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37–733 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–88]

REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON THE SECURITY FORCES OF

IRAQ

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

SEPTEMBER 6, 2007

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana

NANCY BOYDA, Kansas

PATRICK MURPHY, Pennsylvania

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

KATHY CASTOR, Florida

DUNCAN HUNTER, California

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

KEN CALVERT, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

TOM COLE, Oklahoma

ROB BISHOP, Utah

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington

MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director

MIKE CASEY, Professional Staff Member

STEPHANIE SANOK, Professional Staff Member

MARGEE MECKSTROTH, Staff Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Thursday, September 6, 2007, Report of the Independent Commission on

the Security Forces of Iraq .................................................................................. 1

APPENDIX:

Thursday, September 6, 2007 ................................................................................. 45

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2007

REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON THE SECURITY

FORCES OF IRAQ

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Ranking Member,

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2

Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman, Committee

on Armed Services ................................................................................................ 1

WITNESSES

Jones, Gen. James, (Retired), U.S. Marine Corps, Chairman, Independent

Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq accompanied by; the Hon. John

Hamre, Member, Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq;

Gen. George Joulwan, (Retired), U.S. Army, Member, Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq; and Chief Charles H. Ramsey, Member,

Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq ................................. 3

McCausland, R.D., MA, Assistant Chief Constable, Urban Region, Belfast,

Ireland ................................................................................................................... 23

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Hunter, Hon. Duncan ....................................................................................... 49

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Documents submitted.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. Ortiz ........................................................................................................... 59

(1)

REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON THE

SECURITY FORCES OF IRAQ

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Thursday, September 6, 2007.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:35 p.m., in room 2118,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman of the

committee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES

The CHAIRMAN. Before we start our hearing, which is a very,

very important one, and we appreciate the witnesses, I will not tolerate anyone now, during this hearing, or before this hearing being

here and using any of our facilities for propaganda purposes. The

one who did so was just escorted from the chambers.

The committee will come to order. Today, we receive the testimony of the Independent Commission on the Iraqi Security Forces.

Attending this afternoon are our old friend, General Jim Jones,

the chairman of the Commission, as well as the other commissioners who are joining him at the witness table.

General Joulwan, good to see you again.

General JOULWAN. Good to see you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Former Secretary of Defense, John Hamre, good

to see you.

Chief Ramsey, thank you so much for being with us.

The Independent Commission was mandated by the supplemental appropriations bill we passed earlier this year. The Commission was charged with conducting an independent assessment

of the Iraqi Security Forces.

A similar assessment was carried out by our Oversight Investigations Subcommittee earlier this year under the leadership of Marty

Meehan and Todd Akin. As you know, Marty Meehan has left Congress and gone into the field of education. I hope the Independent

Commission found their report to be helpful.

The Independent Commission’s report raised a number of questions about the ability—more importantly, the motivation of the

Iraqi Security Forces to take over responsibility for security from

the American forces.

I think most of us agree that the Iraqi Army is in better shape

than some of the other forces and has shown some improvement

over time. But, as the Government Accountability Office (GAO)

mentioned in yesterday’s hearing, Mr. Walker testifying, there are

2

still concerns about sectarian activities by some of the army units.

I hope the Commission will address that question.

The Iraqi Security Forces are one of the vital pieces in the current strategy in Iraq. They are the forces that are supposed to support ours in the surge. They are the forces that are going to have

to hold areas that American forces have cleared when the American forces pull back from providing the primary security in Baghdad, Anbar, and a few other areas. They are ultimately the forces

that will have to take over the fight against the insurgency. The

faster they can take over the fight the better.

This committee and the Congress will face significant questions

about the future mission of U.S. forces and about how best to continue the mission of training and equipping Iraqi Security Forces.

We need your critical assessment, gentlemen, on how to move forward.

General Jones, John Hamre, General Joulwan, Chief Ramsey,

thank you again for appearing to be with us; and we are very, very

appreciative.

I now call on my friend, my colleague from California, Ranking

Member Duncan Hunter.

STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

ARMED SERVICES

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you for having this hearing.

Mr. Chairman, I know a lot of our members participated in the

fairly extensive hearing this morning starting at nine o’clock with

respect to Iraq, and so what I would like to do is offer my written

statement for the record.

I know you have got lots of folks who want to ask questions and

lots of good testimony to give, so let me just welcome all of the

members and note that, from my perspective, the stand-up and the

reliability of the Iraqi Army is I think the key force for stability

and success in Iraq. So, obviously, a very critical issue—for this

member, the most critical issue of all—the dimensions that we are

presently examining with respect to the prospects for Iraq.

So thanks for being with us; and, Mr. Chairman, that completes

my statement. I look forward to the witnesses.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s prepared statement will be put

in the record without objection, and we thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be found in the Appendix on page 49.]

The CHAIRMAN. General Jones, let’s go ahead and proceed, sir.

And thank you again for taking this undertaking.

3

STATEMENT OF GEN. JAMES JONES, (RETIRED), U.S. MARINE

CORPS, CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON THE SECURITY FORCES OF IRAQ ACCOMPANIED BY; THE HON.

JOHN HAMRE, MEMBER, INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON

THE SECURITY FORCES OF IRAQ; AND GEN. GEORGE

JOULWAN, (RETIRED), U.S. ARMY, MEMBER, INDEPENDENT

COMMISSION OF THE SECURITY FORCES OF IRAQ; AND

CHIEF CHARLES H. RAMSEY, MEMBER, INDEPENDENT COMMISSION ON THE SECURITY FORCES OF IRAQ

General JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Hunter. Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, it is a distinct honor for this

Commission to appear before you this afternoon. We thank all of

you for the high honor to be able to be here to speak with you of

the work that the Commission has done over the past few months.

To carry out our mandate from the Congress, we assembled a

highly qualified team of 20 prominent senior retired military officers, chiefs of police. We have a former Deputy Secretary of Defense. And to show that we are really serious we also have two sergeants major, one from the Army and one from the Marine Corps,

who kept us in line and provided much of the discipline that we

sorely needed during the research that we did.

This independent team is supported by the Center for Strategic

and International Studies. It brings more than 500 cumulative

years of military and defense expertise and 150 years of law enforcement experience in the professional disciplines that we were

charted to examine. The Commission consisted of 10 syndicates,

which examined each element of the Iraqi Security Forces and the

principal cross-cutting issues that support each syndicate.

It is now my pleasure to take a moment to introduce our commissioners to you.

First, let me introduce the members of our Army and ground

forces syndicate, starting with General George Joulwan, United

States Army, retired, the syndicate Chair, and joining me to my

left at the witness table.

General John Abrams, United States Army, retired.

General Charles Wilhelm, USMC, retired. Unfortunately, General Wilhelm was not able to be with us today, as was Lieutenant

General John Van Alstyne, U.S. Army, retired, who was unable to

be here.

Sergeant Major Alfred McMichael, the 14th Sergeant Major of

the Marine Corps, and Command Sergeant Major Dwight Brown of

the United States Army, retired, are here with us.

Brigadier General Richard Potter, U.S. Army, retired, who examined the Iraqi Special Forces, unable to be here today.

Our Commission also benefited from the experience of Admiral

Gregory Johnson, United States Navy, retired, who principally addressed the progress of the Iraqi Navy; General Charles Boyd, U.S.

Air Force, retired, who focused on the Iraqi Air Force and contributed much to our strategic discussions.

The Commission benefited from over 150 years of law enforcement experience, as I previously mentioned, by a team headed by

Chief Charles Ramsey, who is joining me here at the witness table.

Chief Ramsey has assembled a distinguished group of police

chiefs, to include the Honorable Terry Gainer, who also is currently

4

serving as the Senate Sergeant at Arms; Chief John Timoney, the

Chief of Police of the City of Miami, who could not be here today;

Chief Michael Heidingsfield, a former contingent commander for

the police advisory mission in Iraq, who gave us some perspective

with regard to earlier years in Iraq and today; Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland, who joined our Commission from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who added the voice of years of experience

in Northern Ireland and was a key contributor to our team; Lieutenant General Martin Berndt, United States Marine Corps, retired, who focused on the Iraqi border security under the Ministry

of the Interior.

We also had a number of commissioners who examined crosscutting issues across the length and breadth of the Iraqi Security

Forces. First, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Honorable Dr. John Hamre, who is at the witness table, who studied in

particular resource allocation and budget matters; Lieutenant General Jim King, U.S. Army, retired, studied intelligence; Lieutenant

General Gary McKissock, United States Marine Corps, retired, who

was our logistical expert; Major General Arnold Punaro, United

States Marine Corps, retired who was our personnel expert.

Our staff was ably directed by Ms. Christine Wormuth from the

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). We also benefited from strategic advisors Mr. Jim Locher, Mr. P.T. Henry, Mr.

John Raidt, Ms. Sarah Farnsworth and Col. Art White, and obviously a very able staff from CSIS.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, we were asked to conduct an independent assessment of the Iraqi Security Forces and to report back

to the appropriate committees no later than 120 days from the date

of enactment. We are making this report at roughly the 90th day,

so we were able to complete our mission relatively expeditiously.

As laid out in our enacting legislation, our report addresses the

readiness of the Iraqi Security Forces in four principal areas. The

first is to evaluate their ability to assume responsibility for maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq; the second, to evaluate

their ability to deny international terrorists a safe haven in Iraq;

third, to evaluate their ability to bring greater security to Iraq’s 18

provinces within the next 12 to 18 months; and, fourth, to evaluate

their ability to bring an end to sectarian violence and to achieve

national reconciliation.

Additionally, the Commission was tasked with an assessment of

Iraqi Security Force capabilities in the areas of training, equipment, command and control, intelligence, and logistics. Each of the

10 syndicates was led by a senior commissioner and focused on either a discrete component of the Iraqi Security Forces or a crosscutting functional area. Syndicate inputs were subject to review

and integration by all Commission members. During the course of

its study, the Commission traveled widely throughout Iraq on three

separate occasions, spending a total of three weeks on the ground

gathering facts and impressions firsthand.

Mr. Chairman, from this point on I will refer to a series of charts

that will be displayed here to my right but also in your books, and

I will refer to the pages where you can find those slides if the details aren’t available to you here. So I would ask you if you would

5

please turn to page 23 and 24 in the report, as my next remarks

will address those slides.

We made more than 70 site visits in Iraq. And as you can see

from the charts in front of you and on your desk, this included visits to the Iraqi military, ministerial headquarters, and the various

command centers, training facilities, and operating bases. We also

visited Iraqi police stations, joint security stations, and law enforcement academies; and commissioners traveled to border, port, and

internal security installations, as well as to Coalition facilities designed to assist with Iraqi security training and transition. These

visits were invaluable to us, as they allowed us a firsthand look at

the real work being accomplished daily by members of the Iraqi Security Forces and their dedicated Coalition partners.

The Commission met with more than 100 Iraqi officials, more

than 100 U.S. and current former government officials, and more

than a dozen leading non-governmental experts on the subject of

Iraqi Security Forces.

Finally, the Commission examined previous studies and reports,

key data, and documents with information relevant to the performance and status of the Iraqi Security Forces, the rate of progress,

and their prospects for fulfilling the responsibilities of a professional and effective security force.

Before addressing our key findings, I would like to emphasize

that the findings and recommendations by this Commission were

endorsed unanimously by all members of this Commission.

I would also like to note that the Commission could not have performed its work without the generous assistance and support of

many, many individuals. In particular, we are grateful for the support provided by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint

Staff, the Multinational Force Iraq, the entire military chain of

command, as well as the Department of State and Embassy Baghdad. We also appreciate the openness we were shown by many officials of the government of Iraq.

Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, the Iraqi Security Forces

are made up of two major components, the Iraqi military and the

Iraqi police. The Commission examined both components and their

governing ministries in order to fulfill our mandate.

The Iraqi military includes the Army, Special Forces, the Air

Force, and the Navy. They operate under the Ministry of Defense,

and today they number approximately 152,000 personnel in uniform.

Iraqi police forces include the Iraqi Police Service, the National

Police, the Border Forces, and the Facilities Protection Services.

They operate under the Ministry of the Interior, and their total

number is approximately 324,000.

In terms of overall results, the consensus opinion of the Commission is that the most positive event that can occur in the near term

to influence progress in Iraq is a government-led political reconciliation which leads to an end to sectarian violence. Everything seems

to flow from this point, to include the likelihood of a successful conclusion to our own mission. Absent that event, it will certainly be

harder and it will take longer in order to be successful.

Our overall evaluation of the Iraqi Security Forces is that real

progress has been achieved, though it is relatively uneven across

6

the span of the security forces. With regard to the Ministry of Defense, we note good progress. We note the existence of a strategic

vision for the future and eagerness to take on more responsibility.

We note the presence of thousands of young Iraqis eager to join the

armed forces.

We note the development of a bureaucracy that is not very responsive to the needs of the field because of the bureaucratic

layering and the cumbersome bureaucracy that seems to be developing which inhibits the delivery of equipment and supplies from

getting to Iraqi front lines.

As you know, the 10 divisions making up the Iraqi Army are

composed or led by—four of them are led by Shi’a, four by Kurds

and three Sunni divisions today in the Iraqi Army.

With regard to the Army, we have noted an impressive progress

in ability and willingness to defend against the internal threats to

the nation, working with police units where possible to bolster the

police units’ capability shortfalls. We have seen evidence of considerable tactical success on the ground. One thing that impressed all

of us was their willingness to take on more combat missions as

soon as possible. I might note that the Iraqi Army intends to grow

from 10 divisions to 13 divisions in 2008.

I ask you to turn to page 57 of your report for the next slide.

Sectarian problems in the Ministry of Defense and in the Iraqi

Army are minor as compared to other institutions in the Iraqi government. The basic elements necessary to grow an Army are in

place and functioning; and, as I said earlier, they seem to have an

unlimited amount of volunteers ready to enlist in the ranks.

There is an alarming development in terms of the existence of

duplicate and parallel chains of command and intelligence-gathering institutions; and we noted a much-needed requirement to improve in cooperation with other organizations, other agencies such

as the Ministry of the Interior and more coordination required with

police forces.

The Iraqi Army cannot yet operate independently due to a chronic lack of logistics, supply, mobility, and national command and

control capabilities. It cannot defend against external threats emanating from Syria and Iran, especially along the borders in the defense of its critical infrastructures.

The most capable and professionally effective military units in

Iraq are its Special Forces unit. In our judgment, they are as good

as any in the Gulf region, although they lack in mobility and currently do not have enough enablers. But their willingness to fight

and their professional capability and their morale is extremely impressive.

