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87–678 PDF 2003

S. HRG. 108–43

THE FUTURE OF IRAQ

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 11, 2003

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

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

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

BARBARA BOXER, California

BILL NELSON, Florida

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Staff Director

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Democratic Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared statement . 6

Brownback, Hon. Sam, U.S. Senator from Kansas, prepared statement ............ 48

Cordesman, Prof. Anthony H., Arleigh A. Burke Chair for Strategy, Center

for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC ................................ 74

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 78

Feil, Col. Scott R., U.S. Army, (Ret.) executive director, Role of American

Military Power, Arlington, VA ............................................................................ 65

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 69

Feith, Hon. Douglas J., Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Department

of Defense, Washington, DC ................................................................................ 15

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20

Grossman, Hon. Marc I., Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Department of State, Washington, DC ................................................................... 7

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 12

Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening statement ........... 3

Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from Ohio, prepared statement ......... 56

Zinni, Gen. Anthony C., U.S. Marine Corps, (Ret.), former Commander in

Chief, U.S. Central Command, Washington, DC ............................................... 59

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 63

(III)

(1)

THE FUTURE OF IRAQ

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2003

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m. in room SD–

419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard G. Lugar (chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Lugar, Hagel, Chafee, Allen, Brownback,

Voinovich, Alexander, Coleman, Sununu, Biden, Sarbanes, Kerry,

Feingold, Boxer, Bill Nelson, and Corzine.

The CHAIRMAN. This hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee

will come to order.

Last Thursday this committee heard testimony from Secretary of

State Colin Powell, who joined us just one day after he presented

powerful evidence of Iraq’s noncompliance with the United Nations

Security Council Resolution 1441. He detailed in his statement before the United Nations Security Council a compelling document,

which was a great service to our Nation and to the world community.

Today, for the third time this year, the Foreign Relations Committee turns its attention again to Iraq. We pose the question:

What must we do to help ensure that Iraq becomes a secure and

responsible member of the world community following any potential military action? When asking this question, we must avoid any

tendency to view military operations in Iraq as separate from reconstruction of Iraq. In fact, our ability to secure allies for any necessary military action will be greatly enhanced if we have laid out

a clear vision of how the United States will work with the international community to feed and to shelter Iraq’s people, to help establish responsible governance, and to eliminate weapons of mass

destruction.

We must not assume that our commitment of armed forces will

end if and when Saddam Hussein is dislodged from power. Even

under the best post-Saddam scenarios, Iraq will remain an enormous security challenge that is likely to require substantial American and allied troops.

Since Secretary Powell’s appearance last week, the debate over

Iraq has taken additional twists and turns. This past weekend Germany, Russia, and France proposed doubling or perhaps tripling

international inspectors in Iraq with the support of peacekeepers to

enforce what some have termed coercive inspections. Unfortunately, this proposal, as its predecessors, will fail in the absence of

Iraqi compliance and cooperation.

2

Hans Blix put it best when he said, and I quote: ‘‘The principal

problem is not the number of inspectors, but rather the active cooperation of the Iraqi side.’’ Absent Iraqi cooperation, it is unclear

what impact, if any, U–2 overflights and a law against weapons of

mass destruction will have with regard to compliance with U.N.

Resolution 1441. Saddam Hussein has not complied with past U.N.

resolutions. He has not opened his weapons programs to independent auditors, the United Nations, and the IAEA. He continues

his defiant rhetoric and refuses to disarm. Today, fully 12 years

after Operation Desert Storm, the world continues to face threats

posed by Iraq and its ruler.

We have full confidence in the United States military, which is

moving into the region with its allies in a comprehensive manner.

Tens of thousands of our reservists have been called up, including

one from our own midst, Commander Patrick Garvey, who will

leave my staff next week to join the effort.

With well over 100,000 troops already in theater and perhaps as

many more on the way, our men and women in uniform and the

technology and firepower they control will have every advantage.

There is still hope that military action can be averted. Nevertheless, success in Iraq requires that the administration, the Congress,

and the American people now think beyond current military preparations and move toward the enunciation of a clear post-conflict

plan for Iraq and the region.

We must articulate a plan that commences with a sober analysis

of the costs and squarely addresses how Iraq will be securely governed and precisely what commitment the United States must undertake.

Several groups of scholars and experts have produced blueprints

for our post-conflict policy discussions. We will use those reports as

a framework. And I thank the Council on Foreign Relations, the

Center for Strategic and International Studies, the International

Rescue Commission, the Brookings Institution, and others who

have wrestled with these issues.

In the same vein, the Washington Post posed several questions

last Sunday that have been the subject of much examination by

this committee. They are: Who will rule Iraq and how? Who will

provide security? How long might U.S. troops conceivably remain?

Will the United Nations have a role? And who will manage Iraq’s

oil resources?

Unless the administration can answer these questions in detail,

the anxiety of Arab and European governments, as well as that of

many in the American public over our ‘‘staying power,’’ will only

grow. We want to work with the administration to formulate a

clear post-conflict plan. Such a plan must be embedded in a broader vision of how political liberalization and economic development

can be fostered in the aftermath of potential military conflict.

Today we will lay out the overarching problems ahead and focus

on the security aspects. Forthcoming hearings will examine humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, public governance, economic development, and other critical issues. We will have before us two

distinguished panels. The first panel, at the table now immediately

before us, will feature Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman

3

and Under Secretary of Defense Doug Feith, who will outline the

administration’s planning with respect to the future of Iraq.

The second panel of defense security experts will attempt to

paint a picture of the security challenges the coalition will face

should the current regime be displaced, by whatever means. We

look forward to the insights to be provided by General Anthony

Zinni, Colonel Scott Feil, and Professor Anthony Cordesman.

I look forward to consulting closely with the members of this

committee and with the administration on thoughtful preparations

for Iraq. Our security, our alliances, and our credibility will depend

on undertaking a vigorous effort to move Iraq into the family of nations.

[The opening statement of Senator Lugar follows:]

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR

Last Thursday, this committee heard testimony from Secretary of State Colin

Powell, who joined us one day after he presented powerful evidence of Iraq’s noncompliance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441. His detailed statement before the United Nations Security Council was a great service to our Nation and to

the world community.

Today, for the third time this year, the Foreign Relations Committee turns its attention to Iraq. We pose the question: what must we do to help ensure that Iraq

becomes a secure and responsible member of the world community following any potential military action? When asking this question, we must avoid any tendency to

view military operations in Iraq as separate from reconstruction of Iraq. In fact, our

ability to secure allies for any necessary military action will be greatly enhanced

if we have laid out a clear vision of how the United States will work with the international community to feed and shelter Iraq’s people, help establish responsible governance, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction. We must not assume that our

commitment of armed forces will end if and when Saddam Hussein is dislodged from

power. Even under the best post-Saddam scenarios, Iraq will remain an enormous

security challenge that is likely to require substantial American and allied troops.

Since Secretary Powell’s appearance last week the debate over Iraq has taken additional twists and turns. This past weekend, Germany, Russia and France proposed

doubling or perhaps tripling international inspectors in Iraq with the support of

peacekeepers to enforce what some have termed ‘‘coercive inspections.’’ Unfortunately this proposal, as its predecessors, will fail in the absence of Iraqi compliance

and cooperation. Hans Blix put it best when he said: ‘‘The principal problem is not

the number of inspectors but rather the active cooperation of the Iraqi side.’’ Absent

Iraqi cooperation it is unclear what impact, if any, U–2 overflights and a law

against weapons of mass destruction will have with regards to compliance with UN

Resolution 1441.

Saddam Hussein has not complied with past U.N. Resolutions. He has not opened

his weapons programs to the independent auditors—the United Nations and the

IAEA. He continues defiant rhetoric and refuses to disarm. Today, fully 12 years

after Operation Desert Storm, the world continues to face threats posed by Iraq and

its ruler.

We have full confidence in the United States military, which is moving into the

region with its allies in a comprehensive manner. Tens of thousands of our Reserves

have been called up, including one from our own midst, Commander Patrick Garvey,

who will leave my staff next week to join the effort. With well over 100,000 troops

already in theater and perhaps as many more on the way, our men and women in

uniform and the technology and firepower they control will have every advantage.

There is still hope that military action can be averted.

Nevertheless, success in Iraq requires that the administration, the Congress and

the American people think beyond current military preparations and move toward

the enunciation of a clear post-conflict plan for Iraq and the region. We must articulate a plan that commences with a sober analysis of the costs and squarely addresses how Iraq will be secured and governed and precisely what commitment the

United States must undertake.

Several groups of scholars and experts have produced blueprints for our post-conflict policy discussions. We will use these reports as a framework. I thank the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the

4

International Rescue Commission, the Brookings Institution, and others who have

wrestled with these issues.

In the same vein, the Washington Post posed several questions last Sunday that

have been the subject of much examination by this committee:

• Who will rule Iraq, and how?

• Who will provide security?

• How long might U.S. troops conceivably remain?

• Will the United Nations have a role?

• Who will manage Iraq’s oil resources?

Unless the administration can answer these question in detail, the anxiety of

Arab and European governments, as well as that of the American public, over our

‘‘staying power’’ will only grow.

We want to work with the administration to formulate a clear post-conflict plan.

Such a plan must be embedded in a broader vision of how political liberalization

and economic development can be fostered in the aftermath of military conflict.

Today, we will lay out the overarching problems ahead and focus on the security

aspects. Forthcoming hearings will examine humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, public governance, economic development, and other critical issues.

We will have before us two distinguished panels. The first panel will feature

Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman and Under Secretary of Defense Doug

Feith, who will outline the administration’s planning with respect to the future of

Iraq.

The second panel of defense security experts will attempt to paint a picture of the

security challenges that the coalition will face should the current regime be displaced, by whatever means. We look forward to the insights to be provided by General Anthony Zinni, Colonel Scott Feil, and Professor Anthony Cordesman.

I look forward to consulting closely with the members of this committee and with

the administration on thoughtful preparations for a post-Saddam Iraq. Our security,

our alliances, and our credibility will depend on undertaking a vigorous effort to

move Iraq into the family of nations.

I welcome our witnesses.

The CHAIRMAN. I call now upon the distinguished ranking member of our committee, Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having

this hearing. I think in a sense you and I have been like a broken

record since last summer, attempting to focus on this subject.

All the members sitting here before you now are from a generation, the so-called Vietnam generation, we may have had different

views during the conduct of that war and we may have different

views as to the consequences of that war, but I suspect, without

talking to any of my colleagues, we would all agree on one thing:

that the one lesson universally learned from Vietnam is that a foreign policy, no matter how well or poorly articulated, cannot be

sustained without the informed consent of the American people.

There is no informed consent today. The American people have

no notion what we are about to undertake. They have focused on,

in my experience in my State and in my region and other parts of

the country, they have focused on the war in Iraq in terms of and

from the perspective of the last war in Iraq. I believe—and I do not

know what the polls would say, but I can tell you what my anecdotal evidence is, and I suspect my colleagues do not have very different views. I think most of our constituents think if we go to war,

the war will be swift and successful, as close to bloodless as they

have become accustomed to in Kosovo and in the last gulf war, and

that Johnny and Jane are going to come marching home again

quickly.

There has been an overwhelming reluctance on the part of the

administration to speak to, even acknowledge, in the witnesses we

5

had in the summer, the necessity to have a significant concentration of American forces in place in Iraq for some period of time.

We are going to hear from Colonel Feil and Mr. Cordesman and

General Zinni. We have heard from them in the past. I believe they

were here about 5 months ago, 6 months ago, telling us: Get ready.

Not do not do it, but get ready. We are about to undertake an enormous, an enormous, responsibility, not only for our own safety’s

sake, but for the region’s.

That is not a reason not to proceed against Saddam Hussein, but

it is a compelling reason to discuss in as much detail as possible

what we are about to ask of the American people. I think they are

fully prepared to do whatever is asked of them if it is rational. But

I am very concerned—and I will say this, although I do not speak

for the military. I had an opportunity to speak with a couple hundred troops assembled in the gulf not long ago, and they wanted

to know whether or not, we were going to be there when it is over

and the guns go silent? Where are we going to be when it came

down to deciding we had to put another $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 billion—and the estimates vary greatly and it will depend on how the

fighting takes place if it occurs.

Are we going to make sure we do not do what we have done in

Afghanistan? We have now safely committed the fate of Afghanistan in large part to the warlords. I am told when I speak to members of the administration things are all right in western Afghanistan, Ishmael Khan is in charge. I find that very reassuring. We

now have essentially a mayor of Kabul, a guy named Karzai, and

a struggle between what we have in Afghanistan and the warlords

for control of Afghanistan.

As far back as last spring, speaking to the French—speaking for

myself—speaking to the French Foreign Minister and Defense Ministers, the one thing that was most often raised with me was: All

right, we think he should go, but when he goes, what are you going

to do? Are you going to do what you are doing in Afghanistan? We have authorized $3.3 billion for Afghan reconstruction and

security assistance over the next 4 years. But very little of this has

been appropriated. We are told we do not need any more in Afghanistan.

To state the obvious, Iraq is a heck of a lot more complicated, a

heck of a lot more sophisticated, and they live in a neighborhood

that is very, very, very, very complex, and so I do not think we are

talking about the day after. I do not think we are talking about

post-conflict policy in terms of weeks. I think we are talking about

the decade after. That is just my view. I hope I can be dissuaded

that that is the extent of the commitment.

Mr. Chairman, maintaining a secure environment after a possible war with Iraq is going to be the sine qua non for any positive

change we wish to bring to Iraq. I suspect we will discover the definition of security will take on a very broad dimension: patrolling

cities and borders, mediating between rival groups, helping refugees return peacefully, remaking a new Iraqi army, helping those

discharged find employment, and arbitrating the most mundane of

local disputes.

I predict to you that Kirkuk is going to make Metrovica look like

a picnic. When the Senator from Nebraska and I had our little 7,

6

8-hour car ride through the mountains of northern Iraq in the middle of the night to meet with the Kurds, they went way out of their

way to demonstrate to us how much progress they had made, and

it was obvious they had, in their semi-state of autonomy up there

since the ‘‘no-fly zone’’ has been imposed.

We also were impressed by how much out of the way they went

to tell us that the Barzani and Talibani clans were together and

they were united and they were resolved. But then they would say

as we were leaving: But by the way, Kirkuk. We have been ethnically expelled from Kirkuk for the past 20 years, methodically replacing Indo-European Kurd Sunni with an Arab Sunni. We are

going home.

The oil is a national asset, they quickly add, but Kirkuk is ours.

You are going to guarantee that for us, are you not?

So I just think, whatever we do, we have to understand we are

about to make a significant commitment. And I hope we will not

do the kinds of things we have done over the 30 years I have been

here, and that is, decide to leave the women and men, the soldiers,

after they do the fighting without a long-term commitment. We are

going to give them whatever they need, even if it means reducing

the tax cut, not having health care, not increasing money for education, not moving to fix our highways, not doing anything else.

That is the single solitary first fundamental commitment we

make. And I quite frankly expect the President to keep the commitment he made publicly, privately to a bunch of us, and to me personally, that he will tell the American people that is the deal, that

is the deal.

So I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of my statement

be placed in the record. I can think of no more important hearing

than this at the moment, and I know you are going to follow

through on not just a generic look at this, but we are going to go

down the line to try to flesh this out. We do not expect all the answers, but we do expect an acknowledgment that this is a gigantic

undertaking in what—a word that we do not like to hear—nationbuilding, nation-building.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for convening this hearing on a topic that could

not be more timely. It marks a continuation of the dialogue that you and I initiated

in the committee last summer to help the American people understand the enormous challenges facing us in a post-Saddam Iraq.

It is appropriate that our first hearing on the ‘‘day after’’—or more accurately the

‘‘decade after’’—concentrates on the critical questions of security and weapons of

mass destruction.

Mr. Chairman, it is essential that no one be under the illusion that if we go to

war, that the experience will be anything resembling Desert Storm. Indeed,

testimonials by many of the key participants in that last conflict with Iraq make

clear that the very thorny issues we will be discussing today go a long way in explaining why we stopped short of unseating Saddam Hussein. In General

Schwarzkopf’s words: ‘‘Had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit.’’

Mr. Chairman, if we want to avoid replacing a dictator with chaos . . . and precipitating the very problem that may require war—namely, the proliferation of weapons

of mass destruction from Iraq—then we have got to follow through.

I am confident that, if we act, our military will succeed swiftly and decisively. But

I’m concerned that the temptation will be there to declare victory and walk away

7

well before we should. Unfortunately, Afghanistan’s deteriorating security situation

demonstrates what that kind of approach breeds.

I hope Iraq can emerge as a stable, pluralistic—even democratic society—in short

order. I hope that its rival ethnic communities, and those that seek retribution can

contain their anger and focus on building a new Iraq without any outside assistance.

But given Iraqi history and the stakes involved for the United States, basing our

plans on such a rosy outcome would be folly in my view. We can hope for the best,

but we should prepare for the worst.

And those who seek to make Iraq a model for democracy in the Arab world should

be the loudest voices in favor of a robust American military presence after a war

. . . a major international civilian administration . . . and a massive infusion of assistance.

Mr. Chairman, maintaining a ‘‘secure environment’’ after a possible war will be

the sine qua non for any positive change we wish to bring to Iraq. I suspect we will

discover the definition of security will take on very broad dimensions—patrolling cities and borders, mediating between rival groups, helping refugees return peacefully,

remaking a new Iraqi army, helping those discharged find employment, and arbitrating the most mundane local disputes.

And, of course, we cannot assume that a swift military victory will settle the question of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

In the post-war chaos, unless and until we get our hands on all weapons strewn

around country, there is a real danger that they could be exported out of country,

sold to the highest bidder, or hidden away for later access.

Secretary Powell, in his presentation last week, said that Iraq possesses two of

the three key components to build a nuclear bomb—a cadre of scientists with expertise and a bomb design. How does that change appreciably in the aftermath of a

war when there will be a natural relaxation of vigilance by the international community? What pressures will Iraq face to pursue weapons of mass destruction given

its neighborhood which includes a next door neighbor and former foe with its own

nuclear ambitions?

Disarming Iraq will require much more than a resounding military victory on the

battlefield and even the destruction of those weapons that we do find.

Mr. Chairman, it is critical that the American people be informed of the enormous

burden that they may soon be asked to shoulder. Colonel Scott Feil, who we will

hear from later today, told this committee last summer that a post-Saddam security

force would require 75,000 troops at a cost of over $16 billion for the first year

alone. Other independent studies have estimated that total security costs for the

‘‘Decade After’’ will be between $75 and $200 billion.

The American people must know that this will be a major undertaking. Because

no foreign policy, no matter how brilliant, can be sustained without the informed

consent of the American people. I believe that the American people will support a

massive commitment to securing, disarming, and rebuilding a post-Saddam Iraq,

but only if they are informed ahead of time. Hopefully, we can begin the process

of informing them today.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the distinguished ranking member and

I assure him that his statement will be published in full. Furthermore, as we have indicated, this will be the first of our hearings

about the future of Iraq, with the other situations that you have

described certainly upfront in our attention as we proceed.

I am going to call now upon our witnesses for their statements

and then we will have a round of questioning by all Senators. It

is a pleasure to have both of you here, and I call first on Secretary

Grossman.

STATEMENT OF HON. MARC I. GROSSMAN, UNDER SECRETARY

OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF

STATE, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. GROSSMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, members

of the committee. It is an honor to be here today and I join Under

Secretary Feith in thanking you for inviting us to be at this hearing, to participate in this conversation, and to make this presentation to you.

8

I would ask, Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time if I could just

submit a statement for the record and perhaps summarize it if that

would be acceptable to you.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be published in full and please summarize.

Mr. GROSSMAN. May I also first of all say that it is my first opportunity to testify before this committee in the 108th Congress

and I thank you for that opportunity. Senator Lugar, we congratulate you on your chairmanship, and Senator Biden, we wanted to

thank you very much for your leadership of this committee over the

past several years.

I also want to endorse, to second, to come behind, what Secretary

Powell said here on Thursday, and thank you for your strong support of the men and women at the State Department. We appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, you and the ranking member have talked about

what this hearing is about today. Doug and I were talking before

and, in fact, although it is all set up as testimony, in a way, what

we are doing here is a consultation, because many of the policies

that Under Secretary Feith and I will describe to you, as you and

the ranking member have said, are not finished yet. They are not

decided yet, and so, in a sense this is a very important hearing because we look forward to the chance to work with you and to hear

your views and, as Senator Biden said, to help with the informed

consent of the people of the United States.

President Bush, as you know, has not made final decisions about

if and when to use military force to disarm Iraq and, very importantly for us today, he has also not made final decisions about how

exactly the United States will proceed with respect to Iraq after a

conflict if one is required.

But I want to tell you that we are not without guidance in this

regard even if the President has not yet made final decisions, and

that is because on the 20th of January President Bush directed all

relevant agencies of the U.S. Government to focus their attention

on post-war planning. Under Secretary Feith in his statement will

describe to you the office that has been set up for this planning at

the Pentagon.

But let me tell you that the President’s direction to us is clear.

If it becomes necessary for the United States to lead a military coalition to liberate Iraq, the United States will want to be in a position to help meet the humanitarian, reconstruction, and administrative challenges facing the country in the aftermath of combat operations. And I think, Senator Lugar, that that tracks exactly with

the kinds of concerns that you had in your opening statement.

Before I offer some thoughts on our plan and where we stand,

I’d like to offer this base since I think it is an important part of

the debate today. If we have to act and that is what the President

directs be done, I want to assure you that we have been working

hard to make sure that we are going to have allies in this regard.

As Deputy Secretary Armitage reported to you last week, 26

countries are providing us with access, basing or overflight rights

or some combination of those three. Another 18 countries have

granted us access, basing or overflight rights or have come forward

voluntarily to offer them if we need them. And 19 countries are inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 17:48 Jul 14, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 87678 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
9

volved now in direct military planning for military assets. So if this

has to be done, I think it is important for you and for people to

recognize that there will be people with us.

Mr. Chairman, just to go down the issues that you listed, let me

highlight five subjects, all of them that you and the ranking member talked about: First, I think it is important that we quickly go

through the guiding principles that we are working on as we move

forward in thinking about the future of Iraq; second, to stress, as

you did, the importance of ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction; third, I want to report to you on where we stand in planning on the humanitarian issues; fourth, some words on planning

on reconstruction; and then fifth, as you said, to talk a little bit

about where we think politically we are headed in the future of

Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, if it is necessary for the United States to take

military action here are the principles that will guide our thinking.

First, we will demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to the world that

the United States wants to liberate Iraq, not to occupy Iraq or control Iraqis or their economic resources.

Second, we must—must—eliminate Iraq’s chemical and biological

weapons, its nuclear program, its related delivery systems, get at,

as you said, weapons of mass destruction.

Third, we must also eliminate Iraq’s terrorist infrastructure and

its ties to terrorism.

Fourth, key to support and safeguard the territorial integrity of

Iraq, which goes to the point that Senator Biden was making, the

United States does not support Iraq’s disintegration.

Fifth, to begin the process of economic and political reconstruction, working to put Iraq on the path to become prosperous and

free and, as you said, Mr. Chairman, part again of the international community. To Senator Biden I say that this job will take

a sustained commitment and we are committed, as the President

has said, as the Secretary has said, to stay as long as is necessary

in Iraq, but I should also say not one day more.

First, weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Chairman, it is clear

that our job one today, during conflict, and in post-conflict Iraq if

there is one will be to locate, secure, and dispose of Iraq’s weapons

of mass destruction capabilities. That will be the most urgent priority. And we will focus on weapons, delivery systems, agents, related infrastructure, dual use infrastructure, and Iraq’s technical

and scientific expertise. Under Secretary Feith will have a little

more to say on this.

But what I want to tell you is that there is a very active interagency effort going on now, chaired by the National Security Council, to make sure that we are working to decrease the possibility

of the Iraqi regime using WMD before or during any military action and we are in discussions with a larger number of countries

to establish a program to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program after a regime change in Baghdad.

I also find it heartening that a number of countries are working

with us in this area, including to help our response to the possibility that Saddam Hussein might use or provoke the use of these

weapons. As I say, Under Secretary Feith will have more to say on

this issue.

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Next issue, meeting Iraq’s humanitarian needs. You have both

raised this question. What are we doing? In the event of a military

conflict our immediate objective will obviously be to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians. Those who flee their homes in

fear will have to be cared for. Potential supply lines for food, for

water, for medicine, fuel, will also have to be restored.

Mr. Chairman, I can report to you that all of the relevant U.S.

Government agencies are engaged in some very detailed planning

to meet Iraq’s humanitarian needs and we are emphasizing the absolutely necessary cooperation between civilian and military elements of our government. This effort is being led by the National

Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget. I can

tell you that the State Department and USAID are engaged in this

and are also engaged in a very large program of outreach with nongovernmental organizations and international organizations who

will be key partners in addressing Iraq’s humanitarian needs.

We are working hard to make sure that civilian and military elements in this planning are consulting and coordinating. President Bush has authorized $15 million to support this plan- ning process and an additional $35 million has already been made

available for existing accounts to make sure we can get the wherewithal prepositioned and respond to the United Nations’ requests

for preparedness. These areas are in food, are in shelter items,

water, and a substantial amount of work has been done on meeting

the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, and more will be done.

I understand that members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff received a briefing at the end of last week which goes

into this in some considerable detail. I’m glad to talk about those

issues in Q’s and A’s if that is useful to you.

Let me turn now, Mr. Chairman, to what comes after humanitarian assistance, and that is reconstruction. Iraqis will face the

task of reconstructing a country that has been subjected to decades

of neglect and mismanagement. Here again, I can report to you

that there is a very large interagency effort under way, again

chaired by the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget, to think through our reconstruction needs and

our reconstruction objectives.

This effort is focused on a number of priority areas: education,

health, water, sanitation, electricity, shelter, transportation, rule of

law, agriculture, communications, and economic and financial policies. I hope you will not be surprised to find that that list of priorities of course tracks with work we are doing in the program on the

future of Iraq.

I hope you also will not be surprised that we are working in

these areas to set for ourselves very clear benchmarks, very clear

time lines, and very clear ways to see if this is necessary, if we are

succeeding.

With regard to the oil sector, Under Secretary Feith will talk

about this in some detail, but our guiding principle is that Iraq’s

oil belongs to the Iraqi people, and we are committed to ensuring

that any action taken in this area is for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Should military action be required, the United States will take

steps to protect and preserve Iraq’s oil sector and we will support

the efforts of Iraqis to restore production.

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Mr. Chairman, you talked a bit and Senator Biden talked some

about what kind of political future is it that we want to work with

Iraqis. If we are going to rebuild this country or participate in rebuilding this country physically, it is also important that we do so

politically. As you all know, last March the Bush administration

announced and has stepped out on what we call a Future of Iraq

Project. In consultations with Iraqis in the United States, Iraqis in

Europe, Iraqis outside of Iraq, we developed 17 working groups and

all 17 are listed in my statement. I will not go through them here.

But the purpose of these groups is to begin practical planning for

what might happen in Iraq after regime change. As I say, these

groups run everywhere from transitional justice to public outreach

to defense policy to foreign policy. Each of the groups has brought

together a number of Iraqi experts and those interested in these

issues, not to have an academic discussion but to consider thoughts

and plans for what can be done immediately.

I give you two examples. In the legal field, Iraqi lawyers and the

transitional justice working group have drafted 600 pages in Arabic

of proposed reforms in the criminal code, the criminal procedure

code, the civil code, nationality laws, and military procedures, and

more. So that there is a functioning body of law if there is regime

change.

The economy and infrastructure group has focused on public finance, water, agriculture, the environment, and also how to transition from the U.N. Oil for Food Program into something run by and

for Iraqis.

I want to make one other point in this area, though. I think it’s

important. We are meeting with these Iraqis on a regular basis, on

an intensive basis. But we also make the point, and they make the

point as well, that Iraqis on the outside will not control the decisions that will ultimately have to be made by all Iraqis. The people

we are working with are a great, great resource, but they know and

we all know that all Iraqis in the end must be able to talk freely

and work together to build a free and democratic Iraq.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me conclude with a short observation

about how we get to this future for Iraq, again recognizing that no

decisions have been made on structure or timing. I report to you

that the administration at the most senior levels is still considering

these issues and discussing these ideas with free Iraqis, political

opposition, technocrats, people like your second panel, and others.

We are consulting also with our close allies and with you.

Conceptually, getting to this future of Iraq there could be three

stages: first stabilization, where an interim coalition military administration will focus on security, stability, and order, laying the

groundwork for what I might call stage two, which would be transition, where authority is progressively given to Iraqi institutions as

part of the development of a democratic Iraq. And finally, transformation, after Iraqis have drafted, debated, approved a new

democratic constitution and held free and fair elections, which I

think you would agree is the way for any future Iraqi Government

to be truly legitimate.

Senator BIDEN. Mr. Secretary, would you categorize or mention

the three stages again?

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Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir. My words: stabilization, where an interim coalition military administration will focus on security, stability, and order, which we hope would then lay the groundwork for

stage two, which might be called, if you accept my phrase here,

transition, where authority is progressively given to Iraqi institutions as part of the development of a democratic Iraq; and then

third, transformation, after Iraqis have defined their democracy,

got a constitution, had an election, that they would regain their

sovereignty and they would again become a normal country.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Mr. Chairman, I know that my testimony today

has only been a start in this effort to answer your questions about

the future of Iraq. As Senator Biden said, there are many uncertainties here. But what I am certain about is that we seek an Iraq

that is democratic, that is unified, that is multi-ethnic, which has

no weapons of mass destruction, which has cut its links to terrorists, and is at peace with its neighbors.

Mr. Chairman, I commit to you that we will stay in the closest

possible consultation with you in the weeks ahead as we make further decisions in this regard. I thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grossman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MARC I. GROSSMAN, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE

FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee.

Thank you for inviting us to talk about post-Saddam Iraq.

This is my first opportunity to testify before this committee in the 108th Congress. I congratulate Senator Lugar on his Chairmanship. Senator Biden, we thank

you as well for your leadership in this committee last year.

I also want to second Secretary Powell’s thanks to all the members of the committee for your strong support for the men and women of the State Department.

Mr. Chairman, members of this committee need no introduction to the subject of

Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein. As Secretary Powell told the United Nations Security Council on February 5, ‘‘Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of

weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not

in a post-September 11th world.’’

The day after his address to the UN Security Council, Secretary Powell came before this committee and said, ‘‘The President does not like war, does not want a war.

But this is not a problem we can walk away from.’’

Mr. Chairman, our testimony today will in some ways be like a consultation.

Many of the policies Under Secretary Feith and I will describe are still under discussion in the Administration. President Bush has not made final decisions about

if and when to use military force to disarm Iraq, nor has he made any final decisions about exactly how the United States will proceed with respect to Iraq after

a conflict, if one is required. Although we may not be able to describe final decisions,

we are not without clear guidance. On January 20, President Bush directed all relevant agencies of the government to focus their attention on Iraq post-war planning.

Under Secretary Feith will describe to you the planning office at the Pentagon. The

President’s direction is clear: If it becomes necessary for a U.S.-led military coalition

to liberate Iraq, the United States will want to be in a position to help meet the

humanitarian, reconstruction and administrative challenges facing the country in

the immediate aftermath of combat operations.

