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95–627 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–578

IRAQ TRANSITION: CIVIL WAR OR CIVIL SOCIETY?

[PART II]

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 21, 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 ... 5

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10

Hashim, Dr. Ahmed S., professor of Strategic Studies, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI ................................................................................................. 36

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39

Joulwan, General George A., U.S. Army, (Ret.), former NATO SACEAUR,

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 21

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

O’Hanlon, Dr. Michael E., senior fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC ....................................................................... 31

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 35

Pollack, Dr. Kenneth M., director of research, Saban Center for Middle East

Policy, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC ......................................... 11

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 15

Sheehan, Hon. Michael A., deputy commissioner for Counter-Terrorism, New

York City Police Department, New York, NY .................................................... 24

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27

(III)

(1)

IRAQ TRANSITION: CIVIL WAR OR CIVIL

SOCIETY? [Part II]

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2004

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

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m. in room SD– 416, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard G. Lugar (chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Lugar, Voinovich, Biden, Dodd, Feingold, Bill

Nelson, Rockefeller, and Corzine.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR, CHAIRMAN

The CHAIRMAN. This meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee is called to order.

Today, the Foreign Relations Committee will hold its second in

our series of three hearings on Iraq. We will continue to explore

whether American and Iraqi authorities are ready for the transition to Iraqi sovereignty on June 30, and what steps are required

to fill out a comprehensive transition plan.

Our experiences with inadequate planning and communication

related to Iraq contribute to the determination of this committee to

impose a very high standard on the information provided about

Iraq. Within the substantial bounds of our oversight capacity, we

will attempt to illuminate United States plans, actions, and options

with regard to Iraq, both for the benefit of the American people and

to inform our own policymaking role.

We have asked that the administration present a detailed plan

to prove to Americans, Iraqis, and our allies that we have a strategy and that we are committed to making it work.

At yesterday’s hearing, I posed a set of questions to form the

basis of our hearings. Clear answers to all these questions would

constitute a coherent transition plan for Iraq.

The questions were, first, what are the details of Ambassador

Lakhdar Brahimi’s plan for an interim Iraqi Government to which

a transfer of sovereignty is planned on June 30, 2004? Specifically,

what executive and legislative positions will be established in the

interim government, and how will these positions be filled? Are we

confident that Iraqis will support the United Nations’ formula for

a new government? And what will the United States do as a

backup if Iraqis reject the Brahimi plan?

Let me say, parenthetically, for our committee record, that a

memo from the Council of Foreign Relations, dated April 16, 2004,

contains suggestions about where Ambassador Brahimi probably is

2

at this point. The memo explains Brahimi’s search for a president,

two vice presidents, a prime minister, and a ministerial council.

The names of the persons to be nominated for these positions are

still left blank, but there have been suggestions that prominent

members of the Governing Council may be considered for the top

roles, or for other roles in the new government.

My second question at yesterday’s hearing was: What status-offorces agreement will make clear that the United States and Coalition armed forces will continue to provide internal and external security for the new Iraqi Government? Will that agreement make

clear the chain of command and the relationship of Iraqi police reserves and army personnel with U.S. and Coalition forces?

Yesterday, our witnesses, by and large, felt that it would appear

to be common sense that the United States and the Coalition must

continue to provide security during the training of Iraqi personnel.

Less clear, however, was the problem of how specifically a statusof-forces agreement might come about, and with whom. Probably it

would be negotiated with the new government, including the president, the vice presidents, and the prime minister. What if, once

again, the persons involved in that government have different ideas

with regard to security or the missions of security? How these are

to be resolved? That issue still lies ahead of us.

My third question yesterday was, will the United Nations Security Council resolutions undergird the international legitimacy of

the new Iraqi Government and all of the security arrangements

that it will require? Continuing and expanded support of the new

Iraqi Government by other nations may require additional Security

Council resolutions.

Our witnesses yesterday generally felt that the Security Council

may, indeed, adopt resolutions after June 30 or July 1, and that

it would be in the best interest of the United States and of other

nations to seek this. We were attempting to resolve the international legitimacy issue as explicitly as possible so there are not

bad surprises.

My fourth question was, will elections for the transitional and

permanent Iraqi Governments, scheduled for January 2005 and

December 2005, respectively, be held under the auspices of the

United Nations or some other authority? How will that authority

provide security for the elections and assemble a registration list,

or otherwise determine who is eligible to vote? How will we deal

with elections that are postponed or deemed to be fraudulent? Will

the national assembly that is to be elected in January 2005 have

full authority to write a constitution and construct the framework

of a permanent government?

Now, yesterday we had a variety of answers to these questions

from our witnesses, including from, ‘‘We will just have to muddle

through,’’ which may be an honest answer, but hardly a confident

one. One witness yesterday suggested that even if there were explosions and other security difficulties such as knocking out some

polling location, or lack of security in some parts of the country.

Nevertheless, you do the best you can. At least, you tally what is

there. It is important to get on with elections, yesterday’s experts

generally felt. Iraqis are voting. That is what matters, rather than

a fastidious regard to security or voter registration rolls. They sugVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
3

gested that Oil-for-Food rolls might be utilized in the absence of

something more definitive.

My fifth question yesterday regarding President Bush’s designating Ambassador John Negroponte as his nominee to be U.S.

Ambassador to the new Iraqi Government. Our committee looks

forward to addressing this important nomination as expeditiously

as possible. Let me put a fine point on that. We have offered to the

administration a hearing, which I plan to conduct, with my distinguished colleague, Senator Biden, next Tuesday, with a business

meeting to occur next week. At this point, we are uncertain whether the administration is prepared to get the papers and what have

you here. I’m simply suggesting that this is urgent. I hope that

they will submit the paperwork. That’s why I explicitly suggest

next Tuesday as a time to get on with this important nomination.

Beyond that, we will ask the Ambassador next week, and we will

ask State Department witnesses tomorrow, for the roster of who

will be in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. When will they arrive?

How will security be provided for them?

Now, finally, the sixth point was, will the costs associated with

the new diplomatic presence be covered by a transfer of funds

under the umbrella of the $87 billion appropriated last year by the

Congress? If not, what is the plan for providing the necessary funding?

Yesterday there were two answers, essentially, to this. One was

that there will be transfers of funds that are adequate, at least for

the time being, for maybe several months down the trail. Another

answer from one witness yesterday, was that about $70 billion will

be called for in a supplemental appropriation at some point. That

is a large sum of money. There is quite a difference between muddling through with a transfer of funds on the one hand, and a request for $70 billion on the other. But this would be part of a plan,

a coherent plan that we are hopeful, at some point, the administration will propose.

Let me just add, parenthetically, that I have had a good telephone conversation with Under Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz. He

regrets that he will not be able to testify before the committee due

to important personal reasons—a family wedding, in fact, tomorrow. He will be testifying again today, I understand, before a

House Committee, and he is prepared to testify before our committee at a later time. I appreciated the call. We will have Peter

Rodman, from the Department of Defense, tomorrow. He is an important witness, and we appreciate the Defense Department providing that substitute for our hearing tomorrow.

The Foreign Relations Committee will be persistent in asking

these questions and others, because Americans should have the opportunity to understand the Bush administration’s plan and to

carefully monitor its progress.

Our witnesses yesterday underscored the importance of expanding the international role in Iraq to improve the political legitimacy

of the Coalition and the interim Iraqi Government. There was general consensus that some transfer of sovereignty will occur on June

30, but that United States forces will be required to provide security in Iraq for perhaps several more years.

4

They also spoke to the importance of going forward with the elections, even if security and registration procedures are imperfect.

Dr. Juan Cole noted that local elections have been successful in

many parts of Iraq already, and often produced a more moderate

result than expected. Dr. Toby Dodge underscored that elections

would force Iraqi factions to enunciate policy choices, and would

stimulate dialog between potential leaders and the Iraqi populace.

In the absence of elections, factions would continue to bid for influence through violence, cronyism, or anti-American demonstrations.

Until elections can be held, however, we must find a means

through which the various Iraqi factions can share power peacefully in an interim government. For more than 30 years, Saddam

Hussein prevented any rival leaders from emerging in Iraq. Religious leaders had little or no political or governing experience.

They’re divided amongst themselves. No secular leader has developed strong support among any major portion of the population.

Dr. Dodge presented interesting polling data from Iraq, with

questions based on recognition factors, such as ‘‘Have you ever

heard of ---?’’ The percentages of Iraqis who have heard of any of

the conspicuous Iraqi leaders, in most cases, were small single digits. In response to questions about confidence in any of these people, likewise, there were very, very small percentages of Iraqis who

had heard of the people. This is an important political fact, which,

as politicians, we recognize. If there are candidates who are virtually unknown, and even those who know them have reasonably

little confidence in them, the prospects of their success, to say the

least, are chancy. That is the situation that we’re heading into, and

maybe we all need to understand that.

We’ll continue to examine possible strategies aimed at ensuring

that the new interim government is viewed as legitimate by Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis. We must think creatively about how the

Coalition and the international community can facilitate the emergence of national leaders in Iraq who are viewed as legitimate and

prepared to govern.

We have asked our experts to provide us with their recommendations for U.S. policy leading up to this transition and beyond.

Today we are very fortunate to have the benefit of a panel with extraordinary expertise on these questions.

We welcome General George Joulwan, former Supreme Allied

Commander, Europe; Dr. Ken Pollack, director of Research of the

Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and senior fellow at The

Brookings Institution, and author of a book that was very informative for all of us about Iraq as we prepared for our last debates;

Ambassador Michael Sheehan, currently the deputy commissioner

for Counter Terrorism of the New York City Policy Department,

and formerly the State Department Coordinator for the Office of

Counterterrorism; Dr. Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at The

Brookings Institution; and Dr. Ahmed Hashim, professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College.

We look forward to your insights and your recommendations. We

thank each one of you for joining us. Before I recognize the witnesses, I would like to recognize my colleague, Senator Biden.

5

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

RANKING MEMBER

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank

you for holding this series of hearings.

I am pleased to hear that Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz will, at

some point, make himself available.

I, quite frankly, think it’s critical, before these three hearings are

over, that we have the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of

State before this committee. This is a historic moment. And you

and I have been here a long time. I recall, with regularity this committee had up the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense

during the Vietnam War, during the Bosnian crisis, during the

Kosovo crisis. And, ultimately, we have to speak to somebody who

says, ‘‘I don’t have to ask anybody else what the plan is.’’ And I’m

confident that they will be forthcoming out of our mutual interest.

At the outset, let me say that this issue of cost—this morning I

happened to ride down on the train, as I do every day, sat at a

table in the dining car, or the cafe car, with a very informed fellow,

a very bright guy. He runs a company that does environmental remediation, a very strong and active Republican from Pennsylvania—and he asked the question, which made sense—he said, ‘‘I

read in the paper you saying that the administration should

produce witnesses. Didn’t they produce the witnesses for the

Armed Services Committee, and isn’t this issue of cost a bit of a

red herring?’’

Well, when I gave him an answer, I think he understood two

points. No. 1, this new embassy falls totally under the purview of

this committee. Totally, completely, absolutely, unequivocally, without any question under the purview of this committee, No. 1. No.

2, there are two principal dynamics at play in Iraq. One is the security side, which the Armed Services Committee has significant

interest in, but the other is the political side, which falls totally

within the purview of this committee. The ultimate solution to victory or failure in Iraq will be a political solution. The question of

whether or not other nations are engaged or not engaged, whether

the U.N. engaged or not engaged, is totally within the purview of

this committee, lest I have to remind the administration.

And with regard to cost, I hope we will not hear any longer what

we heard all of last year, as some of the witnesses will recall, because several have testified before. Whenever we asked a question

of the Secretary of Defense or the Under Secretary, we heard, for

the first time—the first time I’ve heard, in my 31 years—to almost

every question, ‘‘Those facts are unknowable.’’ That was a neat

phrase, ‘‘unknowable.’’ Well, there’s a lot of things that are, quote, ‘‘knowable.’’ It’s going to cost billions of dollars. There’s not one single penny—not one single penny in the fiscal year 2005 budget—

for Iraq or Afghanistan. And I will say it as politely as I can. If

it is still unknowable to the administration what the proportions

are, the broad numbers, then they are totally incompetent. Let me

say it again. If the answer is, ‘‘That’s unknowable,’’ as to the scope

of the kind of money we’re going to have to spend, then they are

incompetent. But I’m confident they are competent. And I’m confident they’re not telling us what they know.

6

Curt Weldon, a conservative Republican, senior Congressman

from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, is publicly chastising the administration for not telling his people how much this is going to

cost—in broad numbers, anyway. And the reason for that is, he’s

going home, like the rest of us, and our constituencies think we’re

incompetent if we can’t tell them. It’s somewhere between zero and

a hundred billion, I mean, give us a range here.

In my judgment, success in Iraq is still absolutely possible, and

clearly necessary for our national self interest. But, in my judgment, there are two things that are required for success, in broad

terms. First, we need to promote the emergence of that silent majority of Iraqis. This is a truly distinguished panel. I’m not being

solicitous. I have heard Dr. Pollack, I’ve heard General Joulwan, I

have heard Dr. O’Hanlon, I’ve heard them speak on these subjects.

And everyone acknowledges—left, right, and center including Dr.

Hashim has also said this, if I’m not mistaken—there’s no possibility of success unless the Iraqi people embrace the notion of a

representative government.

Somewhere along the line, they’ve got to buy in on the deal,

they’ve got to embrace it. And the question is—only that silent majority of Iraqis can provide an alternative to the extremes, and the

only outfit that can create the kind of negotiating that needs to

take place to generate a participatory democracy in that country.

That can’t be imposed. We all keep saying that. It can’t be imposed.

But we’re having trouble going down and finding this middle.

Second, we need to get help from the outside, in terms of troops,

money, manpower, and, maybe most importantly, legitimacy to see

this mission to completion. Establishing security, in my view, is

critical to both these goals. And I realize this is not unique to me.

I’m not implying that all of a sudden I’ve found this out. I know

you all know this, and we’ve been saying this for over a year. But

establishing security is important to both these goals. Without securities, that silent majority of Iraqis, assuming that it’s correct

there is a silent majority, will not step forward and participate in

the political process. Without security, militias will move in to fill

the vacuum. And we have seen that in the recent upsurge in violence. Without security, development projects and economic reconstruction cannot go forward apace of what is needed. The huge

$18.6 billion aid package we approved last fall cannot be spent.

And, by the way, of that $18.6 billion, less than three billion has

been obligated. Six months after it was approved. Now, that may

be procurement problems. If it is, the administration should send

us a note and say, we’d like a change in the law. We’d like a

change to be able to expedite this. But tell us. I suspect it’s also

a consequence of lack of security, being able to expedite these

projects.

And we now learn that somewhere, well in excess of the 5 percent, closer to 20 percent of that $18.6 billion will not be spent for

reconstruction, but to pay for private security guards to protect

those who are doing the reconstruction. I don’t begrudge that. Can’t

blame these folks for not willing to go out there. But how can we

say we don’t need any more troops—I’m going to ask you this, general—when we, the taxpayers, are paying the Halliburtons—and

I’m not trying to single out one firm—or whomever is doing the

7

contracting work—enough money to pay a Navy SEAL $1,500 a

day. There’s over 20,000 private security folks there. I’m not suggesting they’re not needed; I think they are. And we’re going to pay

them, according to the reports—and I assume we’ll have a hearing

somewhere along the line on this. That must go a long way for morale, when you send an active-duty SEAL in, he’s probably not

making much more than that a month. And you’ve got someone making $1,500 a day working for a company, that’s being paid for

by us. I don’t get this. It doesn’t quite jive for me. The second-largest force we have in all of Iraq is a private army, or a series of private armies, paid for by the American taxpayers.

Even under the best of circumstances, even if we succeed in

bring a semblance of law and order, we’re still going to be facing

an enormous challenge. What I hear from Iraqis, what I hear from

people on the ground, what I hear—and I haven’t been there—last

time the Chairman and I were there was at the end of last summer—is that they understand we need troops there for force protection, but they thought we were sending troops there to make sure

their kid didn’t get raped, their daughter didn’t get stolen. I can

remember—and maybe it’s changed now; we’ll find out from witnesses—but in September, October, November, we had a great

thing, we opened the schools. Yet here were stories about cars

parked all the way around the schools with their motors running

all day, with mom or dad sitting inside, because they were afraid

for their daughter to do anything further than walk from the front

door of the school to the car, for fear of being kidnaped or raped.

So what’s the deal? Is it only force protection? And that’s the

first and foremost thing I want to make sure, our forces are protected and they can protect one another.

Iraq is recovering from 35 years of trauma, 35 years of a brutal

dictatorship. And one of the things they learned during that period

is to keep their heads down. Iraqis learned to stay out of public life

for the sake of self preservation. And old habits, understandably,

die hard. And while some Iraqis have stepped up to the challenge,

the moderate majority has stayed silent, watching events unfold,

acting on instincts that were finely honed over three decades.

According to the polls, at a maximum, no more than 20 percent

of the Iraqi people want to see an Islamic state, like an Iranian situation. But the overwhelming majority, more than 70 percent,

openly say they support the establishment of a democracy, and we

have to empower this largest group to get them engaged in building their own future. It’s kind of hard to do that, I would argue,

without security.

But these are not the best of circumstances, to state the obvious.

Security is still sorely lacking. And it would be probably lacking in

many ways even if everything that I and others had suggested 6

months ago and 10 months ago had been done. But it would be a

little bit better, I would argue.

You know, this is one place where a significant dose of humility

is in order. It’s one thing for me to say what was done wrong; it’s

another thing for me to be able to say, ‘‘If we had done what I

thought we should do, that things would be markedly better.’’ I

don’t know that they would. But I’m pretty sure I know what’s

being done now is not working, in my view.

8

Indeed, the Iraqis consistently identify the absence of security as

the single most urgent issue facing them day to day. Far from

being unknowable, as the Secretary of Defense likes to say, this absence of security was predicted by dozens of congressional hearings,

think tanks, some of you sitting before us, and work of some of the

administration officials themselves. The administration failed to

heed those warnings. That made it more difficult, in my view, to

build security in Iraq from the outset.

First, the administration failed to come up with enough forces

because of the Pentagon’s desire to validate a new theory of warfare. General Shinseki was ridiculed for suggesting, before a Senate

committee, that it would take several hundred-thousand troops to

secure Iraq. He’s looking fairly prescient now. And so is whoever

wrote the NSC memo. The NSC’s own memo, contemporaneous,

said, ‘‘Extrapolating from past missions, they estimated we would

require a force of 500,000 people to stabilize Iraq.’’ I’m not a military man. I don’t know which of those is right. But I know there’s

not enough.

The failure to provide those forces made it difficult to establish

full control of Iraq, to stop the looting, and to guard more than the

100 large depots, which our military guys told us, general, there

were 600,000 tons of arms and ammunition in open depots, and we

had helicopters, we’d see on TV, flying over at night with night-vision goggles, determining who’s going in and out, instead of having

the wherewithal to destroy those and/or fully guard them.

I remember shortly, after we got back from Iraq, being told a

story—I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but I believe it to be

true—of a young captain. Remember, we were paying $500 to retrieve shoulder-held rocket launchers. And a young Iraqi comes up

with two of them, to a young captain. The captain gets him a thousand bucks and says, ‘‘Can you get any more?’’ About 2 hours later,

the Iraqi comes back with a pickup truck full of them, and says,

‘‘I couldn’t fit any more in here.’’

Now, I don’t know whether that’s apocryphal or not, but I think

it’s probably true, and I’m trying to run down this source so I can

use the name, which I haven’t gotten permission to do yet.

Six-hundred-thousand tons of arms and ammunition, some of

which wound up in rejectionist hands. It also put us in a position

that we were unable to give the Iraqi people a sense of security,

and it produced the power vacuum I mentioned earlier.

Second, the administration failed to understand that it would

take years, not months, to train Iraqis to provide their own security. The former boss of the outfit that you’re now a part of, Mr.

Sheehan, he was over there. His people told us, when we were

there, it would take a minimum—a minimum—of 5 years to train

up 75,000 Iraqi police to do the job that police do, to protect that

kid coming out of school, to make sure that home wasn’t looted, to

make sure that the traffic lights work, to make sure that there was

order. Five years, they told us.

We said, ‘‘What would happen if we gave you all the money you

need right now?’’ They said, ‘‘We could do a lot in the next 2 years

for Baghdad, but it’ll take 5 years for the country.’’ We’re also told

that it would take 3 years to train a small Iraqi army of 40,000

9

that was a real army. They told us that we needed 5,500 gendarmes before we went in.

I remember you testifying before our committee before the war,

General Joulwan. You said, ‘‘The military planning’s going incredibly well but there’s not’’—I remember you going like this with your

hands—‘‘but there’s not simultaneous planning—in terms of civil

order and civilian corps to follow and police.’’ It’s not like this is

only 20–20 hindsight.

Again, on the ground, after Saddam fell, the boss of the New

York City Police Department, Bernie Kerik and his people were

telling us, ‘‘You need 5,500 outside police in Iraq, working with the

Iraqi police, training them and patrolling with them, for this to

have any chance of working.’’

But the administration insisted on putting 20,000 Iraqis in uniform right away, telling the American people ‘‘don’t worry, we’ve

got someone to hand off to,’’ and sent them out the door. Now,

fewer than 10 percent of those police and army have been fully

trained, and virtually none are adequately equipped. Over half of

the first army battalion that we, quote, ‘‘trained’’ has quit, while

another battalion refused to fight in Fallujah. And some of the

Iraqis that we trained even took up arms against us.

Last week, General Abizaid called Iraq’s security forces, quote, ‘‘a

great disappointment,’’ end of quote. And Ambassador Bremer

made it clear that Iraqis will not be ready to take over security on

June 30, or anywhere near that date.

Mr. Chairman, it’s clear the Iraqis will not have the capacity to

establish security for months, and probably several years, at least

without reverting to a dictatorship, and that’s something none of

us want.

While Iraq’s security forces are being trained, I believe we need

substantially more outside forces—more American forces, and more

international forces. But, again, I yield to the experts on whether

that’s literally true. All I know is there’s not enough security now.

Otherwise, the militias will continue to proliferate, intimidating

Iraqi moderates, hampering reconstruction, threatening our overall

objectives of establishing a stable representative government.

I know we’re using those militias now, and we have to use them,

and we’re cooperating with them. But how do you transition from

that to tell these very folks, who are essentially other versions of

warlords, that, by the way, now we’ve got a democracy, disband

your militias, all of you go home. Don’t use them for bartering for

your position in this new constitution, this new government.

It reminds me of my conversation with—and I’ll end with this,

Mr. Chairman—with the National Security Advisor, a woman I

have great regard for. I was meeting with her on a fairly regular

basis last year, once a week or thereabouts, and it was about Iraq.

And I said, Dr. Rice, we’ve got a real problem in Herat. Ismail

Khan is really just totally in charge over there. Kabul has no impact on him. And she said, Well, we have security. I said, I beg

your pardon? I’m paraphrasing. I beg your pardon? She said, Well,

that’s the way it’s always been. That’s the way it’s always been.

Taliban’s not there. Al-Qaeda’s not there. I said, but Iran’s there.

She said, No, that’s the way it’s always been. So we didn’t expand

10

the international security force, because that’s the way it’s always

been.

If that’s what we’re going to be doing, then we should just say

that’s what we’re going to be doing in Iraq. But we’ve got to understand, if you rely on these militias, because we need additional

force—and I think we should do anything any general on the

ground, or captain or colonel, thinks he needs to protect an American force on the ground—but that’s not a prescription, it seems to

me, for handing over anything remotely approaching a democracy.

Mr. Chairman, I’ve stated the two things I think are wrong. I’d

invite the panel to tell me—and I mean this sincerely—where I’m

mistaken; I hope I’m mistaken—about the security need. And I look

forward to hearing our witnesses.

[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.

IRAQ: THE SECURITY SITUATION

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing. I look forward to the testimony.

In my judgment, success in Iraq requires two things:

First, we need to promote the emergence of that silent majority of Iraqis who can

provide an alternative to the extremes... and who can create a participatory republic that will endure when we leave.

Second, we need to get the help from outside Iraq—in terms of troops, money,

manpower and, maybe most important, legitimacy—to see this mission to completion.

Establishing security is critical to both of these goals.

Without security, Iraqis will not step forward to participate in the political process. Without security, militias will move in to fill the vacuum, as we have seen with

the recent upsurge in violence.

Without security, development projects and economic reconstruction cannot go forward—the huge $18.6 billion aid package we approved last Fall cannot be spent. And by the way, of that $18.6 billion, less than $3 billion has even been obligated—

six months after we approved it. That may be a procurement problem. If so, the administration should tell us and we’ll fix it. But a lot of this is security. And some

20 percent apparently will be used not for reconstruction, but to pay for private security guards to protect those doing the reconstruction. I don’t begrudge that—they

shouldn’t go out there without security. But we’re paying them up to $1,500 a day.

Yet our active duty forces are probably making that a month. And our Reserves are

making 30%-50% less than they did in the private sector back home, but they’ve

still got the same mortgage, car and tuition payments.

Finally, without security, other nations will be reluctant to send troops and aid

to help shoulder the enormous burden.

Even under the best of circumstances—even if we had succeeded in bringing a

semblance of law and order to Iraq—we would still be facing an enormous challenge.

Iraq is recovering from the trauma of 35 years of brutal dictatorship. Iraqis

learned to keep their heads down and stay out of public life for the sake of selfpreservation.

Old habits die hard. And while some Iraqis have stepped up to the challenge, the

moderate majority has stayed silent watching events unfold, acting on instincts finely-honed over three decades. According to the polls, about 20 percent of Iraqis support an Islamic state. Nearly 30 percent want a strong leader. But 50 percent support a democracy. We have to empower that largest group and get them engaged

in building Iraq’s future.