The Navy and the Air Force remain in an early developmental

stage. They are making satisfactory progress.

The Commission has recommended that the Iraqi government

consider integrating the Coast Guard and the Navy into a single

maritime force. Iraq is a nation with a 36-mile coastline, and currently the Navy and the Coast Guard function independently and

under two different ministries.

Turning briefly to the Ministry of the Interior, this is judged by

the Commission to be a weak ministry, despite recent attempts to

change out senior personnel for sectarian reasons. Little progress

7

has been made to date in terms of the efficiency and the management of this particular ministry. There is strong evidence of sectarian partisanship, indications of corruption, and it is a failing bureaucracy. Little evidence of willingness to cooperate with other

ministries, inflexibility, perhaps excessive influence by countries

flanking Iraq, and one area in our assessment where there is the

most critical need for reform and recovery.

If I could ask your attention to page 87 of the report, I will turn

to the Iraqi Police Service.

The Iraqi Police Service is comprised of about 230,000 policemen

whose salaries are provided by the central government, but those

salaries don’t always reach the local and regional levels, which

fuels the sectarian reaction. It is possible for provinces to recruit

policemen but only the central government can pay them, and you

can see the obvious problems that a system like that will create.

Police by local ethnically representative units seems to work best

for the time being. They have an unlimited manpower pool to

choose from, many volunteers seeking to be policemen. But the

overall progress of the Iraqi police capability is judged to be unsatisfactory.

The National Police is composed of 25,000 individuals. This is the

Commission recommendation for the National Police, is to disband

it and reorganize it in terms of makeup. It is highly sectarian; 85

percent of the National Police are Shi’a. It is very heavy-handed.

It is not trusted by people of Sunni and Kurdish ethnicity, and

there are strong indications of corruption within the National Police network.

The Department of Border Enforcement numbers 37,000 policemen. It is part of the Ministry of the Interior. It is weak and poorly

supported by the parent ministry and unable to make a serious

contribution against new threats rising from Iran and Syria.

And, finally, the Facilities Protection Services, which numbers

140,000, also a part of the Ministry of the Interior, suffers from inattention and relatively poor standards and training.

Overall conclusion with regard to our task is as follows:

First conclusion is that the Iraqi Security Forces as a whole cannot yet defend the territorial integrity of Iraq. But, as we will point

out later, this is not necessarily an alarming conclusion. They are

able to do more in terms of combating the internal security threats

to Iraq, and that is positive.

Second, we have noted improvement in the internal security missions, such as denying the safe haven to terrorists; and this

progress is likely to continue in the months ahead.

Third, we judged that the Iraqi Security Forces can bring greater

security to the provinces in the next 12 to 18 months, assuming a

continuing rate of progress.

And, fourth, with regard to ending sectarian violence, the Commission strongly feels that this has to be initiated by the central

government in order to be effective and that U.S. and Coalition

support will be required until independent operational capability to

defend against the external threats to Iraq is achieved. Size and

mission of Coalition military forces could possibly be altered in the

near future, given this favorable development.

8

In addition to our specific mandate, the Commission desires to

add some interpretive context to our findings reference the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces. Our goal here is simply to be

helpful in arriving at a way ahead that will enable success in this

critical mission.

The strategic consequences of failure along national, regional,

and global lines are significant; and the strategic consequences of

success are equally significant as well.

To reiterate, the Commission’s overall assessment of the Iraqi

Security Forces is that there has been measurable, though uneven,

progress. The impact of the surge has had a tactical success for

both Iraqi and Coalition forces in the Baghdad region; and I would

call your attention to page 34, which will depict a slide, a chart on

Baghdad violence levels as a result of the tactical surge of both

Iraqi and Coalition forces.

The Iraqi surge began in January of 2007, and the Coalition

surge became operationally effective in May of 2007. And as you

can see by looking at the charts, some appreciable and measurable

changes to the security environment is what has resulted. This has

also been accompanied by a sudden and some say stunning loss of

support for al Qaeda by the population and tribal leaders throughout Anbar Province.

Anbar Province was a year ago the most violent province in Iraq.

It constitutes about a third of the territorial land mass of the country. And as a result of the savagery and viciousness of al Qaeda’s

practices against local Iraqis in that area, there has been a dramatic turnaround in terms of support for the Coalition. It is estimated that roughly 35- to 40,000 fighters who were fighting the

Coalition a year ago are now fighting with the Coalition against

Iraq just in that province.

If you would turn to page 29 of the report, you will see a chart

that speaks to the Anbar attacks and the sudden decline in the

numbers of those attacks over a relatively short period of time.

The third element that has been positive has been the sudden

rise in the capacity of the day-to-day fighting capabilities of the

Iraqi Army. If you would turn to page 38, you will see a chart that

shows a fairly dramatic increase in the number of casualties that

have been suffered by the new Iraqi Army, proof positive that they

are doing more; and they have shown themselves to be an Army

that is increasingly willing to fight and take on the nation’s problems.

There has been some limited but important police success in local

ethnic neighborhoods in Anbar Province, which materially contributes to the stability and security of the region.

The positive trends we saw signal the possibility of a strategic

shift for our Coalition forces commencing in 2008 or earlier if the

commanders judge it prudent, as is mentioned in our report. Operational attention will be increasingly required in defense of the border regions and on defense of critical infrastructures of the nation.

This gradual shift of Coalition to what we would call a strategic

overwatch position, accompanied by appropriate force adjustments,

are now possible to envision. This is a very recent development.

The gradual transfer of combat operations against internal threats

to the Iraqi Security Forces is not only possible, it is happening.

9

More attention is needed to offset the major destabilization efforts coming from Iran and Syria.

We propose that the image of the Coalition should be adjusted.

We appear to be still excessively an occupying force in Iraq and

that this adjustment should accompany any strategic shift of forces

and adjustments to their mission set. This is an important element

of our strategic messaging on how we present ourselves to the Iraqi

public and to our own public as well. The force footprint adjusted

for expeditionary capability should combat the permanent force

image of today’s presence, which will make our eventual departure

all the more easier.

It is very important to establish an Iraqi-Coalition Transition

Headquarters, which is one of our major recommendations. We find

absent a location where visitors can be briefed in the aggregate

sense of the broad nature of transition; and we believe that an

Iraqi-Coalition Transition Headquarters, which would be a single

focal point for all transition efforts—military, political, economic,

legal, the whole broad spectrum that makes up the world of transition—should be visible and should track the progress not only in

the past and the present but also have a clear plan which shows

our goals for future transition.

The committee also feels strongly that all of Iraq’s provinces

should be transferred immediately to the Iraqi control as a matter

of policy. If you would look at your chart on page 40 of the report,

you will see that there are seven—currently seven provinces that

have been transferred to provincial Iraqi control.

We do not believe there is a single metric that adequately covers

the requirements for transfer to Iraqi control. We have a sovereign

government in Iraq, we have 18 provinces, and we see no reason

why more responsibility shouldn’t be given to that government for

political control of their provinces. We recognize that in so doing

that we would supplement this transfer with the mentoring and

the assistance which would enable success.

To further combat our image as occupiers, the Commission believes that we should consider engaging in a status of forces agreement as a visible means of reinforcing the sovereignty of Iraq. Consistent with such an agreement, this would be consistent with

other agreements that we have in many nations around the world.

And we believe that our bases in Iraq should fly both the U.S. and

Iraqi flags.

Last, Mr. Chairman, I would close by signaling that we have uncovered—it was brought to our attention that there was a large

problem with regard to our own national capacity to generate

equipment for the Iraqi Army through the foreign military sales

system, and this has been identified by U.S. commanders as a

major problem which is inhibiting the development and the growth

of the Iraqi Security Forces.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Hunter, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, thank you for listening to these opening comments. My colleagues and I are ready and anxious to respond to any questions

you might have with regard to our work.

[The Jones report is retained in the Committee files and can be

viewed upon request.]

10

The CHAIRMAN. General, thank you so much for your excellent

work and the work of your Commission and for your testimony.

According to the sheet that was given us, there are a total of

359,700 Iraqi Security Forces trained and equipped. Is that correct?

General JONES. These numbers are difficult. In my prepared remarks I mentioned that the size of the Army is about 152,000. We

are pretty confident of that number. When you total up all of the

elements that make up the units under the Ministry of Defense

that could be classified as police forces, we come up with about

340,000. So that would be—the number would be slightly more

than the number that you quoted, Mr. Chairman, but it kind of depends on what units we are talking about.

The CHAIRMAN. The issue really being discussed in our country

is when do we redeploy the American troops and pass the mission

or the baton over to the Iraqi Security Forces. On page 128 of your

report, the last part of the second paragraph thereof, first full paragraph thereof, states that, ‘‘We recommend that careful consideration of the size of our national footprint in Iraq be reconsidered

with regard to the efficiency, necessity, and its cost. Significant reductions, consolidations, and realignments would appear to be possible and prudent.’’ Is that correct?

General JONES. That is correct, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. General, would you please explain those two sentences to us? Should I read them to you again?

General JONES. No, sir, that is not necessary.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you please?

General JONES. Thank you, sir. I will make a general comment,

and I will ask my two colleagues to my right and left, General

Joulwan——

The CHAIRMAN. That would certainly be fine if each would make

reference to it. Thank you.

General JONES. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, it is the belief that as a result of a number of encouraging factors in terms of the operations on the ground, the evolution, the success, the statistical impact that the surge has had—

by the way, I would like to emphasize that the surge is also an

Iraqi surge—the fact that Iraq’s 10 divisions are operating and increasingly able to take on more and more of the day-to-day combat

missions against the internal threats of Iraq, the fact that in Anbar

Province we had a remarkable turnaround with regard to popular

support for al Qaeda, and the fact that the Coalition is successfully

mentoring and training the Iraqi Security Forces to the point that

we will have three more Iraqi divisions in the very near future

means that we can consider taking a look at our footprint, taking

a look at how many people we have in Iraq, how many bases we

have, how many locations we have, and begin to think about ways

in which we can realign the force, retask the force, and even remission it so that we can gradually adjust our footprint.

The CHAIRMAN. Does that mean reduce?

General JONES. Sir?

The CHAIRMAN. Does that mean reduce our force?

General JONES. It means finding efficiencies, and it means—yes,

it means making a candid assessment of who is over there, who absolutely needs to be there critically, and making sure we are operVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
11

ating at peak efficiency and don’t have excessive capacity simply

over there because it is their time to go.

Let me ask General Joulwan for his comments.

General JOULWAN. Mr. Chairman, I would just add that at least

what we saw is that what we have had on the ground is what I

would call tactical success, as was mentioned, with the surge. That

is a tactic, not a strategy. The larger strategy is what we are trying

to deal with, how to really reinforce that success or build on that

success. I think part of that is to reduce the dependency on the

U.S. and Coalition forces, and we see a possibility to do that.

In the Army, for example, I believe significant strides are being

made to develop professionalism, to develop combat readiness of

the forces. They are not totally there yet, but we can see a shift

to an Iraqi lead, not a U.S. Coalition lead at some point in the future. And I think that can start very soon, maybe as soon as next

year, as we say in the report; and that will include lesser Coalition

and U.S. forces.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think, General Joulwan, that they may

be using the presence of American troops as a crutch to not work

at it better and become more independent?

STATEMENT OF GEN. GEORGE JOULWAN, (RETIRED)

General JOULWAN. My sensing, particularly of the Iraqi Army

and the Special Forces, we dug pretty deep. I had some senior noncommissioned officers with us, and I think there is not only

progress but significant potential as we do it. I don’t think they are

using it as a crutch. Very impressive to me, when I talked to Iraqi

division commanders, that they say we are not Sunni, Shi’a or

Kurd, we are Iraqi. And I think you can build on that within the

Army. They are taking the fight to al Qaeda. They are developing

intelligence in some of the villages that we visited.

So the issue is, how do we really build on this opportunity? And

that is the point we are trying to make.

The CHAIRMAN. Who else wished to comment, General?

General JONES. Chief.

STATEMENT OF CHIEF CHARLES H. RAMSEY

Chief RAMSEY. Mr. Chairman, I think that the police will play a

very critical role overall in our ability in the future to be able to

lessen the footprint of the U.S. military and Coalition forces in

Iraq.

Right now, the police are not able to play any real, meaningful

role in helping to bring about security and stability in the various

provinces, with the exception of the Kurdish region. Those provinces, the police and the way in which they function is quite different from what you see in other parts of Iraq. The al-Anbar Province is showing a great deal of promise I think. We were all very

impressed with the progress that they have made.

But the police overall are under-equipped to take on the challenges posed by insurgents and militia. They do not have the vehicles. They don’t have the overall equipment, the training. The

training that we saw is, for the most part, very good, but there is

not enough of it. There aren’t enough police advisers there working

with Iraqi trainers to really quickly bring about the kind of trainVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
12

ing needed for them to assume that responsibility. Also, the security concerns, they can’t get to some of the training sites on a consistent basis to be able to handle that.

Most of the problems, the vast majority of the problems that we

saw with the police were directly linked to the dysfunction within

the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and their inability to be able to

provide the resources necessary for the police to be effective. I

think once the problems in the MOI are straightened out, and I

speak for my syndicate members as well——

The CHAIRMAN. MOI is Ministry of Interior.

Chief RAMSEY. Ministry of Interior, yes, sir—you will see rapid

progress on the part of the Iraqi Police Service. That is the 230,000

members of that particular service. That is not the National Police,

where we have a totally different view of their effectiveness and

their future.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hamre.

Dr. HAMRE. I share the views of my colleagues.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Hunter.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and, again, thanks for

having this hearing. And, gentlemen, thank you for your extraordinary service in putting together this analysis. I am really impressed with the breadth of the expertise that you have assembled

here.

Let me make a fast question so we can get down the line, because I know we have got a lot of members who have lots of questions. Could you simply paint a picture, any of you on the witness

table?

Because we see—our image of the forces is largely limited to

slides that have numbers on them, that grade them whether you

are fully ready, fully capable, and there is many factors that go

into those particular numbers that are difficult to conceptualize.

But if members of the committee were to look at the typical Iraqi

infantry company—you gentlemen have a lot of battlefield expertise on you—what would you see? Typical company in size and the

type of equipment they would have and the type of operation that

they would be capable of.

General JOULWAN. I would say at least what we looked at, and

we went down to Patrol Base Whiskey One, which was an outpost

with a captain, a U.S. and Iraqi captain, and it was very professional. They were doing patrolling. They were able to conduct patrols and fire support.

