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i

38–756 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–71]

A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR

IRAQ’S FUTURE (PART 1 OF 4)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

JULY 12, 2007

(II)

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

JEFF MILLER, Florida

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

LORRY FENNER, Professional Staff Member

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member

ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member

SASHA ROGERS, Research Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Thursday, July 12, 2007, A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq’s Future (Part

1 of 4) .................................................................................................................... 1

APPENDIX:

Thursday, July 12, 2007 .......................................................................................... 51

THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2007

A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ’S FUTURE (PART 1 OF 4)

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 2

Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight

and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1

WITNESSES

Boot, Max, Senior Fellow in National Security Studies, The Council on Foreign Relations ....................................................................................................... 6

Clark, Gen. Wesley K., (Ret.), Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander,

Europe, U.S. Army ............................................................................................... 4

Khan, Dr. Muqtedar, Assistant Professor, Political Science and International

Relations, University of Delaware, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution ............................................. 9

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Akin, Hon. W. Todd .......................................................................................... 57

Boot, Max .......................................................................................................... 67

Clark, Gen. Wesley K. ...................................................................................... 61

Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 55

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Documents submitted.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Questions submitted.]

(1)

A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ’S FUTURE

(PART 1 OF 4)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, July 12, 2007.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:06 p.m., in room

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman

of the subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

Dr. SNYDER. The hearing will come to order. I think there is a

pretty long line outside, so if any of you in the audience go to the

restroom, you may lose your seat. Who knows? But we appreciate

you all being here.

I want to welcome everyone here today.

This is the first hearing which I have presided over as the subcommittee chairman since Mr. Meehan left. Mr. Akin and I have

worked on things together in the past and we are intent on doing

that with this subcommittee and look forward to working with him

and the rest of the committee members in this new role.

I want to welcome everyone to this first in a series of four hearings we are going to have this month at this subcommittee level

on alternative strategies for Iraq.

I was listening to NPR yesterday morning, and they had an

interview with troops that were deploying overseas and what service to America means. One woman was briefly interviewed, Staff

Sergeant Nicole Walden. She said, ‘‘I am Staff Sergeant Nicole

Walden. I dropped my kids off one and a half weeks ago because

my husband and I are both deploying, so my kids had to go stay

with their grandparents.’’ And the interviewer says, ‘‘Tell me again

their ages? And she says, ‘‘Three and one. I wake up in the morning and they are not there and I just—it is unreal.’’

And she goes on to say that she is not complaining because she

gets so much support. But if you think of the tremendous sacrifice

that this family, this mother and father are making to leave off

those two young toddlers with grandparents, my own view is that

we in the Congress owe those men and women everything we can

do to have the right strategy of foreign policy and our national security, but particularly with regard to Iraq.

Mr. Akin and I have both been frustrated and have shared our

frustrations to each other about the tone of the debate for this first

six months of the year in terms of the polarization that has ocVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:04 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038756 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-71\193160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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curred in the Congress. We wanted to have a series of hearings in

which we invite smart people, experienced people, who can give us

some other ideas. Maybe other ideas are going to be that there are

not as many other ideas out there as we would like, but we want

to hear from other smart people about what other options are.

We hope to enhance the public debate and inform future full

committee deliberations. We have invited retired senior military officers, defense policy experts, and academics who specialize on the

Middle East. The full committee under Mr. Skelton’s leadership is

holding complementary hearings on a broader scope.

Yesterday, I heard witnesses give their views on the global security assessment. Upcoming full committee hearings will address

Middle East regional security issues, the interim Iraq report, and

General Petraeus’ September report on the surge.

We have asked our witnesses both today and the ones coming up

in the rest of the month to look forward, rather than backward. We

are not intent on rehashing over mistakes that have been made or

how we got to where we are. We have asked our witnesses to look

ahead and explore options. I think for the written statements we

have received, we have got some witnesses today with different

views. So we hope that there will be a vigorous discussion among

them, too, about what they think of each other’s ideas.

Today’s hearing will begin with testimony from retired General

Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. General Clark appeared before the full committee in both 2002 and

2005.

He will be followed by Mr. Max Boot, who is senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New

York.

Our final witness will be Dr. Muqtedar Khan, who is the director

of Islamic studies at the University of Delaware and a senior fellow

at the Brookings Institution.

Gert would get mad at me if I didn’t also acknowledge that Wes

is my neighbor and she walks past my house every morning on her

morning walk. He lives down the street from me, but I see you

more here, Wes, than I do back home.

So welcome to all of you.

And now we will hear from Mr. Akin.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Appendix on page 55.]

STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. AKIN. Let me begin by recognizing our new chairman of the

subcommittee, Dr. Snyder.

I look forward to working with you, Doctor, and I know that

under your stewardship the committee will continue to work on

critical issues facing the Department of Defense in a bipartisan

manner. Thank you so much for choosing to be our chairman.

That has been the tone of this committee, and I think it is very

positive. I think it is something that the general American public

should be pleased with, to see people who are trying to solve problems instead of involve ourselves too much in politics.

3

Today’s hearing is the first of a series aimed at breaking out of

that sort of false concept of saying there are only two alternatives

in Iraq, either the precipitous withdrawal or to stay the course.

Somebody once told me that when somebody wants to put you on

the horns of a dilemma, you don’t want to choose either/or and it

is a poor decision.

We want to know what are the different alternatives and want

to try to quantify those. Given the current political environment

the President’s interim progress report on benchmarks mandated

by this Congress and the debate taking place on the floor of the

House today, I know that this series of hearings could be challenging.

But I agree with the chairman that the Congress must carve out

space. We can focus and wrestle with policy, and not politics. I

hope these hearings provide the space for thoughtful, nonpartisan

discussion. So I agree this will be a useful exercise, but only if it

is done in that format.

The purpose of the hearing is to hear alternatives to the current

strategy that truly offer a different plan. Simply critiquing the current approach is not the point of this hearing. It may be helpful,

but we need to say what are the alternatives. I ask the witnesses

to offer and define an alternative plan and explain how it is different from the plan General Petraeus is currently implementing

in Iraq. Let me help begin this exercise by identifying key features

of the current strategy.

In 2006, the U.S. began shifting its strategy from having our

armed forces pursue al Qaeda and building the Iraqi Security

Forces, to a strategy that emphasized having U.S. combat forces go

door to door performing counterinsurgency missions aimed at securing and holding Iraqi neighborhoods. Implementing this plan requires roughly 160,000 troops at a cost of about $10 billion a

month.

Currently, troop levels also allow the U.S. to train, equip, and

advise the Iraqi Security Forces and deter regional actors from destabilizing the democratically elected government of Iraq. There

are signs that this plan is working, but according to General

Petraeus, the strategy cannot be fully assessed until this September. I offer this broad sketch of the current strategy to emphasize

the strategic issues that any alternative plan must address.

Any plan must, at the very least, do the following: first, state the

roles and missions of the U.S. forces in Iraq; second, state the personnel levels required to complete these missions; third, state the

expected funding requirements to execute the plan; fourth, clarify

the U.S. role, if any, in building the Iraqi security forces; and then

last, at a minimum, explain how the plan deters regional actors

from destabilizing Iraq.

Responding that the current plan doesn’t work or fails to adequately address these areas is simply not enough. Again, we are

asking you for an alternative, not another critique. I would ask my

colleagues on the subcommittee to be vigilant about truly challenging these proposals so we can be sure that what we are talking

about are in fact alternatives.

With these parameters in mind, I look forward to hearing out

witnesses’ statements, and again, thank you so much, Mr. ChairVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:04 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038756 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-71\193160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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man, to agree to work and take the committee, and I am looking

forward to today’s hearings.

Thank you. I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the Appendix on page 57.]

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to mention that we have been joined by

Ms. Shea-Porter, who is actually not a member of the subcommittee but has been an outstanding member of the full committee and

wanted to attend today. We will give her an opportunity to ask

questions, too, after the other subcommittee members, if she would

like to.

As you know, there is a very vigorous debate going on today on

an Iraq resolution by Mr. Skelton. We don’t anticipate any votes

somewhere between 4:20 and 5, or so, so I think we are going to

have plenty of opportunity to get at least through one round of the

questioning, if not more, before those votes.

So, General Clark, let’s start with you, and then we will go to

Mr. Boot and Dr. Khan. We are going to put the five-minute clock

on just so you will have a sense of where we are at. If you see that

red light go on and you need to say more, you say more.

STATEMENT OF GEN. WESLEY K. CLARK, (RET.), FORMER

NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, EUROPE, U.S. ARMY

General CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have

prepared a statement for the record I would just like to have included.

Dr. SNYDER. All statements will be made a part of the record,

without objection.

General CLARK. I am very proud to come before you and Representative Akin and the other members of this subcommittee, first

to say thank you because all of us who have served in uniform are

very grateful for the long support of the House Armed Services

Committee, what you do and the seriousness you bring to the task.

It is appropriate that you try to get out of the partisan mode as

you look through these things. I want to just summarize a couple

of things in my statement, and then talk more about the issues

that Representative Akin has raised.

I am not going to talk about every province today. I don’t think

that is the point. But I do want to put this discussion in perspective because I don’t think it is appropriate—I think we have been

off-base in the United States for four years in focusing excessively

on Iraq to the exclusion of other problems in the region. There is

no solution in Iraq without addressing the other problems in the

region.

The idea that somehow a solution can deter outside intervention

is not going to happen. There is outside intervention. Everybody

knows it, and we are dealing with it on a daily basis in Iraq. So

we have to take into account the region. We have very strong interests in this region. There is hot competition economically. We are

working to provide protection and security for the state of Israel.

We are dealing with Iranian expansionism and extremism, and we

are dealing with al Qaeda in addition to Iraq.

So these are four long-term enduring interests in the region,

none of which is resolved in the on-off switch debate about troop

5

levels in Iraq, and none of which can be addressed satisfactorily if

we just pull the plug and leave Iraq. So we can’t use the Vietnam

analogy appropriately in this region.

The problem, though, isn’t troop levels. That was the problem

initially, along with the nation. We always needed more troops in

Iraq than what we had. The problem now is, first and foremost, the

U.S. national strategy in the region. So here is my alternative: I

would like to see a different U.S. national strategy first.

Why? Because General Petraeus, before him General Casey, before him General Abizaid, and everyone of us who have had any

military experience, have said you cannot win this war with military power alone. Military is a necessary, but not sufficient, ingredient for the solution. So you have to frame the military activities

properly.

The problem is that when we went into Iraq, we began with the

assumption that Iraq was the first of a series of dominoes which

could be knocked off or overturned or replaced. As many as seven

states were in the running as the dominoes, starting with Iraq,

then Syria, then Lebanon and Libya, then Somalia, Sudan and

Iran.

The word was out in the region that Iraq was just the first. And

so those states on the hit list had an incentive to cooperate early

to make sure we didn’t move to the next domino. Immediately, they

began to become involved and take action.

We have been very careful publicly in trying to not overplay their

role, and certainly there is an insurgency going on internally in

Iraq. But the point is that there has always been outside regional

involvement. So what I would like to see the U.S. strategy include

is a full diplomatic and political, as well as military, component. To

do that, we have to start with a different mindset in the region

strategically.

So here is my alternative. I would like us to renounce our aim

of regime change, just renounce it. We are not interested in changing regimes in the region. We are not interested in overturning

governments. We already have our hands full trying to deal with

Iraq and Afghanistan. We don’t need to try to simultaneously redo

governments in three or four other countries. It is just not there

in terms of what we can afford to do.

We need to engage in sustained diplomatic dialogue with these

states in the region even if we disagree with their policies, even if,

as some say, they are in a state of war against us. From their perspective, we are probably in a state of war against them. That is

not an issue. We can still talk and we can still find common interests, and we should be talking to Syria and Iran. We should be listening to our friends in the region like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and

the Emirates and Qatar.

We have to understand that the work with Israel and the Palestinian issue is part of this problem, because it has to deal with

Iranian reach. We have to find an alternative to the isolation of

Hamas in Gaza, because we are going to end up with another destabilizing humanitarian catastrophe on our hands there that further aggravates the U.S. strategic position if we don’t. Then we

have to link these regional efforts to political efforts on the ground

to deal with people.

6

Now, those are the principles, and that is the change that I believe we need. In terms of how that interfaces with the troop strategy, well, the troop strategy is great. I mean, we are sitting on an

insurgency right now and the more troops you put out, the harder

it is for insurgents to move and fight and organize and intimidate

people. So sure, I am happy to have the troops there, but I think

we have overcommitted ourselves.

So what I am recommending to the committee is this: I think we

need over a six-month period to pull a couple of brigades out so we

have the possibility there of a strategic reserve in the United

States. There are no magic solutions on creating more brigades,

and the Army is having trouble recruiting now. I think that Congress needs to demand of the Administration a suitable strategy for

the region, a realistic strategy.

The idea that we can continue to bludgeon away in Iraq with the

blood and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, while inviting the clear occupation of Iraq in an adverse way by Iran and

Syria and other regional actors is counterproductive. It is not going

to lead to the conclusions we are looking for. To be honest with

you, we have to raise this debate above the troop levels to have the

kind of impact on the outcome of the mission that the American

people seek.

So I am delighted to be here. I look forward to participating in

the dialogue, Mr. Chairman, but I hope this committee will do its

duty in helping to raise the dialogue above troop strength and into

the fundamental aims and purposes of U.S. engagement in the region.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of General Clark can be found in the

Appendix on page 61.]

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, General Clark.

Mr. Boot, I am not entirely sure the red light is going to come

on. We seem to be having little clock problems, but Max, try not

to be longer than that anyway.

STATEMENT OF MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, NATIONAL

SECURITY STUDIES, THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

Mr. BOOT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me

to testify. I am glad that you are holding this hearing to look seriously at third-way options and what we can do in the future in

Iraq.

I will talk about that in a minute, but first let me just caution

you against too precipitous a pullout or draw-down of U.S. troops

in the pursuit of a third way option. That runs a very real risk of

disaster. Let me quote to you one prediction of what will happen

from a rather surprising source.

Americans must be clear that Iraq and the region around it could

be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There

could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces,

further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing

refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could

be tempted to make power grabs. Perhaps most importantly, the

invasion has created a new stronghold from which terrorist activity

could proliferate.

7

Now, that quote is not from some supporter of the surge. It is

not from some Administration apologist. That quote was from last

Sunday’s editorial in the New York Times, called ‘‘The Road

Home,’’ which advocates withdrawal. But the Times was an honest

advocate of withdrawal, and I give them credit for that because its

editorial board admits the terrible consequences that would follow

if we were to pull U.S. troops out.

The Times favors withdrawal all the same, because it doesn’t

think our forces are doing any good at the moment. I can certainly

see how they reached that conclusion reading their own reporting.

But that is not my finding after spending a couple of weeks in Iraq

in April, and it is not the view of many of our servers on the

ground with whom I speak.

