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96–372 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–645

IRAQ’S TRANSITION—THE WAY AHEAD

[PART II]

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 19, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

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

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

BARBARA BOXER, California

BILL NELSON, Florida

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Staff Director

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Democratic Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, opening statement ... 4

Cordesman, Dr. Anthony, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for

Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC ..................................... 8

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11

Diamond, Dr. Larry, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA ................ 41

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44

Hoar, General Joseph P., USMC (Ret.), former Commander in Chief, United

States Central Command, Del Mar, CA ............................................................. 30

Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening statement ........... 1

Marr, Dr. Phebe, former senior fellow, National Defense University, Washington, DC ............................................................................................................. 34

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38

(III)

(1)

IRAQ’S TRANSITION—THE WAY AHEAD

[PART II]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2004

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, DC.

The committee met at 9:38 a.m., in room SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard G. Lugar (chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Lugar, Hagel, Chafee, Voinovich, Sununu,

Biden, Feingold, Boxer, and Corzine.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR, CHAIRMAN

The CHAIRMAN. This hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee is called to order.

Six weeks from today the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

will turn over sovereignty to an Iraqi government. With that deadline in mind, the Committee on Foreign Relations meets today to

further explore the administration’s plans for the transition. Yesterday, Deputy Secretary Armitage and Deputy Secretary

Wolfowitz answered questions on many aspects of our Iraq policy,

and despite the difficult challenges ahead, both noted progress in

preparing for Iraqi governance.

This is the sixth hearing that the Foreign Relations Committee

has held on Iraq in the last month and the twentieth since January

2003. I might add that many of you have participated in several

of those hearings and made very vital contributions. We are hopeful that these hearings enlighten the American people, as well as

stimulate thinking within our government and within the Coalition

about creative policies that will optimize our prospects for success.

Secretary of State Powell reflected the perspective of many

Americans about Iraq last weekend when he said: ‘‘The United

States is not anxious to keep our troops there any longer than we

have to. We want to finish our job, turn full sovereignty over to the

Iraqi people, see them elect a government that is fully representative of the people, and let us come back home as fast as we possibly

can. But we’re also not going to leave while the Iraqi people still

need us, and while the interim government or the transitional government still sees a need for our presence.’’ Now, with lives being lost and billions of dollars being spent in

Iraq, the American people must be confident that we have carefully

thought through an Iraq policy. A detailed plan is necessary to

prove to our allies and to Iraqis that we have a strategy and that

we are committed to making it work. If we cannot provide that

2

clarity, we risk the loss of support of the American people, the loss

of potential contributions from our allies, and the disillusionment

of Iraqis.

Achieving a positive outcome in Iraq is a vital national security

priority. The appalling revelations about prisoner abuse in Iraq

have added to the stakes, because they have hurt our reputation

in the Middle East and the international community. As we pursue

the noble goals of independence and security in Iraq, the deeds we

perform must be consistent with our words about freedom, democracy, human rights, and accountability.

As we discussed in our hearing yesterday, we must use every tool

at our disposal to ensure that the transition to Iraqi sovereignty

succeeds, and we should make every effort to accelerate stabilization and reconstruction in Iraq. Once the new caretaker government is named by United Nations Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi,

the transition to sovereignty should begin immediately.

It is vital that we put an Iraqi face on the governance of that

country. The Iraqi people must have a visible role in securing the

country, organizing elections, managing reconstruction. The most

effective way to make this happen is for elections to take place as

quickly as possible. If national elections can be accelerated for the

transitional and permanent Iraqi governments, scheduled now for

January and December 2005, respectively, we should move up that

timetable. In the meantime, we should push forward with as many

elections at the provincial, municipal, and neighborhood levels as

possible. Yesterday Secretary Armitage underscored that local elections are taking place and are making a positive difference in the

attitudes of Iraqis.

Accelerating completion of a new United Nations Security Council resolution could also help give international legitimacy to the

new Iraqi government and clarify new security arrangements. We

want to hear from our witnesses today about what a Security

Council resolution should contain and whether opportunities will

emerge after the transition of sovereignty to broaden the international coalition working in Iraq.

Our committee also has closely followed the management of reconstruction funds appropriated by the Congress. I noted yesterday

that only $2.3 billion out of the $18.4 billion appropriated for Iraqi

reconstruction in the November 2003 emergency supplemental

have been obligated by March 24. And we would like our witnesses

to comment on whether they see legitimate reasons for the slow

pace of reconstruction activities. Can the coalition move more efficiently and swiftly in this area given that delays in reconstruction

undercut the United States’ credibility and increase suspicions

among Iraqis who are impatient for those improvements?

We are pleased to have a distinguished panel of experts today to

help us assess the way ahead in Iraq. Before welcoming this panel,

let me intrude with one other item that I add to my opening comments.

I was struck by the final paragraphs of a column by Arnaud de

Borchgrave in the Washington Times this morning. He is an old

friend of many of us, and I would admit to having enjoyed conversations with Arnaud, as many of you have, around the world for

many years. He writes in the Washington Times today some

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thoughts of outsiders. Yesterday our hearing was with insiders

within our government. Today it is with scholars, people who have

been witnessing this situation and who are not a part of the CPA

or our government. And this is all now a quote from Arnaud de

Borchgrave’s column in the Washington Times of today.

He says: ‘‘One former low-intensity warfare specialist at the Pentagon described his visit to the Coalition Provisional Authority in

Baghdad’s Green Zone as ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ ‘It’s hard to get out

of it, let alone get into it,’ he told an audience of strategic experts.

Some of them have never met an Iraqi outside the Green Zone and

yet they draft proclamations they have no way of implementing.

CPA is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

‘‘Some of the other observations from recent visitors’’—and this

is Arnaud de Borchgrave speaking—‘‘who have had experience in

previous conflicts in the developing world:

First,‘‘We have outworn our welcome and we now find ourselves

in a hell of a pickle.’’

Second, ‘‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re likely to

wind up where you don’t want to be. Forget about installing a liberal democracy in Baghdad. Such constructs need a lot of fertilizer

to take root. We don’t have the time.’’

Third, ‘‘There is no way to put a good face on the strategic withdrawal. Civilian heads must roll; generals are tired of taking the

fall.’’

Fourth, ‘‘The transition government that takes over July 1 must

be inclusive, even with people who don’t like us. It can’t be a little

bit sovereign. Colin Powell said we would leave if asked to by a

sovereign Iraqi government. That is the only posture that will restore U.S. credibility.’’

Fifth, ‘‘The civilian contractors hired to train a new Iraqi Army

cost the U.S. taxpayer a lot of money and got it all wrong. The target of 27 battalions meant quantity, not quality. They were designed as an external protection force, unable to deal with urban

warfare.’’

Sixth, ‘‘There is an urgent need for a national force capable of

protecting the core functions of government. The immediate need

is for five or six Iraqi battalions to protect the new government,

which will be challenged almost immediately after July 1.’’

Seventh, ‘‘There are no genuine Iraqi leaders on the horizon.’’

Eight, ‘‘A strongman is needed, one that will understand that the

Shi’ites, for the first time in hundreds of years, have a chance to

escape the role of low man on the totem pole.’’

And finally, ‘‘The Swiss cantonal system for Iraq’s three or more

component parts is probably the best bet for a new constitution.

The alternative could be Lebanon-and civil war.’’

Then Arnaud concludes: ‘‘The U.S. has given top priority to a

new U.N. resolution that would confer legitimacy on a U.S. military

presence in Iraq after July 1. The coalition is splintering as its

members with boots on the ground—Britain, Italy, Denmark, Poland and Hungary—face growing domestic opposition. And Mr.

Rumsfeld’s ‘old’ Europeans—France and Germany—and Russia are

negotiating among themselves what demands will be made on

President Bush in return for a favorable vote on a new U.N. resoluVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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tion. The I-told-you-so European ‘oldsters’ may see this one as diplomatic payback time.’’ With these rather challenging comments in front of you, you already have provided provocative testimony, but the purpose of our

hearing today is really to try to push it all out. I cannot think of

a better panel to do this.

I would like for you to testify in the order that I will introduce

you, and that will be, first of all, Dr. Anthony Cordesman; second,

General Joseph Hoar; third, Dr. Phebe Marr; and finally, Dr. Larry

Diamond. We thank you for coming, and before I ask you to testify,

I will call upon my friend, the distinguished ranking member, Senator Biden.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., RANKING MEMBER

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again,

thank you for this hearing.

It sounds like a little bit of hyperbole, but it is not. You said we

are looking for clarity, and we have had the chance, privately and

publicly, to plumb the ideas of the witnesses we have. I can really

say from my perspective—and I suspect yours—without equivocation, we have a panel that is capable of providing clarity and

they have been providing clarity on this for a long time. I just hope

to hell people start to listen a little bit.

I also want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the clarity that you

are providing in the sense that you have been consistent in one

simple, clear question, and that is, what is the plan? Or as they

used to say back in my generation, ‘‘What’s the plan, Stan’’? What’s

the deal? What is the plan?

I realize we spend a lot of time talking and having serious witnesses come and discuss the strategic situation in the Middle East,

in Iraq and the consequences that flow from that. To use the

vernacular again, the devil is in the details. It is the tactical decisions that we are making, I think, so badly from, as one of the witnesses and I were talking earlier, literally not being able to get into

the Green Zone. I mean, why there is not a special ‘‘express line,’’

to use his phrase, to allow people to get in there, things that when

you go there and you are on the ground, you wonder how can this

be managed this way.

I want the public to know just because we spend a lot of time,

because we do not have a strategic plan that has been put forward,

talking about that, no one should misunderstand that the success

or failure of our effort to provide a whole stable state that is secure

within its borders, not a threat to its neighbors, not a haven for

terror, not seeking or having weapons of mass destruction ultimately comes down to some significant tactical judgments that I

hope we will get to talk a little bit about today because these people know of what they speak.

And the last point I will make, looking at General Hoar. General,

I am not going to put you in a spot and ask you this today. We

heard yesterday, we hear constantly that the generals on the

ground do not need any more forces. When we were on the ground,

people I talked to, coming back from on the ground, there is a genuine resentment that is communicated coming from the operational

5

commanders on the ground in Iraq who do not think they are being

supported.

Now, if you are here as long as many of us have been and all

the people here, you end up over time just establishing contacts,

friendships, relationships with people who are not going out of the

chain of command. They are your friends, and you get e-mails and

you have discussions. I just want to make it clear that I really

think that, as our colleague Carol Moseley-Braun used to kid and

say, we should not have the generals wearing the jacket here if this

thing goes south.

I apologize for being as personal as I am being here, Mr. Chairman, and I actually do have a short opening statement. I remember when you and Senator Hagel and I—it will be a year in August—were in Iraq.

The CHAIRMAN. June.

Senator BIDEN. June I should say. I remember Chuck Hagel,

when we were talking to somebody, I turned around and I saw him

walking back to a Humvee and getting in a conversation. As a noncommissioned officer that he was, he really knows where the real

power is. He was talking, if I am not mistaken, to a sergeant. I

may be mistaken. But then one gathered and two and three and

four, and they started talking to us. They were already—‘‘angry’’

may be the wrong word. If he wants, I will let him elaborate on

this. But they were already concerned. They were already feeling

that they were not getting the straight scoop. They were already

of a mind.

Then we met with a group of deployed forces from our home

States. And it was like, hey, someone tell us the truth here, will

you? Someone tell us what the deal is here. Someone tell us how

long we are really going to be here. Remember, I know the Secretary of Defense says this is not the case, and it may not have

been, but the perception was we were going to be down to 30,000

troops by December. That was clearly coming from the Pentagon.

My point was we have not leveled here, and I want to make sure

that, if you are willing, general—and if you are not, I understand.

I would a little straight talk about what is going on, what you

think as a Marine four-star—by the way, damn, you look good. I

tell you what. Does he not? He looks like he stepped out of Gentlemen’s Quarterly.

At any rate, I would like some straight talk and I know we can

get it from you.

So, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me our policy right now seems to

be stuck in second gear. To continue this silly metaphor, I do not

think it is in reverse, as some of my colleagues think. I do not

think it is lost. I do not think it is beyond the pale. But I do think

it is in second gear because we tend to be reacting at events and

are continually behind the curve.

When this administration makes a judgment that is sound, it is

usually a day late and a dollar short. It appears every time that

they are being pushed into a position. If Secretary Wolfowitz had

said—how many months ago was he here? I cannot recall. Three,

four months ago. We asked him if there was anything they got

wrong. Well, no. Everything is just right. If he had said what he

said yesterday, that they underestimated the opposition, that they

6

underestimated the amount of force that was needed, if they had

leveled a little bit, we would be moving along a little more here.

And getting them to level is not getting them to level in order

to say, ‘‘We told you so, you are wrong.’’ You have got to figure out

what mistakes were made, whether you say them publicly or not,

in order to figure out what we do from here.

It seems to me two of the mistakes that were made, Mr. Chairman—and I know I am a broken record on this—is we went into

Iraq with two towering deficits, a security deficit and a legitimacy

deficit. As a result, I think we are losing the Iraqi people, and

without their support, we have little chance of succeeding.

As I have said time and again, the Iraqi people have to want to

have a government that is representative more than we want them

to have it or it is not going to work. At least as much as we want

them, they have to want it.

We also risk losing the support of the American people. They too

sense that our policy is adrift and that we do not have a plan for

success.

There was a report that came out at the request of the Secretary

of Defense last year, a commission led by John Hamre goes over

and comes back and says we have a window of opportunity, but it

is closing in Iraq. We all in one form or another sent out a report

saying the window of opportunity is closing in America. We only

have a window that is only open so long for the American people

to say let us get this done, we are willing to make the sacrifices

to get it done.

But the American people I think are still with us because they

know if we fail in Iraq, it could take a generation to recover from

the damage. But without a new plan—not staying the course—a

new plan to succeed that overcomes the security deficit and the legitimacy deficit, I am concerned that we are headed for serious

trouble in Iraq and at home.

This includes the plan, which I hope we will get to talk about,

for successfully dealing with the militias and the mutations off of

these Iraqi militias that we asked about yesterday and I did not

seem to get an answer.

To change the dynamic, I believe the President has to articulate

a single, overreaching goal, and I think we should take this June

30, as badly as it has been planned, as badly as it has been handled, and turn it from a liability into an asset. We should use that

date as the rationale for our continued and increased presence and

international presence or major power presence in Iraq, and that

is that our purpose is to hold successful elections in 2005 in December. That is the rationale for our being there. That is the rationale

for why we are going to stay there because that is the vehicle

through which the Iraqis ultimately get control of a stable, God

willing, government that can be held together. I think he should

use those elections as a rallying point within and beyond Iraq to

build more security and more legitimacy.

Putting the focus on elections in my view would provide a rationale for Europeans and Arab leaders to join the effort. It would provide a reason for an Iraqi caretaker government to be able to be

seen as cooperating with the ‘‘occupiers’’ and would give the AmerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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ican people more confidence that we have an end strategy—not an

exit—an end strategy.

I know that our witnesses today will present their own ideas for

recapturing the initiative, and I look forward to asking some very

specific questions. Would using elections next year as a rallying

point offer a way to broaden the coalition and recoup some of the

ground we have lost? Just as we do not know the strategy, I do not

think the Iraqi people know the strategy. I do not think they know

what the deal is.

How do we energize the moderate center in Iraq, assuming it is

there, because if it is not there, all this is for naught in my view—

that silent majority of people who reject an Iranian style theocracy

and a new strongman but remain on the sidelines because they

have been conditioned for over 30 years not to raise their heads.

What should we do about the al-Sadr militia and all the militias

for that matter?

With at least 82 percent of the Iraqis saying that they oppose

American and allied forces, how long do you think it will be before

the Iraqi government asks for our departure? As one person said,

the race will be who asks us to leave first, the American people or

the Iraqi people? And how should we respond? .

Who should be the primary international figure that the Iraqis

interact with during this difficult transition period from July 1 to

December 2005? Should it be an American super-Ambassador or

should it be a major power representative in place who will be the

referee?

What will we have to do to attract support of our NATO allies?

And is it important that we put a different face on this, that it be

a NATO-led multinational force?

How can we attract more support, if we can, from our Arab allies? What specific support can we reasonably expect?

I believe we can still succeed in Iraq, but we need a strategy for

success and we need leadership from the President. And that is not

a political comment. I am not being a wise guy here. This is not

the President is responsible, the President has to fix it. That is not

what I am saying. I literally believe things have gotten out of

whack to the point that sending your Secretary of Defense, your

Secretary of State, your National Security Adviser, is not sufficient.

The President of the United States of America has it within his capacity, because of the power of the office and because of his character, if he will exercise it, to bring the major powers in the world

together on this. As a plain old politician, it does not matter what

level that political discourse takes place. Presidents and Senators

and Congressmen and mayors are no different. When you want to

get it done, the principal has to engage the other principals directly.

By the grace of the office he holds and the country he represents,

I believe the President of the United States has the power to reverse this downward spiral we are in. And I will support him if he

begins the process, publicly support him, but we must act decisively and deliberately. We cannot continue to fall backward into

a strategy that not many people understand.

8

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for the length

of the statement. I think it is important that we get some straight

answers.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Senator Biden. As

the witnesses will note, after 20 hearings on Iraq, we have developed quite a bit of passion for the subject and so have you.

I want to, first of all, introduce Dr. Anthony Cordesman, who is

holder of the Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for

Strategic and International Studies. Welcome, Dr. Cordesman, and

would you please proceed with your testimony. I will just say at the

outset, all of the statements of the witnesses will be made a part

of the record in full. You may proceed in any way that you wish.

STATEMENT OF DR. ANTHONY CORDESMAN, ARLEIGH A.

BURKE CHAIR IN STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Dr. CORDESMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senator Biden. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity

to testify today.

Let me begin by noting we are dealing with truly complex problems, and I have provided a formal statement that goes into these

answers in depth. I am all too well aware, however, of the time

pressures on U.S. Senators, and let me confine my oral comments

to a few short remarks.

First, it may be too late to deal with the most serious problem

we face within the U.S. Government, the fact that a small group

of neo-conservative idealogues were able to substitute their illusions for an effective planning effort by professionals using the

interagency process.

Some 40 years ago, I entered the office of the Secretary of Defense at a time when an equally small group of neo-liberals were

able to do the same thing. These ‘‘best and the brightest’’ trapped

us into a losing war and their names were written invisibly on the

body bag of every American who died in that conflict.

This time it is neo-conservatives, not neo-liberals who trapped us

into a war without setting realistic and obtainable goals without a

realistic and workable approach to creating stability, security, and

nation-building. And once again, we find that the end result is that

incompetence kills just as effectively as malice.

The resulting message is simple. We need an interagency system

that works, a National Security Council that forces jointness on

military and civilian alike, and a clear understanding that

idealogues of any stripe should never be allowed to function in sensitive positions in the office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the office of the Vice President, and organizations like the CPA without adequate controls and checks and balances.

Second, we must never again treat forging a piece as phase IV

or talk about post-conflict operations as if peace was a secondary

objective. Our war planning should make reaching a successful

peace—a peace with clear, long-term strategic benefits—its primary

goal from the start. The effort to win the peace should begin as a

political struggle before the first shot is fired, and it should continue to have first priority through every day of combat.

9

Moreover, the Congress must act firmly and decisively to find a

workable alternative to the War Powers Act. It must find one

which ensures it is fully consulted on the reasons for war, the battle plan, and the precise nature of the strategic and grand strategic

goals which are the reason for using military force. The Congress

should never again vote for the equivalent of war without a clear

and realistic plan for armed nation-building and clear and achievable goals for peace. It is not just the names of neo-conservatives

that are written invisibly on every American body bag that is coming out of Iraq.

Third, to turn to the specific issues here, I cannot assure this

committee or anyone else that we can still win an acceptable level

of victory in Iraq or that we could have done so with proper planning before the war started. We have to deal with the aftermath

of decades of tyranny and economic failure, the resulting power

vacuum, and political, religious, and ethnic tensions, which have

never worked their way out.

I do believe, however, that we have at least a 50/50 chance of

coming out of this war on such terms if we do the following things,

and I should note that many of my recommendations are underway

in some of the actions of the administration and follow the recommendations of the chairman and ranking member.

First, we need to support the transfer of power to Iraqis along

the lines proposed by the U.N. Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, as soon

as possible.

We need to dump the Iraqi Governing Council and particularly

its most unpopular members like the Iraqi exile, Ahmad Chalabi.

Above all, we need to accept the fact that only a broad range of

Iraqis from within Iraq can create a government that Iraqis require

as legitimate. We must recognize that such an Iraqi government

must be as inclusive as possible and include many ex-Baathists

and Shi’ite Islamists. There can be no real progress or security solution without a broadly based government that various Iraqi factions see as acceptable and which is chosen by a majority of the

key factions within the Iraqi people.

The United States cannot abandon its military effort to bring security to Iraq as long as there is hope and progress. But we must

make every effort to rush forward the realistic training and equipment of Iraqi security forces, and there must be tangible and clear

benefits that we are doing this and not a series of half-truths, false

reports, and an inability to report on the fact that the equipment

and training is not being rushed forward and is not being provided

on the basis that is needed. We must remember that only trained,

effective cadres can do this mission, not untrained masses of men.

Above all, a new Iraqi government must play a major and visible

role in Iraqi security, must be consulted in, support and participate

in all new military operations. A government’s legitimacy will

never be credible without this.

The United States must abandon its Green Zone approach and

effort to rule through a massive new embassy and to transform the

Iraqi economy through U.S.-chosen projects driven by U.S. contractors. We need to totally restructure the American aid process to go

directly to Iraqi ministries and Iraqi governments and do so

through programs that they choose or through U.S. military-run

10

programs designed to supplement bullets with dollars. Aid must be

focused on tangible, visible progress on the ground, not idealized

dreams of some future. Our management should consist of demands, programs, avoid corruption and produce clear benefits.

The Iraqis, not the United States, should shape this country’s

destiny. At the same time, we must make it clear to the Iraqis that

they, not the U.S. or United Nations, are ultimately responsible for

success or failure. They must know that we and the international

community will leave and will not aid or sustain them if they do

not reach workable political compromises, do not make real

progress, or turn toward civil war. No Iraqi should operate under

the illusion that either the U.S. or the U.N. will save Iraq from

itself.

Fourth, we cannot succeed in Iraq unless we understand that no

issue so drives Iraqi, Arab, and Islamic perceptions of the United

States as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our peace efforts are perceived throughout the region and Iraq as weak and dishonest, and

the United States is viewed as little more than Israel’s proxy.

False as such perceptions are, we cannot succeed in Iraq or have

a strategy that will function unless we revitalize the peace process.

We must accept the fact we are now dealing with two failed regimes, not just one, and that steady and visible U.S. pressure is

needed on both governments. That means U.S. pressure on the Palestinians to halt terrorism must be matched by equal pressure on

Israel to halt the expansion of settlements and those Israeli security measures that do more to make a Palestinian state impractical

than to aid Israeli security.

And finally, the Bush administration must not make another

major strategic blunder in the Middle East. It must accept the fact

it is currently too unpopular to issue a U.S.-led Greater Middle

East Initiative and that it must concentrate on Iraq and the

Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I will not go into detail

on just how dangerous I think the public drafts of the Greater Middle East Initiative are. It should be clear, however, we have no climate of trust. We have no basis for pushing reform unilaterally at

this point in time. If we are to succeed, we need to reestablish our

credibility, focus on essentials, and seek joint efforts with the EU

and with the Arab League. Above all, we must do more than issue

vacuous rhetoric about democracy and liberty and develop tangible

plans to bring democracy and deal with human rights, establish a

rule of law, focus on economic reform and demographic problems

and not simplistic and unworkable slogans at a time when those

breed nothing but distrust and the feeling we are somehow seeking

to establish regimes friendly to us.

The last remark I would make is simply this. We can succeed

through pragmatism. We can succeed by focusing on what we need

to do, but if we continue to dwell in a climate of ideological illusions, no strategy can succeed and this government cannot function.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Cordesman follows:]

11

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN

THE ‘‘POST CONFLICT’’ LESSONS OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan has exposed the fact that there is

a serious danger in the very term ‘‘post conflict:’’ It reflects critical failures in American understanding of the world it faces in the 21st Century, and in the nature of

asymmetric warfare and defense transformation:

• First, the US faces a generational period of tension and crisis in the Middle East

and much of the developing world. There is no post conflict; there is rather a

very different type of sustained ‘‘cold war.’’ The ‘‘war on terrorism’’ is only part

of a period of continuing tension and episodic crises in dealing with hostile extremist movements and regimes. At a minimum, the US faces decades of political and ideological conflict. More probably, the US and its allies will deal with

constantly evolving and mutating threats. These will involve steadily more sophisticated political, psychological, and ideological attacks on the West. They

will be sustained by massive economic problems and demographic pressures

that create a virtual ‘‘youth explosion,’’ and by the regional failures of secularism at both the political and ideological level. The ‘‘wars’’ in Iraq and Afghanistan are actually ‘‘battles,’’ and the keys to victory lie in a sustained US campaign to help our allies in the region carry out political, economic, and social

reform; in supporting efforts to create regional security and fight terrorism, and

in checkmating and containing hostile movements and nations.

• Second, defeat or victory in this struggle will be shaped largely by the success

of American diplomacy, deterrence, and efforts to create and sustain alliances

that occur long before military action. They will also be shaped by US ability

to reach out to the UN, international organizations, and moderates in the Islamic world and other challenged areas. US efforts to create favorable strategic

outcomes in asymmetric conflicts and in conflicts involving any form of nation

building must be conducted in a political environment shape by information operations on a continuing and global basis. Victory can only come through the

equivalent of a constant program of political, psychological, and ideological

‘‘warfare’’ that is design to win a peace more than to aid in the military phases

of a conflict. A climate of trust and cooperation must be established before any

given clash or war takes place.

• Third, no matter how well the US adapts to these realities, it will have to make

hard strategic choices which should be made well before it uses military force.

The present contest between neoconservatives and neoliberals to see who can

be the most self-deluded, intellectually ingenuous—and use the most naive and

moralistic rhetoric—is not a valid basis for either war or dealing with its aftermath. Iraq and Afghanistan are both warnings of the complexity, cost, and time

required to even attempt to change national political systems, economies, and

social practices. Long before one considers any form of ‘‘nation building,’’ one

must decide whether such activity is practical and what the strategic cost-benefits really are. In many cases, it will not be worth the cost of trying to deal with

the aftermath of overthrowing a regime and carrying out any form of occupation. When the objective is worth the cost, both the executive branch and Congress must honestly face the fact that the results will still be uncertain, that

5-10 years of effort may be required, and that the end result will often be years

of occupation and low intensity conflict, as well as years of massive economic

aid.

• Fourth, preparation and training for the security and nation building phases of

a conflict require that planning, and the creation of specialized combat units and

civilian teams with suitable resources and regional expertise to carry out the security and nation building missions, take place long before the combat phase begins. Success requires the battle plan and US military operations to be shaped

to aid nation building and create security after the enemy’s regime and armed

forces are defeated. It requires the ability to make a transition to security and

nation building activity as US forces advance during the combat phase and long

and before ‘‘victory.’’ It requires political campaigns designed to win hearts and

minds of the peoples in the nation to begin before combat starts.

• Fifth, in more cases than not, the aftermath of conventional conflict is going to

be low intensity conflict and armed nation building that will last months or

years after a conventional struggle is over. As Iraq and Afghanistan show that

12

it’s the war after the war that counts, and which shapes US ability to win conflicts in any grand strategic sense.

• Sixth, the US cannot succeed through a mix of arrogance and ethnocentrism.

The US is not the political, economic, and social model for every culture and

every political system. It has much to contribute in helping trouble nations develop and evolve, but they must find their own path and it will not be ours,

in most cases, economic and physical security; dealing with the educational and

job problems created by demographic change, and creating basic human rights

will be far more important that trying to rush towards ‘‘democracy’’ in nations

with no history of pluralism, no or weak moderate political parties, and deep

religious and ethnic divisions. Evolution tailored to the conditions and the needs

of specific countries, can work; revolution will inevitably prove to lead to years

of hardship and instability. The idea that the US can suddenly create examples

of the kind of new political, economic, and social systems it wants in ways that

will transform regions or cultures has always been little more than intellectual

infantilism, and Iraq provides all the proof the US can ever afford to acquire.

What is to Be Done: The Broader Grand Strategic Lessons of the Iraq and Afghan

Conflicts

If the US is to succeed in the conflicts that are likely to shape much of the 21st

Century, it must learn from both its successes and mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Strategic engagement requires an objective—not an ideological—assessment of

the problems that must be dealt with, and of the size and cost of the effort necessary to achieve decisive grand strategic results. Neither a capabilities-based strategy nor one based on theoretical sizing contingencies is meaningful when real-world

conflicts and well-defined contingencies require a strategy and force plan that can

deal with reality on a country-by-country basis, rather than be based on ideology

and theory.

• There is no alternative to ‘‘internationalism.’’ There may be times we disagree

with the UN or some of our allies, but our strategy must be based on seeking

consensus wherever possible, on compromise when necessary, and on coalitions

that underpin virtually every action we take.

• Great as US power is, it cannot substitute for coalitions and the effective use of

international organizations, regional organizations, and NGOs. In order to lead,

we must also learn to follow. We must never subordinate our vital national interests to others, but this will rarely be the issue. In practice, our challenge is

to subordinate our arrogance to the end of achieving true partnerships, and to

shape our diplomacy to creating lasting coalitions of the truly willing rather

than coalitions of the pressured or intimidated.

• At the same time, armed nation building is a challenge only the US is currently

equipped to meet. While allies, the UN, and NGOs can help in many aspects

of security and nation building operations. They often cannot operate on the

scale required to deal with nation building in the midst of serious low intensity

combat.

• Deterrence and containment are more complex than at the time of the Cold War,

but they still are critical tools and they too are dependent on formal and informal alliances.