But these of not the best of circumstances. Security is still sorely lacking in Iraq.

Indeed, Iraqis consistently identify its absence as the most urgent issue facing the

country.

Far from being ‘‘unknowable,’’ as the Secretary of Defense likes to say, this absence of security was predicted in dozens of congressional hearings, think tank studies and the work of some in the administration itself. The administration failed to

heed these warnings. That made it more difficult to build security in Iraq.

First, the administration failed to go in with enough forces because of Pentagon’s

desire to validate a new theory of warfare. General Shinseki was ridiculed for suggesting it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq. He’s looking

11

prescient today. So is whoever wrote an NSC memo that, extrapolating from past

missions, estimated that we would require a force of 500,000 to stabilize Iraq.

The failure to provide those forces made it difficult to establish full control of

Iraq . . . to stop the looting . . . to guard more than 100 large depots with six

hundred thousands tons of arms and ammunition, some of which have wound up

in Rejectionist hands . . . or to give the Iraqi people a sense of security. And it produced the power vacuum I mentioned earlier.

Second, the administration failed to understand that it would take years, not

months, to train Iraqis to provide for their own security.

When Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel and I went to Baghdad last summer, our experts

on the ground were clear and candid.

They told us that it would take 5 years to train an Iraqi police force of 75,000,

and 3 years to train a new, small Iraqi army of 40,000. They told us that 5,500

international gendarme were needed for an effective police training program.

But the administration insisted on putting 200,000 Iraqis in uniform right away.

We rushed people out the door.

Now, fewer than 10 percent of the police and army have been fully trained. Virtually none are adequately equipped.

Over half of the first army battalion we have trained has quit, while another battalion refused to fight in Fallujah. Some of the Iraqis that we ‘‘trained’’ even took

up arms against us.

Last week, General John Abizaid called Iraqi security forces a ‘‘great disappointment.’’ And Ambassador Bremer made it clear that Iraqis will not be ready to take

over security on June 30.

Mr. Chairman, it is clear that Iraqis will not have the capacity to establish security for many months, and probably several years, at least without reverting to dictatorship—and that’s something none of us want to see.

While Iraqi security forces are being trained, I believe we will need substantially

more outside forces. More American forces, and more international forces.

Otherwise, the militias will continue to proliferate, intimidating Iraqi moderates,

hampering reconstruction, and threatening our overall objectives to establish a stable, representative Iraq.

That’s my judgment of the situation. I look forward to hearing the judgment of

our witnesses, and their ideas for building security in Iraq.

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

We thank the panel for your patience in hearing us. Obviously,

we are seized with these issues, as you are.

I’ll ask that you testify in this order. First of all, Dr. Pollack,

then General Joulwan, and then Michael Sheehan, then Dr.

O’Hanlon, and Dr. Hashim.

Let me just indicate that all the prepared statements that you

have submitted will be made a part of the record, and you may

summarize or proceed in any way you wish, hopefully in about 10

minutes of time, but we’ll not be rigorous about enforcing a set

time period. The point of the hearing is to hear you and to receive

the points of view that you bring to us.

Dr. Pollack, would you proceed.

STATEMENT OF DR. KENNETH M. POLLACK, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, THE

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

Dr. POLLACK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator

Biden, members of the committee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the issue of security in

Iraq.

This month has been more than just a bad month. The events

of this month are a warning. They’re a warning that all is not well

in Iraq, and that if the United States does not make some major

course corrections quickly, worse will likely follow. For this reason,

I hope that the events of this month will serve as a wake-up call

12

to those in Washington and Baghdad charged with the reconstruction of Iraq.

We’re not doomed to failure in Iraq. There is still much good in

that country, and many positive forces which could be harnessed to

build a peaceful, prosperous, and pluralist Iraq. These positive factors should be a constant reminder that if we fail in Iraq, the fault

will lie in ourselves, not in our stars.

Mr. Chairman, I am delighted that you’ve chosen to focus this

hearing on security, because security is the single most important

aspect of our reconstruction effort and the single greatest failure of

our efforts so far.

It’s important to acknowledge some of the most important mistakes that the United States has made in creating the situation of

instability and insecurity in Iraq so that we can avoid repeating

them and, in the future, try to fix them.

We invaded Iraq with too few troops to be able to establish a secure operating environment for ourselves, for aid workers, and for

the Iraqi people. As a result, we did not have enough troops to

blanket the country, to establish a presence in every village and

neighborhood, to go into holdout areas, like al-Sadr City in Baghdad and the towns of the Sunni triangle, to passive nascent insurgent groups and to send an unmistakable message to every Iraqi,

good guy or bad guy, that the United States will not allow a vacuum or a state of lawlessness to emerge in their country.

We compounded this mistake, in sizing our force, with the mission we gave our troops. We continue to make force protection and

hunting for insurgents who attack our forces higher priorities than

providing security for the Iraqi people. U.S. forces generally remain

penned up in their formidable cantonments. They are cutoff from

the populace, and have little interaction with them. In the field,

they come out to attend to logistical needs and to conduct raids

against suspected insurgents. In the cities, they generally come out

only to make infrequent patrols, which are usually conducted

mounted in Bradley fighting vehicles or Humvees at speeds of 30

to 50 kilometers per hour. These, the Iraqis consider useless, since

it is impossible for those troops to see anything, and they are not

present long enough to serve as a deterrent.

Rather than bringing the necessary American troops, or building

a multinational coalition, capable of filling the gap, we, instead,

turned to the Iraqis themselves. To quickly stand up the needed

Iraqi forces, we short-circuited proper vetting procedures, drastically reduced training times, and neglected to properly equip the

Iraqi security forces before turning them loose on the country. The

results have, so far, been extremely disappointing.

Many of those inducted have proven to be part of the problem,

rather than part of the solution, and there are now considerable

criminal elements in the police and other security services, who engage in bribery, extortion, kidnaping, rape, arson, burglary, and

murder. When faced with the determined fighters of Muqtada alSadr’s Mahdi army earlier this month, most of the Iraqi security

personnel simply melted way; others joined the insurgents. Too few

stood and fought with the Coalition personnel.

This is not to say that there are not many good, brave, honest,

and well-meaning Iraqis in the Iraqi security forces. It is only to

13

say that there are too few of them right now to shoulder so great

a burden.

Now, Mr. Chairman, let me follow your injunction to focus on

constructive measures that the United States can take to remedy

this situation.

First, we must make security the highest priority for the next 6

months. I believe that certain extreme measures are justified in the

short term to get the security situation under control, recognizing

that we can probably only sustain these measures for a brief period

of time. But given how far the current situation has deteriorated,

it is going to take some dramatic steps to right the listing ship of

Iraqi reconstruction. Hopefully, these steps will do the trick, and

it will not be necessary to try to sustain them for longer periods

of time.

Two, we must change the military’s mission. We must direct U.S.

military forces in Iraq to make securing the streets and neighborhoods of the country their highest priority. If we do not begin to

take responsibility for providing security for the Iraqi people, we

will never create an environment secure enough for the Iraqi economy to revive, for Iraqis to actively participate in a new political

process, for international organizations and foreign aid workers to

return, or for us to deal with the problems of the Iraqi security

forces currently saddled with this mission.

I agree with the many British and American military officers in

Iraq who privately argue that the United States should be employing the kind of foot patrols, backed by helicopters and/or ground vehicles, that the British Army learned to use in Northern Ireland,

and that all NATO forces eventually employed in the Balkans. This

is the only way that American forces can get out, reassure the Iraqi

civilians, find out from them where the troublemakers are, and respond to their problems.

Three, we must reinforce the American military presence in Iraq

to establish the conditions for real security. We are going to need

more American troops in Iraq. Few of the current members of the

Coalition can be counted on to provide troops capable of dealing

with the full range of security problems we currently face in Iraq.

Indeed, over the past few weeks, we have seen American forces

called on to rescue those of other Coalition nations when faced with

circumstances beyond their ability to control. At present, we do not

have enough high-quality Coalition forces to handle the mission of

providing basic security for the Iraqi people throughout the country.

Obviously, American forces are limited in number, and they are

stretched thin. But they are not yet at the breaking point. By redeploying some units that just returned from Iraq, and freeing up

others currently being held back for other contingencies, we could

probably come up with another 40,000 to 60,000 American troops

that could be redeployed to Iraq for a brief period of time. But we

must recognize that although we can still ramp up our presence in

Iraq by considerable numbers, we can only do so for a short period

of time, after which we are going to have to find other forces to

take over much of the security burden.

Four, we must seek additional foreign forces. Because the U.S.

troop presence in Iraq can only be increased for the short term, and

14

Iraqi forces are unlikely to be able to take over significant aspects

of the security mission anytime soon, we must find another source

of competent troops.

These troops can only come from our allies in Europe and Asia

and possibly elsewhere. At the moment, the Europeans are claiming they have no more to spare. I think this is an exaggeration. A

continent of over 300 million people, with some of the most professional armies in the world, a continent that can scrape together

50,000 security personnel to guard the Athens Olympics, can pull

together several tens of thousands of troops for a mission as important as the rebuilding of Iraq, if given 6 months or more to do so.

And if Europe does, our other allies will likely follow their lead.

I believe that Europe simply has no desire to find these troops.

The Europeans lack the desire, because they have made clear that

they will only provide large numbers of troops if the United States

agrees to make the U.N. a full partner in reconstruction, along the

lines of the experiences in Kosovo and East Timor.

I suspect that if the United States were finally to agree to Europe’s terms, terms that are reasonable and under which U.S.

forces have operated successfully before, I think it would be hard

for our European allies to refuse a U.N. request for more troops.

At the very least, I think we ought to put them to the test.

In addition, many European leaders have no desire to put their

troops into the shooting gallery that Iraq has become over the past

12 months. This is ultimate why an increase in U.S. troops and a

change in American military tactics must accompany our request

for more foreign troops. Only when we have diminished the current

levels of violence in Iraq are we likely to receive the contributions

that we need, contributions that should then allow us to scale back

our own presence when we begin to feel the strain from reinforcing

our units in Iraq.

Five, we must remake the Iraqi security forces. The rapid reinforcement of American troops, later supplemented, and then, to

some extent, supplanted by foreign troops, should be used to buy

time to create a secure environment in which to properly reform

the new Iraqi security forces. As American and other Coalition

units become available, Iraqi units should be pulled off the streets

and thoroughly re-vetted. Those who were conscientious, those who

showed up for work, those who tried to help their fellow citizens,

and those who stood and fought when there was trouble should be

retained. The rest should be moved into job retraining programs

and, ideally, found new employment before being mustered out so

that they do not simply swell the ranks of the insurgents for lack

of other employment.

These units should then be given thorough and comprehensive

training, without regard for the exigencies of the moment. Before

being redeployed, they should be adequately equipped so that when

they do finally return to service, they will have every chance of succeeding in this crucial mission.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Pollack follows:]

15

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. KENNETH M. POLLACK

SECURING IRAQ

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the issue of establishing security in Iraq.

This month has been more than just a bad month. The events of this month are

a warning. They are a warning that all is not well in Iraq and that if the United

States does not make some major course corrections very quickly, worse will likely

follow. For this reason, I hope that the events of this month will serve as a wakeup call to those in Washington and Baghdad charged with rebuilding Iraq.

We are not doomed to failure there. There is still much good in that country, and

many positive forces which, if harnessed could be used to someday build a peaceful,

prosperous, and pluralist Iraq. I would not yet use the term ‘‘quagmire’’ to describe

our situation there.

Indeed, some of the events of the past weeks underscore just how powerful some

of the forces working in our favor remain. While the fighting raged in Fallujah, Kut,

Kufa and several other cities, the rest of Iraq remained relatively quiet—or at least

no more dangerous than usual. Most of Iraq’s leaders, including most of Iraq’s Shi ’ite religious establishment counseled their followers not to cast their lot with

Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, and many expressed disdain and anger at

his bid to tear down the U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq. The people of Iraq, mostly

did not heed his call to arms. Most continued to express the sentiment that his path

was the road to civil war, and that was a road they did not wish to travel.

These positive factors should be a constant reminder that if we fail in Iraq, the

fault will lie in ourselves, not in our stars.

Mr. Chairman, I am delighted that you have chosen to focus this hearing on security in Iraq because security is the single most important aspect of our reconstruction effort, and the single greatest failure of our efforts so far. It is no exaggeration

to say that our failure to provide security is threatening the entire reconstruction

effort. We must get security right and we must do so very quickly or the events of

last week will soon become a far more common, more widespread, and more deadly

occurrence.

INSECURITY UNDERMINES ALL ASPECTS OF RECONSTRUCTION

Security is critical to reconstruction because insecurity undermines every other

aspect of the process. This impact is most readily apparent in the economic sector.

Goods and people cannot travel safely on the roads for fear of bandits and boobytraps. Looting and sabotage cause regular—but not predictable—losses of power and

other utilities. Factories, warehouses, stores, and other businesses are often prey to

break-ins, robberies, or extortion rings. At times, workers do not show up for work

because they are fearful of being out on the streets or away from their home. In

this climate, investors generally will not invest and business owners are often reluctant to do business. Imagine being a factory owner and not knowing who will show

up for work in the morning, whether the inputs you need to produce your product

will have been delivered, whether you will have electricity to start your line, and

whether your plant will get robbed that day. These are the kinds of real-world problems that many Iraqis must deal with on a daily basis because we have failed to

provide them with a secure country.

Public opinion polls have consistently shown that the vast majority of Iraqis want

the reconstruction to succeed. They want a new government based on pluralistic political principles, a new economy based on free-market economics, and they want a

new society based on trust and mutual respect. But the persistent instability prevents them from being active partners in the effort to build a new Iraq. Iraqis feel

extremely vulnerable to retaliation for collaboration. It is true for members of police

and fire services whose uniform makes them prime targets for the insurgents. It

was true for public figures such as Akila al-Hashemi, a female member of the governing council; ‘Abd al-Majid al-Khoi, a moderate Shi’ite cleric; and Muhammad

Baqr al-Hakim, the leader of one of the main Shi’ite groups, all of them killed by

rejectionists of one kind or another for cooperating with the United States. And it

is also true for average Iraqis who fear that in the lingering state of lawlessness,

they too will be killed if they try to help rebuild their country.

The United States cannot rebuild Iraq alone. Not even with the help of a much

bigger Coalition could we do the job without the active participation of the Iraqi people. But that participation will not be forthcoming if we do not make it safe for them

to do so.

And they do not feel that it is safe enough for them to do so. A poll conducted

in October by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies found that 60 perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
16

cent of Iraqis felt ‘‘not very safe’’ or ‘‘not safe at all’’ in their neighborhoods, and

virtually the same percentage had either ‘‘not very’’ [sic] or ‘‘no’’ confidence that coalition forces would make their cities safe. Only a little more than a quarter of those

surveyed felt ‘‘very safe.’’ Similarly, a February 2004 nationwide poll conducted by

Oxford Research International for ABC News and several other international news

organizations found that, ‘‘. . . security at the national level is a vast concern; the

public’s top overall priority, by a huge margin, is ‘regaining public security in the

country.’ Sixty-four percent give it ‘first priority’ for the next 12 months; out of a

dozen issues tested, no other even breaks into double digits.’’ Similarly, at a local

level, the poll found that more Iraqis cited security as the single greatest problem

in their lives, and this figure was nearly twice that of the next highest problem—

unemployment.

The security situation also hinders reconstruction by crippling the operation of

those foreigners who went to Iraq to try to help the Iraqis rebuild their country.

Too many Americans and other members of the Coalition hide in fortified enclaves

like the Green Zone in Baghdad for fear that they will be killed if they go out into

Iraq proper. As a result, many have little feel for the country and the people they

are supposed to be helping. For the Iraqis, it means too little contact with Coalition

personnel, leaving them angry, frustrated, fearful, and resentful at the seemingly

aloof Americans who sit in the same palaces as the former regime, seem to pay just

as little attention to the fears and aspirations of the Iraqi people, and seem to issue

edicts governing life in Iraq in the same manner as Saddam.

Insecurity has also meant that the non-governmental organizations that have

proven so important to other postwar reconstruction efforts in the Balkans, in East

Timor, in Africa, and in Afghanistan, are generally unwilling to operate in Iraq.

Their absence has been a very important blow to our efforts. When I was in Iraq

in late November, I had U.S. Army Civil Affairs personnel say to me flat out,

‘‘Where is the UN? Where are the NGOs? In the Balkans we just served as liaison

between the U.S. military and them, but they are the ones who did the work of

going out into the people and helping them rebuild their country.’’ Until Iraq is safe,

we will not have those NGOs at our side.

In part for the reasons I have enumerated, and in part for a variety of other reasons also related—directly or indirectly—to our failure to provide security throughout Iraq, we are losing the battle for hearts and minds. More and more Iraqis are

concluding that either the United States cannot or will not create a more secure

Iraq and so they decide that they should take matters into their own hands. We

have seen this shift in the events of the past few weeks. The CPA was caught offguard by how many Iraqis supported al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Many do not seem to

have been his loyal followers, but instead are average Iraqis expressing their rage

and frustration at our failings. Our failure to secure the country, and the broad

range of secondary problems this creates, is increasingly taking Iraqis who at one

time supported the reconstruction and turning them to the Muqtada al-Sadr’s of

Iraq—not necessarily because they want an Islamic theocracy as he does, but because right now, he is the voice of resistance to the American occupation.

Thus our failure to provide Iraq with security is costing us the two most important positive factors we have had going for us from the start. It is eroding popular

support for the U.S.-led occupation, and it is undermining the authority of moderate

Iraqi leaders who urged their followers to cooperate with reconstruction as the best

course of action for themselves, their families, and the country as a whole. The more

we fail to deliver on security, on jobs, and everything else that goes with it, the

more those Iraqis who argued for cooperation with the Coalition look like dupes or

foreign agents, forcing them to tack back toward the extremists or risk becoming

dangerously out of step with the sentiments of their countrymen.

HOW DID WE GET TO WHERE WE ARE?

It is important to acknowledge some of the most important mistakes the United

States made in creating the situation of instability and insecurity in Iraq so that

we can avoid repeating them in the future and try to fix them now.

Most of these mistakes were made right from the start. Indeed, the lesson that

looms largest from our previous experiences at post-conflict reconstruction around

the world is the absolute necessity of establishing absolute security at the very

start. If you can do that early on, everything else becomes easy, and you can usually

start to relax your security presence and procedures within about six months. Unfortunately we did not do that.

Of greatest importance and I will say this very bluntly, we invaded Iraq with too

few troops to be able to establish a secure operating environment for ourselves, aid

workers, or the Iraqi people. As General Shinseki and others, including myself,

17

warned beforehand, we probably needed a force twice as large as the one that we

employed. As a result, we did not have enough troops to blanket the country; to establish a presence in every village and neighborhood; to go into holdout areas like

al-Sadr City in Baghdad and the towns of the Sunni triangle to pacify nascent insurgent groups; and to send an unmistakable message to every Iraq—good guy or

bad guy—that the United States will not allow a vacuum or a state of lawlessness

to emerge in the country. We did it in Tikrit and it largely succeeded. We failed

to do it in Fallujah and we are reaping the whirlwind. That is what we needed to

do and that is what we failed to do.

We compounded this mistake in sizing our force with the mission we gave our

troops. At first, we did not tell our troops that preventing looting and other forms

of lawlessness was their responsibility. We did not order them to protect the Iraqi

people and their society. And unfortunately, we allowed that trend to persist. We

continue to make force protection and hunting for insurgents who attack our forces

higher priorities than providing security for the Iraqi people.

Many Iraqis resent the fact that American forces take such pains to protect themselves and do so little to protect the Iraqi people. A constant (and fully justified)

complaint I heard from Iraqis when I was in Iraq was that the Americans have no

presence and make no effort to stop the worst manifestations of street crime or the

attacks on them by the insurgents. U.S. forces generally remain penned up in their

formidable cantonments. They are cut off from the populace and have little interaction with them. In the field, they come out to attend to logistical needs and to

conduct raids against suspected insurgents. In the cities, they generally come out

only to make infrequent patrols—which are usually conducted mounted in Bradley

fighting vehicles or Humvees—at speeds of 30-50 km per hour. Although Coalition

forces claim that they make 700 patrols per day in Baghdad, and that at least some

are on foot, there is little evidence that this is the case. During my time in Baghdad

I never saw a single Coalition foot patrol, and found that there were intervals of

several hours between the mounted patrols—which the Iraqis justifiably considered

useless, since it was impossible for those troops to see anything and they were not

present long enough to serve as a deterrent, let alone to talk to people in the street

to find out what the problems were.

Rather than bring the necessary American troops, or build a multinational coalition capable of contributing the difference, the Administration instead turned to the

Iraqis themselves to try to fill the gap between what we need and what we have.

This too has proven to be a mistake. Rather than follow the meticulous schedule

laid out by those charged with rebuilding Iraq’s security forces, we short-circuited

proper vetting procedures, drastically reduced training times, and neglected to arm

and equip the Iraqi security forces before turning them loose on the country. The

results have so far been extremely disappointing. Many of those inducted have proven to be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, and there are now

considerable criminal elements in the police and other security services who engage

in bribery, extortion, kidnapping, rape, arson, burglary, and murder for their own

benefit or for that of anyone who will pay them. When faced with the determined

fighters of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, most of the Iraqi security personnel simply melted away. Others joined the insurgents. Too few stood and fought with Coalition personnel.

This is not to say that there are not many good, brave, honest, and well-meaning

Iraqis in the Iraqi security forces; it is only to say that there are too few of them

to shoulder so great a burden, and those there are have not been given the training

and the equipment to handle even a much smaller portion of the load.

Finally, we must recognize that through our own actions we have created a popular base of support that sustains the insurgents. We should always remember Mao

Zedong’s parable of the fish and the sea; the people are the sea and the guerrilla

is the fish, and as long as the sea is hospitable to the fish, you will never catch

them all, but as soon as the sea turns against the fish, they are as good as dead.

By alienating the Sunni tribal population of Iraq through an arbitrary and excessive

policy of de-Ba’thification devised by Iraqi opportunists seeking to exclude potential

rivals from the political process; by failing to provide alternative employment for

Iraq’s security services; and by creating a new Iraqi governmental structure from

which the Sunni tribes were largely excluded, we have convinced the Sunni tribes

that in the new Iraq they will be as oppressed as the Shi’ah and Kurds were when

they ruled Iraq. And this fear and anger of the U.S.-led reconstruction has produced

a very comfortable sea in which insurgents foreign and domestic can move, hide, recruit, and mount attacks on Americans and those who would help us to rebuild their

country.

18

WAYS FORWARD

Although the way ahead is increasingly murky, there is no question that the

United States simply cannot abandon Iraq—nor should it at this point in time when

the opportunity to get reconstruction on the right path still exists. Nevertheless, I

think we must all acknowledge that we cannot be certain what the right answer

is now. We know what the right answer was back at the start of reconstruction, and

it is a tragedy that we did not do the right thing at that time. If we had, while

I am certain there would still have been mistakes and problems galore because rebuilding Iraq was always going to be very difficult, I am equally certain that we

would be in an infinitely better situation than we currently face, and likely would

not be debating whether we are staring disaster in the face.

Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that the suggestions I will make are still

largely derived from those things that we should have done at the start of the occupation which the experiences of Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Cambodia, Kosovo,

Timor, and Afghanistan all indicated was the right way to handle post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq. At this late date—a year later, with so many problems festering in the country, so many opportunities missed, and so much anger and resentment already simmering there—we cannot be certain that they will still work. Unfortunately, I believe that they are the course we must take, if only because nothing

else seems likely to work better.

1. Make security the highest priority for the next six months

Getting control over the security situation must be made a priority, possibly even

at the expense of other operations currently ongoing. However, it cannot remain so

forever. Moreover, I believe that certain extreme measures are justified in the short

term to get the security situation under control that the United States and its coalition partners can probably only sustain for a brief period of time. Given how far

the current situation has deteriorated, it is going to take some dramatic steps to

right the listing ship of Iraqi reconstruction. But if these steps prove successful, it

should not be necessary to sustain them for excessively long periods of time.

2. Change the military’s mission

First and foremost, we must direct U.S. military forces in Iraq to make securing

the streets and neighborhoods of the country their highest priority. If we can do

this, we will have a profound impact on the lives and attitudes of average Iraqis.

If we cannot, it is exceedingly unlikely that reconstruction can succeed. What’s more real security is the essential pre-requisite for all of the other steps that will follow.

If we do not begin to take responsibility for providing security for the Iraqi people

we will never create an environment secure enough for international organizations

and foreign aid workers to return, nor will there be an opportunity to deal with the

problems of the Iraqis security forces currently saddled with this mission.

I agree with the many British and American military officers in Iraq who privately argue that the United States should be employing the kind of foot patrols

backed by helicopters and/or ground vehicles that the British Army learned to use

in Northern Ireland, and that all NATO forces eventually employed in the Balkans.

This is the only way that American forces can get out, reassure the Iraqi civilians,

find out from them where the troublemakers are, and respond to their problems.

This was also the demand I heard regularly from the Iraqis themselves. Their preference was to have mixed American and Iraqi patrols. However, I found that most

Iraqis were so desperate that they would settle for American soldiers alone on the

streets. An NDI study of Iraqi public opinion conducted last summer found the

same; one Shiite woman in Diwaniyah asked about the reconstitution of the Iraqi

police said, ‘‘If there is an [Iraqi] officer standing there, no Iraqi would be afraid

of him. But if an American soldier were there, they would be afraid of him.’’ Even

though Iraqis generally want Americans to be more in the background in every

other aspect of reconstruction—and some Iraqis will doubtless bristle at an increased American presence—in this one area most Iraqis seem to want to see more

Americans, not less, at least for the short term.

