides of the political 

spectrum, on all sides of the political spectrum, will actually come 

together and agree on a dialogue, agree on a negotiation. 

That is the only way that we are going to be able to get past this 

period of militias and the violence and get into a situation where 

we can begin to work on some of the institutional capacity building 

on the security side as well as the governance side that, over the 

long term, will resolve those issues and resolve our concerns. 

Ms. GABBARD. Wouldn’t you say as that dialogue and those conversations are going on, though, that you have these Islamic extremists who are continuing to gain strength in the region, not only 

affecting Libya but others? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. It is a concern without doubt and again, I think 

that over the long term, although we in the international community can help and we will help in institutional capacity, but our 

view is that the vast majority of the Libyan people don’t want that. 

They don’t support that kind of a vision, and that if we have viable governing institutions—if the House of Representatives gains 

traction, if we see broad participation in that and the creation of 

32

a government that fairly represents the various elements in the 

House of Representatives that the Libyan people will rally around 

and that the Islamic extremists in that society are relatively small 

and can be managed and eliminated. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you. My concern directly is in how this—

how they and how this affects our interests—the interests of the 

United States, the safety of the American people. 

It wasn’t very long ago that ISIS was determined to be a very 

so-called small threat that didn’t need to be taken seriously and, 

obviously, we are seeing that that is not the case. 

So our targeting and our concern with these Islamic extremists 

there needs to be in a broader vision of recognizing that this isn’t 

about a specific country whether it is Libya or Iraq or Syria. 

This is about a greater threat that is posed directly to the American people. Thank you. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. And we agree with that completely, of course. 

Chairman ROYCE. Lois Frankel of Florida. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me—let me follow that 

and I think it is important for the public to understand why we 

spend our time on these issues. 

So I would like you, in 4 minutes and 51 seconds, if you could, 

tell us what you believe is the strategic importance of Libya and 

the region, why we intervened and what lessons we have learned. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Well, I think that the strategic importance of 

Libya touches on a number of issues. One, of course, is that Libya 

is a major provider of energy resources to the world. 

Before the 2011 revolution, they were producing about 11⁄2 million barrels of oil a day. They are back now to about 800,000, which 

is growing by the day. 

They are a very important provider of energy to—particularly to 

Europe and so in terms of the overall global economy, Libya plays 

a very important role. They are strategically located in the region. 

They have a long coastline on the Mediterranean. 

One of the issues that we have seen, of course, unrelated to the 

issue of Islamic extremism or security is the flow of immigration 

and the destabilizing effect that that flow has had on southern Europe because of the inability of Libya to control its borders and to 

prevent that flow through. 

I think that, again, as your colleague mentioned just a moment 

ago, we have serious concerns about the impact of or the potential 

impact of Libya as an ungoverned space for groups like al-Qaeda 

and the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar al-Sharia, which is the group that 

was responsible for the attack on our facility in Benghazi 2 years 

ago, to continue to metastasize, to prevent or to pose a threat to 

its neighbors, to Tunisia, to Algeria, to the states of the Sahel, to 

Egypt. 

Egypt is—has great concerns about the flow or the possible flow 

of extremists across their border into the western desert of Egypt 

and so we see that potential, the potential that eventually you 

might see increasingly a linkage between the extremism inside of 

Libya with other parts of the Middle East—Syria, Iraq, et cetera—

and eventually a threat to security and stability around the world. 

And so we have a positive—we have a positive strategic interest, 

which is in seeing Libya as a secure stable producer of energy reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Nov 06, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\091014\89740 SHIRL
33

sources and an important factor in promoting global economic security, and then there is also the negative impact of an ungoverned 

Libya and how that might threaten our security. 

Ms. FRANKEL. And what lessons have we learned from the intervention and the chaos that we see there now? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Well, I think that where we are now is that 

there is a greater recognition today, I believe, in what kind of challenge we confront inside of Libya and the fact that helping the 

Libyans move to a secure stable state with capable institutions 

that can provide basic services to the citizens, that can govern, that 

can provide security is going to be a long-term challenge which is 

going to require a long-term commitment on the part of the United 

States and our partners in the international community to help the 

Libyans achieve that objective. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I waive the rest of my time. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Brad Sherman 

of California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. I have sat here in this room while the 

administration gets berated because somehow you are not able to 

achieve a loving and peaceful world at—and achieve it without any 

American casualties. 

We don’t have control of what is going on on the ground in Syria 

or Iraq or Libya, and somehow if we only had somebody in the 

White House with a different personality that everyone in the Middle East would do what we said and we would be in control and 

we would achieve it all without any troops on the ground. 