• War must be an extension of diplomacy by other means, but diplomacy must be

an extension of war by other means as well. US security strategy must be based

on the understanding that diplomacy, peace negotiations, and arms control are

also an extension of—and substitute for—war by other means. It is easy for a

‘‘superpower’’ to threaten force, but far harder to use it, and bluffs get called.

Fighting should be a last resort, and other means must be used to limit the

number of fights as much as possible.

• Military victory in asymmetric warfare can be virtually meaningless without successful nation building at the political, economic, and security levels. ‘‘Stabilization’’ or ‘‘Phase IV’’ operations are far more challenging than defeating conventional military forces. They can best be conducted if the US is prepared for immediate action after the defeat of conventional enemy forces. Both in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US wasted critical days, weeks, and months in engaging in

a security effort before opposition movements could regroup or reengage. It left

a power vacuum, rather than exploited one, and it was not prepared for nation

building or the escalation of resistance once the enemy was ‘‘defeated.’’

• Force transformation cannot be dominated by technology; manpower skills, not

technology, are the key. The military missions of low intensity combat, economic

aid, civil-military relations, security, and information campaigns are manpower

13

dominated and require skilled military manpower as well as new forms civil expertise in other Departments. Human intelligence can still be more important

than technical collection, local experience and language skills are critical, and

the ability to use aid dollars can be more important than the ability to use bullets. Simply adding troops or more weapons will not solve America’s problems

any more than trying to use technology to make US forces smaller and more

cost-effective will. The missions that are emerging require extremely skilled

troops with excellent area skills, far more linguists, and training in civic action

and nation building as well as guerrilla warfare.

• Technology-based force transformation and the revolution in military affairs are

tools with severe and sometimes crippling limits. The ability to provide Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (IS&R) coverage of the world is of immense value. It does not, however, provide the ability to understand the world,

deal with complex political issues, and fight effectively in the face of terrorism,

many forms of low intensity conflict and asymmetric warfare, and the need to

deal with conflict termination and peace making or protect nation building. In

practice, there may be a need to make far more effective use of legacy systems,

and evolutionary improvements in weapons and technology, to support

‘‘humancentric’’ forms of military action requiring extensive human intelligence

and area skills, high levels of training and experience, and effective leadership

in not only defeating the enemy in battle but winning the peace.

• ‘‘Jointness’’ cannot simply be an issue for restructuring the US military, and is

far more than a military problem. It must occur within the entire executive

branch, and on a civil-military level as well as a military one. An advisory National Security Advisor is a failed National Security Advisor; effective leadership is required to force coordination on the US national security process. Unresolved conflicts between leaders like Secretary Powell, and Secretary Rumsfeld,

the exclusion of other cabinet members from key tasks, insufficient review of

military planning, and giving too much power to small elements within given

departments, have weakened US efforts and needlessly alienated our allies. The

creation of a large and highly ideological foreign policy staff in Vice President’s office is a further anomaly in the interagency process. The US interagency process simply cannot function with such loosely defined roles, a lack of formal

checks and balances, and a largely advisory National Security Advisor.

‘‘Jointness’’ must go far beyond the military; it must apply to all national security operations.

• Policy, analysis, and intelligence must accept the true complexity of the world,

deal with it honestly and objectively, and seek ‘‘evolution’’ while opposing ‘‘revo- lution.’’ The US cannot afford to rush into—or stay in—any conflict on ideological grounds. It cannot afford to avoid any necessary commitment because of

idealism. What it needs is informed pragmatism. One simple rule of thumb is

to stop over-simplifying and sloganizing—particularly in the form of ‘‘mirror imaging’’ and assuming that ‘‘democratization’’ is the solution or even first priority

for every country. The US needs to deal with security threats quietly and objective on a country-by-country and movement-by-movement basis. The US must

also seek reform with the understanding that progress in economic reform, dealing with population problems, and improvements in human rights may often

not only be more important in the near term than progress towards elections,

but that ‘‘democracy’’ is purposeless, or actively destructive, unless viable political parties exist, political leaders have emerged capable of moving their nations

forward toward moderation and economic development, and enough national

consensus exists to allow different ethnic, ideological, and religious factions to

function in a stable pluralistic structure. Finally, the US must act with the understanding that other societies and cultures may often find very different solutions to political, social, and economic modernization.

• Stabilization, armed nation building, and peacemaking require a new approach

to organizing US government efforts. The integration of USAID into State has

compounded the problems of US aid efforts which had previously transferred

many functions to generic aid through the World Bank and IMF. There was no

staff prepared, sized, and training to deal with nation building on this scale,

or to formulate and administer the massive aid program required. Contractors

were overburdened with large-scale contracts because these were easiest to

grant and administer in spite of a lack of experience in functioning in a command economy and high threat environment. US government and contractor

staff had to be suddenly recruited—often with limited experience—and generally for 3-12 month tours too short to ensure continuity in such missions. This

should never happen again. Denial of the importance and scale of the mission

14

before the event in no way prevents it from being necessary when reality intervenes.

• New capabilities are required within the National Security Council, the State

Department, and the Department of Defense for security and nation building

missions. It does not matter whether these are called post conflict, Phase IV,

stabilization, or reconstruction missions. The US must be as well prepared to

win a peace as it is prepared to win a war, It must have the interagency tools

in place to deal with providing security after the termination of a conflict, and

to support nation building in terms of creating viable political systems, economic stability and growth, effective military and security forces, and public information system and free press. This requires the National Security Council

to have such expertise, the State Department to have operational capability to

carry out such a mission, the Department of Defense to have the proper military capabilities, and other agencies to be ready to provide the proper support.

The US must never again repeat its most serious mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. It must make security and nation building a fundamental part of the planning and execution of military operations directed at foreign governments from

the start. A clear operational plan for such activity must be prepared before

military operations begin, the costs and risks should be fully assessed, and the

Congress should be fully consulted in the same way it is consulted before initiating military operations. The security and nation-building missions must begin

as combat operations proceed, there must be no pause that creates a power vacuum, and the US must act from the start to ensure that the necessary resources

for nation building are present.

• Our military strategy must give interoperability and military advisory efforts the

same priority as jointness. The US needs to rethink its arms sales and security

assistance policies. The US needs to pay far more attention to the social and

economic needs of countries in the Middle East, and to work with other sellers

to reduce the volume of sales. At the same time, it needs to work with regional

powers to help them make the arms they do need effective and sustainable, create local security arrangements, and improve interoperability for the purposes

of both deterrence and warfighting. The US needs to recast its security assistance programs to help nations fight terrorism and extremism more effectively,

and do so in ways that do not abuse human rights or delay necessary political,

social, and economic reforms.

• The US needs to organize for effective information campaigns while seeking to

create regional and allied campaigns that will influence Arab and Islamic

worlds. The US needs to revitalize its information efforts in a focused and effective way that takes advantage of tools like satellite broadcasting and the Internet while working directly in country. The US, however, can never be an Arab

or Islamic country. It needs to work with its friends and allies in the region to

seek their help in creating information campaigns that reject Islamic radicalism

and violence, encourage terrorism, and support reform. The US should not try

to speak for the Arabs or for Islam; it should help them speak for themselves.

• The US private sector and foreign direct investment should be integrated into

the US security strategy and efforts to achieve evolutionary reform. The US has

tended to emphasize sanctions over trade and economic contact in dealing with

hostile or radical states, and assign too low a priority to helping the US private

sector invest in friendly states. A ‘‘zero-based’’ review is needed of what the US

government should do to encourage private sector activity in the Middle East.

• Current methods of intelligence collection and analysis, cannot guarantee adequate preparation for stabilization operations, properly support low intensity

combat, or properly support the nation-building phase. The US needs to fundamentally reassess its approach to intelligence to support adequate planning for

the combat termination, security, and nation building phases of asymmetric warfare and peacemaking operations. It is equally important that adequate tactical

intelligence support be available from the beginning of combat operations to the

end of security and nation building operations that provides adequate tactical

human intelligence support, combined with the proper area expertise and linguistic skills. Technology can be a powerful tool, but it is an aid—not a substitute—for human skills and talents.

• New approaches are needed at the tactical and field level to creating effective

teams for operations and intelligence. Tactical intelligence must operate as part

of a team effort with those involved in counterinsurgency operations, the political and economic phases of nation building, and security and military advisory

teams. It is particularly critical that both intelligence and operations directly

15

integrate combat activity with civil-military relations efforts, US military police

and security efforts, the use of economic aid in direct support of low intensity

combat and security operations, the training of local security forces and their

integration into the HUMINT effort, and the creation of effective information

campaigns.

• Current methods of intelligence collection and analysis, and current methods of

arms control and inspection, cannot guarantee an adequate understanding of the

risks posed by proliferation. The US needs to fundamentally reassess the problems of intelligence on proliferation and the lessons Iraq provides regarding

arms control. Far too much of the media coverage and outside analysis of the

intelligence failures in Iraq has focused on the politics of the situation or implied that intelligence failed because it was improperly managed and reviewed.

There were long standing problems in the way in which the CIA managed its

counterproliferation efforts, and institutional biases that affected almost all intelligence community reporting and analysis on the subject.

• The US has agonizing decisions to make about defense resources. The fact that

the current Future Year Defense Plan does not provide enough funds to allow

the US cannot come close to fund both its planned force levels and force improvement plans is obvious. Everyone with any experience stopped believing in

estimated procurement costs long ago. What is equally clear now, however, is

that the US faces years of unanticipated conflicts, many involving armed peacemaking and nation building, and must rethink deterrence in terms of proliferation. This is not a matter of billions of dollars; it is a matter of several percent

of the US GNP.

• Limit new strategic adventures where possible: The US needs to avoid additional

military commitments and conflicts unless they truly serve vital strategic interests. The US already faces serious strategic overstretch, and nothing could be

more dangerous than assuming that existing problems can be solved by adding

new ones—such as Syria or Iran. This means an emphasis on deterrence, containment, and diplomacy to avoid additional military commitments. It means a

new emphasis on international action and allies to find substitutes for US

forces.

One final reality—the image of a quick and decisive victory is almost always a

false one, but it is still the image many Americans want and expect. One thousand

or more dead in Iraq is hardly Vietnam, but it must be justified and explained, and

explained honestly—not in terms of the ephemeral slogans. The budget rises and

supplements of the last few years are also likely to be the rule and not the exception. America may well have to spend another one percent of its GNP on sustained

combat and international intervention overseas than any American politician is willing to admit.

America faces hard political choices, and they are going to take exceptional leadership and courage in both an election year and the decades to come. They require

bipartisanship of a kind that has faded since the Cold War, and neither neo-conservative nor neo-liberal ideology can help. Moreover, America’s think tanks and media

are going to have to move beyond sound bites and simple solutions, just as will

America’s politicians and military planners. Put differently, it not only is going to

be a very tough year, it is going to be a very tough decade.

What is to Be Done: The Need for Near-Term Actions in Iraq and the Middle East

At this point, the US lacks good options in Iraq—although it probably never really

had them in the sense the Bush Administration sought. The option of quickly turning Iraq into a successful, free market democracy was never practical, and was as

absurd a neoconservative fantasy as the idea that success in this objective would

magically make Iraq an example that would transform the Middle East.

The key to the success the US can now hope to achieve is to set realistic objectives. In practice, these objectives are to create an Iraqi political structure that will

minimize the risk of civil war, develop some degree of pluralism, and help the Iraqis

take charge over their own economy.

This, in turn, means a major shift from trying to maintain US influence and leverage in a post sovereignty period to a policy where the US makes every effort to

turn as much of the political, aid, and security effort over to Iraqis as soon as possible, and focuses on supporting the UN in creating the best compromises possible

in creating Iraqi political legitimacy.

The US should not abandon Iraq, but rather abandon the effort to create an Iraq

in its own image.

Other measures are:

16

• Accept the fact that a universal, nation-wide ‘‘security first’’ policy is stupid and

impractical, and that the US needs to isolate and bypass islands of resistance,

and focus on creating a legitimate Iraqi government that can unify Iraqis and

allow nation building to work. This means relying on containment in the case

of truly troubled and high insurgent areas, and focusing on security in friendly

areas.

• Accept the fact there is no way to ‘‘drain the swamp.’’ At this point, there simply

is no way to eliminate cadres of insurgents or to disarm the most threatening

areas. Fallujah and similar areas have too much popular support for the insurgents; there are too many arms that can be hidden, and too many points of vulnerability. This does not mean the US should give up fighting the insurgents

or its efforts to disarm them. It does mean the US must accept that it cannot

win in the sense of eliminating them or turning hostile areas into secure and

disarmed areas.

• Rush aid to the Iraqi security forces and military seeking more friendly Arab aid

in training and support, and provide as broad a base of Iraqi command as possible. Forget contract regulations on buying equipment. Deliver everything necessary and worry about the details later.

• Continue expanding the role of the Iraqi security forces. Understand that their

loyalties will be divided, that putting them in charge of hostile areas does not

mean they can be expected to do more than work out a modus vivendi with the

insurgents, and that the end result will often be to create ‘‘no go’’ or limited

access areas for Americans. The US cannot afford to repeat the Israeli mistake

of assuming that any Iraqi authority in hostile areas can be counted on to provide security for Americans.

• Walk firmly and openly away from the losers in the IGC like Chalabi. Open up

the political structure and deal with Shi’ite oppositionists, Sunni insurgents, exBa’athists to the maximum degree possible. Drag in as many non-IGC leaders

as possible, and give Ibrahimi’s council idea the strongest possible support.

Lower the US profile in shaping the political future of Iraq as much as possible

and bring in as broad a UN international team as possible.

• Focus on all of the Shi’ites, not just the friendly ones. Make this a critical aspect

of US diplomatic efforts. Let the Iraqi Shi’ites deal with Sadr and stay out of

internal Shi’ite disputes, except to help insure security. Quietly reach out to

Iran to create whatever kind of dialogue is possible.

• Push Sunni Arab states into helping Iraq’s Sunnis and in helping to deal with

the political issues involved by quietly making it clear that they will have to

live with the aftermath of failure and that the US presence and commitment

is not open-ended.

• Zero-base the failed contracting effort for FY2004 US aid to put Iraqi Ministries

and officials in charge of the aid process as soon as possible, with Iraqis going

into the field and not foreign contractors.

• Reprogram funds for a massive new CERP program to enable US military commanders to use dollars instead of bullets at every opportunity. Make the focus

of US control over aid whether Iraqis spend the money honestly and effectively,

and not on US control, plans, and objectives.

• Zero-base the US embassy plan to create the smallest staff practical of proven

area experts, with the clear message to the Iraqis that not only are they going

to be in charge, but non-performance means no US money and no continuation

of US troops and support. End the image of a US end of an occupation after

the occupation.

• Develop a long-term economic and military aid program as leverage to try to influence Iraqi decision making over time. Have the ministries manage the process, not USA1D or contractors. Focus on whether the Iraqi efforts are honest

and produce real results. Do not try to use aid to force Iraq into US modes and

methods.

• Accept the near total failure of US information operations. Stop giving all CPA/

CJTF-7 press conferences, and put an Iraqi on the stage with the US spokesmen. Stop all procounsel-like press conferences where the US seems to be dictating. Make an Iraqi spokesman part of all dialogue, and give them the lead

as soon as possible. Subordinate US and Coalition spokesmen as soon as possible to Iraqis in press conferences and briefings that are held in Arabic.

• Look at the broader failures of US policy in the region. Revitalize the Road Map

and the Quartet in the light of Sharon’s problems. Deal with the reality that

17

there are two failed sets of political elites in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and

that settlements should be unacceptable and not just terrorism.

• Abandon the Greater Middle East Initiative in its present form. Do not add another strategic and policy blunder to the present situation by appearing to call

for regime change and seeking to dominate the region. Focus on a broad cooperative initiative worked out with the EU and where the EU puts pressure on the

Arab League. Stop talking about region-wide democracy and liberty before there

are responsible political parties and the other reforms necessary to make democracy work. Focus on a country-by-country approach to reform that considers

human rights, economic welfare, and demographic issues to be at least as important as elections. Stress cooperation in ‘‘evolution;’’ not random efforts at ‘‘revolution.’’

Prepare for the fact that nation building may still fail, and position the US to use

the threat of withdrawal as leverage. Make it clear that the US can and will leave

Iraq if the Iraqis do not reach agreement on an effective interim solution and if they

do not proceed with reasonable unity to implement the UN plans.

The US position should be that the US is ready to help an Iraq that will help

itself, and that it supports a true transfer of sovereignty. It should make it clear

to Iraq and the world, however, that the US has a clear exit strategy. It has no interest in bases or control over Iraqi oil. It has no reason to stay if Iraq become unstable, devolves into civil war, or ends up under a strong man. The US can live with

a weak or unstable Iraq, and Iraq still will have to export oil at market prices and

will still be far less of a threat than Saddam’s Iraq.

***

THE SECURITY PROBLEMS THAT DRIVE THE NEED FOR CONTINUING ENGAGEMENT

US intervention in Iraq—like its role in the war in Afghanistan, the broader

struggle against terrorism, and the Arab-Israel conflict—must be seen in the context

of continuing region-wide problems that will take at least 10-20 years to resolve,

and which are spilling over into Central, South, and East Asia.

At the same time, the history of the modern Middle East shows that the way in

which these forces will play out is normally highly national. No one can deny the

reality that Arab and Islamic culture are powerful regional forces, or that the rhetoric of Arab unity still has powerful influence. The fact remains, however, that history shows most demographic, social, economic, and political problems play out at

a national level. Solutions are found, or not found, one nation at a time, and there

is little historical evidence since the time of Nasser that any one nation may serve

as an example that transforms the others.

This scarcely means that short-term American success in Iraq is unimportant. It

does mean that the forces shaping the region are far too powerful to play out quickly

or be deeply influenced by a single case. Regardless of how well or how badly America does in Iraq—and in the other three wars it is involved in it faces decades in

which:

• Internal tensions will lead to violence in many states.

• Demographic momentum will increase demographic pressure on virtually every

nation for at least the next three decades.

• Economic reform will come slowly, particularly in reaching the poor and badly

educated.

• Political evolution may succeed over time, but there is—as yet—no foundation

for sudden democracy or political reform. Stable political parties, the rule of

law, human rights, willingness to compromise and give up power, and all the

checks and balances that allow our republic to function, are still weak. Attempts at reform that outpace the ability of societies to generate internal

change will lead to revolution and new—and generally worse—forms of

authoritarianism or theocracy.

• Islamic extremism and terrorism may never come to dominate more than a

handful of states, but they will mutate and endure for decades after Bin Laden

and Al Qaida are gone and only sheer luck will prevent them from dominating

at least some states or at least posing a critical challenge to some regimes.

• Anger and jealousy at the West and against the US in particular, may fade

some if the US can find a way of helping to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, and

can succeed enough in Iraq so that it is not perceived as a modern group of

‘‘crusaders’’ and an occupying enemy. This anger will not, however, disappear.

It may well be compounded by the backlash from cultural conflicts over immiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
18

gration and a steadily growing gap between the wealth of the West, and living

standards in much of the MENA region.

The fact that the future of Iraq and the Middle East will be as difficult, complex,

and time consuming as its past, however, does not mean that the US can disengage

from the region. Neither do the facts that US influence will be far more limited than

we might like, that reform and change will be driven by local values and priorities,

and that there will often be set backs and reversals.

America is not involved in a ‘‘clash of civilizations.’’ It is, however, on the periphery of a clash within a civilization that affects their vital strategic interests, that

can lash out in the form of terrorism and extremist attacks, and which deserves an

active US role on moral and humanitarian grounds. Like the Cold War, the fact

America faces what could be half a century of problems, and can neither foresee nor

fully shape the future, in no way allows Americans to stand aside.

Like it or not, the US is also involved in a war of ideas and values in the Arab

and Islamic worlds, and there is no easy dividing line between the Middle East, the

general threat of Islamic extremism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the war in Afghanistan, and instability in Central and South Asia. We will be a target regardless of

how active we are in the region. The events of ‘‘9/11’’ have made part of the threat

as obvious as the previous points have shown the need for outside aid and encouragement. Terrorism can reach anywhere in the world, and sometimes will.

STRATEGY, GRAND STRATEGY, AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THE US GOVERNMENT CIVIL

AND MILITARY EFFORT

In fairness to the Bush Administration, only one of the four wars the US now

faces—Iraq—can be called ‘‘optional.’’ Afghanistan came as the result of a major attack on the US. The problem of terrorism had arisen long before ‘‘9/11,’’ and US involvement in Arab-Israeli conflicts is inevitable unless a true and lasting peace can

be achieved or the US abandons an ally.

Even Iraq is ‘‘optional’’ largely in retrospect. The Bush and Blair governments

may have politicized some aspects of the assessment of Iraqi proliferation, but virtually all experts felt the threat was more serious than it has proved to be. Moreover, it seems doubtful that Saddam’s Hussein’s Iraq would not have triggered another regional conflict at some point, just as it is doubtful that most of Iraq’s present

internal problems would not have surfaced at some point in the future even if the

US, Britain, and Australia had never invaded.

The end result, however, is the US does not face the possibility of fighting two

major regional contingencies the strategic focus of both the first Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration. The US instead faces the reality of actually

fighting three low intensity conflicts and deep strategic involvement in a fourth.

Moreover, the US still faces the risk of involvement in major regional conflicts.

These risks include Iran, North Korea, Taiwan, and Columbia.

American military planning and strategy must be reevaluated in terms of this situation and many of the lessons that grow out of US experience in Iraq apply to the

other wars as well:

• Strategic engagement requires an objective—not an ideological—assessment of

the problems that must be dealt with, and of the size and cost of the effort necessary to achieve decisive grand strategic results. Neither a capabilities-based

strategy nor one based on theoretical sizing contingencies is meaningful when

real-world conflicts and well-defined contingencies require a strategy and force

plan that can deal with reality, rather than theory. The US does not face a world

where all problems were solved by the end of the Cold War. It does not face

a world it can control or predict in the future. It must constantly adapt to the

tasks at hand and those it can immediately foresee, not base its plans on hopes

and strategic slogans.

The US must pursue strategies and tactics that reflect the fact that many of

the conflicts we are now involved in cannot be resolved by defeating a well defined enemy and involve political, social, and economic forces that will take

years, if not decades to run their course. Iraq, at best, will be an unstable and

evolving state for a decade after we leave. At worst it could be the subject of

strong antiAmerican feelings in the Gulf and Arab world.

The war in Afghanistan is mutating in ways that are beyond our control and

nation building so far is failing. The war on terrorism is not a war against Al

Qaida but against violent Islamic extremism driven by mass demographic, economic, and social forces in a region with limited political legitimacy. It may take

a quarter of a century to deal with. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems years

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away from peace, and the last peace process has shown how tenuous and uncertain even a seemingly successful peace process can be.

• ‘‘Superpower’’ has always been a dangerous term. The resulting exaggeration of

US capabilities and strategic focus on bipolar threats and ‘‘peer rivals’’ misses

the point. The real problem is being a global power with limited resources—a

problem that Great Britain encountered throughout the 19th century. The world

already is multipolar. There are severe limits to what the US can do, and how

many places it can do it. Coalitions and alliances are more important than ever.

There is no alternative to ‘‘internationalism.’’ There may be times we disagree

with the UN or some of our allies, but our strategy must be based on seeking

consensus wherever possible, on compromise when necessary, and on coalitions

that underpin virtually every action we take. Our rhetoric can no longer be simply American or be driven by domestic politics; it must take full account of the

values and sensitivities of others.

Our military strategy must give interoperability and military advisory efforts

the same priority as jointness. In order to lead, we must also learn to follow.

We must never subordinate our vital national interests to others, but this will

rarely be the issue. In practice, our challenge is to subordinate our arrogance

to the end of achieving true partnerships, and to shape our diplomacy to creating lasting coalitions of the truly willing rather than coalitions of the pressured and intimidated.

• Great as US power is, it cannot substitute for coalitions and the effective use of

international organizations if at all possible. The term ‘‘superpower’’ may not be

a misnomer, but it certainly does not imply US freedom of action. At the same

time, most NGOs and international organizations are not organized for armed

nation building and face severe—if not crippling—limitations if they are targeted in a low intensity combat environment or by large-scale terrorism.

• At the same time, armed nation building is a challenge only the US is currently

equipped to meet. While allies, the UN, and NGOs can help in many aspects of

security and nation building operations. They often cannot operate on the scale

required to deal with nation building in the midst of serious low intensity combat. Armed nation building requires continuing US military and security efforts,

and civil and economic aid programs. Security and nation building not only require new forms of US ‘‘rapid deployment,’’ but major financial resources and

the development of new approaches to providing economic aid and the necessary

contract support.

• Deterrence and containment are more complex than at the time of the Cold War,

but they still are critical tools and they too are dependent on formal and informal alliances. The need to create reliable structures of deterrence must also respond to the reality of proliferation. The problem no longer is how to prevent

proliferation, but rather how to live with it.

The US needs to develop more mobile forces that are better tailored to rapid

reaction, power projection in areas where the US has limited basing and facilities, and capable of dealing better with the kind of low intensity combat dominated by terrorists or hostile movements that require an emphasis on light

forces and HUMINT, rather than heavy forces and high technology.

Military intervention cannot, however, be the dominant means of exercising

US military power. The problem is to find better ways to use the threat of US

military power to deter and contain asymmetric conflicts, and new kinds of political and economic threats. War avoidance is just as important in the postCold War era as it was during it.

• War must be an extension of diplomacy by other means, but diplomacy must be

an extension of war by other means as well. US security strategy must be based

on the understanding that diplomacy, peace negotiations, and arms control are

also an extension of—and substitute for—war by other means. It is easy for a

‘‘superpower’’ to threaten force, but far harder to use it, and bluffs get called.

Fighting should be a last resort, and other means must be used to limit the

number of fights as much as possible.

• Military victory in asymmetric warfare can be virtually meaningless without successful nation building at the political, economic, and security levels. These ‘‘stabilization’’ or ‘‘Phase IV’’ operations are far more challenging, however, than defeating conventional military forces. They also probably can best be conducted

if the US is prepared for immediate action after the defeat of conventional

enemy forces. Both in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US wasted critical days, weeks,

and months in engaging in a security effort before opposition movements could

regroup or reengage. It left a power vacuum, rather than exploited one, and it

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was not prepared for nation building or the escalation of resistance once the

enemy was ‘‘defeated.’’

The Quadrennial Defense Review was right in stressing the risk asymmetric

warfare posed to the US in spite of its conventional strength. It failed, however,

to look beyond the narrow definition of the problems of direct combat to the

problems of containment and deterrence, conflict termination, and armed nation

building. Much of today’s problems in Iraq stem from the fact that the Defense

Department and the Bush Administration were as badly prepared for conflict

termination, nation building, and low intensity threats after the defeat of

Saddam’s regular military forces, as they were well prepared to carry out that

defeat.

The price tag also involves more than dollars and includes some share of responsibility for every US body bag being flown out of Iraq. To a lesser degree,

the same is true of the situation in Afghanistan, and the problem is scarcely

new.

The US failed in both nation building and Vietnamization in Vietnam. It

failed in Lebanon in the early 1980s. It failed in Haiti, and it failed in Somalia.

The stakes, level of involvement, and the costs to the US may have been far

lower in some of these cases, but the fact remains that the US failed.

• Force transformation cannot be dominated by technology; manpower skills, not

technology, are the key. The Afghan War led to an emphasis on a method of

using airpower that could not secure the country or deal with Taliban and Al

Qaida forces that quickly mutated and dispersed. The Iraq War began with

heavy conventional land forces and soon became a heavy air-land battle. It was

all airpower, armored, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (IS&R)

and precision through late April. As such, it showed that high technology forces

could decisively defeat lower technology conventional forces almost regardless of

force numbers and the kinds of force ratios that were critical in past conflicts.

Yet, the US has since been forced to virtually reinvent the way in which it uses

its forces since the fall of Saddam’s regime. Technology and netcentric war—

and an emphasis on destroying enemy hard targets and major weapons systems—failed when the problem became conflict termination, armed nation

building, and low intensity warfare.

The military missions of low intensity combat, economic aid, civil-military relations, security, and information campaigns are manpower dominated and require skilled military manpower as well as new forms civil expertise in other

Departments. Human intelligence can still be more important than technical

collection, local experience and language skills are critical, and the ability to use

aid dollars can be more important than the ability to use bullets.

This requires a fundamental reexamination of US force plans and force transformation concepts. For decades, the US has sought to use technology to substitute for defense spending, for force numbers, and for manpower numbers.

During the conventional phases of both the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, suggestions were made for further force and manpower cuts and further efforts to

achieve savings in defense spending by acquiring transformational technology.

Technology has been, is, and will be critical to American power and military

success. It is extremely questionable, however, that the US has any credible

way of using technology to make further force and manpower cuts without taking unacceptable risks. Creating the proper mix of capabilities for asymmetric

warfare, low-intensity conflict, security and Phase IV operations, and nation

building requires large numbers of skilled and experience personnel. It is manpower intensive, and technology is at best an aid to—not a substitute for—force

size and manpower numbers.

This problem is further compounded by the fact that the US does not have

a single major transformational weapons system or technology under development which now seems likely to be delivered on time, with the promised effectiveness, and at even half of the unit life cycle cost originally promised. The US

has made little meaningful progress in the effective planning and management

of the development and procurement of advanced military technology in the last

quarter century—at least in the sense of being able to integrate it into realistic

budgets and force plans. While the US has shown it can transform, it has not

shown it can plan and manage transformation.

For at least the next half decade, the US must also deal with the backlog of

maintenance and service requirements created by its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the fact it must retain and modernize far more of its socalled legacy systems that it now plans.

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• Technology-based force transformation and the revolution in military affairs are

tools with severe and sometimes crippling limits. The ability to provide Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (IS&R) coverage of the world is of immense value. It does not, however, provide the ability to understand the world,

deal with complex political issues, and fight effectively in the face of terrorism,

many forms of low intensity conflict and asymmetric warfare, and the need to

deal with conflict termination and peace making or protect nation building.

