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94–835PDF 2015

U.S. POLICY TOWARDS ISIL AFTER TERROR

GROUP SEIZES RAMADI AND PALMYRA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 3, 2015

Serial No. 114–113

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Michael Rubin, Ph.D., resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute ............ 6

Anthony H. Cordesman, Ph.D., Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy, Center 

for Strategic and International Studies ............................................................. 19

Matthew Spence, Ph.D. (former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Middle East 

Policy, U.S. Department of Defense) .................................................................. 34

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Michael Rubin, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ........................................................... 9

Anthony H. Cordesman, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................ 21

Matthew Spence, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ....................................................... 37

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 60

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 61

(1)

U.S. POLICY TOWARDS ISIL AFTER TERROR 

GROUP SEIZES RAMADI AND PALMYRA 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana RosLehtinen (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. The subcommittee will come to order. After 

recognizing myself and Ranking Member Deutch, who came 7 minutes before me today, for 5 minutes each for our opening statements, I will then move immediately to the witnesses for their 

opening statements. 

And without objection, the witnesses’ prepared statements will 

be made a part of the record and members may have 5 days to insert statements and questions for the record subject to the length 

limitation of the rules. 

And the reason we are zooming right along is because—for the 

audience, thank you, and for our witnesses—at 1:30 approximately 

we will have the first series of votes and there are 15 votes. 

So I don’t think we want to keep you guys waiting for about 3 

hours. So thank you very much. 

The chair recognizes herself for 5 minutes. It is time that we dispense with the administration’s charade that our anti-ISIL strategy 

is a success. 

In Iraq, ISIL holds almost a third of the country’s territory and 

controls major strategic population centers in Mosul, Fallujah and 

Ramadi. 

While Secretary Carter may blame the Iraqi military for not having the will to fight in Ramadi, Prime Minister Abadi has strongly 

denied it and said yesterday that he is not receiving the arms and 

support necessary for him to take on ISIL. 

In Syria, ISIL controls half the country’s territory, according to 

the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. ISIL’s capture of 

Tadmur, adjacent to the ancient city of Palmyra, gives them control 

of a strategic crossroads and unrestricted access to Iraq’s Anbar 

Province. 

There are some success stories where we have been able to push 

ISIL back from its positions. But ISIL continues to spread into 

other areas as well. ISIL is already in Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

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It is also creeping closer to Jordan and Lebanon, and Syrian foreign fighters have even reached our own hemisphere in the Caribbean. ISIL and its ideology are metastasizing across the region. 

Foreign fighters are pouring into Iraq, Syria and Libya. Billions 

of people have been displaced—millions of people have been displaced, putting strains on our allies, and there are humanitarian 

crises throughout the Middle East. 

Our train and equip program in Syria is now only just getting 

off the ground, and according to the latest reports only 2,000 fighters have been identified and 400 have been vetted. Only 90 have 

begun training. 

On top of that, this past weekend one of the Syrian commanders 

participating in the U.S. train and equip program threatened to 

withdraw 1,000 of his fighters from the program because a DoD official said he would have to promise not to attack Assad. 

Incredibly, this is the same Assad who, according to press reports 

and the Twitter account of the U.S. Embassy in Syria yesterday, 

is providing advanced air support for ISIL and is actively seeking 

to bolster ISIL’s position against the Syrian population in the moderate stronghold of Aleppo. The same Assad whose brutality the 

Embassy is now admitting is ISIL’s best recruiting tool and who is 

being propped up by an Iranian regime using the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps, its proxy Hezbollah and thousands of foreign 

fighters to fight on Assad’s behalf. The same Assad who failed to 

disclose his entire chemical weapons arsenal and is using barrel 

bombs and chemical weapons to kill hundreds of thousands of his 

own people—almost a quarter of a million by last count. 

And yet, we are going to make our small number of trained Syrian fighters promise not to fight this monster? Iran is also funneling Assad billions of dollars to ensure his survival and since 

money is fungible, these are the same billions that were unfrozen 

as part of the disastrous nuclear negotiations. 

Our strategy in Iraq cannot and must not be separated from a 

strategy in Syria—one that removes Assad—and a strategy that 

takes on Iran. Iran will not work in the interest of the United 

States, no matter what dreams the administration might have. 

You cannot heal sectarian tensions in Iraq while allowing Iran 

to exacerbate them, including through its Shi’ite militias that are 

said to have committed horrific human rights violations. 

You cannot stop the flow of foreign fighters without getting tough 

on Turkey, and you cannot expect to have success with a minimal 

air strike campaign that refuses to deploy forward spotters to improve targeting. 

Our train and equip program in Iraq is scheduled to bring together approximately 5 to 10,000 people while ISIL is gaining 

1,000 recruits per month. We cannot wait a year for this program 

to be up and ready. 

The administration has laid out some lines of effort as part of its 

anti-ISIL strategy, including military and humanitarian support 

and counter finance and counter narrative efforts that we must 

continue with greater energy and better efficiency. 

But they do not address the fundamental miscalculations that 

this administration continues to make with regard to Assad and 

3

with regard to Iran, and they do not inspire confidence that this 

administration has much of a strategy at all. 

Beyond these basic contradictions of strategy, here are a few suggestions that I hope the administration, Congress and others consider immediately. 

Destroy or neutralize Assad’s air capabilities. Sanction Assad 

and his military officials to hasten the collapse of his regime. Sanction any entity, including the Russians and Iranians, that are propping up Assad. Listen to our military commanders who say we 

should at least discuss the possibility of boots on the ground, including U.S. special forces in Iraqi military units. 

Also, stop telegraphing to our enemies what we are not willing 

to do and urge the Gulf Cooperation Council, the GCC, countries 

to put their boots on the ground. 

Consider the best way to equip anti-ISIL forces in Iraq whether 

that is by directly arming the Kurds, the Sunni tribes or integrated 

units. And finally, the United States Congress should approve an 

authorization for the use of military force that goes a lot further 

than what the President has requested and appropriately characterizes the scale, goals, capabilities and identity of the enemy. 

These are all ideas that could change our approach to ISIL from 

one of the bare minimum, which is what we have now, to one that 

is actually having a positive impact that the President claims he 

desires. 

With that, I turn to my friend, the ranking member, Mr. Deutch. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thanks to our witnesses for appearing here today to help us understand what happened in Ramadi and how it affects the international effort to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. 

ISIS fighters have been on the outskirts of Ramadi for nearly 11⁄2

years. While Iraqi security forces have maintained fragile control 

over most of the city, there have been new heavy fighting in areas 

under ISIS control for months. 

In the midst of a sandstorm, ISIS fighter detonated a series of 

bombs that, as the New York Times described it, allowed it to take 

advantage of a pause in air strikes and overwhelm Iraqi forces. 

While it would be a mistake to compare the fall of Ramadi to the 

swift fall of Fallujah or Mosul, nonetheless it was a serious setback 

with devastating consequences for the innocent civilians of Ramadi, 

the morale of Iraqi troops and for U.S. and coalition strategy. 

The capture of Ramadi was further compounded by ISIS’ seizure 

of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra the following day. The fall of 

Ramadi, unfortunately, gave ISIS a public relations win. 

It now holds the capital of Anbar Province, the largest Sunni 

province in Iraq. This is why now more than ever it is critical that 

the Iraqi Government ramps up its outreach to Sunni tribal areas 

and pushes ahead with Prime Minister Abadi’s stated goals of an 

inclusive government and society. 

The United States should be actively engaged in advising and 

supporting Prime Minister Abadi in these efforts, and while the 

popular mobilization forces and other Shi’ite militias have been effective on the battlefield, the Abadi government must have an active strategy in place to ensure that these militias do not exploit 

the areas they help defend or liberate. 

