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38–757 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–74]

A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR

IRAQ’S FUTURE (PART 2 OF 4)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

JULY 18, 2007

(II)

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

JEFF MILLER, Florida

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

JOHN NEEDHAM, Professional Staff Member

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member

ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member

SASHA ROGERS, Research Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Wednesday, July 18, 2007, A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq’s Future (Part

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

APPENDIX:

Wednesday, July 18, 2007 ....................................................................................... 31

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2007

A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ’S FUTURE (PART 2 OF 4)

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

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

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

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

WITNESSES

Byman, Dr. Daniel L., Director, Center for Peace and Security Studies of

the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University,

Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution .. 3

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Akin, Hon. W. Todd .......................................................................................... 37

Byman, Dr. Daniel L. ....................................................................................... 40

Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 35

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Documents submitted.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Questions submitted.]

(1)

A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ’S FUTURE

(PART 2 OF 4)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 18, 2007.

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

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman

of the subcommittee) presiding.

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

Dr. SNYDER. The hearing will come to order.

Dr. Byman, you may be aware we are anticipating some votes

sometime between now and 3:30. It will be a fairly long number of

votes, although it may be expedited. So what we will try to do is

get through my opening statement, Mr. Akin’s and perhaps your

opening statement and see where we go from there. And you have

been through this before, and we will probably ask you to hang

around if you can, and we will come back after votes.

This hearing today is a second in a series of four that this subcommittee is going to do on looking at other alternatives as we look

ahead in Iraq.

Last week, we had General Wes Clark, Max Boot and Dr.

Muqtedar Kahn and had a very robust discussion. I think the

members enjoyed it. I think we learned a lot. We tried to get beyond what we see as a polarization of the current debate that occurs a lot in Washington but throughout the country to get beyond,

frankly, some of the simple statements and on to some of the more

nuanced challenges that the country has.

We are pleased to have with us today Dr. Dan Byman. He is the

Associate Professor and Director of the Security Studies Program

at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He holds a

joint appointment with the Georgetown Department of Government, is also Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East

Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Dr. Byman has served as a professional staff member with both

the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United

States, 9/11 Commission and the Joint 9/11 Inquiry staff of the

House and Senate Intelligence Committee. He has also worked as

the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy

at the RAND Corporation and as an analyst for the U.S. Intelligence Committee.

2

Dr. Byman has written widely on a range of topics related to terrorism, international security and the Middle East. His latest book

is Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil

War that he co-authored with Ken Pollack investigating the connection with states that sponsor terrorism.

We also had originally scheduled Dr. Philip Zelikow, who had

worked with Secretary Rice I think from 2005–2007. I wanted to

just touch on these details for a minute. Very smart guy. We were

looking forward to him being here. He had finalized his written

statement with the staff on late Monday afternoon. It was distributed to all our members on Tuesday morning, and sometime in the

mid-morning we received a call from his assistant that he would

have to cancel.

I put in a call to him to try to get him to change his mind. It

turned out that he called back later that day and informed us that

somewhere in that intervening time the Administration approached

him about being a consultant with the Administration to work on

the Iraq war policy, and he didn’t think it was appropriate for him

to be testifying publicly.

He ask that his written statement not be made part of the

record. It will not be, but he is also aware that it was already distributed publicly, and members can feel free to use it as they may.

In fact, I have already asked a question at this morning’s full committee hearing using a statement that I thought was a very

thoughtful statement. But he is involved in this whole issue of

what comes next in Iraq but is now working with the Administration.

So I will now turn to Mr. Akin for any comments he would like

to make.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Appendix on page 35.]

STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. AKIN. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Dr. Byman, and thank you for joining us here

today. You have a rare opportunity this afternoon. You have the

benefit of offering your testimony with no one on your right and no

one on your left to disagree with you, and so thank you for joining

us.

Today’s hearing is the second in a series aimed at breaking out

of the false construct of talking about Iraq in terms of precipitous

withdrawal or stay the course. While our first hearing was very

constructive, I want to reiterate the purpose of this exercise. We

are here to discuss alternatives that really offer a different plan to

the current strategy. Simply critiquing the current approach is not

the point of this hearing, and it is helpful only to the degree that

it adds to proposing something different. So Dr. Byman, I look forward to—if you do have something that is really an alternative

plan, we are particularly interested in that.

After looking at your testimony, it is clear that you advocate departing from the strategy in the sense that you want to emphasize

having the U.S. combat forces go door to door, that you want to get

3

away from that, and securing and holding Iraqi neighborhoods in

place. If the strategy requires roughly 160,000 troops, you suggest

maintaining a troop presence of 20,000 in the region to contain a

spillover and serve as rapid response forces in the event of regional

intervention in Iraq, particularly from Iran.

I am curious how the relatively small footprint that you propose

for the U.S. is sufficient to carry out the military roles and missions you identify in your statement, which is, one, training Iraqi

forces, two, deterring conventional militaries from intervening in

Iraq, three, supporting al Qaeda’s enemies and, four, conducting direct strike missions. While I agree that these roles and missions

are important, I would like to understand how you arrive at the

number 20,000. Others who share your view that the U.S. should

maintain these roles and missions believe a larger footprint is required.

Finally, your comments about spillover are sobering. Increased

violence, humanitarian tragedy, a failed state, emboldened terrorists and regional actors all will result, in your view, in the wake

of U.S. withdrawal or significant drawdown. Your policy prescription to address this problem is for the U.S. not to make a bad situation worse. Your statement also references other instances of spillover, particularly in Yugoslavia and Lebanon.

I would appreciate if you would take some time this afternoon to

discuss how the U.S. should manage the consequences of withdrawal and identify lessons we should learn from the historical

cases that you cite.

Thank you again, Dr. Byman, for joining us today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the Appendix on page 37.]

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Representative Akin.

Dr. Byman, we will give you a chance to make an opening statement. Members have had your written statement for I think a couple of days now.

We will put the five-minute clock on. The red light will go on.

You feel free to ignore it. But I will do that in the spirit of letting

you know where you are at. When you hear the bell, if the bells

go off, we don’t have to leave here for eight or ten minutes after

the bells go off so feel free to keep going on.

Dr. Byman, appreciate your being here.

STATEMENT OF DR. DANIEL L. BYMAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER

FOR PEACE AND SECURITY STUDIES OF THE EDMUND A.

WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, SENIOR FELLOW, SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE

EAST POLICY, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

Dr. BYMAN. Thank you very much. It is always dangerous to tell

a professor that he has the freedom to speak for as long as he

wants, so I will try hard not to abuse that.

Chairman Snyder, Mr. Akin, other members of the committee,

thank you very much for this opportunity to speak before you

today. I regret to say that I believe that the United States will not

be able to bring peace and stability to Iraq in the next several

years and that, even in the long term, ending the Iraqi civil war

4

would require a far greater military and civilian commitment than

we currently have and, even then, I think the chances of success

are far from certain.

I will also add that domestic political support appears to be waning, which makes increasing the burden quite difficult at this time.

Because I am skeptical of our chances for success and because I

recognize the exceptionally heavy costs we are paying as a nation

for remaining in Iraq, I reluctantly advocate reducing our troop

presence substantially and moving away from our current policy.

However, I do not take this stance lightly, because I believe a

U.S. drawdown would have severe consequences for Iraq and also

for the region. Just as I believe Administration officials ‘‘bestcased’’ planning for the war going in, I do believe critics of the war

are making a similar mistake today, which is that they are assuming that the situation could not get worse when it easily can; and

my testimony today focuses on the problem of the Iraq war spilling

out into neighboring states and beyond. I argue that it is imperative for us to have a plan for containing the spillover from the Iraqi

civil war.

Because my testimony is focused as this hearing is on new approaches I am not going to belabor various Administration policies

or various legislative alternatives, so I am happy to answer questions on them; and, instead, I am going to focus on the idea of a

strategy of containment, which is really trying to prevent the Iraq

problem from metastasizing beyond Iraq.

It is worth pointing out that the civil War in Iraq could easily

grow much worse and I believe will grow much worse if U.S. forces

draw down substantially. We can expect tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people to die or be injured in the

war and millions more refugees up from the over two million today;

and I will point out that the United States has in other cases intervened to stop humanitarian tragedies of this scope.

That said, there are four strategic problems I think we should

focus on.

One problem is going to be terrorism. Iraq is already a haven for

terrorists. They have used Iraq for doing attacks in Jordan and

elsewhere. We are going to see this sort of thing increased if the

U.S. presence is reduced.

Another problem which is happening in the region is Iraqis

radicalizing the politics of several states in the region, in particular, those states that have Sunni-Shia divides. This issue, which

has gone up and down historically, is becoming more salient than

it has in the last hundred years in terms of political divisions. Refugees are going to be a huge problem. As I mention, there are already two million. Increasingly, the refugees will be poor, and

many will bring the war with them. They are going to overstrain

the countries they are in.