Such an emphasis on foot patrols, presence, and the eradication of crime and attacks on Iraqis would doubtless expose U.S. personnel to greater risks. However,

this is absolutely necessary if reconstruction is to succeed in Iraq. There is no question that force protection must always be an issue of concern to any American commander, but it cannot be the determining principle of U.S. operations. If our overriding goal is to protect American troops, we should get them out of Iraq and bring

them back to the United States where they will be perfectly safe. The fact is that

they are in Iraq because the reconstruction of that country is critical to the stability

of the Persian Gulf and a vital interest of the United States. In their current mode

of operations, our troops are neither safe nor are they accomplishing their most imVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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portant mission. Consequently, executing that mission must become the highest concern of U.S. military commanders, and their current prioritization—focusing on

force protection and offensive operations against the insurgents—is misguided. If it

does not change, the reconstruction may fail outright.

3. Reinforce the American military presence in Iraq to establish the conditions for

real security

We are going to need more American troops in Iraq. Few of the current members

of the Coalition can be counted on to provide troops capable of dealing with the full

range of security problems we currently face in Iraq. Indeed, over the past few

weeks, we have seen American forces called on to rescue those of other coalition nations when faced with circumstances beyond their ability to control. At present, we

do not have enough American troops (or other high-quality coalition forces like the

British and Italians) to handle the mission of providing basic security for the Iraqi

people throughout the country. Indeed, this is one reason I find it hard to blame

our military commanders for handling security as they have. They don’t have the

forces to accomplish the mission we need them to accomplish even if they were ordered to do so. Consequently we must provide them with those resources.

Obviously, American ground forces are limited in number and they are stretched

thin. But they are not yet at the breaking point. By redeploying some units that

just returned from Iraq and freeing up others currently being held back for other

contingencies (like a Korean war) we could probably come up with another 40,000-

60,000 American troops that could be deployed to Iraq for a brief period of time.

But we must recognize that if we do so, we will not be able to sustain that presence

for very long—again 6-12 months at most—and that in doing so we likely will diminish our ability to sustain even a smaller presence once our initial surge is over.

In other words, we can still ramp up our presence in Iraq by considerable numbers,

but we must recognize that we can only do so for a short period, after which we

are going to have to decrease the American presence significantly.

4. Seek additional foreign forces

Because the U.S. troop presence in Iraq can only be increased for the short term,

and Iraqi forces are unlikely to be able to take over significant aspects of the security mission for something on the order of 12-24 months, the United States must

find another source of competent troops. These troops can only come from our allies

in Europe and Asia, and possibly elsewhere. At the moment, the Europeans are

claiming that they have no more to spare. I think this a bit of an exaggeration.

Surely a continent of over 300 million people, with some of the most professional

armies in the world—a continent that has managed to scrape together 50,000 security personnel to guard the Athens Olympics—can pull together another 25,000-

50,000 troops for a mission as important as the rebuilding of Iraq if given six

months to do so. And if Europe does, our other allies will likely follow their lead.

I believe that Europe simply has no desire to find these troops. The Europeans

lack the desire because they have made clear that they will only provide large numbers of troops if the United States agrees to make the UN a full partner in reconstruction, along the lines of the experiences in Kosovo and East Timor—a role that

this Administration has stubbornly and, I would add, gratuitously refused to this

point. I suspect that if the United States were finally to agree to Europe’s terms,

terms that are reasonable and under which U.S. forces have operated successfully

before, I think it would be hard for our European allies to refuse a UN request for

more troops. At the very least, I think we ought to put them to the test.

In addition, many European leaders have no desire to put large numbers of their

troops into the shooting gallery that Iraq has become over the past 12 months. This

is ultimately why an increase in U.S. troops must precede our request for more foreign troops: only when we have diminished the current levels of violence in Iraq are

we likely to receive the contributions that we need—contributions that should then

allow us to scale back our own presence when we begin to feel the strain from reinforcing our units in Iraq.

5. Remake the Iraqi security forces

The rapid reinforcement of American troops, later supplemented and then to some

extent supplanted by foreign troops should be used to buy time to create a secure

environment in which to properly reform the new Iraqi security forces. As American

and other Coalition units become available, Iraqi units should be pulled off the

streets and thoroughly re-vetted—relying on the actual behavior of the Iraqi soldiers

in their various security missions over the past year as a primary guide. Those who

were conscientious; those who showed up for work; those who tried to help their fellow citizens; and those who stood and fought when there was trouble should be retained. The rest should be moved into job retraining programs and, ideally, found

20

new employment before being mustered out so that they do not simply swell the

ranks of the insurgents for lack of other alternatives. New recruits should also be

enlisted and they too should be thoroughly vetted before being enrolled. These units

should then be given thorough and comprehensive training programs without regard

for the exigencies of the moment. Before being redeployed, they should be adequately equipped, so that when they do finally return to service they will have every

chance of succeeding.

What’s more, it would probably be wise, at least initially, to marry up Iraqi units

with similar sized American and other Coalition units—both to add Iraqi faces to

Coalition operations, and as a final check and source of training to ensure that

when the unit is finally deployed on its own it will be able to handle the mission

it is assigned. It is crucial to the morale of the Iraqi security forces and to the people of Iraq that their security forces be seen as succeeding and assuming the burden

of securing their country.

In an ideal world, which I recognize that this may not be, the progression from

a beefed up American security presence, to a more even-handed balance between

American and multilateral forces, eventually to an Iraqi-dominated security presence should be fairly seamless. The U.S. would increase its forces and bring down

the level of violence in the short run making it possible to bring in more foreign

troops; this in turn would allow the U.S. to scale back its commitment. In the meantime, the Coalition would use the window afforded to train new, more reliable and

competent Iraqi security forces, which can then slowly take over for American and

Coalition forces, allowing for a further drawdown in foreign troop strength.

6. Reach out to the Sunni population

Finally, we must remember that no aspect of Iraqi reconstruction is purely military. Every aspect has a political and economic component as well. In the long run,

the security of Iraq will rest heavily on the support of the populace. If the populace

turns on the insurgents and actively supports the Coalition, reconstruction has

every likelihood of succeeding. If not, reconstruction is probably doomed to failure.

Although this is true everywhere across the country, it is a pressing concern with

the Sunni tribesmen who have become the principal popular support for most of the

Sunni Arab and foreign insurgents. The United States must take immediate steps

to begin to remedy this urgent problem.

If the Administration had prepared to do so, there were much better ways it could

have handled the Sunni tribes right from the start. Unfortunately, it did not, and

we must deal with the situation now at hand. In the short-term, we must reach out

to the tribal shaykhs, largely as Saddam did, and offer to provide them with resources if they will ‘‘assist with security’’—i.e., stop attacking the roads, power lines,

oil pipelines, and coalition forces in their territory and prevent other groups from

doing the same. Our payments do not necessarily have to be cold cash, like

Saddam’s, but we too need to find ways to provide resources that will give the tribal

shaykhs and their people an incentive to cooperate with us. This can come in the

form of goods, construction equipment or funding for projects, or even the projects

themselves. It can come by ‘‘deputizing’’ tribal military leaders, enlisting their personnel in an Iraqi security force (probably the ICDC, which is locally based) and

then paying them for their service. The key is to start meeting with the shaykhs

and convincing them that if they cooperate, there will be resources and other benefits for them and their followers.

Over the longer-term we must work to repair the deeper psychological damage

created by Saddam’s misrule and our own initial mistakes. We need to begin a process of education among Sunni tribesmen (indeed, all across Iraq) that will make

them understand our vision of the new Iraq and their role in it. For instance, we

need them to understand that in a system where the rule of law prevails they will

not have to fear being oppressed by the Shi’ah as they oppressed the Shi’ah themselves. Similarly, we need to persuade them that while they will no longer enjoy the

privileged position they had under Saddam, and so will no longer be relatively better

off than the rest of the country, if the reconstruction succeeds, Iraq will be so much

more prosperous than it was under Saddam that in absolute terms, they will be

much better off.

The United States must also help the Sunnis develop new political institutions.

Here the need may actually be even more pressing than it is for the rest of the

country. The Kurds have their two great parties. For the present, the Shi’ah at least

have the religious leadership of the Hawza—although that too is an imperfect vehicle for expressing their true political aspirations. But the Sunnis have nothing.

Their principal political institution was the Ba’th party and it has been proscribed,

along with all of its senior members. Consequently, the United States is going to

have to revise its arbitrary and draconian de-Ba’thification measures to allow promiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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nent Sunnis, including Sunni tribal leaders, to participate in Iraq’s political process

and help them create new, progressive political institutions that will allow their

voices to be heard. Even in these, the Sunni tribesman cannot predominate, and

should have no more political power than their demographic weight, but they cannot

be excluded entirely as they effectively have been so far. Overall, the U.S. military

and political authorities must remember that insurgencies are not defeated principally by military operations. They are defeated by eliminating the underlying political and economic grievances that gave rise to the insurgency. Overly aggressive

military operations can therefore be extremely counterproductive by exacerbating

those grievances (or creating new ones).

CONCLUSION

When I wrote The Threatening Storm two years ago, I argued that the we would

likely have a honeymoon period after an invasion when most Iraqis would be receptive to the efforts of the United States to help them rebuild their country. However,

I also warned that that honeymoon would not last forever. I cautioned that unless

the Iraqis saw real improvement in their lives during that honeymoon, they would

likely begin to turn against us, and I suggested that that honeymoon period might

last no more than about six months. In November, when I was in Iraq, I found Iraqi

public opinion still overwhelmingly supportive of the United States, defying my sixmonth prediction. But I also found that this support was becoming fragile, and if

the United States was not able to deliver basic security and basic services better

than we had so far soon, more and more Iraqis would conclude that either the

United States could not or would not help them to rebuild their country and so they

should take matters into their own hands and get rid of us.

Unfortunately, in the events of the past weeks we are seeing this prediction come

true. Our failure to secure the country, and the broad range of secondary problems

this creates, are increasingly souring Iraqis on the reconstruction and turning them

into our opponents. All is not lost in Iraq, but the clock is ticking. If reconstruction

is to succeed, we must address the security of the Iraqi people and we must do so

promptly. I do not know how many more chances we will get to do so. But I urge

this Administration to treat this one as our last.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Pollack, for that very

compelling testimony. We appreciate that.

General Joulwan.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL GEORGE A. JOULWAN, U.S. ARMY

(RET.), FORMER NATO SACEAUR

General JOULWAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to once again testify before the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee. You, Mr. Chairman, and this committee represent a

true bipartisan approach so vital in addressing the threats now facing our country.

At the outset, if I may, Mr. Chairman, I want to pay tribute to

the men and women of our Armed Forces who have displayed uncommon bravery and courage in the past year, in Iraq and elsewhere around the world. Many of today’s leaders served with me

in numerous assignments around the world, and I can attest to

their professionalism and their commitment. And nothing in my remarks today should be construed as reducing our resolve or commitment in support of our troops and in bringing true peace, stability, and normalization to the people of Iraq. And, to me, failure

is not an option.

Mr. Chairman, you asked for my assessment and recommendations on several key issues facing us in Iraq and on the pending

transition to Iraqi sovereignty on 1 July. Let me respond to those

issues and then answer your questions. But, first, two observations,

I believe, that are relevant to your inquiry.

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The first observation. As is now evident, prior planning for winning the peace, as well as for winning the war, was inadequate and

shortsighted. Past experiences in similar conflicts mandated as

much planning for the former as for the latter. In my view, the

tougher task is winning the peace, and requires an attention to detail and an integration of effort that includes not only military

units, but also non-governmental organizations, U.N. agencies, and

numerous U.S. and international civilian firms and agencies. A

year later, we are still suffering from this lack of initial detailed

planning for the stabilization of Iraq.

The second observation. A year ago, we had a clear warning of

the violence ahead in Iraq. A battle-tested corps commander, after

skillfully maneuvering his forces with minimum casualties to secure Baghdad, reported to his superiors that he ran into resistance,

more resistance than he anticipated. For his candor and integrity,

the corps commander was criticized and contradicted by the senior

civilian leadership in the Pentagon.

Mr. Chairman, the assumptions that we would encounter minimum resistance, as well as being greeted as liberators by the Iraqi

people, were wrong. When the assumptions in your battle plan are

proven false, you must immediately adapt your war plan. Winning

the first battle is not winning the war. We did not impose our will

on the enemy. Not to do so, in my opinion, was a strategic error,

a strategic error we are now paying for, and one that we must correct.

Now to the issues you asked me to address. I’ll try to be brief.

First let me reinforce what you and Senator Biden have already

said in your opening statements. First and foremost, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the primary requirement for a successful transition on 1 July in Iraq is, indeed, a secure environment. And I’d

like to explore that a little bit with you.

Right now, that secure environment, as many of you have said,

does not exist. This basic requirement should have been met at the

very outset of the war. A secure environment includes sealing the

borders, preventing lawlessness, disarming remnants of the defeated military, and demobilizing the enemy’s security forces. Those

actions are critical in the follow-on to the end of major hostilities.

If that was not a clear objective of our civilian and political leaders,

it should have been. The resources required to do so should have

been provided, whatever the cost. We did not do so then, we must

do so now, or there truly is a high probability of civil war, rather

than a civil society, in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, let me, again, be clear. While the requirement for

a secure environment still exists one year after the end of the conflict stage, it will be more difficult and require more resources, both

in troops and materiel, but it must be done. Without a secure environment on 1 July, we should anticipate continued violence confronting the new Iraqi Government as well as Coalition forces.

And, second, for clarity, we must understand the difference between the warfight and stabilization. The warfight is what we witnessed in the brilliant tactical maneuver from Kuwait to Baghdad

by our soldiers and marines, supported by Air Force and Navy air.

The warfight was superb use of the capabilities and effects of joint

23

and combined forces. In very short order, our troops reached Baghdad and accomplished the mission of regime change.

But while the military can win the war, only civilian agencies

can secure the peace. And to secure the peace requires stabilization

within Iraq. And, Mr. Chairman, stabilization is a mission. And I

would urge you to request from those in the Department of Defense, and our military and civilian leaders, what is the strategy

for stabilization in Iraq? It is a necessary phase in the operation

when you go from the warfight to stabilization and, perhaps years

later, to normalization. Stabilization is not just nation-building, as

we want to try to call it. It is not. But, rather, it is a combination

of military operations and actions by civil and non-governmental

agencies and organizations to begin the task of creating everything

from constitutions, elections, national police, border forces, justice

systems, jobs, and all those things that give people hope and dignity—food, shelter, hospitals, and schools. This is what needs to be

done now and after 1 July. It is a daunting task. And to do so will

take a great deal of coordination, planning, and cooperation between the military command structure and the new U.S. Embassy

being established in Baghdad. In doing so, we must have unity of

effort, as well as unity of command between the military command

in Baghdad and this soon-to-be-established U.S. Embassy. Clarity

in terms of mission, as well as roles and responsibilities, is essential prior to the 1 July transition.

Mr. Chairman, as has been mentioned by you and others, stabilization and a secure environment will mean more troops—troops

to seal the borders, troops to ensure safe passage on roads, troops

to disarm and to mobilize former warring factions, troops to buy

time for indigenous Iraqi police and military to organize, equip,

and train. Clearly, such a mission will be an added hardship for

our military and their families, but realistic troop-to-task analysis

needs to be done by our field commanders in order to provide a secure environment in Iraq. And I would urge the Congress that resources must match those requirements.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, in my view, we also need to broaden, as

has been mentioned by others, the political and military base of the

Iraqi campaign. We cannot, nor should not, go it alone. And it

should not be ‘‘our way or the highway.’’ NATO and the United Nations need to be consulted and included in the planning for a free

and democratic Iraq.

This year, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of D-Day and the

end of Hitler’s fanatical dream of world domination. This year, we

celebrate the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and

the Iron Curtain and the demise of communism. A decade ago, we

saved thousands of Muslims from atrocities in Bosnia. We did not

do so alone, but with an alliance of like-minded nations. It took 40

years in the cold war, 14 million U.S. soldiers back and forth to Europe, and billions of dollars. They were joined by millions of other

soldiers from the Alliance, and we, the Alliance, prevailed. We have

more in common than we have in differences. We share common

values and ideals. We have mutual trust and confidence.

The attack on September 11 was an attack not just on the

United States, but also civilization as we know it. NATO declared

an Article V against terrorism, for the first time in its history, the

24

day after September 11, 2001. NATO, as an Alliance, is in Afghanistan, commanding the International and Security Assistance Force.

And I believe NATO can play a significant role in Iraq, but we need

to give them a seat at the table and a voice in the political as well

as the military operation.

Those are my brief comments, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward

to your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, General Joulwan.

Commissioner Michael Sheehan.

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR COUNTER-TERRORISM, NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

Mr. SHEEHAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear before your committee again today. It’s a pleasure to return and discuss my experiences in dealing with the problem of building police and security structures in post-conflict environments.

Let me say, at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that I am not an Iraqi

expert, but I have been involved in training of indigenous military

police, civil defense, and constabulary forces for the U.S. Government for over 22 years, as a U.S. Special Forces officer, as a State

Department diplomat, and with the United Nations. And I say this

not to bolster my credentials, but to underscore that we’ve been

doing this for at least 22 years that I’ve been associated with it.

I’ve worked in four continents in these missions, from Central

America to the Caribbean, the Andes, the Balkans, Africa—Central

Africa, East Africa, and West Africa—and in East Asia. I’ve worked

in American-only operations, American-led coalitions, U.N. civilian

police operations, and I’ve also worked, to a lesser extent, with the

European Union and OSCE efforts in these. Depending on how you

count them up, probably about a dozen experiences in this business

over the past 22 years.

Mr. Chairman, I’m sure Iraq is unique in many aspects. In all

of the cases I worked with, they all had unique characteristics. But

they also all had the same haunting problems over and over again.

First, let me just review quickly what some of those problems

are. They’re well known, and I’ll go through it very quickly.

Normally in post-conflict environments, law and order is completely broken down, there are no viable state institutions. Local

police have stopped to function completely, overtaken by military

and paramilitary forces running around the countryside. There are

no functioning judicial or penal systems in place. There is a minimal or no functioning civil society, such as a free press or civic organizations, and normally the country is bankrupt, unable to hire

and retain public workers, including the police.

And also, in each of the cases I worked with, but to varying degrees of success, you heard complaints about building police forces,

primarily from my military partners and colleagues in the military,

but also from other sectors of U.S. Government action. They always

complain that police forces started too late, were proceeding too

slowly, and, because of this, were emboldening trouble-making factors in the country. There were never enough forces to train, equip,

or pay the police. There was a shortage of expertise in developing

25

leadership in the police, and specialists, such as forensics and other

special skills. And almost in every case, there was no judicial system to handle criminal activity and put them in proper correctional

systems.

Also, two other issues I’m going to return to later that are also

prevalent in every one of those cases, the issue of the security gap

between police and military functions, and the issue of political legitimacy.

Let me briefly outline six steps that are required to rebuild the

police force in a post-conflict situation. It could be more or less, but

I’ve picked six.

No. 1, vetting the force. That was mentioned before. In each of

these cases, you normally don’t want to start a police force from

scratch. You want to take what’s formerly there, the good ones—

you need good intelligence to figure out which ones were good—and

build around them in order to jumpstart the process. Virtually impossible to start with a clean slate of paper, so you have to build

with the original force. Often you’re faced with the dilemma of, do

you deal with integrating paramilitary forces into the police forces?

There are pros and cons of this. By integrating them, they buy into

the security structure. But they can also threaten the development

of a new and democratic police force. Again, the issue is how you

vet them—how you vet the old police, how you vet people that want

a stake in the process that served, some admirably, in paramilitary

and other resistance groups. That issue of vetting the force is probably the most important and difficult aspect of building—of beginning a force.

Second, you need to shape the force. How large a force do you

need, one that can be sustained by the new economy there? What

types of religious, political, and different factions need—ethnic or

other factions need to be integrated in the police force. Most police

forces that I’ve been involved with were too big before the war.

They need to be made smaller, but more effective at the same time.

And normally the demographic makeup of the force has to be adjusted.

Third, you need to train this force. This is actually one of the

more straightforward of the challenges. We know how to train police and security forces. We’ve done it over and over again for

many, many years. The problem is, we normally start too late and

without enough resources. Once you get the training institutions

up and running, it’s a fairly straightforward process.

I’ve seen, for instance, our ICITAP at the Department of Justice

program, does a very good job once it’s up and running, in training

police and other forces. It’s just all, normally, too late, too slow.

We have to train leaders and specialists. Training cops and security personnel, as I mentioned before, fairly straightforward. Training leaders is more difficult, and specialists. You can’t train a leader and grow a leader overnight, but you can accelerate the process.

If you can properly identify leaders, give them specialized training

and mentoring, you can accelerate the process. You can’t wait

around, to develop leaders, for 10 or 15 years. You can help accelerate. In order to do that, you have to have special trainers to provide specialist training for leaders and other specialists, as I menVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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tioned before—forensics, special investigations, and internal investigations.

Fifth, you need to monitor the force. Once you provide training,

you need monitors to make sure the training that you provided in

the academy is properly executed in the field. That requires international or other types of monitoring forces to mentor them and

bring them along in the process.

Finally, and the last step I want to emphasize, you have to police

the police. And in this regard, I want to mention a great American,

named Chris Kriskovich, who was a veteran of Special Forces in

Vietnam, retired FBI agent, and founder—father of ICITAP. He

taught me about this in the mid 1990s, in Haiti and the Balkans

and other countries we operated in. You have to, from the beginning, create an internal policing of the police force to ensure that

these people that you’re empowering with new authorities respect

the rule of law and the democratic institutions they’re sworn to

protect.

Let me mention quickly a couple of other key factors involved in

building the police force.

First, political legitimacy. If you do not have a solid political legitimacy, a solid political process moving forward, building a police

force is not going to solve your problem. You should do it anyhow,

because it’s going to take you a long time, but don’t expect it to

bring security, don’t expect it to bring stability, alone, to the situation. You have to have a viable and legitimate political process or

your police forces will be left to the sidelines. We saw this in Somalia, we saw this in the early parts of the Balkans, we saw it in

many other occasions where, without a political legitimacy, if the

process is broken down and armed factions are going to be fighting,

the police will be pushed to the side.

Second, on the issue of the security gap, this comes up also in

every one of the problems, and again in Iraq. The security gap is

that area where the problem is a violent—generally of violent

mobs, too large to be handled by local police, too civilian to be handled by military problems. Normally the solution best used to deal

with this problem is using paramilitary gendarmerie or

carabiniere-type forces to deal with that gray area of large mobs

that are often orchestrated by troublemakers. And that is an area

that has to be addressed early on. It’s an area that overlaps between police and military. There are forces that are good at doing

that. Work has been done on that in the Balkans that was delayed,

but ultimately fairly successful, and lessons can be learned there.

Time and money. You can’t do this overnight. Senator Biden, you

mentioned one of my boss’s predecessors, Bernie Kerik. Five years,

that’s exactly the timeline. I’d say at a minimum you’re going to

need 5 years. Actually, it’s a generational process to create a new

police force. And actually a contract between the people of the postconflict environment and new judicial and security forces takes a

generation. At a minimum, our presence and international presence has to be at least 5, more like 10 years.

Let me take a few minutes to talk about the U.S. Government

and make a few recommendations on how to deal with this, and for

Iraq.

27

First of all, we have to admit that we’re going to be in this business that I’ve been involved with for 22 years. The U.S. Government has not admitted it. We reinvent it every time. Because normally these interventions are politically controversial, so the U.S.

Government hasn’t defined this as a task. It’s been done ad hoc

over and over and over again.

Second, once we admit this is a task for the U.S. Government,

assign central responsibility for managing it. In my view, it should

be in the State Department, and it should group all the different

organizations that are out there doing it now under one roof. That

would include the Justice programs, including ICITAP, into the

State Department to manage these type of operations.

Third, I think we should create an international academy for police training—I made this suggestion when I was Ambassador for

Counterterrorism—to train our partners in counterterrorism

around the world here in the United States, not only to give them

skills, but to build the relationships that are necessary to fight the

war on terrorism. We also have interests in counter-narcotics and

in civilian police structures. We should build an academy, bring

people together here. And, by the way, that academy will also give

a home to the policymakers, to planners, and the people that develop doctrine, like the U.S. Army has, that we could use for startup missions in these situations in the future.

Third, we should create a small, but standing, Federal international police training force. We could probably do this initially

with 100 or 150 people, but at least they would have a home, and

there would be a place for them to reside, and they could be drawn

upon in the early phases of the planning and the startup of these

missions.

Finally, we need to plan early and often. If there is a political

process moving forward in U.S. Government that is going to create

one of these post-conflict environments, the planning for police

should start immediately, concurrent with the political planning.

Also, if the military starts planning, the day they start planning,

the police and judicial planning should start, as well.

Finally, we’re going to need money in order to keep this operation moving, a commitment, time, resources, and people to do it.

I can hear the red light going off, and I’m at the end of my comments.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to express these

today, and I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sheehan follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN

BUILDING POLICE FORCES IN A POST-CONFLICT ENVIRONMENT

Introduction

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear here today. It is a pleasure

to return to this Committee to discuss my experiences in dealing with the problem

of building police and security structures in post conflict environments.

I have been involved in the training of indigenous military, police, civil defense

and constabulary forces for the US government for over 22 years, as a US Army

Special Forces officer, a State Department diplomat, and United Nations official.

My current duties at NYPD have furthered my understanding of training police

officers, although this training is focused almost exclusively on counter-terrorism.

New York City has been targeted on multiple occasions by terrorists, but we are

certainly not in a post conflict scenario as was usually the case when I have worked

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with police forces. New York is bouncing back from the terrible 9-11 attacks and

despite an enormous effort to fight terrorism, the City has continued to reduce crime

by about 11% over the past 2 years under the leadership of Mayor Michael

Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

In today’s remarks, I will draw on my experience previous to NYPD, which includes service in post conflict zones on four continents—from Central America, the

Caribbean, and the Andes, to the Balkans, Africa, and East Asia. I have worked

with American-only operations, American-led coalitions, UN civilian police and to a

lesser extent the European Union and OSCE efforts. Depending on how you count

them, I have participated in about a dozen police training experiences in 22 years.