Before I offer some views on what that future might look like, let me first lay this

base. If we have to act, we will have allies.

• 26 countries are providing us with access, basing or overflight rights, or some

combination of the three.

• Another 18 countries have granted us access, basing or overflight rights based

on our contingency request for those rights, or have come forward voluntarily

to offer such rights to us, should we wish to make use of them.

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• 19 countries have offered us military assets or other resources. This number includes many countries that have granted us access, basing and overflight rights,

but also a number of additional countries.

Mr. Chairman, let me now highlight five subjects.

First, I want to offer some of the principles that guide our thinking about the future of Iraq.

Second, I want to stress the importance of ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass

destruction.

Third, a report on what we are planning on the humanitarian front.

Fourth, some words on our planning for reconstruction.

Fifth, on the political front, I want to tell you about the work we have been doing

on what post-Saddam Hussein Iraq ought to look like.

I. GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Mr. Chairman, if it should be necessary for the United States to take military action, these principles will guide our thinking.

• First, we will demonstrate to the Iraqi people and the world that the United

States wants to liberate, not occupy Iraq or control Iraqis or their economic resources.

• Second, we must eliminate Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons, its nuclear

program and its related delivery systems.

• Third, we must also eliminate Iraq’s terrorist infrastructure.

• Fourth, safeguard the territorial unity of Iraq. The United States does not support Iraq’s disintegration.

• Fifth, begin the process of economic and political reconstruction, working to put

Iraq on a path to become a prosperous and free country.

This job will take a sustained commitment. The United States is committed to

stay as long as is necessary in Iraq, but not one day more.

II. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Mr. Chairman, President Bush is determined to see Iraq disarmed of its weapons

of mass destruction. That is job No. 1 today, during a conflict if there is one, and

in the days after.

Locating, securing and disposing of Iraq’s WMD capabilities will be an urgent priority. We will focus on weapons and delivery systems, bulk agents, related infrastructure, dual-use infrastructure, and Iraq’s technical and scientific expertise.

Ensuring that the U.S. Government has the capacity to do all this is the work

of a broad interagency task force, chaired at the NSC. We are working to decrease

the possibility of the Iraqi regime using WMD before or during any military action,

and we are in discussions with other countries to establish a program to eliminate

the Iraqi WMD program after regime change in Baghdad. A number of our allies

are cooperating with us in this area, including helping prepare for a response to incidents that Saddam Hussein might provoke.

Under Secretary Feith will have more to say on this.

III. MEETING IRAQ’S HUMANITARIAN NEEDS

Mr. Chairman, my third point is what we are planning to do to meet Iraq’s humanitarian needs.

In the event of a military conflict, our immediate objective will be to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians. Those who have fled their homes in fear will

have to be cared for. Essential supply lines for food, medicine, water, and fuel will

have to be restored.

Mr. Chairman, U.S. Government agencies are engaged in planning to meet Iraq’s

humanitarian needs with an emphasis on civilian-military coordination. This effort

is led by the National Security Council and OMB. USAID and State are engaged

with the non-governmental organizations and international organizations who will

be important partners in addressing Iraq’s humanitarian needs. Civilian and military officials regularly consult and coordinate plans.

President Bush has authorized $15 million dollars to support this planning process and an additional $35 million has been made available from existing accounts.

Other donors are also responding to the UN’s request for preparedness support. As

a result, food, shelter items and water bladders are ready. A substantial amount of

work has been done on meeting the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, and

still more is being done by a number of agencies and organizations in Washington,

New York and around the world.

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IV. RECONSTRUCTION

Mr. Chairman, let me turn to the fourth area: reconstruction. Iraqis will face the

task of reconstructing of a country that has been subjected to decades of neglect and

mismanagement. There has been a tremendous interagency effort, led by the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget, to think through

reconstruction needs and objectives. The interagency effort has focused on a number

of priority program areas including education, health, water and sanitation, electricity, shelter, transportation, rule of law, agriculture, communications and economic and financial policy. I hope you won’t be surprised to learn that many of

these priority program areas overlap exactly with the working groups in the Future

of Iraq Project, which I will describe next.

With regard to the oil sector, our guiding principle is that Iraq’s oil belongs to

all of the Iraqi people. We are committed to ensuring that any action taken in this

area is for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Should military action be required in Iraq,

the U.S. will take steps to protect and preserve Iraq’s oil sector, and we will support

the efforts of Iraqis to restore production. Under Secretary Feith will have more to

stay on this.

V. THE POLITICAL FUTURE

The United States is committed to helping Iraqis rebuild their country politically

as well as physically.

Last March, the Bush Administration announced the Future of Iraq Project. In

consultations with ‘‘free Iraqis,’’ we developed 17 working groups. The purpose of

these is to begin practical planning for what could be done between now and the

date of a change of government in Baghdad, and in the immediate aftermath of a

transition. The subjects of the working groups include:

1. Transitional Justice

2. Public Finance

3. Democratic Principles

4. Public Health and Humanitarian Issues

5. Public Outreach

6. Water, Agriculture & the Environment

7. Economy and Infrastructure

8. Local Government

9. Defense Policy

10. Oil & Energy

11. Education

12. Anti-Corruption Issues

13. Civil Society-Capacity Building

14. Building a Free Media

15. Return of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

16. Foreign Policy

17. Preserving Iraq’s Cultural Heritage

Each of the working groups brings together about 10-20 Iraqi experts to discuss

the Iraqis’ thoughts and plans for what can be done now, and in the aftermath of

a change of government in Baghdad, to improve the lives of the Iraqi people.

Here are some examples of the work that Iraqi experts have done:

• In the legal field, for example, the Iraqi lawyers in the Transitional Justice

working group have drafted 600 pages, in Arabic, of proposed reforms of the

Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, the Civil Code, the Nationality

Law, the Military Procedure Code and more; proposals for the trial of Saddam

Hussein and his top associates; proposals for national reconciliation, and the reform of the police, the courts and the prisons.

• The Economy and Infrastructure; Public Finance; and Water, Agriculture and

the Environment working groups have prepared proposals for the transition of

the Oil-for-Food program to better meet the basic needs of food and medicine

of the Iraqi people. The Iraqis also have plans for reconstruction of four key sectors: Electricity, Communications, Water, and Agriculture.

Both we and the Iraqis we are meeting make the point that Iraqis on the outside

will not control decisions that will, ultimately, have to be made by all Iraqis. The

Iraqi diaspora is a great resource but not a substitute for what all Iraqis will need

to do together to work towards democracy in their country. Both we and free Iraqis

look forward to the day when all Iraqis are able to talk freely and work together

to build a free and democratic Iraq.

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And while we are listening to what the Iraqis are telling us, at the end of the

day, the United States Government will make its decisions based on what is in the

national interest of the United States.

WHAT THE TRANSITION MIGHT LOOK LIKE

Mr. Chairman, let me conclude with a short observation about how we get to this

future for Iraq, recognizing that no decisions have been made on structure or timing. The Administration is still considering these issues, and discussing ideas with

free Iraqis who are in the political opposition, technocrats, intellectuals and others.

We are also consulting with our close allies and with you.

Conceptually, there are three stages:

(1) Stabilization, where an interim coalition military administration will focus

on security, stability and order; laying the groundwork for stage 2.

(2) Transition, where authority is progressively given to Iraqi institutions as

part of the development of a democratic Iraq.

(3) Transformation, after Iraqis have drafted, debated and approved a new,

democratic constitution and held free and fair elections, the only way for any

future Iraqi government to be truly legitimate.

Mr. Chairman, I recognize my testimony today has been only the start of an effort

to answer your questions about the future of Iraq. There are many uncertainties.

What I am certain about is that we seek an Iraq that is democratic, unified,

multi-ethnic, with no weapons of mass destruction, which has cut its links to all terrorists, and is at peace with its neighbors.

We expect to stay in close touch with you over the coming weeks.

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you very much for the testimony and

those important assurances to the committee.

Secretary Feith, would you give us your testimony.

STATEMENT OF HON. DOUGLAS J. FEITH, UNDER SECRETARY

OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE,

WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. FEITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to you and

to the members of the committee. I am pleased to have this opportunity to talk with you today about the efforts under way in the

Defense Department and in the U.S. Government generally to plan

for Iraq in the post-conflict period should war become necessary.

With your permission, I would like to submit my statement for

the record and just provide you now with a summary of it.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be published in full and please proceed

with the summary.

Mr. FEITH. Thank you.

If U.S. and other coalition forces take military action in Iraq,

they will, after victory, have contributions to make to the country’s

temporary administration and to the welfare of the Iraqi people. It

will be necessary to provide humanitarian relief, organize basic

services, and work to establish security for the liberated Iraqis.

Our work will aim to achieve the objectives outlined by my colleague, Under Secretary of State Grossman. I will not repeat those

initial five objectives that he mentioned, but they are very important and I will just summarize them in a few words.

That we aspire to liberate, not occupy the country; that we are

going to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; and likewise

eliminate the terrorist infrastructure; safeguard Iraq’s territorial

integrity; and begin the process of economic and political reconstruction.

If there is a war, the United States would approach its post-war

work with a two-part resolve: a commitment to stay and a commitVerDate 11-MAY-2000 17:48 Jul 14, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 87678 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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ment to leave. That is, a commitment to stay as long as required

to achieve the objectives that we have just listed. The coalition cannot take military action in Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi tyranny’s threats to the world as an aggressor, as a state supporter of terrorism, and then leave a mess behind for the Iraqi people to clean up without a helping hand. That

would ill serve the Iraqis, the United States, and the world.

But it is important to stress also that the United States would

have a commitment to leave as soon as possible, for Iraq belongs

to the Iraqi people. Iraq does not and will not belong to the United

States, the coalition, or to anyone else.

As Iraqi officials are in a position to shoulder their country’s responsibilities and they have in place the necessary political and

other structures to provide food, security, and other necessities, the

United States and its coalition partners will want them to run

their own affairs. U.S. post-war responsibilities will not be easy to

fulfill and the United States by no means wishes to tackle them

alone, will encourage contributions and participation from coalition

partners, from nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations,

other international organizations, and others.

Our goal is to transfer as much authority as possible, as quickly

as possible, to the Iraqis themselves. But the United States will not

try to foist onto those who are not in a position to carry them burdens that cannot be managed.

The faster all the necessary reconstruction tasks are accomplished, the sooner the coalition will be able to withdraw its forces

from Iraq and the sooner the Iraqis will assume complete control

of their country. Accordingly, the coalition officials responsible for

post-conflict administration in Iraq, whether military or civilian,

from the various agencies of the government will report to the

President through General Tom Franks, the commander of the U.S.

Central Command, and the Secretary of Defense.

To prepare for all this, as Secretary Grossman mentioned, President Bush directed on January 20 the creation of a post-war planning office. Although the office is located within the policy organization in the Department of Defense, it is staffed by officials detailed from departments and agencies throughout the government.

Its job is planning and implementation. The intention is not to theorize, but to do practical work.

In the event of war, most of the people in the office will deploy

to Iraq. We have named it the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and we describe it as an expeditionary office. It is charged with establishing links with United Nations specialized agencies and with nongovernmental organizations that will

play a role in post-war Iraq. It will reach out also to counterpart

offices in the governments of coalition countries and to the various

free Iraqi groups.

The immediate responsibility for administering post-war Iraq

will fall on the commander of the U.S. Central Command as the

commander of U.S. and coalition forces in the field. Various parts

of our government have done a great deal of work on aspects of

post-war planning for months now. Some of this was outlined by

Under Secretary Grossman. He mentioned the interagency working

group that has been doing contingency planning for humanitarian

17

relief. That group is linked to the U.S. Central Command and has

established links with the U.N. specialized agencies and the NGOs

involved in humanitarian relief efforts.

It has developed a concept of operations that would facilitate

U.N. and nongovernmental organization provision of aid. It would

establish civil-military operations centers by means of which U.S.

forces would coordinate the provision of relief and restart the U.N.

ration distribution system using U.S. supplies until the U.N. supplies and the NGO supplies can arrive.

There are other interagency groups planning for reconstruction of

post-Saddam Iraq, also planning for the vetting of current Iraqi officials to determine with whom we should work, and working on

post-war elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The new

planning office’s function is to integrate all of these efforts and

make them operational. It is building on the work done, not reinventing it.

I would like to spend a moment if I can stressing in particular

the crucial task of eliminating weapons of mass destruction. We

have begun detailed planning for this task, which includes securing, assessing, and dismantling Iraq’s WMD capabilities, its facilities and stockpiles. This will be a huge undertaking. The point that

Senator Biden made about the magnitude of the task is very well

taken. This is one of a number of tasks whose magnitude is very

large.

The Defense Department is building the necessary capabilities

for this WMD elimination effort. We will have to first locate Iraq’s

widespread WMD sites and then be prepared to secure the relevant

weapons or facilities or rapidly and safely disable them so they are

no longer a threat to coalition forces. This will have to be done in

many places and as quickly as possible.

The mission, though, does not end there. After hostilities we will

have to dismantle, destroy, and dispose of nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile capabilities and infrastructure. Equally important will be plans to redirect some of Iraq’s dual use capability and

its scientific and managerial talent to legitimate civilian activities

in a new Iraq.

Clearly, this will not be a mission that falls entirely on the U.S.

military forces. Other U.S. Government personnel can contribute.

Coalition partners can play an important role, and the United Nations, IAEA, and other international organizations should be in a

position to contribute valuably. Of course, the new Iraqi Government will also have a key responsibility here.

Eliminating all nuclear, chemical, and biological stockpiles, facilities, and infrastructure will take time and we cannot now even

venture a sensible guess as to the amount of time.

Now, on the subject of oil infrastructure, the U.S. and its coalition allies may face the necessity of repairing Iraq’s oil infrastructure if Saddam Hussein decides to damage it, as he put the torch

to Kuwait’s oil fields in 1991. Indeed, as I am sure you know, we

have reason to believe that Saddam’s regime is planning to sabotage Iraq’s oil fields.

Detailed planning is under way for resumption of oil production

as quickly as possible to help meet the Iraqi people’s basic needs.

The oil sector is Iraq’s primary source of funding. As noted by

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Under Secretary Grossman, the United States is committed to preserving Iraq’s territorial integrity, so we are intent on ensuring

that Iraq’s oil resources remain under national Iraqi control, with

the proceeds made available to support Iraqis in all parts of the

country.

As Senator Biden noted, there is an awareness even inside Iraq

of the importance of preserving those oil assets as national assets.

No one ethnic or religious group will be allowed to claim exclusive

rights to any part of the oil resources or infrastructure. In other

words, all of Iraq’s oil belongs to all of the people of Iraq.

The administration has decided that in the event of war the U.S.-

led coalition would protect Iraq’s oil fields from acts of sabotage

and preserve them as a national asset of the Iraqi people and rapidly start reconstruction and operation of the sector so that its proceeds, together with humanitarian aid from the United States and

others, can help support the Iraqi people’s needs.

Just as we have warned Iraqis in a position to control the release

of weapons of mass destruction that they should not obey orders to

use WMD, we are warning them not to commit an atrocity in the

form of the destruction of Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

Now, again as Under Secretary Grossman stressed, we are working in an area now and we are discussing here today work where

important decisions have yet to be finalized within the administration. This is a good opportunity to have a real consultation and we

are eager for your input into all of these matters. We have not yet

decided on the organizational mechanisms, for example, to do this

work regarding the oil infrastructure. We will be consulting on

this, in addition to our consultations here with you and with other

Members of Congress, will be consulting with parties in various

countries, including Iraqi experts and groups.

Now, I think this may be a good point at which to address headon the accusation that in this confrontation with the Iraqi regime

the administration’s motive is to steal or control Iraq’s oil. The accusation is common, reflected in the slogan ‘‘No War for Oil.’’ But

it is false and malign. If there is a war, the world will see that the

United States will fulfill its administrative responsibilities, including regarding oil, transparently and honestly, respecting the property and other rights of the Iraqi State and people.

The record of the United States in military conflicts is open to

the world and well-known. The United States became a major

world power in World War II. In that war and since, the United

States has demonstrated repeatedly and consistently that we covet

no other country’s property. The United States does not steal from

other nations. We did not pillage Germany and Japan. On the contrary, we helped rebuild them after World War II. After Desert

Storm we did not use our military power to take or establish control over the oil resources of Iraq or any other country in the gulf

region.

The United States pays for whatever we want to import. Rather

than export its power to beggar its neighbors, the United States,

as probably no group of people more than this committee knows,

has been a source of large amounts of financial aid and other types

of assistance for many countries for decades.

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If U.S. motives were in essence financial or commercial, we

would not be confronting Saddam Hussein over his weapons of

mass destruction. If our motive were cold cash, we would instead

downplay the Iraqi regime’s weapons of mass destruction and pander to Saddam in hopes of winning contracts for U.S. companies.

The major costs of any confrontation with the Iraqi regime would

of course be the human ones. But the financial costs would not be

small either. This confrontation is not and cannot possibly be a

moneymaker for the United States. Only someone ignorant of the

easy-to-ascertain realities could think that the United States would

profit from such a war, even if we were willing to steal Iraq’s oil,

which we emphatically are not going to do.

Now, returning to the Pentagon Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, I would just like to give you a few comments about how it is organized. There are three substantive operations within the office, each under a civilian coordinator: humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and civil administration. A fourth coordinator is responsible for communications, logistics, and budgetary support. These operations are under the overall leadership of

Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general who held a senior military

position in the 1991 humanitarian relief operation in northern

Iraq. He is responsible for integrating the work of the three substantive operations and ensuring that the office can travel to the

region when necessary and plug in smoothly to CENTCOM’s operations.

The office has only just begun the task of estimating the cost of

post-war work. It is clear that the overall Iraq reconstruction and

relief budget would require a fiscal year 2003 supplemental appropriation. Timing of a supplemental is important. Delays would

hinder relief and reconstruction programs.

Because the commander of the U.S. Central Command will have

a key role in the administration in Iraq, many have thought that

our plans are based on what the allies did in Germany after World

War II, but that is not the case. Our intention in case of war would

be, as we have said, to liberate, not occupy, Iraq. Our administration would involve Iraqis as soon as possible and we would transfer

responsibility to Iraqi entities as soon as we could.

The following are examples, just notions, of the ways in which

Iraqis might play a progressively greater role in administering the

country even in the immediate aftermath of a conflict. An Iraqi

consultative council could be formed to advise U.S. and coalition

authorities. A judicial council could undertake to advise the authorities on the necessary revisions to Iraqi’s legal structure and

statutes, to institute the rule of law and protect individual rights.

As my colleague noted, a great deal of thinking has already been

done under the State Department leadership with various Iraqis on

the issue of judicial reform.

A constitutional commission could be created to draft a new constitution and submit it to the Iraqi people for ratification. Major

Iraqi governmental institutions, such as the central government

ministries, could remain in place and perform the key functions of

government after the vetting of top personnel to remove any who

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gime. Also, town and district elections could be held soon after liberation to involve Iraqis in governing at the local level.

In conclusion, regarding post-war planning, much preparatory

work has been done, but much more remains. The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance will serve as the U.S. Government’s nerve center for this effort going forward. We look forward to consulting with this committee and the Congress generally

as we develop our ideas and plans for post-conflict Iraq reconstruction. War is not inevitable, but failing to make contingency plans

for its aftermath would be inexcusable.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Feith follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. DOUGLAS J. FEITH, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

FOR POLICY

POST-WAR PLANNING

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

I am pleased to have this opportunity to talk with you today about efforts underway in the Defense Department and the U.S. Government to plan for Iraq in the

post-conflict period, should war become necessary.

If U.S. and other coalition forces take military action in Iraq, they will, after victory, have contributions to make to the country’s temporary administration and the

welfare of the Iraqi people. It will be necessary to provide humanitarian relief, organize basic services and work to establish security for the liberated Iraqis.

Our work will aim to achieve the objectives outlined by my colleague, Under Secretary of State Grossman:

• First, demonstrate to the Iraqi people and the world that the United States aspires to liberate, not occupy or control them or their economic resources.

• Second, eliminate Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons, its nuclear program,

the related delivery systems, and the related research and production facilities.

This will be a complex, dangerous and expensive task.

• Third, eliminate likewise Iraq’s terrorist infrastructure. A key element of U.S.

strategy in the global war on terrorism is exploiting the information about terrorist networks that the coalition acquires through our military and law enforcement actions.

• Fourth, safeguard the territorial unity of Iraq. The United States does not support Iraq’s disintegration or dismemberment.

• Fifth, begin the process of economic and political reconstruction, working to put

Iraq on a path to become a prosperous and free country. The U.S. government

shares with many Iraqis the hope that their country will enjoy the rule of law

and other institutions of democracy under a broad-based government that represents the various parts of Iraqi society.

If there is a war, the United States would approach its post-war work with a twopart resolve: a commitment to stay and a commitment to leave.

• That is, a commitment to stay as long as required to achieve the objectives I

have just listed. The coalition cannot take military action in Iraq—to eliminate

weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi tyranny’s threats to the world as an

aggressor and supporter of terrorism—and then leave a mess behind for the

Iraqi people to clean up without a helping hand. That would ill serve the Iraqis,

ourselves and the world.

• But it is important to stress also that the United States would have a commitment to leave as soon as possible, for Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people. Iraq does

not and will not belong to the United States, the coalition or to anyone else.

As Iraqi officials are able to shoulder their country’s responsibilities, and they

have in place the necessary political and other structures to provide food, security

and the other necessities, the United States and its coalition partners will want

them to run their own affairs. We all have an interest in hastening the day when

Iraq can become a proud, independent and respected member of the community of

the world’s free countries.

U.S. post-war responsibilities will not be easy to fulfill and the United States by

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pation from coalition partners, non-governmental organizations, the UN and other

international organizations and others. And our goal is to transfer as much authority as possible, as soon as possible, to the Iraqis themselves. But the United States

will not try to foist burdens onto those who are not in a position to carry them.

Security and Reconstruction

Administration officials are thinking through the lessons of Afghanistan and other

recent history. We have learned that post-conflict reconstruction requires a balance

of efforts in the military sphere and the civil sphere. Security is promoted by

progress toward economic reconstruction. But economic reconstruction is hardly possible if local business people, foreign investors and international aid workers do not

feel secure in their persons and property.

To encourage the coordinated, balanced progress of economic and security reconstruction in a post-conflict Iraq, President Bush has directed his administration to

begin planning now.

The faster the necessary reconstruction tasks are accomplished, the sooner the coalition will be able to withdraw its forces from Iraq, and the sooner the Iraqis wiIl

assume complete control of their country. Accordingly, the coalition officials responsible for post-conflict administration of Iraq—whether military or civilian, from the

various agencies of the governments—will report to the President through General

Tom Franks, the Commander of the U.S. Central Command, and the Secretary of

Defense.

The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance

To prepare for all this, the President directed on January 20 the creation of a

post-war planning office. Although located within the Policy organization in the Department of Defense, this office is staffed by officials detailed from departments and

agencies throughout the government. Its job is detailed planning and implementation. The intention is not to theorize but to do practical work—to prepare for action

on the ground, if and when the time comes for such work. In the event of war, most

of the people in the office will deploy to Iraq. We have named it the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and we describe it as an ‘‘expeditionary’’ office.

The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance is charged with establishing links with the United Nations specialized agencies and with nongovernmental organizations that will play a role in post-war Iraq. It will reach out also

to the counterpart offices in the governments of coalition countries, and, in coordination with the President’s Special Envoy to the Free Iraqis, to the various Free Iraqi

groups.

The immediate responsibility for administering post-war Iraq will fall upon the

Commander of the U.S. Central Command, as the commander of the U.S. and coalition forces in the field. The purpose of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance is to develop the detailed plans that he and his subordinates will

draw on in meeting these responsibilities.

Various parts of the government have done a great deal of work on aspects of

post-war planning for months now. Several planning efforts are underway.

An interagency working group led by the NSC staff and the Office of Management

and Budget has undertaken detailed contingency planning for humanitarian relief

in case of conflict with Iraq. The group also includes members from the State Department, USAID, the Office of the Vice-President, Treasury, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the CIA. The group is linked to U.S. Central

Command. It has also established links with the UN specialized agencies and NGOs

involved in humanitarian relief efforts.

This group has developed a concept of operations that would:

• facilitate UN/NGO provision of aid,

• establish Civil-Military Operations Centers by means of which U.S. forces would

coordinate provision of relief, and

• restart the UN ration distribution system using U.S. supplies until UN/NGOs

arrive.

Other interagency groups are planning for:

• the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq,

• vetting current Iraqi officials to determine with whom we should work, and

• post-war elimination of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The new planning office’s function is to integrate all these efforts and make them

operational. It is building on the work done, not reinventing it.

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Elimination of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Detailed planning is underway for the task of securing, assessing and dismantling

Iraqi WMD capabilities, facilities and stockpiles. This will be a huge undertaking.

The Defense Department is building the necessary capabilities.

This will be a new mission for the Department and for our nation. It is complex

and will takeplace as part of military operations, continuing into the post-conflict

period.

We must first locate Iraq’s widespread WMD sites. We must then be prepared to

secure the relevant weapons or facilities, or rapidly and safely disable them, so they

are no longer a threat to coalition forces. This will have to be done in many places

and as quickly as possible.

But the mission does not end there. After hostilities, we will have to dismantle,

destroy or dispose of nuclear, chemical, biological and missile capabilities and infrastructure.

Equally important will be plans to re-direct some of Iraq’s dual-use capability and

its scientific and managerial talent to legitimate, civilian activities in a new Iraq.

Clearly, this will not be a mission that falls entirely to the U.S. military forces.

Other U.S. government personnel, including those within the DoD, the Department

of Energy’s laboratory system, and in other government agencies can contribute.

Coalition partners, including many NATO Allies, have nuclear, chemical and biological defense-related capabilities and expertise that can play an important role.

The UN, IAEA and other international organizations should be in a position to contribute valuably to the elimination effort and perhaps to ongoing monitoring afterward.

The task of eliminating all nuclear, chemical and biological stockpiles, facilities

and infrastructure will take time. We cannot now even venture a sensible guess as

to the amount. The new Iraqi government will also have an important role to play.

0il Infrastructure

The U.S. and its coalition allies may face the necessity of repairing Iraq’s oil infrastructure, if Saddam Hussein decides to damage it, as he put the torch to Kuwait’s oil fields in 1991. Indeed, we have reason to believe that Saddam’s regime is planning to sabotage Iraq’s oil fields. But even if there is no sabotage and there is no

injury from combat operations, some repair work will likely be necessary to allow

the safe resumption of operations at oil facilities after any war-related stoppage.

Detailed planning is underway for resumption of oil production as quickly as possible to help meet the Iraqi people’s basic needs. The oil sector is Iraq’s primary

source of funding. As noted, the United States is committed to preserving Iraq’s territorial integrity. So we are intent on ensuring that Iraq’s oil resources remain

under national Iraqi control, with the proceeds made available to support Iraqis in

all parts of the country. No one ethnic or religious group would be allowed to claim

exclusive rights to any part of the oil resources or infrastructure. In other words,

all of Iraq’s oil belongs to all the people of Iraq.

The Administration has decided that, in the event of war, the U.S.-led coalition

would:

• protect Iraq’s oil fields from acts of sabotage and preserve them as a national

asset of the Iraqi people, and

• rapidly start reconstruction and operation of the sector, so that its proceeds, together with humanitarian aid from the United States and other countries, can

help support the Iraqi people’s needs.

The Administration has not yet decided on the organizational mechanisms by

which this sector should be operated. We shall be consulting on this important matter with many parties in various countries, including Iraqi experts and groups.

‘‘No War for Oil’’

This is a good point at which to address head-on the accusation that, in this confrontation with the Iraqi regime, the Administration’s motive is to steal or control

Iraq’s oil. The accusation is common, reflected in the slogan ‘‘No War for Oil.’’ But

it is false and malign.

If there is a war, the world will see that the United States will fulfill its administrative responsibilities, including regarding oil, transparently and honestly, respecting the property and other rights of the Iraqi state and people. The record of the

United States in military conflicts is open to the world and well known.

The United States became a major world power in World War II. In that war and

since, the United States has demonstrated repeatedly and consistently that we covet

no other country’s property. The United States does not steal from other nations.

We did not pillage Germany or Japan; on the contrary, we helped rebuild them after

23

World War II. After Desert Storm, we did not use our military power to take or establish control over the oil resources of Iraq or any other country in the Gulf region.

The United States pays for whatever we want to import. Rather than exploit its

power to beggar its neighbors, the United States has been a source of large amounts

of financial aid and other types of assistance for many countries for decades.

If U.S. motives were in essence financial or commercial, we would not be confronting Saddam Hussein over his weapons of mass destruction. If our motive were

cold cash, we would instead downplay the Iraqi regime’s weapons of mass destruction and pander to Saddam in hopes of winning contracts for U.S. companies.

The major costs of any confrontation with the Iraqi regime would of course be the

human ones. But the financial costs would not be small, either. This confrontation

is not, and cannot possibly be, a money-maker for the United States. Only someone

ignorant of the easy-to-ascertain realities could think that the United States could

profit from such a war, even if we were willing to steal Iraq’s oil, which we emphatically are not going to do.

THE STRUCTURE AND FUNDING OF THE OFFICE OF RECONSTRUCTION AND

HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

Returning now to the new Pentagon Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian

Assistance: There are three substantive operations within the Office, each under a

civilian coordinator: Humanitarian Relief, Reconstruction, and Civil Administration.

A fourth coordinator is responsible for communications, logistics and budgetary support. These operations are under the overall leadership of Jay Garner, a retired

Lieutenant General who held a senior military position in the 1991 humanitarian

relief operation in northern Iraq. He is responsible for organizing and integrating

the work of the three substantive operations and ensuring that the office can travel

to the region when necessary and plug in smoothly to CENTCOM’s operations. His

staff consists of representatives from the Departments of State, Defense, Justice,

Treasury, Energy, and Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development

and the Office of Management and Budget.

The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance has only just begun

the task of estimating the cost of post-war humanitarian assistance. In addition, it

is working to identify the projected post-conflict costs of dealing with the Iraqi

armed forces, including the costs of disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating Iraqi

troops into civilian society.

Except for the Defense Department, the USG is currently operating under a FY

2003 continuing resolution. This has affected the level of funding that can be made

available now, as agencies have access only to limited amounts of money.

In any case, the overall Iraq reconstruction and relief budget would require a FY

2003 supplemental appropriation. Timing of a FY 2003 supplemental is important.

Delays would hinder relief and reconstruction programs.

As part of our post-war planning, CENTCOM has also established a Combined

Joint Task Force that will be responsible for U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq in the

immediate aftermath of a conflict. The task force will work closely with the Office

of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance to facilitate relief and reconstruction activities.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF FREE IRAQIS

Because the Commander of the U.S. Central Command will have a key role in

administration in Iraq, many have thought that our plans for Iraq are based on

what the Allies did in Germany after World War II. But that is not the case. Our

intention, in case of war, would be to liberate Iraq, not to occupy it.