In Jordan, perhaps one out of every six people in Jordan today

is a refugee from Iraq; and many of these people are ripe for

radicalization. We have seen this in conflict after conflict where

young men in particular arrive with nothing to do, and year after

year life goes on with very little hope and, over time, they join the

fight.

5

And the last thing is, because of these problems and in part because of simple opportunism, we are likely to see neighboring

states intervening in Iraq, in particular Iran, which is already

there in a paramilitary sense, but also Saudi Arabia, Turkey and

other states that have made threats of intervention.

What should we do about all these problems?

One of the first things to do is to not make a bad situation worse.

Several options currently being discussed I am skeptical about, but

one I will single out in my spoken remarks is partition.

For the United States to engineer a partition deliberately today

would not serve U.S. interests. First of all, to do so in a safe way

would require hundreds of thousands of troops, more than we currently have. But I think, even more importantly, the model people

seem to have in mind is the former Yugoslavia. There you had communities divided after years of fighting, you had relatively clear

borders for partition in contrast to Iraq, and I think, most important, you had leaders who could speak for their communities.

Part of the problem with Iraq today, with any mantra of a political settlement which I think everyone assumes could be achieved

with a magic wand, is that the leaders do not speak for their communities. There are literally hundreds of leaders who matter, and

no one could bring the fighters to the table. There may come a time

after years of bloodshed and ethnic cleansing when a de facto partition may be appropriate for Iraq, and the United States should not

take this off the table. But it is not something we should engineer

today.

One of the biggest challenges we are going to have to deal with

is the refugee issue; and, at the very least, we should be providing

technical assistance to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Kuwait

to help them ensure that refugee camps do not become insurgent

operating bases. Another option would be to resettle refugees from

Iraq outside the region, and I will include the United States in

this.

In my judgment, we owe a moral debt but, more importantly, a

practical one that if we have millions of Iraqi refugees that resettled on the borders near Iraq it is likely these refugees will contribute to a civil war. If we can dissipate this group somewhat and

have them sent around the globe, including to the United States,

the war-causing consequences will be mitigated.

Beyond this, the United States is, of course, always going to have

to go after terrorists, in particular terrorists going after the United

States, through a combination of special operations forces, air

power and intelligence assets; and at times the United States will

have to work with factions in Iraq below the government level to

do so.

Also, the United States is going to have to prevent Iran from intervening; and I have to be careful what I say here. Iran is already

intervening in Iraq, and Iran’s interests are massive and to say no

Iranian intervention is a goal we will not be able to achieve. But

we need to set up some realistic red lines. Some obvious ones are

Iran laying claim to Iraqi territory, pumping Iraqi oil, or sending

its own forces into Iraq to aid its factions in terms of conventional

military forces.

6

What would U.S. military forces do in this? In my judgment, they

would play five roles. One would be deterring Iranian conventional

military involvement in Iraq, so large-scale forces, conventional

forces, training Iraqi forces. And here I don’t mean something like

the Iraq Study Group. This is not tens of thousands of trainers

helping Iraqi forces in a comprehensive way. This is something

that there will be certain factions within the government will want

to support, certain units, and we can provide a limited number of

trainers to support them.

And, in a similar way, we will need to improve what used to be

known as foreign internal defense of our allies, helping the police

refugee camps and, in general, building their paramilitary and police capabilities as well as their military capabilities; and we will

also have to work with different groups in Iraq that are fighting

al Qaeda such as our current support with Iraqi tribal groups

where it might be logistical support, intelligence or firepower. And

at times, of course, we will have to send our own forces in, that our

allies will not be able to go after certain groups or they simply will

not be willing to do so and we will have to do it ourselves and this

includes missions to gather tactical intelligence.

Now the good news on this is, since the training mission is limited and since Iranian conventional forces are limited——

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Byman, the acoustics in this room aren’t so

good, and my experience as being somebody at the end, so if you

would pull that in as close—yeah, that would be good.

Dr. BYMAN. I apologize. Is that better?

Dr. SNYDER. That is substantially better.

Dr. BYMAN. Sorry about that.

I will add that I think this can be done with a limited number

of troops in part because many of these troops can be based outside

Iraq. Iran’s military forces are exceptionally weak now. An overthe-horizon presence would largely suffice to deter them.

And I will add further that the training is not going to be of the

scale that some have proposed in terms of having literally half of

the military forces in Iraq be dedicated—the U.S. forces are currently in Iraq dedicated to training. That this would be a more traditional training mission done by special operations forces or selective light infantry units not of the scale we are doing now. As this

implies, the demands on special operation forces and other units involved in training and intelligence will remain heavy and perhaps

even grow. I would endorse ideas to create a special training capacity and also to continue growing these units. I recognize that there

are limits to how quickly you can do this and to keep them effective, but I believe that should be a constant interest.

I will conclude, though, with a note of pessimism. Iraq is already

a failed state. Iraq is already a haven for terrorists. It is so despite

the presence of almost 160,000 U.S. troops there today. The idea

that we could draw down U.S. forces in any way, whether as significantly as I propose or in a partial way as others do, and yet not

have the situation get worse is naive.

My problem with staying in Iraq is that I believe current U.S.

policies are not working and are—in fact, the situation is getting

worse and, thus, the sacrifice is not worth it. Having said that, I

do believe that we should expect a lot of nasty things to come out

7

of Iraq, and we will be dealing with this as a regional policy for

at least a decade to come.

Thank you very much.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Dr. Byman.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Byman can be found in the Appendix on page 40.]

Dr. SNYDER. As is our practice on this subcommittee, both Mr.

Akin and I would like to be put on the five-minute clock. So there

we go. That way, we will try to get through everybody before we

have votes, and then we can go multiple rounds.

Dr. Byman, you are here alone, but I am going to give you a

chance to debate somebody else. In response to Dr. Gingrey’s questions last week, General Wes Clark—retired General Wes Clark

was here. General Clark was not a supporter of the original war,

but this is what he said, and it is a fairly long quote, so bear with

me.

He said, I don’t think the situation in Iraq is so far gone that

we have to just throw up our hands and say, okay, we quit. I don’t

think we are there. I think a year from now, if we haven’t changed

the strategy, we could be at the point where the American people

will believe that. You know, there are 25 million people and they

are struggling to survive in Iraq. There is going to be an Iraq

whether U.S. troops are there or not. So the question is, how do

we relate? What we need to do is change the strategy now so that

we empower the troops over there to work more effectively against

whatever elements are still resisting. We have to enunciate the

kinds of strategic principles that other people in the region can

sign up to. If we say we will only talk to democratic governments,

then there is no need to fight in the region, because you are going

to invite the resistance of those nondemocratic governments. We

don’t have the power to effect immediate regime change in Iran,

Syria and every other country in the region. Why do we want to?

Those are their countries. They have their own ideas. If our ideas

are better, let them percolate in. This should not be an ideological

campaign. What we are trying to do is fulfill our obligation to the

people of Iraq by ending the violence and get our troops out of Iraq

safely. That is all.

That is the end of the quote.

So I want you to respond to that. But the two thrusts there,

number one, here is one supporting the war who says the situation

in Iraq is not so far gone that we have to throw up our hands and

leave; and, number two, the issue of fulfilling our obligation to the

Iraqi people.

And this also came out in a hearing last week from Dr. Kahn

who reminded the committee, you know, when the war began, 70

percent of the people supported the President and the war; and he

kind of had his finger up at one point saying, you all are responsible for what happens in Iraq now. Your very gloomy statement

says he reluctantly—you use the word ‘‘reluctantly’’ but say it is

time to accept the fact that it is not working. Spar with General

Clark there, if you would, about who thinks that it has not so far

gone we have to throw up our hands.

Dr. BYMAN. I have heard statements like General Clark’s in

2004, in 2005, in 2006, and now today; and what they tend to do

8

in my opinion is focus on one or two particular factors and say it

is improving slightly, it could be worse, rather than look at the

whole.

Let me give you some very big-picture, negative observations

that are behind my conclusions. One is that political unity is getting worse, not better, that the ability of the United States to engineer deals among Iraqi factions was stronger several years ago

than it is today.

A second is that sectarian violence is much worse, that this was

a dynamic that initially we could talk primarily about a war between Iraqis who liked or did not like the U.S. presence. Now, for

many Iraqi fighters, the U.S. presence is actually not terribly important. They are much more focused on killing each other.

A third factor is that the training mission is not working. Every

benchmark, every report we receive suggests that problems remain,

and in particular let me single out two.

