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IRAQ: IEDS AND MUNITIONS, ARE THEY SECURED?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 22, 2007

Serial No. 110–14

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

——— ———

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM LANTOS, California

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

DAVE TURK, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 22, 2007 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Newbold, Lieutenant General Gregory S., U.S. Marine Corps, retired;

and Davi D’Agostino, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management,

Government Accountability Office ............................................................... 16

D’Agostino, Davi ........................................................................................ 19

Newbold, Lieutenant General Gregory S. ............................................... 16

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Braley, Hon. Bruce L., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Iowa, prepared statement of .................................................................... 53

D’Agostino, Davi, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of .............................. 22

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 10

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 4

Yarmuth, Hon. John A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Kentucky, prepared statement of ............................................................ 14

(1)

IRAQ: IEDS AND MUNITIONS, ARE THEY

SECURED?

THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN

AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present Representatives Tierney, Lynch, Yarmuth, McCollum,

Shays, Burton, Platts, Duncan, and Foxx.

Staff present: Teresa Coufal, deputy clerk; Leneal Scott, information systems manager; Dave Turk, staff director; Andrew Su and

Andrew Wright, professional staff members; Davis Hake, clerk;

David Marin, minority staff director; A. Brooke Bennett, minority

counsel; Grace Washbourne, minority senior professional staff

member; Christopher Bright, minority professional staff member;

Nick Palarino, minority senior investigator and policy advisor; and

Benjamin Chance, minority clerk.

Mr. TIERNEY. Good morning. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs hearing entitled, ‘‘Iraq: IEDs and Munitions, Are They Secured,’’ will come to

order.

I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept open

for 5 business days so that all members of the subcommittee be allowed to submit a written statement for the record. Without objection, so ordered.

We will take this opportunity to have opening statements. I

would like to make one. I understand Mr. Shays would also like to

make one.

I want to welcome folks here this morning. I want to welcome

Mr. Shays, who has been a good partner in this committee’s proceedings. I want to thank our witnesses for being with us here

today.

General Newbold, thank you for your service to our country. We

respect that a great deal. We appreciate your being here this morning.

And Ms. D’Agostino, thank you for the good work on your report,

which allows us to have this discussion.

Earlier this month the subcommittee held a field hearing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. We heard from Specialist Jeremy

Duncan, who fractured his neck, lost an ear, and lost his sight in

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his left eye due to an explosion of an improvised explosive device

[IED], near Samarra in Iraq. We met with other soldiers who suffered severe injuries, ranging from the loss of limbs to serious traumatic brain injuries as a result of IEDs.

Defense Secretary Gates has stated that 70 percent of all casualties in Iraq are caused by IEDs. And the Pentagon, in its official

February 2007 request for additional funding for the Iraqi effort

specifically states, ‘‘Insurgents use munitions from stolen caches to

construct IEDs.’’

What is even more troubling is that the Government Accountability Office raises serious questions about whether we have finally secured and destroyed all of these ammo dumps. That report

concludes, ‘‘The sites remained vulnerable from April 2003 through

the time of our review. . . . [I]n October, 2006, we could not verify

that all sites had been physically secured.’’

The GAO has also reported very disturbing anecdotal evidence.

For example, ‘‘in early 2006, local Iraqis stole rockets and mortars

from an old storage area after rumors began to circulate that the

site was to be cleaned up.’’

It is troubling, to say the least, and that is why this hearing was

called this morning. There are so many unanswered questions that

demand answers. What specifically is the Department of Defense

doing in Iraq to deal with this problem? Do we, at the least, finally

have our hands around the problem by having, fully undertaken an

accounting of what is still out there? Has the Pentagon ever conducted a theater-wide survey of munition sites in Iraq as the Government Accountability Office has suggested? Are press reports accurate that the Defense Department has had a hard time maintaining a full complement of explosive disposal experts?

The administration is requesting money in the 2007 supplemental specifically to secure known weaponsites. Have we done all

that we can to identify all weaponsites? If not, why not, given the

potential consequences?

Finally, have we learned anything over the past 4 years that

would assist in future military operational planning?

Unfortunately, we may not get all of the answers to these questions today. Although the Department of Defense responded in

writing to the GAO draft report, we wanted to extend to the Department of Defense the opportunity to address the committee

about the concerns raised by the report, and so we asked the Department of Defense to send us a representative of their choosing

to testify today. They communicated that they would not care to

have a witness present. We offered to postpone the hearing a week

in case scheduling was a concern, and they still declined.

This is troubling at a number of levels. There are people tasked

with having their act together to protect our troops going forward.

What does it say that they don’t even have their act together to put

forward a single witness to talk to us about these issues?

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Let me conclude by again thanking our witnesses who are here

today. These are incredibly grave and important issues to be confronted. We have to do everything in our power by working together to protect our soldiers now and in any future missions. We

owe the Jeremy Duncans of the world nothing less.

With that, I yield to Mr. Shays.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing.

I want to apologize. My statement may be a little bit longer on this

one. I am not used the being in the minority, and so just give me

a little chance to get it down a bit here.

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing. National security and foreign affairs whenever possible should be conducted on a bipartisan basis. You and your staff have demonstrated

that you are willing to do that, and I thank you.

It is essential even now that weapon stockpiles from Saddam

Hussein’s regime be properly secured and accounted for. These munitions have killed and maimed our brave men and women and

wrought havoc throughout Iraq. So many civilians have suffered.

I have consistently argued that our efforts in Iraq are noble, but

I have also been an outspoken critic of the serious errors which

have occurred throughout the course of the war.

During my 15 trips to Iraq, I have seen firsthand unbelievable

failures and notable successes. What I have experienced has been

both sobering and inspiring.

As the Government Accountability Office report being released

today concludes, Defense leaders ‘‘planned for and successfully executed a rapid march in Baghdad that relied on surprise and speed

rather than massive troop buildup.’’ The GAO believes that ‘‘another critical planning priority was finding and securing the regime’s stockpiles of WMD that the administration believed were a

threat to Coalition forces and other countries in the region.’’

The GAO also reported that conventional arms stores were not

secured because, as one planner recounted, ‘‘ground commanders

had to prioritize limited resources against the volume of tasks contained in the war plan.’’ But to their discredit, the Pentagon, our

intelligence community, and other agencies failed to anticipate the

social and economic disorder which followed the implementation of

the successful attack. Those components of the Iraqi army which

were not destroyed by the Coalition were allowed to dissolve.

Saddam’s soldiers left their units and returned home for good.

In addition, the Coalition Provisional Authority [CPA], disbanded

the Iraqi police and border patrol. These forces were never reconstituted as they had existed. This meant there was no Iraqi security,

no Iraqi police, no Iraqi border patrol, no Iraqi army. We didn’t

stand them up. We made a conscious decision to eliminate their

army, police, and border patrol at the same time we concluded that

these weapon caches would be guarded by Iraqis. Without any

Iraqi forces and not enough American forces, it was impossible to

adequately locate and secure the multitude of munitions sites.

These sites were left prey for insurgents, and our troops and the

Iraqi people paid the price.

The amount and size of arms stockpiles and the types of weapons

they contain tell us much about the nature and intentions of

Saddam’s regime. As General Abasay told a Senate committee 3

years ago, ‘‘There is more ammunition in Iraq than any place I

have ever been in my life.’’

What did we do about it? Nothing. Intelligence estimates of

Saddam’s conventional arsenal varied greatly before the war. We

were wrong not only about weapons of mass destruction, but also

about the size and number of stockpiles of conventional arms. The

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Department of Defense was slow to comprehend the scope of the

problem posed by the weapon caches; nonetheless, since July 2003,

more than $1 billion has been allocated to destroy or secure more

than 400,000 tons of munitions.