Our administration would involve Iraqis as soon as possible, and we would transfer responsibility to Iraqi entities as soon as possible. Following the initial period

of U.S./coalition military government, we envisage a transitional phase in which responsibility is gradually transferred to Iraqi institutions, leading to the eventual establishment of a new Iraqi government in accordance with a new constitution.

The following are examples of the ways in which Iraqis might play a progressively

greater role in administering the country. While final decisions have not been made,

and, in the nature of the case, cannot be made until the actual circumstances are

known, these examples illustrate various mechanisms under consideration:

• An Iraqi consultative council could be formed to advise the U.S./coalition authorities.

• A judicial council could undertake to advise the authorities on the necessary revisions to Iraq’s legal structure and statutes to institute the rule of law and to

protect individual rights.

24

• A constitutional commission could be created to draft a new constitution and

submit it to the Iraqi people for ratification.

• Major Iraqi governmental institutions—such as the central government ministries—could remain in place and perform the key functions of government

after the vetting of the top personnel to remove any who might be tainted with

the crimes and excesses of the current regime.

• Town and district elections could be held soon after liberation to involve Iraqis

in governing at the local level.

Regarding post-war planning, much preparatory work has been done, but much

more remains. The Office of Reconstruction and humanitarian Assistance will serve

as the U.S. Government’s nerve center for this effort.

We look forward to consulting with this Committee and with the Congress generally as we develop our ideas and plans for post-conflict Iraqi reconstruction. War

is not inevitable, but failing to make contingency plans for its aftermath would be

inexcusable.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Secretary Feith.

Let me mention we have once again great attendance by the

committee and I will ask unanimous consent that we have a 5-

minute rule. With 12 members currently present, that is at least

an hour of questions if members roughly respect the 5 minute period. And we have a distinguished panel and another round following that. So I will begin, and please start the clock on me.

Secretaries, let me just mention specifically that in the New York

Times this morning there is criticism that NGOs, nongovernmental

organizations, are not able to get needed answers, support, and

other things. I am pleased to know the office was set up 3 weeks

ago, and clearly General Garner cannot do everything at once, but

at the same time we should note that a great deal of the money,

the international support—particularly in the initial feeding and

shelter—and other attentions to the humane situation, will come

not only from NGOs in our country and other countries, but is a

very important part of the budget, which is currently being formulated.

The New York Times article this morning details the criticism.

Another New York Times story addresses the recruitment of a

leader who might take part in the Government of Iraq later on, but

also states that our government has come to the conclusion that we

will not support the idea of an initial government in exile to be

foisted upon the Iraqis.

Clearly, another London meeting may occur, where various contentious groups may come together. We would like as a committee

to be briefed from time to time on what is going on with regard

to the murky shadows of exiled Iraqis, to their aspirations, and to

how Iraqis on the ground might feel about all this. This is the transition period, but we want to make sure the transition period is

just that—as opposed to some pre-transition or pre-military phase

or what have you, as you describe it.

Now, the oil question that you have raised, Secretary Feith, is

very important. The papers also have polls which you have cited

at least tangentially, that show large majorities of people in other

countries believe our sole objective in all of this is oil. That is

wrong. You have stated that categorically.

But the issue will not be cleared away without implementing a

policy for the admission of the oil fields including how the people

of Iraq are to receive the benefits, and in fact addressing how much

of this operation that you are describing might be paid for through

25

oil revenues. There is a distinct connection: if the oil wells are destroyed, the revenues do not come in. That changes the budget situation, which the Iraqi people on the ground now ought to understand, as well as the Russians, the French, all the people that likewise in a murky way we discuss as potential members of the coalition, or the Security Council. All these parties are publicly discussing oil, and it really cannot be hidden behind the bushes.

Now, to the extent that there is a distinct plan on our part to

be, as you suggest, transparent, and to think in terms of the humane treatment of the Iraqi people and their future, that can be

stated and that can be organized. As you say, you cannot do everything, but it is still out there. It needs to be finalized in a hurry

because that is in the nub of many of the consultations diplomatically at the U.N. now, and I am hopeful that everybody is mindful

of that.

Let me just ask as my question: With this organization clearly

in the Department of Defense, but, not exclusively that, you have

detailed people from many departments, and that is important. You

establish a chain of command, General Franks and/or others who

are there on the ground, and they try to administer the country,

at least keep the territorial integrity, get to the weapons of mass

destruction. You probably need military authority to do both of

those.

How do you begin the transition? In other words, how do you

begin to identify? Does General Franks identify political leadership? Are there other persons in his administration who are detailed to sort of scout the horizons for a President Karzai or for

whoever may arise or for a group of such promising people?

In other words, the audacious aspect of what we are attempting

in Iraq is not just eliminating weapons of mass destruction arising

from our September 11 genuine fear of weapons that may come and

be proliferated but likewise we are trying to create a changed State

in Iraq that will be different, that will offer some hope to all the

States in the surrounding territory, that will be so good that it exists and that it continues, as opposed to an experiment that fails

and becomes a vacuum, like the former Afghanistan.

How does this transition start? Who is responsible for it?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Mr. Chairman, let me start with a couple of answers and then I would be glad, obviously, for Doug’s assistance

here. Let me first, if I could, talk a little bit about the nongovernmental organizations since, as you raised it, they are extremely, extremely important. In fact, we believe as you look through all of the

effort that has been made on the humanitarian and the reconstruction areas, without NGOs this will not be possible, it will not be

possible to accomplish this task.

We have been focused on our relations with NGOs. There is now

a weekly meeting, civil, military, where we have about 30 NGOs

represented. So that coordination I think is happening in a much

more systematic way.

No doubt, though, sir, that there was—it was slow in getting

NGOs the licenses they need to go into Iraq. The reason this got

slowed down, as both Under Secretary Feith and I learned, is of

course the NGOs wanted to import or take things into northern

Iraq or into Iraq that of course were sanctioned, that were under

26

the Oil for Food Program, that were under OFAC licenses. And it

took us some time to work our way through that.

I can report to you now that, with good work between the State

Department, the Treasury Department, the Defense Department,

we have now cleared away a very large amount of that backlog for

our own people to work in Iraq, some NGOs to work in Iraq, and

we are down, at the State Department anyway, to a backlog of two

NGOs as opposed to about 25 a week or so ago.

So we are working on this. There is still more work to do. But

I just want to emphasize the importance of nongovernmental organizations.

Second, just to pick up the point that you made about where we

stand. We actually have come to the conclusion that now is not the

time to have a provisional government or a government in exile because, as I tried to say in my testimony, yes, we are working with

some extremely good, talented and wonderful people who are outside of Iraq, but we have to also take into account the views of people inside Iraq.

I think, as Secretary Rumsfeld has said and I know Secretary

Powell has said, a lot of this has to come from the bottom up. That

is a very important answer to the question about how it will be

maintained and how it will go on for more than 6 or 8 or 10

months or even a year.

Finally, that leads me to say that how exactly this transition will

take place is, as you say, perhaps opaque at the moment. But what

we are planning for is with the Future of Iraq Project, with our efforts to publicize our campaign inside of Iraq, with the fact that I

hope Iraqis will consider this, if there has to be a military operation, as liberation, that there will be people who will come up and

want to participate in the future of their government.

That is what we expect, that is what we hope, and that is what

we will be planning to achieve.

Mr. FEITH. Mr. Chairman, I think that much of the issue that

you have raised about how a transition would occur is not

knowable precisely right now. But what we have been working on

through the various groups that Under Secretary Grossman is talking about is developing principles and guidelines how we would approach the question of encouraging, cultivating, and permitting to

function new Iraqi leadership after a conflict.

It is not our thinking that we are going to be able to impose particular people or even a particular governmental system on the

Iraqis. I think that we recognize that it would not be a right thing

to do and it probably would not even be something that we could

pull off if we attempted it. The governmental structures that exist

right now may be, as I mentioned in my testimony, may be usable

to some extent within a reconfigured Iraq where the technocratic

aspects would be perhaps salvageable to some extent, even though

the fundamental politics of the country would no longer be tyrannical and would, on the contrary, we hope build democratic institutions for the benefit of the people of Iraq.

The point that you made about oil, Mr. Chairman, is obviously

at the fore of everybody’s mind. We have given a great deal of

thought to the importance of securing and, if necessary, repairing

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ministration on exactly how we would organize the mechanism to

produce and market the oil for the benefit of the people of Iraq.

Obviously, it would be beneficial to have that done to the maximum extent possible by Iraqis, by a mechanism that would be

international in nature and show the world the points that I made

in my opening statement, that our intention is to be completely

honest, transparent, and respectful of the rights, the property

rights in particular, of the Iraqi State and people.

This is something where the actual decisions will be made

through a consultative process with lots of parties. We have begun

our thinking. We have laid down some principles. We are beginning

the consultative process, but the final decisions have not yet been

made.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I would just encourage acceleration.

Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to thank both

witnesses for being here.

Secretary Feith, I think your explanation of the response to ‘‘we

are going for oil’’ needs to be repeated and repeated and repeated.

I was recently on French television when I was at the World Economic Forum and a group of French journalists asked me if this

this about oil and I said yes. And they said, Ah, America admits

it. I said, it is about French oil, it is about French oil, because they

are the ones with significant investment, they are the ones with a

significant opportunity. They are the ones, along with the Russians, who have a phenomenal opportunity, they think, under Saddam to be able to benefit.

So I think that should be repeated. And again, I thank you both

for being here, and you are not the ones to whom I am directing

this. I have been publicly and privately, I think, as supportive as

I can be of this administration. But I must tell you, I think it has

been close to irresponsible that we did not have the office that you

are talking about now set up until 3 weeks ago. I think it is irresponsible.

I think the comments of the Secretary of Defense as recently as

this summer with us, where he said to us—and I am paraphrasing—that he did not think there would be a need for any

large commitment of U.S. forces after a victory because this is a

country rich with oil and well-trained people. Secretary Weinberger, as Mr. Feith will remember testifying when he testified,

told us this was just a red herring to keep us from going on, the

people who raised this issue were people who really did not want

to deal with Saddam Hussein.

It does disturb me that, although you say that how this transition is going to take place is not knowable, you have guidelines.

Certain things are knowable. At least you should know them by

now, with all due respect. Even though you may find this bevy of

incredibly neutral technocrats and bureaucrats who will be accepted by the Kurds, the Shia, and the Sunni, who are not part of the

security apparatus, to keep the water running, the lights on, the

traffic flowing, et cetera, they have to answer to somebody.

Who is that going to be? Is that going to be an American general? Is that going to be, like we have in Bosnia, the EU or some

European? Is it going to be the United Nations?

28

Those decisions I cannot fathom, when we are 3 weeks away

from war or 5 weeks away from war possibly, you do not know the

answer to yet. You have not made a decision yet. They are monumental. The debate is still going on in the press, at least, as to

whether or not the model is going to be a MacArthur model in

Japan or a, for lack of a better phrase, as is often used, a Kosovo

model, where you have someone else taking the responsibility day

to day.

Somebody is going to have to make the judgments. Somebody is

going to be sitting in a chair and it will not be a technocrat, who

when you have 2,000 Kurds standing on the outskirts of Kirkuk

saying, we want our houses back, we want our property back,

somebody is going to have to negotiate that. Somebody is going to

be standing there, as my friend the former Governor of Ohio knows

from all his work he and I did in the Balkans, somebody.

And you have not figured out whether that is going to be a U.N.

official backed by American forces and others, that is going to be

an EU official, that is going to be a NATO official, that is going

to be an American.

So my question is this. Rather than tell me—and you have done

more than generically respond—but generically what the guidelines

are, what are the missions that you believe, the military and the

civilian side, are going to have to be fulfilled in the first 6 months

after the shooting stops? By missions I mean: securing the borders—I am not telling you what the missions should be. I am just

giving you illustrative.

What are the missions that you must know by now must be undertaken by some entity other than an Iraqi entity at the front end

of this? What are the missions? Not even who is going to do them.

What are the missions? Preventing ethnic conflict, securing the

borders? You mentioned one clearly we focused on, correctly, is securing the oil fields or getting them back up and running.

What are the missions that must be fulfilled and can only be fulfilled by some outside entity or group of people, outside entity overseeing an indigenous group of Iraqis, that must be fulfilled to prevent this country from splitting apart like a gyroscope out of kilter?

I thank you for listening to me and I am anxious to hear your

answer.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Mr. Biden, let me try to answer all that I can,

and I know Doug will have some views as well.

Senator BIDEN. All you have to do is answer the mission part.

You can respond to my comments.

Mr. GROSSMAN. I would like to respond to the question of the decision of what runs that section two, the middle section if you will.

Senator BIDEN. Well, I am worried about section one.

Mr. GROSSMAN. No, but I think it is related and important if you

do not mind, sir.

Senator BIDEN. Sure.

Mr. GROSSMAN. One of the reasons that we have not made this

decision or, I should properly say, the President has not made this

decision is if you list, as you did, the possible groups that could

take on that mission, who do you list? The United Nations, the European Union, the United States. I think you will understand that

from our perspective, and perhaps we are doing this too slow, but

29

from our perspective I cannot answer the question yet of whether

we want to have a United Nations transitional authority until I

know what the United Nations is or is not going to do if there has

to be military conflict.

For example, if we go through, as the President said last week,

and he now welcomes and supports a second resolution and we are

successful in getting a second resolution and 15 to nothing or something less than 15 to nothing the United Nations says yes, Saddam

Hussein has not met his obligations under 1441, let us go, then the

United Nations’ role possibly in a transition or in the first 6 or 8

weeks could be a big one.

Senator BIDEN. Marc, you are the single best negotiator I have

observed in my last 10 years here. You know darn well the way you

would be talking with the United Nations is to say: Look, if you

guys are in on the deal here this is what we would like you to do.

What they wonder about is whether or not you want them in on

the deal. And if that does not work, you should be talking to the

EU.

You can walk and chew gum at the same time. You do not have

to wait to see what they are going to do. One of the problems is

they are worried that you all do not have a plan. Every European

leader I have met with in the last year is worried you do not have

any plan, because they have heard all this rhetoric about no nation-building, heard all this rhetoric about we are warriors, we are

going to fight the war and we are going to leave.

They have heard all this rhetoric and, guess what, they believe

our rhetoric. Fortunately we do not, but they believe it.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Just let me come back. Let us say that the

opposite——

Senator BIDEN. I apologize for——

Mr. GROSSMAN. No, you make a fair point. But in terms of a negotiation right now, the United Nations—this issue is to the United

Nations. It is to the Security Council. The Security Council has a

decision to make about whether it is going to back its 15 to nothing

vote under 1441. I will speak purely for myself here, and again I

say no decisions have been made.

But you can see a completely different path, Mr. Biden, if the

United Nations Security Council votes again 15 to nothing for a

new resolution. Then it seems to me we might consider a role or

some role for the United Nations. I say, no decisions have been

made. That is my view.

But if the United Nations does not meet its responsibilities, then

it is very much harder, I think, for us to come and argue in front

of all of you that in a part of phase one or part of phase two that

we would turn this over to some international body. I do not know

the answer to that question, but I just want to let you know that

it is not for lack of thinking about it. It is the fact that you have

got, from our perspective, you have got to get the sequence right.

I believe the same thing would apply to the European Union. I

would guess that if you went to an EU meeting today and you

made a proposition to them, the first thing they would say is, well,

when—is there going to be another U.N. Security Council resolution? We would say: We sure hope there is——

30

Senator BIDEN. A 10-second interruption. We have had no trouble saying all along: Look, we want the U.N. to go with us, we

want a U.N. resolution; if we do not get that U.N. resolution, we

will go ourselves. You could easily have been saying: We want you

all to participate in this, we want this to be a joint operation, we

want this to be a joint occupation, we want this to be run by the

United Nations, if in fact you say that. And by the way, if you do

not, then we may have to do it ourselves. You all have not done

that.

I have talked to several Foreign Ministers. I have talked to all

those foreign heads of state. Unless they are not telling me something you are telling them, I do not think you have told them any

of that.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Well, part of the—I do not mean to get into a colloquy here, but part of the challenge of course is that we are here

today to talk to you about our plan for humanitarian reconstruction, for political reconstruction. I think it is right that we would

be consulting with the U.S. Senate before we do much more with

a lot of people outside of the United States.

So we are here——

Senator BIDEN. You are good, pal. You are good.

Mr. GROSSMAN. We are here to do consultation and the is what

we are trying to do.

So I think people should be in no doubt about our plan. Let me

try to answer the question that you posed about every 6 months—

or for the first 6 months, excuse me. You hit I think all the important ones: security; we both emphasized weapons of mass destruction; trying to bring basic human services to Iraqis. One of the

things that I think is very impressive, and we are glad to consult

further on this or provide further information, USAID for example

has laid out a very detailed plan for their operations in the first

months, months 1 to 3, 3 to 6, and areas of water, sanitation, public health, humanitarian, sea port, airports, establishing food distribution, emergency electricity.

So as I said in my introduction, we now have a stack of these

plans that are not just ideas, but actually lay out 1, 3, and 6-month

timetables, and I would be glad to put them into the record and

I think you would be interested in them and take a look at them

and see the mile markers and you can see our goal is to make real

progress.

Senator BIDEN. That is two functions. You only named—are they

the only two functions? In other words, what two—you said humanitarian. Are we going to secure the borders? Are we going to

secure the borders of Iraq? Is that a mission?

Mr. FEITH. Yes.

Senator BIDEN. Is that going to require troops on the Iranian

border? Is it going to—I mean, what is the mission? What are you

anticipating?

Mr. FEITH. Senator, it is hard to answer a lot of these what-if’s

because a lot depends on future events that we do not know. As

Secretary Rumsfeld likes to say, he says he does not know whether,

if there is a war, it is going to be ‘‘4 days, 4 weeks or 4 months.’’ A lot depends on, if there is a war, what the nature of the war

is, how much destruction there is, how much cooperation one gets,

31

how many Iraqi units defect. There are enormous uncertainties.

And the most you can do in planning is develop concepts on how

you would proceed, not rigid plans based on some inflexible assumptions about how future events are going to unfold.

That is our problem. You know that as well as we do. So what

we have done is we have been thinking this through as precisely

as we can in light of the uncertainties.

Now, on one question that you posed, just so that there is no lack

of clarity on that, if there is a war and if U.S.-led coalition forces

come into control of Iraq, then the responsibility for administering

the country in the immediate aftermath of the war—and the administration is the entire range of missions that you could imagine

that any responsible authority would need to perform for the benefit of the people of the country. That entire range of responsibilities falls to the military commander. It would fall to General

Franks.

The goal then would be, when he has those responsibilities in his

hands, to do the things that I outlined, that Under Secretary

Grossman outlined, in our opening statements, which is make as

much use of international contributions as we can so that we

spread the responsibilities and burdens, and help get as much

international involvement and legitimacy into our work there, to

work as quickly as we can to find Iraqis to whom we could transfer

responsibility so that it is clear that we are liberating and not occupying the country.

Those are the kinds of missions that we would perform. There

would be no question about who ultimately would be responsible if

we wind up leading the coalition that takes control of the country.

It would be the military commander. There would be no vacuum

of authority. But there would be a process that would begin immediately to try to bring us sector by sector into the transition phase

that Under Secretary Grossman talked about.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Biden.

Senator Hagel.

Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Gentlemen, thank you for coming before us this morning and we

are grateful for your leadership and your efforts. These are not

simple tasks, as you have laid out. There are no specific answers

to any of these questions.

But as I have listened to the exchange here, it seems to me, and

using, Secretary Feith, your last comment about international legitimacy, that if you are making the case—and this is what I am

understanding, the case that you both are making—that the great

uncertainties of a post-Saddam Hussein rest to a considerable extent on our coalition partners who will be with us, their role in

whatever we have to do, United Nations, NATO, IAEA—in fact,

you mentioned in your testimony, Secretary Feith—although you

did not read it, it is in here, reference to those organizations—then

are we not wiser to bring our coalition partners along here, rather

than laying down a time line, as we have heard the last couple of

weeks, either you do it our way or we will do it?

I think your arguments, at least this morning what I have heard,

argue very strenuously and I think correctly to working our way

32

along with our coalition partners. I might read a Newsweek piece

that came off the wire yesterday, and it quotes a State Department

official, not by name. I know that is strange in this town. But let

me read it to you because, Secretary Grossman, you might know

about this. This Newsweek story that appeared on the wire yesterday says:

‘‘Administration officials are keenly wary of a long-term occupation in the heart of the Arab world, where anxieties about Western

invaders date back to the Crusades. ‘Every day you get past 3

months, you have got to expect peacekeepers to have a bullseye on

their head,’ ’’ one State Department official tells Newsweek.

As you have laid out the framework for the office that we intend

to set up—again I go back to your original points—much of this is

uncertain. But can you tell this committee which nations specifically have committed specific resources to a post-Saddam Iraq?

Surely you must have some budgetary numbers. You mentioned a

supplemental. Surely you must have some numbers of people it

would take. Uncertain, I know that.

But as much time and precision that you have put into this—obviously you are proud of it and it is impressive—to disconnect that

from any budget numbers or timeframe or people seems to me not

to be very realistic.

So I would appreciate hearing from both of you on those questions. Thank you.

Mr. FEITH. Senator, the United States has been talking with

friends around the world on this subject for a long time. I hope that

Senator Biden’s remarks do not lead anybody to think that we have

not been engaging our various potential coalition partners in discussions on this subject. We have been. I mean, I could understand

that——

Senator BIDEN. Who?

Mr. FEITH. Well, I am reluctant to get into the who because of

the political realities and diplomatic realities, with which you are

all familiar.

Senator HAGEL. Excuse me, Mr. Secretary. If you are having a

problem now getting into it, what the devil do you think you are

going to have a problem when we get in there?

Mr. FEITH. Well, Senator——

Senator HAGEL. With real men and women on the ground and in

a war and trying to rebuild Iraq. And if you cannot define any of

this now——

Mr. FEITH. Let me suggest the following way to think about it,

which is the way we have been thinking about it within the administration. We have been talking with scores of countries about this

whole issue of potential contributions to a coalition effort in Iraq

for many months now. As we have these discussions, the countries

in effect fall into different baskets.

There are some countries that say: We are with you in very specific ways no matter what. There are other countries that say: We

will be with you in certain ways, and the ways range from, as we

were talking about before, contributions of combat personnel or access, basing, and overflight rights. or in some cases some countries

have specifically said: We are not interested in being involved in

33

the war, but we would be interested in being involved in stability

operations afterward.

But there is a great sensitivity, that many countries are not interested in having their role publicized because it depends on—they

are not interested in making public commitments until other things

happen, whether the U.N. acts or acts in a certain way, whether

there is another U.N. meeting or there is another, second resolution, or whether the second resolution says some particular formula

or not.

So we are not in a position, although we have had extensive consultations and we have ideas about who is willing to contribute

what—it would not be good coalition management for us to be publishing lists of what countries have told us they are interested in

doing under what circumstances. That is why we have to be a little

guarded in how we talk about this. It is not that we have failed

to talk to people and it is not that we have not pinned down possible contributions to the extent that countries are willing to be

pinned down at this point.

Senator HAGEL. Thank you.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Senator Hagel, with Doug’s permission, perhaps

if there was some way, Mr. Chairman, that we could transmit that

information to you in a classified way, we would be glad to do it.

It is all laid out——

The CHAIRMAN. We would appreciate that very much.

Mr. GROSSMAN. We are not trying to duck your question here,

but I think you can understand the difference between saying it

and giving you a list in public. But we are very glad to give you

an update on exactly where we stand in all of these consultations.

Senator HAGEL. If I might make one more point, Mr. Chairman,

and thank you for your indulgence. I go back to where I started,

and you gentlemen understand this better than most of us because

you have the responsibility of putting this together. You keep using

the term ‘‘coalition,’’ ‘‘our coalition partners.’’ Again I say, does that

not say something about the point of trying to bring our coalition

partners along with us, NATO, United Nations, Security Council,

because we are going to need them after this. And you have said

that. In fact, we cannot get to much below what you have just presented today because you do not know.

Thank you.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Senator Hagel, may I? I, with the chairman’s

permission, was going to respond to exactly that point. Again, possibly a difference in perspective, but I think if you go back to the

debate in this country in July and August of last year, when the

debate was about what is the United States going to do, is the

United States going to act alone, will the President of the United

States involve the international community in this, and then look

at what the President said on the 12th of September, which is what

I thought was a very effective speech at the United Nations and

essentially turned this debate around.

I think it was the beginning, sir, of a very public effort to bring

our partners along. We spent, all of us, 7 or 8 weeks—I cannot remember which one—negotiating Resolution 1441, which was a way

to bring partners along. You will remember when we started that

negotiation. What would you have all bet that it was going to be

34

15 to nothing? Not much. But 15 to nothing was the outcome, and

I think that brought a large number of people along.

I think the fact that President Bush has said last week that he

welcomes and would support another resolution in the United Nations would do more of that. And if you look at NATO, which, as

you and I have talked about a number of times, a very important

part of this, we took a lot of criticism for not involving NATO in

Afghanistan, like it or not. But Paul Wolfowitz went to NATO on

the 2nd of December or 3rd of December of last year and laid out

a whole series of things that NATO might be able to do in Iraq.

I think it is terrible what has happened these last few days with

NATO. But I must say, sir, from my perspective anyway, it is not

for the lack of us trying to bring people along. I think there is some

reluctance to be brought along in some of this.

But if you look at the statement of the Vilnius 10, if you look at

the statement of the 8 other countries in Europe, if you look at the

fact that 16 of 19 allies are prepared to move along with George

Robertson, who I think has done a wonderful job in this, we are

trying to do this. Are we 100 percent successful? No, sir, but I

think our objective is to meet your objective, which is to bring

along as many people as we possibly can.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we thank you for the response. I would just

say on behalf of both of my colleagues, Senator Biden and Senator

Hagel, that we are all of one mind that a lot of people have to be

brought along. Senator Biden has just shared with me a Washington Post survey this morning which indicates that two-thirds of

Americans are prepared to support military action if necessary, but

a huge number are not with us on what we are talking about

today. In other words, they have not even come to the table of understanding.

That is our fault here in the Congress. It is your fault in the administration. We are playing catch-up ball. And the same, as Senator Hagel has said, with our allies, who have publics likewise,

even if their leaders are up front affirming through the Vilnius letter and others their support.

Senator BIDEN. And 56 percent of the people in that poll say if

we have to stay for 2 years and spend $15 million a year, which

is the lowest estimate I have heard, they are against doing that.

And 46 percent of the Republicans polled who support going to war

with Iraq oppose staying for 2 years at $15 million a year—$15 billion a year. You have got a lot of work to do.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Feingold.

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank both of you gentlemen and I know you are getting some

pretty tough questioning. And these are the basic questions. I

guess what I am still confused by is, why did we give the President

a blank check to go ahead with this before we had the answers to

these questions? How can we expect our allies to join us when we

do not have the answers to these questions?

That is what is going on here. We gave the President the authority to go ahead and do this before we knew what we were really

getting into. So I frankly have sympathy for your task here, in that

we are trying to make this up as we go along. This is the fundaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 17:48 Jul 14, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 87678 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
35

mental question: What happens after, the day after or the 10 years

after?

I agree with you that it is a wonderful vision to liberate the Iraqi

people from Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi people need to be liberated

from Saddam Hussein. How exactly that can happen, how legitimately that happens, and at what cost are important questions.

But that has to happen.

But just yesterday the President asserted that the Iraqi Government is placing troops in civilian areas to create human shields for

its military. In light of this information and various informed scenarios focusing on the likelihood of urban warfare in Iraq, the

United States may well be drawn into fighting that results in fact

in heavy civilian casualties if we go to war with Iraq.

Then, under your scenario, we are going to turn to the same people who lost loved ones and were injured in the conflict and the

same people who have been told over and over again the lie that

U.S. sanctions are the cause of all their hardships in recent years

and we are going to tell these people that the U.S. military will be

governing Iraq and looking out for their welfare.

I know that many Iraqis will be delighted to see Saddam Hussein go. But I am also concerned that under these circumstances

the United States may well find itself asserting authority over

what may well be a substantially hostile people.

So let me ask you, what kind of stability can be consolidated in

such an antagonistic situation? And if you then factor in the many,

many actors who will be incensed by the notion of a U.S. occupation of a Middle Eastern country, I have to ask, what kind of conditions will U.S. soldiers be facing for months on end?

Mr. Grossman.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Senator, thank you. And I appreciate the fact

that you recognize where we are on this. If I could make one general point, which is that when you say that we need to do a better

job in putting out answers, I say that is absolutely true and I want

to report to you and to the chairman that Doug and I yesterday

asked that many, many, many of the slides and the briefings on all

of these things be declassified, so that we might be able to come

to you and show you the work that has been done on the humanitarian and reconstruction. That is a challenge for us at the moment, but I hope we will break through that over the next couple

of weeks, so that you can see that there are answers we would like

to give you in public. I apologize, we just cannot do that right now.

In terms of what are the challenges we face, all of those revolve

around two things, it seems to me: one, the commitment that both

Doug and I made to you that our objective here is to stay in Iraq

as long as it takes but not one day longer, and that will be a judgment that we will have to make as we go there if there is military

action; second, that if the United States is the authority in Iraq it

will be the job of that authority, of all of us, to make sure that Iraq

for the very first time in a very, very long time is run for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

I believe that is a case that can be made, and if it is a case that

can be made in the humanitarian area, in the reconstruction area,

and in the oil area, I think we will allow ourselves some space to

transit quickly to Iraqi authority.

36

For example, 60 percent of Iraq’s people today get their food

through the Oil for Food Program through a government handout.

The economy does not work. There is infrastructure there that has

been decaying the last 10 or 15 years. What we learned in Afghanistan was that if we could quickly do things that show people that

there is a tangible benefit to this change, then we are able to bring

people along.

I do not say to you for a second that this is an easy thing, but

I think it is a doable thing.

Senator FEINGOLD. Let me ask you this. I mean, obviously you

are operating with different scenarios.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator FEINGOLD. Can you give me some sense of how long this

might take under different scenarios? What are the different scenarios you are working with in terms of turning over the occupation from the American forces to the Iraqi people? You must have

some kind of a timeframe in mind. I do not mind if it is several

different ones, but some sense of what we are talking about here?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Sure. Let me sort of give you an insight into how

thinking has evolved on this. I think when Doug and I first started

on this 6 or 8 or 10 months ago we saw this as a rigid thing. We

would do phase one for x number of months, phase two for x number of months, phase three for x number of months. But as we have

learned more about this and as we have made more proposals to

our bosses, what we have come to conclude is that you could have

this transition take place at different rates in different places.

For example, let us say that you went into the Ministry of Health

and, after getting rid of the top x layers and dug down and found,

as you said or Senator Biden said, that there are very competent

people working in the Ministry of Health, that you might be able

to transition the Ministry of Health back to Iraqi control quite rapidly. But if you went over to the ministry of weapons of mass destruction, that might take a very long time.

Senator FEINGOLD. Give me one scenario where that is all done;

how much time does it take? Give me one estimate of how long you

think the entire process of turning all those over takes?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Twelve years.

Senator FEINGOLD. Twelve years?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator FEINGOLD. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Feingold.

