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BUILDING IRAQI SECURITY FORCES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 14, 2005

Serial No. 109–19

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, Senior Policy Advisor

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 14, 2005 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Christoff, Joseph, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Peter R. Rodman, Assistant Secretary of

Defense, International Security Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense,

accompanied by Rear Admiral William D. Sullivan, vice-director, Strategic Plans and Policy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Ambassador

Richard A. Jones, Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Coordinator

for Iraq, U.S. Department of State, accompanied by Bill Todd, Principal

Deputy Assistant, Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics

and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State ......................... 15

Christoff, Joseph ........................................................................................ 15

Jones, Ambassador Richard ...................................................................... 39

Rodman, Peter R. ...................................................................................... 39

Cordesman, Professor Anthony H., Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy,

Center for Strategic and International Studies; Kalev Sepp, professor,

Naval Postgraduate School; and Peter Khalil, former Coalition Provisional Authority official, the Brookings Institution ................................... 104

Cordesman, Professor Anthony H. ........................................................... 104

Khalil, Peter ............................................................................................... 148

Sepp, Kavlev I. .......................................................................................... 133

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Christoff, Joseph, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of .................................... 17

Cordesman, Professor Anthony H., Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy,

Center for Strategic and International Studies, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 108

Jones, Ambassador Richard A., Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Coordinator for Iraq, U.S. Department of State, prepared statement of ......... 41

Khalil, Peter, former Coalition Provisional Authority official, the Brookings Institution, prepared statement of ...................................................... 153

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio:

Memo dated January 5, 2005 ................................................................... 78

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Sepp, Kalev, professor, Naval Postgraduate School, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 137

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Sullivan, Rear Admiral William D., vice-director, Strategic Plans and

Policy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, historical perspective on ISF reporting .................................................................................................................. 51

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California:

E-mail from Ambassador Jones ............................................................... 54

Letter dated February 16, 2005 ............................................................... 86

Memo by U.S. Embassy, Kuwait .............................................................. 58

(1)

BUILDING IRAQI SECURITY FORCES

MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:10 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Turner, and Kucinich.

Also present: Representative Waxman.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; R.

Nicholas Palarino, Ph.D., senior policy advisor; Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Robert A Briggs, clerk; Hagar Hajjar, intern; Jeff Baran and David Rapallo, minority counsels; Andrew Su,

minority professional staff member; Earley Green, minority chief

clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations

hearing entitled, ‘‘Building Iraqi Security Forces,’’ is called to order.

Election day in Iraq saw less violence than most days before or

since. Why? Broad travel restrictions certainly helped, but more

significantly, Iraqi security forces, knowing crowded polling places

made attractive targets, stepped forward to protect their emerging

democracy; at times they did so heroically. In Iraq that day, we

heard reports of police sacrificing themselves to tackle a would-be

suicide bomber so voting could continue.

Building on that loyalty, pride and sense of ownership evident

that day and every day is the key to security in the new Iraq. Current U.S. strategy seeks to bring Iraqi forces forward in the

counterinsurgency fight as quickly as possible while transitioning

coalition forces to an embedded advisory role; but as we and the

Iraqis learned last year, too abrupt a transfer of front line security

to minimally trained, weakly motivated and poorly led Iraqi forces

risks defeats and defections and emboldens the terrorists.

The fiscal year 2005 supplemental appropriation bill contained $5.7 billion to train and equip Iraqi security forces, adding to the

$5 billion provided last year. The fundamental question behind

these numbers; how will we and the Iraqis know with the right

number of forces with the right skills and equipment are ready to

assume the difficult, evolving security mission there? The answer

is not just numbers, capabilities matter as much as quantities. Decisions about the strategist roles, doctrines, tactics and command

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structures of Iraqi security forces will have profound implications

on their ability to confront a violent insurgency while nurturing a

democratic one. But numbers do matter. We need to know how

many have been trained, how many will be trained, and how many

will be deployed by the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior to

secure their nation.

The effort faces daunting challenges. To fill the vacuum created

by the abrupt dissolution of the entire army and police force after

the fall of Hussein’s regime, Iraqi security personnel must learn to

fight while they fight. Uneven vetting of recruits and limited offsite

training has left local police units undermanned, under-motivated

and vulnerable to infiltration by the very insurgents they’re meant

to fight. Some in the new predominantly Shiite Iraqi government

have proposed a re-deBa’athification of security forces, a move

which others fear could further destabilize rather than help secure

Iraq. But all these efforts should be guided and inspired by individual and collective examples of Iraqi determination to seize a safer

future.

Mithal a-Alusi is a Sunni and the first Iraqi political official to

travel to Israel to address an antiterrorism conference. For his

courage, he was removed from his position on the DeBa’athification Commission and he lost his personal security protection. On February 8th, his two sons were gunned down in Baghdad, and he still remains a target. When I met him here 2 weeks

ago and offered to help him move to the United States for his own

protection, all he wanted was to go back to Iraq and help his nation

become a democracy.

As a recent article on a-Alusi observed, when you hear it asked

whether Iraqis will fight for their own freedom, ask yourself whether it is possible to fight harder than Mithal a-Alusi.

In the January 30th election, his and more than 8 million other

purple index fingers pointed the way to a peaceful and democratic

future for the nation. Today we ask how we can best help them fulfill that destiny.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. The Chair at this time recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

To the witnesses, I understand that shortly we’re going to have

the honor of having our ranking member, Mr. Waxman, here, and

I look forward to his presence as well.

I want to first begin by thanking the men and women who wear

the uniform of this country and who serve in the Armed Forces and

who serve valiantly and bravely in Iraq and around the world. I

want to thank their families for giving their sons and daughters,

their husbands and wives to this Nation for service. Their service

is honorable, and no matter what our position happens to be with

respect to this administration’s policy, we can all agree that the

men and women who serve ought to be honored.

I want to thank the chairman for holding the hearing, and I

want to welcome the witnesses.

As the key investigative and oversight committee in Congress,

we’re the ones who must shine the light of truth on the security

situation in Iraq. The truth, however, is elusive. This Congress has

been misled time and time again about this war by this administration. This Congress has been told that we needed to strike Iraq

preemptively in order to find weapons of mass destruction. We

have not found a single WMD. In fact, the administration has

given up to not even looking for WMDs anymore. We were also told

that the United States would be greeted as liberators, yet 1,500

brave American soldiers have died so far, and the number increases daily, whether it is by suicide attacks or improvised explosive devices. Many Iraqi security forces and innocent civilians have

also died needlessly. And there are thousands upon thousands of

our soldiers who have been injured, as well as innocent civilians injured as well.

We were told that the administration had a plan for the occupation of Iraq and for reconstruction. We were told contracts would

be openly bid, and that the process would be transparent; yet the

Inspector General for the Coalition Provisional Authority recently

reported that the Coalition Provisional Authority could not properly account for a single penny of some $9 billion in funds turned

over by the U.S.-led authority to the interim Iraqi government.

Congress has spent $5.8 billion already on building Iraqi security

forces, and now we’re being asked to foot another $82 billion in

costs for Iraq, including $5.7 billion to build Iraqi security forces.

Is there a plan for spending this money wisely, or is the plan to

keep throwing good money after bad? Will this $11.5 billion be

properly accounted for as opposed to the $9 billion in funds that

have not been properly accounted for?

Mr. Chairman, the current course we are on in Iraq is absolutely

unacceptable. This administration seems to be blinded by and ignorant to the realities in Iraq. It is determined to see its policies

through no matter how many wounded and how many casualties

there may be, no matter how foolish and wrong-headed those policies may be.

We’re told that these security forces need more time and more

funds for training and for leaders to emerge to assume chains of

command. Mr. Chairman, this administration has had enough time

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and more than enough funds already. There is nothing more than

a money pit that drains funds from our Nation’s coffers.

The real problem is the administration has refused to admit it

has made any mistakes. Violence, particularly that aimed specifically against these Iraqi security forces, has escalated in recent

weeks despite the presence of these forces at polling places during

the holding of the national elections in January. 125 Iraqi National

Guard and police recruits died at a medical clinic recently at the

hands of a suicide car bomber. Nearly every day other Iraqi security forces are killed by the improvised explosive devices or by suicide bombers. Insurgents remain in control over numerous areas of

the country, and we are sending out security forces who are lightly

armed, have only a few weeks or months of training, have limited

mobility and continue to incur problems of recruitment and retention.

Most of these security forces have never even handled or shot an

AK–47. Most are being used in support roles, not in fighting the

insurgents who are hardened and hell bent on making sure that

our mission there fails. We are sending these security forces into

situations against an enemy who, it is well understood, they cannot

possibly defeat. How do we honestly expect them to be ready by the

end of this year or next?

None of these problems are a secret, yet this administration continues to mislead the American people and the Congress, its only

solution to ask for more and more money and more time in the

hopes the situation will improve, while their stubbornness is costing lives.

And more importantly, we also want to see our soldiers return

home. We all want to see democracy succeed and flourish in Iraq,

but there are lives here at stake, both American and Iraqi, and we

still have no exit strategy. And Mr. Chairman, without an exit

strategy, I don’t see how in the world we can expect the American

people to approve spending another dime in Iraq. Without an exit

strategy, I don’t understand how we can expect the American people to continue to approve of the sacrifice of their sons and daughters and mothers and fathers. What are we supposed to tell our

constituents whose loved ones are missing from home, wounded or

killed in service to their country? When will our soldiers be coming

home?

It seems to me these deadlines for completing training and for

rebuilding Iraqi security forces are completely artificial. Nobody

knows how long the process will take. And we cannot support the

Iraqis indefinitely financially or at a cost to our own Nation’s military readiness. That is why I believe the United Nations should

step in and shoulder the burden for training these security forces.

They have the experience, long-term resolve, and the multi-national support to finish the job, and I urge Secretary Rice to work

with Secretary General Kofi Annan to find a role for U.N. peacekeepers in Iraq. These are the real questions, the tough questions

which need to be asked by the Congress about the long-term stability and security of Iraq. We need real answers before we can agree

to new funding requests, we cannot cover our eyes and pretend

problems will go away if we just sink more money into them.

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Mr. Chairman, I hope all of our witnesses are forthcoming and

candid in their testimonies. It’s in everyone’s interest that they

speak honestly to the problems in building Iraqi security forces. We

want equality troops in place and ready to take over, not just a

quantitative figure that looks good on paper.

I led the effort in this House in challenging that war. It was a

wrong war, and it was wrong to send our troops there, and we need

to bring them home. And I hope this hearing is going to be the beginning of that step. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. The chairman recognizes Mr. Turner, the former vice

chairman of the committee.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your efforts to continue our review of the operations occurring in Iraq and how we can improve

them, both to make the country safer and more stable for our men

and women in uniform, and for the Iraqi citizens.

I have had two opportunities to travel to Iraq, once in October

2003, and again this January, 2 weeks prior to the elections. During the last trip we had the opportunity to review some of the

training opportunities for the Iraqi soldiers, and also an opportunity to look at some of the exercises that they were conducting,

and it certainly is incredibly important work, not only for transition from a U.S.-led to an Iraqi-led security effort, but obviously for

any hope of independence for Iraq as a nation.

It is certainly welcome that we had the announcement by NATO

of their commitment to assist in this process. I know there are a

number of issues that each of you will want to tell us today, and

we will have a number of questions concerning how we can be effective, and but there is no question this is very important work.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time, the chairman will announce our panel before swearing them in. Mr. Joseph Christoff, Director International Affairs

and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Honorable

Peter R. Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense, accompanied by Rear

Admiral William D. Sullivan, Vice-Director of Strategic Plans and

Policy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Ambassador Richard

A. Jones, Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Coordinator for Iraq,

U.S. Department of State, accompanied by Mr. Bill Todd, Principal

Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

I just want to state that I know that some of you had plans to

be elsewhere, and maybe your testimony has been prepared a little

late, and I understand that you fully tried to accommodate the subcommittee, and the subcommittee sincerely appreciates it.

Whether people supported the war or opposed the war, ultimately we want success, and we know that each and every one of

you are working—your responsibilities to work toward that ultimate goal of success. So at this time, if I could just take care of

business first in terms of asking unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the record and that the record remain open for the period

of 3 days for that purpose, and without objection, so orders.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statements in the record, and without objection, so ordered.

And at this time if you would stand, we will swear you in as we

do. There is only one person who has never been sworn in in my

8 years of chairing the subcommittee, and that was—or 10 years,

and that was the Senator from West Virginia; I chickened out.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Mr. SHAYS. I note for the record our witnesses have responded

in the affirmative.

I think that we’re going to start with Mr. Christoff, I believe

that’s the case, and then Mr. Rodman, you will be going. Secretary.

And then we will proceed down the line.

Thank you, Mr. Christoff.

STATEMENTS OF JOSEPH CHRISTOFF, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; PETER R. RODMAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, ACCOMPANIED BY REAR

ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. SULLIVAN, VICE-DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC PLANS AND POLICY OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF;

AND AMBASSADOR RICHARD A. JONES, SENIOR ADVISOR TO

THE SECRETARY AND COORDINATOR FOR IRAQ, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, ACCOMPANIED BY BILL TODD, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT, SECRETARY FOR THE BUREAU

OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH CHRISTOFF

Mr. CHRISTOFF. Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting GAO to this important hearing.

My statement today is based on GAO’s ongoing work reviewing

the security situation in Iraqi. In summary, we found the following:

Data on the status of Iraqi security forces is unreliable and provides limited information on their capabilities. And the coalition

must fight a growing insurgency while overcoming problems in the

force structure, readiness and leadership of Iraqi troops.

Let me first describe the multi-national forces plan for transferring security responsibilities to the Iraqis. Under an October 2003

plan, Iraqi forces would assume increasing responsibility for security, first in local and regional areas, and then throughout the

country. As the Iraqis assume more control coalition forces could

begin to draw down.

In the summer of 2004, MNF–I developed a classified campaign

plan based on this transition concept. As part of that plan, MNF–

I intends to train and equip 271,000 Iraqi security forces by July

2006. As of late February 2005, the State Department reports that

about 82,000 Iraqi police and about 60,000 military forces have

been trained and equipped. However, these data do not provide reliable information on the status of Iraqi forces. For example, the

number of trained police includes those who are absent without

leave, which DOD estimates to be in the tens of thousands. Further, State no longer reports on the extent to which Iraqi security

forces have their required weapons, vehicles and equipment. Accordingly, it is difficult to assess the status of efforts to train and

equip Iraqi security forces.

It is equally difficult to judge the capabilities of Iraqi security

forces because MNF–I is now developing a system to assess unit

readiness. This system will help to assess the extent to which Iraqi

forces can operate independently of U.S. assistance. However, this

system will take time to implement.

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MNF–I faces additional challenges. First, the Iraqi force structure is changing, making it difficult for the coalition to adequately

train, equip and sustain Iraqi force. For example, the required

number of police and border patrol forces has increased, the National Guard was merged into the Army, and special

counterinsurgency units were formed.

The second challenge is developing strong Iraqi leadership and

loyalty throughout the chain of command. Over the past year, coalition forces have observed questionable loyalty some Iraqi forces,

poor leadership in the Iraqi units, and the destabilizing influence

of militias. To address some of these problems, MNF–I plans to expand its use of military and police advisor teams within Iraqi

units.

The third challenge is developing a police structure that upholds

the rule of law while operating in a hostile environment. Most police were trained and equipped to conduct law enforcement functions in a peaceful environment, they were not trained to fight the

insurgency. In December 2004, MNF–I was adding paramilitary

skills to the training of the some police units. But in addition, the

State Department has found that police in some areas have committed human rights abuses.

The coalition faces these collective challenges while confronting

a growing insurgency. DIA data shows that incidents against the

coalition, Iraqi forces and civilians increased significantly from

June 2003 to February 2005. As shown in figure 1 of my statement,

each monthly peak in the number of violent incidents is followed

by a higher average number of attacks in subsequent months. In

January 2005, General Casey stated that the insurgency has sufficient resources to maintain about 50 to 60 attacks per day in Sunni

areas. He concluded that only a combination of political, military,

economic and communications efforts would defeat the insurgency. Since April 2003, Congress has provided about $5.8 billion to develop Iraqi security forces. Last month the President, an additional

appropriation of $5.7 billion. However, without reliable information, Congress may find it difficult to judge how Federal funds are

achieving the goal of transferring security responsibilities to the

Iraqis.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I would be happy

to answer the subcommittee’s questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Christoff follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Secretary Rodman, we will be going to you, and then

to you Ambassador Jones. And then Admiral Sullivan, will you

have testimony that you would like to share as well, a statement?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I do, yes.

Mr. SHAYS. And Mr. Todd? OK. So we will proceed that way.

Assistant Secretary.

STATEMENT OF PETER R. RODMAN

Mr. RODMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your

courtesy. I do not have a prepared statement, but I would like to

make a few introductory remarks, if I may, to set the context of

what my colleagues will share with the rest of the committee.

Our strategy in Iraq is political as much as it is military, that’s

why you have before you a panel representing the Department of

State as well as the Department of Defense.

