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38–038 PDF 2007

IRAQ: DEMOCRACY OR CIVIL WAR?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 11, 2006

Serial No. 109–247

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

DAVID MARIN, Staff Director

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Deputy Staff Director

BENJAMIN CHANCE, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, Staff Director and Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 11, 2006 ..................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Edelman, Ambassador Eric S., Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,

Department of Defense; and Rear Admiral William D. Sullivan, Vice

Director for Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff ................... 17

Edelman, Ambassador Eric S. .................................................................. 17

Sullivan, Rear Admiral William D. .......................................................... 25

Nash, William, Major General Retired, U.S. Army, senior fellow for conflict prevention, and director of the Center for Prevention Action Council on Foreign Relations; Bruce Hoffman, professor, Security Studies

Program, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; and Alan

King, former Commanding Officer, 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion Operation, IRAQI Freedom, advisor for Tribal Affairs, Coalition Provisional

Authority ....................................................................................................... 63

Hoffman, Bruce .......................................................................................... 74

King, Alan .................................................................................................. 91

Nash, William ............................................................................................ 63

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

Edelman, Ambassador Eric S., Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,

Department of Defense, prepared statement of ......................................... 20

Hoffman, Bruce, professor, Security Studies Program, School of Foreign

Service, Georgetown University, prepared statement of ........................... 78

King, Alan, former Commanding Officer, 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion

Operation, IRAQI Freedom, advisor for Tribal Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, prepared statement of ..................................................... 93

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

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 9

Nash, William, Major General Retired, U.S. Army, senior fellow for conflict prevention, and director of the Center for Prevention Action Council on Foreign Relations, prepared statement of ........................................ 67

Porter, Hon. Jon C. Porter, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Nevada, prepared statement of ............................................................... 130

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

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

Sullivan, Rear Admiral William D., Vice Director for Strategic Plans

and Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff, prepared statement of ........................... 27

(1)

IRAQ: DEMOCRACY OR CIVIL WAR?

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Kucinich and Van Hollen.

Staff present: R. Nicholas Palarino, Ph.D., staff director; Kaleb

Redden, PMI; Robert A. Briggs, analyst; Robert Kelley, chief counsel; Jeff Baran, minority counsel; Andrew Su, minority professional

staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

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

hearing entitled, ‘‘Iraq: Democracy or Civil War?’’ is called to order.

This is an extremely important topic, and thus we want the

record to be complete, so this hearing will continue over 3 days

today, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We will hear from 13 witnesses on 5 panels. Today and Wednesday we will recess, not adjourn, at the start of each reconvening session. Members then

present will have the opportunity to make opening statements. In

all other respects, we will proceed as usual without prejudice to the

rights and privileges of any Member.

Today marks the 5-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on

our country. On that fateful day, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania became epicenters of a seismic

event still generating shocks across our Nation and around the

world. It is fitting we begin today by observing a moment of silence

in recognition of those lost and the suffering of the loved ones they

left behind. And so I would like to ask our panel, our guests, and

the Members to stand for a moment of silence.

[Moment of silence.]

Mr. SHAYS. Five years after September 11th, our Nation is engaged in a global war against what the 9/11 Commission called Islamic extremists, and in one of those operational theaters we are

meeting fierce resistance. The conflict in Iraq finds United States

and Coalition forces up against increasing insurgent, sectarian and

terrorist violence.

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has supported the U.S.

objective to foster progressive democracy in the Middle East. Bluntly stated, ‘‘it is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy

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in Iraq. We are babysitting a civil war.’’ While some may take issue

with Mr. Friedman’s choice of words, the broad contours of his

point are clear. The violence in Iraq continues, if not increases. The

new Iraqi leadership has not yet shown the political will to confront it, and efforts to promote peace and democracy are stalled.

Iraqi security forces are truly improving and growing in number,

but they face an uphill battle if Iraqi politicians are not willing to

confront the militias and make peace among themselves.

With their country teetering toward chaos and political differences impeding progress, Iraqi leaders took a 1-month vacation.

When their Parliament, the Council of Representatives, returned to

session last week, more than one-third was not in attendance.

Let me be clear. I have and I continue to be a strong supporter

of our cause in Iraq. I believe it is a noble effort. We have no choice

but to win. But we must go where the truth leads us, wherever it

leads us. During this week in three separate hearings, our committee will determine security force levels; prospects for national reconciliation; and the consequences of leaving Iraq immediately, later

but still prematurely, or when Iraqis are capable of taking over for

Coalition forces.

At today’s session we are focusing on the numbers of Iraqi security forces required to secure their own country. The answer to this

question is critical to the Iraqi people and to Americans here at

home.

We will hear first today from Ambassador Eric Edelman, Under

Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Department of Defense; and

Rear Admiral William Sullivan, Vice Director for Strategic Plans

and Policies representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

During panel two we will hear from retired U.S. Army Major

General William Nash, senior fellow and director of the Center for

Preventative Action at the Counsel on Foreign Relations; Dr. Bruce

Hoffman, an expert on insurgencies and terrorism previously at

RAND Corp. and currently professor of strategic studies as Georgetown University; and Mr. Alan King, who commanded a U.S. Army

civil affairs battalion in Iraq and was advisor for tribal affairs to

U.S. authorities in Iraq.

We thank all of our witnesses for their participation.

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

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Kucinich

and thank him for his presence, and then we will go to our colleague from Maryland.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and while

I think it is very important that we hold these hearings, I want to

caution about having a hearing about Iraq on September 11th, because one of the problems that this country has suffered from in

the last few years has been the conflation of September 11th with

Iraq. The administration now, this administration, that has led us

into a war blaming or trying to connect Iraq with September 11th

has now itself been confronted with widespread public opinion that

insists that everything they told us wasn’t so. I don’t know that it

is particularly productive to have a hearing on Iraq on September

11th, but we are here, and we will proceed.

I also think that we have some new information that has come

up in today’s Washington Post that would require, I would hope,

this committee to proceed with questions of individuals quoted in

a story that said the prospects for securing the country’s western

Anbar Province are dim, and there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation. One Army

officer described as saying we haven’t been defeated militarily, but

we have been defeated politically. There is a report saying there is

no function in the Iraqi Government institution in the Anbar Province, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by al Qaeda; another

that describes Anbar beyond repair. Another report says the United

States has lost at Anbar, that military operations has faced a stalemate, local governments in the province have collapsed, leaving

central government with no presence.

I mean, I don’t know what we are going to talk about today, but

it seems that would be a pretty good place to start. Nevertheless,

I want to thank the Chair for the hearing. These oversight hearings have been long overdue. Five years after the national tragedy

of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, and more than 3 years

after the White House and the Pentagon decided to invade Iraq in

2003, more Americans have thrown away those rose-colored glasses

distributed by the White House and the Pentagon and discovered

the disturbing truth underneath. We are not greeted as liberators,

but, instead, Iraq’s occupiers.

There is a war of national liberation going on in Iraq right now,

and its goal is to liberate Iraq from Americans. Meanwhile, the factions in the struggle are vying for power. That is the civil war. The

situation is grim. Iraq is heading toward an even deepening civil

war, and it may be too late for anyone to keep Iraq from tearing

itself apart. Contrary to what the White House claims, neither

Iraqis or Americans are safer now than they were a few years ago.

Violence has skyrocketed, and each day more American troops are

put in harm’s way, targets of insurgents and deadly IED explosive

bombs.

More than 2,600 American troops have been lost in the course of

military operations in Iraq. The number of attacks initiated by the

insurgents have continued steadily upwards. In spite of a rising

numbers of Iraqi police, and in spite of prolonged occupation, in

spite of increasing number of IEDs that are detected and disarmed,

there is a rising number of deadly IED attacks, each recent month

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deadlier than the last. The average number of daily attacks by insurgents has steadily risen. In the past 3 months, the daily attack

rate hasn’t fallen below 90.

Now, the Vice President would look at those observations and

say, oh, this doesn’t serve America’s purpose to talk about it. But

this Vice President has had difficulty confronting the truth, and

he’s been one of those who led this country into a war based on

falsehoods, statements that he should be held legally accountable

for.

Now, if Iraqis—whether it is a vicious cycle of death squad execution-style killings carried out by militia groups or the skyrocketing number of kidnappings, bombs and sectarian violence which

occur daily, 120 Iraqis are dying every day. Baghdad’s coroner reports that tens of thousands of murders are occurring each month.

Is that right? Is that right? Iraqis are not as safe as they were 3

years ago. Between 100,000 and 200,000 innocent Iraqis have died

as a result of the U.S. invasion. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis

are internally displaced, afraid to leave their homes at night, and

distrustful of the still ethnically segregated and very green Iraqi

police force. The unemployment rate is estimated to be between 25

and 40 percent, and the Iraqi Government Ministry places the

number at 48 percent.

Now, is it any wonder that despite what the Vice President and

Deputy Secretary of Defense told this Congress and the country, we

were not, in fact, greeted as liberators? Or is there any wonder in

some Iraqis’ eyes, Saddam’s regime is beginning to look like the

good old days?

Last week a coalition of 320 tribal leaders demanded the release

of Saddam Hussein and possibly reinstated to the post of President.

They are not a majority, but consider what public opinion polling

shows in Iraq. Forty-seven percent approve of attacks on Americans. Iraq is, unfortunately for the Iraqis and American soldiers

who are ordered to be there, a hopeless and deadly tragedy created

by an elective U.S. war and by our elected government.

It was clear to me as it was to many other Members of Congress

from the outset that the Bush administration’s real goal was not

democracy building. It was an arrogant, costly and immoral exercise to win an election at home and flex American military muscle

abroad. And I also personally think that it may have had something to do with oil.

Now, Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Saddam had

no ties to al Qaeda. Iraq did not pose a meaningful threat to the

United States or its allies. What do we have today? Iraq a breeding

ground for terrorists. The occupation of Iraq is a major, perhaps

crippling drain on U.S. military. We went into Iraq looking for

many WMDs, but instead all we got were IEDs.

And I wonder, is the Bush White House trying to repeat this

bait-and-switch strategy now in Iran? Consider the parallels. In

late 2002, the President identified a dangerous Middle Eastern regime whose leaders were intent on possessing weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons, and his regime supported terrorists. In 2002, the administration emphasized the magnitude and

imminence of the threat even though intelligence agencies put the

threat years into the future. Sounds a lot like 2006, doesn’t it?

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In 2002, the administration went to the United Nations to make

its case against Iraq. Sounds a lot what the administration is doing

in 2006, doesn’t it?

In 2002, prior to receiving authorization to use military force, the

administration launched Operation Southern Focus, a bombing

campaign against Iraq’s air defenses, and here we are in 2006,

prior to receiving authorization, U.S. military personnel are already deployed inside and around Iran preparing the battlefield by

gathering targeting information, targeting intelligence, recruiting

local fighters according to independent reports published in the

New Yorker magazine and the Guardian.

According to independent results published in Newsweek, ABC

News and GQ magazine, the United States has been planning and

is now recruiting members of MEK to conduct lethal operations

and destabilizing operations inside Iran.

Do these reports mean that DOD has already begun hostile actions against Iran, as was the case prior to the Iraq war? Has the

administration already taken the decision to attack Iran, and is

Congress and the American public now coming under the influence

of an orchestrated campaign to take this country into military conflict again, as was the case prior to the midterm elections of 2002?

Has the President and Secretary of Defense’s recent speeches mentioned Iran in intending to prepare Congress and the American

public for war against Iran?

I don’t know, but the news reports merit this subcommittee’s aggressive investigation. These are precisely the sort of questions this

committee is designed to pose, and DOD is the agency with the answers. But get this: The Department of Defense failed to show up

for a classified briefing, which was initiated at my insistence on

these questions in June. Here we are nearly 3 months later. All the

subcommittee has been able to get is a promise from DOD that

they’ll eventually get a response in writing to the subcommittee.

This administration has long misled Congress and the American

people, but now they are deluding themselves if they think Iraq is

making progress.

With another possible war in the offing against Iran, this is indeed a grim time for America and all of the world. It is a dishonor,

too, for the victims of the September 11th disaster. The war in Iraq

and possible war in Iran are deadly distractions to apprehend the

perpetrators of September 11th and prevent a recurrence.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings. Thanks to

all of the witnesses that are appearing before the subcommittee.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

[NOTE.—The Select Committee on Intelligence report entitled,

‘‘Postwar Findings About IRAQ’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare With Prewar Assessments,’’ may be

found in subcommittee files.]

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

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this

hearing, and thank you to Congressman Kucinich and to the witnesses who are here today.

We gather here on a solemn occasion, the 5th anniversary of the

attacks of September 11, 2001, and I do think it is important to go

back to that day to remember where those attacks came from, because this hearing is focused on Iraq, but we all know that the attacks of September 11th had nothing to do with Iraq, had nothing

to do with Saddam Hussein. And, in fact, just Friday a Select Senate Intelligence Committee report from the Republican-controlled

Senate was released saying there had never been any collaboration

between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. So it is important to put

that to rest as we begin this hearing.

The attacks 5 years ago today came out of Afghanistan, a failed

state, where after the Soviet Union withdrew, the United States

lost interest, the Taliban Government was able to take root, and

in that state of affairs al Qaeda was able to plant itself and flourish.

And the United States did exactly the right thing in the aftermath of those attacks. It took quick action, and it took action with

the support of the world. The NATO Alliance fully backed it, invoked the article of the NATO Charter saying an attack on one is

an attack on all. The U.N. General Assembly unanimously passed

a resolution condemning the attacks on the United States and rallying behind the United States in our fight on terrorism.

And here we are 5 years later where the world is no longer by

our side, our country is divided in many ways, and we have not finished the job in Afghanistan, not by a long shot. We know that

there has been a resurgence of Taliban activity in southern Afghanistan. General Maples, the head of the DIA, testified before the

Senate this year that he had seen a rise in escalation of violence.

We see it now in reading the newspapers and following what is

going on there every day.

And yet at this time we have actually reduced the number of

American forces in southern Afghanistan. We have disbanded the

one unit at the CIA that had the specific mission of going after al

Qaeda. We now know that the opium harvest in Afghanistan is at

an all-time historical high.

And we also know that the Pakistani Government has now entered into a cease-fire nonaggression pact with those in the tribal

areas in Waziristan where the Taliban are essentially assembled,

and which does provide a fertile ground for al Qaeda to continue

to plot and continue to plan to attack the United States and its allies. And just in today’s Washington Post, Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, writes that if you go up to Waziristan these days,

it is now a fully operational al Qaeda base area offering a wide

range of services, facilities and military and explosive training. For

extremists around the world planning attacks, Waziristan is now

a regional magnet. In the past 6 months, 1,000 Uzbeks escaping

the crackdown in Uzbekistan after last year’s massacre by the government security forces in the town of Andajan have found sanctuary with al Qaeda, and others are coming.

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The point of the fact is here we are 5 years after the attacks

upon our country, and yet we have not completed the mission. We

all remember the President’s statement aboard the USS Abraham

Lincoln in May 2003 with the big banner, Mission Accomplished,

and yet here we are today 5 years after the attacks on this country

from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. They are still at large, the

Taliban is regaining its strength, and we have not completed the

mission.

So I hope as we talk today about Iraq, we recognize that we did

as a Nation take our eye off the ball. We are bogged down in Iraq.

It is a mess in Iraq, and yet we never completed the job against

al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. That is work we have yet to do.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

For the purposes of clarifying the record, Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. For the purposes of clarifying the record, I made

a statement relative to the number of murders that are occurring

each month according to Baghdad’s coroners, and I want to correct

the record to say there are—based on information that I have

asked for, that the coroners are reporting that over 1,000 murders

are occurring each month. That is corrected to say over 1,000 murders are occurring each month.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlemen.

At this time the Chair would recognize—introduce our panelists.

We have Eric Edelman, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and

Rear Admiral Sullivan, Vice Director for Strategic Plans and Policies, of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Gentlemen, as you know, we swear in our witnesses. So I invite

you to rise, and I will swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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

in the affirmative. Thank you. Please be seated.

We are going to start with you first, Ambassador, but this is

what I would like to be fairly clear on before you start. We are

going to invite you to speak. The clock will be on for 5 minutes,

and we’re going to roll it over for another 5 minutes. Frankly, given

the size of the Members here and the fact that our panels are fairly

small, I want you to make your statements as long as it takes. We

will then do 10-minute questions, and we will do a second round.

We may even do a third round.

So the bottom line to this, there will be no rushing. There will

be no interrupting of witnesses. Just be able to have as much time

as we need, and I would just like to request as a 19-year veteran

of this committee that we have total and complete candor; that we

are just honest with ourselves about what we are asking, what we

are answering, and from that only good can come. So that’s my request to everyone who would participate today.

Ambassador, thank you for being here. Thank you for all your

good work.

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STATEMENTS OF AMBASSADOR ERIC S. EDELMAN, UNDER

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND REAR ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. SULLIVAN, VICE DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC PLANS AND POLICY, JOINT CHIEFS

OF STAFF

STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR ERIC S. EDELMAN

Ambassador EDELMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr.

Kucinich and Mr. Van Hollen. I am pleased to appear before the

subcommittee today at your request, Mr. Chairman, to discuss

Iraq, and I am joined, as you noted, by Rear Admiral William Sullivan, the Vice Director of Plans and Policy on the joint staff. We

will be providing testimony on whether the Iraqis can assume full

internal security responsibilities.

As has been noted by several of the Members, the terrible events

of 5 years ago mark this somber day. The terrorist attacks in New

York, Washington and Pennsylvania serve as a daily reminder of

the type of enemy we are fighting.

The main fronts against this enemy are currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen are doing a superb job fighting the enemy and laying the foundation in Iraq and Afghanistan to help remove the radical ideology

that spawns terrorism.

A peaceful, united Iraq constitutionally ordered to democratic

principles will undermine the insistence of radical Islamists that

Islam and democracy are incompatible. It will also challenge the legitimacy of theocratic ideologies and the dead end of national socialists’ theories of governance. Iraq is the fulcrum for all of this.

The military component of our national strategy in Iraq is to

fight terrorists and to train Iraqi security forces. Our goal is for the

Iraqis to take responsibility for their own security and be an ally

on the war on terror. As laid out in the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, our goal is an Iraq with a constitutional, representative government that respects civil rights and has security forces

sufficient to maintain domestic order and keep Iraq from becoming

a safe haven for terrorists.

Iraqi security forces continue to improve and become more effective and on a firm path for self-sufficiency. Our success in training

and equipping over 294,000 Iraqi Army and Police personnel has

hastened Iraqi assumption of responsibility for their own security.

As the Iraqis take control of their country, we continue to hand

over forward operating bases to them. The U.S. military is on track

to finish the initial training of the currently projected Iraqi forces

this December, although the increase recently proposed by Prime

Minister Maliki may lengthen the time somewhat.

You have asked the question when we can expect Iraqi security

forces in taking the lead in securing territory and population. As

of the end of July, there are 5 Iraqi division headquarters, 26 Iraq

brigade headquarters and 85 Iraqi battalions as well as several

Iraqi National Police battalions operating in the lead across Iraq.

Six months ago there were just 2 divisions, 10 brigades and 43

battalions in the lead. Every day Iraqi security forces take more responsibility for parts of Baghdad and other areas throughout the

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country. Currently over 65 percent of Iraq, including the major

population centers, are under the Iraqi Army lead.

Iraq achieved a historic milestone on July 16, 2006, with the

transfer of security responsibility in Muthanna Province from

MNF-I to the Provincial Governor and civilian-controlled Iraqi Police Service. Muthanna is the first of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be

transitioned to provincial Iraqi control, which represents the successful development of Iraq’s capability to govern and protect itself

as a sovereign and democratic nation. We expect to hand over DhiQar soon and several more provinces by year’s end.

Iraqis still face the challenges they have struggled with for the

last few years: lack of experience, logistic shortfalls, effective vetting, governing capacity, and changing enemy tactics, among other

things. One thing I believe that the Iraqis do have is will. Iraqi

Deputy President Abdel Mahdi said recently that the lines to enlist

for the Iraqi security forces are still long. The Iraqis clearly want

to win their fight for democracy.

Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timelines, will determine

our success in Iraq. The newly formed Joint Committee to Achieve

Iraqi Security Self-Reliance is composed of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Iraqi National Security Advisor, the Minister of State For

National Security Affairs, the Ministers of Defense and Interior,

the Director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, the U.S.

Ambassador, the U.K. Ambassador, and Commanding General and

Deputy Commanding General of Multinational Forces, Iraq.

The committee will develop a conditions-based roadmap for full

transition of security responsibility to the Iraqi security forces. The

roadmap will consist of recommended conditions intended to lead

to the eventual and gradual withdrawal of multinational forces

from Iraq.

As with the overall war on terror, there are some serious and significant challenges that we must overcome in Iraq. The last several

months has seen a rise in violence specifically around Baghdad, although since late July there has been a small reduction. Coalition

and Iraqi forces are adjusting their tactics to deal with the rise of

this violence. On July 27th, the Secretary of Defense extended the

deployment of 3,700 troops to Iraq to help counter the increased violence. Prime Minister Maliki also pledged an additional 4,000

Iraqi troops.

The Baghdad campaign is a critical test, and we have had some

initial success. This success now needs to be followed up by the

Iraqis with civil projects and civil services. Military commanders

and the U.S. Embassy have encouraged the Iraqis to take this sort

of action.

During his recent visit to Washington, Prime Minister Maliki

made it clear that he does not want American troops to leave Iraq

until his government can protect the Iraqi people. As President

Bush has said, conditions on the ground and the advice of military

professionals will dictate the number and disposition of the U.S.

forces in Iraq. The United States will stay on the offensive and continue to support and train Iraqis so they can develop the skills necessary to defend their country. Sectarian violence is leading some

groups to see U.S. forces as a reassuring and stabilizing factor esVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38038.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pecially now; for example, the successes in Baghdad mentioned earlier.

There is no denying that conditions that could lead to civil war

exist. Sustained enthosectarian violence is perhaps the greatest

threat to security instability in Iraq today. Militias and other

extragovernmental armed organizations are a major factor in the

continuing violence. However, during his visit to Washington in

late August, Deputy President al-Mahdi said that Iraq is not in a

civil war, nor did—nor, he said, will it be. He further noted that

all groups in the country are committed to the unity of the country.

He said Iraqis understand the dangers of a civil war, and we agree.

Today the situation is that, one, there is a national government

that includes leaders of all communities; and, two, the Iraqi security forces are intact and growing. We can stem the violence by

continuing to provide sufficient U.S. presence while Iraqi security

institutions develop. At the same time, we will promote wider engagement using nonmilitary elements of the national government

and continue reconstruction at the local level to secure popular

support.

Every day the men and women of the U.S. military protect not

only the United States, but also our allies from our adversaries.

They provide the backbone that enables Afghanistan and Iraq to

have hope for the future. Our involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and

other places in the world is essential to our fight against terrorism.

The men and women of our Armed Forces will not falter in this

duty.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement, and I would request

that it be entered into the permanent record.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Edelman follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. You remind me of a task of that I’m supposed to remember. But bad staff work here. I ask unanimous consent that all

members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening

statement in the record, and the record will remain open for 3 days

for that purpose. And without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

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

Your statement was read, and anything that you would like to

provide in addition to that will be part of the record. I thank you

for a statement that is a good launching for the questions that I

have. So thank you very much.

Admiral, thank you for being here, and we look forward to your

testimony as well.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM D. SULLIVAN

Admiral SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Representative

Kucinich, Representative Van Hollen. Thank you for the opportunity and your concern for the Nation’s security and the opportunity to testify before you this morning. I appreciate your support

of the men and women of our Armed Forces who, around the world,

in every climate, and often far from home and family, are serving

our Nation.

From a military standpoint, our goal remains an Iraqi Government that transitions to security self-reliance where all Iraqis unite

against violence, and where the Government of Iraq provides security, law and order and is a legitimate authority. The Iraqi security

forces are on track and continue to make significant strides, as

mentioned in Ambassador Edelman’s opening comments, toward

this goal.

To highlight a recent major milestone, in the first week of September, the Ministry of Defense and the joint headquarters assumed operational control of the Iraqi Ground Forces Command,

Iraqi Navy and Iraqi Air Force. The Iraqi Ground Forces Command

assumed operational control of the 8th Iraqi Army Division, demonstrating the increased capability of the Iraqi Army to assume

control of security tasks. Future transfers will be gradual, but the

Government of Iraq will dictate when the Iraqi Ground Forces

Command is ready to assume more control.