One that you don’t hear much about but is tremendously important is the performance of the Iraqi police. If you talk to most

Iraqis, they will mention crime, not civil violence as their number

one problem, that people simply cannot leave their homes because

they are afraid they will be kidnapped. They are afraid they will

be robbed. And the police in Iraq are a disaster, and the basic functions of government thus are in jeopardy when the police do not

work.

A second problem is that, because the government is increasingly

seen by many Iraqis as really just a sectarian militia, that when

we train the government we are training one side in this war and

even one faction within a faction.

So I do believe we should support some elements over another,

but we shouldn’t think that most Iraqis embrace the idea of a very,

very strong police under the—or, excuse me, very, very strong

armed forces under the Maliki government.

We see reports again and again of different Sunni groups in particular being very concerned about a strong army led by people

they see as their enemies. And since these trends largely are getting worse, we see no change in the neighboring states’ willingness

to intervene, at some point I have to be able to look people in the

eye and say, the sacrifice, yeah, has a chance of succeeding—and

three years ago I was willing to say that—but, increasingly, I am

not willing to say that, and several years ago I reached the point

of believing this is not going to succeed.

The only way it would be possible in my judgment would be for

literally several hundred thousand more troops in Iraq, western

quality troops—and I am basing this on U.S. Army

Counterinsurgency Manual which was offered by General Petraeus,

so I don’t feel my estimate is that far out—and I believe we as a

country don’t want to provide that level of support.

Another point which is a very painful one to me, obligation. Yes,

we have a moral obligation to Iraq. At some point, though, I think

we have to say that we are not going to fulfill it because the cost

of the sacrifice is too great for the American people. If there is still

a problem 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, that obligation would still

be there. But at some point you have to say it is not working and

move on.

9

It troubles me greatly, frankly, and part of why I wanted to take

in so many Iraqi refugees is a very small way of fulfilling our obligation to some Iraqis. I recognize that doesn’t right the scales. But

it is one way of paying obligation. But at some point more obligation is not enough, and I think we have reached that point.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Akin for five minutes. And, Dr. Byman, that

was the call for votes. I think what we had better do is let Mr.

Akin ask his questions, and then we will go for votes, and that is

the way it will be.

Mr. AKIN. Dr. Byman, it seems like you are pretty straightforward here, but I don’t know if you really spell it out. What I am

really hearing you say is, if we pull a whole lot of troops out, there

is going to be a huge civil war going on. And you are saying pull

a whole lot of troops out. So what you are saying is we basically

have to accept the fact that a whole lot—some number, a million

Iraqis are going to kill each other in the near future. And that is

what you are advocating. That is what it sounds like what I am

hearing you say. Maybe that is kind of stating it in a cold-blooded

way. But is that partly what you are saying?

Dr. BYMAN. Right now, sir, I believe that U.S. troops in Iraq are

slowing the fall of Iraq into chaos and that if we withdraw there

will be no net to slow this fall. But, that said, the fall is happening

anyway. So it is not that I feel the situation is getting slowly better, I think it is getting slowly worse. Iraq is going to have this

civil war.

The question to me is, where are U.S. forces going to be? What

role are we going to play?

And several years ago I was willing to say we should try to stop

this. But we have reached the point I think of no return, unfortunately; and that does mean Iraq will suffer.

I would like to tell you again to wave a magic wand and say it

will be all right if we leave. It will not be all right. It will be quite

dangerous, and I am very concerned that the danger will go from

beyond Iraq to the region, and that is why I believe we need planning for this now.

Mr. AKIN. So I think that is fair to say, you know, we are all

looking at a whole series of alternatives. You know, none of them

look wonderful. Wonderful would be if it just wasn’t going on.

But, on the other hand, I haven’t heard anybody say—although

I had some constituents come and say, well, what we think we

should do is just put the troops around the border and let them all

fight it out all internally. It is not too different than what I am

hearing you say.

Dr. BYMAN. The implication of some people is that the Iraqis deserves the disaster that they are going to create. My personal view

is we are not going to stop it, and there is a limit to how much

I am going to ask young men and women in particular to put their

lives on the line to try to limit this when I believe it is going to

happen over time anyway. And my hope is that we can stop it from

going beyond Iraq, and even that may be difficult.

Mr. AKIN. Right. Your comments, also, you talked about the

training and the training that we have done, that was a committee—that was the subject of this committee’s study for a six-month

period of time. I don’t think that our result of what we studied was

10

nearly as pessimistic as the way you described it. You sort of took

the worst possible part of that, saying it was the local police. Of

course, Iraqis never had local police before, and that was the worst

part of what we saw.

The training, the national—the actual military side of it, that

training has gone reasonably well. Those people are picking up a

lot of the fight. And there is some considerable argument that we

are starting to close down areas where al Qaeda can really work

because we are starting to—we have a big enough footprint now

that they are getting squeezed out and that there may come a time

when we really kind of drop their influence way down and their

trouble-making capacity down.

Another piece of the question is, so we back off, we let the al

Qaeda come in, stir up the—get the Shias and the Sunnis fighting

and everything. So then what happens at a certain period of time?

Some dominant group takes over. Say it is the al Qaeda that take

over. Then are they going to be allowed to export their violence all

over the Middle East and in Europe? Or how do you see that playing?

Dr. BYMAN. I think that an al Qaeda takeover of Iraq is unlikely.

The more realistic question to me is, will it take over a place like

Anbar province or large chunks of Iraq? And I would say that,

right now, they would take over parts of Iraq. So little pockets here

and there.

In some areas, tribes would win; in some areas, there would just

be criminals; in some areas, you would have jihadist havens. And

we should go after them whenever they are concentrated. But the

problem will be when they are not concentrated, and that will be

an extremely difficult problem.

Again, I would like to tell you that this will not be a significant

problem. I think it would. And what I want to do is to start to

think about this now to make sure we have the local allies in

Sunni parts of Iraq where it might set up shop to make sure we

are working with regional security services against them. But I

don’t think that our presence there has stopped them from making

inroads.

And I will give the counter, which is every day we are there it

is a recruiting poster for the broader jihadist movement. Unfortunately, I spend much of my time looking at jihadist Web sites; and

Iraq is their number one propaganda tool.

And the trade-off, sir, is, in my judgment, is one between inspiration and operations, where when we are there, they are inspired,

which is bad. But when we are gone, their operational capacity will

increase, which is bad. So I see it as a lose-lose, unfortunately.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you. I think my time has expired, and it is

probably time for a vote. Thank you.

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Byman, what we will do, we have nine votes.

The first one is a 15-minute vote. We have half the time left, and

eight two-minute votes, but that is two minutes congressional time,

which kind of slots into the three- or four-minute range. But sometimes we get pretty good at it.

The staff tells me you brought some written work to do to fill in

your time. We also have a fairly large number of young people here

today. You are certainly welcome to respond to any of their quesVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:23 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038757 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-74\199160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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tions either formally or you can turn around and conduct a class.

That will be up to you and the staff. We appreciate your being

here, and we will return as quickly as we can.

The committee is in recess.

[Recess.]

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Byman, thank you for being here.

We will resume. Our order will be a little distorted. Dr. Gingrey,

you are recognized for five minutes.

Dr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, let me pass for five minutes until

I can get situated. You can start, and then you can come back.

Dr. SNYDER. That is fine.

Mr. Akin, would you like to go a second round at this time?

Mr. AKIN. Why don’t you go first, and I will follow up.

Dr. SNYDER. All right. I will. Why don’t you run our clock there

for us.

I wanted to get to this question that you and I were talking

about earlier. I think we were talking about what is our responsibility; and in your written statement you say, let’s see, unfortunately—quote, unfortunately, just as Administration officials ‘bestcased’ the planning for the initial invasion of Iraq, critics of the

war are making a similar mistake with regard to a U.S. withdrawal, end quote.

And above that you refer to the fact that a, quote, U.S. drawdown will have severe costs for the Iraqi people, end quote.

On the second page of your written statement you state, ‘‘Based

on the experiences of other recent major civil wars such as those

in the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan,

the Caucasus, and elsewhere, we should expect many hundreds of

thousands or even millions of people to die with three to four times

that number wounded. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of

people to die with three to four times that number wounded.’’

And that struck me. I mean, you have a pretty gloomy statement

overall, but your estimation that there could be millions of people

who die I think is the gloomiest statement I have heard about the

potential ramifications. I am not saying it may be inaccurate.

What has concerned me—in fact, Mr. Hunter was talking about

it at a full committee hearing today—is the indiscriminate nature

of the war that is going on now, the large numbers of children that

are being killed. And when you talk about possibly hundreds of

thousands, or we should expect many hundreds of thousands, many

hundreds of thousands or even millions of people to die, I think it

is fair to say there will be hundreds of thousands or even millions

of children to die.