In a nutshell, our strategy is to help Iraqis build new institutions, to fill the vacuum left by the removal of the old regime, political institutions, economic institutions, security institutions. So, by

these political means, we are helping empower the moderate Iraqis

who represent the overwhelming majority of the country. We help

empower the moderates, and we help further isolate the extremists

even while we continue, we and the coalition and the Iraqi forces

continue to hunt down the enemy by military means.

The political strategy is exemplified most dramatically by the

elections we saw on January 30th. As you know, this is the beginning of a process that we hope, we expect to unfold through the remainder of the year. On Wednesday, this transitional national assembly that was elected by those elections will have its first session, we expect a transitional government to be formed very quickly. This summer, a constitution will be drafted, which will be submitted to popular referendum, and by the end of the year, new

elections will be held under the new permanent constitution.

On the military side, the focus is now on training, training Iraqis

military and police to take on increasing responsibility for their

own security. That’s the subject that Admiral Sullivan will speak

to.

Ambassador Jones, as you know, has served in Baghdad, and he

is, I think, very qualified to speak about some of the political

issues, as well an as some of the police training issues which the

Department of State is involved in. But with that, let me turn it

over to my colleagues.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Ambassador Jones. Great to have you

here, and thank you for your service in Iraq.

STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR RICHARD JONES

Ambassador JONES. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. My

name is Richard H. Jones; I am the Secretary of State Senior Advisor and Coordinator for Iraq policy.

As has been pointed out, prior to assuming these duties I served

as the American ambassador in Kuwait, and during that period I

spent 71⁄2 months as the Chief Policy Officer and Deputy Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority. That experience, I beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:13 Jun 01, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\20923.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
40

lieve, has given me unique perspectives on many of the issues that

you will be discussing today.

I have a longer statement for the record, Mr. Chairman, but if

you would allow me to summarize it briefly.

Mr. Chairman, you said that the ultimate goal in Iraq is success;

I couldn’t agree more. The question is, what does success mean?

Well, for Iraq, success means a country that is capable of defending

its democracy from enemies, domestic and foreign, who take up

arms against it.

Ultimately, only Iraq can successfully defend Iraq. Right now, of

course, the United States is bearing much of the brunt of the fighting of the insurgency, but Iraqis are taking on an increasing role.

My colleagues from the Department of Defense are here to discuss

our efforts to develop Iraqi security forces that can take the leading

role in combating these insurgents. That is, if you will, the inner

most circle of security, but there are other circles. One of several

outer circles involves the development of civilian police and judicial

correction systems that can enforce the rule of law and guard

against the type of criminality that goes hand in hand with the insurgency—kidnapping, hostage taking, narcotics smuggling and so

on. The State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and

Law Enforcement takes the lead in that effort. My colleague, Bill

Todd, is here to take questions on specifics in that area.

But we must consider other circles, for example, we should consider a circle outside the security area, for example, a reconstruction and economic policy efforts, to root out any economic basis for

the insurgency by creating the infrastructure and policy tools necessary for sustainable development of a sound market economy.

Such an economy will inevitably create meaningful employment opportunities that allow people to lead normal lives and lessen the attraction of taking up arms.

There is another outer circle, the efforts to create a Democratic

political system, which Assistant Secretary Rodman mentioned. A

system for which the security forces will willingly fight, a system

which keeps the police and justice systems working and which ensures that the fruits of reconstruction and economic development

are available to all Iraqis. All of these circles are necessary for security and they all reinforce one another. We view each of them as

essential to success in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, during Saddam Hussein’s 35-year reign Iraq’s police force and criminal justice system were institutions of public repression, intelligence gathering and arbitrary violence; they were

state agencies to be feared.

Our programs must totally rebuild and reorient both a civilian

police institution and a criminal justice system to reflect democratic values, respect for human rights and adherence to the rule

of law. Achieving these objectives requires intense effort and a

long-term commitment. Our police development efforts have made

an important start in meeting the challenges, and they will continue to do so.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Ambassador.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Jones follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Admiral Sullivan.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman

Kucinich, thank you for the invitation to be here today to discuss

our plans to develop Iraqi security forces.

I do not have a prepared statement or an opening statement.

What I have done, however, is brought a couple of slides which are

on the story boards off to your left which, if you think it will help

facilitate the discussion, I would be happy——

Mr. SHAYS. That would be helpful, thank you.

Admiral SULLIVAN. I would be happy to walk you through those

slides and then I will take your questions.

The first slide you see tracks the history of how we have been

accounting for Iraqi security forces, and I hope will go along way

toward explaining how these numbers have changed overtime. At

the far left side of the slide is the beginning in October 2003, and

the red line represents how security forces were tracked up until

approximately April 2004.

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me, 1 second. I am going to try to—because

I think this is important. I have no objection if anyone from the

press wants to just sit in the corner over there if they would like

to see these. So if anybody would like to, they could do that. If we

can turn it just a little more this way. Anybody else is welcome to

as well.

Maybe what you could do, since the press has moved over, why

don’t you move this closer to us, OK. Just bring this board right

there, right there is good.

David, why don’t you—folks, seriously, just come on right up

there.

And why don’t you turn it more on an angle so the panel can see

it as well. Keep going, keep going, keep going, no, I’m sorry, there

is too much I’m forgetting for these folks there. Can you see it over

there, David? OK, that’s good.

Do you mind starting over again, and just give us——

Admiral SULLIVAN. Not at all, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. And give us what the axis means as well; kind of introduce this slide.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir.

As you look down the left side of the axis you see raw numbers

of Iraqi security forces. And along the right side you see a calendar

with dates running from October 2003 through the present—actually, through January 2005.

Beginning with the red lines, when we began accounting for and

tracking Iraqi security forces, we were essentially tracking those

that were simply on the payroll, and as we did self-assessments

and took a look at what that really meant, we found that was not

a very accurate way to count. In many cases, individuals who were

not actually performing any security duties were being counted because they were held on the payroll.

Statement, we sent General Eichenberry, who had served in Afghanistan and had been involved in the buildup of the Afghan National Army, to Iraq to do an independent assessment at the request of General Abizaid to look at how we were measuring the

growth of Iraqi security forces.

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Shortly after that were the events in Fallujah in April 2004

when we found when under fire many of the Iraqi security forces

did not perform up to standards; they either didn’t show up, or

they ran—not all of them——

Mr. SHAYS. Where would that be in your graph?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Just to the right of where Eichenberry assessment, the first star at the high point——

Mr. SHAYS. I’m still on the red line.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Admiral SULLIVAN. So as a result of both the assessments that

had been done in theater as well as the experiences of April 2004,

it was determined that we would only start counting and reporting

those Iraqi security forces that had actually been through the

training programs that were being sponsored by the Coalition.

What that did to your numbers, as you see the dotted line drop

from April 2004 to May 2004 was took us from about 206,000 total

Iraqi security forces to about 132,000 Iraqi security forces.

We continued to report in that manner until approximately August 2004. In the meantime, General Petraeus had come on in July

and stood up the multinational security training command in Iraq

and done his own assessment and realized that for various reasons,

not all of the graduates of the various security courses were being

equipped as they came out of school for various supply reasons and

whatnot. At the same time, we looked at something called the Facilities Protection Services, which was services that were hired by

the various ministries to provide night watchman-type security to

those ministries. Because those individuals were not performing

duties that were directly responsible for security in the country or

fighting the insurgency, we tried to stop counting the Facilities

Protection Service at the same time that we changed our own

standard to only counting those Iraqi security forces that had been

through the MNF-TCI training and were equipped to the level that

they were required to be equipped for the duties that they were to

perform.

So you saw a drop between August 2004, where we were at about

160,000 to September 2004, where the number dropped to 90,000.

So that drop was accounted for by only including those that were

trained and equipped, and dropping the Facilities Protection Services off the roles.

We have continued to use that same standard through today. We

are just now beginning, and they are developing the metrics in

country, to begin a qualitative assessment of how the various Iraqi

security forces are doing, modelling it after the kinds of systems we

use for our own military to measure unit readiness.

I think it is important to point out that we have continually assessed the way that we are developing security forces and the way

that we’re measuring the progress of those security forces, and we

have adjusted our plan and our reporting as we go through that.

I will be happy to take any questions you might have on this particular chart——

Mr. SHAYS. We will come back to that. Do you have another

chart?

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Admiral SULLIVAN. I do have another chart, if we can swap them,

please.

This second chart provides you the numbers as of our latest report from theatre of what we are considering trained and equipped

forces in both Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense.

Now these numbers will change this week as we get this week’s report in from Baghdad.

Now I have divided it up into administrative interior forces,

which as correctly stated by Mr. Christoff, roughly 82,000 MOI security forces. And in the administrative defense, which includes the

Army, the National Guard, the intervention and special operations

forces, as well as the Air Force and Navy, were just over 60,000

trained and equipped.

I draw your attention to the two asterisks. The numbers per

Ministry of Interior forces include people who might be AWOL, as

Representative Kucinich described, because we aren’t able to accurately track the police and Ministry of Interior forces the way we

are the Ministry of Defense forces, and I will explain that. So if you

look at the double asterisk under Ministry of Defense, you will see

that number reflects anybody who is AWOL or on leave or otherwise not on duty.

The reason we can track the Ministry of Defense is for the most

part these forces live in Garrison, they get up every morning and

there is a head count so the unit commanders know how many people they have and whether they are there for duty or not. The administrative interior forces are different. Like other police forces

they operate on a shift-type cycle, and there is a very significant

cultural difference here. And this existed prior to the fall of the

Hussein regime and exists today, and that is that they don’t have

a central banking system and automatic deposit system for the people in Iraq like we do in our country.

When I get my paycheck, I don’t have to do anything, it goes

right into my bank account. These people get paid in person. If

they are living away from their families, the way they get that pay

home is by going home and dolling out the money to their families.

And this has been a cultural thing with the Iraqis throughout time.

Under the Saddam regime, when they went home—and maybe

they stayed home and helped bring in a crop and didn’t report back

for duty when they were supposed to, they weren’t punished like

we would punish our own people for failing to report for duty. Their

enlistment was extended for the number of days that they were absent without leave. So that’s one of the things that we’re dealing

with on the AWOL side is a cultural as well as a logistical problem

for these people to get money to their families or to help their families in their hometowns.

So with those two slides as backdrop, I’m prepared to answer

your questions.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much. We were given this slide

here—so we have a sheet——

Admiral SULLIVAN. That should be the same.

Mr. SHAYS. 142, I think it is the exact same. It says dated as of

March 7th.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So we have that one to refer to, so maybe we should

put the other board up. And it would be helpful to get this, just

for the record, in paper size if you are able to do that.

Mr. Waxman has walked in and I would like to let him start out

because he hasn’t yet spoken. Is there any comments before any—

Mr. Secretary, do you have any additional comment before we start

the questions? Well, let me just say that you are giving us something to which we can work with and it is very appreciated, and

obviously there will be a number of questions.

What I would like to do is leave 10 minutes to pursue the questions, and that way we can get into it more.

So Mr. Waxman, you have the floor.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to ask Ambassador Jones some questions.

This morning I sent a letter to President Bush revealing that the

Pentagon’s own auditors determined that Halliburton overcharged

by at least $100 million under its no-bid Iraqi oil contract. Most of

the overcharges were for petroleum brought in from Kuwait during

the time you were Ambassador. For months Halliburton’s subcontractor in Kuwait was a company called Altanmia, a commercial

marketing corporation, and they charged inflated prices to import

fuel. In late 2003, the Army Corps of Engineers sought out lowerpriced alternatives to Altanmia.

However, based on documents this committee obtained from the

State Department, it appears that you personally intervened to

halt this effort and keep the Kuwait company. On December 2,

2003 you sent on an e-mail saying, ‘‘Tell KBR, Halliburton’s subsidiary, to get off their butts and conclude deals with Kuwait now.

Tell them we want a deal done with Altanmia within 24 hours, and

don’t take any excuses. If Ambassador Bremer hears that KBR is

still dragging its feet, he will be livid.’’

You wrote that e-mail, didn’t you? Is that correct?

[The information referred to follows:]

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Ambassador JONES. That is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent, yes.

Mr. WAXMAN. Why did you write it?

Ambassador JONES. Why did I write it?

Mr. WAXMAN. Yes.

Ambassador JONES. Congressman, I wrote that e-mail in my capacity as the Chief Policy Officer and the Deputy Administrator of

Iraq, duties that I assumed on November 17th of that year, about

2 weeks prior to the writing of that e-mail.

When I assumed those duties, one of the first jobs Ambassador

Bremer gave me was to increase the supply of humanitarian fuels

for the Iraqi people. Now they had gas lines of considerable length

in the summer, and we had a very difficult time in arranging fuel

supplies for the Iraqi people at that time. The situation in November was trending along lines similar to what Ambassador Bremer

had seen in the summer. He was very anxious to increase the supply of fuel for the Iraqi people, and so he asked me to undertake

this, even though this was actually not in my area of normal responsibility, because my counterpart had not yet arrived in

country——

Mr. WAXMAN. Let me ask you this; there was an emergency in

May 2003 right after the hostilities ended, and the auditors took

that into account, they said these high prices might have been reasonable for 1 to 3 months, but this was going on for almost a year.

They also said the Defense Department refused to show that

they exhausted cheaper fuel sources from Jordan and Turkey. If

the Army was looking for a cheaper way to do the job, why would

you tell them not to look for a cheaper way but to sign another contract with Altanmia?

Ambassador JONES. Mr. Representative, I never spoke to the

Army about this contract; I never asked them to ignore lower cost

suppliers. If you allow me to continue, I can explain the complete

story to you.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, the problem is that we only have a limited

time, so why don’t you directly answer the question.

Ambassador JONES. OK. One of my first duties was to obtain

more fuel supplies. The first thing I did was travel to Ankara,

where I met with Turkish authorities in order to clear up congestion on the borders which was inhibiting our supply of fuel from

Turkey——

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Jones, I’m going to have to interrupt you. Let

me just ask you the next question. You’re a political appointee of

the Bush administration, why did you exert such extreme pressure

on civil service contracting officials to get them to sign their——

Ambassador JONES. I never exerted any pressure on any contracting officials. I never spoke to KBR about its contract, I never

spoke with anyone about KBR’s contract. If you allow me to continue, Congressman——

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, you did send them an e-mail.

Ambassador JONES. That e-mail relates to lifting deliveries of

fuel for the month of December under a contract which KBR had

already agreed to several months before with Altanmia. The only

reason that I would mention a specific company is because KBR already had a contract with that company. And we were looking to

get as much fuel as we could from all sources. We had started by

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checking with Turkey, and we determined after my trip that it

would be impossible to increase the amount of fuel that was coming

in through Turkey.

I don’t know anything about Jordan, I’m not privy to any such

contracts——

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Ambassador, there is a woman named Mary

Robertson, she was the contracting officer responsible for this contract. She was so troubled by your e-mail that she wrote it up in

a letter saying, I will not succumb to political pressures from the

U.S. Embassy to go against my integrity and pay a higher price for

fuel than necessary. So she clearly felt it was pressure. Were you

aware of this, or have you become aware of this?

Ambassador JONES. I have heard that she circulated such a letter; however, I do not know this person, I have never met her, I

have never spoken with her, I don’t know on what basis she made

that claim.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, when she made the basis for that claim, she

was a career contracting officer, and she wanted to get Kuwaiti approval of another company to import the fuel. Did you make any

attempt to persuade the Kuwaitis to approve another company?

Ambassador JONES. I did not intervene in any way in the contracting process.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, let me ask you, have you ever met Waleed

al-Humaidhi, the general manager of Altanmia?

Ambassador JONES. Not to my recollection, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. Let me make sure that you are saying that you did

not meet with him, for the record.

Ambassador JONES. I don’t recall meeting with him. It’s possible

he could have been in a meeting that I had with the Kuwaiti Minister of Oil on one occasion.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, we were informed that you had met with Mr.

al-Humaidhi in Kuwait.

Halliburton, a U.S. company, the U.S. Government was paying

hundreds of millions of dollars to this company, Altanmia, and now

Pentagon auditors have concluded they were overcharged. Did you

ever have any cause to doubt Mr. Waleed al-Humaidhi’s trustworthiness in his business dealings with the U.S. Government or

Halliburton.

Ambassador JONES. No, because I wasn’t privy to those dealings.

Mr. WAXMAN. Have you ever heard of Mr. al-Humaidhi?

Ambassador JONES. I have heard of him, certainly. And there

were people in my staff who may have had contact with him, but

personally, no, I never did, other than the possibility that he may

have been in presence in one meeting I had with the Minister of

Oil.

Mr. WAXMAN. You had no reason to believe that he was not a

credible person.

Ambassador JONES. No, I do not.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, according to internal embassy documents obtained by this committee Mr. al-Humaidhi multiple repeated allegations to embassy officials at your embassy that Halliburton executives demanded kickbacks. He said it was, ‘‘common knowledge

that Halliburton officials were on the take, that they solicit bribes

openly, that anybody visiting their seaside villas at the Kuwaiti

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Hilton with offers to provide services would be asked for a bribe.’’

That’s what Mr. al-Humaidhi said. Did you ever investigate these

allegations?

[The information referred to follows:]

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Ambassador JONES. The U.S. Embassy is not an investigative

body, we have no such authority. However, we did refer all of those

allegations to their proper investigating authority, which is the Defense Contract Audit Agency. So we took the appropriate steps that

we could as U.S. Government officials.