What they need from us primarily are the enablers. They don’t

have the enablers that we have. That is in intelligence, fire support, air. Those sorts of things they lack. But they are getting better tactically at what they are able to do. They are developing their

own intelligence, which I thought was extremely interesting, particularly in the north around Mosul. This division commander was

developing his own intelligence network, and he was conducting his

own independent operations.

So I don’t want to get rose-colored glasses here, but there appears to be trends here that are very positive. And they are trying

to build and train an Army at war. Remember, we dismantled this

13

Army, and they are trying to rebuild it. And so there is some—

there is progress here. We just need to build on it.

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank all of you gentlemen for your continuing service

to our Nation.

General Jones, and I want to open this up to the panel, I found

it very interesting your observations about the need to put the

Iraqis in charge. The one word that I didn’t hear, that I have not

had the time to read your report, mentioned, was the word ‘‘trust’’.

My casual observation visiting the Water Palace is that, although

we talk of it as a Coalition force, every face I saw in there was an

American. I know that there are operations taking place at the

lower levels on a sharing of responsibility with the Iraqis, but at

the top it seems to be all American decision-making.

Now I realize there have been instances where the hotlines to report Improvised Explosive Device (IED’s), where the people who

were actually taking the information passed it on to the enemy, the

people who gave us information ended up paying with their lives.

But when it comes to the decision-making of turning all the provinces over to the Iraqis of a shared responsibility it comes back to

the word trust.

I am also impressed at the very large number of general officers

who have sons and daughters who are serving in Iraq right now.

I don’t know if that is the case for you or General Joulwan, but

knowing some of the other generals, I know that that is happening.

Since you are no longer in uniform, would you trust those sons and

daughters, their safety, given what has happened in some other instances, with in effect having a substantial Iraqi presence in the

Water Palace at the headquarters?

General JONES. Sir, I do have a son that has had two tours in

Iraq as a Marine infantry officer, and we did address the trust

issue in the units that we visited. And I would like to think and,

as a matter of fact, I am reasonably sure that this Commission

drilled down very deeply into the heart and soul of the emerging

Iraqi Army.

We have two sergeants major here who we tasked specifically to

assess will to fight, will to accept responsibility, morale. And although I don’t want to make it a blanket statement, the answers

we got to our questions from the embedded trainers, our own people who live with these emerging Iraqi units, is that the trust is

growing and it is improving. But that trust is limited more to the

Iraqi Army than it is to the police forces. Hopefully, we will get

there with the police forces as well. But I think that the Commission feels that they are moving in the right direction.

And in some of the areas of Baghdad in particular, where the

surge was, both the Iraqi surge and the Coalition surge coalesced

into joint operations. That trust has grown considerably in the last

six months.

Mr. TAYLOR. Is there a potential downside—and, again, this is a

question. I don’t know the answer. Is there a potential downside to

turning control of all of the provinces back in that you would then

14

be in a situation where you have to get permission to launch a particular operation?

General JONES. I think when we talk about transferring the

provinces to provincial Iraqi control we are talking about a political

event as opposed to a security event. It doesn’t mean that they become absolutely independent.

But the problem we had with our system, which has so far resulted in seven provinces being transferred, is that there is no single metric that you can apply to the southern part of Iraq and to

the northern part of Iraq, where the conditions are so totally different, particularly where it relates to security. So our belief is that

we are wasting—wasting is a bad word perhaps—but there is a lot

of effort going on to try to define what it means and what are the

standards necessary to give this control back to the provinces when

we believe, frankly, that it is an academic exercise, and we should

bolster the sovereignty of Iraq by giving them control of their own

provinces.

We didn’t do it in Afghanistan. President Karzai always had control of his—always had responsibility for his provinces at the political level.

It will not inhibit military operations, nor will it inhibit the task

of the Coalition. The range of effort that is needed is so different

in each of the provinces that trying to come up with a template

that says, okay, on this date we can transfer this province to provincial control is, frankly, somewhat meaningless. So as a way to

put more responsibility on the willing shoulders of the government,

and the government is very willing to accept this, instead of prolonging the agony of handing over a province every two or three

months, our recommendation is simply do it as a matter of policy

and consider the requirements of each province in terms of its security elements, because we are going to have to do that anyway.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you again, General.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Saxton from New Jersey.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and let me add my personal thanks to you for the great effort that you have made in carrying out this project. I am sure while I don’t have to. I can say

thanks for each of the members of the committee who have been

watching your great work.

In your section on concluding observations, there is a paragraph

that I find very interesting and informative. It says—and I will

read it just for context—the surge, if successful, will play an important role in enabling the evolution of our strategy. There are signs

of encouraging tactical successes in the Baghdad capital region,

which remains the epicenter of enemy focus and of their competing

strategy. Unable to achieve conventional military victory, the opposing forces must rely on spectacular bombing attacks on innocent

Iraqi citizens as well as Iraqi Security Forces and Coalition forces.

As the international media is mostly Baghdad-based, successful attacks receive disproportionate coverage relative to some very real

progress achieved in other areas of the country, such as al-Anbar

Province. The result, unfortunately, is enemy momentum in the

battle of strategic messaging, despite the growing popular rejection

of terrorist ideology in the region. People’s outrage at al Qaeda savVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
15

agery and their realization that it is a movement not of liberation

but of occupation has helped transform this province from being

the most violent to being one of the least violent in Iraq. Coupled

with the emerging capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces and the

promise of the Coalition’s clear hold-and-build tactic, there are

some encouraging indications of a positive trend in the region.

I guess I have a three-part question. Number one, would you just

expand on the positive, if you will, parts of this paragraph of the

successes that we have seen in the Baghdad region? Two, give us

your opinions as to how we can enhance it in this region and

spread it to other regions, which is obviously the goal that we

would all like to see. And, number three, how do we deal with the

leverage that al Qaeda and other wrongdoers gain by using the

media the way they do and the way you point out in this paragraph?

I just throw that open, General, to——

General JONES. Thank you. Well, I think, hopefully, the words

speak for themselves in terms of the success.

I think success is due to three major things. One is the success

of the surge in Baghdad and its districts; two is the reversal of al

Qaeda’s fortunes in al Anbar; and, three, the very impressive capabilities that the Iraqi Army is demonstrating as a result of the

training and the mentoring and the equipping that has been going

on. Those three things have together formed the basis of a somewhat better assessment than we would have had sitting here just

a year ago.

Whether the Anbar success can be exported to other countries remains—other provinces remains to be seen, though there are signs

that in Diyala and other areas that popular support for al Qaeda

is diminishing.

I think it might be worth underscoring that casualties caused by

al Qaeda attacks only constitute about 15 percent of the total casualties that occur in Iraq. But, nonetheless, we are watching closely. I think the authorities are watching closely to see if this is exportable to other regions.

As far as the strategic messaging, this is something that we

struggled with for a long time both in Afghanistan and Iraq, where

the ability of the enemy to reach their Web sites is very, very

quick. In Afghanistan, I think it was about 60 minutes from the

time of an incident to the time it was posted and out in the Arab

world. Whereas the best the alliance could do is maybe a day or

two.

So the strategic part of this conflict is very interesting, because

they know that the spectacular attack and being able to lob three

or four mortar rounds into the international zone is going to cause

a headline. But the truth of the matter is, I believe, that, at least

in terms of al Qaeda for certain, the momentum is slipping and

turning in favor of the Coalition and the trend of the Iraqi Security

Forces.

Mr. TAYLOR [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Saxton.

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Reyes.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and, General Jones and

members of the Commission, thank you for your work and for your

service.

16

In your report you cite that the Ministry of Interior has been described as—and this is a quote—an 11-story powder keg of factions

that is plagued by battles for influence among political parties, religious groups, the existing government, tribes, and families. I was

wondering what is your assessment of the level of sectarian militia

infiltration within each of the segments of the security service, the

military, the National Police, the Iraqi Police Service, the border

service, and even, according to reports, the Facilities Protection

Services.

General JONES. If I could—generally, I would just simply say

that it is much better in the Ministry of Defense and the Iraqi

Army, much worse in the Ministry of the Interior and the police

forces.

But let me ask my colleagues, General Joulwan and Chief

Ramsey, to give you a little bit more on that.

General JOULWAN. Go ahead, Chief.

Chief RAMSEY. It is very difficult, sir, to give a precise number

as it relates to the police. However, from our visit and interviews

that we conducted, it is clear that there has been infiltration of militia insurgents and criminals in the various police forces.

I will take the Iraqi Police Service to begin with. We estimate

there are about 230,000 members of the Iraqi Police Service, about

164,000 have been trained. The gap exists because many people are

being hired at the provincial level and aren’t necessarily being approved at the Ministry of Interior level and you have got a lot of

people that are untrained and not on the books, if you will.

There is a great deal of concern, and even though it is getting

better, that early on there was very little vetting that was taking

place. That is changing. They are using biometrics now, retinal

scans, fingerprints, things of that nature. But there is no real database to bounce this off of yet to the point where you can feel comfortable saying we have really screened this individual. So they are

still kind of relying on local sheiks and others to vouch for an individual to make sure that they are not part of some kind of militia

organization.

The National Police is viewed as being highly sectarian. It is 85

percent Shi’a, 13 percent Sunni. They have been accused of having

death squads. In fact, last October, an entire brigade was disbanded and the officers arrested because of the kidnapping of 26

Sunnis and the murder of seven of those people. So that is your

more problematic unit in the police service.

The Facilities Protective Service, I don’t think anyone has a real

handle on that. They are highly sectarian. Their loyalty is to various individual ministers, tribal leaders and the like. We aren’t

aware of any formal training that they have received. So that is another group that is problematic, and we estimate there could be as

many as 145,000 of those individuals. So it is a problem.

There needs to be a standard process that is in place for the vetting of these officers. There are a lot of—and balance, diversity.

One of the things that we have found, though, that has really

been positive, in using al Anbar as another example once again,

where the local sheiks are actively out recruiting and trying to assist getting young men to join the police, and basically they are

from the same community that they are policing.

17

So a lot of the sectarian issues have been eliminated or certainly

greatly reduced in that particular province because of that. And we

believe that at this point in the evolution of Iraq, that having police

from the community police their own communities is probably a

highly effective way of doing it.

General JOULWAN. Just a quick point on the Army, and what we

found in terms of infiltration into the Army units. I would say that

there is such a—I consider it a bond between the mentors, our

troops that are mentoring their Army units. I think probably some

of it is there, but I think it is waning, it is minimal.

The issue of corruption is one—they are so terrified of corruption,

I am talking about the Iraqis that have to sign I don’t know how

many pieces of paper. And that is part of the problem in having

to requisition things, because they don’t want to be accused of corruption.

So minimum, I think, in terms of in the Army units of infiltration—and it goes to the issue of trust again that we talked about.

I asked very directly to the Americans there, do you trust the Iraqi

units, and I got a very positive answer coming back. So I think this

confidence is being built. And I think that will go a long way to

preventing or at least minimizing the infiltration taking place, at

least in the Army units.

Mr. REYES. I would ask Dr. Hamre to make a comment.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HAMRE

Dr. HAMRE. Mr. Reyes, there is a structural dimension to this

militia control which is very important to understand. I hope the

committee understands. When the government was set up, we

probably helped set it up this way, the ability to hire cops is at the

provincial level, but the budget to pay them is at the national level.

And that budget is controlled by the Minister of Interior, which is

controlled by the Shi’a. And you have got a battle royal going on

controlling resources.

Over half of the budget of the Minister of interior was never distributed last year to their own people. I mean, they are playing tug

of war, sectarian tug of war, because of this structural divide. This

is the single greatest problem we are facing. The weakness of the

police is directly attributable to the weakness of the Minister of the

Interior and the way in which to become a sectarian enclave.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Reyes.

The Chair recognizes Mr. McHugh.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, let me add my words of deep appreciation and admiration for the team you put together. In my 15 years I can’t remember a more impressive nor would I say more appropriate assemblage of individuals. And we are all deeply indebted for your

effort.

I have to tell you that having read several of the media reports

this morning as to what your report said, and now having heard

you say it, I am wondering if maybe there aren’t some imposters

out there. Quite a difference, and not all of it to the positive. I

think in some areas you have laid out a very realistic and very

stark picture.

18

I just got back from, along with one of my colleagues, from my

eighth trip to Iraq and had an opportunity to go out into al-Anbar

and walked around Fallujah a bit. Obviously, as I think both your

reports and your comments underscore, the surge, whether it is

there on the streets of Baghdad and now transferred somewhat to

Diyala Province and I would hope other places, has been successful.

In the context of your reduction of the footprint, which I think

bears careful consideration, are you suggesting that the surge is

done, and we should now begin a new strategy and tactic; or do you

think, as I seemed to learn or I thought I heard when I was in

Fallujah, for the moment the surge as a tactic—and General

Joulwan described it as that, and I think he is absolutely on point.

You will be relieved to know I think that, General—but as a tactic

should continue for some time? Are there more successes to be realized from that?

General JONES. At some point the authorities will declare that

the surge has done what it is supposed to do, and we think that

that day is coming. It is not for us to say when that is. But I think

that when that happens, and with the projected rate of expansion

of the Iraqi Army, hopefully more progress along the police lines,

and if the phenomenon in al-Anbar does, in fact, migrate over to

other areas, that will give the authorities an opportunity to reassess how best to use the forces that they have. And I think that

day is coming sooner rather than later.

Mr. MCHUGH. Of course, we have an operational reality, a mathematical reality of being able to sustain the rotations as well. But

your report is not intended to suggest the surge is done today, September 7?

General JONES. No. I think that is for the commanders on the

ground to determine.

Mr. MCHUGH. As to the footprint and the reduction, and as I

said in my opening comments, I think there is meat there that we

need to consider very carefully. Where might you suggest in a more

specific framework where those reductions, where that changing

footprint might occur; whereabouts; which troops; what would the

number be; what would you see? And let us say we are at 160 now,

give or take. Would you see us coming down to 50, 80, 100, 120,

any idea? Can you give us some guidance on that?

General JONES. Without trying to be evasive, that is fairly far beyond our mandate. And we did not, we just did not have time to

get to that point of specificity, other than to say that because of

how we assess the rate of progress in the Iraqi Security Forces,

that there are some implications that one could reasonably make

about what that means. And that is why we added this 11th chapter, which was to try to be helpful and interpretive without going

too far to say this means that we could bring home X number of

troops at a certain date. But we did use the words carefully to say

we do think that because of these positive trends, in terms of the

increasing ability of Iraqis to handle the internal problems of a

country, internal security problems, without a corresponding ability

to do both the external and the internal problems, which will come

in time, that it is quite possible that we could put more of our

forces, more of the coalition forces, their technical capabilities and

their focus on combatting and making much more secure the terriVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
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torial integrity of the nation, but away from the cities, as the Iraqis

handle their own problems themselves. And that to us is encouraging. What that means specifically in numbers is beyond our capacity to assess.