To reiterate the current status of Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi

Army now includes 5 division headquarters, 26 brigades, and 85

battalions in the lead for security operation across Iraq. All 28

Iraqi National Police battalions, in conjunction with 118,000 Iraqi

Police service officers, are executing daily security operations.

As the Government of Iraq and Iraqi security forces mature, the

capability exists to expand the current 325,000-man security force

structure. Plans are being developed by the Government of Iraq to

add up to 31,000 security forces to address future capability needs.

In addition to providing security, the Iraqi Army and Police are

also assisting in humanitarian efforts and other local civic actions,

providing security for essential service construction projects, repairing local schools, and engaging in projects to improve local area appearance and pride. The highlight of current security operations is

focused on the nation’s capital, Baghdad.

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Operation Together Forward is an Iraqi-planned and -led operation to ensure the security of Baghdad against attacks designed

to uproot democracy and derail Iraq’s commitment to progress.

These operations are designed to reduce the level of murders,

kidnappings, assassinations, terrorism and sectarian violence in

specific areas of Baghdad, and to reinforce the Iraqi Government’s

control.

Our joint operations continue to make progress, and we are cautiously optimistic and encouraged by the early indicators. More

time will provide a better assessment. This operation will take not

weeks, but months.

Let me address the question of setting a timetable for withdrawal. In the military judgment of our commander, a precipitous

withdrawal from Iraq would have severe negative consequences. A

withdrawal could increase sectarian strife, possibly embolden terrorists and other factions, and also encourage already unhelpful

neighbors like Iran.

It is also our assessment that fixed timetables for withdrawal of

Coalition forces are not productive. We understand and concur with

the need to keep the Iraqi Government motivated to quickly address many of the complex economic and political issues that are

contributing to the violence. However, confidence that we as a Nation are committed to succeed with the Iraqis, even when Coalition

forces are no longer necessary, is key to enable political accommodation among many of the factions. The enemy, which includes al

Qaeda and certain armed militia groups, should not know of our

plans. There are many ways to sustain pressure on the Iraqis to

solve their political and economic issues. A timetable is not the best

option and, in our judgment, would be counterproductive. The U.S.

military does not underestimate the challenges that we face in

Iran.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to personally thank you for your enduring commitment to our Armed Forces as evidenced by your 14

trips to the Iraqi theater of operation. I also offer my thanks to the

committee as a whole for the continuous support of our Armed

Forces.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, Representative Kucinich, Representative Van Hollen, thank you for allowing me to testify before you

this morning, and I look forward to your questions.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank you very, much Admiral.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Sullivan follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Let me say there are three Members. I would usually

start off. Sometimes I usually go last. What I’ll do is I will have

Mr. Kucinich go first when he gets back here, and then I’ll go, and

then I’ll go to my colleague from Maryland.

And I just want to say that it is my hope that we can learn from

this hearing information that helps guide us to understand what

it is going to take to transfer power to the Iraqis, and that is obviously the goal of this hearing, but obviously other things will come

up as well.

Mr. Kucinich, you are free to ask any questions you want. You

have the floor.

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

To both Ambassador Edelman and to the rear admiral, have either of you read the report in today’s Washington Post about the

situation—headline: Situation Called Dire in West Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, yes, I have read

both the Washington Post article and the classified document

which it appears to refer to.

Admiral SULLIVAN. As have I, both articles.

Mr. KUCINICH. Would you agree or disagree with the article

which says that prospects for securing the country’s western Anbar

Province are dim, Mr. Edelman?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Well, I want to be a bit careful what I say

in open hearing, Mr. Kucinich, because the document underlying

the Washington Post article is a classified document. I would say

that like any operational assessment, it is a snapshot in time. I

think it should not be generalized beyond the situation in Anbar

to which it refers.

I think it is clear to all of us who have been involved in this issue

for a while that Anbar has been the epicenter of the insurgency for

some time; that a purely military solution to any insurgency is not

possible, it needs a political solution as well. We have had successful operations in Fallujah that have continued to provide some

measure of security there. We have ongoing operations in Ramadi.

We have a PRT that’s been set up in Anbar precisely because General Casey believes that the political dimension, social dimension,

as well as the kinetic military dimension are required to succeed

there. And I think it highlights the—the article highlights the importance potentially of provincial elections in the future to enable

a local government empowered by the residents of Anbar to take

responsibility for many of those issues that they have to take responsibility for ultimately.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is there a functioning Iraqi Government institution in Anbar?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Well, I think, again, Secretary Rumsfeld

has said that he is hoping to have before the Congress goes out in

September an opportunity for an operation intel hearing in a classified session where I think we could go in to perhaps some more detail.

I think clearly the capacity of the Iraqi Government to establish

itself not just in Baghdad, but throughout the country, is an important challenge that they face, and it is a challenge to defeating this

insurgency.

Mr. KUCINICH. Has local governments collapsed in Anbar?

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Ambassador EDELMAN. I don’t know that I could make a judgment to that effect. I would have to get back to—we can get back

to you with a better assessment of that than I can give at this moment.

Mr. KUCINICH. Has a vacuum in Anbar been filled by al Qaeda?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Al Qaeda in Iraq has had a presence in

Anbar since the very beginning of the insurgency. And I think it

is fair so say that there have been a number of forces in the province, including a number of tribal forces, who have reacted to that

and have attacked Anbar or attacked al Qaeda in Iraq themselves

and have begun to reach out and work with the Iraqi Government

to try and curtail the influence of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Mr. KUCINICH. How many Iraqi provinces are there?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Eighteen.

Mr. KUCINICH. How many of those provinces have been turned

over to Iraqis?

Ambassador EDELMAN. We have turned over so far one province

to the Iraqis for them to take the lead for security. We hope to turn

over a second in the future.

Mr. KUCINICH. Isn’t it true that General Casey has predicted

that all responsibility for Iraqi security will be turned over in 12

to 18 months?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think we would hope that over the next

12 to 18 months, we can turn over increasing responsibility, but as

we’ve said, that judgment will have to be made on the basis of conditions on the ground at the time and as a result of the work of

the joint committee on turning over Iraqi security responsibilities.

Mr. KUCINICH. Would you agree with the prediction that says all

responsibility for Iraqi security will be turned over in 12 to 18

months?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I don’t know that I would feel comfortable

in making a prediction at this point in time, because the enemy

gets a vote in this, and we will have to see what happens.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it true that the Anbar Province accounts for

about 30 percent of Iraq’s land mass?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It is a very large mass, but not all of it

is populated.

Mr. KUCINICH. Here’s a map of Iraq that I actually brought down

from my office door where it’s been since the invasion was discussed, and if you look at Anbar Province, you have a pretty substantial area here which is bordered by Jordan and Syria. And

what I am wondering here is what would you call this province, a

key province?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It is a key province in order to defeat the

insurgency, but Iraq right now has, in addition to the insurgency,

other very serious security problems having to do with

ethnosectarian violence, with criminal activity, militia activity. So

it is one of many, many problems we have to deal with there, and

the Iraqi Government and the security forces need to.

I mean, Anbar, while it has a large proportion of the geographic

space, is actually, as I said, very sparsely populated. I believe it is

less than 5 percent of the population of Iraq.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Would you agree that a report which would say

that Anbar is beyond repair would have significance for this administration’s long-term strategies for Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I am not sure that is what the report

says. Again, I want to be careful because it is a classified document. I don’t want to be quoting from it in an open hearing because

it is an operational assessment, and I don’t think from the point

of view of continuing the fight in Anbar it is productive to discuss

it in the public hearing.

Mr. KUCINICH. Wouldn’t it be of interest to the parents of American soldiers who are being sent to fight that they would know that

a report existed that said that a province was beyond repair, and

the thing couldn’t be won military? Wouldn’t that be of interest,

Mr. Edelman?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It is an important report. We have taken

it very seriously. We are in contact with our colleagues out in the

multinational force, Iraq, to get the commander’s assessment, because this is an operational assessment by one very good intel officer. It is a snapshot in time, as I said, and I don’t know that one

can extrapolate certainly beyond Anbar Province from it. And even

with regard to Anbar, it makes the statement that we all agree

with, which is that there has never been a purely military solution

to the insurgency in Anbar. It’s always been a situation that would

require both political, economic, social and other efforts, as is the

case in all counterinsurgency.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you think this Congress and this committee is

entitled to information relating to the conduct of the war as to

whether or not any of the conditions merit the United States’ continued presence there?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Absolutely.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you think that this report should be available

publicly to the Congress since elements of it have been published

in the Washington Post?

Ambassador EDELMAN. As I said, the Secretary has said he

would like to schedule an ops intel briefing for the Members of the

Congress, and I think that would be the appropriate time to take

up that report.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, there is like a scam that comes

out of this White House. They release information, or information

is released through the media, and then when Congress wants to

ask further questions, they say, oh, it is classified. I mean, this is

one of the reasons I didn’t go to the classified briefings, because

you read about it on the front page of a major newspaper, and then

you are told, well, you can’t talk about it because it is classified.

What a bunch of baloney. You have people’s lives at stake here,

Ambassador, and I am just wondering when you are going to come

back to the Congress and be forthcoming about what the real situation is. I mean, I appreciate your nuanced reply here, but that is

not adequate enough because there are lives on the line here.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman, essentially I agree with

you that the Congress is entitled to information about this. We are

here today to try and provide you with as much information as we

can. But this—I think an operational assessment of a very hot zone

in the battlefield is not necessarily something that ought to be disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38038.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cussed in the public session when the enemy, you know, is clearly

following the discussion.

Mr. KUCINICH. Here’s your testimony. You said conditions on the

ground—Mr. Chairman, this is what we are here for, right? You

said conditions on the ground, not arbitrary time lines, will determine our success in Iraq. I want to read that again so everybody

understands the implications of this. Conditions on the ground, not

arbitrary time lines, will determine our success in Iraq.

So if you have a report that says that conditions on the ground

are deteriorating to the point of where there is nothing that is to

be won, and then you have that report essentially suppressed as

classified, and then you have offered to the general public some

rosy determination that says that, well, we are going the stay there

12 months, 18 months, they got 1 province of 18 under control——

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman, I take issue with the notion that the report has been repressed. On the contrary, a lot

of——

Mr. KUCINICH. You won’t offer it to this committee right now,

will you?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It is a classified document. A lot of us

have been looking at it very closely.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, the dead bodies that are coming back to this

country aren’t classified, OK, but they are there based on fighting

presumably because this administration put them there. They are

there because they are told that America is going to win this. Well,

you know what? We have the front page of the Washington Post.

I didn’t make this up. It was in the paper today. You read it.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. And——

Ambassador EDELMAN. If I might, Mr. Shays, I would like to

reply to the very last point.

I agree that it is not a good thing for classified documents to be

leaked. I think it is important to be able to discuss this in the appropriate settings, and I think we are prepared to do that.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. I yield to myself now for 10

minutes, and to thank both of you again for being here.

I am going to preface my comments that will give you a sense

of where I am coming from based on my first-time questioning and

my second or third if we go to third round.

I go every 3 to 4 months, and I was there with staff in April

2003. People in Iraq were euphoric, and if we had made progress

from that point, I think we probably wouldn’t be there in any great

number today. It’s my opinion we took a huge nosedive, and I can

see it happening as I would go 3 months later and then 3 months

after that. Iraqis were horrified that we allowed the looting. Frankly, they thought it showed incredible disrespect to their country

that we didn’t attempt to stop it. And I understand the motivation.

We didn’t want to have a conflict with citizens right away. But it

was a huge mistake.

The disbanding of the army, the police and the border patrol to

this day boggles my mind. We basically left a nation of 26 million

people with no police, and then we said to 150,000 Coalition forces,

give or take, that they would be the security for a nation of 26 million people. We speak English. They speak Arabic.

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It would be, for me, to think of New York State and to think of

New York State with Iraqis coming in saying there will be no police in any part of New York State, no police in New York City, no

subway police, no security whatsoever. Now, New York is one-third

the size of the United States—excuse me, of Iraq, and it has 10—

excuse me, it has 19 million people as opposed to 26 million. Imagine all of New York State with no police.

What is obvious to me is there would be things that happen like

gangs roving the streets; banks not able to provide security, so hiring separate guards to protect their transactions. I mean, I can just

keep going, and you get the gist of where I am coming from.

So for me to then think, well, 150,000 troops who speak English

are going to provide the security makes me have a lack of confidence, one, in making the decisions that we made; and, two, a

lack of confidence in the numbers that were provided to us.

I saw a huge progress from June 2004 when we transferred

power to the Iraqis and gave the government an Iraqi face, and

Iraqis started to make decisions, and we brought the State Department in to do the Nation building and relationship, and we kept

DOD more focused on the defense part. I saw 18 months of

progress, but I saw 18 months of progress because I saw deadlines.

There was a requirement that Iraq in January 2005 elect a government. I was there for those elections, one of the most thrilling

moments of my life, and to somehow suggest that Iraqis can’t take

to democracy blows me away because they took to democracy. They

were so proud of what they had accomplished, and 110,000 Iraqis

were able to put that together with the help of the United Nations,

which did a very positive role, and a lot of organizations that came

to help the Iraqis.

We saw a deadline for this new government to establish a commission to write the Constitution. There was a deadline to complete

the Constitution. There was a deadline to ratify this Constitution

in a public site to which 79 percent voted affirmatively for this new

Constitution. And there was a deadline to elect a government

under this new Constitution.

All had deadlines, and during that time there was significant

success in training particularly the army, and we saw very competent Iraqis risk their lives, give up their lives, queue in line to

join the police and the army and be blown up. And we tell them,

get away; don’t queue up so far. We allowed them to come in, and

we protected the 500 we were going to interview, but the rest

stayed on the other side of the gate knowing they could be blown

up, and they still stayed there.

But then when I saw this new government elected, I was

euphoric in January as this new government had been elected in

December. But we waited 41⁄2 months, and nothing happened for

41⁄2 months. You had al-Jaafari, and then we went to Maliki. True,

we had some sophistication. The Iraqi minority was able to veto

the choice of the majority. That was a real success. It is a sophistication that I think deserves credit.

But then we saw a new government take over, and I was there

6 weeks after they had been in power, and I thought, what have

you done? What decisions have you made? Why haven’t you basically let loose your army to clean up the militia? And I am not seeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38038.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing the political will to do that. Where is the political will? Not the

will of the military, but the political will.

And then I go back 6 weeks later, they’ve been in office 3

months, and I see nothing happen except Sistani, the cleric, say,

come home, politicians. Come home. Stop traveling. Come home

and do your job. When I ask military people, Americans, and I ask

our State Department people, does this government have the political will, they look me in the face and say, we are not sure.

So where I come from is they need deadlines, a deadline for provincial elections, a deadline for reconciliation, a deadline to establish their Constitution. And when I talked to them about it, they

said, we don’t want deadlines. We moved too quickly last year.

Well, with all due respect, they need deadlines, and what I hope

eventually to get out of these hearings is I want to know real numbers that tell me real things. So I have used a lot of my time to

just explain that, but it is what I need to know, and when I come

back in more depth, we will get into this.

But I want to know first off why is it that if we had the optimal

number of troops of 150- Coalition forces, and we have now built

up to 294,000 Iraqi-trained and -equipped, why is it that 150,000

troops isn’t enough, or is the right number? Why is that the case?

And your answer will then help lead me to the followup questions

that I want to ask. I am going to start with you, Admiral.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As we have said all along, the conditions on the ground will determine when we can reduce our troop levels in the country. It is

true that going back to earlier strategies, the earlier campaign

plans, there were projections for when we might be available to

begin reducing those troops on the ground. However, as the security environment has changed and become more complex, the commanders on the ground have made the judgment that they cannot

afford to draw down our own troop levels while the Iraqis are still

building up theirs.

So I understand your point, sir, and I understand where you are

coming from, but the conditions have not permitted the withdrawal

of our forces like we would have liked to have seen.

Mr. SHAYS. So what I am hearing you say when you say the conditions on the ground, in other words, it’s more violent, it’s more

dangerous, there are greater numbers of killings. Things have gotten worse, so we need more people; is that basically your answer?

Admiral SULLIVAN. What I said, sir, is that the environment has

changed. We have gone from a primarily Sunni-led insurgency a

year ago to the sectarian violence which we are now seeing largely,

we think, sparked by the mosque attack in February. So the environment has evolved, and we have had to continually adapt our

tactics and our strategies to address that environment.

Mr. SHAYS. And also violence between Shia and Shia.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Exactly. And what I would also add, sir, is

Iraqi’s security forces, as we buildup their numbers, they need to

gain the experience, they need to build leaders, and all of that

takes time. And we are also focusing on developing their capabilities to sustain themselves with logistics, with command-and-control

capability and so forth. All of this takes time. So just the raw numVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38038.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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bers of Iraqi security forces that have been trained and equipped

and fielded doesn’t yield the complete answer.

Mr. SHAYS. Why did we determine that Iraqis only need 225,000,

and how did we determine the mix? For instance, right now there

are 129,000 defense forces, 165,000 Ministry of Interior forces,

which includes about 115,000 police. You have border patrol. You

also have the national police. How do we determine that—first, let

me say of the 325,000, how many of them are going to be police

or going to be military?

Admiral SULLIVAN. The military will be just a little over 137,000.

About 137,5- will be in the army, air force and navy.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I’m just going to express the concern that I can’t

imagine how 137,000 will ever allow us to bring troops home in any

great number. And isn’t it true that of the 137,000, most of them—

very few of them would be pilots on C–130’s or pilots for helicopters, correct?

Admiral SULLIVAN. That’s right. It is a very small air force. It is

projected to be about 1,600 personnel.

Mr. SHAYS. So that would suggest to me—I’ll give my time to my

colleague from Maryland Mr. Van Hollen. I will be raising questions in my second round as to how you will help me sort out how

we get to this number, and why this number is going to enable us

to leave. So I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Van Hollen, you have the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much for your testimony and your service to our

country.

I want to just sketch out a little bit up front, and then I have

a number of questions.

We talked earlier about how the attacks of September 11th were

launched from al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We then decided at some

point to go into Iraq. It had nothing to do with the September 11th

attacks, Iraq didn’t. Saddam Hussein didn’t. And in going to Iraq,

we, in my view, did take the lid off Pandora’s box, and we unleashed a lot of forces in Iraq, historical forces, forces that existed

between different sectarian groups within the country.

If you go back and look at some of the statements made by Mr.

Cheney when he was Secretary of Defense during the first—the

Persian Gulf war, he lays out pretty clearly what a mess we might

get into if we go into Baghdad, and he lays that out that’s the reason we didn’t go into Baghdad.

But we went into Iraq now. We took the lid off. And I think if

you go back and look at the analyses made by a lot of very knowledgeable people at the CIA and others at the time, they predicted

that this could end up being a great unraveling in Iraq. In many

ways, we know Iraq is an artificial construct put together by Western powers. After the end of World War I and maybe like Yugoslavia, when the glue that was holding together disappears, comes

undone, and we compounded that problem by many of the mistakes

we made. Whether it would have happened anyway, I don’t know,

but certainly, the fact that we disbanded the Iraqi military and

sent a lot of Sunnis home with their guns and with a sense that

they had no place in the future of Iraq created big problems. The

fact that we didn’t have more troops on the ground compounded

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the problem. Many other—many other mistakes, and Iraq became

a magnet for foreign fighters. Al Qaeda, having really, certainly

had no collaboration with Saddam Hussein, maybe a couple of

places out in the mountains where they couldn’t have been gotten

to by Saddam Hussein up in the Kurdish area, but al Qaeda has

become a significant presence in Iraq and has created a base of operations there that we continue to fight to this day. It unleashed

the insurgency. I think we all know now that the vice president’s

statement more than a year ago that the insurgency was in, ‘‘its

last throws,’’ was just dead wrong. In fact, the recent report that

came out of the Pentagon, a report that was required by Congress,

specifically says that the insurgency remains potent. And on top of

that, now we have a budding civil war or civil war, all depends on

who you ask. The fact of the matter is, thousands of people are

being killed, and the Pentagon report just released says the situation’s getting worse, not better.

Now, in all of this, I guess I would agree with the statement

that’s been made by General Casey and you here at the witness

table here today and others that are in this mess, we really need

some kind of political solution to the insurgency. I am not necessarily as hopeful as you gentlemen that we’re going to be able to

get that kind of political solution, but certainly, if we want to reduce the violence, we need that kind of political solution.

So I guess my question to you this morning is, what really realistically are the prospects of getting such a solution? We know just

last week, for example, the Shiites in the Parliament were pushing

hard for the legislation to essentially create an autonomous region

in the south. The Sunnis in the Parliament have resisted that, and

they said, hey, hold on a minute, you know, when we got together

to support, however reluctantly, the constitution you all promised

us that we would be able to revisit certain provisions in the constitution. Well, rather than revisiting those provisions, it seems the

opposite is happening, that the Shia members of Parliament are

moving ahead to create an autonomous region.

So let me ask you this question: Are we in a position now where

we’re struggling against the odds to put—to hold Iraq together? Or

are we now working to put it back together? In other words, have

the different groups within Iraq—the Shia, the Sunni, the Kurds—

have they made decisions really? And when I say that, obviously,

there’s differences of opinion among every—members of all the

groups, but have majorities among each of those groups essentially

made the decision that their future is not in a united Iraq but their

future is in something much closer to a divided Iraq which may at

best have a very, very weak central government?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Van Hollen, let me pull

back a little bit and try to take into account both some of the comments you raise about Afghanistan in your opening statement as

well as Iraq, because I think the structure of these hearings in one

sense may be a bit unfortunate, which is to say that the hearing

on Friday about the consequences of the United States perhaps departing Iraq too soon ought to maybe have been the first hearing

because I think that really frames the backdrop.

In Afghanistan, we are seeing a shift in tactics by the Taliban

insurgency in part, and I think people tend to forget this because

37

we’re a bit of an amnesiac culture as a nation, and people barely

remember what happened last week much less last month or a couple of years ago, but we’ve gone from a situation where there has

never been an elected government in Afghanistan in any real degree to a situation where we had a constitution, a president and

a parliament elected, and that parliament is now meeting. I met

on Friday with a chairman of the Internal Security Committee and

of the Defense Committee, and they are trying to struggle with the

problems that country races.

In Iraq, I think Chairman Shays made a very cogent and articulate statement of the progress that we have seen on the political

side leading up to the elections in December. It’s clear that there

are forces in the region more broadly who don’t want to see that

kind of future for the region, and they are fighting back. And that

is the backdrop against which all of this is taking place.

On your question, I think if you look at the poll data that I’ve

seen, a poll taken earlier this summer showed that 94 percent of

Iraqis favored the idea of some kind of national unity government,

and I think something in the high 70’s supported specifically this

government, the Maliki government. When you talk to Iraqi political leaders, most of them will tell you they do not want to see the

country fragment and break up. And in my experience, I have to

say I think we tend—and I think you were quite good at pointing

out, Congressman Van Hollen, that there are differences within

these national communities. But when you meet with Iraqis themselves, the kind of categorization that we provide, sort of triptych

of Kurd, Shia, Sunni-Arab begins to break down when you ask people, you know, what their background is. So, for instance, when

Vice President Abdel Mahdi was visiting with us. He had several

members of his delegation with him, and they were quite frankly

talking about the fact that one was a Shia married to a Catholic,

one was a Shia married to a Sunni, one was a Sunni married to

a Kurd, one was a Shia married to a Sunni. You know, how are

their children going to characterize themselves? I think we tend to

make these divisions, which are divisions that certain extreme elements in every community would like to play on the dominant view

of the people in that respective ethnic or sectarian community, and

I think we do that a bit at our peril. If you asked General Chiarelli

who was both in the Balkans and now is the Corps commander in

Iraq, he would tell you that although we’ve seen displaced persons,

and some people have mentioned that earlier in the hearing. What

you don’t see right now is attacks on property that’s been vacated

by people or efforts by people to occupy that property which is

something you did see in the Balkans. So even with regard to the

hardening of the sectarian identities that you mentioned and the

analogy to the Balkans, I think there are some important differences to bear in mind.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, if I could followup, let me

just—I think it is—it’s a tragedy what’s happening in Iraq because

I think you’re absolutely right. There are so many examples of

Sunni, Shia, Kurds having lived in many cases side by side in parts

of the country, but we all can see what’s going on right now.

We saw the most recent Pentagon report. The fact of the matter

is, sectarian violence is spiraling out of control. Thousands of Iraqis

38

are being killed. You have Shia militia. You have Sunni militia.