As significant as this number may be, it is too little too late. A

number of elected officials—and I am one—believed that Secretary

Donald Rumsfeld needed to step down and that we needed a new

strategy in Iraq. The day after this past election, the President announced the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld and the appointment

of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.

Secretary Gates selected a highly competent and experienced

general, David Petraeus, to develop a new strategy to turn things

around in Iraq. General Petraeus is clearly in charge, and we hope

and pray for his success.

As a senior Member of Congress, I intend to do everything I can

to help him. In my judgment, he is clearly the best choice the

President and Secretary could have made to lead our troops. From

his very first assignment in Iraq, he was one of the few military

leaders who recognized success would have to include diplomatic,

military, and economic components.

Our Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Sailors, Coast Guard, and Coalition allies respond every day to attacks in Iraq. They don’t care

about the source of the munitions used against them; they only

seek to stop the violence and help the Iraqis stand on their own

so they can come home to their families knowing they left Iraq better than they found it.

Unfortunately, our failure to secure the plethora of munitions

sites and our failure to stem the violence have put the Coalition

forces and the Iraqi government in a very defensive position. It is

clear, even if every Iraqi cache were now secured, sophisticated

weapons such as explosive foreign penetrators [EFPs], are finding

their way across Iraq’s unsecured borders.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to note my deep disappointment, as you do, that representatives of the Department of Defense

declined to appear today. As chairman of the National Secretary

and Foreign Relations Subcommittee, you have every right—in

fact, you have a responsibility—to look at this issue and to expect

complete cooperation from the Department of Defense. I will do everything I can to make sure you get that cooperation.

We went into Iraq on a bipartisan basis with two-thirds of the

House and three-fourths of the Senate authorizing the President’s

use of force. Just as we went into Iraq on a bipartisan basis, we

need to leave Iraq the same way, with Republicans and Democrats

working together.

I appreciate the punishment of our distinguished witnesses

today, and I look forward to hearing their testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.

Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, thank you very much for holding this

hearing today.

I would also like to add my voice to the extreme displeasure of

the Department of Defense refusing to provide someone to testify

at this important hearing. I am very disappointed that the Department of Defense does not have someone here to testify. I often hear

these days, in other hearings, the Bush administration talking

about lessons learned. Mr. Chairman, you offered an opportunity

today to share lessons learned to make sure that we are moving

forward in a fashion which we do not have these ammunition

dumps unsecured, and I think we are going to hear some troubling

testimony as you move forward.

I, too, have had the opportunity to travel to Iraq. The first opportunity I had was to visit with General Petraeus in Mosul, as we

flew over ammunitionsites in helicopters he expressed extreme concern that he did not have the troops and that there was not an

Iraqi security plan put in place to secure all the ammo dumps,

miles and miles and miles of ammo dumps, which he knew was

going to present a clear and present danger to the military moving

forward.

So, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having this hearing.

I would like to state—and this is in the GAO report—several

critical planning assumptions. The Iraqi army would capitulate and

provide security was one of the assumptions of our Department of

Defense. The Iraqi resistance would be unlikely was one of the presumptions of our Department of Defense. Post-war Iraq would not

be a U.S. military responsibility was also another supposed planning assumption of the Department of Defense. So maybe, based on

those three statements which I have just made, it isn’t surprising

that they are not here. It would be very difficult to defend their

choices.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Yarmuth.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to submit a statement for the record, but I would

also like to associate myself with all of the prior remarks that this

seems to be another example of the administration basically

thumbing its nose at Congress, and I am so proud to be a part of

an institution that is reasserting our constitutional responsibilities,

both in this committee and elsewhere in the Congress. We do have

an important role to play to make sure that Government does its

job. I congratulate the chairman and am glad to be a part of this

hearing.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John A. Yarmuth follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.

Now we are going to receive testimony from the witnesses before

us today.

I want to begin by introducing the witnesses on the first panel,

the only panel. We have Ms. Davi D’Agostino, Director of Defense

Capabilities and Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office; and we have Lieutenant General Gregory S. Newbold, U.S.

Marine Corps, retired, the former Director of Operations for the

Joint Chiefs of Staff and currently with the Torch Hill Partners

Group.

I want to welcome both of you, as I said before, and thank you

for being here today and for your respective roles.

I also want to make it clear that General Newbold is testifying

as a private citizen and his views are his own and in no way represent the official views of the Department of Defense.

It is the policy of this subcommittee to swear in the witnesses before they testify, so I ask that you please rise and raise your right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The record will reflect that both witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Now I would ask that each of the witnesses give a brief summary

of their testimony. Your full statements, of course, will be placed

in the hearing record if you wish.

Perhaps, General, we might start with you.

STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL GREGORY S. NEWBOLD, U.S. MARINE CORPS, RETIRED; AND DAVI

D’AGOSTINO, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL GREGORY S.

NEWBOLD

General NEWBOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to

thank all of the Members for convening this hearing, because it is

a critically important subject and the information in the GAO report needs a broader distribution and it needs broader addressing

and it needs some solutions.

I want to take just a second to compliment both the chairman

and the ranking member for their statements, because I agreed

with all of the elements of them.

I also agree with the GAO report, their analysis, their detailed

research, their findings. I find absolutely nothing in their report

that I disagree with. I will make different recommendations, and

I will explain why I come to different recommendations as I go

through a brief statement.

Before I do that, though, I agree with all the statements, as

well—disappointment and troubled by the absence of a Department

of Defense.

My views are these: GAO correctly identified a very serious problem that is contributing or is the prime source of the casualties we

are suffering in Iraq right now. They have identified, as well, the

two primary causes for the failure to secure the store and munitions storage sites in Iraq, those being the unsatisfactory planning

17

and the inadequate troop levels for the invasion and subsequent occupation.

The first point I would like to emphasize is to really address this

problem we have to address the root causes of the problem, and the

root causes were not the maneuver forces on the ground in Iraq

during the march to Baghdad. They were, in fact, the victims or

the recipients of the inadequate force levels. The root causes are as

stated: the unsatisfactory planning.

I will give a little bit of my own background and knowledge of

how this came to be.

As the chairman said, I was Director of Operations for the Joint

Chiefs of Staff. I was there from essentially August 2000 until November 2002, witnessed all the planning events up to 3 months before the war.

Prior to 2002, the plan for a potential invasion of Iraq was well

thought out, well rehearsed through exercises, given a lot of deliberation, and was broadly open to contribution to others. It called

for a force of around 500,000 troops if an invasion was necessary.

In early 2002, the Secretary of Defense restricted the number of

troops that could be used in a new plan for the invasion of Iraq and

it capped it at 125,000. This was a fundamental mistake, and the

consequences are part of the cause for this hearing.

Subsequently, that plan was expanded, and the ultimate invasion force in the region, not in the maneuver force, grew to about

225,000, but at every step of the way the attempts to increase that

force were inhibited and restricted. So when we crossed the line of

departure with the two maneuver elements, although they did an

astoundingly, even a historically good job, the forces were so thin

that they could not accomplish all of the tasks at hand.

I have spoken within the past couple of days to very prominent

commanders as they moved forth, and they agree with my description, in fact with the GAO. They were aware of ammunition storage

areas that they uncovered in the march to Baghdad. They were

deeply troubled by them. On some occasions they attempted to destroy them. On some occasions the munitions areas were so large

that to destroy them quickly would have resulted in enormous collateral damage to surrounding civilian population.

They had an alternative to guard those storage sites, but in

doing so they would have dissipated their already-thin forces to the

degree that they would have had to halt the march forward.