Now tell me again, with regard to your analysis of U.S. responsibility, how do you—when you see that kind of number, by your

estimate that kind of number, how do you weigh what our responsibility is with regard to that kind of decimation of population?

Dr. BYMAN. Sir, I should begin by saying I am not an ethicist,

so I am giving you my statement as a human being more than as

a professor or a specialist. The number I came up with for deaths

is something that—Iraq, of course, has had well over a hundred

thousand deaths from its war so far; and the numbers get even

higher depending upon what you count. Do you count the devastation of war that destroys a sewage system so people die from bad

12

water? Does that count in a death toll from the war or is that a

death toll from bad water? There are tons of ways you can play

with these numbers, some honest, some dishonest.

A big question on the death toll is, can people become refugees?

If people can’t flee—people often flee because they are afraid of

being killed. If they cannot flee, then they are more likely to die,

and they are also more likely to fight. And that option needs to be

there to keep the death tolls low.

I am hopeful that the death tolls won’t go into the millions, but

I think it would be irresponsible to say at this point, when we

know so little about what this war would be like, to say that will

not happen.

My moral view, my view of morality is that there is a question

of can we stop this, and the answer is I think we can as a nation,

but it would require a tremendous level of sacrifice. And not the

level we are talking now, not sustaining the surge for five years

out, but really doubling or perhaps even tripling the number of

U.S. troops.

Standard troop estimates for an Iraq sort of conflict are about

500,000 troops. We are not remotely near that. And even when you

count trained Iraqis, which is a relatively small number, we are not

remotely near that. So the question to me is not can we allow this

to happen, but are we willing to pay the cost to do so? And my

judgment is that we are simply not going to do that.

So I don’t see the value in keeping the current levels of troops

there if it’s not going to solve this problem. I think we will get to

that level of suffering and strife several years out. Regardless of

whether we are there or not, the United States will simply delay

this, rather than stop it.

Dr. SNYDER. I think one of the factors, when you think about the

tremendous sacrifices that military families are making and our

men and women in uniform, is if it was phrased ‘‘are you willing

to risk life and limb to prevent hundreds of thousands or even millions of children from being killed’’, I think substantial numbers of

American families would see this thing differently. But it depends

on, you know, the reliability of your estimate. I recognize how difficult that is.

Mr. Akin, shall we resume first round and come back with second round and then we will go first with you?

Mr. AKIN. I think that is a good way.

Dr. SNYDER. So Mrs. Davis for five minutes.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I

think the discussion that you just had certainly, I mean, raises all

the areas in which you touched.

I was wondering really what the response to your paper, done at

the beginning of this year, has been and how you have been able

to, I guess, counter some of the challenges to that? How have you

been able to do that?

Dr. BYMAN. Well, what is slightly amusing from my point of view

is, when I initially did this work, I was attacked quite a bit from

people on the right side of the political spectrum for being very critical of the prospects for success in Iraq; and today I am being attacked considerably from people on the other side for saying that,

if we leave, things are going to be quite bad. So I am kind of proud

13

of the consistency with which I have managed to alienate almost

everyone.

My critique in general is, although my colleague and I, Ken Pollack, offer our thoughts on how to contain the war—and I should

be clear again, as I was in my written testimony, my spoken remarks, especially on force size and some of the other options, are

quite different from what Dr. Pollack believes, that we have tried

to come up with some plans and ideas. This is something best done

by the interagency process of the U.S. Government.

Dr. Pollack and I are two individuals at a think tank. There are

a few other individuals at think tanks around town coming up with

ideas. But this is a massive undertaking. It involves operations

with a host of allies, it involves humanitarian operations, it involves almost every capacity of the U.S. Government, and I am

stunned and saddened that we as a government are not planning

for this possibility.

That I would love it if the surge worked; and I am hoping, frankly, that my analysis of it is wrong. But even if you are a proponent

of the surge and believe it will work, I would think that you would

have to say there is at least some chance it won’t, and we should

be planning for it to fail.

So the question I have here is—that I am trying to address is,

if the surge fails, what should we do? And my judgment is it is failing. But even if I am wrong in that and it seems to be succeeding,

it still strikes me as appropriate to plan. And that is where I am

most disappointed, is I don’t see much movement in the planning

community, in the professional planning community or in the political planning community for this. And there is a lot going on in the

world I don’t know about, so maybe it is going on without me, but

nothing I have heard shows that.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. You mentioned the interagency coordination or planning. I think that we have been seeking that for

some years now, actually, in this effort; and I am wondering, do

you believe that there is anything in the potential for interagency

work today that would actually mitigate the spillover effects that

you identified?

Dr. BYMAN. I think part of the problem with doing the planning

is that if you go down this road you are at least implicitly saying

the surge may not work, and various government agencies have

been reluctant to start walking down that road. We do some programs, such as working with security forces in the region, that are

part of what I believe is a mitigation strategy. We do have some

capacity for standoff attack in the region. We do have some capacity to surge, not in the sense of Iraq, but to surge our air and naval

presence in response to Iranian aggression. So some of these things

are part of what I consider a containment of Iraq strategy. But it

is only a part, and we need a lot more.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. What I am wondering as well, though,

is whether—you know, you talk about strategically engaging our

allies in the region. Does that include Saudi Arabia in that? And

do you believe that we—have you seen any effort to do that in such

a way as to acknowledge in fact that we will need them there to

act differently in the future?

14

Dr. BYMAN. With our diplomacy with Saudi Arabia, the Saudis

are exceptionally discreet, and most U.S. officials who work with

the Saudis on a regular basis try to be as well. So of all the countries I focus on, Saudi Arabia is the one I will know the least about

in terms of current initiatives. I do know the Vice President, among

other people, has gone out to the Saudis to push them to do a better job securing their own borders. I do know that there is regular

security service and military cooperation with the Saudi counterparts. So there are a series of initiatives.

I know from the other point of view the Saudis are exceptionally

concerned about the United States not just leaving Iraq but leaving

the region, that they fear that, having been burned in Iraq we will

depart in a very precipitous manner. And so they are concerned as

well. So I do think there is a chance to work together on this.

The caveat I would end with is that the Saudi institutional capacity, especially outside Saudi Arabia, is weak. They are quite

good at offering money to different parties around the world, but

in terms of doing their own training missions and their own military missions, they don’t have much outside the kingdom.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Yeah, we haven’t seen that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will come back for other questions.

Dr. SNYDER. We will now go to Mr. Johnson, who was here at

the time of the gavel, and then go in order of members as they

came in. Mr. Sestak’s not here, Mr. Jones, Dr. Gingrey, and Mr.

Bartlett. So Mr. Johnson for five minutes.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As I made my way down to this hearing today, I passed by the

office of Jim McDermott out of Washington, who, since I have been

a Member of Congress, seven months ago I took office, he has

maintained a board outside of his office. In fact, there are two

boards, two large poster boards; and on those boards are the photographs of each and every serviceman and woman who has been

killed fighting the war in Iraq. And two poster boards now are

filled.

The last little space was taken up just a couple of days ago, I

guess. I just noticed that there was no more room on that second

board. It must be about 150 faces, smiling faces of young people on

that board, all of whom are now dead. The last one died I think

it was July 4th.

And I was having a great day, great spirits; and as I bebopped

my way down the steps and passed that display I was rendered

sober immediately, thinking of my responsibility here in Congress

toward the young people who are deployed in a war, in the midst

of a civil war in Iraq. They are losing their lives every day, and

their parents and loved ones grieve in their absence.

Then today there was a hearing in Armed Services. One of the

persons who testified, Dr. Jessica Tuchman Mathews, pointed out

the fact that in Iraq over 4 million Iraqis are refugees, internally

displaced or dead from the violence. In other words, when you add

up the dead and the displaced, 4 million. And she said in per capita

U.S. terms that would be 50 million people dead or forced out of

their homes, forced to flee to Canada or Mexico. That is the gravity

of this situation over there.

15

And she also said that, due to the vacuum, the power vacuum

that was left when the U.S. took down Saddam, took out the military, took out the social structure there, the power, the vacuum

that was left caused the struggle for power now. And the struggle

for power by all of the sectarian interests over there will continue

whether or not the U.S. is there or the U.S. is not there. It is inevitable that the parties over there will fight it out until they get tired

of fighting, until someone, some power that has tested and tried

the others and the others have wilted and now the power now resides with one, the winner. And at that point peace can be attained.

Given that very thoughtful and reasonable analysis, why does it

make sense for the United States to continue to have forces deployed in the middle of a civil war that we started? We started it,

and certainly we have a—it is an indelible—it is a stain that is indelibly etched on our history forever that we started it. And we owe

those four million people something. But is it to keep our troops

there or is it to have a more robust diplomatic effort that can help

enhance the prospects for an internal political solution to that conflict over there?