Mr. MCHUGH. I see my time expired. Thank you again.

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair recognizes Dr. Snyder.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Jones, did you have any Arkansans on that commission?

I always like to recognize Retired Sergent Major McMichael. We

are very proud of him and his Arkansas heritage.

I want to pick up a little bit where Mr. McHugh was. As I read

your report about the Iraqi National Army side of things, I thought

it was reasonably positive, things are moving the right way,

logistical problems, close air support challenges in the future. But

that was different than sort of the press headlines that says, Iraqi

Army Unable to Take Over Within a Year. I read your report. I

think you used the word ‘‘independently.’’ Is that kind of the key

distinction? You don’t have any expectation that tomorrow or the

next day that they are somehow going to be able to have their supply lines and logistics and close air support, but that they can do

a lot of fighting and are already? Is that how you would distinguish

between the press headlines we have been seeing?

General JONES. I think that is correct. The way we characterize

it is they can do more internally to face the troubles that they are

facing. But to try to build an army—first of all, having defeated the

Army and then having dismembered it and then trying to reassemble it and have it to be able to be ready to take on the internal

threats of the insurgencies and the external threats posed by the

neighboring countries, that is a little bit of a stretch in the period

of time that they have had. There is no question in my mind that

they are on the right glide slope to get there, and because of the

increased capacity, it is going to give us more capability to do more

on the external side while they take care more the internal problems.

Dr. SNYDER. How I want to spend the remaining time I have is

I want to read these comments from what you call your concluding

thoughts on page 129 and 130. We have a big debate going on in

this country and a big debate going on in this Congress, and you

all are very much aware of that, and your report is being reviewed

in that context. But I want to read what you all say, which you all

signed off on unanimously, and just ask our three former military

people here to comment on it.

And this is what your report said: Concluding thoughts. While

much remains to be done before success can be confidently declared, the strategic consequences of failure or even perceived failure for the United States and the coalition are enormous. We approach a truly strategic moment in this still young century. Iraq’s

regional geostrategic position, the balance of power in the Middle

East, the economic stability made possible by the flow of energy in

many parts of the world, and the ability to defeat and contain terrorism where it is most manifest are issues that do not lend themselves to easier, quick solutions. How we respond to them, however,

could well define our Nation in the eyes of the world for years to

come. And that is the end of your-all’s unanimous opinion.

20

Could we start with Dr. Hamre, General Joulwan and then General Jones? What does that mean to you as we all—we should have

had alumni shirts for the three of you. You all testified so many

times here when you were in uniform.

Dr. Hamre, would you go start, and then General Joulwan and

then General Jones?

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, here I will use my own personal vocabulary, so

it differs perhaps from how my colleagues would say it. But we

have strategic interests that are larger than just Iraq: our continued influence and presence in the region, the ability to get continued access to energy resources, providing a counterweight to Iran.

We have large strategic interests. Every one of those interests

would be seriously diminished if we had to crawl out of Iraq or run

out of Iraq. That is what it boils down to. We have to be able to

walk out, not crawl out of Iraq.

General JONES. General Joulwan, I will defer to General Bright

on this issue because he spent a lot of time studying it, and I would

like to give him the microphone.

General BRIGHT. This is the crux of the whole issue. This Commission did not limit what it knows about Iraq to 20 days or so

that we spent there. Now, some of us have been in and out of Iraq

a great deal over the last several years. I personally had six visits,

and many visits to other countries in the region, the United Arab

Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria. I have yet to find

anyone who wants us to stay forever. But I haven’t yet found anyone that wants us to leave anytime soon. They are worried about

containing this conflict within the borders of Iraq, and if we leave,

most, if not all, believe that it raises the risk of spillover of sectarian conflict throughout the entire region.

How best do we dampen that risk is the question that all of us

wrestled with. It is not in our charter precisely. But the stakes are

so high here that whatever we do, we must have as our objective

controlling those risks, and that means keeping as much support

there as long as we believe it is necessary to bolster the Iraqis to

do the jobs themselves.

So you focused, sir, on the key question of all, and that is what

are the—this is not May of 1975. We can’t come home and have

no effect on either our own country or the rest of the world. All of

the world is dependent upon stability and a continuation of access

to energy in that region, the most important question of all.

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair recognizes Mr. Wilson.

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

I would like to thank all of you and each person who participated

on the Commission. In looking at the report and hearing the comments that you are making, I need to tell you that this is so refreshing. Instead of recrimination and pointing back and saying

why things weren’t done, or accusations, or put-downs of anyone,

the report truly does reflect where we are.

And then I greatly appreciate the suggestions on how to improve,

whether it be in recruiting, reorganization, reform, logistics. It really is a very, very helpful report. And we all need this, and the

American people need this. And so you have really made a great

contribution.

21

In my visits to Iraq, I have been there seven times, I visited in

particular from the beginning with the efforts to see the training

of the police. And so it is a real disappointment to me, and I was

always concerned whether they were vetted initially as to their association with the prior regime, and then, of course, as things transpired with the circumstance of the infiltration by sectarian militias. In the media I reflect the view of Congressman McHugh. I

had really not anticipated what I am hearing now. But the media

headlines that I heard indicated that the police should just be disbanded and start over again. Is there some way that they can be

reformed? And this could be Chief Ramsey or whoever.

Chief RAMSEY. Yes, sir, Congressman, and thank you for that

question, because there is a lot of misinformation from some of the

media reports that I have read as well.

We are not proposing to disband all police. Again, the Iraqi Police Services comprise 230,000 individuals. A comment was made

as it relates to the national police, which is 25,000 members. And

what we are proposing is that their mission be redefined. We believe that there are functions that are police-related functions that

are necessary that may not be able to be supported at the provincial level, such as bomb squads, SWAT teams, river patrol, air support, teams that can operate in a hazardous environment, taking

a portion of that 25,000, roughly about 6,000, perhaps a few more,

and having them focus on those areas that are greatly needed.

Urban search and rescue is another area that we included in that.

The remainder that are vetted, obviously, some would be sent over

to the military, some to the Iraqi Police Service.

So we are not saying just disband and let them go wherever they

go. There is a need to redefine the mission, because as it stands

right now, they lack the kind of credibility and support and trust,

if you will, across Iraq to be an effective force. And we think that

even though there is a training effort going on now, a four-week

course that focuses a lot on the rule of law and democratic policing

and things like that, so much has happened, it is just difficult to

overcome. A four-week course is not going to change the basic culture and history that they are trying to overcome.

So our feeling is that you simply redefine their mission, which

has never really been clear. If you look at the national police, it is

not clear whether or not they are a light infantry force, or are they

a police force. So that needs to be addressed. And that is really

what we are looking at when we are talking about that particular

issue.

Mr. WILSON. And, Chief, when I was there, I was very impressed

by the instructors from 20 different countries that were helping

promote community policing, something that you do in your professional life. And I am glad to hear that there is hope.

The equipment, I notice the referencing, and this has always concerned me, that we have persons who are not as well equipped as

the enemy. And so I really appreciate the very constructive comments. Thank you all for what you have done for our country.

I yield the balance of my time.

Chief RAMSEY. One thing to add real quickly, Congressman, and

that is the fact that we have a very, very committed group of trainers. There just aren’t enough of them, and they need to be inVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
22

creased in size so that they can cover the entire country and provide the kind of support and training that is needed.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Wilson.

The Chair recognizes Mrs. Tauscher.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, General Jones and

members of the Commission. Thank you very much for your decades of service to this country and coming back at such a very important and pivotal time when we are launching on a significant

debate about the future of our engagement in Iraq and exactly how

we are going to proceed.

This Commission report couldn’t be better drafted by better people for a better time. It is not only serious and sober and balanced

and specific, but it provides, I think, the kind of sense of clarity

that we have been, I think, yearning for for a very, very long time.

So I really can’t thank you enough.

I got back last week from my fourth trip to Iraq, and I looked

at many different pieces of it and was deeply concerned about most

of what I saw. I kind of had a shorthand for what I thought we

should do. I thought we should get our military leadership out of

the Saddam palaces, close the Green Zone, stop Green Zone fog, as

I call it, and have a status of forces agreement (SOFA) agreement.

And I am very thrilled that on two pages of this report, which are

absolutely jam-packed with not only good facts, but very salient

analysis that I think anybody can understand, on pages 128 and

129 you recommend those three things. So I guess I can go home

and leave you all in charge.

But I think that the sensitivity for a long time about having a

SOFA agreement has been mystifying to me. The idea that this

sovereign government that has been in place now for 18 months

didn’t have the ability to do what everybody else has, which is to

say that we are a sovereign government, and that these forces are

here by our invitation, and they are doing a mission, yet to be defined perhaps, and that we have the ability to say time to go, or

this is how you are going to do it, or this is how you are going to

engage, I thought that if we had done that much earlier, we would

be not sitting in this position of having people thinking that we are

not only occupiers, but that the government is feckless and can’t

accomplish things. When I was in Iraq, I asked about it, and apparently there is an effort to get the Government of Iraq and the

United States to begin to negotiate a SOFA-like agreement.

But, Dr. Hamre, I think your comments, and many others, and

General Jones’ certainly, about our strategic interests, $330 million

a day, 3,700 dead, 30,000 injured, and our military stretched to a

point where many of us don’t believe that our ground forces can engage in any other contingency at any other time soon, that is a set

of strategic interests for the American people. We also have obviously the area strategic interests of, as you say, walking, not crawling out of Iraq.

There has got to be a sweet spot someplace where we can find

how to balance the ability for us to begin to bring our troops home,

to begin to reengage here, not spend $330 million a day, all of that,

and still not have Iraq be a huge humanitarian crisis explode in

the region that is already volatile. Any sense for what you think

23

that might be? I know it is outside your mission, but I think that

that is the question that we need to be asking.

Dr. HAMRE. It is outside of our mission, but as the Commission

said, our presence and our task is dramatically complicated if we

don’t have a political reconciliation. Absent political reconciliation

in Baghdad, it is very hard to see how this ends well. So the priority really has to be on getting that working. And the focus really

has to be on the police and the Ministry of Interior.

I think all of us were positively impressed at how things are finally moving with the Army. The institution to build a stronger

Army is in place, and it is starting to work. That is not the case

with the police. And the Ministry of Interior is an enclave of partisanship, Shi’a partisanship. It is a choke point that is preventing

the development of strong policing.

And security for Iraq is going to be from the ground up when

people feel safe in their homes. That is with police. That is not

from Army. And I think we are delayed in getting proper attention

on the role of policing, probably because we let—the military has

too much shaped the overall architecture. We need to put more

focus on police.

One thing I would like to highlight for the committee to appreciate is we had with us one non-American. He should be an American. We would like to make him one. That is Duncan McCausland.

And I learned more from him describing how Northern Ireland

moved from open violence and hostility to a peaceful environment

through a sophisticated understanding of the role of police. We

have not had that, and that would be the place I would put focus

here.

General JONES. I would ask Mrs. Tauscher to ask Assistant Chief

Constable McCausland to come to the table and say a few words

because of his incredible experience that we all benefited from. And

Secretary Hamre is exactly right, and I think it would be, I think,

a good moment to listen to some of this observations.

STATEMENT OF R.D. MCCAUSLAND, MA, ASSISTANT CHIEF

CONSTABLE, URBAN REGION, BELFAST, IRELAND

Mr. MCCAUSLAND. Thank you, General, and thank you for the

opportunity to speak.

If I can give you an example of how Belfast progressed. There

were times during sectarian troubles that we had the police where

two police officers had to be supported by up to 16 soldiers just to

allow them to patrol and do the normal functions of policing. That

then progressed to two sets of police vehicles patrolling together

with three officers in each, heavily armored police vehicles again

protecting the police, but allowing them to perform the policing

duty. One vehicle with two officers in it, but again heavily armored. And then ultimately today as I speak, those officers are

able to patrol in normal police cars as you would know them or

walk on the beat and even now be able to ride bicycles. And all

that has been achieved because of political reconciliation, because

the community will start to trust and give consent to policing and

have confidence in policing. And I think that is a critical, critical

element to take forward.

24

The police for me in Iraq hold the key to success. They hold the

key to success to many of the questions that you have posed here

today and that were asked earlier at the Senate in relation to the

military commitment, because the police must take the lead in relation to the future and the future stability for the Iraqi people.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman.

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Kline.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Commissioners, all. It is indeed just a terrific group that you put together.

I noticed that there were something like six Marines General, but

despite that, you have done a terrific job with this report. And I

say that for Dr. Snyder’s benefit. And we are 40 percent Marine

contingent here in the House.

I almost don’t know where to begin, so let me just do a little bit

of summary and see if this is right. It seemed to me in my trips

to Iraq and in the many hearings we had while some of you were

in uniform over the last 2 or 3 years that there has been a consensus for some time that the Iraqi Army—but the Iraqi Army has

been making steady progress and becoming more and more proficient and efficient, and they are in the lead in many, many places

and taken the initiative. And as long as we have had some mentors

with them, some embedded teams, they are doing well pretty much

across the board. Is that the conclusion of the Commission?

General JONES. I think that is a fair conclusion.

Mr. KLINE. So that is not a surprise. In fact, that is probably

what you expected to see. You went in without preconceived notions, I am sure, but you probably did expect to see that, and that

would confirm what your earlier expectations were; is that correct?

General JONES. Speaking for myself, I was pleasantly surprised.

I had been going to Iraq off and on since 2003 in my native hat,

but I did not expect to see the will that I saw in the Iraqi Armed

Forces to take the fight to the enemy. I did not expect to see the

length and breadth of the institutions that are functioning that you

need to support an emerging army; the training bases, the recruiting, the recruit training, the instructors, non-commissioned officer

(NCO) schools, counterintelligence schools, training corpsmen. All

of these things exist. We know that because we saw them; we went

and we visited.

So I have to say that I was—personally I was—and I think even

the people who have been there every day for over a year will tell

you that this Army has made a rather stunning leap just in the

last calendar year, and borne out by the surge and the performance

of the Army during those operations.

Mr. KLINE. I am looking forward to returning, I hope, in a couple

of weeks because it has been a year since I have been there, but

even then I was pretty impressed and talked to Iraqi generals and

they were impressive in their understanding of their shortcomings

and their expectations. And reports I was getting from American

soldiers and marines that were—back to the trust issue that Mr.