If I could just read briefly quotes from an e-mail that I got a couple of days ago from a field-grade officer, a friend of mine who is

currently serving in Baghdad. He wrote to me: ‘‘Max, I show some

positive results of the surge strategy to date. I am sure you have

the negatives down pat from all the media reports.

‘‘Deaths caused by sectarian violence here in Iraq are down 75

percent from January to June. V-bads, car bombs and suicide attacks have been cut in half from March to June. V-bads are at the

lowest level since August 2006. Casualties from V-bads are cut in

half from February to June.

‘‘Attacks on al Anbar are cut by 80 percent since February. The

Iraqi security forces killed in action are two to three times the level

of coalition KIA. The Iraqis are fighting and dying for their country. Tribes are rejecting al Qaeda in al Anbar, Salah ad-Din, and

Diyala provinces.

‘‘Al Qaeda in Iraq is on the defensive and slowly dying,’’ he

writes, ‘‘but we need time to finish the job.’’

He goes on to say, ‘‘The big negative, of course, is lack of political

reconciliation at the national level, but this is a lagging indicator.

Progress has been made at the local level, and I believe that national leaders will follow in due course once the trend is clear.’’

Now, I agree with my necessarily anonymous friend in Baghdad,

and I would urge Congress to stick with the surge as long as possible. On present trends, the surge can be maintained through at

least March of 2008. Then we can take out one brigade combat

team a month to get down to the pre-surge level of about 15 brigades, or about 140,000 troops by August of 2008.

That, in turn, could be sustained through 2009, assuming that

we maintain troops on their current 15-month tours, or we could

possibly do shorter tours if we are willing to call up more brigade

combat teams from the National Guard. Of course, we can

downsize further if General Petraeus so recommends.

Now, I think we all basically, all the serious participants in this

debate agree on what the eventual end-state should be—that we

should have a smaller American force focused on advising and special operations designed to standup the ISF and to disrupt al

Qaeda operations. That is the crux of the Iraq Study Group (ISG)

recommendations that are being championed by Congressman Skelton and Senators Levin and Reed. I think even the Administration

would generally agree that that is the long-term game plan.

8

But there is disagreement on how fast to draw-down troops and

how many we need to leave behind. The Center for New American

Security, a Democratic think-tank here in town, has outlined a

credible model for an advisor-centric approach along the lines of

the ISG recommendations, but I think it is low-balling troop estimates.

The Center for New American Security says its recommendations

will require 60,000 troops. Based on my conversations with military strategists, I think the troop figure might be more along the

lines of 80,000 to 100,000 troops or maybe even a little more once

you factor in the need for force protection, logistics and other demands to maintain our advisors and special forces in Iraq. That is

the long-term end state that I think we ought to try aiming for.

I think withdrawing all of our combat forces by April 2008 would

be a very big mistake and would have very grave consequences. A

lot of suggestions have been made to cushion the shock. For example, there are calls for diplomatic offenses, for diplomatic moves

that we can make, including some that General Clark just outlined.

Now, in theory I think these are all good ideas to pursue, but I

don’t think any of them have much chance of working in the short

term if we are losing the battle on the ground. I outlined the

plusses and minuses of a lot of those options in my written testimony at much greater length.

I also don’t think that concentrating solely on advisory and special forces missions right now, which would require a radically

stripped-down force presence, could work in today’s climate. That

would be essentially repeating the mistake of 2005 and 2006. As

the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. We know that didn’t work.

Just look at what happened in Baqubah where jihadists set up

their own Islamic state, while we were moving troops out. That

happened at the Joint Special Operations Command stationed only

a few miles away at Balad. Our special operators couldn’t prevent

the emergence of an Islamic state under their noses. What would

they have if they were stationed in the Kurdish region or in Kuwait many miles away?

Our conventional troops, however, have managed to clean out al

Qaeda strongholds in Baqubah, just as they have previously done

in Fallujah, Ramadi, Tall’afar and other cities. In the past, we

didn’t have enough troops to consolidate those gains. Now, we may

finally have enough troops to do all phases of a classic

counterinsurgency campaign. But that takes time.

There is no good alternative, unfortunately, unless we are willing

to accept the disastrous consequences described by the New York

Times editorial. The longer you allow the surge to run, the greater

the likelihood that the advisor-centric approach will work down the

road.

Now, I realize patience is running out here in Washington and

across the country. But keep in mind, we are not staying with the

same old failed strategy right now, a strategy that I strongly criticized last year. We are trying a new approach that has not been

tried before. The surge is plan B. The surge is the third way, and

it has just started.

General Petraeus deserves a chance to succeed or fail with his

carefully thought-out plans, without being second-guessed from

9

thousands of miles away. If he succeeds, that will make possible

the responsible draw-down of U.S. forces without risking the collapse of the government of Iraq and the Iraqi Security Forces. But

if we draw down right now, I think that the consequences would

be very negative, not only for Iraq and the region, but also for

America’s national security interests.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boot can be found in the Appendix on page 67.]

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Khan.

STATEMENT OF DR. MUQTEDAR KHAN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE, NON-RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

Dr. KHAN. Dr. Snyder, I am deeply honored to be addressing this

committee. I want to thank you and Representative Akin for not

only holding this important hearing, but also for the diversity of

opinion that you are soliciting.

I would like to open with two general observations, which I think

are necessary to provide a context. In the past four years, we have

been fighting three hot wars: one in Iraq, against the Taliban in

Afghanistan, and against al Qaeda globally. We have been fighting

one cold war against Iran, and two proxy wars against Hezbollah

and Hamas, and all of this only in the Muslim world.

The scorecard is not exactly comforting. We have enjoyed partial

success against the Taliban in five and a half years. We have failed

and are failing in Iraq. Al Qaeda is back to pre-9/11 strength. It

will be a long time before the U.S. will be back to pre-9/11

strength. Iran, on the other hand, is far from it. Iran has consistently out-maneuvered us in the cold war, and our proxies did not

exactly distinguish themselves against either Hezbollah or Hamas.

So the question that we ask as we seek alternative strategies is

how do we factor the monumental incompetence of the current Administration? Even if you have a good third alternative, will that

good third alternative be effectively and efficiently implemented?

This is another question I think the Congress should consider. It

is not enough to have a good idea. Can we trust the current Administration to execute that good idea effectively is another important

question.

I think that we all know why we need to withdraw from Iraq,

but I believe that if we were to withdraw immediately, it will not

only lead to a humanitarian crisis of genocidal proportions, but a

tiny or mini-al Qaeda state will emerge in the Anbar Province. Al

Qaeda is planning to use European citizens as their actors, and I

think that the war against the West that al Qaeda is waging will

be much, much tougher.

I think the conditions in Iraq would grow so bad that the very

public today that is demanding that the U.S. troops come back,

there will be pressure both at home and worldwide for the United

States to return to Iraq to fix the mess that it created. The world

will blame the United States for the mess in Iraq if we withdraw,

because before we went to Iraq, Iraq was a tyranny, but it was staVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:04 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038756 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-71\193160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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ble. The population of Iraq was growing. After we brought democracy to Iraq, Iraq’s population is diminishing. It is in chaos. Nothing works there.

So it is important for us to realize that we are in a predicament

where we cannot stay in Iraq and we cannot withdraw from Iraq.

We need to find a third way. That is, we need to find a way to have

troops in Iraq without having American troops there. We must remember that we have more than 250,000 troops there—150,000 to

160,000 U.S. troops and nearly 100,000 mercenaries, who are unable with nearly a quarter-million forces to stabilize Iraq.

How do we replace this? I think this is where we have to call in

the chips. In the Arab and Muslim world, we have so-called ‘‘allies’’—Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. We have been spending billions of dollars over the past few decades supporting these regimes.

This year alone, we are paying Egypt $1.8 billion in military and

economic aid; $468 million to Jordan in economic and security aid;

$370 million to Pakistan in military assistance; nearly $100 million

to Indonesia. We should demand that these allies of ours replace

the surgers that we will withdraw. They need to put troops on the

ground.

We need nearly 300,000 to 400,000 troops to patrol Iraq, to

squeeze the insurgency out. If we were to withdraw, not only will

the insurgency escalate into a civil war, but al Qaeda will become

a prominent player in that region. It is not in the interest of Iran

or Egypt or Saudi Arabia to have a destabilizing force in the heart

of the Middle East.

The countries in the Middle East are delighted that the U.S. is

failing, but are horrified at what is happening in Iraq. Their delight at U.S. failure trumps their horror at what is happening in

Iraq. They believe that if the U.S. is successful in Iraq, then the

U.S. would go after them. So it is essential for most countries in

the region that the U.S. fail.

And so what it really means is there has to be not just a tactical

change in Iraq, but a fundamental change in American security

and foreign policy in the region. We have to say that we are not

a global check to the Muslim world. We want to work with the

Muslim world to stabilize the Muslim world.

If the threat, or perception of threat that Saudi Arabia, that

Syria, that Iran, that Egypt perceive from this whole strategy of

democracy promotion in the Middle East diminishes, then they will

be more willing to address the horror in Iraq. If we provide logistics, if we provide financial support, then I think we could compel

these countries to put troops on the ground. They don’t have a

choice. Either they work with the U.S. now to stabilize Iraq, or get

involved in a regional conflict if the U.S. were to withdraw immediately.

On the issue, it is most important for us to re-think our strategies toward Iran and Syria. Iran is essential to the stability of Iraq

now and after our withdrawal from Iraq. If we need a strong Iran

to stabilize Iraq, bombing Iran or weakening Iran as we pull out

of Iraq will essentially lead to chaos in the region. We will be creating a power vacuum. We have to determine who is going to fill the

power vacuum.

11

I think it is important for the Muslim world to stop just criticizing the U.S. and step up to the plate and dealing with the mess

that exists in the Muslim world. I think it is important for us to

call upon our allies to help us. We have helped them for decades.

We are in need, and it is time for our friends to step up.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you all for your comments.

We will begin the round of questioning. We are having some

clock problems. The timer works, but the lights don’t work, so

when you hear a gavel come down, that will be about your five

minutes and it will give you a chance to wind up.

Mr. Akin and I are going to put ourselves on the five-minute

clock so that we won’t ramble on, I guess, is the bottom line. We

want to give everybody a chance.

So go ahead and start the clock there.

I have always enjoyed a good bar fight, and so my first question

is, I would like to give each of you an opportunity to comment on

anything that you heard from the other two.

General Clark.

General CLARK. You know, I am all in favor of great work by the

military. Most of these guys have worked with me or for me, and

we have all been to the same schools. I admire our leadership, our

military leadership. Both Petraeus and Odierno worked for me at

times.

I understand, I think, what their motivations are and where they

are headed. Of course, they want more time. Of course, other people in the chain of command below them see the progress. It is inevitable that when you put more troops in, you sit on an insurgency. It is harder for them to move; harder for them to resupply;

harder for them to organize; harder for them to intimidate.

There is no question that you gain when you put troops on the

ground. The question is, what is resolved? The plan behind the

surge was that the presence of the troops, the sitting on the insurgency, would lead to a political outcome that ended the conflict and

ended the motivation for the fighting. That is what hasn’t happened.

Now, is it a lagging indicator? My guess is it isn’t. The motivation behind the surge was that people are fighting because they are

afraid, and once you stop the killing, they won’t be afraid. I don’t

think that is the sum of the motivations inside Iraq. Instead, it is

a combination of an opportunity to grab power. It is personal ambition. It is regional incentivization with contacts with outside powers. Without a diplomatic strategy for the region, those motivations

will not be addressed.

So I don’t think it is adequate simply to say, let’s defer any strategic discussion, support the surge, and then we will see what happens. This Congress needs to be heard that this Administration

needs a regional, diplomatic strategy different than the current

diplomatic strategy.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Boot.

Mr. BOOT. Well, I certainly agree that we need a regional diplomatic strategy, and we can always use more effective diplomacy.

But I think it would be a mistake to oversell what diplomacy can

do when our troops are not seen as winning on the ground. In fact,

the perception is that they are being defeated and are on their way

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home. That does not create great incentives for those countries in

the region, those players in the region who don’t like us, to negotiate with us.

When you look at things from the standpoint of Iran and Syria,

why would they want to cut a deal with us right now? They have

us exactly where they want us. They are bleeding us slowly. Their

proxies are expanding their spheres of control within Iraq. They

have no reason to compromise.

The Iraq Study Group suggested they have a theoretical interest

in the stability of Iraq. That may be the case or that may not be

the case, but they have a greater interest in expanding their sphere

of influence, which they are doing at the expense of the stability

of Iraq, and they have an interest in keeping the United States tied

down and fighting us by proxy. That is what they are doing very

effectively.

Unless they see that their strategy is not going to work, I don’t

see any reason why they should become any more accommodating

with us. There are also major concessions that would be required

in order to win Syrian or Iranian cooperation that don’t generally

get mentioned by groups like the Iraq Study Group or others.

For example, what about the Iranian nuclear program? Are we

going to allow them to go nuclear? Is that going to be the price of

some help that they might give us in Iraq? What about Syria? Are

we going to allow them to dominate the democratic state of Lebanon? That is what they want. Are we going to allow that as the

price of some Syrian help in the case of Iraq?

Those are very, very hard compromises to make. In fact, the Iraq

Study Group shied away from making those very compromises because they know how unpalatable they would be to most Americans, when you think seriously about what is the price of cooperation.

Dr. Khan also raised the issue of getting cooperation from some

of our so-called moderate Muslim allies in the region. I am all in

favor of it. If we could convince the Egyptians, Saudis, Indonesians

and somebody else to send hundreds of thousands of troops into

Iraq to take up what our troops are currently doing, God bless

them. I am in favor of it. That would be a wonderful idea.

However, I think the odds of that actually happening are basically a snowball’s chance in hell. We tried to get those troops when

we initially invaded, which looked like a much easier proposition

than what we are asking them to undertake right now. There is

no chance that those countries are going to willingly send their

troops to face the kind of challenges that our troops would face.

Even if they did send them, you have to think about the political

repercussions of that. Would the majority Shiite population of Iraq

welcome primarily Sunni troops coming from countries that have

expressed their fear and abhorrence of Shiite control of Iraq—countries that basically want to help the Sunni minority? That is very

unlikely. Would the Sunni minority in Iraq favor troops coming in

from Shi’ite countries like Iran? That is very unlikely, too.

So I don’t think that there is an easy way out of this where we

can say some other troops will come in, or some kind of diplomatic

offensive. We have to face the harsh reality, which is that we have

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to win or lose this war on the ground, and no amount of diplomacy

can make up for that hard military reality.

Dr. SNYDER. Let’s give Dr. Khan time to make any comments he

wants to make, and then we will go to Mr. Akin.

Dr. KHAN. Thank you. Time to take the gloves off. [Laughter.]

Dr. SNYDER. We call these ‘‘vigorous discussions.’’

Dr. KHAN. Let me put it very bluntly as to what the U.S. presence in Iraq today is. What the jihadists and insurgents have accomplished in Iraq is amazing. They have contained the United

States in Baqubah and in Anbar province. These are a bunch of

fighters. They have held a superpower and completely contained

and boxed the United States in Iraq for four years.