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In the days after Ramadi fell, Secretary of Defense Carter made 

the bold assessment on national television that Iraqi troops have 

no will to fight. For years the U.S. has invested heavily in the 

training of Iraqi forces. 

So why does it continue to appear at least that Iraqi forces are 

dropping their weapons and running? Is this an accurate portrayal 

of what occurred in Ramadi despite months of reinforced U.S. 

training? I hope our witnesses will speak to that. 

The administration does have a strategy to combat ISIS but I 

have to question how it can be effective against a group that seems 

to constantly adapt. 

This conflict needs a comprehensive strategy that doesn’t just defeat ISIS on the battlefield but also cuts off its funding and its 

propaganda machine, and I am unsure as to whether we are being 

successful in those areas and I hope our witnesses will speak to 

that as well. 

The victories in Ramadi and Palmyra just weeks ago gave ISIS 

the appearance of having momentum on its side. Now, in Syria yesterday ISIS advanced on opposition-held territory north of Aleppo. 

Reports from opposition leaders claim there seem to have been 

coordination with the regime with Assad’s air force striking in 

what seemed to be a supportive ISIS ground campaign, and I 

would welcome our witnesses’ assessment of these claims and, if 

true, what that means going forward. 

Now, I have admittedly been frustrated by what seems to be a 

lack of attention to the Syrian front of this conflict and we will 

never effectively degrade and destroy ISIS if we don’t simultaneously deal with the problem of the heinous Assad regime, which 

opened the space for ISIS’ rise to begin with. 

Part of this conflict is a result of sheer lack of governance. In 

many areas, ISIS is filling a void in terms of services and security. 

We have heard time and time again that in many parts of Syria 

people have aligned with ISIS not because of ideological agreement 

but because it was the only group offering them protection. 

The international community needs to focus greater attention on 

a long-term solution, and I was pleased to hear General Allen’s 

comments yesterday that there is no place for Assad in a long-term 

Syria solution. 

I am concerned with the growing chorus of frustration with the 

U.S. that we hear from the Syrian opposition, and while our train 

and equip programs are now slowly advancing, the question is are 

we being as effective as possible in supporting the Syrian opposition. 

And finally, I would like to take just a remaining moment or two 

to remind everyone, the American people and the international 

community, of the devastating—the devastating humanitarian crisis in Iraq and Syria. The people of Syria continue to suffer under 

Assad’s barbarity—barrel bombs, chlorine gas attacks, ongoing brutal repression. 

In Iraq, the number of displaced people grows daily as ISIS 

moves in on new territory. Women and children are at extreme risk 

of violence and we continue to hear reports of hundreds of people 

slaughtered in days. 

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We have to remember that real—that the real and grave consequences that this conflict is having on innocent civilians. 

Madam Chairman, I know that you share these concerns. I thank 

you for your continued commitment—your continued commitment 

to drawing attention to the humanitarian aspect of this devastating 

conflict. 

It is one that must continue to be at the forefront of all of our 

discussions and I would thank—offer thanks again to our witnesses 

for appearing here today. 

I look forward to your insights and I yield back the balance of 

my time. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Deutch. I will recognize members for 1 minute for their opening statement, starting 

with Mr. Issa of California. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for bringing this 

distinguished panel before us today. 

I am going to be particularly interested in hearing from Dr. 

Spence. Fact is, we are dealing today with a policy that he was at 

the center of and is intimately familiar with. 

This is not some sort of hypothetical. We have been fighting a 

war—we have been fighting a war that is in fact fighting against 

a tide. 

We have continuously found ourselves siding with organizations 

like the Maliki government, one in which the Shi’a are perfectly 

happy to repress the Sunni but not willing to fight to protect the 

Sunni from extremism. 

The Sunnis, on the other hand, are perfectly willing to allow others to fight for them but they certainly are not in a position to remove a Sunni extremist group only to be, again, held hostage to a 

government that still has former Prime Minister Maliki in many 

ways as the puppeteer of that regime. 

The fact is that when Ash Carter, rightfully so, said that we do 

have an inherent problem, I began looking and saying when did we 

have that problem last. 

And answer was the last time we had this problem we were 

backing Chiang Kai-shek over Mao Zedong, and the reality is we 

are not picking the sides at this time in Syria or Iraq in a way in 

which we can find a path with active support to a solution that the 

American people can believe in. 

And I look forward to asking each of the witnesses a series of 

questions. I thank the chairwoman for her indulgence. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Issa. Ms. Frankel. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Madame Chair. 

I, really, have one significant question that I would like each of 

you to address, if you could, and what I would like to know is is 

this fight or struggle against ISIL—in your opinion, is it going to 

require the United States to put more troops in harm’s way. 

That is my question. I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Ms. Frankel. 

I now would like to introduce our expert witnesses. First, we are 

pleased to welcome back Dr. Michael Rubin, who is a resident 

scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. 

Dr. Rubin is a former DoD advisor on international security affairs and a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Dr. Rubin 

6

was also a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University as well as a senior 

lecturer at the Naval Post-Graduate School. Welcome, Dr. Rubin. 

Second, we welcome Dr. Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke 

chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International 

Studies. 

Previously, he has served as the director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as well as director 

of policy and planning at the Department of Energy. Welcome, Dr. 

Cordesman. 

And last but certainly not least, we also want to welcome back 

Dr. Matthew Spence. Dr. Spence is a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for International Affairs. 

Formerly, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East and has served in the White House as 

special assistant to the President and director of international economics at the National Security Council. 

Welcome, gentlemen, and we will start with Dr. Rubin. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL RUBIN, PH.D., RESIDENT SCHOLAR, 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. RUBIN. Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch, 

honorable members, thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

I have submitted in my written testimony detailed analysis and 

recommendations, but as time is short, please allow me only to 

highlight a few key points. 

Suffice to say the U.S. strategy to degrade and ultimately destroy 

the Islamic State has not succeeded. Any comprehensive strategy 

will combine the diplomatic with the military. 

There is a correlation between Turkey’s visa policies and those 

nationalities which travel to the Islamic State. Moroccans and 

Tunisians either do not need visas to enter Turkey or can get them 

on demand. 

Algerians, however need visas. While several thousand Moroccans and Tunisians have traveled to Syria, only a handful of Algerians have, though Algerians fight for the Islamic State elsewhere. 

A low-cost high-value reform would be for Turkey to end visa 

waivers or visas on demand for those under the age of 40 from 

countries which provide the bulk of Islamic State recruits. Drying 

up the flow of recruits across the Turkish-Syrian frontier is essential. 

The Iraqi army does fight. They fought in Ramadi for months before losing. They regained control in Baoji. That the Islamic State 

can deploy hundreds and even whole parades shows a lack of U.S. 

intelligence and/or unwillingness to use air power to maximum advantage. 

The Iraqi military must maintain its qualitative military edge. If 

U.S. authorities do not believe it wise to provide weaponry to the 

Iraqi army, then they must substitute air power, special forces and 

trainers to assist Iraqi forces. 

While it is essential our allies be armed, some seek advantage 

from the crisis to strengthen their own political hand vis-a`-vis rivals. 

7

Under Prime Minister Abadi, Baghdad has supplied both light 

and medium weaponry to the Kurdistan regional government including MRAPs. 

The Kurds have also imported weaponry directly from Iran, Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria. According to the State Department, 

the Kurds have anti-tank missiles that Baghdad does not have but 

needed in Ramadi. 

Alas, the Kurds still distribute weapons to peshmerga based on 

political loyalty to the Kurdistan Democratic Party rather than to 

areas of greatest need. This puts Kirkuk at risk. 

The United States must coordinate deliveries through Baghdad 

but monitor their distribution both from Baghdad to Kurdistan and 

then from Kurdish authorities to the front where needed. 

Rather than exacerbate divisions by providing weaponry on an 

ethnic or sectarian basis, U.S. equipment should be designated for 

Iraqi army units which incorporate Iraqi diversity. 