Mr. WAXMAN. Let me go back to the first question. Why did you,

as a political appointee Ambassador in Kuwait, send an e-mail,

from which I take an excerpt, to tell KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary, to get off their butts and conclude deals with Kuwait, now tell

them we want to deal with Altanmia within 24 hours, and don’t

take any excuses. Why single out Altanmia if they were——

Ambassador JONES. Sir, Altanmia was the company that had the

contract with KBR already to provide the fuel, and we were looking

for fuel from every source available to us. I had already been to

Turkey and had determined that there was not going to be any capability of increasing fuel supplies from Turkey in the short run.

We had one source where there was a contract that was not being

fully utilized, and that was the KBR contract with Altanmia. We

had already had contact with KBR—not me personally, but officials

of the Coalition Provisional Authority had already been urging

KBR to increase the amount of fuel that it was purchasing. They

had been involved in discussions. We had been led to believe those

discussions were almost complete, and then I received a report that

they had broken down. And so that’s when I—that was the context

in which I sent that e-mail, but this was lifting under a contract

that had already been agreed to between KBR and——

Mr. WAXMAN. Mary Robertson, a civil service contracting officer,

said there were other companies that could bid and get a lower

price than Altanmia. As a result of Altanmia’s charges, we paid

over $100 million, and later, when we finally figured out how much

we were being overcharged, the U.S. Government told KBR we

won’t deal with you anymore, they put out a competitive bid.

Altanmia came in and they are charging a third of the price to the

desk operation for petroleum than what they were charging when

you and others pushed Halliburton into this——

Ambassador JONES. I did not push Halliburton into anything.

Mr. SHAYS. The gentleman’s time is up.

No, Ambassador Jones, I think it’s clear that you didn’t, but——

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, rather than reach a conclusion, I

think this e-mail stands for itself.

Mr. SHAYS. No. I purposely didn’t interrupt the gentleman because he has rightfully wanted to get at this issue, and I understand it; and this committee is helping him get the documents that

he’s getting. I just apologize to you, Mr. Jones, because I didn’t tell

you, nor did I know, that you would be asked these questions, and

they’re almost an attack on your integrity and you haven’t had

time to review them. So I apologize for that.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman——

Mr. SHAYS. No, I have the floor.

I want to explain to you, Mr. Waxman, I understand your motivation because this committee, and has not and the full Congress

has not had the kind of hearings on this that you rightfully requested, and I hope to resolve that. I think the solution is to have

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a hearing on this issue where the witness is told about it and

warned about it and so on.

I just to want say to you, Ambassador Jones, I have been to Iraq

seven times, and I would have written the same memo. We’re in

the first 6 months of the rebuilding of Iraq, and we need that fuel

out there. I would have been the first to do it. And I would stand

by that statement any day.

Ambassador JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it.

Mr. SHAYS. Now if there were issues about what contracts were

let out in the future, that’s another issue, and I understand. And

I also agree with you, Mr. Waxman, in that Halliburton was overpaid.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, would you yield to me?

Mr. SHAYS. Briefly I will yield to you.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you. You’ve been a fair chairman to allow

the questions to be asked.

I was not taking any liberty in asking something that Mr. Jones

needed to review because he was the Ambassador, he wrote the email; I wanted to ask about that.

And I don’t believe, Mr. Chairman, had you been in this position,

if the civil service contracting officer said that there was a chance

to get the oil at a cheaper price, you would have said no, go with

the company that’s going to charge the higher price because you’ve

already overpaying them, let’s continue to overpay them.

Mr. SHAYS. Reclaiming my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you for the courtesy of the questions.

Ambassador JONES. If I could just follow up after that last comment, Representative Waxman. I wouldn’t either, and I never did.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. And I think the point that I just want to put on the

record is 6 months into the rebuilding of Iraq and we were starting

to encounter some huge problems at this time, I just would have

wanted to resolve each of those problems and then sort out the dollar amounts in the future.

But I would like to say that I was very grateful to you, Ambassador Jones, that you came to this hearing to help us understand

what is also an issue that I know Mr. Waxman cares deeply about,

and that is, you know, how are we doing? What are we doing to

ultimately be able to transfer the power and the responsibility?

I was a strong supporter of our seeing an Iraqi government take

over in June of last year, I thought that was a huge moment in

time. And one of the things that I have lost in my 7 visits in Iraq

is that the Iraqis are a very proud people; you embarrass an Iraqi

in front of his wife, you might as well put a dagger in his belly and

twist it.

In the case now, what we’re trying to get a handle on, and it’s

so important that we do this because ultimately success means that

the Iraqis have the capability to defend their democracy, something, first, they didn’t have a democracy before, and they are now.

But it also means that ultimately our role becomes a different role.

It means that American solders aren’t having to patrol streets, it

means American soldiers can come into the background, and it

means that ultimately they will be called upon to take on particuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:13 Jun 01, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\20923.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lar actions, and not do the everyday responsibilities that they are

being asked to do today.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out that $100

billion could have been used to train Iraqi security forces, that was

money that could have been used for our troops; that was money

that was wasted by the overpaying for the petroleum. That was the

point. I don’t think it’s irrelevant to what we’re talking about here,

and I just wanted to point that out——

Mr. SHAYS. I would like the gentleman not to be too sensitive

here because I’m trying to restrain myself as well.

The point is that I understand——

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, Mr. Chairman, are we going to hear the testimony from the witnesses or——

Mr. SHAYS. I am reclaiming my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. May I inquire——

Mr. SHAYS. No, absolutely not.

Mr. WAXMAN. No, I don’t want to inquire. Go ahead.

Mr. SHAYS. Come on, Henry, this is silly. This committee will end

up with no role if we’re not going to do the role that we have when

we have this hearing, and this is an important hearing.

I would like, if you would, Mr. Rodman, to just tell me again so

I can get refocused; what I think I’m hearing you say is that your

on-duty account of over 200,000 Iraqi security forces—excuse me,

Admiral Sullivan, what I’m hearing from this is, as you went

through it, that we on paper had this number, but we began to realize that they were really people receiving in a sense paychecks,

but we had no sense of their capabilities; is that an accurate statement?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I think that’s exactly right, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So DOD is attempting to fully appreciate what we

had, so then we began with a number that we thought were

trained. When that number drops down, that dotted line number

drops down, it’s a figure, I guess—is that 150,000?

Admiral SULLIVAN. It’s is actually a drop, let me just check.

Mr. SHAYS. Is it 132?

Admiral SULLIVAN. The figure at the beginning of the green line

is 90,000. So we rent from roughly 160 in August 2004 to 90,000

in September 2004. Are you on the red line, sir?

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going from the red line down to the——

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. 132 is the number at the beginning—the left hand edge of the blue line.

Mr. SHAYS. Now, is that military, police and border patrol?

Admiral SULLIVAN. It’s all of the Iraqi security forces, it’s police,

border security, Army, National Guard, to the extent that they

exist, an air force, and maybe—all of the Iraqi security forces to include the border, or the Facilities Protections Service.

Mr. SHAYS. Then explain, did we think at that point that we had

132,000 that were actually trained, or did we——

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. That is the number that had been

through the coalition training programs for each of the various categories that were in existence at the time.

Mr. SHAYS. And that’s May 2004?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir, that is May 2004.

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Mr. SHAYS. And so then we increased that number, then it started to level off, and then I’m seeing another drop. Explain that next

drop. And that number, if you could, that peek of the train represents—what was that number?

Admiral SULLIVAN. About 160,000.

Mr. SHAYS. And so at 160,000 you dropped it down. Explain that

now.

Admiral SULLIVAN. We dropped it down to about 90,000, and we

did two things at that point. First of all, we eliminated the Facilities Protection Service, which was not a part of the Iraqi security

forces——

Mr. SHAYS. Explain the Facilities Protection Service.

Admiral SULLIVAN. These are like night watchman, these are

people who were hired by the various ministries to stand guard

over their——

Mr. SHAYS. And they were hired by the Iraqi government?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. And in many cases, each ministry

had their own pool of these types of people. I equate them to, if you

go to Pentagon City Mall and you see the guards walking around

the mall, the Arlington County Police doesn’t count them as part

of their county security forces.

The facility protection folks——

Mr. SHAYS. Does that account for the whole drop, or were there

some other reasons for that drop?

Admiral SULLIVAN. The second reason, and probably the most

significant reason from the standpoint of measuring our progress,

is that unless the people that were trained were also fully equipped

for whatever role they were playing, we did not count them. So, for

example, a soldier comes out but we don’t have a weapon to give

him, we don’t count him on that green line; or if he doesn’t have

a radio that he needs to perform the function.

Mr. SHAYS. So if he’s trained but minus equipment, you’re not

going to call him trained and equipped?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. That is the standard we’re using

today, trained and equipped by the various programs that are in

existence.

Mr. SHAYS. And so under that first drop of trained, if we had

then done trained and equipped, it would have clearly been well

below that.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. Because at that point in time, we

were pumping out the graduates of the various courses faster than

the equipment was arriving, so they weren’t all equipped.

Mr. SHAYS. In one of the contacts that I had with General

Petraeus, and then interacting with the Iraqis, what I was being

told was that Iraqis at one point were fighting next to our own soldiers, but they did not feel that they had the same equipment that

our own forces had. So you could understand their reluctance sometimes to engage in battles which were sometimes—the implication

was that they did not have the courage and so on. They might not

have had the experience, but it was—as we began to understand

this more in terms of equipment and, in some cases, training, it became very understandable.

And so, should I have some confidence that this trained and

equipped number we are at right now—at what number now?

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Admiral SULLIVAN. We are 142,000. That is both ministries. That

is that chart that you have in front of you there, the total trained

and equipped.

Mr. SHAYS. So what you are doing now to help divide this up for

us is that you are telling us police and highway patrol, 55,000,

the—what is the other?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Well, there are a number of forces that have

been established under the ministry of interior in addition to your

basic police and your highway patrol. They include something

called the civil intervention force, an emergency response unit, the

division of border enforcement—that is your border police. There

are special police commando battalions, then there is dignitary protection services.

So all of those fall under the other ministry of the interior forces.

Mr. SHAYS. Are you prepared to tell us which groups here are the

better trained? I mean, is the army better trained than the police?

I mean, I realize their missions are different, but can you tell us

where you have a little bit more confidence?

Admiral SULLIVAN. What I would do and the way I would answer

that, sir, is first of all, like you said, it is comparing apples and oranges, because their missions are very different. So I wouldn’t want

to say——

Mr. SHAYS. So we won’t compare then. But I guess what I want

to understand is, do we have more confidence in the training of the

army than we do with the police, or do we have more confidence

in the vetting with the army than we do with the police? Can you

speak to that issue?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I would have to maybe take that one for the

record. But my off-the-cuff response is, I think we have pretty

equal confidence in both forces as they come through the training

programs that have been set up.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. Christoff, would you respond to what you are seeing here?

How do you react to this when you see it? And tell me how you

react to it.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. First of all, I have found this chart very helpful,

because we have been, in some sense, struggling to try to understand definitions, trying to understand what is trained and

equipped. There were prior terms that were used—‘‘full operational

capability,’’ ‘‘limited operational capability.’’

The one question I am still unclear about is that in trained and

equipped, are all of those forces fully equipped in terms of having

the body armor, the communications equipment, the vehicles and

the weapons that they need?

The reason why I am still unclear about that is because September 2004 is the last time that there was really any published information that went into the different categories about the extent to

which these different forces had all of the equipment that they

needed.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And I do want to say parenthetically, just reacting to my esteemed ranking member, I am eager to see us spend

money on training and equipment for Iraqis—so that they do have

the capability. That is one of my lessons learned from my visits to

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Iraq, that they, one, need the training; and two, they need the

equipment.

Now, how we spend that money and so on, you know, that is an

obvious issue of whether we are spending it in the best ways possible. But I want to say, this has helped me for first time kind of

sort out exactly, Mr. Christoff, your challenge.

So your point to me, though, is a better definition of equipment

would be helpful?

Mr. CHRISTOFF. To do the type of reporting that I last saw in

September 2004, in which you would break out the different units

and the percentage of weapons that they had available, etc.

Mr. SHAYS. Admiral.

Admiral SULLIVAN. OK. I think I understand where Mr. Christoff

is going here, and that is really the next phase of this effort. That

is to develop the metrics for each of the units, not only some measure what was just described in terms of equipment, but also a qualitative assessment of their ability to conduct their missions.

In our Army, it is called the ‘‘unit status report,’’ and it takes

into consideration a large number of things. At the individual level,

it takes into consideration, has the individual been through the

training that is required for him to perform the job that he is assigned?

Does he have the equipment that he needs to perform that job?

Has he—at the unit level, that is, is that equipment, whether it be

vehicles, weapons, aircraft or whatever, is it—has it met a certain

minimum standard of operational readiness? If they are required

to have 1,000 sets of body armor for a particular unit, does that

unit have 1,000 sets of body armor? Has the unit gone through unit

training so that they know how to operate together?

So that is a separate and distinct category from individual training, where you teach the individual how to operate his own weapon, now you teach him how to operate as a unit. So all of that goes

into a unit status report which is the means by which we in our

own military measure our own unit readiness.

There is a little bit of subjectivity in it, but most of it is pretty

well laid out in the governing directives, as to what you have to

rate yourself. If, for example, you have 100 trucks and only 60 of

them are operating up to standard, then you have to drop your

readiness rating in that particular category. And that results in an

overall readiness rating.

The subjectivity part includes, has this unit been in combat? Has

it been tested in combat with the enemy; and if so, how did it do?

Another unit perhaps has not engaged with the enemy, so there is

more uncertainty as to their readiness. So that is the next step in

this process in how do we begin assessing the Iraqi units in a similar way that we assess our own military forces across all of the

services.

Mr. SHAYS. One of the things I am struck by is that you can

train them extensively and have confidence, but if they have not

engaged in encounters with the enemy, you really can’t have the

kind of assessment that——

Admiral SULLIVAN. Even in our own military, not every unit gets

engaged with the enemy. But we still are required to assess our

unit readiness. So that is the subjective part.

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Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Admiral SULLIVAN. I mean, a commander who has seen a particular battalion in the fight, and they have acquitted themselves

well, is going to have a higher personal assessment of what that

unit’s readiness is than he will of a unit that hasn’t been tested.

Mr. SHAYS. I just conferred with Mr. Kucinich who—really his

time is now in use, so he has agreed that I can just continue here

a bit. That is the advantage when we have fewer members, we can

get into this a little bit more.

Can you explain to me, and then what I will tell you, Ambassador Jones, I would be interested, given your experience being in

Iraq, how you react to all of this, and if you can add a little color

and tone to this.

But let me first ask you, Admiral, how about the police? The

same readiness standards?

Admiral SULLIVAN. They are developing the same kind of standards. I probably am better off deferring to INL to answer that question, because there are different categories and different standards

that apply to the police services than there are to military forces.

Mr. TODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Basically, I&L is a subordinate to the command of General Petraeus and Munson in general

in Iraq, as well as we run the Jordan facility. We develop the curriculum in Jordan for training we do in Jordan as well as in Iraq.

We have been working on the readiness of our police force, as

you know, over the last 18 months. A big part of the readiness, to

be quite frank with you, is the FTO program. Our training is broken down into two parts. One part is the 8-week training course,

and then the next part is the on-the-job training that takes place

supposedly over the next 6 to 8 months.

Over the last 18 months, because of the security situation, General Petraeus with, of course, General Casey’s blessings has

morphed the FTO program into being less rather than more. So the

readiness is in a constant state of play. It is getting better; the

FTO program is improving.

We are improving basically the IPLOs, which are the advisors

that go into the field with the actual police officers. We have right

now over 300 outside of Baghdad, we have approximately 200 in

Baghdad; and we think the force is getting better.

Mr. SHAYS. Ambassador, do you care to add any comment, just

in general about the questions that I’ve asked?

Ambassador JONES. No. I am glad you mentioned the police, because the comment that I have been wanting to make while listening to this is that the problem is that the equipment and training

standards are rightfully different for the police than for the armed

forces. Even within the armed forces, different units get different

equipment and training, of course.

But particularly on the police side, what we saw in April, there

were a lot of problems in the south at that time with the police

coming under attack and leaving their police stations, leaving their

posts. And when we went back and looked at the situation, it was

exactly what you were alluding to, they were basically outgunned

by their opponents.

At that time, at least, we were training and equipping the police

for police functions. And they were equipped as you would expect

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police to normally be equipped. But, in fact, they were attacked by

forces that were equipped more like an army. And it is very hard

for light police forces to stand up to an army.

I mean, for example, they were coming under mortar and RPG

fire in their police stations. And, you know, we put it all into perspective at that point, and realized that, well, yes, these people cut

and run, but it is probably better that they did so to preserve their

lives so they can be used at some point in the future.

And it did, I think, cause us to reassess how we were training

and equipping people. We realized that we had to plus-up the

equipment that we were giving to the police, because the problem

is, they couldn’t choose who their opponents were. Their opponents

chose the fight. If they were only equipped as sort of a normal police force, they would have a very difficult time standing up to

some of the opponents they were going to face on the ground in

Iraq.

So we had to upgrade that. I think that process has been ongoing

since that time.