They are providing a public good for all these rogue regimes and

all these regimes that we don’t like by creating conditions where

the U.S. is unable to do anything to any of these regimes—the

dreams of reforming Syria, the dreams of containing Iraq, the

dreams of transforming Saudi Arabia and Egypt—all of those are

now down the drain.

The only thing that the U.S. now wants is to get out of Iraq with

its pride and not lose people. This is what these people have accomplished, and this strategy of continuing with the surge, with the

United States unilaterally, with the rest of the world hating us,

and unwilling to cooperate with us, is, as I have said, a disaster

for the region as well as for the U.S.

So there has to be a fundamental change. Yes, we have to manage to keep stability in Iraq, but we have to recognize that our

strategies, our stated goals, have created more enemies in the region than allies. The reason why Egypt, the reason why all these

countries do not want to cooperate with us in 2003 was because we

were telling the rest of the world that you are next.

Look at the Pew study report. We created an environment of fear

in the rest of the Arab world that we were going to come after all

of them. That is why they didn’t cooperate in 2002 and 2003. Now,

they are laughing at us because we are not even able to go after

and democratize Anbar province.

So we need to be able to come out and say that these goals have

changed, and we are real. I would call for a new America with a

new strategy. And then people will work with us. Nobody wants a

nuclear Iran in that region. Nobody wants al Qaeda dominant in

the world.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Akin, for five minutes.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thought your

question was great.

I guess the thing we were hoping to do was to say, are there alternatives? It seemed like Dr. Khan, you got pretty close to it by

saying we are just doing to replace the troops with the troops in

these other countries.

I have to share with Mr. Boot, you probably have a lot more

knowledge of the area than I do, but I am a little skeptical whether

or not all these countries are going to send troops in to replace

ours, or whether they could be as effective as ours, but it is at least

an alternative. I think it is good.

We are here first of all to define some distinctly different things.

None of you talked about a three-nation Iraq. Is that even an alterVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:04 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038756 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-71\193160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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native? Or is that something that is not an alternative? I thought

of a completely wacky idea, but I think this is a place where we

throw out some ideas and talk about them and say, what I have

been encouraging this committee to do, if it were up to me, and I

am not in charge, but if it were up to me, I would have a list of

different possibilities and then I would test those in terms of what

is the proposed success; what is our goal; and what it is going to

cost us, and all of that.

So we basically weigh a series of alternatives. We don’t have to

pick on here. That is not the job of this committee, but it would

be helpful if we had some of them defined. Is a three-nation Iraq

even a possibility or not?

Here is the wacky idea: What happens if you change the capital

of Iraq? Baghdad is a big pain in the rear. Why don’t you move the

government to some other place, and then let Baghdad, if they

want to just fight among themselves, at least it is not the center

of government. You can at least let government functions go on

without terrorism of Baghdad falling into it. I don’t know, maybe

that doesn’t make sense, but we need some innovative kinds of solutions.

General Clark, your proposal in terms of standing back from the

forest to getting a little further back and defining what our overall

strategy is, that is fine. It still doesn’t really answer a whole lot.

You are saying we are still going to have to take on the chin that

we have to beat the insurgents on the ground, even if we have a

little different strategy, we still have to fight on the ground.

I think I am hearing Mr. Boot, you are saying the same thing,

that there is really no getting away from that. You just have to

beat these guys on the ground, and if you have enough troops and

given some time, we will succeed in that.

I think Dr. Khan, you are saying, I don’t think you are ever

going to do that; you have to get the other nations in the region

more involved so that they have some buy-in.

So I just wanted you to respond to that. Give me some alternatives and some differences.

General CLARK. First of all, let me respond in reverse order, if

I could. Yes, you must succeed in creating an impression of

progress on the ground. That is important for a whole host of reasons. But I disagree that you have to hold up on the dialogue and

diplomacy with Iran and Syria until you have completed the surge.

The truth is, we have the greatest leverage that we could possibly have. We are the United States of America. We are the most

powerful country in the world. We are the most legitimate country

in the world. We dominate every global institution. What Iran

wants, even more than a nuclear weapon, is the blessing of the

United States of America and the West and the world system, of

their civilization and their economic opportunities and political opportunities in the future.

I know the statements of Ahmadinejad, but Ahmadinejad is not

the only guy in Iran. We have plenty of negotiating leverage. What

I continue to hear from some people associated with the Administration is that there is not enough leverage, if they could just get

more leverage on Iran, they would be happy to talk to them. I

think it is the wrong approach.

15

I know I am taking up this time to explain this, but it is an odd

thing that you have a retired general who is an advocate of diplomacy, and I am sitting next to a representative from the Council

on Foreign Relations, which is a specialist in diplomacy, who is an

expert on combat.

What I am trying to suggest is that if you are going to use diplomacy, use it now, while there is some hope of progress on the

ground, while you can save a few more lives, and prevent a little

more heartbreak. But you cannot do it, as Dr. Khan says, unless

you sincerely change the U.S. strategy.

From Iran’s perspective, they think we are at war with them,

and determined to destroy their regime. They don’t think we can

do it. Ahmadinejad would like us to try, because we strengthen him

when we do that. What we need to do is undercut him the same

way we undercut these east European communists in the 1970’s

and 1980’s, through a host of other political measures. If you do

that, the strength of the resistance on the ground will slacken. The

diplomacy will enhance our ability to cope with the insurgency and

with al Qaeda. It is mutually reinforcing.

I think the idea of splitting Iraq in to three nations, it is a gimmick. I cannot support it in good conscience. I have seen what partition does in the Balkans. Yes, we divided Bosnia, but it was already divided. The pain of that ethnic cleansing was enormous, and

for us to propose it in Iraq, I know it is happening, but for us to

be the sponsor of it and the author of it, and to own the consequences, and to have Iraqis 30 years and 60 years from now saying, Mr. Bush gave away my home in Baghdad. Why take that on

ourselves? It is not going to bring a solution to the violence. It is

just a recipe for another blame-America thing.

As far as the moving of the capital is concerned, it is another effort. I don’t think there are any short-cut answers on this. We have

a mistaken strategy in the region. It has caused us the problem in

Iraq. Until we go to the heart of that strategy, all the political gimmicks we try and all the military tactics we enhance are only marginal to a solution.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Akin, do you want to hear from Mr. Boot and

Dr. Khan?

Mr. BOOT. I would be happy to weigh in and support with complete agreement with General Clark that I don’t think that partition offers the way out of Iraq. It is impractical for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the population is so intermixed, especially in major metropolises like Baghdad and Mosul and others.

Baghdad is the capital. The population would still be there, and

you have to figure out what to do with that. If you tried to separate

it, as General Clark said, the result would be mass suffering on a

terrible scale.

The only way it would really work I think is if it were implemented the way it was in Bosnia, where you had an accord among

all the different sides, which was then enforced by a heavy outside

troop presence, which in the case of Iraq would probably mean

400,000 to 500,000 troops. But that is a recipe for keeping more

American and foreign troops in Iraq, and not getting them out.

So I don’t think that would really accomplish the objective that

we are trying to achieve with partition in any case. It is not a realVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:04 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038756 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-71\193160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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istic solution right now because most Iraqis themselves oppose partition. You don’t have a situation as you had in Bosnia where all

the parties were exhausted by the conflict and therefore were willing to come to the table and agree on partition. That is not the case

in Iraq today, so I don’t think that offers a very workable solution.

Let me, since you do want a full and frank exchange of views

here, while I am agreeing with General Clark in one area, let me

disagree with him on another, which is that while I completely

agree on the general importance of diplomacy, I don’t know that it

really offers a way out of this.

What General Clark is basically suggesting is that—and what

Dr. Khan is also suggesting—is that we renounce goals of regime

change, and we basically say that we are happy with the status

quo in the Middle East; that we will work with the existing regimes, and therefore this, in turn, will lead them to work with us.

I am not sure it would be that easy. Keep in mind that this is

the strategy we were more or less pursuing prior to 9/11. There is

a reason why we changed strategy after 9/11 because what we had

seen prior to 9/11 was that we were in bed with the dysfunctional

status quo in the Middle East; that we were backing these despotic

regimes that were hated by their own people. As a result of that,

many of their own people hated the United States.

Now, today it is true that we are at odds with the regime in

Tehran, but keep in mind that by all evidence, the United States

is very popular with the people of Iran, precisely because we are

at odds with the regime in Tehran, because they know that we

stand for liberty and against the oppression, which they hate,

which emanates from their own regime.

Even if we wanted to, I am not even sure we could cut a deal

on any acceptable terms with the regime in Tehran. Those who say

that we ought to reach out to them think that they want to reach

out to us. That is not the evidence that we see. When our ambassador and the Iranian ambassador held talks in Baghdad on May

28, what did the Iranian regime do at that very same time? It was

grabbing four Iranian-Americans and jailing them on trumped-up

charges of espionage, which was basically a giant ‘‘up yours’’ to the

United States. And that is what they think of diplomacy. That is

what they think of political negotiations. They are going to take

these hostages.

And certainly the statements that you hear from President

Ahmadinejad are not those that would be conducive to a real dialogue. In fact, I am not an expert on Iran, but a lot of Iranian experts will tell you that the Iranian regime basically depends upon

keeping the great Satan as this bogeyman. They don’t want to establish relations because that would undermine the rationale for

their dictatorship.

So I don’t think that the short-term prospects of reaching a deal

with Iran are very good. In any case, I go back to a point where

I think General Clark and I agree, that if you are to have any

chance whatsoever of reaching any kind of deal, you have to improve the status on the ground in Iraq. You have to stabilize the

situation and negotiate from a position of strength, not of weakness.

17

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Khan, I will give you a chance to respond. I

think we are going to need to pay a little more attention to our

time. We have seven more members that all will have questions.

Dr. Khan.

Dr. KHAN. I don’t disagree with anything that General Clark had

to say. On the three-nation Iraq idea, I want to just point out that

the struggle in Iraq is not about territory, so a territorial separation will not solve the problem. The struggle is for power and resources.

So for the first time in 500 years, the Shiites have an opportunity to dominate Baghdad. The Ottomans kept them away for

500 years. For the Muslim world, this is not a small thing. This

is a major shift in power, with psychological implications for the

Arabs, as well as for Muslims in general. So it is not a territorial

issue that can be resolved through territorial separation. That is

the first thing to keep in mind.

Second, we do not want to become the new Great Britain, the inheritor of the colonial and imperial legacy of Britain. That is important for us to keep in mind. Even though I am from Senator

Biden’s state, I disagree on this issue very strongly.

And finally, on the relocating of the capital, where would you relocate it to? Basra? It will further underscore the idea that we are

trying to hand the whole of Iraq to the Shiites. So to think of alternative capitals, quickly you realize that that it is not a very good

idea.

As far as the insurgency is concerned, we must realize that we

do not think very clearly about insurgency. There are three or four

kinds of things that are going on there: one, those who oppose U.S.

occupation; two, those who oppose Shiite domination; and then

those who are against the West in general, that is al Qaeda. We

have to separate all the three dimensions of that insurgency and

how we do it.

If we withdraw, then the insurgents who oppose U.S. occupation

will diminish, but there will be an escalation in those who oppose

Shiite domination. So we need a political solution so that the

Sunnis realize that they not going to live in a Shiite-dominated

Iraq after we withdraw, and that will eliminate all forms of insurgency, and that will only leave al Qaeda, and that we have to deal

with, and we would have a major ally in Iraq.

One, I just want to make this point, that Iran is out to get us.

Iran wants to bait us. So it is really very important for us to remember Iran wants us as a friend, as an ally. They want to go out

with us. They want to be seen with us in the U.N., et cetera, et

cetera. The reason why Ahmadinejad says all those things is very

simple. We have made more concessions to Ahmadinejad than we

ever made to the moderate Khatemi, who did great things which

are pro-democracy.

So apparently, playing the bad boy seems to be getting more rewards for Iran than playing the good guy, and of course, but also

partly moderated by our diminished position as a result of what is

happening in Iraq.

Dr. SNYDER. We will now go to Ms. Sanchez for five minutes, and

hopefully we will be rededicating ourselves to the five-minute rule.

Ms. Sanchez.

18

Ms. SANCHEZ. I love how you call up the five-minute rule after

you are done.

Dr. SNYDER. I know it. [Laughter.]

Mr. Akin and I, we are done, so go ahead. [Laughter.]

Ms. SANCHEZ. Anyway, gentlemen, thank you for being before us.

I want to thank the new chairman of this committee. I have had

the pleasure of serving with you on personnel as my chairman of

the Armed Services Committee. I think you do a great job, so I am

real excited to have you head this.

And welcome to all of you, especially General Clark. Good to see

you before us again today.

Oh, gosh. You know, I think our troops are doing what they have

been asked to do. I think they are doing a great job for what they

have to do. I think from a military standpoint, this really isn’t

about the military anymore. Unfortunately, Mr. Boot, when you

said they are bleeding us slowly, that is what they are doing to us

militarily out there.

So I really come back to what do we do about the economy out

there, and what do we do with this government, and what kind of

government do we have there. What do we need to see from these

people? I go back to in March, I led a delegation over to Iraq, and

Ms. Shea-Porter was with me.

Because we were all women, we sat down with some of the parliamentarians of Iraq who were women. It was really interesting to

be in that room, because these three women—one a Christian, one

a Shiite, one a Sunni—was like they had stolen each other’s boyfriends. They weren’t looking at each other. They weren’t talking

to each other. We certainly couldn’t get anything done in a 435-

member body if we couldn’t stand each other in the same room. I

mean, we still have to move forward.

It was very interesting, because if you listened to each of them,

each had a different interpretation of what was going on in their

country. The Shia woman thought everything was wonderful. Of

course, because that is really who is controlling that government.

And before, when we were under Saddam, you know, her people

were at the receiving end of something not very nice. So for her the

world was wonderful, and wasn’t it wonderful? And we were all

women and it is all wonderful, and Ms. Pelosi got elected. The list

went on.

And then we talked to the Sunni woman from Anbar province.

She said, ‘‘My people are starving. You want to do something for

us? Feed us. You took the troops out. We can’t get convoys through.

My children are starving out there. Everybody is starving. Do

something. You want to help us? Get food to us.’’

And then the Christian was like, ‘‘Well, I think we can all get

along. We are going to work this out.’’ They are not going to work

this out.

So my question to you, each of you, whoever, maybe starting with

the general and going down the list: What do we do about a government that doesn’t want to talk about dividing the oil up, which

is their main asset? What do we do about a government that

doesn’t to each other? What do we do about a government that

doesn’t want to redo the constitution?

19

We talked to NGO women who said, ‘‘You gave us a worse constitution than we had under Saddam. We have no rights. I have

the same rights as a child or a mentally disabled person now.

Thank you very much.’’

So I want to ask you, what do we do? What do we do about the

political situation, because that really is for me what the third way

needs to be if we are going to stay out there.

General.