Additional time in taking Baghdad would have resulted in significantly more casualties, would have given more time for the fifth

column, the insurgents, to develop, would have given more time for

the Iraqi forces to prepare for a more robust defense, so speed was

essential in the march to Baghdad, and of all the things they could

accomplish, the forces driving north made a troubling decision, but

the only decision they could make, and that was to leave some of

these uncovered.

The GAO report is exactly right. A key assumption in the planning for Iraq was that the population would be friendly, we would

be greeted as liberators, that the Iraqi army would remain intact,

Iraqi police force, and that they would be used for internal security.

None of those assumptions and more proved to be true.

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To emphasize what we now call phase four planning—I want to

take another element of that, because it is key to my recommendations, and that is that the interagency defaulted for the planning

of Iraq to the Department of Defense, and that was terribly unfortunate. The Department of Defense is not experienced or skilled or

doesn’t have the depth of cultural awareness to govern a country

and to reconstruct it.

The interagency was not robust in their planning and they

weren’t robust in their actions. That largely is considered as continued to today.

The consequence of that is that not only did you have uncovered

ammunitionsites, but that we now had people that had a reason to

raid and loot those storage sites, because with 40 percent unemployment, with an economy in disarray, with what they viewed as

an occupying force in the country, and with factions at odds with

each other, it was inevitable that there would be an insurgency.

The combination of the vacuum left by planning and inadequate

forces fostered the insurgency, combined with the unguarded munitions storage sites, and you have the ingredients that now put us

where we are today.

I can go into much more detail planning or analysis and personal

anecdotes about what contributed to the poor planning and what

contributed to the poor decisions and, in fact, to the inadequate

troop levels, but I will leave that to questions.

I would like to take a minute to talk about my personal recommendations.

First of all, if we agree that the forces over there then and there

now are too thin, too inadequate to do the job, then my personal

recommendation is that we not add to their task at hand by burdening them with doing a report and a survey. I appreciate why

that would need to be done, but my views are that we have a bloated bureaucracy in Iraq right now, and the more paperwork we levy

on them the more reason they will have to grow, fewer trigger pullers, to greater people in the bureaucracy.

But something must be done about this, and what would that be?

I am troubled enough by the absence of the Department of Defense

that I think there must be some accounting by them in writing for

what they would intend to do. But my broader recommendation is

this: that the interagency process of our Government, the national

security apparatus is fundamentally flawed. I would go back in

time to a small episode in U.S. history of relatively minor consequence called Grenada that uncovered deep flaws in the jointness

of our armed forces. The consequence of that was the robust, even

courageous action by the Congress in 1987 in what is now called

Goldwater-Nichols, and the improvements to our armed forces as

a result of that legislation have been significant and they have

saved lives, in fact.

The Iraq crisis has resulted in 3,200 dead and over 20,000

wounded, and Grenada pales in comparison. Equally, the interagency flaws or the flaws of our military before Grenada pale in

comparison to the interagency weaknesses of today. If you want to

avoid the planning mistakes that occurred for Iraq, you have to

strengthen the interagency, communication, coordination, and ability to respond to crisis. You have to go right into the departments

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and agencies and insist that they have resources and the staffing

and the culture to support these kinds of operations.

The Center for Strategic and International Study did a review

called Beyond Goldwater-Nichols II. It may not be perfect, but it

makes an excellent start in addressing the interagency problems

through Goldwater-Nichols type legislation.

I would encourage the committee to be aggressive, both in contribution by the Department of Defense to analyzing this critical

problem, and by the broader Congress and our Government in fixing the interagency problems and restoring some semblance of correct planning to our process, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much, General. That is valuable

testimony. I know Mr. Shays and I both have an interest in following up on your latter recommendations on that.

Ms. D’Agostino, please.

STATEMENT OF DAVI D’AGOSTINO

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to

be here before you today to discuss GAO’s report on the problems

posed by the former Iraqi regime’s conventional munitions storage

sites during Operation Iraqi Freedom [OIF].

This work was done under the Comptroller General’s authority,

although it was prompted by a request from Representative

Maloney of this subcommittee, concerning the Alcaca facility which

had been extensively looted during major combat operations.

Our work and results are based on an analysis of OIF war plans,

field unit reporting, finished intelligence assessments, joint doctrine and policy, Department of Defense [DOD] lessons learned

studies, and interviews of senior level DOD officials.

I would also caution that this report is an unclassified version of

a classified report, and therefore in some cases my remarks and

later answers to your questions may be limited due to classification.

Specifically, our testimony and report we are releasing at your

hearing today are focused on two key questions: first, how did the

Department of Defense and U.S. forces handle the security of Iraqi

conventional munitions storage sites; and, second, what actions has

DOD taken to deal with the risk posed by an adversarious conventional munitions storage sites for future planning of operations;

and, third, I will summarize the report’s recommendations and

DOD’s response.

First, the overwhelming size and number of conventional munitions storage sites in Iraq, combined with certain pre-war planning

priorities and assumptions that proved to be invalid, resulted in

U.S. forces not adequately securing these sites and widespread

looting. Pre-OIF estimates of Iraq’s conventional munitions varied

significantly, with the higher estimate being five times greater

than the lower estimate. Conventional munitions storage sites were

looted during and after major combat operations, and an unknown

number of sites remained vulnerable as of October 2006, which was

the time we finished our review.

Our report details a number of assessments done during that period of certain groups of munitions storage sites that showed a lack

of security and systematic looting, as well as an estimate that the

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unsecured and looted sites will likely continue to supply terrorist

activities in the region.

Lessons learned reports and DOD officials state that the widespread looting occurred because DOD had insufficient troop levels

to secure conventional munitions storage sites due to the OIF planning priorities and assumptions that proved to be invalid.

Key planning assumptions that contributed to the insufficient

force levels were: that Iraqi army units would capitulate and provide internal security; Iraqi resistance was unlikely; and post-war

Iraq would not be a U.S. military responsibility.

According to DOD lessons learned, these assumptions were central to an OIF force structure plan that was insufficient to prevent

the breakdown of civil order in Iraq or perform several missions requiring troops, including securing enemy conventional munitions

storage sites.

A U.S. Central Command planner also told us that there were

no branch or backup plans to mitigate the risks if the planning assumptions were proven wrong. This is a requirement in joint doctrine.

War plan priorities were to take Baghdad quickly and by surprise, with a smaller force package than was used in the prior Gulf

war, and to search for and find weapons of mass destruction. Also,

DOD did not set up a centralized program to manage and destroy

the Iraqi munitions until August 2003, months after the March

2003, invasion and the May 2003, declared end of major combat operations.

The Coalition munitions clearance program administered by the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had either destroyed or secured,

along with U.S. military disposal operations, more than 417,000

tons of munitions at the time we completed our work, leaving an

unknown quantity of munitions in the hands of resistance groups

or still unsecured. These munitions, looted from unsecured conventional munitions storage sites, have been the source of explosives

for the majority of IED attacks, which have been very costly, as

you all have pointed out in your opening statements.

In addition to the loss of life and maiming many U.S. troops and

Iraqi citizens, the IEDs have also effectively frustrated the achievement of OIF’s strategic goal of establishing a stable Iraqi nation.

Also, DOD spent about $4.9 billion from fiscal years 2004 to 2007

on countering an IED campaign that continually evolves, making

DOD’s countermeasures less effective over time.

The amount of conventional munitions unaccounted-for could

range significantly from thousands to millions of tons.

As our report discusses, the unsecured munitions from the

former Iraq regime continue to pose a risk to U.S. forces and others, and, despite the strategic value to the enemy of escalating IED

attacks, DOD has not yet done a theater-wide survey and risk assessment. Such an assessment, as stated in joint doctrine, would

assist DOD in conserving lives and resources and avoiding or mitigating unnecessary risk. In other words, DOD has not identified

the remaining unsecured munitions storage sites, assessed the risk

they pose, identified possible courses of action, and then taken

steps to reduce the risk.

