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FROM IRAQ AND SYRIA TO LIBYA AND BEYOND:

THE EVOLVING ISIL THREAT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Serial No. 114–141

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 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

The Honorable Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, U.S. Department of State ............................................. 4

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Brett McGurk: Prepared statement ............................................. 9

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 54

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 55

The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs: Material 

submitted for the record ...................................................................................... 57

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 61

Written responses from the Honorable Brett McGurk to questions submitted 

for the record by: 

The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Florida .......................................................................................... 62

The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Texas ............................................................................................. 68

The Honorable David A. Trott, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan ............................................................................................. 72

(1)

FROM IRAQ AND SYRIA TO LIBYA AND 

BEYOND: THE EVOLVING ISIL THREAT 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. All right, this hearing will come to order. 

Today we will hear from the administration’s point-man on its effort to combat ISIS. He is back before the committee again. Now 

this is an issue that this committee has raised repeatedly since 

ISIS first began its attacks and we began calling for air strikes 

against ISIS. 

It has now been 2 years since President Obama dismissed ISIS 

as the JV team. Today, the administration claims its goal is to ‘‘degrade and ultimately destroy’’ ISIS, but it still doesn’t have a strategy to get that job done. The tide has not turned in terms of the 

growing influence of ISIS. 

Instead, these ‘‘fighters on the back of pickup trucks,’’ to use the 

President’s term, have grown into a global force, a force capable of 

striking in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and yes, capable of striking 

here at home in the United States. There are now, in terms of 

groups supporting ISIS, there are 50 ISIS-linked groups on the 

ground in 21 separate countries, and it is everywhere in cyberspace. And everywhere in cyberspace it spews that deadly message 

to kill. 

Ambassador McGurk—just back from the front lines with Syrian 

Kurds—will note some encouraging developments: Ramadi in Iraq 

was retaken in December, and after some much-needed loosening 

of the rules of engagement, ISIS-controlled oil installations in Syria 

have been finally bombed. This is good. But these gains have been 

too slow to come and too limited. Every day that ISIS makes advances, seemingly unchecked, it draws recruits to plot new attacks 

abroad, including the United States. 

Meanwhile the Iraqi Government hasn’t been able to deliver as 

it should. The Iraqi Kurds, long denied better arms, are desperate. 

Sunni forces, key to any success, do not trust Baghdad as the government has failed to include them, in their view, in the government and to include them in the armed forces in a meaningful way. 

And across the region, the U.S. is perceived—the perception is that 

2

we are only willing to back non-Sunnis. Now this only empowers 

ISIS. 

Militarily, the size of the recently announced Special Operations 

Force to target ISIS leadership is a fraction of what past efforts 

have entailed. Our air strikes are still only averaging 23 a day—

a fraction of what a serious air campaign looks like. 

In the failed state of Libya—where militants don’t face a threat 

from the air—ISIS has doubled in size. These 6,000 fighters are 

several hundred miles from Europe. They have their sights on 

Libya’s oil, a tactic that made it the world’s richest terror group, 

and despite years of warnings about Libya’s course the administration’s response has been feeble. 

In Afghanistan too, ISIS is spreading. But only recently has the 

President lifted the rules of engagement that were preventing our 

troops from targeting this deadly group. Last week, U.S. air strikes 

finally destroyed an ISIS ‘‘Voice of the Caliphate’’ radio station 

there in Afghanistan. 

So what took so long? ISIS propaganda operations are in overdrive, they are getting better every day. Yet our Government’s effort to counter-message—led by the Broadcasting Board of Governors—remains in disarray. 

And when it comes to Syria, tragically, the U.S. response has 

been downright shameful. The slaughter goes on. Train and equip 

failed. In December, the U.S. joined Russia to pass a U.N. Security 

Council resolution that required humanitarian aid and the end of 

civilian bombing as part of its plan for ‘‘peace talks.’’ But rather 

than stand firm and put pressure on Russia to abide by this resolution, Secretary Kerry pushed the opposition to the negotiating table 

even as the Russian and Assad regimes intensified their bombings. 

The result is predictable failure. 

As Syria has imploded over the years, rather than tackle the 

problem, the Obama administration has sat on its hands—paralyzed by a series of ‘‘what ifs.’’ Today Assad and Russian forces 

have Aleppo under siege. They are relentlessly bombing U.S.-

backed Sunni opposition forces that are critical to the fight against 

ISIS. 

Just yesterday, Lieutenant General Steward, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, warned that ISIS ‘‘will attempt attacks 

on the U.S. homeland,’’ in his words, ‘‘in 2016.’’ If we are to truly 

defeat ISIS, and we must, the half measures and the indecisiveness 

must stop. I now yield to the ranking member, Mr. Eliot Engel 

from New York, for any opening comments he may have. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to our 

witness, welcome to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Special Envoy 

McGurk. Brett, I have been impressed for many years by your 

record of service to our country and I want to thank you for it. You 

have notched another remarkable achievement by working to negotiate the release of five American prisoners who were wrongly held 

by Iran, and I join the families of these men and with all Americans in thanking you for your efforts. 

Today, we are glad to hear from you about the fight against ISIS 

and the dynamic threat the group poses, the way the organization 

is adapting to challenges and growing. The United States has 

spearheaded a coalition of 66 partners with the goal of destroying 

3

ISIS. Different countries play different roles: Cutting off ISIS from 

its finances, stopping the flow of foreign fighters, providing humanitarian support, countering ISIS propaganda, joining in air strikes, 

and building capacity of fighters on the ground. This shared burden 

prevents the United States from being drawn into another long 

war. We must defeat ISIS, but we cannot and should not do it 

alone. 

Between 10,000 coalition air strikes and a relentless press of 

local ground forces, we have seen some progress. From Kobani to 

Mount Sinjar to Tikrit to Ramadi, ISIS has lost a quarter of the 

populated territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, and yet the reality across the region remains grim. Syrians continue to flee the 

Assad regime in droves. Assad has been given another lifeline by 

Russian’s bombardment of civilian areas, attacks that continue to 

kill women and children. And ISIS latches on to these deplorable 

actions to use for recruitment and propaganda. 

Iraq has also had to rely on Shia militants, Shia militias loyal 

to Iran. As a result, Iraq remains divided along sectarian lines as 

Iran gains even greater influence in Iraq. This could leave the region with the same cleavages that allowed ISIS to thrive in the 

first place. If we do not address the political void and sectarian tensions there will be no long-term stability. 

The same themes are already playing out in Libya and Yemen. 

Terrorists love a vacuum. In the absence of real stability, rule of 

law and effective government, ISIS will fill the void. Focusing on 

long-running tensions in these countries will go a long way toward 

denying ISIS safe haven. 

So today I hope we can have a good discussion on how the United 

States should continue responding to the threat. How can we stem 

the growth of ISIS? How do we stay one step ahead of them? Sometimes, unfortunately, it seems as if we are only halfheartedly going 

after ISIS and halfheartedly helping the Free Syrian Army and 

others on the ground. 

As you know, for many years, 3 or 4 years, I have been calling 

on aiding the Free Syrian Army, and I believe that when we didn’t 

aid them, they withered on the vine and ISIS moved into the void. 

I hope that we will be part of a robust campaign, not a tentative 

one or one that seems like we are dragging ourselves in, but a robust campaign to destroy ISIS and get rid of Assad. I understand 

that we cannot do it alone nor should we. We need our Arab partners and our Middle East partners and other partners on the 

ground, the Kurds and others, to help, but I think we have to lead 

and I think it is important that we do that. 

So I look forward to hearing from our witness on these questions 

and others, and I am glad that Congress is staying engaged on this 

issue in various ways. Another step we can take is to push for a 

robust foreign affairs budget. The President sent his budget request to Congress yesterday and I hope that we on this committee 

will make all the needed investments to meet these challenges and 

all our challenges abroad. I hope we will soon take up an authorization for the use of military force, which gives the President what 

he needs to grapple with this threat without running the risk of 

another full-scale, open-ended commitment of American forces in 

the Middle East. If we are asking American service members to 

4

risk their lives in the fight against ISIS, we should at the very 

least, I believe, do our job as well. 

So thank you again, Mr. McGurk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 

yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Engel. This morning we are 

pleased to be joined by Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk. 

Mr. McGurk was recently promoted from deputy to Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. Prior to 

these assignments, Special Envoy McGurk served as the Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. 

Mr. McGurk has been a valuable voice in the administration, 

pressing for a more robust U.S. role, and I appreciate that. Without 

objection, the witness’ full prepared statement will be made part of 

the record and members will have 5 calendar days to submit statements, questions and extraneous materials for the record. So we 

would ask if you could summarize your remarks, Ambassador. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BRETT MCGURK, SPECIAL 

PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR THE GLOBAL COALITION TO 

COUNTER ISIL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Engel, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and members of the committee. It is a 

real honor to be here. I first appeared before you in this committee 

in November 2013 to talk about then what we knew as al-Qaeda 

in Iraq, and the emerging threats which we now know as ISIL. I 

have been back a number of times since then including shortly 

after the fall of Mosul. I deeply value the partnership with this 

committee, and I thank you for your leadership on this most pressing national security issue. 

I was in Iraq when Mosul fell in the summer of 2014, and the 

situation then could not have been more serious and dire. Baghdad 

was under threat, thousands were being massacred, collapse of the 

Iraqi security forces—seven entire divisions—the situation seemed 

almost hopeless. We had to build a foundation and fight back. And 

that required a new Iraqi Government, a better intelligence picture, a military strategy to strike ISIL and train local forces, and 

a political strategy to reflect the realities on the ground. 

We also had to build an international coalition from around the 

world, recognizing that this is a global challenge like none we have 

seen before, at one point with more than 30,000 foreign fighters 

from 120 countries all around the world. So we acted, we acted aggressively, and we are now beginning to see some results. However, 

while the progress is clear, which I will discuss, the challenges and 

threats to our national security interests remain acute. As Director 

of National Intelligence Clapper stated yesterday before the Senate 

Armed Services Committee, ISIL remains ‘‘our preeminent terrorist 

threat.’’

So how do we analyze ISIL? How do we make sense of it? Because only by making sense of it with data, analysis, and empirical 

underpinning can we effectively defeat it. We analyze ISIL in three 

main categories. First, its core in Iraq and Syria; second, its networks around the world, foreign fighters, finance and propaganda; 

and third, its affiliates, now of which there are eight. 

5

I want to focus in this introductory statement on the core, and 

the core is really key. It is the phony, self-proclaimed caliphate 

that ISIL proclaims to have established, and it is one of the main 

magnets that is attracting people from all around the world. So let 

me start with some facts of what we are doing in the core. 

ISIL has now lost 40 percent of its territory in Iraq, more than 

10 percent of its territory in Syria, it has not won a single battle 

since May, and as you can see in the map that I have projected 

here, the green areas are areas in which since the summer of 2014 

we have now taken from ISIL. But the figures, for example, 40 percent of territory, really does not matter. What is important is that 

this is strategic ground. 