General CLARK. Let me begin by saying first, it is not our country. We don’t own it. We cannot rewrite the constitution. We cannot

tell them what they should and should not believe, and how they

should behave toward each other. What we can do is try to muster

together all of the different ways of reaching the political leaders

and the factions they represent. We can do this to try to change

the outcome. That is why we must combine the military, the diplomatic and more intensive political work in the provinces in Iraq.

I cannot understand why this Administration and the people who

seem to support it refuse to engage in diplomacy in the region. I

don’t understand it. They would rather see people die than initiate

a dialogue. I don’t understand that. If we would do that, I think

there is a chance we could reduce the levels of tension and then

maybe some of these other changes could work their way out. But

our political options are limited because we designed it in such a

way that we gave the country back to its occupants.

Mr. BOOT. I don’t think that the political solution to Iraq lies outside of Iraq. The key is, how do you get the different factions to

come to some kind of agreement?

We have been trying very hard to do that over the course of the

last four years. Our ambassadors, Khalilzad, John Negroponte, and

now Ryan Crocker, they have all had these meetings in Baghdad

of representatives of the various factions trying to work out an

agreement, and they have not had a lot of luck because even when

they have worked out agreements, they haven’t meant very much

on the ground because there has been pervasive climate of insecurity and fear in which no faction feels able to make compromises

or concessions to the other one because they are afraid they are

going to get killed if they do that, and their people are being killed

in the streets.

Now, the theory behind the surge, the theory behind the current

plan is if we can create some stability, if we can decrease the climate of fear, this will allow those Iraqis who are more moderate,

and they do exist—people like Ayatollah Sistani, the former Shiite

cleric in Iraq has been——

Ms. SANCHEZ. I understand the surge prospect. I don’t need to be

schooled on that. Maybe I can hear from Dr. Khan, unless you have

something new to add.

Mr. BOOT. Well, the only thing I would add is, I——

Ms. SANCHEZ. I don’t think the surge is working.

Mr. BOOT. Well, I think there are indicators that it is; there are

some indicators that are negative. It goes both ways. But let me

just, one point I will make in conclusion is, I don’t think the political problems are insoluble. That is the same thing that people said

about Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s.

20

These people just hate each other; they want to kill each other.

Well, we saw that with farsighted American policy, implemented by

General Clark, with troops on the ground providing security, we

were able to solve those problems, and I think we are able to do

the same thing in Iraq if we just focus on security first.

Ms. SANCHEZ. Dr. Khan.

Dr. KHAN. I have a question for you. After that woman told you

that her people were starving, what did you do? Did you step out

of the room and immediately call for an aid truck or food to her

constituency?

Ms. SANCHEZ. No, certainly not.

Dr. KHAN. Why not?

Ms. SANCHEZ. Because I am not in the executive branch. I don’t

control the troops. That is what the President controls.

Dr. KHAN. Well, this is exactly the thing. If we are doing things

like that, then the message would go that we really care about the

people to whom we have decided to bring democracy and stability.

If we really cared about the suffering under Saddam Hussein, we

will surely care about the suffering when they are starving. An initiative such as that would have done a lot more for winning hearts

and minds. And believe you me, it will have cost us far less than

a single cruise missile.

This is really an important issue. The President promised three

steps when he talked about the surge. He talked about fighting insurgency, moving development and a political solution. And on the

other two things, we have hardly achieved anything. It is like this,

we spent $600 billion on defense, and we spent $100 million on

public diplomacy in his budget, and all of it was redirected toward

Katrina—no money to do nothing.

The rest of the world knows this. It also tells us very clearly that

we actually do not have any intentions to have a sincere dialogue

with these people. You know what the best argument about not attacking Iran is? The best argument for not attacking Iran is the

bombing will not work. The message that it sends is that our first

choice is bombing. If bombing works, why do we talk? But if bombing cannot work, let’s try diplomacy.

This is the message which really resonates very strongly in the

Middle East, and it is important for us to sort of get behind that.

We have to convey the message that America is America. It is the

city on the hill. We care about people regardless of who they are.

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Khan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. SNYDER. I want to recognize Mr. Johnson for five minutes,

but first acknowledge that he is Mr. Skelton’s appointee to this

committee, following the resignation of Marty Meehan.

We welcome you, and you are recognized for five minutes.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to serve

on this committee and under your leadership, sir.

I would say that I think it is important for us to understand how

we got to this point. It was indeed a lack of diplomacy that got us

in this hot water that we are in. On the flip side of it, it was actually aggressive behavior by our executive branch, and the motivation of that aggression, what was it?

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Some believe it was to capture and control the significant untapped oil resources that exist in the reserves in al Anbar province,

about 35 billion barrels of oil awaiting exploitation. Some believe

that was the real reason that we went into Iraq and invaded that

sovereign nation, against the advice of many of our military leaders

who told us that if we were to do it, we would have to have much

more boots on the ground, many more boots on the ground, than

we had the resources to supply over there, but we went in anyway.

And so the result was predictable, and it has been a colossal

boondoggle. It is a tragedy that has resulted in close to 3,600

deaths, $500 billion in resources. We are on the hook for $2 trillion

to recover from this. Our military assets have been so degraded

that we now don’t have the ability to face any other acts of aggression that may require our ground forces.

And so what do we do from here? Recognizing what got us here

was the lack of diplomacy and aggressive behavior. Now, we need

to engage in diplomacy to help us get out of this. I don’t see where

if we continue this so-called military surge that it is going to result

in a better outcome than what has occurred up to this point. In

fact, it will just get worse.

So I like the idea of diplomacy, gathering the stakeholders in

that region together to talk about the challenges that exist. I also

like the idea of encouraging with this new philosophy, the lack of

aggressive pursuit of oil or whatever the case might have been. I

like the idea of us having a new attitude when we approach our

partners in the area, to encourage them to get involved.

Certainly, there is going to be a need for a force in Iraq to maintain the peace. The Iraqis are not able to do it themselves, and so

therefore some kind of contingent that is made up of forces from

other nations seems to be a great idea. I would rather us help to

fund that kind of operation than to just simply step away from Iraq

and let it fall into just a cesspool of terrorist development.

So I like the ideas that I have heard from both Dr. Khan and

also General Clark. I think those can be melded together, and I

would like to see us have an executive branch that will work with

Congress to help fashion a new strategy for dealing with Iraq. It

also plays into the way that we deal with Iran and other nations

in that area. Do we send a message to them that we are coming

after you next? We are certainly not in a position to do so militarily, General Clark.

So I would like to ask Mr. Boot to step out now from your defense of the surge and just ask you to think just theoretically now.

How could diplomacy bring about a different set of conditions in

Iraq? Do you think it is possible that diplomacy could make a difference there if would draw down some of our forces, send a diplomatic message that we have changed our outlook on things, and we

now want to bring partners in to help us solve this situation? Is

that something that can work?

Mr. BOOT. Congressman, I would love it if diplomacy would work.

I would love it if we didn’t have any more fine young men and

women risking their lives in Iraq. Believe me, nothing would make

me happier. I just don’t see any way we can get out troops out of

the line of fire and still achieve our basic national objectives such

as keeping al Qaeda on the run and preventing them from taking

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over provinces of Iraq, and preventing a civil war that will spill

over into the neighboring region and destabilize friendly states.

I think all three of us basically agree that if we just pull out now,

the results would be catastrophic. What I disagree with is I don’t

think that diplomacy offers some kind of magic way that we can

somehow draw down our forces and still achieve our objectives. I

just don’t think that there is that magical solution. I wish there

were.

Dr. SNYDER. We will now go to those members who arrived after

the gavel. We will go in the following order in which people arrived: Susan Davis, Geoff Davis, Mr. Gingrey, Mr. Cooper, Mr.

Bartlett, Mr. Miller and Mr. Jones.

Ms. Davis, for five minutes, and then to Ms. Shea-Porter, without

objection from the committee members.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I welcome you as chairman of this committee as well.

Thank you all for being here. Actually, we don’t always get a

chance to mix things up a lot, so we appreciate the fact that you

are disagreeing; that we can hear really the nuances of that as

well. It is important.

I just came back from Iraq as well, a very quick snapshot, but

there are a few things that certainly were clear to me. One was

that, yes, I agree, we need more time, but the reality is that nobody

could really put a finger on what that is, and certainly short of five

to ten years in terms of the development of leadership, that probably wouldn’t get the job done.

The other thing that I think was apparent to me is the threat

is real. I don’t think we can sugarcoat that in any way. But then

the reality is, what greater threat are we not addressing because

we are so focused on Iraq. If you could also talk about that, that

would be helpful.

But my question really is around the reality that no matter what

we do, I think, short of quashing our adversaries in every way possible, that it would be seen as a victory by them. So the question

is, if that is the case—if you agree with that, and perhaps you

don’t—how do we then manage that, without accelerating or further creating even greater problems down the line? I am not talking about just a good PR campaign. In reality, how do we manage

that message?

My guess is that no matter what happens, it is going to be a little like Russia in Afghanistan. I mean, that is going to be a message. If you agree or disagree, and how do you manage it?

Whoever wants to go first—Dr. Khan?

Dr. KHAN. I find your question very intriguing. You are basically

asking what are the larger implications of Iraq. I think it is not

just about Iraq or U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It is about

the status of the U.S. as a dominant moral leader in the world, as

well as a major player economically. What has clearly been happening in the last five or six years is that we are bleeding economically. We are also bleeding militarily.

What Iraq has succeeded in doing is exposing the limits of U.S.

power. The single most important lesson that we can draw from

Iraq is that the United States is no longer capable of achieving political goals through military means. Look at what has happened?

23

Israel’s failure in Lebanon is another lesson, that Israel cannot

achieve political goals through military means. Our proxy fight

with Hamas in Gaza is another lesson that we are not achieving

political goals through military means.

So in spite of the fact that when the U.S. is unquestionably the

most dominant military power, our ability to achieve political goals

through military means has completely diminished. This is the

most important lesson for us to draw.

And while we are bleeding in Iraq, China and India are growing

and growing and growing. The challenges to U.S. domination is not

coming from the Middle East. It is coming from Asia. Europe is becoming economically very strong. The pound today is $2.25 or

$2.23.

So we have to recognize that are we going to lose the larger picture by pursuing these goals of regime change and transformation

in Iraq, partly motivated by a vendetta post–9/11. These are some

very serious questions about which we need to have debate.

And on diplomacy, we must understand—the diplomacy is something that the State Department does. No. Diplomacy is a way of

doing business. So we can go to Egypt and say one thing, and then

Rumsfeld or somebody else says something completely

undiplomatic simultaneously, and let’s hope that diplomacy has to

work.

We have to understand that diplomacy is the way of doing business. The President is not just the commander-in-chief, but also the

diplomat-in-chief. It is time he recognized that.

Mr. BOOT. Well, unfortunately I don’t think that pulling out of

Iraq too soon will in any way help us to achieve other vital objectives around the world. In fact, I think it would imperil——

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Can you just define for me ‘‘too soon’’?

Mr. BOOT. I will come to that in a second.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Okay.

Mr. BOOT. Because I think if we pull out of the situation, given

what it is today, that would be seen as a victory for al Qaeda and

Iran. I think that would be a blow to American interests around

the world and it would cause our enemies to redouble their efforts

to hurt us elsewhere. For example, in Afghanistan, where a lot of

people say if we get out of Iraq, we could focus on Afghanistan.

Well, I think if we get out of Iraq right now, the situation in Afghanistan will deteriorate even further because al Qaeda will pour

more resources into there and they will feel more empowered to

come after us the way they felt empowered after the defeat of the

Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980’s.

Now, how do we avert that? I think we have to realize that at

this point, there is no responsible alternative to a long-term American presence in Iraq—five, ten years, something like that—the

way we have had a long-term presence in places like Bosnia,

Kosovo, South Korea and elsewhere.

Now, obviously it is untenable to have American troops fighting

at this level of intensity and suffering these losses for five to ten

years, but the hope is, and the plan is that if the surge can try to

stabilize the situation somewhat over the next year or so, and as

Iraqi security forces increase in effectiveness, they can take on

more of the burden and our forces can downsize.

24

I think we all agree that eventually we want to have a smaller

force. I think something along the lines of the report issued by the

Center for New American Security, we would have a force basically

focusing on advisory, on special forces missions and so forth. I

think it would take more troops than they think it would take. As

I said before, I think it would probably take around 80,000, but I

think that we are probably going to need to have 80,000 troops

there for 5 to 10 years to safeguard our interests.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

General Clark.

Dr. SNYDER. Go ahead, General Clark.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. My time is up, but I am trying to get

in a quick response.

Dr. SNYDER. Go ahead, General Clark.

General CLARK. I do think that when we pull out, we do have

to manage the perception of that draw down of force. I think there

is a risk, as your question implies. That is why I believe that you

have to change the strategy before you work the draw down. That

change in strategy has to involve the principles of renouncing forcible regime change.

I agree with what Dr. Khan is saying about the movement to

take advantage of our engagement in Iraq by China and India and

other powers. We are inflaming the Islamic world. We are feeding

the al Qaeda recruiting machine. Change the strategy first before

we worry about changing the troop strength on the ground.

We are debating the wrong issue in the American press. The reason we have been debating that issue is because this way, if you

disagree, you can be said not to be supporting the troops. It is convenient shorthand. Everybody understands troops. Strategy is too

complicated. Diplomacy is too abstract, and so forth.

There is no magic bullet in diplomacy, but if we don’t change the

strategy and start talking to the nations in the region and change

our aims in the region, then I don’t think there is much chance of

the surge—whatever its military success where the troops are at

the moment—translating that into political success is unlikely.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Davis for five minutes.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate Dr. Khan’s comments very much and his perspective. Frankly, I would like to meet separate with you where we can

have a more free-ranging discussion on this. From my own experiences in the Middle East in the military and otherwise, the one

thing that I think has been interesting in the dialogue both on the

panel and also with some of the members is I think we are falling

into a false dilemma here very quickly, and that is that it is diplomacy or military force.

Particularly with General Clark’s perspective, Bosnia’s diplomacy

was effective because we had overwhelming military force on the

ground and the ability to enforce our will, albeit somewhat ineffectively and ham-handedly in areas. Human beings make mistakes,

but it was necessary to preserve continuity and peace in that part

of the world. It was at a critical time that much of the world wasn’t

aware of.

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One of the reasons that the inefficiency, the ineffectiveness of the

interagency community, the non-uniform functions, was I am convinced because there were no casualties. As we see on the evening

news and the General is agreeing with me, these casualties are

provoking negative public opinion on a variety of factors.

I think one comment I have heard that has been disappointing

in is this Administration. I think I have heard about eight or nine

times. But there is more to it than that. This is really where I

would like to go with this discussion.

In Haiti, where many of our mutual friends served, we encountered the same problems as in Iraq. The military could do its function, but the non-uniform piece didn’t. That was under a Democratic Administration with a Democratic Congress, I might add—

a very liberal Democratic Congress. We had the same problem. But

again, the process is critical here for us to understand.