Dr. BYMAN. As you know, sir, I am personally skeptical that

large numbers—the current force size can do the mission we want

it to do in Iraq; and that is part of the reason I favor a significant

drawdown. However, I am also skeptical that a diplomatic solution

can be reached without the security situation stabilizing. That

right now we can have a meeting of the Iraqi parliament or we

could have a meeting of the ministers of government, but they don’t

control the people with the guns on the street level. So any deal

they strike isn’t really worth that much for most of the communities in Iraq; and, as a result, this conflict is still going to play

itself out.

And that is where I am so pessimistic. I don’t see the chance of

either a political solution or a military solution in the near term;

and, as a result, my view is what are other U.S. interests in the

region that might be jeopardized and how could we avoid losing

even more at this point?

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you.

Mr. Jones for five minutes.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much; and, Dr.

Byman, thank you for being here today. I found it very interesting.

I got here a little bit late, but your comments about your feelings

three years ago versus where your feelings are today and what the

options are, which are not good, and you stated that, whether we

stay or whether we leave.

But let me give you—the question is this. Would the Iranians be

happy to see us leave or would the Iranians figure that if we leave

then they have got a problem they have got to handle?

Dr. BYMAN. Right now, many in Iran would be delighted if we

left; and I think many believe that Iran could best benefit from the

power vacuum there. I do believe that, in the short term, Iran’s influence would grow. But it is unrealistic from my point of view to

expect Iran to have significantly more interest—or, excuse me, significantly more capability to influence events in Iraq than we have

16

had. They have a much weaker military, they have much less

money, and many Iraqis, including many Iraqi Shia, are intensely

prickly about Iranian involvement.

There is a Persian-Arab rivalry, of course; and Iraqi Shia were

the bulk of the troops who fought against the Iranians in a very

bitter war in the 1980’s. And there is a general sense that all people have, which is that they don’t want an outsider meddling in

their country.

So I do think Iran’s influence would grow. I don’t want to pretend it wouldn’t. But I judge that to be manageable. And I believe

Iran would start to have a number of problems, that Iran would

find many of its proxies are not terribly loyal, that many of the

people it wants to empower it is not succeeding with. But, that

said, Iran in the short term at least will have an increase in influence.

Mr. JONES. I think today at the hearing Dr. Mathews was saying

that in her opinion that it is difficult to say how much worse the

situation would be if we pull out. Would the civil war become widespread? She said it is just impossible to say yes or no. You have

your feelings that you feel—not you, but any professor like yourself.

But, again, I go back to Iran for this reason. If this civil war, if

we pulled out, would expand to all parts the Iraq, which would border on Iran, would you think that they would feel compelled, even

though their army is small or not as strong as ours, that they

would have to do something in a formal way with their military?

Dr. BYMAN. I think that is quite plausible. And that is how I

think of Iraqi futures, is I try to think of not what is likely, because

there are so many factors in play it is so hard to predict, but what

passes the smell test? And that scenario you just outlined certainly

does, where Iran feels that, whether the Shia as a whole are suffering depredations or its particular proxies are having problems, that

it feels the need to intervene more forcefully and decisively. And

in part Iran might do that because it believes they are easy pickings, the Iraqis are too weak or disorganized.

The United States should make a very strong effort to stop exactly that, to make sure Iranian involvement is limited to its

present level; and that will be hard to do. And there U.S. capabilities actually work tremendously in our favor. We do have a lot of

capabilities to interdict Iranian forces, and the key is to make sure

that Iran knows that now, so they know that option is off the table

for them.

In particular, I fear a scenario where Iran steps up involvement

so its rivals such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or Jordan start backing their proxies more and there is a tit for tat that leads to almost

inadvertent escalation. That is something that is part of a containment strategy we should aggressively try to stop, both through

military deterrence but also through very aggressive diplomacy.

Mr. JONES. Let me very quickly, because my time is about up,

but this Administration from a foreign policy standpoint seems to

get a D or D-minus, maybe even an F. Because it has been a failure. There is no question about it. Do you think having a new

look—and I am not talking about a presidential election. But do

you think that it makes any sense at some point in time—it is not

17

now—but this Administration would select someone to represent

this country in the Middle East in a private way maybe to put together some relationships that we now don’t have? Would that

make some sense at some point a year from now, maybe less than

that?

Does it make sense to have a new face, instead of President

Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice? Does it make any sense to

get somebody like a Colin Powell? Not saying that he would be the

person. But to put a new face out? Would that be of any help to

start a discussion that we now don’t seem to have with some of

these countries?

Dr. BYMAN. In my judgment, yes. That person, though, needs to

have a very unusual resume. They need to have enough stature

within the Administration to be taken seriously.

Because the people in the region are very sensitive to power relationships, and they know that retired ambassador so and so doesn’t

have the President’s ear, and so they will not pay particular attention. But that person needs to be seen as relatively independent.

I think the idea of retired Prime Minister Tony Blair is a great

example of the right sort of person, someone very respected both

publicly but also within the Administration, yet who has a degree

of independence. So I think the idea is a very sensible one, sir.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Bartlett for five minutes.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.

I was one of just a handful of Republicans that voted for the

Spratt substitute before we went into this war because I did not

think that what we wanted to do there was very doable. I thought

it was a very steep hill to climb.

There is no country around Iraq that has anything like the government we wanted them to have. We have dictatorships in several

countries. We call them royal families. They may be benevolent dictatorships, but dictatorships nonetheless. We have kings in Jordan

and Syria. We have the mullahs, kind of a theocracy running Iran.

And we have an on-again, off-again sort of a democracy in Turkey

where, by constitution, the military can throw out the civil government at any time they wish.

I wanted a U.N. Resolution because I did not want us to own this

war. I wanted this to be a U.N. action. I am not a big fan of the

U.N.. I don’t mind so much them failing. I mind an awful lot the

United States failing. And I thought there was a very high probability of failure here.

Aside from not owning this war, as we do now, what else might

be different if the Spratt amendment had prevailed and we had a

U.N. Resolution that was not our war?

Dr. BYMAN. That is a very difficult question, so I will give some

conjecture.

The big problems we had in Iraq, in my judgment, were an immediate nationalistic backlash among Iraqis that later on morphed

into a series of other conflicts but began with angry Iraqis and not

enough troops. I think that having more international backing

might have led to more troops. Not necessarily, though, but might

have led to more troops. Also, it would have sent a message that

we were not in Iraq to stay, that we were not going there to be an

18

occupying power; and having the United Nations imprimatur helps

with that.

But, that said, both of those to me are uncertain, especially the

troop levels. So I am not sure how much difference it would have

made in the end. Several of the factors that produced the insurgency, such as the de-Baathification campaign, the getting rid of

the Iraqi military very early, and also in general the surprisingly

failed nature of the Iraqi state, the fact that we didn’t anticipate

just how broken this place was, these still would have been there.

So I think it certainly would have been better if we had international support. I don’t want to say that. But that only would

have gotten us part of the way.

Mr. BARTLETT. But at least if it was a U.N. operation we

wouldn’t own the war and it wouldn’t be our failure, would it?

Dr. BYMAN. I don’t know, sir. My judgment is that we would say

it is a U.N. operation, not an American operation, but most of the

world would look and say, you know, 90 percent of the troops are

American, the diplomatic impetus behind this was American, the

political brainchild was in America. It may have a U.N. label, but

it is an American war. It would perhaps reduce it a bit, but I think

it would still be ours.

Mr. BARTLETT. So we would have to use some diplomacy to convince people it wasn’t ours.

Dr. BYMAN. That would be the goal, yes, sir.

Mr. BARTLETT. That’s why we have diplomats, isn’t it?

Dr. BYMAN. That is certainly one of the reasons.

Mr. BARTLETT. Okay. My wife has a very good characterization

of where we are now, I think. She says it is like having a tiger by

the tail. You hang on, he will drag you to death; you let go, he will

eat you. She doesn’t see any easy way out, and I am afraid I don’t

see any easy way out.

I thank you very much for your insight. I think that because

there is so much difference of opinion on this subject that you

might make your decision by a roll of the dice and be just as erudite as if you made it after a long, thoughtful process. Thank you

very much.

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Byman, if you are still up for it, we will give

members an opportunity to have a second round of questions. I

have already had my second round. Mr. Akin.

Mr. AKIN. I am going to pass.

Dr. SNYDER. Going to pass.

Mrs. Davis.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you again for being here, Dr.

Byman, as well.

I think one of the maybe more unrealistic notions that we have

as we are trying to pull this together is that, in fact, even if there

was an all-out civil war that we would be able to stay on the sidelines. I think that would be difficult to do.