In Iraq, the iconic Sunni cities of Tikrit and Ramadi, in Tikrit, 

95 percent of the population is now back in their homes in the city 

according to U.N. estimates. In Ramadi, it was the first test of 

Iraqi security forces really acting on their own to liberate that 

iconic city. In Syria, it is not just the data, it is what is on the map. 

The green, taking away the entire border area which used to be 

controlled by Daesh east of the Euphrates River, and that border 

is now green because of what happened in the city of Kobani. 

I traveled to Kobani last week in northern Syria, and I was 

brought to the site of where we dropped supplies, where President 

Obama ordered an air drop of military equipment and supplies at 

a key moment in November 2014 when that battle was about to be 

lost. 

I spoke with one of the commanders. He said without that air 

drop they would have been overrun. And it was from that air drop 

and working with the forces on the ground that they were able to 

defeat ISIL—6,000 ISIL fighters lost their lives in Kobani—and 

then expand their presence outward and take away that entire border from ISIL. It is a testament to the courage of some of the partners we have on the ground and also the many challenges ahead. 

I was able to travel to Syria because we now have a presence on 

the ground in Syria and there is no substitute for this. By having 

a presence on the ground we have gained better insights every day, 

and with better insights we can act with more devastating effect. 

Our better intelligence picture is allowing us to eliminate ISIL 

leaders, including 90 senior to mid-level leaders over the second 

half of last year alone, including Baghdadi’s key deputies, Haji 

Mutazz, who was his number one leader in Iraq, and Abu Sayyaf, 

who was his number one financier. 

Our heroic special operators did a raid in northern Syria not long 

ago in which they killed Abu Sayyaf, and in that raid they collected 

more information than any operation in their history, and we 

learned more than we ever could have imagined about ISIL’s financial networks. From there, we pooled intelligence from across the 

coalition from our Department of Treasury, from the State Department and the intelligence community to relentlessly uproot their financial apparatus, and that is what we have been doing. 

ISIL is now cutting their salaries for their fighters by about 50 

percent, and we are seeing the effect that they are having by our 

strikes on their trucks moving oil, on their oil platforms and on 

their cash storage sites. 

6

Let me go around the map very briefly, if I could, Mr. Chairman, 

just to bring you into the overall campaign and how we are approaching the core. I will start at number one. Number one is a 98 

kilometer stretch of border. It is the only stretch of border now that 

ISIL controls with Turkey. It is its remaining sole outlet to the 

world. 

We have worked very closely with our Turkish partners, including a number of meetings with President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu just in the past few months, and they are doing 

quite a lot. They are building berms, they are increasing patrols, 

they are sharing intelligence, they are setting up risk analyses, and 

they are conducting cross-border artillery strikes. 

This is having an impact. It is much harder for ISIL fighters to 

get into Syria now than it was even 6 months ago, and once they 

are in it is much harder for them to get out. And that is our objective. They can’t get in, and when they get in they will never get 

out because they will die in Iraq and Syria. 

The impact is in the numbers from our intelligence assessments. 

From the summer of 2014 when the high end estimate of about 

31,500 foreign fighters in ISIL, but now it is down to about 25,000. 

So the tide of that number is starting to turn. We know from their 

own publications they are now telling their fighters, don’t come into 

Syria, go elsewhere. Go into Libya. And that is because it is much 

harder for them to get into Syria. 

Moving to number two, Raqqa. Raqqa remains their headquarters. It remains their hub. It remains where most of their leaders are. It remains where their external plotting networks are established. That is why we are going to work with our local partners 

in Syria, a collection of Arabs and Kurds, to push on Raqqa and 

isolate them in Raqqa. And that will be ongoing over the coming 

months. 

I will move quickly in the interest of time over to Iraq and I will 

skip right to number five in Mosul. Mosul will remain a tremendous challenge. There are about 1 million people in Mosul. It is a 

politically diverse city and to get it right we have to work politically and militarily hand in glove. 

When I was in Iraq last week we met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad and with the Kurdish leadership, including Prime Minister 

Nechirvan Barzani and others, and we have now established a joint 

operational headquarters in Makhmur, which is on the map here. 

And that is where we are going to pool Sunni fighters, Kurdish 

Peshmerga, Iraqi security forces with our advisors, with Peshmerga 

commanders, with Iraqi commanders to plan the liberation of 

Mosul. 

This will be an integrated campaign across multiple lines of effort. It will not be a D-Day like campaign. It is not going to start 

on a certain date because it is already starting. We are already cutting off the road access to Mosul. We are already doing air strikes 

in Mosul every single day. We are already learning more about 

what Daesh is doing in Mosul. That is why we are striking their 

cash warehouse sites, for example. So the Mosul liberation campaign has already begun. However, it will be an extremely difficult 

endeavor and we are not going to put a timeline on when Mosul 

will be liberated, but it will. 

7

Moving south, I will go to number seven which is Tikrit. Tikrit, 

again, an iconic Sunni city in the heart of Saladin Province, was 

totally depopulated by ISIL. Not only that, they killed thousands 

of people in a massacre known as the Camp Speicher massacre in 

the summer of 2014. Iraqi security forces with our help were able 

to liberate the city. 

And most importantly, we are not just focused on defeating ISIL 

but what comes after ISIL and working with the coalition and an 

international stabilization fund that we established together with 

the Government of Iraq. And I give Prime Minister Abadi great 

credit in devolving powers, delegating powers to local leaders. We 

have been able to return the population to Tikrit. The U.N. reported in Rome last week at a coalition meeting that 95 percent of 

the citizens of Tikrit are now back. 

We are building on those lessons now. I will go right to number 

eight on the map which is Ramadi. Ramadi was the first significant 

test for the Iraqi security forces since their collapse in the summer 

of 2014. This was an operation which was done entirely by the 

Iraqi security forces and local Sunni tribal fighters. And the Sunni 

tribal fighters in Anbar continue to grow in number and capacity. 

We have about 10,000 of them now, and I can discuss that in some 

detail, Mr. Chairman. 

We have liberated Ramadi, but the city remains quite devastated 

from the fighting. Nearly every other home is booby trapped or has 

IEDs. And I met with the governor of Anbar Province and he told 

us very specifically what he needs. Without getting the counterIED teams back in there to de-wire all these homes which have 

been booby trapped it will delay the return of the population and 

it is something that we are working on now quite aggressively. 

I will move finally, Mr. Chairman, I can go through this map in 

some detail in my testimony, but I want to point out number 11. 

Number 11 is where you see dark red; because as we push ISIL 

and we squeeze them they will try to fill spaces in the soft underbelly of Syria. Palmyra they took some time ago. That has been in 

the news. But the little small, dark red blotches heading toward 

Jordan are something that we are very focused on. And Jordan, of 

course, is one of our closest partners in the region. We are very focused on Jordan’s security. 

In October, the President authorized enhanced military assistance to Jordan as part of our strategy to intensify the counter-ISIL 

campaign that includes almost $200 million for border security to 

detect and deter threats. I will be in Jordan next week with a 

broad interagency delegation including our overall commander of 

the counter-ISIL campaign, Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, 

to see His Majesty King Abdullah and talk about the threats to 

Jordan and how we are going to make sure that they protect their 

border. 

That is a very, very brief and very quick summary of the most 

complicated situation imaginable, but I look forward over the next 

2 hours to answering all of your questions. And I just want to close 

where I began in really thanking this committee for the leadership 

that you have shown, Mr. Chairman and the entire committee, on 

this issue. I value this partnership, and now that we look to accelerate the campaign over the next year I look forward to the close 

8

partnership that I have had with you going forward. So with that 

I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McGurk follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Ambassador. Briefly here, you 

argue, as has the administration, about the importance for local 

partners in ISIS-held territory. I certainly agree with that. Sunni 

partners are very important. So if Aleppo, which has been encircled, if that falls as the Russians pummel it and as Hezbollah and 

as Assad attempt to collapse Aleppo, will we have any Free Syrian 

Army partners left? 

And then the other concern I have in terms of the Sunni population is I understand that the Shia-led government in Iraq is 

working to use the justice system to further push out the Sunnis. 

And so if the central government in Iraq is unwilling to make the 

reforms needed in order to create a more inclusive government and 

inclusive security forces, what will be left of Iraq? And what will 

be left of this effort to include Sunnis in our effort to put down 

ISIS? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a critical 

question and it is something that we work on every day. Not only 

at the local level where the fight against ISIS is going on, but also 

at the national level. I will start in Iraq with the Government of 

Iraq. 

Iraq just passed a budget through its Council of Representatives 

with a very important provision. It is Article 40 of its budget. And 

it allocates 30 percent, of what he called the Popular Mobilization 

Forces, that 30 percent have to come from provinces that are actively fighting ISIL. And that authorizes almost 30,000 Sunni fighters enrolled in the state security services to fight ISIL. We have 

almost 15,000 now. And they are being paid, and they are being 

paid about $680 to $750 a month. And that might not sound like 

much to us, but the rural labor earning for an average Iraqi worker 

is about $36 per month. 

So Prime Minister Abadi has put his money where his mouth is. 

It is reflected in the budget. He tells us every single day he wants 

to get the local Sunnis in the fight and we are helping them. When 

Ramadi fell, President Obama made the decision to deploy U.S. 

Special Forces to Taqaddum Airbase, which is on the map which 

I showed earlier, just east of Ramadi right in the heart between 

Ramadi and Fallujah. And we deployed out there immediately to 

work with the Iraqi security forces to get them back on their feet 

and to integrate Sunni tribal fighters into the fight. And that has 

been a success. 

In Haditha, our special forces are there working with three local 

tribes who are now mobilized actively fighting ISIL. So we are 

gaining some real capacity in Iraq on the Sunni tribal fighter side. 

In Syria, Mr. Chairman, you hit something on the head. Because 

what is happening with the Russian air strikes is that they are primarily focused on the opposition and that is happening with opposition forces we were working with to fight ISIL. And if you look 

on this map, just north of Aleppo you can see the extent of ISIL’s 

western advance. We were working with local opposition forces to 

move east to fight ISIL and that was a very sophisticated endeavor. 

But as the Russian air strike campaign has begun, particularly 

north of Aleppo, those fighters now peeled off that line to go fight 

the regime advance and this is causing real problems for the 

counter-ISIL campaign. And, frankly, we tell the Russians this 

21

very clearly. You say you are fighting ISIL, but what you are doing 

is actually having a detrimental effect to the fight against ISIL. 

And this remains a very serious concern. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. I was going to ask the Ambassador 

also, in addition to this job as Mr. Engel pointed out, you helped 

negotiate the release of the Americans being held by Iran. And last 

year the families of these Americans sat at this table. And three 

of these families are overjoyed by your work, and of course we all 

want answers to Mr. Levinson’s whereabouts. 