21

Turning to the second question, our review showed that DOD

had not taken action through changes in its doctrine, policies, or

procedures to ensure that securing an enemy’s or adversary’s conventional munitions storage sites is handled as a strategic planning

priority in future operations. Rather, DOD’s focus and changes to

doctrine and other military policy and guidance has largely been on

countering IEDs and disposing of explosive hazards, understandable and also important in light of ongoing operations.

Now I will turn to our recommendations and DOD’s response.

We recommended that DOD: one, conduct a theater-wide survey

and risk assessment on unsecured conventional munitions storage

sites in Iraq; two, report the related risk mitigation strategies and

results to the Congress; and, three, include conventional munitions

storage site security as a strategic planning factor into all levels of

planning, policy, and guidance.

DOD partially agreed with our recommendations.

That concludes my summary remarks. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. D’Agostino follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ms. D’Agostino.

Let me start by saying that I intend to work with the minority

here. The majority and minority will work on some rather pointed

questions for the Department of Defense to respond to on this, and

they will have the opportunity to respond in writing or by subpoena, if necessary, to come in here and tell us what their reaction

is, but I think this hearing has raised some valuable questions.

I want to ask you, Ms. D’Agostino, on page 11 of your report you

said that the Department of Defense has destroyed or secured

417,000 tons of munitions as of October 2006, the end of your report. Now, General Sanchez back in October 2003 was reported to

say there was 650,000 tons of munitions, and senior military officials were reported by the New York Times back in September of

that year to say there were between 650,000 and a million tons.

When we are talking in the unclassified part of your report you say

that they are between X and five times of the tons that are on the

report. Would 650,000 be a good substitute for X, as we are looking

at a potential upside here of some really significant numbers?

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. The numbers that we obtained were from classified sources, so I can’t confirm that this is a correct number; however, if you used General Sanchez’ number as a reference point, the

650,000 tons, as the low estimate and then did the five times greater as the high estimate that we saw, that would put the high estimate from General Sanchez’ number at 3.25 million tons. But,

again, I can’t confirm those.

Mr. TIERNEY. I hear what you are saying. That is a disturbingly

large tonnage——

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. Potentially still out there. I think that

is the really disturbing part.

General, I understand from what you are saying that, with the

rather thin numbers of troops that are over there right now, you

see some difficulty tactically using the resources and the manpower

that we have to actually go out and identify these sites and then

secure them. Am I correctly stating your position or your assessment?

General NEWBOLD. Mr. Chairman, I think they have made a very

high priority to identify the sites and to try to secure them or try

to destroy them. I think the difficulty lies both in providing the

troops to focus on this task in a country of that size, and then to

prepare the reports for dissemination in Washington.

My feedback from the commanders over there is that it is already the top priority. One of the commanders has been in five different IED ambushes, himself, and has lost a number of people in

those ambushes. So he makes it a priority. It is an enormously

complex and difficult problem, as you just described.

Mr. TIERNEY. The GAO report says that the Operation Iraqi

Freedom War Plan did not examine the consequences of these and

other important planning assumptions being proven wrong. That is

to say, no Plan B, no alternative. Would that comport with your assessment of the situation going into this?

General NEWBOLD. I want to make sure I have answered your

point, Mr. Chairman. I fundamentally believe that planning assumptions were one of the major factors in the failings that

38

brought us to where we are today, and then there were additional

poor decisions made at the time, like disbanding the Iraqi army,

and the combination of those and the low force levels have caused

the situation, but I don’t think that——

Mr. TIERNEY. I think it gets at what I was talking about. You

mentioned, I think, some very interesting aspects in your testimony, not the least of which is the interagency situation. So if I

were to ask you, I think it is inappropriate to blame the people

that are on the ground over there. I think that we probably all

agree with that. But what went wrong in Washington and in Florida, CENTCOM, and what three things might we look at as a legislative body here to identify what went wrong and then try to figure

out for ourselves what we could do to be helpful going forward.

This is not, as Ms. D’Agostino puts in her report, this is not the

last time we may see this situation.

General NEWBOLD. Mr. Chairman, my view from where I sat was

that there were some impossibly naive assumptions about how easy

the victory would be in Iraq, the subsequent occupation, and what

level of commitment would be required by the U.S. Government.

The U.S. Government actions were really mostly restricted to the

Department of Defense. The Department of Defense leadership had

such strongly held views that they neither solicited nor much tolerated dissenting views that might have reflected on long years of experience. And, frankly, I think a number of the senior military officers were not vocal enough when they saw the situation that was

going awry. That is a matter of grave disappointment.

Mr. TIERNEY. Two out of three of those things basically are leadership issues, and I’m not sure we can always legislate leadership

and personalities. Believe me, a lot of us wish we could on this situation.

But the other part that I think we can probably do something

about is that interagency, do something to make sure that if we

ever get in the situation that there is interagency planning and

that they do fully participate, and I think maybe some future hearings on that would be worthwhile.

Let me finish my questioning for now, at least, Ms. D’Agostino.

Having the knowledge of what we have for troops on the ground

over there now and the situation, do you or does GAO see or believe that there is a potential that a survey could still be done and

should be done and that is a reasonable thing to expect, given the

current situation, and that would help, in fact, lower the number

of people being injured by IEDs, in all probability?

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Yes, we do. I think there is more than one way

of conducting the survey and maybe using more than one set of resources to do that. Again, we are not in the business of micro-managing the Department and telling them how to go about doing their

business. We suggest what business needs to be maybe done. But,

again, it is not clear to us that the only option is to use our troops,

our thin troops—and I agree with the General here—on the ground

for this purpose. But I think other assets could be used, as well,

to do the survey.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Burton, 5 minutes, please.

39

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad you are holding this hearing. It is very informative.

General, when the discussion was taking place on the troop level

that should be utilized to go into Iraq, how many people were involved in that? I know you were the lead man, but how many other

guys were involved?

General NEWBOLD. Sir, there was a specific meeting, a briefing,

actually, that resulted on the cap on the forces that could be used

over there, and it was a small group of people in the room, probably no more than seven or eight.

Mr. BURTON. Including the Secretary of Defense?

General NEWBOLD. Including the Secretary, sir.

Mr. BURTON. And did anybody else express the same view that

you did, that we should have 500,000 go in?

General NEWBOLD. Sir, I want to clarify that. It is a matter of

some personal shame to me that I didn’t interrupt the meeting and

stand up and express my complete objection to the fact that the

number was being reduced like that. There were two other senior

military leaders in the room, senior to me. Neither one of them expressed objections.

Mr. BURTON. Did they share your view?

General NEWBOLD. I can’t say that they did.

Mr. BURTON. Let me interrupt and just say this. You know, this

is a very, very important hearing. I think it is more important than

most people realize. You know, there is a lot of politics played in

this House and in the Senate, and I presume there’s a lot of politics

that’s played in the Pentagon. Were there people, in your opinion,

that didn’t express their views because they wanted to maintain

their position, or maybe rise to a higher level? I mean, was politics

a part of the reticence on members’ part to say we need more

troops going in?

General NEWBOLD. I honestly don’t think so, sir. The people I

was talking to had risen to the highest rank they could be.

Mr. BURTON. OK. Well, that’s my point. If there was no politics

involved and it was no risk to people’s careers, why didn’t somebody just stand up and say, Hey, Mr. Secretary, this isn’t right, we

need to go in with overwhelming force, we need 500,000. I mean,

I can’t understand why you and others—I’m not criticizing, I just

can’t understand why you wouldn’t say, listen, this is crazy. We

have to go in and protect these munitions sites. We have to make

absolutely sure that all these weapons are controlled, and we want

to make sure we control the population. So why didn’t somebody

just jump up and say, hey, this isn’t right?