You have death squads that are blindfolding and shooting people

in Iraq. We’ve seen a migration within Iraq now; people moving out

of the areas of the areas—Sunnis moving out of the more Shia

areas of Baghdad into the more Sunni areas. You are seeing that

going on every day. It appears that as time goes on, the country

is becoming more fragmented as the different things that held that

country together, some partly through brute force, some through

other factors, have disappeared.

And I guess—let me just go back to my earlier question with respect to the steps that are being taken by the Shia in the Parliament. Are they not pushing for an autonomous region, No. 1? We

could also focus on the fact that the Kurdish militia from day one

essentially said, we’re not going to give up our weapons. I mean,

the Kurds have been subjected to persecution in Iraq for a long,

long period of time. The Peshmerga was never going to give up its

militia and will not until this day. So you’re saying, Peshmerga,

you can keep your militia; other guys, Shia, you have to give up

your militia. They say, that’s not going to happen. You had a referendum up in the Kurdish area in the Kyrgyzstan part of Iraq

over a year ago where over 90 percent of the people said that they

would like to be part of an independent Kyrgyzstan. Are you familiar with that referendum that took place?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Yes, I am.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. How do you account for that in what you just

told me? Over 90 percent of the people in the Kurdish region said

they want to be independent. I understand full well that the leaders in the green zone and the government are talking about a

united Iraq. That would be terrific. I mean, that would be the solution we’d all want to see. The question is whether reality, whether

the situation on the ground tells us that there’s much—there’s

much more hope for keeping that together, and I guess my question

to you and I’ll end with this is, for example, how does—where do

you see the constitutional negotiations going? I mean they were

supposed to begin at the end of August. They’re not going anywhere. Everyone says from the field, we need a political solution.

What is the political solution that’s going—what is it going to be

that is going to help hold Iraq together rather than allow it to continue to fall apart or that will put it back together?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Well, you have a number of questions in

there, Congressman Van Hollen. Let me try to unpack them a little

bit. You’re certainly correct, and as Ambassador, or as Admiral Sullivan noted, that the—I am not sure whether that was a promotion

or demotion I just gave you by calling you Ambassador, Bill. But

the violence has shifted, the nature of the violence has shifted from

primarily insurgency to ethno-sectarian violence. That has largely

come about if you look back historically at the pattern and the

numbers of attacks in the wake of the bombing of the Golden Dome

Mosque in Samarra at the end of February. It’s clearly been part

of the ongoing strategy of al Qaeda in Iraq and like-minded groups

to provoke an ethnic civil war in Iraq in the hope of driving coalition forces out of the country. And being the first step to the creation of a caliphate as they would like to see it. So the—but what

we’ve seen, the things that you describe and are very real, and we

39

describe them of course in the 9010 report which you cited. That’s

a different thing from saying that’s where the majority of folks

want to see the country go. The discussion about a nine-province

Shia subregion as part of the discussion of federalism is going on.

It’s been proposed by the SCIRI party. It’s not clear that all Shia

agree with it. There’s clearly, as has been mentioned earlier in a

hearing, some push back from some Sunni political leaders. There

is supposed to be, under the constitution, a discussion of federalism

later on, and that will have to be worked out ultimately by Iraqis.

I’ll come back perhaps later on to comment about what the chairman started with, which was the question of deadlines of one sort

or another in the political process and the progress he saw from

June 2004 until the election in December 2005, and there are some

things I think that can be said about that. But the point is, this

is a process Iraqis are going to have to work through themselves,

and we will try and be helpful in that political discussion.

But, again, I think it’s a mistake to see all elements of the community as united. You mention the Kurdish referendum at the

time of the election. That was a nonbinding vote. It didn’t have any

legal status I think, as you know, Congressman Van Hollen and as

you said, the president of united Iraq is a Kurd. The deputy prime

minister, Barham Salih, is a Kurd. The foreign minister of the

country, Hoshyar Zebari, is a Kurd. And they see their future and

the best future for the residents of northern Iraq and of the Kurdish regional government as being part of a united Iraq. Kurds are

the largest group, as you know, in the world without a nation of

their own. The fact that, when given the fact on whether or not

they would like to have a nation, 90 percent said yes, I don’t think

is terribly surprising.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank the gentleman.

We’ll go now to Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Ambassador, would you agree that post-war

Iraq would certainly be the time when we would see our troops

come home?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, when you say

post-war Iraq——

Mr. KUCINICH. I’ll repeat the question.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Would you agree that post-war Iraq would certainly be the time that we can expect our troops to come home?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think we would all like to see our troops

come home as soon as they possibly can. The major combat phase

of operations ended, and we very quickly found ourselves in a situation where we had a major insurgency to deal with. We have put

in place a political process that has led to the development of a

democratic government in Iraq, and I think we have an obligation

to help that government defend itself until it can stand on its own

two feet, at which time we will be I think very happy to have everyone in the United States and the coalition side come home.

Mr. KUCINICH. How long have you been with the Department of

Defense?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, I was sworn in

just a little over a year ago in August 2005.

Mr. KUCINICH. And what did you do before that?

40

Ambassador EDELMAN. Before that, I was the U.S. Ambassador

to Turkey from 2003 to 2005.

Mr. KUCINICH. And what about before 2003?

Ambassador EDELMAN. From 2001 to 2003, I was serving on Vice

President Cheney’s staff in the Office of the Vice President.

Mr. KUCINICH. In your service on the Vice President’s staff, were

you involved in any way in decisions that related to Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I was a participant from time to time in

the deputy’s committee meetings that took place on that subject.

Mr. KUCINICH. Were you involved in reviewing intelligence reports that related to Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It was—we got intelligence on a variety

of different issues, including Iraq, as part of our normal daily briefing.

Mr. KUCINICH. So the answer is, yes?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Yes, I reviewed intelligence on Iraq and

any number of other subjects.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you see intelligence reports on Iraq that said

that there was no connection between Iraq and September 11th?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, there were a

number of both raw intelligence reports and finished products I

saw during that time period which said a variety of things, but I

don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate in an open hearing to be

discussing specifics about intelligence.

Mr. KUCINICH. Au contraire, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just

asked the witness a question about his role as a member of the

Vice President’s staff in reviewing intelligence reports that may

have been the basis or not for going to war, and he just responded

that—I’ll paraphrase it—it may not be appropriate in an open setting to answer those questions.

Ambassador EDELMAN. No, Congressman Kucinich. I said I reviewed such reports, I said I would not feel comfortable discussing

the specifics of those intelligence reports.

Mr. KUCINICH. Why not?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Because they are classified, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Oh.

Ambassador EDELMAN. But I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Mr. KUCINICH. You know, Mr. Chairman, some day, we’re going

to have a hearing where these witnesses raise their hand and

they’re going to have to testify what they know and not hide behind this idea that things are classified.

Mr. Ambassador, when you were working for the Vice President’s

staff, did you see any intelligence reports that said that Saddam

Hussein was connected to al Qaeda?

Ambassador EDELMAN. There were a number of reports which

Director Tenet has testified to in open session that indicated there

had been contact between Saddam Hussein and elements of al

Qaeda over the years, and I did see those reports.

Mr. KUCINICH. Were there any intelligence reports that you saw

that contradicted that information?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Yes, there were.

41

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you ever sit with people in the intelligence

community and at the request of the Vice President advise people

how the intelligence should come out?

Ambassador EDELMAN. No, I did not.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you have any knowledge whether the Vice

President did or not?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I don’t believe that, to the best of my

knowledge, the Vice President ever directed anybody as to what intelligence products should say or not say.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you have any knowledge—or have you seen

any intelligence reports that suggest that Iraq was trying to obtain

uranium from Niger? Did you see those reports?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Yes, I did.

Mr. KUCINICH. When did you see those reports? Do you remember?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I’m sorry. I don’t recall precisely. It was

over a 21⁄2 year period, Congressman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you have any contact with the Italian government relative to those reports?

Ambassador EDELMAN. No, I did not, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you see any intelligence reports that indicated Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Yes, sir. There were any number of reports. There was a vast body of reporting on that subject, which I

saw both when I was a career Foreign Service officer serving in the

Clinton administration as well as a career Foreign Service officer

serving in the Bush administration.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you see any reports that simultaneously said

that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction?

Ambassador EDELMAN. There was a vast body of reporting, Congressman Kucinich, that went to a variety of different questions

having to do with both the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. You are really talking about thousands of pages of

reports.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you see reports—I’ll ask the question again

for the purpose of clarification. You were a member of the Vice

President’s staff.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I may have to answer the question, sir,

I may have seen such reports, but I think the vast preponderance

of the evidence at the time indicated that he did.

Mr. KUCINICH. So you saw reports that said that there were no

weapons of mass destruction; those reports existed?

Ambassador EDELMAN. No, I don’t recall ever seeing anything

that said no weapons of mass destruction existed. There may have

been reports that went to different aspects of different programs

and what might have been done or not done, but I don’t recall anything saying he had no weapons of mass destruction. But, as I said,

there were thousands of reports, and I can’t at this point, looking

back, not having prepared for that set of questions for this hearing,

which I thought was going to be——

Mr. KUCINICH. No, no. It’s going to come up in these hearings,

Ambassador. Now, did you see any intelligence related to Ambassador Wilson’s trip to determine whether or not Iraq was trying to

get uranium from Niger.

42

Ambassador EDELMAN. No, not until that information began to

appear in the public print, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you see any information regarding—in the intelligence reports regarding Valerie Plame’s role?

Ambassador EDELMAN. No, I did not, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Now, Mr. Ambassador, were you aware of any

statements by the Secretary of Defense that forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a post-war Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I’m not aware of such a statement, but I

wouldn’t have been in a position to be aware of it because I only

reported to the Department of Defense in August of last year, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you aware of any phase four plan that covers

security, stability and reconstruction?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Would have had phase four plans in any

number of contingency plans that are prepared by combatant commanders for the Secretary. I am not sure which you are talking

about.

Mr. KUCINICH. Has this administration built permanent bases in

Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, we have turned over 53 of 110 forward operating bases to Iraq. We have 57 currently under U.S. control. We continue to have plans for turning over more of those, and

as far as I am aware, we have no plans for permanent bases in

Iraq.

Mr. KUCINICH. And what are the plans specifically to bring the

troops home?

Ambassador EDELMAN. The plan is, as Admiral Sullivan described earlier, that we will make an assessment jointly with the

government of Iraq through the joint committee on what are the

conditions for turning over increasing responsibility for Iraqis to

take control of the country as a whole over time, and as that occurs, the commanders in the field will make recommendations to

the Secretary of Defense, and he will then make recommendations

to the President about how U.S. forces can be drawn down.

Mr. KUCINICH. Will the troops be home in a year?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I am not in a position to say that, Congressman Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Will they be home in 2 years?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I wouldn’t want to make a prediction of

a particular point in time. I think the number of troops, we hope,

will begin to go down. It’s gone up and down over the past year

in response to the circumstances on the ground, and I think General Casey and his colleagues continue to make recommendations

on that basis.

Mr. KUCINICH. Will they be home in 5 years?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, it’s a hypothetical question. I really,

at this point, I just——

Mr. KUCINICH. Not hypothetical for the families who are wondering about the young people serving. Will they be home in 5 years?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I can’t say whether they’ll be home in 5

years or 4 years or 3 years or 2 years. It’s going to depend on the

circumstances on the ground. We have every reason to believe that

increasingly Iraq will take control of the space, the battle space in

43

the country, and that we’ll be able to bring everybody home sooner

than that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Will they be home in 10 years?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I’d certainly hope so.

Mr. KUCINICH. Now yesterday on Meet the Press, your former

boss said that, knowing everything he knows today, invading Iraq

was still a good idea. Mr. Cheney. You know this means that, regardless of the facts, regardless of whether Iraq had WMDs or not,

regardless whether Iraq was a threat to our Nation, this administration was determined to attack Iraq. In other words, regardless

of the facts, the administration’s intent, maybe even before September 11th, was to attack Iraq. Now, as a former member of the Vice

President’s staff and as a representative of the administration, can

you state this was the administration’s policy?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think it was the administration’s policy

that the threat presented by a regime that had refused to comply

with 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions, 17 after the November

resolution in November 2002, to completely account for the stocks

of weapons of mass destruction that we knew he had, which he had

used in war against Iran and against his own people; that regime,

which also had relations with a variety of terrorist groups, like Abu

Nidal who was clearly present and with whom the Baghdad regime

unquestionably had a relationship; that the payment of suicide

bombers, $25,000 per family; that the potential link between that

regime and its possible possession of weapons of mass destruction,

its unwillingness to accede to the demands of the international

community after many, many years and 17 resolutions made it imperative to defend against the prospect that the regime, which according to the Duelfer report, still harbored the desire to produce

weapons of mass destruction as soon as the sanctions regime came

off, represented a threat that needed to be dealt with.

Mr. KUCINICH. Isn’t it true that at a meeting of the National Security Council on September 12, 2001, Secretary Rumsfeld told

members of the Council that now is the time to go after Iraq even

before any determination had been made over who was responsible

for September 11th.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Mr. Kucinich, I’m sorry, I’m not sure, I

don’t believe I was at that meeting and I certainly didn’t hear the

Secretary of Defense say that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Have you read Bob Woodward’s book, Bush at

War?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I have.

Mr. KUCINICH. Check page 49 out, because in that, there’s a citation with regard to that exact statement by the Secretary of Defense. Now, let me ask you again, did Iraq have anything to do

with September 11th?

Ambassador EDELMAN. To the best of my knowledge, we have no

evidence of that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did Iraq have anything to do with al Qaeda’s role

in September 11th? Or potential role in September 11th? Did Iraq

have anything to do with al Qaeda?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think, with regard to the relationship

between Iraq and al Qaeda, as the 9/11 Commission report indicated, there clearly was a pattern of contact. I think reasonable

44

people can differ as to whether that pattern of contact represented

an operational relationship or not.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I think it’s important for us to introduce into the record—I’ll get a copy of it—the Senate panel report, Intelligence Committee, that says, prior to the war, Saddam’s

government, ‘‘did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind

eye toward al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.’’

One other question, did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction

up until the time that we attacked them?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Iraq, we know for certain had weapons of

mass destruction before 1991 and used them. The state of our

knowledge about the ultimate disposition of their weapons is included in the report that Mr. Duelfer did of 1,200 pages.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was the attack on Iraq because they had weapons

of mass destruction, was that well founded?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think that the preponderance of evidence that was presented to people in the administration as was

presented to people in the previous administration was that they

had weapons of mass destruction. We’ve learned subsequently that,

from the work of the Rob Silverman commission and others, that

there were some flaws in that intelligence assessment.

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes, there certainly were, weren’t there. Thank

you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. And I want to thank both

witnesses for making really good-faith efforts to answer all questions. And I think you know that a Member can ask any question

they want. And I come from slightly maybe a more significant difference with my colleague in regards to this. So when I met with

the French, the British, the Turks, the Israelis, the Jordanians, before the war in Iraq, they were all convinced he had weapons of

mass destruction. The French were the only ones who said, while

they have them, they won’t use them.

When this committee conducted our Oil-for-Food program, and

we were the ones who initiated those hearings, and I had a call

from Kofi Annan saying we didn’t need to do these hearings because he said the Russians have agreed to a hearing, and then we

get a call from Mr. Volker saying we don’t need those hearings. We

had those hearings, as did others, and we learned that Saddam had

undersold his oil and gotten kickbacks and overpaid for commodities and gotten kickbacks.

We learned from the Duelfer report, while no weapons of mass

destruction, he also confirmed that Saddam never thought we

would attack because he bought off the French and the Russians

in the Security Council. And we also know from just even in the

New York Times report in December—excuse me, this year, that in

December preceding the invasion, that he for the first time told his

own military people, no weapons of mass destruction, and his generals were shot. So even his own people, even his own leaders felt

he had the weapons. I would just say, having known that, to have

gone based on that, if we had thought he didn’t have weapons and

have gone in would have been wrong. But I felt very strongly that,

one way or the other, we needed to deal with Saddam, and the

45

sooner the better, but it should have been, obviously, on factual, accurate information.

And I’ll just make a point that I’ve been—with Joe Wilson, I’ve

seen him promote his book in which he blames the White House.

And finally, we get an issued report saying it didn’t originate from

the White House. It emanated from a comment that the State Department deputy director had shared, and it had come from that

direction. And there are really no stories now about that. And the

fact that the White House didn’t mastermind this effort, it seems

to me that Joe Wilson made a better effort of disclosing to everyone

that his wife was connected with the CIA.

I want to say, in regards to Anbar province, that I think it was

pretty clear from the DOD reports even earlier, this was the one

area in our 18 provinces that we called critical. And I think DOD

has been very clear that you can’t win it just militarily. But it has

gotten worse. And this is the whole point of what motivates me to

have these hearings. I am not seeing the political will on the part

of the elected officials to do the reconciliation that is required to

bring in Sunni, Shias and Kurds. I realize that the Sunnis are asking for more than they should. But the Shias are giving them less

than they deserve, and somewhere in between is an answer. And

we also know that Iraq is awash with oil, and if anyone thinks this

is about oil, our getting it, when you spent nearly $400 billion, it

would take a long time for there to be a payback on oil. But what

I want to do is get a sense from both you, and I want to go back

to you, Rear Admiral, I want to know what the numbers mean.

There’s ultimately a base number that then says, from that base

number, as we keep adding competent Iraqi military, that we

should be able to draw down, and the one area where I agree with

Mr. Kucinich on is that it is in the best interest of the Iraqis as

well as the Americans to know when that will start to happen.

Now, what I think, and this is my bias, is I think we have so underestimated the enemy continually that we’ve never had the right

numbers. So we are really doing what is clear now, we just continue to buildup more Iraqis without seeing Americans come home.

And I fear, and I want to say this, that this number of 325 is just—

it’s a number without meaning. That’s what it is to me. It’s a number that is somehow there, but it has no meaning to me because

I can’t basically reconcile the fact that we have 325,000 security—

and that is, we hope, Admiral, to have that number achieved by

December, correct? Sorry. The nodding head doesn’t get in the transcript.

Admiral SULLIVAN. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Obviously, some of that will not have a year’s worth

of experience. That is, they’re trained and on the force and named

but they’re not yet competent; correct?

Admiral SULLIVAN. That’s correct, sir. That number represents a

milestone in terms of fielding and training equipment.

Mr. SHAYS. Let’s just say this, a year from December then, we

can make the assumption, minus those who will be killed, and

there will be a number, that we have 325,000 security people who

are all trained, and they’ve had on-the-line experience. And as the

military tells me, nothing trains you better than being shot at. So

the question I ask is, is it fair for me to assume that a year from

46

now, we will have 325,000, less those who quit and less those who

are killed? Is that correct?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I think that’s a fair assumption, and it may

actually be more than that, depending on the decisions that are

made in the country about growing the forces even larger.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I could add one thing

to what Admiral Sullivan just said.

Mr. SHAYS. You can always add. I am going to pursue my questioning a little bit. Feel free to jump in.

Ambassador EDELMAN. One of the things that I think is important to remember is, if you talk to, you know, Generals Petraeus

and Dempsey, who have been commanders of MNSTC-I, the cooperation and training command, is that our first effort was to try

and get combat boots on the ground. And so the initial part of the

training has been focused on producing battalions that we can get

into combat. If you will, I think it’s what General Dempsey calls

kind of putting out bricks. So we’re putting out one kind of brick

at a time.

Mr. SHAYS. So what’s your bottom line?

Ambassador EDELMAN. The point is, now we need to work on developing the ministerial capacity at the Ministry of Defense and

the Ministry of the Interior to take these combat units and be able

to provide them with command and control and sustainment and

logistics, and that is where much of the effort is going into. We’ve

now trained three training battalions, so now some of them can be

remedied and the numbers can be brought up.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand that the next year would be to improve

quality which is your basic bottom line point; correct?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. But if I subtract the 137, we’re looking for a Ministry

of Interior of 188,000; is that correct, Admiral?

Admiral SULLIVAN. That is correct, yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Tell me—but isn’t it true that when you just—let’s

just take the military for now, most of the military will be army.

It will not be navy. It will not be air force. Is that correct?

Admiral SULLIVAN. That’s correct. We are looking at about

118,000 Army out of that 137.

Mr. SHAYS. And isn’t it correct that this military is being trained

for insurgency, not to defend borders?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir, the decision was made when—you

asked how we arrived at that number, and the decision was made

that we needed to shape this force. We did this in conjunction with

the Iraqis to be able to conduct counterinsurgency operations inside

their borders.

Mr. SHAYS. That part is logical.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Right.

Mr. SHAYS. But Iraq has some unfriendly neighbors. So am I

wrong in making an assumption that we’re going to have American

troops there or nearby for a long time to be able to—unless the

Iraqis ask us to leave—in order to defend this nation or discourage

attempts by its neighbors to in any way violate Iraqi space; is that

not true?

Admiral SULLIVAN. It is very much a possibility, sir. But there

have been no decisions made.

47

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask it backward, OK, if you don’t have troops

that are trained in other than insurgency work, who—isn’t that an

indication that there are certain—that Iraqi forces do not have the

capability to be a defensive force with artillery and all the other

things that a military needs.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Well, they will have some artillery, and the

intention was to develop a force that would have a modicum of its

own self-defense capability without being an Army that could

threaten its neighbors.

Mr. SHAYS. I just really need to—I mean, we—the advantage for

both of you is that I get my questions answered in the third or

fourth round and not have to stay until the seventh round because

multiplied times three, three Members here. It is—I think it’s a nobrainer answer. The bottom line to the question is, the people we

are training, we are training for insurgency; we are not training

them as a typical army. Is that not correct, Ambassador?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think the main task is, right now, the

counterinsurgency and to be able to, you know, provide basic defense for the country. As long as we’re there, I think the security

guarantee for them is our presence.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. And I think you would agree with that,

Admiral, correct? The nodding head, I’m sorry I don’t mean to——

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. I would agree with you.

Mr. SHAYS. So that tells me that one, we will have a role in the

future, or some other country will have that role to fill in the void

the Iraqis won’t have. Now, isn’t it true that we’re not really developing an air force. I mean, they don’t have many pilots, and they

don’t have—either fixed wing or helicopter. Is that correct?

Admiral SULLIVAN. It’s primarily going to be a logistics force, C–

130’s and helicopters; no fixed wing attack-type aircraft at this

point in time. The Iraqis may decide at some time in the future to

develop that on their own.

Mr. SHAYS. But let me ask you this, in this force of 137—excuse

me, 118 military, how many pilots will there be at the end of this

year, fixed wing and helicopter?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I don’t know the answer to that, sir, but I

will have to take that one for the record.

Mr. SHAYS. But you would acknowledge it is very small.

Admiral SULLIVAN. It will be a relatively small number, sir, yes,

out of an air force of 1,600, quite a few of those will be support personnel and maintainers and so forth.

Mr. SHAYS. So, again, isn’t it logical for me to assume that we

or some other country is going to have to provide that for the

Iraqis, not just in the short term but in the long term, until they’re

able to do that, help train their pilots for fixed wing and helicopter.

Admiral SULLIVAN. It’s a logical assumption, yes, sir, but we

don’t know yet what kind of arrangements our government is going

to set with the government of Iraq.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, it’s going to be Iraq’s decision, but the bottom

line is someone’s going to have to fill that void for them.

Admiral SULLIVAN. I think that’s a fair assumption, yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. It is a fair judgment in my assumption. I am not

going to ask you to answer it, but it’s a fair assumption on my part

to assume it is most likely going to be asked. I am not complaining

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about it. I just want the record to state it. And then I am trying

to work from that knowledge.

I am basically dividing up Iraq’s needs in two ways. They need

a force that can patrol the streets and deal with insurgencies and

the insurgency, and we have a part in fulfilling that role; I know

that because four of the people that we buried or have had church

services in the Fourth Congressional District have been blown up

by IEDs, and that is basically doing patrolling type of work not typical in military operations. It’s more like police work. You would acknowledge that to be true?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. And if you’d allow me, there’s an effort underway right now in conjunction with the government of

Iraq to look out into the future, out 5, 10 years into the future, and

figure out what kind of a military ultimately they need and figure

out also what kind of equipment they should have, what they can

afford, what they have the capability to maintain as we move toward normalizing our security relationship with the government of

Iraq. And that’s not final yet, but at some point in time, they’ll

have a vision for what they think their military ought to look like.