But I am concerned that on the same day these Americans were 

released, the Department sent Iran a check for another $1.7 billion 

on top of the $100 billion that was released at that time, and I was 

going to ask you what you knew about that payment. I found that 

in politics there are rarely coincidences, and a State Department 

spokesman said that Iran raised this payment with you as part of 

the talks on the Americans and Iranian Basij commander called 

this $1.7 billion ‘‘ransom,’’ in his words. And as you know, I have 

submitted detailed questions to the Secretary which we are anxious 

to receive. 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, first, we look forward to answering all of 

your detailed questions. This is a very complex negotiation that 

went on for 14 months focused on the issue of prisoners. The issue 

of a Hague settlement was a parallel process. We have really had 

three areas of negotiations with Iranians, really, over the last 30 

years. There has been The Hague tribunal process, and in that 

process over 30 years almost 4,700 private U.S. claims. Every single private U.S. claim has been adjudicated by The Hague. Those 

have all been settled. All that really is left is a few of these government to government claims. 

And that Hague negotiation with our lawyers at the State Department who have been doing this, many of them for decades and 

they would be happy to come up and discuss it with you in some 

detail, they were negotiating with the Iranians over a number of 

issues at The Hague over the fall and they came to some important 

settlement agreements, some important agreements on fossils, on 

artwork, and also an opportunity opened to settle this very important issue having to do with a $400 million FMS claim. And the 

lawyers who negotiate this were able to close that out, which was 

very important, and they would be happy to talk to you about why 

this was in the interest of U.S. taxpayers and the United States. 

We were facing substantial, substantial liability on this claim. As 

I understand it from the lawyers who negotiated this we were at 

the courthouse steps. There was going to be a judgment and it 

would have been potentially in the multiple billion dollars more 

than that we settled on. 

So I think we have your questions, Mr. Chairman. I know we 

will be looking forward to answering those, and our attorneys, et 

al., who really work in this every day, will give you the details. 

Chairman ROYCE. I think some of the details should have probably been shared with us during negotiations, but let me raise this 

last point. I have raised Libya with you. The new visa waiver law 

that we passed, you now have a situation of foreign fighters traveling to Libya for training. 

22

It would be possible under that law to categorize foreign nationals who travel to Libya as not being qualified for visa-free entry 

into the United States, and I was wondering if you were involved 

in discussions with Homeland Security, or if the administration 

was, on that problem. Otherwise we may find some of the same 

challenges we found when out of Syria through Turkey to Europe 

we had ISIS fighters who could have taken advantage of the visa 

waiver program. 

Mr. MCGURK. Mr. Chairman, I have not been involved in those 

precise discussions. I am very concerned about the situation in 

Libya, so I am sure that we can have the right follow-up. 

Chairman ROYCE. I would like to have Libya added to that list. 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. But thank you. I will go to Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In a recent oped in the Washington Post, former State Department officials, 

Nicholas Burns whom we know well and Jim Jeffrey concluded 

that relying on diplomacy alone will not be effective in Syria, and 

said that—and I quote them:

‘‘The Obama team would have to reconsider what it has rejected in the past, the creation of a safe zone in northern Syria 

to protect civilians along with a no-fly zone to enforce it.’’

A safe zone would allow the refugees to have a place to go where 

they would not be under constant bombardment by Assad or Russia. And since Assad remains a magnet for extremists, I believe 

that the longer Assad remains in power, the longer the coalition 

will be fighting ISIS in Syria. Assad’s reign only exacerbates the 

refugee crisis, making a safe zone, I believe, even more necessary. 

However, Assistant Secretary Anne Patterson said at a committee 

hearing late last year, and I quote her:

‘‘There is no option on the table, nor recommended by the Defense Department that does not require a massive, massive 

amount of air support that would then detract from the effort 

against ISIL.’’

So let me ask you this, Ambassador. Under what circumstances 

would the administration consider supporting a no-fly zone, what 

are the challenges in establishing a no-fly zone or a safe zone, and 

how has Russian military involvement impacted the prospects for 

a safe zone or no-fly zone? Because absent a safe zone, I don’t know 

how innocent Syrians protect themselves. 

Mr. MCGURK. Congressman, it is something we look at all the 

time. We have actually had a number of internal discussions about 

the possibility of establishing some sort of no-fly zone. And you 

should speak with some of my DoD colleagues about the details 

and difficulties of actually establishing it. It has been fully looked 

at. But everybody would agree with you that the situation right 

now is totally unacceptable. 

I am leaving tonight for Munich where we will have a meeting 

tomorrow with everybody in this international support group for 

Syria which includes Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, also Iran and 

Russia, us, everybody around the table, and there is a recognition 

that this situation is completely, totally unacceptable. We were 

23

very close in Vienna not long ago, as Secretary Kerry has discussed, to a ceasefire, and we are going to work very hard over the 

coming days to try to put in place a ceasefire. Because so long as 

this conflict is going on it makes my job against ISIL all the more 

difficult, and the humanitarian consequences of what is happening 

is just truly atrocious and terrible. 

So we have to get to a way to de-escalate this underlying conflict. 

To de-escalate the underlying conflict there has to be a political 

process that can ultimately lead to a transition in Damascus. The 

struggle we face from time to time is that the collapse of the regime in Damascus would open up a vacuum which terrorist groups 

are able to fill and so we want to have a political process that can 

lead to a transition. That is something that Secretary Kerry in particular has been working very assiduously on, but nobody can underestimate the difficulties. 

We are hopeful that in Munich over the coming days we can 

make some progress on a ceasefire, and most importantly on a humanitarian corridor. The Russians claim that they are cutting off 

weapons supply corridors, but they are actually cutting off humanitarian corridors. So at the very least they need to put their money 

where their mouth is and open up the humanitarian corridors immediately to all of these besieged areas that the U.N. has identified. 

Mr. ENGEL. Not long ago we were saying that Assad has got to 

go. Then we were saying that Assad has got to go before we can 

have these discussions. And now we are sort of hedging our bets 

and saying, well, Assad can sort of go at the end of them or as long 

as Assad understands he cannot be part of a new Syrian coalition. 

Doesn’t it seem like we just keep backtracking and backtracking? 

Mr. MCGURK. I think everybody looking at the Syria situation 

recognizes that so long as Assad is in power there will never be a 

stable Syria. Too much has happened. The crimes against humanity, everything that he is responsible for, he will never be able to 

govern. His writ will never extend to the rest of the country. It is 

completely impossible. 

And in these conversations we have in Vienna, the Russians understand that. The Iranians don’t seem to understand that. But it 

is a complete fantasy to think the Assad regime is ever going to 

be able to establish its writ over Syria. And so we have to have a 

way to have a political transition, but we do want to do it in a 

managed way through a political process that doesn’t open up further vacuums. 

But I agree with you entirely, Congressman. Assad cannot remain in power if we are ever going to get out of this incredibly difficult situation. 

And as I mentioned, discussed with the chairman, it is a question what is going on north of Aleppo. In my job on ISIL, in fighting ISIL, we had some real progress to push across what we call 

the Mari line, and the Russian air strikes have pulled those forces 

to fight the regime when they are ready to fight ISIL. So what Russia is doing is directly enabling ISIL. So that is one of the reasons 

we are getting together in Munich tomorrow, but this will be a very 

difficult 3 days coming up. 

24

But we are going to be very firm. The situation is totally unacceptable. It is causing humanitarian catastrophe. It is strengthening the regime of Assad, and all that does is fuel extremists on 

both sides of the sectarian divide. It fuels the Hezbollahs. It fuels 

the ISILs. It fuels the Nusras. So we have to come together as 

great powers, all of us, Turkey, U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, and figure out a way to settle this conflict down, otherwise it is going to 

come to haunt all of us. 

Mr. ENGEL. I have one final question. I have been having discussions, and in fact, the chairman and I have been having discussions 

with some of our Sunni Arab friends, and they express to us frustration at the United States for not being more of a player that is 

deeply involved; that we seem to be reluctant to be involved. And 

they paint a picture of the fact that they are ready to come forward 

if we come forward. If we lead, they are ready to do it. 

But they describe a reluctance on the part of the United States 

to get involved, and they say that they believe that Russia moved 

into Syria because they knew that the U.S. wasn’t moving and 

wouldn’t really be able to do anything or wouldn’t be willing to do 

anything against the Russians. How do you answer that? They 

paint a picture of just reluctance on our part, of us not really leading. Of us, they would be willing to be with us, but we are recalcitrant. How do you answer that? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, in terms of the ISIL campaign, we have done 

over 10,000 air strikes now. We have U.S. forces on the ground in 

Syria. We have U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq. We welcome our 

partners to join us in that endeavor. And we have done some real 

damage to ISIL and we are looking for others to join us, to tell you 

the truth. 

So that is something where I think we have led, and in fact Secretary Carter is meeting in Brussels today with the defense ministers of the coalition. And one of the things he is putting on members of our coalition, including a number of the Arab partners, is 

that ISIL is a threat to you. Saudi Arabia, one of our closest 

friends in the world, ISIL is in Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis are 

doing a lot against ISIL, but of course we want them to do more. 

We want all of our partners to do more. 

So this is a constant discussion we have. Our interests don’t always align directly with many of our partners’ interests. This is 

something that is natural in foreign policy with our friends. But 

this is something that we are discussing constantly. I know Foreign 

Minister Adel al-Jubeir was here yesterday. He saw the secretary. 

We will see him in—I know he saw a number of you, and we will 

see him in Munich tomorrow to try to align our approaches. 

But as a leader of the coalition, Congressman, it is something I 

deal with all around the world to try to get a focus on this core 

threat of ISIL and try to align our resources accordingly. But when 

it comes to the Assad regime we have to get a political process on 

track otherwise it is going to continue to go on, and that is why 

we are hopeful over the coming days in Munich we can make some 

progress. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. 

25

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Chairman Royce. Thank 

you, Ranking Member Engel. And welcome back, Special Envoy 

McGurk. It is an honor to be with you. I continue to be stunned 

that the State Department believes still that Russia and Iranian 

engagement in Syria could be a positive development. With the 

help of Iranian forces and Russian air power, we are seeing Assad’s 

forces creep closer to Aleppo, as has been pointed out a strong base 

for the opposition, and the regime is on the brink of encircling the 

city in order to starve the population with Russia indiscriminately 

bombing residential areas. 

Assistant Secretary Patterson testified to a question I asked her 

in November in a hearing that Assad’s atrocities are a recruiting 

tool for ISIS and that it is not possible for us to defeat ISIS while 

Assad’s massacres continue with Iran and Russia’s help. So what 

steps is the administration taking to prevent a massacre of Syria’s 

remaining moderate opposition? When will we air drop humanitarian supplies to the people of Aleppo? Is that still something that 

we are going to do? 

And you have said to the chairman and the ranking member that 

Russia is a problem, but does the administration intend to take any 

measure to stop Russia from bombing Syria’s civilians, and how 

can we justify asking the Syrian opposition to drop its condition 

that the Assad regime, Russia and Iran cease committing these 

crimes against humanity as a condition to continue to the Geneva 

talks? So I look forward to that answer. 