In Iraq, what we are seeing exacerbated in a huge way, is separating out the diplomatic piece. It is a broken national security

process desperately in need of reform. The term ‘‘strategy’’ has been

thrown out, but I haven’t heard anybody say what that end-state

strategy should be.

I think that in my mind, we need serious reforms of the interagency process around a national strategy to integrate our instruments of power, rather than deal with the silo of diplomacy or the

silo of military force, to work with the spectrum that will advance

our cause and ultimately—to your point, as you rightly pointed

out—solving that meal problem would have built a relationship

that would have transcended politics. Frankly, we need more of

that.

With that, I would like to open it up to the group to make some

comments about the need for governmental reforms that aren’t pejorative statements about one political party or another. This is an

American problem now. Much of what has happened now has been

demonstrated in Mogadishu, in Bosnia, in Panama. In Operation

Provide Comfort, we saw all out of proportion to its size—this in

Grenada.

What do we need to do to reform the national security process

to avoid the problems that we have today in the future? I will start

with the General.

General CLARK. When we looked at Haiti in 1994, and I was the

J–5 then, we recognized that we needed to be able to write an op

plan for the U.S. Government. There was no capacity to do so.

So we convened a group and we wrote the op plan, and it said

things like in the conventional operations plan, you give your task

to your subordinate units—this was written to come from the President of the United States saying Department of Justice provide

civil police training and provide the rebuilding of the legal system;

Department of Commerce encourage job creation in Haiti; Department of Health and Human Services, look at public health, improve

public health in Haiti.

The problem is, of course, there is no mechanism to do that.

There is no appropriations for it. There is no authorization for it.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. For the record, to reclaim the time for

a moment, which is my point. I keep a PowerPoint presentation—

actually it was Harvard Graphics back in those days that one of

26

your officers put together—that actually got it only 50 yards down

the field—the football field analogy—and there was no other agency support to do this, even though the military force was there. I

think that is one of the missing pieces.

If you could continue?

General CLARK. Having said that, once you develop these tools,

you have to use them wisely. The problem we have in the United

States if we have been leading with our military. The military

should be the last instrument used. It became the go-to instrument

in the 1990’s because it had communications and logistics, and because it could provide for its own security.

It is far better to have the civilian intervention capacity, to be

able to do real strategic planning on preventive diplomacy.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly with

what you are saying. But would you admit, though—and I think it

is very important for the record to depoliticize what I think is going

to define our policy as a nation for the next 25 years—would you

admit for the record that in the 1990’s, the problems that you faced

as a commander-in-chief are very similar to the ones that Admiral

Fallon and Dave Petraeus are facing right now, where our let’s say

the more expeditionary or deployable aspects of what I think are

our greatest strengths as a country—our values, our outreach, our

ability to provide continuity to people’s lives.

So your troops had to improvise and do things that frankly were

outside the operational purview, in a way more fitting with the

small wars doctrine that we experienced at other times in our history.

General CLARK. Well, I am not sure why you are asking me to

make this comparison and make this admission——

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. The reason that I have is because you

have been very, very prominent nationally in using your prior military experience in our common ground and common heritage, to excoriate, and I think in many cases rightly so. I have been a critic

of Administration policies myself that have led us to where we are.

However, I think it is important that we transcend that as Americans versus Democrats or Republicans, and ask the bigger question. If the same problem was there in the 1990’s that is there now,

it is simply much bigger because we see it in the state of this environment.

What we need to do is offer a solution, rather than generalities,

and say what are some of the reforms practically that we could do

and personnel policy. What are the things that we could do that

would allow us to go to the doctor’s point, the soft spectrum coming

across that military force is the absolute last, but we have a strong

military deterrent were that needed.

General CLARK. I agree with where you are driving, but I want

to explain something. I didn’t come to this dialogue as a member

of the Democratic Party. I became a Democrat because of this Administration and its preference for using military force. The difference is that in the Clinton Administration, military force was a

last resort.

In this Administration—and my friend Max Boot illustrates some

of the attitudes that I have heard from others in the Administration—there is a reluctance to talk to people that we disagreed with.

27

Look, before we went into Haiti, we actually sent Sam Nunn and

Colin Powell down there to negotiate, and we didn’t have to do the

airborne drop in Haiti. We were able to talk it out, rather than invading. We did not do the bombing at the outset, and we tried everything to stop the bombing——

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Let’s stop right there. I am reclaiming

my time, General.

General CLARK. I just want to make sure there is a clear distinction. I am agreeing with you on the need for the tools, but I am

explaining the difference, and I think the difference is fundamental, because it is too late, even if you reform the United States government, to use those same tools to get us out of where we are in

Iraq. It is too late.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. What we are talking about, again, the

political posturing aside, I think that one of the points that I would

come back to is you had the same fundamental national security

process and system, and you can’t say, well, we were diplomats

then versus now, because all I want to do if you have agreed that

in fact the process was broken. The same issues were in fact in

place at that time.

It doesn’t hide leadership errors, but I think it is important that

the American people understand that this is not simply a personality-driven crisis that we are in. We have a deeper crisis and the

process of how we proceed with national security needs to be addressed that transcends all of this.

With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

General CLARK. Mr. Chairman, I just can’t let the point go because I want to make it clear, there is a difference between the Administrations. In the Democratic Administration, there was every

effort made to learn from Haiti. PDD 56 was created and we intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo in a much different fashion and a

much greater awareness of our limitations than we did in Haiti.

Now, when I went to the joint staff in 2002 and talked to the J–

5 before the operation in Iraq, I said, what about PDD 56? And

what about the planning process, and what we learned from the

Balkans, because he had been there? And he pointed to the third

floor of the Pentagon and he said to me, ‘‘Can’t do it. It is them.

They don’t want it.’’

We know now from all the work that has been done how this

Pentagon under Secretary Rumsfeld reporting to President Bush,

refused to do the post-war strategy planning that was doctrinally

required and that we did prior to the Kosovo campaign.

So I agree with you on the need for governmental reform and the

tools, but I want to make clear there was a distinction in the Administrations.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Mr. Chairman, could I indulge you for

30 seconds?

Dr. SNYDER. You certainly can, Mr. Davis. I like a good bar fight.

I have already expressed that, actually. Go ahead. [Laughter.]

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. The only thing I am asking you to

make clear, because it is obvious I think the record is fraught with

ineptitude in various areas, but the one thing that I would come

back to is the process allowed that. It wasn’t a matter of personalVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:04 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038756 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-71\193160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
28

ities. I would tend to disagree from the operational perspective that

the Administration is gentle-handed in its use of the military.

The bigger issue, and I think really for the record where we need

to leave this with, is we have a much bigger issue that transcends

personality, it transcends political party, that can somewhat minimize mistakes in this process—to your point earlier—that will

allow us to use the full spectrum of our instruments of power to

get to a proper end for a true national strategy, which I personally

don’t believe we have had as a country since the end of the Cold

War.

I yield back, and thank you.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Davis, to make a very mundane minor point

that agrees with part of what you are saying, is you may have seen

on page three of the interim report that came out yesterday, this

one sentence: Expansion of the PRT program is not yet complete,

with only about half of the approximately 300 additional PRT personnel deployed to date. A full complement of civilian surge personnel will be completed by December 2007.

This is something Geoff and I have talked a lot about, the frustration. This is not a Rumsfeld problem. This is not a Gates problem. It is a problem that somehow in our system that the State Department, USAID, or whoever it is, can’t get civilians on the

ground, and here we are at the interim report time, and they don’t

even have half the personnel yet.

We are giving Iraqis a bad time because they are hitting less

than 50 percent on their satisfactory/unsatisfactory, and we only

have half of the civilian personnel in the PRT, which is an issue

not talked about.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I think it points to the issue we have

discussed, the State Department authorizations for manning, the

lack of appropriations for costs, and the same officer that did the

Harvard Graphics presentation also made the point quite clearly

the night before the President’s speech that the State Department

would not comply with those personnel capabilities because they

didn’t have them, and that it would be ultimately the military.

Thank you for your indulgence.

Dr. SNYDER. It was really Dr. Gingrey’s indulgence.

Dr. Gingrey for five minutes.

Dr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. That was

very interesting.

First of all, let me thank our witnesses, Dr. Khan, Mr. Boot,

General Clark. I am sorry I missed a lot of this. We had a little

activity going on on the floor, which is very important.

General Clark, you said you didn’t want to let that last point go.

I need to also say that I want to not let a point go. You said under

President Clinton, maybe the reason you became a Democrat was

that he used the military as a last resort and not a first resort. I

would say that that probably was the appropriate posture, being

that he had weakened the military to such a drastic extent, as well

as our national intelligence capability.

But that being said, let me start by saying that I appreciate that

you have put forth specific details in your redeployment plan. It is

not a vague troop reduction amounting to a limited presence within

29

120 days, with no plans or details for how to make this occur, like

something else going on on the floor today.

You actually discuss specific troop numbers and areas in which

to focus. I do commend you for that. I largely agree with your comments that our approach must be linked to a deeper, more effective

political effort, and that political progress on the part of the Iraqi

government certainly has been disappointing.

I want to take issue, though, with some of your comments. You

say the issue isn’t troop strength in Iraq, but rather United States

national security in the region. I don’t know how these two can be

divorced. I want you to talk about that. If we have this precipitous

draw-down in Iraq, won’t it affect our national security in the region?

Dr. Khan said, and I heard his testimony just before I left, that

we have 100-something thousand mercenaries fighting on behalf of

the Iraqi government. I don’t know who they are. I didn’t know

that. I haven’t heard a lot of intelligence, but I certainly didn’t

know about that.

He says they have to be replaced. Are the Iranians and the Syrians realistically going to come in there and do that on behalf of

this Iraqi government that we have paid such a tremendous price

and sacrifice and blood, sweat, toil and dollars to stand up?

This is what I want you to talk to us about. Wouldn’t our national strategy be significantly hampered if the Iranians and the

Syrians fill the void left by our departure and dictate the future

course of Iraq?

General CLARK. I think that we have to have a strategy in the

region that maintains an effective U.S. role, even as we are pulling

troops back from Iraq. I think the way to do it is to change the

strategy before you change the force structure and force deployments and activities on the ground.

What I would like to see is a full-court diplomatic press, the

same way we did it to stop the war in Bosnia. We sent a team over

there. We had a kit bag of tools. We said we were prepared to put

so many troops in. If we get an agreement, we are prepared to do

such and such. There is so much aid that you can get, and we are

prepared. And there were seven things we were prepared to do.

We also said that we want you to tell us what you want. What

we need is a list of principles that guide U.S. policy that we could

say, these principles apply throughout the region. Let’s say, respect

for borders; respect for national sovereignty. We say: Here are our

principles; do you agree to these principles? Can we get a statement on it? Can we move forward from there and gradually work

to enlarge a dialogue in the region?

If we do that, we will take the venom out of the insurgency and

out of the resistance in Iraq. We will be able to slide those troops

out of there in good order, and we will be able to maintain U.S.

influence. If we don’t change the strategy, if we continue to say we

are not talking to Iran because we don’t have enough leverage over

them and they are evil, and we are not going to talk to Syria because we don’t like them, and there is a U.N. commission; and we

don’t like Hezbollah and Hamas because—if we say that, and we

try to isolate these states, what is going to happen is they feed the

resistance. We have more U.S. losses, more instability in Iraq. We

30

undercut our own strategy and we undercut our men and women

in uniform.

Dr. GINGREY. General, I want to say that the key in your remark,

your response, is the modifier ‘‘in good order’’ in regard to bringing

the troops out. Elaborate on that. What would you call ‘‘in good

order’’—120 days?

General CLARK. What I call for is a change in the strategy first.

I am not advocating a precipitous withdrawal like lining the troops

up on the road and marching out right now. I am not saying that

we should do that.

Dr. GINGREY. General, there is only one——

General CLARK. I don’t think——

Dr. GINGREY [continuing]. Highway of death.

General CLARK. I don’t think the situation in Iraq is so far gone

that we have to just throw up our hands and say, okay, we quit.

I don’t think we are there. I think a year from now if we haven’t

changed the strategy, we could be at the point where the American

people will believe that.

You know, there are 25 million people and they are struggling

to survive in Iraq. There is going to be an Iraq whether U.S. troops

are there or not. So the question is, how do we relate? What we

need to do is change the strategy now, so that we empower the

troops over there to work more effectively against whatever elements, hard-heads that are there still resisting.

We have to enunciate the kinds of strategic principles that other

people in the region can sign up to. If we say we will only talk to

democratic governments, then there is no point in continuing to

fight in the region because you are going to invite the resistance

of those non-democratic governments. We don’t have the power to

effect immediate regime change in Iran, Syria, and every other

country in the region.

Why do we want to? Those are their countries. They have their

ideas. If our ideas are better, let them percolate in. This should not

be an ideological campaign. What we are trying to do is fulfill our

obligation to the people of Iraq by ending the violence, and get out

troops out of Iraq safely. That is all.

Dr. GINGREY. General, my time has expired. I want to thank you

for your forthright testimony here. I appreciate it.

Dr. KHAN. Can I make a quick 30-second comment?

Dr. SNYDER. A 30-second comment, Dr. Khan. Go ahead.

Dr. KHAN. Yes, sir. The 100,000 people that I was testifying to,

Congressman, were not mercenaries hired by the Iraqi government.

The U.S. presence includes 100,000 civilians who are not employed

by the U.S. Government. They work for Blackwater, people who

work for Halliburton, people who work for various contractors—

some armed, some unarmed.

So if the U.S. were to withdraw, the U.S. logistical support is

150,000 troops plus 100,000 additional people, and some put the

figure at 120,000. So we are looking at more than 250,000 people

to replace this. So if the U.S. were to withdraw all its troops, there

wouldn’t be 150,000 people coming back. There would be over

250,000 people coming back to the U.S. from Iraq. That is the point

I was trying to make.

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Dr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, if we have a second round, I may

have an opportunity to pursue this with Dr. Khan.

Dr. SNYDER. I might say, too, members may have questions for

the record, and we would hope to get those back timely. We are

going to be interrupted with votes at some point.

Mr. Bartlett for five minutes.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.

Do each of you have something to write with and a piece of

paper? Could you write four things down for me? First of all, ‘‘hate

each other’’; ‘‘hate al Qaeda’’; ‘‘hate us’’; and ‘‘something else,’’ as

a fourth line, ‘‘something else.’’ Just write that down, ‘‘something

else,’’—‘‘hate Bush.’’ Again, ‘‘hate each other, hate al Qaeda, hate

us, and something else.’’

Now, if you will write down a percentage by each of those that

you think accounts for the total violence that we see in Iraq. How

much of that violence comes from hating each other; how much of

that violence comes from hating al Qaeda; how much of that violence comes from hating us; how much of that violence comes from

something else.

Can you write down those four numbers for me: ‘‘each other, al

Qaeda, us, and something else’’? Have you finished?

General Clark, if you would give your paper to Mr. Boot, and——

[Laughter.]

Dr. SNYDER. Roscoe, would you like me to be humming the theme

song from a game show? [Laughter.]