General NEWBOLD. Sir, I think part of it is a culture of obedience, which is nice to have among the national military, but obedience in my view does not limit ability to speak up and to speak out.

Mr. BURTON. Pardon me for interrupting, General, but, General,

when you talk about going to war, General Dwight Eisenhower in

World War II, he had a whole cadre of people before the Invasion

of Normandy that came in. He listened to them. They made decisions. He made the decision, but he listened to everybody.

It really troubles me, and I am not angry about it with you, it

troubles me that there were people with your knowledge and your

experience sitting in that room and the Secretary of Defense said,

40

we are going to go with 120,000, and you are sitting there and the

others are sitting there saying, hey, we really need a lot more than

that to make sure that we don’t have a problem down the road.

I just can’t understand why there wasn’t more discussion. It is

not a question of disobedience; it is a question of giving advice to

somebody who really didn’t have a lot of combat experience.

General NEWBOLD. I think you are exactly right, Congressman,

exactly right. I do get angry about it. I resigned over it—retired,

more accurately.

Mr. BURTON. Let me just say—and I hope that the Members of

Congress will listen to this, because I think it is important—we

need to tell the Pentagon and the other agencies that are in the

decisionmaking process, send the message over to the Pentagon

and the National Security Agency, send the message over there

that if a general or top generals disagree with a war strategy, they

express themselves. It really bothers me that you probably were

right. We didn’t know anything about it. We have lost a lot of people, and they are doing a great job, but had we done what you

thought about and had the other generals expressed their position,

a lot of these lives might not have been lost. I know that troubles

you, but we have to express ourselves that the people with knowledge and combat experience have to stand up and be counted, even

if the Secretary of Defense may disagree with them. Following orders is one thing; giving advice is another. And I think it is extremely important that the people with the combat experience from

now on say, ‘‘Hey, I don’t think this is right, Mr. Secretary, and

here is why,’’ and force the issue if you have to.

I am not criticizing in retrospect what happened. I am just saying this is something that must be done in the future, because this

isn’t the end of wars. There’s going to be more.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.

Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you.

Maybe you could help me, sir. It was my understanding that

there was a general who did speak out. General Zinzecki did speak

out about the number of troops being deployed, did he not?

General NEWBOLD. In testimony on the Hill he testified——

Ms. MCCOLLUM. In Congress. I am not talking about the meeting

you were at, but the general did speak out. And what was the administration’s reaction to the general speaking out, sir?

General NEWBOLD. General Zinzecki was not in the meeting I

was referring to, so——

Ms. MCCOLLUM. But when he did speak out publicly about how

we didn’t have enough troops moving forward, what was the Pentagon’s reaction to his speaking out?

General NEWBOLD. Both the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy

Secretary of Defense were extremely critical of his assessment. I

think they were disparaging of it. The Secretary of Defense, as you

know, announced a year before General Zinzecki’s official retirement date that there would be a replacement, and who it was. I

think those were strong signals about dissent among the ranks.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I would agree with you. I know military men

and women do not lightly go into openly making suggestions that

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perhaps another approach should be taken than one that senior

leadership and the administration would be moving forward with,

but this gentleman, the general’s reputation was soundly trounced

and very effectively destroyed for a while. I believe he has been

vindicated.

I was looking at the response, the only response we have in front

of us today from the Department of Defense. It is from the Office

of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. It is dated September 1,

2006. It is in response to some of the GAO recommendations.

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Yes.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. One of the things that you point out in the GAO

report is that the focus in looking so much for weapons of mass destruction—in other words, the administration had gone to war on

misinformation given to the public to gather support that there

were these massive weapons of mass destruction. Former General

Colin Powell, Secretary of State at the time, has said that he was

given misinformation and that he regrets what he said and that

there were no weapons of mass destruction as presented to be imminent danger to the people of the United States or people in the

region.

There was so much focus on trying to find these weapons of mass

destruction to prove their case for war that it appears to me that

when the military identified some of these ammo dumps and saw

them as problems they said, ‘‘No, keep moving, we have to find the

weapons of mass destruction.’’ So I would like to go back to the response that the Assistant Secretary of Defense gave you about

doing the risk assessment, your first recommendation.

The Pentagon’s response was, ‘‘Well, it is imperative that a complete and thorough assessment of ammo sites be conducted.’’ These

findings are not new and military commanders in theater are

aware of this issue.

So my first question would be then what directive did the Department show you that they are actually going to clean up these

sites?

The other troubling part I find is on the second page of the letter,

in which a third recommendation is addressed in which you ask the

Joint Chiefs of Staff to incorporate conventional munitions storage

site security as part of their strategic planning.

The response back from the DOD—and I will read their last

paragraph—‘‘One should not dictate that intelligence resources

must be dictated to monitoring one target versus the other, which

restrains commanders’ prerogatives and stifles planning operations.

These plans must also reflect proper pre-authorization based on a

desired operational effect and resources available, as it may not always be possible or desirable in a resource and time-constraint environment to secure all sites or destroy all munitions.’’

That to me sounds like, ‘‘If we want to look for something else,

weapons of mass destruction, and in the future we keep going by

all these sites, don’t tell us we have to secure the sites. We are

going to decide what we are going to do.’’

I would like your reaction to the response you got back from the

Department of Defense on this, because our men and women are

in harm’s way dying and being severely injured by this, and Iraqi

children and civilians are being injured by this, and so I want to

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know your reaction to the Department of Defense. Why can’t they

walk and chew gum at the same time? They should be able to do

both.

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Well, you have given me a lot to respond to

here.

Let me work back. On the third recommendation, we tried to followup with DOD before the hearing to find out, you know, where

they stood on implementing the recommendations. We understand

that the JCS is working on incorporating the elements we asked

for in our third recommendation into all levels of doctrine on planning and the JOBE system, and so we understand that they are

putting in the words into the doctrine and the guidance, as we suggested.

I think that the DOD comment indicates that they retain the

right to have the flexibility of setting whatever priorities they want

when they undertake an operation, and, of course, they do have

that right and they did before our recommendation, and, as our report discusses and the lessons learned show, we see how that

played out.

We do acknowledge the resource constraints, as also General

Newbold has pointed out.

On the comment to the first recommendation, it was confusing

to us that, on the one hand, DOD acknowledged that it was imperative to do a survey, a thorough and comprehensive survey, and at

the same time they said that the commanders are aware. We know

that the commanders of the units in country are aware.

One thing I want to just make clear and restate is that this priority of finding the WMD—and I think we do have this in our unclassified report—given the thin troop levels that the general mentioned and the numbers that we had and the priorities that were

set for them, and also there was no guidance out to the troops on

what to do if you encounter one of these conventional munitions

storage sites—that you open the door, you don’t see a WMD, and

what do you do next. There was no guidance to them about what

to do next. They did close the door and then move on, looking for

more WMD, based on the field unit reporting and the like that we

saw. But those were the priority tasks and missions they were

given, and, given the resource levels they had, this is exactly what

they were doing, what they were told to do.

Again, in the absence of any further guidance to the troops or

even the unit commanders, they didn’t have the people to do the

other missions that they might have done had there been higher

troop levels.

We heard this from a former CENTCOM commander, as well,

that the rapid march to Baghdad with a very small force package

left white space behind us, and his plan had called for between

385,000 and 500,000 troops to secure rear areas.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ms. D’Agostino.

Mr. Duncan.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Newbold, in this column you wrote for Time Magazine

almost a year ago—I think it was April 2006—you have words in

there like ‘‘the zealots’ rationale for war made no sense,’’ and you

‘‘saw intelligence distorted to justify the war.’’ Now, almost a year

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later, I’m sure you have thought about this many times. Why do

you think they wanted to go to war so badly? Do you think the socalled neocons, who to me are totally opposite from what traditional conservatives have been—and I have been a conservative

since I was a teenager—do you think, as some people have said,

that they wanted to go to war long before 9/11 and they were just

going to almost use any excuse possible to do that in Iraq? Or why

do you think they were so eager to go to war?