The ability to use precision weapons, helicopter mobility, and armor to destroy enemy conventional forces and blow fixed targets up ‘‘24/7’’ is also of great

tactical value, but it does not mean that defeating enemy conventional forces

really wins wars. The US is as bad at knowing what to blow up in terms of

strategic targeting and many aspects of interdiction bombing as it was in World

War II.

There also are good reasons to question whether many aspects of ‘‘Netcentric’’

warfare are little more than a conceptual myth, concealing the military equivalent of the ‘‘Emperor’s new clothes’’ in a dense forest of incomprehensible

PowerPoint slides than cannot be translated into procurable systems, workable

human interfaces, and affordable Future Year Defense Plans.

In practice, there may be a need to make far more effective use of legacy systems, and evolutionary improvements in weapons and technology, to support

‘‘humancentric’’ forms of military action requiring extensive human intelligence

and area skills, high levels of training and experience, and effective leadership

in not only defeating the enemy in battle but winning the peace.

This, in turn, means creating US military forces with extensive experience in

civil-military action and which can use aid as effectively as weapons—dollars

as well as bullets. It also means redefining interoperability to recognize that low

technology allied forces can often be as, or more effective, as high technology

US forces in such missions.

• Simply adding troops or more weapons will not solve America’s problems any

more than trying to use technology to make US forces smaller and more costeffective will.

Manpower quality is at least as important as manpower quantity, and they

require suitable increases in the strength of military and civil units. The problem is not boots on the ground, but the capability of those wearing the boots.

The missions that are emerging require extremely skilled troops with excellent

area skills, far more linguists, human intelligence experts, experts in urban and

low intensity warfare, military police, security experts and experts with training

in civic action and nation building. Personnel are require who can train local

personnel in security, police functions, and well as guerrilla warfare. Many of

these personnel and forces, however, would have little value in a Korean or Taiwan contingency. The US needs to pause and think out the issue of quality before it does anything about force quantity. The fact is that 200,000 undertrained troops in Iraq would not be better than 150,000, and having F-22s instead of F-15s would be pointless.

• ‘‘Jointness’’ cannot simply be an issue for restructuring the US military, and is

far more than a military problem. It must occur within the entire executive

branch, and on a civil-military level as well as a military one.

The Iraq War has shown that the end result of allowing small cadres in the

Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Vice President, and National Security

Council was to allow ideological cadres to bypass the US national security process in ways that led to critical failures in key strategic tasks like conflict termination and nation building. More broadly, similar failures have occurred in virtually every aspect of US strategic engagements and diplomacy, including critical areas like counterproliferation and the Arab-Israel peace process.

To date, this lack of ‘‘jointness’’ in the Bush Administration’s national security

team has had many of the same effects as a similar Department of Defensedriven breakdown in the interagency process during the period in which critical

decision were made to carry out a massive US building up in Vietnam.

An advisory National Security Advisor is a failed National Security Advisor;

effective leadership is required to force coordination on the US national security

process. Unresolved conflicts between leaders like Secretary Powell, and Secretary Rumsfeld, the exclusion of other cabinet members from key tasks, insufficient review of military planning, and giving too much power to small elements

within given departments, have weakened US efforts and needlessly alienated

our allies. The creation of a large and highly ideological foreign policy staff in

Vice President’s office is a further anomaly in the interagency process.

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The US interagency process simply cannot function with such loosely defined

roles, a lack of formal checks and balances, and a largely advisory National Security Advisor. ‘‘Jointness’’ must go far beyond the military; it must apply to

all national security operations.

• Policy, analysis, and intelligence must accept the true complexity of the world,

deal with it honestly and objectively, and seek ‘‘evolution’’ while opposing ‘‘revolution.’’

The US is involved in four very complex wars, each of which requires the

most objective intelligence and analysis that is possible. There is no room for

ideological sound bites or overly simplistic solutions, and force transformation

cannot cut some mystical Gordian knot. The US cannot afford to rush into—

or stay in—any conflict on ideological grounds. It cannot afford to avoid any

necessary commitment because of idealism. What it needs is informed pragmatism.

One simple rule of thumb is to stop over-simplifying and sloganizing—particularly in the form of ‘‘mirror imaging’’ and assuming that ‘‘democratization’’

is the solution or even first priority for every country. The US needs to deal

with security threats quietly and objective on a country-by-country and movement-by-movement basis.

The US must seek reform with the understanding that progress in economic

development, raising the living standards of the ordinary citizen, dealing with

population problems, and improvements in human rights may often not only be

more important in the near term than progress towards elections, but that ‘‘democracy’’ is purposeless, or actively destructive, unless viable political parties

exist, political leaders have emerged capable of moving their nations forward toward moderation and economic development, and enough national consensus exists to allow different ethnic, ideological, and religious factions to function in a

stable pluralistic structure. Finally, the US must act with the understanding

that other societies and cultures may often find very different solutions to political, social, and economic modernization.

The US cannot afford to carelessly abuse words like ‘Islam’’ and ‘‘Arab,’’ or

ignore the sensitivities of key allies like South Korea in dealing with the threat

from the North. It cannot afford to alienate its European allies or lose support

in the UN by throwing nations like ‘‘Iran’’ into an imaginary ‘‘axis of evil.’’ It

needs nations like Saudi Arabia as an ally in the struggle against movements

like Al Qaida, and it cannot afford to confuse terrorist movements driven by different and largely neo-Salafi beliefs with terms like Wahhabi, any more than

it can afford to act as if Al Qaida somehow dominated a far more complex mix

of different threats.

The US needs a nuanced pragmatism that deals with each nation and each

threat individually and in proportion to the threat it really presents. It must

give regional and other allies a proper role and influence in decision-making

rather than seek to bully them through ideology and rhetoric. It needs to engage the checks and balances of the fully interagency process, of area and intelligence professionals, and seek a bipartisan approach with proper consultation

with the Congress.

• Stabilization, armed nation building, and peacemaking require a new approach

to organizing US government efforts.

It is not clear when the US will have to repeat stabilization and nation building activities on the level of Iraq. It is clear that the civilian agencies of the

US government were not adequately prepared to analyze and plan the need for

the political, security, aid, and information programs needed in Iraq, and to provide staff with suitable training and ability to operate in a high threat environment. The State Department was prepared to analyze the challenges, but lacked

both planning and operational capability and staff prepared to work in the field

in a combat environment.

The integration of USAID into State has compounded the problems of US aid

efforts which had previously transferred many functions to generic aid through

the World Bank and IMF. There was no staff prepared, sized, and training to

deal with nation building on this scale, or to formulate and administer the massive aid program required. Contractors were overburdened with large-scale contracts because these were easiest to grant and administer in spite of a lack of

experience in functioning in a command economy and high threat environment.

US government and contractor staff had to be suddenly recruited—often with

limited experience—and generally for 3-12 month tours too short to ensure continuity in such missions.

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It is a tribute to the CPA and all those involved that so much could be done

in spite of the lack of effective planning and preparation before the end of major

combat operations against Iraq’s conventional forces. The fact remains, however, that this should never happen again. Denial of the importance and scale

of the mission before the event in no way prevents it from being necessary when

reality intervenes.

• New capabilities are required within the National Security Council, the State

Department, and the Department of Defense for security and nation building

missions. It does not matter whether these are called post conflict, Phase IV,

stabilization, or reconstruction missions. The US must be as well prepared to

win a peace as it is prepared to win a war. It must have the interagency tools

in place to deal with providing security after the termination of a conflict, and

to support nation building in terms of creating viable political systems, economic stability and growth, effective military and security forces, and public information system and free press. This requires the National Security Council

to have such expertise, the State Department to have operational capability to

carry out such a mission, the Department of Defense to have the proper military capabilities, and other agencies to be ready to provide the proper support.

The US must never again repeat its most serious mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. It must make security and nation building a fundamental part of the planning and execution of military operations directed at foreign governments from

the start. A clear operational plan for such activity must be prepared before

military operations begin, the costs and risks should be fully assessed, and the

Congress should be fully consulted in the same way it is consulted before initiating military operations. The security and nation-building missions must begin

as combat operations proceed, there must be no pause that creates a power vacuum, and the US must act from the start to ensure that the necessary resources

for nation building are present.

• The US needs to rethink its arms sales and security policies.

The US still is selling massive amounts of arms to the region with more attention to the dollar value of sales than to their impact on local societies, the

need for interoperability and effectiveness, and changes in security needs that

increasingly focus on internal security.

The US signed $13.3 billion worth of new arms sales agreements with Middle

Eastern countries during 1995-1998, of total sales to the region of $30.8 billion.

Most are still in delivery or early conversion and require extensive US advisory

and contract support to be effective. The US signed another $17.2 billion during

1999-2002, out of a worldwide total of $35.9 billion. All of these latter sales require extensive US advisory and contract support. At present, almost all of

these sales are going to countries with poorly integrated arms buys, and low

levels of readiness and sustainability. They are also being made in ways that

offer only limited interoperability with US forces.

The sheer volume of these sales also does as much to threaten regional security as it does to aid it. The US needs to pay far more attention to the social

and economic needs of countries in the Middle East, and to work with other

sellers to reduce the volume of sales. At the same time, it needs to work with

regional powers to help them make the arms they do need effective and sustainable, create local security arrangements, and improve interoperability for the

purposes of both deterrence and warfighting.

At the same time, most countries now face internal security threats that are

more serious than external threats. The US needs to recast its security assistance programs to help nations fight terrorism and extremism more effectively,

and do so in ways that do not abuse human rights or delay necessary political,

social, and economic reforms.

• The US needs to organize for effective information campaigns while seeking to

create regional and allied campaigns that will influence Arab and Islamic

worlds.

The integration of the US Information Agency (USIA) into the State Department, and major cutbacks in US information and public diplomacy efforts, have

deprived the US of a critical tool that works best when regional efforts are combined with well-funded and well-staffed efforts at the embassy and local level.

The US needs to revitalize its information efforts in a focused and effective way

that takes advantage of tools like satellite broadcasting and the Internet while

working directly in country.

The US, however, can never be an Arab or Islamic country. It needs to work

with its friends and allies in the region to seek their help in creating information campaigns that reject Islamic radicalism and violence, encourage terrorism,

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and support reform. The US should not try to speak for the Arabs or for Islam,

it should help them speak for themselves.

• The US private sector and foreign direct investment should be integrated into

the US security strategy.

Far too often, the US ignores the role that the US private sector can and

must play in achieving evolutionary reform. The US has tended to emphasize

sanctions over trade and economic contact in dealing with hostile or radical

states, and assign too low a priority to helping the US private sector invest in

friendly states. A ‘‘zero-based’’ review is needed of what the US government

should do to encourage private sector activity in the Middle East.

• The US has agonizing decisions to make about defense resources.

In spite of major recent increases in defense spending, even the present force

plan is unsustainable in the face of the combined funding burdens of operations,

modernization, and transformation.

The fact that the current Future Year Defense Plan does not provide enough

funds to allow the US cannot come close to fund both its planned force levels

and force improvement plans is obvious. Everyone with any experience stopped

believing in estimated procurement costs long ago. What is equally clear now,

however, is that the US faces years of unanticipated conflicts, many involving

armed peacemaking and nation building, and must rethink deterrence in terms

of proliferation. This is not a matter of billions of dollars; it is a matter of several percent of the US GNP.

• The US must limit new strategic adventures where possible:

The US needs to avoid additional military commitments and conflicts unless

they truly serve vital strategic interests. Regardless of the outcome of the reevaluation of force transformation recommended earlier, it will be two to three

years at a minimum before the US can create major new force elements and

military capabilities, and some change will take at least five to ten years. The

US already faces serious strategic overstretch, and nothing could be more dangerous than assuming that existing problems can be solved by adding new

ones—such as Syria or Iran. This means an emphasis on deterrence, containment, and diplomacy to avoid additional military commitments. It means a new

emphasis on international action and allies to find substitutes for US forces.

LESSONS FOR INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS

Current methods of intelligence collection and analysis, cannot guarantee adequate preparation for stabilization operations, properly support low intensity combat, or properly support the nation-building phase. The US needs to fundamentally

reassess its approach to intelligence to support adequate planning for the combat

termination, security, and nation building phases of asymmetric warfare and peacemaking operations. The same jointness is needed in the intelligence community effort to prepare for asymmetric warfare that is needed in the overall interagency

process, and to ensure that the analysis given to policymakers, planners, and operators fully presents the problems and challenges that must be dealt with in stabilization and armed nation building. There must never again be a case in which the Department of Defense filters or rejects community-wide analysis or priority is given

to intelligence for military operations in ways that prevent adequate intelligence

analysis and support being ready for the stabilization and nation-building phase.

It is equally important that adequate tactical intelligence support be available

from the beginning of combat operations to the end of security and nation building

operations that provides adequate tactical human intelligence support, combined

with the proper area expertise and linguistic skills. Technology can be a powerful

tool, but it is an aid—not a substitute—for the human skills and talents necessary

to support low intensity combat, expand the role of tactical human intelligence, and

do so in the context of supporting aid efforts and civil military relations, as well as

combat operations. At the same time, civilian intelligence agency efforts need to be

recast to support nation building and security operations.

Iraq and Afghanistan have also shown that tactical military intelligence must operate as part of a team effort with those involved in counterinsurgency operations,

the political and economic phases of nation building, and security and military advisory teams.

It is particularly critical that both intelligence and operations directly integrate

combat activity with civil-military relations efforts, US military police and security

efforts, the use of economic aid in direct support of low intensity combat and security operations, the training of local security forces and their integration into the

HUMINT effort, and the creation of effective information campaigns. In the future,

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this may require a far better integration of military and civil efforts in both intelligence and operations than has occurred in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

THE NEAR TERM SITUATION IN IRAQ

It may not be as apparent in the US as it is in the Arab world, but several weeks

of travel in the region indicate that the course of the fighting in Fallujah and Najaf

are perceived in much of Iraq and the Arab world as a serious US defeat. This is

not simply a matter of shattering an aura of US military invincibility; it is a growing shift in political attitudes and in the prospects for political change in Iraq.

It is also all too clear that any idea the US is engaging in ‘‘post-conflict operations’’ is little more than a farce. The shock of Saddam’s fall produced a brief period of near paralysis in the Iraqi opposition to the US and the Coalition. By August

2003, however, a state of low intensity conflict clearly existed in Iraq, and the level

of this conflict has escalated ever since January of 2004.

In fact, this follows a pattern that makes the very term ‘‘post-conflict operations’’ a stupid and intellectually dishonest oxymoron. As we have seen in Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon, Cambodia, and many other cases, asymmetric wars do not really

end. Nation building must take place on an armed basis without security and in the

face of adaptive and innovative threats. The reality is that this is a far more difficult aspect of ‘‘transformation’’ than defeating organized military resistance, and

one for which the US is not yet prepared.

Senior US officials have been in a continuing state of denial about the depth of

support for this conflict. They have misused public opinion polls like the Zogby and

ABC polls and they have ignored the fact that the ABC poll conducted in February

found that roughly two thirds of Sunnis and one third of Shi’ites opposed the US

and British invasion and found it to be humiliating to Iraq. Senior US officials have

ignored the fact that roughly one-third of Sunnis and two-thirds of Shi’ites support

violence against the Coalition and want the Coalition forces to leave Iraq immediately. They talk about a small minority of Iraqis because only a small minority

have so far been actively violent—a reality in virtually every insurgent campaign

and one that in no way is a measure of support for violence.

A year into the ‘‘war after the war,’’ far too many US officials are still in a state

of denial as to the political realities in the Middle East. They do not see just how

much the perceived US tilt towards Israel and Sharon alienates Iraqis and Arabs

in general. They do not admit the near total failure of US information operations,

and the fact that Iraqis watch hostile Arab satellite TV stations and rely on papers

filled with misinformation and conspiracy theories.

They talk about ‘‘success’’ in aid programs measured in terms of contracts signed,

fiscal obligations, and gross measures of performance like megawatts; not about actual progress on the ground the kind that can really win hearts and minds. They

cannot understand that US calls for ‘‘liberty,’’ ‘‘democracy,’’ and ‘‘reform’’ have become coupled to images of US interference in Arab regimes, the broad resentment

of careless negative US references to Islam and Arab culture, and conspiracy theories about control of Iraqi oil, ‘‘neoimperialism,’’ and serving ‘‘Zionist’’ interests.

The fact these perceptions are not fair is as irrelevant as US tactical military victories that are often political defeats. The present mix of armed nation building and

low intensity conflict takes place in a region shaped by such perceptions. This is

why the photographic evidence of US mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is so devastating. For many in the region, it validates every criticism of the US, and vastly

strengthens the hand of Islamic extremists, Sunni insurgents, Shi’ite insurgents,

and hostile media and intellectuals in both the Arab world and Europe.

The time has come to face this reality. There was never a time when

neoconservative fantasies about the Middle East were anything but dangerous illusions. Those fantasies have killed and wounded thousands of American and Coalition allies, and now threaten the US with a serious strategic defeat. It may not be

possible to avoid some form of defeat, but the US must make every effort to do so,

and this means junking the neoconservatism within the Office of the Secretary of

Defense, the Vice President’s office, and the NSC and coming firmly to grips with

reality.

WHY THE US HAS ALREADY ‘‘LOST’’ SOME ASPECTS OF ITS BATTLES IN FALLUJAH AND

WITH SADR

The US is scarcely defeated in either a military or a political sense, but it is suffering serious reversals. The Iraqi insurgents do not have to win battles in a tactical

sense; they merely have to put up a determined enough resistance, with enough

skill and courage, to show their fellow Iraqis and the Arab world that they are capable of a determined, strong and well-organized effort. Many of their fellow Iraqis

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will perceive any determined resistance as a ‘‘victory’’ against the world’s only superpower.

If the Sunnis in Fallujah, and Sadr in Najaf, continue to show they can survive

a US military threat—and that they can force the US and Coalition into a posture

of containment and compromise—they will be able to change the rules of the game

in nation building as well as in the fighting. They will score a major victory at the

political level while they effectively create ‘‘no go’’ areas and sanctuaries. They will

do so even if they do have to end open confrontation and turnover some weapons

and activists.

Solutions like the ‘‘Fallujah Brigade’’ are de facto defeats for the US in both military and political terms. They signal a coming struggle for power in which hostile

elements of both Arab Sunnis and Shi’ites will be much stronger than the US and

its allies previously estimated. They also create a national political climate in which

the Coalition is perceived as lacking any clear plan or goals, the Interim governing

Council is divided and lacking in legitimacy, the Iraqi security forces are seen as

ineffective, and the UN becomes both a tool for insurgent pressure and a potential

target.

LOSING A WAR OF ATTRITION IN A ‘‘PERFECT STORM’’ OF NEGATIVE IMAGES?

The fighting during April 2004 has also created a climate in which the US and

its allies are seen as being in the middle of a war of attrition that they are losing.

The totals of US, allied, and friendly Iraqi killed and wounded have already reached

the point where Iraqi insurgents and foreign extremists have every reason to perceive the Coalition as politically and strategically vulnerable—an image reinforced

by the steady loss of support for the war and a continued effort in Iraq in US and

allied public opinion polls.

Hostile Iraqi losses to date can be sustained indefinitely. As a result, the mix of

Coalition and friendly Iraqi casualties, sabotage and paralysis of the aid process,

and growing political uncertainty at the edge of the transfer of sovereignty act as

a virtual road map for future battles in Iraq and later battles against US military

and nation building operations in the rest of the world. The end result is to show

that an Arab asymmetric force can delay and possibly checkmate the strongest

Western military power that Arabs are not weak or passive, and that Arabs can

‘‘take back their homeland.’’ It will take a new public opinion poll to determine just how much the ‘‘perfect

storm’’ of negative events since February has changed opinion inside Iraq, but it

seems almost certain that events in Fallujah and dealing with Sadr have sharply

cut support for the US among moderate Iraqi Arabs. (The fact the Kurds have nowhere else to go—and have to be friendly—means they should be largely excluded

from polls analyzing how Iraqi attitudes are affecting the war.)

It seems equally certain that this drop is compounded by the flood of Arab images

of Iraqi civilians suffering in the fighting, the images of mistreatment of Iraqi

POWs, and newscasts that claim every US use of a modern weapon is a careless

use of excessive force. These images are clearly having a powerful impact throughout the Sunni world—strongly reinforced by Israeli military action and statements

that make the constant Arab media linkage between the US and Israeli occupations

steadily more damaging. Furthermore, similar images are being portrayed in Iran

and it seems likely that Iranian opinion is turning away from the US.

THE LACK OF COALITION AND IGC POLITICAL LEGITIMACY

The last few weeks of resistance have sharply undercut the already low political

legitimacy of the CPA, the US approach to nation building, and the Interim Governing Council. Iraqis and the region perceive the US as lacking any credible plan

of action and as being ‘‘forced’’ to turn to the UN.

The ‘‘pro-American’’ Iraqis have been divided and weak, and have been unable to

rally the Iraqi people. The end result is that the US ability to convey ‘‘legitimacy’’

has been sharply undercut at precisely the time the US needs legitimacy for its

June 30 turnover. In addition, US ties to some members of the IGC are becoming

steadily more damaging—particularly the image of US ties to ‘‘losers’’ like Chalabi.

TURNING A NON-TERRORIST THREAT INTO A REAL ONE

Iraq has become a natural battleground for Islamic insurgents and ‘‘volunteers’’

of all persuasions. There is no meaningful evidence that Iraq was a focus of terrorism before the war, or a primary focus early in the fighting. Over the last few

months, however, the outside presence and support for insurgents has increased.

Over the last few weeks, it has become all too clear that such support is paying

off well in terms of American and allied casualties, and in boosting the image of

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Islamic resistance as being able to take on the US. Iraq was never a magnet for

terrorism before the war, and only a limited magnet before Fallujah and Sadr. It

has become a major magnet now.

PARALYZING MUCH OF THE EFFORT TO WIN HEARTS AND MINDS

Much of the aid and economic development program has been paralyzed, and the

economic security of the Shi’ite areas and oil exports is now far more at risk. The

US reliance on contractors, rather than Iraqis, makes everyone involved in aid and

reconstruction a natural target. The use of contract security has created the image

of mercenary forces, and efforts to win hearts and minds in troubled areas have essentially collapsed, as they have in some formerly ‘‘friendly areas’’ as well.

The flood of aid that should have helped win hearts and minds during a critical

period of political transition is often little more than a trickle.

A NEGOTIATED SOLUTION MEANS LIMITING THE SCALE OF DEFEAT

The end result is close to a no win situation for the US: Any negotiated solution

effectively legitimizes the Sunni and Shi’ite hard-line opposition, while weakening

the IGC—exposing the fact the US is now trying to turnover power to ‘‘mystery

men’’ on June 30, who cannot have legitimacy because they have no identity.

This compounds the problems inherent in the Ibrahimi approach, which effectively says that the government of June 30 will not have legitimacy until a popular

council takes place, and that a real government and constitutional base must be

voted on by the Iraqis and not from the legacy left by the CPA/IGC.

In effect, the period of political illegitimacy or non-legitimacy is now extended long

beyond June 30th, and the period in which Iraqis must compete for power by both

political and violent means will now extend through all of 2004 and much of 2005.

This political struggle has several key characteristics:

• The game has no clear rules. There are ‘‘maybe’’ milestones and objectives that

are undefined.

• Federalism and power sharing is up in the air, and even if an interim allocation

of power to a President, Prime Minister, and Vice Premiers takes place, it is

only for an interim period and does not affect struggles over money, power,

land, etc. The ethnic divisions between Arab, Kurd, Turcoman, and other minorities are not really resolved. The same is true of divisions between Sunni

and Shi’ite, and religious and secular.

• There is no economic underpinning for political stability, and far too many jobs

are dependent on aid and paid security positions. Iraq now has a ‘‘bubble’’ economy, not real reconstruction, and Iraqis know this. Some 70% expressed fear

over their future job security in the ABC poll in February.

• No Iraqi leaders now have broad popular political support in public opinion

polls, including Sistani. Most have powerful negatives—often more negative

than positive. There is usually intense competition within given factions, and

leaders have a growing incentive to show their independence from the Coalition.

A near political vacuum exists where there are strong incentives to seek support

from ethnic or religious factions and demagogue the way to victory.

• No political party has significant popular support, and nearly 70% of Iraqis opposed political parties in the ABC poll in February, largely because of the heritage of the Baath.

• More Iraqis support a strong leader as an interim solution than ‘‘democracy,’’

although no one is clear on who such a strong leader will be.

• No Iraqi leader is as yet organizing for the series of elections to come, aggressively trying to create popular political parties, or making efforts to capture the

media. The peaceful political struggles necessary to create the groundwork for

democracy are being subordinated to political struggles within the IGC, efforts

to game Ibrahimi’s political efforts, and challenges from the outside.

• Many potential Iraqi leaders have every reason to fear losing in the coming

struggle for power, and no clear plans exist to coopt the Sunni insurgents and

Shi’ite ‘‘Sadrs’’ into the system. Hostile areas and factions are largely excluded

from the political process under the illusion they are too small to really matter.

The US still seems to be trying to stage-manage the creation of a secular democracy of friendly moderates, but true legitimacy is the government Iraqis

want, not the one the US and Western reformers want.

• There is no meaningful chance of ‘‘security first.’’ The political and nation building process will almost certainly have to go on in the midst of terrorism and

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low intensity conflict through 2006. Elections will be extremely difficult, hostile

areas will continue to exist, and governance will be under continued attack.

• The rush to create Iraqi armed forces and security forces suitable for a post conflict Iraq has left tens of thousands of untrained and poorly equipped men recruited locally on an ethnic, religious, and tribal basis. No clear plan seems to

exist for giving them the training, equipment, and facilities they need on a

timely basis. The rule of law is erratic and often local.

• Politics may fascinate politicians, but Iraqis live with governance. The creation

of 25-27 functioning ministries, governorates, and urban governments will affect

every aspect of daily life and security. The plans to create effective governance

will lag far behind the transfer of sovereignty on June 30—and extend well into

the winter of 2004 and beyond.

A CLASSIC MILITARY SOLUTION CANNOT WORK

In retrospect, the US might have been far better off to act decisively in hot pursuit in both Fallujah and in dealing with Sadr. Certainly, the military effort and

the causalities would have been far smaller, the political momentum of support for

the insurgents would not have had time to build, and any criticism would have been

tempered with reluctance to challenge the US again. That was then, however, and

this is now.

The US can defeat any given group of Iraqi insurgents and largely secure any

area it occupies with sufficient strength. However, any military solution that involves serious combat with a Sunni or Shi’ite faction is now likely to be the kind

of ‘‘victory’’ that creates a new firestorm over excessive force, civilian casualties, and

collateral damage. At the same time, the US cannot hope to use such combat to kill

or arrest all of the Sunni, Shi’ite, and foreign insurgents that exist now and many

tactical victories are likely to create more insurgents than they destroy. As the US

learned in Vietnam, tactical military victory without political victory is large irrelevant.

As in Vietnam, the US also cannot afford to loose the largest ethnic faction. In

Vietnam, the US arguably lost the war when it lost the Buddhists. In Iraq, the key

is to avoid losing the Shi’ites. Any US arrest or killing of Sadr at this point means

creating an instant martyr that will have a powerful impact on many young Shi’ites

in Iraq, and militant Shi’ites all over the world—pushing them towards some form

of alignment with Sunni insurgents. A serious fight from a now cold start against

a well-organized resistance in Najaf would be a disaster, triggering much broader

Shi’ite alignments against the US.

WHAT THE US SHOULD DO NOW IN IRAQ

At this point, the US lacks good options—although it probably never really had

them in the sense the Bush Administration sought. The option of quickly turning

Iraq into a successful, free market democracy was never practical, and was as absurd a neoconservative fantasy as the idea that success in this objective would magically make Iraq an example that would transform the Middle East.

The key to the success the US can now hope to achieve is to set realistic objectives. In practice, these objectives are to create an Iraqi political structure that will

minimize the risk of civil war, develop some degree of pluralism, and help the Iraqis

take charge over their own economy.

This, in turn, means a major shift from trying to maintain US influence and leverage in a post sovereignty period to a policy where the US makes every effort to

turn as much of the political, aid, and security effort over to Iraqis as soon as possible, and focuses on supporting the UN in creating the best compromises possible

in creating Iraqi political legitimacy.

The US should not abandon Iraq, but rather abandon the effort to create an Iraq

in its own image.

Other measures are:

• Accept the fact that a universal, nation-wide ‘‘security first’’ policy is stupid and

impractical.

The US needs to isolate and bypass islands of resistance, and focus on creating a legitimate Iraqi government that can unify Iraqis and allow nation

building to work. This means relying on containment in the case of truly troubled and high insurgent areas, and focusing on security in friendly areas.

• Accept the fact there is no way to ‘‘drain the swamp.’’

At this point, there simply is no way to eliminate cadres of insurgents or to

disarm the most threatening areas. Fallujah and similar areas have too much

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popular support for the insurgents, there are too many arms that can be hidden, and too many points of vulnerability. This does not mean the US should

give up fighting the insurgents or its efforts to disarm them. It does mean the

US must accept that it cannot win in the sense of eliminating them or turning

hostile areas into secure and disarmed areas.

• Rush aid to the Iraqi security forces and military seeking more friendly Arab aid

in training and support, and provide as broad a base of Iraqi command as possible.

Forget contract regulations on buying equipment. Deliver everything necessary and worry about the details later.

• Continue expanding the role of the Iraqi security forces.

Understand that their loyalties will be divided, that putting them in charge

of hostile areas does not mean they can be expected to do more than work out

a modus vivendi with the insurgents, and that the end result will often be to

create ‘‘no go’’ or limited access areas for Americans. The US cannot afford to

repeat the Israeli mistake of assuming that any Iraqi authority in hostile areas

can be counted on to provide security for Americans.

• Walk firmly and openly away from the losers in the IGC like Chalabi.