Mr. SHAYS. And given that——

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Shays, I might just add one

thing to Admiral Sullivan because your question is a very good one

I think. And one of the reasons—some of our casualties are a function of the fact that we have still been in a position of having to

supply the combat support and combat service support to the Iraqi

security force units because they lack right now the logistical and

mobility capability to do that. General Dempsey is aware of that.

He is accelerating, has been accelerating the training of motorized

transport regiments that are required for that as well as the headquarters’ service companies that will provide the kind of organic logistic and supply support that will allow the Iraqis to take on more

and more of the CS, CSS role. And I think that’s important to note

going forward.

Mr. SHAYS. It is important to note, but the bottom line is, when

we talk about U.S. troops leaving, I really break it up—for me, I

break it up into two parts. Excuse me, when we talk about American troops leaving Iraq, I break it up into two parts: the function

that we do that is for police work dealing with insurgency, and the

other function that we do dealing with mobility, logistics, medics,

even our 20,000 contractors, security folks. I break it up into two

parts. And it seems logical to me if your numbers are accurate and

wisely determined, and when these 118,000 police—excuse me,

118,000 military, plus 188,000 Ministry of Interior police and border patrol become competent, then we should at the very least be

able to take out those troops that are doing the police type of work,

patrolling the streets and getting blown up. And I also happen to

believe that these numbers are somewhat predictable. In other

words, we know how long it takes to train them. We know how

long—how many stay in once they are trained. We know what their

capability is after a year’s worth of training, and but what I suspect is that we are using the Iraqis and keeping building up the

forces to in a sense deal with the fact that we have not yet had

the full complements of our own people there to do what we need

to do, and that’s why we are not seeing our troops come home.

49

So let me just segue into in just 2 minutes here, and then I’ll

give the time to my colleague again from Maryland. I want to talk

about the police. Based on my trips, based on my conversations, the

real weakness isn’t necessarily with the police who are in every

community doing what we traditionally call police work. It’s with

the national police. And my understanding is, it’s probably a concern that at least 20 percent shouldn’t be in the force. Is that a

force of about 12,000, Admiral? Of national police?

Admiral SULLIVAN. The national police is a force of about 24,000,

Congressman.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And of the 24,000, is it not true that we have

concern that probably 20 percent were—should be, you know, kind

of asked to leave because they were brought in as militia and not

properly trained and they tend to not have been integrated like the

military?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir, that is a concern, and we are working with the prime minister to do a vetting plan of the existing

forces as well as retrain some units, but it is a concern, yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Well, I’ll come back to that in my next round of

questions. I am just going to end by saying that, in this conversation, I want to kind of add some emphasis to your point. When I

go to Iraqis, and I say, what’s your biggest concern, it’s that—their

answer to me is, you will leave before we’re ready. That’s their biggest concern. It’s not the bombings. And when I speak to Iraqis,

they don’t have any fondness for the past regime. I can say that

with absolute conviction because I have had more than enough conversations in 14 visits. That’s like saying to the Koreans that they

love the security they have because they’re secure. They’re really

secure; they’re starving, but they’re secure. It’s like saying to

Iraqis, somehow because there’s 40 percent unemployment in Iraq,

I should be surprised. There was more than 40 percent unemployment before. The only program they had before was the oil-forpeace program. They had no trade. They had no commerce. And

also, when I ask Iraqis, are you a Sunni, they will say I am a

Sunni, but I am married to a Shiite. I will ask a Shia: I am a Shia,

but my brother is married to a Sunni. When I asked my Iraqi intern whose parents live in Baghdad, he says, they ever thought of

themselves as Sunnis, but they are Sunnis, but when you start getting killed because you are a Sunni, you start finding comfort with

other Sunnis. And I blame that on the inaction of the politicians

in the last year. There was no government for 4 months. You not

only had the mosque in flames, blown up, but you didn’t have any

response to it. And so I am going to come back in my next round

to say, I am going to ask you, what gives them the kickstart to

make these tough decisions? I know only one solution, and that is

to start to tell them that the police side of the security, the insurgency kind of effort, needs to be done by them, and we stay to do

the logistics, the mobility issues and the heavy operations where

we go in to a cluster of insurgents to do that kind of work. At this

time, I’ll recognize my colleague from Maryland.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks again,

both the witnesses for their testimony. I plan to ask more questions

about going into the future, but I was listening to the testimony

50

and exchange you had with Mr. Kucinich, and I do think it is important just to go over a few things on the historical record.

And let me begin with weapons of mass destruction question.

Yes, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He used

chemical weapons against his Kurdish population in the 1980’s,

and of course, we know he also used them in the Iran-Iraq war.

Unfortunately, United States provided Hussein a lot of the targeting information during that war that allowed him to make effective

use of those and other weapons. And we also know that the United

States despite efforts from some Members of Congress back in the

1980’s, decided not to impose economic sanctions against Iraq—any

serious strict comprehensive economic sanctions—against Iraq as

had been proposed originally in a piece of legislation in the Senate

introduced by then-Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. In fact,

the Reagan administration at the time opposed that piece of legislation.

So I am always a little bit puzzled now when people go back to

those events as they claim justification for military action when

they weren’t even willing to impose economic sanctions at the time

they were being used. It is just a little bit hypothetical. I know you

didn’t do that just now but others continue to raise that issue.

With respect to our assessment of the time, we know that the

folks at the Department of Energy got it right with respect to aluminum tubes. We know the folks at INR and the State Department

got it right, their assessments were buried in footnotes in some of

these analyses. But there are a lot of the people in the Government

that got it right. But unfortunately we sort of seem to have a sifting mechanism when it came to the information in the administration. Stuff that supported the argument that going to Iraq was accepted and the stuff that was conflicting was thrown out.

And we all know that Secretary Powell has said that unfortunately, one of the blots in his record will be testimony he gave on

behalf of our country—all of us—at the United Nations, which

proved to be false.

And so, I think it is important that we remember that there were

people in the government who got it right with respect to weapons

of mass destruction for whatever reasons, and I am not going to go

into a debate on that right now. They were not listened to adequately.

Now, connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and as

I was listening, I just—have you had a chance to look at the Senate

Intelligence Committee report that came out?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It was posted on the Web on Friday, Congressman Van Hollen and I have only had a chance to kind of

glance at it. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and read it.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Would you agree that Saddam was many bad

things, but one thing he was not, would you agree, was an Islamic

extremist.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think if you look at, we are getting into

we are getting a lot of history here.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Was Saddam an Islamic extremist?

Ambassador EDELMAN. If you look back after the first Gulf war,

you do see an effort by Saddam to give a greater Islamic complexion to his regime. He added the words ‘‘ahu Akbar’’ to the flag, a

51

number of conferences were held that were open to Islamists and,

I would argue that some of the—it is correct that traditionally, Iraq

had been a secular society, under the Baath regime, but I think in

his last 10 years, he gave vent to a growth of Islamic thinking,

both in his rhetoric and in his sponsorship of certain things that

led to some of what we have seen as you said when we lifted the

lid on the Pandora’s box.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Ambassador, Pakistan is an Islamic state,

is it not?

It is an Islamic state, is it not Mr. Ambassador?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It is a state in which Islam has a very

important role.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Is General Musharraf an Islamic extremist?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I wouldn’t characterize him that way at

all. On the contrary he is being targeted for assassination efforts

by Islamic extremists.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me read to you an assessment made by the

CIA with respect to Saddam Hussein January 29, 2003, before the

war, and I am quoting from the Iraqi support for terrorism CIA assessment report, ‘‘Saddam has viewed Islamic extremists operating

inside Iraq as a threat, and his regime since its inception has arrested and executed members of both Shia and Sunni groups to disrupt their organizations and limit their influence.’’

I think it is clear if you read this report based on what many

people have known for a long time, is that Saddam Hussein viewed

groups like al Qaeda as a threat. He viewed them clearly as diametrically opposed to his view of the world. He was a brutal dictator. But he was certainly no Islamic extremist.

And I really find it difficult that—I mean we are having a hearing in here——

Ambassador EDELMAN. I didn’t use the word Islamic extremist to

describe him.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I asked you if you thought he was.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I don’t think he would fit that rubric at

all. I don’t think that is anything contradictory between what I

said in my answer and what you read out in the report which I

have not had a chance to read.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, but I think the

issue is that there is this effort to portray this whole issue of the

attacks of September 11th and Saddam Hussein as part of this

United Islamic extremist effort, when, in fact, we well know that

Saddam Hussein was not an Islamic extremist.

Let me ask you this: Do you think it is misleading and inappropriate for public officials of the United States to make statements

suggesting that Saddam Hussein was part of September 11th?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I am not aware of any such statement,

Congressman Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If there were would you agree that it would

be misleading and inappropriate?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think I heard the vice-president say

yesterday that we have no such evidence and I don’t believe he or

the President has ever said that.

52

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I believe that in many occasions in the past,

they have put the two together. I am not referring to any remark

made yesterday. Let me turn very quickly on the question of Iran.

From my perspective, I think in talking to a lot of people who

follow the region closely, Iran has been the big winner of the war

in Iraq. After all, here is a country they fought a long war with in

the 1980’s, that has now sort of fallen into a situation of chaos in

many parts of the country. And the Iranians had been emboldened,

as you said, in your testimony. They are causing trouble there.

Can you tell the committee a little bit about exactly what the

Iranians are doing in Iraq, and how they are going about trying to

exploit the situation there? We know that many of the members of

the current Iraqi government were in exile in Iran during the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. They have these ties with

Iran. If you could talk a little bit about the manner in which Iran

is benefiting from the chaos in Iraq.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think it would be a mistake to assume

that because people may have been resident in Iran for some period

of time in exile that necessarily means that they were subservient

to Iran. I don’t—would not make that——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. And I didn’t use those words.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I just would make that as an observation.

I think that Iran and Iraq obviously are neighbors. They will have

a relationship, they should have a correct and proper relationship

as neighbors should have. Iran has been planning a very unhelpful

role through a variety of mechanisms, both providing assistance to

militias and providing some of the materials that have been used

for IEDs. And we have said that and we have mentioned it in the

9010 report.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. Let me say so everybody

knows, this is going to be our last round and then we will be done.

So we are starting with Mr. Kucinich, and I just say to you, I was

surprised, Mr. Ambassador, you didn’t mention the $25,000 rewards for, to families involved in suicide bombings.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I did, in my comments.

Mr. SHAYS. Did you also mention Abu Nidal?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I did.

Mr. SHAYS. Boy, I am not paying attention.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think the record will show I mentioned

both of those things.

Mr. SHAYS. I am happy you did. OK, Mr. Kucinich.

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

Mr. Ambassador, in your role as Under Secretary of Defense for

policy, can you confirm recent published and broadcast reports that

U.S. troops have already or are currently conducting operations inside of Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, I noticed that you

mentioned that in your opening remarks, and that you made reference to the Seymour Hirsh article in The New Yorker, and I am

glad to have an opportunity to respond. I am not aware of any such

operations. And I am in a position, I think, to say that having read

the Seymour Hirsch article, although not necessarily all the others

that you cited, but that description of conversations that he has in

53

the article bears no resemblance whatsoever to any conversation I

have ever been in in the Department of Defense.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are U.S. military personnel, have U.S. military

personnel or are U.S. military personnel deployed inside and

around Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. We have military personnel deployed in

Afghanistan and Iraq, which are bordering nations, but I am not

aware of any operations inside Iran.

Mr. KUCINICH. Were there operations inside Iran in the last

year?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, I am not aware of

any deployment of U.S. troops to Iran.

Mr. KUCINICH. U.S. military personnel?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, I have already answered the question.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is that a no? So there is no U.S. military personnel of any way shape or form?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Not that I am aware of, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Either preparing a battlefield, gathering intelligence and recruiting local fighters?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, we have in an effort to fighting the

global war on terror, to determine information about terrorists

around the world, and I don’t think it is appropriate to get into a

discussion of that in an open hearing.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is the U.S. planning and now recruiting members

of MEK to conduct lethal operations and destabilizing operations

inside Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. The only question having to do with the

MEK that I am aware of that is we have a number of them, around

3,000 of them at Camp Ashraf, and we are working with the government of Iraq because Prime Minister Maliki has asked that they

no longer be present to figure out how they can be either repatriated to other countries or, in some other way, no longer in detention in Iraq. That is the only issue that I am aware of or have been

involved in with the MEK.

Mr. KUCINICH. Has the Department of Defense already commenced hostile actions against Iran as was the case prior to the

Iraq war?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I’m not aware of any hostile actions that

we have taken against Iran, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Has the administration already made the decision

to attack Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I am aware of no decision that has been

taken by the President to attack Iran.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is this Congress and the American public now

coming under the influence of an orchestrated campaign to take the

country into a military conflict against Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, right now the U.S. Government is involved in a very serious diplomatic effort working with our colleagues among the EU three and the permanent five members of

the United Nations Security Council to try and come to grips with

the development of Iran’s nuclear program, which we believe is a

nuclear weapons program and that is the only activity that I am

aware of.

54

Mr. KUCINICH. Has the U.S. strategic command supported by the

Air Force drawn up plans at the president’s direction for a major

bombing campaign in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, we don’t discuss contingency plans

and I would not want my answer to be taken as either a representative of them saying yes or saying no. It is just not an issue we

discuss in open public hearings.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am going to state that question again.

Has the U.S. strategic command——

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me. Let me ask the gentleman, I would be

very uncomfortable as the chairman of this committee to have

someone be discussing the issue as the Ambassador answered. Are

you looking for another question or are you just asking him to give

the answer that he has already given?

Mr. KUCINICH. You know, Mr. Chairman, the Department of Defense refused to even attend a classified hearing on this specific

issue. We saw the run-up to the war in Iraq. There is quite a similarity here in terms of the way the tracks were laid to go after Iraq

and what they are setting up to go after Iran. Now, you know, I

wouldn’t even be raising this if this gentleman had shown this

committee the courtesy of showing up in a classified meeting.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I was never asked to come to a classified

meeting, Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Someone you work for who is above your pay

grade was.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand my colleague’s unhappiness with this.

I would just want to say as chairman I would not want him to answer this question, because I would not want this committee to be

into that area so——

Mr. KUCINICH. I am going to say, Mr. Chairman, because I don’t

want to bring this up, but since we are at this point, for years, I

refused to sign a statement about classified, divulging classified information, because I had been to too many classified briefings when

I first came to Congress that ended up on the front page in the

newspaper, and then I was in a position to talk about it. But in

order for me to hear from the Department of Defense in a classified

meeting at the suggestion and coaxing of the Chair, I signed the

statement only minutes later to learn that the Department of Defense wasn’t showing up.

So look—and it was about this question. Has the U.S. strategic

command supported by the Air Force drawn up plans at the President’s direction for a major bombing campaign in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, as I said earlier,

and the Secretary has said, he would like to arrange an ops Intel

briefing for the Members before they go out, and you know, people

can ask questions at that time, but we just don’t comment on contingency plans of one sort or another. And as I said earlier, I

wouldn’t want that to be taken as either a denial or a confirmation

of the premise implicit in your question.

Mr. KUCINICH. Has the Department of Defense been warned by

top ranking generals that the military’s experience in Iraq where

intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has

affected its approach in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I am not aware of such statements, sir.

55

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you concede that there are gaps in the intelligence with respect to this administration’s understanding of the

situation on the ground in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think we have gaps in intelligence in

many matters, including in regard to Iran.

Mr. KUCINICH. In your judgment—and I would like the Rear Admiral to answer this, as well—would attacking Iran heighten the

risk to American forces inside Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I really think it is inappropriate to address a hypothetical question about an attack that I have already

said there has been no decision by the President to make such an

attack so, you know, I just think we are dealing with, in a realm

completely——

Mr. KUCINICH. I want everybody to check this out because the

fact of the matter is that all planning for any kind of conflict involves hypotheticals.

Now Admiral, you are a military man. I am asking you, would

attacking Iran heighten risks to American and coalition forces inside Iraq?

Admiral SULLIVAN. It is very difficult to answer without knowing

the circumstances, but I think on the face of it, it probably would.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Admiral.

Ambassador, has the White House been in contact, and that is,

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, been in contact with the Department

of Defense relative to planning for a nuclear attack on Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, as I said, I am not aware of anything

remotely like anything described in the Seymour Hirsch article in

The New Yorker.

Mr. KUCINICH. At any time, did the White House insist that a

plan for a bombing campaign against Iran include the possible use

of a nuclear device to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at

Natanz?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I am not aware of any such thing.

Mr. KUCINICH. You are a Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

And have you been in any discussions regarding a bombing campaign with respect to Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman, I have been involved in a

number of discussions about Iran, but most of them have focused

on the diplomacy, because that is where the administration’s focus

is right now.

Mr. KUCINICH. In your current role as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy are you or anyone within the Department of Defense currently working on are have been working on selecting potential bombing targets in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, you are essentially asking me the same question you did earlier with regard to

contingency plans. And I am in the same position that I was in earlier, which is that I don’t think it is appropriate to discuss contingency plans in an open hearing. We don’t discuss them in general.

Mr. KUCINICH. We already know that in the days immediately

following September 11th, Secretary of Defense was advocating a

war against Iraq. Now during your time in the Vice President’s office, did you or were you aware of anyone else when you were in

the Vice President’s office working on military options for Iran?

56

Ambassador EDELMAN. I am not aware of anybody in the Vice

President’s office having worked on military options for Iran.

Mr. KUCINICH. During the time you were in that office?

Ambassador EDELMAN. During the time I was in that office.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you see any intelligence relating to Iran during the time you were in that office?

Ambassador EDELMAN. As I said before I saw intelligence on any

number of different subjects that were part of the normal intelligence briefing that I received every day.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was it your job to help select the intelligence that

would help to make the case for a war against Iraq?

Ambassador EDELMAN. No, sir, it was not.

Mr. KUCINICH. Whose job was it?

Ambassador EDELMAN. I’m not sure anyone had such an assignment sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Then how did we get to war against Iraq based

on intelligence that you said that you reviewed?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It is the President’s decision. Ultimately,

it is a Presidential decision, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Does the Vice President have anything to do with

that, based on your role working with the Vice President? Can you

share with this committee any of your impressions as to whether

the Vice President was involved in that decision?

Ambassador EDELMAN. The Vice President, in my experience,

was very careful to provide his advice to the President in private

and many times those of us on the staff were not aware of what

that advice specifically was.

Mr. KUCINICH. Isn’t it true that the President generally defers to

the Vice President on issues that relate to attacks?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Sir, I think anyone who has actually seen

the President and the Vice President interact would not say that

the President defers to anybody. The President is the person who

makes the decisions for this administration.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you. Do you believe the President must

seek authorization from Congress before conducting military operations in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. That is really a legal question sir. And I

am not in a position to answer that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, you are the Under-Secretary of Defense for

policy.

Ambassador EDELMAN. I think it depends very much on what the

circumstances are.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you receive authorization from Congress before conducting military operations in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. It would depend on the circumstances.

Mr. KUCINICH. Under what circumstances should the President

of the United States be able to order an attack on Iran without the

permission of the Congress.

Ambassador EDELMAN. We are just dealing in such an area of

hypotheticals, sir. I believe the President, before we went into combat in Iraq, came to the Congress. He will make the determination

of what the relationship between his administration and Congress

ought to be.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Does the U.S. withdrawal out of Iraq impact U.S.

military options in Iran?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Again, we are dealing with some very hypothetical questions here. I don’t—I don’t want to, by answering

the question, either appear to be confirming or denying the noticing

that there is some kind of plan to attack Iran because as I have

said, that is a discussion that Mr. Hirsh has had in The New Yorker that I don’t believe bears any resemblance to the reality as I

know it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I will wrap this up. Here is a summary.

Hypothetical, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Hypothetical, Iraq was tied to September 11th. Hypothetical, Saddam

Hussein working with al Qaeda. Hypothetical, Iraq intended to attack the United States. Hypothetical, Iraq had the capacity of attacking the United States. This administration translated every

one of those hypotheticals into a course of action that resulted in

disastrous war.

Over 2,600 American troops dead, 100- to 200,000 Iraqis dead,

the cost of $350 billion or more maybe $3 trillion, according to Joseph Stiglitz. We are borrowing money from China and Japan to

fight a war all based on hypotheticals. So this gentleman has just

laid out a course of response to my questions about Iran saying,

well, that is all hypothetical.

Indeed, Mr. Ambassador, it is hypothetical. And we are trying to

find out, in our responsibility as a committee, whether or not that

very hypotheses that this administration works from are riddled

with falsehoods. That is why I asked those questions. And I am disappointed with your answers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Kucinich, the only thing

that I am aware of that is riddled with falsehoods would be Mr.

Hirsch’s story in The New Yorker.

Mr. KUCINICH. When well when you raise your right hand and

under penalty of perjury in an open committee where you answer

questions without shielding your self behind the rubric of classified

formation, then I will be ready to take your word for it.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman, I have answered truthfully

and candidly all the questions that have been put to me.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Ambassador, I think you have been very

candid and where you haven’t been willing to answer you have

been candid about that. And I appreciate that. And I appreciate

your responses as well, Rear Admiral.

I want to talk and conclude with going back to the primary purpose of this hearing, which is to talk about security numbers.

And we are now talking about police. And there are approximately 24,400 national police out of that total number of 188 police

and Border Patrol, 188,000 police and Border Patrol. Of that

24,000, does the Department of Defense have estimates as to how

many are competent and reliable?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I am checking my figures here, Congressman,

make sure I give you a good answer. We do have the unit readiness

ratings for those units. There are national police in the lead with

coalition support, and I think the number is nine battalions of

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those police that are actually in the lead. And then another almost

40 that are working side by side with the coalition forces.

Yes, we do track those numbers.

Mr. SHAYS. Isn’t it true that 20 percent, that you want to remove

about 20 percent and that the Iraqi Government wants to see about

20 percent of that 12,000—24,000 reduced by 20 percent?

Admiral SULLIVAN. That is a rough figure.

Mr. SHAYS. Let’s take it as a rough figure. Do we have a program

to do that or do the Iraqis have a program to do that?

Admiral SULLIVAN. They do have a program to do that, yes, sir.

And also retrain some battalions that have not performed up to

par.

Mr. SHAYS. Is it correct, going back to the Army, that only 10

percent of the Iraqi army are Sunni Arabs, which equates to about

12,700?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I am not sure of that figure. I know we are

not tracking the battalions by composition by religion, but I think

the estimate is somewhere in that neighborhood.

Mr. SHAYS. So it is a relatively small number, is it not?

Admiral SULLIVAN. It is, yes, sir. It is close to their percentage

in the population, which I think is around 20.

Mr. SHAYS. It would be about half of what it should be.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, if that number is right, and I am not

sure that it is, sir. It may be higher than that.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Congressman Shays, if I might, I think

one of the things we are trying to do is to make sure that this national institution is seen as representing all Iraqis, and so we are

trying to get consciously away from the ideas of people as they

enter the armed forces, and the police thinking of themselves in

ethnic or sectarian terms, but rather thinking of themselves as

Iraqis first.

Mr. SHAYS. I realize that, but if you just have all Shias going into

a Sunni area, they are going to know.

Ambassador EDELMAN. Point well taken.

Mr. SHAYS. You want an integrated military correct?

Ambassador EDELMAN. Yes, and the point is, as I think as we indicated in the 9010 report, we are moving more and more in a direction of a force that is getting pretty close to the actual percentages, but there is still some disproportions and so for instance in

the officer corps you tend to see more Sunni officers than Shia because of past history and tradition.

Mr. SHAYS. What factors went into the decision that the Iraqi security force would total 325,000 particularly an Iraqi army of

138,000 or so?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Well, as I stated earlier, Congressman, there

were a number of considerations. We took a look at the rough order

of magnitude of what size force is needed for a country that size

to do focus on counterinsurgency operations. We did not obviously

want to duplicate the army that existed under Saddam, which is

an aggressive and offensive-minded army.

So those are the numbers we came up with. And we also took

a lot on the police forces at representative nations in the region,

what we thought we knew about the Iraqi police before the war,

what size they had at the time, and factor all of those things in

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to arrive at these numbers. And as I also mentioned, we wanted

to make sure it was a force that could be sustained and maintained

by the Iraqis once we had helped them build it.

Mr. SHAYS. When the Iraqi army and police have reached their

maximum size of 325,000 trained and equipped personnel, will that

allow Iraqi security forces to take over completely the job of street

patrols and combat operations?

Admiral SULLIVAN. That combined with a certain level of experience and assessment by our forces as to their capabilities. So it is

not a simple mathematical answer, Congressman. It is a lot of factors involved.