I am sure Iraq is unique in many respects, but I am equally sure that the principles that I have encountered in each of these twelve or so cases are equally valid

there. I hope my testimony adds to the discussion on how this enormous task of stabilizing Iraq can be best accomplished by our nation and its allies.

Defining the Problem

In each of the post conflict scenarios in which I worked, the local situation varied

dramatically. Each situation had its own unique challenges based on the nature of

the conflict, the degree of ongoing violence, the status of political reconciliation and

the local tradition of law enforcement. The international response also varied dramatically—from the well prepared and financed (clearly the minority of cases) to the

more normal hap hazard and ‘‘shoe string’’ financing of the police and justice programs.

Despite the unique variables of each case there were constants, in fact all too familiar constants, that faced us every time:

• Law and order had completely broken down; there were no viable state institutions.

• Local police had stopped to function and were overtaken by military and paramilitary forces.

• There was no functioning judicial or penal system.

• There was minimal or no functioning civil society, such as a press or civic organizations.

• The country was bankrupt with no resources to hire and retain public workers

including police.

Three consistent complaints were heard concerning the response to this challenge,

most often coming from the military forces that were forced to move into the security vacuum created by broken police forces.

• The training of the new force started too late and proceeded too slowly,

emboldening trouble-making groups.

• There were not enough resources to train, equip or pay the police.

• There was a shortage of expertise in developing leaders and specialists.

• There was no judicial system to handle criminals and other trouble makers if

apprehended by military or police units.

There are two other important issues in this equation that I will address later

in my remarks, the so called security gap and political legitimacy. For now, I will

turn to the basics of building a police force.

Six Steps in Building a Police Force

For the purposes of this discussion I have listed six key components in building

a police force. There could arguably be more, but I think these six capture the most

essential elements. They are: vetting the old force, shaping the new force, training

recruits, training leaders and specialists, monitoring the force, and last but not

least, policing the police.

Let me make a few observations about each of these components:

Vetting the Force

Building a policed force from scratch is not easy; in fact, it is practically impossible. It takes time. In most post conflict situations, those responsible for building

a new force try first to screen out the best from the previous force and build upon

their experience. The problem is in identifying who is acceptable. It is a challenge

to build a whole new policing culture. Retaining too many from the previous regime

risks infecting the new force with old practices of corruption, abuse of authority, or

politicization. A second challenge is whether or not to include paramilitary or other

military groups that were part of the conflict. In the short term it may pay to take

on some of these people and reduce their threat to the stabilization process; but they

29

also must be carefully vetted and be of sufficient numbers to dominate the new police force.

The challenge is to have a vetting process that includes trusted locals, coupled

with intelligence information gathered before and after the vetting process. It is essential to weed out the problem officers. It is a difficult and time consuming process,

but is absolutely vital for success.

Shaping the New Force

In most cases in which I have served the previous security forces were ineffective,

too large, under-paid and often corrupt. The goal is to create a smaller police force

that does not bankrupt the national treasury and is paid sufficiently so that its

members are not tempted to engage in street-level corruption to make up for low

or non-existent pay.

The host government is normally broke—and the International Financial Institutions are reluctant to pay salaries. However, funding must be found, at least during

the initial phases, from international donors to pay police. It must be factored into

the beginning of any planning for an intervention.

In shaping the force, it is important to have political, ethnic or religious groups

represented appropriately. In most cases, it makes sense to keep the old traditions

of the police and justice systems (for instance did it derive from colonial structures

from the British, French or Italian systems?). This action needs to be coordinated

with coalition partners that may bring different traditions to the process.

Training the Force

Training new recruits is an important but fairly straight forward challenge. We

have many people who know how to do this—and they do it fairly well. The Department of Justice International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program

(or ICITAP as it is known) has been involved in establishing police academies in

various countries around the world. I have visited several of these and they are relatively effective in turning out new recruits. Generally, training should take at least

sixteen weeks to get it right, and should include time on the street to monitor recruits as they develop their law enforcement skills. The challenge here is to get it

up and running within the first months of an intervention so that new cops are

being turned out within months. This takes advance planning and resources.

Training Leaders and Specialists

More difficult than training recruits is training ‘‘bosses’’ as they are known in the

NYPD vernacular. You can not substitute for years of street experience in the classroom. However, leaders can be identified and put in accelerated programs to develop

their capacities and mentor their development. This requires exceptional trainers

and monitors for senior level personnel. However, as is the case in the specialist

areas, like forensic science and special investigations, there is always a premium on

recruiting the quality of people necessary to do this job. To do it well, you need long

term police experience and the willingness and ability to translate that experience

in a foreign land. That is not easy, but again, is essential to the task.

Monitoring the Force

New police need to be monitored to ensure that the training they received in the

Academy is practiced on the street. That is the primary job of a monitoring force.

Relatively speaking, this is also a task that can be accomplished. The US and the

international community have built up quite a bit of experience in the past 10 years

monitoring police forces. The quality of the monitoring effort, however, will often depend on the leadership of its force. Without strong supervision, these cops have a

tendency to get in trouble with prostitution, black marketing, or other abuses. If

well supervised, this is a task that can be done well.

Policing the Police

Let me take a quick moment to discuss another important and often overlooked

aspect of these operations that was taught to me in the mid 1990s by Kris

Kriskovich. Kris was a veteran of the 5th Special Forces Group in Viet Nam and

retired career FBI agent and the founding father of ICITAP. Kris underscored to

me the importance of policing the police—of building strong independent and effective internal affairs structures into a police force from the beginning to ensure that

the police uphold the rule of law that they are attempting to re-impose on the society they serve. Unfortunately, Kris died in a helicopter crash north of Sarajevo, Bosnia in September 1997; doing what he loved—training police. But his lesson should

be remembered—police the police.

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Other Key Factors: Political Legitimacy, Military Back-up, and Time

Political Legitimacy: Without political legitimacy, training a local police force will

not guarantee stability. It still should be done anyway, but it must be understood

that a newly trained, lightly armed police force will not be able to stop a civil war

or prevent massive civil unrest in a tense post conflict environment.

In Somalia, the US intervention force commanded by LTG Johnston had begun

training the remnants of a fairly well respected Somali police during the initial US

intervention phase. This was done, completely ‘‘under the radar’’ of Washington by

a contingent of US Army MPs, and particularly a very creative LTC named Spataro.

The military took on this function not because it wanted to, but because they had

to, it was deemed essential by the commanders. The training and assistance worked

to a degree; the old police was brought out, their stations re-opened and they assisted the MNF with traffic control and petty crime. Ultimately, the police force

proved irrelevant in the face of an ongoing civil war of heavily armed militias. But

for a short period of relative stability, they were appreciated by the US military and

the local population both.

The Security Gap: As in Somalia, in the Balkans, local police forces were not able

to stand up to heavily armed militias or large rampaging civilian mobs, backed by

heavily armed thugs. Even after the Dayton agreement, the ethnic cleansing began

again in Sarajevo, but in this case it was the Serbs (and to a lesser extent Croats)

who were being run out of their traditional neighborhoods (or leaving and burning

on their own volition) in the previously ethnically diverse and cosmopolitan city.

This led to a long and continuing discussion of the security gap. The security gap

is the security challenges that fall between the traditional military and police missions. These threats, which were managed mob violence, were too big for police to

handle—and too ‘‘civilian’’ for military force to handle without the risk of massive

civilian casualties.

There is no silver bullet for these challenges, but what has proved to work best

in the Balkans and other locations is a combination of military units, a paramilitary

police such as French-style gendarmerie or Italian-style Carabineer—coupled with

regular local police.

Time and Money: In Haiti, the police got off to a relatively good start but were

eventually starved for resources (even in this better case scenario there was plenty

of complaining about the slowness of the program). The political process has also

come apart, but even before that, a once promising police force was deteriorating

and beginning to look more like its predecessor force than the new modern force

contemplated by its trainers after the US-led intervention in 1994.

Conclusions

I have been involved in these post conflict security operations for over 22 years,

but during this period the US Government has denied that this is an enduring task

that will serve our national interest. Each case is seen as sui generous and limited

in scope. I can assure you that we will be doing these missions for the next 22 years

and probably poorly, relearning the lessons over again each time. It is time to prepare the US Government to conduct post conflict missions—and to do it correctly.

What is needed:

Define the task and assign responsibility

• Admit that the US Government has been performing this mission for years and

will continue to need to do it for the foreseeable future. We have been in denial

too long; we need to build the institutions to conduct these operations effectively, particularly with police training and development.

Create a unified Bureau to manage police training

• Create a unified law enforcement training and assistance agency within the

State Department. It should include planning and doctrinal development staff.

Police, justice and penal programs should be under one roof; this would include

ICITAP and other administration of justice programs.

Create an International Police Academy in the US

• Training for international police is required for counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, and peacekeeping. A new federal institution could provide a home for federal police trainers, and act as a basis for creating new police academies in postconflict scenarios. Police training could be conducted for counter-terrorism and

counter-narcotics officials in the same institution—another clear national interest that I proposed when I was Ambassador at Large for Counter Terrorism at

the State Department.

Create a standing national police force for contingency operations

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• Initially, this force could be no more than a few hundred full time employees

that agree to be assigned long term overseas in post-conflict environments. A

smaller number of these officers could be assigned as instructors and planners

at the stateside Academy or within the policy bureau at State between missions.

Their most important value would be in the planning and initial start-up of new

missions.

Plan early and often

• Write contingency plans and exercise often. Start planning during the peace negotiations. If you start after they are completed, you will be late by at least one

year. If the Pentagon has a plan or starts planning, do it concurrently—don’t

let them get a head of you.

Properly fund well before and through a deployment

• These operations need consistent funding streams to work effectively, from well

prior to a mission being launched through to its completion and after action review.

Stay with the program for at least five years

• Ideally, it takes a generation to train and gain experience and to rebuild what

amounts to a social contract between police and the community. Five to ten

years engagement, at a minimum, is required.

Build international partners

• It is not feasible to effectively conduct these operations unilaterally. The USG

should work with other partners on a bilateral and multilateral basis to establish a division of labor and share the burden of financing these operations.

• Police monitors and basic training can be done by many partners (including the

UN, the EU and the OSCE). The disciplined supervisory work and special training should come from well established, democratic and professional police forces

that have the strength and credibility to pull off that important task.

All of these recommendations will help build a long term capacity to more effectively conduct post conflict stability operations. However, I would also argue that

they should be implemented immediately for Iraq as well. I suspect we will be in

Iraq a long time, and these measures will immediately begin to strengthen a vital

component of the equation—the training and mentoring of local police forces.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Commissioner.

I would just say each of the three panelists have presented so

much material in 10 minutes that clearly this committee, and, I

suspect, the American public, would like to hear you for several

hours. We’re hopeful at least, through having this open hearing,

that all of us in Congress, and hopefully in our administration and

elsewhere, are likewise able to take advantage of some very, very

important counsel. I appreciate, again, your summation. I regret

the abruptness of the buzzers and the bells, but, I encourage you,

if you come to that point, please continue beyond the ring of the

bell to complete your thoughts. You know, we really are here to

learn.

Dr. O’Hanlon.

STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL E. O’HANLON, SENIOR FELLOW,

FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

Dr. O’HANLON. Thank you, Senator. It’s an honor to appear

today.

And I have learned a lot from listening to my colleagues, as well.

And I agree with their generally somber mood, as well as that of

yourself and Senator Biden. But let me, for the sake of argument,

try to underscore some of what is still going well in Iraq, on the

grounds that even though I’m not as optimistic as I once was, and

would concede to having been overly optimistic last fall, there is

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1The Iraq Index referred to can be found at: www.brookings.edu/iraqindex

some good news, and we have to keep that in mind even as we adjust course on a number of security fronts, as I’m sure you would

agree.

And I say this, again, not to try to counter the general mood of

sober thinking, because obviously that’s needed and we’re in a

tough time. But we also need to maintain our conviction that we

have a good chance of success here.

Starting with the politics, the Kurdish region remains remarkable, and it has been well before the overthrow of Saddam. And

there are still some problems up there. Namely, we have to convince the Kurds not to get too greedy about their veto rights in any

future Iraqi constitution or future governance, and we have to convince them not to make a land-grab around Kirkuk for property

that they feel was once theirs and is no longer in their people’s

hands. But, generally, that’s an encouraging part of the country.

Likewise, let me say, even though I’m not an Iraq expert the way

Ken Pollack and others are in this room, I’m generally impressed

by how the Shiite groups have conducted themselves. The Shia

have been remarkable in basically sticking with this, in remaining

relatively optimistic about their country’s future. Various Shia

leaders—of course, Mr. al-Sistani is the most notable—have certainly given us a hard time, where they didn’t like what we were

up to, but, generally speaking, they’ve been peaceful. They’re trying

now to convince al-Sadr not to continue on with violence. And we

have 60 percent of the country that’s generally happy to be liberated, happy about its new power in a democratically oriented Iraq,

and very glad Saddam Hussein is gone.

So there are obviously problems in large segments of the Shia

population, but I’m generally impressed by how they’ve conducted

themselves, and I’m cautiously optimistic that the al-Sadr problem

will be at least temporarily diffused. That’s a lot of caveats. I don’t

mean to say that the situation is one we can take to the bank. But

I’m worried a lot more about Fallujah than al-Sadr. That could be

wrong, but, still, that’s my broad image of Iraq, where 80 percent

of the country is generally happy Saddam is gone, and with us in

trying to build a better future.

Looking now to economic trends, I don’t have a lot of good news

to report on the security side, and I will acknowledge that. All the

trends that I’ve been tracking at Brookings—with my colleague,

Adriana Albequerque, and with Ken Pollack’s support—in this Iraq

Index 1 we do at Brookings, all the trends on the security side are

almost uniformly bad in the last few weeks, so I’m not going to try

to push my argument too far.

But, on the economic front, we do see some real improvement,

and there was a plateauing; frankly, not a lot of improvement in

much of last fall—it’s gotten better. Oil production, we’ve heard

from the administration many times, is up in this calendar year a

substantial amount. The facility-protection service, which is helping provide protection against sabotage and other kinds of problems and attacks on the oil infrastructure, is doing a passable job.

Now, granted, these are just people with guns told to man one post

and not let somebody come at them and attack. It’s not a very comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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plicated job. It’s not as instrumental to the security of Iraqis in

their daily lives as the police. We’ve heard a lot of very compelling

critiques of the police competence, which is not very high, but I

think the facility-protection service, 75,000 people who are involved

in protecting key infrastructure, are doing a passable job, and I’m

encouraged that oil production is up.

Most quality-of-living indices in Iraq, as we indicate in our index,

are up, as well, anywhere from 25 to 50 percent, sometimes a little

more, sometimes a little less, but in that broad range. Whether it’s

the availability of cooking fuel, the availability of electricity, the

availability of diesel, the use of cars in Baghdad, which, of course,

still leads to long lines at the gas station, but, nonetheless, is a

sign of life in the economy, a lot of these indicators are up by,

again, roughly a quarter to a half, depending on which metric you

examine.

Telephone service has been restored to roughly pre-war levels.

Water is now apparently in better shape than it was in the last

months or years of Saddam’s regime. There is a lot of progress. And even though only $3 billion of the $18 billion has been obligated, we’ve started to see some benefits even from that limited expenditure so far.

So that’s just a broad once-over on what I do see that’s good. I

certainly agree with Ken Pollack’s point that security for most

Iraqis is not nearly good enough. I agree with Michael Sheehan’s

point, we have to be much more effective in our training of police.

That piece of the security puzzle is not in very good shape.

But let me also quickly say a brief word about the Civil Defense

Corps in Iraq. Even though it did not step up as much as we might

have liked in the last month, frankly, I have to admit, I partially

understand where they’re coming from, because the nature of the

insurgency that they are now being asked to help us counter is taking on an anti-American, anti-Colonial-like flavor in Iraqi minds. It

is not simply people trying to restore the Ba’athists to power or trying to attack Americans for the sake of killing them. And we are

essentially asking the Civil Defense Corps, as its first main mission, to go in and support the United States in a highly politically

contentious operation. So I’m not going to be too hard on the CDC

for having had a bad month. They didn’t step up, but I hope they’ll

step up more once Iraq is back in their hands, once Iraqis rule

their own country.

So even on the CDC, I’m not going to be too harsh. It really is

the police of the five main services where I see the greatest shortfall in capability. It’s a very serious shortfall. And, as a result,

crime rates and other things are way too high in Iraq, security is

way too limited. I agree with Senator Biden and Ken Pollack on

that. But I’m still hopeful the other pieces of the security forces are

moving in a more optimistic direction. Admittedly, the army is still

way too small, but, again, I think at least we’re trying to establish

some levels of competence that may be the right way to go there.

So now let me sum up a couple of thoughts on where I think we

should go from here, with this not optimistic, but at least balanced,

view of where Iraq stands today.

The first point, of course, is, we have to hang in there. And Senator Biden said this, you’ve said this, Senator Kerry has said this.

34

We all, as a Nation, I think, agree, we have to keep at it. And

there’s a good reason to think that if we keep at it, we will do pretty well.

Second, I support the effort to transfer sovereignty on June 30,

if we really can pull it off, but I share, Senator, your questions

about, not only the composition of this new transitional government, but the powers of the new government. And I do think we

have to start a debate on this, as well. I hope, if we have the debate, we can actually make the June 30 date possible.

But let me tick off four quick questions I have about that transitional government.

One, if you’re in the transitional government, can you also run

for elections next year? Run in the elections, run for office? This

is an important question. Maybe there’s already an answer, but I

haven’t heard the answer if there is. It’s important, because if you

want a technocratic care-keeper government, you perhaps can ban

people who are in this transitional government from running for office in January. But if you want this to be a very politically contentious and energized body, then you don’t want to make that decision. I would lean toward a technocratic government, that has people who cannot run in January, in the interest of having a smooth,

gradual transition process and not having too much controversy

over who’s chosen and who’s left out of that body. That’s one question.

Second question. What budget resources will this transitional

government have to obligate itself in the next 8 months when they

are the power-that-be in Iraq? I don’t know. I don’t know how

much of the $18 billion we’re going to ask them for advice on how

to spend. I don’t know how much of their own oil revenue is going

to essentially be available to them that’s not already obligated. I’d

like to see more discussion of their budget power.

A third question. What’s their role going to be in the war-crimes

process? And, in particular, if somehow war criminals are tried and

convicted before January, or whenever elections actually do occur,

will this transitional government be the body that has the power

to grant clemency or to negotiate some kind of a plea bargain with

anybody they want to, perhaps, ask for help in calling off the insurgency, defusing the insurgency? Are you going to give this body any

role in the war-crimes process, or are we simply going to try to

hope that the trials last long enough that this transitional body

doesn’t have to make any of those tough decisions?

And, finally, if you see future Fallujahs, will this new transitional government make a big part of the decisionmaking on how

to handle them, or is the status-of-forces agreement that we’re asking for going to accord us all the power to handle Fallujah-like situations? I think we have to wrestle with the issue of who’s going to

negotiate with insurgent leaders, and who’s going to try to defuse

future Fallujah-like situations, of which there will probably be several between July 1 and January.

These are some of the questions I have. But if we do answer

some of these, I’m still hopeful that we can make the June 30 transition, and that will help the Civil Defense Corps and other Iraqis

feel like they’re defending their own country, not just defending our

mission and our vision of what should happen in Iraq.

35

* Written remarks prepared by Michael O’Hanlon and Adriana Lins de Albequerque.

Two last points and I’ll stop. One, I agree 100 percent with Ken

Pollack, and I think with much of what Michael Sheehan’s driving

at, although I won’t put words in his mouth, we need to do more

foot patrols. We’re doing a lot of patrols in Iraq, 1,500 a day, by

the latest count I get from DOD data. But they’re in motorized vehicles, and I question whether they’re effective enough.

And crime is way too high, still, in Iraq. It’s better than it was

last summer, and that is some good news, but it’s still way too high

for most Iraqis to feel that there’s meaningful progress in their

daily lives.

And, finally, I think, we have to increase the size of the standing

U.S. Army. I’m wading into a politically controversial topic that is

more maybe Armed Services Committee territory, but it’s really not

just Armed Services Committee territory, because the limits on the

size of our army are constraining the debate about how many

forces to add in Iraq in the near future. People are already thinking ahead to, how do you keep that force going if you need to sustain it next year? And I think we need to act quickly, because once

you decide you need a bigger army, it takes you 2 to 5 years to actually produce it. And if we’re going to be in Iraq for the rest of

the decade, we need to do at least what some of the Members of

this Congress, on both sides of the aisle have done, at least 50,000

more soldiers in the U.S. Army for the foreseeable future.

I’ll stop there.

[The prepared statement of Dr. O’Hanlon follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT * OF DR. MICHAEL E. O’HANLON

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and other members of the committee for the honor of testifying on the crucial matter of current U.S. Iraq policy.

The body of my testimony is a statistical analysis of trends in Iraq since last April

that my colleague Adriana Lins de Albequerque and I have been conducting over

the past year, based largely on DOD data but also on journalistic accounts, other

official information, and our own analytical judgments. We believe that tracking

various metrics of progress (or lack thereof) in Iraq over an extended period provides

useful perspective on what is going well, and what is not going so well, in that country today. It will come as little surprise that little is going well of late in the security sphere, even if one looks beyond recent coalition casualty figures to subtler and

longer-term trends. Thankfully, there is reason for some tempered optimism on the

economics and politics fronts—though as an analyst who has been generally positive

about how the post-Saddam Iraq mission would unfold, I must concede that on balance things have not gone nearly as well as I had hoped or expected.

Before presenting some of the key information from the index, I would like to

briefly answer the questions you posed, Senator Lugar, in your April 8 letter inviting me to testify:

What are the critical elements needed for a comprehensive transition

plan?

Of course, many things are needed here—such as a proper pathway to true elections next year and to creation of an Iraqi constitution, assurances of minority

rights and women’s rights, a delicate balance between according Islam an influential

role in Iraqi public life while protecting freedom of religion, methods of dealing with

Saddam Hussein and other war criminals and more generally former Baathists, and

adequate security for future leaders and public servants.

But one thing above all else is needed now, and that is a legitimate body to which

to transfer sovereignty in two short months. A key issue is whether those individuals in the interim government will be eligible to run for office in subsequent elections; my instinct is that they should not be eligible to run in next winter’s planned

elections, but in any case this is a critical matter to resolve. If the United Nations,

through Mr. Brahimi, is successful in developing a caretaker government with genVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
36

eral acceptability to most main Iraqi factions and key leaders, the general notion

of transferring sovereignty by June 30 seems sound and workable. Not only that,

it is desirable, given the need to defuse the growing feeling of anti-Americanism in

Iraq, which increasingly appears to fuel the insurgency.

What should the roles, missions, and responsibilities be of the United

States, other Coalition partners, the Iraqis, the United Nations and NATO

to ensure the transition can succeed?

Again, this is a complex question, but the most important policy point is that the

United States must unambiguously support the United Nations, and exercise its

leadership through that organization. We have lost a good deal of our legitimacy in

Iraq, so we need to hope the UN can do better. On balance, the Bush administration

now seems to agree with this argument, albeit very belatedly.

Do we have enough resources, the right people and the right organizational structure to do the job?

We may need further tactical increases in troop strength, especially in Sunni regions, on the order of several thousands of additional troops. This makes me more

persuaded than ever than we need a substantial, sustained increase in the size of

the U.S. Army, to deal with subsequent rotations in Iraq and other missions, of

some 50,000 more active-duty troops (above and beyond what Secretary Rumsfeld

has authorized using emergency powers and funds).

I am hopeful that the Shiite uprising of al-Sadr’s forces can be contained, since

it does not appear to enjoy a wide following. Unfortunately, the same sort of conclusion may not be true in regard to Sunni regions in general and Fallujah in particular. President Bush’s remarks at his 4/13 press conference that the insurgency

is nothing more than a small group making a grab for power does not seem correct

in reference to the Sunni region. There, it has taken on a more general anti-occupation/anti-American flavor (which is why I do agree with President Bush’s desire to

transfer sovereignty as soon as possible; doing so should help defuse the anti-American aspect of the insurgency).

We may need more money but not yet. The key is to get the $18 billion flowing,

not worry too much right away about whether it will be enough.

With that I will proceed to our Iraq Index,1 statistical metrics gauging trends in

that country.

—————— 1The Iraq Index referred to can be found at: www.brookings.edu/iraqindex

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, doctor.

Dr. Hashim.

STATEMENT OF DR. AHMED S. HASHIM, PROFESSOR OF

STRATEGIC STUDIES, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE

Dr. HASHIM. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Biden, members

of the committee, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s a great honor to be able to testify before the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee today. I’m testifying here in my capacity as

a private citizen. The views expressed here do not represent the

views of the Naval War College or any of its sponsoring agencies

at all. My testimony, thus, is not the opinion of any government

agency that I serve in or may have served in, knowingly or unknowingly. But my views are bipartisan——

Senator BIDEN. We feel the same way.

Dr. HASHIM [continuing]. And to help our Nation navigate

through these trying times. My views may not be popular, and, indeed, may be wrong, and even the recommendations unworkable.

But as that great American General Patton once said—reputedly

said, ‘‘If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.’’ And,

last but not least, I do not claim ideological or divine infallibility.

And my goal here today is to assess the security situation as it

stands in Iraq. Studying the insurgency and helping to develop a

37

counter-insurgency campaign has been the focus of my entire academic and field experience for the last year, since May.