Taylor talked about—was it was growing, they had confidence in

the Iraqis.

But the police, of course, is another issue. And I am simply going

to run out of time. You have so many recommendations, including

25

disbanding the 25,000 national police, a lot more trainers, more

labs, doing something about the Department of Interior. So I am

going to leave that aside for just a minute and just sort of continue

to bore or drill down, if you will, on the armed forces, except to say

that I remember listening to General Casey say that we were going

to have the year of the police. This was more than a year ago, I

think in 2006. We are going to fix this police problem, and clearly

we haven’t. We have got a long way to go.

Going back to the Army and to the armed forces in general, one

of the shortcomings in the past was, and I assume it still is, they

really have no logistics capability. They didn’t have a field depot,

they didn’t have any field delivery trucks.

General JONES. That is correct. They are critically deficient in

combat support, combat service support and a lot of key enablers

like that, yes, they are.

Mr. KLINE. So again, I am not asking you to you come to a number, but in order for them to function, even when they are taking

the lead and they are doing a good job of fighting, it is going take

a pretty big logistics support base on the part of the United States.

Nobody else, frankly, has it for perhaps years to come; is that correct?

General JONES. I think it is going to take a considerable period

of time to get them into the independent zone that we want to get

them to, but I think they are going to get there.

Mr. KLINE. So you do see there is some light there that is growing.

General JONES. I think one thing we have to be careful of is that

we understand that—we don’t try to make them like us before we

say they are good enough. Good enough is good enough for what

they need to do, and we made that point in our observations, to be

very careful to build this force for what it needs to be for an Iraqi

force. We are not trying to recreate the 1st Marine Division here.

We are trying to create a competent military that can do what they

need to do in the environment that they are in.

Mr. KLINE. I see the light has turned red.

General JONES. If I could, you raised a very important point, and

if I could ask the indulgence of the Chair, I would like to ask Lieutenant General McKissock, who is our logistician, to come to the

table because he has some interesting viewpoints on this problem,

because this is a long-term problem. So with the indulgence of the

Chair.

The CHAIRMAN. Just go ahead and answer your question.

General MCKISSOCK. Congressman, that is a question that is

near and dear to my heart, so I will take a minute or two. I will

talk about the strategic level, the operational level and the tactical

level very quickly.

I think the Iraqi Ministry of Defense (MOD) has a plan in place;

they have a plan in place to answer the questions that will allow

them to provide logistic support over the next two or three years.

They have identified a force structure. They have identified dollars

in the foreign military sales area that will allow them to buy the

equipment they believe they are going to need, although the delivery of that equipment is going to be a problem. There is going to

be a time lag getting the equipment to them.

26

They have also identified the dollars required to do the things at

the operational level. And they have a large depot at Taji, which

is essentially their center of gravity for logistic support for the

Iraqi forces of the future that is a supply, maintenance, engineering and training base. They also have combat service support

schools available there that, frankly, has not been operating at full

structure, and the reason for that is because the Iraqis have made

the conscious decision at the front end of their personnel strategy

to outfit their operational units first and their logistics and support

units second. They are now turning to their logistics units, and

they are starting to put the force structure in place so they will

have the capability in the field. They have obligated and look forward to spending, frankly, a large amount of Iraqi dollars to outfit

the national depot at Taji, and I think they have got a good plan.

At the tactical level it is going to take, we said in our report, two

to three years, because it is going to take time to get the folks in

the field who are really trained to do it.

The interesting thing is that I asked a young Marine Lieutenant

Colonel about three weeks ago in an exchange of e-mails about the

logistics of what was being provided by tactical logistics units of

the U.S. forces in support of Iraqi Armed Forces in the al-Anbar

Province, and he said almost zero. The logistics support being provided by tactical logistics units in Anbar Province are concentrated

on the Iraqi police. So they are filling a vacuum that you have

heard about before today about the inability of the Department of

Interior to provide adequate support to the police. The facts are

that the Army at least in this area is doing a good job on a dayto-day basis.

One of the things that—and I will very quickly read a comment

that he made. The Iraqi Army logisticians have a good grasp conceptually of what they have to do and repeatedly have shown that

they can plan logistics operations. A pretty strong statement from

a professional logistician wearing a U.S. uniform.

So this is not going to happen overnight. It is going to take time.

There will be hopefully an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi issue. We have

been judging the Iraqi Army’s progress in the logistics area by U.S.

and coalition standards. When we leave, they will come up with

their own solution, and we can help them do that with constant

mentoring. But we shouldn’t try to evaluate them or assess them

using our standards. Probably they are going to come up with their

own, and that will be good enough to get the job done. Thank you.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis from California.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank

you to all of you. I think it is an extraordinary job that you did.

And going back many times, as you have already, and presenting

the report is important to all of us. I sat on the Oversight Committee when we were looking at the military development of Iraqi

armed services and also the police, and we certainly could have

used your expertise in doing that.

One of the issues that we just talked about is logistics, and I remember one of the discussions around logistics having to be sort

of understanding some of the more cultural issues. And I think

that you have alluded to that a little bit, and that, in fact, we have

27

to help them develop their own way of performing in that area.

And I am concerned that as we train our trainers to work with the

Iraqis, are we getting that? Are we able to, I guess, infuse in that

training the kind of opportunities that they have in trying to help

them better bring together their own application of whatever it is

they are doing?

And I would think if you are trying to work on how you create

inventory, that there have got to be some basics around that. I remember the discussion that hoarding is not the same way that we

think about it. But I am just wondering about the training of our

trainers is one issue and whether or not we—number one, you suggested that we don’t have the trainers that we should. Does that

mean that we have used many of the people who would be available in the counterinsurgency operations rather than having them

stay and train Iraqis perhaps in both police and with the Army?

Have we diverted some of our talent away from doing that, and

should we make a very big point about bringing them back? And

how are we actually training them? Are we having Iraqis to help

with that?

General JOULWAN. I really think, as was mentioned by the last

speaker, that what we are talking about is there is an Iraqi way

and an American way. And I think you have hit on something here

about what we are trying to do.

On the logistics side—I am going to say this very candidly because this is what we found—that we are trying to impose a system on them that they are uncomfortable with. They don’t like to

contract out maintenance. We do. And I think what we need to do

is reassess that and try to give them a system that they feel comfortable with. And contracting out logistics, to them, all we talk to

is not one of them.

So I would just say we need to reassess here about what is success and what is it that we can do. Remember—and I was with the

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980’s,

Iraq moved corps on a front the size of a central front of Europe

in World War II. And they resupplied them, and they got ammunition up there, and they fed them. I think we have to go back to

really understand does this Iraqi way make some sense, and can

they buy into it? And I think we need to look at it.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Just a question. Do we have contractors who are working with the Iraqis as well, or are they all our

military Active Duty and Reserves that are doing the training, or

are we contracting some of that out?

Dr. HAMRE. We have contractors, quite a few of them.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. What percentage of that is contracted

out?

Dr. HAMRE. The police training is all basically by contractors.

The support in the depots is by contractors that we help facilitate.

They pay some of it; we pay some of it. I don’t know that we have

the precise numbers for you.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Are we able to help train those contractors then, or are they fairly independent? Because if we are trying to go help and support the Iraqi way, then what leverage do

we have over the contractors who, in fact, may be teaching something quite different? Do we monitor that? And I think it is interVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
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esting. People have the impression that our military is doing this

training and that it is not contractors. We might like to have a better sense of that percentagewise.

Dr. HAMRE. I think what is happening, and it is reflected in the

operational and tactical side in al-Anbar Province, is that we are

gaining a much greater respect and understanding of the Iraqi culture. The progress we have made in al-Anbar is a result of our understanding the Iraqi way of doing things and their culture and

their cultural norms.

When we transfer that thought into the logistics business, we

have been for the last two or three or four years imposing, to use

the words of General Joulwan, an American transparent system

where you share information, and you share authority, and you

share resources, and that is not the way the Iraqi culture works.

Not only doesn’t the culture work that way, but they have been

taught in the old Army, which is certainly a Soviet-style approach

to things, that you have layered responsibilities, and that is why

you sign things many, many times.

It is going to be difficult for them to move away from that model,

and they will move away from it, but they will never move to our

model because of the differences in the culture. I think our trainers

understand that now. I think our trainers are taking the approach

that an Iraqi way will be good enough to get it done. They do have

a higher threshold of pain when it comes to making sure that supply and maintenance efforts are paid attention to.

But there is no doubt in my mind that in the next two or three

years, this is an organization that is essentially a straight-leg infantry organization, it is not a complex logistics issue. But it is

going to take time to get training, get the equipment and get the

personnel in place. But from our observations, these folks are focused, they have a plan, they have the resources to do it, and it

is a matter of months, not years, two or three years, they will be

up and ready to go. That is our evaluation.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. The time is up. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. Mr. Conaway.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me add my thanks to the Commission. What an incredible

array of talent. And I appreciate getting it done in 90 days versus

125. That is awfully impressive as well.

Early today I heard a gentleman whom I previously held in the

highest regard as a statesman in this body make some of the most

horrible, egregious comments, impugn the integrity of a man who

served this country in an exemplary manner. Basically what he

said was—he said the White House had hijacked General Petraeus’

report on Monday. We have not yet heard General Petraeus’ report,

and I just felt like those comments were just incredibly out of line,

and I am going to have to rethink my high regard at which I held

that gentleman.

So I already know the answer, but just I want the question on

the record and your answer as well. Has anybody in the administration and the Senate or the House, any Member, any chairman,

any staffer, any person anywhere attempted to influence what you

have said in this report or what you have not said in this report,

29

or any of your conclusions or any of your findings; has anybody attempted at any level to hijack your report?

General JONES. Absolutely not.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, sir. I knew the answer. I just simply

wanted that on the record. The words were strong enough this

morning that had the gentleman done that in west Texas, he would

have gotten a poke in the nose. It was just awful what he did.

I am going to continue now to how we go from where we are

right now to where the Iraqis are at some point—using the word

‘‘enabler’’ is a broad number, not just logistics, but also the other

thing. Can we get to a point where we have no U.S. troops performing combat, slash, police functions, in which we are simply the,

quote/unquote, ‘‘enablers’’ across that spectrum for the Iraqi Security Forces for some period of time while they build whether it is

logistics or air support or fire support or whatever the various

enablers are? Can we rationally get to that point where we have

got nobody other than perhaps Special Operations guys doing any

of the direct fight? Is that a rational point along the continuum of

where we are going to go?

General JONES. I think it is certainly out there as a possibility.

I am not sure exactly—I couldn’t tell you how long it would take.

Mr. CONAWAY. I am not asking for a time.

General JONES. But conceivably in the old spectrum of things

that could happen, it is on the spectrum.

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. That may be a

question more that is just an obvious question. Again, I appreciate

your-all’s service and your report. I appreciate looking forward to

reading it and trying to digest it. Thank you for your service to our

country.

This will be one of the big three pieces of information that collectively we will use over the next several weeks to try to figure out

which way we are headed, and I appreciate it getting in at a time

for your report, the GAO report that we heard about yesterday, and

then General Petraeus’ report that we will hear on Monday.

General JONES. There is a certain symmetry to these types of operations, if you draw on our experience, for example, in Bosnia,

where for a while in Bosnia the fighting was very intense, and the

military was the dominant piece, and the political reconciliation

was down. And we approached a point of equilibrium, and then it

became big P and little M in the military. And over time that is

most likely what will happen in Iraq. You just have to hang in

there and get to that point.

We have picked up some general trends that we think are positive. We have also pointed out some things that are very, very negative and that only the Iraqis can fix simply by virtue of where we

are today. And so it is very important that politically, also militarily—but we impress upon them the seriousness of the moment

and the fact that if they do two or three things that we have repeatedly identified, that the likely product of those actions will be

to hasten the project to perhaps a point you just described.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Larsen.

30

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for

your service. Your report is one of several, of course, that we are

sifting through; the National Intelligence Estimate (NAE) report a

few weeks back, unclassified version, as well as others. The GAO

report came out, and we had a hearing on it yesterday, we had outside defense experts today and your report, and then, of course, two

important reports or one, depending how it is presented, General

Petraeus’ and Ambassador Crocker’s report, whether that is one report or two reports given to us.

The consistent theme that I found so far in all these reports really is, and you all summed up pretty well—we all want to refer to

page 130, so I will do my bit to do that. At the end of the day, however, the future of Iraq and its prospects hinges on the Iraqi people

and the government to begin the process of achieving national reconciliation and ending sectarian violence. All progress seems to

flow from this most pressing requirement. That theme is consistent

throughout every other report that we have heard so far with regards to our review on Iraq.

As a result of that, I think on Monday the most important testimony—not that both testifiers won’t have important things to say,

but the most important testimony will not be from General

Petraeus, it will be from Ambassador Crocker, because if General

Petraeus has to get 10 things right, and we only have 5 things

right in Iraq on a list of 10, he gets 50 percent. Ambassador Crocker has one thing he has to work on to get right, and that is political

reconciliation in Iraq, and it is a very difficult job. And if it is not

all right, it is not his fault. It is just he has one thing he has to

get right.

And so I think on Monday Ambassador Crocker’s hurdle is even

higher than General Petraeus’ hurdle because, at least from what

I can understand from everything I have read, the most pressing

requirement is political reconciliation to end the sectarian violence.

That is the most pressing requirement in Iraq. And the surge and

the success or lack of success of the surge is extremely important,

but it is only going to help try to create this breathing space, which

so far hasn’t been, to my knowledge hasn’t been created, because

we haven’t seen political reconciliation there.

And that is just an observation I want to make as a long preface

to an answer I hope I can get from General Jones or one of the

other folks, a couple of time lines. It said if we don’t move deployment from 12 months to 15 months, that about April of next year

we will begin having to draw down folks anyway. You said that it

is going to take 12 to 18 months for Iraqi Security Forces to operate independently, largely independently. So that is beyond that 8-

month time frame. And then General McKissock just told us that

to create a logistics capability, an adequate logistics capability, is

at least 24 months away. Those time lines don’t match up for our

military.

So can you help me try to match up those time lines with the

end goal of being at what point can we start doing this strategic

shift, because those time lines don’t add up to what you have proposed we could do.

General JONES. Regrettably I am not sure we can be of much

help to you on those issues, because what we did not do is obviVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
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ously assess our own forces and the domestic problems associated

with rotations, although most of us are familiar with the issue.