Are you aware of any strategy that has realistically proposed a 

method to achieve American leadership from the front, control of 

what is going on, the destruction of all dangerous evil forces without substantial American casualties? 

Have any of the think tanks here in Washington come up with 

such a ground plan? You could give me a one-word answer. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. No, sir. I think——

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. It is—you know, destroy all dangerous 

evil is a great slogan. But the real slogan for an effective foreign 

policy is managing a messy world and I guess you can’t—that isn’t 

poetry. 

But the fact is that if we wanted an orderly Libya we could, you 

know, conjecture how many hundreds of casualties a year we would 

have to suffer to implement that immediately and not by—you 

know, obviously leading from behind is a terrible slogan but influencing from afar involves a lot fewer casualties than taking control 

on the ground. 

I want to focus a little bit on money. I am the only CPA on this 

committee, and having already dismissed the idea of glorious slogans, pinch pennies now is probably the least glorious slogan. 

But this is a very rich country. American taxpayers have spent 

billions of dollar to help the Libyan people. Libya acknowledges 

over $6 billion of debt to bankers, to other governments. Doesn’t acknowledge one cent of debt to the United States. 

What have we done? I mean, know Libya is supposed to pay for 

the military training in Bulgaria but it is not happening. We are—

the Libyan special operation forces are being trained at the taxpayer expense. 

34

How forceful has the State Department been in saying, you ought 

to be paying us for the billions of dollars we spent a few years ago 

and at very minimum the gravy train stops now—if you don’t have 

the cash we will take the notes secured by the oil? 

Or is American—the interests of the American taxpayer not high 

on the list? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Sir, I think, as you mentioned, Libya is not a 

country without resources, although, unfortunately, one of the institutional capacities that they are lacking is the capacity to manage their money. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I am not saying these promissory notes would 

be—well, by today’s credit rating agencies they might be given Triple A. 

But no sane credit rating agency would give them a Triple A rating. But at least get us something. Have you gotten—do you have 

the promissory notes that would be paid once Libyan security is reestablished, whenever that happens? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. I think that, certainly, as we go forward and we 

begin to discuss these programs and these training initiatives that 

we would like to do with the Libyans that the issue of paying for 

it is——

Mr. SHERMAN. Can you go back and get the Libyans to assume 

financial responsibility for the Libyan Special Operations Forces 

training going on today? Is that a priority for the State Department? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. The—on the General Purpose Force having the 

Libyans——

Mr. SHERMAN. And I am focused on the Libyan Special Operation 

Forces because that is happening now at taxpayer expense. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. And, Congressman Sherman, I think that the 

fundamental point is that what we are doing in Libya now we are 

doing because we believe that it supports the interests of the American people. So the Libyan Special Operations Forces is precisely 

aimed at trying to prevent the kind of terrorism——

Mr. SHERMAN. We are selling $11 billion worth of arms to Qatar 

presumably because we think that is consistent with our foreign 

policy. I am not so sure it is. We are not giving them away. We 

sell weapons to Australia. Presumably, that is in our national interest. 

So why do you defend giving money to Libya rather than taking 

promissory notes when it is far more—just as much in our interest 

to provide weapons and training to Australia or Canada, et cetera? 

Do people at the State Department care enough about the taxpayer to at least get promissory notes for what we are providing 

to Libya now? 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. What we are providing to Libya now we are providing because we believe that it is in the interest of the United 

States to provide it. We don’t provide them with weapons. If they 

want weapons they purchase them in the same way that the 

Qataris do. 

Mr. SHERMAN. But we charge Australia for training. We charge 

European—the NATO allies for training. We charge for nonlethal 

supplies. 

35

Sir, you are hiding behind this idea that it is in our interest so 

we shouldn’t charge for it, which really means the State Department doesn’t care about the taxpayer, because every time we provide training and weapons that is consistent with our foreign policy, every time we allow our businesses to do business abroad it is 

consistent with our national policy, and just saying we are going 

to give away money because the people we are giving it to are consistent with our foreign policy is basically saying you want to give 

away money. 

I yield back. I hope you will take this message back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Let me just close here, if I can, by thanking 

Ambassador Feierstein for his testimony before our committee this 

morning. We thank the members, too. 

Obviously, Ambassador, you have your hands full. As Mr. 

Lowenthal on this committee said, it is a depressing situation and 

as the administration works to get a strategy together, a plan together, we hope you will continue to engage with the committee on 

that. 

At that point, we adjourn for now and thank you again, Ambassador. 

Mr. FEIERSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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