Mr. BARTLETT. All right. This should really be in writing for me

because this is a question I have wanted answered for a long time,

and we have three really good experts here, for which I am very

appreciative.

Are all of your numbers written down?

Okay. Mr. Boot, if you will hand your paper to Dr. Khan. And

Dr. Khan will hand his paper to General Clark.

Okay. General Clark, what were the numbers that Dr. Khan had

for ‘‘hate each other’’?

General CLARK. Fifteen percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. How many?

General CLARK. Fifteen percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Fifteen percent. What is his percentage for ‘‘hate

al Qaeda’’?

General CLARK. Five percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Five percent. What is his number for ‘‘hate us’’?

General CLARK. Sixty percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Sixty?

General CLARK. Sixty.

Mr. BARTLETT. Sixty percent. And ‘‘something else’’?

General CLARK. Twenty percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Twenty percent. What is the ‘‘something else’’?

Dr. KHAN. The fear the Sunnis have of transition of power in a

Shia-dominated Iraq.

Mr. BARTLETT. Okay.

Dr. KHAN. We call them ‘‘hating each other.’’ It is a strategic

thing.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Boot, you have General Clark’s paper.

Mr. BOOT. Correct. It says——

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Mr. BARTLETT. What did he write down for ‘‘hate each other’’?

Mr. BOOT. Twenty percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Twenty percent. And ‘‘hate al Qaeda’’?

Mr. BOOT. Ten percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. How many?

Mr. BOOT. Ten percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Ten. All right. And ‘‘hate us’’?

Mr. BOOT. Thirty percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thirty. And a huge ‘‘something else.’’ What is the

‘‘something else,’’ General?

General CLARK. They are in this for their own gain. This is an

opportunity to put together a new Iraq, and they want power and

they want their own values, their own interests, their own opportunities, and they are fighting to get it.

Mr. BARTLETT. Okay. And now I guess the only one I don’t have

is Mr. Boot’s numbers. Dr. Khan has those.

What number does Mr. Boot have for ‘‘hate each other’’?

Dr. KHAN. He has no numbers for anything.

Mr. BARTLETT. Sir?

Dr. KHAN. He has no numbers for anything. He has a note.

[Laughter.]

Mr. BARTLETT. Does he have any numbers?

Dr. KHAN. No.

Mr. BARTLETT. No? Okay.

Dr. SNYDER. This was not an essay test, Mr. Boot. [Laughter.]

Mr. BOOT. I am better at English than at math.

Mr. BARTLETT. If you were to put numbers down, Mr. Boot, what

would you put down? I don’t want each of you informed by the others, but you have——

Mr. BOOT. Well, if I could just read the note, which is, I have no

idea what the answer is. I don’t think anyone does. But I think the

primary driver of violence in Iraq is hatred and fear of each other

among the Iraqi sectarian groups, not of the United States.

Mr. BARTLETT. Okay. So you would put a big number by ‘‘hate

each other,’’ and the others have a relatively small number by

‘‘hate each other.’’

This is very informative, Mr. Chairman. I stayed within my five

minutes. Thank you very much.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Bartlett, you get an ‘‘A’’ on that test because

you did stay within the five minutes.

Mr. Jones for five minutes.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I always have

great amazement at my friend, the Ph.D., who sits beside me, and

I found that very interesting, I think.

I am one of many in Congress who, if I look at the last five

years—and it is going on five years—and I listened to Dr. Khan,

Mr. Boot and General Clark. I have great respect for you, sir, as

well as the two I have not met until today.

It appears that, Dr. Khan, I didn’t hear your presentation. I was

late getting here, but in your opinion, do we have any friends in

the Middle East that would like to see—I know they would like to

see a stabilized Iraq. I assume that, but do we have any friends

in the Middle East? Or is the hatred so deep for America being in

Iraq that it is going to take generations to be in a situation?

33

What I am going to ask you now, and this is the question. I have

felt for at least a year that if this Administration had any hope for

a stabilized Iraq, that somebody should be chosen to be an ambassador for peace, someone that is internationally respected. And

then to use, because of his statement last week, Colin Powell, because Colin Powell has said there would be no military solution. It

just is not going to happen.

Does it make any sense—it would not happen overnight—but is

there a potential, based on your knowledge of many people in the

Middle East, that the right person—and I don’t know who that is—

that if this Administration really wanted to see that we could

maybe have the dialogue that you have spoken about, and the general, does that make any sense? Is that even a possibility, that the

right person could begin a long process of trying to develop a dialogue?

Dr. KHAN. I think that the first step that we should take is to

not see the entire Middle East as monolithic. It is—very different.

For example, the government which we dislike the most is the Iranian at the moment, and the people of Iran are the most pro-American in the entire Middle East. The governments that we like the

most, one of them is Jordan, and the people in the Middle East

who hate America the most are Jordanians. And people who also

have the highest support for suicide bombings are also in Jordan.

So we have to understand that there is a lot more complexity to

this. The people consistently in survey after survey in the Middle

East make a distinction between America and American foreign

policy. They consistently say ‘‘we hate American foreign policy,’’ but

they hate America.

Their biggest fear, hatred, and anger are directed at our President, the people like Dick Cheney. They are suspicious of people

like me. They sometimes like me, and sometimes they don’t.

But they have a lot of hope from people like General Clark. They

have lots of expectations that the good side of America will balance

those from the bad side of America, and that is the hope of ordinary people out there.

But have these all at a very different level. Their animosity,

their anger, their hatred, it is at such levels that even if you agreed

to everything that they wanted, they would still come after us, because it is not just about diminishing U.S. presence in the Middle

East, but it is also for punishing the U.S. for the past, according

to their perceptions.

So they want to drive the U.S. out of the region. They have other

goals which are very similar—regime change, et cetera—and also

they want to punish the West for past crimes, et cetera, and they

have other theological agendas, too.

So I still believe that we have lots of friends in the region. Plus,

their anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is much more rational

than the anti-Americanism of the Europeans. The Europeans don’t

like us just because of who we are.

So if you look at the anti-Americanism in Pakistan and Indonesia

before the earthquake and tsunami and after the U.S. provided relief, the positive attitude toward the U.S. in Pakistan and Indonesia jumped by 20 percent. It is a huge part of the shift, which

clearly shows that people in the Muslim world are really rational.

34

If we hurt them, they hate us. If we help them, they like us. And

that is a positive thing.

There are lots of people. I did see President Clinton in one

speech in Doha where he postulated a speech that Brookings had

written for him, and started reciting from memory verses from the

Quran. I could see people in the Arab world who had tears. They

seemed to respond to him antithetically. And people like Colin

Powell, or even Jim Baker from the Republican side, will have a

lot of legitimacy in the region.

I have a feeling that President Bush’s father probably too still

has a lot of reservoirs of good will in the Arab world in the places

where his son doesn’t have. So it is all that is not lost. I mean, this

is not a place which hates us.

But we must also remember that there is a cognitive dissonance

in the Muslim mind. Even those who love to hate us would still

love to live with us and live here. So there is a lot of hope for us

to build bridges very quickly.

Mr. BOOT. Mr. Chairman, could I just make a very brief statement on behalf of myself, and I will let Vice President Cheney

speak on his own behalf. You know, I agree with Dr. Khan that the

people of Iran are the most pro-American in the Middle East, and

as I mentioned before, why are they the most pro-American in the

Middle East? Because their government hates us.

Whereas if we adopt the policy, which has been advocated here

by General Clark, of aligning ourselves with the government of

Iran, we will probably turn the people of Iran against us, as we

have turned the people of Egypt and Jordan and so many dictatorships around the region—Saudi Arabia—against us.

Let me just make one other point, if I could, because what I see

here is a groundswell of people saying we want a diplomatic solution to the crisis that we face in Iraq. As I said before, I completely

agree. But let me give you very briefly two examples of seeking a

diplomatic solution, one of which worked and one of which didn’t

work; one in 1953 and the other one in 1973.

In 1953, General Eisenhower got us out of the Korean War, not

by saying we are going to bring the troops home and try to make

nice with China and the Soviet Union and others. What he did was

he said we are going to keep the troops in and we are going to escalate if necessary. We are going to do anything that it takes to win.

And he even dropped hints that he would use atomic weapons.

Within six months, the North Koreans came to the table and we

have an armistice that has now lasted these many decades that

has been stable.

In the early 1970’s, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger said

we are going to bring the troops home, no matter what. And by

1972, they had brought the last American combat troops home. At

that point, the North Vietnamese were happy to sign the Paris

peace accord because they knew it wasn’t worth the paper it was

printed on. They knew that as soon as it was signed, they were set

to violate the accord and they would go on to invade and conquer

and occupy South Vietnam within two years of the signing of the

accord. And Henry Kissinger claimed this was a great triumph of

diplomacy. He got a Nobel Peace Prize.

35

Well, let me tell you, the South Vietnamese boat people don’t

think it is such a great triumph of diplomacy. The millions of Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge don’t think it was such a great

triumph of diplomacy.

Now, the difference between the two is that in the case of Korea,

our diplomacy was backed by force, and as Congressman Davis

said, the very important point, it is not a question of diplomacy or

force. The most effective diplomacy is that when used in conjunction with force.

But if we start withdrawals now, that would be toothless diplomacy that would not achieve our goals, but will only convince Iran

and Syria and al Qaeda that we are a paper tiger that can be attacked with impunity, and we will pay a very high price for it, not

only in Iraq, but around the world in the future.

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Shea-Porter for five minutes.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you.

Dr. SNYDER. We will go to Ms. Shea-Porter.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Okay.

Mr. Boot, how many times have you been to Iraq?

Mr. BOOT. Three.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Three. And yet you said that you have no idea

what the people were thinking. When you were talking about a diplomatic solution, and kind of pooh-poohing the idea, I would have

been happy with a diplomatic understanding to begin with.

This is a problem that I think that we don’t even understand

who the people of the Middle East are. You, I am very certain, are

aware of the fact that half of the Iraqi parliament, more than half

of the democratically elected Iraqi parliament signed requests asking the United States to leave. Right?

Mr. BOOT. I am not aware that the Iraqi parliament has passed

legislation asking the United States to leave.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Did you know that they signed a petition asking us to leave, and do you think that would be a good enough reason to leave?

Mr. BOOT. Actually, I don’t think there is a single major faction

in Iraq other than possibly al Qaeda that actually wants us to

leave. Although if you look at public opinion polls, they say that

the vast majority of Iraqis do want us to leave, but then the next

question is, when do you want Americans to leave. And they say,

as soon as you stabilize the situation, because if you leave now,

there will be a disaster.

I have talked to many Iraqis over the course of the last four

years, and they are all virtually unanimous in saying that, and

that is the position of the Maliki government, the elected representatives of the people of Iraq.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Reclaiming my time. They did ask us.

Mr. BOOT. They have not. The Maliki government and the congress and the parliament of Iraq have not asked us to leave.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Okay. Well, we will follow up on that, but the

idea that we don’t know what they think is what is so disturbing.

In the past couple of days, I have had the opportunity to sit in a

couple of hearings. One of them involved people from the CIA, so

I can speak about it.

36

And we are doing a global security assessment. What they said

after they had been prodded was we are having trouble getting the

kind of intelligence that we needed because of our strained relations with people on the ground in that area, and also countries including European countries.

Now, they phrase it that countries with bad attitudes don’t give

us the information that we need, but the point is that if it is not

working militarily, then clearly we need to try something else.

Today, I was fortunate enough to hear Major General Bob Scales

talk about with this particular Administration, when we say we

have a problem, the answer is maybe we can find a better computer, or we can find a larger weapons system.

Right from the beginning of time, good soldiers have always understood that the way that you get the information from people and

the way that you win their hearts and minds has to do more with

the way that we speak to them and understanding of their culture.

We don’t understand. In World War II they understood chewing

gum and chocolate went a long way simply for finding out what

was happening. We have not won their hearts and minds.

So I am concerned because I think what is happening is in the

attempt to win militarily, what we have had happen to us is that

we have weakened the military dramatically, particularly the

Army, and I am going to ask General Clark to speak about that

in a moment.

But I just wanted to paraphrase General Pace, when he was

asked if he was comfortable with the idea that if there was an

emerging fight anywhere around the world, was he comfortable

with our ability to respond. All of us should be frightened by his

answer. He paused and then said, no, I am not comfortable.

If every resource is in Iraq, if every ideology is sunk into Iraq—

and I think that we are driven by ideology here—then how will we

respond in the world?

And so, General Clark, I was going to ask you, what do we do

now? Are you convinced that the Army is indeed strained to its

breaking point and that we are losing men and women who would

have gone career, and that we actually have a problem? And do you

think that Iraq has weakened us around the world?

General CLARK. I do think Iraq has weakened us around the

world. I think we have wonderful people in the United States Army

and wonderful leadership, and I think they are over-stretched, and

I think you can see the institution beginning to fray now. It has

several different problems. One set of problems is simply fatigue.

The families are fatigued and stressed. They have borne an unfair

burden of this conflict.

A second problem has to do with relationships in the ranks, and

the trust and mistrust between lower and higher authorities in

uniform. I think that after the conflict, we are going to need a full

after-action review process, a sort of wringing-out that we never

did after Vietnam, in which seniors and junior leaders exchange

views, the same way we do after a tactical operation.

I think that you can see the fraying of the recruiting effort now,

as well as the problem with the equipment. We haven’t budgeted

everything we need even to re-set the equipment, much less the

37

people. So yes, I am quite worried about it. I don’t think we have

the response capability we need.

I would also tell you that more important than the military is the

distraction that the Iraq commitment is doing to our national leadership. We are not focusing on the other issues that need to be addressed—our economic competitiveness in the world, our larger

issues in the Middle East. And so this is a highly destructive, very

political debate. I just hope we have enough wisdom to change the

strategy before we pull the plug on the troops.

I was in Israel just before I retired in 2000. I remember speaking

to the chief of defense, the minister of defense, about they were

going to pull out of southern Lebanon. It was a strategically brilliant move by Ehud Barak, but it wasn’t covered diplomatically and

legally effectively, and the result was that when they pulled out,

to regain legitimacy and rebalance their force, they actually created

the impression that they were losers, and they were exploited.

I do worry about the perception management overseas. That is

why I think we have to have a strategic change before we have an

operational and tactical change.

Mr. BOOT. May I just jump in with one fast comment? Because

I completely agree with General Clark that our military is overstretched. Some of us have been saying for years that we need a

much bigger Army and the Bush Administration has belatedly listened to us, but I think too late.

I don’t think you are going to help the Army or the Marine Corps

by pulling them out precipitously in defeat out of Iraq. I think that

would be the worst thing possible in terms of their morale and

their fighting fitness in the future. I think a lot of soldiers have

been hanging in there because they want to be in the fight. They

don’t want to desert their comrades. They want to stay and win.