But let me just bring up two quick points, Mr. Ambassador. I 

wanted to ask you about the future plans for the Iraqi Jewish Archives. Can they stay in the United States? I raise it now as I have 

in the past. We have worked together with you and I thank you 

because you have been very engaged on this with the Iraqi Government. I don’t want the State Department to return these precious 

artifacts, the Iraqi Jewish Archives, and what is the fate of the Archives after the exhibit ends its run at my alma mater, Florida 

International University? 

And lastly, now that Iran has been legitimized through the 

JCPOA, received billions of dollars in sanctions relief through 

which it can continue its reign of terror, what guarantees have you 

received from the Iraqis, and have you brought it up to protect the 

residents of Camp Liberty from this newly strengthened and wellfunded regime in Tehran? You can give me a written response on 

that. 

Will we be providing aerial protection, which is what the residents want now, to the Camp Liberty residents, and are we going 

to continue to put T-walls in place or not? But if you could answer 

the question about what we are doing to prevent a massacre and 

air drop humanitarian supplies and the role of Russia, thank you, 

sir. 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. I want to thank you 

in particular for your cooperation on the very difficult issue of the 

Iraqi Jewish Archives and we are very honored that they are on 

display in your district. And when I was the Iraq DAS I worked 

on this issue quite a bit. I am no longer in that role, but I still care 

very much about it. I understand they are scheduled to run 

through the end of the year. And let me take that back to the State 

26

Department and get you a very detailed answer on that question. 

And also on the MEK, that is something I also continue to follow 

quite closely. We have made some progress in getting those folks 

out of Iraq, many of them going to Albania, but I will also get you 

a written answer on that. 

On the question of the humanitarian situation in Syria, I will 

just repeat what I said. It is completely unacceptable. The failure 

to provide humanitarian assistance to besieged communities in 

Syria is not only an international law obligation; it is now anchored 

by a brand-new U.N. Security Council resolution. This is something 

that we have to open up these corridors, period. 

And so first and foremost on the agenda when we get to Munich 

is the humanitarian corridor issue. There are besieged communities 

across Syria, millions of people. Some of them are besieged by ISIL. 

Some of them are besieged by—most of them are besieged by the 

regime. Some of them are besieged by more extreme elements of 

the opposition. All of them should have humanitarian access. That 

is a principle of international law. It is bounded by a U.N. Security 

Council resolution that we all agreed to as part of the Syria support group process, and it is first and foremost on the agenda in 

Munich. And again without underestimating the difficulty, I am 

hoping we can come out of Munich with some agreements on that. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you, Chairman Royce. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Mr. David Cicilline 

of Rhode Island. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing, and thank you, Mr. McGurk, for being here. I want to just 

focus for a moment on the effort to address the issue of the terrorist financing of ISIL. And I know you indicated in your written 

testimony that ISIL controls 80 percent of Syria’s energy supply 

and it accounts for 50 percent of their revenues, about $500 million 

a year since 2014. 

And so my first question is who is purchasing this oil generating 

the $500 million of revenue? And you also indicated that there are 

100 members of a centralized management team as well as 1,600 

energy related personnel. What are we doing to get to those individuals who are facilitating the financing of this terrorist organization? 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you, Congressman. So I will elaborate what 

is in my written testimony. You are right. We believe ISIL’s overall 

revenue is about $1 billion a year. It is less than that now. That 

is $500 million from energy products. It is purchased by a lot of 

middlemen and it is hard to tell exactly where it is going. The Russians claim Turkey is buying most of it; that actually is not true. 

The regime is buying a lot of ISIL oil, but what is happening is it 

is sold to middlemen and then it goes to a third party and so it 

is hard to trace from ISIL to the actual end user. 

But it is a significant revenue stream that we are now significantly degrading. They are not able to do what they were able to 

do in the past. We had a big debate amongst ourselves about when 

to target the trucks because the truck drivers, most of them are ordinary Iraqis and ordinary Syrians. So what we did, a very sophisticated campaign in which we—I won’t say exactly how, but we 

27

warned them that if you are driving trucks here your days are 

going to be numbered. And we were able to destroy about 400 

trucks in one shot with very limited collateral damage or civilian 

deaths, and it has had a tremendous impact on their ability to 

move oil around. 

So we will continue to do that but it is a fundamental priority 

of the overall campaign, not just taking back territory but denying 

their revenue sources. And in Mosul, because of our intelligence 

picture, we were able to target where they had cash warehouse 

sites. I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars that is how they pay 

their fighters in Mosul no longer exists. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Second, I want to ask you about we have seen a 

lot of the success of ISIL using the Internet and social media both 

to promote their propaganda as well as recruit. And I would like 

to hear a little bit about what we are doing and how we are helping 

to counter that narrative. This is obviously a religious based, false 

argument but an effective one, and not a response or narrative that 

we can necessarily respond to effectively as the United States. But 

are there efforts underway so that somebody is responding to this 

very aggressively in the same medium to help stem the flow of additional recruits? 

And final question I will ask so you will have time to answer 

both of them is, at the donor conference I know there was a commitment by Germany of $1.2 billion, I think, the United States 

over $600 million, but we still aren’t seeing the same kind of level 

of support from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait. This is a huge humanitarian crisis of really unprecedented magnitude, and what can 

we do to encourage these other countries to play a more generous 

role in dealing with the humanitarian crisis? 

Mr. MCGURK. Let me address the messaging issue because it is 

really critical. ISIL, we have looked at this in some detail, they 

have three main messaging campaigns. One is the glory of the caliphate. These sun-drenched scenes of children eating ice cream 

cones and come-bring-your-family is a total lie, but it is actually 

the majority of their content. Second is a religiously based message 

primarily focused in the Gulf and other Muslim communities, and 

then third is what gets a lot of attention which is the gore and the 

kind of the executions and beheadings. That is actually the smallest number of their content. 

But we are combating it at every single level, so we have a 24/7 

hub now in the UAE. The UAE has been a really critical partner 

here. It is called the Sawab Center. I went to see them. These are 

young Emiratis, actually people from all around the region working 

24/7 to combat the messages. They have had really a pretty good 

effect particularly with the campaign which highlighted defectors 

from ISIL that in their own narratives and their own testimony 

told the world what it was really like to be under this organization. 

So I think we are actually making some progress now in the messaging campaign. We are working closely with Twitter, with 

YouTube, with Facebook. Twitter just took down about 125,000 

ISIL affiliated, ISIL related sites. And the messaging gets a lot 

easier when we are making progress. If you are doing a messaging 

campaign for the Washington Redskins, it is easier when the team 

is winning than when the team is losing. 

28

So in 2014 when it looked like ISIL was on the march and they 

would put out these videos of their flag going from Iraq to Syria 

all the way to Italy and Rome, they really can’t say that with any 

credibility anymore. Their messages now, their spokesman, as I 

quoted in my written testimony, most of his statements now are 

defending the fact, explaining why they are losing so much territory. 

So it has changed quite a bit, but we have to remain at it 24/7; 

the UAE has been key. We want to set up a similar hub, 24/7, in 

Malaysia because there is a very different messaging propaganda 

component going out to East Asia, and also Europe because it is 

a different campaign there. So we have to check that 24/7. 

In terms of the air contributions, I have to say the Saudis put 

in $500 million into Iraqi humanitarian at a critical, critical moment in Iraq. I will actually never forget that being in Iraq. It was 

a really critical need and that money went to good use and saved 

an awful lot of lives. I will have to get for you, Congressman, the 

donations from those states at the recent London donor’s conference. I think there were some pretty good contributions, but I 

will have to come back to you with the details. 

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

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go to Mr. Chris Smith of New 

Jersey. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 

calling this very important hearing. And Mr. McGurk, welcome, 

again, to the committee and thank you for your good work. Let me 

just ask you a couple of questions. While the administration’s focus 

is on ISIS, how is this impacting the growth of al-Nusra? Does the 

focus on ISIS risk allowing other groups like al-Nusra to grow in 

strength, and what is the plan to defeat it and other like-minded 

groups? 

Let me also ask, you point out that fighters, foreign fighters, are 

coming from about 100 countries. And I am wondering, the flow 

back and forth, how many are from the U.S., years to date, if you 

have that number. When you talk about groups like Boko Haram, 

are terrorists from Boko Haram making their way to ISIS and back 

again, or is there no flow there? 

You do talk, and I am glad you do, about degrading the global 

affiliates. Are we, for example, with regards to Boko Haram truly 

training particularly the Nigerians, of course with Leahy vetted 

troops, how to do counterinsurgency on an order and scale that will 

help make them more effective, because obviously Boko Haram is 

on a tear in its terrorism. So if you could speak to those I would 

appreciate it. 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you, Congressman. I want to go briefly 

through your very good questions. Nusra is a real problem and as 

we focus on ISIL we can’t take our sights off Nusra. Nusra is core 

al-Qaeda. Its leader Julani reports directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri. 

And while the estimates vary, there are about 10,000 Nusra affiliated fighters in Syria. We think most of them are Syrians who are 

kind of under the banner of Nusra because that is just where they 

are going to survive. 

29

But we have to unravel Nusra. When we see a threat emanating 

from Nusra, we target it. The Khorasan group is something that 

we have talked about before. That was a core al-Qaeda type external plotting cell which we completely eliminated. So we are very focused on Nusra. And it is very important for you to remind all of 

us that it is not just ISIL, but Nusra is an acute threat to the 

United States. 

Let me just jump to Boko Haram and the affiliates. A lot of the 

affiliates who are now raising the banner of ISIL, they are pre-existing terrorist groups. Boko Haram is a good example. It is not 

like suddenly they became an ISIL affiliate and became a fundamentally different problem. It is a problem that is unique to that 

part of the world, to Nigeria, and we have to work with our local 

partners to combat it. 

I think you have asked some good questions about the vetting 

standards, making sure we have a credible force that is able to effectively combat it, and I know that we are very focused on that. 

But the affiliates with ISIL that we are most concerned about in 

Libya, for example, and Libya is where it wasn’t a preexisting 

movement, they rose the flag of ISIL and it drew a lot of recruits 

like a magnet. We have seen the direct flow of resources, of command and control, of propaganda from ISIL core into Libya. Right 

now in Libya, again if we see a threat emerging we will not hesitate to act. 

The President ordered a strike on Abu Nabil, the number one 

leader of ISIL in Libya, and he was eliminated. He was an ISIL 

guy, former al-Qaeda in Iraq guy from Iraq, so that just shows the 

connections between ISIL core and Libya, which is very concerning. 

The number of foreign fighters in the United States, I think we 

have those specific numbers. I don’t want to give it to you just off 

the top of my head, but I believe it is in the low hundreds. 

But our FBI is all over this problem and they are doing a great 

job to protect the country against these threats and they will continue to do so, but I will follow up with you on the precise figures. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate it. Just before my time runs out, the 

Boko Haram fighters, is there any exchange between fighters? Do 

any of those go to Syria to fight? And is al-Shabaab a part of this 

as well? 