Senator Chafee.

Senator CHAFEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think some of the feelings on both sides of the aisle here are

that there is a kind of a disconnect between the rhetoric we are

hearing on all the rosy scenarios and a strong feeling of what

might be another scenario and why are we not hearing some more

about a worst-case and what are we prepared for in that instance?

It seems to me worst case would be that this is not viewed as

or interpreted as a liberation. It is interpreted by many people, not

only in Iraq but around the region, as a war on Islam and then we

see all around the region, whether it is Jordan or Saudi Arabia,

governments toppled. This is a worst-case scenario.

37

How are we prepared for that? Not only, as we saw years ago,

looking back in history, did not Chiang Kai-shek and Mao get together to fight the Japanese? Will the Sunnis and the Kurds get

together to fight the invaders? What happens then? Do we have an

exit strategy? Or do you have plans? Are you being forthcoming?

Then is it on into Syria if we have problems there? Is it on into

Saudi Arabia if there are problems there? I think those are our

questions.

Mr. FEITH. Senator, it may be useful to take a step back from

this issue of post-war planning and just remind ourselves for a moment of why we are talking about any of this at all. On September

11, 2001, we got hit and it was a big surprise for the country and

the world, and it helped highlight that we live in a world that does

not unfold like a script written in advance.

We are living in a world full of uncertainties and some of those

uncertainties, which—I mean, I know that Senator Lugar was a

pioneer in helping call attention to some of the kinds of dangers

that weapons of mass destruction pose to us over a very long period

of time. What September 11 helped focus us on is that, as bad as

that problem of weapons of mass destruction proliferation was,

when you link it to the terrorist problem it exists in aggravated

form, because the whole concept of, for example, deterring

proliferant countries needs to be reassessed if it turns out that

those dangerous rogue states can use weapons of mass destruction

through terrorist organizations in a way that does not leave any

fingerprints and does not have a return address. You cannot deter

such a country.

So we are dealing with very serious threats and great uncertainties, there is no question about it. I think that many of the questions here reflect the frustrations that we cannot provide greater

certainty talking about the future. But we cannot. It is an essential

part of our national security thinking and in particular our defense

thinking, embodied in the documents that we use within the Pentagon for planning, it is an essential part of our thinking that there

are enormous uncertainties and you cannot answer a lot of these

questions precisely, but you can think about them as carefully as

possible.

When we consider what it is that is at stake and we think about

the risks to us, the President has decided that the risks are such

that we have to insist that Iraq disarm. He has said it is either

going to disarm cooperatively or we are going to lead a coalition of

the willing to disarm it by force.

We have been thinking for a long time about what happens in

the post-war period if we do have to disarm Iraq by force. But the

same kinds of uncertainties that you have when you are talking

about military threats apply to the post-war period. What we are

planning for is we are planning to ensure that we can fulfill our

responsibilities. We are looking to fulfill them in a way that takes

into account all of the considerations that have been raised here,

all of which are enormously important. We do not dispute——

Senator CHAFEE. I see the yellow light on. Do you have a plan,

either an exit strategy or some kind of planning if this turns into

a debacle, if everybody’s against us on this?

38

Mr. FEITH. We are planning—the short answer is yes, we are

planning for worst-case eventualities. What I would like to assure

the committee is that every one of the—— Senator CHAFEE. When will you share those plans with us?

Mr. FEITH. Well, we are in the process today and we will be

happy to talk further, both publicly or in closed session. Some obviously involve classified information, but some do not. The process

of—this is the first hearing you have had on the subject and we

are here and we will be happy to pursue the conversation with you.

What I do want to say, though, is that all of the anxieties and

the questions and the worst-case projections that you have made

I think are well grounded. I mean, these are all things worth worrying about and these are all things that we have in fact been worrying about.

Senator CHAFEE. I know my red light is up and I will just say

that in both of your testimonies it was all so rosy. It was democratization, without the understanding that, suppose we democratize

and an anti-American government is elected. It is a real possibility,

but it was not a thread of either of your testimonies, and that is

what I found surprising.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Chafee.

Senator Boxer.

Senator BOXER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I agree very strongly with Senator Feingold. The questions that

we are asking today should have been asked and answered before

the President was given unilateral authority to go into Iraq. Now

it is 4 months later, after he has got that authority, and you are

sitting here doing the best you can, and you are not giving us

much.

I agree with Senator Chafee’s point, you have given us a rosy

scenario. And the American people are smart. I think Senator

Biden said this from day one: They want to know the truth.

So if I go home and I am asked, you know, what is the worstcase scenario, what is going to happen to our men and women over

there, what is going to happen, I cannot give them an answer. It

is not enough for me to say, well, they are going to tell me next

week. They need to know.

You know, I have to say, maybe you cannot have one plan. I

agree with that. But you got to have four or five or six or ten for

every problem that we face. I have to say, Mr. Feith, you are being

very honest with us. You are saying there are enormous uncertainties. You have used the word ‘‘uncertainties’’ more than you used

any other word, and it is honest. But it is very disconcerting.

I can tell you, my people at home are anxious, and if they are

watching this they are going to be more anxious. I do not know if

they are more anxious about being told they have got to get duct

tape and plastic to cover their windows at home in case there is

a terrorist attack here, or listening to you say, gee, we just do not

know.

The things we do know are that there are enormous uncertainties here and we do not have answers. Now, I have read reports

produced by this committee, both sides, that say—some reports are

that 500,000 Iraqis might be killed, might. We pray to God if this

goes that way we do not have to kill anybody. We pray to God they

39

throw down their arms and we all sing Kumbayah together. We

hope that. That would be the most wonderful thing, you know, to

have peace without fighting.

But if it goes wrong and we do kill so many people, as Senator

Feingold says, as we try to run this country how are they going to

look at our men and women in uniform? Will they see them as liberators? Will we explain, gee, we had to do it; Saddam Hussein

would not disarm, so we had to kill 500,000 people? And will we

be alone?

I remember the first gulf war, how proud President Bush was,

and rightly so, President Bush I: These are the people who are

helping us, these are how many troops they are going in with, they

are going to be by our side. Here is how much money they are giving. And in the end, Mr. Chairman, 88 percent of the costs were

picked up by our friends.

I cannot tell my people at home what is going to happen. So do

we know if Saddam is going to use his weapons of mass destruction? CIA says yes. I do not know what your contingency calls for,

how we clean that up; whether he puts his oil fields on fire, what

is the ecodamage there; what happens next.

I just use this opportunity to say that our allies are trying hard

to resolve this another way. Speaking for myself, someone who believes that Saddam must be disarmed, he said he would be disarmed, he must act to disarm.

I do not think that we should be showing a lack of respect to our

allies, who today came out together, and one of them is a man of

whom President Bush said: ‘‘I looked the man in the eye. I found

him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. I was able to get

a sense of his soul. He is an honest, straightforward man.’’ That

is President Bush about Mr. Putin.

Well, Mr. Putin is standing today with several of our allies and,

as I understand it from today’s news, 11 of the 15 Security Council

members say the same thing: Give inspections a chance.

Now, as for me, we will see the next report by Mr. Blix on Valentine’s Day and it is going to be very important to see what happens

from there. But as we look here at post-war Iraq, I have a gnawing

feeling that we are already agreeing that, even though the President said he has not decided to go to war, that we are going to go

to war, without a lot of our allies.

I have to use this opportunity to say that as I think of the burdens that will be laid out, that will be on the shoulders of our men

and women there, without—‘‘who knows’’ is your answer as to how

much help we get moneywise or with people, our friends helping

us in the field—I say there is a lot more work that I hope you will

do with us, in hearing us.

As it is, this would be a precedent-setting attack, the first time

the United States has launched a preemptive strike. I know the

President feels he has everything going for him to substantiate

that attack. But as I look at all the scenarios, I think the best one

is if we can avoid war. That is the best scenario, and that we can

work with the people of Iraq to form democracy. And I still come

back to that and I just may be in a minority here, but I want to

say that.

Thank you.

40

Mr. FEITH. Thank you, Senator. If I may, I would like to make

a distinction between plans and predictions. When we have been

asked here this morning in a number of respects to give our assessment in the nature of a prediction of what is going to happen, how

long an occupation may take, how easily one might transition politically and the like, and it is in that regard that I stressed uncertainty, because we are not in the predicting business.

That is what I was referring to when I was talking about uncertainties. On the other hand, planning we have to do. And I think

that Senator Chafee’s point is a good one when he talks about

plans have to take into account a full range of possibilities, from

good case to really bad case.

I do want to assure the committee that when we talk about all

of the key functions that are going to need to be performed in postwar Iraq, we have thought about them across the range from worst

case to very good case. In the case of oil, for example, if Saddam

utterly destroys Iraq’s oil infrastructure that is the worst case, and

that has been taken into account. That makes for a horrific problem for reconstruction. It’s enormously expensive to repair it and

you do not have the oil revenues in the interim to repair it. But

we are planning with that in mind.

We have also planned for——

Senator BOXER. How much will it cost to repair it?

Mr. FEITH. I think the estimates are in the neighborhood of—I

do not have them precisely. I think they are in the neighborhood

of something like $8 to $10 billion.

Senator BOXER. And who is going to pay for it?

Mr. FEITH. Well, that is a question.

Senator BOXER. Thank you. There is uncertainties.

Mr. FEITH. I am not suggesting that—there are all kinds of ways

of handling that issue and we are studying the various ways of

handling the issue of oil and what kind of support there might be

in the world markets for investing in Iraqi oil after a conflict.

But oil is one example. Humanitarian relief, we have thought

through from best case to worst case the question of whether the

U.N. and other humanitarian relief agencies can get in quickly

with the large flow of food that they have been providing for years.

But we have also planned for a worst case where they stay out or

they are not in a position to provide food aid.

I do not want to belabor it by going through the long list of functions that we are talking about, but I do want to assure you that

your point is very well taken on the importance of doing one’s planning, not on the basis of a specific prediction, but on the basis of

having to deal with the range of possibilities from good to bad.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Grossman.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Just two points quickly. One is just to emphasize

the point that Doug just made and we have perhaps not made very

well today, that in all the areas, Senator, that you have talked

about—weapons of mass destruction, oil, humanitarian, reconstruction—there are very, very detailed plans that, as Doug says, run

from worst case to best case. As I was describing to Senator Feingold, I picked one out on aid, on aid, water and sanitation, running

from immediate post-conflict to 18 months.

41

So those are all available to you. We are glad to provide them

and we are glad to brief them in detail, because there are just

stacks of these things and I think we are trying to do this seriously.

Second, I just wanted to say that when you say that we would

like to disarm Saddam Hussein peacefully, that is of course our position as well.

Senator BOXER. Good.

Mr. GROSSMAN. And I do not believe, Senator, that it is any disrespect to our allies that we have a disagreement about how to do

that, in the sense that we believe that the reason there are inspectors in Iraq today is because the Security Council voted 15 to nothing for Resolution 1441. And we believe that there would be disarmament of Saddam Hussein if——

Senator BOXER. Mr. Grossman, my time is up, but can I say, you

say there is no disrespect. Listen to what they say, because I may

treat you in a way that I think is fair and you say, you know, the

Senator did not respect me at all. And I just think when you have

friends you have got to think about how they feel, OK, even if you

disagree. Maybe you call them ‘‘old Europe,’’ maybe it hurts their

feelings, you know.

Mr. GROSSMAN. I accept that. But there is one other group here

that deserves our respect and that is, in my view, the U.N. Security Council. And we have a 15 to nothing vote in 1441 and we

want to try to get a second resolution. So I think part of the respect

that we are trying to give to the Security Council is respect that

is deserved from others as well, if I could put it that way.

Senator BOXER. Thank you. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Boxer.

Senator Allen.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank both these

gentlemen for your testimony here and your answers to these questions.

In looking at this issue of military action, everyone wants all

sorts of certainty in what is going to happen afterwards. It is absolutely impossible to give an accurate projection or prediction as to

what will happen. This is akin to diagramming every play of a

rugby game. You do not know how it is going to come out, where

it is going to be fumbled, when you are going to have to pitch it

out and move forward.

I think that this uncertainty, though, should not paralyze us,

should not paralyze us from going forward with our goal, and that

is the disarmament of Saddam Hussein from these weapons of

mass destruction, the delivery systems, and his ties to terrorism.

War and its after effects are always situation-dependent. I am

one who likes to be guided by principles and I think that the principles that Secretary Grossman went forward with—that this is a

war to liberate the people of Iraq, that we want to obviously eliminate their chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction,

their nuclear programs and delivery systems. We want to eliminate

the terrorist infrastructure in Iraq, and of course safeguard the territorial unity of the country.

42

I think these are very important points to make to our allies and

those who may not be with us but are democracies, to understand

here are our motives, here are our goals.

The other thing that I would also mention—and this is frustrating—is that in this reconstruction if a war or military action,

is needed, I know that our military planners like to avoid as much

as possible collateral damage or civilian damages. This is very frustrating. The President mentioned it yesterday, in that Saddam

Hussein looks at the Iraqi people as shields. But I know that our

country puts the value of human life very high and will try to avoid

that.

Clearly, we are going to have everyone who is with us, whenever

these decisions are made by the Security Council or others, in the

event that military action is necessary. Those countries that are

with us certainly will participate. I am hopeful that those who do

may not see the need for military action, will in the future, will

join in and recognize the importance of security and rebuilding in

Iraq if a war is necessary. They do have valuable resources.

The bottom line is, no matter how uncertain or how difficult this

period may be, we do need to move forward. The people of Iraq,

and hopefully as many of them will survive any sort of military action as is necessary, will see the benefit of removing this oppressive, tyrannical regime. I feel that inaction or being paralyzed or

worrying endlessly and coming up with every excuse not to act— the world and the neighbors of Iraq will be much safer if that regime is disarmed from these chemical and biological weapons and

means of delivery.

So as we go forward there are a lot of these questions, but because you cannot answer or predict everything perfectly should not

be a reason for us not to act.

Let me followup on a few of these issues that have arisen generally from Senator Hagel and to some extent Senator Biden. The

nations—and I know you do not want to list the nations for diplomatic reasons. Do you believe, though, that the nations that, let us

say, may decide against participating in any military action to disarm Saddam Hussein will offer assistance in transitioning or rebuilding Saddam Hussein? And I put it in several categories: say

those that are in Europe and those that are neighbors, Arab countries? And I know you cannot mention—I would love to have the

listing, but could you give us a sense, do you think that they would

help in rebuilding even if they decide they are opposed to military

action?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, Senator Allen, I do. When we went to seek

assistance from the 51 countries that we identified as possible partners in this, we asked for assistance in three categories. One of

those categories was in post-conflict support and we got quite a

number of positive responses. As I said to the chairman and Senator Hagel, we are glad to provide that to the committee.

Senator ALLEN. Would that also apply for Arab countries that

are nearby as well?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator ALLEN. That is good.

Have you had any talks—this has to do with within Iraq—talks

with any of the opposition leaders? And if so, I do not want to

43

breach any diplomacy or efforts, but if you have had those talks

how would you characterize those talks, because those individuals,

opposition leaders, can be very important in a post-Saddam Iraq?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Do I take your question to be opposition leaders

inside of Iraq?

Senator ALLEN. Well, opposition leaders—you are not going to

have many inside Iraq who are alive.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Right.

Senator ALLEN. I am talking about opposition leaders externally.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir. We have had extensive conversations

with them. In fact, last August, Doug and I had the first meeting

with a group of six, a group of six opposition leaders, which we

thought was very successful, and we have continued on through the

President’s Special Envoy, Zal Khalilzad, who is actually in the

area now talking to opposition leaders.

As Doug very rightly reminds me, of course we do have conversations with people who are opposed to Saddam Hussein in northern

Iraq because of the great work that our people do and that they

do in terms of what is going on there.

Senator ALLEN. If I may followup, in these discussions, whether

external or the three major groups in Iraq, are they in agreement

with the guiding principles that you have enunciated in your testimony this morning?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, I think they are.

Senator ALLEN. That is important.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Allen.

Senator Nelson.

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Anticipating this post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, I ventured to Afghanistan a couple of times last year, went to Bosnia, to see what

I could learn. And I was struck, first of all that it always takes

longer in occupation. We thought maybe we would be in Bosnia for

a year and we are now in the seventh year.

I was also struck in Bosnia that, even though we were there in

a rather substantial military presence, there are war criminals on

the loose, one we think in Bosnia, the other one perhaps in Serbia,

the two most notorious. And I am just curious as to your thoughts

of how that might be different in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Well, we hope it would be different because we

hope that we would not x number of years later have these people

running around. As with everything else we have reported to you

today, there is a group of lawyers and law enforcement people

working on a plan to consider how to deal with Saddam Hussein,

his top lieutenants, his family, how to bring them to justice. That

is something that I know is very high on the priority list of our

military forces should military force be required.

These are decisions that also are headed toward our President,

but I believe you would find, Senator, if we had a chance to brief

you on them that the planning for this has been extremely well

done and is very well thought out.

Senator NELSON. Well, if that planning is well done and well

thought out and would be executed and be successful, perhaps you

ought to apply that planning to Bosnia.

44

Mr. GROSSMAN. Absolutely. But as you did, sir, we have tried to

learn in each area. I mean, when you say that we went to Bosnia

for what we thought was going to be a short amount of time, I remember talking to Senators Lugar and Biden. I mean, this was a

collective mistake, if I might say, on all of our parts in trying to

set a date instead of trying to lay out a series of goals and objectives.

I appreciate what Senator Allen said about these particular goals

and objectives. So, although I guessed for Senator Feingold how

long this might take in a specific project, what we are going to do

is be there until we have achieved these objectives.

Further, sir, I think it is fair to say—and I know we have shown

this slide before in this committee—it is also important to know

again the radical slide down of American forces in KFOR in Bosnia.

I think we have been quite successful there in doing what people

wish us to do, which is achieve certain objectives, but not maintain

large numbers of foreign troops if we do not have to.

So I hope we have learned some lessons. I take your point exactly and we would like to do a better job.

Senator NELSON. And I hope for you the same. But I will tell

you, I am highly skeptical that if we pulled out of Bosnia right now

if there would not be the continuation of the slaughter that there

was 7 years ago there.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Well, of course we are not pulling out of Bosnia.

Senator NELSON. But we are drawing down.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Absolutely.

Senator NELSON. That is what you said.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir. And we are very proud of that, because

we have been able to draw down and, with all due respect, although Bosnia-Kosovo are not perfect, it has not returned to what

it was 7 years ago.

Senator NELSON. The long and short of it is that it is going to

be a long time, and I am not arguing that. I am just stating what

has been hitting me in the face as a hard reality of life in a postwar occupation.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Absolutely.

Senator NELSON. In last September the CBO said that the U.S.

occupation force would likely require 75,000 to 200,000, at a cost— and this staggered me—a cost of $1 billion to $4 billion per month.

That is what CBO said. What do you think?

Mr. FEITH. Senator, I am just not in a position to predict that.

And I do not have at my fingertips even the work that has been

done within DOD on the subject, let alone the CBO project. But it

is something that I will be happy to get you our best thinking on

for the record.

[At the time of publication a response had not been received.]

Senator NELSON. Well, I would assume that the chairman, that

that would be one of the things that he would absolutely be insisting on.

Let me just finally ask. Today the New York Times reported that

General Franks said in an interview that the government was coordinating with the international relief organizations to prevent a

civilian crisis in the event of war. Can you detail to us who are the

organizations you have been working with and how will that work?

45

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, Senator. Let me take for the record the

exact number of NGOs. But what we are doing and have from the

very beginning is make sure that the NGO community and the

international relief organizations, some of them, the United Nations for example, are very tightly tied together with General

Franks and with CENTCOM and with all of us.

As I said previously, there is a meeting each week among 30 nongovernmental organizations, that both the Pentagon and the State

Department are represented. We are trying our very best to solve

their problems. They have been involved in the planning, in our

planning from the very beginning. President Bush in releasing $11

million to keep the planning going has been for precisely that effort.

As I said in answer to another Senator, these NGOs are absolutely key to our ability to get this job done. We learned that in

northern Iraq, General Zinni and I, in 1991. Without the help of

the nongovernmental organizations and the international organizations like the World Food Program, we cannot accomplish this task.

This is a huge priority for us and, as I said to Senator Boxer, I

think if you went through all of the aid ideas, for example, on the

areas that are in their responsibility, you would find NGO, NGO,

NGO, international community.

So we are trying to be lashed up with them as successfully as

possible. But I will provide for the record an exact list of who attends this meeting and what organizations they are.

[The following information was subsequently provided:]

NGOs in regular attendance at the State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration’s meetings on humanitarian relief in Iraq:

InterAction, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps International, World

Vision, Refugees International, CARE, Kurdish Institute, Catholic Relief Services,

Church World Services, American Refugee Council, International Medical Corps,

American Friends Service Committee, International Aid, Northwest Medical Team,

and Air Service International.

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Nelson.

Senator Brownback.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,

gentlemen, for being here and sharing the nitty-gritties of this with

this really difficult process. I was looking at this, comparing it to

Afghanistan. The thing about Afghanistan that is different—there

are a number of things different, but there was a process, a local

process, that loya jirga process, that everybody kind of agreed to

as a way that you can come at some sort of governance in Afghanistan. You can have the local communities elect representatives and

send them to a national kind of convention that had a long-standing system, and set up an agreement and buy-in by the population

of Afghanistan, and you can arrive at a system of governance there.

Afghanistan has a number of other great problems, but there was

a system that people could agree to.

Iraq, I have not been able to identify one, and I am gathering

really it is tough for people to identify. I have worked with the

Iraqi opposition for a long period of time now, with the INC, Iraqi

National Congress. They have had their difficulties. I was in London meeting with them in December. I know both of you gentlemen

46

have met with them. And they were really setting their differences

aside and doing a very nice job, I thought, of pulling together, and

a broad set of opposition groups.

These are exterior oppositions. They are working with people interior, primarily in the north, some in the south. But I was quite

impressed at how far forward they had gone, how much they were

cooperating and working together and really pulling together.

I appreciate your working with them, with the INC and with

other groups, although I do note, as the chairman did when he first

started your questioning, which must seem to you guys like hours

ago—it is like coming up, being in a dentist’s chair for hours, to

get us to press on you. There was a New York Times article today,

continuing to have this question of working with the INC versus

recruiting some additional new leadership.

To me this is the real nuts and bolts, one of the real nuts and

bolts tough problems in the transition period that you have talked

about. You have got a post-Saddam period and then within that

you have got to have some leadership arise, Iraqi leadership arise,

to run Iraq, because we do not want to run Iraq. We are not going

to run Iraq. It will be Iraqis that do this.

Is there still this level of debate within the administration on

whether to engage the INC or somebody else of leadership to come

forward from Iraq interior? Can you, if you can, disclose any of the

thinking that is going on about that very specific, yet critically important problem?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Let me try and then ask Doug for some help. The

answer to the question about whether there is still a big debate

going on in the administration about all this is no, sir. Doug and

I last July kind of looked up from our pencils and paper and said:

You know, why are we spending all this time fighting with each

other over what Iraqi opposition? We ought to do this together.

So you will recall perhaps that last August we invited the six

major groups, including, very much including the INC, to meet

with both of us together. And we tried to show them that we had

a unified front and we were hoping to encourage them therefore to

have a unified front. And I do not say it has anything to do with

us, but, like you, we see a lot of positives there.

So we are continuing to work with all of these groups. I know

that you know, Senator, since it is money that you all have authorized, we continue to provide the INC with a considerable sum of

money and am glad for the record to break that down over the last

few months. So the debate in this administration——

Senator BROWNBACK. Mr. Secretary, could I on that point?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, of course.

Senator BROWNBACK. I do not mean to interrupt you, but I just

want to make sure to get this before my time is up. The TV Liberty

that they were operating is not operating now and they are saying

that their lack of funds for being able to operate that television and

radio, which I think would be a critical communication component—I hope that can be resolved near-term.

Mr. GROSSMAN. We would like to get started with that TV and

radio right away again. We have money set aside for it. As I understand it, and I will be glad to give you a further answer, is what

47

we need is a clean request for TV and radio and then it can be

funded. But we will work on that.

If I might just say one word about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the

question of governance. Absolutely right, you are faced in a sense

with mirrors here. In Afghanistan you had no bureaucracy to speak

of and you had no money to speak of, but there was a loya jirga

process so we could see our way forward.

In Iraq, of course, there is a talented bureaucracy that we hope

we can kind of take the top off of and then use, and of course there

is money, there is oil. Yet the way forward, as you describe it,

through an established loya jirga-like system is not there. But it

is one of the reasons that we have spent so much time and so much

effort on these Future of Iraq Projects, so that we have a way forward, we have an idea for a constitution, we have an idea for laws.

Exactly as you say, those things then need to be legitimated in

some way by the people inside of Iraq. But we are not going to

show up there and then try to figure out what to do.

Senator BROWNBACK. I hope you will continue to work with these

outside oppositions along with inside oppositions. And I agree we

should not show up and say, OK, here is the new leader of Iraq,

but that we should use all of this talent that has been very dedicated for a period of years to confront Saddam Hussein, to remove

Saddam Hussein, and to liberate the Iraqi people.

I think one of the things we lose sight of here is how much they

are and have suffered, the Iraqi people. Their worst nightmare is

what they have been living, and I hope we can identify and see and

work with them very closely as we move on forward.

Mr. FEITH. Senator, when you asked about the INC it reminded

me that Senator Allen had raised the question whether the principles that we have laid out in general for the kind of government

we would like to see arise in Iraq are shared by Iraqi opposition

groups. One of the principal accomplishments of the INC was organizing conferences of multiple groups over the last 10 years or so

where they themselves promulgated principles that all of the major

Iraqi opposition groups now subscribe to, that are principles that

we support.

Now, I take Senator Chafee’s point that you should not look at

that through rose-colored glasses. We do not in any way underestimate how difficult the problems are going to be of getting these

people to actually work together and develop a kind of smooth cooperation in a country that does not have a history of a democratic

political culture and the kind of cooperation that we would like to

foster.

It is going to be very difficult and we do not want to be overly

rosy in projections about it. But nevertheless, we should not be

blind to the good news that at least there have been accomplishments at the level of principle, and the Iraqi opposition deserves

some credit for lining up behind the I think very admirable principles.

Mr. GROSSMAN. May I say something? Just one other thing, Senator, and that is that Zal Khalilzad has been out for a couple of

weeks talking to Iraqi oppositionists and why do we not just offer,

either to members or staff as you wish, a briefing when he returns.

I think it would be helpful to put all this into perspective.

48

Senator BROWNBACK. I think that would be helpful. I would note,

those principles are democracy, human rights, an open economy. I

mean, they are the basic things that we stand for, is what this opposition is pushing aggressively. These basic principles are ones

that will truly liberate the Iraqi people when they are implemented.

[The prepared statement of Senator Brownback follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK

It is a true shame that France and Germany have dealt a blow to NATO’s authority by blocking efforts of the majority of members from helping Turkey defend

against a possible Iraqi attack. It is a real measure of the French and German desire to undermine the American position that they are even willing to leave a fellow

ally out in the cold.

We have shown the world specific evidence of Saddam’s intent to deceive inspectors—with conversations between Iraqi military officials discussing the fact that

they are evacuating weapons and ammunition.

As if this is not enough, we have satellite photographs of the Iraqi military

digging holes, moving equipment or burying things at inspection sites shortly before

inspection teams arrived. This indicates that the Iraqis are aware of where inspectors are going—and therefore, these inspections are not random, and allow Iraqis

to avoid detection.

It is clear that Saddam is not disarming, is not cooperating with inspectors and

remains a danger to the world community. We must work with the Iraqi opposition

groups to end this threat and end the brutality he has imposed on the Iraqi people.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Brownback. That would be

helpful, to alert the gentlemen on that briefing. I think this would

be of interest to us.

I would just mention parenthetically, the committee tomorrow at

9:30 will talk about Afghanistan, governance of Afghanistan, and

work along our way there.

Senator Sarbanes.

Senator SARBANES. Mr. Chairman, first let me in anticipation

commend you for holding that hearing tomorrow morning on Afghanistan. I think it is extremely important, and I do not think we

are focusing sufficiently on that matter, and that an operation

which was initially largely successful may be slipping away from

us from lack of focus and lack of commitment of resources and support. I think it is a very important hearing.

Secretary Grossman, I have two questions I want to put to you

just very quickly. How many U.S. troops did we have in Europe

that we sustained there over a very long period of time? The figure

of about 300,000 seems to stick in my mind that we had in the region year in, year out, as part of the containment strategy of the

Soviet Union. Is that correct, that figure?

Mr. GROSSMAN. I think if you go back some years it is in the

300,000 range.

Senator SARBANES. Yes, it is down now.

Mr. GROSSMAN. I think it is considerably less today.

Senator SARBANES. I know, it is about 100,000 now, I think. But

for quite a sustained period of time when the tensions were up it

was at about 300,000, was it not?

Mr. GROSSMAN. That is my recollection.

Senator SARBANES. OK. And the other question I wanted to put

to you—I have been following the NATO issue right now dealing

49

with Turkey and I see that Turkey has just formally made a request, I think a day or two ago; is that right?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir, they requested consultations under article 4 of the charter yesterday.

Senator SARBANES. Yes, yesterday.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator SARBANES. Now, prior to this had the request for this

NATO support come from Turkey?

Mr. GROSSMAN. No, sir, it had come from the United States. If

you will recall——

Senator SARBANES. So the United States in effect was making a

request on Turkey’s behalf or substituting for Turkey, or what?

Mr. GROSSMAN. No. When Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz went to

the North Atlantic Council on the 2nd or 3rd of December—I apologize, I cannot remember which day—he wanted to lay out for

NATO and the Council the kinds of things that NATO might be

able to provide if we had to fight in Iraq, not just about Turkey

but generally. But two or three of the things that he proposed did

have to do with the defense of Turkey, air defense for example,

chem-bio defense, and we were hoping that we would start some

planning in the NATO military councils for that, for that effort.

Senator SARBANES. Well, under article 4 must not the country

itself make the request?

Mr. GROSSMAN. The country itself must make the request under

article 4. We were hoping, Senator, that it would not come to Turkey actually having to make an article 4 request. We were hoping

that the alliance would recognize, first, that it had a job, could do

a job in Afghanistan if it so wished; and second, that Turkey, being

on that front line, had some needs. We were absolutely hoping that

they would not have to pull out their NATO handbook and read article 4.

Senator SARBANES. William Nordhaus, a very distinguished economist at Yale, in December wrote a long article in the New York

Review of Books, ‘‘Iraq, the Economic Consequences of War.’’ In

that he points out that the CBO estimate that the occupation of

Iraq would cost between $17 billion and $45 billion per year. He

says this may be too low if the post-combat environment in Iraq is

hostile and its dangers resemble those on the West Bank more

than those in the Balkans.

What is your figure—I put it to both of you—on the costs of the

occupation per year?

Mr. GROSSMAN. The single most unsatisfactory thing we are

going to be able to do here today is not give you a figure. Secretary

Powell, Secretary Rumsfeld, both said that it is not a knowable figure. Secretary Powell said the other day he did not know the answer to that question, and if he did not know it I do not know it.