Open up the political structure and deal with Shi’ite oppositionists, Sunni insurgents, ex-Ba’athists to the maximum degree possible. Drag in as many nonIGC leaders as possible, and give Ibrahimi’s council idea the strongest possible

support. Lower the US profile in shaping the political future of Iraq as much

as possible and bring in as broad a UN international team as possible.

• Focus on all of the Shi’ites, not just the friendly ones.

Make this a critical aspect of US diplomatic efforts. Let the Iraqi Shi’ites deal

with Sadr and stay out of internal Shi’ite disputes, except to help insure security. Quietly reach out to Iran to create whatever kind of dialogue is possible.

• Push Sunni Arab states into helping Iraq’s Sunnis and in helping to deal with

the political issues involved.

Quietly make it clear that they will have to live with the aftermath of failure

and that the US presence and commitment is not open-ended.

• Zero-base the failed contracting effort for FY2004 US aid.

Put Iraqi Ministries and officials in charge of the aid process as soon as possible, with Iraqis going into the field and not foreign contractors. Accept the fact

that it is far better to move more slowly and imperfectly on Iraqi terms, with

some degree of Iraqi corruption, than to waste billions more on security, failed

US projects, and immense overhead costs.

• Reprogram funds for a massive new CERP program to enable US military commanders to use dollars instead of bullets at every opportunity.

Make the focus of US control over aid whether Iraqis spend the money honestly and effectively, and not on US control, plans, and objectives.

• Zero-base the US embassy plan to create the smallest staff practical of proven

area experts.

Give the clear message to the Iraqis that not only are they going to be in

charge, but non-performance means no US money and no continuation of US

troops and support. End the image of a US end of an occupation after the occupation.

• Develop a long-term economic and military aid program as leverage to try to influence Iraqi decision making over time.

Have the ministries manage the process, not USAID or contractors. Focus on

whether the Iraqi efforts are honest and produce real results. Do not try to use

aid to force Iraq into US modes and methods.

• Accept the near total failure of US information operations.

Stop giving all CPA/CJTF-7 press conferences, and put an Iraqi on the stage

with the US spokesmen. Stop all procounsel-like press conferences where the

US seems to be dictating. Make an Iraqi spokesman part of all dialogue, and

give them the lead as soon as possible. Subordinate US and Coalition spokesmen as soon as possible to Iraqis in press conferences and briefings that are

held in Arabic.

• Look at the broader failures of US policy in the region.

Revitalize the Road Map and the Quartet in the light of Sharon’s problems.

Deal with the reality that there are two failed sets of political elites in the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that settlements should be unacceptable and not

just terrorism.

• Abandon the Greater Middle East Initiative in its present form.

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Do not add another strategic and policy blunder to the present situation by

appearing to call for regime change and seeking to dominate the region. Focus

on a broad cooperative initiative worked out with the EU and where the EU

puts pressure on the Arab League. Stop talking about region-wide democracy

and liberty before there are responsible political parties and the other reforms

necessary to make democracy work. Focus on a country-by-country approach to

reform that considers human rights, economic welfare, and demographic issues

to be at least as important as elections. Stress cooperation in ‘‘evolution;’’ not

random efforts at ‘‘revolution.’’

Prepare for the fact that nation building may still fail, and position the US to use

the threat of withdrawal as leverage. Make it clear that the US can and will leave

Iraq if the Iraqis do not reach agreement on an effective interim solution and if they

do not proceed with reasonable unity to implement the UN plans.

The US position should be that the US is ready to help an Iraq that will help

itself, and that it supports a true transfer of sovereignty. It should make it clear

to Iraq and the world, however, that the US has a clear exit strategy. It has no interest in bases or control over Iraqi oil. It has no reason to stay if Iraq become unstable, devolves into civil war, or ends up under a strong man. The US can live with

a weak or unstable Iraq, and Iraq still will have to export oil at market prices and

will still be far less of a threat than Saddam’s Iraq.

AVOID STRATEGIC OVERREACH

One final reality—the image of a quick and decisive victory is almost always a

false one, but it is still the image many Americans want and expect. One thousand

or more dead in Iraq is hardly Vietnam, but it must be justified and explained, and

explained honestly—not in terms of the ephemeral slogans. The budget rises and

supplements of the last few years are also likely to be the rule and not the exception

America may well have to spend another one percent of its GNP on sustained combat and international intervention overseas than any American politician is willing

to admit.

America faces hard political choices, and they are going to take exceptional leadership and courage in both an election year and the decades to come. They require

bipartisanship of a kind that has faded since the Cold War, and neither neo-conservative nor neo-liberal ideology can help. Moreover, America’s think tanks and media

are going to have to move beyond sound bites and simple solutions, just as will

America’s politicians and military planners. Put differently, it not only is going to

be a very tough year, it is going to be a very tough decade.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Cordesman, for,

first of all, the very comprehensive statement you have submitted

to the committee. It is a remarkable document, and likewise we appreciate the very strong summary you have given this morning.

I want to call now on General Joseph Hoar, the former Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command. It is a

privilege to have you again, General Hoar. Would you please proceed.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL JOSEPH P. HOAR, USMC (RET.),

FORMER COMMANDER IN CHIEF, UNITED STATES CENTRAL

COMMAND

General HOAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, members of the committee. It is an honor once again to be here to testify before you today.

If you will recall in August 2002, when I spoke to you last, I indicated that I was in favor of regime change in Iraq but not under

the conditions or at the time suggested for the overthrow of the

Saddam Hussein government. My view about the inadvisability of

the war against Iraq remains unchanged. However, now that we

find the facts on the ground as they are, I am convinced that we

must stay, continue to take all necessary means, and turn this very

serious situation around.

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My remarks this morning can be divided into three broad areas:

first, a brief review of the events of the past year as a means of

setting the stage for my second topic, which is what needs to be

done, and finally, a discussion about the region, what is going on

in the Arab and Muslim world and what are our options.

In the past year, we have seen enormous successes and abysmal

failures in Iraq. The offensive campaign conducted to overthrow

Saddam Hussein was a brilliant military success carried out by the

finest armed forces in the world. The young men and women who

captured Baghdad did a masterful job. However, even as that superbly conducted operation was unfolding, it became apparent that

there were not enough troops on the ground to perform all the necessary tasks. Not only were we not capable of adequately securing

supply lines, but when we reached Baghdad, there were no reserves to exploit the great success that had been achieved by the

3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division. The resulting

looting, the destruction, and the failure to protect property and to

secure Iraqi weapons and ammunition have had profound consequences in the past year.

This reconstruction phase that began after the seizure of Baghdad has been characterized by poor planning and frequently poor

execution. Indicative of this is the amateurish way in which the

CPA dealt with the Iraqi Army. First, we dismissed them. Then we

hired them back and then sent them home. And now we have come

full circle and are about to embark on hiring former members of

the Iraqi Army to return and go to work.

The progress on the development of the country has been poor.

Political issues have been handled with characteristic lack of sensitivity, and we find continued reliance on people like Mr. Chalabi

who, from the start, has been untrustworthy, who has continued to

demonstrate his inability to contribute to our success. Until recently, we continued to pay him and his people over $300,000 a

month. Incidentally, I read on the Internet this morning that there

is a new group emerging in Baghdad today which has aligned Mr.

Chalabi with the Iraqi Hezbollah representative. We have come

that far.

This month, unfortunately, has been capped by the tragedy of the

Abu Ghraib prison. Faced with these difficulties, the questions we

must deal with are how serious is this and what can be done. My

answer to these questions is that it is gravely serious but not necessarily terminal. But we need a fast turnaround and we need to

begin right away.

My concerns are that the policy people in both Washington and

Baghdad have demonstrated their inability to do the job on a dayto-day basis this past year. It seems to me that a year is more than

enough to give people an opportunity to show how well they perform. I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are

looking into the abyss. We cannot start soon enough to begin the

turnaround.

The first step is to designate the Department of State as the lead

agency. Since the end of offensive combat, the emphasis should

have shifted to political concerns in Iraq. What is required of the

military is to support the political objectives. Success in a counterinsurgency operation is based on three elements: security, political

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activity, and development. Security and development support the

overall political objective.

We need a U.N. Security Council resolution which will provide

legitimacy to our operations in Iraq under the provisions of chapter

7 of the U.N. Charter.

We need the participation of NATO. It is fundamental to broaden

the base of support and to give countries that might have joined

us an opportunity to assist with troops, to assist politically and perhaps financially as well.

Finally, we need the Iraqis to be involved and to be more visible.

We need to turn the transition from CPA to the new government

over to the U.N. We need to take special care that those members

of the interim government authority who have not played a positive

role in the government thus far be excluded from serving in the interim government.

We need to give military commanders on the ground adequate

troops to provide for the security throughout the country, even if

it disrupts the current plans for rotation of troops in the future.

Until we are able to demonstrate a credible ability to provide security to the country, it will be difficult to achieve our political objectives.

Within Iraq, the NATO governing apparatus will assure that

military operations are in keeping with our overall objectives. Offensive operations should be used sparingly. Those areas that are

considered too dangerous or too politically sensitive to enter can be

isolated and bypassed. As in all successful counter-insurgency operations, intelligence is key. Offensive operations not based on hard

intelligence will cause excessive damage and will not further our

interests. The kind of human intelligence that is necessary to act

promptly and decisively must come from the Iraqis themselves and

can only be developed with the formation of an Iraqi intelligence

service.

Today I am told that U.S. civilian government officials assigned

to Iraq sometimes are there for 6 months or even, in some cases,

for as little as 3-month periods. The lesson of Vietnam was that it

is not practical to assign people to these kinds of duties for less

than 18 months. If we are to gain some degree of continuity in the

cities and towns around the country, we need to have political officers that are there for the long haul. And if they cannot be provided, from the civilian force, then they should be assigned out of

the military. In this regard, we need to get contractors out of the

development process and put together the rules that will allow the

military to disburse money, to put people to work in the cities and

in the countryside.

Last June, shortly after the military victory and the overthrow

of Saddam Hussein’s government, I had dinner with an old friend,

Nizar Hamdoon. Members of this committee perhaps remember

Nizar. He had been the Iraqi Ambassador to the United States and

during the 1990–1991 war was the Iraqi Ambassador to the United

Nations. Nizar was ill and was in the United States undergoing

medical treatment. He passed away on the 4th of July last year.

When I asked him what the American forces needed to do in order

to successfully complete the transition from Saddam Hussein’s regime to democracy, he said three things: provide security, services,

33

and jobs. And if we did those three things, we would have the support of the Iraqi people.

I am convinced, more than ever, that Nizar Hamdoon was right.

This is the yardstick. We need to take the time, the money, and

the resources to make sure that in those three areas of endeavor,

we are doing all that we need to do.

Finally, with respect to the region, you will recall when I was

here last, I spoke about our failure to define the nature of this war

and that terrorism was a manifestation of a far more complex and

potentially dangerous dynamic. In nearly 2 years that have passed

since that time, our government has done a reasonably good job

against al-Qaeda. Had we not lost our focus and invaded Iraq, I

suspect we would have done a better job, but as a result of the Iraq

invasion, I believe the United States is even less secure than it was

in August 2002. Today al-Qaeda is not only a threat, we now have

home grown, independent mujahedin showing up in Iraq, in Europe, in Africa, Southeast Asia, and even North America. The

threat is more diffuse and it is certainly every bit as dangerous.

As we look to the future, we are now paying the price for not focusing our attention on the 1.2 billion Muslims around the world.

We are, through our actions and our lack of sensitivity, turning

good, hardworking Muslims around the world against us. As a government, we continue to be insensitive to the fact that what we say

in Washington and what is being done in Baghdad, Gaza, and

Kabul reverberates in Sibu, in Jakarta, Casablanca, yes, and in

Marseilles and in Buffalo, New York as well. We are on the verge

of losing the battle of public diplomacy for the fight for the hearts

and minds is now in the last phase and it is getting worse by the

day.

The support of the President of the United States for the Israeli

Prime Minister regarding withdrawal from Gaza, ending the right

of return of Palestinians, and the status of 1967 borders without

input from the Palestinian people was considered an outrage by

Muslims the world over. When coupled with the disclosures of our

Abu Ghraib prison, it consisted of a one-two punch that has

brought us to our knees. It is not al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya’s fault

that we are badly portrayed in the Muslim world. It is our fault

because our message has been inconsistent, legalistic, and Western

in its orientation. We cannot win the war of ideas if our ideas are

no good.

Finally, we are fighting a counter-insurgency as if it were being

conducted in Iowa. We are advised by opportunists, frauds, and the

ill-informed. Until leaders, both civilian and military, are advised

by the people that know Iraq and its culture, its history and that

of its neighbors, we will repeat the same mistakes that we have

made in the past year and those of the British who occupied Iraq

after World War I.

The eyes of the whole world have been on us for the past year

and a half as we prepared for and went to war. Aside from the extraordinary success and coverage of the armed services men and

women in battle, we have little we can be proud of. Is this what

our Founding Fathers had in mind? Is this what the world has

come to expect from the city on the hill? I hope not. I deeply believe

that this country can do a better job.

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, General Hoar.

You mentioned the need of the committee and the public to heed

voices that understand the culture and the politics of Iraq, and we

have such a witness next in the batting order. Dr. Phebe Marr, author and former senior fellow at the National Defense University,

has been with us on several occasions during these hearings. We

appreciate your return and we would love to hear your testimony

presently, Dr. Marr.

STATEMENT OF DR. PHEBE MARR, FORMER SENIOR FELLOW,

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY

Dr. MARR. Senator Lugar, Senator Biden, thank you very much

for having me again. I hope I can offer you at least something that

is new. I have to say that in most respects I agree with my colleagues on the platform.

I have submitted a longer statement. I will try to summarize

some of the main points in it.

Until April, the situation in Iraq seemed to be relatively evenly

balanced between the bad news of insurgency and some good news

on the political and economic front, but the events since then have

delivered a crushing blow to our credibility. I believe we are in a

crisis situation which needs rapid attention and strong nerves. Policymakers must put their heads together and address three broad

questions.

Are these setbacks decisive, a critical turning point which has so

affected American credibility in Iraq and the world, that it can no

longer take the lead in rebuilding Iraq? If so, how fast should it

turn over to others, in what areas, and to whom?

Second, as we turn over greater authority to the Iraqis, what are

our minimal interests that must be satisfied?

And third, as we view the scene in Iraq, what potential outcomes

are likely over the medium to long term? What is the worst case

and how do we prevent it? What is the most realistic best case and

how do we encourage it?

Of course, I cannot answer these questions definitively. I will

make a few suggestions on the first two and then try to deal in a

little more detail with the third, which is more in my area of expertise.

What about the point of no return? I would caution three things.

Do not panic. Take the long view. We should not be misled or sidetracked by all these instant polls which show the Iraqis want us

out now. All indications are that Iraqis show intense and increasing dislike of occupation. What a surprise! But they also fear a precipitous pullout of our forces. Iraqis want better management of the

transition, not a ‘‘cut and run’’ policy. We need to remember that

the Iraqi project is a long distance race, not a spectacular high

jump.

Second, a piece of advice few will follow. Turn off the TV, listen

to Iraqis on the ground in developing intelligence and assessments.

There is nothing like hands-on, ground-level human intelligence.

Iraqis may give you a different view.

When I was in the gulf in April, admittedly before the downturn

in events, I was surprised in talking to Iraqis quietly in my living

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room. They had come back from Iraq, they had children there.

They were all more optimistic about their future than I was. Now,

events have subsequently taken a downturn, but we need to remember these views.

And third, something that I think will address one of Senator

Biden’s questions, the U.S. needs to remember that it faces a long

historical and cultural pattern in Iraqi thinking. Most Iraqis are

schizophrenic in their attitude to outside influences, and there is

nothing new in that. They have always had a strong streak of nationalism, a desire for independence. Under Saddam they were isolated from the outside world and had little experience of cooperation with outside powers. But most Iraqis also want what America

and the West have to offer: economic prosperity, openness to the

outside, and a modern future. To move in this direction and rebuild

their lives, they will need to cooperate with outsiders, especially

the United States. And they will have to pay the price of taking

more responsibility for their future and not just complaining and

looking to others.

The U.S. also has the problem of incompatible aims: turning an

occupation into liberation. The U.S. claims it wants democracy in

Iraq, but it also has some well-known interests and objectives.

What if a freely elected Iraqi government does not agree? We need

to think through now, publicly, what our minimal aims and interests are in Iraq. In broad terms, I would say they are three: a state

free of terrorism, a state free of weapons of mass destruction, and

a government, if not friendly, at least not hostile to the U.S. and

Israel. And I would make it very clear we have no long-term designs on military bases or control of oil in Iraq.

This does not preclude the U.S. trying for more maximalist aims.

Such as working with Iraqis on building a more stable, prosperous,

democratic regime, so long as this is done with a good dose of realism. And in doing so, we must lower our expectations and our rhetoric and theirs.

Now, what are some realistic scenarios, worst case, best case?

How do we prevent the former and encourage the latter?

Iraq is now engaged in two profound and wrenching struggles.

One is an identity crisis. The key question here is whether there

is an overarching Iraqi identity, and if so, what is its basis? I believe there is but it has been badly battered and needs nurturing.

The second more immediate question is a struggle for power,

which is critical. This struggle encompasses ethnic and sectarian

groups, but also political parties with differing outlooks and orientations and individuals with patronage networks. Right now

these groups are focused on the United States and the Governing

Council, but if our presence is removed, they are going to be focused on one another.

These struggles will not be resolved easily. If they take place

peaceably, we will have something like democracy. If not, we will

have civil conflict. Civil conflict will erode the fragile authority of

the central government and the state, creating my definition of the

worst case scenario, a failed state.

In my submitted statement, I have gone into some detail on ethnic and sectarian differences, political parties, and the nature of

this power struggle which I cannot go into here. Suffice it to say,

36

however, that none of these communities—Kurds, Arab Sunnis or

Shi’a—is homogeneous. The pattern in Iraq is of a mosaic of

groups, not clear-cut ethic and sectarian fragmentation.

Given these circumstances, what outcomes can we expect in Iraq

over the next 5 years or so? Let me deal with the worst case scenario, the breakdown of the state to a point beyond which we could

not reconstitute it. This process is underway, but it is by no means

irreparable, and we want to prevent it from reaching such a point.

A number of pundits and analysts have advanced the notion that

Iraq might break up into three component parts: a Kurdish north,

and Arab Sunni or mixed center, and a Shi’a south. They pose a

potential civil war between and among these groups, Kurds versus

Arabs, Shi’a versus Sunnis. Some are even asking whether the

Iraqi state or Iraqi identity has already disappeared and we should

be thinking about managing a separation as in the former Yugoslavia.

The answer to this question should be a resounding no. Our government is officially on record as supporting the territorial integrity of Iraq. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis do not want their

state divided. Moreover, Iraq is not likely to break up into three

distinct ethnic and sectarian parts with clear boundaries between

them. There are too many demographic frontiers which would be

very difficult to separate. Unscrambling these areas in any divide

would be a nightmare.

Nor is there any evidence yet of ethnic and sectarian warfare on

the ground. Kurds are not fighting Arabs. Shi’a are not fighting

Sunnis. On the contrary, in the face of increasing violence and extraordinary provocation, including attempts to incite civil war,

Iraq’s communal leaders have shown a clear awareness of the

threat, a firm commitment to avoid it, and so far considerable discipline in reining in their constituents.

The more plausible scenario we face for a failed state is the

breakdown of a weak and fragile central government unable to exercise control over the country, with something of a vacuum at the

center. Without a cohesive Iraqi Army or police force, local militias

are taking root. This is not yet warlordism, but it could begin to

resemble it. In any ensuing struggle for power, it is these groups

led by extremists who may engage in fighting several different civil

wars. These could destroy the potential for a buildup of the new

government at the center. That is the bad scenario.

What would be a good scenario that is realistic and achievable?

That is more difficult to predict. It depends on Iraqi desires and a

willingness to compromise and their ability to surmount the zero

sum political game. Any such scenario will take 5 to 10 years to

produce. It will not be achieved on June 30 or even next year.

But one can speculate on the outlines. It would provide a mechanism—a constitution, elections—to create and strengthen a central

government that would be representative of most, but not all

Iraqis; and second, and most important in my opinion, be able to

govern. This is going to involve wrenching compromises between

Kurds and Arabs and among those who want more and those who

want less religion in their lives.

To reach this state, we should be encouraging negotiations and

alliances between and among various factions and an open political

37

process which is already underway. Who will dominate this government and how power will be distributed is up to the Iraqis to decide, but it is not impossible that something better will eventually

come out of this process. We just cannot predict exactly what it will

be.

How do we make this happen? Our ability to change Iraq is limited, but we can encourage a positive outcome. I have six steps I

would suggest.

I think we need to change the subject and stop talking about civil

war, division of Iraq, Shi’a, Sunnis, Kurds. These identities are realities, but it would be best to downplay them. The same is true

for tribalism. In the short term, to achieve security, we may need

to work with these groups, but over the long term, we need to hold

out a vision for a more modern Iraq which I believe has broad appeal in Iraq.

Second, I believe there is an Iraqi identity espoused by the majority—the silent majority—of Iraqis. We need to begin to work

with groups who are committed to this identity. We should identify

areas where pluralism is working and expand these zones of peace

and cooperation. And there are a number of them in Iraq: Hilla,

Mosul, Basra, and the north.

Third—and this is the most important point I want to make—

the U.S. and the coalition should be focusing on economic development and the prosperity of Iraqis. To quote a phrase used in a previous campaign, ‘‘It’s the economy, stupid.’’ This includes the development of a small and medium-sized business class, jobs for the

lower classes and the poor, and protection for workers. At the middle level, things have improved for educated professionals who are

working and have more money. Every single Iraqi I talked to reminded me of this. The middle class is out spending this money,

helping merchants at the lower level. We need to strengthen this

trend. Rather than concentrating so much on elections and representation, we ought to be concentrating on delivering services because that is what Iraqis are used to, that is what they expect. It’s

the economy, jobs.

Fourth, our strategy should be to strengthen, support, and rebuild Iraq’s middle class. While this class has been greatly weakened, it is still present in Iraq. It should be the backbone of the

new Iraqi state. The middle class can be nourished by the IraqiAmerican community from outside, by funds which help businessmen, and by contacts which strengthen educated professionals. The

middle class in Iraq has always been the repository of modernism,

secularism, and national identity. If this class is strengthened, in

time it will mitigate the tendencies toward ethnic and sectarian

separatism, tribalism, and Islamic fundamentalism. It is, of course,

also the mainstay of democratic society.

Fifth, the United States should continue to open Iraqi society to

the outside, encouraging professionals, businessmen, and others to

participate in the international economy and society.

Last, the United States should be encouraging civic and political

groups in Iraq which cut across, rather than reinforce, ethnic, sectarian, and tribal lines. Iraq has a long tradition among its urban,

educated community of doing this. We need to strengthen this

38

trend. The middle class has lost its voice. We need to help them

regain it.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Marr follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. PHEBE MARR

Up until April, the situation in Iraq seemed evenly balanced between the bad

news of the insurgency and some good news on the political and economic fronts.

But the events since then have delivered a crushing blow to our credibility. I believe

we are a crisis situation which needs rapid attention and strong nerves. Policy makers must seriously address three broad future-oriented questions.

1. Are these set-backs decisive—a critical turning point which has so affected

US credibility in Iraq—and the world—that it can no longer take the lead in

rebuilding Iraq? If so, how fast should it turn over to others? In what areas?

And to whom?

2. As we turn over greater authority to Iraqis, what are the minimal US interests that must be satisfied?

3. What potential outcomes are likely in Iraq—over the medium to long term?

What is the worst case and how do we prevent it? What is the most realistic

best case and how do we encourage it?

I cannot answer these questions definitely, but will try to make a few suggestions

on the first two and deal in more detail on the third question which is more in my

area of expertise.

A POINT OF NO RETURN?

On the first question: Does the current crisis represent a point of no return? I

would caution the following.

• Don’t panic. Take the long view. We should not be misled or sidetracked by all

these instant polls which show that Iraqis want us out now. All indications are

that Iraqis show intense and increasing dislike of occupation—entirely predictable—but also fear a precipitous pull out of our forces. Iraqis want better management of the transition—not a ‘‘cut and run’’ policy. The Iraq project is a long

distance race; not a spectacular high jump.

• Turn off the TV. Listen to Iraqis on the ground in Iraq in developing intelligence and assessments. They may give you a different view. A number of private conversations I have recently had with Iraqis living in the Gulf—admittedly in April—greatly surprised me. They were more optimistic about Iraq’s future than I was.

• The US should remember it faces a long historical and cultural pattern in Iraqi

thinking. Many, indeed most Iraqis are almost schizophrenic in their attitude

to outside influences. On the one hand, they have a strong streak of nationalism

and a desire for independence. Under Saddam, most Iraqis were isolated from

the outside and had little experience of cooperation with outside powers. But,

most Iraqis also want what America and the West have to offer—economic prosperity; openness to the outside and a modern future. To move in this direction,

to rebuild their lives and their futures, they will need to cooperate with outsiders, especially the US. They will also have to pay the price of taking more

responsibility for their future and not just complaining and looking to others.

U.S. AIMS AND INTERESTS

The US also has a problem of incompatible aims: turning an occupation into liberation. The US claims it wants democracy in Iraq. At the same time, the US has

some well known interests and objectives it wants in the region. But what if a freely

elected Iraqi government does not agree? We need to think through, publicly, what

our minimal aims and interests are in Iraq. In broad terms, my list would include

three:

A state free of terrorism

A state free of weapons of mass destruction

A government, if not friendly, at least not hostile to the US and Israel

I would make clear we have no long term designs on:

Military bases

39

Control over oil

This does not preclude trying for more maximalist aims, working with Iraqis on

the building blocks for a stable, prosperous, democratic regime—with a heavy dose

of realism. In doing so, we need to lower our expectations—and theirs.

FUTURE SCENARIOS

What are some realistic scenarios? Worst case? Best case? How do we prevent the

former; encourage the latter:

Iraq is now engaged in two profound and wrenching struggles. One is an identity

crisis. The Ba’th defined what it meant to be an Iraqi for over three decades. That

definition has been destroyed. A new one is now in gestation. The key question here

is whether there is an overarching Iraqi identity, and if so, what is its basis? I believe there is, but it has been badly battered and needs to be nurtured.

Iraq is also engaged in a divisive but critical power struggle. This struggle encompasses ethnic and sectarian groups, but also political parties with differing outlooks

and orientations and individuals with patronage networks. Right now these groups

are focused on the US and the IGC which it has selected. But if our presence is

removed, they will focus on one another.

These struggles will not be resolved easily. If they take place peaceably, we will

have democracy. But if not, we will have civil conflict. These will erode the fragile

authority of the central government—and the state, creating my definition of the

worst case scenario—a failed state.

In my written testimony I have looked at the three main ethnic and sectarian

communities in Iraq—Arab sunnis, Arab shi’ah and Kurds and the multiple divisions within their communities and well as political groupings within them. I can

only touch on these briefly here. Suffice it to say, that none of these communities

is homogeneous... This pattern shows a mosaic of groups, not clear cut ethnic

and sectarian fragmentation.

The Arab sunnis have never identified on a sectarian basis; they are best understood as the WASPs of Iraq, a political elite. As is well known, they are the main

losers in the change of regime, mainly because of the extent to which they have

been Ba’thized. But the community has many differences which shape their views.

Many of the sunnis in the so-called triangle come from small towns; they have

strong tribal and clan ties; are generally more traditional and conservative and

many have imbibed strong Arab nationalist sentiments. These groups will be the

most difficult to integrate into the new Iraq.

In recent years a new spirit of fundamentalist Islam has grown among sunnis in

Iraq, coming from elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and from the Salifi movement (often called Wahhabis). This has added a fundamentalist Islamic identity to

the mix.

However there is another broad category of Arab sunnis who are urban and inhabit large, mixed cities like Baghdad, Mosul and Basra. They form the backbone

of Iraq’s educated middle class; most are secular and many were educated abroad.

Some may be nationalist in orientation but others are sitting on the fence and need

to be integrated into the new order.

The main problem of the sunnis is Bathism and a pattern of political entitlement,

not a sectarian identity.

The Kurds will be the most difficult to reintegrate into a new Iraq for well known

reasons, including self-rule for the past 13 years. But it is far from impossible.

Kurds have played an important role in Iraq in the past and they can again. Indeed,

they are doing so today. However the Kurds themselves are far less homogeneous

than they appear. The two Kurdish parties have deep historical divisions between

them. Although both are now cooperating, neither has dissolved their separate governments. There are other limits to Kurdish demands for semi-independence. Iraq’s

neighbors will not tolerate it and will meddle in domestic politics in the north. The

Kurdish militias cannot control their borders; they will need US forces to protect

them—permanently. The PKK is nested all along the northern border with Turkey.

Worse, in PUK territory the PUK lost control of its border with Iraq near Haibja

which came under the control of a radical Islamic group, Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate

of al-Qa’ida which is now causing us so much trouble. The Kurds cannot create a

flourishing, independent economy without control over oil resources. And the Kurds

have their own ethnic minorities—Turkman, Christians—who do not want to be absorbed into a truncated mini-state in the north. Lastly there are Kurdish tribal

groups, some of whom have been working closely with us, who offer a more flexible

approach to integration in the new Iraq.

The shi’ah population is not homogeneous either. At least a third is thoroughly

secular, and has lost much of its sectarian identity. Many of these joined secular

40

parties, especially the Communist and even the Ba’th Party. Another portion of the

community is moderately religious. This group would follow shi’ah religious clerics

on religious matters but not necessarily on politics. Only a minority of shi’ah favor

more radical shi’ah leadership, like Muqtada al-Sadr, who espouses a clerically led

state. Two political groups represent portions of the shi’ah community and both are

currently cooperating with the US in the IGC. One is the Da’wah Party, whose representative, Ibrahim al-Ja’fari is said to be one of the most popular leaders in Iraq.