I do not wish to dwell on mistakes or assumptions that got us

here, but to really spend most of the time dealing with how we

move on from this point.

The twin goals of ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein and of bringing about a stable democratic country were laudable goals that I

support wholeheartedly. The first was achieved. The second, alas,

has faced severe challenges. Without a doubt, the tenuous security

situation in Iraq, in the country, since May 2003, when the insurgency erupted, has contributed enormously to the slow pace of reconstruction, rebuilding, reconciliation, and the establishment of

political stability.

The violence in Iraq is not conducted by a small band of individuals, nor is it yet a full-fledged nationalist insurgency that incorporates the entire country. Once we realize and accept these two

facts, we would be on the first step toward formulating a coherent

counter-strategy.

Most insurgencies have never witnessed a majority of the people

effectively under arms. Populations either passively support an insurgency, in the sense that they do not betray it to the opposing

side, or they actively support it by providing intelligence, food, supplies, and recruits. But, as I stated, it’s not yet a full-fledged insurgency. Our task is to ensure that it does not become one.

A chronological analysis basically shows that the situation has

worsened immeasurably and that the number and kinds of people

involved has changed. It’s a dynamic situation. The insurgencies

got more proficient. We killed most of the dumb ones. The tactics,

techniques, and procedures of the surviving insurgents were more

lethal. Second, their proficiency increased as a result of the role of

former professional military personnel, who increasingly opted for

the path of violence out of nationalistic reasons, including, in their

view, the disbanding and dissolution of the Armed Forces.

It is important to realize that, initially, most of the insurgents

were truly former Saddam loyalists, FRLs—or ‘‘frills’’ as we call

them. By fall, disgruntled military personnel, with no profound

sympathy for the defunct regime, but outraged over the loss of status, privilege, and jobs as a result of the disbanding of the Armed

Forces, had increasingly joined the ranks of the insurgency. Therefore, November 2003 was a terrible month in terms of casualties.

However, our response, which hit the FRLs hard after November,

had an unintended consequence. It allowed the rise to prominence

of what I’ve decided to call an Islamo or Islamic nationalist element

within the insurgency, which is made up of former military personnel, and which has received its motivation and encouragement

from the preaching of the Sunni clergy, which has shed its traditionally insignificant role in the affairs of the community, and has

come into greater prominence.

We thought that Iraq would be on the way to civil war by early

this year. But, instead, what has happened is the unleashing of a

kind of Shia insurgency by Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army.

What we need to understand about the Muqtada phenomenon is

that it’s not primarily a religious one; rather, it is a populist one.

Therefore, attacking his nonexistent religious credentials simply

38

because he’s young and has not reached a level of religious learning

within the Shia clerical establishment is really quite beside the

point.

Muqtada is political. He is a populist with xenophobic tendencies,

does not like foreigners, particularly Iranians, even as he takes material aid from them. Indeed, among the reasons of Muqtada’s distaste of Ayatollah al-Sistani is the fact that the latter is Iranian

by origin. Muqtada al-Sadr’s constituency is the young, disgruntled

men of towns such as Madinat al-Sadr, a large, sprawling, squalid

and fetid suburb of Baghdad, where the unemployment rate hovers

around 70 percent, and al Kut, which faces a similar unemployment problem of 80 percent.

It is clear from my analysis of the situation on the ground and

from statements of various Shia clerics over the course of the past

several months, that the Shia were prepared to challenge the authority and legitimacy of the Coalition if the gap between its promises and its achievements were too great. And the Shia leader best

prepared to undertake that challenge was none other than

Muqtada. As Hassan Zirkani, a pro-al-Sadr cleric in Madinat alSadr, bluntly put it in November 2003, ‘‘We had hoped that some

of the problems might have vanished by now.’’ What were these

problems? Lack of law and order, rampant unemployment, lack of

basic services in Shia urban areas, and alleged Coalition disregard

for the cultural and societal norms of the population.

Before I move on to discuss what we need to do, I must reiterate

my starting assumption. We are faced with a phenomenon that is

bigger and more dangerous than a small band of thugs and extremists, but it’s somewhat less than full national insurgency. We are

closer to the latter than the former. Our task is to roll back any

dynamic progression of the insurgency. That task should begin

now, before the transfer of sovereignty, but it does not end with the

transfer of sovereignty. It will take a long time, but where do we

start? Let me propose some ideas. They’re not particularly original,

but they need to be reiterated constantly.

First, we must develop a clear and coherent political goal. If we

do not, the result will be the continuation of reactive ad hoc measures that are simply reactions to the insurgency. We must take the

initiative. This is a war in which the political is paramount. The

insurgents have a goal, and we should have a clearly articulated

goal.

Our task is to ensure that the population understands and believes in this goal. To many Iraqis, we don’t seem to have a goal

that they can believe in. We need to reiterate and to repeat that

the goal is to establish a sovereign, stable, and secure Iraq, and

that this will proceed in stages, and that much of this depends on

combating the insurgency.

Second, we must have a coherent and integrated plan. If we

know what the political goal is, we must develop an overall plan

in support of that goal. Fighting insurgency is a complex job.

Third, within that overall plan, we need to restore stability and

security in the short term. By the short term, I mean, the next 3

months to a year. I want to focus on this, because thinking about

the long term is irrelevant until we restore security.

39

What could we do? Increase the number of troop levels. And I

want to reiterate what my colleagues said, and I don’t want to repeat it, though. I agree with most of their assumptions.

Second, seal and police Iraq’s porous borders. Iraqis have complained bitterly about the open borders. Begin reconstituting Iraq’s

security forces. Deal with the militias, deal with the shadow warriors, implement a two-pronged information-operations campaign,

and we must ensure that our counter-insurgency functions within

the law.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have made some points here that I hope

have given you a flavor of the situation. We face major challenges,

but we should maintain a steady and determined course in trying

to bring order, security, and stability in that hapless country. We

should not ‘‘cut and run.’’ It’s difficult to change course in midterm, in midstream, but that is no excuse for not trying. The ability

to learn or move forward under stress is the hallmark of a great

organization and of a great country.

Thank you very much for your patience.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hashim follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. AHMED S. HASHIM

Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a great honor to be able to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I am testifying here in my capacity as a private citizen. The views expressed

here do not represent the views of the Naval War College or any of its sponsoring

agencies. My views are intended to be bipartisan and to help our nation navigate

through these trying times. My views may not be popular and indeed, they may be

wrong and the recommendations unworkable. But as that great American general,

Patton, once reputedly said: ‘‘If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.’’

Last, but not least, I do not claim either ideological or divine infallibility.

My goal today is to assess the security situation as it stands today in Iraq. The

last two weeks have been horrific in terms of the violence and casualties; while we

need to understand how and why we got to that point, dwelling on mistaken assumptions and failures is not as important as assessing what we need to do from

this point onwards within the dictates of the President’s speech of April 13, 2004,

which showed an unswerving determination to transfer sovereignty to a provisional

Iraqi government by June 30, 2004. Of course, dealing with the insurgency and with

the general issues of lawlessness, terrorism, and organized crime will continue to

be mettlesome problems beyond the transition to sovereignty.

‘‘THE PERFECT STORM?’’

The twin goals of ridding Iraq of the incorrigible and brutal regime of Saddam

Hussein and his cronies and of bringing freedom and a semblance of stable democratic governance to Iraq were laudable goals that I support wholeheartedly. The

first was achieved by our magnificent armed forces with the help of our coalition

partners. The second, alas, has faced severe challenges. Without a doubt the tenuous security situation in the country since May 2003 has contributed enormously

to the slow pace of reconstruction, rebuilding, reconciliation, and the establishment

of political stability.

The violence in Iraq is not conducted by a small band of individuals, nor is it yet

a full-fledged nationalist insurgency that incorporates the entire country. Once we

realize and accept these two facts we would be on the first step towards formulating

a coherent counter-strategy. Most insurgencies have never witnessed a majority of

the people effectively under arms. Populations either passively support an insurgency in the sense that they do not betray it to the opposing side; or they actively

support it by providing intelligence, food, supplies and recruits. But the Iraqi insurgency is not yet a full-fledged self-sustaining insurgency. Our task is to ensure that

it does not become one.

A chronological analysis of the political climate in Iraq from spring 03 to spring

04 shows a depressing and steady downturn in the security situation. First, we

began in May 2003 with the outbreak of a persistent insurgency by elements of the

Sunni Arab population. The grievances of that minority group, our mistaken asVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
40

sumption that they would accept their loss of status and privileges ‘‘lying down,’’ and certain aspects of our response to their discontent fanned the flames of violence.

Second, the law and order situation in the country was challenged by the total collapse of an already ineffective police force coupled with the rise of vicious criminal

gangs that terrorized the Iraqi populace and which also engaged in massive smuggling of goods and drugs into the country through its unguarded borders. Saddam

Hussein had let out of his prisons over 200,000 hardened and petty criminals. We

simply did not have enough manpower to police Iraq and protect the citizens while

at the same time fully engage in combating the insurgency.

By fall-winter 2003 matters had gotten worse. Firstly, the insurgents got more

proficient. We had killed most of the dumb ones; the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) of the surviving insurgents were more lethal. Secondly, their proficiency had increased as a result of the role of former professional military personnel who increasingly opted for the path of violence out of nationalistic reasons.

It is important to realize that initially most of the insurgents were truly Former

Saddam Loyalists (FRLs). By fall disgruntled military personnel with no profound

sympathy for the defunct regime but outraged over the loss of status, privilege, and

jobs as a result of the disbanding of the armed forces in May 2003 had increasingly

joined the ranks of the insurgency. November 2003 was a terrible month in terms

of casualties for us. The response of U.S. forces was to go after the insurgents with

greater vigor. However, the response which hit the FRLs hard and disrupted them

significantly, particularly following the capture of Saddam Hussein, had unintended

consequences. It allowed the rise to prominence of an Islamo-nationalist element

within the insurgency which is made up of former military personnel and which has

received its motivation and encouragement from the preaching of the Sunni clergy

which has shed its traditionally insignificant role in the affairs of the community

and has come into greater prominence.

These ‘‘Islamo-nationalist’’ insurgents showed greater motivation and dedication

than the FRLs or the free-lance insurgents of the early months of the insurgency.

More ominously the new insurgents showed a dramatic improvement in small-unit

fighting skills during the bloody outbreak of fighting in the Sunni areas in April

2004. They have shown an ability to stand and fight, rather than merely to ‘‘shoot

and scoot’’ or ‘‘pray and spray’’ as in the past, to conduct coordinated small unit ambushes and attacks against U.S. forces as in Ramadi in early April, and to press

attacks on supply convoys.

Thirdly, young men from the various Sunni Arab tribes had also begun to swell

the ranks of the insurgency. They were infuriated by what they saw as outrageous

behavior by U.S. forces. Fourth, foreign terrorists and Sunni extremists began to

play a larger role in the insurgency. These groups went for the suicide bombs and

the massive car bombings that devastated several targets in Baghdad and elsewhere

with serious loss of life. The influx of foreign terrorists and religious extremists is

not a massive one; what is more important than their relatively small numbers is

the fact that they constitute a force multiplier and are willing to engage in operations that most Iraqi insurgents would prefer to stay away from such as extremely

bloody suicide attacks. By January-February 2004 many commentators believed that

Iraq was on the verge of civil war since the modus operandi of the Sunni extremists

had contributed to the widening of a yawning chasm that existed between the Sunni

and Shi’i communities.

Instead, by the end of March 2004—and to everyone’s surprise—significant elements of the Shi’i community rose in open rebellion against the coalition when the

firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr unleashed his so-called Mahdi’s Army against the

coalition. Suddenly, the coalition was faced with the unsavory prospect of a twofront war.

What we need to understand about the Muqtada phenomenon is that it is not primarily a religious one rather it is a populist one. Therefore, attacking his non-existent religious credentials simply because he is young and has not yet reached a level

of religious learning within the Shi’i clerical is besides the point. Thus attacking his

superficial religious credentials as part of our counter-campaign is a waste of time,

effort, and resources. Muqtada is political: he is a populist with xenophobic tendencies who does not like foreigners, particularly Iranians, even as he takes material aid from them. Indeed, among the reasons of Muqtada’s distaste of Ayatollah

al-Sistani is the fact that the latter is Iranian by birth. Muqtada caters to the most

dispossessed elements within the long-suffering Shi’i community. His constituency

is the young disgruntled men of towns such as Madinat al-Sadr—a large sprawling

squalid and fetid suburb of Baghdad where the unemployment rate hovers around

70%; and Al-Kut which faces a similar unemployment problem. It is clear from my

analysis of the situation on the ground in Iraq and from statements of various Shi’i

clerics over the course of the past several months that the Shi’is were prepared to

41

challenge the authority and legitimacy of the coalition if the gap between its promises and its achievements were too great. And the Shi’i political leader best prepared

or able to undertake that challenge was none other than Muqtada. It was not easy

for the senior and more established Shi’i political leaders on the Iraqi Governing

Council to take a strident role of dissent. As Hasan Zirkani, a pro-al-Sadr cleric in

Madinat al-Sadr bluntly put it in a November 2003 prayer meeting: ‘‘We had hoped

that some of the problems might have vanished by now.’’ What were these problems:

lack of law and order, rampant unemployment, lack of basic services in Shi’i urban

areas; and coalition disregard for the cultural and societal norms of the population.

Muqtada’s revolt has won support and admiration among Sunni insurgents who

have plastered his picture on the walls of Sunni-dominated towns. This would have

been unheard of just several weeks ago. Members of the Mahdi’s Army have begun

to cooperate with the Sunni insurgents and there are rumors that a number tried

to infiltrate into Fallujah. However, there has not yet been a coalescing of the Sunni

movement and that of Muqtada’s. Muqtada’s poorly-trained and ill-equipped militia

has more to gain from the Sunni insurgents than the other way round.

More importantly, Muqtada has gained traction with many Shi’is because of his

perceived courage in standing up to the coalition. Whether he did this in self-defense or whether he saw it as an opportune time, his act of defiance struck a chord

with many Shi’is because by late March 2004 many within that community had

begun to see the June 30th agreement to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis as bogus and

that Iraq would continue to remain under barely concealed U.S. control beyond that

date. As one Shi’i radio outlet reported:... ‘‘The supposed restoration of national

sovereignty, of course should be preceded by an end to U.S. occupation. The plan,

however, entrenches the occupation and legitimizes its presence...’’

Nonetheless, what we need to understand is that Muqtada has not yet been able

to foment a Shi’i-wide revolt. First, many Shi’is are simply terrified of his political

vision of an Islamic government ruled by politicized clerics. Second, while he has

made some headway in becoming a more nationally-recognized leader as a result of

his pugnacious statements calling upon Iraqis to launch a nation-wide revolt and

upon the coalition to leave; this has not been enough. He has yet to transcend the

bounds of his own uncouth constituency. Third, if political power grows out of the

barrel of the gun, Muqtada has the least number of barrels in Iraq. His militia is

the weakest in the country; and it does not even begin to compare with the formidable militias of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (the Iranian-trained and commanded Back Organization); the Da’wa Party, and Iraqi

Hizbullah. In this context, what can happen in the coming days really depends more

on what further mistakes the Coalition Provisional Authority makes vis-a`-vis

Muqtada as much as any moves the Iraqi cleric himself may make.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Before I move on to discuss what we need to do, I must reiterate my starting assumption: we are faced with a phenomenon that is bigger and more dangerous than

a small band of thugs and extremists but somewhat less than full-scale national insurgency and terrorism. Alas, we are closer to the latter than the former. Once the

entire Shi’i community rises up in arms, our position in Iraq becomes totally untenable and there would be no option but to leave. Our task is to roll back any dynamic

progression of the insurgency. That task should begin now before the transfer of

sovereignty, but it does not end with the transfer of sovereignty. It will take a long

time. But where do we start?

First, we must develop a clear and coherent political goal. If we do not, the result

will be the continuation of reactive ad hoc measures that are simply reactions to

the insurgency. This is a war in which the political is paramount. The insurgents

have a goal and we should have a clearly articulated goal. Our task is to ensure

that the population understands and believes in our goal. To many Iraqis we don’t

seem to have a goal that they can believe in. We need to reiterate and to repeat

that the goal is to establish a sovereign, stable and secure Iraq and that this will

proceed in stages; and much of this depends on successfully combating the insurgency. And in order to combat the insurgency, terrorism and lawlessness we should

tell the Iraqis that we need their active participation. We can no longer adhere to

the fantasy that we will be able to control Iraq behind the scenes or impose whom

we want on the country, a major reason why April 2004 has been such a bloody

month to date. The spike in the insurgency this month and the greater participation

of the U.N. in smoothing the transition to sovereignty have had the unintended consequence of losing our control over Iraq’s political dynamics and future. Nonetheless,

we can still turn this to our advantage by informing the population that what they

seek—stability, law and order, and economic revival—is our paramount goal too.

42

Second, we must have a coherent and integrated plan. If we know what the political goal is; then we must develop an overall plan in support of that goal. Fighting

insurgency or terrorism is a vastly complex job. It was the British officer, T.E. Lawrence who said that it is akin to eating soup with a knife. It is one that incorporates

military/police, information operations, intelligence, administrative, political and socioeconomic measures implemented in parallel moving along a spectrum from security focused measures to nation-building measures as stability and security are progressively restored.

Third, we need to restore stability and security in the short-term. By the shortterm I mean between the next three months to a year. I want to focus on this, rather than the long-term which we cannot afford to think about at the present until

the situation stabilizes. We could do the following:

• Increase the number of troop levels: This is a highly controversial issue. We simply do not know where the extra U.S. troops will come from or ultimately how

much will be available. It does not look likely that we will take them out of

Afghanistan. It is more than likely that we will be activating reserve and National Guard units. Hypothetically, we will need tens of thousands to deal with

the insurgency with any degree of success.

• Seal and police Iraq’s porous borders: Iraq’s borders are wide open; the new

Iraqi border guards face considerable challenges: they are ill-trained, poorlyequipped, and few in number. Iraqis have complained bitterly about their

unpoliced borders. The influx of foreign terrorists and insurgents has not been

great in terms of quantity; however, what matters is the quality of the infiltrators. They have had a combat multiplier effect with respect to the insurgency.

Last but not least, control over the country’s borders will affect the burgeoning

drug trade into Iraq which is being undertaken by organized criminal groups.

• Begin reconstituting Iraq’s security forces: There are several integrated elements

to the reconstitution of the Iraqi security forces. First, we need to recall most

of the former military forces back to service. Although it may be too late because tens of thousands were alienated by the dissolution of the armed forces

last year; if we were to succeed in bringing back a substantial number into service, we will deprive the insurgency of a vast pool of trained manpower. Second,

we simply cannot throw the Iraqi security forces, particularly the ones we have

stood up, into them the COIN fray because they are not trained, equipped or

cohesive enough as forces. Creating effective Iraqi security forces is a long hard

and painstaking task. Moreover, as we proceed in this task the focus of our efforts should be on the police and the internal security forces, rather than the

New Iraqi Army. Internal security and the re-establishment of law and order

is what the Iraqis need.

• Deal with the militias: In theory, we should be able to begin to disband and disarm militias and possibly integrate former members into the Iraqi security

forces. Militias are one of the greatest obstacles to political stability and economic reconstruction in societies endeavoring to recover from conflict. The Coalition Provisional Authority has already indicated its intention of doing something about the militias. This is easier said than done. Making militias go away

has not been easy in other post-conflict societies and it will not be easy in Iraq.

Militias justify their existence by stating that they provide protection for their

neighborhoods, communities, ethnic and religious groups. If the state cannot

provide security and law and order, this view is understandable. The militias

also justify their reluctance to disband or disarm by stating that they are not

provided with the incentive to do so. In Iraq, the state or coalition forces have

faced considerable challenges in providing nation-wide and equitable security

and have not provided incentives for the militias to lay down their arms. Instead, of trying to force them to disband right away, we could implement a disarmament process in stages. The militias would be asked to surrender their

heavy weaponry, thin out their numbers, and then surrender their light arms.

This would, of course, be dependent on the state being able to slowly but surely

increase and expand its security functions, its implementation of basic services

to the communities, and on the provision of monetary incentives for the surrender of the arms. We would not insistent that the militias disband we would

hope that their members either integrate into the security forces or become

‘‘regular’’ members of the political parties that they ostensibly serve.

• Deal with the ‘‘Shadow Warriors:’’ We need to thin out the number of private

security providers or rein them in. Many of them have done a great job in Iraq,

but they are unregulated, often not effectively trained for particular jobs, and

most important of all, it has been said that their attitudes towards Iraqis have

43

been suffused with contempt. The Iraqis have complained more about them

than about any other armed foreign force in the country. They are simply a hindrance to the effective implementation of a hearts and minds campaign.

• Implement a two-pronged Information Operations campaign: Our IOC has faced

severe challenges in Iraq. We need to revisit it and we need to implement a twopronged campaign that is directed both at the insurgents and at the population.

The aim of the first prong is to reduce the willingness and determination of the

insurgents to continue fighting. The aim of the second is to motivate the population to the side of the government. In order for it to have a chance of success,

we need to tie such a campaign to our overarching political goal and we need

to denigrate the goal(s) of the insurgents (You are fighting and dying to kick

us out? We are going to leave. What is your vision for the future of Iraq? Do

YOU have one? If you do why are you fighting and dying for it when Iraq will

be free?), while promoting ours.

Fourth, our COIN effort must function within the law. In order to be successful

in our political goal and the overall operational plan, we need to win the hearts and

minds of the Iraqis. I know that many people, particularly after the atrocity in

Fallujah in early April, are not interested in winning the hearts and minds of the

Iraqis. However, to believe that a COIN campaign is solely about sticks rather than

carrots and sticks is mistaken. The Iraqis believe that our COIN campaign has been

largely one of sticks with few, if any carrots. If this is accurate, we would need to

rectify it. If we do not act within the bounds of the law, we risk inflaming the insurgency and fanning the flames of violence. To act within the law does not preclude

the implementation of tough counter insurgency and counter-terrorism laws. If it is

merely a perception, we would need to counter it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have made some points here that I hope has given you

a flavor of the situation in Iraq. We face major challenges there, but we should

maintain a steady and determined course in trying to bring order, security and stability in that hapless country. We must temper our long-term visions and desires

and focus on what is practical. It is difficult to change course or try alternative approaches in mid-stream, particularly, when one is under a challenging and dynamic

environment, but that is no excuse for not trying. The ability to learn or move forward under stress is the hallmark of a great organization and of a great country.

Thank you very much for your patience.

REFERENCES

Hashim, Ahmed, ‘‘The Sunni Insurgency in Iraq,’’ Middle East Policy Brief, August 2003 (electronic article).

Interviews and Observations in Iraq, November 2003-March 2004.

Ricks, Thomas, ‘‘Insurgents Display New Sophistication,’’ Washington Post, April

14, 2004.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Hashim.

We will ask the committee members to take a 10-minute period

for questioning. We will have rotation after the first round. Other

Senators may join us. I know that Senator Dodd will return after

his responsibilities.

Gentlemen, let me just set the stage for my questioning by

quoting from a story in the Los Angeles Times, written by Mary

Curtis and Janet Hook. They’re describing the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that proceeded simultaneously with our

hearing yesterday. The authors say, ‘‘Stifling private concerns

about the direction of events in Iraq, Senate Republicans, on Tuesday, gave the Bush administration a largely supportive platform

for restating the case for war as Congress began 3 days of hearings. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, appearing before

the Senate Armed Services Committee, used the friendly forum to

focus on the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein before U.S.

invasion, not on the challenges ahead. He offered only sparse details on the questions of what the administration thought would

emerge in Iraq or the relationship the U.S. military would have

with the Iraqi Government after the transition.’’ He said, and this

44

is a quote, ‘‘ ‘I cannot sit here today and predict the exact form of

the permanent government,’ Wolfowitz said, ‘but even an imperfect

Iraq democracy would be an improvement, light years beyond what

the country has endured for the past 35 years. The interim Iraqi

Government will be selected by procedures being developed through

intensive consultation among Iraqis, led by Ambassador Lakhdar

Brahimi, United Nations Secretary General special advisor on

Iraq,’ Wolfowitz said. He described Brahimi’s ideas as forming an

interim government as promising, and added, ‘We look forward to

more details from the United Nations.’ Yet Republicans on the

Armed Services Committee closed ranks to support the administration’s policies, even though some acknowledge, outside the hearing

room, that pressure from constituents is growing. Republicans are

joined by many of the panel’s Democrats, suggesting that most

members of the Senate, thus far, see few political benefits to be

gained from challenging the administration’s conduct of the war.

Indeed, a senior Republican strategist said he viewed this week’s

Iraq hearings not as an occasion to grill administration officials or

pose skeptical questions, but as an opportunity for the administration to come up here and lay out their case and talk about why

they are doing the right things.’’

The authors then diverged from that hearing with this one sentence, ‘‘Separately, the veteran chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Indiana Richard Lugar, reiterated his concerns

about the direction of U.S. policy, but such moments were rare,’’

and so forth.

Now, I mention this simply because, obviously, our hearing yesterday was of a very different character. Your testimony today obviously shows some substantial concerns that Senator Biden and,

I suspect, other members, when they have an opportunity, might

bring to the fore. I say all that in preface, because the questions

that I’m going to ask now, on the basis of your testimony, are not

necessarily disturbing, but they are ones that I think really have

to be answered.

Specifically, Mr. Pollack mentioned that security must be paramount for the next 6 months. General Joulwan said that security

is a mission, a mission the same way as fighting a war. Mr.

Sheehan then added that a solid, legitimate process has to be there

for security to proceed, whether it’s 5 years or whether it’s the next

6 months. I think that the questions that were raised by Dr.