Those who have been over-stretched, who have been on multiple

deployments overseas, if we pull out, you are going to lose a lot of

the junior leadership and you are going to lose a lot of the NCO

corps who have been in there as long as they had a chance of winning. But if that chance is gone, I think a lot of them will leave,

and the Army will face a real crisis.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. May I add that we are losing them. I am interested that you are talking about it as if it would be a future activity. The reality is that right now we are losing our soldiers. They

are bailing out, and I am worried about not having institutional

history and understanding for the future.

The word ‘‘defeat,’’ I think we have to get away from the word

‘‘defeat’’ here. We went in for a mission, and whether it was right

or wrong, clearly we didn’t have the right intelligence, but we said

we were replacing Saddam and we did. And so at this point, I

think I would have to argue at the word ‘‘defeat.’’

I think if we paint it that way, then we are all going to be losers

for that. If we say that we did what we hoped to do in terms of

replacing Saddam and giving them a democracy, but we don’t leave

our soldiers in the middle of a civil war, we could really start to

have an honest dialogue about a responsible exit strategy.

Thank you.

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Shea-Porter, we appreciate you being here

today.

38

Here is what we are going to do. We may have another 30 minutes or so. We are going to go a second round, but to my committee

members, we are going to do a strict five minutes, which means the

gavel will come down when the red light goes on. I think we have

a shot at getting around to everybody. That means if you are in the

middle of an answer, the next person doesn’t get to talk, so we

won’t be as liberal this time.

So we will go ahead and start the round. I am going to start off

here. Mr. Akin, by the way, is on the floor. He wanted to speak on

the resolution today.

General, I wanted to ask one specific question to you. I am going

to quote you from when you testified September 26, 2002, remember, you and Richard Perle just a few weeks before we had the vote

on the authorization.

This is what you said a few weeks before that vote: ‘‘We should

not be using force until the personnel, the organizations, the plans

that will be required for post-conflict Iraq are prepared and ready.

This includes dealing with requirements for humanitarian assistance, police and judicial capabilities, emergency medical, reconstruction assistance, and preparations for a transitional governing

body and eventual elections, perhaps even including a new constitution.’’

I mean, you could see what was necessary. Anyway, in view of

your attitude then, what do you think about when we see the report come out yesterday that we were talking about earlier that

says we have only been able to mobilize half of the 300 civilian

PRT personnel.

What does that tell you as a military guy, knowing that some of

your colleagues that you were raised with and served with are

fighting and bleeding overseas, and we still don’t have the civilian

folks on board that we would like to have. What does that say to

you? What do we need to do about that?

General CLARK. Well, the government hasn’t lived up to the full

set of requirements. And this is really a matter of the President of

the United States. If he wants the government to live up to it, he

will tell Dick Cheney, and Dick Cheney can probably make it happen. He has made a lot of other things happen. He makes it happen quietly, apparently, behind the scenes, but if I believe what I

read in the newspapers, he is the most powerful guy we have ever

had in the United States government.

So I don’t know why he couldn’t produce the kind of PRT support

we need if we really need it. This government hasn’t been willing

to mobilize and deal with the diplomatic and non-military aspects

of the mission. It has dumped it all on the men and women in uniform.

Dr. SNYDER. My second question for each of you, and just a brief

answer. You have already touched on this in some of your written

statements and some in response to questions. But these predictions of what would happen if things go badly and we have a

precipitous withdrawal or things don’t go well, the ability—I think

you used in your words, Mr. Boot, a catastrophe in Iraq.

You know, the ability to predict human behavior, I can’t say

what my wife is going to tell me tonight when I call her on the

phone. When you make these kinds of predictions about what a soVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:04 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038756 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-71\193160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
39

ciety is going to be doing, when you make those kinds of statements, how much reliability can we place on it? How much reliability do you place on your statement?

Ambassador Crocker a few days ago I think in a New York Times

interview made some very strong similar statements. How much

reliability do we place on that, that those kinds of bad things will

occur? Thirty years from now if things go differently we could be

surprised and say, well, bad things didn’t happen. Tell me how you

analyze it as a scholar and how that will go?

Mr. BOOT. Well, I think it is based on my general knowledge of

the situation and arraying the probabilities. I think everybody undertakes that. Of course, there is no certitude in these kinds of predictions, and I hope that I am wrong. I hope that we could withdraw and things would work out much better than I expect.

The problem is that we went into Iraq based on rosy scenarios.

We went in there expecting the best and we got the worst. I don’t

think we can afford to leave expecting the best and be surprised

by the worst. Whereas, if we expect the worst and plan for it, we

can be very pleasantly surprised and things may work out much

better than we feared.

Dr. SNYDER. Do you have any comments, Dr. Khan?

Dr. KHAN. Yes. I think the United States has a long record of not

finishing business. After the Gulf War I, we did not finish the job

then. In Afghanistan, we just up and left after the Soviet Union

left. We did not finish the job of dealing—we did not disarm them.

We did not relocate them back to where they had come. We left

them.

On 9/11, and contemporary al Qaeda is a consequence of the fact

that we did not deal with the first problem of Afghanistan. If we

do the same thing—and I mean we are talking of an Administration who did not have a plan in Iraq, but if you do not deal with

the post-withdrawal phenomenon in Iraq, we will be facing something which is much more devastating and much more horrific

than what al Qaeda brought upon us. It is just not about dealing

with the public opinion.

We must also demand responsibility from the American citizens.

Over 70 percent support for this war. It is not just President

Bush’s fault or Dick Cheney’s fault or this Congress’s fault. They

also supported this war, and now they want to run away without

thinking about it.

We need to think this thing through, and the civilians need to

back it up on what needs to be done in Iraq in the long term as

well as in the short term. It is important for the leadership, working with Congress and the White House, to stand up and demand

from the Americans more responsibility.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Johnson for five minutes—a strict five minutes.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Clark, you have mentioned a couple of times, several

times, that we need to change the strategy before we redeploy. You

gave some examples of changing the strategy, renouncing regime

change, engaging in dialogue with the stakeholders over there, pursue a solution to the Palestinian issue between Israel and the Palestinians.

40

Are you suggesting that we should maintain the same troop levels while we go through that pretty much diplomatic process? And

should we sustain our current boots-on-the-ground numbers while

we go through those diplomatic processes and get some kind of

positive result before we downsize? Is that what you are suggesting?

General CLARK. I think in terms of what I am recommending for

legislation and what the Congress should demand of the Administration, it should demand a two-brigade withdrawal so that you

have a strategic reserve able to be reconstituted a little bit earlier

back in the United States. Those two brigades should be out by

Christmas.

Mr. JOHNSON. Approximately how many?

General CLARK. Two brigades, that is probably about 10,000 people by the time you count the support. That shows that the Congress then has the ability to direct the executive branch. This is

better than cutting off funding or other things.

And then I think the Congress needs to demand that the executive branch come over within 60 days and lay out a new strategy.

And it needs to be debated and the American people need to approve of a new strategy. I think if the American people really realized what the current strategy is, they would be in an uproar.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I will tell you one thing the American public

does understand is the intolerable number of escalating deaths and

maiming injuries that are occurring, as well as the financial drain

that we are undergoing. The American people, I think, want to see

a redeployment of the troops now. They want to see an end to the

hostilities, if you will, now, and that may not be militarily the best

solution.

General CLARK. No, it is not. I hope that in the Congress of the

United States that we not only reflect the will of the American people, but we help inform the will of the American people. I think

there is an educational function that is here.

Look, these are terrible deaths that we suffered, and nobody can

minimize the costs on the men and women and the families in the

armed forces. But there are many other issues that are facing

America right now. We have to get the strategy right before we

react emotionally to this, because the consequences of what we

would do were we to just pull the plug and let the troops come out

in 120 days are likely to be profound and far-reaching.

Mr. JOHNSON. What exactly do you think would happen on the

ground?

General CLARK. I think you will further super-charge al Qaeda

recruiting worldwide. I think you will incentivize more attacks

against Western institutions.

Mr. JOHNSON. In the Shia-dominated region, do you think that

al Qaeda would be able to take hold and take control of that country?

General CLARK. I think it is not Iraq per se. I am addressing sort

of the worldwide consequences. You disempower U.S. credibility

and legitimacy around the world. It is more of the sort of ‘‘U.S.

doesn’t have the staying power.’’ So obviously, I am an opponent of

this strategy, and I was an opponent of the war. But you have to

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get out of it the right way. If we don’t get out of it the right way,

we will compound our problem.

So right now out of frustration, a lot of people want to pull the

plug on the Administration, when what they need to do is demand

that the Administration change its strategy and its approach in the

region. That is what is required, and then the troops can slide out.

Mr. BOOT. If I may, before the Administration is forced to change

its strategy, I think it ought to be given a chance to see if its current strategy, which was changed six months ago, is working or

not. As we know, Operation Phantom Thunder, which is the surge

of operations, finally began in mid-June.

It is far too early to say whether it is working or not, although

there are some positive indicators which I mentioned to you earlier.

So I think we ought to at least give the current strategy a chance

before moving on to the next new strategy.

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Davis for five minutes.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

I think there is certainly an element here in terms of trying to

pursue an agenda. I think that everybody wants the same thing

here in the end. What I think is also at play is trying to put our

goals out there, and in many ways focusing the mind. I think someone said a noose focuses the mind like nothing else.

Do you think that there is an element at play here that is actually helpful? At one point, I think even General Petraeus acknowledge that the Congress being engaged and focused and debating

and putting proposals out there was helpful. I would acknowledge

that not every proposal was helpful, but on the other hand I think

that absent that, there is a perception that somehow we are just

going to let this go however it moves.

So I would like some response from you, and then maybe what

is missing in this, or what surprises you. How is it possible for the

Congress do you think to play a role other than doing ‘‘stay or go’’?

Because that has not been helpful, and I know I had an opportunity just two days ago to share that with General Petraeus and

Ambassador Crocker, that we are getting to that same rhetoric. It

is not helpful.

Mr. BOOT. If I could say, I completely agree with you. I think

Congress does have a very useful role to play and I think these

kinds of hearings are in fact useful to look very seriously and get

beyond the rhetoric and look into the substance of proposals.

Look, I think the Bush Administration has made many, many

mistakes over the course of the last four years, and I think Congress has been right and responsible in pointing those out. In fact,

I wish it had done a little more of that on mistakes such as not

increasing the size of the U.S. military so we would have more options—I mean, things that have not gone well.

But what I don’t think helps and what I think really hinders

General Petraeus’s mission is when we hear high-profile politicians

back home saying ‘‘bring the troops out now,’’ even though when

you read the fine print what they say is don’t bring all the troops

out right now; we are actually going to keep a force, and so forth.

But most people don’t read the fine print, and the message that

gets conveyed to our enemies in Iraq is that we are not there for

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the long haul, and therefore that takes away some of the impact

of our combat operations because they think they can wait us out.

Whereas if we come together as a nation and say we are committed to prevailing here, and we will not be driven out by al Qaeda;

we will not be driven out by Iran; we will stay with the democratic

government of Iraq, paradoxically, that kind of commitment is our

best chance of drawing down our forces. Whereas if we keep talking

about drawing down our forces, it makes it very hard to do so because that empowers our adversaries.

By the way, the Bush Administration is guilty of this, too, because every few months they read from the Defense Department—

Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Gates—they keep leaking, we are

about to draw down our forces. That constantly undermines what

our troops are trying to do on the ground in Iraq.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. General Clark.

General CLARK. I just want to say, look, this is not General

Petraeus’s mission. This is the United States government’s mission.

It is the mission of the United States of America and it is the mission of President George W. Bush. And that means all the elements

of the government should be brought to bear.

I happen to believe that these kinds of debates are constructive.

I think the Iraqi political leaders do need to be incentivized. That

is one of the reasons I am recommending a two-brigade draw-down

mandated by Congress by Christmas, because I think they need a

rap across the knuckles to get their priorities straight.

I do believe that Congress has an important role to play in terms

of demanding the strategy. If you don’t get the strategy you want,

then you go to the other measures—the troop strength, the funding, the other things that are required. Congress has a role not

only to raise and maintain an Army, but to help the United States

correct a series of mistakes.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Dr. Khan.

Dr. KHAN. I think that the election season is becoming a major

distraction for effective discussions about what needs to be done.

The fact that now the Democrats have an opportunity to raise

issues, I think there is a lot of posturing that is taking place, and

it is all about Presidential elections, and also getting back and getting even with President Bush.

I think it was a mistake for this Congress to completely surrender the agenda-setting after 9/11 to the Bush Administration. And

so now we are caught up upon the failures of a failed agenda. His

initial strategy was wrong to begin with, and now he has made errors and failures that are compounded by the errors and failures

of a wrong vision, wrong strategy.

What the Congress can do is reopen the post–9/11 debate and say

what was the right thing to do for us to begin with, and can we

now do those right things.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Davis for five minutes—and it will be five minutes this time.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I would like to turn the dialogue inward for a moment, because I think Dr. Khan brings up a very

good point. We are mixing strategy and operations and tactics here

quite a bit in terms of as we discuss this. One center of gravity of

this dialogue internationally that is taking place clearly is seen as

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the American people. Perceptions overseas certainly are—and policies for that matter—are being derived based on our reaction to

certain things.

Our debates now, our troops all over the theater last week were

commenting to me about things they were watching on television.

Our comments are interpreted through the filters of different cultures as well. My concern at the moment is one that relates ironically back to the friendly discussion that I had with the General

earlier regarding our ability to integrate and to cooperate effectively, which I believe is less a personality issue and more a process issue—rightly the United States government, but what is that

now other than a bunch of silos that don’t work well together?

This is a question I would throw out to the group. I think one

thing that is critical regardless of what we do—and I preface my

remark by saying I do not believe that the President right now has

a lot of credibility with the American people to be able to enunciate

this vision of where we need to go, regardless of what solution that

is, whether it is the current one or a new one.

But in reality, we have a deep-root problem of how do we articulate to our people to give them context? When I meet with the

many families that I have of young people who have lost their

young men—and I meet with every one in the district—they have

a context, a very clear message articulated from that young person

back to them of the filter of their experience. It is sober. It also has

a message of understanding being part of a bigger context.

In talking to people out in the street with no connection with the

military, there is a dissonance that is very real. They don’t understand the end-state of the policy. We talk about intolerable casualties. What does that mean? I lost nine of my West Point classmates. Nobody talked about them in the past. That was intolerable

to me. But in World War II, we lost 440,000 of our citizens out of

a population of 130 million, when 10 percent of our population was

under arms. People understood a context.

My question for you, to open it up, is most important of all explaining to the American people in a democracy how do we get to

where we are by giving them a vision of what it needs to be, not

in generalities, but why—not just what—but why we are doing

what we are doing.

I will start with Dr. Khan.

Dr. KHAN. Frankly, I don’t understand, myself, why we are doing

what we are doing, because of what the President says and what

he does——

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I agree. We have a broken process, but

what would you articulate specifically to the American people?

Dr. KHAN. I think there are a couple of things that we need to

understand. There is turmoil in the world and we have to understand that as America we have an important role to play. It is our

responsibility to play the role of the underwriter of stability in the

world as a sort of police officer because we benefit from stability

in the world.