Mr. MCGURK. So al-Shabaab is not a formal affiliate, but we 

have found Somalis on the battlefield in Iraq. So these jihadist networks, they all, there is a symbiotic relationship. The good thing 

about Iraq and Syria is if they come into Iraq and Syria, as I mentioned in my statement, they are unlikely to get out. We are going 

to make sure we kill them in Iraq and Syria. But Libya is an 

emerging threat from Africa because a lot of the guys are pooling 

up to Libya. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go to Mr. Gregory Meeks of 

New York. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start with this 

and I want to kind of follow up with what Mr. Cicilline said. He 

talked about Saudi Arabia’s activities or asked there about their 

contributions on a humanitarian level. In fighting against ISIS or 

ISIL in Syria, et cetera, I am concerned, because a lot of this is 

30

Sunni, Shia also, and what the Arab states and what the Sunnis, 

and in particular Saudi Arabia, may be doing on a military level 

on the ground. 

Are they doing—I know initially they sent out some jets, et 

cetera, whether they are still fighting, whether they—what are 

they doing or what contributions are they making on a military 

level in regards to this fight and how does that play into our equation? 

Mr. MCGURK. So it is something that Secretary Carter has discussed quite a bit publicly, and he is discussing in Brussels today 

with our partners. Most of the GCC states were with us in the 

early stages of the air campaign. Right now Jordan has renewed 

their air strikes in Syria which we are grateful for. The Emirates, 

I think, are about to do that. Saudi Arabia has been very focused 

on the conflict in Yemen, of course. This is something we discuss 

with them quite a bit, so we are constantly engaged with them 

about what the particular role can be. And I don’t want to get 

ahead of the process, but that is something that Secretary Carter 

is discussing in some detail with the defense ministers in Brussels 

today, including Mohammad bin Salman from Saudi Arabia. 

But we need the region to be fully invested in this fight, but it 

is not just military as was mentioned earlier. It is also the humanitarian and the stabilization side. In Iraq now, as I mentioned, 

these are iconic Sunni cities that have now been cleared of ISIL 

and now we want to return the population to get back on their feet. 

The internally displaced in Iraq, most of them are Sunnis, 70 percent of them are women and girls and they need help. 

And so on the humanitarian, on the stabilization side, that is 

something where the region, we are very hopeful can step up in a 

fairly aggressive way. Because we have the programs in place, we 

have the support of the Iraqi Government in place, we have U.N. 

programs in place to help people, but it is an issue of the resources. 

And one thing that has really hampered this quite a bit is just 

the collapsing price of oil, which I can go into some detail. I mean, 

Iraq is now facing a monthly, about a $5 billion financing gap. 

They are producing more oil than they have in some time, over 4 

million barrels a day. When I was working on Iraq, full time, 5 

years ago that would have been unimaginable, 4 million barrels a 

day. That is because of decisions the Iraqi Government has made 

and decisions that we have made with them, and that is a real testament to their progress. 

But the falling price of oil has just greatly impacted their budget 

situation. It has depleted the resources we had hoped we would 

have to deal with some of these stabilization and humanitarian 

problems. So that is something, Congressman, where the region we 

are very hopeful can contribute. 

Mr. MEEKS. Well, I just, because I was just surprised at a recent 

statement that Saudi Arabia made saying that if the United States 

put troops on the ground that they would be right behind us militarily. And I was just wondering why, that it has to be as you said 

something where if anybody is going to be on the ground so it 

doesn’t look like we are occupying anyone again or coming in in 

that regard, the Sunni especially in Sunni territory that they and 

31

those from the Arab League be the ones that are out in front and 

not the United States of America. 

So when I heard that statement I was just wondering whether 

or not they have been further engaged militarily or not, and whether they have shown—and I know about Yemen—but have they 

shown because ISIL is still a threat to them also, and so whether 

they are willing to really step up. 

Same thing to some regards with Turkey and what they may or 

may not be doing. And let me ask you that question then, what 

they may not be doing militarily also in regards to the fight with 

ISIL. What about Turkey? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, Turkey as a part of this process, a very intense negotiation and an agreement with them to base our planes 

at Incirlik Airbase which has dramatically decreased the flying 

time to be able to strike ISIL targets. And we are very grateful for 

the agreements we have reached with Turkey in that regard. 

Turkey has also, as I mentioned, really worked to seal its border, 

that 98 kilometer strip of border. It is much harder for these foreign fighters to get into Syria than it was until then. Turkey is also 

caring for 2.1 million refugees from Syria, spending almost $8 billion, something people forget about. So Turkey is doing an awful 

lot here. 

Militarily, they are doing some very important air strikes in the 

north of the country. Right now we are working with them to get 

them back into the campaign, but we are doing that very carefully 

because the conflict with, not conflict but the tension between Turkey and Russia after Turkey shot down a Russian plane after the 

Russian plane violated Turkey’s airspace kind of complicated the 

picture. So that is something we are working very closely with Turkey on. But we are very comfortable with Turkey’s contributions. 

They are a critical NATO ally of ours and so we will continue to 

work closely with them. 

Mr. MEEKS. Great. Thank you. I am out of time. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. Mr. Dana Rohrabacher of California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. 

Thank you for your service. And when you mentioned in the beginning of your testimony that Abu Sayyaf had left this world with 

our help, was that the same Abu Sayyaf that was the power in Afghanistan 20 years ago, or is this another Abu Sayyaf? 

Mr. MCGURK. No. This is an individual that was a legacy alQaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi acolyte, very much from the Iraq-Syria theater. He was their head financier. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So he is not the same guy who was the 

financier back in——

Mr. MCGURK. Not that I am aware of. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. Mujahideen days. How many 

fighters do we have? How many people are fighting Assad, the 

number of fighters that are there, and I guess Aleppo and that region? 

Mr. MCGURK. I can’t put a number on Aleppo. The uppermost estimate of our moderate opposition fighter, the uppermost estimate 

I have heard is about 70,000 fighters. That is all the way from the 

south to the north. 

32

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. 

Mr. MCGURK. But those are split into hundreds of different 

groups. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Mr. MCGURK. So to bring coherence to that is very difficult. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And are there any of those anti-Assad fighters who are fighting ISIL at this point? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, yes. And before the Russian air strike campaign, we felt pretty good about some—the word, I guess, is coherence and capacity that we were gaining along that Mari line which 

is on the map which I projected. But since then, a lot of those guys 

have peeled off from the ISIL fight to fight the regime, which has 

not been helpful to the ISIL campaign. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, let us just note that this administration 

has told us before that there will be no civility unless we get rid 

of so-and-so or so-and-so, and in fact the opposite has been true. 

In Libya in particular, which you outlined today as being a catastrophe, we were told in almost the same words that you have used 

today there is never going to be any peace there until we get rid 

of Gaddafi and in fact that is why we have to help the non-Gaddafi 

forces, and now we have testimony of course that ISIL is on the 

verge of taking over Libya. Let me note that I didn’t see Assad as 

ever a threat. Was Assad ever a threat to the United States? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, Assad has given sustenance to Hezbollah 

and then terrorist groups for a number of years. He is a threat to 

some of our closest partners in the region. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Assad was never a threat to the United 

States. Frankly, we Republicans made a mistake when we backed 

our President when he said we have to get rid of Saddam Hussein. 

And frankly, it looks like to me that all of this chaos and confusion 

that you are describing today that unfortunately is in your lap to 

try to correct started when we made a mistake that we have to get 

rid of Saddam Hussein because he is a bad guy and he is committing atrocities against his own people. And that has destabilized 

the whole region and led to many thousands more people being 

killed. 

I would think, frankly, from a distance it looks like Assad is in 

that same type of, fighting Assad is the same type of situation. Let 

me ask how many of the ISIL fighters are foreigners, meaning from 

other areas rather than Syria and Iraq? 

Mr. MCGURK. The total number of foreign fighters that have 

come into the theater are above 30,000, but many of them as I 

mentioned in my opening it has decreased quite a bit. So foreign 

fighters fighting with ISIL now, I probably would put in the number of, and according to our most recent estimates, of 15,000 or so 

are left. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. 15,000. And how many of those come from 

places like Chechnya? 

Mr. MCGURK. Oh, a lot. And in fact, one example, when I was 

in Iraq recently with the Baiji campaign there was a major battle 

for the Baiji refinery. A very heroic battle that went on for almost 

a year, and we were picking up mostly the fighters that our guys 

were dealing with—speaking Russian. 

33

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we have all of these thousands of radical 

Islamic terrorist fighters and who come from Russia and Chechnya, 

and so the Russians maybe have something, maybe even more important, for them to be involved than us to be involved, because 

they have had exact fighters from their country. I don’t believe 

there are any Americans over there with that terrorist group. 

Let me just say the idea that the Turkish—that you don’t know 

that we don’t know where those trucks are going and who is purchasing that fuel is unacceptable. Let me just say that before the 

Russians started bombing those trucks, which then ignited this 

outrage from Turkey, that before they did this body, this committee, saw evidence day after day after day of trucks loaded with 

fuel, thus meaning supplies and money and wealth that would go 

into ISIL were just not touched. How much evidence, Mr. Chairman, did we have, overwhelming evidence that this administration 

wasn’t doing a thing about it and once the Russians started then 

we did. 

I think that this idea that——

Mr. MCGURK. Well, if I could just correct the record just to raise 

a point. I think once the French, it was the French, after the attack 

in Paris attributable to ISIS forces the French made the decision 

to hit those targets on the open highway. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me also note that the Russians were 

doing that. However, you never know who the Russians are hitting 

because that is their business. They haven’t been able to outline it 

for us. 

I would just say this. That people who are a threat to the United 

States of America, to our people, the terrorist network from around 

the world, we should be working closely with anyone like that who 

is not a threat to us. And whether or not they oppress their own 

people, I am sorry. We didn’t like Saddam Hussein, and look what 

we did to the world by getting rid of him. We didn’t like Gaddafi. 

There is a number of cases like this. And the idea, our question 

shouldn’t be how do we get rid of Assad, and spending lots of attention and resources on that. Our vision should be how do we get rid 

of ISIL and these radical Islamists who will terrorize the western 

world and murder us if they get a chance? Thank you very much, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. We now go to 

Mr. Gerry Connolly of Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I certainly want 

to concur with my friend from California in his critique of the mistake by Republicans in supporting the reckless foreign policy of 

George W. Bush. I certainly want to associate myself with those remarks. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Absolutely. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I will point out though that some of the current 

critique like Libya, it would be fun to replay video of my colleagues 

who criticized President Obama for not being more involved in 

Libya at the time, for being too reluctant, for not taking the lead 

and being at the forefront of the revolution against Gaddafi, and 

now we are bemoaning the fact that the stability was a victim as 

well as the Gaddafi regime. 

34

So that was then, this is now. Welcome, Ambassador McGurk. 

Let me start with Russia, one of the favorite topics of my friend 

from California. How concerned are we that Russia’s air strikes in 

Syria are non-ISIL focused and, in fact, they have targeted either 

deliberately or just coincidentally non-ISIL insurgent groups that 

we were hoping to use as part of the coalition against Assad? 

Mr. MCGURK. It is a huge problem, and——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Could you say that louder? I couldn’t hear you. 