Mr. RODMAN. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to broaden the point

that Ambassador Jones just made. The chart on historical perspective shows us doing a number of things. It shows us learning some

lessons from experience, it shows us adapting to changes and circumstances.

At the very beginning, when we got there, there was a premium

on numbers. The Iraqi army and police had evaporated. So there

was a premium on getting people out there, establishing a governmental presence—police on the beat, people protecting facilities—

and we knew they were not trained to do heavy duty functions, but

we needed to establish an Iraqi presence.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand, because I was asking you to do that,

and so were other Members of Congress. So we were all playing a

role in this. I am not saying that as a compliment, I am saying in

some ways that we were asking you to do something that was very

difficult.

Mr. RODMAN. Well, that is correct. But then in April 2004, you

remember, there was a surge in violence and these people were

tested, police and army units, and we realized that a lot of them

did not meet the test, so we gave ourselves a more rigorous measure of who really was trained to do a mission.

And the second dotted line—again as Admiral Sullivan has explained, after General Petraeus arrived, we dropped the facilities

protection people out because that was a lesser—not as important

as the police and combat function. And, in addition, we started

looking toward the Iraqi—the Iraqis themselves taking on greater

responsibility. And so we again gave ourselves a harder metric of

people who were trained and equipped up to a higher standard,

such that we could begin to look toward an Iraqi force that could

take on real responsibility.

So that is really the story that this chart tells.

Mr. SHAYS. I am not going to spend a lot more time questioning

this panel when Mr. Kucinich is done. He may then have a few

more questions.

But the question I would like you to think about is what are

those numbers ultimately going to be in each area, where we have

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a comfort level that they should have at least the opportunity, a

fair shot, to be able to realize ‘‘success.’’

So, Mr. Kucinich, thank you for your patience.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for holding

this hearing and providing the opportunity for the Congress to ask

some necessary questions.

Mr. Rodman began by saying that the strategy is political as

much as it is military. I would respectfully suggest to the witnesses

that the report that you just brought to this Congress with this

slide show, as you call it, or side show as I would call it, is unfortunately political.

Let me be specific, and the people in the media who are seated

in the corner might want to follow this discussion. If you look from

the peak of involvement, 206,000 troops, and you go to 90,000, and

you see—what you see is a drop-off of about 53 percent in one-half

year. And in the latest—of the latest figures, GAO says the number

of Iraqi police is unreliable.

Now, let us take this chart and the GAO report together and add

to it the second chart that the witnesses provided about the current

status of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces. You start to

develop a totally different picture.

First of all, the GAO says that the numbers are unreliable with

respect to both the data from the ministry of interior forces and the

ministry of defense forces. I take it they are talking about all of the

numbers.

Second, the GAO points out there is no consistent, accurate reporting, which frankly makes these numbers fiction, especially the

ones of the ministry of interior forces.

Third, the GAO says, and this—one of the witnesses admitted,

that with respect to the ministry of interior forces, the unauthorized absences of personnel are included in these numbers, which is

a polite way of saying that these books are cooked.

And the fourth point is, the GAO says that the Department of

Defense and State no longer report on the extent to which Iraqi security forces are equipped with their required weapons, vehicles,

communications equipment and body armor. So much for security

forces.

On the fifth point, GAO has pointed out that there is no means

in place to even measure the success of the Iraqi security forces.

You should be embarrassed to be here. I mean, this is like

fantasyland. This is as fictive as the weapons of mass destruction

are.

I mean, I am embarrassed for you that you would come to a congressional committee with this kind of a phony report. Just look at

the numbers. And I sat down there so I could take a careful look

at the chart. Not reliable data. That is the best that can be said

of what you are presenting to this committee, the best.

Now, speaking of not reliable data, Ambassador Jones, I just

want to reiterate what Mr. Waxman said about the $100 million

that was overpaid, that could have been used for training the Iraqi

security forces or for equipping our troops.

But let me for a moment go into another part of your illustrious

background, which is quite impressive. You served from November

17, 2003, until June 28, 2004, concurrently, as the chief policy offiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:13 Jun 01, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\20923.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cer and deputy administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority

in Iraq. That is from your biography here.

It also says something that I think is very interesting, that you

have a proficiency in a number of languages, including Arabic; is

that correct? Well, then would you be so kind as to enlighten me

as to how in the world the Coalition Provisional Authority, during

the time that you were one of the officials, lost track of $90 billion?

It certainly wasn’t because, according to an audit that was done

that this committee is familiar with, they lost track of how the

Iraqi Government was spending $90 billion, that the Coalition Provisional Authority had the responsibility for oversight. Hello?

Do you want to give some accounting here, to be the first person

in the administration to offer a guess as to where the money is?

Mr. SHAYS. Will the gentleman just yield a second? Do you want

them to first answer your first part and you will have time to ask

this.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am asking the Ambassador a question. We can

get back to the other witnesses so they can engage.

Mr. SHAYS. I just wanted to know.

Mr. KUCINICH. I did not ask, Mr. Chairman, a specific question.

I made a statement. I want an answer from Ambassador Jones.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador JONES. Representative Kucinich, I haven’t seen the

report that you are talking about. So you have me at a disadvantage. But I believe that the figure you mentioned, $90 billion, could

not possibly be accurate.

Mr. KUCINICH. Excuse me. I misspoke. It was $9 billion. I

misspoke.

Ambassador JONES. Whatever the figure is——

Mr. KUCINICH. It was $9 billion. Thank you.

Ambassador JONES. I see.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am glad you see. It was $9 billion.

Ambassador JONES. I do not know what it was. I haven’t seen

the report. I just knew that $90 billion could not possibly be right.

Mr. KUCINICH. I just corrected the record.

Ambassador JONES. You have me at a disadvantage. I haven’t

read the report. But I can assure you that all of those who worked

at the Coalition Provisional Authority felt that they had a fiduciary

interest on the behalf of the Iraqi people to use Iraqi funds in the

best manner possible, for those Iraqi funds that we had under our

jurisdiction.

And I can assure you that any American funds were also treated

with the same high standards. Whether or not the standards——

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me cite the record. On January 30, 2005, the

same day as national elections were held in Iraq, the Special Inspector General of the Coalition Provisional Authority noted in a

report that the Coalition Provisional Authority could not account

for $9 billion in funds transferred from the CPA to the interim

Iraqi Government.

Now, Ambassador Jones, you have not read that report?

Ambassador JONES. It hasn’t been provided to me, no.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you have any interest in the report?

Ambassador JONES. It doesn’t—it does not relate to my current

responsibilities.

69

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Rodman, have you read the report?

Mr. RODMAN. I have not read it. I have seen that figure published.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Rodman and Ambassador Jones, who is investigating the IG’s findings that $9 billion is missing in Iraq? Mr.

Rodman.

Mr. RODMAN. I can get you that answer for the record, Congressman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Ambassador Jones.

Ambassador JONES. I think Assistant Secretary Rodman has

given a good answer.

Mr. KUCINICH. The inspector general of the Coalition Provisional

Authority—Mr. Chairman, I sent you a letter on it asking for a

hearing on it. I did not know that we were going to have two gentlemen who, you would assume, would have some interest in the

fact that $9 billion, which went—which the Coalition Provisional

Authority had responsibility for accounting for, in funds that were

transferred from the CPA to the interim Iraqi Government, that

they can’t give any answer at all.

No clue? I mean, is this possible, that they could have been in

a position of responsibility, that a report has been issued and you

haven’t read that report about $9 billion missing? I find that incredible.

You want to give it a try again, Ambassador? Are you really—

you took an oath here.

Ambassador JONES. I am waiting for you to finish speaking, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. That is kind of you, but I just asked you a question.

Ambassador JONES. I told you I have not read the report. I have

not read the report because I was not in my current assignment

when it was released, and I have other duties. I do not spend my

time going over an inspector general’s report. An inspector general

is an investigation. That is what he is trying to find out.

Now, because I haven’t read the report, I cannot answer you to

the extent that I would like.

Mr. KUCINICH. You have no knowledge of the inspector general’s

report?

Ambassador JONES. I saw the press reports. But as I said, it is

not part of my current duties from——

Mr. KUCINICH. Did anyone from the IG’s office contact you

to———

Ambassador JONES. No. No. It was not my responsibility when

I was in Iraq, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. You were the chief policy officer and deputy administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority?

Ambassador JONES. There were two deputies to Ambassador

Bremer. There was an operational deputy. That is where the

money was.

Mr. KUCINICH. What was his name?

Ambassador JONES. I was the policy director.

Mr. KUCINICH. Who was the operational deputy where the money

was?

Ambassador JONES. There were three during my tenure. The

names are in the public record.

70

Mr. KUCINICH. You never heard any discussion about them losing

control of the money?

Ambassador JONES. From what you have described, it is very difficult for me to understand which period you are even talking

about, sir.

You said transferred by CPA to the IIG. The IIG did not exist

until June 28th, which is when CPA disappeared, and we all left

Iraq.

Mr. KUCINICH. This was during the time that CPA was in

charge, and it was during the time that you, sir, were a member

of that organization. That——

Ambassador JONES. You are speaking about Iraqi funds.

Mr. KUCINICH. Listen, are you saying those funds aren’t as interesting to this committee?

Ambassador JONES. No, I am trying to clarify.

Mr. KUCINICH. That is exactly what I am saying.

Ambassador JONES. I am not aware that we transferred any

money to the control of Iraqi officials during CPA’s tenure.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, the inspector general seems to think that

you had control of $9 billion that you did transfer, and now you are

saying——

Ambassador JONES. CPA had fiduciary responsibility to administer the development fund for Iraq, DFI. We used those moneys

for the benefit of the Iraqi people in a number of ways.

And CPA kept very detailed records, and that is why I am perplexed to hear your description of the report. I would have to read

the report to respond effectively. And that is what Assistant Secretary Rodman has suggested we will do, and we will do so.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I have a copy of the audit report

here, the oversight of funds provided to Iraqi ministries, to the national budget process, from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, dated on the date that I said.

And I have an executive summary here which points out the

scope of the audit, points out that,

The Coalition Provisional Authority provided less than adequate controls for approximately $8.8 billion in DFI funds provided to Iraqi ministries during the national budget process; did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial or contractual controls to ensure the funds were being used in a transparent

manner. Consequently, there is no assurance that the funds were used for the purposes mandated by Resolution 14–83.

With respect to managerial controls, they did not implement adequate managerial

controls over DFI funds provided to Iraqi ministries to the national budget process;

specifically, authorities and responsibilities over DFI funds were not clearly assigned, and CPA regulations, orders and memoranda did not contain clear guidance

regarding the procedures and controls for disbursing funds in a national budget.

With respect to financial controls, they did not implement adequate financial controls to ensure DFI funds were properly used. With respect to contract controls, the

CPA did not adequately control the DFI contracting actions.

While acknowledging the extraordinarily challenging threat environment that confronted the CPA throughout its existence, we believe the CPA’s management of

Iraq’s national budget process and oversight of Iraqi funds was burdened by severe

inefficiencies and poor management.

And then it goes on and on and on.

Now, I want to include this in the record, if I may, Mr. Chairman, and once again express my astonishment that someone who

was in any kind of a policy role with respect to the CPA wouldn’t

71

be literate about the content of this record, and would tell this committee that they just do not know anything about it.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, if the gentleman would yield. Like my time was

up, his time is up. And I would be happy to let him proceed on this.

But I just have to say that there is only one witness who would

have a tangential responsibility, but his issue was policy, not operations of the budget. And the one thing I—someone said, if you are

a workaholic, there is one place to go to; that is Iraq.

I don’t have any doubt at all that Ambassador Jones, spent every

waking hour in Iraq working. But he was doing the areas and responsibilities that he was tasked. If there is a fault here, then put

it on my shoulders for not responding to your January 31st letter,

in general. But this is an issue to which I have tasked my staff to

decide how we are going to allocate our hearings.

This is an important issue. I don’t want to discount it. I think

it is very unfair to Ambassador Jones to put the weight of this on

him. It should really be more directed at me. And I would just like

to say that I appreciate the gentleman’s patience.

Could I ask if there is any point in which the Democratic side

of the aisle is going to deal with the hearing that we are undertaking, or is it going to be about an issue that is not part of the hearing? That is what I am wrestling with.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, Mr. Chairman, then let me be of assistance

to you in that regard.

This panel is trying to make a case about the effective transition

toward the handling of the security of Iraq by the Iraqi security

forces. I pointed out that by the very information that they have

presented, they have not made their case. In fact, they have made

a good case that they failed.

Furthermore, the connection is this, Mr. Chairman: We have to

vote this week on $82 billion—something in the area of that—for

a supplemental appropriation for Iraq. And it is relevant if the people who are coming before us, who are tasked with responsibility

in that area, cannot give us a straight story on anything—on what

happened to $9 billion, on what the status is of the Iraqi security

force.

I mean, as far as I am concerned—and you did the right thing

in calling this hearing, and I am grateful for it—but this is central

to why we are here.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, the problem is that I will be discouraged from

having a hearing on a topic, because I do not know if one side of

the aisle or the other is going to address the issue.

Ambassador Jones was scheduled to go to Iraq. He is here today

to answer questions about the whole training issue to which he has

tremendous expertise and knowledge. And I just want to say to you

that you made points in the beginning that I think, if they were

true and you feel they are true, they should have the opportunity

to respond to them.

And that is, the essence was, your point was that these numbers

are somehow inaccurate and bogus. And what I felt from this hearing is——

Mr. KUCINICH. The GAO said that.

Mr. SHAYS. No, what they said was they are numbers, and I

think their numbers were unclear, and what they have done is

72

come in to try to help us understand. And I think Mr. Christoff’s

response was, now I am able to put into perspective these various

issues.

For me, the reason why I was eager to have this hearing was to

begin to understand how we are doing, and what it is going to take

to have success. I do not even feel—and correct me if I’m wrong,

gentlemen of the panel; I do not feel like you are making a great

claim that we have success here.

You are trying to have us understand, as this war proceeded,

how you have tried to sort out what it will take to have success,

and to give us accurate numbers about what you think that will

be. That is what I was getting from this hearing.

But I am not, again, discounting the issue of concern that my colleague has. I just didn’t give him the panel and the people who

have the expertise to answer his question. And the reason why I

haven’t made a bigger deal out of this issue is, I think you have

a legitimate right to be frustrated that we in Congress haven’t

come to address the money issue better.

But this is an extraordinarily important hearing about how well

trained the police are, how well trained the border patrol are, how

well trained the army is, what are the numbers that we can get

a handle on. We are starting to get them for the first time since

I have been in Congress. I really appreciate it.

The gentleman has the floor to proceed to this question. But I

hope they can—this panel can address your first point.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, I would like each of the witnesses to answer

the question, yes or no, whether you believe that this administration underestimated the levels and abilities of insurgents in Iraq.

Mr. Christoff.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. I do not think I have enough information to address that.

Mr. KUCINICH. I accept that.

Mr. RODMAN. The situation changed. I think the regime had a

preexisting plan to resort to guerilla warfare when the regime collapsed, and they gradually put this plan into effect. And we have

adapted to the changes in circumstances as we have encountered

them.

Mr. KUCINICH. So you are saying that this is Saddam Hussein’s

doing, this insurgency?

Mr. RODMAN. We know for a fact that this was a plan set up by

the Iraqi security services to resort to this kind of warfare after the

regime.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is Saddam directing this from his cell?

Mr. RODMAN. No. But the direction of the insurgency is hardcore, former regime elements.

Mr. KUCINICH. This plan was in motion—and do you know for a

fact? Have you seen such a plan?

Mr. RODMAN. We have information that is a specific plan by the

old regime, and they gradually regrouped and started to put it into

effect, and we have adapted to that.

Mr. KUCINICH. So is your answer yes or no that they underestimated the level in abilities of the insurgents in Iraq?

73

Mr. RODMAN. We did not anticipate the kind of insurgency as it

evolved; and we have adapted to it, and we are responding to it to

defeat it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Before I address that question, I would like

to address the first comment.

Mr. KUCINICH. Why not address my question? Answer my question, if you would, please; then I would like to hear from you about

anything else.

Admiral SULLIVAN. I would be happy to respond, sir. I think Mr.

Rodman said it exactly right. We did not anticipate the level of insurgency that we saw, especially as it built through the year 2004.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. You had something else you wanted to say,

Admiral.

Admiral SULLIVAN. I do.

First of all, I am not embarrassed to be here in front of this committee, and I stand by the numbers that are on that chart that I

showed you. If you will allow me to explain why I say that, I will.

These numbers are verified every week by General Petraeus and

by General Casey. We trust their judgment. The numbers on the

ministry of defense forces absolutely represent those personnel that

have been trained and equipped through our training system.

The number under the ministry of interior forces likewise represents the numbers of personnel that have been trained and

equipped through our system.

And I would submit to you, it would be more ‘‘cooking the books’’

if we took this asterisk off the chart and tried to represent that all

81,889 of these people were on duty. Instead, we have tried to be

up front with you and admit that there are gaps in our knowledge

as to who is on duty on a given day.

Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. May I ask you, Admiral, when you say unauthorized-absence personnel are included in these numbers under ministry of interior forces, do you want to explain what you mean by

that?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. As I explained at the beginning, the

accounting for the ministry of interior personnel is less precise

than it is for the ministry of defense. They do shift work. At any

given time, whatever kind of shifts they are on, so many of those

people are not on duty, only the personnel whose shift is on duty

are on duty.

Second, they do not have the—because they live at home, they

do not have the same kind of requirements for a morning muster

that the military forces do. So there is less certainty. If patrolman

so-and-so goes home to see his family for the weekend and doesn’t

come back, they may not know that right away. So it is just a less

precise accounting, and it is the nature of the business that they

are in.

Mr. KUCINICH. So there would tend to be an agreement with the

GAO, then, on your part?

Admiral SULLIVAN. The numbers that I presented to you represent the numbers of personnel that have been trained and

equipped. It doesn’t say they are all standing the beat right now.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK.

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To Ambassador Jones, do you believe that this administration

underestimated the level and abilities of insurgents in Iraq?

Ambassador JONES. I think that the answers that the previous

two witnesses have given are accurate.

I think that in the beginning—and you must recall that Saddam

Hussein was at large for 8 months after the liberation; that is a

long time to try and organize an insurgency, and I do believe that

he played a leading role in rallying his forces. Obviously, since his

capture, he hasn’t been able to do that; but in the 8 months prior

to that, he was very active doing so, and I think a plan that he set

in motion continues.

But, as Admiral Sullivan mentioned, we have also seen a growth

in the insurgency. And so I think at any given time, we probably

had a relatively good handle on the size of the insurgency, but the

insurgency has been growing over time. It goes down sometimes,

but it also goes up.

I don’t think that there have been wildly inaccurate estimates of

the insurgency at any given time, but rather that the nature and

the size of the insurgency has evolved, and we have been trying to

track that.

Mr. KUCINICH. So are you saying that this insurgency does or

doesn’t have something to do with Saddam Hussein?

Ambassador JONES. No. I think it definitely does; certainly its

origins do.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Todd.

Mr. TODD. I think prior to the war the size of the insurgency was

not contemplated at this level.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, it is also possible that the war created a

level of insurgency, is it not, Mr. Todd?

Mr. TODD. That is above my pay grade, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK.

Mr. Rodman.

Mr. RODMAN. I don’t believe that. I believe this was the hard core

of the old regime, the diehards who had a plan in advance to organize themselves to do this kind of resistance.

Mr. KUCINICH. Why is the hard core of the old regime growing

then?

Mr. RODMAN. It is hard to estimate the numbers. It may be that

the political process will start to diminish the numbers of insurgents, because I think a lot of the Sunni leadership is opting now

to join the political process rather than oppose it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you going to—may I ask you, Mr. Rodman,

is the State Department going to utilize the experiences and support of the U.N. and its peacekeeping operations to support those

forces?

Mr. RODMAN. Well, first of all, I represent the Defense Department. But, my understanding is, we have been trying for a while

to bring the United Nations into the process. I mean, the—the multinational force, as it exists now, has a U.N. mandate.

There are several U.N. resolutions since the war that have given,

as I say, a mandate to the multinational force. The main role the

U.N. has played most recently has been in helping the political

process in its earlier stages. But I think now—I am not sure the

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United Nation’s involvement would induce a lot of other countries

to join.

Mr. KUCINICH. What would Secretary Rumsfeld’s position be

then? Could you speak for him on that?

Mr. RODMAN. We are very happy to have a coalition; in fact, we

have 20 to 30 countries in the coalition.

Mr. KUCINICH. Has he considered turning operations over to the

U.N. at any point?

Mr. RODMAN. I do not think the United Nations would be willing

to undertake this mission, so I think it is an academic question.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Let me, before moving on to the next panel, understand. Do you

think it is possible, Admiral, that we will have another drop as we

redefine—or when I say ‘‘redefine,’’ when we qualify what we really

need?

I mean, we went from training to trained and equipped. Do you

think that we are looking at kind of the last drop, and we are pretty comfortable with this base to work on?

Admiral SULLIVAN. In terms of the trained and equipped, we will

not see a drop. I mean, that will continue to climb as we execute.

Mr. SHAYS. But will there be some other——

Admiral SULLIVAN. I take your point. I think if we are able to

refine this unit status report metric that I described——

Mr. SHAYS. Which gets us on the sense of readiness?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir; in other words, a way to look at a

particular Iraqi unit, for example, and assess whether they are

fully combat ready, marginally combat ready, not combat ready,

whatever kind of metrics we apply to it. What you may see is a

new set of metrics that would be available to present to you, which

describes how we assess the overall readiness of the Iraqi army.

We are not ready to do that yet because we are still developing

that system.

Mr. SHAYS. One, it is important that you do develop that system.

We will be eager to have a sense of it. And I think Mr. Christoff

will agree. I am seeing him nod his head.

The other area that I am trying to—the subcommittee is wrestling with, Ambassador, is, as you come here to speak about—the

reason why you were here to speak about the police, we know the

police have an extraordinarily difficult time responding to attacks

from people who are armed like they were in the military.

But is it feasible that we would be making the police capable to

fight military? I am wrestling with what you make police and what

kind of capabilities you give police.

Ambassador JONES. No, in fact, we are developing special police

units which would be much more of a paramilitary force than a traditional police force.

And I think Admiral Sullivan may have something to add on

that, as well as Mr. Todd.

Mr. TODD. Admiral Sullivan can speak to this better than I. But

DOD has a special mechanized brigade that is being created in

Iraq that will help with fairly high-intensity, mid-intensity conflict

situations.

We also have a special commando unit.

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Mr. SHAYS. That is within the police?

Mr. TODD. Yes. In terms of the civilian side, we think that civilian police are civilian police and most of the guys are not being

trained in paramilitary type things.

What we are doing, though, is morphing the training in both

Baghdad and in Jordan to teach them how to deal with the insurgency, and how to deal with their survival. We teach them everything from combat survival skills to more hand-to-hand combat.

Our gun of choice is a 9 millimeter. We are going to be teaching

them in Jordan, as well as Iraq, on the AKs so they will be better

prepared.

Mr. SHAYS. In my experience in Iraq, I have encountered so

many, because I have gone outside of the umbrella of the military

and stayed in Basra and Al Kut and other places, and when I

would speak with everyday Iraqis, they were eager to take on the

responsibilities.

I mean, I had a number who—parents or brothers, uncles, fathers—were in the military, concerned that they had lost their jobs

and saying, You know, these are good people; my dad is a good

man. Or some in the police force and so on.

What I would want to be part of this record is, I am in awe of

the number of Iraqis who are willing to stand in line and in the

course of standing in line, lose their lives. I am in awe of the number of Iraqis who would come home only to be threatened that they

were helping this new Iraqi Government, and their lives were

being threatened and they still persist.

And then I am also understanding that there are some who simply had to say, they could not continue if there was no way to protect them, if their families were being threatened. I mean, the logical thing would be—and I would be one of them if I could not protect my family. If I was still participating with this new government, and there was no way to protect them, I am not going to

have them have to suffer and risk their lives for it.

But what I think is happening, and what I saw when I was in

Iraq during the voting, was the incredible number of Iraqis who

came to vote, who dressed up, who brought their children, and

were so proud that 165,000 Iraqis had actually taken the responsibility of conducting this election. And frankly they did it better

that we do in the United States. I was in awe of it.

There was one point where I was watching these Iraqis vote, and

I went up to the person who had taken the ballots and put them

on top of each of the three ballot boxes—the national, the regional,

and local. Before the person could put it in the box, they had to

dip their finger in, and I wanted to do the same thing. I wanted

to feel a part of this. And I went and asked this person who was

in charge if I could stick my hand in the ink jar. She looked up

at me and then looked around and looked up at me and said, ‘‘No.’’

She said, ‘‘You are not an Iraqi.’’ And I felt a little embarrassed as

everyone looked at me.

And then I thought, you know, they are proud. And there is this

identity, and we are going to win. They are going to win. I believe

that with all of my heart and soul.

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I also want to say for the record, since I just believe it with all

of my heart and soul, you should be proud to do what you are

doing.

We are proud, so many of us are proud of what you are doing.

I am grateful that you came to this hearing today, and I am grateful that you are helping us start to sort out an issue that we have

not gotten a handle on. And I believe, mixed in this dialog of two

different issues, if people are paying attention, you have given us

very, very important advice.

You have honored this committee, you have honored this Congress by your presence. I am very grateful to each and every one

of you.

Do you have any closing comment or should we get to the next

panel?

Mr. KUCINICH. Go for it.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Before I end, what I do—I would like

this: Is there any question we should have asked? Is there any

point that you choose to make that needs to be made? Any closing

comments?

Mr. Christoff.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. No.

Mr. RODMAN. I just want to add and second what the chairman

just said, but point out also on election day, it was the Iraqis that

took the responsibility for security, to protect 5,300 polling places

around the country. And the insurgents threw everything they had

at the election process, double or triple the number of attacks

around the country, and not one of these polling places had its perimeter breached by the insurgents. So that is an indicator.

We are struggling here to find ways of measuring quality, and

one of them is how these Iraqis are performing under the pressure

of battle. And January 30th was an important omen in many respects.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Ambassador JONES. Thank you very much for having us today.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for your patience.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, before we move on, just a little bit

of committee business. I wanted to, without—with unanimous

consent——

Mr. SHAYS. Gentlemen, you are set to go.

Mr. KUCINICH [continuing]. With unanimous consent, include the

full report of the Office of Inspector General for the Iraq Reconstruction.

Mr. SHAYS. That will be included.

[NOTE.—The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction report entitled, ‘‘Oversight of Funds Provided to Iraqi

Ministries Through the National Budget Process,’’ may be found in

subcommittee files.]

Mr. KUCINICH. By unanimous consent, the Congressional Research Service report on the International Training for Iraqi Security Forces.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. And then the letter, too. And Mr. Waxman’s letter

also by unanimous consent.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. We will have a 1-minute recess. Then we will reconvene in 1 minute.

[Recess.]

Mr. SHAYS. Our second panel is Professor Anthony H.

Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Kalev Sepp, professor of the Naval Postgraduate School, and Mr.

Peter Khalil, former Coalition Provisional Authority Official, the

Brookings Institution.

Gentlemen, as you know, we do swear you in; and if you would

stand, I would look forward to swearing you in and hearing your

testimony.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Your testimony is of tremendous interest to this committee. Quite often, the second panel, having heard the first panel,

is able to help us sort out these issues in a way that is very helpful.

So what I am going to do is allow you to go beyond your 5-minute

testimony, up to 10 for each of you, if you would like, and then we

can have some dialog. And with not many Members present, we

can have a lot better give-and-take.

So feel free to go through your testimony, if you would like.

STATEMENTS OF PROFESSOR ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN,

ARLEIGH A. BURKE CHAIR IN STRATEGY, CENTER FOR

STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES; KALEV SEPP,

PROFESSOR, NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL; AND PETER

KHALIL, FORMER COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY OFFICIAL, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN

Professor CORDESMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon. I do

have a formal statement for the record, which basically attempts

to summarize what Iraqi attitudes are toward the training and the

level of development of their forces, and to provide some additional

data in direct response to the committee’s questions about numbers. And I ask that be placed in the record.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection, it will be.

Professor CORDESMAN. But let me make a few brief remarks.

First, I think that we need to be very careful about how much

attention we give to any of those numbers. We are talking about

a force that is in very rapid change and where much of what we

can quantify, I thought, as was well brought out in the previous

panel, is largely irrelevant.

We are talking about developing warfighting capabilities,

counterterrorism capabilities and counterinsurgency capabilities,

and the number of heads is not a measure of capability.

Moreover, I think it is quite clear that even the plans we have

today are not going to survive engagement with reality. If you look

at the training methods that have been used, the training syllabus,

the methods of training have changed virtually monthly since June

2004.

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If you look at force levels, the army in June 2004, did not have

a clear goal. It then went to three divisions. Then it went to four

divisions. It recently went to nine divisions. It has just gone to 10

divisions. And that, all since the end of January.

And these are numbers in flux because the National Guard was

merged into the army, as an Iraqi not an American division. Depending on what day this is, there are 13 to 14 different elements

of Iraqi forces in the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense. Each serves a different purpose. Each has some value. Most

are not capable of operating independently.

We know that there is a new Minister of Defense and a new Minister of the Interior coming. Papers are already being prepared for

them. If we go back to what happened in the transition from the

CPA to the interim government, that almost certainly means there

will be still further changes in virtually every force in the overall

pattern of Iraqi forces.

And the real government, in the sense of a truly elected, sovereign government is supposed to be the product of the election to

be held either at the end of this year or the spring of 2006. And

I can almost guarantee you, from talking to Iraqis, that with each

month that goes by, they’re going to impose more of their own

plans and their own demands.

But, having said that—and I think the key message of what I

said is this debate over tipping points is absurd. We are talking

about tipping years, at a minimum, 2005–2006. And just having

talked to Iraqi officials, they are talking about a continued training

and advisory presence through 2010.

We are also talking about some important changes which go beyond the numbers. We have begun to recognize the realities of the

insurgency. I do not agree with what was said earlier.

We did not anticipate the size of the insurgency. It is not a product of what Saddam and his forces left as a legacy. It has mutated

far beyond that. There are strong Islamist and other elements, and

it has considerable popular support, a point made by Iraqi officials

when they talk about some 200,000 sympathizers.

But at least we understand we are fighting an insurgency, and

we are fighting real terrorists. We understand Iraqi forces have to

be trained and equipped and led and given unit integrity for that

mission. We begin to understand at least that our original equipment plan was grossly inadequate, as was our facility plan.

We still have no clear plan to give Iraqi forces at any level the

equipment they need, but people are working on the issue, and

they are beginning to understand that if our troops need up-armored Humvees, Iraqis cannot go out in unprotected Toyotas. We

see efforts to correct the facility problem. That has been done largely in the military. It is now going to the police and security forces.

In reality, we recognize that much of what was on the first chart

presented to the committee was manpower which should never

have been recruited in the first place. It wasn’t properly vetted;

some of it wasn’t literate. Much of it was in poor physical condition

or too old. And much of it, frankly, was not put through the full

training process that it was to have been put through by the Coalition. That is being corrected, particularly in the police and in the

National Guard.

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With the Luck mission, we begin to understand one key reality:

Training never can produce competent combat troops. Without

leadership, without unit integrity, without experience; this is not a

factory. It is the battalions who actually operate, learn in the field,

sometimes from defeat, as you pointed out, who have the courage

to go on, who become effective troops. No training system will ever

produce those by itself.

We also are beginning to see serious force elements, and let me

use some figures which are somewhat more up to date than the

ones presented on the chart shown earlier, although only by a couple of weeks. We had one deployable battalion in July 2004. As of

yesterday, we had claimed we had 52 deployable battalions, out of

a total of some 96 in structure. We have 24 deployable regular

army battalions, and that will be 27 by the end of next week.

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t like to interrupt your testimony, but can you

put numbers of personnel next to those?

Professor CORDESMAN. To be perfectly honest, sir, the numbers

are going to be the same kind of numbers you get when they are

reported on by the U.S. Army, which is to say they are nominal

strengths, not real ones.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I guess what I am trying to do is—is it possible

for me to hear your numbers compared to these numbers?

Professor CORDESMAN. Those numbers, as far as I know, sir, are

totally accurate. But if you were to say 24 to 27 regular army battalions, that is something between 11,000 and 13,000 men. Those

are part of the numbers on that chart. Now, they have just had

merged into them 76 battalions from the National Guard. That

would raise the figure by another 30,000 out of the 60,000. There

is one mechanized battalion in that total. That is much more critical than, say, 20,000 of the men on the chart, because it means

there are heavy units. You have a counterterrorism force, and you

have commando battalions that are key elements there.

If you look at that total of some 82,000 men on the other side

of the chart, the total numbers are largely irrelevant. But if you

look within them, there are now 20 special police force battalions.

Nine of those are police commandoes; nine are public-order battalions. Two are mechanized, and they have light-armored vehicles for

the first time. Those are the first units who can actually go out and

move, potentially, in the face of the insurgency. You have SWAT

teams coming on line. There are five of them in service.

For the first time, there is actually a border battalion trained

and equipped to move, as distinguished from sitting there and hoping that the bad guys come through them. There is a national

emergency police force. Now, how many people is that? I haven’t

the faintest idea, because it’s quite clear the advisory teams feel

those battalions in the police force are much too large, very inefficient and need to be cut down and reorganized.

It is somewhere around 16,000 out of those 82,000 people that

probably have some capability. But if you ask me, frankly, how

many of these units could really stand without the U.S. Army or

Marine Corps presence or the support of the U.S. Air Force or without U.S. intelligence, the answer at this point is none. They are not

organized or equipped for that mission.

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And, quite honestly, it is disingenuous to talk about how well the

Iraqis did in protecting polling places when we have some 140,000

U.S. troops peaked and reorganized for 1 day to help protect the

people protecting the polling places. That is not an indictment of

what’s being done. It produced a successful election.

Let me then go on, though, to point out a few things about what

does have to happen. It is probably more important by far that Iraq

evolve political unity and inclusiveness than it is that Iraq move

forward in any given military or police dimension. It is critical for

security that the economy and the distribution of income improve.