O’Hanlon are important. That is, what’s the relationship between

this government of people who are unknown and the United States

security forces? Here we have a situation in which you’re saying

that this is paramount. For the next 6 months, we will devote all

of our best efforts. Some are suggesting that 40,000 additional

United States forces might be required to do this. Perhaps it is

time to encourage our allies, in Europe or elsewhere, to warm up

to the task of sending in more troops of their own within the 6

months. On June 30, sovereignty or something like it is going to

transfer to people who are now unknown.

Who will these people be? Yesterday, one of our witnesses suggested at least three or four people now serving on the Governing

Council who look like prime prospects for president of the country

45

or vice president. To create some balance, there might be a Kurd

among the four, and probably a Sunni, maybe two Shi’ites.

Dr. O’Hanlon, you mentioned that these people might have

pledged, ‘‘We’re not going to run. We are technocrats.’’ Well, perhaps. But the people that were suggested yesterday in the hearing

looked, to me, like fairly viable candidates for leadership. The suggestion was that those who were not selected for this group might

be very disgruntled by being passed over, and that those who do

make the cut are people who may have some ambition to rule.

Mr. Brahimi is apparently making the decisions, with his consultants. Our government, if Mr. Wolfowitz’s testimony is to be

taken at face value, says, you know, ‘‘He’s working on this.’’ I

wouldn’t want to hazard a guess right now as to what the formulation may be.

You’re telling us, given this rather vague situation, we go hellfor-leather for strong security for 6 months, because without it this

fledgling government doesn’t have much of a chance. I’ve already

suggested, as a practical politician, that whoever these people are,

they’re basically unknown. Iraqis don’t yet have a great deal of confidence in them, as it stands.

Everybody seems to be agreed that this is going to happen on

June 30. The President has underlined that again and again. So

did most of our witnesses yesterday, for a variety of reasons.

I’m trying to gain some clarity as to what the procedure ought

to be. Will we have or need a status-of-forces agreement? For the

next 6 months at least. We’re going to be involved in a very tough

mission providing security for the country. This answers your question, Dr. O’Hanlon, that they are second-guessing whether we go

to Fallujah or not, or what else we do. Some are suggesting that

that’s precisely the type of decision that this group is going to

make. This puts the Iraqi face on it. If U.S. forces go to Fallujah,

it’s because the Iraqis want that kind of intervention. Yet it takes

time to vet and train Iraqi forces who might have the confidence

of the Iraqi people and who might be adequately able to maintain

security. Only United States forces, plus some of our allies for the

moment, could suppress large groups of insurgents, or others who

might want to upset the entire democratic state and who may find

that that is in their interest.

So I ask—maybe start with you, Dr. Pollack—given all the testimony you’ve heard, as well as the testimony that you gave, which

is a brilliant essay in its own right, how do we achieve security—

which is the focus of our hearing this morning—and, at the same

time, respect this June 30 date, the U.N. process that we have welcomed, with all of its uncertainties? How much certainty should we

require? In other words, before June 30, should we know the

names, should we have the status-of-forces agreement? Should we

have pinned down the United Nations resolutions, for legitimacy?

The answer seems to be, thus far, I think, for the administration,

‘Not so fast. That will follow.’’ The U.N. may come in behind this

with a status-of-forces agreement with this group. Nonetheless I

see a potential for some misunderstanding and some slippage.

What sort of testimony can you give on this?

Dr. POLLACK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

46

First, I’ll say that I think you are focusing on an absolutely critical issue, one that we do have to get right. In answer, in direct

response to your question, ‘‘Do we need to do all of this before June

30,’’ ideally, yes. I think it would be much better to have it done

before June 30. I don’t think it essential. I can think of ways that

we could deal with the issue that would allow it to go past June

30, but I think it will be harder, and I think we will have to be

very careful about how we do that.

Let me make a couple of quick points to fill out that broader

statement. First, what the Iraqis are looking for on June 30 is a

transfer of administrative authority. They don’t know what sovereignty means. Honestly, we don’t either. Academics debate it

endlessly. And sovereignty doesn’t do anything for them. They

want to put an Iraqi face on the occupation. They want to see

Iraqis giving orders, not Americans. And that’s something understandable. It’s something that I think the CPA understood. It’s why

they went forward with this process.

As far as what June 30 looks like, I think that there are a variety of different possible solutions. I would agree with my good

friend, Mike O’Hanlon, that one potential solution out there is to

have a purely technocratic government, to forbid everyone who

takes those positions from running again. I would be perfectly comfortable with that.

I will also tell you that I would also be quite comfortable with

a situation where you did allow true political leaders to take those

jobs. And I can come up with some names for you, if you’d like; but

I think that they are names known to Lakhdar Brahimi—people

who actually do, in some cases, serve on the Governing Council— if they are the right people. They have got to be people who the

Iraqis themselves respect.

And in that respect, Mr. Chairman, allow me a slight digression

to say Ahmed Chalabi cannot be one of those names. It is a disgrace that we continue to push Ahmed Chalabi the way that we do.

I read Dr. Dodge’s testimony yesterday. I thought it was excellent

testimony. There’s one number that he failed to point out in that

remarkable poll that was conducted several weeks ago, which was

that on the list of candidates of people in Iraq who are most distrusted, those who folks said they do not trust at all, the candidate

who got the highest number of votes in the ‘‘do not trust at all’’ category was Ahmed Chalabi. He was the only one to be in double digits. He was, by far, the highest one. He was over three times—more

than three times as many votes as the next-highest candidate on

that list, who was Saddam Hussein. That is the candidate that we

have been pushing.

I think it is a disgrace, as well, that Ahmed Chalabi is allowed

to stand up and say that he thinks the militias should continue.

Is this someone we should be supporting? We, all of us on this

panel before you, and, I think, everyone who knows anything about

Iraq, recognize the militias must be disarmed or there will never

be security in Iraq.

And I will make a prediction to you. It is inconceivable to me

that we continue to provide Ahmed Chalabi with $340,000 a month

to keep control of our treasure trove of documents from Iraqi intelligence files about other Iraqis. My prediction to you is this, Mr.

47

Chairman. In a year, or 2 or 5 years, you and Senator Biden will

commission an investigation into exactly what was done. And my

expectation is that you will find that Ahmed Chalabi systematically

destroyed records that incriminated he and his cronies, and used

other records to bribe and blackmail other people in Iraq into supporting him, and probably even fabricated others, but that implicated rivals of his in activity supportive of Saddam’s regime. That

certainly has been the record that we have seen from him so far.

And I simply do not understand why we allow him to persist.

Let me finally say, to come back to your original point, ultimately what we need before June 30 is, we need an interim government that is accepted by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani and other key

leaders inside Iraq. And I will tell, very honestly, whatever

Lakhdar Brahimi can come up with that al-Sistani and other genuine Iraqi leaders can buy into should be good enough for us, because that’s the only way that you are going to engender any degree of Iraqi popular support for this transitional government, and

that is absolutely critical, as all of us have said, in helping the political, economic, and security processes go forward.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. If others want to comment in this

general round, I’ll entertain comments.

Mr. Sheehan.

Mr. SHEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just make one comment about Lakhdar Brahimi, a man

I’ve known for many years and consider a very close friend, and tell

you some insights on how I think he will do this.

First of all, he will want a process that works, and he will try

to first figure out who are the key players that will ensure success

of this interim leadership. He will gauge which outside powers to

include—obviously, the U.S. Government, and others that have a

real influence on the success of the operation. In my conversation

with him, he discounted some who I thought he might include on

that, because they really, in his view, won’t matter to the success

of this interim situation. He will look at regional players, and, most

importantly, what will work for Iraqi people. And he has the ear

of the key constituencies that will determine whether or not it will

be successful. And I have great confidence that the names he will

select will be what he considers—consulting very carefully with all

those factors of success—will be what he considers most successful.

Let me make one comment that having a U.N. political process

there will provide great cover for a lot of the suggestions that were

made on this panel and in other fora. And I just want to underscore, as well, that there are many options for U.N. involvement in

the future, many of which have been tried in the past. And even

if you have a U.N. political mandate and U.N. resolutions, the U.S.

military can retain virtual complete control, certainly over its

forces, but also of the security environment as a whole. And I think

those types of solutions ought to be reviewed and considered that

will ensure American security concerns are met and give enough

political cover for a lot of the other problems we’ve addressed—

bringing in other military and police forces, disarming the legitimacy of the insurrection, and many of the other issues here—can

be worked out with a little bit of flexibility from the administration

and its partners in Europe.

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Did you have a comment, Dr. Hashim?

Dr. HASHIM. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

Senator Biden.

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

I must say, this panel is extraordinary, and it absolutely frustrates me in my ability to adequately express it. Someone—I won’t

embarrass him—passed me a note that said, ‘‘Doesn’t it make you

want to cry that they didn’t listen to these guys?’’ Anyway, let me round out the Chalabi piece in just a very quick

second. I wrote a letter, on April 14, to the Secretary of Defense

laying out my concerns about Mr. Chalabi. And I said, I would appreciate an answer to the following questions. What amount of

funding is provided to the INC every month, and for what purpose?

And what’s the funding source? Why are the payments being

made? Is there a contract, a grant agreement or other document

governing the expenditure of these funds? If so, who do we provide—in other words, who’s going to oversee this? How do we find

out how it’s used? Is the CPA providing financial assistance or payments to other political parties? If so, please provide this. Press reports indicate that during the war, the INC took possession of a

large cache of Iraqi documents. Has the INC provided these documents to the CPA—the answer is no—the occupying power? If not,

why not? Is financial assistance being provided to the INC in order

to gain access to these documents?

This is crazy. This is crazy. And, by the way, one of you pointed

out that Chalabi is, by a factor of three to one the least popular

politician in Iraq. I have a recent poll here—‘‘Who do you trust the

least?’’ Saddam Hussein, 3.1; Osama bin Laden, 0; Ahmed Chalabi,

10.3. The next-highest person on the list registers at beyond—it’s

10.3 for Chalabi; 3.1 for Saddam Hussein—and the next one is 1.8.

One of the things we politicians take solace from when we’re running, if there’s a negative opinion of us and there’s only a few people who know us, we think it’s curable; but if they know us and

still hate us, we worry about it. Guess who the best-known figure

in Iraq is? The best-known figure? Eight-five percent—of the Governing Council—85 percent of the Iraqis know who Ahmed Chalabi

is. Well over 50 percent of the population doesn’t know any of these

guys, but 85 percent know Ahmed, and very, very few like him.

And we’re providing almost $400,000 a month for this guy.

Well, I don’t want to belabor that. Let me go on.

Some time ago, I suggested that NATO get in the deal. General

Joulwan, everybody, including the press, said no, they’ll never do

it, they want no part of it, they can’t do it, there’s no troops. I then

went to Europe. I met with an old buddy of yours, General Jones,

Supreme Allied Commander, had your job—the job you had, met

with the NAC, met with heads of state. They all said, we’re ready

to endorse the idea of NATO taking over the operation. We won’t

be able to put that many troops in initially. We’re probably talking

three, five, seven, ten thousand, depending on how we configured

it, front end. The French said they would vote for that if, in fact,

by the way, there was a real transfer of political authority in a way

49

that was legitimate, they’d consider, depending on the mission, use

of French troops in Iraq, like, I might add, they are in Afghanistan.

Question to you, former Supreme Allied Commander, If we did

this the right way—and you don’t have time to define ‘‘right way’’—

is there a right way where we can get NATO to say, ‘‘Yes, we’ll be

part of the mission,’’ and, at the front end, is there any reasonable

prospect of any number of NATO forces being able to be deployed

within the next 3 to 4 months into Iraq?

General JOULWAN. Yes.

Senator BIDEN. That’s what I thought.

My second question for you——

General JOULWAN. Let me, if I can——

Senator BIDEN. Go ahead.

General JOULWAN [continuing]. Elaborate, because I think there

are some opportunities here. But, you know, we have to understand—and I think the Bosnian model is not a bad one here, where

we had multinational divisions under an integrated command

structure, called the Combined Joint Task Force, to use other

words, that NATO has. This is not a pickup squad.

Senator BIDEN. Exactly.

General JOULWAN. This is an organized staff—works together,

it’s integrated. And I’m not sure how the final organization is going

to flesh out on the military side after 1 July, on our side, but there

may be a multinational command in there that I think NATO can

play a role in.

Senator BIDEN. Exactly.

General JOULWAN. But you’ve got to give them a seat at the

table. You’ve got to let them have a voice. You’ve got to give them

a vote if their troops are committed. Remember we built the NATO

Alliance over 50 years.

Senator BIDEN. Exactly.

General JOULWAN. So I would say that NATO clearly can play a

role. No one said NATO would get involved in Afghanistan, but the

Alliance did.

Senator BIDEN. Exactly right. And I spent—I don’t want to get

anybody in trouble over there, but meeting with people of significant command, with more than one star sitting on their shoulder,

they all told me that the following could occur immediately, meaning by the time we turned over power. No. 1, border patrol responsibility, the Iraqi border. No. 2, either taking over the Polish sector

and running that with the Poles and/or the north. Free up a total

of up to 20,000 American forces, front end—not putting in 20,000

NATO forces—free up up to 20,000 forces initially, and over the

next year, a significant ramp-up if, in fact, the political side of this

equation—if a seat at the table really was given.

And so when I say it, people look at me, including the press, and

go, ah, no, that’s not possible. Everybody—former commanders,

present commanders, others who I speak to in NATO—say we can

do this. Our first mission—every permanent rep says, Joe, our first

mission is Afghanistan. We don’t want that to fall apart. We don’t

want that to fall apart.

But we can. We can. Begin immediately. And, over time, take

over. And I think, by the way, a significant reason why this is important is to say to the American people, hey, we’re not alone.

50

We’re not alone. The rest of the world’s invested in this. The major

powers, where the muscle is.

Second, training. And I’d like any of you to comment on this, but

probably the two that could speak most directly are Mr. Sheehan

and you, General Joulwan—training the military. I remember distinctly the French and the Germans, immediately after Saddam’s

statue fell on that circle, which we passed by and saw the remnants of, said, ‘‘We’re ready to help, in a big way. We need some’’—

basically, ‘‘some cover of a U.N. resolution. We’ll train the military.’’ I just met with the Hungarian Ambassador when I left here.

He said, ‘‘We’re staying, by the way, and we’re ready to train the

military with you.’’ I don’t know whether they are capable of it.

They’re a fine army; I don’t mean to imply that.

The question is, is it your view that it is possible to get additional help from major powers in the training piece of the Iraqi

military? How would you go about that, if they offered?

General JOULWAN. There is going to be, I believe, a headquarters

with a new U.S. commander that’s going to be appointed to this

that’s going to be directly involved in the equipping and training

of the Iraqi army. Clearly, other nations can help us do this. We

have created—that’s why I keep going back to NATO—over 50

years, NATO procedures and doctrine that can help here. And I

don’t know why there is reluctance. Yes, it can be done. We have

excellent countries that can help there. And I think it would, again,

broaden this base that would get us the support we’re going to

need for the long run. And we’re going to need substantive support

over the next several years.

Senator BIDEN. I agree. And, by the way, unless all these heads

of state and foreign ministers and defense chiefs are lying to me

in Europe, they’re all saying they’re ready to do that. They’re saying they’re ready to do it. And I say, ‘‘Why not?’’ And here’s the response I got, without revealing the source of this one—I’ll tell you

privately—a guy you know very well said, ‘‘Nobody asks. Just ask.

Don’t tell us. Don’t invite us. Just ask us.’’ Now, training the police. Let me tell you the article about the

vetting mission, ‘‘Flaws Showing in Iraqi Forces,’’ December 30,

2003, an article in the Washington Post. ‘‘Last were 2-minute-orso interviews with Mehdi’’—he’s the guy doing the interviewing we

picked—‘‘who was the head of the student affairs of the police college before the Americans selected him to oversee the training. The

first candidate for police that came in was a guy named Allah

Abbas, age 22.’’ Here’s what he got asked in the total—this is a

total vetting—‘‘ ‘What do you think of human rights,’ Mehdi asked. ‘It’s good, and it helps humans,’ Abbas answered.’’ Senator BIDEN. ‘‘ ‘What do you think of the other sex?’ ’’ end of

quote. ‘‘ ‘They are half or so of society, and help men in serving the

community.’ Mehdi nodded, scribbled some notes in the young

man’s file. Abbas was in.’’

Now, do you have any reason to believe that the vetting process—you were involved in the vetting—look what we did in vetting

the Medallin Police Department. It worked. It worked. We essentially knocked out close to, in all of Colombia, 2,000 former police,

vetted them out. The new, vetted police force actually crushed the

Medallin cartel.

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We can do this, can’t we?

Mr. SHEEHAN. Senator Biden, we can do it, but we re-learn it

every 6 months. And we have done it before—and, by the way, vetting is a process. I’ve been personally involved in vetting of forces

before. You have initial interviews, you have initial intelligence,

but it goes on throughout the entire training program.

We can do it again, but one of my principal arguments in my testimony is, we don’t have the institution in the U.S. Government

that knows how to do this. We contract it out, and the intellectual

property of that knowledge is with contractors. We don’t have the

institutional knowledge, we don’t have the capacity, and, right now,

we’re reinventing it every year and we’re going to be in Iraq a long

time—we’re going to reinvent it every 6 months and a year. We

need to build a permanent capacity that does the vetting, training,

monitoring, and the other aspects I mentioned.

Senator BIDEN. As referenced by this longstanding service of the

chairman of the committee—but you raise questions. Senator

Lugar is a guy who thinks ahead. He’s thinking ahead on post-conflict reconstruction. He’s got an outfit that includes a general and

several others, a number of people, including the administration,

trying to figure out a long-term solution for this so we can help institutionally change the governance process, so that, in the future,

we will be able to deal with a whole range of these issues. That’s

underway. But, in the meantime, we do have enough people who

have experience, that we can have on the ground.

I was truly impressed with the group we had. Last summer we

went out to the Iraqi police training academy in Baghdad, and we

met the first Iraqi police force. A guy who was there, the equivalent of a captain, an Iraqi—we were standing there talking casually

to him. He said, ‘‘One thing I don’t like, Senator.’’ He said, ‘‘I don’t

like the blue-on-blue uniforms. I like the green ones. We had the

green ones, everybody knew it was Saddam, and they listened. I

want green uniforms.’’ Now, last question, and I apologize for just this indulgence, and

it goes to you, Mr. Hashim. You mentioned that the disbanding of

the army was a mistake—I think you mentioned this. It’s easy, in

hindsight, for us to say what was—I mean, there’s a lot of mistakes

any one of us would have made had we had this responsibility, and

I’m not piling on here. I want to know—I’ve wondered, in my mind,

how significant a mistake, if it was, was disbanding—totally disbanding the Iraqi army?

Dr. HASHIM. Well, Senator, in my own personal opinion on this

matter, I think it was a significant mistake. Now, of course, I’m

speaking in hindsight here, but a large number of the people that

we disbanded could have been retained, they could have restored

law and order. And, yes, the Iraqi army, as it existed, sort of melted away, but these people were ready to come back and work, a significant number.

Senator BIDEN. Do we have to change the mission of the U.S.

military? I spoke with a former general, who does not want to be

referenced, a former senior member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and

I said, ‘‘Is it true that Abizaid and others really don’t want any additional troops—they say we don’t need any?’’ Because these are

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ing for them. And he said the following to me. He said, ‘‘Look at

the expressions’’—this was literally what this four-star said to

me—‘‘Look at the expressions on their faces.’’ They’re honest men.

They answer the following way. Deadpan, they look and say, ‘‘I

have enough troops,’’ and then the operative sentence, according to

this four-star, ‘‘for the mission I have been assigned.’’

Does the mission have to go from troop protection to policing, at

least at the front end of this?

General Joulwan.

General JOULWAN. Well, let me reiterate—I think that you’ve got

to understand the clarity here that—when we talk about sealing

the borders, you know, that’s military and maybe border-patrol

people. Preventing lawlessness, that is a police function. I think

there has to be some act of disarming.

Let me just say that, a year later, it’s tough. I went through this

in Bosnia, where we found more stuff than you could ever imagine,

but we disarmed—in 6 months, we disarmed 200,000 armed insurgents, and there were no ifs, ands, or buts. That’s what we told the

three waring factions they had to do.

And they did it! So I think that if it’s only regime change, then

there may be enough troops to do regime change. But if it’s to bring

stability—a stabilized environment, we need to say, what does that

mean? And that’s the question that I—what is the strategy, what

is the war plan—or the stabilization plan to match the war plan?

And what are the details of the stabilization plan? Once you get

the tasks then ask General Abizaid again, ‘‘Do you have enough to

do these tasks?’’

If I give you one example—I hate to really bare my soul here a

little bit, but when I was asked to go from IFOR, I used a term

SFOR. I was the one that said we’re going to change from implementation to stabilization, because I wanted the troops to understand that. And I asked three questions of the North Atlantic

Council before I would say what I need to do the mission assigned.

Do you want me to hunt down and arrest indicted war criminals?

Do you want me to do civil police functions? And do you want me

to forcibly return refugees to their homes? Yes or no. Because that

would determine the troop-to-task analysis that would be done. The

answer to all three was ‘‘no.’’

But that’s the clarity you need, and I would ask, again, that this

issue of stabilization as a mission, what the hell do we mean by

that? And force the discussion for the clarity here of, what do you

want done? And then say, do you have enough forces to do it?

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is the sort of clarity we need.

General JOULWAN. Clarity is my favorite word, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. It’s the focus of this hearing.

Senator Voinovich.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As my colleagues, I remain deeply concerned with the safety of

our men and women in uniform serving in Iraq. And we continue,

in Ohio, to pray for Private Matt Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio, who

is one of the individuals that was taken into custody by the Iraq

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tioned is, is that we need more forces there to protect our people

so that we don’t have more of this taking place.

Senator Reed and I, and others, last year, submitted an amendment to increase the force structure by 10,000 soldiers, and that

they would be trained specifically in peacekeeping, because that’s

where it seems to be the need today. And I think that I agree with,

again, my colleagues, that we need to have a snapshot of what resources we need immediately to get the job done, and then a longterm plan for stabilization, as you’ve talked about, general, and one

that is honest and forthright with the American people—to recognize, for example, that we’ve had troops in Bosnia for 8 or 9 years.

The last time I was in Bosnia, I asked our troops, ‘‘If you leave,

what will happen?’’ And they said to me, ‘‘They’ll start killing each

other again.’’ Or, for that matter, in Kosovo, where we’ve had

troops for 5 years, and, because we weren’t paying enough attention, that blew up and we’ve got 4,000 refugees there today, and

many people killed, and homes burned, and so forth.

Dr. Pollack, I loved your book, and I always keep referring this

to people that really want to know what’s going on over in Iraq and

in that area. And in that book, you said, ‘‘We’re at an important

moment in the history of the United States. We know that we face

a great problem with Saddam Hussein, and we have good evidence

that it’s going to be a much bigger problem in the future than it

is today. We can ignore the problem and hope it will just go away,

or we can take steps needed to solve it. Those steps will not be

easy, and we should not downplay them. The question we need to

ask ourselves today is, ten years from now, when we look back at

this moment, which choice will we most regret not having made?’’ And you concluded, ‘‘This is our opportunity to create a stable,

prosperous, self-sufficient Arab state that would serve as a model

for the region. This is our one opportunity to turn Iraq from a malignant growth helping to poison the Middle East into an engine for

change for the entire region, and we must not let it slip away from

us.’’

And that’s what we’re talking about here today. I’ve been doing

a lot of reading about that area, and we were talking about fundamentalism, Muslim fundamentalism. What can we do, recognizing that fundamentalism, to help Iraq move into a new government—where we can eliminate, it seems to me, this issue that

many are using, which is that idea, ‘‘That the infidels are here and

in charge, and we want to see them leave.’’ You’ve got a battle, I’m

sure, right now in Iraq, in terms of fundamentalism and people

that are more secular in their thinking. It’s wonderful to know that

50 percent of the people would like to have a democracy, and so

on, but the question is, what kind of a democracy?

And, my concern is, what are we going to turn it over to? Isn’t

it important that we really make sure that whatever we turn it

over to is not looked upon by some people in Iraq as our continuing

to control the country?

The next question I’d like all the panelists to answer is, if we

enter into an agreement to help ensure security in the country, is

that going to be looked upon as something such as, ‘‘Foreigners

here in our country interfering, and we ought to try and get them

to leave’’? Will a United Nations type of commitment there help, so

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those loyal to Saddam and others will not exploit the fact that,

here we are with all these people in our country. Do you understand the question? I’d like you to comment on it.

Dr. POLLACK. I’ll try, sir. First, thank you very much for your remarks, Senator. I greatly appreciate it, and I’m glad that my book

was helpful to you.

I will also point out that another line that I used in the book was

a warning that if we did not go into Iraq ready to do all the of

things that were going to be necessary to stabilize the country and

rebuild it afterwards, that we could create more problems than we

solve in Iraq. That is my fear now, that if we do not address some

of the problems we’ve undertaken, that we will wind up creating

more problems than we solve.

With regard to the problem of fundamentalism, I think that my

good friend Ahmed Hashim made a very important comment in his

remarks, and I want to echo it and perhaps drive it home, which

is that although fundamentalism has been growing in Iraq over the

past 20 years, it is still, or was, a rather minor phenomenon at the

time of the fall of Saddam. But what has happened both in the

Sunni triangle and, to a certain extent, in the Shia areas is that

Islamic clerics, who are opposing the United States and who cloak

their opposition, in Islamic—in religious terms, are becoming increasingly more popular, not necessarily because the population is

becoming more religious, but because they are growing more frustrated and angry at the United States, because the gap between

what we are delivering and their expectations is growing wider and

wider. And these clerics have become the legitimate voice of opposition to the United States, using the language of Islam, which is a

language that is very resonant, obviously, with every Iraqi. And I

think that what we saw in the last few weeks with the support

from Muqtada al-Sadr, which I think completely caught the Coalition Provisional Authority by surprise—— Senator VOINOVICH. Aren’t we lucky that we have al-Sistani

there, that we’re able to work with? If it wasn’t for al-Sistani,

where would we be?