Mr. SHAYS. Let’s say when they had a year’s worth of experience

so they are fully competent. I mean, a year’s worth of on the

ground, being-shot-at experience.

Admiral SULLIVAN. I am sorry I missed the question.

Mr. SHAYS. On the ground years worth of experience do they

then become competent?

Admiral SULLIVAN. They should, yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, if they aren’t, then the number is a low number. I mean, candidly, once they become competent, and I mean——

Admiral SULLIVAN. Sir, I understand your question.

Mr. SHAYS. Because otherwise, the 138,000 or 137,500 or not

enough.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Sir, even our own units move in and outside

of competency based on where they are in their cycles.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand, but we are talking about margins. We

are not talking about huge numbers. In other words they become

more competent, maybe there was some significant injuries, key officers were killed, but, let me kind of just get to the end of this

then. We have—basically, we have 3 provinces that we call stable,

those are the three Kurdish areas. We have eight that are moderately stable. We have six that are serious. And we have one that

is critical, Anbar.

And so, but of Iraq, how much of Iraq is under primarily Iraqi

control with Iraqi governments and—but let’s take the military

first. How many are basically being patrolled by Iraqis, not coalition forces?

Admiral SULLIVAN. About 60 percent of the country, the Iraqi security forces are in the lead. Now they are supported by coalition

forces but they are planning, conducting operations in about 60

percent of the country, in the lead.

Mr. SHAYS. But we have only transferred one of those provinces

to the Iraqi prime minister.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, yes, sir that is a slightly different calculus. That is a process that involves the provincial Governor, General Casey and his role as multinational forces in Iraq as well as

the prime minister in assessing whether or not that government is

capable of running their own security without having lead under

the coalition so——

Mr. SHAYS. But there is one where I say it is totally independent

we might invite Iraqi troops, I mean, American troops in, but I

want to be clear. Let me ask the question, is this basically under

Iraqi control, Iraqi troops, and they are in charge?

Admiral SULLIVAN. That is correct, yes, sir.

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Mr. SHAYS. In the other districts that are—60 percent of Iraq,

that is, where Iraqis are taking the lead, they are still under U.S.

control?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. We have transferred one Iraqi division to this Iraqi ground force command that is under the administration of the Ministry of Defense, and so they are not doing operations under multinational command Iraq control. So that is kind

of a separate issue. But in quite a few areas, the Iraqis are in the

lead conducting the operations. They are still reporting to the multinational command Iraq, excepting this province of al Muthanna

and this 8th Iraqi army division.

Mr. SHAYS. I just want you to just be—we went from 40 percent

primarily where the Iraqis are taking the lead, now it is 60 percent, but that 40 percent was an unstable number between 8 weeks

ago. Did someone push that number down to 30 percent? I just

need to have that 60 percent even better defined than you are defining it right now.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Yes, that 60 percent is a figure referencing

territory.

Mr. SHAYS. So how about populationwise?

Admiral SULLIVAN. I think that represents about 65 percent of

the population, but I can check that figure.

Mr. SHAYS. Does it represent specific provinces or is it a—are we

dividing the province in half with primarily Iraqi control and——

Admiral SULLIVAN. In some cases, the province, it is divided in

half. It is not strictly along provincial or province border lines.

Mr SHAYS. So what I wrestle with is given that 60 percent is primarily under Iraqi control and initiative, why we still have the

same number of troops. And I only have two conclusions, one that

we simply didn’t have enough coalition forces so we have been

using them to buildup. Or, that we have continually—continually

underestimated what we would need and not recognize that Iraq

was getting more violent.

Those are my only two conclusions. I want to know at what point

we reach that base to which we then can withdraw our troops.

If we get to 100 percent or 80 percent in the lead, does that begin

to say we can reduce our troops? When is that going to happen?

Admiral SULLIVAN. Sir, that is a very difficult question to answer, and the reason it is is that because the evolving security environment will determine when the commanders on the ground

think that they can safely withdraw some of our troops.

Mr SHAYS. Let me respond to that by saying to you where I have

trouble with is why I got so angry at my staff going once into Iraq

years ago and being aware that we didn’t have the body armor, and

we didn’t have the military equipment at its highest protection

level, upgraded and then being told by the military it will be done

in 3 months. And then I go back 3 months later we still have the

problem.

And I come back and they say well we underestimated the number we needed and the violence and so—that happened three times.

So my logic tells me why don’t we just assume the worst, the very

worst, and then work off that number because we have been wrong

so many times.

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And I have another theory. My theory is this the American people don’t think we have a plan because we don’t share the plan

that we have and because that plan has been wrong more often

than right.

So we have one choice, share the plan that has been wrong and

at least they know we have a plan, or not talk about the plan so

people don’t think we have a plan that we are just kind of, like,

winging it. We are not winging it. We are just wrong. What this

committee is going to pursue with you, and we are going to ask for

these numbers, we want to know when the baseline is there on a

worst-case-based scenario, and from that point, we are going to recommend that we are—we feel with some, I hope, conviction we can

predict when our troops can come home under a worst-case scenario.

It bothered me that when we voted on a time line a few months

ago. We then read we had a time line. We all knew we had a time

line. The administration said it was condition based. Why not just

assume the condition is going to be really bad, and give us a time

line based on the really bad rather than thinking it is going to be

better.

And I want to just say I have looked at the classified documents,

and I believe that our plan is unrealistic. It suggests we are going

to get troops out and that Iraqis are going to take over well before

they are going to take over. And I think we all know that. So my

plea with all of you is to have some realistic numbers that we can

work off of, because I believe the American people, as well as the

Iraqis, have a right to know when we are going to see some kind

of reduction.

And then I am going to say to you, but it is only going to be the

reduction on the police side of the equation, because we are still

going there for operations. We are still going to be there for logistics. We are still going to be there for medical support. We are still

going to be there for those things. And we are still going to be

there to make sure that Iran, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia

doesn’t think this is a land they can have some opportunity to

move into.

So what would you like to put on the record before we get to the

next panel? There is anything you would like to put on the record?

Ambassador.

Mr EDELMAN. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to maybe address

a couple of points that you made just now and then go back maybe

circle back to one you made in your opening statement, if I could.

While I think all of us would like to have some quantitative answer that would give us some confidence about when we can start

withdrawing United States and other coalition forces, I think a lot

of this ends up being a qualitative judgment that inevitably has

some subjective element in it. You were asking a question about

our units that have 1 year of experience, you know, doesn’t that

kind of get them there? I think a lot of it ends up a being a question of leadership at the unit level. And there, because we now

have embedded trainers, we have a better mechanism for being

able to look at that and when we have problems weed them out,

but it also is, I think, undoubtedly true that some of what we are

grappling with is a kind of particular culture that was bequeathed

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to the military by the preceding regime that is going to take a little

bit of time to work through, getting people to take initiative getting

people to see their responsibility as being a commander, as being

for their troops and their well being as opposed to a means for

greater patronage or benefit for the individual.

It is going to take a little bit of time to work through that. And

I think the difficulty we have with fixing things quantitatively is

that there is some important qualitative element, and that goes not

only for senior commanders but more junior commanders and

NCOs as well and we are beginning to address some of these problems.

You began the hearing by talking about, I think, quite eloquently

the progress you saw during many of your preceding trips between

the turnover of sovereignty in June and then the election in December, and you expressed some concern about the stagnation since

then. And I think all of us share some of the impatience and concern that I think your comments reflect about the length of the

process that took place.

And you rightly point out that we had some benchmarks which

forced the pace, if you will, politically in Iraq. I would submit to

you however that we are in a slightly different situation now because sovereignty was returned in June 2004, we are still deal with

a series of limited governments whose duration was going to be

limited.

And only with the installation of the current Maliki Government

after the December elections do we have a fully sovereign, permanent government of Iraq that has now got to step up and take decisions.

And the earlier benchmarks were dictated by an arrangement

agreed by Americans and Iraqis when the circumstances were a bit

different.

I agree with you that we need to find some ways to force the pace

of the process. I think the constitutional revision process may help

that to some degree. And I think the necessity of having provincial

elections which we have touched on from time to time in this hearing is yet another potential opportunity to set a benchmark that

Iraqis have to build toward, both on the reconciliation side which

my colleague, David Satterfield, will address in your hearing on

Wednesday and other means and mechanisms for getting the Iraqis

to shoulder more of the responsibility here so we can begin the

process of bringing forces home eventually.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Ambassador. Admiral.

Admiral SULLIVAN. Congressman, I would just like the record to

show that in response to your comment about a plan, we do have

a plan and we have been executing that plan for quite some time

and that is to buildup the Iraqi security forces. They have the ability to provide for their own security and that has been the plan for

quite some time.

I share your frustration with the fact that the situation has

evolved and that we have had to adjust plans over the course of

the last several years several times. But in fact, I would not want

the American people to leave with the impression that there was

not a plan. And that plan was being executed.

Thank you.

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you both very much. I very much appreciate

your being here, appreciate your coming to this hearing and we will

have a 5 minute break and then we will go to our next panel.

Thank you both.

[Recess.]

Mr. SHAYS. The ranking member had asked that a report of the

Select Committee on Intelligence on postwar findings about Iraq’s

WMD programs and links to terrorism and how they compared

with prewar assessments together with additional views be submitted for the record. And without objection, so ordered.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Let me introduce our witnesses and thank you for your patience.

We have Mr. William Nash Major General retired, U.S. Army senior fellow for conflict prevention, and director of the center for prevention action council on foreign relations; Dr. Bruce Hoffman professor, Security Studies Program, School of Foreign Service,

Georgetown University; and Mr. Alan King, former commanding officer for 422nd civil affairs, Battalion operation, Iraqi Freedom, advisor for Tribal Affairs Coalition Provisional Authority.

Gentlemen, we really appreciate your being here. We appreciate

your testimony. We appreciate your patience. And we are really

looking forward to this panel so thank you.

As you know, we swear in our witnesses, and I would ask you

to stand up and we will ask you to raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. For the record, our three witnesses have responded

in the affirmative. We are going to go in the order I called you. We

will do the 5 minutes and then we will roll over another 5 minutes,

and if you could finish within 10, that would be good. But my basic

philosophy about the second panel is they were waiting, and so we

cut them a little slack.

And frankly, we anticipate learning a lot from the three of you,

so thank you.

I want to just remind you to turn your mics on before we start.

Mr. Nash.

STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM NASH, MAJOR GENERAL RETIRED,

U.S. ARMY, SENIOR FELLOW FOR CONFLICT PREVENTION,

AND DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR PREVENTION ACTION

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS; BRUCE HOFFMAN, PROFESSOR, SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM, SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY; AND ALAN KING,

FORMER COMMANDING OFFICER, 422ND CIVIL AFFAIRS

BATTALION OPERATION, IRAQI FREEDOM, ADVISOR FOR

TRIBAL AFFAIRS, COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM NASH

General NASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it is a great opportunity for me to be here, and I hope my views will be useful to you.

Having listened to the first panel, and particularly your explanations and questions gave me a much better feel for some of the

things that you want to go after, so maybe I could help a little bit

more beyond my prepared statement.

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I think one of the issues that I would like to, because it is part

of my day job, if you will, today, is to talk a little about bit about

how the U.S. Government is organized, equipped and trained to

conduct post conflict operations, and I would like to draw attention

to that. It is most important it not be considered just an armed

forces problem, but a problem of the entire government. And I

strongly recommend that this subcommittee and the committee in

general become actively engaged in improving our capabilities in

that arena.

I refer to you the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task

Force report entitled ‘‘In the Wake of War’’ which talks about ways

the government in general and specifically the Department of State

and the Department of Defense can better address post conflict

challenges. And I provide you a copy of the report and would ask

that its contents in its entirety be entered into the record, with

note that Samuel Berger and Brent Scowcroft were the co chairs

of this independent task force, and that was a very fine effort to

try to identify some ways that we can improve things.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection, it will be submitted and for the

record, ‘‘Council on Foreign Relations, In the Wake of War: Improving U.S. Post-Conflict Capabilities.’’

[NOTE.—The report entitled, ‘‘In the Wake of War: Improving

U.S. Post-Conflict Capabilities,’’ may be found in subcommittee

files.]

General NASH. Thank you. I realize you focus on Iran, it may

seem somewhat overwhelming to try to talk about Government reform issues, but that is exactly what we need to do because we cannot afford to do things in the future like we have done them in the

past.

Sir, any strategy on Iraq has to concern itself with ends ways

and means. Simplistic statements about goals for democracy and

free market economy will not be sufficient. Bumper stickers stay

the course, cut and run are not the alternative actions concerned

with Iraq. A timetable for troop withdrawals is also not a strategy.

It is a measure—it is a way to disengage. And disengagement is

not an option for us today.

Three years ago, we were in a senseless debate in this city about

whether or not there is an insurgency in Iraq. Today we argue over

whether or not there is a civil war.

The debate is really a domestic political issue, not really—using

Iraq as a venue.

We dithered instead of taking strong and decisive action.

And the bottom line in Iraq today is that there is an insurgency,

there is civil war, there is rampant crime and the Iraqi people have

far less security today than they had before the American invasion,

despite whatever advantage they may have gained in getting rid of

Saddam Hussein.

I fear that a withdrawal now, in the current American forces in

Iraq a significant withdrawal would add to the violence.

This is not only a function of the capacity of the Iraqi security

forces, but also the maturation of the political institutions and a

settlement—a final settlement if you will on power sharing arrangements.

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All this has to be done in the face of an al Qaeda-inspired insurgency against the Iraqi government, against the coalition forces,

against Shiites and against moderate Sunnis. So this multi layered,

multiple war is being fought on top of each other makes it very,

very difficult and frankly, we need many more debates and hard

questions answered that you asked rather than the bumper sticker

debates that all too often take place on Sunday mornings in the

various other campaign stops.

Two additional factors I would like to draw your attention to for

your consideration. The first one is how long can we maintain this

force that is there now? And I talk about this in terms of the men

and women and their families and the Nation that is providing the

service over there.

Their dedication is unmatched, and frankly I say it is our proudest accomplishment. But I don’t know how long this can go on. And

I would say that in a year and a half——

Mr. SHAYS. How long what can go on again?

General NASH. How long the Armed Forces of the United States

can sustain the operations we have been conducting in the Iraq for

the last 3-plus years. And I think another 2 years we will see significant impacts on recruiting, retention and possibly discipline in

the force.

The other factor of course is that—and I think one of the problems that you are having in this regard, I am adding to my statement from what I heard—because of what I heard this morning, is

that there has been a persistent shortage of forces in Iraq since day

one.

And the fact of the matter is the reason they can’t tell you when

they can withdraw down from 150,000, sir, it is my belief is the assumption that is the proper number of baseline.

And without a good baseline that you are desperately searching

for, it is impossible then for the commanders—and the commanders

will not come out and disagree with their political bosses that they

need more troops. They are equally hesitant to reduce the forces

that they currently have, and that is a way of telling you they don’t

have enough, despite the progress made in training the Iraqi force.

The second factor I would add to the discussion which is implied

in many of your questions is the enemy has a vote on how many

forces are necessary.

So as the enemy strength and capacity and actions increase, then

there is no concomitant reduction in the requirement for American

forces. The enemy has a vote in this force level debate.

Given these two factors and the limited tolerance by the people

of the United States for commit for much more commitment and

casualties, I think we need to consider a short-term increase in coalition forces in the country.

Recent action in Baghdad has delayed the redeployment of a brigade adding to the strength of the security forces in Baghdad by

just under 4,000 soldiers. We may want to consider expanding this

delayed rotation process for the next 18 to 24 months and take the

risk that by using more forces for a shorter period of time, we may

be able to reduce our overall needs.

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This may be considered by some imprudent, it may be considered

an all or nothing action. I would recommend we study it and we

look at it as a possibility for achieving our way.

And finally, I would make three comments, sir, on the path

ahead, the clarification of U.S. objectives is the end in the strategy

that we need to establish. The interests of the United States and

the interests of the Iraqi people are not necessarily the same. And

we need to understand that our interests must prescribe our strategy.

There is suspicion in Iraq and in the region as a whole about the

long-term intentions of the United States with respect to oil presence and the future relations with the Arab and Islamic world.

Without refighting, the political debate over why the U.S. invaded

Iraq, Congress has the ability, if not the responsibility, to clarify

our intentions by describing the United States concrete goals in

Iraq.

My view is that we should send a clear message that the U.S.

military presence will not be permanent, and this means that we

should stop those permanent military construction activities, the

MCA projects that have been appropriated by Congress, throughout

the country.

We should not stay the course, we must broaden the course.

Without a dramatic change in the perception of the role of the

United States in the Middle East, we will continue to see them rise

in anger against us, resulting in more conflict and a further drain

on our resources. We must understand that U.S. actions with respect to Israel and the Palestinians, Iran and Syria and Lebanon

have a direct and too often negative impact on our ability to stabilize Iraq. Less conflict, not more, is what is needed.

And finally, we must emphasize the political and diplomatic and

economic needs, time and time again our commanders have talked

about the solution to Iraq is political and economic not military.

But these solutions require both a regional and international effort led by our country. We cannot afford any other approach politically or economically ourselves. Sounds like a tall order, I understand, but if we succeed in bargaining the course and clarifying our

objectives, I think we can find much greater international support.

And as you talk about your frustration on deadlines and the maturation process of political institutions and responsibilities within

Iraq, I would argue that a lever on force presence is not necessarily

the most important lever that we could use to spur political action

on the part of the Iraqis, and I will look at economic packages, political assistance issues that are more, and I would look for some

economic carrots we can use in order to emphasize the need for political deadlines to be met.

And sir with that I will stop and I look forward to your questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Nash. We are going to

have some good fun in our dialog here. I appreciate it. It gives us

a lot to think about.

[The prepared statement of General Nash follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Hoffman.

STATEMENT OF BRUCE HOFFMAN

Dr. HOFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Representative

Kucinich, for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee on

this important matter. That is America’s involvement and role in

Iraq has now become the most contentious issue of our time is a

reflection of the complexity and frustrations of securing the security and instability of that country. It is compounded by a decidedly

mixed picture of progress in some critical areas of Iraqi security,

alongside continued stasis and serious reversals in others. Little

clarity or consensus, moreover, emerges from conversations and email exchanges with senior American and coalition diplomats, advisers and military officers in Iraq or from journalists assigned

there, and other informed observers with immediate or recent direct knowledge of the situation in that country.

This much in terms of Iraq’s security however is perhaps clear.

The great progress made in training and improving the Iraqi army

and associated military forces has not been matched by similar improvement with the Iraqi police, the essential main stay of law and

order and the foundation about which the stability of any country

must be based.

It is on this specific issue that I will focus most of this testimony

before turning to issues such as the security of Baghdad and the

prognosis of overall U.S. security policy and efforts in Iraq.

The central objective of U.S. security policy for Iraq is to train,

equip and buildup the Iraqi security forces so that they can assume

responsibility from American and coalition forces for the stability

of their own country.

With respect to Iraq’s military forces, advances in training and

deployment have indeed been considerable, although as we heard

earlier, it should still be noted that despite these improvements,

the Iraqi army is still dependent on U.S. military forces for intelligence and logistical support.

The police however present an entirely different and more depressing picture. The situation regarding the Iraqi police is all the

more lamentable, given that 2006 was supposed to be the ‘‘year of

the police,’’ when the resources and attention hitherto focused normally on building the Iraqi army were instead devoted to the national police.

The importance of police, both in civil society as well as in countering insurgency, cannot be overstated. In no area is this distinction more critical than an acquired intelligence. Clearly effective

police work, be it against common criminals or terrorists and insurgents, depends on intelligence, and intelligence depends on public

cooperation. Police typically have better access to human intelligence sources than the military. This information, whether freely

provided by citizens to beat cops known to them or obtained by police from its informants snitches and other sources in and around

the criminal underworld is essential to detect and apprehend terrorists or insurgents. It is essential also in undermining local support for terrorists and insurgents and in breaking their control over

and influence in communities.

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Yet despite the critical role of police, more often than not, this

has, from the start, largely been ignored by the American authorities responsible for building the security forces in Iraq. As one coalition adviser with long experience in Iraq dating from the summer

of 2003 recently lamented, the coalition never got its arms around

the police as they did with the Iraqi troops on the ground that we

were training. Accordingly, a game of catch up has been in play almost from the start of our involvement in Iraq.

In May 2004, the CPA started to address the initial problems

with police trainings by establishing CPATT, the coalition police

assistance training teams. Although U.S. military supervision provided better management of the police training effort, many of the

American personnel responsible for this oversight did not know

much about civilian policing, police training, or police work.

Another more serious problem arose, however, when graduates of

this training were subsequently incorporated into largely unsupervised police units commanded by persons who, in the words of another American adviser deeply familiar with the process, either

‘‘had either nefarious intentions, death squad activity or distinctly

sectarian agendas, or who were themselves corrupt or inept.’’

In hopes of establishing more rigorous supervision of the police,

in May 2006, the multinational Corps-Iraq assumed responsibility

for mentoring the Iraqi police. While this has generally been a positive development, the number of mentors, whether American military police or more appropriate civilian police advisers serving as

international police liaison officers, IPLOs, has proven woefully inadequate. And both their quality and skills has been remarkably

uneven. Even the stopgap measure adopted by MNSTC-I in Baghdad of making up for the shortfall in civilian advisers by assigning

MP military police companies to police stations is not an altogether

perfect solution.

Military policing is significantly different from civilian policing.

And many of the MPs themselves have no experience of police work

outside of military bases and the military itself.

Further the deployment of MP companies notwithstanding as of

June 2006, some 40 percent of police stations throughout Iraq were

reported to have no coalition oversight or supervision whatsoever.

This dearth of supervision has also had enormous consequences

on the professionalism of the Iraqi police forces, vitiating whatever

successes had been achieved in training. For example, while the

newly instructional regimen may have improved the technical competence of individual policemen in terms of investigative and forensic skills, it has done nothing to counteract the sectarianism and

corruption permeating both the ministry of the interior MoI and

police.

Indeed reports of the subversion of the MoI are the Badr Corps

and SCIRI on the one hand and by followers of Moqtada al-Sadr

belonging to the army Mahdi on the other seem to be endemic to

any discussion about corruption in the ministry and the police. The

dimension of sectarian infiltration of the police is so pervasive, one

source claims, that the MoI’s intelligence arm has now been completely subverted by the Badr corps while parts of the national police have been heavily seeded with Sadr loyalists.

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Let me now turn to the security plan for Baghdad and the prospects for success.

Arguably, until stability is established in Iraq’s capital city, the

public, neither in the United States nor especially in Iraq, will believe that a corner has really been turned in the struggle. Although

implementation of the latest security plan for Baghdad has gone

reasonably well, it is still too early to tell whether this attempt will

be any more successful than any of its predecessors have been. The

newest iteration involves a three-phase operation whereby Iraqi

and American forces enter a specific neighborhood and secure it

from insurgents and terrorist activity, as well as sectarian blood

letting.

Once it is deemed cleared, the responsibility for the neighborhood

security is turned over to Iraqi control as the military units move

on to the next neighborhood. Although cautious optimism prevailed

in most discussions and e-mail exchanges I had over the past 2

weeks with senior United States and coalition officials and former

colleagues in Baghdad, some skepticism was expressed that there

was sufficient American and Iraq—trained Iraqi security forces in

the city to achieve a lasting positive impact. Moreover, according

to one official visit, recent official visitor to Baghdad, ‘‘the patterns

of attack once the main force moves on are that insurgent attacks

then increase. In the last 2 weeks there have been a resurgence of

attacks once U.S. forces clear out. Formed units of national police

in Iraqi army are performing fine. Regular civilian police who have

American and coalition mentors are good, and in several areas, police comportment has improved technically at checkpoints and so

on, but there is yet no real sign that they all can hold the ground

by themselves without American military forces present.’’

The inadequate numbers of both American military forces and

trained, reliable Iraqi security forces was cited by another knowledgeable observer as a problem both with respect to the Baghdad

operation in particular, and Iraq security in general, in fact, as we

have heard through the morning. Given that Iraq has a population

of about 25 million people, based on a 20-to–1 ratio of population

to security forces, essentially what the British military had in

Northern Ireland during the 1980’s. You need roughly 500,000

troops and police to maintain order. However as we have also

heard this morning, the envisioned total of Iraqi trained Iraqi security forces is only 325,000. Let me conclude now.

Two salient conclusions seem clear from the preceding discussion

of training and deploying of the ISF.