General NEWBOLD. Sir, first of all, I believe that they had Iraq

in their sites long before the administration came into power. I

think some of them were well intended. My personal belief is that

the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, for example, fervently believed that in planting democracy in an unstable region

would metastasize and grow throughout the region and be a wonderful thing for the world. I think that was naive, and I think that

has been proven out, but I do think it was well intended.

I am less gracious about some of the others who I described as

zealots in that article who were indeterrable about Iraq, and my

personal experience, days after 9/11 when the Nation was in shock

about a nearly Pearl-Harbor-like attack on us—in this case on civilians, though—they immediately focused on Iraq instead of Al

Qaeda and the Taliban. That shift in priorities is unexplainable to

me, and some of it continues to this day.

But the motivation, sir, I find it troubling, but I don’t know the

answer.

Mr. DUNCAN. Here is another of the many things that has always

been so frustrating to me over this whole situation, and that is, you

know, I am not as much into the social issues. For me the big thing

has always been fiscal conservativism and fighting waste, fraud,

and abuse, things of that nature, and I was always proud that the

Republican party, my party, seemed to be by far the most fiscally

conservative party, but ever since we went into Iraq, I mean, I hear

all these things. A year-and-a-half or 2 years ago we had David

Walker, who is now the head of the GAO who then was the Inspector General for the Defense Department, he came in here to this

very subcommittee—actually, I think it was in another room, but

I’m pretty sure it was this same subcommittee—and he said that

we had lost $35 billion in Iraq due to waste, fraud, and abuse, and

another $9 billion that just couldn’t be accounted for at all.

Then a Foreign Service officer a year or so later told me that he

had been over there for a year and he had seen SUVs stuffed so

filled with cash that there was barely room for the driver. You hear

all these stories.

Then what becomes so frustrating, in addition to all this waste,

I read a column by a conservative columnist, Walter Williams, and

he quoted some general or some Defense expert saying Al Qaeda

was now down to less than 3,000 people, they had no money, the

average Al Qaeda member was, he said, a high school dropout who

lived at home. We are up against Al Qaeda and insurgents that

have very little money. We are going to spend $624 billion, I think

the last figure I saw that we are giving to the Defense Department,

counting the supplemental and all these other appropriations, we

have 160,000 troops over there, or something. Why do we have so

much trouble, when we have all the money in the world and we

44

are spending more on Defense than all the other nations of the

world combined, when you add in all these extra bills that we have

passed? I just have a real difficult time understanding this.

General NEWBOLD. I’m not sure I can help. I am in agreement.

We have spent not only the capital resources of this country, but

young lives, and our——

Mr. DUNCAN. Yes. That’s the worst thing of all. I will definitely

agree with you there. I don’t want anybody to think that I’m overlooking that.

I’m sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead.

General NEWBOLD. All those assets and more, the prestige of the

country, they will have consequences in the future. We will continue to pay this price for flawed judgments made several years

ago.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Yarmuth.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Newbold, I am curious as to what role intelligence might

have played in this situation. In the sense that, if we had known

or the Pentagon had known that there were some 18,000 sites

where conventional munitions were stored, that they may have

wanted—they may have said, well, wait a minute, now, we do need

additional troops to do this. Did they have the intelligence as to

how much conventional arms were stored around the country? Did

they not ask that question, or did they get an answer that was not

anywhere near accurate, if you know?

General NEWBOLD. Sir, the intelligence on Iraq on their forces

was actually quite good, and in that regard they knew ammunition

storage sites, the major ammunition storage sites, but they didn’t

know what was in there. I think the GAO report has laid that out

in very good detail.

The planning as a result of that intel, though, had to adjust to

two things. One we have already talked about was the very low

number of troops, and the other one was that the planners at the

various elements were instructed to follow the assumptions that

GAO has also pointed out, and that is that the Iraqi army would

guard the civilian infrastructure, they’d guard their own bases,

none of which happened.

I would also point out that, frankly, the country is awash with

munitions and that we will never know about. An anecdote from

a good friend of mine, a general responsible for much of the operations in the western part of the country detailed a story about Marines uncovering an ammunition dump in Awadi full of World War

I ammunition, Turkish stocks, hundreds stocked high. So I am not

even sure the Iraqis ever knew how much ammunition they had.

That is not an excuse, by the way. That is merely a recitation of

the factors that went into it.

Mr. YARMUTH. Ms. D’Agostino, you mentioned that you are not

sure that the Pentagon or the Department of Defense would be the

right people to do the survey that you are talking about. Who else

might be available to do this? Is this another Halliburton deal?

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. No, I was not suggesting a contractor, necessarily. I need to clarify. I was just saying that it is not clear that

45

the combat troops who are now very busy with their ongoing operations and missions are necessarily the only folks who could do this

survey. And it is not clear that other assets couldn’t be used to do

the job.

Mr. YARMUTH. Who might those be?

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Well, I think there may be ISR assets to do

some of the legwork on the survey.

Mr. TIERNEY. If I might interject, you might want to use the

words, as opposed to the acronym.

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. I’m sorry. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, which is one possibility, combined with the folks

who are on the ground.

Again, it is DOD’s job to figure out how to do their own survey

and their risk assessment, and I think we have pointed out in our

report that the Joint Staff should be responsible for such an assessment.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I appreciate both of you being here. Mr.

Chairman, again, I appreciate this hearing a lot.

I really don’t have a lot of questions for GAO. I concur with the

findings, particularly as General Newbold has concurred with

them. He questioned some of your recommendations, so I don’t

really have questions for you.

General, I could keep you here for a long time. I really appreciate

your being here, and I don’t think it is ever easy to come, even if

you are retired, to a hearing and talk about your family and talk

about where things didn’t go right and where you wish you had

done something different.

I feel very strongly that my vote to get Saddam out of Kuwait

was the right one, and I wrestled with that for a long time. We

know that Saddam went into Kuwait because he believed we didn’t

have the fortitude to get him out because of Vietnam, and he misjudged us. I regret voting to go in to remove Saddam from power

based on weapons of mass destruction, since we were dead wrong,

and in theory I would have been willing to go into Iraq for other

reasons if I knew that we would have fought the war differently.

But, knowing now how I know we have ended up fighting this war,

I wouldn’t have even voted to go in for that reason.

I wish I had voted no so that now I would have credibility when

I say we can’t leave, and my understanding is you advised against

this operation, but you also have a concern that we not leave, I believe, until we stand up their army, their police, and their border

patrol and allow them to defend themselves. Is that a correct appraisal of your position?

General NEWBOLD. That’s correct. I have made very public my

opposition to the war, to the invasion, but if we think strategically

for the good of our country I think we have to be aware of the enormous consequences of withdrawal short of some modicum of stability in that country. We are not going to make the democracy a

model like Iowa. We are not going to restore an economy fully.

That will take generations. But we must maintain some level of

stability in the country.

46

The consequences for the United States in encouraging those who

would wish us ill, that would like to see us lose our power is a matter of grave concern strategically to us, I think.

Simply put, I think once the United States is into a fight, they

have to win it.

Mr. SHAYS. The Ambassadors surrounding Iraq, a number of

them—Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait, Egypt—Egypt obviously being a little farther away—all said, we wish you hadn’t gone

in, but, having gone in, you can’t leave until there is some stability.

I happen to believe, though, that that stability won’t really take

place until Shias and Sunis work out their differences, so I am one

who believes there needs to be some kind of deadline, but a realistic deadline so they know we are not there indefinitely.