I want to make sure that we are clear that the Commission’s

finding with regard to the tasking that said will the Iraqi forces,

Iraqi Security Force, be able to defend the territorial integrity of

Iraq within 12 to 18 months, and we said, no, they won’t. But they

are able to do more in terms of defeating and fighting successfully

the internal threats that they are fighting now; the al Qaeda, the

terrorists, crimes, so on and so forth. But the territorial integrity

of the nation, which is properly done by the Army, and the internal

security, which is properly done by the police force, is something

they are still moving to.

Mr. LARSEN. That implies a longer presence and potentially a

pressure on deployment schedules for our own folks.

General JOULWAN. Could I just add, in looking at this requirement, 12 to 18 months, that we were given, we said that independently they could not—the Iraqi forces couldn’t do it. But I think it

is important if you read in the report if the progress continues as

we have said we think it will continue, there can be a restructuring

of armed forces within that 12 to 18 months if that progress continues. And I think that needs to be understood here. At least that

is the point that we are trying to make.

Mr. LARSEN. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jones, please, North Carolina.

Mr. JONES OF NORTH CAROLINA. Mr. Chairman, thank you very

much, and to Commandant Jones and the panel and the staff that

put this together, we very much do appreciate this help.

I want to pick up on Mr. Larsen for just a moment, and I realize

your answer, so I guess I am going to be making more of a statement. I have Camp Lejeune down in my district, and in the last

year I have had the privilege to see a large number of marines of

different ranks off base. This report is going to be very helpful as

we analyze—Members of Congress and this Nation, quite frankly—

after we hear from Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus next

Monday. The whole issue, as we had Barry McCaffrey appear before our Oversight Committee chaired by Vic Snyder five or six

weeks ago, and the hurt for many of us in Congress—and this

wasn’t your mission, so I understand that, but I want to make this

statement. Barry McCaffrey is saying—and General Newbold was

there, by the way. Commandant Jones was also in attendance on

that panel. He says that the Guard, the Reserves, the Marine

Corps and the Army will start to unravel next spring.

I am not asking you whether you agree with him or disagree, but

the point is, and what Mr. Larsen is saying, is that if the Iraqis

don’t get the message that this country cannot continue to supply

the manpower and the money, the treasure to sustain, if we are

talking about 18 months to 24 months, and then let us say it is

not you, but it is another panel, maybe I am here, maybe I am not

here in Congress, and after 24 months then you—not you, but a

panel says, well, we didn’t do it quite in 24 months, so therefore

we are going to need another 18 months. Where in the world—can

you say after your 20 days in Iraq—and I think this has been an

encouraging report, I really do, I am not trying to be critical of

that, I think it has been very encouraging, but do the people in

32

Iraq that you met with, that you talked to who are Iraqis, do they

understand where America is, both manpower and money? We are spending $10 billion a month over there right now. I will

tell you, General Jones, really, the one thing that has bothered my

heart, I was asked to go down to Johnson Elementary School at

Camp Lejeune, and I will never forget this little boy. There were

10 children sitting in front of me as I read a book. It is a reading

day across this country. And the last child—as I finish and let the

6-year-old ask me questions, the last child said to me, my daddy

is not dead yet.

Do the Iraqis understand that this cannot go on forever?

General JONES. I think in some of the circles that we traveled

in there is—one of the things that I took away was the repeated

expressions of appreciation and concern for the sacrifice and what

our forces were doing for their freedoms. And I think it was genuine. I don’t think it was just because we were there. It was heartfelt. There was fear in the statements that this might come to a

sudden end. I think that they are very concerned about that because of what might happen in the aftermath of any precipitous

withdrawal. But they, like other countries around the world, they

say this is the United States. The United States can do these

things. Only the United States, perhaps, can do these things.

And but yes, the cost is extremely high, both in money in terms

of sacrifice, but there is a growing confidence in their abilities that

as a result of a few years of nurturing and the presence of advisers,

and developments of NCOs, and following in the path of some great

soldiers in the generic sense, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, civilians who have led the way, that there is a confidence that they can

do this.

I think the process will be hastened if we get the national reconciliation and the government does what it must do, in my view,

and does it quickly, that if that happens I think it can jump-start

much more progress in a shorter period of time than we think

about now. But it has got to happen. And it hasn’t happened.

So we are hoping that some things will happen. They do appreciate the sacrifice. Last two years the Iraqi contribution to their

own national security, I think Secretary Hamre, correct me, has exceeded ours from a budget standpoint. Is that correct?

Dr. HAMRE. Yes. I mean spending for the Iraqis’ budget for security, we paid for it for the first two years. These last two years it

has actually been they paid the larger portion. We are still paying

a fair amount of it. Now that is not the cost of our being there. But

it is the cost of the Iraqi budget. And they are now carrying the

heavier load.

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. Thank the gentleman. We are down

to eight members who have not had the opportunity to ask questions. We will proceed with the 5-minute rule. Mr. Marshall.

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Hamre, is this report online, the CSIS Web site?

Dr. HAMRE. Yes. And I just got a note that said it has been

downloaded 18,000 times in the last——

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. People who are watching this and have

been trying to follow reports of the committee’s report in the news

media probably want to go look at the report itself, because you

33

will get a very different impression if you read the report, and you

don’t have to spend a lot of time doing it, than the impression you

would have from just looking at the headlines in some of the news

stories that have covered this report. It really is the case that it

seems like the press is just anxious to find whatever seems to be

a little bit negative, and they just glide right over or elide right

over the positive aspects that we all should be hoping for in this

circumstance, as opposed to the contrary, that we hope that all the

news is negative, which is just a shame for the country.

And I have to follow up a little bit on Mr. Conaway’s observation

that you all are independent. You are described as an independent

commission. I will just observe, Dr. Hamre, that you were Deputy

Secretary of Defense under the Clinton administration, and you

worked for many years as a staffer under Democratic administrations in the House—or pardon me, in the Senate.

Dr. HAMRE. Couldn’t get in the House. I tried.

Mr. MARSHALL. It was in the House? You tried. And CSIS has

been very careful to make sure that this group is not motivated by

any sort of policy objective other than what is in the best interests

of the United States and its security and its long-term national

strategic goals, period. You are not shilling for the administration,

you are not Republicans, you are not Democrats, you are just trying to figure out what is really going on with regard to the issues

that you have discussed.

And I would also like to—well, let me quickly talk about one

issue. A little bit of confusion about this 12 to 18 months where the

Army is concerned. I have been to the area of responsibility (AOR)

11 times now, most of those visits in Iraq. Your report is consistent

with what I see and what I hear consistently. And that is that

there has been dramatic progress, particularly in the last year,

with regard to the Army. And this 12 to 18-month reference, internal, external, I have always taken it to be the case that it is going

to be really quite some time before Iraq is capable to defend itself

against external conventional threats and that we are going to

have to help it. And largely, simply our presence saying don’t fool

around with Iraq is going to be sufficient to keep Iraq from having

to deal with conventional external threat.

The question is the internal chaos. We really can’t deal with the

internal chaos as Iraqis can deal with the internal chaos. And do

I take it from your statement that it will take 12 to 18 months before the Iraqi Security Forces are able to deal with the internal

problems? Just the internal problems. Which are the real tough

ones for us. Is it 12 to 18 months for just the internal stuff?

General JONES. Our response to the tasking was that at the current rate of progress, over the next 12 to 18 months that they will

continue to make improvements to deny Iraq as a safe haven for

terrorists and to combat the internal threats of the nation. We believe that they will continue to make significant improvement. The

Army has a plan to increase by a third just in the next year, another three divisions. So that is substantial.

Dr. HAMRE. Iraq.

General JONES. I am sorry, Iraq. Perhaps Iran does, too. I don’t

know.

34

Mr. MARSHALL. In the last sentence in the report, and I hate to

parse the language here, but it is terribly important—pardon me,

next to last sentence in the report. You talk about the importance

of reconciliation. And the language, I assume, was chosen very

carefully. And it talks about the government to begin the process

of achieving national reconciliation. Not accomplishing it. But you

were very careful when you said to begin the process here. And

then I am a little confused by the next phrase. It says ‘‘and to ending sectarian violence.’’ Does the ‘‘begin the process,’’ does that

modify both the achieving national reconciliation and ending sectarian violence? Is the hope here that at least we show some substantial beginning of reconciliation and ending sectarian violence?

General JONES. I think one feeds off the other. At the political

level, if they do get political agreement to begin the reconciliation

in the broad sense, part of that is—an important piece of that will

be associated with ending sectarian violence.

Mr. MARSHALL. I will just observe that you, I think, General

Jones, said that there had been a stunning leap in the capacity of

the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi military forces during the last year when

there has been quite a bit of sectarian violence and no reconciliation whatsoever.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. The gentleman from New

Jersey, Mr. LoBiondo.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To our panel, thank

you for your collective incredible and ongoing service to our Nation.

I think few of us can adequately understand the great debt of gratitude we owe you for what you have done and what you continue

to do. I would like to pick up on a point that has been difficult for

me to understand, having just returned from a trip into al-Anbar

Province, and agreeing with your assessment of the dramatic and

remarkable progress. I guess there are a number of factors that

people are attributing that to that have come together in a positive

way at the right time. I asked the question while I was there. I

guess it is a very elusive and difficult answer. But in the more

troubled spots of the country, why hasn’t that model been able to

be duplicated? Why don’t we see that success in some of the more

troubled areas? Do you have any comment on that?

General JONES. Congressman, one reason would be that this has

been historically an operating stronghold for al Qaeda. That al

Qaeda is not all over the country, therefore the threat conditions

change in many of the other provinces. In the north, in the Kurdish

area, the same thing. It is a completely different situation. But in

those areas where al Qaeda operates, al-Anbar being one of them,

as a result of their miscues, and the savagery that they demonstrated, and the killings, and the brutality against the people,

they are paying a price now for that kind of—that tactic. And the

price is that people have rebelled against their concept. We hope

that that could be exported to other areas, but it is likely to be, my

view, others may disagree, but my view is it is likely to be more

in the rural areas and more where there is ethnic plurality and associated against a threat like al Qaeda.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Do you have an opinion? Some have suggested

that what has happened in al-Anbar, while sort of grudgingly adVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
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mitting that there is some good things that have happened, have

suggested that for lack of a better way of putting it al Qaeda can

buy their way back into their previous position. Do you have any

feel for the sense of that happening? That they would have mechanisms or abilities to quickly reverse the local attitude that has

swung against them?

General JONES. I suppose anything is possible, but I think just

based on our visits there I think it is not likely to happen in the

short term. I think we would have to make some very big mistakes

ourselves to cause a shift of that magnitude. And from what I see

with our troops and the wisdom of our leaders and the applying

good principles of common sense of what you do with people in a

counterinsurgency, I think they are on the right track. And I don’t

see that as reversible in the short term.

Mr. LOBIONDO. And the last area I wanted to question, you have

said a lot about it, other members have commented about the critical need for the reconciliation, for the political side of this to work

so that the military successes can be sustained. And in meetings

with some of the Iraqi officials who are nodding their heads sort

of in agreement that it has to be done. But we have sort of heard

this for a while. In some of the meetings with the local officials in

Fallujah, they were very optimistic about where they are and

where they are going, but also pretty critical about the Prime Minister and the central government.

Is it your view if we were to have this movement that we have

been promised on de-Baathification and reconciliation that that attitude is likely to change pretty quickly by virtue of what would be

coming of the reconciliation itself? Or is it just too ingrained in the

Shia versus Sunni bit?

General JONES. I will defer to others on this except to say that

in the 1980’s I was closely associated with the problems in Bosnia,

where I thought I had seen the maximum type of ethnic hatreds

that one could see between the Croats, the Muslims, and the Serbs.

And all I can say is that the government is going to have to do an

awful lot to convince the people that it really is—to show that it

really is not sectarian, and that it does want to take care of all

Iraqis in a proper way, and wants to give them a better life and

opportunity. That is going to take positive action. It is also going

to take time.

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman. Before calling on Mr.

Johnson, let me remind the members that there will be the opportunity to submit questions for the record, which, General, I hope

you would receive and make timely response thereto. I know Mr.

Ortiz will have one, and I am sure there may be others.

Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank each

of you all for your service to the Nation. This morning there was

a hearing where Dr. William Perry, who is former Secretary of Defense, and also a member of the Iraq Study Group, we received testimony from him today. And one of his statements was that the

most important benchmark that needs to be achieved by the Iraqi

government is reconciliation between the Shias and the Sunnis.

And he pointed out, as the GAO report pointed out, or as the GAO

36

report found, that the Iraqi government had failed to show significant progress toward meeting that benchmark. And so in that regard I wanted to ask whether or not you all studied the makeup

of the Iraqi Security Forces? Can you share with us any information in that regard? Makeup in terms of Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, even

tribal personnel?

General JONES. We certainly did. And as Chief Ramsey pointed

out, that in those areas where there is no ethnic balance you have

sectarian problems, particularly in the National Police, which is 85

percent Shia. On the Army side, our testimony would be that of the

10 Iraqi divisions, 4 are Shia led, 4 are Sunni led, and 3 are Kurdish led if I have that right.

General JOULWAN. They are developing one, so that is 11.

General JONES. Three Sunnis and four Kurds. On the Army side

of things there seems to have been paid more attention to the ethnic makeup of the force, and correspondingly, fewer problems. On

the police side, not as much attention has been paid to that. Correspondingly, higher problems. Is that fair, Chief?

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. If you will, I would just like to move on. I

would like to move to this question. Describe the command and

control relationship between the Iraqi national government, which

is of course controlled by the Shia, and the Iraqi Security Forces,

if there is any command and control relationship. Can you all describe that?

General JONES. Sure. Let me ask General Joulwan to take on the

Army task.

Mr. JOHNSON. Because it appears that with private contractors

training the Iraqi Security Forces, with the Iraq government being

kind of out of balance with respect to being able to bring some reconciliation between Shias and Sunnis, it just seems to be a dysfunctional kind of structure there. And could you all just shed some

light on that?

General JOULWAN. On the command and control, particularly in

the Army and Special Forces side, let me go to the Special Forces.

And by the way, it is a totally integrated organization in the Special Forces. All factions are represented and they are performing

superbly. The issue on command and control is that while we were

there, it now reports directly to the Prime Minister. And so when

you talk about the chain of command, some of us thought that was

an issue here, that if it reports directly to the minister they are bypassing a great deal of the military chain of command from the

Ministry of Defense on down. There is also some indication that in

the chain of command that there is interference by the—at the

Prime Minister level, if I could be very candid. And I think we

mentioned it in this report about bypassing again the Minister of

Defense and some of the forward deployed commanders in giving

instructions down to the lower levels. So I think there is a chain

of command issue here within the Army and within the Ministry

of Defense and within the office of the Commander in Chief, the

Prime Minister. And I think that needs to be looked at if we are

going to get through this sectarian part of the challenge that we

face.