I know that you are trying to suggest ways to mitigate that, to

have areas where, you know, the people could go for safety, that

you would have some forces on the border that you would try and

find safe havens where one might. I am just challenging in some

ways that notion, because I think that it seems to me that it would

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tervene. I mean, that is one of the challenges. In many ways, I

think that is something the Administration is suggesting, that in

fact we wouldn’t be able do that. Can you respond?

Dr. BYMAN. Sure. I have to be careful. I don’t want to tell a

Member of Congress about the political mood of the American people, and that is to me really what it would come down to.

There are a couple different possibilities you can think of. One

is the genocide in Cambodia after the Vietnam War, where two million people died. But there was absolutely no appetite in this country to intervene to stop that. The idea of in 1977 saying to the

American people let’s go back to Southeast Asia and fight another

war, despite the horrific situation there, I think wasn’t going to

happen. So there is a question: Would many people in the United

States simply say, having not succeeded in Iraq, we would look to

wash our hands of it?

And part of my goal in my own work is to try to say we cannot

wash our hands completely. We can draw down, but we cannot

leave. We should expand our regional involvement, even as we reduce our presence in Iraq. So the message I am giving is one that

I am not sure will have many natural sympathizers.

My personal sense is that, while many Americans will be troubled by the killing in Iraq, many of them feel that the United

States has done enough and that the natural constituency that

would be outraged by this sort of killing is actually part of the constituency right now strongly calling for the United States to leave.

So I don’t see that political pressure, but I think every member sitting at the table is far better qualified to make—to answer your

question than I am.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. One other issue that we spoke about

today was the extent to which al Qaeda is preeminent in the Sunni

insurgencies today. And I think it is suggested it is maybe about

15 percent of that insurgency but not the primary players, even

though horrific as they may be. Could you comment on that and

whether or not in fact it has been—we use that al Qaeda in Iraq

as if in fact that were the entire insurgency and how that is playing a role in terms of the discussions today. I had asked that question earlier. And what you feel we should be doing to counter the

jihadist propaganda, if you will, in terms of the fact that—and indeed they are playing a role and dealing the cards there.

Dr. BYMAN. Two very important questions.

They are part of the insurgency. From our point of view, they are

the most important. Because if the Iraq war were to die down those

people would still be going after U.S. allies and Americans, while

various Shia thugs would not. So although they are only part of

this, they are a very important part from an American national interest point of view.

One of—I actually think that, on this, the Administration’s

thinking and planning has improved considerably in the last year.

One of the shifts in the last year under General Petraeus is a shift

from only focusing on the insurgency and only focusing the emphasis on the Sunni parts to also trying to rectify the failing state

problem, to go after groups like the Mahdi Army that are not being

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bilize Iraq. As you know, I am skeptical about troop levels and so

on, but that is the approach you want to take.

So I think that we have gotten better on that issue. Not saying

all our enemies believe one thing and they are all pigeon-holed, but

that 15 percent to me is disproportionately important and especially for the purposes of my own research and testimony, which

is about the conflict beyond Iraq. Because those people have already done terrorist actions outside Iraq, and it is perfectly reasonable to expect that to increase, at least in the short term, if the

United States gives them more freedom of action.

On the propaganda, I take a somewhat different view. We spend

a lot of time on propaganda, and we call it public diplomacy, of trying to make ourselves look good. And that is a very difficult effort

when we are doing several policies in the Middle East that most

people simply don’t like. I think, you know, as peoples, as governments, we just disagree.

I would spend a lot more time making the adversary look bad.

These are people that deliberately kill women and children, they

have many teachings that are extremely unpopular among most

Muslims, and rather than try to defend our own actions, we should

go on the offensive and make it about them.

If the debate is about the legitimacy of U.S. policy toward Iraq

and Israel, even though I share much of the Administration view

on this, if that is the debate, we are going to lose it. If the debate

is about their treatment of women and children, their actions, their

interpretation of Islam, we are going to win that one.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Jones for five minutes.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Dr. Byman, I am going to read a quote from General Jack

Sheehan, and then I have got a question.

General Sheehan, 35 years in the United States Marine Corps,

was offered the position as war czar; and he turned it down. And

what I want to read to you is his quote in The Washington Post, April 11th, 2007:

I have never agreed on the basis of the war, and I am still skeptical. Not only did we not plan properly for the war, we grossly underestimated the effect of sanctions and Saddam Hussein on the

Iraqi people.

There is the residue of the Cheney view: we are going to win; al

Qaeda is there; that justifies anything we did. And then there is

the pragmatic view: How the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive?

Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the

position of most influence. The very fundamental issue is they don’t

know where the hell they are going. And I think when I hear a

general, I don’t care if it is Army, Air Force, Marine, but this is

a Marine, 35 years, when he makes that type of statement, I think

he is speaking for a lot of people. And I think you, in your comments today, you have acknowledged that.

Then today we had Dr. Kagan—I believe is the way you say his

name—who was part of the neocon—he didn’t say he was, but I

did—that helped get us where we are. They didn’t see anything but

just we are going in, they are going to love us, and in about 120

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days we are going to be out and everything’s just going to be loveydovey, which was obviously a failed policy.

But this was in a paper written by the McClatchy: Deployed, Depleted and Desperate. It is April of this year.

Very quickly, here is a question for those who—that still support

President Bush’s strategy to stretch out the Iraq war until after he

has left office and for those who think we should be prepared to

continue our bloody occupation of Iraq for five to ten years. And

this is the point. Are you ready to support reinstating selective

service, the draft, even if that means your sons and daughters or

your grandchildren will have to put on the uniform and go hold the

cities and towns of a nation that is in the middle of a civil war?

That is why I was very interested in your writings and also your

positions.

I personally think that the American people, the latest poll of

July the 11th said that 68 percent say Bush is wrong on this war.

We are getting to a point of where I think we as a nation are becoming desperate. And I use that word ‘‘desperate’’ when I am talking about manpower, and I don’t believe that we can sincerely survive on a voluntary military when they are worn out. There are

four and five deployments. The national guard is worn out, the reserve is worn out, the active duty is worn out, and yet we still have

not had the courage in this Congress to come forward——

I want to thank Chairman Ike Skelton, who is not here today—

I mean, he is not on this committee, he is full chairman—that he

brought this to the floor. And I was one of four Republicans to vote

with the chairman. Because my rationale was that, for the first

time in five years—and this is the fifth year of the war—we as a

Congress have never passed a bill that was not a supplemental,

that was a policy bill, as modest as this was, just to make a statement. And I just really—I have heard—you know, you can restate

if you want to—but I just don’t know that this country can continue to borrow money from other governments and try to pay for

a war, pay the interest on the public debt, and do what we are

doing to our military. We are breaking the Army and the Marine

Corps. We are breaking it.

Dr. BYMAN. Briefly, sir, I think you are right. And it is frustrating. I direct the largest master’s program focused on security in the

country, and I have two types of students. I have students who are

part of the Iraq effort, they are going to Iraq, they are coming from

Iraq, and everyone else. And they are in two different worlds. The

ones who are going to or are coming from Iraq, they are scrambling

in their family situation. Many of them are dealing with personal

loss in a whole variety of very difficult ways. And for even the rest

of this community focused on security, Iraq is a much more abstract thing; and that is very troubling to me.

And I am speaking not here as someone who likes to consider

himself an expert on some issues but really just as a citizen, that

we have this divide. And in Iraq in particular I am troubled, because what we are asking of our troops by our own doctrine requires far more troops; and so to ask a few to bear, to do the job

of many is I think irresponsible and will not work.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, sir.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Sestak for five minutes.

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Mr. SESTAK. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I apologize. I didn’t get back from the vote right away. I had an

interview.

What I am taken with is that at some time soon—and I cannot

agree more with Representative Jones—this Congress may actually

by force of law bring about an end to this tragic misadventure. In

my mind, however, although I have always, even when I was in the

Navy and the war was going on with the carrier battle group I had

there, felt that a date that was certain was, given enough time, the

right strategy, but what I am most taken with now is the dog may

eventually catch this car, and by force of law we may actually bring

an end.

I think an end is necessary but insufficient. The how and the

means by which we end it is of even greater importance to the safety of our troops and to the security of this nation. End it we must.

I honestly believe Democrats need to, if they are—shift from pure

opposition to understanding that the consequences of the aftermath

are so great for this nation, that it is the country’s war because of

that, not Bush’s. We need the Republicans, more than four, if we

are to end this tragic misadventure. Because I am not anti-war—

I was in the military 31 years—I am pro-security. And his points

are so well taken.

The Clinton Administration, two divisions went C3/C4 for 60

days, and the howl on it. We don’t have one unit here that could

go and save our 30,000 troops in South Korea today, not one at the

ready. So I honestly believe a strategic approach to this is vitally

important.