Dr. POLLACK. Absolutely. And I think that our efforts to resist alSistani are, in many cases, entirely counterproductive, because he

represents a trend in Shia Islam, a quietist trend, the dominant

trend, which ultimately meshes very nicely with what it is that we

are trying to do over there.

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Sheehan.

Mr. SHEEHAN. Senator, let me make a comment based on my experience as Ambassador for counterterrorism and my current job

dealing with counterterrorism in New York. If we do not succeed

in Iraq, we very likely will have a worse situation than we did have

during the Saddam Hussein regime. And let me take a quick

minute to explain why.

The most significant counterterrorism event since 9/11 has been

the takedown of Afghanistan and elimination of that sanctuary of

impunity for al-Qaeda. If Iraq is not stabilized and controlled

throughout its entire borders, what concerns me most is that it will

become the new Afghanistan. And what it will be is a area where

foreign international jihadists will come to, to become further

radicalized, to become vetted in their own processes, become comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
55

bat hardened, and build the types of international relationships

that were established in Afghanistan and still haunt us today.

That specter of a new swamp, as I referred to Afghanistan several years ago, will haunt us for years. And for that reason, we

have to win in Iraq, and we have to establish a presence throughout the country to drain the swamp of those type of jihadists that

are pouring into the country right now and will take, in incubating

over 2, 3, 4 years, will come back to our shores and attack us, without any doubt. So that’s why we need a large presence in Iraq, not

just for the immediate security concerns right now, but for the

longer-term concerns that I have, in the counterterrorism business,

of allowing these jihadists to grow and incubate there and represent a broad international threat, not only to the United States,

but to freedom around the world.

Senator VOINOVICH. Dr. Hashim.

Dr. HASHIM. Sir, on the issue of Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq,

let me echo some of what Ken Pollack said, and also go a little bit

beyond that.

Iraq has become de-secularized as a result of sanctions, three

wars, a lack of civil society, Saddam’s regime, in two ways. He basically brutalized the country, so people turned more and more toward religion. But, at the same time, beginning in 1995, he encouraged the rise of Islamic tendencies, as long as it was directed

against foreigners. Now it has increased as a result of the foreign

presence in Iraq. And what you have here, increasingly, in both the

Sunni Arab and the Shia Arab communities, a fusion of Islam and

nationalism.

Now, a fusion of Islam and nationalism is not jihadism, necessarily. There is a small minority of Sunnis who are jihadists. The

major problem for the Sunni jihadists in Iraq is that they cannot

really take power. They’re a minority within a minority of the population. But there is mainstream Islamism, and that has fused

with nationalism.

The other point is that the increase in Islamic fervor or feeling

among the population does not necessarily translate into theocratic

government. The Shia population is not necessarily in favor of a

theocracy, a la Iran. They may be in favor of a more Islamized polity—as in Ayatollah al-Sistani—— Senator VOINOVICH. But what’ll—— Dr. HASHIM [continuing]. And we have to live with that.

Senator VOINOVICH. It will have to have that kind of a dimension

to it if it’s to be successful.

Dr. HASHIM. Yes, sir.

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. And what we’re trying for is something

different than what we have in Iran today—take advantage of it—

because we have the environment there. If we do it right, we can,

indeed, have a democracy. It may not be exactly the kind that we

would prescribe, but one that works.

Dr. HASHIM. I agree with you, sir. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.

Senator Dodd.

Senator DODD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I apologize

being out of the room for a few minutes. We had a conference on

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utes with them. But I had a chance to listen to several of you here

and go over the testimony of others.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, once again thank you, and I thank

Senator Biden, the two of you here. General Joulwan said this, but

it deserves being repeated. At a time when the label of partisanship is used almost on a minute-by-minute basis to describe how

politics is being conducted in Washington, this committee stands

out as a glaring exception to that, and all of us are deeply thankful

for your leadership, the leadership of both of you, and having a set

of hearings like this and giving us an opportunity to air the kind

of discussion that we ought to be having about all of this. Because

it’s on everyone’s mind. We’re all trying to sort this out. And, clearly, it’s only going to come when we have wise and competent people

who can come and share some thoughts about all of this. So I’m

very grateful to you, as a member of this committee, and I must

say a little disappointed, although, while I’ll accept the excuses

being provided, but I can’t think of any greater sense of urgency

they ought to be than for key administration people to be here and

share with us where we’re headed with all of this.

I have, sort of, this Groundhog Day memory of sitting in this

committee when I think we had a hearing on exactly this subject

matter, and we were told that people couldn’t make it up here. I

remember that—I think it was about a year and a half or 2 years

ago that that occurred. And it’s once again sort of being repeated.

But let me raise something, if I can. I want to thank all of you

for your testimony. It’s been very, very good, and very helpful. Certainly, all of you, as General Joulwan’s pointed out that planning

for keeping the peace was terribly flawed, I’m struck by—there’s a

wonderful quote from Ambassador Freeman, that I had with me— I’ll find it in a minute—the former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia describing the question of what victory means, in military, as opposed

to winning the peace, and how that occurs. But as a former Ambassador in the region, someone who’s very knowledgeable about that

part of the world, I was taken with his comments over the weekend.

Certainly, Ambassador Sheehan, your call for standing up a credible and professional police will take years, not months. And speaking generationally, I like the fact that you talked in generations.

It’s sort of our obligation, as members of policy-setters, to be speaking not in terms of quarters, or a matter of months, but in years.

And too often we don’t, we fall prey to the quarterly argument that

businesses have to comply with. But even successful businesses

think beyond the quarters for long-term success, and I don’t think

we’re doing that very well here.

Dr. Hashim, you’ve told us that we are something of a cusp in

Iraq. And I think you’re absolutely on target with this. And that

is, this is far more than just the small bands of people. It doesn’t

quite rise to the level of broad, widespread insurgency, but I think

we’re getting close to that, and I think suggesting otherwise is kidding people if they think it’s not more serious than that.

Certainly, security is the precondition for moving forward to

build a stable Iraq. I agree totally with that. I agree with our witnesses, who have said, in describing the challenges that we face,

what must be done.

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Here’s where I have a problem, and I say this, and I want to get

you to respond to it. It’s really one question. It comes down to this

date, this June 30. This is driving me crazy. Why this is the Holy

Grail is beyond me. I think we’re kidding ourselves, in a way, if

we’re calling for all the things you’ve suggested, by and large, here,

what needs to be done—to get more troops in, to get NATO involved, to get the international community, to get policing on the

ground, to get all of these structures in place—given the difficulty

we’ve had doing that under the present circumstances, where we

call every shot, why should we believe, for a single second, that if

we turn over something like sovereignty, whatever that is in this

particular case, to a bunch of people we do not know very well, or

who they are, or whether or not they’re going to run again or not

run again—are they technocrats, are they politicians, who are

they? The assumption somehow that we’re going to be able to do

these things that you’ve described, which I don’t disagree with,

under a structure that is not likely to produce or allow us to have

those—in fact, they may take the opposite view. They may decide,

in order to score points politically, that they’ll join those forces, at

least rhetorically, by suggesting that we’re an occupying force, that

we’re really not wanted there. I suspect that they have ambitions

politically in their own country. They’re not going to be unlike politicians any other place around the world, they’re going to find out

where the parade is, and they want to put themselves someplace

in that context.

And my question to you is, why don’t we just come out and say,

dump this June 30 date? This is crazy. Does anyone really believe,

for a single second, that, on June 30, we’re going to successfully

turn over sovereignty? Why is anyone afraid to suggest that it’s a

bad idea, that date? If we really need to do these other things, how

can we possibly do it if we’ve become so wedded to that date?

So I’m struck with the fact that this is an inherent contradiction

if we do want to do all the things you’ve described to do, and simultaneously are wedded to the June 30 date, I think you’ve got a

train wreck in the mix here. I don’t think it can happen.

So my point would be that I think we ought to drop the June 30

date. Now, obviously, the administration seems to be committed to

it no matter what I say or anyone else says, but I’d be interested

in what you have to say here. If you were in a position to decide,

or advise this administration, on whether or not we ought to be

wedded to the June 30 date, would you argue that we ought to get

rid of that date, and, rather, focus on the issues that you’ve raised

here today, with the hopes of building some stability that would

then provide the environment, at some point in the not too distant

future, where you could have a group of people emerge that would

have some chance of succeeding here?

Yes, Dr. O’Hanlon.

Dr. O’HANLON. Senator Dodd, my own take is that I would keep

the date for the moment, but I would also be assuming it’s not

going to be one we can stick with, and I’d be developing backup

plans and being careful in my rhetoric, as President and anyone

else in the administration, not to make us so committed to that

date that we can’t back away from it later on. I think we need the

forcing pressure of a date to require some decisionmaking. And I

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also think anti-Americanism is becoming the rallying cry for that

burgeoning movement you describe, and we need to give sovereignty back as quickly as possible to quell that. However, if we

don’t have anybody to give back sovereignty to, and we haven’t answered these key questions, we will have to postpone.

So my belief is, you’re going to have to postpone—or there’s a

good chance you’ll have to postpone, but it’s better to wait a little

longer to do it, try to keep pressure on people, try to make as many

decisions as you can, and then postpone as little as necessary once

the day comes.

I would still expect it’s going to be sometime this summer that

we transfer sovereignty. Only a 50–50 chance it’ll be June 30. I

would keep the date for now, but I would not count on it.

Senator DODD. General Joulwan.

General JOULWAN. Senator, let me try to make some clarity out

of it. I don’t know what the date you would come up with, if not

June 30? A year from now? Two years from now?

I would say what is more important here is, what do we expect

to happen with the government after 1 July? But you’re the politicians. I would just tell you that I would go through a process of

saying crawl, walk, run. We’re going to be in a crawl stage, literally, with this government until it matures. And so what do we

expect it to do? What will it have to do it with? There’s going to

be a minister of defense, there’s going to be a minister of interior,

but they’re going to be fledgling.

You’ve got to, sort of, hover over this new government and let it

mature. It is important to give the new government some initial

successes and the satisfaction they are started on the road. But

they’re only at the first benchmark here, and have to proceed step

by step. That’s how I would look at it.

I think that you’d play right into the hands of the extremists if

you would say it’s not going to happen on 30 June, unless we have

some very clear and good reasons for delaying that. At least that’s

my gut reaction.

Senator DODD. Well, general, do you think you’re going to convince European nations and others to send more troops there with

this government you’ve appointed on June 30? Realistically, now.

General JOULWAN. Again, that goes back to, what do we expect?

I think that the government’s not going to be able to all of a sudden provide this secure environment. There has to be clarity here.

What is the relationship between this new government and the

U.S. Embassy? What does ‘‘sovereignty’’ mean? How is that going

to be defined? This has to be laid out.

But I think there is a need for a clear ‘‘road map’’ here. You need

a process that it can work. At this stage, given what we’re facing,

I think you would play into the hands of those that are stirring up

the problems if we would start backing away from that date. More

importantly, I would want to say, what are the expectations that

we should have for this new government? What is the role, then,

of this huge organization that’s going to go in, particularly on the

U.S. side, on the embassy side, on our military side? Those are my

views.

Senator DODD. Ken.

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Dr. POLLACK. First, Senator, let me say that I completely sympathize with the sentiments that you’re expressing, and I think

that you’re absolutely right, that we have a lot of work to be done.

I will say I understand where the June 30 date came from. I was

in Baghdad in November when it was formulated, or right after it

was formulated. And it was formulated as part of the November 15

process. And the point was, like good bureaucrats—and as a former

bureaucrat, I completely sympathize—you need a date to force people to actually do things. And back in November, June 30 seemed

like a perfectly reasonable date, because you had a process that

was going to get you there; and, as we know, that process has fallen apart. We don’t have the process anymore; we still have the

date. That’s obviously very problematic, and that’s obviously exactly what you’re getting at.

That said, I do echo some of the points that both Mike and General Joulwan have made, which is that, unfortunately, Iraqis have

really invested in this date. We’ve not really talked about this, but

the Iraqis are very unhappy with the way that the United States

has handled the reconstruction, the occupation. They find us to be

arrogant, they find us to be arbitrary, they find us, in many respects, to be replicating the things that they hated about Saddam’s

regime, and how he treated them, with the exception that we don’t

arbitrarily kill large numbers of them. And they want to see some

kind of a transition on June 30. And, as General Joulwan as suggested, if they don’t see something, I think that this is going to feed

their sense of humiliation and anger, which is driving them to the

Muqtada al-Sadrs of Iraq.

I will also say, I can imagine transitional governments that we

could create between now and then, which I think many Iraqis

would grudgingly find acceptable. I think that if we did go the

Brahimi route, we could come up with groups of people that Iraqis

would largely find acceptable. I think we could take other routes—

Professor Cole made this point yesterday; I think he’s absolutely

right—you could go to the local Iraqi councils, ask them to send

representatives to a larger assembly in Baghdad. They could come

up with a new government, which Iraqis would mostly find to be

reasonable and better, certainly, than the Governing Council that

we have now.

That said, I can also see a train wreck occurring on June 30, as

you’ve suggested if we don’t go this route, if we continue to undermine Lakhdar Brahimi’s mission by doing things like going after

Muqtada al-Sadr in the midst of his negotiations, which are clearly

not helping him. What I would say, though, is, if we are going to

postpone beyond June 30 because of the reasons I mentioned, because of how much Iraqis have now invested in this debate, it is

critical to do what we have consistently failed to do all along, which

is to reach out to Ayatollah al-Sistani and other Iraqi leaders, and

get them to say, you know what? June 30th isn’t reasonable. We

need to postpone it. If we can get their buy-in, I think Iraqis could

live with a postponement. But if we simply arbitrarily extend June

30, in the exact same way that we announced June 30, we’ll just

cause more problems.

Senator DODD. Doctor, anything you want to say?

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Well, I wish you well. I appreciate your saying it—all of you have

said—we need more troops, we need more policing, we need to do

all of these things to get the security on the ground. And I think

if you think you’re going to get that out of a new government we’ve

imposed, basically—not through elections or anything else—and

I’ve been around a while; I think we’re dreaming. I think you all

made wonderful arguments for increasing security. I don’t think

you’re going to get it with this.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Dodd.

Senator Nelson.

Senator NELSON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just some quick subjects here. This so-called cleric, al-Sadr, who

has been giving us some problems—and, as you pointed out, he’s

really more of a political leader than a religious leader—and yet he

is posing a problem for us, stirring up these supporters. At some

point, the United States being able to take him into custody, what

does that do in Iraq?

Dr. HASHIM. Senator Nelson, Muqtada al-Sadr is a social/political

phenomenon. If we take him down, somebody else may replace him.

He’s built up his power on the basis of a network that his father

and two brothers had built up in the 1990s before they were assassinated by Saddam Hussein, so it’s not like he came upon it as soon

as the regime fell, and built it. He’s built it beyond by creating the

Mahdi’s army, which is a ill-trained, but highly dedicated militia.

Now, if we take him out, it still does not resolve the issue of his

constituency, which are the disenfranchised Shia poor, who constitute about three- to four-million inhabitants, primarily of

Madinat al-Sadr, north of Baghdad.

How do we resolve their lack of empowerment? As long as that

continues, they will keep throwing up radical clerics who promise

them a better future.

Senator NELSON. So is it best to deal with al-Sistani, and let him

try to negotiate something?

Dr. HASHIM. I think, for the moment, yes, sir. And the fact is,

the vast majority of Shia tend toward what I would call more moderation, where they would like their country to be Islamically dominated, in the sense the constitution based on Islam and more

Islamized, so to speak—I’m simplifying here—but not the rule of

the clerics, of the politicized clerics.

General JOULWAN. If I can just add a point here. When you talk

about Najaf—correct me if I’m wrong—you’re talking a population

of about 900,000 people in this city—a large number, large population. When you say, we’re going to get al-Sadr, this poses tremendous problems. Fallujah, I think, is 250,000. I mean, these aren’t

hamlets that we’re talking about. So the idea—and it goes to Senator Dodd’s comments. As a fledgling government takes hold here,

part of the challenge is going to be, what are Iraqis going to do to

bring people to justice? What sort of support can we get from moderate and other Iraqis to help? And I think we’re getting some of

that now, and I think we need to probe that. We need to encourage

that cooperation. Because that, in the end, is going to be, to me,

the best way to not only bring these individual to justice, but also

to separate his extremism from the more moderate groups that

we’re trying to get involved.

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So I would say you’ve got to be careful, when you say, we’re

going to capture or kill ’em. What does that means in terms of operations that the military have to conduct. If our forces go into

Fallujah guns ablazing it will be a very, very costly operation. I

think there are other ways to do it.

Senator NELSON. And those other ways?

General JOULWAN. Is to get the the Iraqis involved.

Senator NELSON. To do the negotiations.

General JOULWAN. Right. Although I am not current in the last

day or two, I think there has been some attempt by the Iraqis to

assist here. The more we can show Iraqi involvement the better off

we will be. When you form a new government, you need a small

success—a half-a-step success. And here is a way to get some success for the Iraqis. And you build on that success. And that, to me,

is going to be very important for this new government that’s going

to be formed. And I believe they’re trying to cooperate. We ought

to encourage them.

Dr. POLLACK. Senator, just to add to that, you know, I think that,

unfortunately, al-Sadr has become one of the Catch–22s, one of the

many Catch–22s we’ve created for ourselves in Iraq. Senator Dodd

is alluding to another—or was alluding to another—of the Catch–

22s we’ve created. I think the honest answer is, we should have

dealt with al-Sadr 12 months ago. We knew he was a problem right

from the start, when he killed Abdul al-Majid al-Khoei. But instead

of dealing with it, because we didn’t, honestly, have the troops to

deal with it, we’ve allowed this to fester, and now we have a real

problem. The Mahdi army is getting bigger, it is getting more problematic. There is an argument to be made that maybe we don’t

want these guys around, free to do whatever they want to after

June 30. By the same token, going in the fashion that we did—and

especially the timing that we did, which I just cannot understand,

for the life of me—was also a mistake.

You know, in some ways, again, accepting the fact that we

should have dealt with them at the beginning, we had what was

probably the best solution possible, which was the textbook solution when you get into these foreign interventions, which is, you

want the foreign moderates to deal with their own extremists. And

we had that. The hauza, the moderates, if you want to call them

that, of Iraq, were dealing with al-Sadr. They had largely

marginalized him. By going after him, we stuck ourselves in between the moderates and the extremists.

I think that, right now, extracting ourselves, unfortunately, probably is the best thing we can do, and it’s useful in two ways. One,

it would be much better to have a negotiated settlement, as General Joulwan is suggesting. We don’t want a fight in the middle of

Najaf. That would be disastrous. Second, it would be useful to us

to empower Ayatollah al-Sistani. Ayatollah al-Sistani—and, you

know, it’s unfortunate that we are making him into such a key figure. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think he wanted to be this key

a figure. But, unfortunately, someone has to stand up for the Shias.

He’s the one who is doing it. We need to empower him. We need

to show Iraqis that al-Sistani is capable of standing up to us.

And that’s something I think this administration has a great

deal of difficulty understanding. It’s a point that that Ahmed

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Hashim and I have both been making. The Iraqis are increasingly

unhappy with us. Their leaders, legitimate leaders, are going to

have to be able to show that they can stand up to the United

States and push back on us and get results that Iraqis want. Those

are the only leaders who Iraqis are going to follow.

Senator NELSON. In January, I had visited with President alAssad, and in a friendly but very, very frank discussion over a

number of issues of which he was giving a certain party line, which

I did not believe, and told him so—but he said one interesting

thing when I was talking about the jihadists going across the border. He said, ‘‘I would like to cooperate with the Americans.’’ Now, I have come back—I mean, right there, our Ambassador sitting with me, and immediately reported that. I also called back to

our Ambassador to Israel, who wanted to know about my visit. I

came back, and I reported to the Secretary of Defense, General

Myers, and the Deputy Secretary of State, all of whom received

that information with considerable interest, except the Secretary of

Defense, who somewhat dismissed it out of hand.

I was curious, because there is an article in a recent Inside the

Pentagon publication, and it says that administration officials have

responded with a stony silence to Syria’s Ambassador apparently

giving this same message. Now, I can tell you General Myers

didn’t, because I think General Myers saw that anything you could

do to close that border, it’s going to help save our men and women

in uniform.

I’d just like your commentary on this. Are the Syrians giving us

a total bill of goods? Do you have any sense that they might want

to have cooperation to help close the border, even though it’s a difficult border to close?

Dr. POLLACK. Senator, I think we ought to put him to the test.

Senator NELSON. What is there to lose?

Dr. POLLACK. Exactly. And I think something like border control

is something where you can actually get a real test. If the guys continue to come through the borders, if our guys on the other side see

the Syrians allowing people to continue to infiltrate, we’ve got our

answer. But we’ve shown a willingness to cooperate with this Syrian regime before. This administration has been very cooperative

with this Syrian Government on the global war on terrorism, and

has received all kinds of information from them on al-Qaeda and

other Sunni terrorist groups. Why, in this case, are we not willing

to see that same cooperation?

Senator NELSON. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Nelson.

Senator Corzine.

Senator CORZINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me just say

that this hearing and the scope with which the witnesses have addressed these incredibly difficult issues, I think, is remarkable. I

join with Senator Biden, I wish we could have these folks offering

counsel to the people that are making policy decisions. At least we

would see the wide range of various issues that are at hand, and

might come up with more serious responses and less frequent failures on some of the strategic decisions that are being made.

I do agree with what Mr. Pollack said, this is more than a bad

month. But I continue to not understand why the central thought

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and spokespeople for the administration continue something else.

They take the comments of Mr. O’Hanlon and say that’s all that’s

going on.

I just want to quote from a senior administration official, and I’d

like to hear your comments on it, describing the deadly insurgency

that flared this month. One official described it as ‘‘a symptom of

success that we’re having here in Iraq.’’ This is almost as if somebody needs to go see counselors with regard to how you frame an

issue. And we hear this from the highest officials in our government. A symptom of success that we have lost 105 people, that this

goes on? And I think there is a right for the American people to

be angry, and I certainly—I feel it, personally.

And that draws me to the conclusion—we’ve heard ‘‘competency’’ mentioned in these hearings—but it draws me back to something

that I asked yesterday, and I feel very strongly the same that Senator Dodd has spoken about, how can we believe that we’re going

to make the right strategic decisions? How do the American people

have the ability to understand that we’re going to be able to make

this series of very, very tough decision between now—I think it’s

70 days—I’m not so good at math—between now and June 30? And

maybe it is that we go, and we futz around, and, you know, 30 days

out, we say, well, we need some more time. And maybe that’s the

only answer. But it seems to me that if we create a situation where

the Iraqi people say that this sovereignty that you just transferred

to us is a line of—excuse me—it doesn’t fit the reality of what we

think is sovereignty, then all you guys have done is mislead us and

put us into a position that what is, in the long run, best interests,

such as getting to elections and true transfer of sovereignty, is completely undermined by it.

And I don’t understand how, with all of these kinds of decisions—including, by the way, this point that was just made with

al-Sadr and reaction to Senator Nelson’s comments—how this can

be done. How can this be done? We don’t know what the status of

forces is going to be. We don’t know who. We don’t know how the

Iraqi people will look at a situation when there is conflict, say in

Najaf, post-June 30, and the United States is taking all the decisions through our military powers, and the folks that are Brahimichosen say, this isn’t something we agree with. That’s what they’re

doing. What kind of dynamic are we setting up?

First of all, like the question about, Are we—am I somehow missing something, that this is a symptom of success? I’d love to hear

the comments on that. And then a little more follow-through on

Senator Dodd’s case, because I think we’re setting up—and, you

know, I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I think we’re putting ourselves into a box canyon of failure that’s going to end up

undermining our ability to develop a relationship with the Iraqi

people and evolving to what I think all of us want, which is success

on the ground.

Dr. O’HANLON. I’ll start, briefly, Senator Corzine. On the first

question, I certainly don’t really believe the administration can

make that argument with a straight face. I don’t think they believe

that themselves. There have been background briefings at the Pentagon for some of us think-tank folks, with high-ranking people.

They’re background meetings, so I won’t say who gave the comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:16 Sep 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95627 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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ment, but it was a very high civilian official who agreed with me,

there are no good trends in the security sphere right now to speak

of. And so I don’t—if they are giving this public message, it’s not

one, in my judgment, they even believe themselves.

And I think Mr. Rumsfeld was clear the other day, when he said, ‘‘I would never have expected this kind of month of April a year

ago.’’ And he didn’t say that with a smile on his face that he was

grateful for the fact that we were able to engage in these firefights.

He was obviously concerned. That’s my reading.

On the issue of the government and the transfer of sovereignty,

one of the reasons why I favor the technocratic government as of

June 30, with people who are not eligible to run for office in January, is because I think it’s, therefore, easier to convince them not

to try to make every single kind of decision under the sun. Because

they would, in a sense, be taking those decisions away from their

own fellow citizens, who will then be elected in January.

In reality, as you point out, they’re not ready to make those decisions, regardless of who they are. There isn’t enough preparation

time here, and their country’s security is too poor to allow for full

exercise of sovereign power as of June 30. But it’s easier, I think,

for them to swallow that idea if they’re viewed as a technocratic

caretaker government, and then the real government will emerge

in the course of 2005. But if we have that approach, I still think

it’s feasible to aim for this target date. We may or may not make

it, but I want to aim for it, still, because I think the anti-American

feeling is so strong, it’s fueling the insurgency, and we’ve got to

give them back some control over their own country.