Iraqi military forces will likely continue to build and be increasingly capable and will be able to assume the lead in more parts of

Iraq. The Iraqi police, however, will continue to be both the problem and the Achilles heel of Iraqi security. In this respect, whatever advancements have been achieved in terms of the Iraqi army,

the situation with the police counterparts remains as problematical

as it is frustrating.

Corruption remains a problem in the MLI. It is also reportedly

beginning to affect the MOD. The MLI, of course long involved with

security issues in Iraq, is plagued by corruption, nepotism and

kleptomaniacs. The MOD is not nearly as bad, but the same signs

of corruption are appearing.

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The MOI, though, is certainly the biggest security problem here.

If the MOI was fixed we would have pretty decent police intelligence and a decent police force. Reforming the MOI is the biggest

problem we currently face. This is from the U.S. diplomat who has

been in Baghdad since 2003.

Although the form of MOI is a question of Iraq’s political will,

it is in our power to improve police on-the-job training and performance through the provision of the CPAT IPL program and the

priority accorded to the recruitment of more and appropriately

qualified Coalition civilian police advisers. Until that can be

achieved, the deployment of more U.S. police units is a second-best

option, but nonetheless a helpful palliative.

As support and oversight of the Iraqi police from the start of the

Coalition Provisional Authority has been a matter of too little too

late and of numerous passed opportunities, this may be the last opportunity to address the existing shortcomings of the Iraqi police

establishment.

Finally, it is difficult to predict for these reasons at one point if

the ISF can take on additional security responsibilities with a reduced American presence. Realistically, in my opinion, 3 to 5 years

at least are required for the Iraqi military and 7 to 10 years for

the police. It would not be likely for another 7 years that the Iraqi

security forces can completely replace all combat—all U.S. combat

forces in Iraq. At the moment, therefore, it is not realistic to set

a withdrawal timetable based on the current readiness of the ISF.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hoffman follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. King.

STATEMENT OF ALAN KING

Mr. KING. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify

before you today. I would like to make five key points in summarizing my written statement.

First, there are three major challenges that must be overcome if

Iraq is to assume full responsibility for its security. The first of

them are militias. The activity of the militias are the single most

divisive issue challenging the legitimacy of the central government.

We are aware of Iran’s multimillion-dollar budget to back the militia, and with Sadr’s influence in the country growing, the Iraqi

Government will be hard pressed to pursue its objectives.

We witness the results of what uncontrolled nonstate actors did

in Lebanon. Sadr’s Mahdi army is equivalent to Lebanon’s

Hezbollah, and while not considerably as heavily armed today, it

poses the same potential threat as to Iraq’s future. I believe that

if the U.S. departed today, Sadr’s militia are poised to lead Iraq to

civil war and SCIRI’s Badr Corps domination of the security forces

has positioned this nonstate actor in a state-sponsored position to

pursue its independent goals.

The second challenge is the lack of a legitimate and professional

police force to deal with the unrestrained criminal force.

And the final challenge is the unreliability of the judicial system

that makes tackling the police problem unrealistic and impractical.

Second, when I arrived in Baghdad on 8 April 2003, Major General Buford Blount of the 3rd Infantry directed me and the unit I

served in as the commanding officer of the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion in the mission of taking the first steps toward the immediate

reconstruction of the city. Generally, men hugged us in their gratitude for liberation. We were 140 soldiers and we were trained, committed and hard working, and we understood what it meant to be

the tip of the spear in the postliberation period.

We paid a price. One American soldier and an Iraqi translator

killed, four soldiers wounded, including Major Damone Garner who

sits behind us today. Our unit received five Purple Hearts, 21

awards for valor and the Presidential Unit of Citation.

In 3 short years, I have watched the resistance grow into a substantial insurgency. I believe this is in large part due to America’s

fundamental misunderstanding of our success. When the President

declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, we

had decisively defeated an armed force and the war in Iraq was

over, but at that very moment the war for Iraq began. Our objective at that time was no longer to defeat an armed combatant, but

to decisively engage the Iraqi people.

After May 1st, our conventional tactics, with an emphasis on kinetic solutions designed for decisive victory over a noncombatant,

provided the insurgency a textbook ideological basis for receiving at

least passive support, if not direct support, in conducting attacks

against the Coalition and the Iraqi—Iraq’s security infrastructure.

In the days following the liberation, a military strategy could

have been more effectively collaborated with a political and economic policy designed to win the people, thus allowing the Iraqis

to eliminate the insurgents themselves. Since April 2003, I have

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watched a transition from cautious concern for the Coalition’s tactics to sympathy for insurgencies because of our tactics to complicity with the insurgents to fight our tactics.

We must fully address the motives and tactics of the insurgents.

There are six elements: the militias, the nationalists, religious extremists and sectarians, foreign fighters, former regime loyalists

and common criminals. The demographics of the insurgency are

different in each province and each element has its own motives for

fighting.

As we have seen, Baghdad has become the axis of the insurgency. This is where all six elements exercise their power and force

a complicity of the people; because of the lack of security, people

are compelled to use the competing groups for protection.

Fourth, in November 2003, because of my tribal engagement activities, I received a new assignment as deputy director of a small

team of experts on Iraq and I was tasked to work with Iraq’s tribal

leaders. In my book, Twice Armed, I explain how I engaged thousands of tribal sheiks and clerics over the 16-month period I served

in Iraq enabling me to capture some of the most-wanted personalities from the former regime, including two from the infamous deck

of cards, along with the former chairman of atomic energy and Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, a/k/a Baghdad Bob.

From the Iraqis I met, there was one constant theme that was

espoused by all: We are Iraqis. This nationalistic identity transcends religious and ethnic identity, transcends religious and ethnic identification and provides a prospect for Iraq to become a unified nation. For this national identity to continue, it is necessary

for the Iraqi leadership to table their personal objectives and come

together on behalf of their country.

In closing, Americans must understand that in Iraq we will not

have a decisive battle of victory, and in its absence, we should not

leave. The process for victory in Iraq is not military, but instead

political and economic, where the Iraqi Government, supported by

the Coalition, wins the Iraqi people and they defeat the insurgency.

Security and stability are processes, not identifiable events, and

properly defining the end state of the process will allow us to determine when we should leave Iraq.

Again, thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. King follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I thank all three of you very, very much. And I am

going to first ask, giving myself 10 minutes—we are going to stay

with the 10 minutes and then just keep going back and forth—do

any of you agree with anything that the others have said or anything that you would want to qualify?

Is there any statement, for instance, Dr. Hoffman, that Mr. Nash

and Mr. King made that you might want to elaborate on?

Mr. King, is there any statement that Mr. Hoffman or Mr. Nash

has made?

General NASH. I would largely agree, and I tip my hat to Alan

King for his comments and, of course, his service there.

The one thing, his defining the six categories of the elements of

the insurgency, I agree with the six; I don’t agree that they are all

under an insurgent category. Because an insurgency is directed

normally, usually—almost always directed against a central body of

some sort, and the internecine fighting that is taking place in Iraq

is multiblurred, and everybody is fighting the United States. Not

everybody is fighting the United States, but—almost everybody is

fighting the United States, but within this mass of confusion, there

are different fights taking place with various opponents combining

and breaking up, given the circumstances.

So it is not one insurgency with six participants. It is several,

some of which are insurgencies, some of which are civil conflict,

and then there is crime that is part of all of it.

Mr. SHAYS. Any other comments?

Mr. KING. I would like to say, when I briefed Ambassador

Khalizad before he went over to Iraq, I tried to define the different

categories of what he would see the military and the Coalition

forces facing. I agree that they all don’t fall under the insurgency,

but we try to have this one umbrella term to define all of the activities that are going on in Iraq. In the south, you have predominantly Mahdi’s army; they actually have the same police cars, wear

the same uniforms as the police.

One of the phases of insurgency is where you infiltrate the police,

and SCIRI Badr Corps have done just that. In the west, in Anbar,

you actually have cities where there are no police; Haditha and

Baghdadi and others, there are no police present for various reasons.

I met, as I said, almost 3,300 sheikhs. All the top sheikhs of the

entire country came to me and presented their ideas, and through

them, I captured almost a dozen of the most-wanted criminals in

Iraq. We captured Saddam Hussein’s doctor, bodyguard, driver,

Baghdad Bob, the chairman of atomic energy and others.

They understand their society, and I listened to them to be able

to deal within their society. Al Anbar is going to be a challenge.

The Dulaimis have historically been a problem. They were a problem for the Ottomans; they were a problem for the British, and

they have proven to be a problem for us, but they have to be addressed in political terms and I don’t think that we have—the Government of Iraq has addressed their concerns. It goes back to the

case of not allowing some of their sons in the military.

I use the insurgency umbrella to be able to define one thing rather than have it on the outside. I do agree with General Nash; I unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38038.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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derstand they are not part of an overall insurgency, but they are

all fighting one another.

Mr. SHAYS. I am curious as to why all three of you suggest time

lines can’t work as it relates to the replacement of Iraqi troops—

excuse me, replacing American troops when Iraqis become competent. And you are going to have to help me out here. If the

French told us that they had 20,000 troops, Mr. Nash, would we

replace their 20,000 with ours or would we say, Oh, we will just

add 20,000?

I would like each of you to respond to that question.

General NASH. Again, sir, I would say that we should not work

from the assumption that the current force levels there are proper.

And so, intuitively, the commanders are hesitant, and I am hesitant to recommend a one-for-one swap if I don’t feel that I——

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t we be honest and say that we need 50,000

more or 80,000 more or 20,000 more?

General NASH. I would like that question answered. I agree with

you.

Mr. SHAYS. So the reason why you are uncomfortable with the

time line is you believe that we do not have the proper amount of

security in Iraq?

General NASH. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. That doesn’t mean a time line doesn’t work at

all. Let me make my point and then you respond to it. It just simply means that time line doesn’t begin until we buildup to the base.

A time line doesn’t mean that we reduce the number of troops

from this point. When I suggested a time line as it relates to the

replacement of Americans who are doing police work with Iraqis,

I have suggested that we—the time line might even say, OK, you

have to add another 50,000 more Iraqis.

But there is a certain point, and why can’t we determine that?

General NASH. The major failure, in my view, in Iraq is the slow

development of the political institutions, political and judicial institutions, that give a reason—a reasonable representative government that provides goods and services to the people of Iraq, and

to include security. The time line—the deadlines for performance

should be on the performance of the government and then we adapt

to their improvements, not establish a withdrawal schedule.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me—I’ll come back to you on this. But you have

made your point, right?

General NASH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I want to debate it later.

Dr. Hoffman.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, I’ll have to say I am largely in agreement

with General Nash. I think, firstly, we face two huge challenges in

Iraq: One, not just the insurgencies, but the insurgencies that we

have heard from Mr. King as well. But the second problem which

has also been alluded to is, we have a failed state contending with

lots of different struggles and without the power and the tools actually to control those struggles. So, therefore, you know right from

the start those are two of the most enormous challenges, both fighting and building up the Iraqi Government.

In terms of the time line, I have to look—I am a historian by

training, and I have to look at just the course of insurgencies in

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the last year. When I was advising the multinational force headquarters in Iraq we did a study on duration of insurgencies. The

successful ones take between 9 and 12 years to win. The unsuccessful ones, which I suspect we have to classify Iraq in, take between

10 and 13 years. So my response is, we need a time line.

Mr. SHAYS. You are making an assumption that I would base a

time line on whether or not they have dealt with the insurgency.

I mean, Israel has been dealing with terrorists, Hezbollah, Hamas.

There they are still a functioning government.

I am not suggesting that a time line would be based on when the

violence would end. I am just suggesting a time line that is based

on when Iraqis can take our place, and that is a difference. There

is a huge difference.

So if you could open your mind up a little bit to that concept,

what I think is, we will be out of Iraq and there will still be violence. There will still be fighting, but it will be their problem, not

our problem.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, I think I go back to General Nash’s point.

We have to assume that we have the right to properly size force

structure.

Mr. SHAYS. So we come back to that. We need to know what the

baseline is. I mean, that is the message I am getting from all three

of you: What the heck is that baseline? And what strikes me is that

our government is not being candid with itself and with us, with

the Iraqis, what that baseline number needs to be; and because

they had a lower baseline before, there are some who frankly have

a history. And probably that is the best argument for getting new

people. They wouldn’t have a history; they could think fresh.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, I think it also masks a huge problem. We

have set the baseline in such a way I don’t think 325,000 trained

Iraqi forces are sufficient. If we want to get the 20-to–1 ratio that

existed in a place like northern Ireland, which was far less complicated then Iraq, where there was an existing government and a

functioning democracy, you have to have 500 security forces. So

even with our troops there and the Iraqi forces brought up, you are

still going to fall short of that.

Mr. SHAYS. That is the value of this discussion of a time line, because what it basically says is, the time line to reduce doesn’t start

until you get to 500. That is—yeah, OK. I hear you.

Mr. King, how long were you in Iraq?

Mr. KING. I was there for 16 months. I went over with the first

group in March 2003, was wounded in February 2004, stayed until

July 4, 2004, and then spent 16 months in the hospital.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I want to thank you for your service. I want

to thank you deeply and sincerely. This young man who is sitting

behind me, who is he?

Mr. KING. That is my son.

Mr. SHAYS. What is his name?

Mr. KING. That is Wesley. He’s the one that paid a larger price

than any of us.

Mr. SHAYS. I think the woman behind you is your wife?

Mr. KING. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. And what is her name?

Mr. KING. It is Barbara.

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Mr. SHAYS. I want to say to you, Mrs. King, and to your son,

Wesley, you should be very proud of your husband and your dad.

And we are very proud of you, very, very proud.

Mr. KING. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. And I want to say to you, Major General, how long

were you in Iraq?

General NASH. I occupied Iraq, sir, before it was popular. I was—

I occupied Iraq in 1991 in the first Gulf war for—several times,

but—I have traveled to Baghdad after the current war, but I don’t

have near as much time as Mr. King does in Iraq.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, we appreciate your service, and I have been

noting that I have been referring to you as ‘‘Mr.’’ and I should be

referring to you as ‘‘General.’’

And I would just like to thank Major Garner, who is sitting behind you, as well for your service in Iraq. Thank you so very much.

We are going to go with a 10-minute rule here. But it is generous.

And Mr. Kucinich. Thank you.

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

General Nash, today you are advocating for a 18 to 24-month increase in U.S. troops in Iraq, including delays and redeployment of

U.S. troops as their replacements arrive. At the same time, you

also stated about the stress to unit soldiers and family is severe.

Do you believe that had the U.S. withdrawn its forces earlier

during the formation of the Iraqi Government, such as following

the January 2005 national elections, that we would still be in the

same situation today?

General NASH. At the time before—at the time I advocated a

withdrawal of forces beginning with the political success of the

elections, and made public statements that I had resigned from the

‘‘We Need More Forces in Iraq’’ club. Events subsequent to that

have caused me to understand that the failure to provide security

in key places, particularly Baghdad, in Iraq is largely a function of

the lack of presence of forces.

We do need to tie troop withdrawals to political success, but at

the present time, we do not have that success, and I think we need

to put more emphasis on achieving security in those locations.

Mr. KUCINICH. So you are saying, you first have to have a military solution before you have a political solution?

General NASH. No. It is absolutely essential that the political solution is the key element in this, but the military has a role to play

in that. Security has a role to play in that.

The problem is, we are neither fish nor fowl with respect to security. We have not provided sufficient presence of forces to allow

people to go about their lives in a reasonably normal manner, and

we need to decide whether or not we are going to do that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me ask you this. The deployment of forces,

does it or does it not depend on the situation in Iraq with respect

to how many insurgents there are in a given area?

General NASH. Yes, sir. I mean, it is directly related to the

enemy action.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it possible that as we deploy more forces, there

are more insurgents?

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General NASH. That is—that is one of the arguments that has

been—has been advanced. I would say to you, it is not the numbers

of soldiers that are there that would grow the insurgency. It would

be—the behavior of the soldiers present would have a larger controlling factor in whether or not the insurgency grew.

The deliverance of peaceable areas supported by political and

economic action will reduce an insurgency over time, but it is over

time, not a short frame.

Mr. KUCINICH. You talk about economic action. What is your assessment of the reconstruction of Iraq?

General NASH. I think the reconstruction of Iraq has been—has

been mishandled. Programs that have emphasized development of

local job production have been more successful than large projects.

In the words of one commander that served in Baghdad in the

2004–2005 timeframe, we need to understand that we need 100

shovels much more than we need one backhoe. And our failure to

understand that in a nationwide environment has caused us to create large-scale projects whose fruition is long range and do not give

relief to the people that need the work and the security.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you think that the longer that U.S. troops are

in Iraq, it serves to fuel or frustrate the insurgency?

General NASH. It serves to dampen the civil war. It has elements

that can fuel the insurgency, and one of the important distinctions

here is to understand the nature of what all the different conflicts

are about. And as I said in my statement, there are multiple layers

of conflicts taking place, some of which the presence of U.S. forces

moderate and some of which the presence of U.S. forces aggravate.

That service, sir, is why this is so hard. But the bottom line is,

in my judgment, that the provision of security in an environment

where political institutions can mature, those economic opportunities can occur, will be of greater benefit overall than the possibility

of causing some folks to continue to resent the American presence.

Mr. KUCINICH. Following your logic, General, the presence of the

U.S. troops helps to moderate civil war, but fuels the insurgency.

Would the reverse be true? Would the absence of U.S. troops lessen

an insurgency and——

General NASH. I think it would increase the civil war, the civil

war aspects of the confrontation. And I think that much of the insurgency would then be redirected to the government itself, because much of the insurgency is, in fact, foreign fighter jihadists,

motivated—that is, as opposed to the Iraqi Government and to a

large portion of the population as they are to the U.S. presence.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is a civil war likely to continue whether we are

there or not?

General NASH. Certainly.

Mr. KUCINICH. So you could understand why some of us feel that

withdrawal of U.S. troops would be beneficial not only to the

United States, but to the people in Iraq, because there is going to

be—there is a civil war going on right now that troops are kind of

caught in this middle. And that is one of my concerns.

General NASH. And you have every right to feel that, and you are

making me very uncomfortable in trying to defend what has taken

place in Iraq.

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Mr. KUCINICH. I don’t want to ask you to do that, General, because you have expressed a level of candor here which I think is

admirable. And I guess what happens is that, you know, Congress

inevitably makes these decisions as to whether or not we cutoff

funds.

General NASH. Sir, I understand.

Mr. KUCINICH. That really is our decision. The administration

can say, well, we are going to keep the troops there, but it is up

to Congress. If Congress cuts out funds, those troops are coming

home.

I appreciate your testimony in that regard.

Dr. Hoffman, you made the case in your testimony about a civil

society, you have to have a police force to have a civil society.

There is a difference between, you know, the democratizing influence of police and the presence of the military.

But when, you know, in the testimony where there is a huge absence of the kind of police that are needed—we had a hearing

about this maybe a year ago—and at the same time where there

are police, there may actually be some other military elements in

the police uniforms, that could be a confusing factor in trying to

get—you know, get democratic governance. Do you agree?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, I think, you know, this is a reflection of one

of the problems we have always had with the police, which I alluded to in my testimony, is that we’ve never devoted the attention

and resources to building them up. And without, I think, a working

police force, we are building a security structure that is just on a

foundation of sand. By no means am I suggesting if we buildup the

police now, we are going to address the insurgency of the civil war

problems, but we will have the prospects of a foundation for a future.

Mr. KUCINICH. I have to ask you what is the level of influence

of Iran over this Shi’a militia forces. Are they funding these militias? Are they training them?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, at least from my experience, when I was

with the CPA in the spring of 2004, even then we saw that Iran

was involved backing a number of different sides, not just one

horse. Of course, it’s particularly close with SCIRI, the Supreme

Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, because that was created

in Iran and many of its leaders had sought and received sanctuary

in Iran before our liberation of Iraq. Clearly, there is Iranian involvement with al-Sadr and his forces. But from my observations

2 years ago, I don’t think that they have changed. Iran had a hand

everywhere and was monitoring everyone to control the situation

at least in hopes to influence the manner favorable to its own interests.

Mr. KUCINICH. Here we are on the 5th year anniversary of September 11th attacks, and on the day that the American people have

learned that some of our military leaders in Iraq believe that hope

is lost in the Anbar Province, for example, can you offer an opinion

as to—or do you know where the prime minister of Iraq is going

today, where the prime minister is going?

Dr. HOFFMAN. He’s going to Tehran.

Mr. KUCINICH. He’s having a 2-day meeting with President

Ahmadinejad in Iran. What do you suppose that’s about?

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What is the significance of that, someone who has filed this and

stated that Iran is certainly involved in Iraq and stands to gain

considerable influence whether the United States stays or leaves?

What do you think?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, clearly, Iran has always had an active interest in Iraq because, especially during Saddam Hussein’s time, it

felt threatened by Iraq. So that accounts for long-standing interest,

and I think a long-standing ambition that Iran has had going back

to further revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power

to be the regional superpower, to be the hegemon, and indeed it is

attempting, I think, to exercise that influence through Iraq.

Mr. KUCINICH. You heard the questions that were asked before,

the Admiral, about what would be the impact on Iraq if the United

States attacked Iran. Do you—do you note any point at which there

is a an alliance of interest other than Muqtada al-Sadr between

Iran and Iraq?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, I think the Iranians have often been extremely professional in their subversion of Iraqi society and even

their subversion of Iraqi Shi’a groups, so I’m sure they have a

strong influence.

I think I might respectfully disagree with the Admiral. I would

imagine that if—that one of Iran’s trump cards, if we were to

launch any offensive operations against Iran, would be not only to

mobilize Hezbollah and its worldwide assets, but also, I think, to

make our existence in Iraq if not unbearable—then if not untenable

then certainly unbearable.

Already one has read of reports in recent months of thousands

of what seem the Iranian citizen militia who have been trained and

sworn to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq to defend Iran, if so directed.

Mr. KUCINICH. One final question and this is directed to Mr.

King. And I want to join in thanking you for the risks that you

took; and we are glad that you are home safe.

You used your study of both the Christian Bible and the Koran

as well as Iraqi tribal history in performing your civil affairs work;

is that correct?

Mr. KING. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you find that the Iraqis that you dealt with

were Islamic fascists?

Mr. KING. No, sir, but they had concerns particularly in Al Anbar

both before the war and after that there was a movement by

Wahhabis and others, particularly in Fallujah, Ar Ramadi, Al

Qa’im, Haditha, to try to turn individuals in that area.

Mr. KUCINICH. What is the continuing appeal of clerics such as

Muqtada al-Sadr to Iraqis or those who advocate violence such as

al Qaeda?

Mr. KING. Al Qaeda is predominantly more—there—they are a

different sect. Muqtada al-Sadr, in my opinion, he would want a

Shi’a Islamic revolution within Iraq. I think he’s positioned within

the provincial elections to take control of a large portion of the

south along with SCIRI in Karbala and Nasiryiyah. The Wahhabis

have a whole different idea about life.

Mr. KUCINICH. But why do any of these people have appeal

there?

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Mr. KING. I would say Malumba, that they have lost their appeal, they are trying to hold their ground, but that the tribes in

particular no longer want them there. The insurgency, the Iraqi insurgency, the pure insurgency that wants to see the return of a

Sunni secular government wants them gone and has gone out of

their way, particularly since the end of last year, to try to rid the

area of those particular extremists.

Mr. KUCINICH. Would you agree with the Washington Post story

today that Anbar is—the implication from the story that Anbar is

lost?

Mr. KING. No, sir. You know, Nassaad Naif, who is the sheikh

out there for the Dulaimis of the Al-Jaza’iri house, Aniza, who is

the sheikh general for the royal family out in the west, along with

a number of others I can name to you, they are nationalists and

they see themselves as Iraqis but again we go back to history, the

Dulaimis, which is predominantly Dulaimi area, they have always

been a problem for any government, even Saddam’s.

Saddam had a problem in 1995; there was an uprising because

he killed one of the members of the tribe. They are going to be a

problem. They have to be dealt with in a very sensitive political

way. The stronger tactics, you take the stronger, they’ll fight back.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. King. I want to thank you, thank

the panel.

Mr. SHAYS. At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Van

Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank all of you for your testimony. Sorry I had to go out for a

little while, but I’ve had a chance to review some of your written

testimony. And thank all of you for your input.

And, Mr. King, thanks to you and your family for your sacrifices,

all of you.