With that as template, to jump down—I have always been taken

with everyone talking about it is a political dimension to this, and

I agree. When I was with Senator Hagel, everyone talked about the

influence of Iran; and the National Intelligence Council said the

other day that when they said we spiral into 18 months of chaos

within 18 months if we withdraw, but they never considered the influence of Iran in a positive way.

Do you proposition, in a third way of thinking, that really redefining the possibilities, because that is what we are really about in

this third way, we could actually have Iran, Syria deal with the extremists as we deal with the center, with the incentive for their behavior being our redeployment? Understanding the time to redeploy from Somalia for 6,300 troops took 6 months, and we inserted

another 19,000 to protect them. We got 100,000 U.S. civilians

there, over 160,000 troops.

So two points. Iran, is it critical to defining a possibility of leaving behind an unfailed state as we redeploy?

Dr. BYMAN. I think that Iraq is a failed state fundamentally

right now, and Iran’s ability to rectify that is more limited than

ours.

Mr. SESTAK. Is more?

Dr. BYMAN. More limited than ours is. I think there are parts of

the country that Iran could have tremendous influence over. And

that may be a reasonable approach to parts of Iraq where, rather

than talking about Iraq, we go province by province, in some places

neighborhood by neighborhood and, you know, take out what we

can. And that is depressing to say.

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But it is reasonable for Iran to look to Iraq to try to play a stabilizing role. But we should remember some of Iran’s interests are

fundamentally against ours. They want Iraq to be anti-American.

Now it doesn’t have to be violently anti-American, but they want

it to be anti-American.

Also, the Iranians believe we are leaving anyway, and so the incentive to deal from their point of view is rather limited, because

they have said for a while now America is on its way out.

Mr. SESTAK. That does differ from what Mr. Fingar, the head of

the National Intelligence Council, said. He said they have a strong

interest in not leaving behind a factionalized government. Ambassador Crocker said the same and said that their prognosis on it spiraling into chaos would be different if Iran were included in the

mix.

Dr. BYMAN. The Iranians certainly do not want Iraq to spiral into

chaos. But like us, for that matter, they have conflicting goals.

They want stability, but they want stability on their terms.

Mr. SESTAK. Is that a bad deal if you have stability? We don’t

have the government we want now. So what if it is different than

we want?

Dr. BYMAN. If Iran can help foster stability in Iraq, we should

encourage it to do so. So that is—my bottom line is strong agreement on that point.

Mr. SESTAK. Last-second question, if there is time for one more.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Sestak, we have actually gone a second round,

so we will start your second round now and start the clock for another five minutes.

Mr. SESTAK. You didn’t talk—or I may have missed it as I went

through your testimony. Did you talk about training or leaving behind or changing the mission on training the forces of Iraq? Many

have talked, like the Baker Hamilton Study, that that is a key

part, as we draw down, to doing that. Had you spoken to that

issue? Do you believe in that?

Dr. BYMAN. I touched on it lightly. I believe in two types of training missions. But let me talk about this a little bit.

A very important training mission is stepping up training with

neighboring states. So states that are not already in chaos but have

the potential to be infected by Iraq. So step up those programs.

I do believe that we want to work with some Iraqi factions, and

this could be factions close to the central government, it could be

tribes in Anbar province or elsewhere, and that training might be

part of that mission. But here by ‘‘training’’ I don’t mean the massive training people are talking about that the Iraq Study Group

seemed to endorse of, you know, brigade-sized training units. To

me, that is far too big. I don’t think most of that brigade is actually

trained in training, if you know what I mean; and I think that we

won’t get that much more bang for our buck with a significantly

larger training force. So I would still do training but at a much

smaller level.

Mr. SESTAK. I wonder about that, also. I am glad to hear you say

that.

I have watched as bills get passed or things get posited there. It

is almost like somebody in immigration, the bill over in the Senate,

you have to have touchback because somebody wanted it, you

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know. And it sounds good, and we will give that to them. We will

train. We will protect the borders. We can’t protect our own borders.

In training, you know, there is 47,000 combat troops out of the

160,000 there. And to me it is not a question of training of these

people, it is a question of the motivation and loyalty. Are we ready

to embed our troops and potentially have another Blackhawk

Down? You know, 40 or 60,000 troops, that means there is only—

and 20,000 are going to be advisors or trainers, that is another

40,000 for 60,000, and that means only 10,000 are combat on a 2:1

ratio. I mean, does this concern you?

Dr. BYMAN. Certainly. Any training mission will be dangerous for

the people involved. But, again, to be clear about what I mean, I

am not thinking about joint combat patrols.

Mr. SESTAK. Pieces.

Dr. BYMAN. And much of it could be done outside Iraq, and it is

a very limited effort.

And very important, which this committee has looked at a bit,

I know, is the issue of the Iraqi police; and from a

counterinsurgency point of view, police are often the most important instrument. And we don’t have—we have limited programs in

the State Department, but we don’t have the kind of significant

training programs for police, and I think we should develop them.

So to me it is a very different capacity and one that most—most

combat forces, most American forces are actually not oriented toward.

Mr. SESTAK. At the end of the day, your position is, I gather—

and I didn’t hear everything and I apologize—is you thought this

was something that might have been doable. Now you feel as

though our security writ large, or to our men and women there

wearing the cloth of the nation, it isn’t right to remain, at least not

in the levels we are at.

Dr. BYMAN. Correct, sir.

Mr. SESTAK. What then? Is it down to zero?

Dr. BYMAN. My personal estimate, and it was a back-of-the-envelope estimate, is that you end up with about 20,000 troops in Iraq

and in the neighboring states.

Mr. SESTAK. Doing what in Iraq?

Dr. BYMAN. Part of it would be a training mission, part of it

would be direct strike mission against al Qaeda and jihadist

assets——

Mr. SESTAK. How many inside Iraq? Back of the envelope?

Dr. BYMAN. This will depend on——

Mr. SESTAK. These numbers we went over.

Dr. BYMAN. Well, it depends whether, you know, will Kuwait

take a lot of these people? How many will be protecting refugee

camps?

Mr. SESTAK. I think you are right, also. We have bases in Kuwait, Qatar.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Bartlett for five minutes.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.

I am conducting my own little poll, and I wonder for a moment

if you will help me. If you have a piece of paper and something to

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write on, could you write down four brief things for me: Hate each

other, hate al Qaeda, hate us, and something else. Now, if you

would put opposite each of those four the percentage of the present

violence we see in Iraq, which is attributable to each of those four?

Dr. BYMAN. Okay.

Mr. BARTLETT. Now, can you read me those numbers? What percent of the violence is because they hate each other?

Dr. BYMAN. Twenty percent.

Mr. BARTLETT. Twenty percent. And how much is because they

hate al Qaeda?

Dr. BYMAN. Five.

Mr. BARTLETT. Five percent. How much is because they hate us?

Dr. BYMAN. Ten.

Mr. BARTLETT. Ten percent. Wow. The something else is really

big then.

Dr. BYMAN. Something else is very big, yes

Mr. BARTLETT. What is it?

Dr. BYMAN. Something else is a variety of factors relating to a

security vacuum, which is crime, personal insecurity, tribal rivalries, opportunism, ambition. That when you have a situation where

there are no police and no state, violence tends to break out; and

it tends to break out among people who, before, they were friends

and neighbors.

So when you have the situation of a failed state, over time things

like they hate each other, I would have put that—even a year ago,

I would put that much lower. But over time the violence begets violence, and the hate each other begets hating each other. Most

Iraqis didn’t hate each other six or seven years ago. They hated

their government. They hated some outsiders, and—but the violence itself has caused many of these problems. The collapse of the

state has caused many of these problems.

Again, I keep going back to things like the police. That is in part

because, when you talk to Iraqis, a lot of what they focus on are

crime and personal security. Yes, they are concerned about death

squads, but they are also concerned that they can’t send their

daughter to school because the local gang leader is going to kidnap

her and hold her for ransom.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, this is very interesting. In the

brief poll that I have run, there is pretty much consistency that the

hate each other is not very large; and I was surprised and continue

to be surprised at the very low percentage that is attributed to hate

al Qaeda, because I was led to believe that the only entity in Iraq

that was hated more than us was al Qaeda, and apparently that

is not true. I found huge differences in the percentages of violence

that is attributed to hate us, and that is very interesting.

I will continue my little poll. Thank you very much.

It is my understanding that your considered judgment is that the

sequela in Iraq will be little affected by when we leave?

Dr. BYMAN. I am sorry, the what will be little affected?

Mr. BARTLETT. The sequela, what happens in Iraq will be little

affected by when we leave, whether it is now or a year or five

years?