But we must also realize that the threat to the United States is

not just a threat to the U.S., but it is also a threat to the global

order that we exist as Americans and it is our responsibility to try

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to understand this. But our response has to be much more compassionate, much more understanding.

Like, for example, our immediate reaction was to seek security

for the United States by making everybody else feel insecure. That

is the biggest philosophical error that we have committed. We

should have fought for the security of all. Everybody in the world

should have felt secure by the initiative that we would take in the

post–9/11 world, and we would have the world on our side. Even

today when I go across Europe, I find that even those who are

fighting the war on terror—the intelligence community,

counterterrorism—they have absolutely no cooperation from the

U.S. The cooperation is one-sided.

And all of these things continue to undermine our unilateralism.

The biggest thing that happened to the U.S. was we were an invisible empire before 9/11. We showed our fangs after 9/11 and nobody

likes that. And how do we tell the American people what happened?

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. And I appreciate that perspective.

General, what would your message be to the American people if

you had a clean slate completely, and were dealing with the circumstance, to give them context of why we need to do whatever

that let’s say next strategy would be?

General CLARK. At this moment in history, the United States is

the preeminent power in the world. We can’t be safe in our own

values and institutions and interests at home unless we reach out

and help others abroad. We need to be helping. We need to be promoting and supporting our friends and those who share our ideas.

That is what we need to be doing.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Thank you.

Dr. Boot.

Mr. BOOT. I agree that we have a vital and important role to

play in the world. I think our top priority at the moment has to

be to attain an acceptable solution in Iraq. I think it is naive to

think that we achieve our other objectives if things come apart in

Iraq in the middle of the Middle East.

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Gingrey for five minutes.

Dr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I want to say to Dr. Khan and to my colleagues on this side—

Mr. Davis—that he was talking about the President having very

little credibility. I would remind both of them and everyone present

that Abraham Lincoln, President Lincoln, in 1864 had very little

credibility as well. President Truman didn’t have a lot of credibility

in 1945. And here we are talking about the court of public opinion.

I want to remind everybody that in April of 1941, 80 percent of

the American people felt that we should not get involved in the situation in Germany, and what was going on within imperial Japan.

That was 7 months before the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor.

So I just would throw those points out there for food for thought

and consideration.

I will direct my question to again, General Clark.

First of all, again let me just say that I appreciate your forthrightness. I think if you looked up the Federal Election Commission (FEC) report when you ran for President, you probably

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wouldn’t see me as a contributor. You may see Dr. Khan’s name,

from some of the remarks that he has made.

But since you are not a candidate for President this time around,

let me ask you this question. You talked about the stress and

strain on the military and the end strength——

General CLARK. I want to warn you. I haven’t said I won’t run.

[Laughter.]

Dr. GINGREY. Reclaiming my time, because you certainly seem

very prescient in regard to your plan. In fact, indeed, I think that

after we get General Petraeus’s report, what it should outline to us

today at this hearing may very well be what the Administration

has in mind and needs to do. So I commend you for that.

Now to my questions, though. In regard to the cost of the war

and the strain on our troops, do you think that we should institute

a war tax? And do you think we should reinstitute the draft?

General CLARK. I think that the United States needs to distribute the burdens of the war more equitably. I don’t have any problems with asking the American people or elements of the American

people or through some mechanism to collect the funding that is required.

The government is running a deficit right now. We are not funding the full support of this war. I think we need to take a real look

at the cost. You know, the cost isn’t $400 billion. The cost is probably between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion when you look at the total

cost of what is going to take to recover from it. That cost is going

to have to be recaptured. The government should responsibly start

doing that.

As far as the draft is concerned, I don’t favor conscription, but

I do believe that it is the obligation of the government to have the

kind of dialogue about how we are going to man and support our

armed forces if the volunteer force doesn’t draw in the people we

want, and if we sustain our commitment there. I think it is our obligation to have that dialogue before the armed forces fail.

Right now, I am concerned. I know quality men and women are

leaving. I know we are not getting the kinds of recruits we need.

More importantly, we are allowing the United States Army to become unrepresentative of the United States of America. It is the

obligation of the Congress and the Administration to raise those

issues.

So I am not advocating conscription, but I am advocating a dialogue about how we are going to maintain our troop strength other

than simply raising the enlistment and reenlistment bonuses.

Dr. GINGREY. General, I thank you.

I have a little bit of time left, if Mr. Boot would like to respond

to the question, and Dr. Khan. I have 30 seconds left.

Mr. BOOT. Your question is about the war tax and conscription?

Dr. GINGREY. Absolutely.

Mr. BOOT. I don’t think under the present circumstances I would

favor either one, because I think that the economy is proving to be

very robust in the last few years, and though the war is extremely

costly, we are absorbing the cost from the financial perspective

from the economic perspective, and we are continuing to grow very

strongly.

46

Now, the cost in human terms is harder to absorb, obviously—

the loss of fine young men and women—but I don’t think there is

much support in this country for conscription. If you will recall,

there was a vote a couple of years ago in the House, and there was

something like only members supported the draft. So I don’t think

that is very likely.

Dr. GINGREY. I believe that my memory serves me correctly, the

two that supported it were the chairman of the Ways and Means

Committee, Representative Charlie Rangel, and also one of the cardinals on defense appropriations, Mr. Jack Murtha.

Mr. BOOT. Well, so it is hard to pass legislation that only has two

votes in Congress. So I don’t think that is very likely. But I think

we do need to look at expanding the recruiting base.

One of the things that I would look at is to lift the prohibition

that you currently have to have a green card in order to enlist, because there are a lot of people who don’t have green cards, but who

would like to become citizens. I think a lot of them would be happy

to—in fact we are expediting citizenship procedures for a lot of people in uniform. I think we can do even more to expand our recruiting base.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Jones for five minutes.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Boot, I do agree that we have a robust economy, but we are

borrowing money from China, Japan, and the UAE like we have

never borrowed before in the history of this country. We are borrowing this money to help pay for the war in Iraq. There is no

question about it.

This is my question, I guess. I guess you saw each one of you

today in The Washington Post, CIA said instability seemed to be

irreversible. This was said in November of 2006. CIA Director Hayden was speaking to the Iraq Study Group. I am not going to read

everything, but just a couple more points, and I do have a question.

‘‘The government is unstable to govern,’’ Hayden concluded. ‘‘We

have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that

is balanced, and it cannot function.’’ He further stated, ‘‘A government that can govern, sustain and defend itself is not achievable.’’

He was talking about Iraq.

I am not taking a view, but the point is, and you know the statement that we were given that raises the scenario of before we went

into Iraq. And I quote General Gregory Newbold, who I have great

respect for—a three-star Marine general that gave up the fourth

star: ‘‘I was a witness and therefore a party to the actions that led

us to the invasion of Iraq an unnecessary war. Inside the military

family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots’ rationale for

war made no sense—the neocons that sold us this information and

created the justification that was never justified.’’

My point and my question, and I will start with you, and we

have a little bit of time and everybody could speak to this. You say

that we have to stay the course. That sounds like the President of

the United States. We have to stay the course. Well, with this nation going bankrupt, both treasure and men and women, and you

are opposed to a draft, how in the world and what do you see as

victory in Iraq?

47

Mr. BOOT. First, Congressman, you are citing a CIA prediction

of what would happen in Iraq. I think as we have seen in recent

years, the CIA is hardly an infallible oracle about what will happen

in Iraq.

Mr. JONES. So is this Administration’s policy.

Mr. BOOT. I agree. I have been critical of the Administration, too,

but let me cite you another intelligence estimate which was leaked

almost a year ago from the chief Marine intelligence officer in

Anbar province, where he wrote that Anbar province was lost;

there was nothing we could do to retrieve the situation in Anbar

province.

Well, guess what? In the last year there has been a turnaround

which nobody expected. The unpredictable happens.

Mr. JONES. Okay. Please. Reclaiming my time. Go back, because

I want the other two gentlemen to speak, and give me what you

see and how you would explain to the American people what the

definition of ‘‘victory’’ is. How would you explain what is ‘‘victory’’

in Iraq?

Mr. BOOT. I think victory is a sustainable representative government in Baghdad that is able to police its own soil and to prevent

international terrorist from using it as a staging ground. I think

that is essentially what we are looking for. You are right about the

cost of the war. It is heavy in both blood and treasure.

In terms of the treasure, I think that is not to sustain, given how

robust our economy is and how strongly it is growing. The question

of the sacrifice of our young men and women is harder to sustain,

but the question we have to ask is: As opposed to what? If we could

end the war by simply pulling out and everything would be great

afterwards, I would say pull out. But my concern is that we will

lose far more people in the future if we pull out today.

Mr. JONES. Reclaiming my time. First of all, the robust economy

is that to the Chinese we have sent thanks to two Administrations

more manufacturing jobs to China than we ever have. We have had

a classified briefing on Red China and how much money they are

putting into their navy and air force, and most of that money is

coming from the trade deficit with China which is over $200 billion.

Real quickly, General, what would you say to the American people?

Mr. BOOT. If I could just for 30 seconds on the trade deficit?

Mr. JONES. I am going to lose my time. Let the general speak

and then the doctor.

I mean, how would you explain victory so that we would recognize it?

General CLARK. Well, I don’t think it is possible to at this point

claim there is going to be a victory in Iraq. I think you have to ask,

what is an acceptable condition that we could live with. It us a government that doesn’t harbor terrorists, doesn’t commit acts of aggression against other states in the region, and that will participate in the normal diplomatic intercourse and trade and so forth

in the region. That is all.

I don’t think that you are going to get a long-term sustainable

representative government. I think it is unlikely. If we got it, it

would be great. I just think it is unlikely and I don’t think it is

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a condition for America’s achievement of what it needs to be able

to pull back.

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Shea-Porter, for five minutes.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you.

After just six months being in Congress, I am amazed at the contradictions I have heard in what has been said at all the hearings

I have attended.

Mr. Boot, you just talked about giving a green card to people to

fight for us. Now, either we have the will of the American people

which is essential for what you call ‘‘victory’’ or we don’t. And recruiting people almost sends kind of a mercenary, that somebody

else will fight our wars for us. First, we want to borrow the money

to have the war, and then we want to borrow the people from other

nations to fight the war.

So I guess my question to you is, earlier, you talked about defeat.

So exactly what is your idea? You use the word ‘‘defeat,’’ so how

could you say that you would pull out if you thought that would

work, because wouldn’t that be defeat?

And what about that debt that we have to other nations? You

talked about a robust economy, but you can ask anybody anywhere

around the country about—and by the way, I hear from my own

constituents all the time that we don’t have money for the hospitals; we don’t have money for the infrastructure; we don’t have

money for social programs, which is a direct result.

So what exactly are you proposing as your idea? And could you

also tell me where we would get the troops if we didn’t take them

from other nations?

Mr. BOOT. What I said was if we could pull out without suffering

a catastrophic defeat, I would favor a pull out, but I am afraid that

the pull out under those circumstances would result in a defeat.

In terms of where we can get the troops, we Army has had some

strains on recruiting, but it has struggled to meet its numbers for

a few months, but overall year by year is has met its numbers,

where it has seen very strong reenlistment rates. On July 4 in

Baghdad, General Petraeus led one of the largest reenlistment

ceremonies we have ever had. The troops have been extraordinary

and dedicated and committed, and have stayed in this fight.

Now, I mentioned the possibility of lifting the green card requirement, which is something we have done in the past. You can call

people who serve in expectation of citizenship or for some other

reason. Without being citizens, you can call them mercenaries if

you want, but that would have to extend to people like Lafayette

and General Kosciuszko who helped us to win independence or the

many fresh immigrants off the boat from Ireland and Germany and

elsewhere who helped the Union to win the Civil War. We have

used troops born abroad many times in the past. They are fighting

today. We have many non-citizens in the military today who are

serving very valiantly.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Reclaiming my time. I think they were fighting in our country on our soil for our effort.

Mr. BOOT. They have also fought for us abroad in other places

as well.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Excuse me—our war. And here, I am just so

confused by this. I mean, I have to tell you that you are not the

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only one who shifts the wording around, because in March when

I was in Baghdad we asked General Petraeus how much time did

you need. And he said at that time, early summer, and he would

know clearly whether it was working or not, the surge. And he

used the word ‘‘surge,’’ and I have trouble remembering which

surge you are talking about, because we have had quite a few

surges.

Mr. BOOT. The one that started on February 15.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Okay, because you named another one that

you dated back to June. But the issue is that——

Mr. BOOT. The surge of operations—Operation Phantom Thunder

started on June 15 using the surge force——

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. This is the problem I think that we are having, that we are talking past one another. But it is really way past

time to stop saying General Petraeus deserves more time. It is

interchangeable, depending—Secretary Gates deserves more time.

Deserves more time for what? What we are asking right now is

for a responsible strategy to not necessarily win in the terms that

you use, but certainly stabilize Iraq. The very first hearing that I

attended we asked what the goal was—this was back in January—

and it was to stabilize Iraq. Nobody used the word ‘‘military victory’’ except the President. It is stabilize Iraq.

So how can we have a dialogue here—what can we really do that

would get at that sort of——

Mr. BOOT. You won’t find anything about the surge strategy. The

President has launched a new strategy. I was very critical of his

previous strategy a year ago. We have started a new strategy. The

surge of forces began on February 15. The last troops in the surge

arrived in mid-June. Operations using those troops began on June

15. That is why I said it is too soon to judge the results of the

surge. However, there are a lot of early indications have been positive, as I mentioned before.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Reclaiming my time. We are in year five of

this war—year five.

I yield back.

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Davis, are you just dying to ask a question?

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I really was, just in terms of numbers,

because one of the I think concerns that people have was that the

surge was likely too little and too late. Had there been the ability

of more troops, longer deployments, God forbid—I mean, would we

be in a different position even today in your estimation than we are

had we actually truly surged with a lot more troops?

General CLARK. I am not sure if the occupation was ever going

to succeed once we used military force, disbanded the army, and let

the anti-Baathists take charge. At that point, it was just a matter

of time. What we had to have done is thought through the occupation, pre-identified that people who were going to be important

movers and shakers on the ground, the institutions that had to be

retained, the city leaders that had to be identified—and dealt with

those people.

It wasn’t just a matter of troop strength, but it was partly a matter of troop strength. It was more an attitude of just total misunderstanding of the situation. To be instructive on this, you

should look at how the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland in the

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Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. It is an amazing example of how

one country can take. They knew every village. They knew every

enemy. They had special parties designated. They had prepared for

this. We did not prepare.

So the idea of maybe it would have been different if we had three

or four—maybe. But what we really needed was to understand the

situation.

Dr. SNYDER. The timing is good.

Gentlemen, we appreciate you being here. That was a good discussion. I want you to feel free, if things come to mind and you

would like to have an addendum written statement, you submit

that and it will be made a full part of the record and be distributed

to members of the committee.

Members may also have questions they would like you to respond

to for the record. We hope that we can get those in a timely fashion.

With that, the committee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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