Providing weaponry directly to Iraqi, Kurdistan or Sunni tribes 

empowers hardline pro-Iranian factions and undercuts Abadi and 

his more moderate allies across the Shi’ite spectrum. 

We cannot look a gift horse in the mouth. The group with the 

greatest success against the Islamic State have been the Syrian 

Kurds. 

They are not perfect but they are secular, tolerant religiously and 

generally ethnically as well and a relative haven for women’s freedom. Washington should not treat Syrian Kurds as pariahs simply 

out of deference to Turkey, which has proven itself an unreliable 

ally at best. 

The long-term cost of Iranian military presence in Iraq is greater 

than the gain derived from Iranian personnel battling the Islamic 

State. Iranian units exacerbate sectarianism. 

Still, the United States must differentiate between Iranianbacked militias and Shi’ite volunteers. Not every Shi’ite is an Iranian puppet. But painting them all with the same brush risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

U.S. diplomats should work with the Iraqi Government to create 

the bureaucratic reforms necessary to implement bottom-up administrative federalism in liberated districts. This involves changes in 

administrative law and procedure rather than constitutional 

amendments. 

U.S. officials must not incentivize sectarian violence by rewarding it even as they try to bolster the central government’s delivery 

of services across ethnic and sectarian lines. 

We must recognize that the motivation for the Islamic State is 

ideological and not based in petty political grievances. That recruitment and residence of the Islamic State reaches from Malaysia to 

Morocco illustrates this. 

It is not all about Baghdad. Unless and until there is bipartisan 

consensus to do what is necessary to defeat the Islamic State before it targets the American homeland and until there is an authorization for the use of military force that empowers rather than restricts American forces combating the Islamic State, then it would 

be unfair to American servicemen to put them in harm’s way. 

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Likewise, it would be dangerous to conflate the mission to defeat 

the Islamic State with a very different peacekeeping mission afterwards. That is a mission about which we seldom talk. 

And with that, I conclude my remarks. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rubin follows:]

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Dr. Rubin. 

Dr. Cordesman. 

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN, PH.D., ARLEIGH A. 

BURKE CHAIR IN STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND 

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity 

to testify. 

It is possible to focus on the immediate issue——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Move your microphone a little bit closer. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. It is possible to focus on the immediate issue 

in Ramadi, and yet when I look at Tikrit I am not sure that it was 

any more of a victory. 

If you lose the population, if you lose the city as a functioning 

area, if essentially you have liberate a desert that simply has buildings in it, you have not achieved a goal and I think both are a 

warning of—or you used, Madam Chairman, repetitively the need 

for a strategy and for a recognition that no one defeat or issue here 

is critical. The problem is to have some consistent way of dealing 

with this over a period of years. 

Yes, I think we need to look beyond ISIL and al-Nusra and focus 

on the broader problems and tensions in both Iraq and Syria. I 

think it is clear you can’t have a successful strategy in western 

Iraq that doesn’t deal with the problems in eastern Syria. 

We cannot ignore Iran and focus on the nuclear issue to the exclusion of the other threats that are affected here. Frankly, the 

train and assist mission, to me, has been too limited, badly focused 

and too distant from the front and the need to actually work with 

combat forces from the start, repeats mistakes I have seen in other 

wars and it is an area where we do need change. 

The air campaign is one where at least publically we have not 

been able to explain either what we are doing or what its focus is 

and it certainly seems to be too limited to achieve a key level of 

effectiveness. 

We don’t seem to be able to explain the weapons flow that actually reaches Iraqi troops or the problems that our train and assist 

group has in working with them. 

But having said all of that which affects the short-term goal, 

what bothers me on the basis of what happened in our previous 

war in Iraq and in Afghanistan is if you do not have a strategy 

which is public and a real strategy, if you do not have requirements to report on the progress you have in meeting that strategy—whether it works, what it costs and whether it is successful—

you go on from incident to incident without ever really being able 

to assess what you are doing or demonstrating you have a coherent 

plan to deal with it. 

We don’t have the equivalent of a 1230 report coming out of the 

Department of Defense. We have no meaningful reporting coming 

out of the Department of State. 

After some 50 years in the United States Government, I have 

never seen a more meaningless report on the structure of a war 

than came out of the so-called lead inspector general on Inherent 

Resolve. 

20

It is, as a public relations exercise, inept. And what I am suggesting is that as you react to this defeat, there are some concrete 

steps you can take. You can’t legislate strategy but you can insist 

that one be reported on. 

You can demand that that strategy be explained in terms of some 

form of net assessment. You can call for milestones, estimates of 

resources, progress reporting and real measures of effectiveness. 

You can create the equivalent of a special inspector general, as 

you did in terms of Iraq and the Afghan war. You can force regular 

outside and independent reporting on where we are going and you 

can have that assess the costs and the measures of effectiveness. 

These are measures which, I think, may be longer term than the 

more immediate suggestions I made in my written testimony. 

But, quite frankly, if we go on with even less understanding, 

transparency and responsibility than we managed to have in reporting on the Iraq war and the Afghan war, I don’t think that any 

reaction to one defeat or one set of problems is going to be relevant. 

We simply have to establish a basis for a strategy, transparency 

and credibility. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cordesman follows:]

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Dr. Cordesman. 

Dr. Spence. 

STATEMENT OF MATTHEW SPENCE, PH.D. (FORMER DEPUTY 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE) 

Mr. SPENCE. Thank you, Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about the situation in Iraq and our strategy to combat ISIL. 

I value talking regularly with you in my role in the Department 

of Defense and I appreciate to continue to have that candid dialogue in my personal capacity now. 

The ISIL threat is complex and the situation is rapidly evolving. 

I will summarize my statement with the following three areas. 

First, let me briefly outline how I view the current strategy to 

counter ISIL. 

Second, I will offer some reflections about what happened in 

Ramadi and what we can learn from it. And third, I will share a 

few thoughts about how we can adjust the current strategy, given 

the rapidly changing battlefield environment. 

Quite frankly, the enemy is adapting and learning and we must 

as well. The events in Ramadi in the past weeks have created an 

extremely serious situation. We must learn from ISIL’s successes 

in Ramadi and adapt to new conditions on the battlefield. 

But we also cannot view Ramadi as the sole referendum on a 

long-term strategy to combat ISIL. The causes of ISIL’s rise are 

deep and complex. It is a tenacious and adaptive enemy. It operates in a joint battlefield between Iraq and Syria. 

Combatting ISIL, therefore, requires a joint strategy toward Iraq 

and Syria. Taking on ISIL and Iraq alone will not accomplish our 

objectives. 

We need to think regionally as well as strategically, and Iran 

plays a complex role both fighting ISIL on its own while also pursuing a broader destabilizing agenda in the region. 

That is why combatting ISIL requires a long-term campaign that 

will take several years and we are in the first year of what was 

designed as a multi-year campaign. 

Now, let me offer some context, if I may. Last June, ISIL moved 

across Iraq with unprecedented speed and stunned the world with 

its military victories. The underlining causes of ISIL’s success, 

however, were more than weapons and battlefield tactics. 

Assad’s brutality and the conflict in Syria created chaos that allowed ISIL to seize territory. The border between Iraq and Syria 

became, effectively, meaningless. 

The Iraqi Government alienated large segments of the Sunni 

population and was not governing effectively and lacked the required senior professional military leaders to direct Iraqi security 

forces. 

These political conditions will not change overnight and they cannot be changed with military force alone. That said, recognizing 

that military force alone cannot effectively address ISIL does not 

mean that military power does not have a significant role. It does. 

35

There are many elements to the United States strategy—trying 

to work on the terrorist foreign fighters, the ideology and the terrorist funding. I will just focus briefly on what I see are three elements of the military aspect of the strategy. 