Let me start, if I could, with you, Mr. King, because I think you

identify in your testimony one of the really central issues here,

which is the question about whether or not the central Iraqi Government, as it’s currently constituted, is going to continue to exercise the levers of power as a central government that represents all

Iraqis, or whether some components of that government are simply

using those levers of power to further the interests of a particular

group.

And you specifically mentioned in your testimony, and I am

quoting here, ‘‘Iraq has formed its internal security along sectarian

lines with the Shi’a-dominated ministry of interior and the existence of the militias imposing strict fundamentalist policies, including death squads being circuitously attributed to the government’s

inaction or complacency.’’

My question, I guess, is very simple. If that is what is going on,

in other words, if the ministry of interior, which is supposed to be

the Iraqi ministry of interior, is essentially operating as a wing of

certain Shi’a militia movements, how can we ever expect to end the

civil unrest between the different communities in Iraq?

Mr. KING. I believe as long as it is organized in the way it is,

it will continued to be challenged. I think the ministry of defense

has done a more professional job of trying to do that even though

they don’t have the levels of representation of the Sunnis. But I

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think that the SCIRI’s corps, the Badr Corps, which is the military

arm of SCIRI, its infiltration into the ministry of their death

squads and commando units and the Jaish, which is now seen as

one of the faces of insurgency, their attempts to try to infiltrate the

police is a challenge that we need to try to address; and that is

going to be the most significant issue that is going to—that we are

going to have to deal with in the near future.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. My—I guess my question is, what are we

doing, what can we be doing? As you say later in your testimony

the SCIRI’s Badr Corps-dominated security forces has positioned a

nonstate, acting or in a state-sponsored position, to pursue its objectives independent of the government’s objectives.

But taking with your earlier testimony, with the ministry of interior, those have become—their government within that ministry,

those are their objectives and given the fact that, you know, we

have an insurgency which, according to the opinion report, remains

potent.

But we obviously have an ongoing—you know, as the General

points out, whatever you call it, the fact of the matter is, thousands

of Iraqis are dying in sectarian violence; and the ministry of the

interior, which is the ministry that has the responsibility for preventing that kind of sectarian violence is, according to your testimony, an arm of SCIRI’s Badr Corps.

How are we going to deal with it? I would ask all of you that.

Mr. KING. I know that they have taken steps to try to remove

the militias. I don’t think that has been as aggressive as it should

be.

Mr. SHAYS. Could I interrupt to make sure that we know who

‘‘they’’ is?

Mr. KING. I am sorry. The Iraqi Government has taken steps to

remove individuals. They have gone back through lists of

Baathists. But we will remain challenged in the future as long as

the Badr Corps, who was a trained militia from Iran, and Jaish alMahdi exists and the only way that we can do that is to aggressively assist the Iraqi Government to remove those individuals as

expeditiously as possible and rebuild the police to a base level,

whatever we establish that base level to be or the government establishes that base level to be.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But you mentioned the Iraqi Government.

SCIRI is the largest—SCIRI is the largest political party.

Mr. KING. Yes, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. And isn’t——

Mr. KING. SCIRI stands for Supreme Counsel of Islamic Revolution.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I realize there is no easy answer to that, but

it seems to me that we have heard nothing from the administration, frankly, as to how they are going to deal with these central

issues other than just, ‘‘Trust us, it’s going to get better.’’

And the fact of the matter is, the violence is getting worse and

part of the reason it’s getting worse is that there are certain movements within Iraq that, while they say they all want to be Iraqis,

the fact of the matter is, they are using their positions of influence

and power to further the interests of a particular group and they

seem to have the upper hand.

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Do they not have the upper hand today?

Mr. KING. If I could make one point on that, today, in the earlier

panel’s testimony, the discussion about the slow movement of the

government, I would say that, you know, Prime Minister Maliki is

walking a very fine line, right down the center of the road. And

he’s got to try to keep the extremists on the far right, which is

about 25 percent of the political parties that are in power, along

with the moderate democrats and the—you know, the moderates

within the Shi’a party, try to make them all move toward a unified

nation.

And he—it is going to be a slow process. I don’t think that we

are going to see that in the very near future.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Any other predictions?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, it’s late in the day to start with small steps,

of course, but if we use small steps, we are never going to get anywhere.

I think, rather than tackling the militia issue head on, especially

for a government that is dependent on a coalition, one way to begin

to have a positive impact on the ministry of the interior would be

actually to hold the individuals responsible in the ministry of

whom evidence is being gathered, of whom charges are just waiting.

But there is no political will to bring charges, not for militia involvement or political affiliation, but rather for crimes that would

be crimes in whatever statutes existed in Iraq; for corruption or

nepotism, and certainly for death squad activities and human

rights abuses. And where there is evidence, a demonstrable sign of

holding people in the ministry accountable and ending this, there

has to be a political step forward, the will, that is, to hold criminals

responsible. That—in and of itself, whether that would ultimately

tip the balance, I think it would be a realistic step forward; and

without that, we are really doomed and the ministry itself is

doomed.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I guess the question there is, who is going to

do the arresting? You have the ministry of the interior who is responsible for this. Now you can have the army step in, and we

know that there have been some clashes between some of the death

squads and the army.

But I just—I just think if we don’t get our hands on this particular issue, we’re obviously in bigger trouble than we are today, than

we are right now.

Dr. HOFFMAN. You are right, but I think that is critical, the unknown second step. The first step is for the prime minister of the

government is to take a stand and to order it to be done, and then

there is the practice of implementing it; but if he’s not going to

order it, then the challenges you underscored are that much greater.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I asked the earlier panel about

this ongoing discussion within Iraq about the passage of legislation

to create the provinces in the south. And I understand the constitution allows for that, but I think the Sunnis believe that there

would be some additional possible modifications to the constitution.

They would address some of their concerns primarily—I guess

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the—some clear benefit from Iraqi oil that would be going to the

Sunni.

Do you—what is your sense of the political situation right now?

Have the different groups essentially made a decision to go their

own way in Iraq in the sense that they have made a calculation

that they are better off pursuing their own particular goals and

that of their particular groups instead of the goal of a united Iraq?

Dr. HOFFMAN. At least among the established parties, I don’t see

that yet, even among the Kurds that have always been the most

strident and outspoken about separatism. They are still staying

with the central government.

Even someone like Muqtada al-Sadr, whose motives I wouldn’t

begin to divine and who is certainly a highly corrosive element, I

think, of the entire mix but, unfortunately, is the kingmaker because he has the balance of representatives that puts whoever is

in power there. I think at the moment he is still participating and

holding on to at least a Federalized system.

But I think it is all reflection of—that in a weak government, in

this power vacuum, everybody at the moment is hanging back,

marshalling their resources, hoping their opponents are weakened

so they’ll be in a position in years to come to fill that vacuum.

So the fact, I think, that all of the representative political figures

in Iraq have held back from civil war is entirely positive and commendable, but at the same time we have to be clear it is a reflection of their own power and the advantage or the opportunity they

think at this particular moment they convene. I think what we

have is a constellation of factions strong enough to assert their own

will.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen.

Gentlemen, I want you to tell me what you agreed and disagreed

with in what the earlier panel said. In other words, the key point,

what—is there anything that you just said, you have to be kidding

me? Or you know, well, a lot of good that does us because you are

so off.

I mean, you weren’t sitting passively. Or was it just more of the

same; or good luck, committee, you are never getting the numbers

you want.

I mean, what were you thinking in reaction to the first panel?

You all were here, correct?

General NASH. Yes, sir. I saw a lot more of the same, sir, from

the administration and I’ve had severe reservations about this

whole—this whole effort. The failure to come to grips with what is

necessary—what is militarily necessary to accomplish in Iraq and

to ask for the necessary resources to achieve that is a continuous—

continuous weakness in the pursuit of our objectives there if you

don’t come to grips with it.

And it goes back to this issue of, you know, if you are going to—

if you are going to be an occupier, at least be a good occupier and

establish security and order and stability. And then build from

there and transition from there if your intentions are to be good

and promote democracy.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to say that if you are going to be a good

occupier, what?

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General NASH. If you are going to be a good occupier, be good at

it. And then develop a plan to transition to a democratic free market, respect for civil rights and the like over time.

But we have never established that modicum of security that is

necessary in Iraq to pursue our political and economic objectives

and to give the Iraqi people a chance to grow. And that was because of all of the things that everybody has talked about.

And there is not a willingness to make fundamental changes in

our objectives and be more clear about our objectives. There is a

failure to establish a broader course that takes into account regional issues that are at the heart of the perception of the United

States’ intentions in the region.

And so it is a—so it is—I go back to the expression, we continue

to be neither fish nor fowl in the pursuit of our objectives. One of

the things, sir, that—and I am wrestling in my own mind about

this time line issue that I know you are concerned with as you look

for a way to positively influence the action. There is great concern

about relinquishing the initiative to those who oppose us, and the

time line as the measurement for progress or as the strategy for

pursuing our objectives is, that is the greatest concern about it; it

relinquishes initiatives.

Mr. SHAYS. It relinquishes initiatives to whom?

General NASH. To those who oppose us, to the enemy.

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t get that logic one bit. I don’t get it one bit.

General NASH. OK. Sir, if I know you have a plan, if you know

your plan, OK; I am going to wait until it best suits my interest

to act against it. And if you have a plan for transfer, and I know

that I can defeat the replacement better than I can defeat you, I

will delay any initiatives and I will build my case.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you have any doubt that the opponents of Iraq

think we will be there indefinitely? Do you think they think we will

be there forever? Even the Iraqis think we are going to leave too

soon. So, I mean, you are not telling them anything they don’t already know.

General NASH. Sir, I understand what you’re saying. But to publish a schedule is to tell them something very specific. That is

what’s a concern. The concern also is the fact that I go back to—

I go back to the action that if it becomes set in concrete, the enemy

has a vote to disrupt this. This needs to be understood.

Mr. SHAYS. Unless you take the worst-case scenario.

General NASH. I understand.

Mr. SHAYS. Then if you take the worst-case scenario there’s nothing the enemy can do to make it worse.

General NASH. There’s not one person in this town, sir, who will

take the best—worst-case scenario and present it to the American

people for their plan for Iraq.

Mr. SHAYS. I have looked at classified documents that are basically the joint military—multinational force campaign plan. Have

you looked at that?

General NASH. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I will tell you it is about as unrealistic as you can

imagine.

General NASH. I believe that.

Mr. SHAYS. I mean, the more I look at it, the more angry I get.

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General NASH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m not frustrated. I am angry. I am not frustrated.

It is like I am almost coming to a conclusion—and this is why I

love these hearings. I love getting people who are so—who focus all

their lives about this, because in the process of your opposing the

timeline, I realize why. It is based, first, on you think the numbers—the baseline number is really unrealistic. That’s the start of

it. And if I wasn’t pushing it, I am not sure I would know that in

the way that I know it.

And then the other point, which I think is an easy argument to

refute ultimately is it tells our enemy. I mean, our enemy knows

more than we would care for them to know right now. And they

know this? They know the United States ultimately got out of Vietnam. They know that we took away the dollars of the Vietnamese

to at least do it on their own. They know that every American life

is so precious that there is a number, whatever that number is,

when Americans will simply say, We’re out of here. They know it.

And they listen to the debate that we have in this country with

half of our constituency against it, and half of Congress, or close

to it, against it. I mean—so it strikes me that the value of a

timeline would be to maybe get Republicans and Democrats in the

same room and say, You want to know that there’s some limit here,

and the Iraqis want to know we’re not going to leave too soon. So

why not do it on something very logical? When you are competent,

you take our place, and if the fighting still continues, you are competent to fight them. And no different than what has existed in

Israel for 60-plus years.

So in my logic, my logic says I speak to some Iraqis whose biggest fear is that we will leave them, but I say that we won’t. I don’t

know what the election will be like for this new Congress. And the

President can initiate an action but a President can’t fund an action. So I am thinking as well, you know, we’re critical of the

Sunni, Shias and Kurds. They don’t have their act together. Republicans and Democrats don’t have their act together in terms of the

fact we have men and women who are risking their lives every day,

and we are not coming together as a country to find a common

ground and a common message so that our troops don’t wonder

what the hell we’re doing back home; because when I speak to most

of our troops, they’re pissed off, excuse me, at what they see on

CNN and they’re angry as hell that their government is divided.

That’s what I see.

So I don’t think we have to tell the insurgents anything they

don’t know. Plus, the insurgents think that we’re decadent. They

think that we value life so much and they value the afterworld so

much that they’re going to beat us. And I have to tell you at the

rate we’re going, maybe they’re right, you know, frankly. So maybe

in a best-case scenario, timelines win. But I don’t see a best-case

scenario. I’d like you to react to the panel.

Dr. HOFFMAN. I think that what struck me, although I am not

necessarily sure that a congressional hearing is the place that you

would see this kind of self-reflection, but it seemed to be a confidence that we have the right—that we have the right strategy,

which has in essence been the same strategy that we’ve had for the

past 3 years, and yet what I think was coming out very clearly in

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the question and answer is that the situation in Iraq has certainly

changed and constantly evolved over the past 3 years. The situation today I would argue is very different than it was even a year

ago. Unfortunately it tends to get more complex and more violent.

But nonetheless, I don’t think that our strategy has kept pace with

those changes and we’ve stuck with, in essence, the same plan;

that we can very quickly and expeditiously, more so than is realistic, buildup the Iraqi Army and police so that we can get out of

there without accepting, I think, that——

Mr. SHAYS. And the only thing that has changed, frankly, is the

timeline of when all of that will happen. So in other words, it is

a strategy that just keeps pushing back the dates.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, and seeks—and continues to seek improvement by doing in essence the same thing but just changing around

sometimes the organizational boxes. I mean, I think this has been

the case with the police, is that 3 years into this process, I mean,

as we heard in the previous panel, the police are still untrained.

Certainly they compare very unfavorably to the Iraqi Army, and

not only are they untrained but they’re subverted and infiltrated

so their loyalty is even in doubt. But yet we keep investing in the

same approaches and the same strategies.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask, is that fair in this case? Because they

are reviewing the national police in particular and looking to that,

who’s competent or not. Is that not a sincere effort?

Dr. HOFFMAN. No. I think it is a sincere effort, certainly, with

some of the commando units in Baghdad. I think they have been

reformed and there has been a vetting, but what always worries

me is that it’s either too little too late or only piecemeal. And going

back to Representative Van Hollen’s question, I think without the

political will to really rout out thoroughly the corruption, the sectarianism, the abuses in the Ministry of the Interior, that even reforming units are attempting to do this on an individual basis

without that direct political leadership from the center and political—the center meaning the centralized government—again it’s

still going to be at the margins.

Mr. SHAYS. Any other point before I go to Mr. King?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Just one other thing is just that even in the case

of the Washington Post story about Al-Anbar Province that Representative Kucinich talked about this morning, it only strikes

me—and this I think also came out in the testimony this morning—that so much of our assumptions in in Iraq are just based on

conjecture. It’s what we think the insurgents want, what we think

motivates the insurgents. I mean, Representative Kucinich feels

strongly, or at least my understanding of what he was saying, it’s

the presence of American forces and in some cases the actions of

the American forces that have motivated the insurgents and perhaps increased their numbers.

I would take a different view, and I would say that in part it’s

our inability to secure Iraq, to create a sense of stability where the

situation, even where there have been improvements, has been

worsened and which has dashed expectations on the part of the

problem, has created a vacuum which has breathed life into lawlessness; because I think the message in Iraq is that lawlessness

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stays or at least you can get away with it. So that’s on the one

hand.

On the other hand, we still don’t or have never had a clear idea

of this enemy. We have never done a systematic intelligence collection and analysis of the morale and motivation of the organization,

of the sources of dissents, and of the fault lines within the insurgent movement. Instead our intelligence operations——

Mr. SHAYS. Would you say insurgent movements or insurgent

movement?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Movements. Movements. In other words, the thousands of detainees we have—and we’ve been doing this since

2003—we lean on them for high-value target information. We look

to them, and I think quite rightly, to extract force protection and

information, but we’re just thinking of this in tactical terms and

getting an immediate solution. We are not thinking of this strategically and understanding them, building up the detailed knowledge

of why in fact—I think the question isn’t that Al-Anbar Province—

that the United States is failing in Al-Anbar Province, as the

Washington Post suggested. The question I would have—what I

missed here this morning is, why is it failing? And what is our

analysis based on? It’s usually based on us viewing the Iraqi problem through our own prism, but not really, and we’ve never really

understood our adversary there.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I’m going to come to you as soon as I do

Mr. King first.

Mr. KING. I think the most significant comment that was made

was that we’re focusing on a counterinsurgency. That’s the process

for the defense, building the defense forces. But we still have to

look at what the external threats are if we were to leave. And if

they can take care of themselves internally, if that’s the instinct we

want, and if we can clearly establish a timeline to get there, who’s

going to take care of the external influences, whether it’s Iran or

Syria or others, once we do leave, if they’re just taking care of

themselves?

You know, I was responsible on the day that the regime fell for

reestablishing the police department, put in that individual named

Vince Crabb. He was dubbed sheriff of Baghdad by the press. And

the police were corrupt before we got there, and they’re corrupt

now. You know, the year of the police—I understand and I respect

that particular operational endeavor, but I think that we need to

take a deeper look at that.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just inject myself, though. When we eliminated all the police, all the border patrol and all the Army and we

stood up or started to stand up the police, the only time I really

came close to weeping was when there were a whole group of Iraqi

policemen who we gave no weapons to in Baghdad, and then a terrorist group went in and went from office to office and just obliterated them. I tell you, that to me was like one of the hardest moments I’ve had. And just think of the message that gave every

Iraqi. You know, we’re going to train you to be a policeman, we’re

not going to give you uniforms, we’re not going to give you guns.

We set them up, that they’re in the office and they get obliterated.

Mr. KING. On that 13 days that I was responsible, we put 5,000

police officers back to work 1,400 firemen. The police officers were

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armed. We gave them—we actually took a cache every day of pistols and gave them pistols and AK–47s. When ORHOC came in,

they disbanded the police and wanted to do assessments and start

from scratch. That was where we lost ground. They already knew

what was the problem: It was broke. We at least had a starting

point and had some momentum.

The biggest thing that I—I believe that should be addressed is,

again, we’re focusing on internal security through

counterinsurgency operations but we’re not focusing on what it

would take to be able to secure themselves externally against an

external threat; i.e., Iran or Syria if they were to come across the

border with heavy weapons.

Mr. SHAYS. Isn’t that our easiest problem right now, though? In

other words, that’s the least of their problems right now, isn’t it,

because we can provide that protection.

Mr. KING. Yes, sir. But that’s the issue. If we’re talking about

now a timeline, when can we withdraw——

Mr. SHAYS. But isn’t there a difference between troops who are—

our American troops are patrolling the streets of Baghdad and

Basra and you name it, getting blown up and shot at and troops

based—doing operations that are military operations. I mean,

there’s a huge difference between those.

Mr. KING. Yes, sir. I would give you an analogy. When I moved

into the city, I took over the palace. I sent my troops around to

knock on every door in a four-block area. And we said, We’re here,

and here’s what we do, and what’s your most significant concern?

At that particular time, it was early in the liberation.

Mr. SHAYS. When was it?

Mr. KING. This was May-June timeframe of 2003.

Mr. SHAYS. Early spring, summer.

Mr. KING. Yes, sir. But when my soldier was killed, when he was

killed by an IED, the same one that Major Gardner was injured in,

they came to us that night and told us who did it. And we were

able to capture him 5 weeks later; we caught the five guys who did

it. When I was ambushed and my bodyguard was killed, that next

morning they called and told me which tribe did it. I called the

sheik of the tribe and a week later they told me who it was and

it had been taken care of. That’s the type——

Mr. SHAYS. Now, at that great moment when we’re going—so

what turned that around, in your judgment? I don’t want to—this

is about as important a question as I could ask you. Because I was

there early on and I saw that kind of effort on the part of the military. So what, in your judgment, turned that around?

Mr. KING. You know I went up with the first troops. We fought

our way up. By the end of April, every one of my teams had been

in some direct action. Even though we were a support element, we

were civil affairs, we weren’t supposed to be fighting and we were

supposed to be helping them. We weren’t a direct action. I fought

a group of Syrians on the 10th of April. But there are troops that

followed who didn’t realize that our point, as I made in my statement, we had won the war, we had defeated a—decisively defeated

an armed enemy. At that moment, though, the war for Iraq began

and the objective was the people. We were there to help the people.

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And kinetic responses, particularly in this society, aren’t necessarily the only way when we don’t have enough——

Mr. SHAYS. So it was replacement troops or—how long were you

there? Do you understand the question I am asking? I mean, you

are talking to a Peace Corps volunteer. I have no trouble understanding what you are telling me.

And I remember when we were in Iraq in April in, a guy Mohammed Abdul Hassan basically was telling us as we asked questions,

What are we doing to make you uncomfortable? He said, You throw

candy on the ground and our children pick it up like children—excuse me, like chickens. They’re not chickens. And at one point he

kind of grabbed me on the shoulder and he said, You don’t know

us, and we don’t know you.

Now, when we went in August, we met certain military groups

that were doing tremendous outreach just like you did. I want to

know, in your judgment, what stopped that? Was that the next

group that came in that didn’t know it was their responsibility?

Was that a decisive leadership change that said stop doing this and

do something else? What was it?

Mr. KING. It was an understanding. I mean for me and my successor, we had a good handoff. And he took on my mission and continued it on. But his successor saw no value added with engaging

the sheiks, and he just disbanded the entire operation. They had

no one to turn to at that point.

For me, I wrote a paper in June 2003 that explained the Iraqi

culture and the differences and the misperceptions we had about

how Saddam dealt with them. Like the regular police couldn’t go

kick in the door. They had to go get the neighborhood Ba’athist to

go and knock on the door. The secret police could. But that wasn’t

everybody. But when we kicked in—even when I caught——

Mr. SHAYS. When you say ‘‘could,’’ who could?

Mr. KING. The secret police in Saddam’s regime could kick in the

door, but the regular police couldn’t.

Mr. SHAYS. Why was that?

Mr. KING. That was the rules of engagement. Like for me, when

I caught Saddam’s doctor and bodyguard and driver, we thought

Saddam was inside. And our reinforcements hadn’t showed up, a

large crowd had gathered. I just decided to knock on the door and

ask, Is Saddam at home?

Mr. SHAYS. You decided to do what?

Mr. KING. I just knocked on the door and said, Is Saddam in

here? I didn’t kick in the door, I didn’t run into the women’s quarters. I didn’t drag him out. I made that individual walk me door

to door within that building to secure it. But we caught Saddam’s

doctor, bodyguard, and driver, along with a suitcase of clothes that

we believe was for Saddam, without having to do, you know, a hostile raid. I only had to do that one time the entire time I was there,

and caught, you know, number 23 off the deck of cards, number 55

off the deck of cards, caught—Baghdad Bob walked in my office

and surrendered. The chairman of atomic energy walked in and

surrendered, the former Ambassador to Russia walked in and surrendered. All these were former Ba’athist individuals. But it was

because of a trust that I had built and with a relationship. I

stayed. I didn’t have the turnover. There was a lot of turnover in

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those days. They were there for 90 days, 6 months. There wasn’t

a long-term commitment. These people build everything on relationships. Who can they go to? And once the relationships changed

and they don’t have that same one, there’s a level—there’s a time

period where trust has to be rebuilt. And in the early days in the

transfer of battle space, some of that was lost.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. The gentleman from Maryland has been

very generous and patient. He has as much time as he wants.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And

thank all of you again for your testimony.

Dr. Hoffman, I think you sort of summed up the situation very

well when you said it’s more complex and more violent today than

it’s been in the past. And in fact it is getting more complex and

more violent. It is amazing that we have not done as a country the

kind of in-depth analysis you talked about with regard to the different groups, their different motivations, and how that impacts

our decisionmaking process here.

I want to go back to the issue of trying to get a political settlement in Iraq, because I think General Casey has said it many

times, and others as well. If you don’t get a political settlement

among these different groups and address the different interests

that are at play here, you’re not going to be able to resolve the insurgency or the civil war situation. There’s a lot of focus on training the Iraqi troops, and that’s very important. We want the highest quality troops. But it doesn’t do us any good if we teach someone to shoot better and be a better shot if they don’t have loyalty

to the central government and we’re simply improving the lethality

of the militia.

And so while, you know, it’s important to go over these statistics

about who’s trained and who’s not trained, until we get the political pieces right, we’re not going to be able to resolve this issue.