Mr. MCGURK. Yes, it is a huge problem. They say they want to 

fight ISIL and Nusra, but they are hitting groups that were ready, 

as I mentioned, ready to fight ISIL. So this is where we just have 

to be honest. They are hitting, 70 percent of their air strikes are 

against the opposition. Many of those opposition groups are ready 

to fight ISIL. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So we now have a situation where the Russian 

activity in Syria is directly in conflict with western goals. Is that 

correct? Would that be fair? 

Mr. MCGURK. You can’t put it in total black and white terms because there are some overlapping interests. They are hitting ISIL 

around Palmyra, so I want to acknowledge that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, but given the fact you said 70 percent we 

don’t want to equivocate. 

Mr. MCGURK. But at very strategic locations like the Mari line 

north of Aleppo their air strikes have helped ISIL. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Is the United States prepared to do something 

about that besides a diplomatic protest? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, as I think the Secretary said yesterday, I 

think we have to focus on the diplomatic process and that is why 

we are going to get together tomorrow in Munich. But we also have 

to be thinking ahead in the event that that doesn’t work. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. Well, all right. I think it was Frederick the 

Great who said, ‘‘L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.’’ One needs 

to be bold. I hope diplomatic protests work, but we cannot afford 

to have Russia countermanding our activities which have been difficult and hard to piece together on the field in Syria. And it just 

seems to me we will need to maybe follow Frederick the Great’s advice. 

Tell me a little bit about the complications of working with the 

Kurds. From my point of view, and I think a lot of my colleagues’ 

on this committee, the Kurds are pro-American. They are willing 

to fight on the ground. They have had territorial gains. They have 

actually beaten ISIL on the battlefield more than once. They are 

critical in looking at the looming fight with respect to Aleppo, but 

they have problems with the central government and they have 

had other problems with some of our allies in the region like Turkey. How complicated is that relationship, and what ought to be 

the U.S. posture with respect to training, equipping, and financing 

the Peshmerga? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, Congressman, I will start in Iraq. There are 

vestiges of what used to happen under the government of former 

Prime Minister Maliki in which the relationship was very difficult. 

With Abadi it has been very different. And I just want to be clear. 

Every single shipment of weapons or supplies that we wanted to 

send to the Kurds has gone. Nothing has been held up by the cenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:25 Mar 23, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\021016\98599 SHIRL
35

tral government under Prime Minister Abadi, I mean zero. Under 

the ITEF that was approved for this——

Mr. CONNOLLY. But they are not paying the soldiers. 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, a lot of people in Iraq are not getting paid. 

I mean, what is happening now in Iraq in terms of the oil allocation, the Kurds are exporting their oil on their own and keeping 

those revenues and they are not therefore getting the revenues 

from the south, which is actually an equitable exchange. 

But as I mentioned, Iraq, writ large, has focused every single month now a $5 billion funding deficit. That is a problem writ 

large. For the Kurdish Peshmerga there is about a $400 million 

monthly gap. Peshmerga salaries are about $50 million a month. 

So we want to focus on this in a holistic way in working with the 

World Bank, the IMF, with the international financial institutions. 

I think our budget requests will have some recommendations for 

how we might help the Iraqis here, but we want to focus on it holistically. 

But the Kurds will have what they need to fight ISIL. They will 

have what they need to be successful in the Mosul campaign, no 

question about it. I will see President Barzani. I believe he is going 

to be in Munich so I will look forward to seeing him. Prime Minister Abadi will also be in Munich. 

When I was in Iraq last week, a very senior delegation from the 

Kurdistan Regional Government was in Baghdad to meet with 

Prime Minister Abadi. That relationship is very good right now and 

we want to keep it that way. The Kurds in the north in Iraq also 

have a lot of political divisions that I encourage them as a close 

friend of theirs to try to find a way to resolve. Because when the 

ISIL wolf was at the door all the Kurds were united. 

Syrian Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, everybody was united, particularly in that moment at Kobani when the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga 

went through Turkey to fight in Kobani, and a historical moment 

that I was a part of. Now that the ISIL threat has receded a little 

bit all of these divisions have opened up. 

So there are three Kurdish parties in the north; there are great 

political divisions there. There are divisions between the Syrian 

Kurds and the Kurds in northern Iraq. Our message to them is 

that this fight is not over. The entire southern border, the Iraqi 

Kurdistan region, is controlled by ISIL. So long as that is the case 

there is not going to be a stable situation there, so our advice is 

to unite against the threat against ISIL despite all the difference. 

There are a lot of differences. Meanwhile, we have to help them 

with the financial difficulties and it is something I look forward to 

working with this committee to do. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, I am glad to hear that. I think 

that is essential, and I think we need to be providing that financial 

support because they are willing to fight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Gerry. Okay, Ted Poe of Texas. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ISIS is deliberately targeting religious minorities, specifically Christians. Christians have 

been executed by the thousands. Clergy has been assassinated. 

Jihadists in Mosul stamped the homes of Christians with an ‘‘N’’ 

for Nazarene, enforces ‘‘convert or die,’’ convert to their way of 

36

thinking or you die. Christian females were sold in slave markets. 

Three of them were featured by the New York Times magazine last 

summer. ISIS’ magazine, Dabiq, approves the enslavement of 

Christian girls in Nigeria and posts the prices for selling them on 

the marketplace. 

The Pope has said that this is genocide. I mention these things 

to get your opinion on this issue specifically of genocide. The Omnibus bill that was passed, the President signed, requires that the 

administration determine whether or not religious minorities like 

Christians, Shia Muslims, Yazidis suffer genocide, specific term, by 

the hands of ISIS, by March the 18th. Can you give us some insight on whether or not the United States will take the position 

that what ISIS does against religious minorities is genocide or not? 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you, Congressman. And we are focused on 

answering that legislative request, and our lawyers are deeply—as 

you said, genocide is a very specific term so it is a legal determination, and we are looking at it, I believe, across the board. 

And there is no question everything that you said is true and 

more. What ISIL has done to the Christian community and to minority communities throughout particularly Iraq and Syria is unbelievable, and then on top of it destroying our common heritage, our 

common culture, our ancient history. This is why we have to destroy this terrorist organization, period. And what we want to do 

particularly in liberating some of these areas near Mosul is return 

Christians to their ancestral homeland and that is something we 

are very focused on. 

I meet regularly in Erbil with Archbishop Warda, when I am in 

Baghdad I try to see the patriarch Archbishop Sako to try to return 

the Christian communities to their homes, and one thing that 

drives us all in fact, particularly for this campaign in northern 

Nineveh Province near Mosul, is to help us do that. Because they 

have been driven out of their homes in the most atrocious manner 

possible and we have to work to get them back. 

In Sinjar, I again have to praise our friends in the Peshmerga. 

They liberated Sinjar from ISIL about 3 or 4 months ago, a very 

successful operation. Sinjar is aware of course. ISIL came in and 

enslaved thousands of Yazidis killing many of the young men and 

taking off the women, thousands of them, to enslave the women. 

This is why we have to destroy this barbaric terrorist organization 

and, but in response to this specific request about the genocide determination that is something that I know our lawyers are working 

on right now. 

Mr. POE. Do you see any reason why the administration won’t be 

able to comply on March 18th and we will get a verdict one way 

or another? 

Mr. MCGURK. No, I think we will meet that deadline. 

Mr. POE. Okay, another question dealing with the Omnibus. 

There was an amendment that I put in, or I had put in, to the Omnibus bill that requires a strategy to defeat ISIS, and it was passed 

into law that there would be a strategy by the administration to 

what we are going to do to defeat ISIS by June the 18th. As far 

as I think there is no real concrete strategy to defeat ISIS. Not contain, but to defeat ISIS. June 18th is the deadline. Do you see any 

37

reason based on your expertise why we won’t be able to get that 

strategy by June the 18th? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, in terms of strategy we are going to suffocate 

this network every single which way. It is like an Anaconda strategy, constant pressure, the financial network, the foreign fighter 

network, the propaganda network, its ability to control territory. 

That is exactly what we are doing across the board. So in Iraq and 

Syria, as I explained in some detail, we are working to take away 

their territory. The global networks, we are working to cut off and 

slice off their foreign fighter networks. 

Mr. POE. So we will have a strategy to defeat ISIS that is concrete. I mean, the train and equip that was a disaster and the 

President has even said that that was a disaster. So, and I am not 

going to be argumentative, but will we have a concrete strategy so 

the American public, so Bubba down there in Texas, knows what 

the United States is going to do to defeat ISIS? Do you see any reason why we won’t have that in writing for us and the American 

public by June the 18th? That is really the question. 

Mr. MCGURK. No, we have a strategy now, so I——

Mr. POE. Well, part of it is not working. So are we just going to 

get the same strategy? That is really my question. Is it going to be 

the same thing or is it going to be a concrete strategy? This is 

something that we can understand that we will defeat. We go after 

the oil fields, but we go after the trucks but we don’t bomb the oil 

fields. Things like that in tactics. 

Mr. MCGURK. I understand. The things that haven’t worked we 

have already adjusted. So I will follow up with you with more specific details so you can have that very clear narrative laid down. 

Mr. POE. So we will see that strategy by June 18th. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go to Karen Bass of California. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you again for your testimony and your time 

here in our hearing. I wanted to ask you a few questions. Congressman Smith was asking you about Boko Haram and Africa, and I 

would like to focus some of my questions there as well. One of the 

things that has been just a little frustrating is when we think of 

Boko Haram and ISIS and knowing that Boko Haram actually has, 

their reign of terror has actually continued every day and at the 

end of last year actually killed more people than ISIS did. 

And so I am concerned, especially with what is happening in 

Libya, the deterioration in Libya, and knowing when Libya first fell 

it essentially led to a coup in Mali. And so I am wondering what 

you are seeing now, especially with ISIS increasing its involvement 

and occupation in Libya. What do you think or what do you see the 

fallout being in other countries? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, as I mentioned, Libya remains an acute focus 

because Libya is where, unlike in Boko Haram which is a preexisting problem——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. MCGURK [continuing]. Terrorist problem for ISIL, the fact 

that they have now raised an ISIL flag doesn’t fundamentally 

change the nature of the problem. ISIL in Libya is different. So in 

Libya what we are working very hard to do—one of my colleagues, 

the Special Envoy for Libya Jonathan Winer, we were just in Rome 

together for the coalition meeting on ISIL working to form the GovVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:25 Mar 23, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\021016\98599 SHIRL
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ernment of National Accord, a national unity government in Libya, 

and hoping to get that done very soon. And the U.N. Special Envoy 

Martin Kobler is also a close friend of mine. I worked with him for 

years in Iraq. I know he has been working day and night to get 

this done. 

And we have to have that because you need a foundational partner. I mentioned in the summer of 2014 it was very important to 

get the new Iraqi Government formed. Iraq had just had an election; it was going through the government formation process. Had 

we come into Iraq in a very major way militarily before we had a 

government and a foundational partner, it would have been hard 

to, I think, build the coherence that we needed to really push back 

effectively and aggressively. 