The first part of the strategy is political. As I said, ISIL thrives 

on corruption, alienation, weak governance and the ensuing political chaos. No amount of soldiers we could deploy, even the best 

trained Americans and Iraqis, can fill the vacuum of poor governance. 

The Iraqi governance must take the lead in designing, executing 

and maintaining military operations. America cannot be more committed to Iraq’s success than Iraq is. 

Second, however, a key part of our military efforts must be the 

use of unique and powerful American and coalition military capabilities. 

We must use unique U.S. and coalition military capabilities to 

gain an advantage over ISIL. We should not be fighting a fair fight 

against ISIL and we should use our unique capabilities from the 

air. 

The accommodation of U.S. and coalition and partner air power 

with Iraqi and peshmerga ground operations has pushed back Iraq 

and has made a difference. We need to be doing more with our air 

power, however. 

And then finally, because air power alone cannot create the conditions on the ground to combat ISIL, a third and key element of 

our strategy must be focusing on building the capacity of the Iraqi 

security forces, peshmerga ground forces as well as local fighters 

in Syria. 

Now, that said, I want to briefly recommend a few adjustments 

to our strategy, and in recommending those adjustments I briefly 

want to recommend four principles to keep in mind. 

First, our effort should be built around sustainability. Will additional U.S. support create the incentives for the Iraqi forces to own 

the fight? 

Second, we must balance any support the United States provides 

against the risk to American service members. Third, we cannot 

view Iraq—view ISIL in isolation in Iraq. Coalition forces cannot 

fight Iraq—ISIL in Iraq only to allow them sanctuary in Syria. And 

fourth, the United States must support and maintain the international coalition. 

Given that, if I may, I both recommend adjustments in each of 

the areas I mentioned before. First, in training, forward-deployed 

U.S. special forces, advisors within Iraqi units should be used 

more. 

Such forces have been deployed in al-Assad airbase in western 

Anbar. U.S. special forces can be deployed in eastern Anbar as a 

platform for working with Sunni tribes in the east. Embedding U.S. 

forces can help inject energy into leadership development of new 

and weaker Iraqi commanders and help stand them up more quickly. 

It was the failure of unit leadership in Iraq, the failure of that 

type of leadership, which is necessary for good organization and 

good morale, which I think explains some of what we saw in the 

recent weeks. 

36

Second, in U.S. unique military assets we must make better use 

of air power, expanded target sets for U.S. and coalition aircraft, 

should we need it. Now, this must be done carefully to minimize 

civilian casualties. 

However, we should consider deploying forward American and coalition air controllers to targeting and expediting air strikes. We 

must surge in better weapons to take on the large suicide truck 

bombs which caused such devastation that we saw in the past 

weeks. 

And then finally, politically, the United States and coalition 

forces must press the Iraqi Government harder to more actively enlist Sunni fighters in this campaign. 

In conclusion, Madam Chairman, what I would say is Iraq and 

Syria show us what a tremendous adversary ISIL is. They are 

adapting quickly. They are learning. 

We must be more nimble with them. This is what I recommend 

now. But as the situation evolves, we should not fail to look at 

more bold options as things have adjusted to adjust to the realities 

of what the enemy is doing on the battlefield. 

Thank you for the opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Spence follows:]

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Excellent recommendations. Thank you to all 

of our panelists. I will begin the question and answer period. 

I wanted to ask our panelists to comment on today’s New York 

Times article that says Assad’s forces may be aiding the new ISIS 

surge:

‘‘Building on recent gains in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State 

militants are marching across northern Syria toward Aleppo, 

Syria’s largest city, helped along, their opponents say, by the 

forces of President Bashar al-Assad. . . 

‘‘The rebels complain that the United States has refrained 

from contributing air support to help them fend off simultaneous attacks by the government and the Islamic State.’’

And the article continues:

‘‘The Twitter account of the long-closed United States Embassy in Syria made its strongest statement yet about Mr. 

Assad’s tactics. 

‘‘ ‘Reports indicate that the regime is making air strikes in 

support of ISIL’s advance on Aleppo, aiding extremists against 

Syrian populations,’ the Embassy said in a series of Twitter 

posts. 

‘‘In another post, it added that the government war planes 

were ‘not only avoiding ISIL lines but actively seeking to bolster their position.’

‘‘Neither American officials nor Syrian insurgents have provided proof of such direct coordination, though it has long been 

alleged by the insurgents.’’

Dr. Rubin, what do you make of that? 

Mr. RUBIN. I would say that President Assad makes Machiavelli 

look like Mother Teresa. You know, when I am in the region often 

times I hear the conspiracy theory which is pervasive that the 

Americans are behind the Islamic State, and this is a conspiracy 

theory which has been pushed forward by Supreme Leader Ali 

Khamenei of Iran on numerous occasions. 

The way I counter this is to remind people that before the United 

States began air operations in Syria the Islamic State was still centered at Raqqah. The Syrian air force, under the command of 

Bashar al-Assad, had dominance over the skies of Syria, and rather 

than take on the Islamic State he preferred to drop barrel bombs 

on Syrian civilians. 

So I fully concur that we may have a situation in which Bashar 

al-Assad is acting in a way that might not appear at first glance 

logical or that Bashar al-Assad may not be as committed to defeating the Islamic State as some people would like to argue. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

And to our other witnesses, I wanted to ask you what are the 

dangers of—if the administration again relies on Russia or Iran in 

the fight against ISIL this time. Because just yesterday, Deputy 

Secretary of State Tony Blinken held a press availability with 

Prime Minister Abadi and the French Foreign Minister following a 

meeting of some of the coalition partners in the fight against ISIL. 

He was asked a question by a reporter about how the U.S. may 

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sia and Iran, and it just seems like—is that the right message we 

should be sending or what should we be doing in respect to relying 

on Russia and telling Baghdad it is okay to rely on Russia and 

Iran? Dr. Cordesman. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Let me begin by saying first Iran has provided 

weapons and aircraft to Iraq. Russia has provided weapons, and 

Iraq is a sovereign country and if it chooses to use its own money 

to buy weapons from other countries these are not some things 

where we can do more than attempt to influence the situation. 

What would bother me much more seriously is exactly what is 

the strategy we are using to arm and develop the Iraqi forces, how 

well does the train and assist mission actually work in ensuring 

the arms get there or even to the training base because there have 

been major problems simply in getting low-level training ammunition into rear area training activities. 

We are not going to be able to limit all of these things by asking 

them not to go to other suppliers. The real issue, I think, is are 

we going to provide an effective timely flow and one that gives us 

the kind of influence and leverage that can help push them both 

toward unity and military effectiveness. I think that is the key 

issue. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Cordesman. 

Dr. Spence. 

Mr. SPENCE. Madam Chairman, I think sound strategy requires 

looking two steps ahead. In the near term, Iran is fighting ISIL 

and we have a shared enemy. 

In the longer term, Iran has a more destabilizing agenda both in 

Iraq to have control of large parts of the Iraqi state, and in Syria 

as well, and we should be under no illusions of what a long-term 

partnership with Iran would do. 

So in the near term, as Dr. Cordesman said, there is a reality 

of the funding that Iran and weaponizing that Iran is conducting. 

However, as we do this we need to look at the steps ahead would 

be—what the consequences will be if we knowingly allowed Iran to 

get a type of foothold in these places with its larger destabilizing 

region has. 

Ultimately, what we need to do is make sure we have more stable and effective governance not just when ISIL is driven out but 

there is something strong to put in place in the vacuum that will 

be left when ISIL is gone. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Mr. Deutch 

is recognized. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Hardly. Hardly. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Dr. Spence, let me follow up on that last point, which is what is 

going to be there when ISIL is gone. Can you—in your, I think, 

rightful efforts to look two steps ahead what should that look like? 