I apologize. We are stuck.

Senator SARBANES. You have no idea? You have no ballpark estimate?

Mr. GROSSMAN. So much of it, Senator, as the person you just

quoted, depends upon what happens. As Secretary Rumsfeld said—

I hope I get this right—you know, is it 4 days, 4 weeks, 5 weeks?

How much destruction is done by Saddam Hussein?

50

Senator SARBANES. Surely there must be some scenarios downtown. How long is this war going to last under your estimate, Secretary Feith?

Mr. FEITH. The quotation from Secretary Rumsfeld that Marc

Grossman was just referring to, he said: ‘‘I have no idea whether

it is going to last 4 days, 4 weeks, or 4 months.’’ And we do not

know.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Could I just say, though, that there is a lot—as

Doug said before, we are in a distinction between prediction and

planning. We have tasked a huge amount of planning and that

planning, as we are glad to show you, comes with a price tag. We

have an idea, for example, if we have to feed Iraqis for a certain

number of weeks, how much that will cost, how much to restore the

water systems. But that is, it is not a total set of figures, which

is why at this time, at this day, we cannot argue one way or the

other with an article either from CBO or in the New York Review

of Books.

Senator SARBANES. Well, what is your estimate on how long the

occupation would last?

Mr. GROSSMAN. Again, it depends on a number of things. It depends on how long the war lasts, how much destruction is done. As

I tried, probably not very well, to answer Senator Feingold, when

we started to think about this, Senator, we, I think both of us, felt

that there would be a start date, a stop date, a start date, a stop

date, for the various phases. I do not think that any more.

I think, for example, as I answered before, that, let us say that

you could go into the Ministry of Health and the bureaucracy there

except for the very top has not been perverted by this particular

regime. You might be able to turn over efforts at the Ministry of

Health to Iraqis before you might be able to turn over the ministry

for weapons of mass destruction, for example.

So we, as I said in my opening statement, we are trying to think

through this not so much in this day, that day now, but

transitioning authority as quickly as possible to Iraqis wherever

possible.

Senator SARBANES. Well, my time is up. I invite you to give us

your rosy scenario. Why do you not just give us your rosy scenario

of how the war will go and how the occupation will go and what

it will cost us?

Mr. GROSSMAN. We have actually been accused all day here of

doing nothing but giving rosy scenarios. I will repeat what I said

to Senator Feingold. He asked me my personal opinion, one scenario, one AID project only; he asked me, ‘‘how long will it take.’’

I told him 2 years. That 2 years is no better or worse than any

other estimate, sir, but I give it to you because I would like to answer your question.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Sarbanes.

Senator SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Coleman.

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, you have a difficult task before you, looking into the

future. Just a quick observation. I went to law school and law

school had a class called torts. The function of that class was to

look at everything that could go wrong, and it impacted lawyers.

51

When I had a chance to lead a city, I had to kind of hold my lawyers at bay at times. There are many, many worst-case scenarios,

but you would never lead a city—and we were able to lead my city

into better times—if all we looked at was the worst-case scenarios.

You could not lead a country if all you did was look at worst-case

scenarios.

I think, though, it would be very clear to say that a post-Saddam

Iraq is going to be a better place, fair guess, than Saddam in control of weapons of mass destruction, in control of biological agents.

Just as I know there has been a lot of discussion about Afghanistan, but a post-Taliban Afghanistan is a better place today. I

think few would argue that. Are there uncertainties out there? But

they are a better place.

My question goes to understanding the uncertainty and difficulty

you face, but the kind of answers that we are trying to get here

so the American public can feel more comfortable. I always believed

I had to have a path, I could look at a path with different variations on how to lead my city to a better place.

So my question then is, as you look at the possibility of a better

Iraq, perhaps not democracy as we know it, but understanding that

you have the Kurdish situation, understanding that you have the

Sunni-Shi’ite cleavages that are out there, in your planning and in

scenario and however you have done this have you laid out various

paths, various visions, to say, yes, we can pull those pieces together

so that there will be a brighter future? You are not giving us

money and you are not giving us time right now, but I need to

know have you kind of played it out and say, yes, you know, if a, b, and c happens we can create, we can have in place an Iraqiruled regime in which there is a place for the Kurds and there is

a peace with the Sunnis and the Shi’ites and, by the way, if Saddam has not destroyed the oil—and I really appreciate the comment that you made that the warnings are being sent out destruction of oil will be treated like release of weapons of mass destruction. And if you have still got that educated bureaucracy and you

have still got the infrastructure, tell me and let me know, is that

vision out there and can you talk a little about it?

Mr. FEITH. Senator, the short answer to the question of whether

we have some idea of how the different institutions of the government might come together is ‘‘yes,’’ that that is the subject matter

of the work that Marc Grossman talked about in the Future of Iraq

Project, where—one of the issues here is we understand that if

there is a war and we come into control of Iraq that we have major

responsibilities. And there is a certain American trait, a kind of engineering instinct. There is a problem, we go out, we solve it.

But at the same time that we have this thought in our head that

there are these problems and we may have ways of solving them,

we have in mind points that a number of the Senators here have

made that this country belongs to the Iraqis, it does not belong to

us. Even if we wind up coming in control of it, it is their country.

We have to concern ourselves with legitimacy, international legitimacy and legitimacy within Iraq.

We have to approach our task with a sense of responsibility, but

a sense of modesty. That is perhaps—the requirement to balance

constantly between taking into account what the Iraqis think and

52

what will work in Iraq and what will really be organic and function

well there, given the history and culture of that country and the

fact that we are trying to put it up to a level that it has never

achieved in the realm of good government, with broad-based, responsible government that takes into account all of the different

groups, as you are highlighting, in the country from the Kurds to

the Sunni Arabs to the Shi’ite Arabs and the Turkomans and the

Syrians—I mean, there are all kinds of groups there.

What we have done is we have worked with various Iraqi groups.

We have introduced our own thinking, we have brought thinking

in from other quarters, about what kinds of judicial reform, what

kinds of constitutional arrangements, what kinds of administrative

arrangements, could be successful in keeping the country together

as a unified country and providing both freedom and economic

prosperity to people based on the development of democratic institutions that might work.

It is very hard to tell you precisely what we plan to do because

so much, as we have talked about all morning, depends on how

events unfold. But I could tell you that a great deal of thought has

been given to the kinds of considerations that I think you rightfully

highlight as crucial to the success of our policy and the possibility

of happiness for Iraq in the future.

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Coleman.

Senator Dodd.

Senator DODD. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize

for arriving late. We had Alan Greenspan appearing before the

Banking Committee, so some of us who are on that committee were

necessarily away.

Mr. Chairman, of all the hearings we are holding on Iraq, I think

this is the most significant one, because I think most of us accept

the notion that the military conflict, while we hope it will go well,

we will prevail in this. It is the after costs and effects here that

really do require some thought.

I was not here for all of the hearing, but I am told anyway that

there is the reluctance of the administration to get into much detail

about cost and time. Certainly all of us here understand the inability to get too definitive about this. But I must also tell you, at least

express my disappointment as we try and lay this out, within some

parameters I think the American public have a right to know what

we are getting into here. Even if their scenarios do not turn out

to be quite right, it gives them at least some sense of it. And I am

disappointed that we cannot at least have some broader outlines of

what the time may be beyond what is included in the testimony.

So I would like to raise just a couple of questions because, Mr.

Feith, in your testimony here on page 2, when you talk about the

commitment, you talk about the length, that is a commitment to

stay as long as required to achieve the objectives you have just listed. And if you go with the five objectives that you listed there, the

idea that you are going to get these done in a couple of years seems

to me awfully naive.

I mean, part of what may be worthwhile here—I do not know if

we have done this at all, but to talk a little about the history of

Iraq. Maybe many people do not know the history, but the history

53

is one of sort of a cobbled-together nation at the end of World War

I by the European powers, principally England. So you have taken

over the last 80 years basically tribal relationships and created a

nation State, and for the last 40 of it, half that time, under a dictator.

When I read item No. 4 here, that is to safeguard the territorial

unity of Iraq, the United States does not support Iraq’s disintegration or dismemberment, now that looks to me like you are going

to be a little longer there than 24 months when you consider the

factions that are going to emerge.

I wonder if you might address that point. And in conjunction

with that, there has been some troubling news that has come out

that some of the exile groups in Iraq are forging a relationship with

very conservative religious elements in Iran, and I am very interested in knowing whether or not the secular State of Iraq may be

forfeited to something along more conservative religious lines that

Iran is under today in the aftermath of our efforts there.

So I want you to go into the history a little bit and tell me why

you think that nation-building here and holding this together is

something that can be achieved in, using your response to Senator

Feingold, 2 years.

Mr. FEITH. First of all, Senator, the 2 years was my esteemed

colleague Under Secretary Grossman’s estimate.

Senator DODD. You are passing the buck already.

Mr. FEITH. And I do not think I want to venture into the prediction business. The question that you ask about keeping Iraq together is a serious question. You are correct that Iraq is a country

that was manufactured, as it were, by the victorious allies after

World War I. It did not exist as a country before that.

But there are many countries around the world that did not exist

before World War I and that have developed a sense of national

identity and unity. It is our policy that we favor preserving the territorial integrity of Iraq and we think that that is important for the

stability of the region. There are many countries in the area that

have a strong interest in that and we share that interest. At the

same time, we do not——

Senator DODD. This is even after the weapons of mass destruction—let us assume we have eliminated those. We are going to stay

around then and try and build this nation?

Mr. FEITH. As we have been discussing, we understand that we

have a responsibility, if there is a war and if we lead a coalition

that comes into control of Iraq, we have a responsibility to do the

kinds of things that you alluded to and that both Marc Grossman

and I talked about in your testimony.

Senator DODD. Even if it is not their will to do so? There may

be some who prefer not to necessarily be under the nation State

of Iraq, but might seek some other alternative political structure.

Mr. FEITH. Well, there is a country of Iraq. It is our position that

its territorial integrity, the preservation of its territorial integrity,

is in our interest, and we have been told by the various groups that

we have talked about across the spectrum of Iraqi politics to the

extent that we can tap into it that there is unanimity in favor of

preserving Iraq’s territorial integrity among the major groups.

54

So I do not think that we have anybody that is arguing with us

in principle that Iraq should be broken apart.

Senator DODD. Could you touch on the comment just quickly on

the Iranian religious, to the extent is that report accurate? Are

there other communications, contacts, some relationship developing

between the Iraqi exile community and the religious conservatives

of Iran?

Mr. FEITH. There are. Iran is right next door and Iran has a

large number of Iraqi refugees in it and those refugees are connected with Iraqi refugees and exiles in other countries. So those

kinds of contacts exist.

Senator DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Secretary Grossman.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Senator, I feel the slight need to defend myself

against the charge of naivete here. Senator Feingold asked me if

I could name one date in one plan and I said 2 years, and the reason I did that is a number of the plans, for example from AID

about the humanitarian issues, run from the end of conflict to 18

months to 24 months.

I think, as we answered Senator Nelson, though, and as I said

to Senator Lugar and Senator Biden, I think it would be a big mistake for us to set some kind of a date. That is why we set these

principles, and these are principles that are hard to achieve.

Senator DODD. I agree. I do not disagree with that. I just think

when you start, even using your 2 years—and I do not want to play

‘‘catch you’’ with the 2-years. But I think we are talking about a

much longer time here.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator DODD. I think it is very important to be very level with

the American public about this. It is going to be very costly and

it is going to take a long, long time. And it is better to say that

up front in a way than to sort of delude people into believing somehow that this is going to be a short-term deal at relatively low cost,

particularly if we have to pay the bill ourselves. It is going to be

very expensive, it is going to take a long, long time, and we are

going to be there for years in putting this together, particularly if

we are doing it alone. And it is going to be very difficult. It is not

easy to do it.

I think it is better to lay that out than to sort of create this illusion somehow that this is going to be a relatively painless, shortterm deal. My sense is, while you are not necessarily saying that,

that is the impression that gets left. And I think that is a mistake.

I think it is dangerous.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Fair enough. If that is the impression we have

left, it is going to be hard and it is going to take long. In both of

our testimonies the phrase we used was, ‘‘we would stay there as

long as it took.’’

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Senator Voinovich.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a statement I would like to have inserted in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be made a part of the record.

Senator VOINOVICH. As we continue to confront the challenges

presented by Saddam Hussein in his pursuit of weapons of mass

55

destruction, it is clear that we must, as you have, give due consideration to what will be required in the aftermath in regard to our

efforts to disarm him. I think that we have to make it clear that

he has to be disarmed.

But I think that we have tried to emphasize today that the world

will judge the success of any U.S.-led initiative not by what happens to secure a military victory over Saddam Hussein should the

use of force be required, but instead by what is done to secure a

new lease on life for the people of Iraq and, I think also very importantly, for Iraq’s neighbors, who have had to live with the threat

of Saddam Hussein for a long period of time.

I think that it is also important to discuss, and I would be interested in your comments, the impact that our efforts will have to

help achieve a peaceful settlement in the Middle East, given the

role that Iraq has played in destabilizing the region. One of the

real questions among the Arab nations is, is this nation committed

to a Palestinian State? And until the terrorism is lessened, and we

know that Iraq is one of the prime movers in that terrorism, we

are not going to have an environment where we can move on and

affirm the State of Israel and create a Palestinian State.

I think that what should be talked about is the fact that this is

an important step in the right direction in terms of achieving that

goal that we are committed to.

I think it also should be made clear that, as others have said,

this is going to involve considerable resources, financial and otherwise, and it is going to require not only the long-term commitment

of the United States, but our partners in the U.N. and other allies;

and we need to tell the American people forthrightly about what

the costs would be.

I think that we ought not to hide it. I agree with some of the

other Senators here. We need to let everyone know that we are

committed to stay in Iraq as long as need be. And I think we ought

to talk about realistic numbers, not 2 years, 3 years. How long

have we been in Bosnia? 1992-1993. Kosovo, we have been there

since, what, 1999. And we have seen that if we do not have the

kind of commitment that we need to have, there can be consequences for example, my opinion is that if we had done our job

better in Kosovo we would not have had the destabilization in Macedonia.

You have got the Iranians on the border there. Who knows what

they are going to do. You have got the Kurds. Securing the border

is very, very important here. And I think it is really important to

our Arab friends and I think to our allied friends that we lay it out:

We are going to be there, we are going to get the job done; we hope

that you join with us. If you do not join with us, we are going to

have to run the books.

You know, that is not bad sometimes, because too often when we

have kind of divided up the responsibility, when something gets

done it does not go the way we would like it to go.

Now, you are talking about plans for the future and I want to

congratulate you and I hope that some of the Senators that spoke

to you today at least read, if they were not here to hear your testimony, I hope they read your testimony. I think you have done a

fine job of laying out all of the things that need to be done.

56

But I do believe that you need to talk more about how long you

are going to be there and be forthright, OK. I mean, we need to

do that. We need to level with the American people. We need to

let them know that if we go forward with this, it is going to be a

sacrifice and there are things in this country that we are not going

to be able to do because of our commitment there, because we think

it is important to secure the safety and well-being of people in our

country.

[The prepared statement of Senator Voinovich follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR GEORGE V. VOINOVICH

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. During the past several weeks, this committee has

continued to closely examine developments in Iraq. We have heard from Secretary

of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and our Ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, concerning the reality of the dangerous situation before us.

There is no doubt that the international community was loud and clear in its call

for Iraq to disarm last November, unanimously adopting UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1441, giving Iraq one last chance to comply with its international

disarmament obligations. However, as confirmed by chief UN weapons inspectors in

their January 27, 2003 report to the Security Council, despite our most sincere

hopes, Saddam Hussein has refused to disarm and continues to violate the terms

of UNSCR 1441.

Critical decisions will be made in the coming days and weeks. While the international community has yet to determine the next step it will take to address Iraq’s continued defiance of UNSCR 1441, the United States cannot and will not sit idly

by while Saddam Hussein continues to thumb his nose at the international community. The time has come for the United Nations to stand up to the Iraqi dictator,

once and for all. As Secretary of State Colin Powell argued in his presentation before the United Nations last Wednesday, ‘‘Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession

of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option,

not in a post-September 11th world.’’

As we continue to confront the challenges presented by Saddam Hussein and his

pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, it is crucial that we give all due consideration to what will be required in the aftermath of our efforts to disarm Iraq, whether through the use of military force or some other means.

The world will judge the success of any U.S.-led initiative not by what happens

to secure a military victory against Saddam Hussein, should the use of force be required, but instead by what is done to secure a new lease on life for the people of

Iraq and for Iraq’s neighbors, who have had to live with the threat of Saddam Hussein. It will also impact our efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement of the ArabIsraeli conflict. It is clear that this will involve considerable resources, financial and

otherwise. It will require not only the long-term commitment of the United States,

but also partnerships with the United Nations and our friends and allies abroad.

It will be costly, and we should not underestimate what will be required of us.

As we gather today, I am glad that we are continuing to raise and discuss important questions about plans to restore stability and promote a better life for the people of Iraq. There are long-term objectives to which we must commit ourselves, and

we must be prepared to see our efforts through during a period of time which will

likely span the course of many years, rather than months—with some saying it

could take at least ten years.

I again thank the chairman for scheduling this important hearing, and I thank

the witnesses for taking time to appear before the committee today. I look forward

to their testimony.

Senator BIDEN. Bingo.

Mr. GROSSMAN. Senator, may I, and on behalf of Doug, just

thank you very much for your comments on our testimony. We did

the very best we could and, as I said, this was really a consultation

rather than perhaps a different style hearing. I think we both also

would completely agree with the point that you make on the Middle East. If we could bring down levels of terrorism, which Iraq is

certainly a partner in this, of terrorism, we would all be a lot better

57

off and we would do much quicker the job toward getting toward

President Bush’s vision of a Palestinian State and an Israeli State

living side by side in peace.

Might I also say to you, Senator, and to the chairman and the

ranking member, we both have taken clearly the request and the

admonition that we start being able to talk about numbers in open

and we will both take that back. As I said, we are trying to declassify lots of this planning to propose it to you, and I recognize the

question of numbers.

Finally, I think it is very important that we be as straight as

possible with people about the enormity of this task. That is why

we both said we would stay there as long as it takes and why, Senator, I think it is important, as you said, that we set goals for ourselves and not dates. Our job is to get this job done that we want

to in Iraq. And as long as it takes, that is what it will take.

Mr. FEITH. Senator, on your point about the effect on U.S. policy

toward the Arab-Israeli conflict of a possible war in Iraq, I think

there are a number of connections. One is the one that you highlighted, that the Saddam Hussein regime has been a supporter of

Palestinian terrorism and in particular some months ago Saddam

Hussein offered payments to the families of suicide bombers to encourage suicide bombing. And there are other connections that they

have in support, that Iraq has over the years and currently provides to Palestinian terrorist groups who are blocking any hope for

progress toward Arab-Israeli peace.

There is an additional point also and that is if it is possible to

realize some of the plans that we have discussed here today to encourage the creation of democratic institutions in Iraq, one effect

of that if we are successful would be I think to encourage, to inspire, Palestinians to create for themselves democratic institutions

that would help create the kind of interlocutor for the Israelis that

could make serious progress toward peace much more realistic.

I think that was an essential point in President Bush’s June 24

speech of last year, when he talked about finding a way forward

for Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy through the creation of a new

leadership and better institutions on the Palestinian side so that

the Israelis have a proper interlocutor.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

I want to recognize the distinguished ranking member for a final

thought.

Senator BIDEN. I want to read a quote to you that was in a joint

session of Congress: ‘‘We of today shall be judged in the future by

the manner in which we meet the unprecedented responsibilities

that rest upon us, not alone in winning the war, but in making certain that the opportunities for future peace and security shall not

be lost.’’

That was Cordell Hull. That is from a report that I am sure,

knowing you both and as competent and bright as you are, you

have already read, by the Council on Foreign Relations.

What I was talking about, Marc, was not what exactly we are

going to do, but I was looking for the kind of chart that exists in

the back of this report, that lists out specifically key economic objectives, key security objectives. I know you have done that, and if

you have not done that you should all be fired. But I know you

58

have done that. We have a right to know what that is. We have

a right to know what that is.

The last point I will make: I remember, Marc, being with you

and then going down and seeing the President, and the President

said: ‘‘What do we do about Iraq?’’ And I said: ‘‘Mr. President, you

have not laid out for our European friends your vision of a postSaddam Iraq. What is your vision of a post-Saddam Iraq? Lay it

out in detail. What is your vision?’’

I think the more you flesh this out publicly for the American people and, quite frankly, to our allies, who you have shared some of

this with, the better chance we have of avoiding a war, because the

better chance we have of getting them, and if there is a war so we

do not leave General Zinni’s successors high and dry 2 years from

now sitting in Baghdad wondering why in the world we are putting

money into a tax cut or into Medicare instead of giving them all

the money they need.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just thank both of you for the generous

contribution of your time and thought to this. I would just comment that much has been made of Bosnia and Afghanistan and the

learning experiences there, and likewise the problem of public opinion with regard to both of those situations and this one. My view

is that we really have to outline, and you have helped us enormously and hopefully will continue to do so, what the stakes are

for our country and the totality and responsibilities that entails.

I would just say that at least most of us around this table are

among the vanguard of the faithful who stood fast, whether President Clinton was threatened or President Bush was threatened

with a congressional vote to pull out. People who are exasperated

with having anyone left in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan make

these motions, and they arise suddenly. They are impulsive, they

are emotional, and they come from the people of the United States

who are tired, who did not understand why we were over there to

begin with and what we are doing.

Now, we know that, and we know that Iraq is a very, very large

undertaking, involving billions of dollars and many years. And if

there is not a buildup of public consensus now, maybe those of us

around the table, and the two of you, will be arguing strenuously

that we have let down the Iraqis, the world, the United States, and

so forth, and people will run right over us.

That is why it is so important—and you are doing this on behalf

of your principals and the President—to share with us as much as

you can, as quickly as possible. That is the reason the committee

has had four significant meetings in a week and a half and another

one tomorrow. We are pushing our members to the floor to get opportunities like this one. Now, 13 members have questioned you

today much more extensively in the 5 minutes they were allotted.

And your answers likewise have been extensive, as they should

have been.

So we are almost at the 3-hour mark in the hearing and we still

have a distinguished panel ahead of us. But we thank you very,

very much and ask for you to stay closely in touch.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much.

Mr. FEITH. Thank you.

59

The CHAIRMAN. Now it is a privilege to call before the committee

Colonel Scott Feil, the executive director of the Role of American

Military Power, Arlington, VA; General Anthony Zinni, retired

former Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command, Washington, DC; and Professor Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A.

Burke Chair for Strategy, Center for Strategic and International

Studies in Washington, DC.

Gentlemen, I am going to ask you to testify in the order in which

you finally have been seated or reseated and have accommodated

staff there very diplomatically. I will ask first of all for General

Zinni’s testimony, then for Colonel Feil, then for Professor

Cordesman.

Let me just say at the outset, in the event you wish to submit

your statements in total for the record, all will be published, so you

need not make that request, but proceed as you wish with your testimony.

General ZINNI.

STATEMENT OF GEN. ANTHONY C. ZINNI, (USMC, RET.),

FORMER COMMANDER IN CHIEF, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND,

WASHINGTON, DC

General ZINNI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the approach I am going to take in my comments

really goes back to about 1998, when we actually looked at this situation. I was the commander in chief, I guess now combatant commander—I cannot say ‘‘commander in chief.’’ I was the combatant

commander of U.S. Central Command and we had just gone

through a string of confrontations with Saddam Hussein. We mobilized troops and brought them to Kuwait under Vigilant Warrior

and a set of other exercises, and we had bombed after the

UNSCOM inspectors were forced to leave.

At that time what concerned me was that if we had to execute

our war plan I was confident in the first parts of it, the military

parts; I did not have the same degree of confidence in the phases

following, the post-conflict environment. I had personally served in

Somalia, three tours. I was in northern Iraq with the Kurds. I was

in the former Soviet Union when we tried to do some reconstruction work there, and I did the planning in Bosnia when I was on

the European Command staff.

I knew what could be involved in everything from basic humanitarian operations to full reconstruction or nation-building. I worried about another scenario that was not addressed in any of the

war plans and it was the implosion of Iraq, not the explosion. We

always assume that the war would kick off by Saddam invading or

re-invading Kuwait or doing something unacceptable that caused

our response. But we saw, and our friends in the region saw, fissures and cracks, admittedly small at the time, but could lead to

a collapse.

I thought that a collapse, a collapsed State of Iraq, would present

the same problems as a post-conflict State of Iraq. I asked the

interagency to come together to work a plan. I was interested in

what we were going to do. Frankly, there were reasons for this, not

only to identify the problems of what had to be done, but I did not

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want the military to be stuck with this problem, as is always the

case.

We did that, I must say with mixed results. I cannot say I had

enthusiastic support from all agencies, but I did from some. And

it helped us identify some of the problems. I would point to the

Council on Foreign Relations studies and many other studies, studies done by Tony Cordesman and others, that have listed what has

to be done. But few studies tell you how to do it, and that was my

concern.

I want to make one other point before I sort of get into what I

discovered in doing this. The combatant commander does not go

home. The idea that there is an exit strategy or we leave is naive.

You stay. The gulf war may have ended in 1991, but CENTCOM

for 12 years after was in Iraq, flew it over, ‘‘no-fly zones,’’ ‘‘no-drive

zones,’’ maritime intercept operations, occasional bombings—an average presence of 23,000 troops from all services. The war never

ended.

We are not going to go home from whatever we do in Iraq. There

are things in this part of the world that are too important for us

to think that this is a go in, do the job as best we can, and pull

out.

I want to address the issue of anything is better than what you

have. Senator Coleman, I would say that we threw the Soviets out

of Afghanistan with the idea that, Soviets out, got to be better than

anything can follow, and we left them with the Taliban eventually.

So anyone that has to live in this region and has to stay there and

protect our interests year in, year out does not look at this in sort

of finite terms, as a start and an end, as an exit strategy, as a 2-

year tenure. As long as you are going to the have a U.S. Central

Command, you are going to be out there and have to deal with

whatever you put down on the ground.

What I felt the first question I would ask if we went in, which

was sort of addressed by Marc Grossman: What is it you envision

as an end State? Is it a transitioned Iraq, a magnificent democracy,

or is it something less than that? I mean, is it truly this transformed Iraq that we have heard about? Or are we just going to get

rid of Saddam Hussein and hope for the best with some decent law

and order, territorial integrity basically put in place, maybe a federation of States that operates on their own?

What is it that you want? If you do not have the vision going in,

then the military and all the other agencies of government and the

international agencies do not know where to go.

I saw the problem in four areas. The first area was security, and

I would just give you an example of the kinds of things—this is certainly not all-inclusive—that I saw we had to do on the ground. We

had to under the security dimension maintain law and order, provide for force protection, be prepared to do peacekeeping missions,

protect threatened groups, deal with civil unrest and acts of retribution, counter external threats, and develop local security capabilities. That is just a few. I mean, this list could go on and on.

The second part was the political part, and that would require

such things as establishing an interim or transitional government,

laying the foundation for a final form of governance, ensuring coordination of all these activities—the political element will have to

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be the lead—developing the principles and procedures for establishing civil functions, dealing with procedures for accountability,

and coordinating the regional and international involvement that

we might have.

The third area was the economic area, and here I felt this would

involve dealing with issues such as energy production, employment

restructuring—just by the way, about 40 percent of the paychecks

come from the government in this country, and if the government

goes down where are the paychecks coming from?

In addition to that, we saw that regional economic impacts would

have to be taken into account. This is not only going to affect Iraq.

It is going to affect Jordan, it is going to affect Kuwait, it is going

to affect countries around the country and in the region economically, too.

We have to deal with the status of foreign debt and war reparations. Everybody is talking about pumping oil and we will do this

to reconstruct the country. What about the foreign debt and the

war reparations that are still owed? There are others out there

that have claims to the money and the production. Who will sort

that out?

We have to restructure the economic base. I think that has been

addressed by the previous panel, about how it is not the kind of

economic base that will allow for a country that is solid in any way

economically for the future. And we are going to have to solicit and

manage donor contributions.

The fourth area I titled recovery and reconstruction. This begins

with the immediate and long-term humanitarian needs, and again

that has been described here and you can imagine what this could

be based on what kind of catastrophe the war causes and Saddam

generates. We are going to have to be involved in infrastructure repair and replacement, consequence management, WMD accountability, and the reestablishment of services throughout the country.

Now, I wrote myself ten little lessons learned if I ever had to do

this and I would just like to go through these in conclusion. The

first thing I said to myself was each of these four areas needs a

separate structure. You cannot saddle the military with all these

functions and you cannot address these functions without an organization to deal with them. That does not mean that some parts

of the security organization, for example like the military, might

not help out in recovery or humanitarian needs. But you need a

separate, distinct organization that is running this on the ground.

The second point is everything has to be coordinated. I have seen

the disasters in Somalia and elsewhere when coordination mechanisms fail. Those mechanisms for coordination have to be sold, they

have to be established from the lowest remote point on the ground

to the highest decisions that may be made back here or in New

York or Brussels or wherever.

The third point is that the resources and the organizations required must be identified, provided, and efficiently and effectively

managed. The military cannot be stuck with this problem. We do

not do economics and we do not do political business very well. We

will do the security piece and we hope we can train and pass that

off eventually, but it is going to be tough.

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These efforts must be planned for and the structures and resources established before the military action begins. The effort

does not start after military action, but runs parallel to it. There

cannot be any gaps. If we think we are going to win the war, stop

the shooting, and start this process, we are in for a disaster. It is

going to start concurrently and run parallel and run long after the

fighting stops or subsides.

We should do everything under international institutions if at all

possible, and I think the reasons for that have been laid out and

I will not go into them. Our motives will always be suspect in this

endeavor and it will be difficult to get partners in a messy dayafter business. But the cover of international organizations will

make this easier. International organizations, private volunteer

agencies, nongovernmental agencies, are critical to success. They

have to be empowered, encouraged to do the necessary work, and

they have to work in close coordination with whatever we do on the

ground.

My other point is you need somebody in charge. The disaster of

Somalia—when I got on the ground in Somalia I saw five separate

military chains of command, not to mention the differences in the

humanitarian and the political end of the business going on on the

ground and the reconstruction. Somebody has got to be in charge.

That does not mean that somebody commands forces and agencies,

but has the coordinating authority. And whatever agency or individual that is going to take charge of this thing has to appoint

somebody on the ground that runs the show.

Remember, the commander in chief, who we have now identified,

as I heard in this previous discussion, as the leader here, has a region to run that just happens to have a few other problems in it,

too. I do not want to speak for General Franks. He does an outstanding job in my view and he was a successor that I recommended. But he has more things to do than just run a post-conflict Iraq.

Internal order will be the most critical factor in keeping positive

momentum and progressing toward full reconstruction. No. 1 task

is keeping order in this country. The tribal retributions, the revenge killings, the opposition groups and others that will be jockeying for position, opposition groups that will stream across the

border, all sorts of things can disrupt this.