Now, General Nash, I noticed you had served in a couple places.

You were in Bosnia as well as Kosovo. And I guess if you could

draw on that experience to look at what’s happening in Iraq today.

We’re going to hear on one of our later panels, I think it’s the third

set—third set of hearings from Ambassador Peter Galbraith, who

served as our U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, who has just written a

book called The End of Iraq. And his analysis is petty simple. Iraq

has fallen apart, and now we are spending a lot of time trying to

put it back together. It’s not that it’s together and we’re trying to

keep it from falling apart, it’s the opposite. And he essentially

comes to the conclusion, not with any joy, but looking at the reality

of the situation on the ground, that having a strong central government in Iraq isn’t going to happen. Not because he doesn’t want

it to happen but because the constituent groups in Iraq have decided that it’s not in their interest to make it happen.

If you could please just comment on that based on your experience in the Balkans.

General NASH. Well, thank you, sir. You know, the earlier panel,

there were quite—you asked questions about analogies to the Balkans, or that issue came up. And of course there are many tactical

lessons we have learned in the Balkans that could have helped us

a great deal in Iraq.

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Decisive initial force. I mean, one of the things you talk about,

force levels, when I give a talk about Bosnia, I always say we took

too many folks to Bosnia but we didn’t know it at the time. And

we were able in a year to reduce a significant amount, and that’s

a better way of doing things than scrambling from the bottom up.

I think the political dynamics, though, of Iraq today, there’s not

going to be a strong Federal Government in Iraq for a long, long

time. I just—the political circumstances are such that I don’t think

you can put it back together. And so there has to be a central—

I think—I think it is to the United States’ interest to promote a

central body that has a degree of influence on international affairs

and military action in the region. I think it’s also to the Iraqi people’s advantage to have an arrangement where the resources and

riches of the country, not only oil but in agriculture, another potential of the country, is shared in a reasonable manner. But the

fact—because of the neighborhood they live in, and because of a

long number of historical issues that they face, we’re not going to

have this one-state model with 18 provinces that participate in it

federally.

Whether we could have achieved that, if we had done things differently at the beginning, I don’t know. I think we could have ameliorated some of these forces in a variety of ways, but we are where

we are.

So one of the issues about time is trying to provide a sufficient

umbrella to allow these political forces to work out. My recommendation is, is that we need extraordinary effort to try to—to

try to allow that accommodation. And our ability to influence it is

absolutely limited. But there is a need to try to let it occur, and

there are a number of actions that I could go on and on about to

try to promote it to some degree; but I do not have a great confidence that we’re going to see a solution at any short-term period

of time, and I don’t think we’re going to—and while I disagree with

the op-ed that Peter Galbraith wrote several years ago now about

the three-state solution, I am afraid his contemporary forecast is—

may not be too likely to come about.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If I could, I don’t know if anyone else has a

comment on that, but let me followup. Because I think we all agree

that given the fact it is Dr. Hoffman who said it’s more complicated

and more violent than—and what we’re doing now is clearly not

working. It doesn’t seem to be pushing forward a political settlement and political reconciliation in Iraq. And my view is that questions about U.S. force levels and decisions as with respect to time,

you need to be tied to political decision points within Iraq, but if

we’re going to do that we’ve got to identify some. And the fact of

the matter is, I haven’t heard anything coming out of the administration with respect to what those political decision points would

be.

We were supposed to have a renewed discussion on the Constitution at the end of August. I don’t know when that’s going to happen

now. We have this legislation that’s being considered, pushed by

the Shias to develop the autonomous province in the south, which

is clearly an indicator of where they’re coming down in terms of

these issues by pushing that forward before beginning the conversation on the Constitution. And I am just interested in what poVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00124 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38038.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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litical decision points they made, because otherwise more of the

same is not a strategy. It’s a strategy for failure because the situation is getting worse and we have a Pentagon report that says it—

I mean Congress required they tell us this. It’s one of the few

things they’ve sort of been straightforward about. They have to do

it. But it’s clearly, you know—we’ve all heard that the definition

of insanity is knocking your head against the wall, keep doing the

same thing, and expect a different result. Well, we’re not getting

different results other than worse results. So what would those political decision points be?

And, you know, I think some hard questions are going to be

asked. Why isn’t, you know, what about—Senator Biden and, you

know, we would not agree with every element of the plan but at

least they’re talking about some political solution here and whether—they’ve got some ideas out here. I haven’t heard anything from

the Bush administration in this regard. And we might not like sort

of the prescription of Ambassador Galbraith, but what he says is

he doesn’t like it either.

It’s just a reflection of reality on the ground. It’s a reflection of

these migrations taking place within Iraq today. It’s a reflection of

the fact that if you took a referendum in the Kurdish area, well

over 90 percent of the Kurds say they want independence. I know

the Sunni leaders in Baghdad say something different, but that’s

not necessarily a reflection of the will of the people there. So he

comes to it more out of sort of sorrow than any joy here.

And you know, I agree with you, General Nash. From the U.S.

perspective, the best solution would be an Iraq that stays together

for a whole host of foreign policy reasons. Iran’s on the border.

Yeah, we’ve got all sorts of questions with Turkey and the Kurdish

issue, but how much—if it’s a question of putting it back together

and what we’re doing now is not working, and you know—I know

you talked about resources, and you may or may not agree, but

there’s—there’s no one—the administration’s not talking about

more troops in.

So really, what are the political decision points that we need to

be looking at? I understand your testimony about timetables, set

timetables for withdrawal, not putting them fixed in legislation. I

happen to agree with you. But then we need a political—we need

some key political decision points with respect to making these critical decisions. What are your recommendations?

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, I’ll jump in. It gives my colleagues time to

think. Of course it’s a difficult question. I mean, at the risk of perhaps putting it too simplistically, I think there’s two big main

choices that—or two main questions we have to ask ourselves. Are

we determined to see this process through? Or at what point does

it actually have a lay-down marker? Or do we just give up and say

that if there are no advances then it’s not going to succeed?

From my perspective, unlike my two colleagues that actually

fought in counterinsurgencies or at least in environments like that,

I have only studied them for brief periods, served in those environments in an advisory capacity. But in some respects this isn’t that

different from many of the issues that we debated in these rooms

over Vietnam or El Salvador.

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Just take a more recent—the more recent conflict in El Salvador.

I mean, this was an involvement that began during the Reagan administration, that originally had enormous bipartisan support, and

we faced I think very similar challenges. First we went in there

and we had to completely rebuild the Salvadorean armed forces.

We had to retrain the military and the police. We initially tried to

do it very quickly on the cheap. When General Warner went in

there in 1981, for example, he came back and said that it would

take 3 years and cost about $300 million, and he was laughed at

for being overly pessimistic, I think a scenario we might have seen

played out 3 years ago in Washington. It ended up taking a decade and ended up costing over $6 billion.

So it took tremendous investment. Even then you could still point

to failures in El Salvador. We trained every Salvadorean officer in

the United States. This wasn’t a matter of a handful of advisors

or a small portion given their military force training. Every officer

was trained in the United States. We created their NCO core. We

had multiple training missions. Not just—I mean, same problem

we have with the police in Iraq. Not just make them technically

better. We improved their technical capabilities, their fighting capabilities. They then went out and engaged in death squad activities. We had to go out and stop that.

Even in 1989, even in the last years just as the cold war was

ending, the main insurgent group there had a last spasm of activity

nationwide, urban uprising, and exactly that unit, one of the most

elite units of the Salvadorean military, a unit that had just been

trained by the U.S. special forces mobile training team, went to the

university of San Salvador, as you may recall, killed 14 Jesuit

priests who they believed were sympathizers. They had been

trained repeatedly by us.

That’s part of I think the challenge and the time that it took. But

at the end of the day, even with the enormous setbacks in San Salvador it took a decade in an even less complex and a less violent

society—although El Salvador is pretty violent—than Iraq. We still

haven’t built the foundations for democracy that exist today and

that has to be one of our guiding principles.

Is what we’re doing in Iraq worth it and do we have the stomach

and the stamina to stay with it? As an insurgency analyst, as a terrorism analyst, from my point of view—and this is an apolitical

statement—but just as a terrorism specialist, I worry very much

that declaring victory and leaving precipitously, getting fed up and

withdrawing and leaving Iraq to whatever fate awaits it is going

to be a call to our enemies, and not necessarily to our enemies in

the region, to al Qaeda and to associated Jihadists who will see

this exactly as they did in the late 1980’s, that they defeated then

what was then one of the two superpowers, the Soviet Union, and

then they decided to take on the United States.

This isn’t just conjecture or myths or legends, that for the last

year at least when I was at Rand, I spent time studying documents

that our forces seized in Afghanistan to learn about al Qaeda’s

early history in the early 1980’s, where it got its ideology strategy,

and this is something that is undeniable, that they have hubris,

that they were so full of themselves, having defeated the Soviet

Union, they sought to turn on the United States. That’s what I

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worry about, not having the determination committed to resolve

Iraq.

Admittedly, we may have gotten involved far too hastily in our

planning, especially in our phase 4 planning. It may have been illconsidered involvement in retrospect, but I think equally hasty and

equally ill-considered withdrawal from Iraq will indeed affect us in

very adverse ways in the future.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If I could just—one last thing Mr. Chairman.

Let me just—on the El Salvador analogy—and I think there’s some

very good points made there, and you said Iraq was even more

complicated. And one of the major complicating factors is the sectarian violence between the Sunni and the Shia. We can have a

discussion about to what extent that was latent before we went in

and to what extent it has been aggravated, and obviously the

bombing of the Golden Mosque was a major catalyst for that. But

there was clearly concerns about that possibility before the bombing of the Golden Mosque.

Now, with respect to al Qaeda, I do think—and given that this

hearing covers lots of many issues—but you would agree, would

you not—and let’s put aside the situation that exists today and

what we should or should not do and how al Qaeda will or will not

interpret it. You would agree, would you not, that until the United

States went into Iraq, the likelihood of al Qaeda being able to use

Iraq as some kind of base of operations was minimal; that in fact

Saddam Hussein was not an ideological compatriot of al Qaeda;

that he was in fact in many cases a secularist who used Islam in

his—for political convenience; that he was in fact, as I said, the

ideological opposite of Osama bin Laden. And in fact, whatever we

decide to do going forward we have now created a mess with al

Qaeda in Iraq that did not exist before we went in there.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Sir, I don’t disagree with you at all. If you asked

me that question in 2001, 2002, 2003, as I did say it then, I would

have said the same thing.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But you don’t disagree?

Dr. HOFFMAN. I don’t disagree.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the

hearing.

Mr. SHAYS. We’re going to close up very shortly. Wesley is getting hungry. I am getting hungry. He did want to know about our

hearing on Wednesday and Thursday and said, is my dad going to

get to testify? And I said, Wesley, I’m sorry to report you will have

to be at school on Wednesday and Friday—rather, on Wednesday

and Thursday. But he told me he’s a good student so he was able

to get away today. So that was good.

I don’t believe we can fail in Iraq. I believe that failure—forget

what it does to oil prices. It means that there will be an all-out

civil war. It means that the Islamist terrorists will win and be

emboldened, and it means that Iran will clearly be the dominant

force. So it’s not an option. It’s just not an option.

The only issue that I am wrestling with is, one, what do we do

to make sure we win? And I am left with the fact that—and I’ll

tell you someone else who didn’t think—doesn’t think we can afford

to lose, and that’s Thomas Friedman who, writing for the New

York Times, has basically said, you know, he thinks we are now

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baby-sitting a civil war; and as he points out, he had one bullet left

in his gun, and he fired it off to get people to wake up.

I believe that—the one thing that I am concluding in this hearing that I didn’t think I would feel with the intensity I feel now,

it is so clear that our baseline is too low, and that there is no way

I can justify it being so low except for the fact there are people in

the Department of Defense who have a history of justifying that

low baseline, that maybe the only way that baseline—and we have

an honest dialog about that baseline, is getting people in who have

no connection to those decisions. And that raises the fact, then, you

have new leadership and all the leadership changes that would

take place in the Department of Defense. But I am convinced as

strongly as I was, that the way we need to proceed, and it’s contrary to your—all three of your advice, particularly two of you, is

that we need to know logically what that baseline is. We then need

to understand that as an Iraqi has been trained, been in office,

been in position for a year in the line of fire, that they have capabilities that then justify our removing troops. We can predict to the

day when that is because we know how long it takes to train. We

know what their record is in staying. We know the competence of

those who stayed after a year. We know how many are competent

and how many aren’t.

So I don’t—I am not convinced by your reluctance to move forward with that, though I have to say, you obviously are all experts.

I am convinced—one thing you haven’t told me is what do we do

to change it; what do we do to get people to wake up? And none

of you have come forward with any suggestion of how we do that.

So maybe I’ll end with that question. If you don’t want a

timeline, if you don’t want that, if you tell me what gives the political will to the Iraqis to move forward with the same kind of an intensity they had in 2005—and you can’t have it both ways, you

can’t be against some kind of timeline and then tell me you want

changes without telling me what brings that change. So I put my

best solution on the table. I would like you to end up with your

best solution.

General NASH. Sir, I want to begin with a word of thanks.

Thanks for a serious discussion and a commitment to try to do the

Nation’s deed. And for that I am very grateful, and I wish there

were more of you in the room.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for saying that.

General NASH. Sir, I begin with a positive statement about a

timeline. It drives debate, and that’s the debate we need to have.

And so I would encourage—I would encourage all methods to cause

an intelligent discussion. And I sat here, again, reflecting on panel

one with great frustration for the lack of serious dialog and open

dialog on the issues.

My biggest problem with a timeline as a strategy, sir, is that I

don’t know what I have when the timeline is finished. And we want

to draw—to write a timeline on the replacement of military—security forces by other security forces, and I don’t know if the number

325,000 is the right number, and I don’t know if the 150,000 is the

right number.

Mr. SHAYS. We do know this, we do know that the 325 is not the

right number.

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General NASH. Yes, sir. I do know it’s not.

Mr. SHAYS. We don’t know what is the right number.

General NASH. Oh, sir, I don’t know, but it’s closer to 500,000

than it is 325,000. The current plan does not call for a sufficient

security of the borders.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. No, I just wanted——

General NASH. It’s somewhere in there, and the right number of

150 for 150 is somewhere between 200 and 250. OK, that’s the

same number I said in the summer of 02, by the way, 250,000. But

in any case, that’s not the crucial issue. The crucial issue is the political settlement. So, are you going to drive a political settlement

that will sustain the country and achieve the U.S. objectives of a

place that will not harbor terrorists, it will be peaceful with itself

and with its neighbors? And so it’s that transition, that development of a political institution power-sharing arrangement that is

the driving factor on American success in the country.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me interrupt you there, because you and I totally

agree with that. And I agree with you about the other part on the

number of troops. The baseline is too low. Isn’t it logical to assume

that if the Iraqis know it’s on their shoulder and not ours, that

they are going to have a much better chance of success if they sit

down, Shias and Kurds.

Now, the Iraqi—the Shias will tell me the Sunnis want too much.

I agree. The Sunnis will tell me when I visit them, the Shias are

not giving them enough. I agree. So it strikes me that if they know

and they can plan for it and know that in a year we will reduce

so many of our troops and 18 months so many more, that they have

an incentive to do the very thing you said. And so you tell me what

gives them the incentive that’s better than that.

General NASH. Sir, the first thing I want to emphasize before I

answer your specific question is that there are major forces at play

that do not want to—that are working very hard to ensure a political accommodation is not achieved.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

General NASH. And so as we talk about incentives for the Iraqi

people, a non-unitary—you know, not a single object there but the

players, the Iraqi players in all of this—even if there’s a group of

good-faith negotiators, Sunni, Shia, Kurd and they come within—

they melt—they boil themselves down to just those three players

in looking for accommodation, which is a large assumption, then

there’s still major forces that have every—that chaos is the objective.

Mr. SHAYS. We understand that. But it’s not all. And the logic

there is you isolate those. You bring some clerics on board, and you

isolate the others, and then everybody goes after the others.

General NASH. Right. But again, that is not necessarily—that is

the enemy who is least conducive to a timeline development.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand. I understand.

General NASH. All right. With respect to the development of the

political institutions, I agree that the discussion—that a—that an

event, a condition-based strategy, should have an associated

timeline. That is always done. No matter what they say, you know,

here when you do a condition, an event-driven matrix, you’re looking at time limits for that.

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Mr. SHAYS. I would like you to tell me your best suggestion on

how you get the political part of the equation to be more aggressive, and I haven’t heard anything yet.

General NASH. I would combine economic incentives or the lack

thereof as a major element. I would include an element of security

assistance, OK, beyond that of six helicopters and five C–130’s and

a very small navy, so they have a chance to have a real military

force and have influence in the area. They have no choice under

the current military structure the United States is designing than

to find ways to accommodate themselves with their neighbor to the

east. They have to get along with Iran. They have no choice. We’re

designing the force in that manner. I would go to Tehran myself

if I were the President of Iraq, because I can’t afford any kind of

conflict with them.

Mr. SHAYS. I agree with that. That’s a very interesting point.

General NASH. So those are some of the incentives both on the

security side and on the economic side that I would——

Mr. SHAYS. I’m biased, but I like my suggestion to motivate them

better than yours.

General NASH. OK.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Hoffman.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Firstly, I never met with General Nash before,

and I find myself agreeing with him on many things, but none

more than on thanking you and Representative Van Hollen for

these hearings and for this opportunity to really address you in a

much longer time that I have ever had in any other congressional

hearing. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for thanking us.

Dr. HOFFMAN. I will go back—I think it’s fine to set a timeline,

but I go back to when we first met, which was 7 years ago when

you were conducting hearings long before September 11th on why

we don’t have a strategy for countering terrorism or why we don’t

have a strategy for our counterterrorism policies. And I think if

we’re going to set a timeline, we have to ask the same questions:

How can we stick with the same strategy then? And that we have

to realize that there’s a military term, you don’t reinforce failure,

but it seems we haven’t been succeeding in the past 3 years. Yet

we keep investing in the same piecemeal basis and the same strategy that obviously isn’t succeeding.

So I think it has to be a political will on our part firstly to make

the commitment, if the Iraqis will make the commitment to see

this through—and I will come to the Iraqi side of the dimension in

a second—but also to have the commitment ourselves. If we’re

going to set a timeline then we have to be much more reflective on

where we’ve gone wrong in the last 3 years and not just keep repeating the same mistake.

In terms of the Iraqis I think—and again, maybe it’s my practical

approach to this problem that may also be naive—but I think there

are any number of small steps that can bring about a much longer

stride and that we just haven’t pushed the Iraqis hard enough. I

think there’s plenty of people, as you well know from your trips to

Baghdad, in the embassy and in the military who know what needs

to be done. It’s just the problem of doing it. I think first and foremost, there should be a conscription on the part of the Iraqis. I’m

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still surprised, if I’m not mistaken, that there is no national conscription in Iraq. We’re just soliciting volunteers, whether it’s for

the police or for the Iraqi Army. If this really is their fight——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask you this, though, to interrupt to clarify. Are you aware that they’re having a hard time getting volunteers? My understanding is that they don’t. But has that changed?

Dr. HOFFMAN. No. I think they still are getting volunteers. It’s

part of the reflection of the economy as well, as well as everything

else, but no. As a national commitment, though, I think that for

conscription would be one step because I think that would require

other things that the Iraqis have resisted that I believe are essential for counterinsurgency. You can’t have a conscription if you

don’t know who your population is. So you have to have a detailed

census and you also are going to have to issue national ID cards

so you know who people are, and, when they turn the proper age,

get them into office. We have been pushing the Iraqis, at least

since I was with the CPA 2 years ago, to have some sort of census.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask if you had conscription—in other words,

you would basically have a draft.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Exactly.

Mr. SHAYS. Then you are talking about potentially millions rather than 325,000.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, we could control the numbers.

Mr. SHAYS. So it’s an interesting proposal because basically what

you would do is you would basically be in a sense, you would

have—some of these young folks you would be having literally in

your military in bases under the supervision of somebody else,

rather than on the streets doing battle.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Well, of course, it would only work if we had the

same kind of commitment, perhaps a bigger troop commitment, to

have the trainers to train this new army. But this may be, you

know, completely half or even quarter baked. The only reason I

thought of it was when you were discussing Israel earlier, I

thought, what is one of the things that accounts for Israeli national

cohesion is that there’s universal service, and this is absolutely essential for Israelis for integrating the diversity of the people who

are Israelis. So that’s at the top of my head, trying to——

Mr. SHAYS. No, no. And I appreciate that a lot.

Dr. HOFFMAN. Going out. And then I also thought, well, the conscription issue demonstrates the Iraqi commitment. But also as I

said, the kinds of accounting that you would have to have for it

would push the Iraqis in other directions. You can’t have an insurgence if you don’t know where—who the people are and where

they’re going. And that’s been one of the biggest problems. That’s

why the British succeeded in Northern Ireland is through license

plates; they could find out if someone was out of place, and was

traveling across Northern Ireland at a place they shouldn’t be, and

they could then ask the questions. We have no such ability in Iraq.

And then I would say as a fourth, go back to a point that I answered to Mr. Van Hollen’s question is that also, if we’re going to

make this investment in training and true Iraqi national military,

then also there has to be a purging of their discordant and corrupt

sectarian elements from the MOI, wherever else; and this is the poVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\38038.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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litical will that has to be demonstrated by the leadership in Iraq.

Then we get to the problem.

This was the same problem we had in Vietnam and also in El

Salvador. It’s conditionality and trying to get our—you know, who

the government we’re mentoring to actually do these things.

But perhaps the firm timeline, I think setting the timeline on its

own won’t solve the problem. But setting the timeline, as you argue

we need to do, with perhaps these very firm points that have to be

done as part of a change in strategy and policy might provide the

influence and the pressure for the Iraqis to change. I mean, it may

be—and I am not saying this at all in a partisan way. But it may

be that we just need a new perspective here. When the British—

the first 3 years in Malaya, in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s,

were failing dismally. In fact, a lot of the same problems we see

in Iraq existed in Malaya. That’s held up now as one of the—the

leading ways to solve a counterinsurgency. Actually, it was the

death of the high commissioner at the time and then a change of

government that resulted in just a new approach.

Now, again, I am not saying this is partisan, that we should have

a clean broom, but what I am saying is that if we’re going to have

a timeline, we need a new strategy and we need people who will

have an honest discussion about what the new strategy should be.

Mr. SHAYS. I would just note for the record, that would be a

change in the administration, not in Congress. Thank you. Thank

you, Mr. King.

Mr. KING. I would also like to emphasize thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you today and provide testimony.

I was one of the primary cease-fire negotiators on Fallujah One,

and the one thing that came across during our negotiations, Iraqis

have never won a war but they’ve never lost a negotiation. And

they’re quite apt at that. So the political dialog would have to be

pushed from our side for all the groups to come together.

The most recent move by Barzani to not fly the Iraqi flag, which

sort of flies in the face toward the other Iraqis, that was one of

those things that we need to address.

Mr. SHAYS. Explain the flag again.

Mr. KING. This past week, Mr. Barzani directed that in his areas

they no longer fly the Iraqi flag but the Kurdish flag. So I mean,

if we’re trying to move toward a unified government, a unified

country, I mean that flies in the face of it. To set a realistic baseline, obviously 325,000 individuals for a country the size of Iraq

with 26—you know, 26 to 28 million people may be a little low.

That will establish the end state. How long will it take us to get

there? When will they be prepared to take over their own security?

And that will allow us to design a timeline based on that end state,

that process. And I agree with Dr. Hoffman that we’re probably

looking at 7 to 10 years for this to take place.

To help the judicial system, they only—they look at having 1,500

judges. I think they’re at 720 today, less than half of what they

need. This causes a problem for the rule of law, the implementation. So, to help the commission of the public integrity to sort out

some of the issues within the Ministry of Interior and move those

forward. Yes, sir, thank you again very much.

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Mr. SHAYS. Is there any last comment that any of you would like

to make before we adjourn? If not, we are not adjourning. We are

recessing, correct? Yeah. And that’s all I need. We are recessing

until Wednesday.

And, Wesley, recessing means that we will be back here on

Wednesday but with new panels. Your dad has done his job extraordinarily well, as have you, Dr. Hoffman and you, General

Nash. And it’s been an honor and a real education to have you before the committee, and I thank you very much. So we stand in recess until 10 on Wednesday. Thank you all very much.

[Whereupon, at 2:57 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m. On Wednesday, September 13, 2006.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jon C. Porter and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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