Mr. SPENCE. You know, Congressman, I think it is enormously 

difficult and it is different in Iraq and in Syria. I mean, the basic 

principle is there needs to be an inclusive government that both 

Sunnis as well as Shi’a or Alawites feel a stake in the central government that they don’t need to turn to some other non-state actor. 

Executing that is very hard. I think in Iraq what it looks like in 

large parts is trying to enlist local fighters to fight against ISIL in 

the areas where they are. 

46

They have an incentive, they know the area better and we need 

to have these types of Sunni fighters who have an incentive to stop 

ISIL from murdering their families but also be brought into some 

larger structure in the Iraqi Government. 

So I think it is largely recruiting local fighters. In Syria, it is 

much, much harder because as imperfect a partner as Abadi is, 

even though he is taking good steps, we have the opposite of that 

in Syria. 

Of course, we have an enemy in Assad, and I think that is why 

as slow as the train and equip program in Syria is moving that is 

why trying to recruit and train and find some Syrian fighters to get 

some victories in villages in Syria that we have been trying to work 

with and create some good government can also provide the military muscle to provide both governance as well as some stable 

sense of state authority so there is a real alternative between the 

devil of Assad and the other devil that is ISIL. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Can we really be successful in our train and equip 

in Syria if the focus—if we are training and equipping only to take 

on ISIS when Assad continues to drop barrel bombs and chlorine 

on his own people? 

Mr. SPENCE. You know, it is hard. I mean, I think in any event 

the most immediate threat to American interests still are ISIL. But 

the longer cause that allowed ISIL to take place is, of course, 

Assad. 

Now, part of the issue that we face is, you know, the program 

that is authorized by Congress is not authorized to take on Assad. 

You know, one of the purposes of the program is to create the 

conditions to create a political settlement to do that. The issue we 

face right now, I think—before we were to openly take on Assad 

in a military way we need to be very clear about what happens on 

day two and the years that would follow. 

And right now I think we need to do more work to strengthen 

the opposition to do that before we would have a concerted effort 

right now to go after Assad. I think it is an issue of timing and 

sequencing. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Right. Dr. Rubin, in—as we assess what to do in 

Syria we don’t want to be in a position, do we, where we succeed 

in pushing back ISIS only to be left with an al-Qaeda-backed government there? 

Mr. RUBIN. That is correct. And within—you can’t allow a safe 

haven to develop anywhere. Terrorists love a vacuum and 

ungoverned spaces are a chief problem both in Iraq and in areas 

under ISIS control and in Syria. 

One of the problems in Iraq post-liberation of territories seized 

by ISIS is going to be the leadership of the Sunni community and 

the problem is the Kurds have a definite leadership. 

The Shi’ites have a definite leadership. Saddam Hussein cut off 

the Sunni leadership at its knees and it never really has redeveloped. Some in the Sunni leadership have tried to gamble with the 

Islamic State, assuming they could use it as a wedge against Prime 

Minister Maliki. They failed. They have lost support. 

The question is what strategy do we have to build this up, because at this point when the Sunnis go to Prime Minister Abadi 

47

their chief demand is not to listen to any of the other Sunni groups 

who are going to Prime Minister Abadi. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Dr. Cordesman, in Iraq do you—can you comment 

on Secretary Carter’s assessment of Iraqi forces and whether it is 

an accurate assessment to suggest that perhaps they don’t have the 

will to defend themselves? 

Where does the truth lie? If there is any truth to that then what 

is it ultimately that we can hope to accomplish, if that is the case? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. First, I think there is a will to fight, depending 

on the unit. Part of the problem is that under Maliki you used the 

military forces essentially as a political weapon to suppress opposition and against the Sunni population. 

The legacy is what happened that virtually destroyed a good part 

of the Iraqi army. Rebuilding that, we have said, will take several 

years. 

Now, one of the units in Ramadi actually held together quite well 

for a long amount of time. It eventually simply was worn out and 

one of the problems you have when you talk about the will to fight 

is you need to look at the order of battle. 

Remember, they are on the scene—that is, the Islamic State or 

ISIL’s forces. They know the weaknesses in the local Iraqi forces. 

If they can smash through or in, go around the better units, take 

advantage of the weaker units or the police, they can disrupt and 

shatter a defense over time, and they have done that. 

But it is also true if you want the will to fight you need a government that can get ammunition and reinforcements there on time. 

The problems are not simply forward. 

They are just as serious throughout the entire structure of Iraqi 

defense and if we don’t really find a way to advise and assist to 

deal with the broad operations you are going to have unit after 

unit, unless this changes, which runs out of ammunition, isn’t reinforced in time, isn’t pulled out and is exhausted, and you are going 

to find this repeated. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Deutch. 

Votes have been moved up from the scheduled time so I will ask 

our—the rest of our members to limit their question and answer 

period to 4 minutes so everyone can get a shot at it. 

Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I have 32 prepared questions. Would you all agree to receive 

them and respond for the record? 

Mr. RUBIN. Yes. 

Mr. SPENCE. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in 

the affirmative. 

Dr. Spence, with my remaining time, what I would like to do is 

I would like to go through a couple of items that are not in that 

long list and one of them is you were both in two different major 

roles in the administration at a time in which the administration 

rejected safe havens in Syria either to deal with the plight of Syrians going to Lebanon or into Jordan or into Turkey. 

Do you regret that? A yes or no is fine. 

Mr. SPENCE. No, I don’t right now. No. 

48

Mr. ISSA. So you think it is fine that in fact Lebanon is essentially more than 25 percent Syrian refugees, Jordan is maintaining 

huge amounts of refugees and, in fact, our situation with Turkey 

is one in which we depend on a Turkish Government that is at best 

marginal in their real support for deterring ISIL while in fact they 

continue to insist that we overturn the Assad government as a precondition of full cooperation. 

Isn’t it time that we begin looking at having territory within 

Syria in which we control it, he is denied ability to fly, even if it 

is not to overturn the Assad government but rather to have a safe 

haven in which we can prepare Syrian troops to take on ISIL? 

Mr. SPENCE. I think—you know, in response to your question I 

think a few things. I think, first, I am extremely concerned about 

the refugee situation, about the neighbors, and I think——

Mr. ISSA. The Lebanese appreciate that. Send them a couple billion dollars. Answer the question because I am deeply concerned 

that a failed strategy continues to be used in Syria, one in which 

we say we are going to take out the Assad government but we 

don’t, but we are perfectly willing to destabilize that government 

so that ISIL in fact can grow faster than any of the troops that we 

want to prepare to cause a regime change. 

Mr. SPENCE. Well, Congressman, I think the issue that we need 

to focus on is what is the best way of accomplishing this end goal 

that you are talking about and that is both minimizing the damage 

in refugees that comes to the countries in the region. 

In Lebanon, for example, it is not just 25 percent ISIL refugees. 

Over half of the country could be refugees. That is enormously concerning. 

The concern I have about safe havens and what would happen 

if Assad immediately fell is what would the results be if it happened right away and how do we sustain it. 

Mr. ISSA. So it is your position, as someone who just left the administration, that Assad falling from government today would be 

adverse to our best interest? 

Mr. SPENCE. I am not saying that. But I am saying is before the 

United States were to take action to push Assad out we need to 

think very carefully about what comes in Assad’s——

Mr. ISSA. So it is your—during your tenure at National Security 

and your tenure, obviously, at Defense do you believe we could 

have diminished or eliminated Assad’s military supremacy over his 

own troops in his own country? 

Mr. SPENCE. I think we were doing a fair amount to do that. I 

think the goal needs to be it is not just the fall of Assad. It is what 

comes in Assad’s place. 