There are things in this country that we are going to have to

deal with that no one has really talked about. There is a major Iranian opposition group in here, the MEK. What do you want me to

do with that if I am the commander in chief? Do I lock them up,

do I send them back across the border to be slaughtered? Exactly

what happens to them?

There are millions of little issues like this that are not talked

about, that are going to be major problems when you are on the

ground, and whoever goes in is going to have to have the guidance.

My eighth point is that images in this region are everything, particularly in the early stages of the mission. We are going to need

intelligent and active information operations that will make or

break the mission from the very beginning. What appears on AlJazeera TV and everything else in the region is going to determine

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success, maybe even more so than the actions on the ground, and

all the explanations afterwards will not counter those first images.

The regional nations and agencies should be a part of this effort

if possible. We need Islamic agencies, Arab agencies, involved in

this process. At the same time, regional involvement that works

counter to the objective has to be prevented. Now, we are going to

have to pick and sort through those pretty carefully. There may be

a lot of regional powers and interests that rush in there that do

not have the same objective as we do.

The final point is that the decision on the scope of this vision has

to be made right away. Do you want a transformed Iraq or do you

want simply a transitioned Iraq? Everybody in the region, not to

mention the world, will be watching what we leave in this particular situation.

And we had not better disappoint the region, as we did when we

pulled out after the Soviets were expelled from Afghanistan. We

have a situation in Afghanistan where it is on the edge now and

people are watching that, old friends like Pakistan who felt disappointed and betrayed—not necessarily they were; they feel that

way—and certainly Afghans that feel that way.

Reconstruction of a nation is a tough job. And I would just make

one pitch for my brothers that are still in uniform: Do not stick

them with this mission solely.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of General Zinni follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GEN. ANTHONY C. ZINNI, U.S. MARINE CORPS (RET.)

While I was the commander of the U.S. Central Command, we ran an inter-agency exercise to address issues dealing with a post-war Iraq or an Iraq that imploded

and required our intervention. I did this because a number of leaders in the region

expressed concern about our ability to deal with these issues and because I felt we

had not planned for these as well as we should have. In addition, from my experiences in a number of humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in northern Iraq,

Somalia, Bosnia, the Former Soviet Union, and elsewhere, I knew that the possible

scope of the problems and the difficulty of the tasks required much more planning

and preparation. I also knew that other government agencies had to be involved in

this planning since the requirement is not solely a military one. My comments are

based on this background.

In addressing the issues that might be faced in a post conflict Iraq, the first question that has to be answered deals with the end state envisioned or desired. Do we

want to transform Iraq or just transition it out from under the unacceptable regime

of Saddam Hussein into a reasonably stable nation. Transformation implies significant change in forms of governance, in economic policies, in regional status, in security structure, and in other areas. Without a determination of the scale and scope

of change desired, it is not possible to judge the cost and level of effort required.

Certainly there will not be a spontaneous democracy so the reconstruction of the

country will be a long, hard course regardless of whether a modest vision of the end

state is sought or a more ambitious one is chosen.

We should be careful whose predictions of potential outcomes of the situation that

we accept. No one can be sure about exactly what the scope of the problems will

be once military action begins. We can only provide a broad bracket of the scope

of the potential challenges we would face. The ‘‘it depends’’ answer to assessments

will be the best analysis we can offer in most cases. A reasonable middle of the road

assessment is probably prudent for planning. Overall it will not be as good as the

optimists predict or as bad as the pessimists describe.

A lot of thought has been given to the kinds of problems and tasks that we will

face in the aftermath. I have read several recent studies and pieces produced by

groups of knowledgeable people. Generally these works have, in my opinion, captured the broad requirements and the issues very well. Defining the problem, however, is only half the task. The other half deals with how you solve the problem.

I have not seen a lot of specifics in this area. By this I mean descriptions of the

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organizations needed, the assignment of responsibilities, the lines of authority, the

coordinating mechanisms, the resources necessary, and other hard recommendations

on what is needed on the ground.

There are four areas or categories that all efforts will fall under. These are the

security, political, economic, and recovery/reconstruction dimensions of the problem.

They cannot be worked separately or in sequence, so close coordination between

these functional areas is vitally important. Also, they do not begin after military action starts but must begin ahead of the fighting, run parallel to it, and continue

well after it ends or subsides. The tasks in each of these areas will be considerable.

I can offer a few examples for each.

The security dimension will require tasks to be performed such as maintenance

of law and order, force protection, peacekeeping, protection of threatened groups,

dealing with civil unrest and acts of retribution, countering external threats, and

developing local security capabilities. The political part will require such things as

establishing an interim or transitional government, laying the foundation for a final

form of governance, ensuring coordination of all activities, developing the principles

and procedures for establishing civil functions, dealing with procedures for accountability, and coordinating the regional and international involvement. The economic

area would involve dealing with issues such as energy production, employment restructuring, regional economic impacts, status of foreign debt, restructuring of the

economic base, and soliciting and managing donor contributions. The recovery and

reconstruction element will deal with the immediate and long term humanitarian

needs, infrastructure repair and replacement, consequence management, WMD accountability, and the reestablishment of services. Again, these tasks are just examples and certainly are not the complete requirement; but, they give a sense of the

scope of the post conflict demands.

I would offer several points of advice from my experiences and analysis of what

has to be done in a post conflict environment.

1. Each of the four areas mentioned needs a separate structure, on the

ground, to work the tasks in that area. That doesn’t mean that organizations

with primary duties in another area cannot be tasked to support, such as the

military, a part of the security element, assisting in humanitarian efforts; however, it does mean there has to be a distinct organization accountable and in

charge of each of these functional areas.

2. Everything must be closely coordinated. A coordinating mechanism(s) needs

to be in place and clear lines of authority must be established. There will be

natural friction between the areas so, at some level, there must be an ultimate

authority that can provide immediate decisions and deconfliction directions.

3. The resources and organizations required must be identified, provided, and

effectively managed. The military cannot be stuck with the whole mission as

has happened in the past.

4. These efforts must be planned for and the structures and resources established before military action begins. The effort does not start after military action but runs parallel to it. There should be no gaps.

5. We should do everything under international institutions if at all possible.

Our motives will always be suspect in this endeavor and it will be difficult to

get partners in the messy ‘‘day after’’ business, but the cover of the international organizations will make easier, maybe even inviting. International

agencies, private volunteer agencies, and non-governmental agencies are critical

to success. They must be empowered and encouraged to do the necessary work

in close coordination with our governmental agencies.

6. You need someone in charge on the ground. That doesn’t mean that person

has to command all forces and agencies but it does mean he, or she, has to have

coordinating authority.

7. Internal order will be the most critical factor in keeping positive momentum and progressing toward full reconstruction. This task will be the priority.

8. Images are everything, particularly in the early stages of the mission. Intelligent and active information operations will make or break the mission from

the beginning.

9. Regional nations and agencies should be a part of the effort if possible. Regional involvement that works counter to the objective has to be prevented.

10. The decision on the scope of the vision must be made early. Is it Iraq

transformed or Iraq simply transitioned?

This is a broad description of the requirement as I see it. Certainly there are experts in each of the areas I mentioned who are far better qualified than I am to

65

address the specifics in their area of expertise. I am happy, however, to answer any

of your questions as best I can.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, General Zinni. Without knowing what is going to happen with our next two starring

witnesses, I just thought that was a boffo performance. We are prepared to send you on the road, and I appreciate it very, very much

and we have all made notes.

Now, Colonel Feil, we have had you here before. We appreciated

once again your insights at that time and please proceed today.

STATEMENT OF COL. SCOTT R. FEIL, (U.S. ARMY, RET.), EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ROLE OF AMERICAN MILITARY POWER, ARLINGTON, VA

Colonel FEIL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to—I do not

have a cane or a straw hat, but I will try to do as good a job as

General Zinni.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and members

of the committee, sir. The tremendous challenges that would face

the United States and its partners in Iraq can be organized into

our analytical categories that we used in my project of: security,

economic and social well-being, justice and reconciliation, and governance and participation. While those groupings are useful for

analysis and for organization and for the application of resources,

it is imperative that any approach to Iraq in a post-conflict situation begins with a presumption that only a comprehensive plan, executed through integrated yet decentralized actions, will be successful. While security is the foundation for post-conflict reconstruction efforts, progress in those other three areas have direct

impact on the long-term internal and external security capabilities

and the situation of Iraq.

The general security tasks that need to be accomplished after a

conflict in Iraq have been addressed and are fairly straightforward,

but they are larger in scale and resources required than anything

we have seen in the recent past. First, the regime must be deposed.

The leadership must be found and, if alive, detained for purposes

of either standing trial as international war criminals or participating in whatever justice mechanism the Iraqi people determine

meet their needs.

Second, the security services must be dismantled and reorganized. All of Saddam’s special security organizations, organized for

the protection of the regime, such as the Military Intelligence Service, the Military Security Service, the Special Security Service, the

General Intelligence Directorate, the General Security Services,

and the Special Protection Apparatus—as you can see, he has a lot

of organizations devoted to his protection—have to be disbanded

and their members detained and vetted. That may number up to

50,000 people right there.

Those internal security forces performing the day to day enforcement of civil and bona fide criminal law, as opposed to political repression, must have their leadership changed. But the bulk of the

rank and file will be essential to the preservation of order. The national police force and the frontier guard, totaling perhaps an additional 70,000 men, must have their leadership reorganized.

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The level down to which commanders will be removed will vary

based on their record and the overall policy. The leadership of the

national police and the border guard should be constrained by thorough monitoring and joint operations with international civilian police deployed throughout the country. The process of recruiting,

training, and organizing those civilian police and police monitors,

numbering about 4,000 to 5,000 in my estimate, must begin now.

The Baath Party needs to be completely disbanded and its leadership detained and put through a vetting process. Within the context of dismantling the regime, the bureaucracy must be reorganized. Those elements that were used as instruments of repression

and to protect the regime must either be disbanded or redirected.

One of the first ministries to be thoroughly revamped must be the

Ministry of Information.

Those involved in technical work or the provision of services

must be vetted, retained, and used by the military and civil administration to provide essential services to the population. To date

there have been discussions and planning, but the most glaring gap

in the above areas has been the hesitance to organize civilian police

and police monitors to integrate with the coalition military to provide a seamless security structure.

The Iraqi army must be reorganized. The Special Republican

Guards and the Republican Guards will have to be dismantled. The

default assumption must be that the members of these organizations are not qualified to continue to serve in a reformed Iraqi

army unless proven otherwise. The national army will need new

leadership, but once again the rank and file should be amenable to

retraining and reorientation. This is easier said than done and will

require significant investment of coalition forces in time and labor

to conduct the disarmament and demobilization of hundreds of

thousands of soldiers.

The reduction in security manpower means that up to 300,000 to

400,000 men will be released into the economy. During the reorganization process, many of the soldiers in the Iraqi army, excluding

the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard, may be used

in supervised public works projects or closely monitored and supervised security tasks.

Concurrent with the removal of the regime and the reorientation

of the security forces, coalition forces must continue the effort to

seize and control the Iraqi WMD program in its entirety. This objective will be a primary effort during the military campaign and

it must continue at the same level regardless of the progress made

in any conventional combat that discovers those elements of the

WMD program.

Just from the public record of what Iraq has been unable to account for since 1998, this is a massive undertaking. In addition to

controlling the weapons and the delivery systems themselves, facilities and records will need to be secured. It is expected that almost 70 Presidential compounds alone may have evidence of WMD

programs. Securing and searching those compounds will be laborintensive and require significant ground forces to ensure entry and

control.

Finally, finding, detaining, and debriefing personnel involved in

the WMD programs will be essential. It has taken 4 months of inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 17:48 Jul 14, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 87678 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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spections to speak to a handful of the 1,000 scientists and engineers believed to be engaged in WMD programs. Integrated military and civilian teams will have to fan out and work in the cities,

the countryside, and along the borders to ensure that no weapons,

documents, or personnel leak out of the country.

Security for the population is the third high priority task. Here

much depends on the course of the fighting that results in the removal of the regime and the seizure of the WMD program elements. Clearly the potential for humanitarian crisis is large. There

are several factors that contribute to this situation. Due to conditions imposed by a number of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, humanitarian aid agencies do not have the infrastructure established within Iraq comparable to what they had in the Balkans

and Afghanistan. Therefore the immediate administration of humanitarian assistance will fall to the government agencies, either

military or civilian, that arrive during the course of combat operations.

Should Saddam’s forces withdraw into the cities and conduct

urban warfare, there will be increased civilian casualties, which

will put additional burdens on military and civilian medical assets.

A qualitatively different problem is very possible with the spread

of biological or chemical contamination. This could come about as

the result of overt employment by Saddam or his military leaders.

There is also the risk of inadvertent release based on action by coalition forces, given that we will not have perfect and complete intelligence on the location of Iraq’s WMD and may destroy facilities

containing stocks of chemical or biological weapons.

In either case, military assets for chemical and biological reconnaissance and decontamination are limited and will be primarily

occupied with supporting coalition forces. There are no significant

assets other than coalition military units that have a capability to

assist a contaminated civilian population. NGOs are not prepared

to provide services in a contaminated environment, multiplying the

humanitarian problem should that condition exist.

The fourth major priority is to prevent factional violence and prevent armed groups from seizing assets, territory, or population as

Saddam’s forces loosen their grip. The biggest threat to coalition

long-term objectives will arise if a security vacuum exists between

the time Saddam’s forces withdraw or cease activity and the arrival

of American and coalition forces.

Inherent in preventing factional and ethnic fighting and reprisals

is the ability to provide local policing within a framework of a nonarbitrary legal code, with objective judges and a humane correctional system. Policing and establishing the rule of law is a fundamental linchpin connecting the security issue to social, economic,

and governance issues in Iraq.

National codes are enforced and respect for law takes root at the

local level. Recent history has provided evidence of the false dichotomy between military security that focuses on heavy weapons, organized groups, and overtly political resistance and personal or

human security that is a function of local knowledge, competent policing, a functioning criminal and civil justice system, and community involvement.

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This comprehensive approach to providing security for the population requires significant interagency, NGO, and international

governmental organization involvement if the military is not to be

swamped. A deployable justice package must be organized now and

the personnel identified, organized, and trained. An inability to

provide a seamless security situation for the population of Iraq as

a State will produce conditions that will lead to crime, corruption,

alternative sources of political and economic power and rulemaking, and will undermine the eventual successor Iraqi administration.

Finally and most important for the long-term viability of Iraq

and the legacy of the coalition, Iraq’s oil resources must be retained

and developed for the benefit of the people. Facilities must be secured, including the fields and the associated infrastructure. Possession of these untapped resources could confer extraordinary economic and political power to various groups. Although military action in Iraq does not constitute a war for oil, the peace achieved

and the type of governance attained will owe much to the way the

oil sector and Iraq’s external debt and reconstruction costs are

managed.

Finally, the borders must be protected, obviously. That is an integral task that goes along with preserving the territorial integrity

and also these other operations to get to the WMD programs, prevent any leakage, and also detain the personnel that we think need

to be detained.

Given the enormity of these tasks, I still believe that a force of

about 75,000 American military personnel will be required for up

to 1 year as the minimum force to stabilize the situation, accomplish those tasks outlined above, and establish the conditions for

sustainable peace and a capable Iraqi State. This force can be reduced as the situation stabilizes. The rate of transformation, which

is what the Iraqis accomplish, and the rate of transition, which is

what we do, will determine our coalition withdrawal and the type

of forces that can be withdrawn first.

Much has been done to address these issues, but much more

operational movement must take place. The government has attempted to pull together the requisite expertise to define the conditions and the requirements for success. However, the effort to implement procedures and organize resources is still fragmented and

there has been more activity than movement.

From an American perspective, what is needed is a clear articulation of American goals for Iraq, the delineation of the tasks

America expects to accomplish, what America will assist with, and

what is expected of coalition and Iraqi partners and the subsequent

dedication of resources, i.e., people, equipment and funds, to the effort.

Finally, the United States must articulate its transition strategy.

The criteria that will govern the transition from military agency to

civilian agency and from outsider to insider in the execution of the

post-conflict reconstruction tasks must be developed, promulgated,

and integrated into the supporting plans. The United States must

articulate the balance between American responsibility as outsiders, setting parameters and assisting the process, and the local

ownership of that process.

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America must not let responsibility for the outcome become an

open-ended commitment on our part or let our presence create unnecessary dependencies. Conversely, local ownership cannot become

a rationale or a buzz word for meager support and abandonment.

Once the process begins, dynamic assessments are required

based on measurable and previously established criteria. Substitution of time lines for measurable progress in achieving the goals

of reconstruction has led the United States and the international

community to unsuccessful half-measures and minimalism in other

situations. Time lines are not an issue as long as the timeframe is

tied to some measure of performance and progress and is a real

part of the process.

We can be successful at this if success is adequately defined and

if the resources match the intent. However, my estimation is that

at this stage the planning process in this area has not kept pace

with the military preparations for the campaign and the agencies

who can resolve the outstanding issues are running out of time to

do so.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Colonel Feil follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COL. SCOTT R. FEIL, U.S. ARMY, (RET.)

SECURITY IN A POST-CONFLICT SITUATION IN IRAQ

Thank you Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to offer testimony to the committee

with respect to the security situation that would exist in Iraq should the United

States lead a coalition of military forces in deposing Saddam Hussein and dismantling his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

Attached to this statement is a Report of a Commission on Post Conflict Reconstruction, which is the result of a two and one half year study on the subject from

a general American policy standpoint, conducted by the Association of the U.S.

Army and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ‘‘A Wiser Peace,’’ a

report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which builds on the

project and commission report and addresses the situation in Iraq, is also attached.

These reports contain focused recommendations on the long-term implications of repeated engagement in post conflict reconstruction activities and the immediate issue

of Iraq. American and international involvement in these efforts can come about either as a result of interventions to preserve peace and assist countries emerging

from conflict, as in the Balkans, and East Timor, etc., or as a result of American

and multi-lateral military action as a victorious party to a conflict, i.e., in Panama

and Afghanistan.

The tremendous challenges that would face the United States and its partners in

Iraq can be organized into major analytical categories of executing tasks in providing security, economic and social well-being, justice and reconciliation, and governance and participation. While these groupings are useful for analysis, organization, and application of resources, it is imperative that any approach to Iraq in a

post conflict situation begins with a presumption that only a comprehensive, holistic

plan executed through integrated, yet decentralized actions will be successful. While

security is the foundation for post conflict reconstruction efforts, the other three

issue areas, or pillars, have direct impact on the long-term internal and external

security capabilities and situation of the nation.

In fact, the lack of planning and preparation for such integration and coordination

has bedeviled previous efforts in this area. The World Bank estimates that 50% of

countries that emerge from a conflict situation are back in a conflict status within

five years. That is a disturbing statistic given the stakes in Iraq. The coalition,

under American leadership, cannot leave the success of these efforts within that

country, with its population, strategic location, and resources to the odds of a coin

flip. The resources exist to enhance the probability of success. Much has been done

to marshal these resources, but much more remains to be done. The preparations

for a military campaign continue to capture the bulk of the attention of both the

populace and the government, while the less glamorous efforts to prepare for the

aftermath continue to lag. Americans will evaluate the effort much more on what

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is accomplished in Iraq after a military campaign than what is destroyed during the

campaign. So will America’s partners, the Iraqi people, and any potential adversaries around the world.

The tasks that need to be accomplished are well known.

First, the Iraqi regime must be deposed. The leadership must be found and if

alive, detained for the purposes of either standing trial as international war criminals, or participating in whatever justice mechanism the Iraqi people determine

meets their needs. Second, the security services must be dismantled and reorganized. Full disbandment and detention of personnel must apply to those agencies

involved in repression and the protection of the regime. All of Saddam’s special security organizations organized for the protection of the regime (the Military Intelligence Service, the Military Security Service, the Special Security Service, the General Intelligence Directorate, the General Security Services, and the Special Protection apparatus, etc.) must be disbanded and their members detained and vetted.

This may number up to 50,000 personnel. Those security forces performing the dayto-day enforcement of civil and bona fide criminal law, as opposed to political repression, must have their leadership changed, but the bulk of the rank and file will be

essential to the preservation of order. The national police force and the frontier

guard, totaling perhaps an additional 70,000 men, must have their leadership removed. The level down to which commanders are removed will vary based on their

record and policy. The leadership of the national police and border guard will be

new and their behavior should be constrained by thorough monitoring and joint operations with international civilian police deployed throughout the country. The

process of recruiting, training and organizing those civilian police and police monitors, numbering about 4000 to 5000 must begin now.

The Ba’ath party needs to be completely disbanded and its leadership detained

and put through a vetting process before they are released to the general population.

Within the context of dismantling the regime, the bureaucracy must be reorganized. Those elements that were used as instruments of repression and to protect

the regime must be either disbanded or redirected. One of the first ministries to be

thoroughly revamped must be the Ministry of Information. Those involved in technical work or the provision of services must be vetted, retained, and used by the

military and civil administration to provide essential services to the population. As

examples, electricity, water, sanitation, transportation, etc., are sectors which can

be rapidly insulated from the political processes and continue to work.

Much of this will take civilian political and technical acumen, with partners from

the military coalition and partners the United States cultivates from the diaspora

and within Iraq. To date, there have been discussions and planning, but the most

glaring gap has been the hesitance to organize civilian police and police monitors

to integrate with the military to provide a seamless security structure.

The Iraqi Army must be reorganized. The Special Republican Guards and the Republican Guards will have to be dismantled. The default assumption must be that

members of these organizations are not qualified to continue to serve in a reformed

Iraqi Army unless proven otherwise. The National Army will need new leadership,

but the rank and file should be amenable to retraining and reorientation under new

leadership. This is easier said than done and will require significant investment of

coalition forces in time and labor to conduct the disarmament and demobilization

of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, in a process that gathers information and releases parolees (in the military use of the term) in an orderly fashion. That process

must be seamlessly connected to a reintegration program that puts former soldiers

back into society ready to be a productive citizen rather than an unemployed burden

on government services and a continuing security risk. Eventually, the reformed

Iraqi armed forces could number between 150,000 and 200,000, but the process of

creating a credible force of this size will take at least one to two years. The reduction in manpower means that about 300,000 to 400,000 men will be released into

the economy over that same period. In the interim, many of the soldiers in the Iraqi

Army, (excluding the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard) may be used

in supervised public works projects or closely monitored and supervised security

tasks.

Woven in with the dismantling of the regime and the restructuring of the security

services, the second major objective must be to seize and control the Iraqi weapons

of mass destruction, (WMD) program in its entirety. This objective will be a primary

effort during the military campaign, and it must continue at the same level regardless of the progress in any conventional combat. Just form the public record of what

Iraq has been unable to account for since 1998, this is a massive undertaking. The

number of munitions, the amount of chemicals and biological material will require

a significant search and security effort. It can be expected that, in addition to seVerDate 11-MAY-2000 17:48 Jul 14, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 87678 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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lected targets comprising members of the regime, the effort to find and control

weapons of mass destruction would consume most of the committed special operations forces. Chemical units, after accompanying the combat elements through the

military campaign will then have to support this effort and it will take a significant

portion of American and coalition assets to accomplish this critical task. However,

in addition to controlling the weapons and the delivery systems themselves, facilities and records will need to be secured when found during the campaign, and then

further coordinated efforts will need to be undertaken to ensure that the international community has a complete picture of the Iraqi programs. Records and

physical evidence of the programs and the location of the assets will be critical to

achieving one of the salient objectives. It is expected that almost 70 presidential

compounds alone may have evidence of the WMD programs. Securing and searching

those compounds will be labor intensive and require significant ground forces to ensure entry and control. Finally, finding, detaining, and debriefing personnel involved

in the programs will be essential. It has taken us four months of inspections to

speak to a handful of the one thousand scientists and engineers believe to be engaged in WMD programs. A comprehensive effort to secure the entire WMD program places not only a physical burden on security forces, but also requires additional coordination measures with technical experts. The WMD search and seizure

effort will rely on intelligence provided by other agencies, and the operational work

will require teaming in the cities, the countryside and the borders to ensure that

weapons, documents, or personnel do not leak out of the country. America and the

international community cannot afford to repeat some of the mistakes and hesitancy

with regard to wanted personnel that were made in the Balkans.

This takes considerably more intelligence and technical expertise than exists

within the military. Military forces can seize and secure weapons, facilities, and personnel that are encountered and identified during combat and immediately thereafter, but to investigate and ferret out the entire network of programs will take a

combined civilian and military effort.

Security for the population is the third high priority task. Here, much depends

on the course of the fighting that results in achievement of the removal of Saddam

and the seizure of the WMD program elements. Clearly, the potential for a humanitarian crisis is large. There are several factors that contribute to this situation. Due

to the conditions imposed by a number of the UN Security Council resolutions, humanitarian aid agencies do not have infrastructure established within Iraq, comparable to what they had in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Therefore the immediate

administration of humanitarian assistance will fall to the governmental agencies, either military or civilian, that arrive during the course of combat operations. The requirement to secure the largest cities and population centers will occupy a large

number of conventional ground forces, and in order to minimize numbers, the coalition will have to rely on mobility advantages conferred by aviation. Maintaining the

ability to see, prevent, and if necessary, react, to impending population crises will

be essential.

The force must have the mandate and capability to regulate movement, both

across borders and within the country. This is not a requirement designed to inhibit

legitimate population movement covered under the Geneva Conventions and other

customary laws of war. However, to achieve the primary objectives of regime change

and disarmament, the security forces must have the ability to ensure that people

and material that must be controlled does not escape by taking advantage of these

laws.

A significant humanitarian risk exists on two dimensions. Should Saddam’s forces

withdraw into the cities and conduct urban warfare, there will be increased civilian

casualties, which will put additional burdens on military and civilian medical assets. This is a problem of scale, which can be accommodated with the deployment

of additional military and NGO medical capacity. However, a qualitatively different

problem is very possible with the spread of chemical or biological contamination.

This could come about as the result of overt employment by Saddam or his military

leaders. There is also the risk of inadvertent release based on actions by coalition

forces, given that will not have perfect and complete intelligence on the location of

Iraq’s WMD and may destroy facilities containing unknown stocks of chemical or biological weapons. In either case, military assets for chemical and biological reconnaissance and decontamination are limited and will be primarily occupied with supporting coalition forces. There are no assets other than coalition military units that

have the capability to assist a contaminated population. NGOs are not prepared to

provide services under contamination conditions, multiplying the problem. The demand for action to assist populations may inhibit military operations, and it will

certainly become a first priority when hostilities cease, due to public pressure. It is

worth noting that a significant portion of these reconnaissance and decontamination

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units are in the reserve components, and there will be competing demands from the

theater of operations and American local governments, who will be under some pressure to retain this capability for consequence management at home, especially under

a heightened homeland security alert status.

The population must be secured from reprisals, both in violence to persons and

the seizure of property. This means being able to control the population in terms

of movement and assembly until legitimate authorities can gather the facts and sort

through claims and counter claims. Decades of humanitarian abuse and internal resettlement have created the potential for people to settle scores and to assert their

right to return to currently occupied land and homes.

The fourth major priority is to prevent factional violence and prevent armed

groups from seizing assets, territory, or populations as Saddam’s forces loosen their

grip. The most dangerous time for the establishment of precedent counter to coalition overall goals for the people of Iraq will come if a security vacuum exists between the time Saddam’s forces withdraw, or cease activity, and the arrival of

American and coalition forces. The Kurdish parties, most notably the Patriotic

Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, plus other parties and expatriate Iraqis, could total 5 million people. It is important to note that the two

major Kurdish parties were part of the December Iraqi Opposition Conference in

London that brought together some 57 opposition groups. Although the follow up

January meeting to select a leadership committee was canceled it is interesting to

note that the KDP and PUK leadership met in Ankara on February 6.

Other armed groups will occupy both the attention and the forces of the coalition

in Iraq. Most notable are the Ansar al Islam, noted recently in the press as operating in the northeast portion of the country which is not under solid control of the

Hussein regime. This force is estimated at about 1,000 fighters and has been active

in developing crude chemical weapons capability. The Shi’ite Supreme Council for

the Islamic Revolution of Iraq is an Islamic opposition movement that has been

based in, and supported by Iran. While possessed of no love for Saddam Hussein,

its leader is also opposed to American military occupation of Iraq. Any cooperative

agreement with SCIRI must be viewed as one of convenience that will continue in

force only so long as coalition and SCIRI interests converge. SCIRI has been reported to have combat elements of brigade size that could move into the eastern portions of Iraq and the Shi’a south, exacerbating elements of both Iran-Iraq regional

politics and inflaming religious cleavage that will already be a source of concern to

security forces and civil authorities.

It is heartening to note that most scholars and experts assess significant potential

for Iraq not to fracture. For the safety of the Iraqi people, their economic and political future, and the security of the region, the country must be preserved as an integral political entity. Borders must be retained, and while there will be significant

military and humanitarian movement across the borders, any attempt to redraw the

Iraqi map must be resisted with the same resolve the coalition will bring to the military campaign to unseat Saddam. To this end, the United States must reassure regional partners that American intent is to preserve Iraq and the coalition must dissuade any opportunistic meddling in Iraqi affairs from potential regional adversaries. In the on going constituting process for a new Iraqi government, due diligence must be paid to intra-state political arrangements that place more emphasis

on political and regional divisions, rather than ethnic or religious separation.

Inherent in the security of the population, preventing factional and ethnic fighting, preventing reprisals, etc., is the ability to provide local policing within a framework of a non-arbitrary legal code, with objective judges and a humane correctional

system. Policing and establishing the rule of law is a fundamental linchpin connecting the security issue to the humanitarian situation in the country. While national codes may be developed and promulgated, those codes are enforced and respect for law takes root at the local level. Recent history has provided evidence of

the false dichotomy between military security, that focuses on heavy weapons, organized groups, and overtly political resistance, and personal security, that is a function of local knowledge, competent policing, a functioning criminal and civil justice

system, and community involvement.

This comprehensive approach to providing security for the population requires significant interagency, NGO and IGO involvement if the military is not to be

swamped. A deployable justice package must be organized now, and the personnel

identified, organized and trained. An inability to provide a seamless security system

for the population and Iraq as a state will produce conditions that will lead to crime,

corruption, alternative sources of political and economic power and rule making, and

will undermine the eventual successor Iraqi administration.

Finally, and most importantly for the long term viability of Iraq and the legacy

of the coalition effort, Iraq’s oil resources must be retained and developed for the

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benefit of the Iraqi people. Facilities must be secured, including the fields and the

associated infrastructure. There are several major fields, including Kirkuk in the

north and the Rumalia fields near Basrah in the south. There are over 2,000 individual wells in these fields and others, plus at least two major pipelines that transport the oil to Turkey and Syria. Iraqi oil sector professionals, (as opposed to the

political deal makers at the highest levels) must be retained to operate the fields

and work with international partners to improve the efficiency of the existing production facilities, while conducting exploration to realize the potential of future production. Iraq’s oil production facilities are fragile. They have suffered from almost

two decades of technological neglect and politically motivated exploitation. Production efficiencies have been sub-optimized in order to support regime political goals,

and that has reduced return on what little investment and production there has

been. Therefore securing the oil sector, physically, financially, and politically is absolutely critical.