We talk a lot about the Iraqi troops, but let me note that in this

latest USAID report, we talk about a vast U.S. aid program which

is today only hiring about 100,000 Iraqis, and the number keeps

dropping. Security is economic, not just a matter of military forces.

The numbers that you have on that chart for the police and security forces do not include local police and militias that are not

trained by the United States, but at least in 10 to 12 of the provinces, security is much more a matter of day-to-day police work,

putting it into the threat of criminal activity, than it is the United

States or the multinational coalition’s training effort.

We are just beginning to see governance move into most of the

provinces, aside from the Kurdish areas. None of us know what the

new elected government will be or how it will change police and security procedures. We are only beginning to know how corrupt this

structure is going to be. And let me say that the chances of Iraq

not having substantial corruption for at least the next 10 years are

nonexistent. To demand they not be corrupt is simply absurd. It

cannot happen.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me not try to cut you short, but just give me a

sense of how much longer you think you will be going.

Professor CORDESMAN. Two minutes, sir, I think.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Professor CORDESMAN. Having said that, on the military side, our

goal really has to be to put forces in the field that can stand on

their own. A plan is being developed to do that. No plan has been

stated in any unclassified forum as to how it will be done. Any plan

we draft then has to be approved by the Iraqis, and at some point,

the Congress is going to have to go through that plan and fund a

level of military equipment, facilities and aid which it has never

been requested to provide and is not part of the supplemental.

To make this work, the Congress has to be responsive quickly.

It has to have trust in the nature of those requirements, and it has

to accept the fact that there isn’t going to be an efficient or effective accounting system in the future any more than there was in

that $8.8 billion that we just heard in the first session of this hearing.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Professor Cordesman follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Are you talking about the $9 billion reference?

Professor CORDESMAN. Yes. I thought, frankly, Congressman,

with all due respect, that was to take a report totally out of context; talking about the lack of adequate accounting procedures and

somehow act as if the money was missing or no one knew in broad

or even, frankly, fairly detailed terms where it went. The report did

not say that.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, having not read the report yet, I’m not in the

position to respond to it. But just before I recognize you, Professor

Sepp, the one thing that I have to agree with my colleagues on the

other side of the aisle, because we haven’t conducted hearings in

that area, we basically provide the minority their only opportunity

to kind of ambush any witness that they can try to make a statement or try to understand the issue.

So my basic view is we should just bite the bullet and have the

hearings on these issues and know what is accounting issues, know

what is waste, what is corruption, whatever. And until we do that,

we are going to end up having these kinds of bifurcated hearings,

which are regretful.

But I hear your point, and I happen to agree with it.

Professor CORDESMAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. And I appreciate your statement. I will

say that, when I said 10 minutes, I did not look down and fully

grasp that both of you are professors, and that was a dangerous

thing to do. I think we gave you about 14. But the other part was

that, unlike some professors, you were very provocative, and you

have raised a number of questions.

You speak in some absolutes, which makes me wonder if it can

be quite that absolute. But very helpful testimony. I thank you.

Professor Sepp.

STATEMENT OF KAVLEV I. SEPP

Professor SEPP. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor for me to have this

opportunity to discuss the training of Iraqi security forces.

Mr. SHAYS. It is an honor to have you here. Thank you.

Professor SEPP. Thank you, sir. I believe you are justified in examining the plans for the training of Iraqi security forces, as security of the lives and property of the native population is one of the

most important objectives of a viable counter-insurgency strategy.

Mr. Chairman, I have provided written testimony for the record.

I would now like to outline for you the salient points that I think

would be most helpful to you in your deliberations.

Mr. SHAYS. That would be great.

Professor SEPP. As a trained historian, some of these will be historical in nature and known to you, but it builds to my point.

Mr. SHAYS. As an amateur historian, I’ll look forward to it.

Professor SEPP. First, the situation in Iraq. There is a violent insurgency in Iraq that directly threatens U.S. strategic interests in

the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Depending which estimate

one consults, between 10,000 and 50,000 armed combatants, supported by hundreds of thousands of auxiliaries and sympathizers,

are seeking to overthrow the existing Iraqi government and expel

the coalition from Iraq.

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The security situation in Iraq is almost wholly dependent on the

continued long-term presence of coalition forces and U.S. forces in

particular. The situation is due to the near complete elimination of

the old regime’s armed forces and internal security apparatus by

its physical destruction and its disestablishment by coalition military forces and the Coalition Provisional Authority respectively.

The failure to fill the security vacuum was due to incomplete

planning by the commander and staff of U.S. Central Command,

who confused fighting a war with winning a war. The absence of

sufficient U.S. forces in Baghdad to establish and enforce martial

law at the moment of collapse added to the degeneration of the security situation.

These failures were compounded by the posting of the chief of reconstruction, who had agreed to serve for only 90 days, inferring

that a country distorted by a decades old dictatorship could be rehabilitated in only 3 months.

Mr. SHAYS. What was that, the chief of reconstruction? Because

I may forget how you said that, I didn’t understand what you said.

The chief of reconstruction. Who was that?

Professor SEPP. The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian

Assistance.

Mr. SHAYS. General Garner?

Professor SEPP. Lieutenant General J. Garner.

Mr. SHAYS. Oh. And he came in before Bremer?

Professor SEPP. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. He would only be there for?

Professor SEPP. Ninety days. He told me personally that was his

agreement with the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. I hear you. I just needed to make sure we were

identifying the right issue.

Professor SEPP. And on that point, consider by contrast the

lengthy occupation and reconstruction of the American South and

the slow formation of a new army of national unity after our own

Civil War.

The subsequent decision by the head of the Coalition Provisional

Authority to disband the entire Iraqi armed forces rather than

gradually demobilize them placed the burden on providing security

for the Iraqi people entirely on the coalition occupation forces. That

is the situation.

Second, the training of Iraqi security forces by U.S. military personnel. This is a problem because the U.S. military has historically

not done a good job of training foreign armies. The Filipino army

the U.S. trained before World War II was handily defeated by the

Japanese. The South Korean army trained by the United States

after World War II was initially beaten by the North Koreans. In

the early 1960’s, the South Vietnamese army was trained by the

United States for conventional warfare, which was unsuited to the

counterinsurgency. And then in 1975, they were defeated by the

North Vietnamese.

Further, in the past half century, the United States has not done

well at fighting insurgencies. It was defeated in Vietnam and, since

then, has not taught counterinsurgency in its military schools. The

striking exception to this is the success in El Salvador in the

1980’s. But the military contributed only a miniscule number of

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personnel to that effort, and it came mostly from the special forces,

which functioned outside the mainstream military forces.

Why doesn’t the U.S. military do a good job of training foreign

armies? Essentially, the answer is, when it comes to combat, Americans want to do it ourselves and do it fast. But in

counterinsurgency, the host nation must fight its own battles, and

the timetable is one of years and not months. The British

counterinsurgency in Malaya, comparable in several ways to the

situation in Iraq, lasted over 10 years. The Salvadoran Civil War,

which ended in a U.S. policy success, went on for 12.

All of this is to say, there is no historical evidence that the larger

U.S. Armed Forces can quickly and effectively train a foreign army

to fight a counterinsurgency. An example of this is the Iraqi 36th

Commando Battalion, and its example is instructive. The unit is

held up, justifiably, as the premier fighting unit of the Iraqi security forces. Only the Iraqi counterterrorist force is considered near

its equal.

The battalion was trained and, until recently, led by U.S. Special

Forces’ sergeants and officers. Its recruits were chosen by the Iraqi

political leadership personally to demonstrate their ability for selfdefense. There were no Sunnis in its ranks. Nonetheless, it lost a

quarter of its recruits just in training. Many of its leaders had to

be replaced, often for issues of corruption and cowardice. There was

no system for a year to replace casualties and desertions. The Iraqi

troops initially went unpaid. They were initially equipped with uniforms that literally fell apart at the seams and with the poorest

quality weapons.

When senior U.S. commanders deployed the battalion like an

American unit around the country, they were given the wrong food

and sanitation facilities. They were also too far from their homes.

This matters because the Iraqis are actually day-to-day volunteers

and would leave the unit if they did not receive certain basic accommodations.

So after a year of intensive training and experience and the full

time and attention of half a company of embedded special forces,

the 36th Battalion is competent at only one kind of mission, company level cordon and search operations. That is the best in the

country after 1 year.

Finally, what can be done? A counterinsurgency strategy must be

implemented, emphasizing intelligence operations and the training

of police as a priority over military units. The police and military

must be trained specifically to fight an insurgency.

The very best people, best Americans and units, need to do the

training and advising of the police and military units. Not contractors, who have already performed poorly; not U.S. National Guard

troops, who have accomplished a number of tasks admirably but

are the least trained of U.S. forces and have no experience or training in counterinsurgency; and not using partnership relations,

which may result in Iraqi reliance on U.S. units and leaders. Appropriate equipment and technology must be provided for the police

first. This includes even simple items, like eyeglasses and handheld radios.

It would help to understand that training must extend beyond

the teaching of simple skills and must include the culturalization

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into the mores of service. And this addresses the point of dealing

with corruption. Human rights training must be included in all

programs. It currently is not.

Lots of time is essential. All historical evidence indicates this is

going to be a long war. Finally, we must trust the Iraqis enough

to let them learn how to fight this war for themselves, and we

must have the patience to see it through. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Professor Sepp follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, very much.

Mr. Khalil.

STATEMENT OF PETER KHALIL

Mr. KHALIL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, it is also a great

honor to testify. Is this working, sir?

Mr. SHAYS. It is working, but I think the lower you have it down,

the better it is.

Mr. KHALIL. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

It is an honor.

By way of quick introduction, I was an independent civil servant

sent to Iraq as part of my country’s contingent to the Coalition Provisional Authority to work on specifically rebuilding the Iraqi national security forces and the institutions.

Mr. SHAYS. Tell me a little of where that accent comes from.

Mr. KHALIL. Australia. I was sent to Iraq as part of the Australian Government’s contingent.

Mr. SHAYS. That is what wasn’t clear to me. Having lived in Fiji,

that is an accent that I have gotten very used to and love. I lived

in Fiji for 2 years.

Mr. KHALIL. You won’t have trouble understanding my testimony, then.

I was in Iraq as a civilian security and defense advisor for the

CPA from August 2003 until May 2004. And in that capacity, I

worked very closely with the Iraqi political leadership on rebuilding

Iraqi security forces and institutions, including the new Iraqi civilian-led Ministry of Defense.

I would like to also say it was a great honor to serve my country

and also the U.S. led coalition in Iraq.

Mr. SHAYS. Now, again, how long were you there?

Mr. KHALIL. Nine months, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for your service.

Mr. KHALIL. I hope, too, that the fine tradition of the AustralianU.S. alliance continues and that friendship continues, based not

just on our shared strategic interests, but our shared values, I

think.

I should note, too, that I had the opportunity to work closely with

Ambassador Dick Jones. And in my experience in working with

Ambassador Jones, he was an exemplary leader and an exemplary

diplomat. I learned a lot from him by watching his negotiations

with the Iraqi leaders.

The U.S. strategy, Mr. Chairman, concerned with security and

training of Iraqi forces is, at least at the strategic level, fundamentally sound; that is training Iraq security forces and having them

take over responsibility for directly dealing with the insurgents so

that U.S. forces can gradually withdraw. You have heard a lot of

detailed outlines about the many types of forces that exist and

their numbers and their training. I would like to focus my remarks

in the brief time I have specifically on the overall strategy for developing these forces and having them transferring responsibility to

those particular security forces from the coalition security forces,

particularly looking at which types of Iraq security forces have

those capabilities to fulfill that mission.

Mr. SHAYS. Great.

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Mr. KHALIL. It is the quality, not the quantity, of Iraqi security

forces which is critical to a realistic transfer of security responsibility over the next 24 months. Although the CPA and U.S. military

did move quickly to begin basic training of the different types of

Iraqi forces that we have heard spoken about today, the army and

the police and the national guard, which was earlier known as the

ICDC, there was an initial emphasis on the quantity of forces; that

is getting Iraqi boots on the ground. So while the vast majority of

the Iraqi security forces, and I think we have heard a figure here

of something like 142,000 or 144,000 said to be trained and in uniform, they do have basic security skill sets, but what they don’t

have are the required training or capabilities to conduct offensive

or even defensive operations against the insurgency.

Now, I don’t imply by this that there shouldn’t be a large number

of Iraqi security forces that do actually exist. It’s just that they

each have a role and function, as in any society, and not all of them

can or should be thrown onto the front line of the insurgency. As

the insurgency intensified through the summer of 20O3, the CPA

did develop policies to train the high-end security forces that have

been briefly discussed today.

And I will talk specifically about the nine battalions of army special forces, that’s the counterinsurgency wing of the Iraqi army,

and some of the Ministry of Interior special forces. I’m talking

about something like six or seven battalions of special police commando units, three or so counterterrorism battalions, who grew out

of the Iraq national guard and the army, SWAT teams, and also

specific types of emergency response units, which are much smaller. What those types of forces do have is the specific role and mission of effectively countering the insurgency and relieving combat

pressure from U.S. forces.

As far as problems with the vetting, training and recruitment of

both Iraqi police services and the Iraqi national guard, which are

the bulk of those 144,000 we have discussed, many of those problems can be traced back to the fact that, initially, throughout 2003

and early 2004, much of the training and vetting of recruits for

these services was decentralized. So what you had was local United

States and coalition military commanders having the responsibility

to raise and train and equip these local forces, these units. So it

led to a lack of standardization in both recruitment and training,

and in very uneven vetting procedures for the recruits across the

country.

I am talking here about the national guard units and also the

Iraqi police, both local forces, locally utilized and locally trained.

There was real immense pressure on the United States and coalition military commanders to get Iraqi boots on the ground, which

led to many local police simply being reconstituted.

What I mean by that is that former police officers were basically

reemployed in the town and told, you are back on the beat, without

having to go through the required police academy training that was

set under the Ministry of Interior. Many national guardsmen went

through very minimal levels of basic training, sometimes as low as

2 weeks. So both of these forces were then expected to be the bulk

of Iraq forces that were facing the insurgents.

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In a sense, the training and vetting problems have actually been

rectified. Particularly, the raising and equipping of the Iraqi police

services and the Iraq national guard have now been centralized,

first under Major General Eaton in the spring of 2004, and, now,

currently, of course, under his successor, Lieutenant General David

Petraeus. So, for example, the national guard training, which was

very uneven across the country, is now very standardized and involves, under General Petraeus, 3 weeks basic training and 3 to 4

weeks of collective training. And you have many policemen being

sent back to the police academies to actually complete the training

or begin the training which they had not actually undertaken in

the year before.

Many of the bad apples who slipped in through the uneven vetting that occurred in that first year and a half have been removed.

So that is why you see a big dip in the numbers of police forces.

I can’t remember the chart myself, because I had the back of it

there, but I think I remember seeing a chart like that. But there

is a big dip of police numbers, I think, in mid 2004 and late 2004

because many of the police have gone back into training or have

been removed because of new vetting that is being undertaken by

General Petraeus.

However, and there is an important point to all of this, the national guard capabilities are still limited to basic security tasks:

fixed-point security, route convoy security, joint patrolling with coalition forces. And the police, of course, are trained in local policing,

basic law-and-order tasks. Neither are counterinsurgency trained

forces, which is a very important point. They did perform their

tasks, both the police and national guard, with great distinction

during the elections, and they were charged with crowd and cordon

and perimeter security. That’s what they were trained to do, to protect polling centers and government buildings and so forth, yet

they still require heavy U.S. logistical and combat support.

Now, in contrast to the national guard and the Iraqi police services, the Iraqi army has had a centralized vetting and training

structure from its inception. So as a result, the Iraqi army, and I

am separating this from the Iraqi national guard, has attracted a

higher quality of recruits who have underwent, from the beginning,

thorough and standardized vetting, and that included very tough

psychological testing. And the training itself has been of a very

high standard from its inception.

So the key, Mr. Chairman, to a realistic transfer of security responsibility from U.S. forces to Iraqi forces rests not only with the

Iraqi army special forces, which are numbered at about nine battalions at the moment. And you were asking earlier of Professor

Cordesman, I think, the number of each battalion is about 800 for

Iraqi army battalions, and that includes the special forces battalions. But more importantly, also, on the high-end internal security

forces that are being trained under the Ministry of Interior, and

they are important because they have specialized training and skill

sets, and they have an ability to combine intelligence gathering,

and I think, much better in some ways than United States and coalition intelligence gathering, because they understand the language

and the culture, but also law enforcement and light infantry paramilitary capabilities in their tasks of taking on the insurgents.

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They performed well. Some of the units have performed well in

operations in Fallujah and Samarra in late 2004, and even a unit

of Iraqi SWAT team rescued some Iraqi hostages in Kirkuk with

minimal U.S. support. At present, though, the counterinsurgency

and counterterrorism forces that I am talking about are a very

small percentage of the total 144,000 of Iraqi forces said to be

trained and in uniform.

So as I said, you could probably estimate around nine Iraqi army

special forces battalions; six special police commando units; three

mechanized police battalions that were earlier discussed; the

SWAT team is around 270 personnel, I think; and three

counterterrorism battalions that grew out of the national guard

and the army, and Professor Sepp talked about the 36th battalion,

which is part of that.