So the sequencing in Libya is to try to get this national government formed and then to work with it to come up with a strategy 

to begin to combat Libya. But I will say, if that takes some time 

and we see threats emerging to our own national security interests, 

the President has shown he will take military action in Libya. And 

that is why we killed the overall ISIL leader in Libya, Abu Nabil. 

So those sorts of things will continue to be ongoing. But the political and the military here is quite intertwined, and so we are hoping to get that government formed very soon. 

Ms. BASS. And so while we are doing that—and I absolutely understand and recognize the significance and importance of that—

are you seeing though any involvement in terms of either ISIL 

folks moving south or moving weapons, which is what was the situation was in Mali, while we are working to stabilize the government—and I absolutely understand that. 

Mr. MCGURK. What I have seen, Congresswoman, is the flow 

north to Libya, primarily. They seem to be in Libya doing what 

they did in Syria, establish state-like structures. So in Sirte, right 

in the central coast, and then they are trying to establish, you can 

see training camps popping up elsewhere. But they are trying to 

establish that state-like structure. So in their own Dabiq magazine, 

their own open source magazine, says come to Libya. They are trying to flow resources to Libya. If they can establish themselves 

there in a very rooted way and get rooted, then the risk will be it 

flows outward. 

Ms. BASS. I see. 

Mr. MCGURK. So we are going to try to make sure that they can’t 

do that. 

Ms. BASS. So back to Boko Haram, and I understand Boko 

Haram was preexisting and all and the significance of them raising 

the flag, if it was more symbolic, are they getting any resources, 

any of the financial resources from ISIL or really was it just symbolic? 

Mr. MCGURK. We have seen some media coordination, so some 

of the Boko Haram media products have been a little more sophisticated which shows some connections with ISIL. But again not the 

type of direct weapons flow, finance, just because Boko Haram was 

already a self-contained entity. But we have to work with the Nigerians to get at the Boko Haram problem, period. Whether it calls 

itself ISIL or Boko Haram doesn’t really matter. It is a fundamental problem. 

39

Ms. BASS. And so the attack that took place in Mali recently, 

took place right after France, what do you know of that in terms 

of its relationship to ISIL? I believe it was al-Qaeda. 

Mr. MCGURK. Yes. So this is where things, we don’t want to 

paint with too sharp of a brush because al-Qaeda often has the 

same goals. That was an al-Qaeda attack. That was not an ISIL 

attack. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if ISIL is attacking 

your hotel or al-Qaeda is attacking the hotel, these are huge problems. So Mali, the French have really taken a major lead on the 

Mali side. Have degraded that network, but obviously it is still able 

to launch attacks like that. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Bass. Mr. Cook 

of California. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador for being here. I don’t envy your job. Very, very difficult. I 

don’t have your sense of optimism about Syria. With the Russians 

supporting him, I think he is, it is going to be very, very tough to 

dislodge him. 

Picking up on that question of the Turks and the Kurds, point 

blank, is there any hope for a separate homeland for the 

Kurdistan? I don’t think geography favors it, but we have disappointed the Kurds so many times, and after all the fighting and 

everything else and particularly with the pressure with the Kurds, 

I just don’t, I think we are going to betray them again. Can you 

comment on that? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, the Kurds, and I have dealt with my friends 

the Kurds and the Kurdistan region of Iraq for almost a decade 

now, and you are right. There is a historical memory of what happened to the Kurds after World War I, which is something I think 

we have to all recognize and be quite sympathetic to. 

The Kurds in northern Syria we have developed a relationship 

with over the last 18 months or so in the counter-ISIL campaign. 

I was able to go into northern Syria last week and meet a number 

of them, and they had the same, it is a very similar, historical narrative. However, at this moment in time creating new independent 

states is not something I think that would be particularly stabilizing. 

So when it comes to the northern Iraq and the Kurds, as I mentioned, I think before something like that can be discussed in a serious way, first, you have to get ISIL off the southern border. It is 

all Jihadistan on the entire southern border of northern Iraq in the 

Kurdistan region. Second, the economic situation has to stabilize, 

and third, the political situation has to stabilize. 

So right now I think the Kurds of northern Iraq recognize this. 

Nobody is trying to do the impossible and create a unified Iraq that 

is a glowing democracy, but a Federal Iraq which is defined in 

their constitution which empowers local leaders, empowers the 

Sunnis in the provinces, empowers the Kurds in northern Iraq, empowers the Shia in southern Iraq, is something that is realistic. It 

is interwoven in Iraq’s constitution and something we very much 

support. 

Mr. COOK. Okay. Thank you very much. The other question I had 

was I just got back from the Middle East, and a couple of things. 

40

Incirlik. Our sorties from Incirlik really, really help our pilots from 

the Gulf States. Eight hours flying down there, I don’t know how 

they do it. I really don’t. 

The problem is, in the past is the Turks have been, well, we will 

control all the air operations about Incirlik. And I just hope that 

that doesn’t go back to the way it was, say, a year or 2 years ago 

where they had almost complete control over air ops and what was 

going in. I know that is kind of a military/foreign affairs question, 

but I am very, very nervous about Erdogan and the politics and 

how that affects that particular base. I am not really sure sometimes why we even have it there other than it is very, very close 

in the Middle East. 

Mr. MCGURK. So that is a question for my military colleagues, 

but I have been to Incirlik, met our pilots there. The agreement 

when it comes to the anti-ISIL campaign is that those planes fly 

within the air coalition of the counter-ISIL campaign which is coordinated out of Qatar. And so we do, every day there is an air 

tasking order which goes out and so those planes out of Incirlik are 

integrated with that. So it is part of the overall cohesive campaign. 

Mr. COOK. No, and I just got back from Qatar and I—but I am 

just very, very nervous about the politics of Turkey. 

The last question I had was about Saudi, the Gulf States and everything else. Sometimes I think we are led to believe that their 

number one focus is ISIS. No, the impression I have is it is all 

about the war in Yemen. And their forces and everything else—

yeah, yeah, we are committed to that—but the States that I talk 

to, it is all about what is going on with Yemen and particularly the 

influence of the Saudis in leading that coalition there. Could you 

comment on that? 

Mr. MCGURK. You are right. Yemen is a primary focus in a lot 

of those capitals. But you can have a different conversation from 

Riyadh to Cairo to Abu Dhabi to Doha depending on where you are. 

I mean, this is not necessarily homogenous. 

Mr. COOK. I am just looking at resources that are going into 

Yemen right now. 

Mr. MCGURK. Yes. Yemen has definitely been a major focus of 

the Saudis and for good reason. It is right on their border. So one 

reason we are working very hard to try to de-escalate that conflict 

is so we can focus minds and attentions on ISIL, which we do consider the most fundamental threat. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you very much for your answers. I yield back. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Mr. Higgins of New York. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Madam Chair. ISIS has proven to be 

particularly effective at fundraising. Estimates in 2014 was that 

they were raising about $3 million a day, originally through oil revenues and the sale of oil through the black market, and then 

through territorial gains where they would tax the people, provide 

services but tax and provide protection and basically operating a 

corrupt society whereby they would gain a lot of revenue. 

How much is known about ISIS funding from Sunni Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, who I think views the existential 

threat to them as Iranian territorial gains, and Iraq, clearly with 

the direct involvement of Qasem Soleimani, and in Syria under an 

Alawite government which is a variant of Shia? So I suppose my 

41

question is Saudi Arabian influence in helping to finance ISIS terrorist activity. 

Mr. MCGURK. We certainly don’t see any indications of that and 

the Saudis have been very close partners on the counterterrorism 

side for some time. What makes ISIL different than al-Qaeda or 

some of these other jihadist groups is that they don’t really rely on 

outside financing and funding. When there was some evidence of 

that we have worked with Kuwait and others to really shut that 

down. My colleagues in the Treasury Department, Adam Szubin 

and others, have done a great job on that, and Danny Glaser. 

But what makes ISIL different, because as you said, Congressman, it controls vast swaths of territory, has millions of people 

under its control, it acts through taxes and extortion to have a revenue base. So to cut at its finance streams—very early on a couple 

years ago we might have said, oh, there must be a lot of outside 

funding coming in, but in fact it is locally generated. So that is why 

we are—and it is true. The French led in this. After Paris, we of 

course helped them. But cutting off their ability to move oil, cutting 

off their ability to move energy supplies, cutting off their ability to 

store cash, which is something we have done in Mosul, so to cut 

off the finances you have to focus on that core in Iraq and Syria 

where it is controlling territory and resources. 

Mr. HIGGINS. How many U.S.-led air strikes in Iraq and Syria in 

the past year? 

Mr. MCGURK. I mean, total air strikes, Congressman, it is about 

10,000 now. I can get you the breakdown. I mean, total air strikes 

as of yesterday, 9,901 to be specific. There are about 6,615 in Iraq, 

3,286 in Syria. The U.S. has conducted more than 7,000 of those 

and the rest of the coalition about 2,300. 

Mr. HIGGINS. And in the past year, ISIS has lost 40 percent of 

its territorial gains in Iraq and 10 percent of its territorial gains 

in Syria? 

Mr. MCGURK. Yes. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Okay. ISIS, the one thing that is constant, reading 

Michael Weiss’ book, ‘‘ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,’’ Joby 

Warrick’s book, ‘‘Black Flags,’’ the one thing that seems constant 

about ISIS is change. And ISIS has evolved in its reach and organizational ability. The ISIS presence in Libya, I think, is particularly 

disturbing. It is a pivotal stronghold in North Africa. 

Africa is, there is a lot of instability to exploit in Africa. You have 

55 countries in that continent, many of which are very, very unstable from South Sudan to just, there is a lot of countries to exploit. 

So my concern is that while we may be influencing a loss of territorial control in both Iraq and Syria, what about the ISIS threat 

in expanding into other countries in the continent of Africa? 

Mr. MCGURK. Again it is a great question. And as we analyze it 

and as we discuss this with intelligence services and the governments in all of these different capitals all around the world, the 

common theme we hear, I mean, I have heard this from Malaysia 

to Brussels to the Gulf, is that this false notion of this caliphate 

is what is drawing so many young people to this dangerous movement. And that is why we are focused on the core and shrinking 

that overall territory. 

42

And its narrative, in those books that you mention its narrative 

is one of expansion and conquest. So we had to show that actually 

you are not expanding, you are actually shrinking, and if you go 

to join this phony caliphate you are not going to live a glorious life 

with ice cream cones like which is in their propaganda, you are actually going to die a pretty miserable death there. 

Now some of these people want to go die a miserable death and 

we are happy to oblige them, but we have to shrink the caliphate, 

their phony notion of a caliphate, in order to also dry up the global 

networks. That does not mean as we defeat ISIL that there won’t 

be a global jihadist terrorism problem under different banners. 