What I would really like to talk to you about, in addition to what

I just have mentioned, is yesterday—now this is an anecdote—yesterday we had a senior member from the Coast Guard come in to

testify behind closed doors about a report that we had that talks

about the vulnerabilities of our ports and the fact that we don’t

have, in some of our ports, the security we need because we don’t

have the people. It was a report. I said to him, the thing that bothers me is that when we have people testify they don’t tell us the

truth. I realize you have a command requirement, but it seems to

me when you are before Congress you have a moral obligation and

a legal obligation—I am saying to anyone in command—to respond

to our answers honestly.

I made my point and then we went public, and another Member

asked this general, ‘‘Do you have everything you need, sir, to do

your job,’’ and he said, ‘‘Sir, we have everything we need to do our

job.’’ It was right after we had this conversation.

So I interrupted the questioner, but I just would love you if you

could somehow tell me how you in the military are wrestling with

this reality. The Secretary of Defense has the responsibility. You

are military, answerable to civilians, but in hindsight if there is an

after-action review of this how do you deal with a Secretary who

says you only have 125,000 when you think you need 500,000? I

think it was pushed up to 250,000. But how do we deal with this

in the future? I’m really gun-shy to believe anything I hear from

this administration, candidly, because I think loyalty trumps honesty. But I think this is inherent in the military, in particular.

General NEWBOLD. Sir, we do have a problem in the military of

people that are willing to speak up and to speak out frankly, regardless of consequences. I will say very strongly that I do believe

their responsibility is to do it in private while they are on active

duty, other than their oath, which I believe holds them responsible

to speak frankly to Congress when they are asked questions.

Mr. SHAYS. So should Congress literally have a requirement that

if we get information that is testified before us, particularly under

oath, that if it is not accurate should there be some penalty to that

individual if they don’t? I mean, what do we do to incentivize?

General NEWBOLD. I am not sure that disincentive is the way to

do it. That has been my experience. It may be the only recourse

you have now, but my experience is that there ought to be another

and a better way.

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Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this, and it is not something I want

to ask you, but is it because Republicans and my own party should

have perhaps met privately and then found a way to have certain

things come out publicly? I mean, in other words, is part of it a

problem that it was a Republican Congress with a Republican

President, and is that the problem you have with the Democratic

President and a Democratic Congress?

General NEWBOLD. I should say that the problems I have described in the interagency applied equally to the previous administration, and I could go through countless anecdotes, and I would

say that the senior military, likewise, was not vocal when they

knew things were amiss.

The best forum I think is in private. As soon as I retired, I spoke

to several Members of the House and of the Senate privately, and

there are no views that I have expressed today that I didn’t express

then. I think that in inviting over senior members of the military

in private, they will always get a more informed view than in public.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, you know what? It strikes me that you need a

Secretary of Defense who makes it clear that when people testify

in front of Congress they have obligations to tell the truth. I am

struck by the fact that the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has to

say to his men and women, you have a moral obligation to speak

the truth when you are asked, particularly in Congress, either

speak the truth ever or don’t say it, but when you are asked a

question, and if you are not going to speak the truth then you just

don’t answer it. Maybe that is where the moral obligation begins.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our ranking member for his work on this, and I want to thank the panelists

for helping the committee with its work.

General, I have done a lot of work on the IED issue in Iraq. In

April I will be going for my sixth visit over there, but a lot of that

time has been spent on the IED issue and the availability of automatic weapons to the Iraqi population, generally. I agree with your

assessment, very much so, that the inability to secure these facilities, whether you call them weapons caches or munitions depots,

it is all a terrible problem.

I actually spent a little time in Fallujah and also in Tikrit where

General Adierno at that time had been uncovering—he is a battlehardened warrior, and he was very, very much surprised at the

level of munitions that were available. It was his estimation at the

time that Saddam Hussein had spent the better part of the last 20

years burying these caches of weapons all over the country for the

future.

The ironic part is that Saddam Hussein actually heavily regulated the availability of those weapons. He shipped them in. He

bought them from the Russians, but he had a very strict gun control law because he was a paranoid psychopath and he wanted to

make sure his guys had all the weapons. But since the bombing of

the Mosque in Samarra, weapons have become a necessary appliance in every Iraqi home. That’s simply the fact of life.

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I met with the Iraqi Parliament and talked to all their folks, and

they agree that the problem has grown much, much worse.

The root of the problem—well, not the root, but certainly something that helped the problem along was the fact that L. Paul

Bremmer, the former Coalition leader for us, Jerry Bremmer, actually one of his first acts as administrator there approved CPA law

No. 3. Actually, I think he called it declaration No. 3, which shifted. Under Saddam you weren’t allowed to have an automatic weapon. Under Jerry Bremmer, under us, he put in a law, CPA declaration No. 3, that every Iraqi home would be limited to one weapon.

Now, the problem is everybody stocked up. The availability of the

weapons was plentiful, and unfortunately for us the weapon of

choice there, from Iraqis that I have talked to and from my time

in country, is the AK–47. They choose that because it is a compact

weapon, rounds per minute, they have a 30-round clip, and 600

rounds per minute. When you are protecting your home, firepower

is what it is all about.

You know, I also talked with some folks that are dealing with the

weapons dealers on the street. From my understanding, the gun

dealers are doing better than the oil industry in terms of their production.

I have some quotes from a couple of the dealers here. His only

complaint from the dealer was that, because the weapons are so

plentiful and easily obtained because of the Iraqi military situation

and there is no security, he said because they are so plentiful it is

difficult to find someone to buy my guns because everyone already

has one or two in his house. As I said, since the death squads have

been out there, each weapon has become a necessary appliance in

every Iraqi home.

Given the widespread prevalence of weapons and munitions, I

was out on the Syrian border. There are so many weapons there,

they are actually triple stacking now. The insurgents are triple

stacking anti-tank mines. They have enough to put three on top of

each other to take out some of our striker vehicles and humvees.

Given the level of all of this, what is the hope of us adopting a

program at this point—and many of my visits were 3 years ago,

when we knew this was a problem.

The other problem now is the Iraqis are in charge. The Iraqis

control a lot of these facilities now. They have been hard pressed

to get the water running and get the electricity running. I just

don’t see a competent government there that is willing to deal with

this problem.

I just wanted to know, I know you know what the problem is,

but what about the solution and our chances of success?

I will yield back at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General NEWBOLD. Sir, we are addressing the problem of IEDs

by trying to add armor, and that helps. That has saved a number

of lives, and it is a good thing. But the fundamental issue on IEDs

is not only the prevalence of the munitions that compose them, but

the eagerness on the part of a large part of the population to use

them against us.

With the best armor, the new MRAD vehicle and the Grizzly,

etc., unless you get to the core of the problem we will always have

an IED issue as long as there are troops in Iraq. If there is 40 perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:54 Aug 15, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\36740.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cent unemployment, if there is little economic potential among the

country, if the country is divided and factionalized, and we are

viewed as occupiers, then if they don’t have IEDs they will use AK–

47s. If they don’t have those, they will use sticks.

The military is trying very hard to solve a problem that, in its

nature, is not military. They can contribute, but I addressed before

this has to be a strategy. A four-star general I talked to yesterday

about coming before you today said we would appreciate more than

anything a cohesive strategy. If there is one, and if it is robustly

applied, then the likelihood of Iraqis using IEDs will go down, even

as we take whatever measures to protect our troops.

That is a bit difficult to implement, but it truly is my most fervent belief.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Platts, 5 minutes.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate both witnesses for your testimony and, Mr. Chairman, for your holding this important hearing. Having traveled four

times to Iraq, twice with the gentleman from Massachusetts, we

appreciate the challenges, but the importance of addressing many

issues, including this one, and the threat it poses to our troops.