Iraqi oil potential is significant, ranked as being second only to Saudi Arabia with

112 billion barrels in estimated reserves and perhaps as much as 220 billion barrels.

Iraq only has developed 15 of 74 evaluated fields, and of the 526 known ‘‘structures’’ that may contain oil deposits, only 125 have been drilled. Clearly, possession of

these untapped resources could confer extraordinary economic and political power.

Although military action in Iraq does not constitute a war for oil, the peace achieved

and the type of governance attained will owe much to the way the oil sector is managed.

The history of the connection between resource wealth, governments and people

illustrates a hard fact. Governments that derive revenue directly from resource exploitation generally are not accountable to the population, despite protestations that

the government owns the resources in the name of the people. If some sort of

participatory governance is to have any meaning in Iraq, then private Iraqi commerce should generate the wealth through market mechanisms, which the government can then tax for the purpose of providing government services. A healthy relationship between the governed and the government is built upon accountability in

policy and budgets. A government with an independent source of revenue has no

requirement to heed the people. Therefore it is imperative that the future structure

of the Iraqi oil sector be determined with a broad representation of the Iraqi people,

including the indigenous oil sector, in partnership with foreign private investors and

oil technology providers. A significant hurdle that must be overcome on day one is

to engage the indigenous Iraqi oil sector technocrats and professionals. They have

a reputation for a perspective that is highly professional and highly insulated from

politics.

Given the enormity of these tasks, a force of about 75,000 American military personnel for about one year will be required as the minimum force to stabilize the situation, accomplish the tasks outlined above and establish the conditions for sustainable peace and a capable Iraqi state. This force can be reduced as the situation stabilizes. That transformation process resulting in a sustainable, capable state is as

much a function of integrated action on the part of civilian and military agencies

after the fight as it is on the fight itself. The rate of transition, (what the outsiders

do) and the rate of transformation, (what the Iraqis do), will determine the rate of

coalition withdrawal and the types of forces that can be withdrawn first.

Much has been done to address these issues, but much more operational movement must take place. The government has attempted to pull together the requisite

expertise to define the conditions and requirements for success. This started many

months ago, and in several locations. The Naval War College, the National Defense

University, the Institute for Defense Analysis, the Joint Staff and Joint Forces Command, and the Army War College are just a few of the many military organizations

that have conducted conferences, table top exercises, and simulations to flesh out

the plans and requirements. The interagency has been busy with exercises like Millennium Challenge and others, improving the ability of the government to coordinate. The Department of State has organized the Future of Iraq Project, with working groups of experts from around the globe, including members of the Iraq diaspora

and opposition, with the intent of driving planning and resource requirements in

sixteen different post conflict issue areas. They organized the Iraqi Opposition Conference that met in December, but which has not yielded the kind of constituting

process that is required to hit the ground with military forces and receive the reins

of government from a coalition military or civil administrator. United States Central

Command, as expected, has been working diligently on the plans for post-conflict

Iraq, and the Department of Defense has established a new office to oversee a broad

range of military and civilian issues that are expected in the aftermath. All of the

government efforts have reached out, in one way or another to the public community

of policy institutes, non-governmental organizations, and expert citizens of many

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countries. Additionally, there have been informal and formal contacts with international government organizations. A lot of information has been exchanged and the

magnitude of the problem has been well defined.

But the effort to implement procedures and organize resources is still fragmented

and there has been more activity than movement. From an American perspective,

what is needed is a clear articulation of American goals for Iraq, the delineation of

the tasks America expects to accomplish, what America will assist with, and what

is expected of coalition and Iraqi partners, and the dedication of resources, i.e., people, equipment and funds, to the effort. America will lead the effort. Difficult as it

may be, the United States needs to present a plan for comment, review, revision

and implementation. Experience shows that circulating a draft is more effective

than asking all concerned to start with a blank sheet of paper. At present the military effort is as nearly ready for post-conflict as it is for the military campaign, and

the rest of government is supporting the military preparations for the campaign.

But with respect to post-conflict reconstruction, the United States and the international community are still ‘‘getting ready to get ready.’’ The President and the

Congress need to establish interagency authority and accountability now, and resources need to be pre-positioned.

Finally, the United States must articulate its transition strategy. The criteria that

will govern the transition from military agency to civilian agency, and from outsider

to insider in the execution of all the post-conflict reconstruction tasks must be developed, promulgated, and integrated into the plan. The United States must articulate

the balance between American responsibility as outsiders setting parameters and

assisting the process and the local ownership of that process. America must not let

responsibility for the outcome become an open-ended commitment to establishing a

particular brand of representative government in a place where the history, culture,

and traditions may not furnish a suitable foundation. Conversely, ‘‘local ownership’’

cannot become a rationale for meager support and abandonment. This balance can

only be achieved by working through the difficult planning and coordination efforts

and making decisions about the levels and types of support ahead of time. The idea

that ‘‘no plan survives first contact’’ only means that plans need adjustment. It does

not obviate the need for detailed planning and coordination. Good plans anticipate

change and have the resources and mechanisms available to take advantage of opportunities—reinforcing success and ameliorating setbacks.

Once the process begins, dynamic assessments are required—based on the criteria. Substitution of timelines for measurable progress in achieving the goals of reconstruction has led the United States and the international community to unsuccessful half measures and minimalism. Timelines are not an issue, as long as the

time expected is tied to some measure of performance and success—a real part of

the process.

Post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq can be successful—if success is adequately defined and if resources match intent. But time is short, the planning process has not

kept pace with the military and diplomatic timeline, and the agencies who can resolve some of the outstanding issues are running out of time to do so.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Colonel Feil.

Professor Cordesman.

STATEMENT OF PROF. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN, ARLEIGH A.

BURKE CHAIR FOR STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC

AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. CORDESMAN. Thank you, Senator.

As I have listened to the testimony this morning, it has struck

me that one of the issues we have not really talked about is how

any kind of nation-building effort in Iraq will affect the broader

issues of regional security. I think unfortunately that is a serious

mistake. The reality is that, regardless of what happens in Iraq,

the broad problem of proliferation in the region will continue.

There are six other countries that will be actively involved.

We can have the best plan in the world to disarm Iraq and execute it, but the intellectual capital and skills to make weapons of

mass destruction will remain regardless of how many documents

we find or seize. Iraq will still have the dual use facilities to rapVerDate 11-MAY-2000 17:48 Jul 14, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 87678 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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idly return to the production of chemical and biological weapons. It

will probably rapidly acquire the technology, if it wants it, for longrange UAVs. You cannot disarm a sophisticated State. It is an

oxymoron.

And, if you do not think beyond that, you really do not understand this region. We will also have to free the new Iraqi Government at some point from sanctions. When we do so existing arms

control agreements, many of which have not been agreed to in

depth by other countries in the region, will be an issue.

I have never heard anyone who advocates this war—and I have

to say in general I do—explain to me why one of the other major

regional problems in this area of the Middle East will not be at

least as intense after this war as it is today. I see no one who has

ever explained in even the crudest way for any country in the Arab

world, or around Iraq, a single scenario as to how our creating a

new regime inside Iraq changes a single neighboring State, overcomes its internal problems, leads to any broader implications.

I think it is inevitable that the moment this war is over we will

suddenly look at the near-civil war in Iran, at the problems of the

second intifada, at whatever the situation is in Islamic extremism,

and all of those problems will come to the surface.

Moreover, we need to remember our limited span of control. History goes on long after peace processes, and in some period 2, 3,

or 5 years from now Iraq will no longer be significantly under our

influence.

Now, let me add to that some other complications. We talk about

a ‘‘coalition of the willing.’’ Well, we have only one real ally here,

or at least the leadership of one real ally. That ally is Britain. We

have two regional allies which share our security objectives, Israel

and Kuwait. We have no regional ally in the gulf which fully

shares our values, which has our culture, or which seeks for democracy as we want it.

Broadly speaking, in terms of public opinion throughout this region, we will be a ‘‘coalition of the unwilling.’’ Even in Kuwait there

are no public opinion polls which show broad support for this war.

Moreover, the administration statements earlier this morning come

far too late. We had a failed public diplomacy under Clinton. We

have had a failed public diplomacy under Bush. And, there are only

two public figures in the United States whose voices can matter on

an issue like the reconstruction of Iraq, the President and the Secretary of State. Until they say what Under Secretary Grossman

and Under secretary Feith said here this morning, what was said

here will have almost no influence throughout the Middle East region.

Now, having said that, we have to accept the fact that on the day

we go in—not the day when we win—but on the day we go in, we

will have the Arab world and every bit of the media in the Arab

world blaming us for everything wrong in Iraq. There will not be

any tolerance. It will not be an intellectual argument. We will inherit the wind: the results of 30 years of mismanagement by a

ruthless dictator.

We also have to face the fact that in this region people believe

in conspiracy theories. Moreover, public opinion poll after public

opinion poll shows only one polarizing issue in foreign policy, the

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Second Intifada. Some 70 percent of the Arabs in this region blame

us in large part for its outcome. I hope we can change some of

these perceptions, but we really need to understand what we are

getting into. That is why in my formal testimony I talk about

peacemaking and nation-building as potentially a self-inflicted

wound.

But let me go on to the particular areas I was asked to address,

the Iraqi military and the security services. I disagree a little with

Colonel Feil on details, but these are not forces we fully understand.

I will not go through the list of Iraqi security services. I have

outlined and described them in the paper that I hope will be included for the record. I think the problem is their organization and

role are more subtle, and that we need to parse them out more

carefully. There are some closer to Saddam than others. One of the

problems, as we saw in Russia, is that very often some of the best,

most educated people have become associated with these tools of

the regime, just as was true in the KGB.

Another problem we also face is what to do about the Iraqi regular army. The regular army has had no rearmament, no modernization, in 10 years. It has been through three wars. It will go

through whatever the fighting is. And finding a way of rebuilding

that force will be an immediate task, not simply winnowing

through it, but figuring out how you convince the Iraqis that you

have actually given them a new balance of security.

There are other issues within the Iraqi civilization or civil society

that I think we need to address. I fully agree with Colonel Feil that

the Ministry of Information is a problem, but so is everything else.

Throughout the structure of the Iraqi Government there are clan

and family ties, and there are people who are part of the Iraqi security apparatus, people who are tools of the regime. There is no

ministry, no government, no community, free of these people.

Iraq has no legal profession in the classic sense. You can only

study law if you take an oath of loyalty to Saddam. There is no

rule of law and what there was has been confused by a shift to tribal courts manipulated for the regime’s power.

There is the problem of tribe and clan, which cuts across religious and ethnic divisions, and these will require us to look very

carefully at the tribal origins and patterns of people throughout the

Iraqi Government. People do not remember this, but you cannot be

an academic operating inside Iraq without having met the regime’s

litmus test, and for people in engineering and the sciences their

past ties to weapons of mass destruction will be a critical issue. So

you are talking about reviewing Iraq’s academic structure, at least

the higher education of Iraq as well.

I do not know how we are going to do all this, but I would make

a few quick suggestions. One, there is a predilection in the United

States for talking about war crimes trials. I think such trials are

part of the problem, not part of the solution. If we do hold such

trials the threshold must be extremely high. Decent men have been

caught up in 30 years of dictatorship. How much we punish them

is something that all of us have to ask ourselves about: What

would we have done in these regimes?

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If there is a model, it may be the South African truth commission, a way of getting very unpleasant issues out into the open

without punishing everyone in sight.

Ultimately, this must be done by Iraqis. I cannot think of a

worse model than having American jurists and American legal advisers trying to show the Iraqis how to do this, or people from within NGOs. That to me is a recipe for discrediting what needs to be

done.

Now, in terms of Iraqi military forces, a caution. There seems to

be the strange assumption that posture Iraqi forces will exist in a

friendly region. They will not. They are not going to be the friends

of the Turks, who will have moved into northern Iraq. They are not

going to be the friends of the Iranians.

Anyone who lives and works in Iraq is not going to be the future

friend of Israel, and any member of the Iraqi opposition who pretends today to be a supporter of Israel in the face of the Second

Intifada today will find it remarkably opportune to change that position the moment they acquire any kind of meaningful power. We

seem to forget this. It is a dangerous thing to forget.

We are also talking about a country whose history has five

branches of government: the three we recognize are the legislative,

the executive, and the judiciary. The other two are the military and

the security services, and the military have considerably more

power and prestige historically in Iraq, than do the legislature and

does the judiciary.

We have to work with this structure and transform it. My guess

is that, whatever we do, we will be only partially successful.

Finally a few comments about disarmament. First there is the

civil aspect of disarmament. Where are 350,000 Iraqi soldiers going

to go, the men and women in the services, plus another 40,000 to

50,000 in the security services? Remember the Weimar Republic.

They may not have income or jobs. Sooner or later they will reemerge and they will not be on our side.

How do we at the same time return the Iraqi officer corps to create a balance of Kurds and Shi’ites? How do we deal with the fact

the Iraqi army should be a reflection of properly distributed power

among Iraq’s ethnic and religious divisions? I have not heard anyone describe how this is going to be done. As General Zinni pointed

out, the issue here is the practical.

Finally, if we do disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction,

what do we do then? If we do not have some kind of guarantee of

extended deterrence, why will Iraq be content to exist alone in this

region without weapons of mass destruction or at least the programs to suddenly create them? If we leave Iraq without some mix

of containment, arms control, and new security partnerships, why

does this bring stability? And if the basic tensions of the Second

Intifada and the India-Pakistan conflict are not dealt with in the

years that follow, why on earth will having fought this war done

this have brought any meaningful regional stability or changed the

map or structure of history?

If I had heard the Bush administration say even a few words

about these issues, I would be a little more confident. But what I

hear is a mixture of pious hope and the belief that the default setting on the civilization of the Middle East is somewhere in the

78

American Midwest. They seem to feel that if we only push the right

switch the entire area will become clones of Americans.

[The prepared statement of Professor Cordesman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PROF. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN, ARLEIGH A. BURKE CHAIR

FOR STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

PLANNING FOR A SELF-INFLICTED WOUND? U.S. POLICY TO RESHAPE A POST-SADDAM

IRAQ

The hardest part of war is often the peace, and this is particularly likely to be

the case if the U.S. goes to war with Iraq. It is not that the U.S. is not planning

for such contingencies; it is the quality of such planning that is at issue. Unless it

sharply improves, it may well become a self-inflicted wound based on a series of

‘‘syndromes’’ that grow out of ignorance, indifference to Iraq’s real needs, and ethnocentricity.

The U.S. does not have to suffer from ‘‘Iraq War Peace Syndrome.’’ Some good

studies and planning efforts are emerging, but they are the exception and not the

norm, in an uncoordinated and faltering effort. Far too often, we are rushing our

planning efforts without making adequate efforts to make up for our lack of knowledge. As a result, planners both outside and inside the U.S. government may end

in doing more harm than good, and in laying the groundwork for serious postwar

friction and problems. In fact, a pattern of Iraq war peace syndromes has begun to

emerge that is deeply disturbing.

1. The ‘‘We Know What We’re Doing Syndrome’’

One of the most important things we need to do is to admit our level of ignorance

and uncertainty. Far too many ‘‘experts’’ who are now working on postwar planning

have (a) never been in Iraq to the point of having practical knowledge of the country, and (b) have concentrated on the threat so long that they have little intelligence

data on the workings of its government, civil society, and economy.

More generally, the U.S. government does not have much of the data it needs to

formulate a detailed peace plan. Looking back over the last 10 years, we generally

failed to seriously examine what was happening inside Iraq in social and economic

terms, and to collect and honestly analyze much of the data on social change, the

economy, and the way the government functioned.

We should be actively pulling together all that exiles, friendly businessmen and

other working in Iraq, the UN, NGOs, and others know about the day-to-day functioning of given national, regional, and local government activities in Iraq. We

should be examining existing Iraqi structures and institutions in detail to know

what needs changing and what we can build upon. We should be looking at the

Iraqi constitution and legal system to see what could be a valid base for change.

More important, we should have teams ready to survey the situation in each area,

town, and governate as we advance. We should have teams ready to work with key

local and then governate leaders. We should have teams ready to work with the

ministries in Iraq’s government once we get to Baghdad. We should admit that we

really do not know what we are doing, and cannot know until the war unfolds. We

should be flexible, and emphasize surveying Iraq’s postwar needs in partnership

with Iraqis in Iraq at the local, regional, and national level; making minimal

changes in working civil structures.

2. The ‘‘U.S. as Liberator Syndrome’’

We may or may not be perceived as liberators. We are dealing with a very sophisticated and long-established tyranny, and we really don’t know how an intensely nationalistic people with deep internal divisions will react, and how the impact of the

fighting will affect the people. We don’t know how long any support will last by a

given group or faction the moment we become involved in trade-offs between them.

We may well face a much more hostile population than in Afghanistan. We badly

need to consider the Lebanon model: Hero to enemy in less than a year. We also

need to consider the Bosnia/Kosovo model where internal divisions leave no options

other than stay and police or leave and watch civil conflict emerge.

A little self-honesty on our past mistakes in nation building and occupation would

help; especially when we perpetuate the myth we did so splendidly in Germany and

Japan. Things eventually worked out in Germany and Japan because we enforced

minimum change and took advantage of existing institutions. We only adopted this

approach under duress, however, and because the Cold War forced us to reverse

many of our initial plans and policies. Economic recovery took five years. For the

first year, people died for lack of medical attention, starved, and suffered. We could

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get away with because most of the world was suffering and because of the legacy

of anger towards Germany and Japan coming out of the war. We cannot possibly

expect such tolerance today.

Couple this to an unpredictable but inevitable level of collateral damage and civilian casualties, to what the word ‘‘occupation’’ means in the Arab world because of

Israel, to the historical memory of the British mandate and U.S. ties to the Shah,

to Shi’ite tensions over U.S. relations with Iran and the Axis of Evil, and to factional

tensions in Iraq, and we are almost certain to face serious problems with at least

some major blocs of Iraqis.

No study or that which does not deal at length with these risks, or prepare for

them on a contingency basis, can do more good than harm. We should focus on giving Iraqis what they want, and not on giving Iraqis what we feel they want. Our

actions should be based on partnership and a high degree of humility, not on occupation and arrogance.

3. The ‘‘We Lead and They Will Follow’’ or ‘‘Coalition of the Willing Syndrome’’

Our coalition of the willing may well be much smaller than the coalition of the

unwilling. We need to understand just how deeply hostile the Arab world is because

of the Second Intifada and our ties to Israel. Surveys show around 80% of Arabs,

and high percentages of other Islamic nations, see the Palestinians as the key issue

in politics and express anger at the U.S. over ties to Israel. We also need to understand that in the Gulf, many Arabs also see the U.S. as responsible for the suffering

of the Iraqi people under sanctions.

The UN debate shows we face a largely doubtful and antiwar world. In practical

terms, we will be subject to relentless Arab, regional, and global examination and

criticism from D-Day on. We cannot hope to get an Iraqi, regional, or world mandate

to act as occupiers. In fact, if we act in this way, we are certain to encounter massive problems.

Any humanitarian failures at any point will come back to haunt us. So will any

mistakes in dealing with Iraqi factions, any delays in transferring power, and any

deals with the outside the Iraqis and Arab world see as being at Iraqi expense.

We need to base our peace plans on the reality that we will be judged by their

success for years to come, and that any failures can have explosive regional impacts.

This time we virtually must succeed and we must be prepared to make the necessary commitment in spite of the potential cost. At the same time, we need to understand just how firm and enduring the linkage will be to our success in dealing

with the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Second Intifada. We may have the luxury of

fighting one war at a time, but we do not have the luxury of focusing on a single

peace.

4. The ‘‘Best Case War Syndrome’’

Far too often, we now base our postwar plans only on fighting a best-case war.

We have no justification for such planning. We may get serious urban fighting. We

may see the use of WMD. We may have to sharply escalate and inflict serious collateral damage. We may see factional struggles and warlords emerge, and we already

are caught up in a messy struggle between the Kurds and exile groups like the INC.

No plan is worth considering that does not explicitly examine what can go wrong

in the fighting and how it will impact on the post-fighting outcome.

5. The ‘‘Rebuilding Effort Begins After the War Ends Syndrome’’

Our rebuilding effort in Iraq must begin on D-Day, not after the war. Everything

we do from bombing to the first ground contact with Iraqis will be conducted in a

media fishbowl, with the world observing and often searching for any fault or flaw.

We cannot be perfect, but we can be prepared and act with the knowledge that even

seemingly trivial actions during the war can have powerful global effect and shape

postwar attitudes.

We must realize that one day after our forces enter any area, the world will hold

us to blame for every bit of Iraqi suffering that follows, as well as for much of

Saddam’s legacy of economic mistakes and neglect. The first minute of the war is

the beginning of the peace, and any plan that does not explicitly recognize this is

dangerous.

6. The ‘‘Let’s Ignore the Iraqi Media and Information Issue Syndrome’’

It seems incredible, but a number of studies ignore the need to provide detailed

media coverage to the Iraqi public the moment we go to war, and then to immediately take control of the Iraqi media and Ministry of Information and change them

to become legitimate sources of information. Even some good studies of psywar efforts to deal with the Iraqi military treat the problem as one of dealing with the

career military and not the Iraqi people and the different factions within it.

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We are already engaged in a battle for hearts and minds we have done little to

win. We will confront a desperate dictatorship in combat, and what we say over

radio and TV, and to the Iraqi people as we advance, may be critical in limiting

or avoiding urban warfare and prolonged resistance. We also have to be able to talk

to the faction in Iraq and reassure those we plan to work with. The Ministry of Information, the state controlled radio and TV, and the press need to be reshaped the

moment we have access to them. The Ministry of Information, in particular, is one

of the worst single instruments of repression in Iraq and needs to be abolished or

restructured the moment we can do so.

7. The ‘‘Overthrow the Regime is Enough of a U.S. Policy Goal Syndrome’’

Our failure to clearly define our postwar policy goals for Iraq is another area

where we need early action. In fact, the Bush Administration has already faltered

badly. There is serious confusion and hostility in the Arab world and much of the

rest of the world over our objectives in going to war.

We face an Arab world where many see us as going to war to seize Iraq’s oil, barter deals with the Russians and French, create a new military base to dominate the

region, and/or serve Israel’s interest. Our lack of clear policy statements has encouraged virtually every negative conspiracy theory possible.

In short, our ultimate intentions in Iraq are already a major issue that vague

words cannot deal with. There is a critical need to clarify our intentions in enough

detail to show we really will act in the interest of the Iraqi people, to refute the

major conspiracy theories that have already developed, and prove we are not a ‘‘neo- imperialist’’ or ‘‘occupier.’’ In fact, we need to act as soon as possible.

8. The ‘‘UN and the World Doesn’t Matter in Shaping the Peace Syndrome’’

We face a massive legal problem that many U.S. studies current ignore. A range

of UN resolutions already govern what can and should be done in Iraq, of which

‘‘oil for food’’ is only the most obvious. In the real world, we have only the following

options: (a) reject the primacy of the UN and the UNSCR’s dealing with oil for food

and calling for democracy and human rights in Iraq and create our own plans and

structure; (b) rely on the UN to do what it is clearly prepared to do and act for us;

and (c) rely on an unpredictable mix of U.S., UN, and NGO institutions we will have

to build when and if war comes.

All of these options are bad, but (c) is best and we need to face this fact. We also

need to face the fact that we cannot pass our problems on to a non-existent international community that is willing to sweep up after our military parade. We may

well get UN and international cooperation but only if we lead and contribute actively. We have to stay as long as it takes, or at least until we can hand a mission

over to the Iraqis.

9. The ‘‘Democracy Solves Everything Syndrome’’

Broad generalizations about democracy suddenly solving Iraq’s problems are

mindlessly stupid. Iraq will benefit from added pluralism of the kind already called

for in UN resolutions. Moreover, Iraq already has provision for such steps in its existing and draft constitutions. However, the practice in Iraq has been strong men

and dictators for nearly half a century. Iraq has no viable political parties, no exile

or internal leaders with proven popular legitimacy, and deep ethnic, religious, and

tribal/clan divisions.

We also must deal with the different goals and priorities of Iraq’s neighbors and

the UN. Turkey and Iran will be real constraints on how a future government deals

with the Kurds and Shi’ites. This means we already have ‘‘non-democratic’’ priorities. We virtually must enforce territorial integrity, and limit Kurdish autonomy.

There will be no valid self-determination or democratic solutions to these issues.

Iraq is not going to become a model government or democracy for years. It faces

too many problems in internal power sharing, dealing with regional issues, and developing political parties that can look beyond selfish interests. It faces too many

other challenges in terms of developing a rule of law, protecting human rights, and

dealing with urgent economic and security issues.

If we try to impose too much of our political system, we will also face growing

problems with both Iraqis and the Arab world the moment we try to tell Iraqis how

they should govern rather than help them find better solutions. Rather than catalyze other Arab nations to become democratic, we will catalyze Pan-Arab hostility

and give the Arab world the impression that we have joined Israel as ‘‘occupiers.’’

10. The ‘‘Limited Presence and Peacemaking Syndrome’’

There are U.S. war plans that call for an early U.S. military presence in Kirkuk

to ensure that the Kurds do not attempt to seize it and to deter any Turkish movements. It is less clear that the U.S. has clearly tailored plans to occupy Shi’ite areas

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in ways that would block Iranian adventures and halt uprisings or efforts at control

by Shi’ite factions. There also are some who strongly oppose executing such efforts

because of the risk or cost, and who want to avoid a major U.S. military peacekeeping role regardless of the risks.

Some form of clear peacemaking/peacekeeping strategy is vital and past wars provide the lesson that the earlier the U.S. forces are present, the easier the task and

the smaller the presence required. In the case of Iraq, this is needed to prevent civil

war, halt warlordism, and provide the security needed to rebuild the nation. If it

is not done, the alternatives will either be to come in later with much larger resources, or fail in key aspects of shaping the peace.

The U.S. must be prepared from the start to deal with the broader territorial

issues—authority over the city of Kirkuk and its environs, shaping their ethnic mix,

and control of its key nodes of oil production and distribution. The U.S. must also

be prepared to help the Iraqis deal with the constitutional issue—what mix between

devolution and centralization will be acceptable to the Arabs and the Kurds alike?

(The last time, the issue went to arbitration under the League of Nations mandate,

took years and years to resolve, and eventually had to be enforced by the RAF using

poison gas. Scarcely the best precedent!)

11. The ‘‘Zero-Based Approach to Restructuring Iraq’s Government Syndrome’’

Iraq cannot be treated as an intellectual playground for political scientists or

ideologues, and must not be treated as if its people were a collection of white rats

that could be pushed through a democratic maze by a bunch of benevolent U.S. soldiers and NGOs. Iraq is a country of 24 million people with a history of more than

80 years. It has a constitution and a draft constitution. It has an existing National

Assembly structure, relatively modern legal system, and a history of past autonomy

agreements with the Kurds.

Iraq has a strong central structure based on a highly urbanized society. It is critically dependent on food imports and allocating the revenue from oil exports. It has

some 23 existing ministries. Some are now tools of repression and must be dismantled or totally rebuilt, but most are vital to running the country. Many of its urban

centers and complexes and governates are tailored to local needs. A standardized,

cookie cutter approach to local or regional government would fail dismally anywhere

in the world. It is a recipe for disaster in Iraq.

There is no Iraqi with real-world experience in governing Iraq in countless largely

technical areas vital to the needs of some 24 million people other than the existing

structure of government. The courts, the legal system, the lawyers have many flaws,

but they are also Iraqi. The rule of law and human rights, and security for the individual, are actually far more important than democracy and they too must be built

on the existing Iraqi structure of government.

Yes, we need to work with Iraqis at every level to clean up the existing system.

We have to destroy the one existing political party, the Baath, and ‘‘de-Saddamize’’

the existing government while establishing a modern rule of law and reforming the

economy. We need to give exiles a role, and not simply exile groups like the INC

that have more strength inside the beltway in Washington than anywhere in the

borders of Iraq. But, nothing can be zero-based.

12. The ‘‘Let’s All Form Another Giant Discussion Group Syndrome’’

Iraq’s mix of internal and external tensions make any slow, bottom-up, or ‘‘discussion group’’-oriented approach to restructuring power in Iraq a near certain recipe

for failure. We don’t have time for time-consuming efforts to create consensus. Cosmetic assemblies and advisory bodies are certain to produce a major backlash.

We may well have to push Iraqis into some new form of power structure within

weeks of the end of the fighting. We certainly have no more than months. We don’t

have time for long dialogue, although that can be used to adjust the initial arrangements.

We need to take a hard look at Iraq’s existing constitution and draft constitution,

and the idea of a constitutional convention and referendum creating a follow-on system has worked elsewhere. This may also allow us to deal with the realities of

power struggles by changing Iraq’s current constitution to deal with a tailored form

of republic or federalism plus some form of Kurdish-minority rights.

But, we don’t have months in which to get started or more than a year in which

to get a new system working. Any peace plan that does not include clear and specific

goals from the start, and takes more than six months to get all of the key power

sharing arrangements in place, is a failure from the start.

We must find ways to produce rapid power sharing and to reallocate oil wealth

and do in ways that emphasize political stability rather than democracy per se. This

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is not only a Kurdish issue, it is a who will lead the Shi’ites issue, and almost any

postwar arrangement will inevitably penalize today’s ruling Sunni elite.

13. The ‘‘Let’s All Ignore the State’s Present Role in the Economy Syndrome’’

More is also involved than governance and human rights. The National Iraqi Oil

Company is only the most critical of the many state entities that have to be used

to shape and develop the economy. We need to work with Iraqi immediately to clean

up the NIOC and other economic institutions that affect development, free up the

private sector as much as possible, create an honest Iraqi-based structure for international investment, and put Iraq back on the track to development as soon as possible.

There are very simple issues that must be dealt with immediately, and ideally before the fighting even begins. These include basics like the currency. What will the

money be, what will old accounts be worth? How will state salaries and pensions

be handled in a de facto command economy where so many depend on the state for

income? How will oil for food be handled or replaced at the local level? The functioning of the banking system is equally critical, and is the ability to transfer money

in from the outside. Iraq’s economy is far too marginal to wait on economic planning

and reform. The U.S. must be ready to provide economic reassurance and security

from the start.

The economic reform issue is as important as the governance issue. There must

be explicit plans to deal with state industry, with a key focus on energy. The issues

of freeing up the private sector, encouraging honest foreign investment, dealing with

agricultural reform, and creating a body of commercial law are critical.

14. The ‘‘Dismantle the Army and Police Force Syndrome’’

The Revolutionary Guards, the secret police, and other Saddam loyalists are contemptible, but the idea we disband the entire army and security forces and start

over with training and ground up new groups is impractical and dangerous.

Many elements of the regular army are nationalist, not pro-Saddam. We don’t

want 400,000 nationalists in the streets and hostile. We don’t want to leave a weak

army in service and an angry army in the streets. Germany after World War I

showed the impact that can have. By all means clean the army up, clean up the

officer corps, provide political training, etc., but leave the professional and competent elements in tact. Leave Iraq with some dignity and co-opt the army rather

than destroy it.