The Coalition, as far as I understand it, has a goal of 33 or so

battalions or 30-plus battalions of these highly trained internal security forces, including the Army special forces. So something like

25,000 men, if you want to look at numbers. But I would emphasize that numbers are not the most important thing. It is really the

quality of these Iraqi forces to complete these tasks and security

missions.

If they can operate at the point of the spear with the remaining

bulk of those 270,000, or projected 270,000, Iraqi forces acting in

a supporting role, there is a very good chance of weakening and defeating the insurgency, obviously in combination with political and

economic developments, which are just as important in any

counterinsurgency operation.

Just a few quick words about training. I know I am running out

of time, Mr. Chairman.

The important point about training, I would say, is that accelerating training of Iraqi forces is a very big mistake, if anyone is

contemplating that, or if the administration is contemplating that.

Because if you cut training cycles from 8 weeks to 2 weeks, you are

sending out forces that are less than capable.

Mr. SHAYS. But if you could add more numbers and do the same

amount, you don’t object to that?

Mr. KHALIL. That is absolutely correct, Mr. Chairman. If you

have more trainers there, you can put more Iraqis through the

training pipeline, and you will get more out quicker.

Mr. SHAYS. As long as you can vet them.

Mr. KHALIL. As long as you can vet them, yes.

Now, I should point out with the vetting, Mr. Chairman, that the

vetting procedures, the other advantage of centralizing vetting

under General Petraeus is that the Army vetting was actually

quite thorough for the Iraqi army recruits. There was a Ministry

of Defense starter base that was salvaged from some of the facilities which has the name of something like 400,000 Iraqi men who

had undertaken military and other police type services, so you

could have a look and cross-check new recruits against that.

Of course, there are many new recruits that don’t have prior

military service, and they are usually the young guys who are joining up in the new army.

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rity forces. You have heard that the MNF–I is mandated under

UNSCR 1546 to support the besieged Iraqi Ministry of Security

Forces, the internal security forces, which under this arrangement

retrain primary responsibility for Iraqi internal security. And during the interim period, the Iraqi police and other internal security

forces did begin coordinating very well with the coalition and Iraqi

military forces through a network of local, regional and national

structures.

There is some complexity in the command structures of the

MNF–I, and I would refer you to the written testimony for a fuller

explanation of that, Mr. Chairman.

In conclusion, though, there is an authentic Iraqi partnership

with the Coalition, in the sense that the Iraqi armed forces are

very much an active member of the coalition forces. There are senior Iraqi military officers throughout the MNF–I command structure, and their involvement makes them real owners of the operational tactical security objectives that the MNF–I is undergoing at

the moment. I think also it is very important because it will aid

a smoother transfer of full security responsibility to Iraqis post-December 2005.

Mr. Chairman, there is one last comment I would like to make

in wrapping up, and it is on the issue of the insurgency. And I

noted, very quickly, Professor Cordesman talked about the insurgency. The best way to look at the insurgency is to look at it in

three-ring circles. The inner circle is the 15,000, 20,000 or 25,000

fighters who are involved in the insurgency. They are made up of,

the 90 percent of them, rather, are made up of former regime security personnel. So the guards from the Special Republican Guard,

the Mukhabarat intelligence, and so on. There is a smaller number

of that insurgency that are Islamic Jihadists, both foreign and also

Iraqi jihadists.

Mr. SHAYS. Within the 25 or in addition to?

Mr. KHALIL. Within the 25,000, sir, yes.

And then you also have a criminal element, if you like, of gangs

and mercenaries, who are doing—who are conducting attacks on

the coalition for monetary purposes. And that is part of that insurgency as well.

Then there is an element—when we talk about, why is the insurgency growing—an element of Iraqis who have joined the insurgency out of anger, anger and a need to have some sort of revenge

against possibly coalition forces who have killed relatives or so on.

And many of these are also possibly former military security personnel.

There was a question earlier by Representative Kucinich about

why these hard-core personnel are growing. Well, there was a large

number of ex-military security personnel. Not all have joined the

insurgency. Some are starting to join up based on a variety of different reasons. But the question as to its popularity, I think, is

very important because it is a minority within a minority.

The middle circle is approximately around 200,000 sympathizers

who are supporting them, and the outer circle is really the passive

population of Iraq. And not all those people are supporting the insurgents.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Khalil follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Great. Thank you.

Let me first ask, and I am not looking for a debate, but I want

an honest dialog where any of you may differ with someone else on

the panel here.

So are there things you would differ in terms of emphasis or totally disagree with anything your colleagues have said? Do you

want to start?

And I will preface this by saying that I read all your biographies,

and this is an exceptional panel. I don’t know, Professor

Cordesman, if you got your crustiness from John McCain or you

gave it to him, but you are an accomplished author. We could put

professor and author here. Such tremendous experience you bring

to the panel.

And Professor Sepp, your service to your country and your actual

practical experience in the military.

And Mr. Khalil, I was intrigued that you were involved in strategic planning basically for the military in Australia. Is that correct?

Mr. KHALIL. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. So you are a gift to this subcommittee, and I am looking forward to the dialog that will take place, but where would you

disagree completely or in part with something already said by one

of the three of you?

Professor Cordesman.

Professor CORDESMAN. I think there are two points, Congressman. One, my experience with this goes back to Vietnam when I

was in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. SHAYS. Were you working for the Secretary of Defense at

that time?

Professor CORDESMAN. Yes. And I was working, at that point in

time, in dealing with the training of our VN forces and the assessment of the intelligence structure in Vietnam. I think the one thing

I would say is that we haven’t the faintest idea of what the numbers of the insurgents are or the number of insurgents——

Mr. SHAYS. Now, there is the absolute. When you say faintest

idea. We have very little idea? I mean faintest idea is such a——

Professor CORDESMAN. I think we learned the hard way after the

liberation of Vietnam how bad it was in terms of our estimates of

sympathizers, infiltrators and activists.

Mr. SHAYS. What I’m going to ask is——

Professor CORDESMAN. Congressman, I’m going to—we could

mince words. Are our intelligence estimates of the insurgents today

in numbers in any way reliable? No, they are not.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, that’s fair. What I just want to say to you is that

I’m a pretty impressionable person. ‘‘Faintest idea’’ means we have

no idea. But is the range so faint that it could be 200,000 to 10

million? Obviously, that’s not the faintest idea.

Professor CORDESMAN. As I say, we can play games.

Mr. SHAYS. Give me a range.

Professor CORDESMAN. I won’t, because I really don’t think we

know. I have heard people come out with estimates of Islamists. I

have worked with people in the intelligence community for 40

years. I don’t find intelligence officers stand behind those estimates. I don’t believe that there are 50,000 Islamists, but I don’t

know that we know how many there are.

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I heard people began with 5,000 core insurgents. Now we are

talking 20,000 to 30,000. But I think perhaps we don’t disagree. I

just don’t know what the hell a core insurgent is, and I don’t believe any two people can define it the same way.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough.

Professor CORDESMAN. When it comes down to the sympathizers

with insurgents, the public opinion polls I have seen since the summer of 2003 indicate a very large number of Iraqis, both Shiite and

Sunni, supported violence against the coalition. Now, does that

mean they are going to provide arms or sanctuary? None of us

know. But the numbers were so high, even in embassy polls in the

summer of last year, that figures like 200,000, which was a wag

by the Iraqi Minister of Defense, originally, they simply don’t mean

anything.

Mr. SHAYS. In fairness to our own folks, they have been reluctant

to give numbers when Congress presses them for it, because, in

part, we really don’t know.

Professor CORDESMAN. If you push the intelligence community

hard enough, you will always get the number, and you get the

number you deserve.

Mr. SHAYS. Well said. I love the poll that was done, a very professional poll a year after we were there, and it said two-thirds of

the Iraqis want us to leave, and two-thirds want us to stay.

Professor CORDESMAN. Well, one problem we have, in all honesty,

Congressman, is if you break those polls out, and you actually read

all 23 pages of them, and then go into them by area, they are often

extremely useful. When they are summarized nationally, and people don’t read the details, then you get exactly the results you have

said. But it was something like 11 percent of the Shiites surveyed

and something like one-third of the Sunnis surveyed by the Oxford

Analytical Poll, which was perhaps the best in late 2003, which

supported violence against the coalition. How many of them would

ever have lifted a finger to support this? I doubt it.

But if I may, let me just make two points about where we may

disagree. First, I don’t believe training is, or ever will be by itself

a way of creating mission capable forces. And I think General

Luck, with his emphasis on putting U.S. advisors into combat

teams, creating combat units with some kind of integrity and leadership, and creating units effectively trained on the job is what is

going to have to be the only way that you can create forces approximately as large as the ones we need.

The second point I would raise is, I don’t believe we are there

yet. I believe General Petraeus has done an outstanding job since

June 2004. But remember, and I am quoting here figures from

General Petraeus’ office, we had one deployable battalion in June

of last year; now, we have 24 to 27, according to General Petraeus,

in the multinational command.

I don’t believe the national guard has been vetted or that it is

anything like ready. And the latest figures I have indicate that we

have just put 52 new battalions into the regular army, of which

perhaps nine have any kind of mild competence.

Mr. SHAYS. Is this the national guard you are making reference

to?

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Professor CORDESMAN. We put two other brigades in when we

merged the national guard. So people talk about merging the national guard into the army, but there were six other battalions

added from other units.

Mr. SHAYS. Are the units outside the army?

Professor CORDESMAN. They are outside the army. They had

names. One was the Defenders of Baghdad Brigade and the other

was the Muthona Brigade.

Mr. SHAYS. Kind of like what Souter set up? I mean it’s their

own individual private armies?

Professor CORDESMAN. Well, they were sort of, not necessarily

militias, but units created for special purposes by ministers or Governors.

Mr. SHAYS. Gotcha.

Professor CORDESMAN. The problem I have with this is when I

look down this, you talk about training. You don’t create a soldier

in 8 weeks in the U.S. Army. You can fit him in because you can

put him into a unit with proven combat experience, leadership,

senior NCOs and people who have proven capability. Iraqis weren’t

trained at that level, even if we got the right ones.

We are putting people into units created from scratch. In case

after case, the leaders are still political. They are people who were

appointed for the wrong reasons and aren’t removed when they do

not prove to be capable.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. What else do you disagree with?

Professor CORDESMAN. I think the other point is, we are not giving them the equipment they need yet.

Mr. SHAYS. But did someone here say we were?

Professor CORDESMAN. Well, when you say you have mission capable units, and I think Professor Sepp made the point quite well,

if they do not have adequate communications, if they only have

heavy machine guns and mortars, and they have no protective vehicles and cannot support themselves in movement, these are not

mission capable counterinsurgency units. That is a description of

all of the army units, except one battalion, which is mechanized,

and two battalions of the elite police forces.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Anything that you would disagree with your colleagues on the

panel, Professor Sepp? It may be an emphasis. I’m not saying completely disagree, but something they might have said, you would

just disagree with them.

Professor SEPP. The vetting process is not working. In some provinces, with a majority Sunni population or in the Kurdish areas,

it is functioning. But in the four provinces that the Marine Expeditionary Force currently operates in, Al Anbar, Babil, Najaf and Al

Qadisyah, there is no vetting.

The senior Marine colonel in charge of liaison to the Iraqi security forces personally estimates that 75 percent of the police are insurgents or insurgent sympathizers.

Mr. SHAYS. So is this the vetting with the police in particular?

Professor SEPP. In the military forces as well, accountability in

those kind of situations. He described going to three different company garrisons. Each company, again rough numbers, each comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:13 Jun 01, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00173 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\20923.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pany should have had about 100 people present. In total, at the

three locations, there were five.

During the second battle for Fallujah in November, when I was

in Baghdad on the strategy team, the Marines were almost certain

that they fought and killed insurgents that they had previously

trained and equipped as national guard and police members. At the

same time, in that same month, there was a bank robbery, because

the payroll system had been turned over with the shift of sovereignty. It had been turned over to the Iraqis. The equivalent in

dinars of about 4 million U.S. dollars was moved to a bank in

Ramadi.

The day after it arrived, the bank was robbed by armed insurgents wearing police uniforms issued by the United States, carrying Glock pistols issued by the United States, with knowledge of

the bank that only police would have had. They didn’t get away

with all the money because there was so much of it; they had to

leave about a quarter of it behind. They couldn’t load it all in their

vehicles.

But this is the degree to which, in some provinces, that vetting

is meaningless and that the insurgents have infiltrated the military police forces.

Mr. SHAYS. Meaningless and not possible, or just not done well?

And if you don’t know, that’s OK, too.

Professor SEPP. That is a very hard question to answer. Those

are the sort of things that could be fixed over time, over years, with

the imposition of a government of security forces, or of incorrupt

security forces in a system like that. But right now, vetting is

meaningless in those provinces.

Let me just add one thing. This is absolutely common to any

counterinsurgency situation. I’m sure Professor Cordesman can

give some very precise stories about these situations in Vietnam.

When I fought in El Salvador, when Sergeant Greg Fronius was

killed at El Paraiso there were 30 to 40 guerilla infiltrators that

had joined the brigade that he was advising and that had started

the initial attack against the cartel from the inside in a surprise

attack.

So this is very common. This has to be understood that this is

simply going to be part of doing business and fighting an insurgency, and that I would be very concerned with broad statements

about vetting is in place and is functioning and is centralized and

is standardized. The people that have been there will tell you it’s

simply not true.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Khalil.

Mr. KHALIL. Well, yes, I was there for 9 months, and I did point

out quite clearly in the testimony that the vetting was a problem

for the first year and a half, and that’s because it was decentralized. As Professor Sepp was explaining, much of the vetting was

conducted at a local military level. Now, as far as I understand it

and even before I left, I was pushing very hard to have this centralized because of the problems with vetting in a decentralized

manner.

And we have to also ask, who are we talking about? Which forces

and vetting are we talking about? The police and national guard

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are vetted locally, because they are locally trained and raised

forces. The army was vetted, centralized in Baghdad, now under

the Ministry of Defense and under General Petraeus’ command. So

as far as I understand it, General Petraeus has now command over

police training and all national guard training. This national guard

is now being put together with the Iraqi army, and there are improvements in those vetting procedures. You can only go one way,

obviously, when the vetting was so bad to start off with.

The only other point I would make, Mr. Chairman, and I do

agree with Professor Cordesman that it is very difficult to talk

about the numbers of the insurgents and pin down a number.

That’s because it’s completely fluctuating constantly. There is

movement across borders of foreign jihadists. Some people are joining the insurgency. Some people are dropping out. Some of them

are being captured or killed. So it is very difficult to pin down numbers. But what you can pin down or improve is your understanding

and the nature of the insurgency. And there has been great strides

made in understanding that insurgency.

I don’t think 2 years ago we could be talking with as much

knowledge about who makes up the insurgency as you are hearing

on today’s panel. And that’s very important. I had a chance, for example, to sit down with the Governor of Ramadi, in Al Anbar Province and the tribal leaders, and they brought with them 15 ex-security personnel. And now, clearly, former Mukhabarat and Special

Republican Guard guards who have lost their jobs and now clearly

are part of the insurgency. But their main grievance was unemployment. They had lost their jobs and their status.

So you can understand the insurgency. You can even negotiate

with some of the more moderate elements of the insurgency. Of

course, you have to sift out those who are guilty of crimes against

the Iraqi people.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Yes, Professor Cordesman.

Professor CORDESMAN. Just one point, Congressman. I think this

is probably just an accident, but on the Department of Defense

chart and, indeed, the one that I have provided, which is similar,

a point about the police. It says there that 82,000 are trained and

equipped. What there is not—but is very clear in the reporting

from the multinational coalition, is 35,000 of that 82,000 is scheduled for training. It is not trained and equipped.

And this, I think, illustrates what happens when you take something this dynamic, and you try to pin your numbers down.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, my sense of some satisfaction here is that we

are starting to try to understand the numbers. But I have a sense

from you, Professor, that you almost feel that it is useless; that the

numbers are so meaningless as to why even bother.

But you transition to the concept of capability, and there I would

think we would all agree we would want those numbers.

Professor CORDESMAN. I think, Congressman, what people are

trying to do now, and reference was made in the previous panel to

establishing metrics, is to take the, I think it is now 13, Ministry

of the Interior administrative defense forces that we, through the

multinational coalition, advise or train. There are many other elements, understand, that are not on those charts, of militias, police

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and other units, with either government or nongovernment support. Break them out by what we call order-of-battle analysis,

which may be familiar to you, so you get by battalion what the capabilities really are, what the history of the unit is, something

about its leadership, whether you really believe this unit is ready

yet.

And you don’t sort of reject forces because they can only man a

checkpoint. You break the order of battle out so you look at the

mission capabilities as well as these other factors. Now, that gives

you the kind of numbers which, to some extent, you can trust. They

will never be precise. You will never know whether a given battalion will break in combat. But if you go to that type of analysis, and

I believe that is what the multinational coalition is doing, you will

get there.