Mr. ISSA. So would you say—would you say that we used efforts 

to diminish and eliminate his air supremacy? From my reports, his 

helicopters, very easy targets for performance aircraft, are not in 

fact on a daily basis targets that we go after and certainly not his 

air bases. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. SPENCE. I think there are a number of things that we did 

to reduce the fighting power of Assad, both——

Mr. ISSA. No, that wasn’t the question. Assad’s ability, as the 

chairwoman said, Assad’s ability to punish their own people and 

often their own people and not ISIL was never diminished. 

49

Assad’s ability to rain down terror from the air continues today, 

a capability that I am sure you agree, Doctor, we had the capability 

to diminish and we did not and currently do not. 

Dr. Cordesman, perhaps you could weigh in on this. I don’t think 

Dr. Spence is going to give me the answer I would like. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. I don’t know if I can give you the answer you 

would like. But I think that we do have the ability to put far more 

pressure on Syria and its use of force than we have exercised. 

From the start, I think we exaggerated their capabilities and 

willingness to react to that pressure, and certainly it isn’t just outside refugees. You have got 7 million displaced people in the country without homes or jobs. 

Mr. ISSA. Or safe havens to live in. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. More than half the population. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Cordesman. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. We all strive to please Mr. Issa but it is an 

impossible task. 

Mr. Higgins of New York is recognized. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here. 

You know, coalition forces met recently and the conclusion was 

that our strategy is going to continue as it is. 

You know, you look at Ramadi and Palmyra and the fact that 

ISIS troops are far outnumbered by coalition forces. You look at the 

chaos in Iraq with a fighting force that just doesn’t seem to be up 

for the task. 

How does this strategy that is in place—how does it succeed? Dr. 

Rubin. 

Mr. RUBIN. The strategy which is in place does not succeed and 

on September 10th, 2014, the President laid out a goal which was 

to degrade and destroy the Islamic State. It is clear that that strategy is not working. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Dr. Cordesman. 

Mr. CORDESMAN. In all fairness, we have said this would take 

two to 3 years and it would take us more than a year to train even 

9 to 12 Iraqi brigades. 

But if this strategy is ever going to work, it is going to work far 

too slowly. It is far from clear that it is going to have anything like 

the political and civil effects that are necessary and it is a strategy 

for Iraq that doesn’t seem to have any strategy for Syria, because 

if you are training 5,000 people 90 people at a time, I, frankly, 

don’t see the point. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Dr. Spence. 

Mr. SPENCE. I think—I think both the strategy will take time by 

the ways we are executing it. So, first, I think there, of course, is 

a role for American significant military power that must be used. 

But second, if you are going to be working through local partners, which I think is the sustainable way to do it, training local 

partners takes time. 

I mean, the genius of America’s military is not the technology we 

deploy but it is the leadership, our tactics and how our men serve 

50

in combat, and training that leadership at the unit level takes time 

and is extremely difficult. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Late last year there was an announcement that 

Prime Minister Abadi had agreed to or came to an agreement with 

the Kurds that they would receive $1 billion for their peshmerga 

and they would receive 17 percent of national oil revenues in perpetuity. 

It seemed to be a good start to the new administration in that 

he appeared to be the Prime Minister developing a strategy for a 

coalition to defeat ISIS in Iraq. What happened there and where 

is the peshmerga in these fights? 

Mr. SPENCE. So I think the peshmerga in these fights have, I 

mean, a few things. I think, first, a key part of the strategy needs 

to continue to be encouraging Abadi to reach out both to the Kurds 

as well as Sunnis in the way that he takes steps to do it and push 

him to follow through on those commitments. 

I think on arming the peshmerga what the international coalition did in July was try to mobilize an enormous effort to provide 

large amounts of equipment and training and that has been flowing to Kurdish fighters and I think that is part of the reasons why 

we have seen Kurdish fighters able to be effective on the ground 

in some very, very difficult fights. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Dr. Rubin. 

Mr. RUBIN. I want to reemphasize the point that the Kurdish regional government has not been fully truthful when they say that 

they have not received weaponry from the Iraqi Government. 

If they have not received enough weaponry it is simply because 

the Iraqi Government also has not received enough weaponry. The 

bigger problem that undercuts Kurdish peshmerga effectiveness is 

that the weaponry which the Kurds do have does not always make 

it to the place of greatest need. 

It is more distributed on the basis of political patronage. We certainly see this in and around Kirkuk, which seems to be the next 

target for the Islamic State. 

But because Kirkuk voted the wrong way in the Kurdish elections they are simply not getting the weaponry from the Kurdistan 

central government. 

Mr. HIGGINS. I yield back my time. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. Wilson of South Carolina. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Madame Chair, and thank 

you for having this very important hearing and each of you we appreciate you being here today. 

I particularly appreciate, Dr. Rubin, the American Enterprise Institute. I well remember nearly 2 years ago right here, as our 

President was falsely claiming that radical Islam was on the run, 

that the threats to American families was being diminished, that 

Dr. Kagan was here with a map clearly showing that there was a 

spread of threats across North Africa, Middle East and Central 

Asia, and what he projected at that time, sadly, has come to effect. 

And so we really appreciate AEI presenting information to us. 

I am particularly interested in the Kurdish regional government 

that we have worked with for many years—the Kurdish regional 

government of Iraq. 

51

You are indicating that they have not been properly using the 

equipment received, but yet I was sincerely hoping that we could 

continue, obviously, to be working with them for the mutual interest that we have and that has been in place for decades and with 

the no-fly zone, on and on. 

So how can we work with them and encourage their active and 

very capable involvement? 

Mr. RUBIN. Thank you, Congressman, for your kind words. I 

would say simply trust but verify, and we don’t want to get into 

a situation anywhere in Iraq where we are used as a foil for unrelated political rivalries. 

So it is essential that we simply don’t insist that the Kurds get 

the weaponry but we go the extra step and suggest that once they 

do get the weaponry they have to show that it is being distributed 

on the basis of military need and if that involves American advisors in the various war rooms to help second guess those decisions, 

so be it. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, thank you very much for that insight. 

Dr. Cordesman, my whole time being here—I was elected in 2001 

so I have not forgotten 9/11. It is on my mind all the time, that 

where there are safe havens for terrorists anywhere in the world 

that the American people and American families are at risk of a 

murderous attack again. 

We saw the attack of Osama bin Laden from a cave in Afghanistan but a greater threat over the last year it is inconceivable to 

me that the city of Mosul, a city of nearly 1 million people, has 

been under the control of ISIL. 

How great a threat and as a launching place is it that such a 

city be under their control? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. I think the issue is much broader. As long as 

they are a growing proto state which extends into both Iraq and 

Syria they have the ability to attract foreign volunteers, to train 

them, potentially to use them. 

As people they can use in Europe or the United States to conduct 

acts of international terrorism. But right now, the odd aspect is 

they are so caught up in dealing with the al-Nusra front, Assad 

and the Iraqi Government that it is a threat which may well become far more serious in the future. 

The oddity, I would say, is as we look at Yemen, in spite of what 

has happened there, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is still a 

critical issue. 

If you look at al-Qaeda in that map which, as Dr. Kagan presented to you several years ago, and you combine it with the ISIL 

map, it has expanded into many other areas. 

Those don’t have the same internal pressures for conflict and in 

many of those you may find the threat changes and becomes more 

serious to us or other states. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Cicilline. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Madame Chair. 

Dr. Cordesman, in your written testimony you speak about or 

write about the need for a civil military and whole of government 

strategy for both Iraq and Syria, and you speak about it being 

52

largely the responsibility of these individual nations to determine 

their own destiny. 

And you, I think, accurately recite a whole series of challenges 

including deeply divided societies, inadequate governance, massive 

corruption, mismanaged economies, demographic pressures that 

make a challenging context even in times of peace. 