The second is SCIRI, which had, and probably still has, strong influence from Iran.

Both parties have disavowed the Iranian policy of clerical rule and espoused democracy, but it is not clear how firm that commitment is; both will push for more, rather than less, Islamic law in Iraq. More important than the parties is shi’ah clerical

leadership, but this is far from uniform. Competition among such families, including

the Sadrs, the Hakims and the Khuis, has been acute, including violence. Clerics

also differ on interpretations of scripture and the role of clerics in the state. Lastly,

shi’ah, especially in rural areas, have strong tribal affiliations which undercuts

shi’ah identity. In any future government of Iraq in which shi’ah gain a majority,

it is not clear which of the shi’ah elements will predominate. Nor is there any indication of separatism among either the shi’ah or the Arab sunnis. The shi’ah consider

themselves Iraqi and Arab, as well as shi’ah and want to dominate government in

all of Iraq.

OUTCOMES

Under these circumstances, what outcomes can be expected in Iraq over the next

five years or so? Let me deal first with the worst-case scenario—a break down of

the Iraqi state and its national institutions to a point beyond which they could not

be reconstituted. This process is underway, but it is by no means irreparable; we

want to prevent it from reaching such a point. A number of pundits and analysts

have recently advanced the notion that Iraqi might break-up into three component

parts—a Kurdish north, an Arab sunni or mixed center, and a shi’ah south; they

pose a potential ‘‘civil war’’ among these groups—Kurds vs. Arabs; shi’ah versus

sunnis. Some are even asking whether the Iraqi state—or Iraqi identity—has already disappeared and we should be thinking about managing a separation—as in

the former Yugoslavia.

The answer to this question should be a resounding ‘‘no’’. Our government is officially on record as supporting the territorial integrity of Iraq. The overwhelming

majority of Iraqis do not want their state divided. Moreover, Iraq is not likely to

‘‘break-up’’ into three distinct ethnic and sectarian parts with clear boundaries between them. As indicated above, too many areas in Iraq, particularly in the geographic frontiers between these communities, are mixed; the most mixed sector of

Iraq is the Baghdad province which contains a third of Iraq’s population.

Unscrambling these areas in any divide would be a nightmare. Nor is there yet any

evidence of ethnic and sectarian warfare on the ground in Iraq. Kurds are not fighting Arabs; shi’ah are not fighting sunnis. On the contrary. In the face of increasing

violence and extraordinary provocation—including alleged attempts to incite civil

war—Iraq’s communal leaders have shown clear awareness of this threat; a firm

commitment to avoid it; and considerable discipline in reining in their constituents.

The more plausible scenario for a ‘‘failed state’’ is a ‘‘break-down’’, with a weak

and fragile central government, unable to exercise control over the country. Developing indigenous national leadership with some degree of legitimacy in the aftermath of Saddam’s dictatorship has been a major problem of the transition, not likely

to be easily solved. The result has been something of a vacuum at the center. Without an Iraqi Army or police force, local militias are taking root. This is not yet

‘‘warlordism’’ but it could begin to resemble it. In any ensuing struggle for power,

it is these groups, led by extremists, who may engage in fighting several difference

‘‘civil wars’’ which would destroy the potential for building up a new government

at the center.

What would be a good scenario that is realistic and achievable? That is more difficult to predict because it depends on Iraqi desires; their willingness to compromise,

and their ability to get beyond a zero-sum game. Any such scenario will undoubtedly

take 5 to 10 years to produce, but one can speculate on its outlines. It would provide

the mechanism (a constitution; an election) to create and strengthen a central government that would be 1) representative of most Iraqis and 2) able to govern. This

will involve wrenching compromises between Kurds and Arabs and among those

who want more and those who want less religion in daily life. To reach this state,

we should be encouraging negotiations and alliances between and among the various factions and groups and an open political process which is underway. Who will

dominate this government and how power will be distributed is up to the Iraqis to

41

decide. But it is not impossible that something better will, eventually come out of

this process.We just cannot predict exactly what it will be.

How do we make this happen? Our ability to ‘‘change’’ Iraq is limited But we can

encourage this outcome.

1. We need to change the subject, and stop talking about civil war; division

of Iraq, and shi’ah, sunnis, and Kurds. These identities are realities but it

would be best to downplay them . The same is true for tribalism. For the moment, we may need to work with these groups to achieve security, but over the

long term we should hold out a vision of a more modern Iraq which I believe

has broad appeal in Iraq.

2. I believe there is an Iraqi identity, espoused by a silent majority of Iraqis.

We can begin by working with groups who are committed to this identity and

a new Iraq. We should identify areas where pluralism is working and expand

these areas of peace and cooperation.

3. The US and the coalition should be focusing on economic development and

prosperity among Iraqis—including the development of a small and medium

sized business class; jobs for the lower classes and the poor and protection for

workers. At the middle level, things have improved for educated professionals

who are working and have more money. We need to strengthen this trend.

4. Our strategy should be to support, strengthen and rebuild Iraq’s middle

class. While this class has been greatly weakened, it is still present in Iraq. It

should be the backbone of the new Iraqi state. This middle class can be nourished by outside the Iraqi-American community from outside; by funds which

help businessmen, and by contacts which strengthen educated professionals.

The middle class in Iraq has always been the repository of modernism; secularism; and national identity. If this class is strengthened, in time it will mitigate tendencies toward ethnic and sectarian separatism; tribalism; and Islamic

traditionalism .It is also the mainstay of democratic society.

5. The US should continue opening Iraqi society to the outside, encouraging

professionals, businessmen and others to participate in the international economy and society..

6. Lastly, the US should be encouraging civic and political groups in Iraq

which cut across—rather than reinforce—ethnic, sectarian and tribal lines. Iraq

has a long tradition, in its urban, educated community of doing this. We need

to strengthen it. The middle class has lost its voice. We need to help them regain it.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Marr, for your

paper and your presentation.

It is our privilege now to have as a witness Dr. Larry Diamond,

senior fellow of the Hoover Institute. Dr. Diamond.

STATEMENT OF DR. LARRY DIAMOND, SENIOR FELLOW,

HOOVER INSTITUTION

Dr. DIAMOND. Chairman Lugar, Senator Biden, distinguished

members, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the honor you have

bestowed on me by asking me to testify before you today particularly in the presence of these three very distinguished experts who

have preceded me who I think have given very powerful statements, much of which I strongly agree with.

I think it is clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq. We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the

post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction. Although we have done many good things to eliminate

tyranny, to rebuild infrastructure, and to help construct a free and

democratic political system, the overall ineptitude of our mission to

date leaves us and Iraq in a terrible bind. If we withdraw our military forces precipitously in this security vacuum, we will leave the

country at the mercy of a variety of power-hungry militias and

criminal gangs, and Iraq will risk a rapid decent into one or anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
42

other form of civil war. I think Dr. Marr has spoken and written

very insightfully about this. If the current situation persists, we

will continue fighting one form of Iraqi insurgency after another

with too little legitimacy, too little will, and too few resources.

There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and

you cannot withdraw: quagmire. We are not there yet but we are

close.

The only way out of this mess is a combination of robust, precise,

and determined military action to defeat the most threatening antidemocratic insurgency led by Muqtada al-Sadr and his al-Mahdi

army—unfortunately, we are close to doing that—combined with

the political strategy to fill the legitimacy vacuum as rapidly as

possible.

The Bush administration has taken two vital steps in the latter

regard.

First, it has sought to improve the international legitimacy of our

mission and our ability to find a transitional solution that will be

credible and acceptable to most Iraqis by giving the U.N. Special

Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, a leading role in the process. Ambassador Brahimi is an extraordinarily able, imaginative, and fairminded mediator. I could not imagine a better candidate for this

arduous task.

The second essential correct decision of the administration is to

hold to the June 30 deadline for transferring power to an Iraqi Interim Government. One of the few positive things that has been

suppressing Iraqi frustration and even rage over the occupation

has been the prospect of a return to Iraqi sovereignty on June 30

and the promise of elections for a transitional government within

7 months after that. It is vital that we adhere to the June 30 deadline. There is no solution to the dilemma we face that does not put

Iraqis forward to take political leadership responsibility for the

enormous challenges of governance in that country.

We need to embrace a number of other steps that will advance

three key principles: building legitimacy for the transitional program, increasing the efficacy of emergent Iraqi control, and improving the security situation in a more lasting way. I would actually

say, first and foremost, ‘‘It’s security, stupid,’’ because you cannot

get economic development unless you have security. All three of

these goals require an intensive effort at rebuilding the now decimated, fragmented, and demoralized Iraqi state.

Here briefly are my recommendations.

First, disavow any long-term military aspirations in Iraq. We

should declare unambiguously that we will not seek permanent

military bases in Iraq. We are not going to get a treaty from the

Iraqis to approve them anyway.

Second, establish a clear date for the end to military occupation.

We should set a target date for the full withdrawal of American

forces. This may be 3 or 4 years in the future, but setting such a

date will convince Iraqis that we are serious about leaving once the

country is secure.

Third, respond to the concerns about Iraqi detainees which we

have been hearing for months and months now. This is not new.

We need an independent investigation of the treatment of Iraqi detainees with international participation. And we should release as

43

many detainees as possible for whom we do not have specific evidence or a strong and credible suspicion of involvement in insurgent or criminal activity.

Fourth, reorganize and accelerate recruitment and training of

the new Iraqi police and armed forces. Police training in particular

has been an astonishing disaster. There is no hope of avoiding renewed oppression and/or civil war in Iraq unless we can stand up

Iraqi police and armed forces that are independent of party and religious militias and answerable to the new and ultimately democratically elected Iraqi government.

Fifth, proceed vigorously with our plan for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of the principal militias into the police

and armed forces. The most radical and anti-democratic militias,

al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, but others as well, have to be isolated, confronted, defeated, disarmed by force or the credible threat of force.

With the militias of the Kurdish Peshmerga, SCIRI, Da’wa, and

other political parties, that have indicated their willingness to play

in the political game, we need to complete negotiations which have

been underway for months to achieve this DDR effort. Outside of

Kurdistan, which is a special case, militia fighters should be

merged into the new police and armed forces as individuals, not as

organized units with their command structures intact.

Sixth, get more money flowing to our Iraqi allies. We should, in

particular, increase the pay of the Iraqi Army and police to encourage them to sign up and stick with us.

Seventh, make the new Iraqi Interim Government dependent on

some expression of popular consent. Once the consultative assembly is chosen by a large national conference, which is to be indirectly chosen after June 30, that consultative assembly should have

the ability to interpolate the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers,

and even to remove them in the interim government at least

through a constructive vote of no confidence.

Eighth, aim as much as possible for instruments of democratic

control, even in the interim government. I could not agree more

with Dr. Cordesman’s judgment about the Governing Council. If its

members want a place in the interim body, they can seek election

to the consultative assembly.

Ninth, provide for the appointment of an Iraqi Supreme Court

according to the Transitional Administrative Law as soon as there

is a consultative assembly that could confirm the appointments

which are initially to be generated by a higher judicial council,

which is already in place. This is a vital step that we need to take

in order to begin to generate a rule of law.

Tenth, codify the domestic and international arrangements for

Iraq in a new U.N. Security Council resolution, which should recognize the Iraqi Interim Government and whatever temporary status

of forces agreement is reached between the U.S. and that interim

government, hopefully with U.N. mediation or participation. I think

if we do this, we can get the kind of international participation, including NATO participation, that my colleagues have spoken of.

Eleventh, we should do something in this period to acknowledge

the grievances over the Transitional Administrative Law. I helped

to advise on it. It is an extraordinarily impressive, deeply liberal

document, but there are serious grievances over some of the comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
44

promises that were reached. We should emphatically acknowledge

at a minimum that this is only a temporary document and that

Iraqis will be fully free and sovereign to write a new permanent

constitution. Even more negotiations may be necessary over the

annex.

Twelfth, we should invest in supporting moderate secular Shi’a

who draw support from parties, movements, and associations that

do not have muscular militias. Hopefully, a fair process of selection

of national conference participants will put many of these new

faces forward.

Finally, we urgently need to level the political playing field with

respect to political party funding. More independent and democratic political parties, again that do not have militias, that are not

getting massive funding from Iran and Saudi Arabia, are begging

us for support. As soon as an Iraqi independent electoral administration is established, we should help it create a transparent fund

for the support in equal amounts of all political parties that pass

a certain threshold of demonstrated popular support.

In conclusion, for a long time now, it has been clear that the

three great challenges of restoring security, reconstructing the

economy, and rebuilding the system of government are intricately

intertwined. We cannot revive the economy, generate jobs and electricity, and get a new Iraqi government up and functioning unless

we dramatically improve security. But we cannot improve security

unless we have a more credible and legitimate framework for Iraqi

governance. The U.N. mission, working with the CPA, holds out

some promise of progress in the latter regard. But we have a lot

of hard work to do on the security front as well, and we are not

going to get there unless we put some of the worst thugs and spoilers out of business, beginning with the Mahdi army. On both the

security and political fronts, the choices we make and the actions

we take between now and June 30 will have diffuse and lasting

consequences for the future political order in Iraq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Diamond follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. LARRY DIAMOND

Chairman Lugar, Senator Biden, Distinguished Members, Ladies and Gentlemen:

As you all well understand, the United States now faces a perilous situation in

Iraq today. Because of a long catalogue of strategic and tactical blunders, we have

failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-conflict reconstruction. Although we have done many good things to

eliminate tyranny, to rebuild infrastructure, and to help construct a free society and

democratic political system, the overall ineptitude of our mission to date leaves us—

and Iraq—in a terrible bind. If we withdraw our military forces precipitously in this

security vacuum, we will leave the country at the mercy of a variety of power-hungry militias and criminal gangs, and Iraq will risk a rapid descent into one or another form of civil war. If the current situation persists, we will continue fighting

one form of Iraqi insurgency after another with too little legitimacy, too little will,

and too few resources. There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot

win and you cannot withdraw: quagmire. We are not there yet, but we are close.

The scope for a good outcome has been greatly reduced as a result of the two

insurgencies that we now confront in Iraq. One of these, in the Sunni heartland,

has been festering since the end of the war, but has picked up deadly momentum

in recent months and then took on a new ferocity with the grisly murder of the four

American contractors in Fallujah on March 31. The other, in the Shiite heartland,

broke out shortly thereafter when the radical young Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr,

launched a violent uprising after the Americans badly bungled the long-delayed imVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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perative of confronting his violent network. Add to this the awful news of grotesque

humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by our own forces, and you have a profoundly deteriorating and potentially disastrous situation for the United States.

I will not dwell long on how we got to this perilous point, but a few observations

are necessary. In any situation of occupation or imperial dominion, there is always

a tension between control and legitimacy. The less control you have or can impose

as an occupying power, the more you need legitimacy and voluntary cooperation. In

many parts of its colonial empire, Britain addressed this challenge through the system of ‘‘indirect rule,’’ which used local rulers to maintain control and gradually devolved more power through elections and local self-rule. As a result of this, Britain

needed less troops relative to population than other colonial powers. United Nations

peace implementation missions have addressed this problem in part through the

mobilization of international legitimacy, via UN Security Council resolutions, and

in part by developing explicit and transparent timetables for the transfer of power

back to the people through elections. But even in these UN or other international

trustee missions, success has depended in part on the presence of a sufficiently large

and robust international force to keep (and in some instances impose) peace.

In Iraq, we have had too little legitimacy, but also in some ways to little control

as well. We insisted on maintaining full political control from the start, but we did

not have sufficient control on the ground, through adequate military force, to make

our political and administrative control effective. Thus we could not meet popular

expectations for the restoration of security and basic services like water and electricity (though progress we did make on all of those fronts). Because we did not deliver rapidly enough (and it could never truly have been rapidly enough to meet the

inflated public expectations), because it was always an American administrator out

in front decreeing and explaining, and because the Iraqi people did not see new

Iraqi political leaders exercising much effective responsibility, the American-led occupation quickly developed a serious and growing legitimacy deficit.

Many things could have relieved this deficit. For example, if we had pushed more

reconstruction funding out to local military commanders, through the rather effective CERP (Commanders’ Emergency Reconstruction Program) channel, and if we

had given some real authority and funding to the local and provincial councils we

were establishing around the country, Iraqis might have seen more progress and

found emerging new forms of Iraqi authority with which they could identify. We

might have also made more progress by organizing actual elections, however imperfect, at the local level where the people were ready for it and the ration-card system

provided a crude system for identifying voters. In the few places where this mechanism was employed, it worked acceptably well—before CPA ordered that no more

direct elections be held (for fear of giving the impression that it would be possible

to hold national elections soon—which it would not have been). Even so, the local

governance teams did a pretty good job in many cases of finding ways to choose,

and then later ‘‘refresh’’, the provincial and local councils. Sadly, the CERP funding

was terminated prematurely, and the Local Government Order, defining the powers

of provincial and local governments, sat around at CPA for months in various states

of development and imminent release, while the local councils dawdled and dithered

without much of anything to do, and ominously in some cases, without getting paid

for months at a time. Within the CPA itself, I think historians will find that there

was an obsession with centralized control, at the cost of the flexibility and devolution that might have gotten things done more quickly and built up more legitimacy.

So we had serious problems of security, reconstruction delivery, and legitimacy.

We failed to ameliorate these by putting enough resources in (particularly enough

troops) and by giving Iraqis early on more control over their own affairs. Now we

are transferring control soon to Iraqis, and that is truly the, only hope for rescuing

a rapidly deteriorating situation. But in transitional politics, as in all other politics,

timing is crucial, and what could be achieved by a certain initiative at one moment

in time may no longer be possible months or years later, when the parameters have

shifted and the scope for building a moderate center may have been lost.

One June 30, governing authority will be transferred to an Iraqi Interim Government, terminating the occupation authority, the CPA (or Coalition Provisional Authority). Despite all the violence and turmoil—which the Baathist spoilers, external

jihadists, and Islamist extremists have always intended to escalate in the run-up

to the transition—that transfer is going to happen on schedule. A United Nations

team, led by special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, is in Iraq now for a third visit, completing work to select the members of the Iraqi Interim Government. As the interim

constitution (called the Transitional Administrative Law) provides for, the government will be led by a prime minister and cabinet, with some oversight and symbolic

authority being exercised by a presidency council of a president and two vice-presidents. But there will be no law-making parliament until elections are held, by the

46

end of next January, for a transitional government. Rather, Mr. Brahimi plans to

return again to help mediate the selection after June 30, through indirect means,

of a widely representative national conference of some 1000 to 1500 delegates, which

will discuss national problems and select a smaller consultative assembly to advise

the cabinet.

This plan is not without some serious problems. It is easy for Iraqis to agree in

principle on elections to choose a transitional government, even if many parties plan

to try to rig or mutilate those elections in practice. But having the United Nations

select the interim government, even a so-called ‘‘technocratic’’ government of nonpartisan officials, risks a whole new set of legitimacy problems. Everyone who loses

out in the bid for interim power will complain bitterly that the selections were illegitimate. The problem is that the method that some of us within CPA preferred—

having Iraqis select the national conference delegates before June 30, and having

that body then choose an assembly which would choose the prime minister and presidency council—is just not feasible given the pressure of time and the deterioration

in the security situation since the end of March. Thus, many key members of the

twenty-five-member Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), which has exercised some advisory authority alongside the CPA Administrator, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III,

since last July, are denouncing the plan and calling for the IGC to continue, perhaps

in expanded form, as a kind of senate or consultative body with some authority.

Some of the political parties on the IGC that are pushing this line are powerful

players because, independent of whatever popular support they command, they have

large, armed militias whose cooperation, or at least forbearance, the Coalition needs

now more than ever if it is to survive this treacherous period.

The next step in the timetable will be the organization of elections by January

31 of 2005. To do this, Iraq will need an independent electoral commission, a law

to define and structure that body’s authority, and a law to define the electoral system for choosing members of parliament. A separate UN team, led by the head of

the UN electoral assistance division, Carina Perelli, has been in Iraq working on

all these issues. Its work has been slowed by the upsurge in violence, and by the

group’s decision to invite any and all Iraqis to apply in writing for one of the seven

Iraqi slots on the commission. In the current chaos, it is going to be a real challenge

to appoint and train an electoral commission with sufficient credibility, independence, and competence to organize decent elections by the January deadline. Fortunately, they will have considerable assistance from the UN. But if the violence is

not brought under control, they will not even be able to move around the country

to set up local and regional offices, much less prepare for the crucial tasks of registering voters and parties. Even if the violence subsides to a degree that permits

the administrative work to proceed, the Electoral Commission will need to tackle

the question of how to level the political playing field, which will otherwise be dominated by political parties that are already ruling (in Kurdistan) or that have been

receiving huge amounts of money and other assistance from Iran.

The Interim Government’s structure, powers, and functions are to be spelled out

in an Annex to the Transitional Law. This Annex will be written through negotiations this month. During my final weeks in Iraq, I encountered in speeches and

meetings around the country some vigorous and frequent objections to specific provisions of the Law, particularly article 61 C, which gives any three provinces (and

there are three predominantly Kurdish provinces) the ability to veto the final constitution in the referendum. Many Arab Iraqis are in fact quite upset about this and

other provisions, which they feel give too much veto power to the Kurds. These

Iraqis object as well to other features of the Law, and to the lack of public discussion over its final provisions before it was adopted (unanimously) by the Governing

Council. If we did not have the crisis of mounting violence in the country, and now

the new crisis over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, we would probably be dealing with a crisis over the Transitional Law. Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the

most important Shiite religious and moral leader in the country, and some of his

key followers have been quite outspoken in rejecting the Law and demanding

changes. Indeed, Muqtada Sadr’s remarkable success in mobilizing many thousands

of supporters in March-April-May is the direct result of the crisis between the CPA

and the Governing Council on the one hand and Sistani (and the Hawzah, or senior

Shiite clergy) on the other. At long last the isolated Muqtada could claim, as he indeed did, that he was ‘‘Sistani’s Striking Arm.’’ This way one crisis led directly to

the other.

Here is another manifestation, in sharp relief, of the legitimacy problem. The negotiations over the Annex provide a new opportunity to address this problem, and

given the high threshold for amending the Law once it comes into effect, perhaps

the last realistic opportunity in the transitional period. We should seize this opporVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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tunity as part of a broader strategy of building up the more moderate Shiite political

and religious establishment as a counterweight to Muqtada al-Sadr.

All counter-insurgency efforts ultimately depend on winning the larger political

and symbolic struggle for ‘‘hearts and minds.’’ Though he has gained in popular support in recent weeks, Muqtada Sadr—a fascist thug with only the thinnest Islamist

religious credentials, who is reviled by much of the Shiite population and religious

establishment—cannot win the broad bulk of Iraqi ‘‘hearts and minds,’’ even in the

Shiite south. Neither can the diehard Baathist remnants of Saddam’s regime, who,

in connivance with external jihadists such as Al-Qaeda, have been driving the insurgency in the Sunni center of the country. Indeed, one of the fascinating, potentially

destructive, but also potentially positive elements in the fluid political situation we

confront is that there is no coherent political and military force in Iraq that is capable of rallying, and for any meaningful period of time, sustaining, broad popular

support.

No single force can win in Iraq, but the United States could lose, and very soon.

Even before the outbreak of the scandal over US forces’ degrading, disgraceful abuse

of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraqi patience with the American occupation was dwindling rapidly. More and more Iraqis have been coming around to

the view that if we cannot give them security, jobs, and electricity, why should they

continue to suffer the general humiliation and countless specific indignities of American forces occupying their land?

What seemed possible six weeks ago, and certainly three months ago, is not necessarily feasible today. Clearly, the option of sending in significantly more troops

to combat the insurgency and defeat the diehard and spoiler elements is dead. It

is now clear that the Bush Administration—which has never been honest with itself

or the American people about what would be needed to succeed in Iraq—is not going

to up the ante for the United States in that kind of way in an election year. Moreover, even introducing two more divisions—which would still leave our overall troop

strength far below the 250,000 or so that many military experts believed was the

minimum necessary to bring and maintain order in post-war Iraq—would so strain

the capacity of our armed forces that it would require drastic measures.

So we are stuck in Iraq for the moment with too few troops to defeat the insurgency and way too many for a growing segment of deeply disaffected Iraqi public

opinion. Thus we have basically opted to live with the city of Fallujah under the

control of insurgents, hoping the Iraqi force we have quickly stood up there will at

least contain and dampen down the problem. And we are slowly trying to take back

some of the facilities and installations that Muqtada Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army has

seized in the past few weeks and months, while so far avoiding a decisive confrontation with Muqtada himself (so as not to inflict civilian casualties or damage the religious shrines). If there is any chance of decent governance emerging in Iraq in the

near to medium term, I believe we are going to have to defeat the insurgency of

the Mahdi army. But we can only do so if we work with Iraqi Shiites of at least

somewhat more moderate and pragmatic political orientations, and most of all with

Ayatollah Sistani. No Iraqi commands a wider following of respect and consideration, and has more capacity to steer political developments away from violence and

extremism, than Sistani, who insists on free elections as the basis of political legitimacy.

In fact, there are many Iraqi forces with whom we can work. But the tragedy is

that the most democratic among them do not have sizable armed militias at their

command, and for the most part, have not had the money, time, training, and skill

to build up broad bases of support. At least four political parties represented on the

Governing Council do have some basis of support in the country. The problem is

that two of these are the ruling parties of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region,

the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) and the KDP (the Democratic Party of

Kurdistan), and their influence largely ends at the borders of that region, while the

other two forces, SCIRI and Da’wa, are backed in various ways by the Iranian regime and, despite the moderation they have evinced in Baghdad, appear to favor

one or another form of Islamic fundamentalist regime. Each of these four parties

has its own militia with probably at least 10,000 fighters, and in the case of the

two Kurdish Peshmerga forces, maybe each several times that number.

If Iraq has elections with these forces, and many other private armed forces, controlling various strongholds, and without a superior neutral force on the ground to

rein them in, the elections are not going to be free and fair. There will be a war

for dominance along the margins of different strongholds, opposing candidates will

be assassinated, electoral officials will be intimidated, ballot boxes will be stolen—

it will be a nasty business. Beyond this, there is the danger that if the militias are

not demobilized before the Americans withdraw, other political forces would arm in

self-defense, or more precisely—if you consider that in many parts of rural Iraq,

48

every male over 14 already has a Kalishnikov (or at least older) rifle—they will acquire heavy weapons, in preparation for the coming war for Iraq. Then you would

have a truly awful mess, in which different parties, tribes, and alliances would have

their own armies contesting violently for local, regional, and perhaps ultimately national dominance, with every neighboring country in the region intervening on behalf of its favored group or groups. This would be what Thomas Friedman calls

‘‘Lebanon on steroids’’—a hellish (and possibly like Lebanon, protracted) civil war

in which no central government could exert coherent authority.

Such a scenario could spawn disastrous humanitarian and political consequences.

There would be thousands, possibly tens or even hundreds of thousands, of Iraqi

casualties. In the chaos, terrorism and organized crime would thrive. Anti-Americanism, which is already gaining momentum in Iraq, would take on an entirely new

breadth and intensity. We would be blamed for this, even if the instigators were

more properly located in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and most of all Iran.

The only alternative to civil war or another truly brutal and total dictatorship is

a political system based on some kind of constitutional, consensual power-sharing

bargain. Any plan to break up the country, explicitly or implicitly, into its constituent ethnic or religious pieces will inevitably bring massive bloodshed, much of

it regionally driven. And any effort to simply hand power over to a reconstructed

Baathist dictatorship would be violently, and I am sure successfully, resisted by

both the Kurds and the Shia. Any scenario that is even vaguely positive—that

avoids the disaster of total war or total dictatorship—must involve key elements of

democracy: negotiations, mutual concessions and compromise, delineation of individual and group rights, sharing and limiting of power, and elections in which different political parties and independents contest to determine who will exercise

power.

However, elements of democracy do not necessarily add up to democracy, and the

situation has deteriorated to the point that we need a strong dose of realism about

what is possible. The two best-organized parties in the Shiite South, SCIRI and

Da’wa, are not democratic political parties. That is why they have heavily armed

militias that are already flexing their muscles. That is why they are being backed

by hardline conservative elements in the Iranian regimes. And doubts are even

raised about whether the two Kurdish parties, who fought a war for political control

in Kurdistan during the 1990s, will tolerate electoral competitors. In the last few

months, their militia forces have been involved in acts of ethnic cleansing to push

out from Kirkuk Arabs who were settled there by Saddam Hussein in his campaign

of ‘‘Arabization.’’ This violent preemption of the intended process of peaceful, judicial

dispute resolution is hardly a reassuring sign.

Much of the country’s politics remains, literally, tribal. Particularly in the rural

areas, loyalties are mobilized and delivered by tribal sheikhs, and alliances are built

on these foundations. So can blood debts be incurred and avenged deep into the future as a result of violence against a member of the tribe. Inevitably in emergent

democratic politics, important political formations will be constituted from among

Iraq’s many tribes. In fact, one of the potentially more moderate and democratic political party formations—the Iraqi Democratic Gathering, based largely in the Shiite

south—has its base among a vast network of tribes that do not want to see Iraq

or any part of it dominated by Iran or forces loyal to the Iranian regime. If other

parties play by the rules of the democratic game, so will this one. If elections are

to be fought by more violent methods, I do not expect that these tribes, which are

already heavily armed, will sit on their hands and wait to be bullied and shot.

The establishment of the Fallujah Brigade as a solution to the insurgency there

was probably the least bad option, but it comes at a price. In effect, we created (or

fully legitimized) a new sectarian militia, small for now, but probably the best

trained of them all. Similarly, by encouraging SCIRI’s militia, the Badr Brigade,

and the Da’wa militia to attack Muqtada’s Mahdi Army in Najaf and Karbala

(again, probably a necessarily evil), we will also pay a heavy price. To the extent

they do our bidding, we will owe them something.