37

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. And I will note that we have spent about $19 billion in U.S. taxpayer money training the Iraqi Security

Forces, and another 2 billion is requested for the 2008 fiscal year.

And with that I will close. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR [presiding]. The Chair thanks the gentleman. The

Chair now recognizes Ms. Shea-Porter.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you. I would like to point out that I

was quite pleased to hear that nobody interfered with your report.

But I do think it is important to mention that the L.A. Times reported on August 15th, and I will read to you, despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report would reflect evaluations by

Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, the administration officials said it would actually be written by the White

House, with inputs of officials throughout the government. So

clearly your report was different, and I am very pleased to see that.

Your report also put me in despair, and I would like to read some

of it. There are at least 2 million Iraqi refugees throughout the

Middle East, an additional 2.2 million displaced persons within

Iraq. 70 percent of Iraq residents lack adequate water supplies,

compared with 50 percent in 2003. 28 percent of children are malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the 2003 invasion. 92

percent of Iraqi children suffer learning problems due to the stress

of the war. Sadly, international funding for humanitarian assistance in Iraq has plummeted from 453 million in 2005 to 95 million

in 2006.

Gentlemen, this shows a great tragedy in Iraq. I would also like

to point out the map that is here on ethno-sectarian violence. The

brown is the mixed communities. It appears to me that what has

happened here is we have had ethnic cleansing. I can see the green

and I can see the blue, but the mixed communities are gone. Have

we had ethnic cleansing?

General JONES. There is certainly a possibility that there has

been a shift in where people live. Some of it has been caused by

the fighting, some of it caused by simply the decision of the families to move out of these contested areas. Unfortunately——

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Decision of the families based on the fact that

they are pressured, there is violence, poor security?

General JONES. Poor security, yes.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I appreciate your frankness there. I would

also like to point out that you were talking about this wonderful

surge of support from the Iraqi forces. However, half the Iraqi parliament, more than half voted to ask us to leave, which I find very

disturbing, since we have been calling them a democracy, and they

did ask us to leave. And also the Sunni, a lot of the Sunni government officials recently resigned. Do we have political reconciliation

here? Do we have a possibility of political reconciliation?

General JONES. This is a little bit far afield from our mandate,

but John?

Dr. HAMRE. I think these are questions quite appropriately that

should be directed to Ambassador Crocker. It was not in our area

to assess, and we really didn’t spend time looking at the political

dynamic inside the government.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Again I do appreciate your service to our

country. I am grateful that you went there and looked at these

38

forces, but the truth of it is that everything you looked at talks

about political reconciliation in tandem with, so it is pretty difficult

to look at one aspect and not merge them. And clearly my desire

today is to merge them to say no matter what else happens, those

horrendous figures that you put in the book, and I thank you for

that, coupled with what I mentioned, and that ethnic cleansing,

does not look good for the future of Iraq.

So I guess my final question to you is, based on what you saw

and what has happened to the Iraqi people, what has happened to

the United States people, when will you say this is enough and

would you say this is enough if I asked you when to end?

Dr. HAMRE. Again, our charter was fairly narrowly drafted. And

we felt it was important, because this is such a hot and hotly

charged issue, for us to stay fairly firmly inside the boundary of

our specific charter. Every individual here might have personal

views. But we presented a consensus report to you. And I think we

should stay at that. I think that is how we can be helpful to you,

the Congress, rather than to try to offer individual comments or

speculation on how to answer.

Forgive me for dodging it.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. No, I thank you for that. I understand. And

I clearly am deeply concerned about the possibility of success. And

so I felt that, you know, I needed to ask you that. And I thank you

again, everybody, for going there and doing what you did for this

country. Thank you.

Dr. HAMRE. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman. The Chair now

recognizes Admiral Sestak.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you for your time, sirs. I just have a couple

quick questions, and because of limited time hopefully quick responses. General Joulwan, will their Army in 18 months potentially, or 24 months, be the exact equivalent of ours as we do our

efforts out there in Iraq?

General JOULWAN. The exact equivalent, quickly, no. But they

can make substantial progress.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. General Jones, my question to you is

will the security situation improve, in your assessment, having

been there, over the next 18 or 24 months if absolutely no political

accommodation is taken? If so, would that be because—if not, okay.

If so, would that be because of our U.S. military presence primarily?

General JONES. I think the internal security of the country will

improve simply because of the increase in the capability of the

Iraqi Army. Hopefully, that will be accompanied by some police reforms. But the thing that will make the most difference is achieving political reconciliation.

Mr. SESTAK. So Secretary Hamre, my question comes back to

you. Since I was struck by your reference in asking Chief

McCausland to speak about Ireland, if the security situation will

improve somewhat, primarily because they get better, but then we

absent ourselves, we go to the borders, my question really comes

and the Iraqi Army is not going to be as capable as we are, and

if there is no political accommodation, are we really, while this report is very good, are we actually measuring the wrong benchmark

39

for progress? Because in Ireland, unless Ian Paisley and Gerry

Adams had come to an agreement politically, we never would have

gotten down to a police car with two people sitting in it. It began

with political accommodation. And then the police could become

less with no Army.

So in fact, Mr. Hamre, from your more broader political aspect

here, because you did say in your first chapter that you wanted to

comment on the general trends associated, really while this benchmark is interesting, it is relatively not irrelevant, but we are actually measuring and looking at the wrong thing. It must be political

accommodation first if that Ireland is your example—Northern Ireland, I apologize.

Dr. HAMRE. Admiral, I think this report, when—these are security professionals. These are 500 years of military experience, 150

years of police experience. These are security guys. Their first recommendation is that this really has to begin with political reconciliation.

Mr. SESTAK. It must begin with political——

Dr. HAMRE. It is going to be dramatically harder without it.

Mr. SESTAK. So any assessment that comes with this, if you don’t

mind, Mr. Secretary, that tells us about improvement in the Army

is interesting, but unless someone is coming on Monday, as Mr.

Larsen was getting to, and telling us about measuring progress in

political areas, this report is interesting, but relatively not that relevant to what really should be measured.

Dr. HAMRE. But I—sir, I think it would be much harder to get

political reconciliation if there aren’t structures that politicians can

rely on to help produce what citizens want. And the goal of producing an Army that is able to bring security to the country is going

to be a positive value for that reconciliation. So even though we feel

the political reconciliation clearly has to be the primary lead——

Mr. SESTAK. And first you said.

Dr. HAMRE. It will make it much harder. I don’t know how it gets

solved.

Mr. SESTAK. If I could comment, just so you understand, I have

been struck how somehow we have permitted the Petraeus report,

a general, to set the tone of the national debate in September on

a military security issue. Nowhere are we having the tone set by

what is in the U.S. security interests or the U.S. military interests.

As I was struck in Iraq when I asked the General what about the

impact of Iraq on our Armed Forces at home? That is not my role,

he said. And so while this report and the GAO report that we were

given are interesting, shouldn’t we really be measuring not the

progress of Iraq in benchmarks, but the benchmarks of U.S. security in the region by looking at the political accommodations and

the nations attendant to that?

Dr. HAMRE. Sir, I think that is the integrated challenge that only

the Congress can resolve. You are getting different inputs from different experts, different commissions, and you are going to have to

be the ones that pull this together to decide what is the right

course. We weren’t asked to do that.

Mr. SESTAK. I understand.

Dr. HAMRE. And we are trying to offer a valid input to you as

you are going to have to.

40

Mr. SESTAK. I only comment because I was also struck in your

report that although Iran and Syria are involved destructively, the

comment in your report of how to deal with that is protect the borders militarily. Nothing about trying to deal with those two diplomatically. Not your role. But that is my concern, is the debate

that begins on Monday is on a military approach, not—we are definitely not on the correct level for this debate on Monday with the

general. Hopefully, Ambassador Crocker will bring that to what

should be the President’s, as it is called, report within that political

context.

Thank you, sir. I am sorry, General.

General JONES. No, I was just simply going to add that, personal

observation, that what is lacking, what has been lacking is a strategic debate. It is a lot easier to talk about tactical issues, about

whether units are doing well and everything else, and that seems

to be what we gravitate towards. But the strategic consequences

and the strategic issues of this particular problem really should be

engaged at a much—at a higher level. And we certainly applaud

that as a commission.

Our job was to answer a limited, fairly narrow set of questions.

And we actually went beyond that by writing the last chapter in

just an effort to be helpful, to try to interpret what this might

mean based on what we found out. But you are—I think we agree

with you that there are many strategic issues beyond that that

have to be debated.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you, General. I only took liberty because you

opened that door.

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks both the Admiral and the General. Mr. Meek.

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to commend

the commission, comment on the work that you have been able to

do in such a short period of time, and the personal time that you

have all spent in trying to serve the country even more than you

have already served, whether it be in the front line of a police department or in our military. I guess there are two or three questions that a lot of members have been asking and you have been

kind of answering them the same way or differently. But I guess

I want to really kind of focus on the police end.

I recently had an opportunity over the break to go over and go

into Fallujah and had an opportunity to walk about three to four

blocks to a police station. Now it wasn’t like a Starbucks kind of

walk that I was going to stop in and get a cup of coffee with a platoon of Marines, but I can tell you that I can’t help—and I am so

glad to see my good friend Chief Gainer and Chief Ramsey working

together again. And Chief Timoney I know that could not be here

today. But when you look at the whole policing issue and the

money that is on the street, I live here in Washington. When I am

home I live in District 2, but I live in Police District 1 here in D.C.

And we will go down to the recreation center and have our little

meeting, and we will talk about crime. We talk about bicycles missing. We talk about gunshots. And obviously the chief in her wisdom

or the police commander would say, fine, we will get right on it,

and then we start seeing bike patrol, mounted patrol, foot patrol.

And then crime starts to go down and we feel good. But what is

41

happening in 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on, in the other districts? And I

can’t help but see some of the limited access issues that we saw

in Fallujah, with all of the streets blocked off, and the mayor having to give out permits for individuals to make movement there.

You park your car. So you are going to see this kind of drop there.

I am really concerned about how long can we maintain that level

of safety.

Your report, which I haven’t read all of it, but I had an opportunity to get a copy last night, but what I have read is how do we

move from this point on? And you were given three or four benchmarks to kind of look at. Not benchmarks, but assessment areas.

When you look at the Iraqi military and you start talking about the

safety. Because as a Member of Congress, as a member of this committee, I sat on this committee, I have been here five years now,

and in this room I have heard dates. I have heard timelines when

we will be able to close the door on issues and turn it over to the

Iraqis. And I think we are in one of those moments again that it

is going to be two years from now we are going to have another

commission, we are going to have another study group, we are

going to have another group that will put together some sort of report.

My question is really going down the line of our police professionals that are here. I think as we look at safety and as we look

at trying to make sure that terrorists don’t have a safe haven

again, I don’t see that being a military effort. I think that you will

find that mainly with the police officer that is covering a certain

province, or whatever the case may be, that may understand and

be able to detect that kind of thing. I know in this report it has

been reported that we need to look at the whole police effort all

over again. And some of your colleagues in the past have been a

part of this. Can you kind of share with me from the policing

standpoint—we can’t look at it as it relates to a U.S. strategy, but

how do we look at longevity of the safety in some of the neighborhoods?

Mr. GAINER. Thanks, Congressman, for the question. It is good

to talk to a fellow police officer who worked for the second greatest

police agency in the United States other than the Illinois State Police. But very seriously, we saw significant progress in some of the

different areas. And the specialty units, as Chief Ramsey mentioned earlier, that could be born out of the National Police, that

small 23,000 group, could really augment what the local police are

doing. So we made 11 findings and 11 recommendations when it

comes to just the Iraqi Police, and another seven findings and

about four recommendations to the National Police. So if we stick

to those recommendations, and implement that with the military

help of the U.S. military service and the Iraqi service, the police

department will continue to develop.

So it is a hopeful situation. When we were up in the Kurdish

area, they were doing very, very well. Their police academy was

open to people from outside the Kurdish area, Sunnis and Shias,

and they had Sunnis and Shias moving into that area. And when

we were out in the al-Anbar Province area visiting that academy,

we also saw that they were open. One of the things that we are

suggesting is that the police departments become provincialized,

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which means they are going to be more dominated by one culture

and sect more than the other. And once they stabilize, then we can

move to the more diverse police-type atmosphere that we would all

prefer. But that will be incremental.

So along with the internal affairs units and the training and the

operational preparedness that we are suggesting, the sergeant,

lieutenant, captain police type academies, it can be done.

Mr. MEEK. Chief, just real quick, we have a lot going on on the

ground as it relates to these development groups. Well, Chairman

sat down and hit the gavel. But can I just close this one little, Mr.

Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. One little.

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have a lot of money on the street right now. And as you know

as a former chief and law enforcement executive here in Washington, D.C., it is always good to be able to help people with their

problems and put them back to work. That money is not always

going to be there, the $10 billion number a month. The longevity,

the poverty that is going on, there are a lot of issues here. So as

you move on, all of you are going to be asked, because you are part

of this commission, how do we get to the next level? Some of you

will be asked to serve again. But I think it is important, Mr. Chairman, that we look at this from a standpoint of when can we close

the door on certain issues and hopefully not open that door again?

I am one of these individuals that firmly believe that we are

going to be providing technical assistance to keep al Qaeda and

other groups, when I think the majority of the violence is sectarian

and not al Qaeda, what have you, to keep it down throughout the

world. We have over 700 facilities either we leased or own throughout the world as it relates to this issue against terrorism. In the

Philippines we are providing the kind of technical assistance and

letting them fight the fight. And I think that is what Americans

will be able to get their arms around in the future. It won’t be

every U.S. troop out of Iraq. We are going to be there for a very

long time. I do realize that. But the kind of sensible ‘‘down to the

neighborhoods’’ success that I saw when I was in Iraq, and I was

only there 22 hours on a third trip, on the ground, we are going

to have to see more and more of that as we move on.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your latitude.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The patient Mr. McIntyre.

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, each

of you gentlemen, for your service to our country. General Jones,

I still remember being there for your ceremony when you were installed as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Supreme

Allied Commander in Europe, and we were honored to be with you

when that ceremony occurred. And I have followed your entire career, and greatly appreciate your particular commitment.

Gentlemen, you mentioned on page 129 of the report about a status of forces agreement, and you used the phrase ‘‘where we have

a military presence.’’ I have two or three very specific questions.