In light of that, is our reliance on a strategy that focuses on 

training and equipping the Iraqi army, the peshmerga, the Shi’ite 

militia—does that have a real possibility of success in any event or 

are there things we should be doing differently that might produce 

a better outcome? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. In the case of Iraq, I think the problem is we 

aren’t doing either one particularly thoroughly. You can do serious 

damage to the Islamic State and to extremism using force. 

But I think that if you are going to deal with Iraq’s civil problems you need to work very carefully with every element you can 

in Iraq to move them toward unity, to overcome the kind of problems and divisions that have grown between Sunni and Shi’ite and 

Arab and Kurd. 

One of the things that I think is very discouraging and one thing 

that you might want to conduct hearings on is the idea that what 

we need in Baghdad is a normal Embassy that does not put real 

pressure for this kind of unity on the Iraqi Government. 

I would want to see exactly what the strategy and the efforts are, 

whether there are things we could do to encourage federation or reform without attempting to dictate it, and I have not seen any indication of that, at least in public terms, and being reassured in 

broad terms doesn’t help me. 

In the case of Syria, the issue is far more difficult. One way or 

another we have the al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State, Assad and 

perhaps some very small groups of Islamists which are more moderate. 

It has never been explained to me why training 5,000 volunteers 

a year is going to have any impact on this situation, civil or military, and as was raised earlier, we are talking about essentially 11 

million people, refugees or IDPs. 

So we either have some civil strategy for Syria and a military 

strategy or we have a nightmare where anything we do militarily 

does not bring stability or security. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. I just have 1 minute left so I want 

to ask Dr. Rubin. Thank you, Doctor. Dr. Rubin, can you just speak 

briefly about the Kurdistan-Iran relationship? 

You know, we kind of view the opportunities that exist with the 

Kurds to be a panacea. So I would like to hear, and also what more 

can we be doing to persuade Turkey to really take seriously their 

responsibility to stem the flow of foreign fighters and really close 

their border? 

Does that continue to be a resource or pathway for most of the 

foreign fighters into the region? 

Mr. RUBIN. Thank you very much. Firstly, make no mistake, on 

the ground many Kurds are pro-American. For that matter, many 

Iraqis are—non-Kurdish Iraqis are also pro-American. 

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member 1975 and 1988, both periods in which they feel that they 

were betrayed by the United States. 

On top of that, Iran is their neighbor and a major Iranian influence operation is that you can like the Americans better but you 

are always going to have live next to us and that Iranians do tend 

to exert that pressure a great deal. 

When I go to both Iraq and Baghdad, Basra and Kurdistan, Gerbil and Sulaymaniyah I am told, jokingly, that Qasem Soleimani 

was there 2 weeks ahead of me in each of those cities including 

Kurdistan. 

The danger is that the Americans have let their card down when 

it comes to Iraqi Kurdistan and we don’t recognize the—just how 

deeply they have been penetrated by the Islamic Revolutionary 

Guard corps and the Quds Force. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline. 

Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Dr. Spence, let me come to you. You talked about this 3-year 

strategy, you know, that the success is going to take about 3 years 

and that is what the administration has said. This is going to be 

a longer-term strategy. 

So when originally we came up with this 3-year window of success in our fight, was it contemplated at that particular time that 

ISIL was going to expand their capabilities and acquire all this 

other new territory? Was that part of what we assumed was going 

to happen? 

Mr. SPENCE. Congressman, what I would say is that even though 

there is a longer-term strategy, we need to have interim report 

cards. 

You can’t just wait to see what happens at the end of 3 years 

and, of course, to answer your question directly two things that at 

the Defense Department we are particularly concerned about are, 

first, denying territory and safe haven to ISIL, meaning they 

should not be expanding territory. 

And then second, to what degree are we building the capacity to 

the partners doing the fighting. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Agreed. 

Mr. SPENCE. So the first question I am very, very concerned 

about——

Mr. MEADOWS. So they are expanding territory. So I guess our 

strategy is not working is what I am saying. The American people 

believe it is not working. So do you have a different opinion? 

Mr. SPENCE. The way I would—the way I would put it, just very 

candidly, is there will be places where ISIL has expanded and 

there are places where ISIL is also in retreat. This is not a homogenous fight. Iraq is not homogenous where ISIL can have control. 

So to be very blunt, what happened in the last weeks was a significant setback. We should make no bones about it and we should 

be very honest about what happened. 

It was only a setback because this was an area where we had 

Americans fight and die before. It is in a hugely important part of 

Iraq. Also, it creates a sense of momentum. If more of that happens 

then it becomes very positive. 

54

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, and that is what I am seeing is momentum, 

but part of that is a direct response to our anemic air strikes, our 

anemic support and, I guess, when are we going to get serious 

about it. 

And I say that because under sworn testimony before the Senate 

Armed Services Committee we heard testimony that basically that 

75 percent of our sorties that are going out are coming back without deploying, you know, their missiles or bombs and so they are 

coming back. 

The other troubling aspect for me is is during a 29-day conflict 

with Gaza and Israel they were able to put almost 3,000 missiles 

into Israel and yet here we are, the most powerful nation in the 

world, and we, over a 4-month period, did less than 1,000 air 

strikes in a much larger geographic region. 

So how is that going to create the fear of the American military 

might if we are being anemic? 

Mr. SPENCE. So I think—I don’t think we are being anemic now 

with American air power. That said——

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, less than 15 flights a day. I mean, you get 

more flights coming in over the National Mall here than you do in 

Syria and Iraq. So how can you say that it is not anemic? 

Mr. SPENCE. Look, we have had—the sheer number of sorties 

and weapons dropped in the territory and the ISIL targets that 

have been taken out have been significant. 

Now, as I said earlier, I do think we should do whatever we can 

to make sure that we are expanding the target list and look very 

carefully to make sure that we are making the best use of air 

power. 

So as we think about forward-deployed air controllers, American 

as well as coalition forces, I think this is something we should seriously consider balanced against, of course, the risks to the U.S. 

services. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Dr. Rubin, let me go very quickly to you 

because what we see is with Turkey contributing to the ISIL can 

you speak to that—our strategy with regards to foreign fighters 

coming in? And I will yield back and let you answer. 

Mr. RUBIN. Yes, thank you, and thank you also to Representative 

Cicilline. I didn’t get to this part of your question because of time. 

Basically, I would argue that Turkey has become Pakistan on the 

Mediterranean where they are willing to say one thing publicly and 

quite—and do quite another issue. 

I gave one item in my testimony both oral and written, which 

should be a no-brainer on the part of Turkey, to be a cost-free option to test whether Turkey is sincere or not. 

But look, Turkey, in the late 1990s, sealed their border with 

Syria. So the argument that they cannot seal their border with 

Syria is nonsense. They simply do not want to. 

And even if the June 7th election leads to a coalition government—and it is not clear that the election will be free and fair—

over the past 10-plus years President Erdogan and his party have 

completely shifted the Syria policy, if you will, to the MIT—to Syria’s intelligence unit. 

55

So even under a coalition government we are still going to have 

the problem continue unless there is some serious pressure on 

President Erdogan to stop the nonsense. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you. I thank the witnesses and I would 

just say that the Ramadi setback was something that does resonate 

with me because I know the number of people who fought and died 

and were injured driving al-Qaeda and Iraq out of Ramadi. 

That was one of the most dangerous places in the world in 2005–

2006. I was deployed in that area. By the time we left in 2008 it 

was peaceful. And so to see it go back is something that hurts. 

Dr. Cordesman, to what extent is Iran supporting the Iraqi forces 

right now? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. Quite frankly, I think you would need to get 

that answer at a very sensitive level of intelligence. But several 

things are clear. The Quds Force is active. They have provided, for 

example, SU–25s. 

Now, they were Iraqi originally until Saddam flew them to Iran. 

They have provided significant numbers of weapons. They have certainly trained and equipped the militias, some of which are seen 

as more moderate than others. So you have a very active role and 

they are forward. 