I am suggesting, then, two points. First, the chance for any kind of decent, peaceful, constitutional order heavily depends on what happens to the militias. Unless

they are to some considerable extent demobilized and replaced by the armed forces

of a new and legitimate Iraqi state, the near-term political future will be very rough.

But the militias that would need to be demobilized for this to happen have in fact

been strengthened enormously in their bargaining leverage vis-a`-vis the United

States as a result of the disintegration of recent weeks. Now, we need them, and

their cooperation and assistance, more than ever. So we are in less of a position to

ask of them painful concessions—not to mention compelling those concessions by

force.

49

Since the beginning of the year, we have been negotiating with the principal militias a comprehensive DDR plan for ‘‘disarmament, demobilization and reintegration’’

of their fighters into the new Iraqi police and armed forces and the civilian economy.

To succeed, any DDR plan has to rely heavily on positive incentives (jobs, pensions,

status in the new armed forces) for those militias that agree to cooperate, and force

to demobilize those militias that will never cooperate. The Mahdi Army clearly falls

into the latter category, which is why it is so important that it be defeated now.

But it was always questionable whether the other four largest militias would really

fully demobilize and disarm, rather than warehouse their heavy weapons while taking up positions, temporarily, in the new armed forces. With the country in the state

it is and our leverage so much reduced, demobilization—if it happens at all—is likely to be much more superficial, and even to concede to the integration of whole militia units into the police and armed forces, with their command structures more or

less intact. In that case, the new and truly independent Iraqi state that is so desperately needed will not emerge. Rather, it will parceled out among and become a

captive of these preexisting armed groups. Probably the big winner then, at least

initially, will be Iran, which has seeded the whole Shiite south with arms, weapons,

propaganda, and thousands (by one estimate, 14,000) intelligence agents.

I am not sure, at this point, that there is any way to prevent a scenario something

like this. To do so would require a sizable and credible international—which is to

say, largely American—force on the ground in Iraq for some time to come. And the

way things are going, we are likely to find ourselves in something of a race to see

who demands the withdrawal of American forces first, the Iraqi public or the American public. Even if American troops are able to stay in large numbers for another

year or two to help provide security, I doubt they are going to be given the authority, or that they would be able to muster the legitimacy within Iraq, to really confront these other militias—even assuming that the Sadr insurgency is somehow defeated, and that the Fallujah insurgency is at least contained.

We are in an utterly Hobbesian situation, as we always are in such post-conflict

settings, in which the balance of force will shape all the other political parameters.

If we do not succeed in standing up Iraqi police and military forces that are loyal

to the state of Iraq, and not to this or that party, militia, or warlord, there will be

no hope for even a semi-democratic political system. But creating any kind of coherent Iraqi armed forces will take years (by some estimates, two to five years), and

the prospect is rising that an Iraqi government will demand (possibly under popular

pressure) that American forces be withdrawn well before that. Then (absent a new

international force that is nowhere on the horizon), the only force that Iraq could

fall back on to maintain order would be the major party militias, and the only question would be whether they could work out among themselves some modus vivendi

that gives each a relative monopoly of power within some region or locality, while

sharing power at the center. That would be better than all-out civil war, but lacking

any roots or constraints in a rule of law, it would be highly susceptible to descent

into civil war if the elite bargains were to shatter. And it would still be very bad

for most of the Iraqi democrats we have sought to help in politics and civil society—

decent people, with ideas and ideals, who placed their faith in our own professed

commitment to stay the course to help build a democracy in Iraq.

One silver lining is that the overall national situation is highly unlikely to revert

to the kind of coherent, total dictatorship that the country has suffered under the

Baathists in particular. There will be a profusion of power centers. Even if these

are not democratic in themselves, the interaction among them will provide some

pluralism, some space for democratic discourse and action—if the country does not

drown in bloodshed, and if some kind of self-sustaining constitutional bargain can

be struck among them. That is risky, but not impossible.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The only way out of this mess is a combination of robust, precise, and determined

military action to defeat the most threatening, anti-democratic insurgency—led by

Muqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army—combined with a political strategy to fill the

legitimacy vacuum as rapidly as possible.

The Bush Administration has taken two vital steps in the latter regard. First, it

has sought to improve the international legitimacy of our mission, and our ability

to find a transitional solution that will be credible and acceptable to the largest possible number of Iraqis—by giving the United Nations and its special envoy, Lakhdar

Brahimi, a leading role in the process. Ambassador Brahimi is an extraordinarily

able, imaginative, and fair-minded mediator; I could not imagine a better candidate

for this arduous task. One reason why he is the right person for the job is that he

has a habit of doing something elementary that our own CPA has not done often

50

and well enough: listening to Iraqis themselves, and as wide a range of Iraqi opinion

as possible.

The second essential, correct decision of the Administration is to hold to the June

30 deadline for transferring power to an Iraqi interim government. One of the few

positive things that has been suppressing Iraqi frustration and even rage over the

occupation has been the prospect of a return to Iraqi sovereignty on June 30, and

the promise of elections for a transitional government within seven months after

that. It is vital that we adhere to the June 30 deadline. There is no solution to the

dilemma we are in that does not put Iraqis forward to take political leadership responsibility for the enormous challenges of governance the country confronts. They

cannot do it alone, but they must take the lead, and Iraqis must see that Iraqis are

taking the lead. We should stop talking about ‘‘limited sovereignty.’’ Iraqis have suffered enough humiliation. They need the dignity of knowing that they will be able

to assert control over their own future after June 30, even if this will obviously be

limited on the security side by the presence of some 150,000 international troops.

We need to embrace a number of other steps that will advance three key principles or goals: building legitimacy for the transitional program, increasing the efficacy of emergent Iraqi control, and improving the security situation in a more lasting way. All three of these goals require an intensive effort at rebuilding the now

decimated, fragmented, and demoralized Iraqi state.

Here, briefly, are my recommendations:

1. Disavow any long-term military aspirations in Iraq. We should declare unambiguously that we will not seek any permanent American military bases in

Iraq. (No Iraqi parliament in the near term is going to approve such a treaty,

anyway). Iraqis fear that we harbor long-term imperial intentions toward their

country. This would help to allay this fear.

2. Establish a clear date for an end to the military occupation. We should declare that when Iraq is at peace and capable of fully providing for its own security, we intend to withdraw all American forces from Iraq. We should set a target date for the full withdrawal of American forces. This may be three or four

years in the future, but setting such a date will convince Iraqis that we are serious about leaving once the country is secure—that the occupation, in every respect, will come to a definite end.

3. Respond to the concerns about Iraqi detainees. We need an independent investigation of the treatment of Iraqi detainees, with international participation,

and we should release as many detainees as possible for whom we do not have

specific evidence or a strong and credible suspicion of involvement in insurgent

or criminal activity. This has been a profound grievance of Iraqis virtually since

the end of the war, and it has been a major factor feeding the Sunni insurgency.

4. Reorganize and accelerate recruitment and training of the new Iraqi police

and armed forces. Police training in particular has been an astonishing disaster.

There is no hope of avoiding renewed oppression and/or civil war in Iraq unless

we can stand up Iraqi police and armed forces that are independent of party

and religious militias and answerable to the new, and ultimately democratically

elected, Iraqi government. We can no longer allow ourselves to be hampered by

divided responsibilities, bureaucratic face-saving, and resource constraints. We

must find the best, most experienced experts and give them all the resources

they need to get the job done.

5. Proceed vigorously with our plan for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of the principal armed militias into the police and armed

forces. There cannot be free and fair elections in Iraq—or even sustainable

peace—if the most powerful forces in the country are a variety of competing and

antidemocratic religious and political party militias. The most radical and antidemocratic militias, particularly Muqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army, must be isolated,

confronted, and defeated—disarmed by force, or the credible threat of force.

With the militias of the Kurdish Peshmerga, SCIRI, Dawa, and other political

parties that have indicated their willingness to play in the political game, we

need to complete negotiations that have now been underway for several months.

We will have a much stronger hand in these negotiations if we compel the

Mahdi Army to disarm, rather than offering to merge it into the new police and

armed forces. Outside of Kurdistan, which is a special case, militia fighters

should be merged into the new police and armed forces as individuals, not as

organized units with their command structures intact.

6. Get more money flowing to our Iraqi allies. In particular, we should increase the pay of the Iraqi Army and police, giving them a stronger incentive

to risk their lives to join up and stick with us. We might also want to increase

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the pay of the provincial and local councils, and most of all, we should make

sure that all of these Iraqis who are part of the newly reemerging Iraqi state

get paid in a timely fashion.

There are several other steps we can take to address our debilitating deficits of legitimacy with the Iraqi people and the international community:

7. Make the new Iraqi Interim Government dependent on some expression of

popular consent. It is a pity that time did not permit the proposed Iraqi national

conference and consultative assembly to be chosen well before June 30, so that

one of these two more representative bodies could have elected the presidency

council, the prime minister, and the cabinet. However, it is vital that the plans

for indirect election of these bodies proceed after June 30. Once the consultative

assembly is chosen by a large national conference, it should have the ability to

interpellate the prime minister and cabinet ministers, and even to remove

them, at least through a ‘‘constructive vote of no confidence’’ (which brings down

the government only if there is a simultaneous majority vote for a new government).

8. Aim as much as possible for instruments of democratic control, even in the

interim period. I do not think the Governing Council should continue in its current form. It has its own severe legitimacy problems, due to widespread Iraqi

perceptions of its inefficacy and corruption. If some members of this Council

have real bases of popular support, they should be able to demonstrate this

within the national conference, to win election to the consultative assembly, and

to exercise influence through that more democratic means. And one or members

of the GC may wind up being appointed to positions in the presidency council

or the new government.

9. Provide for the appointment of an Iraqi Supreme Court, according to the

Transitional Administrative Law, as soon as there is a consultative assembly

that could confirm the appointments. If the spirit and practice of constitutionalism is to develop in Iraq, it must do so from the beginning of the reemergence of Iraqi self-rule. The Prime Minister, Cabinet, or Presidency Council

should not each decide for itself what is constitutional. There must be a neutral

arbiter, and it should no longer be the US or the UN. The TAL provides for

the Iraqi Higher Judicial Council to propose three nominees for each of the nine

vacancies on the Supreme Court, with the Presidency Council then nominating

and the transitional parliament confirming. This new method would involve

only a minor modification to be codified in the TAL Annex.

10. Codify the domestic and international arrangements for Iraq in a new UN

Security Council Resolution. This resolution should recognize the Iraqi Interim

Government and its right to name its own representation at the UN. Beyond

this, however, a UN Security Council resolution should also recognize whatever

temporary ‘‘status of forces agreement’’ is reached between the US and the Interim Government, hopefully with UN mediation or participation. UN involvement and recognition of this element might then make it possible for a number

of other countries to contribute troops to help maintain peace and security in

Iraq until the country can fully manage its own security.

11. We should do something in this period to acknowledge the grievances over

the Transitional Administrative Law. The TAL is the most liberal and progressive basic governance document anywhere in the Arab world. Iraqis can take

great pride in many of its features, such as the bill of rights. However, there

is intense controversy over a number of its provisions, including the degree of

minority rights and the balance of power between the center and the provinces

and regions. At a minimum, we should emphatically acknowledge that the TAL

is only a temporary document, that Iraqis will be fully free and sovereign to

write a new permanent constitution (and this declaration could also be incorporated into a new UN Security Council Resolution). It might be possible, however, to go further, and encourage the key parties to negotiate soon, in the

Annex to the TAL, some modest amendments that might address some of the

most serious objections that have been raised.

Finally, we need to continue to think and act more innovatively in the quest to build

as democratic a political system as possible.

12. We should invest in supporting moderate, secular Shi’a who draw support

from parties, movements, and associations that don’t have muscular militias.

Hopefully, a fair process of selection of national conference participants will put

many of these new faces forward.

52

13. We urgently need to level the playing field with respect to political party

funding. The big parties either sit on huge resources, or are getting lavish funding from neighboring states, particularly Iran. More independent and democratic political parties are begging us for support. As soon as an Independent

Iraqi Electoral Administration is established, we should help it create a transparent fund for the support (in equal amounts) of all political parties that pass

a certain threshold of demonstrated popular support, and we should fund it generously (perhaps with an initial infusion of $10 to $20 million). Unless the gross

imbalance in access to funding is established, there will not be anything approaching free and fair elections.

Senators, we should in fact do much more. As I have said, we should have had

significantly more troops in Iraq—perhaps twice as many more as we now have

there. We should apologize explicitly for our scandalous treatment of Iraqi detainees, and we should hold accountable everyone in the chain of command who was

in a position to prevent it and stop it, and did not.

I have tried to recommend here steps that are achievable within our resources,

timetable, and overall strategy. These steps largely comprise a political strategy for

improving the legitimacy of the transitional program in Iraq, and the legitimacy and

efficacy of the new Iraqi Interim Government. But none of these steps will amount

to much if we do not make much more progress in securing the country.

For a long time now, it has been clear that the three great challenges of restoring

security, reconstructing the economy, and rebuilding the system of government are

intricately intertwined. We cannot revive and rebuild the economy, generate jobs

and electricity, and get a new Iraqi government up and functioning unless we dramatically improve security on the ground. But we cannot improve security unless

we have a more credible and legitimate framework for governance. The initiative

of the UN mission, working with the CPA, holds out some promise of progress in

the latter regard. But we have a lot of hard work to do on the security front as well,

and we are not going to get there unless we put some of the worst thugs and spoilers out of business, beginning with the Mahdi Army. On both the security and political fronts, the choices we make and the actions we take between now and June 30

will have diffuse and lasting consequences for the future political order in Iraq.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Diamond.

We will have a 10-minute question round first and then an additional round, if necessary. We have good attendance. So let me ask

all Senators to try to stay within their 10 minutes on the first try

so that we can all be heard, and then we will try again. Let me

start the clock running with these first questions.

Dr. Cordesman, you make a very tough comment in your initial

written testimony. You say, ‘‘At this point, the U.S. lacks good options in Iraq, although it probably never really had them in the

sense the Bush administration sought. The option of quickly turning Iraq into a successful free-market democracy was never practical and was as absurd a neo-conservative fantasy as the idea that

success in this objective would magically make Iraq an example

that would transform the Middle East.’’

And then you have gone on in oral testimony today to point out

the dangers of the Middle East democracy idea at this point, suggesting that we have Iraq and Afghanistan to solve prior to greater

ambitions that have antagonized others.

You finally say, ‘‘The key to success the U.S. can now hope to

achieve is to set realistic objectives. In practice these objectives are

to create an Iraqi political structure that will minimize the risk of

civil war, develop some degree of pluralism, and help the Iraqis

take charge of their own economy.’’

Now, as a followup, Dr. Marr points out that the worst case scenario, as you have pointed out, Dr. Cordesman, is a failed state.

She counsels that by this she does not mean simply three elements

that do or do not get together. She talked about a mosaic of groups,

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an extraordinarily complex situation, which she described prior to

the war as well as after the war. Nevertheless, bravely you both

sort of trudge on. You see possibilities here.

And likewise, Dr. Diamond, I noted your comment, which is supportive of this general thesis, although very bleak. You said, ‘‘We

are in an utterly Hobbesian situation, as we always are in such

post-conflict settings, in which the balance of force will shape all

the other political parameters. If we do not succeed in standing up

Iraqi police and military forces that are loyal to the state of Iraq,

and not to this or that party, militia, or warlord, there will be no

hope for even a semi-democratic political system.’’ Now, without getting into the post-war conflict and whether the

neo-conservatives are right or wrong or what have you, this does

raise basic questions with regard to our foreign policy and how we

get into these situations. You are contending, Dr. Cordesman, in

the broadest sense, that the objective was to have a shining light

of democracy that would have, hopefully, heralded a large change

of thought in other states in the Middle East, and that this was

a practical objective in the war against terrorism, and that that is

a reason for the war to be fought. At the time, there were discussions of weapons of mass destruction and so forth, but essentially

the argument has drifted from that to the thought that this was

going to be a change. To have 1.2 billion people in hostile circumstances with madrassas schools, with all the rest of this, is to

have a fate for the United States after 9/11 which is not only uncomfortable but potentially disastrous.

So, as a result, you try to change a state. In this case, Iraq was

selected for a good number of reasons, including the fact that the

Saddam regime had ignored U.N. sanctions, invaded it’s neighbors,

and so forth, but also that Iraq could be transformed, over time,

into a democracy, and an example in the regfion. However, as Dr.

Marr describes the terrain and the population and the prospects,

that looked fairly bleak from the beginning, and now you are all

suggesting that this prospect still does, except that there is, Dr.

Marr contends, a sense of Iraqi nationalism.

This seems to me to be the heart of the question. In this group

of people thrown together by Europeans or others after World War

I, and suppressed by monarchs, the last of whom was Saddam Hussein, is there a sense here of nationhood, an integrity of a nation

that will not become a failed state? It will not be a source of civil

war, an incubator for terrorism, and all the rest?

I ask you, first of all, Dr. Cordesman, do you sense that there is

a sense of being Iraqi, that there is something here with which to

work even at this point?

Dr. CORDESMAN. Yes, Senator, I do. I was in Iraq repeatedly during the Iran-Iraq war and I saw tensions between ethnic factions

there, between Shi’ite and Sunni, and I certainly saw the problems

the Kurds encountered. But I also saw many elements of nationhood, and I saw those long before the Iran-Iraq war.

As Dr. Marr has said, I think the problem we face is to help

bring those people together. As Dr. Diamond and others have said,

it is to ensure that the more violent minorities and elements are

not going to take over or displace things, but it is to also accept

the fact that we cannot, after 35 years of tyranny, after 35 years

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of an economy which is a command kleptocracy where no sector

works or has functioned on our level, where the infrastructure is

sized more for 16 million people than the 25 million people who live

there, see instant solutions.

Here I would just make one quick comment. A sense of nationhood does not prepare people for instant democracy. There are no

political parties that are real as yet. There are no leaders which

have had the chance to emerge. There is no sense of compromise.

There is no actual experience in being a politician, and that, I

think you know all too well, can be an extraordinarily difficult job

even for the experienced.

I think what this says is not that we should give up but that it

is going to take time. We have to look beyond 2005. Dr. Marr said

5 to 10 years. I think that is realistic. We do not have to be there

that long, but we have to see that as the timeframe to act.

Finally, just one comment. I have seen a lot of concern within the

Congress over the cost of the military operation there. Last year a

promise was made by the Bush administration it would not come

back to you for foreign aid in 2005. To deal with the economic problem that Dr. Marr has raised, if you are not prepared to see an aid

program going on through 2008, you are as much a factor in our

eventual defeat as the neo-conservatives have been in the past.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Diamond, on the security situation specifically, because you have described this Hobbesian effect, let us take

for granted that the security has to be obtained. Our troops now

are attempting to do that in Najaf and elsewhere. But on the 30th

of June sovereignty passes to the Iraqi people. Our committee has

been questioned, what does this mean for security? Secretary Powell was asked this at the Dead Sea Conference. What if this new

government says to us, we want you to leave? And Powell said,

well, then we would leave. He doesn’t think we will be asked to do

that.

But what are the practical effects, as we count down from now

May the 19th to June 30? And we have all described the army coming and going, coming back in parts and so forth. How is this to

occur with the United States cooperation, with Iraqi training and

an Iraqi security presence?

Dr. DIAMOND. Well, first of all, you have got the right answer

from Secretary Powell, independent of what anybody else in the administration has said, because I can tell you if an Iraqi Interim

Government asks us to leave and we do not, our situation there is

going to become utterly unviable. And I feel very sorry for every

American officer and soldier who has to serve in that circumstance.

So I do not think that is going to be tenable.

But as Dr. Marr has indicated, there is a very dualistic feeling

about this, and I do not think they are going to ask us to leave unless there is some new disaster or scandal.

I think that the reason why it is so important to complete the

DDR effort—disarmament, demobilization and reintegration—of

the militias between now and June 30 is that after June 30 we will

still have command of all American forces there. I do not think that

is going to be diluted. But we are not going to have the purity of

freedom of action that we have now, particularly the ability, the political space to take offensive action against certain militias in the

55

way we are now doing to essentially and correctly demobilize and

destroy the Mahdi Army.

The Badr Brigade, which is the militia of SCIRI, I worry about

a lot. Some of its figures are frankly not any more committed to

democracy than Muqtada al-Sadr and Da’wa’s army. They have to

know that we want them to negotiate peaceful integration and demobilization, but that we have a different way of dealing with them

if they do not cooperate through peaceful negotiation.

The CHAIRMAN. So one signal from this hearing you are pointing

out is that we have got 42 days during which we still have some

freedom of operation to demobilize these militias, and to do so with

strength. And absent that, if they are still around, security for everybody may be imperiled in the thereafter.

Dr. DIAMOND. That is my essential point.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I realize

I am not going to get to all I want to get to in this first round. So

I just want to give you a sense where I think the consensus points

are, and maybe some of you can take issue if I have got it wrong.

Let me start by saying that the one thing I get from all of you

and, quite frankly, from everyone for whom I have any respect on

this issue—and there are scores of people, left, right, center, conservative, neo-conservative, liberal, moderate—is that there is a

greater need for sense of urgency here.

And one of the things we have to kind of cut through here—as

a matter of fact, we are going to be debating a resolution on the

floor today or tomorrow by Senator Byrd that is going to attempt

to lay out a new authorization for the presence of American forces,

arguing that the one that was passed last year no longer has any

relevance because it says, take down Saddam. Saddam is gone, so

the rationale for continued presence has to be validated by Congress. It is a confusing moment.

Here are the areas where I think we need some clarity. One is

how to deal with the militias, and I am going to get back to Dr.

Diamond on that.

Two is the role of elections, when they should take place; the role

of this consultative assembly, what role it should pay.

Three, this notion that Iraqis should set the priorities for their

reconstruction.

Four, NATO. I have been a broken record on NATO for the last

year and a half. Now serious newspapers, serious columnists believe, cynically in my view, that we cannot get anybody else involved in this process. Why do we keep talking about it? It is really

a dodge to be talking about it.

This notion of Iraqi visibility, that is, when you turn on the TV,

Dr. Marr, you said turn it off. I hope when they turn it on in Iraq

sometime in the near term, they only see Iraqis; they do not see

Americans, that is, American spokespersons.

And jobs and this notion of the definition of civil war.

Partially what has to be done here—and I do fault the administration on this—is, to put it in very simple terms, they have not

told the story. They have not laid out for people in Iraq or America

56

what the plan is. I do not mean in terms of foreign policy speak,

but just what are we talking about here. What is our objective?

As General Hoar said, there is this idea that the only way we

can continue to get support from the American people in Iraq is if

we say this is the war on terror, that absent saying ‘‘terror’’—we

take the word ‘‘terror’’ out of it, ‘‘meaning bin Laden and the international terrorist organizations’’—that the bottom will fall out.

That is what I think our neo-conservative friends think. Therefore,

I think they make this tenuous connection. There is a connection,

but that is not the rationale for keeping 150,000 troops or 140,000.

So let me begin this way. First of all, General Hoar, as succinctly

as you can, I have spoken to seven of you guys, four-star generals,

CENTCOM commanders, NATO commanders, among the most respected military leaders in a generation. Everyone I have spoken

to says it is totally, completely practical with the right leadership

to get NATO to sign on with relatively small forces to leading the

coalition, leading the multinational force post June 30. You were a

CENTCOM commander. You were one of the most respected generals of the last decade. Tell me straight up. What do you say to

the Washington Post when they say this is fanciful?

General HOAR. I think it is possible. The difficulty is that there

have been people in the administration, Senator, that have continued to disparage old Europe and some of the members of NATO

who are really key to going forward. Germany and France are good

examples. Germany and France have a stake in Iraq just as we do,

and I know that there are many people in government today that

are behind the scenes attempting to encourage more dialog between the leadership of the NATO countries and the United States.

But it is going to require leadership on the part of this administration to put on their industrial strength knee pads and go on over

there and talk to these people and say we need you to come on

board. This is your fight as well as ours.

Senator BIDEN. Any of the questions I ask you all directly, if you

would rather defer, I understand.

But if the President of the United States literally called a summit of our major allies, literally asked for a principals meeting in

Brussels and said I need a resolution saying that NATO will take

over the operative control, which means America, I am not asking

you, France, for troops, I am not asking you, Germany, for troops,

I am asking for your vote, and I realize I am only talking about

3,000 to 7,000 forces over the next 3 or 4 months, what do you

think the response would be?

General HOAR. Senator, if the question is asked appropriately,

we will get a yes answer. There is a tendency to forget that NATO

is in Afghanistan and these very same people are supporting.

Senator BIDEN. I can tell you my own experience. Speaking with

everyone from Chirac to military commanders in a number of different uniforms, including German uniforms, I believe the answer

is yes, if asked—if asked—and if they are in on the political deal,

they are in on what the role of that NATO-led multinational force

would be.

The second question I have. Dr. Diamond, I think the stuff you

have written has been absolutely brilliant, as I say for all four of

you. But in my opportunity to importune you privately I asked you

57

about militias. There was talk yesterday of us employing—and it

was not confirmed—the Badr Brigade and other militias in taking

on the militia of Mr. al-Sadr. Tell me whether that is a good idea,

a bad idea, and tell me what your concern is, if you have one, as

to the sort of mutation of these militias if we do not grab hold of

it relatively soon.

Dr. DIAMOND. Well, Senator, my answer would be in two parts.

First of all, if we ask the Badr Corps and the militia—they are

really fragmented into pieces, SCIRI and Da’wa’s militias, but if we

asked them to do the hard work of defeating the Mahdi army,

which by the way is largely defeated in terms of most of the territory that it initially took, so I am not even sure that it is so urgent

as it might have been 2 weeks ago, but if we were to ask them to

do that, we would owe them a blood debt. They would be stronger

militarily and politically. They would have more leverage in their

negotiations with us.

Our ability to do DDR, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, in the way that it needs to be done, which is, to the

extent that fighters from these militias are reintegrated into the

Iraqi army, civil defense corps, and police, it happens as individuals and not as units with their command and control structure intact. Our ability to get that kind of deal would be significantly diminished.

Senator BIDEN. Is the reason that is important is that whatever

this emerging Iraqi government is, there has to be, in effect, a neutral army that it controls in the sense that it can absorb these

groups, but it cannot absorb them in a balkanized way where they,

in effect, are each wholly integrated in as whole pieces? Is that the

idea?

Dr. DIAMOND. That is correct. I think each of my co-panelists

would agree with me that we have a shattered state in Iraq now.

The imperative is to rebuild it as a coherent state as democratic

as possible, but coherent, effective, and as Dr. Marr said, not a

threat to the United States or a source of terrorism. You cannot

have a state if it does not have its own coherent control of its security apparatus, and there has to be neutral political leadership of

that that is loyal to the leadership of the new Iraqi state, not loyal

to the head of SCIRI, not loyal to the head of Da’wa, Hezbollah,

Fadallah, whatever militia it might be. They have to be loyal to the

top leaders of the state.

Senator BIDEN. Well, I will come back. Dr. Marr, I will warn you.

When I come back with you, I would like to hear you expand on

this notion of the willingness of any emerging government to deal

with an occupation army which is going to be necessary—there is

going to be some occupation force there for some time—and this notion of the consultative assembly and what legitimacy it can provide, if any, to the process. But I will wait until the second round.

I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Biden.

Senator Hagel.

Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thanks to each of you

for your time and talent and effort and experience. You each have

presented a very lucid, disturbing, but I think accurate assessment

of where we are in Iraq, and we continue to reach out to you for

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your sense of this. I note in particular that each of you has provided a set of recommendations, of priorities, of realistic assessments as to how we go forward. And that is not always the case,

easy to criticize, easy to look back on, failed policy, failed decisions,

but each of you provided some sense of a future, and it is in that

universe that I would delve.

I will begin with quoting your opening statement, Dr.

Cordesman. If I may repeat, you say, ‘‘The current situation in Iraq

and Afghanistan has exposed the fact that there is a serious danger in the very term ‘post conflict.’ ’’ But here is the point I want

to get to. ‘‘It reflects critical failures in American understanding of

the world it faces in the 21st century, and in the nature of asymmetric warfare and defense transformation.’’ General Hoar, then you state in your testimony, ‘‘We must define

the nature of the war.’’ I assume each of you and the other two panelists have in other

ways addressed this issue that you are talking about a wider-lens

understanding of what we are up against. You cannot deal with

Iraq in a vacuum. Certainly the Israeli-Palestinian issue is very

clear, at least in my mind, not because I think it or I say it, but

the Arab world, the 1.2 billion Muslims, as well believe it.

So, therefore, I would like very much for each of our four panelists to take that piece and talk about that. I realize it may be a

little more theoretical than the dynamic of what do we do about

Iraq now, but I do not think we can have these conversations nor

a committee exercise oversight without getting into this point because we will continue to spin and spin and spin in Iraq. We can

put two or three more divisions in, but if we lose the Iraqi people— in your testimony, the four of you, saying such things as we are

dangerously close, close to a quagmire, perilous situation, crisis situation—and I do not believe you overstate it—I think addresses

the more fundamental, larger point here. It is not just Iraq. This

challenge, this great threat of the 21st century is going to be with

us for a while, and I think we have failed miserably, all of us, the

Congress, the administration, in coming to grips with a larger understanding of what we are up against.

So with that, may I start with you, Dr. Cordesman? Thank you.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Thank you, Senator. Very briefly, we face a series of ideological challenges from Islamist extremists, economic

problems in the Arab and Islamic world, demographic pressures in

terms of vast increases in the need for jobs, education, and services

that is going to go on for at least 20 and probably 30 more years.

Some countries will deal with those well, some will muddle

through, and some will reach a stage of crisis.

Whatever we do in Iraq can only be a first step in a process of

global engagement that may well be as long as the cold war. If we

face that, if we work on that basis, rather than instant transformation or simple quick solutions, I think we can deal with the

problem. Part of it is to engage when we must use force realistically and objectively knowing we are not going to transform or end

the problem, that there will be one challenge after another, although hopefully at a low level.