General Jones, I will let you take the lead unless you defer one of

these to one of the other gentlemen. But number one, you state in

this paragraph on page 129, we believe all our bases in Iraq should

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quarters and national flag. I assume that that does mean no permanent American bases in Iraq. Is that correct?

General JONES. It should be taken in the context of the other recommendations that we made, to convey to people of Iraq, convey

to our own public or whoever needs convincing, that our presence

there is temporary and that Iraqi sovereignty is paramount. And

we should continually do those things large and small, some of

them are optics, some of them are substantive,to adjust our footprint to make sure that we are there to do the things we need to

do, and not there to occupy the country or give the impression that

we are there to do that. So, yes.

Mr. MCINTYRE. All right. So, yes. All right. Thank you. And next,

how many U.S. troops should remain at minimum for training and

security if redeployment occurs? And we understand what the

mood of the Nation and the Congress is. But assuming that there

is some redeployment and movement of troops, drawdown of troops

subsequent to the surge and all, however you want to put it in context, but what would you believe in your commission in order to

continue the necessary training that you all so eloquently outlined,

what would be the minimum level of U.S. troops you believe should

remain, should redeployment occur, that would allow the training

and security that you advocate?

General JONES. Congressman, within the time frame that we

were able to devote, and within the limits of our mandate, we

didn’t get into any analysis of what a follow-on force might be or

a stay-behind force might be. It was just simply not on our horizon,

so I would be giving you a guess, and I would prefer not to do that.

Mr. MCINTYRE. So you all had no discussion of how many troops

per police unit, or working with the Army that you need to remain?

General JONES. We think—we know that the importance of the

trainers, the mentors, the coaches, whatever you want to—however

you want to call them, are going to be important for a considerable

period of time. We have heard the chief say that there are not

enough police trainers now, and we agree with that. We believe

that the embedded trainers that we have seen and that we spoke

to are critically important to the continuing favorable trend of the

Iraqi Army. But what the exact amount is, I am sure that the uniformed authorities that you will hear from in the near future will

be able to give you a better figure.

Mr. MCINTYRE. All right. Do any of you other gentleman have a

comment on that with regard to the minimum level of troops for

continued training and security?

Dr. HAMRE. We were asked to look at the Iraqi Security Force,

so we didn’t really look at that question. It is a valid question, but

it wasn’t in our scope, sir.

Mr. MCINTYRE. The troops that do remain, would they be used

for training the Iraqi Army only, since earlier in answering testimony of Ms. Davis you stated that all police are currently being

trained by contractors?

Mr. GAINER. It is our finding and recommendation of the commission that the training of the police would be done by senior law enforcement officers. And how they get there, whether it is under the

State Department, the Department of Justice, or a contract would

be the way to do that. The military has done a yeoman’s job thus

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far, but their expertise is not in running civilian police departments or managing them or training them.

Mr. MCINTYRE. All right. So the answer to that would be yes, the

American troops that would remain would be for training the Iraqi

Army, not the police forces?

Mr. GAINER. Correct.

Mr. MCINTYRE. All right. Thank you, sir. And then in the remaining few moments I have, General McKissock, I believe you

said earlier that the Iraqis should be able to assess themselves

with their own standards. We heard from the GAO yesterday that

indeed the Iraqi benchmarks which were set by the Iraqi government, they have only met three of the 18 benchmarks that they

themselves have set.

What gives you any more confidence that they could set their

own standards that could be met in regards to this type of training? Is there anything that demarcates, in other words, why you

think the Iraqis would be more capable of setting their standards

for this kind of training than they have been for the benchmarks

in the other areas that GAO has examined?

General MCKISSOCK. Congressman, my comment was directed at

the fact that they would come up with their own acceptable standards. A littler earlier in my testimony I quoted an officer on the

ground that one of the things that he said was the Iraqi Army has

a lower operating standard and higher threshold of pain. In other

words, they have different standards for acceptable logistic support

than we do. That was the context of my comment.

Mr. MCINTYRE. Well, but you also said you think they should assess themselves with their own standards. That was your comment

earlier. Do you stand by that comment?

General MCKISSOCK. Yes, I do.

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Assuming no one else

wishes to ask a question, let me thank the gentlemen before us. I

would be remiss, however, if I didn’t make reference to a paragraph

on page 127 that says strategic shift. The strategic implications of

such continuing successes are encouraging. Coalition forces could

begin to be adjusted, realigned, and re-tasked as the Iraqi Army is

able to take on more responsibility for daily combat operations. The

commission finds it reasonable to believe that such adjustments

could begin as early as 2008, depending upon the continuing rate

of progress of the Iraqi Security Forces.

And I must tell you that of course is encouraging. And there is

no way to thank you for your hard work and your continuing efforts to help our country. And it is good to see familiar faces sitting

behind you that we have known and seen through the years. A special thanks to General Jones, to you, and to each of you. It has

been a pleasure hearing you, and we thank you very, very much

for your work.

[Whereupon, at 5:19 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

SEPTEMBER 6, 2007

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

SEPTEMBER 6, 2007

(49)

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51

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE

RECORD

SEPTEMBER 6, 2007

(59)

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ORTIZ

Mr. ORTIZ. General Jones, after four years of building the Iraqi Forces and spend- ing $19.2 Billion dollars on training and equipping the Iraqi Security Forces, can

you explain to me, based on your independent assessment, why the ISF is still woefully short of equipment used to conduct combat operations and why they are unable

to support themselves logistically?

a. Is it due to poor planning on our part? Is it unwillingness on the Iraqis part?

b. Why are they not further along in being able to defend their own country,

thus relieving our troops of that responsibility?

General JONES. The Commission found that the Iraqi Army is adequately

equipped to conduct counterinsurgency warfare although its inventory of assets is

limited in comparison to the equipment and platforms of its neighbors. The Commission also found that equipping the Army with more armor, artillery, and mobility

would be tactically advantageous and would communicate a powerful message to the

Iraqi people and to the enemy about the growing strength and capability of the Iraqi

Army.

The Coalition and the Iraqi Army have worked hard to strike the appropriate balance between keeping the Iraqi Army in the fight, using Coalition forces to provide

the key combat enablers the Iraqi Army needs and cannot yet provide for itself, and

building the Iraqi Army’s capacity to sustain its own combat power. The challenge

the Coalition and Iraqis face in this regard is akin to building an airplane while

flying it—and, in this case, while getting shot at. The Iraqi Army has literally been

rebuilt from the ground up. Bringing online the 10 divisions currently operating at

capacity, developing leadership, and recruiting and training sufficient manpower

has been a significant achievement by the Iraqis and Coalition.

At the same time, logistics, supply chain management, and combat sustainment

remain highly problematic within the Iraqi Army, and a solution is at least 24

months away. The Iraqi armed forces are not yet fully familiar with all of the new

systems they have acquired, and there is a real temptation to rely more heavily

than necessary on the Coalition to provide support. The Commission recommended

that Coalition forces work more closely with the Iraqis to develop solutions that are

consistent with an Iraqi standard, even if that is not always optimal. Perfect is often

the enemy of the ‘‘good enough,’’ and by failing to step away, the Coalition can unintentionally foster dependence and resentment.

If the coalition and the Iraqi Army can address the logistics and other support

shortfalls facing the Army, that force could make substantial progress in the next

12-18 months toward taking increased responsibility for operations. The Commission does not believe, however, that the Army will achieve operational independence

during this time frame.

The Commission also found that both the Iraqi Air Force and Navy are adequately equipped for their current missions. Both also appear to be pursuing appropriate acquisition plans. Like the Iraqi Army, however, the Commission found that

both the Iraqi Navy and Iraqi Air Force must address issues of maintenance, logistics, supply chain management and combat sustainment. This will be somewhat difficult, because at present they are not well represented at the Ministry of Defense.

Furthermore, the Government of Iraq will have to prioritize the development of

these forces if they are to succeed in the future and stand up to their long-term missions.

As the Coalition continues to address the challenges facing the Iraqi armed forces,

the Commission believes that perhaps by early 2008, a strategic shift could take

place. The Iraqi Army should be able to take more responsibility for daily

counterinsurgency combat operations, and the Coalition forces could be re-tasked to

better ensure the territorial defense of the state by increasingly concentrating on

the eastern and western borders and the active defense of the critical infrastructures essential to Iraq. Such a strategy would include placing increasing responsibility of the internal security of the nation on the ISF, especially in the urban areas.

In contrast to the Iraqi armed forces, the Commission found that Ministry of Interior forces—which include the National Police, Iraqi Police Services, and DepartVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:46 Oct 07, 2008 Jkt 037733 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\110-88\249000.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
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ment of Border Enforcement forces—lack the vital equipment that would allow them

to do their jobs effectively. The Ministry of the Interior is deeply dysfunctional and

its inability to function impairs all of those forces under its control. This is especially true for Iraq’s roughly 135,000-strong Iraqi Police Service. Many police stations still lack uniforms, weapons, and vehicles, as well as spare parts and ammunition. Police typically patrol in unarmored Nissan pickup trucks or midsize sport utility vehicles and there is a stark contrast between the lightly outfitted Iraqi police

and the Coalition patrols that move around cities like Baghdad in armored

Humvees or Stryker vehicles manned with soldiers outfitted in 60-80 pounds of full

body armor and bristling with weapons. Reflecting this contrast in equipment levels,

members of the Iraqi Security Forces, including the Iraqi Police Service, are killed

at three times the rate of Coalition forces in Iraq.

Over the longer term, the Commission found that without serious reform of the

Ministry of interior, it is unlikely any MOI forces will be able to provide security

to the provinces and fight terrorism within Iraq. The Commission made a number

of recommendations aimed at reforming the Ministry of Interior, to include development of a new organizational structure, development of a five-year strategic plan,

and establishment of sufficient administrative capacity to sustain Iraq’s civil security forces in the field in a manner that is free of real or perceived sectarian bias.

Ultimately however, only the Government of Iraq can make the changes necessary

to transform the Ministry of Interior into a much more functional government ministry.

Mr. ORTIZ. I recently sent this letter to Chairman Skelton about equipping the

ISF with non-NATO equipment that is readily available and much more cost effective than US equipment. Can you please comment on the idea of equipping the ISF

with non-NATO equipment and the current equipment challenges the Iraqis face?

General JONES. The Commission is not aware of any prohibition against the purchase of non-NATO standard equipment for use by the ISF. For example, the Iraqi

Army presently uses Soviet-built BMP–1s, Brazilian EE–9 Cascavels, and Russianbuilt MT–LB tracked vehicles and BTR–80 six-wheel vehicles. Both the Iraqi Army

and National Police are also using the REVA 4x4 MKII Armored Personnel Carrier,

produced by a South African company. Other equipment includes NATO-donated T–

72 tanks (from former Eastern bloc countries) and significant quantities of equipment from the U.S. purchased through the FMS program (including HMMWVs, M–

16 and M–4 rifles).

Mr. ORTIZ. Is the current equipment shortfall the Iraqis have slowing their ability

to ‘‘stand-up’’ their forces?

General JONES. The Commission found that the Iraqi armed forces—the Iraqi

Army, Special Forces, Air Force, and Navy—are adequately equipped for the

counterinsurgency mission that is the primary focus of these forces today. The Iraqi

armed forces also have acquisition programs underway to augment and upgrade

their equipment over time.

As noted above, the armed forces do face deficiencies in combat and combat service support capabilities and will continue to rely on their Coalition partners for assistance in maintenance, logistics, and other support functions. The Ministry of Defense’s efforts to address these challenges, as well as ongoing training and leadership development challenges, will largely determine the timeframe in which the

Iraqi armed forces achieve operational independence in addressing the internal security threats to Iraq. Over the longer term, the Iraqi armed forces will need to take

on greater responsibility for the external defense of Iraq as well, and these additional responsibilities are likely to require the Ministry of Defense to reassess equipment requirements in the future.

Mr. ORTIZ. Based on your assessment of the current ISF capabilities and U.S.

training strategy, how much more time is required before the Iraqis have viable, capable and trained security forces that can operate independently and within the

Rule of Law?

General JONES. The Commission was tasked by Congress to assess the current capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces to fulfill four principal responsibilities: maintain

the territorial integrity of Iraq; deny safe haven to international terrorists; bring

greater security to the country’s 18 provinces in the next 12 to 18 months; and bring

an end to sectarian violence to achieve national reconciliation.

The Commission’s overall assessment is that although the ISF as a whole have

made significant progress in many areas, they are not yet able to execute their missions independently. Without continued combat support, combat service support,

and assistance from Coalition Military Transition Teams and other types of transition teams, it is unlikely that the ISF will achieve, in the near term, the proficiency

and readiness needed to provide security for Iraq. More specifically, the Iraqi armed

forces will not be ready to independently fulfill their security role within the next

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12 to 18 months and the Commission foresees that the Iraqi armed forces will rely

on Coalition forces for at least another two to three years for combat service support

in particular.

The Commission concurs with the view expressed by U.S., Coalition, and Iraqi experts that the Iraqi Army is capable of taking over an increasing amount of dayto-day combat responsibilities from Coalition forces. In the assessment of the Iraqi

Minister of Defense, the Army could be 60 percent capable of independently protecting Iraq from external threats by 2012 and entirely independent in this regard by

2018. He also insisted that the Iraqi Army will be able to accept more responsibility

for direct combat against internal threats in 2008.

The fledgling Iraqi Air Force and Iraqi Navy, despite significant progress in a

short period of time, will remain dependent on Coalition training, equipment, and

combat and combat service support for the foreseeable future.

The Iraqi police are improving at the local level predominantly where the ethnic

makeup of the population is relatively homogenous and the police are recruited from

the local area, but police forces are hampered by corruption and dysfunction within

the Ministry of Interior. Ministerial capacity must improve if the Iraqi police are

to meet their essential security responsibilities.

Mr. ORTIZ. According to a January 2007 GAO report, about 90,000 rifles and

80,000 pistols were issued to the Iraqi Police and can no longer be accounted for.

As part of your assessment, did you find additional accountability problems within

the ISF, if so, can you share them with us and any possible suggestions to fix this

large problem?

General JONES. The Commission did not look specifically at this particular equipment accountability issue, but it did assess broadly the issue of equipment accountability inside the ISF and determined that the Coalition and Government of Iraq

are placing greater and needed emphasis on developing systems for equipment accountability. For example, the Iraqi Army training program now links new Iraqi recruits with their assigned weapons via biometric identifications and a well—functioning database. Coalition officials and senior Iraqi officials also told the Commission that this type of technology is being employed in some police settings as well.

These are needed steps in the right direction, but clearly these accountability systems are not yet fully functioning.

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