So when you have Iraqi troops move forward there are often Iranians present in small numbers. It is not a matter of volunteers 

who are dominating any aspect of military operations. 

I think that they have a significant political influence and they 

certainly are tying their military actions to trying to give themselves visibility. 

In looking at what they have done and said, they also often, at 

least quietly, are saying our air power is ineffective—we are not 

really serious about training—you can’t trust us, and they can split 

the message up between one focused on Shi’ites and other factions. 

They are also present in the Kurdish area and we should have 

no illusions that this is only something that affects the areas under 

the Iraqi Government control. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Dr. Rubin, what do you—what is your view on the 

extent to which Iran is influencing and directing these anti-ISIL 

operations in Iraq? 

Mr. RUBIN. Well, let me put it this way. Iran will take credit for 

any success that occurs. They are trying to infiltrate. I would respectfully disagree a bit with Dr. Spence that in the short term any 

benefit can be derived from Iranian actions inside Iraq. 

Iran is not an altruistic power and if the problem—if you are 

willing to accept that the problem is based in grievance and not 

simply ideology and if the grievance has to do with sectarianism, 

then the Iranian-backed forces are the most sectarian forces there. 

That said, there is a silver lining if we choose to take advantage 

of that. Under Prime Minister Maliki, there was a political purge 

to concert the more pro-Iranian members into Iraqi army units and 

they were the ones who fared particularly poorly in Mosul. 

So this idea that we can derive even military benefit from Iranian prowess, to me, is overstating in the extreme. 

56

Look, we have an interest in defeating the Islamic State. The 

Iranians have an interest also in the Islamic State. But arsonists 

and firefighters both have interests in fires. It doesn’t mean we are 

on the same side of the issue. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And what about the nuclear agreement or pending agreement? This has, obviously, unnerved a lot of Sunni gulf 

states to see the United States essentially tilting toward Iran. 

How does that play just kind of on the street and for the average 

Sunni Arab in al-Anbar province, I mean, if they see the forces as 

being infiltrated by Iran, they see the U.S. tilting perhaps toward 

Iran? It just seems like that we are driving them into the arms of 

ISIS. 

Mr. RUBIN. Not only are we driving them into the arms of ISIS, 

but we are going to make the situation far worse down the line. 

The Khatam al-Anbia, which is the economic wing of the Islamic 

Revolutionary Guard corps, controls about 40 percent of the Iranian economy. When the Iranians derive this $50 billion to $100 

billion in relief after any nuclear accord, that money isn’t going to 

flow into ordinary Iranians’ coffers. 

I used to live in the Islamic Republic. I can give you any number 

of anecdotes. But for the sake of brevity that is going to directly 

to the Iranians. 

Now, between 2000 and 2005 the price of oil doubled, the European Union trade with Iran almost tripled and under the 

reformists—the so-called reformists—that hard currency windfall 

went almost exclusively into Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capability. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Rubin, and thank you, 

Mr.——

Mr. DESANTIS. Yeah. Sorry. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. But votes have started. So our wrap-up question and answer period will be led by Dr. Yoho. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate it. 

Dr. Spence, you were talking about an inclusive government in 

Iraq. Is that possible in Iraq? 

Mr. SPENCE. Yes, I believe so. 

Mr. YOHO. You know, what I see is when Saddam Hussein was 

there, there was a unified Iraq because he ruled it with an iron 

fist. But what I see today, and talking to the experts, you have the 

Sunnis loyal to the Sunnis, Shi’a loyal to the Shi’a, Kurds loyal to 

the Kurds. 

To be able to be under one unified government I am not seeing 

that work and I know that was one of the strategies of being able 

to build these forces that were going to, you know, all be loyal to 

the Iraqi flag the way we see unity and loyalty to the American 

flag. 

I don’t see that happening. What do the people of Iraq want? I 

mean, the different tribal cultures—you know, the split up of the 

cultures there—what do they want? 

Mr. SPENCE. They want much of what most of us want. They 

want to be represented. They don’t want to be pushed out. They 

don’t want to have fear for their lives and their basic needs. 

Mr. YOHO. I mean, we all have the basic rights of we want better 

for our children, a better life, and we want certain basic freedoms. 

57

But yet, do they see that working together in a unified country 

made up of different factions or different cultures? 

Mr. SPENCE. I think there have been—it is hard to do but there 

have been some steps taken to your question exactly about what 

has been done to outreach more. So when Prime Minister Abadi 

came in he took some immediate steps to reach out to the Sunnis, 

which Maliki simply had not done. 

He appointed, for example, a Defense Minister who is a Sunni, 

which is a critical form—a critical post to have had. He fired some 

of the most political generals who really weren’t leading at all. 

Even after what happened in Ramadi he called his full cabinet—

his national security cabinet together where it was both Kurds and 

Sunnis and Shi’a to talk about what they need to do necessarily. 

Within the Iraqi Parliament a bill for a national guard, which 

would not just have Shi’as fighting, has passed a second reading. 

So steps have been taken to bring some of these fighters in. It is 

hard, but things have been done and I think we just need to push 

more to happen. 

Mr. YOHO. Well, I have seen that and you are talking about that 

national guard made up of different groups. We tried that with the 

Iraqi security forces and they folded like cheap suits. 

Dr. Cordesman, what is your opinion on that? 

Mr. CORDESMAN. I don’t think that the security forces universally 

fold. I think some of them have been exhausted. Better units, for 

example, were sent in to Ramadi—not rotated, not supported and 

not reinforced. 

Mr. YOHO. Dr. Rubin, how about you? 

Mr. RUBIN. I have talked to Iraqi insurgents and I have talked 

to Shi’ites. The one area of consensus in which they have is a support for administrative federalism and by that I mean while Baghdad would have control over foreign policy and defense, all other 

decisions would be based on the district or sub-district level, not 

based on ethnic divisions, although oftentimes those will coincide. 

Mr. YOHO. Is that long term or is that just to get through the 

crisis we are in now? 

Mr. RUBIN. That is long term. 

Mr. YOHO. All right. Let me ask you this about Syria, if we can 

pivot to Syria. 

Where is the U.N.? Has there been a resolution from the U.N. 

that comes out and denounces Assad and denounces the civil war 

and Assad for having a civil war, for the hundreds of thousands of 

people that have been genocide there, destabilizing not just his 

country, the surrounding countries, the whole Middle East and basically the world? 

When you have 7 million refugees, where is the U.N. coming out 

and saying, we are done with this—we are doing an ultimatum—

you need to get your country under control in a time period and 

the world—the nations of the world stand up? Has that been done, 

and why not if not? 

Mr. RUBIN. When you ask the question where is the U.N. the answer is usually in a five-star hotel. 

Mr. YOHO. Right. 

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Mr. RUBIN. But the real problem with regard to the United Nations on this is it is infused with cultural and moral equivalency. 

It is not there to solve problems. It is there to avoid solutions. 

Mr. YOHO. Well, and I think they do very well at that. And, you 

know, and then I question why are we there—why are we with the 

U.N. and where is the rest of the world, because what Assad is 

doing is bad, you know, for everything I just mentioned and I think 

the biggest thing is the humanitarian crisis and the strife he has 

caused in that country to his own people. 

This has gone on long enough. I would wish the world community would come up and say, this is it—you are done and it needs 

to have a regime change. 

But then I worry about who is going to fill that void because as 

we all know, nature abhors a vacuum and I am out of time. Thank 

you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Yoho. 

Mr. YOHO. I got to go do my constitutional duty and vote. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you to our panelists, and before we 

adjourn I would like my wonderful congressional interns to stand 

up and take a bow. We are singlehandedly keeping all of these juvenile delinquents off the streets. 

Thank you, guys, and with that our subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:19 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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