Dr. BYMAN. I think that it will be hastened when we leave. But

whether it is now, in a year or five years, I think it will be hasVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:23 Oct 20, 2008 Jkt 038757 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-74\199160.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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tened at that point. So if there is a heavy cost to be paid, which

I believe, I think that it is better to pay it sooner and not have to

deal with the day-to-day costs.

Mr. BARTLETT. It will be hastened. What is it?

Dr. BYMAN. Well, we are providing security in parts of Iraq. We

are reducing some of the violence in parts of the country. I don’t

want to say that the U.S. troops there are doing no good. They are

doing some good. And when you remove them, security in those

neighborhoods may go away.

And also you are sending a signal that could—right now, most

of the armed groups cannot mass in large numbers because they

would be extremely vulnerable to U.S. firepower. If we leave, they

will be more able to mass; and when you are more able to mass

you can do damage on a greater scale. So I do think that the violence will spike, but I think I could be testifying before you in five

years, sir, and say the same thing if we still have the same troop

level there.

Mr. BARTLETT. We are clearly on the horns of a dilemma. Our

young people are being killed; and the longer we stay, the more of

them will be killed. But if with our leaving there would be enormously increased numbers of Iraqis, most of them innocent, killed,

then we clearly have a dilemma. As a compassionate, honorable

people, what do we do now that we are in this situation?

Dr. BYMAN. Let me—since I am on the record, let me put a caveat in about your earlier poll before I go to your very troubling

question. Although I attribute only five percent to hating al Qaeda,

they are indeed hated. But they are only in small parts of Iraq. So

much of the violence is occurring in areas where they have nothing

to do with it. It is not a question of how hated they are; it is a

question of their role in the violence.

What do we do as conscientious people? We try to make a difference. We try to help the victims of suffering. But I believe we

have tried to make a difference for several years now. And it is not

just that it hasn’t worked, it is that the situation has gotten worse.

And at some point you say we either have to try something new

and dramatically different, which in my judgment would not be a

surge of 20,000 troops, it would be a surge of far more, or you say

this is not working, we should spend our resources and spend our

efforts somewhere else.

And, sir, part of the reason I am so troubled by my own recommendations is the tremendous suffering that Iraq is going

through that I think will increase. But I don’t believe we are fixing

that. I don’t believe Iraq is getting better. I believe it is getting

worse. So I can’t in good faith say we need to stay there and have

the situation only steadily get worse, because I believe that is not

a path toward eventually solving this problem.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Byman, I have one final question; and we will

see if Mr. Sestak or Mr. Bartlett have any final questions.

On page nine of your written statement you say, quote, no matter what happens in Iraq, an overriding U.S. national interest will

be to limit the ability of terrorists to use Iraq as a haven for attacks outside the country, especially directed against the United

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States. The best way to do that will be to retain assets—airpower,

special op forces and a major intelligence and reconnaissance effort—in the vicinity to identify and strike major terrorist facilities

like training camps, bomb factories and arms caches before they

can pose a danger to other countries, end quote.

But the reality is, under the scenario you are outlining, that will

be a very crude tool for going after al Qaeda. And under the scenario you have outlined—major enhancement of violence, much

more instability, back to a failed state—we will be kidding ourselves if we think some kind of over-the-horizon force can deal with

a relatively small number of terrorists that may have their eyes on

us rather than on what is going on in Iraq. Isn’t that a fair statement?

Dr. BYMAN. Yes, sir.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Sestak, do you have any further questions?

Mr. SESTAK. There are some that say that a scenario that you

paint is not by any means one that would ensue. They say—and

parts of this isn’t all that you said, but would the violence spread

outside the country? Civil wars in Afghanistan, Algeria and Lebanon have not. Some say the regional powers will be sucked in, and

yet Saudi Arabia and Iran don’t want a direct confrontation. Nor

does Syria, Sunni-led, as compared to fighting now a proxy war, if

we depart, between it and Iran. And that Iran might dominate or

have undue influence.

It always seemed to me out there that they were Iraqis first,

Shias second, and they fight among themselves in the south. And

so, in redefining the possibilities, it just seems to me that those

that tend to draw that our withdrawal will necessarily have something spiral—in those three areas I mentioned, it portends to me

that we aren’t making progress this way. There is a possibility the

other way.

The only thing I find missing, which I think you may disagree

on, is are you able—because I do believe these powers don’t want

to be sucked in—are you able to leverage them in a different way

to engage them than we have done in the past? To where they

came to us in 2003, Iran? To where they worked toward the same

goals they have in Afghanistan, up until recently reportedly, because they didn’t want al Qaeda and Taliban there? But you say

you really don’t think that these countries could potentially have

some sort of keeping this from spiraling into the chaos that many

say?

Dr. BYMAN. A couple different points.

To begin with, on the various civil wars you mentioned, they did

actually spill over in many ways. In Lebanon, Israel and Syria

fought a war.

Mr. SESTAK. No, they sucked them in. They didn’t spill over.

Dr. BYMAN. I guess it depends how you——

Mr. SESTAK. I mean, by clear definition here.

Dr. BYMAN. I would define ‘‘spillover’’ as cases that also outside

powers feel the need to be involved.

Because, in the Lebanon case, terrorism was a huge problem for

Israel, emanating from Lebanon; and that was a form of spillover

that led the Israelis to respond. But, in Afghanistan, I think we all

know that, you know, 9/11, of course, and numerous other plots

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emanated from Afghanistan. The civil wars in general led to Pakistani intervention. Afghanistan produced several million—three

million, I believe—refugees. That had tremendously destabilizing

effects. We are still seeing it in Pakistan today. We are reading

about it in the newspapers today. In Algeria, you had terrorism,

several attacks in France occurred, and an attempted attack on the

United States from Algerian terrorists.

So even those cases which evince less spillover than some of the

others, certainly it is there to me, but——

Mr. SESTAK. Back to the domino effect. Refugees are refugees.

The instability spilling over is different.

Dr. BYMAN. I am not saying that Saudi Arabia will fall if we

leave Iraq. So I don’t want to say in that sense. But there are several forms of instability that can emanate from Iraq, and my judgment is that a few of them will show up in a few places, and that

doesn’t necessarily mean catastrophe, but it could mean very serious problems.

As you said, we can’t predict this with any certainty. I would be

the first to scoff at someone that said, two years from now, Saudi

Arabia will have problem X because of Iraq. The flip side is also

true. I think that we have many historical examples of these problems that civil wars spill over and suck in, as you put it. They are

neighbors to the point where we should be very concerned and our

policies today should try to head this off even though it might not

happen.

And an example is when we went into Iraq in 2003 where a lot

of—there were a lot of potential scenarios for how Iraq could have

gone, and we focused on one which was an optimistic one. That to

me wasn’t completely ridiculous. In hindsight, it looks that way.

But my view is, we simply didn’t know. So we should have planned

robustly for a range of negative ones as well. As you said in your

remarks earlier, we need to be thinking about this from a bipartisan way, not just, should we stay in Iraq or go? But if we go, what

is our strategy? What is our approach? What does this mean?

I am hoping, to go back to your point about Iran, we can leverage

regional states. I am skeptical about Iran because we have so little

luck leveraging them on nuclear weapons. Hopefully we can do

more in Iraq because they do have an interest in stability. But

even though they have been remarkably calcitrant, I think we

should try; I just wouldn’t count on it.

Mr. SESTAK. I would just make one final closing, on Iran, looking

back the six years, I would say we outsourced our leadership of engaging to it—with it with the European Union and Russia and only

belatedly have we come to the table.

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Byman, Mr. Bartlett has one final question,

then we will let you go.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you so much. Thinking only of Iraqis, on

an average day in Iraq today, is there more or less murder, killing

and torture than there was under an average day under Saddam

Hussein?

Dr. BYMAN. There is certainly more, if you average out all of the

crimes of Saddam over the many years he was in power, there certainly seems to be more deaths, and certainly when you count refugee flows, more going on today. But the scale under Saddam was

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considerable. And you should also add to that not necessarily death

but a stifling political climate where even the barest political activity was prohibited and a cause of fear. And in the main parts of

Iraq, you have an extremely robust political debate. You have freedom in parts of Iraq, and that matters as well.

So I think in terms of—simply in terms of violence, especially

when you count crime, it is worse today. I don’t want to make a

blanket statement one way or the other on that.

Mr. BARTLETT. I thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Byman, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate you being willing to be the sole panelist today. Thank you

so much. Members may have some questions they want to submit

to you in writing, and if they do, we would appreciate you getting

back answers in a timely fashion. Thank you so much for being

here.

And the committee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:44 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

JULY 18, 2007

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

JULY 18, 2007

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