Another I think is the issue of reform. Dr. Marr said, ‘‘It’s the

economy, stupid.’’ And Dr. Diamond said, ‘‘It’s the security, stupid.’’

59

And they are both right. We have to help countries find a way of

providing security, but security involves human rights and the rule

of law, not simply strengthening counter-terrorism.

We also need to focus on economic and on demographics, the

kinds of reforms that meet the fundamental expectations of the

people, talking about democracy and liberty is fine if you can create

the conditions for democracy and political parties. And what that

means is working on an evolutionary basis with these countries,

with the individual reformers in these countries, not dictating to

them, not with simplistic, pointless, new initiatives like a Greater

Middle East Initiative, but with greatly strengthened country

teams, with strengthened military advisory efforts through our

NATO and CENTCOM efforts and knowing that these are decadelong efforts, not something that will go away in 2 or 3 years or with

bin Laden or al-Qaeda.

Senator HAGEL. Dr. Cordesman, thank you.

General Hoar.

General HOAR. Sir, I first of all endorse Tony’s comments, but

the problems that we have today did not occur yesterday or the day

before. They began certainly and have their roots in colonialism

and came to the fore after the Second World War and the end of

colonialism. And we did not pay an awful lot of attention as a country to these issues. We were locked in the cold war. We saw this

bipolar world. We were concerned about the Soviet Union. And our

interests in this part of the world—and I speak of the Muslim

world—often were seen through the prism of the cold war, and as

a result, we frequently used these countries as pawns.

Perhaps the best example is the ability to defeat the Soviet

Union in Afghanistan with the help of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

When we defeated the Soviet Union and they withdrew, which I believe was the beginning of the end of the cold war, we turned our

backs on those countries and the result was virulent anti-U.S. feelings in Pakistan and a failed state in Afghanistan.

So our solutions will not come to fruition overnight. It is just

going to be a long road to turn around the belief in the Muslim

community that when we speak about peace and justice and freedom and democracy, we are talking about our peace, freedom, justice, and democracy, not everybody’s, sir.

Senator HAGEL. Thank you, general.

Dr. Marr.

Dr. MARR. Yes. I am going to be very practical in my remarks

and try to make three points on this subject.

First of all, the Arab-Israeli issue is critical. We are fighting a

three-front war in the Middle East: the war on terrorism, the Iraq

struggle, and the Arab-Israeli issue. I can not remember a time

when the Arab-Israeli issue looked worse.

I am not going to present some platitudes about we need to get

the peace process going. You all know that, but I think Congress

has played an incredible role in this issue—with respect to settlements. We have watched for years as the Israelis built settlements

in places where they should not have. That is something that Congress itself can do something about; so far, it has not. Maybe you

can do something about it now.

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Senator HAGEL. May I clarify? When you say Congress has done

an incredible job, you mean we failed.

Dr. MARR. Failed, that is correct, in putting pressure on our

Israeli allies to stop settlements. On some of the other issues I am

not nearly so sympathetic to the Palestinians, but on this particular issue I am. We should be seen to not condone it or be seen

to be doing something to reverse these policies. On this, I think the

buck stops, to a certain extent, in Congress. That is one practical

suggestion I have. It goes without saying that the Arab-Israeli

issue is a running sore that is perfectly awful in the area.

I want to be a little more optimistic about my next two points.

As you know, I have been spending a good bit of my time in Qatar.

That is a very important country for us right now, and it is also

a metaphor for much that is going on in the gulf and the Arab

world including some things I would like to call your attention to.

Qatar is not going to implement a constitution that erodes the

amir’s authority, but on every other front, they are doing remarkable reform work. They are instituting an American education system from K through 12, and establishing branches of American

universities. They have given women the vote. They have allowed

women to run for office. They are going to put in a new constitution. And in various and sundry ways, most of the smaller gulf

states are either ahead of them or doing similar things. Elsewhere

there are reforms going on in the area indigenously. This presents

us with another reform model. It is evolutionary. Rather than invading a state and trying to make it some kind of a model for the

rest of the region, we ought to pay attention to what is going on

here, see what there is, and encourage it.

When I went out to the region, I was asked to give some lectures

in Kuwait. I was surprised when I was asked to talk about the

Greater Middle East Initiative. To be honest with you, it got so little play here that I had to call around and ask what it was. But

when I got to the area, the subject was all over the press, much

of it negative. I discovered I had to change some of my remarks because of the interest in the subject. There are some liberals there.

There are not very many but they are very interested in getting

support.

My last point is that in a practical way, we need to be more

‘‘hands on’’ in the area, find out where our friends are, that is, people who are interested in reform, who are pushing ahead with the

kinds of things that we would like to see, and find ways to help

them. We should not impose some Middle East initiative on them

without even announcing it. We need to get a presence on the

ground and identify such people. And they are there. If anybody

wants some names, I will be happy to provide them. They are there

working on these things. Let us find them and support them and

not give up on reform.

Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, may I ask that Dr. Diamond

maybe in the next round could respond? I do not want to impose

on any of my colleagues here. Maybe we could do that.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Hagel.

Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Boxer.

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Senator BOXER. Could I just say—and I said this to Senator

Biden—this panel is just incredibly wonderful and clear and

straight from the shoulder, and I really appreciate that. It means

a lot to us.

I also want to say you are looking at the committee, I think, that

has been saying all along across party lines, whether or not we

voted to go it alone in this war or not, that we needed a plan. I

think what I am hearing you say is, yes, we need that plan and

we better get it done now. And as Senator Biden and Senator

Lugar have said for a long time, it should have been done yesterday. It is still not being done today, and we say that again, all of

us together.

Dr. Marr says do not panic about it, and you are right. You never

panic. As a lawmaker you cannot panic about anything, but you

can be honest and say it just might be too late. I am not saying

that, but I am thinking I am not sure. And I am ready and willing

and able to take the steps that I think we need to take, but it may

be that there have been so many mistakes made here and so many

opportunities lost. And I can think of three, four, five opportunities

that this administration had to say, OK, let us bring the world in.

It started when he landed on the carrier. Every country in the

world wanted in with us. No. You cannot have the spoils of war.

You did not fight. In retrospect—well, and a lot of us said it at the

time—this is ridiculous.

And then when the U.N. was attacked and the whole world say,

oh, my gosh, terrorism has moved in here. Now it is really a world

concern. We had another chance. Alone.

I think that even this prison scandal is a chance for America to

show that as the greatest country in the world and the strongest,

maybe we lost our way just a little bit and can the world come together with us and we will move in a different direction.

But it just seems like nothing has changed. Yesterday, we had

Secretary Wolfowitz here and Secretary Armitage. They had an opportunity in their opening statements to basically say, look, we

have made some mistakes here and this is a new day. I did not

hear that. I heard in the questioning a little bit of admission of

problems, but not the kind of things you are talking about from Dr.

Cordesman and everyone of you had some very specific, clearly

thought-out views.

I want to take a little time to say, general, you are just a hero

to me in terms of what you said when very few people were saying

it. I am going to put it in the record, Mr. Chairman. This is what

the general said before a shot was fired, 6 months before a shot

was fired, and 1 month before Congress voted to give the President

the go-it-alone authority. He said, ‘‘I am reminded of the statement

of Shimon Peres who said military victories do not bring peace. You

have to work twice as hard to achieve a peaceful settlement.’’ I

mean, there you were putting it out there.

And then you said, ‘‘The term ‘regime change’ does not adequately describe the concept of what we expect to achieve as a result of a military campaign in Iraq. One would ask the question,

are we willing to spend the time and treasure to rebuild Iraq and

its institutions after fighting? If we go it alone during a military

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mists, the politicians, the judicial advisors to start Iraq on the road

to democracy, or are we going to turn the country over to another

thug who swears fealty to the United States?’’ Then you go into

what is going to happen to the price of oil.

I mean, you are just prescient on the point. You said the costs of the war may be between $100 billion and $200 billion. You are

on the nose. It is headed to $200 billion. And the oil will rise to

something above $30 a barrel for some unknown period of time,

and this will have a downward spiraling effect on our economy. ‘‘In

summary,’’ you say, ‘‘I urge you to continue the dialog to encourage

the administration to do the hard diplomatic work to gain broad

support for a joint solution to the Iraqi problem.’’ I stand in awe of your comments, and therefore, it seems to me

a lot of what you are saying today we have to look at very carefully. And all of this panel.

I want to followup on something, and I do not know how much

time I have left.

The CHAIRMAN. You have some.

Senator BOXER. A little bit, OK.

When Chairman Lugar talked about the history of Iraq, sometimes I wonder if anyone in the administration read the history

books. I read a book by Sandra Mackey. It is not the only book in

the world on Iraq, but it is really clear. The thing about that book

and her point that she was making—and I wanted to ask Dr. Marr

about this—is that she said, in essence, the country was thrown together with people who hate each other inside the borders. I am

making it very simple here. Essentially England wanted the oil and

they put a prince on the throne there from Saudi Arabia, and then

while they were taking the oil and doing their thing and doing

some good things, people were hating each other and fighting each

other and so on and so forth until they all decided they hated the

English more than they hated each other and they got rid of the

English.

And now here we come, the great liberators. It just seems to me

if you just read a couple of books, you would have a sense.

So I want to press you on something you said that is important

to me in looking at a solution here. You said do not think about

separation. You were really lecturing and very strong on the point.

There are some people like former Ambassador Peter Galbraith

who is talking about how to avoid a civil war, maybe have federations. I am wondering if you have thought about that because, as

I look at the Iraqi situation now and where we are—and I have

been saying all along, along with several of my colleagues from the

beginning—we heard in the beginning, well, 90 percent of the country is secure. So I said, OK, if 90 percent of the country is secure,

why not move toward sovereignty in that 90 percent, focus our

troops on the Sunni Triangle, and move? Now I do not know what

the percentage of the country is safe. So maybe someone here who

knows could tell me that.

Would any of you consider the fact if you had a federation—you

know, I represent the State of California. It has a Governor, a very

strong one. It has a legislature. It has local councils. It has got all

the things you need, supervisors, et cetera. We do not have a military. Arnold has not suggested that, and that is good.

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But the point is we function very well as a unit. Can any of you

see in your mind’s eye a situation where you might do that gradually in areas that are more peaceful, get these federations up and

running?

Dr. CORDESMAN. Senator, I think that in some ways we are doing

this when we isolate Fallujah effectively and the Fallujah Brigade.

When we go on with nation-building while we deal with al-Sadr,

as Dr. Diamond has said, trying to get rid of his militia and get

him out of key cities, you go on with the process of governance and

you can do this at the local level and in the governance you do not

need to wait. I think this perfect security solution is never going

to be feasible.

Senator BOXER. I agree with that.

Dr. CORDESMAN. One thing that really I wish people would do in

the U.S. command there is show you how many incidents of violence take place outside the Sunni Triangle and outside the places

where al-Sadr is. There were 1,700 incidents I think yesterday.

There were 2,000 the day before. Most of these are minor, but

many of them are in Baghdad, in the north, in Kirkuk and Mosul.

So violence will go on even in the supposedly more secure areas.

But we have to do this and we also have to recognize that even

if we disarm the militias and coopt them, as Dr. Diamond says, disarmament means most of their best arms will be buried. Almost everybody will still have an AK–47. Until this country is truly secure,

we will never really disarm the factions, and it will take half a decade or more to make these people loyal to the central government

rather than the tribe or the clan or whoever they were loyal to before. So if we do not begin on the basis you are suggesting, we are

almost dooming ourselves to failure.

Dr. MARR. I would like to address some of this. I can only say,

Senator Boxer, that if you are concerned about what you see in

Iraq now, growing instability, and the emergence of more ethnic

and sectarian and tribal factionalism, just wait until you try to separate Iraq into three parts. I have addressed this—— Senator BOXER. I did not say separate countries. I said federations like states like we have in the United States.

Dr. MARR. Well, Iraq is divided into 18 states now and that is

fine. The Kurds are going to have a problem with that because they

want a specific entity in the north, and that is where Peter Galbraith is speaking from. He and I have always had some differences of opinion on this. Maybe the Kurds can have a more moderated entity up there. But 18 provinces is just fine. I think that

is a very good way to run Iraq.

Most people who criticize this arrangement actually talk about

dividing Iraq up on ethnic and sectarian or tribal lines. This is just

the wrong way to go and doing it is going to create tremendous

problems.

Everybody has the idea that Iraq was thrown together in 1920.

So was Syria. Israel was put together even later. Iraq has been

around for 83 years. In the course of that time, there has been not

only a central government, but services. People join an army, they

go to school, they get trained, and they live in a country which has

lots of oil. They do not get up every day of the morning and say

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cept for some Kurds, say they want their state divided. They do not

think like Shi’a or Sunnis first. So this idea of having to put Iraq

back together; that there is not sense of loyalty to Iraq, I think is

something that we have to get beyond.

I would like to make one comment on the militias. I thoroughly

agree that moving toward a modern state means disbanding them

and establishing a central army and police force. Being a realist

and looking at Iraq on the ground, I think that is going to be much

more difficult to achieve than has been indicated here. I would not

bet that it is going to happen by June 30.

We have talked about the Mahdi army and others. In my view,

we have just established a new militia in Fallujah, a Sunni militia

composed of who knows what—a former general, which is fine—but

who knows who he has got in that militia, former Republican

Guards, former military. We have the Kurdish Peshmerga which is

not going to be easy to reintegrate totally.

We have had a couple of weeks of quiet in Fallujah. I have many

questions about that whole Fallujah settlement, but it has been

quiet. One of the reasons is that we are drawing on the local population, the local power structure, whatever it is. One of the reasons

that Petraeus had success up in Mosul was because he did that. So

I think we are going to have to rely on what we find in existence

now to begin to quiet these areas. Then we can begin to integrate

those militias and local forces, break down their loyalty to sub-national or sub-whatever groups, and begin to integrate them into a

national military. It is going to take a long time and it is not going

to be easy.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Boxer.

Dr. Marr, I would just interject it sounds much like our hearing

on Afghanistan in which you are discussing warlords, local hegemony, lack of central government, and what have you. But then I

think each of you will be very good on that subject too. That is a

very important thing for us to be keeping our eye on.

Senator Chafee.

Senator CHAFEE. Well, thank you, Senator Lugar, and I will echo

the comments of my colleagues. Thank you for your time and good

testimony today.

Senator Hagel was talking about our success in Iraq and how we

have to look at this effort in a regional way, look at everything in

the entire region if we are going to be successful in Iraq. And, Dr.

Marr, you said we are fighting a three-front war: first of all, in

Iraq; second, on terrorism; and third, with the Israeli-Palestinian

issue. Obviously, they are all together and the stakes are so high.

If we fail on any of these three fronts, we are facing tremendous

difficulties ahead.

My question is on one of those fronts, we seem to be making mistake after mistake. The President on April 14, sent a letter to

Prime Minister Sharon in which he said, ‘‘In light of new realities

on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population

centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status

negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice

lines of 1949.’’

Now, he cannot be that unrealistic to know that—we are all

going to funerals—this is going to lead to an upsurge in violence,

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and it means more funerals we will be going to. Why would he take

this course of a change that no previous President of the last six

or seven has taken? Any thoughts as to what the President was

thinking as he changes American foreign policy? I will start with

Dr. Diamond because you had not answered Senator Hagel’s question. I think it is related to what Senator Hagel was asking.

Dr. DIAMOND. Well, Senator Chafee, I do not know what is in the

President’s mind, but I would like to make a couple of points, if I

may. I think some things need just to be said in the current era

of crisis we are in.

One is, first of all, I strongly agree with what Dr. Marr said. We are basically with the $2 billion, $3 billion we are giving annually

to Israel—and I am a Jewish American. I am a very strong supporter of the State of Israel, feel strong empathy for what it has

lived through, the constant terrorism, the struggle for existence.

But we have basically been funding Israeli theft of Palestinian land

for—I do not know what—30 or more years now. And we are paying for the expansion of these settlements. I think it should be

American policy that we will no longer pay for it and that the relationship between the United States and Israel will deteriorate if

Israel does not immediately halt the expansion of settlements.

Now, that leaves an awful lot of territory that they still control,

but the first thing you can do is to stop doing additional harm. And

the expansion of settlements is doing terrible harm to Israel’s prospects in the region—many Israelis understand that—and to America’s standing in the Middle East. And add to that a lot of the other

things that many of my panelists have referred to, most recently

the prison scandal, the sense that America is arrogant and has no

respect for the Arab world, and it is very deeply damaging.

To come back to the Greater Middle East Initiative, I have a

somewhat different view than Dr. Cordesman, although I greatly

respect what he has said. I think the problem is not the message,

it is the messenger, if I may say it this way. The administration

has had a very imperious and arrogant attitude toward the world

in its unilateralism and toward many of the states of the region.

Arabs know that, on the one hand, we are saying—and President

Bush has given a series of absolutely eloquent, historic speeches on

this subject beginning with the one on November 6 to the National

Endowment for Democracy about transforming our policy in the region. But when the Arab civil society leaders, political leaders, and

state leaders see us continuing to embrace Arab authoritarian regimes and state security apparatuses, I must add, in extremely intimate ways that the American people do not know about, and then

call for greater democracy and human rights, when the President

gives this speech on November 6 and shortly after that welcomes

to the White House in an honored role the President of one of the

most repressive states in the region, reforming though it is, President Ben Ali of Tunisia, what message does this send about our

consistency of purpose and principle? When we locate a headquarters of the Middle East Partnership Initiative in Tunisia,

which is an extremely repressive state, what message does it send?

So I think that it is not that we cannot do this. I think we can

do this. But we need to have a greater degree of humility. We need

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gion and with our allies in Europe. That is why the Sea Island

Summit could be very important in this regard if we can craft this

multilateral initiative. The NATO summit in Istanbul at the end

of June could be very important in this regard if we could move toward more of a collective effort. We just cannot do this unilaterally

any longer, and if we are going to go down this road, we have to

have more consistency of purpose.

Senator CHAFEE. Thank you, Dr. Diamond.

Does any other panelist want to take a shot at this? I guess the

question is what is the President thinking. Is this a 100-year war

and that is the only way to address our challenges? Yes, Dr.

Cordesman.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Senator, I think that I would not have made

that choice. The President was confronted with the reality where

there was at least the offer of withdrawing from Gaza, of taking

some tangible step on the ground, and possibly actually moving forward toward creating the first step in a Palestinian state. And

given the dilemma between having new peace initiatives, which

might simply end in more talk, and some kind of apparent step forward, he may have chosen the latter.

I think it is also important for all of us to remember that 1949

and 1967 were not borders. They were boundaries and that in negotiating the U.N. resolutions on this issue, we always stated that

there was the prospect of adjustment to these boundaries and the

wording of 242 and all subsequent resolutions reflects that fact, although many people in the Arab world deny it.

I say this because if we are to move forward on any negotiation

at this point, the road map does not address this issue. The President brought out something which quite frankly was one of the key

principles of the Camp David negotiations under Clinton and of the

conference at Taba that followed. They were not publicly announced as U.S. policy, but they did call for adjustments in the

1967 boundaries and they did set limits on the Palestinian right of

return.

I think this just highlights the problem of not having a constant

and consistent effort at the highest level to reach a peace, of being

seen always as being biased in one direction rather than as balanced because if there had been a broader context for a peace process, we would not have been seen in the way you correctly point

out, as having favored Israel without regard to the Palestinians or

the future peace process.

Senator CHAFEE. You are suggesting that there is dissension as

to the direction we are taking even within the administration.

General Hoar, do you want to comment?

General HOAR. I would like to just make a couple of points. One

is several months ago it was reported that the President was surprised at the strength of anti-American feelings in Indonesia. I can

tell you that throughout the Muslim world this feeling is enormously strong with respect to the perception of our relationship

with Israel.

Monday of this week, while I was in Kuwait, I attended a Palestinian film festival in Kuwait City. A number of people there that

were former Palestinian citizens who are now citizens of Kuwait,

but a large number of others as well that feel a bond through their

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Arabness with the Palestinians. This is not going to change, and

it seems to me that there is a lack of sensitivity about the timing

and the way in which these things are expressed publicly that we

can speak about our support appropriately for the State of Israel

but in a way that just makes so many other people angry at us.

Senator CHAFEE. Well, thank you. I know some of the previous

witnesses have said, ‘‘It’s the economy, stupid,’’ and ‘‘It’s the security, stupid.’’ You might add, ‘‘It’s the Palestinians, stupid.’’ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Chafee.

Senator Corzine.

Senator CORZINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panel.

I have been listening in my office to the testimony of all of you

today and it is really refreshing to hear straight talk with regard

to these issues. It is very troubling where we are and we are going.

I heard, I believe it was, Dr. Cordesman suggesting that we do

not have room for another mistake in the Middle East and that we

need to be very cautious. Unlike some of my colleagues, I am very

worried that this transition on June 30 is just one of those events,

at least from the perspective of what I have been able to derive.

I do not understand what it is that is going to be transferred on

June 30 and I have a hard time understanding how the Iraqi people are going to understand what that sovereignty means, and if

there is a disconnect between what is said to be happening and

what the Iraqi people feel, I think we almost bake into the cake

a failure.

So I would love to hear your perspectives. We heard ‘‘audible’’

yesterday as part of the necessary ingredient of how we have to

deal with occupation and reconstruction. Is it time for an audible

to be called with regard to June 30 or do we just not know enough

or has there been enough thoughtful planning with regard to this

to actually accomplish those things?

I have no doubt that all of us believe that elections sooner rather

than later are a good thing, if we could organize them, but does

this artificially or at least arbitrary date of June 30 stand in the

way of that? I would like to hear your opinions about how we are

dealing with this 42-day deadline and what are the down sides if

it does not accomplish what the Iraqi people think.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Senator, let me begin. I think 42 days is a day

to a legal transfer of sovereignty. That is all it is. It is a legal moment in time.

Now, we have already begun to transfer ministries. In theory, 11

of them are transferred to the Iraqis. In practice, that simply is not

happening. Eleven are under Iraqi control, but they do not have

any effective staffs, they are not working with the governance, they

cannot yet control the money. It is going to be, I think, talking to

people in Kuwait a few days ago, some 60 to 90 days after June

30 before many of these ministries are really up, functioning,

staffed, and working with the governance and localities at the level

of efficiency they need.

There is no clear plan for handling the aid process. Now, people

talk about appropriations and obligations here, and with all deference, there is only one thing that counts, that is, how much

money is actually building or accomplishing anything on the

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ground. What we have is a contracting nightmare where a lot of

the money is now going to areas outside Iraq, outside security,

where a lot of fiction is being said about improvements in things

like electric power, which simply is not true.

Now, we do not know at this point in time, nobody knows how

fast this process is going to work in a government that is coming

into it. You are looking at police, and we have just sent one of the

best commanders in the U.S. forces to help with the security forces

in the military training. But let us be honest. The uniforms are not

there. The communications equipment is not there. The facilities

are not there. The weapons are not there, and we do not know

when they are coming. And we desperately need those elements.

And it is this whole issue. June 30 is fine, but we need facts on

the ground at every level, and at this point in time what we have

is a lot of announcements.

Senator CORZINE. Just a quick followup. Do I understand you to

say that presentation of the facts that we think we are hearing

with regard to electric power production does not match the real

facts on the ground?

Dr. CORDESMAN. Well, first, if you look at the actual report in

depth, you will find there are serious problems in Baghdad and

Basra which are not discussed in the testimony, but more than

that, net power generation, regardless of requirement, regardless of

distribution, regardless of who actually is getting what in given

hours, is a meaningless statistic. It is like the Russians under the

Communist rule who used to count the number of starts on buildings but never counted the finish. And every statistic I see coming

out of the CPA is tainted with that character.

Senator CORZINE. Thank you.

General.

General HOAR. Senator, I remind you again that we are dealing

with the gang that cannot shoot straight. These people have a year

of bad performance and I do not think there is anything that I have

seen that would indicate that they are prepared to go forward with

a coherent plan that hangs together. I just have not seen it and I

work hard at trying to find out the information. Perhaps this panel

has more information, but I do not see it. I am not confident.

Senator CORZINE. Well, we cannot get answers to who is going

to run the prisons, who is going to negotiate with the Iranians with

regard to what foreign policy is about. We are told that these people who will be in charge are responsible. So I totally agree.

Dr. MARR. I would say something that I have said before. Perhaps it is a little bit counter-intuitive. I think the main problem,

as Tony said, is to buildup a central government that is effective.

We are talking about deadlines such as June 30 and what is going

to happen then. These are just way stations in a very long process

of developing real political leadership in a central government

which is not going to take place soon. What we need to concentrate

on is getting a government that can deliver the mail, create security, do these various things. As Tony said, we need to build up the

staffs, and of course, turn authority as fast as we can over to them.

My gut reaction on listening to this discourse and in my talking

to Iraqis is that we are all focused on elections and legitimacy. We

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lously going to create legitimacy for a government which comes to

power. It may help. I am not against elections, but if elections are

done poorly and you cannot get into certain areas and do them—

I know exactly what Iraqis are going to say the day after—particularly the ones who lose. They are going to say it was not legitimate.

Iraqis are not used to these kinds of elections. They are used to

services. They are used to security. Effective governments deliver

services. That will confer a great deal of legitimacy on whatever

government can do that.

So a little bit less focus on the elections and all these turning

points, which are not going to be real turning points, and a little

more on effective delivery of services will help. It will also help get

rid of the bureaucracy placed between the money and the recipients

in Iraq. I have not got any clue on how to do it but we must get

rid of the red tape. All of the Iraqis want to get going. They want

to develop businesses and they cannot go through this contracting

procedure. It is a nightmare.

Dr. DIAMOND. Senator Corzine, let me first speak to the political

element. I think that we need to solve the legitimacy problem in

terms of the origins and accountability of government if this is

going to be sustainable. I completely agree with Dr. Marr. That is

not nearly enough, but that is one precondition.

It is just inconceivable to me that we could postpone the June

30 deadline and not have this country blow up. It is just not an

alternative. One thing that has been keeping a lid on things is that

Iraqis have been knowing that they are going to get their government back on June 30.

Now, to my mind, there are many tragedies in this. One tragedy

in this is that the plan that we developed inside the CPA, some of

us, which is to pull together a national conference of maybe as

many as 1,000 or more people, representative of all the great diversity of the country that you, having studied it so long, know so well

and bring them together in one place. And it can be done. You have

tribal groups, women’s groups, professional associations, local and

provincial councils. They all elect some members. They come to

Baghdad. They caucus. Then those people who have been elected

to the national conference and to the broad debate that goes on

elect a consultative assembly, maybe between 100 and 200 people.

I think once you have that, it may not have legislative power, but

it will have greater political legitimacy than any body of Iraqis that

has been constituted since the end of the war, and we might say

since, what, 1958? I mean, who knows. Then that body can begin

to hold the interim government responsible, take responsibility for

some of the future of the country.

The plan had been, but we ran out of time, that that consultative

assembly would have elected the presidency council, would have

elected the prime minister, who would then have chosen a cabinet.

So you would not have Lakhdar Brahimi having to choose these

people. Now I think, given the time situation, we really have no

choice. But the new officials can still be held accountable to the

consultative assembly which, as I said earlier, can then confirm

nominees for the supreme court and begin to get the politics of this

on a sounder footing.

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One more point I would like to make very briefly builds on what

Dr. Cordesman said. There is no reason why all of this reconstruction money has to go through, as it largely has been going through,

American corporations. I can tell you our regional coordinator in

the south central region, which is in the Shi’ite heartland, has gotten more done with a very small amount of money in terms of getting buildings built and services going and schools up and running

just by going out there and finding Iraqi companies and getting

them to do it. And we have got to get over our obsession with pouring money into American companies with all of the layers it goes

through and with all of the loss that we suffer and getting money

out to small Iraqi contractors, even if they cannot perfectly account

for it, pumping money into the local economy and getting stuff

done.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Corzine.

Let me just follow on in this round with a question for Dr. Diamond regarding the consultative group that you talked about, the

1,000 people. How could they be constituted and when? How does

that fit into the scheme of things at this particular moment?

Dr. DIAMOND. What I think can happen, but we are going to need

some improvement of security in order for this to move forward, is

that you say a certain number of members of a national conference,

which could be again a total body of 1,000 people or more.

The CHAIRMAN. Who selects them? How do they physically get

anywhere?

Dr. DIAMOND. Develop a structure for their selection, a plan that

is mutually negotiated among key Iraqis. Ambassador Brahimi is

well capable of doing this in his consultations. So we develop a mutually agreed plan whereby, for example, 150 to 200 members will

be elected from the various provincial and regional councils around

the country, which already exist. As Dr. Marr indicated, those are

the constituent elements for emergent Iraqi federalism. A couple

hundred people will be elected from the different professional associations of lawyers, educators, engineers, so on and so forth. Tribal

bodies might elect a certain number. The Iraqi women’s associations, which I might add, you talked about the need for cross-cutting affiliations to come together in new ways. Nowhere does it

happen more impressively than in the Iraqi Higher Women’s Council. So you designate them to select some members and you go to

the constituent elements that are identifiable and existing, political

and social, of the different pieces of Iraqi society. They each elect

from among their members some delegates to go to Baghdad to a

big national conference.

It debates national issues and then from among its members,

elects a smaller consultative assembly. That assembly might not

have legislative authority because it is not directly elected, but

again it could sit alongside the interim government, hold it accountable in a variety of ways and be a forum for directing Iraq’s

future in some respects and expressing its frustrations. It could be

an outlet for some of the rage and frustration that Iraqis feel and

a way of engaging both the Iraqi executive branch, helping to

shape the Iraqi judicial branch, and beginning to have a serious dialog about the country’s future.

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The CHAIRMAN. Let me press that for more detail, especially this

time line. Physically, when do these people meet, the women or the

business people or whatever?

Dr. DIAMOND. It cannot happen before June 30.

The CHAIRMAN. OK. It is post June 30.