General JOULWAN. Let me just try to add another dimension to

it, Senator. I understand the concern about what the Iraqis will do

with sovereignty on 30 June and 1 July of this year. I’d really try

to turn it a little bit and say, what can we do? What has to happen? And I mentioned in my testimony about stabilization as a

mission. We haven’t really defined all of this, but I would move

without the ball here. I would not wait until 30 June. What can

we do to create the best conditions for success for this fledgling

government that is going to be stood up? Can we get the lines of

authority clear between the military, our embassy, and the new

Iraqi Government? Can we get them together and do a simulation?

How do we create the best conditions for success? What would be,

to me, a tragedy—if, on 30 June, we’re still bumping heads between the State Department and Defense Department on what

needs to be done. You know, that ball’s in our court.

And so I have been in these situations, particularly in an election

year, Senator, and I can tell you it’s tough on the combatant commander. But we have to do a lot here, and I would not look at it

as if the Iraqi’s will fail. What can we do to help try to ensure success? What can the Senate Foreign Relations Committee do to

help?

I had a saying that I’d like to give to this current group, ‘‘one

team, one mission.’’ The Americans that are going to go in there

from the Defense and from the State side, have to be a team. They

both have to be focused on their mission and work together as a

team. And that has to begin now—before 30 June. And I think we

have a lot to do in order to try to make the Iraqis successful.

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Senator CORZINE. Dr. Pollack.

Dr. POLLACK. Senator, let me start by saying that I do want to

make a point that, as Mike O’Hanlon pointed out earlier, there are,

of course, some real positives in Iraq, and I think we should never

lose sight of them. The Iraqi people have been remarkable. They’ve

been remarkably patient with us. They have given us, time and

time again, chance after chance to demonstrate that we can do for

them what we keep saying that we will do for them. That is an

enormous advantage.

Our troops have also been absolutely magnificent. And being out

in the field with our troops and seeing the stuff that mechanics and

tank-drivers are doing trying to build democracy in Iraq, again, it’s

just unbelievable.

But, for me, those positives inject a greater element of tragedy

in the situation, because given the incredible positives that are

going on, if we fail in Iraq, it will be, to my mind, inexcusable.

I absolutely agree with you that it is ridiculous to suggest that

what we are seeing now in Iraq are the products of success. You

know, the line has been, for a number of months, that what is

going on is a bunch of dead-enders, who don’t want to see the successful transition, trying desperately to take it down. That’s one interpretation. That’s not my interpretation at all.

All of the evidence that I see indicates that the problems that we

have, as we’ve been talking about, stem from the increasing skill,

the increasing proficiency, the increasing resources of the insurgents inside Iraq, who are building networks and becoming more

and more skillful, and, simultaneously, the growing popular support for resistance to the United States, which, again, is not the

majority of the country yet; but the trend is not a good one.

As we’ve said about June 30 several times, I think, you know,

Senator Dodd is absolutely right to put his finger on this——

Senator CORZINE. I do want to just say that if you’re going to

solve a problem, you have to recognize you have one.

And if you don’t recognize it, you’re not going to build any plans,

whether it’s for June 30 or it’s for December 31. And we seem to

have a disconnect between reality and what——

Dr. POLLACK. I would absolutely agree with that. And I think

that the answer that you and Senator Dodd and Senator Nelson

have all posed about June 30 is an extremely important one. We

have created a Catch–22 for ourselves. As I’ve suggested, as I think

others on this panel have suggested, the only way that we can see

out of that June 30 process—June 30 Catch–22—is the possibility

that Lakhdar Brahimi is going to pull a rabbit out of his hat, and

that’s what he needs to do. And that’s why I don’t understand why

we’re making what is already a tremendous challenge on his part

even more difficult by doing things like picking a fight with

Muqtada al-Sadr, and pushing Ahmed Chalabi, and other things

that are just going to make it even harder for him to find that rabbit in his hat.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Senator Corzine.

Anyone else have a comment in response? Yes, go ahead.

Dr. HASHIM. Sir, just a few personal comments. I really don’t

want to make any comments about the symptom of our success.

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But I guess, however, one could say that the converse, which is the

lack of an insurgency, would be a symptom of our failure.

But what we need to keep in mind is that we cannot go back on

the June 30 deadline. It would be a tremendous mistake. The

Iraqis have been unhappy. That is true. They don’t want to be occupied. But if we give them half a loaf, as long as the security situation and the law and order situation and reconstruction get on

track by stages, they’re willing to live with that. But only in the

interim, of course. So they recognize that. From talking to them,

they recognize—look, sovereignty will not be returned—I mean,

genuine, effective sovereignty, as they see it is going to be a long

time coming. Their main concern is security, law and order, and reconstruction.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I thought we would start another round of

questioning.

Let me just mention—I know, Dr. O’Hanlon, that you will need

to leave, and we appreciate very much your coming. We are sorry

that our hearing has become a marathon run. We appreciate the

patience and the longevity of each of you. But as you need to leave,

why, you are, of course, excused, and we thank you.

Let me just begin this second round. We will not extend this unduly, because each of you have other responsibilities. I was impressed with General Joulwan’s recent response to the question,

What can we do?

Some of us wish that the administration was hearing you the

same as we are. We really all are part of the same government.

We, in Congress, have responsibilities. To have a hearing in

which we find fault with everything that has gone before is interesting if we were historians, but, at the same time, not so helpful

if we’re thinking about, ‘‘What can we do?’’ And the ‘‘we’’ means

you, as witnesses, giving the very best of your advice, as well as

those of us who have some oversight and ability to influence policy

through the legislative debates or the appropriation process,

through intervention with the President or the Secretaries or whoever will talk to us.

Without being presumptuous, we’re attempting to help write a

plan for what happens. Ideally, administration witnesses would

come before us and say, now, here is a plan, and let’s fine-tune it

and tweak it and think through this. Unfortunately, that’s not the

sort of thing that we have been getting, although we will have another go at it again tomorrow, after having given a lot of advanced

notice of what we’re asking for.

The plan does apparently revolve around June 30. That’s been a

big subject of discussion today. However we got to that point, June

30 does loom. We heard yesterday, in terms of Iraqi public opinion,

it’s a very big date. If that is the case, then, picking up on General

Joulwan’s thought, we want to make certain that our team—and

that does include the Armed Forces and the State Department and

NSC and Congress, everybody else—is on the same wavelength,

that we’re not still discussing, down to June 30, who does what.

That is one reason why I was intemperate enough to suggest today

that we have a hearing next Tuesday for Ambassador Negroponte.

Somebody who’s pushing papers at the State Department might

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not be able to get them over here by Tuesday. I would just say, patiently, please come forward. Let’s have a hearing.

Senator BIDEN. You have a gavel. You have a gavel.

The CHAIRMAN. And then that, at least, gets us started.

Having said that, we’re not having much luck on the floor of the

Senate right now in confirming anybody for any position anywhere

in the world. I would hope there might be a slight dispensation

with regard to Ambassador Negroponte, in view of the national interest, that he not be a pawn in any of our arguments over anything else we’re talking about, whether it be asbestos or the energy

bill or whatever.

We’ve got at least Ambassador Negroponte on the way. And then

we try to think who all is he going to have over there. How are

these people going to interact? We have at least 8 weeks or so to

think about the embassy staff roster and physically how they get

into their assigned posts in Iraq. Will they be embedded with the

troops out in the countryside? That has been one informal suggestion. The security concern for some of these folks, who are going

to be well outside the Green Zone and so forth, is at hand, and we

have to think about that.

We also still have to think about the money. It may be impolitic

to bring up money at this point, but, at the same time, the Iraqi

Government will have to be thinking about how it will finance

itself. What portion of the oil money will go toward its civil administration? What part of the $18 billion of our appropriation has

been identified? Maybe just $3 billion has been committed. Why

only three? Well, if we got into the weeds of that, we would find

endless bureaucratic difficulties. Some of these we impose upon

ourselves because of checks and balances and good governance, so

that we don’t spend money without bids and without look-see. But,

at the same time, as Senator Biden pointed out yesterday, an article suggested that before long well over a quarter of that amount

of money may be spent just on security forces to guard the people

who are, in fact, doing the reconstruction work, as opposed to locks

and dams or whatever else.

The money issues do need to be discussed. They need to be part

of the plan, so that as we form the team, we think about the

money, and we try to think through, how we can help Ambassador

Brahimi. I think that the points that you’ve all made about that

are very good.

It’s been suggested that Brahimi probably will ask our government for advice, as well as all the Iraqis and probably European

countries in his visitations at the U.N. It is very important that he

come up with a reasonably good team. He might not succeed on the

first try. There might be some rebounding and some other efforts

involved in this. At the same time, that’s the name of the game

now. The United Nations’ participation leads to legitimization,

leads to Security Council resolutions that we all believe are useful,

as well as status-of-forces agreements. As we are aggressive in getting the defense thing right, or the security, we will not be hogtied

by our own lack of foresight in thinking through who does what

and how they agree to this.

After this is said and done, it’s not really clear whether everybody will like it. Can you identify a Sunni leader, if not comparable

68

to Ayatollah al-Sistani, at least in the ballpark? If we encourage

Ayatollah al-Sistani as a confidante here, is there anybody in the

Sunni community who might sign off on all of this? Or at least to

be helpful at this particular point? Does anyone have a suggestion?

Yes, sir.

Mr. SHEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually think that

Mr. Brahimi will find that individual. But the reason I raised my

hand is, I also have to leave and go back to New York City.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. SHEEHAN. But if I could make one comment before I leave,

you asked what could be done? I think we’re going to need a lot

of wisdom and a lot of resources to get this done right, and we

don’t have a corner on either of them in the U.S. Government, or

in one sector of the U.S. Government. So the more of a team that

we can put together within the U.S. Government, the more players,

like Brahimi, that we can bring to the table—as General Joulwan

suggested, bringing NATO to the table will bring wisdom and resources to that. And I think we’re going to need large doses of both,

and I think that hearings like this will help bring out wisdom, and

hopefully generate some resources, as well.

And I wanted to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity

today.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. SHEEHAN. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask an additional question of the other

panelists. General Joulwan, you may have mentioned that the

Iraqis want the ability, if this is to be a government that has some

credibility with Iraqis, to push back against Americans. These

things are never a clear path, but how would this fit together with

this emphasis upon security in the next 6 months?

It may very well be that you will say, well, still, they ought to

have some say about this. The fact that we are pushing ahead with

security need not mean that we do so arbitrarily. Should we make

all the decisions? How should the dynamics of this work?

General JOULWAN. First, I would say I hope we don’t make all

the decisions. I think it has to be a shared—that you have to include them in what it is that we’re trying to do. Again, in a progressive way, they’re capable of doing this.

This government will not survive—this new Iraqi Government— without the support of the security forces of the United States and

the Coalition. But what is that interface? That’s what I would urge

be done between now and 30 June. I believe you have to be straight

forward and up-front with the troops. If you tell them, ‘‘Take Baghdad, and you can go home,’’ they’ll understand that. If you say, ‘‘Well, regime change, and you can go home.’’ They will understand.

If you tell them now, ‘‘We need to stabilize Iraq, and here are the

six tasks that we’ve got to do, and this is what we’re going to need

to do it, and here’s the role the Iraqi Government has got to play

in that’’ That’s the sort of preparatory work, the anticipation, that

needs to go into it now. And these questions should be raised now,

in anticipation of what may be required after 30 June.

I really think that, rather than wring our hands about it, we

ought to be asking some very detailed questions. The intent is to

build the confidence in the new Iraqi Government. We all want a

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win-win here, whatever political party you’re in. At least I would

hope that is the case. I am concerned about our troops in Iraq. We

need the clarity of mission. ‘‘What is it you want me to do?’’ Now

and after 30 June, the mission needs to be clear.

The CHAIRMAN. Let’s say, ideally, that Ambassador Negroponte

and a pretty good team are there, and, likewise, Coalition members, other countries who are with us. Conceivably, they may be

conferring with the people that Brahimi has identified. By the 1st

of June, maybe, these folks will be thinking through who is going

to do what, so that we will all be successful in this, and so that,

as opposed to June 30 being, you know, an extraordinary date in

which we all hold our breath and wonder what happens, in fact,

it comes along well. It comes after there has already been a lot of

massaging by the parties of these issues. For that to happen, obviously, you’ve got to get the people in place around the table long

before you get to June 30, so that that will not be such a traumatic

period.

This is all a short timetable now, but, on the other hand, it was

never meant to be simple. We have agreed that the June 30 thing

came about because of planning last November. It appears to me

that these things are doable. Parties can be found on all sides, including Ayatollah al-Sistani, Sunni leaders, and others, all affirming that this is an interim government.

General JOULWAN. Mr. Chairman, there probably is a great deal

of thought that’s been given to what organization is going to look

like on the 30th of June. It truly needs to be developed so that Congress is onboard, the Executive is onboard, and the American people are on board. There needs to be confidence that we can make

it happen. We want and need success. This new organization needs

to be vetted, and I would urge you to do so. And I would urge you

to do so leading up to the testimony of John Negroponte, who’s a

good man. I think that such a dialog could be very helpful to him—

so there’s a strong team, a strong confidence going into this on his

part, and it has full support of you and the other Members of the

Congress. I think that’s going to be essential.

The CHAIRMAN. You make my point. That’s obviously what we

hope, too. And that’s why we’re raising these questions. We do hope

that, in fact, if there is a lot of planning that has already proceeded, we may learn about it fairly soon. Now, if there isn’t nearly

enough, it is important that we raise questions as to why things

are not as far along as they need to be. I’m not making an assumption either way, but I would just suggest that our committee will

want to have more hearings, if things are not that well developed.

Let’s say we find out, after tomorrow’s hearing, that, as a matter

of fact, the administration witnesses seem to be no more forthcoming than they were yesterday, according to the quote that I

gave in my first round of questions. Then we’ll say, well, that’s not

good enough. We understand that you haven’t quite got your act together. We’ll try it again in a couple of weeks and see how things

are going then. Without being tedious about it, that is our role.

We ask, what can we do? Well, we can raise questions. We can

have hearings and oversight and persistently indicate that this is

very important, not only to us, but, we think, also to the American

people.

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Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I’m glad

to hear you say that. Quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, you have been

put—the spot you’re in is much more consequential than the spot

I was in as chairman of the Judiciary Committee when the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill thing came down. It was something I

wished never would come before me, but it was my responsibility.

It’s unfortunate that you’re in the position you’re in. We’re fortunate you are in the position you’re in. But the truth of the matter

is, Mr. Chairman, you’ve got to continue these hearings up until

June 30 every day, if need be, to get an answer—to get an answer—or to formulate an alternative.

And, look, I am a little less diplomatic than my chairman. The

President has to choose. The President has to choose. I assure

you—I can tell you, with certainty, there is a plan that has been

proposed to him, on his desk. There’s a plan. There’s another plan

that is underway and has been the way we’ve been going that is

coming from another direction. Two distinctly different approaches.

One is, keep your eggs in Chalabi’s basket, make sure that we

continue to stay the course alone, make sure we don’t have anyone

else, quote, ‘‘screwing it up,’’ bring in a new super-embassy, have

that role that Bremer’s being played now be played by Negroponte,

and hope that we ‘‘will’’ this out. That’s one plan. That’s a plan.

We’re kidding ourselves if you don’t think there’s a plan. There’s

a plan.

There’s a second plan. The second plan—and the reason I’m so

frustrated—and as my friend, Senator Dodd can tell you, I am

viewed in the Democratic Caucus sometimes as an apologist for

this President. He is—I’ve told this joke a hundred times—he’s like

the center-fielder who made so many errors, he screwed it up so

badly, no one can play centerfield anymore. And I find myself in

a position of having to acknowledge that June 30 is an important

date—could have been done, still can be done, but requires him to

make a decision.

And the way this could be done on June 30, I would respectfully

suggest, is to do several things. One, work out a way in which

whatever plan Brahimi comes forward with is implemented.

Brahimi is going to—I just got finished getting off the phone, literally, 25 minutes ago, with the Secretary General of NATO—

Brahimi’s probably going to report to him by the end of the week.

He’s going to have a plan. The hope is that by May this is implemented. Part of that plan could be, by the way, the U.N. thinks we

need to kick this can down the road another 10 days, 15 days, 30

days. The world powers agree that that makes sense to do it that

way.

Early May. International support group. This is a plan. An international support group, modeled after the Contact Group, could

easily be formed by Annan, the permanent reps, and Iraqis and including some of its neighbors, even Syria and Iran—that comes up

with a proposal. Late May, Brahimi selects this caretaker government, after having consulted with this Contact Group, which he’s

already done beforehand. International support group endorses the

Brahimi plan.

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In June—or late May, early June—the Security Council endorses

that plan. Now you’ve got yourself in a situation where you endorsed a Brahimi plan that encompasses other issues, including

setting up a special rep, a special rep like we had in Bosnia, that

coexists with our super-Ambassador, that doesn’t have a 3,000-person U.N. embassy attached to it, but essentially is a special rep— i.e., a Brahimi-type figure that stays on. And, simultaneously, ask

NATO.

In this context, that will work. That’s a plan. That’s not impossible to be done. And I’m confident—it’s not just because I said it

in a speech last Thursday—I’m confident that there are high-ranking officials who have said something similar, if not exactly, like

that to the President. That’s a choice he has available to him. He’s

got to choose.

The frustrating thing here is, the President’s got to choose, because I know it’s not kosher, but I feel like the kid who says, ‘‘The

emperor has no clothes.’’ Does anybody in America now believe that

this is a united administration? Does anybody in all of America

think that this administration is not fundamentally divided?

There’s a San Andreas fault that runs through this administration. One axis is Cheney, and he’s a great guy, Rumsfeld, a brilliant guy, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, politicos at the White House.

There’s another axis—Powell and the uniformed military. Choose,

Mr. President. Choose which plan, because there are plans, and

they’re two distinctly different plans. One is able to be, at least

theoretically, accomplished by June 30. The other can be done by

June 30, but is doomed to failure, in my view. Because I think

you’re right, general, you’ve got to move without the ball here.

And what I think you’re doing, Mr. Chairman, is incredibly important. Maybe they didn’t listen a lot to us yesterday, maybe

they’re not going to listen a lot to us today. Tomorrow, they’ll listen

a little more. Next week, next month, the following month. And

guess why? There is a political context to all this. There’s a political context. I, like him the President—I’m not sure that my plan,

or a plan that I outline, that I’m confident the President has access

to, is right. I’m not sure of that. But I know it’s different than the

path we’re going now.

And one of two things is going to have to happen. The President’s

going to be held accountable. This is his deal. This is his deal.

We’re only irresponsible if we do not offer an alternative if we do

not like what he is proposing. And I am absolutely as certain as

I am sitting in this chair that if it’s not physically on his desk at

this moment, it will be long before the week is out, and I think it

occurred before this hearing began. The President has a proposal

in front of him that’s different than the course we’ve been on, that

engages, in some form or another, Annan, Brahimi, NATO, France,

Germany, England, Russia—major powers.

And none of it is borne out of a romantic notion that the United

Nations is some magic formula that can produce any of this. Get

the major powers together in agreement, get the U.N. to bless it,

then, in turn, get them to participate. It’s kind of basic stuff.

And, by the way, if that plan doesn’t work, if they ain’t willing

to play, if the Washington Post is correct in its editorial where it

says—and I’m paraphrasing—there’s no chance for international

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support. If that’s true, we should go home. If that’s true, we should

spare the lives of those young women and men out there, because

this will not be done alone. This will not be done alone. This will

not be done alone. The American people will not stick around.

And, general, you know better than any man sitting in this room,

if we don’t acknowledge what we didn’t get right so far—and we

all would have gotten it wrong in some form or another—I said at

the outset of this, if the Lord Almighty came down when we sat

in Bremer’s office in Baghdad and gave him all the answers he still

would not have a better than 65 percent chance of succeeding, because we’re trying to do something that’s never been done in all of

history. It’s never been done.

But I want to tell you something. This is beyond politics. As I

said earlier, I come from Delaware. That last flight home goes from

Iraq to Delaware. And we owe these kids. We owe ’em. We’d better

acknowledge what we got wrong and try something new, because

they’re giving everything they have. And so if there’s no new

plan—if there’s no new plan—we’d better tell your buddies, general, in the field—we’d better tell them we don’t have a plan, because the one we have now will not carry the day. As my grandpop

used to say when I’d say something to him, he said, ‘‘Joey, that

horse can’t carry the sleigh.’’

But there’s a plan. The President has to choose.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dodd.

Senator DODD. Well, again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank our

witnesses.

And I think Senator Biden has said it, and said it very well—

the chairman has—I think staying with this over the coming

weeks.

I, for one, think John Negroponte’s a good choice. I’ve dealt with

John for over 20 years. Our first encounter wasn’t a pleasant one

for either one of us, when he was in Honduras, going back to the

days of the Central American stuff. But I have great respect for

him. I think he’s a first-class professional. And I think it’s an interesting choice. I think the U.N. experience can be of tremendous

help, and it may be a signal about where the administration may

be going. Hope you’re right. I hope that’s right.

And my point about June 30 was, on the assumption that things

won’t change.

Senator BIDEN. That’s right.

Senator DODD. And that’s all I’m saying. Because you make a

strong case for getting this security thing right, but I just think if

we’re sticking with a plan here that ultimately involves the United

States doing this alone, I think this is pretty hard; the June 30

date just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Senator BIDEN. Sure.

Senator DODD. If there’s a chance to come up with a U.N. resolution—and, by the way, I’ve known Brahimi for many years. He’s a

first-class individual. It doesn’t get any better than this guy. I’ve

dealt with him on Haiti, back a number of years ago. He’s very,

very good. I saw him in Afghanistan in December. I couldn’t think

of a better choice to make to have there at this point, out of the

U.N. system.

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So I want to underscore the points that have been made. I think

if there’s going to be a real shift here to move toward a U.N. resolution, NATO forces, and to build that Coalition, then I don’t have

a problem with June 30. I think we do make a mistake, and it is

a technocratic approach to things. Why we have to set a date, then

we get so wedded to it it becomes, sort of, we’re stuck with it, despite the fact that one recognizes that we have problems with it.

If we don’t make the changes here, then my concerns is that all

of the recommendations you’ve made on security really are going

to be almost impossible to achieve, in my view. So, at that point

there, then you may be looking at alternatives that no one really

wants to consider at this point, if you accept the notion that failure

is not an option. But it may not be a option; it just may be a decision. Not one we choose, but one, rather, that’s chosen for us. And

that’s what we’re looking at if we don’t get a shift here. And whether it’s chosen by the American people or chosen by the facts on the

ground, it’s one that we may not like the answer to, but we may

not have any choice but to accept it.

So I’ll be with you, Mr. Chairman, in this process. So thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me conclude the hearing with an anecdote.

I think it’s appropriate and will not breach any confidence. We had

a hearing in this committee a couple of weeks ago on the Oil-forFood Program in Iraq. It arose from serious allegations that funds

had been misappropriated by Saddam Hussein, and perhaps by

others, and that improper or inadequate supervision by the Security Council had occurred. The issue came before us as proponents

of the United Nations, as advocates for the United Nations, but, at

the same time, we’re now, in this hearing, putting a great deal of

stake in the United Nations, as an institution, at the same time

we are voicing legitimate criticism.

Following the Oil-for-Food hearing, I had a call from Paul Volker.

Unbeknownst to me, Paul Volker was going, that very afternoon,

to see Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the U.N. He had listened

to our hearing, and he was disturbed, to say the least, by all of the

allegations, as well as the enormity of perhaps $10 billion, having

been misappropriated by Saddam and by others. So I encouraged

him to say yes to the thought that he might be asked to chair an

inquiry. I said, ‘‘You have the gravitas, the character, the reputation worldwide to do this, and you should do it for our country, for

the United Nations, for the U.N.’s credibility, generally.’’ Apparently he decided to do it, but then the next thing I heard were the

press reports that the Russians had indicated that the Security

Council resolution Paul Volker wanted in order to make his own

investigation credible and to have clout was likely to be blocked.

Then at last word came that Kofi Annan and others were working

very hard on that.

Yesterday I received a call from Kofi Annan. It’s not an unusual

situation that I receive a call from the Secretary General, but he

simply wanted to assure me he personally had been involved in diplomacy with regard to Russia, that the Russians had misunderstood, and they were not going to object. There would, in fact, be

credibility for the thing, and he was grateful that Paul Volker is

going to do this.

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I indicated that I thought that, first of all, the Secretary General’s diplomacy was very important; likewise, Paul Volker’s acceptance was also significant; and, even more importantly, I emphasized the credibility that may come if the U.N. has the ability to

investigate itself, to cleanse those things that are not useful, so

that it retains its credibility for a lot of burdens. I said, ‘‘We’re having hearings right now, Mr. Secretary General, about Iraq, and the

U.N. is mentioned a whole lot, along with Mr. Brahimi and all that

we count upon in this situation.’’ I have no idea how Paul Volker will come out with his conferees

and so forth, but I hope that he will do a good job, and I am confident he will. I mention this simply because other people listen to

our hearings from time to time—two important people, in this case,

Paul Volker and Kofi Annan. Because they are doing the right

things that they ought to do, I would like them to know that there

is support for their efforts out there.

We can be supportive. That’s what you’ve attempted to do today,

exhibiting a can-do spirit in response to our question, ‘‘What can

we do’’? You have offered extraordinary advice publicly. Anybody

who is listening to this hearing, or is writing about it, has the benefit of that, as we do.

I remain confident that we’re going to make progress. I thank

this panel for your longevity after 31⁄2 hours, as well as for your

wisdom in helping us.

Senator BIDEN. Mr. Chairman, this has been an extraordinary

panel, across the board. Really and truly, you have made—you’ve

been extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary, and I personally

want to thank you. I mean, it’s been extraordinary.

The CHAIRMAN. And the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:02 p.m., the commitee adjourned, to reconvene

at 9:30 a.m., April 22, 2004.]

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