Leaving the police in place, after the same purging, is even more important. The

first priorities are food and security and then jobs and security. Trying to bring in

inexperience mixes of outsiders, training a new police force from the ground up, and

recreate a police-legal system interface from the ground up is almost mission impossible in terms of manpower, cost, and timeliness. Cleaning up the existing force is

not.

15. The ‘‘Debt and Reparations, Weimar Republic and Let’s Make a Deal Syndrome’’

We need to be extremely careful about even a hint that we are bartering away

Iraq’s post-Saddam future to get political support, and saddling a new regime with

hundred of billions of dollars in debt, reparations, and contingency contracts will

cripple it, just as we once crippled the Weimar Republic.

We should decide on some policy calling for debt and reparations forgiveness, and

the voiding of contingency contracts by the new regime.

16. The ‘‘Oil Income Floats All Boats Syndrome’’

Time for a reality check. The DOE estimates that Iraqi oil export revenues were

all of $14.1 billion in 2001 (including smuggling), out of total exports of all of $15.8

billion and an economy worth $28.2 billion in market terms. The GDP is less than

one-third of what it was in 1989, and there are two decades of war and sanctions

to make up for.

Oil revenues cannot possibly solve all of Iraq’s development problems. Real oil

wealth per capita will be under 1/10th of its 1980 peak given the rise in population

and the drop in oil prices. Oil can still pay for a lot, but not for both rebuilding

and development. Consider the following points about Iraq:

• Steady decline in relative wealth since 1982, not 1991; 70% of cut in GDP per

capita before Gulf War.

• Massive population growth: 9.1 million in 1970, 22.7 million in 2000 and 36.9

million in 2020. 40% under 15. Unemployment in excess of 25%.

• No longer has oil wealth in relative terms. A little over $700 per capita today

versus over $6,000 in 1980. See much worse in constant dollars. Around $23,820

for Saudi in 1980 versus $2,563 in 2001.

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• Dependent on oil for food and ‘‘black’’ sector to operate. Heavily dependent on

food imports since late 1970s. Some estimate a 70% dependence on food imports

once the economy recovers.

• Medical and educational crisis.

• Many artifacts of a command economy that has been centered around a dictatorship for three decades. Some solid economic institutions but no real market

system in terms of distribution, banking, uniform commercial code, insurance,

interest.

• Industrial development is weak and has a poor history.

• Oil revenue and development issue is critical, as is sharing revenue, but NIOC

has its thugs and killers. Saybolt indicates waterflooding and overpumping; 24

of 73 fields working, and 20-40% of wells at risk.

Yes, money will be a serious problem, particularly if debt and reparations are not

forgiven.

17. The ‘‘Disarmament is Quick and Lasting Syndrome’’

We need a clear policy towards Iraq’s military industry and dual use facilities

from the start, and we need to understand that a postwar Iraq will exist in a still

threatening and proliferating region. Moreover, whatever we get rid of, the human

talent and major dual use facilities will remain. Getting rid of nukes also can just

push Iraq towards a reliance on biological warfare.

We need both a short term and long term plan to disarm Iraq. The long term plan

must include some way to use a combination of UNSCR and national action to limit

any risk of future proliferation and possibly some form of U.S. security guarantees

to limit the incentive to future regimes to proliferate.

18. The ‘‘No Exit Strategy Syndrome’’

Every past peacemaking effort has shown that an explicit exit strategy is vital.

The key in this case is an entry strategy that makes a real peace possible, setting

modest and achievable objectives, treating the Iraqis as partners, and leaving when

they either want us to leave or are ready to have us leave. It is to avoid any chance

of civil war, clearly act in Iraq’s benefit, and plan to leave early rather than late.

Curing the ‘‘Iraq War Peace Syndrome(s)’’

The first step in curing a complex disease like the Iraq War Peace Syndrome(s)

is to recognize the nature of the disease. As the previous list shows, this often suggests the cure. The fact remains, however, that we face at least a decade of further

instability in the Gulf Region, whether or not we go to war with Iraq, and no matter

how well the war goes. Getting rid of Saddam and Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction is an important set of goals if the war goes well. No war, however, can do more

than provide a basis for making Iraq somewhat better and then giving the Iraqis

control over their own destiny. No outcome of the war can reshape the Gulf or the

Middle East.

The idea of instant democratization coming out of the war and spreading throughout the region denies the laws of cause and effect and is ridiculous. So is the idea

we know enough about nation building to create an Iraqi United States.

The best we can do is minimize our mistakes and the effect of the law of unintended consequences. To do this requires both realism and commitment. If we rely

on miracles and good intentions, or act as occupiers rather than partners, we are

almost certain to be far more unhappy on the tenth anniversary of the next war

as we were on the tenth anniversary of the Gulf War.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

I will ignore momentarily the sub rosa comment of my colleague.

Midwest, we will leave it there.

Senator BIDEN. I said it is in Indiana.

Mr. CORDESMAN. As a Chicagoan, Senator, I plead guilty.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you.

Let me begin another 5-minute round of questioning with our colleagues. I am struck by the difference in the testimony of the two

panels. Let me just say, without being defensive with regard to the

Under Secretaries of State and Defense, they come here obviously

at our request because we think this is very important. Senator

Biden and I and other Senators who are here have felt it was imVerDate 11-MAY-2000 17:48 Jul 14, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 87678 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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portant for a long time. We have really pressed the issue in public

comments that we needed to have outlines or some ideas of the

plans, which we felt needed to be extensive, describing who was

going to be doing it or who would be doing it, who we would work

with.

In fairness, the administration has responded with these two excellent public servants. But after they have completed their testimony and been questioned by 13 Senators, we hear from the three

of you. Now it seems to me we are getting somewhere. I would say

that, starting with the ten points that you made, General Zinni,

without necessarily agreeing wholeheartedly, and you would rate

them in some way, they are important considerations.

Clearly, we do not have many answers to those ten points, which

are raised not really as questions but as considerations if you have

success. I hope that I am in error with regard to that, but the

thought that we have set up an office in the Department of Defense

just 3 weeks ago pulling together interdepartmental people is clearly not on the same pace that all of you have pointed out with regard to our military movements into the area. To the extent that

report is any correlation at all, it becomes apparent that whatever

is occurring in terms of the planning for what happens after military action, this is way, way behind the curve.

As a matter of fact, many of the questions that you have asked,

the three of you, are still not being asked publicly or answered publicly. So one of the values of the hearing was to introduce you to

our first panel, or vice versa, so that somewhere in the United

States there is some collective wisdom and some sense of history,

which some of you have had.

I appreciate especially, General Zinni, you mentioned you have

been there before. You thought through these things in 1998. This

is not the first time our country or those responsible for

CENTCOM have been there. You were. So there is real value in

having said that and in having others who are coming up there

now at least consult with you, taking your list and working it

through as we are attempting to do in our amateur fashion as legislators, as an oversight committee.

So my first hope is that we can help in the coordination in our

own government by indicating to the administration, as I do publicly, that what we have heard is not good enough. We are simply

way, way behind and this will require accelerated intellectual work

and planning.

Now, even after we have done that, we have some of the historical questions Professor Cordesman raises with regard to all the

countries around the region. What is to happen to those countries?

How is Iraq itself to be defended? We even have the audacious suggestion, finally, that if we are unsuccessful with regard to weapons

of mass destruction in the surrounding territory, what do we do

about poor Iraq left behind as a country that now we feel exemplifies democracy and freedom, but is not really up to par?

Other countries have solved that problem in the past in a way.

We have had a Japanese-American alliance in the Far East for a

long time. And even as this committee last week examined North

Korea, one of the questions comes up: What if North Korea has

weapons and continues to build a stream of them? Let us say they

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do not plan to use them, but that is small consolation to the Japanese or even the South Koreans or others in the area, in the same

way as terminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction will be.

These are very important questions. As you pointed out, there

are tribes and dissident sectors in the politics of Iraq now that we

really have not gotten to because none of us have been that comprehensive in this committee—maybe some of you have in your

scholarship—as to know how many things an administrator will

have to do.

Finally, the thought that General Franks cannot do just Iraq;

General Franks, CENTCOM, whoever commands that, has a lot of

responsibilities. So the question is, Who is in charge? Who is going

to be designated in a command chain from the President to the

Secretary of Defense to General Franks to there? What will be the

chain of command even in our own government? Is this something

where the President nominates, or makes several nominations, Assistant Secretaries or whoever in this immediate period, to handle

all these civil functions? This includes law and order as fundamental, the boundary integrity, plus all of the problems of adjudication and a legal system that does not exist—and yet must, because of personal security as well as country security.

So I have taken my 5 minutes of questions really simply to make

editorial comments. But I am excited about the hearing, about the

process at least that still exists in the Congress of raising these

questions and having able Americans who are offering us some

very substantial answers. You have stimulated this committee and

I hope the American people who listen to this hearing.

I turn now to my partner Joe Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much. As they say in this business up here, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of

the chairman.

Fellows, I find myself perplexed. Over the last year roughly, almost year and a half, the President has been generous with his

time. He has been patient with me and I suspect, I know, with others. He has had us down, he has had me down alone, he has had

the Senator down alone, he has had us down together. And he

genuinely is exploring. I believe and I have been saying publicly,

not making me the most popular person in the Democratic Caucus,

that I believe he has an open mind. I believe he is trying to find

the right answers. I believe his instincts are basically good. I do not

mean ‘‘basically.’’ His instincts are good.

He is obviously a good person. I mean his instincts on what to

do in these very difficult decisions he has to make.

The thrust of everything you three have said, with less articulation and less of a base of knowledge, when the President has asked

me I have said. And I am sure I am not the only one who has sat

with him in the Oval Office, with Dr. Rice, with the Vice President,

and gone into these things in some detail.

I know, I have witnessed it with Senator Lugar, I know I am not

the only one that has raised these issues. And I walk away wondering, not that he listened, but this is obviously a group of very

bright women and men. Secretary Rumsfeld is an incredibly bright,

erudite fellow, and he really is. I am not being solicitous. The Vice

President is a very bright, hard-nosed guy. Dr. Rice, the Secretary

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of State, the two people we heard here today, the No. 2 people— the No. 3 and four, I should say.

And I walk away and I wonder, now why has none of this been

done?

Colonel Feil, in any other administration you were in, if you were

in the administration, in the Defense Department, I know every

commander, general, has to know that these are the questions that

have to be answered, whether the same 10, there may be 2, there

may be 14. But there is clearly—this is not rocket science, knowing

what the problem is.

Why has it not been done? I think it is because—and I would like

you to, if you feel free, I mean if you wish to comment, fine; if you

do not, I understand. One of you said—I think it was you, general—is it transition or transformation? What is the goal? I think

there is a fundamental debate that still exists in this administration, whether it is transition or it is transformation we are committing to.

Because if that debate is settled, then we clearly have, with all

the bright people in this administration a much clearer, to use the

phrase used by our newest member on this committee, a road map.

You know, we would know what road we were going down. Because

these questions are so obvious, and the fact that they have not

been addressed contemporaneously with the military planning— general, I was with your old military comrades, as I was—as Senator Hagel and I were. He is a military man, Senator Hagel. We

were both incredibly impressed, incredibly impressed, with the detail of the planning and the various contingencies about how to

conduct this war.

Now, we are smart enough to do that. The idea, professor, we

have not addressed these other things is beyond my comprehension. And the only answer I can come up with is not that there are

not people who know what they are doing. They are people who

have not decided on transition or transformation. My sneaking suspicion is Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company, it is transition. State

and the President’s occasional comments talk transformation.

I will conclude by saying the only reason why, were the President

to ask me, I am inclined to give, quote, ‘‘more time’’ to our U.N.

interlocutors has nothing to do with inspections, has nothing to do

whether or not we can put 50 times as many inspectors in, whether

they are going to find these weapons of mass destruction.

It has to do with we ain’t ready yet. We have all the forces there

that we need. So I am told, general. You would know better than

any of us. We are fully capable of executing the first phase of this

operation. How much or how little bloodshed, how much damage

we politically as well as militarily have to take is a question. But

the reason why, if I were the President, I would be ‘‘rope-a-doping’’

a little bit here and slowing up my deployment and making sure

that I talked more with the French about whether there is more

inspectors or whether there is not, knowing it is malarkey, is that

every one of you said directly or implied if this is not contemporaneously undertaken, if the moment the gun goes off, general, and

the first missile, plane, troop flies we do not know darn well what

those things, colonel, you talked about and, professor, you talked

about, which I will not go into detail because my time is up, unless

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they are decided upon at the front end it seems to me this is a prescription for losing, losing overall, having our interests overall a

year from now being more in jeopardy in the world and the region

than they are now, even though he may be gone.

Because I always ask the rhetorical question when the President

says—and God love him, he makes these speeches, and some of

them are really good and some of them I walk away scratching my

head—when he makes these speeches and others do as well that

somehow this is going to answer or make us any safer, taking down

Saddam in the near term, from al-Qaeda, from terrorist attacks.

If the Lord Almighty came and sat right down where the photographers used to sit and said, look, folks, guarantee you this will all

be done, done quickly and done fine, are we not going to still be

on orange alert in this country? And by the way, if the rationale

as Mr. Feith offered, in part in fairness to him, was, look, this guy

you have to understand has been helping these Palestinians, the

road to peace in terms of the—the extreme Palestinians—the road

to peace rests in getting rid of this guy, let me tell you: the Iranians make him look like an amateur, the Syrians make him look

like a bumbler.

What trouble he has caused with Israel in the Middle East is infinitesimal in my view compared—and he does cause trouble—is infinitesimal compared to the trouble that the Iranians, the Syrians,

and others in the region have caused. So is the prescription meaning, once we do that, now we have got to do Syria and Iran?

I just think that we are not ready right now, we are not ready

right now. And it worries the devil out of me, unless, unless, the

administration knows something none of you know, I can tell by

your testimony because I have heard you guys, and something we

do not know, that they do have a plan, they are ready to go. I did

not get any real sense of—I did not get any real warm feeling from

the two who testified before, who are fine men on limited, on short

leashes, who are trying to declassify.

So I cannot thank you enough for your testimony. Hopefully it

will be sober enough to wake some people up and figure out we

have got to get these decisions made contemporaneous, contemporaneous with the execution of force.

I used up my more than 5 minutes, again not with a question.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Biden.

Senator Hagel.

Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I too add my

thanks to the three of you.

I think both the chairman and our former chairman spoke directly to the value of having the three of you up here and the presentations that you have made. I wish all senior members of this

administration could have, and maybe they did, listen to what you

had to say, and I know we will have a record of your testimony.

But everything that Senators Lugar and Biden said in regard to

your testimony I agree with. It is not and never has been a question of whether Saddam Hussein can be rehabilitated. He is a

threat. He is a problem. But it is more to the point of each of your

testimony, not only as to, as you said, General Zinni, the end

State—and Senator Biden spoke to that just a few minutes ago—

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what it is that we wish to accomplish, how do we wish to accomplish it, with whom, all the questions that you have laid out.

And I would make one additional comment before I ask each of

you to respond to a question. As I listened to the three of you and

Senators Biden and Lugar, I was struck once again with, as we

went around the horseshoe here the last 3 hours with 13 Senators

asking these two very dedicated, bright public servants to explain

the administration’s policy, I was struck with how many times

when the question was asked or references should have been used

to what is the purpose, what is the point of attacking Iraq or replacing Saddam Hussein, very few times was there any reference

to force Saddam Hussein to comply with 17 U.N. resolutions that

he has been guilty of violating since 1991.

On the one hand that is a stated objective publicly by the administration as to what we are about here. But as we went around the

horseshoe we had variations as to what the point is. As Senator

Biden pointed out, Secretary Feith talked about essentially some

believe that the Middle East peace process is through Baghdad,

and there were other variations of this. I do not happen to believe

that, but nonetheless what it says and what it reflects very clearly

on is what Professor Cordesman talked about as well, public diplomacy, explaining our purpose, explaining our intent, explaining our

use of power.

We have not only not answered the tough questions that you

three have put forward, but I think we are still rather murky in

explaining to America and the world what we are about to do and

why it is important.

Now, you have all laid out the questions, the concerns. I would

ask the three of you to give this committee your thoughts on how

we should proceed from here, assuming that the three of you agree

that Saddam is in violation of 17 U.N. resolutions and assuming

the three of you agree that he needs to be dealt with some way.

Maybe that is a leap of assumptions here, but I think I understand

where the three of you are.

But it would be helpful if the three of you would give us your

process, how you think we should move forward to deal with Saddam Hussein. Thank you.

Senator BIDEN. Good question.

General ZINNI. Well, Senator Hagel, I think obviously we are

going down this path. The first thing I would say, which has been

said before, we need the international community and preferably

we need to work under international agencies and institutions in

much of what is described here, because the military piece and the

security piece is not going to be the important part of all this. It

is necessary, but not the most important.

What would worry me is, I can look at Tommy Franks and his

mustering of all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and I think

everybody, including the two Senators who went out there, have

complete confidence in that aspect of this. I would hope you did.

But where is the counterpart economic, political, humanitarian,

and recovery?

If it is just a small group in the Pentagon, by the way led by a

very able individual in Jay Garner—I have the greatest respect for

him. We were together in northern Iraq. But a planning cell, an

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interagency planning cell at the Pentagon—now, my career is deficient in that I never served a tour there, but it does not do anything for me on the ground.

Where is the CENTCOM counterpart to a political organization

that is going to come in? I think the two Secretaries this morning

talked about political committees, judicial committees. They are

necessary. In the early days of Somalia with Ambassador Bob Oakley and others when we had a degree of success, these had to be

in place. But you need manpower and organization and structure

and authority and resources to make this work.

If you are going to go in and assume responsibilities—I will just

take a small thing, a small item, but it may point out how significant something could be. This morning these two Secretaries mentioned that 60 percent of the Iraqi people eat off the Oil for Food

Program. There are 40,000 feeding stations there. Now, option one,

best case, all those—and Saddam’s government runs these feeding

stations—they stay in place, nothing happens to them, the warehouses are sound and they continue to pump food. Good news, path

one.

Path two, no, that half of them run away, some of the warehouses are destroyed. And then you could eventually get yourself

to path three, 40,000 feeding stations are abandoned, destroyed,

disrupted, and you have got to create 40,000 feeding stations from

nothing. Who does that?

We talked about NGOs. These NGOs are a disparate collection

of people that operate on their own with different charters, different motivations. Who pulls them together? Is there a humanitarian operations center under somebody from the U.N. or somewhere that is going to coordinate their efforts? Are we going to find

them all in the Shia area and none in the Sunni area? And who

fills in the blanks?

We need structure, we need organization, we need lines of authority. The tasks are out there. All the books that we can pick up,

the work that people like Tony Cordesman have done, the CFR,

have identified what has to be done. I do not doubt that the problem has been scoped. There is a bracket. There is the 2-year plan,

which I doubt seriously, and there is the 10-year plan, which I will

tell you is more realistic.

But the tasks to be performed there, and the it-depends answer

is whether the 40,000 feeding stations are up and running or they

are totally destroyed or something in between, that can all be

mapped out, to use the phrase that Senator Coleman mentioned.

But the problem is who is going to do it, where are they? You

know, if you have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground

formed up into divisions and wings and task forces at sea, where

is the counterpart on these other sides? It is not going to be a

handful of people that drive out of the Pentagon, catch a plane, and

fly in after the military piece to try to pull this together.

I mean, that is what I think the next step is.

Senator HAGEL. Thank you.

May I ask the other two to respond as well, Mr. Chairman, to

that, to my question, if I could?

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, briefly if you can.

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Colonel FEIL. Briefly let me take a slightly different tack from

General Zinni and talk about some operational things. I think that

the previous panel got into the area where everything is all connected and so therefore when one thing is solved and then everything else will tumble and we will be able to connect everything

else. I think there is a different way to separate some of these

issues that flow from a central decision about what the goal is, that

could be separated into things that are unknown and we are waiting for a decision and those things we have to set aside, things that

we know we are going to have to do, and those things we can get

on with right now.

I would harken back to the first panel: the issue of justice. They

have a committee that has rewritten or is in the business of rewriting a justice code in Arabic, 600 pages. You can run the numbers

that are based on previous historical experience about the population, the size of the police force, and how many police monitors

you need. If they have a code, we should be out working with the

international community right now to recruit, organize and train

the police monitors that will help provide the local security and the

community security that will alleviate the military of the burden

of having to escort school children, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Those sorts of things are more in the science of this business

than the art of it. Those things I think, many of those things can

be approached now. The other ones may have to be put in a box

that flows from having a resolution of the central decision.

Mr. CORDESMAN. Let me say very briefly, I do not believe we are

going to transform Iraq. We may start that process. There is no

chance in hell that we will finish it. It takes too long to change a

society and a country of 22 million people. What you can do is give

them the opportunity to sustain change.

I think some of these issues were touched on this morning, but

the first thing you have to do if you want to have nation-building

is to provide security throughout the country, and that means

going into the major cities, to the various regions, with some kind

of teams which will maintain order right away. We saw in Afghanistan what happens when you do not do that, and we will probably

pay for it with failure in our effort to create a stable Afghanistan.

You need food and you need to deal with currency. You need to

provide immediate crude economic stability, and restoring the monetary and banking system rank with food, water, and security.

There are 23 ministries, and 6 are problem ministries that will

need immediate reform. There are some 18 provinces, and about 30

major regional areas. I hope we have civil and military teams to

go into each one very, very quickly. The minute we do, we are

going to have to make those teams work with Iraq, who govern

while we screen. You do not screen first, reorganize, and change.

I cannot think of anything more disastrous than a bunch of

American political scientists wandering into a different country,

who do not speak the language except in somebody else’s theories,

and attempting basically to change Iraq. It is a little like trying to

sculpture an iceberg with the prow of the Titanic. It just is not

going to work.

So the question is how do you get as many Iraqis helping as

quickly as possible. Whether it is an assembly or a constitutional

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convention, we need to have a forum to allow the Iraqis to work

out how they can create a Federal system for power-sharing, dealing with problems like revenues, and getting to be more pluralistic,

a republic.

I always hate the misuse of the word ‘‘democracy.’’ Gentlemen,

we do not live in a ‘‘democracy.’’ None of our Founding Fathers

would have made that mistake, and the first ten amendments to

the Constitution of the United States are so fundamentally antidemocratic as to oppose the principle in every way. We have a

sharing of power, responsibility, political parties, checks and balances, not a democracy. What we do in Iraq has to be to create that

kind of system on their terms, not a democracy, which has never

been a successful form of government anywhere in the world.

There are issues like debt and reparations forgiveness. We cannot burden this new Iraqi Government with what is in excess of

several hundred billion dollars worth of current and potential obligations. Again, remember the Weimar Republic. To have any

money to deal with social needs and change, that must be one of

our highest priorities and to have that forgiven.

Finally, if the Iraqi’s are to have any cash-flow, we have to go

in and deal with the oil fields, oil revenues, and oil exports immediately. The lowest figure I have seen to fix the oil fields is $7 billion. The Iraqis, incidentally, have talked $36 billion for 3.5 of sustained million barrels per day.

Senator Biden, let me just make a last point. Until we go in this

country and survey what are actually the problems there, we will

not really know what we are doing. Nobody in Iraq knows. Any

plan will be the first casualty of engagement with reality.

It is important to have people who can go in and deal with that

flexibility. Let us remember there have been no Americans who

have been in Iraq in 12 years. There are very few who ever were

in Iraq.

There are no NGOs which have really worked with this scale of

problem and most of them are tied up in other parts of the world

and their issue and focus is humanitarian. There is nothing in the

United Nations structure which says we can make this job ‘‘international.’’ Oil for Food really does not run anything. The allocation

is done by computer by the Iraqis, and that is the only substantive

part of the U.N. that prepares us.

So either we do the job, and assume the responsibility for it with

limited international aid, or it simply does not get done.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Chafee.

Senator CHAFEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know the hour is

ticking on.

I think Professor Cordesman said the issue here is the practical

and, to use a cliche, you have to do a cost-benefit analysis of where

we are going. It seems to me that, yes, Saddam Hussein is a murderous tyrant, but we have those around the world, Charles Taylor

in Liberia, but the difference you might say is that Saddam Hussein is a threat to us. And I for one have not been convinced of that

and therefore have questions about the direction we are going in.

I would like to hear you comment on a cost-benefit analysis considering everything we have heard here this morning. Is Saddam

Hussein a threat to us?

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Mr. CORDESMAN. Let me, if I may, say I believe that he is. I

found—or I have watched Iraq—I first was there in 1973—change

from a country with immense potential to one which under Saddam

Hussein fought a really bloody, murderous war with the Kurds

after the Algiers Accords in 1975. It was one of the most unpleasantly ruthless campaigns imaginable.

He purged the country in 1979—— Senator CHAFEE. I know the time is ticking down. To us, to

Americans?

Mr. CORDESMAN. Ultimately, there are 60 percent of the world’s

oil reserves in this area. You have a revenge-oriented dictator who

will not stop proliferating. The most you will ever get out of U.N.

inspection, frankly, is a delay or a pause before this man reasserts

himself and tries to take revenge.

Senator CHAFEE. Thank you, professor.

General ZINNI. Senator, I do not believe he is an imminent threat

to us. I think he is a threat. He threatens to destabilize the region,

left unchecked. But he is very well checked. He could develop the

kinds of threats that could directly affect us.

My problem is not in dealing with him militarily. My problem is

in timing. Everything we are talking about here—the use of the

military, the cost and the resources, the potential destabilization of

the region, distraction from other priorities—this is in my view the

worst time to take this on and I do not feel it needs to be done now.

I do feel he needs to be dealt with, though.

Senator CHAFEE. Thank you, general.

Colonel FEIL. Sir, I would agree more with Professor Cordesman.

I think in the medium term, I think he is a threat. I think that,

to General Zinni’s point and back to the planning issue, my discussions with NGOs and government agencies, the lack of planning for

Iraq has caused some of the problems that we have got in Afghanistan, simply because organizations behave organizationally. They

withhold resources until they know what the downstream requirements are. And Afghanistan just continues to trundle along. With

an answer to the question that would apply resources to Iraq, they

would have a better idea about what they could devote to Afghanistan.

But I think that Saddam is a medium-term threat.

Senator CHAFEE. Thank you, colonel.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Chafee.

Senator Nelson.

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, because of the lateness of the

hour I will just ask quickly. I would like to just followup what General Zinni had said and with his stature as being in the middle of

the Middle East peace negotiations. So is this a fair characterization of your opinion: Saddam Hussein is a problem, he has got to

be dealt with, but one of the aspects right now of your concern in

doing it now is the spillover into the volatility of the Middle East?

General ZINNI. Yes, sir, one of them. There are many others.

Senator NELSON. Do we expect that Iran in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq would try to exert influence through the Shi’ite population?

General ZINNI. Yes, I believe Iran is going to see itself surrounded. We have relationships in the Caspian military to military.

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We have troops in Afghanistan. We are creating—we have naval

forces in the gulf and in the Indian Ocean. We are now about ready

to put troops into Iraq. It looks like you are surrounded if you are

an Iranian hard-liner.

Senator NELSON. So it would not be surprising then to see Iran

try to stir up trouble in an occupied Iraq through the Shi’ites?

General ZINNI. Iran gets a two-fer here: One, they get rid of Iraq

as a major threat by us getting in there; and they can deal with

us by ensuring that we have a lot of trouble and problems that discredit us in the region if they can generate that in there. So they

deal with Iraq and they deal with us if they can generate those

kinds of problems, and they could generate them, not directly in

just Iraq, but what they do to support terrorist groups that are operating in the Palestinian territories and in Israel, to try to draw

them in.

The worst image, my worst nightmare, would be on Al-Jazeera

TV a picture of American troops in combat fighting Iraqis at the

same time the IDF is on the West Bank and in Gaza in incursions

as a reaction to some sort of suicide bombing or worse and the images show Israelis and Americans killing Arabs. If I were an Iranian or an al-Qaeda or Hamas or Jihad, I would be wanting to generate that at the moment that we go in, and the effect in the region

can be disastrous.

Senator NELSON. And if the Iranians really wanted to give us

fits, that is what they would do, is stir up those groups such as

Hezbollah so that the Americans would have it on two fronts.

General ZINNI. Well, the Iranian hard-liners are in trouble internally. They are seeing their own internal revolution come about.

They need to do something to stop that momentum and to distract

it. Nothing better than a common enemy and to mobilize, what

Tony Cordesman mentioned, the natural feelings in terms of the

Arab-Israeli and U.S. involvement. This is a chance for them to regain the initiative of the revolution.

What Tony said was a very important point and would cause me

to disagree with what Secretary Feith said today. By changing the

government in Iraq, you do not change the attitude on these issues

with the people. You know, you are not. And no one can succeed

in governance by having this sort of pro-American, pro-Israeli or

reasonable approach to the Israelis in this environment today. So

we would doom anybody that comes in with this idea. They may

pander to us and say they have it; they will not last long in a leadership position with that attitude, because that is not the mood of

the region right now.

Mr. CORDESMAN. Senator, could I make just one comment? I

think everything General Zinni said is true. But there is one ameliorating factor: The Shi’ites of Iran are not Shi’ites first. They are

Arabs. They are deeply divided. There are mixed tribes and clans

within the area. Many of them are secular. They have a long history of internal divisions along class and economic and community

lines. They differ with the Iranians on a number of aspects of religious practices.

So Iran’s leverage in parts at least of the Shi’ite areas, probably

even the majority, is more limited than it may appear. But that

does not mean it is not a threat, as General Zinni pointed out.

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Senator NELSON. And an additional threat, Mr. Chairman, perhaps that some of these groups that would be stirred up by Iran

are also resident in the United States in some substantial numbers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Nelson.

Let me just make a summary comment that we have demonstrated again how many problems the United States has if you

are a foreign policy person, or President of the United States.

These may not have been obvious prior to September 11. Perhaps

this triggered awareness on the part of the Senate, the people, everybody, that there are a lot of problems out in the world and a

good number have been moving on for quite a long while. We may

have been oblivious, now that we think of public diplomacy, of hundreds of millions of people in the Near East or the Middle East.

But we are aware of them now.

My only hope would be that, even though there are so many

problems, this would not deter Americans from trying to solve any

of them. Some of the logic that I hear in the debate is to suggest

that when people are asked in polls whether Iraq is more of a problem than North Korea, al-Qaeda, whatever else somebody thinks

of, perhaps the Israeli-Palestinian thing, you can get a real division

of opinion. Finally, some come to the conclusion that they are all

problems and all insoluble. That, as Americans, we really find unacceptable.

So I appreciate the spirit of your testimony today. Although you

have differing viewpoints about the urgency of dealing with Saddam Hussein or Iraq, none of you has argued that we ought to be

oblivious to this. And furthermore, you have offered at least some

guidelines that, if it is finally the will of our government to proceed

either with the United Nations, or with a coalition of the willing,

that there are some things we need to do very swiftly if we are to

have some measure of success and some modesty with regard to

how much is achievable in the process.

So I thank you for the wisdom and the thoughtfulness with

which you have approached that, as well as your lifetimes of service to our country.

I thank all members for their constancy and all who have witnessed 4 hours and 10 minutes of hearings on the future of Iraq.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:40 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene

subject to the call of the Chair.]

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