Dr. DIAMOND. It had been our hope that it might happen soon

enough to actually choose the interim government. That is no

longer possible, but I think Ambassador Brahimi is thinking that

it could happen perhaps by the latter part of July. At least the selection process for the national conference could get going in July.

The CHAIRMAN. So Brahimi has appointed his people by the 1st

of July, at least this initial group.

Dr. DIAMOND. Right.

The CHAIRMAN. Then this group supervises, in essence, the rest

of these elections by the end of July or thereabouts so that the people then come to Baghdad.

Dr. DIAMOND. Maybe in August you could have an actual

national——

The CHAIRMAN. Sometime in the July August period, supervised

by the new Iraqi government.

Dr. DIAMOND. Well, I think it should not be supervised only by

the new Iraqi government because you have to keep in mind, Senator, a principle, that any government you have that sits in Baghdad is going to have its own interests, even if it is ‘‘technocratic’’

and that is, to some extent, I think——

The CHAIRMAN. Who else supervises it? Brahimi?

Dr. DIAMOND. There is going to be an Iraqi independent electoral

administration. Carina Perelli, who is the head of the U.N. electoral unit, has been in and out Iraq repeatedly with her team to

stand up—and it will and must be stood up before June 30—an

independent Iraqi electoral administration.

The CHAIRMAN. These are still all Iraqis. In other words, when

you say somebody other, you are not saying the United Nations,

the United States, NATO.

Dr. DIAMOND. The U.N. should have a role. The United States,

it seems to me, does not need to have a role. By the way, there will

be one international participant on the Iraqi electoral administration, but the U.N. with the electoral administration I think could

achieve this.

The CHAIRMAN. So there is a possible plan.

Now, Dr. Cordesman.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Senator, I just want to make one point. I agree

with everything Dr. Diamond said. I am concerned that early on

I got the impression the committee was talking about rushing forward in the politics. That is not what needs to be done. The politics

should play out at the pace that is necessary, and I think Dr. Diamond pointed that out. But remember, even in his calendar, it is

going to be the middle of summer in Iraq. That is not always, even

in Iraq, the best time to do it.

If I was going to say anything, it is give the politics all the support they need, but rush in the money and the assistance. Make

sure the money on democratization aid is actually going in. Make

sure the Iraqis can really see the security forces develop. Make

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sure there is aid money on the ground, that you are watching

something supporting governance.

And remember, of all of the figures you have seen that really do

not mean very much, the most dangerous one is jobs. Where do

those numbers come from? The 200,000 people in the security

forces, subsidies to people who have left government, subsidies to

the ex-military, artificial jobs which are one-time, temporary jobs

being created through the use of the aid process on American-designed projects which have no job future once completed. That is

critical for this political process to work.

I think Dr. Diamond has given you the right plan. The question

is are we going to provide the resources to allow it to work.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a very good point. But I was trying to

press Dr. Diamond to tease out a plan here for July and August,

and he has furnished that.

My next set of questions gets to the point that several of you are

making, and that is, first of all, we have appropriated a lot of

money here, but not much has hit the street, as I said in my opening statement.

And second, you are suggesting that probably this may not be

the way for the money to be best spent anyway; that is, to go

through endless weeks, maybe months of contractor bidding at the

Pentagon, or wherever this is happening, to ensure that finally

some contractors get there. We raised the question yesterday with

the administration, what happens in July if the Iraqis say, we do

not want your American contractors? What then? Well, we really

have not thought about that, and we will go back to headquarters

and think through that one.

Now, our dilemma here is, I think as you presented it, an economy that is in very bad shape. It has been that way for quite a

while. What I am trying to find out from you is, where are our potential sources of revenue for Iraq, in addition to assistance we

might give, albeit to local people who then hire local people, because even that may run out in due course? We have some desire

in the country to help out Iraq, and we will probably do so. But

at some point there has to be some indigenous business that takes

hold. Is there that possibility in Iraq, that given a jump start, or

some stimulus, or some money on the ground, that Iraqis begin to

employ each other and that there is then some basis for this democracy as it evolves? Does anyone have a thought about that?

Yes, doctor.

Dr. CORDESMAN. I think I would ask urgently from the CPA and

from the embassy that they take a hard look at this. Dr. Marr and

I think Dr. Diamond both pointed out there is a lot of small business, service industries, things developing in Iraq that I have not

seen there in over 30 years. But there are some very important

‘‘buts.’’

Some 250-odd state corporations, almost none of which are viable, being funded today basically and kept alive but they do not fit

the market, and we do not have an Iraqi effort to transform them.

An agricultural sector, which for the first time, is actually probably going to have to buy crops on a market basis which means for

the first time in some 20-odd years, nobody is going to pay for

things that are inedible simply because they get produced.

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You have over 100,000 people who used to be employed in defense industries that do not exist. At most you will have a military,

which is a small fraction of the former military, and all that money

that went by way of subsidies will go.

So your question is absolutely critical, but the answer is, it is

going to take a minimum of 2 to 3 years to turn around those job

statistics, and if anybody can show me on a spreadsheet how it is

going to take less time and not require massive additional amounts

of U.S. aid, I want to hear an explanation because if you have not

got a job plan that is convincing, you have not got a plan for Iraq.

The CHAIRMAN. So let us take for granted the U.S. aid comes, but

then the question is, how is it to be administered?

Dr. Marr.

Dr. MARR. Yes. I would like to address that. My impression is

that there has been a great deal of improvement at two levels. The

paid middle class, accountants, teachers, professors, and so on are

getting three times their former salary and they are happy. As I

said, they are going out and buying refrigerators and air conditioners and cell phones and improving their houses. And the merchants at the retail level are doing a land office business because

there is no tax and they are importing. They are happy.

Now for the business communities—and I am going to be personal about it, specific. There are businessmen there that would

like nothing more than to get their hands on some seed money

from the U.S. to do whatever is necessary. You want some generators, you want something done, they want to do it. But the hurdle

between getting the money and actually starting the business—not

just taking the money and performing services for the U.S. Government or the company involved, but starting the business and doing

what you are suggesting, employing people—is huge. These people

cannot bridge the gap.

I know people in Iraq, somebody who is an engineer who builds

sewers, construction at the real grassroots level. He has almost

given up because he does not understand the contracting procedure. He does not know how to do it. He wants to build his own

business. We need to find a way to get past this contractual nightmare, get the money not just to people who perform services, but

to business people who want to capitalize on it. Incidentally, I

think in the gulf and elsewhere, among Iraqi Americans for example, there are lots of people who want to go in and invest and do

this sort of thing, but of course, they cannot because of the security

problem.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Marr, as an interlocutor between these Iraqis

and our government, who in our government—that is, what Department, what person—might get it in this respect? In other

words, how do we move the policy to one in which this aid comes

through a clearly identified entity and our government understands

what you are talking about, and the money gets to these people,

and they have seed money and they begin to build? Do you have

any suggestions, any nominees? Or where physically should we

look?

Dr. MARR. Well, I would rely on Dr. Diamond for this because I

have not worked in the bureaucracy and the CPA. The only thing

I know is that we are supposed to have $18 billion to spend.

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The CHAIRMAN. I understand. Well, the money is there but I am

trying to find out what the mechanism is right now.

Dr. MARR. What is the mechanism? We have a big worry about

accounting here. I read in the press the other day that we need an

oversight committee to make sure that corruption does not occur.

It sounds like the $2,400 toilet seat again. Maybe there is too much

accounting. Maybe there is too much of this accountability and bureaucracy for the moment. Obviously, some accounting is necessary

and is a good thing. But we have an emergency there over the next

year or so in which we have got to get the pump primed and get

started on this. Maybe we need to let some of this bureaucratic

worry slip to make sure that the money is getting in there so these

things can get started.

Dr. DIAMOND. I completely agree with what Dr. Marr said, and

Senator, I would say look at what has worked. One thing that we

know that has worked reasonably well is the CERP program, the

Commanders Emergency Reconstruction Program. These local military commanders were getting a lot done before their money ran

out. There has been a tendency, let me put it this way, within CPA

toward centralization of control. I think this has been one of the

pervasive problems with CPA as an institution, and we need to just

get money out the door to local commanders, local civilian officials,

tell them to spend it. If you cannot account for it carefully, just get

it done. As Dr. Marr said, we are in an emergency and Iraqis have

to begin to see that their physical lives and their communities are

being transformed. So I would just push the money out into the renewed CERP program into the control of local military commanders.

In each province, we have had up through June 30 provincial officials of CPA, six regional coordinators. I do not know what is

going to replace them in terms of the embassy, but in effect, we

need to have local civilian officials who are continuing to do that

as much as possible through local Iraqi contracts.

The CHAIRMAN. And that is a good point because that is the post

July 1 thing.

Yes, doctor.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Senator, the grim reality is that USAID was not

particularly effective even before it was cut back and folded into

the State Department. It was a project-oriented structure and that

is all we have got.

I agree with what both Dr. Marr and Dr. Diamond said, but it

does not handle infrastructure. It does not handle long-term institutions. If you are really going to deal with major aid projects,

somebody has to manage them on a national level. Frankly, I think

you have to add to the CERP program and provide an immediate

transfer of money to those ministries that are up and functioning,

let the Iraqis make the decisions, let them make the plan. There

may be some corruption. There may be accounting problems, but if

you focus on the fact that the ministries actually perform something, that you can see material benefits and you monitor progress,

then they are a vital addition to having CERP type aid or field type

aid.

You cannot fix a power system or an oil company or deal with

any other critical infrastructure or national project on a local level.

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You have got to have a national level as well, and the U.S. Government and U.S. contractors are incapable of managing and implementing such an effort. The Iraqis at some level are.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I thank the panel. I think that my colleagues would agree that the value of this hearing is the quality

of your thinking. We are attempting to get some thoughts here

today that have not really come into play, and it is very important

they do with just 42 days to go. I am grateful to all of you, and

I yield to my colleague, Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. I yield to Senator Boxer.

Senator BOXER. I am not going to ask questions because it is not

fair to my colleagues. I have somewhere I have to be in 10 minutes,

and so very quickly I just wanted to again thank you very much

and thank the chairman and the ranking member.

I will say, yes, I mean, we all know we do not have great choices

and before we say get the money out there and give it to the military and let the—oh, wait. Just take a deep breath. I think Dr.

Cordesman is right on this point. Let us get the funding to the

ministries and have some rules for them because I am the one who

actually publicized the coffee pot and the toilet seat. The toilet seat

actually was only $600 in those years. This is not a good thing for

American taxpayers to believe. They are already upset. So we have

to be a little careful before we just say get the money out the door,

do not have rules. But you are right, get it to the Iraqis.

Two other points I would make are this. I was offended by some

of the comments about Israel, and I just want to say something

here. Nobody said, any of you who made your comments, that when

Barak was the Prime Minister he offered the Palestinians 95 percent of what they wanted. Nobody said that. You have to put this

all in context. What happened then was they walked away. They

walked away. And what did Israel get for being willing to give up

95 percent? They get terrorism, worse than ever, intifadas, suicide

bombers, women suicide bombers. You cannot take your daughter

to have a talk with her about her wedding day because you get

blown up in a cafe. That is what they got.

Now, the fact that the Palestinians are saying, you see, all this

happening here is all about Israel is so much baloney. It is two separate problems, and it is just an excuse to tie this PalestinianIsraeli conflict, which is so sad and so horrifying, into this Iraqi

deal, which is just a separate matter.

I would just say as experts when you say things like you say,

‘‘theft of land’’ and words like this, please be careful to put things

in context. And now you have Sharon saying he will give up the

Gaza. So I just feel it was very one-sided on that point. Outside of

that point, I thought everything you had to say was very balanced.

The last point I would make is about Afghanistan. If you really

sit down and write the history of this thing, the biggest loser in all

this Iraq mess is Afghanistan. We sat here saying we cannot afford

to lose Afghanistan. We cannot afford to fail the Afghani people,

and look at what is happening. We have turned our attention away

again and despite the pleas of Senators Lugar and Biden and many

of us following their lead, they are not extending the security in

that country. You want to talk about a model that we could have

turned to in the region, there it was staring us in the face, and

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plus, we would have been able to use our considerable attention

and focus and genius to get al-Qaeda. So there are so many pieces

of this puzzle.

And I just thank you all very much, despite my one critique, for

just really giving us your best advice. And I thank my friend, Joe

Biden, for his generosity in yielding to me.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Boxer.

Senator Biden.

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

I really appreciate your taking all this time. You have been sitting there a long time. As you could tell, we would keep you another 8 hours if we could because there are so many specific things

that could, should, and need to be done that could produce some

product relatively quickly.

For example, an old colleague of yours, General Hoar, General

Zinni and I were talking, and he proposed a conference in Amman

to get Iraqi business people together with international parties to

identify needs and opportunities and get money to them quickly. I

mean, we do these business fairs every day in Washington, DC and

Wilmington, Delaware and Indianapolis, Indiana.

One of the things that I think is a problem here is the need for

everything to go through American businesses.

But let me ask you. I apologize for going back from the specific

to the general, but all of you said this ultimately rests on—and the

Iraqis I have spoken with—security, rests on that businessman

who wants to go out and build a sewer or run the water pipes to

the homes that are being built. That guy, including the American

contractor or other contractor who may be dealing with them, is

getting shot. They are not going out.

So my first question is—if you can be explicit and specific, it

would be useful, if it is appropriate—how do we get more security

now? How do we make it safer for the Iraqi mother to give the

change to her daughter, who is 14 years old, to run down to the

market and pick up some vegetables? They are not doing that now

in many places, so I am told. Now, maybe I am wrong. You have

been there, Dr. Marr, in the region talking to a lot more people

than I have. Dr. Diamond, you were consulting the CPA. Maybe I

am wrong.

First of all, am I right that ‘‘in the neighborhood,’’ for lack of a

better phrase, in the neighborhoods, in the villages, in the countryside, people are, if I can make an American analogy, worried about

sending their kid out the door in the same way that people here

are worried about sending their kid out the door in some bad

neighborhoods because of drug dealers? Is it really that way? Yes,

Dr. Cordesman.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Senator, we now have something like five sets

of surveys. All of them show, to various degrees, security is almost

the first concern if not the second. It is a nationwide problem with

the exception of part of the Kurdish area. It is not simply a matter

of what happens in the west or the areas where al-Sadr is. And you

are absolutely right.

Now, security, however, is always going to be relative. Dr. Marr

pointed out that better is often OK as distinguished from having

the kind of security we would like in the U.S.

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Senator BIDEN. I got that. So what do we do to get security,

whatever the level? And you all may have a different version or

view of what the minimal security level is required for the ‘‘average’’ Iraqi to feel a sense of security.

Dr. CORDESMAN. May I offer you a suggestion, sir?

Senator BIDEN. Of course. I am looking for suggestions.

Dr. CORDESMAN. You have got probably one of the best commanders we have working this issue right now, but I do not see

that he is getting the money or all the manpower he needs. You

have got to get around the contracting process and get those assets

in to create the kind of security forces that are needed.

Senator BIDEN. Translate that for me. You are at a town meeting

with me and Johnny says, hey, Doc, stop all the crap here. Just tell

me what do we need to do. More troops?

Dr. CORDESMAN. Forget about Armitage, forget about Wolfowitz,

bring that commander back every month, ask him directly what is

it he needs, is he getting it, and who is in the way.

Senator BIDEN. Do you think he is going to tell us?

Dr. CORDESMAN. Yes, I think frankly this one will. And if you

ask him for tangible measures of how security is improving by government and by district and by town, not a bunch of nonsense

about how everybody feels better nationally, he will give you the

statistics because they are compiled every day and they are simply

not being transmitted to you.

Senator BIDEN. Do you agree with that, General Hoar?

General HOAR. Absolutely, sir.

Senator BIDEN. Are we talking about Abizaid or are we talking

about Sanchez? Who are we talking about?

General HOAR. No. The guy that commanded the 101st Airborne.

Dr. MARR. Petraeus.

Senator BIDEN. OK, got you. And he is not worried he is not

going to be on vacation with General Shinseki in Hawaii once he

does that?

General HOAR. That is a real problem.

Senator BIDEN. It sure the hell is. Look, seriously. General, I am

not going to mention names. You have been on some conference

calls with me when I have asked your opinion and others of your

rank and former rank, and several have said to me—I am just

going to say it straight up, not in the conversation that I had with

you on the phone. One significant general said to me, look, I cannot

come testify. They will ruin me. I cannot do it.

I think we should try to get the commander here, but my experience so far is—Dr. Cordesman, here is what I was told by two people a month ago. I said, are these guys genuinely not in need of

more force? Because that is what we heard yesterday. We heard

that whatever they want, whatever they ask for, they got it. I said,

so these are men you guys all admire. You admire Abizaid. You admire Sanchez. You admire these guys. What is the deal? And he

said the following. He said, look at their face when they answer

and listen to precisely what they say in response to the question,

do you need more forces. And he said, they will be stone-faced and

they will look in the camera and say, I have all the force I need

for my mission. But no one ever asks them what is their mission.

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I asked yesterday Mr. Wolfowitz. What is the mission that General Abizaid has? What is his mission? What is General Sanchez’ mission beyond force protection? I have yet to get an answer. I then

asked specifically, is the mission to disarm and integrate the militias? Well, I do not know. Is the mission to provide security at the

market in the village? Is the mission to provide security so people

can feel safe to travel from Basra to the capital? Is that the mission? Does anybody know? Where do I go? Whom do I ask?

General, you were a CENTCOM commander. Is there a piece of

paper somewhere? Is there a set of orders that says, this is your

mission? As CENTCOM commander, did you have a mission statement?

General HOAR. Yes, sir.

Senator BIDEN. Does Abizaid have a mission statement?

General HOAR. Yes, sir, he does.

Senator BIDEN. How do I get it? I am not being a wise guy now.

I am being deadly earnest.

General HOAR. I think that you could ask John Abizaid and he

would give you one.

I am frankly very disappointed in how this situation that you

have described has evolved. I think the atmosphere is poisonous.

I think the public berating of Eric Shinseki is an example of what

happens to somebody that speaks his mind.

Senator BIDEN. All he did was answer a question.

General HOAR. Serious stuff apparently.

I think that a lot of these people are buffaloed and I am disappointed that they cannot speak out more frankly. I asked the

same question you did of a very senior Army officer who has a dog

in this fight. Do you have enough troops? He said, I do not have

enough foreign troops. I said, give me a break. What is the difference between foreign troops and U.S. troops? Well, we need people to guard pipelines, to stand around on the road and so forth.

We do not want to use U.S. troops for that. But when we cannot

get foreign troops, it does not negate the requirement for having

troops on the ground.

Senator BIDEN. The bottom line is the pipeline still gets blown

up. The bottom line is the road cannot be ridden. The bottom line

is convoys cannot go from one place to another. The bottom line is

we end up with—if the Times is right—I am not sure it is because

we have heard conflicting numbers—somewhere between 10,000

and 20,000 paid former military private defense forces.

It is amazing to me, after all these years, that I cannot get an

answer. And I was here during Vietnam. When I got here as a 29-

year-old kid, Vietnam was still raging. I got straighter answers

then than I am getting now about need. But again, we get back to

the security deal.

And by the way, you know what my colleagues say to me?

I must tell you on the record, one of the things that I really resent—and I know you know this. You, general, know this because

I think I have mentioned it. I am angry that a guy—this is purely

personal—that for someone who argued not retrospectively, not

after the fact, not Monday morning quarterbacking, but on the

record clearly well before all these mistakes were made and as they

were being made that we were going in the wrong direction, we are

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going about it the wrong way, we are making a fundamental mistake, that I am the guy, among others—but there are not many of

us—calling for greater sacrifice on the part of the United States

military in the short term to be able to get this right while the

guys who screwed this up to a fare-thee-well are saying, well, if the

generals ask us, we will go ahead and do it.

Because it raises the question in European capitals, it raises the

question in Arab capitals—I know this part for a fact. It is read as

there is an exit strategy, that the exit strategy is we are going to

turn over as quickly as we can to whomever we can find, incompetent or otherwise, capable or otherwise, ready or otherwise, and

say, we completed our mission and we are getting the heck out of

there.

Every European I have met with—I should not say that—85 percent say, are you getting ready to leave? Now here, we are hearing,

stay the course. There they are translating these things. They look

on the ground and say, hey, you need more force, and you say, well,

why do you not get in the game? And they look and say, well, I

do not want to get in there now. It is like they have screwed it up

so bad, no one can fix it, no one can play it. So I am not sure I

want to get in.

I realize I have run over my time, but if I can end going back

to you, Dr. Marr. Tell me about how you envision this, to use a

trite American phrase used in electoral politics—not trite, but an

overused phrase—empowering, if you do, through this sort of—as

Brahimi explains it to me—and I speak to him—his version of a

loya jirga. There is no such institutional structure, but the 1,000

to 1,500 people who are going to be sometime after the 30th chosen, hopefully with some rational basis, although they are chosen

and not elected, that brings together a truly not cohesive but representative group of people who are going to, in effect, play the

role, as Brahimi describes it to me, as—they will not have any legislative power, but they may have some moral force of authority

but if they conclude that the interim government that is going to

be named and take over June 30 is not moving the way they

should, they will be a counterweight. They will at least keep it

somewhere in the area of legitimacy because if this 1,500 people

who are gathered together in some fora and form were to overwhelmingly say, whoa, the new President, the new Prime Minister,

the new Vice President is off the reservation, then that person or

that group would have no legitimacy.

So the way I kind of understand it is that it is going to be official

in that people will be named, but in a sense unofficial in that it

does not any articulated, written, specific responsibility. And I am

trying to figure it out. I am trying to figure out, A, does the thing

have any utility, whatever it is; and what does it have to sort of

be, not who is on it, but what does it have to be. How does it have

to be constructed for it to play any positive role? That is a very inarticulate way of phrasing the question, but it is a very inarticulate

science right now as to what the devil it is supposed to do and

mean.

Dr. MARR. Well, I think it is inarticulate because it is inarticulate. I cannot spend a lot of time answering. Forgive me, Senator

Biden, because I am not focusing my time and attention on these

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constitutional and short-term issues, as for example, Dr. Diamond

is.

My view is that everybody wants a representative government,

but basically we have a long transitional period. The only thing

that is going to matter is some kind of an election, a constitution,

and then finally a government. The Iraqis have profound, difficult

decisions to make, and these have to involve compromises. For example: for the Kurds and the Kurdish parties, how much separatism in the north? How much religion? How many Shi’a are going

to be represented and what kind of Shi’a? What are we going to

do about Sunnis? Which Sunnis? Iraqis are going to have to sit in

a room over a considerable period of time and compromise.

Incidentally, the folks that we chose and who have been generally excoriated by the press did go through that process, and they

did come up with a compromise. So we know that it is possible.

I can only say again this is going to be a longer-term process

than June 30. I do not really know how it is going to work out. I

do not really think, as I have said, that June 30 is going to confer

all that much legitimacy on what happens. While they are going

through this process, Iraq is going to have to govern. Somebody

there is going to have to do the governing and deliver the services

and if they can, this will help to calm the situation in the short

term, 6 months, a year, a year and a half while this political process is going on.

I just want to say again there are a lot of bad guys in Iraq. Not

everybody, by bringing them under this tent, is going to go along

with the process. We have an entrenched sub-elite among the

Sunnis that we are all familiar with in Fallujah and elsewhere. We

have radical Shi’a. We may have a lot of other radicals who are

going to accept nothing that we put forward, and we are going to

have to deal with this. So I expect more trouble, frankly, before we

get through this process.

Senator BIDEN. Look, one of the reasons why you find Senator

Lugar and I still sitting here—I speak for myself, but I know him

well enough to know why he is sitting here—is in a sense we are

the kind of people who do not write about this in a small fashion

in our localities at home. We have to govern. We know there are

certain pieces of this. One of the things you have got to do is you

have got to, whether or not it is a flood that wipes out a community

and people are upset, and you know cannot deliver, you cannot rebuild their homes for a year, you have got to say to them basically,

hey, look, there is a plan. Here are the steps. This is going to go

forward. Here is the way it is going to happen.

Now, look, somebody has got to govern. We just got finished saying they are not going to be able to govern if they do not have security. They are not going to have security unless they are able to

cooperate with whatever the force is. They are not real crazy about

cooperating with us after Abu Ghraib and all the mistakes we have

made because they do not want to be associated with us. They

want to end up ultimately having the power to govern. And they

also know we have got to get services out there. We have to get

them out quickly because guess what.

I remember Jennings Randolph. I said, Jennings, you got elected

in 1932. You got defeated in 1948. Why? He said I knew the moVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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ment, Joe. Swear to God. I am telling you a true story. He said I

was in a holler in western West Virginia. He said I got a call from

Derrick at a country store. He said, Jennings, I think we are going

to lose. I said, why is that, Derrick? He said, just met with Mrs.

Jones, said she ain’t got no lard. Not a joke. We politicians understand that stuff. He lost the election. Mrs. Jones ain’t got no lard,

nothing to cook with.

Now, you are saying all the same things to me. Ms. Jones ain’t

got no lard. Ms. Jones ain’t got no lard in Fallujah or Basra, whatever. The services are not there. There is no job there. There is no

place to send their kids every day. There is no way to make money

other than this emerging middle class that we were able to get engaged.

So all of these things have to fit together and all I am trying to

figure out is in the short term we are going to get this outfit named

by Brahimi. We are going to bless it somehow. We have got to get

security in there that that outfit will say I will cooperate with. So

we do not get more kids flying back to the Dover Air Force Base

where they all end up when they get shot dead.

I am not angry at anybody. I am frustrated here because what

ends up happening is we have got to come up with very basic little

things, and we have got to keep our folks in the game, the American people. I am out there saying, send your kid. My kid is in the

National Guard. He is saying, Dad, I want to volunteer to go to

Iraq. I am going, whoa, whoa. I know we have got to go. I hope

his mother just did not hear that.

So all kidding aside, it comes down to how do you keep people

in the game here in the near term.

I will conclude. It seems to me that we have got to make this

about the Iraqis and not about us. Where are you going? Well, I

just got picked for that deal that is going to go on. I do not know.

They are taking 2,000 of us to whatever. We are going to talk. Well

what are they doing? Well, at least they called you. That is how

people in neighborhoods—that is how the local councilmen think.

That is how it works. That is how people organize. I do not care

what country they are in.

Oh, you have a stake in it. My next door neighbor, Dick, got a

call. How the hell did he get picked? OK. What are you going to

do when you go to talk to all those people down there? What is

going to happen here?

And so we can have this big picture thing, but I want to tell you

something. I was going to suggest to you all—and I am not being

a wise guy and you may not want to do it. If I were President of

the United States, God forbid, and each of you were individually

my national security adviser or chief of staff and I said to you, I

have got to make a speech, I have to go on national television, and

I have got to make a speech to the American people, it cannot be

longer than 10 minutes, and I want to explain—I am not joking—

to them what we have got to do in the near term, what we have

to do in the next 2 months, and what pieces have to fall in place

for us to succeed in Iraq, what would I tell them? How would I,

in plain English, speak to the American people? And you all speak

very good English. I am not implying that. How would I speak to

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the American people honestly if you are going to be as unvarnished

and honest as you could be?

Because I think you and I, Tony, agree on one important thing— I think we agree on almost everything—and that is no foreign policy, no matter how brilliantly conceived, can be sustained in America without the informed consent of the American people. And for

the consent to be informed, they have to understand what specifically you are going to ask them to do.

I am always very careful about attribution to everything I say

and do, more than any other Senator probably. There is a line I

have in a speech. I had to bring it over so you would hear it so

you did not think I got it here. It is already typed and written. It

is a speech I am delivering to Rutgers University Law School Friday. It says, ‘‘Just as the Kennedy administration’s best and the

brightest made decisions that escalated our involvement in Vietnam, and were wrong, so today the neo-conservatives are the best

and the brightest of this administration who have made equally

and compelling wrong decisions.’’ I happen to agree with you. You

should worry about it. We actually think alike in terms of this.

But all kidding aside, folks, this has been great for you to do

this. That was a long explanation of why we keep battering you for

specifics because ultimately this gets down to the details and how

from the day this gets turned over, this works and what our purpose here is because we batter, we importune, we plead with this

administration to try to get its act together. Unless we can show

a path to the Iraqi people—and all of you know more about Iraq

than I do, although I have worked a hell of a long way trying to

figure it out—that they understand intuitively that we really are

handing this over, we really are going to stick with them until they

get it right for them, unless we explain that to the American people, this is a loser. This is a loser.

At any rate, thank you very, very much, Mr. Chairman, for your

indulgence. I cannot thank you all enough for your input. I hope

you will still take our calls, or at least my calls, as we seek more

advice. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Senator Biden. Perhaps as one conclusion of your story about the 10-minute speech,

the President might ask these four to help draft it. I suspect that

the that we have covered today, whether or not the President

would include all of them in such a hypothetical speech, are very

important. I agree with my colleague. We have explored the governance situation, the security situation, the delivery of services,

and the priorities that are involved here. You are not all in perfect

agreement, but at least there have been laid out some details that

I think are very important and that have not been part of a public

hearing before. I mention this to justify the efforts of this committee.

I saw on one news show last evening a commentator commenting

about our hearing yesterday. He said, all these statements have

been made, all these questions and assertions and what have you,

but what does all this mean? What are these people going to do

about it? Well, somebody rationalizing said, this is what oversight

is about. The Congress is not executive. We are legislative. Well,

he said, are they going to pass laws? Are they going to offer legislaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:36 Oct 27, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 96-372 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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tion to put all this in place? The panel was in a quandary as to

what we would do about it.

The fact is, we should not do anything about it until we think

we have got it right. We have been trying to draw out from you

as experts some details that would be helpful to us in advising the

administration and conducting other questioning and oversight of

people who have these responsibilities. We are not substituting

ourselves in executive roles or military roles, but sometimes asking

questions of this sort, exploring new territory is helpful to these

people, and I hope that has been the case today.

You have certainly assisted us, and we thank you.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, 12:52 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene

subject to the call of the Chair.]

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