But the fact is, it didn’t make sense to try to do it until you had

enough forces in the field that were actually becoming operational

so the criteria changed. Up till now, you have been rushing since

last June simply to create basic cadres that you can begin to deploy.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I am not looking for a long answer, but what I

am hearing you basically say is that the numbers were almost

meaningless before; that we can, over time, bring value to those

numbers as we dissect it in ways to know who is capable and then

where they are capable; that they may be capable here, not capable

there; but then it becomes a bit difficult to then give these blanket

overall numbers.

In other words, what I am hearing you say is, you may have

40,000 people capable, but they may only be capable in certain

areas, and we are not even sure how we want them capable in

every area. In other words, we are not even sure of the overall

needs of capability. Or am I going off track here at the end here?

Professor CORDESMAN. You have made all the key points. We are

fighting a dynamic war. We are constantly adapting. The training,

organization, everything has to change. The question is, are we creating, month by month, effective combat battalions and forces for

the various missions that have to be performed?

Mr. SHAYS. We do not have that chart in front of us, but what

I am hearing you say is that we had first trained, and even that

was questionable; we then went to those who were trained and had

equipment, but even that is questionable because we don’t know

what kind of training and what kind of equipment as we firm that

up; but the big key number is going to be, who is capable?

Professor CORDESMAN. I think that’s exactly right. If you look at

page 18 of the testimony I have given you, all of those figures are

taken from General Petraeus’ command. Those kind of numbers

break out in rough terms the mission capabilities of the forces. At

that point, I think you get a picture of the kind of forces that are

being created, and most of them are useful.

Another way to look at it is simply to go back and break out each

of these forces by actual element, for all 13 or 14 elements, and

then break out the elements within them. And those numbers will

begin to give you a picture of real capability. And what is really

striking is the amazing increase since June 2004 and the amount

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of momentum that the thing has been gathering since September

2004.

Mr. SHAYS. I’ve had this dialog with the administration that

when you admit mistakes where you went wrong—which to me is

a logical thing to do—it helps you understand where you are and

where you’re going, and also it helps you see that maybe you’ve

had progress. But if you’ve never made mistakes, it’s like, well,

they don’t know all the things we overcame because of the mistakes we made that gives some value to what we’ve been doing.

Let me have our counsel, ask a question or two.

Mr. HALLORAN. I wonder if each of you could give me your views

on de-Ba’athification and this proposed re-de-Ba’athification that

the emergent government is talking about and its impacts and likely impact on the security situation?

Professor CORDESMAN. I think this is a horrible term. I have

been visiting Iraqi since 1973. If you wanted to survive from 1979

on, you almost had to have some kind of link to the Ba’ath or you

had to go into exile or you had to stand aside from virtually all the

political, social and economic life. What you don’t want back in

here are people from the special security services, people involved

in war crimes or atrocities, people who are former regime loyalists

who today are supporting the regime. That is a tiny fraction of people who were part of the Ba’ath party. And I think this whole

phrase De-Ba’athification Commission—Ba’ath was originally

pushed on CPA in part by people like Chalabi, who had a political

agenda that had nothing to do with protecting the country or serving the national interest, but who basically were trying to minimize

the opposition and create the climate through which they could acquire power.

So what we really need is not de-Ba’athification, but simply to

ensure that we’re not going to bring back the people who were

truly abusive in the past regime which, what, could be maybe some

unknown fraction of the Ba’ath, but certainly closer to 5 percent

than 15.

Professor SEPP. What strikes me about this is that I don’t know

if it’s well known or not, that immediately after World War II the

U.S. Department of State had a very extensive program titled specifically the ‘‘De-Nazification Program for Germany,’’ a very complex and sophisticated document that showed an understanding of

the German political scene and German culture.

Having said that, there is nothing I can add to Professor

Cordesman’s comments, I think that he is exactly correct.

Mr. KHALIL. I too agree with Professor Cordesman. One thing I

would add, though, is that Ba’ath party membership was, I think,

about 2.5 million, or something like that, in Iraq. A third of those,

as Professor Cordesman pointed out, were people who had to join

the party to become a teacher or principal of the school or advance

their career. Another third probably joined for positions of power,

and a very, very small fraction were the real Ba’ath party

ideologues, were those who really abused their power in those positions in the security sector.

The problem is in bringing back people with experience, it’s very

difficulty to sort out who was actually abusing their position of

power and who was just joining the Ba’ath party for membership.

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There are echelons of Ba’ath party membership which we’re aware

of as well. But I think something in the order of a truth commission or a reconciliation commission is really much needed in Iraq

in the next year or two, because you will see competing pressures

now from very much a Shiite government, if you would like, although with a British coalition pushing for a purging even of those

former Ba’ath party members who are now part of the Government

Ministry of Security Services, and then on the other side, people

thinking, well, we need to bring these people back in because they

have the requisite experience to help Iraq rebuild. So it’s a key

point of friction which will be coming to a head I think in next

year, possibly once the government is formed, depending on its nature.

Mr. HALLORAN. One more?

Mr. Khalil, I think it was in your testimony you raised the prospect of training security forces and the specialized forces to be too

successful, and that we re-empower some kind of police state in

Iraq. How would each of you advise avoiding that pitfall?

Mr. KHALIL. Yes, that was one caveat I put to the—in terms of

building up internal security forces, that you don’t want to build

too powerful a structure under the Ministry of the Interior that

could challenge the balance of power. I think there is an important

point here: There needs to be a legal framework in which it is very

well understood how these forces are used in domestic security operations. Now, that’s for the Army as well as for the internal security operations. At present we don’t have that legal framework.

I was involved in trying to push that legislation through when

I was there. I think the Pentagon shied away from it because it

thought that it would hinder the use of Iraqi security forces and

security personnel in carrying the insurgency—of giving them free

reign, if you’d like.

But it’s an important legal framework, because all democracies

have it. Australia has it, you have it where we set out when and

where the Armed Forces can be used in internal operations. And

I think that’s something that the future Iraqi government ought to

seriously consider.

Professor CORDESMAN. I think the only thing I would add to that

is you need security forces that can deal with terrorism and which

can deal with insurgency, and as Professor Sepp points out, you’re

probably going to need them for years to come.

The counterbalance for this is not to create ineffective specialized

forces, it is at the same time to strengthen a police force which can

handle law enforcement that is bound by the rule of law. It is to

strengthen the court system, it is to keep the pressure up for

human rights. It is to carry out the kind of programs that IRI, or

its democratic party equivalent, have started to ensure that ministers and officials and people who run for office understand that

they really have human rights and legal efforts. And I think this

really calls for something that we have on the books but where we

simply haven’t moved the money forward; and that is, you cannot

simply go ahead and create effective military forces and not push

all of those other aspects in our aid program designed to support

the rule of law, human rights, develop governments, help educate

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people in creating modern political parties and in the responsibility

of democracy.

And I find it rather unfortunate that when you look at the tables

on actual expenditures in those programs the spendout rate has

been so low, and the spendout rate on security has been so high.

Mr. SHAYS. I think we will be out of here in about 10 minutes,

but, is it your testimony that it’s difficult to deal with

counterinsurgency, very difficult, or impossible? In other words,

should I be leaving this hearing thinking that it is almost impossible?

I will tell you how I’m leaving it right now. I am leaving it with

the thought I have never believed that—when people have asked

me how long we will be in Iraq, I said how long have we been in

South Korea? I mean, that’s kind of my answer. But I also know

the Iraqis don’t want us around for 4 years. I mean, I believe that.

I mean, maybe some of their leaders do. But my own reading of the

Iraqi culture is they are not going to want us there, and so I am

wrestling with that.

I am leaving this hearing believing that we, I don’t want to say

have turned the corner, but at least we know what it takes to do

it right, and we are in that process. But I’m leaving with the sense

that there are so many things we could be doing that would make

it more likely to reach success a little sooner, and we’re not doing

that.

But I am left with the feeling—when we started out your panel—

with the thought of all the places we have failed to deal with insurgency. And let me just then also say I’m having a hard time understanding whether insurgents are under terrorists or terrorists are

under insurgents. I’m not quite sure where the heading is and I’m

not quite sure—are they equal, is it just another name? Or are

they a part of terrorism?

So why don’t we start with you, Professor Cordesman?

Professor CORDESMAN. First, I think insurgencies can be defeated. All insurgencies differ, and terms are used very, very carelessly. We weren’t defeated in Vietnam by insurgents, we were defeated by main force core elements of the North Vietnamese Army.

Those were units using tanks, artillery, and basically invading.

They were not the insurgents. Those might have been the core of

the Tet offensive, although even there there were strong NVA elements.

What we have here is a different situation, however. We’re talking, at most, 20 percent of the population is Sunni; and significant

numbers of Sunnis are not pro-insurgency. We’re talking four to six

provinces where there is a significant popular base, but those are

by no means unanimous, and the one that has the strongest area,

in some ways in support for the insurgencies or terrorists—whatever you want to call them—is our Anbar Province, which they

have 5 to 6 percent of the entire population of Iraq.

If we can create Iraqi forces that can stand on their own and convince Iraqis that Iraqis will defeat the insurgency—not American

that’s one key. If the Iraqis themselves emerge out of this election

showing that they can govern, compromise and create a state

which will include those Sunnis who wish to be part of a governVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:13 Jun 01, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00179 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\20923.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ment based on democracy, or at least federalism, that would be another critical step and help bring victory.

If we can go from the aid program we have today to some coherent strategy for using that money which relies on Iraqis and meets

Iraqi expectation, rather than some kind of strange plan we developed here in Washington, and we can get money to the people so

they can see hope, then I think that too can defeat this insurgency.

What we talked about in terms of defeat doesn’t mean that extremists vanish. There will be people who are Ba’ath loyalties

angry at us, Islamist extremists, probably in Iraq almost indefinitely into the future. There will be car bombings, there will be suicide bombings, there will be assassinations, and there will be violence. That will probably counter-eliminate at least within the near

term. So victory will always be relative.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, thank you.

Professor SEPP. I wanted to make another historical point, Mr.

Chairman, just to reenforce what Professor Cordesman said.

In Vietnam, the Viet Cong, the insurgents, were actually defeated by the Vietnamese police and intelligence services by the

late 1960’s through the Wong Hong series of operations that they

conducted. The point was that insurgencies are difficult, but they

can be managed if it’s understood how to do that.

For the U.S. Armed Forces, my point and my testimony is it will

be very difficult because they don’t have experience or education in

it, and they’re trying learn it in a very, very compressed time right

now, and——

Mr. SHAYS. Are you saying the U.S. Forces?

Professor SEPP. U.S. Force, yes, sir. And a point would be the

plan, the classified campaign plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom

that exists, is not a counterinsurgency plan. They are writing one

right now. But I am aware as briefly as 2 weeks ago that there are

still debates about key points inside that plan. Until that comes together, it would be very hard to imagine that all these other components could be unified to accelerate the end of the insurgency.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Khalil.

Mr. KHALIL. Mr. Chairman, very difficult, I think, but not impossible to fight the insurgency.

And your point about whether they’re terrorists or insurgents, a

small element of the insurgents do carry out terrorist activity; usually the Jihadists and some of the Iraqi Wahhabists that are part

of that. Often many Iraqis say to me, we don’t agree with these tactics, we don’t want to see the United States and Coalition forces

in our country. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to support of

the insurgents, particularly those who are conducting terrorist attacks on civilians and others.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you happen to speak Arabic yourself?

Mr. KHALIL. I do, sir, yes.

Mr. SHAY. So you’ve had opportunity to speak——

Mr. KHALIL. It was very helpful in meeting—I didn’t just work

with the Iraqi political leadership of Allawi and Hakim and the

rest of them; I met with a lot of tribal leaders across the country,

heads of universities, that kind of thing. And obviously with our

RDC leadership and the interim leadership as well. But I tried to

get out there and meet with as many Iraqis as possible.

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Mr. SHAYS. Do you see that it’s likely that the Iraqis would allow

American troops to be in Iraq 10 years from now?

Mr. KHALIL. The majority of the Iraqis don’t want to see that,

that’s quite clear. The majority, probably 80 or 90 percent, would

want all United States and Coalition forces out of their country in

the long term.

Mr. SHAYS. And if they’re experiencing a true democracy, then

we won’t belong.

Mr. KHALIL. That is usually the case, yes. But the point about

that is, Mr. Chairman, is although most Iraqis of whatever sectarian background or ethnic background don’t want to see foreign

forces on their soil, they don’t necessarily support what the insurgents are trying to do as far as derail the political process in the

future, democratic or not. And in fact, if you look at the numbers—

again we head back to numbers as a thing today—but if you look

at the number of Iraqis who’ve joined the government ministries as

civil servants, who joined the new security forces, there are hundreds and thousands of Iraqis, as you were saying earlier in your

statement, putting their lives at risk and their families’ lives at

risk because they believe in a future democratic state in Iraq, and

all those people that were working on the elections as well, so they

vastly outnumber those insurgents who are trying to derail that

process.

And the other important point——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say, with a caveat that I’ve learned from

all of you, that some of those may in fact be insurgents themselves.

They want a job, they want to be paid, and if they can work for

the government, nothing wrong with that.

Mr. KHALIL. I would estimate that those infiltrating security

services are a very small percentage. I wouldn’t go as far as saying

75 percent at all. It depends on the service, of course, but there

was a level of infiltration that has been cleaned out over the last

6 months as well.

It is true, there are many Iraqis who have joined the services to

get a job, but there are many of us in our countries who join the

public service for a good paycheck as well; that doesn’t translate

into supporting the insurgency.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. No, I wasn’t trying to suggest that, but I’m

just suggesting folks want a job, they want to make a contribution

and so on; but the implication is that we can’t be certain that everyone who’s doing that is doing it without an alternative motive,

that they also may want to be part of the government, and they

may be very sympathetic. I mean, one of my staff was in Jordan

with training the police, and it was during the time of the conflict

with Sadr, and they were singing a song in Arabic. And he asked

them what they’re singing, and it was ‘‘You kill Sadr, we kill you.’’

this was the police in Jordan.

When I was in Iraq, we asked about that and how it could happen. And I was told, frankly, that even Mr. Bremer didn’t realize

the number of police people that he was seeing around the country,

and it was well above what he had thought it was supposed to be.

Mr. KHALIL. I’m glad, Mr. Chairman, that you mentioned

Muqtada al-Sadr, because he’s a very important example. In fact,

the fighting that was going on in Najaf and Sadr City had a lot

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of people shaking their heads and a lot of people worried about

this. What has transpired, of course, is that Sadr has been brought

into the political process through pressure by Sistani, through negotiations allowing the interim Prime Minister, and so on. But the

end result is that this particular group has decided that they’re not

going to reach their political goals by use of force; that they’re

going to join the political process. Now Sadr has, I think, three or

four members of the National Assembly that come from——

Mr. SHAYS. He has more than that, actually.

Mr. KHALIL. Twelve, maybe, I think it might be. And that template can be used for a lot of the moderate Sunni resistance as

well.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, what I would really love to do is invite you all

over to my house and have dinner because I would like to continue

this conversation, because I find it fascinating and extraordinarily

helpful. This has been a wonderful panel, and we are blessed that

all of you of such stature would come before us today with such

knowledge.

Is there any closing comment that any of you would like to

make? I will start with you, Mr. Khalil. Anybody?

Professor CORDESMAN. Just one comment. One of the things we

lack most as a country is a sense of history and patience. If we demand too much too quickly, we will, of course, fail. I think that

what we really need gradually is to teach ourselves patience. As

long as the Iraqis are moving forward, as long as we can see

progress, as long as the aid programs work, more people are

trained, we see elements of democracy. We need to persist and to

continue to support this effort.

What we cannot afford is to set deadlines or demand instant success or set standards based on U.S. expectations rather than Iraqi

expectations. I think if we are patient and dedicated, we have a

very good chance of giving this war real meaning; but if we demand

too much too quickly we can fail, because we defeat ourselves.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Any other comment? Yes, Professor Sepp.

Professor SEPP. Mr. Chairman, I would again reinforce Professor

Cordesman, saying the example is El Salvador, where U.S. policy

to support a new and emerging democratic government in the face

of an insurgency was sustained through three administrations to

its final result where the insurgency was beaten to a draw and the

insurgents came to political settlement of the war. This can be

done, but it will take the patience that Professor Cordesmen is calling for.

Mr. KHALIL. One last point, Mr. Chairman. I think whatever

your moral position was about the war in the first place, I think

if we’re going to talk about morality, it is immoral to drop any support for helping Iraqis develop their future democratic state. It’s

immoral to do so and it would cause a great deal of suffering right

now.

So I think I agree with Professor Cordesman and Professor Sepp

as well. We need to continue that effort of assistance, both at the

security level, but also in the political and economic reconstruction

areas, because they’re just as important as security in defeating

the insurgency.

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Mr. SHAYS. Well, I think that we are in a very important mission

in Iraq. You have my support. I even ran during the last election

on that issue and said, you know, if my constituency doesn’t agree

with it, then on that grounds find someone else. But, you know,

Nicholas Palarino has been with me on all our trips, and obviously

organized them—but when you meet someone who was literally

locked in her house for 10 years, literally, not allowed to go outside

because her parents thought she was very beautiful and would attract the attention of Saddam’s two sons, you know—and when you

visit the killing fields—and, thank goodness Saddam is no longer

in power.

Thank you all very, very much. With that, the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 2:37 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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