I also want to add, General, to your service in uniform a special

thanks for your dedicated and patriotic service to our Nation.

I apologize for coming in from another hearing late.

One issue that I wanted to followup on is in the DOD’s response

letter to the theater-wide survey and risk assessment, it is my understanding in the response they stated, ‘‘An in-depth theater-wide

survey to identify unsecured conventional munitions in Iraq is not

feasible without significantly degrading ongoing intelligence efforts

in Iraq or in the region.’’

Is it a fair assumption—and maybe this was addressed—that

what is being referenced there by DOD is if we devote enough resources to this issue we are going to diminish our resources in

other areas of going after the enemy? Is that how you take that

statement from DOD?

General NEWBOLD. Of course I am speculating on what motivated their response, but my own testimony and my notes indicate

my belief that for headquarters already enormously burdened and

too thin to begin with, that a review and analysis of this, while

necessary, is probably not the most productive thing for the committee to address. There are other fixes that resonate more with

me and are more fundamental to the problems.

I can understand and I think that the committee has to do something to get a robust response out of the Department of Defense,

but I would hate to see the—I have been there—I would hate to

see the staffs in Baghdad with just another, as we say, rock in the

roadside.

Mr. PLATTS. Maybe one followup, then I want to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut for additional time. In understanding that

our guys have a lot that they are carrying right now, are we aware

of efforts or requests or ongoing efforts by the Iraqis, themselves,

to step up in this specific area so we don’t further burden our

troops? And are they engaged in doing that? I am one who believes

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in the heroic and amazing service in liberating Iraq, but ultimately

the Iraqis need to step up and secure Iraq, including these munitions that maybe are still out there and accessible.

Are either of you aware of specific efforts to have the Iraqis take

the lead, with guidance or assistance from us in the intelligence

area, but to actually take the lead on this issue?

General NEWBOLD. I have some comments, but do you——

Mr. PLATTS. Ms. D’Agostino.

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. We don’t have anything unclassified that we

can discuss about that, but we could brief you separately on what

information we do have about use of Iraqi contractors, etc.

Mr. PLATTS. OK.

General NEWBOLD. In a general sense, as the Iraqi army grows

in size and in competence, they will have a better ability to station

forces to guard ammunition storage sites and to search for weapons

in hidden storage sites held by the insurgents. As you know, there

are some examples of where Iraqis guarding storage sites have

turned over the sites to the locals, to looters, or to insurgents. I

hope that period is behind us.

I would make a comment, and this may be superficial, but as

best I can recall the Iraqi nation has had conscription since the

early 1930’s. They felt it was important at the time to have national service and/or military service for the members of their population from 1932, roughly, until 2003. They do not have it now,

despite rampant unemployment. You can’t guard the pipelines, you

can’t guard munitions, you can’t search out the bad guys or secure

the cities to the degree you can, but this is the only period in their

history when they have not had national subscription.

I don’t care whether it would be in the military or Civilian Conservation Corps or Peace Corps or whatever it was, it seems to me

that getting 20 year olds off the street is not a bad idea right now.

Mr. PLATTS. I share that opinion and the importance of them

stepping up.

I want to yield what is left——

Mr. TIERNEY. There is no time left.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Platts.

What I think we might do here, because we are going to have

some votes in about 15 minutes, is other members of the panel remain here, might each have another question or two that they

want to ask.

Mr. Shays, why don’t you ask yours first.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

A very fine article in Time Magazine written in July of last

year—correct, it was written then? Did anyone in the administration—I don’t need to know who or what, but did anyone read this

article and say, ‘‘you know, this is a three-star general. He was involved in the planning of Iraq. Why don’t we sit down and talk

with him?’’ I mean, by then people knew things weren’t going well.

Did anyone say I want to sit down and talk with you in the administration of a person of some rank and authority? Did you get any

response at all?

General NEWBOLD. No, sir. Now, within the military any number

of people, close friends.

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Mr. SHAYS. But nobody in the authority to make a change or act?

I’m just reminded that President Roosevelt would sometimes frustrate his Secretaries of whatever Cabinet, he would call a junior officer up and just ask to speak to someone and say what the hell

is going on there, and this junior officer would be speaking to the

President of the United States. But, you know, it was a struggle

for a President to be informed.

I think it is maybe a good lesson for any future Presidents to say

when you have someone of some distinction as you, a three-star in

the planning process, the war didn’t go well, or whatever, anything,

to say, you know, I have to find a way to communicate with people

who ended up not going the right way.

Just this last point. IBM had a way of tracking people who made

decisions, and then 5 and 10 years later going back and saying, did

this decision turn out right? They even take someone who is retired, who 10 years ago made a decision, and reward him financially, because they wanted to start to know who is making the

right decision and who isn’t, to make sure those are the people that

are going up and not going out.

General NEWBOLD. Sir, I get no Christmas cards from the administration.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

Let me ask a question, if I may, a couple of questions.

Ms. D’Agostino, I am a little concerned, and I don’t entirely agree

with the General on this, though I totally respect your expertise in

this area. I have to be convinced that there is another way to skin

the cat of finding out what is out there in terms of these. I mean,

they are the materials that are going to IEDs that, in turn, are

wounding our men and women that, in turn, we are seeing at Walter Reed and in our Veterans Administration hospitals. Has the

Department of Defense in any of their responses talked about satellite imagery, talked at intelligence coordination, talked about

field reports, talked about any other source that they could use to

get a better grip on how much of these munitions are out there,

where they are, and how they might go about securing them better

than they are doing now so that we could lower the number of people that we see coming back in these horrendous conditions at Walter Reed?

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Mr. Chairman, the Department’s response

stands, I think, as it was provided to us for our report.

Mr. TIERNEY. Which is a monument of non-responsiveness in a

large extent.

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. We understand that Secretary Gates apparently

testified a few days ago before a Senate committee. I can get you

some more information on it. And he was asked about what they

are going to do about a survey and risk assessment on this matter,

and I believe his response involved continuing to consult with his

advisors about whether or not they should do that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. So that is the latest information we have.

Mr. TIERNEY. General, let me ask you one last question here.

Those comments made earlier about the bloated bureaucracy of our

military in Iraq, would you just speak to that for a second of what

are the consequences? What is the extent of that, and what are the

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consequences in how it is that we are prosecuting that situation

when that occurs?

General NEWBOLD. Mr. Chairman, it is something that I can’t

speak to with a lot of depth, so I have to qualify that, but I will

say that my years of service gives me personal observation of how

we have responded to crises, and often, and I believe is now the

case, we create the headquarters almost before we create the maneuvering units, and we create infrastructure and size and scale

that has almost a cultural side effect, and that is that people in

contonments, with comforts, and with bureaucratic duties take on

bureaucratic mind sets. The lean expeditionary forces which are integrated into the population and active in their missions and are

contributing in a way that I think leads to better efficiency, better

effectiveness, and a completely different mind set.

One comment. General Petraeus I believe has made a very good

move by putting the maneuver forces out into the population. You

can see evidence of that now. I think it will show effect. And, as

you know, it is already happening out in the western part of the

country.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much, General.

Are there other members of the panel that want to ask another

question before we end?

[No response.]

Mr. TIERNEY. Let me just close then by thanking again both of

our witnesses, Ms. D’Agostino for an excellent report that has, I

think, created some discussion and followup that will be important

to the country and hopefully to some of those young men and

women coming back.

General, thank you for coming in today. I know you did it with

some trepidation. It is not easy to come back and testify, but we

honor you for your service and your commitment to the country, as

well as for your testimony.

I thank the members of the panel for their participation.

With that, this concludes the hearing.

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Bruce L. Braley follows:]

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