That is something that is going to be with us for some time. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Higgins. My Florida colleague, Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Mr. McGurk, you just said that there will still be 

a global jihadist problem and I agree with that. And I notice in 

your written testimony that there was not any reference explicitly 

to either Iran or Hezbollah particularly with respect to the destabilizing role that they both play in Iraq and in Syria. They have 

murdered Sunni civilians, and Assad obviously drives people, 

Sunni Arabs who if the choice is between a militant Shiite force or 

a government backed by Iran and ISIS, which is at least Sunni, 

many of them unfortunately are driven to ISIS. So was the exclusion of Iran’s contribution to the problem deliberate, or was that 

just something that you omitted? 

Mr. MCGURK. No, certainly not. Let me take it on directly. When 

Mosul fell in the summer of 2014, Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf 

issued a fatwa saying everybody rise up and protect the country. 

And it was a really critical moment, and had he not done that I 

think it would have been actually very hard to check what ISIL 

was doing because they were just on a rampage and he would 

cause a massive panic in the country. 

You had about 80,000 volunteers kind of rise up and join the 

ranks to defend Iraq. Most of them in those early days are Shia 

from the south and most of them are nationalists, they answer to 

the government. But there is a segment of them, maybe 10,000 to 

15,000 who are actually answerable to militias or that are controlled by Iran. And this is a huge concern for us, it is a huge concern for the Government of Iraq, and it is a huge concern for Prime 

Minister Abadi. Prime Minister Abadi, when he was here in Washington, said publicly that if Iran is operating a militia on Iraqi soil 

outside the command of the Iraqi Government that would be a hostile act against Iraq. So he has been very clear about this. 

When we see abuses and violations of human rights the Government of Iraq has acted. Just recently there were some reports of 

Shia militia violence in Diyala Province, which has always been a 

hotbed of extremism on both sides of the sectarian divide. Prime 

Minister Abadi went to the site twice, and just last week they have 

arrested nine individuals from some of these militias as part of 

that investigation. 

So this is a serious problem. It is something that we are focused 

on all the time. But we don’t want to paint all of these volunteers, 

43

many of whom are Shia, within the same brush because that simply wouldn’t be true. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But what about something like in Al Anbar Province? I mean, the administration has touted some of the advances 

in places like Ramadi, but my understanding is that is powered a 

lot by Shia forces, including some of the Iranian backed forces. And 

so what are you doing to empower the Sunni tribal forces and the 

Sunni tribal elders? Because it seems to me that driving ISIS out 

of places like Ramadi is obviously something that is desirable, but 

the notion that those Sunni Arabs are going to be happy living 

under forces or a government that they see as being dominated by 

Iran and Shia, that is probably going to be a tough sell. 

Mr. MCGURK. So very much agree with you. So when it came to 

Ramadi it was the Government of Iraq’s decision to ensure that 

that operation was conducted by the Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi 

counterterrorism forces, and local Sunni tribal fighters. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So they were integrated with the security forces? 

Mr. MCGURK. They were integrated in the campaign, and the 

Popular Mobilization Forces from the Shia side of the street were 

not a part of that Ramadi campaign. And that was very important, 

because we wanted to show that the Iraqi security forces can do 

this, and, because what is so important, whether Sunni or Shias, 

is locals who know their territory and know their neighborhood, 

who know what it is like, who know the alleys and the back 

streets. That you get locals invested in the fight. 

So in Anbar now we have about 10,000 of these tribal fighters. 

They are invested in the fight. They are getting paid. I gave the 

figures earlier in my testimony. But it is a constant effort. But we 

have full support from the new government in Iraq and Prime Minister Abadi. We have full support from the governor of Anbar Province, Governor al-Rawi, and they are working closely with us. 

We have two platforms in Anbar Province, one at Al Asad Airbase and one at Taqaddum Airbase. We are working every day 

with the Iraqi security forces and these tribal fighters to get them 

in the fight and they are making real gains. They were just on defense, now they are moving on offense, they are doing operations 

so it is moving the right way. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Just a final question will be with respect to the 

Kurds, and I think a lot of my colleagues share this view. I think 

that they are pro-American forces that we should be supporting. 

But Turkey does not accept the actions of a lot of the Kurds, so 

there are problems there—you have one of our NATO partners essentially opposing some of our battlefield allies. And so can you address the conflict there between Turkey and some of the Kurdish 

fighters? 

Mr. MCGURK. Let me first say Turkey faces a real threat from 

the PKK. So we have to recognize that this conflict between Turkey 

and the PKK, which flared up again over the summer, began if you 

run the timeline when the PKK killed a number of Turkish police 

officers. And I have been very clear about that. Turkey has a right 

to respond in its own self defense. 

At the same time, this conflict has now escalated to the point 

where we want to work very hard to try to de-escalate it, and Vice 

President Biden discussed this with President Erdogan last week, 

44

because the more this is going on the more it drives people to the 

ranks of really extreme militarism which is very dangerous. So we 

want to protect Turkey against the PKK and that is something we 

are going to help them do, we are going to continue to help them 

do. 

But we also want to strengthen the Kurds in northern Syria. The 

Kurds in northern Syria have joined a conglomeration; have built 

a coalition force with Arabs and Christians and Syrian—I met a 

number of them—under the banner of the Syrian Democratic 

Forces. They have just put out a political platform. It makes clear 

that they want to be part of Syria. It makes clear that they want 

to have positive relations with their neighbors, which means Turkey. They don’t want to interfere in those relations, which means 

distancing from any relation with the PKK. 

This will remain a work in progress, but something that we are 

going to work on every day. But most importantly we will continue 

to work with Turkey to protect itself against the PKK militarism, 

which is extremely dangerous and which is killing Turkish soldiers 

and police officers every day. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And now we 

move to Mr. Sherman of California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. First, I know the visa waiver program was mentioned earlier about the idea that those who visit Libya, I want to 

point out the visa waiver program is not a right that we extend to 

all Europeans and reducing it doesn’t show that we would hate Europeans. We don’t provide visa waivers to people from Brazil, and 

we love Brazilians, et cetera, and many of other—and I believe we 

don’t have a visa waiver relationship with any of the Latin American countries that are our allies. 

But I would also point out that those we want to focus on who 

have visited Syria and Iraq to work with ISIS; they don’t have a 

stamp on their passport from Syria. They don’t have a stamp on 

their passport from Iraq. They have a stamp on their passport for 

Turkey. And we ought to be looking at whether we should provide 

visa waiver to those who have visited Turkey. At the same time, 

we have to look at our European friends and make sure that they 

don’t just give a new passport to somebody who doesn’t like the 

stamps on their old passport without telling us that it did have a 

stamp from Libya or from Iraq or from Turkey. 

And so I do think we are going to have to look at this visa waiver 

idea, but as long as any European can just get a new passport and 

then have visa waiver without letting us know that they visited 

Turkey, Syria or Iraq or Libya, we are going to have a problem. 

But now I want to focus on questions. We were serious in World 

War II. We had a strategic bombing program designed to destroy 

the economic capacity of occupied Europe. I believe we killed 

90,000 French civilians and then we were welcomed by the French 

people as liberators. We were serious in that war. We won that 

war. De Gaulle never paid French civil servants in occupied 

France. De Gaulle did not arrange to provide food and fuel to those 

living in a Nazi-exploited occupied France. 

The Iraqi Government has told us that they finally stopped paying the civil servants in ISIS-occupied areas. Is that true? Are civil 

servants who live in ISIS, ISIL or ISIS-occupied territory able to 

45

leave, get their money and then go drive back to Mosul, or have 

they finally stopped paying people who are taxed by ISIS? Or don’t 

you know? 

Mr. MCGURK. No, thank you, Congressman. I have actually 

worked on this quite a bit. So the Iraqi Government made a decision, passed through their cabinet last summer that all——

Mr. SHERMAN. I have got very limited time. Are they still paying 

the civil servants or not? 

Mr. MCGURK. No, they are not. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And even if the civil servant leaves they can’t get 

their money? 

Mr. MCGURK. The salaries paid to people living under ISIL control are held in escrow. So when those areas are liberated they will 

get——

Mr. SHERMAN. Wait a minute. If somebody just drives from 

Mosul, goes down to Kirkuk, can they pick up the money that is 

being held in escrow for them? 

Mr. MCGURK. If they are living in Mosul they should not be able 

to do that. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. Well, you should check on that because I 

am told they can get their money and then go back. 

But we also have a bombing—in World War II we bombed electric generation facilities. In Iraq, the Iraqi Government provides 

free electricity to ISIS. Are we willing to bomb the transmission 

lines through which that free electricity flows to Mosul? 

Mr. MCGURK. The problem in Mosul is that a lot of the electricity 

in Mosul comes from the Mosul Dam, and we have to keep the 

Mosul Dam running to——

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, we keep it running, but why use it to supply 

electricity to ISIS? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, it is a sophisticated engineering issue, because we don’t want electricity going into Mosul. So——

Mr. SHERMAN. It is not a sophisticated—it is a sophisticated political question. You don’t have to send electricity to Mosul. Don’t 

tell me that the dam breaks if you don’t send electricity to the 

enemy. 

Mr. MCGURK. By keeping the dam running, as I understand——

Mr. SHERMAN. The dam should be kept running. That doesn’t 

mean you have to send the electricity to ISIS. 

Mr. MCGURK. We don’t want electricity going into——

Mr. SHERMAN. So bomb the transmission lines inside or outside 

of ISIS controlled territory. 

Mr. MCGURK. Something we have looked at and we will look at 

it again. I will get the answer——

Mr. SHERMAN. You have looked at it but you won’t tell us why 

you are not doing it, will you? 

Mr. MCGURK. We will get——

Mr. SHERMAN. And why does the Iraqi Government provide electricity to Mosul for free and is that consistent with the approach 

we took in World War II when we were serious? 

Mr. MCGURK. Probably different than the approach in World 

War II, but nobody is more anti-ISIL than the guys I know in the 

Iraqi Government. There is a debate between local leaders and the 

government about we don’t want to drive the population into the 

46

hands of the ISIL in some of these areas, but the issue of electricity 

to Mosul is something I can get you a very detailed, specific answer 

on and I will do that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM THE HONORABLE BRETT MCGURK TO QUESTION

ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE BRAD SHERMAN

The reason the Government of Iraq provides electricity to Mosul is not because 

it wants to, but because it has to. As the dam is in a progressive state of failure, 

reservoir levels need to be carefully controlled to avoid creating undue pressure on 

the dam either by draining it or by maintaining water levels above the emergency 

spillway threshold. The appropriate reservoir level is between 300 to 319 meters 

above sea level, according to a December 2006 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study. 

There are two ways to release water: either through the two bottom outlets or 

through the hydroelectric turbines. One of the bottom outlets does not work and the 

other only partially works, leaving the hydroelectric turbines as the most reliable 

way to release water and control the reservoir level. There is no way to run water 

through the turbines without producing electricity and the transmission lines only 

go to Mosul. Thus, in order to effectively control the reservoir level, electricity must 

be sent to Mosul. 

The Government of Iraq put out a tender late last year for an international engineering firm to restore credible grouting at the dam to stabilize the foundation and 

also to repair the bottom outlets. Until that work has begun and the bottom outlets 

have been repaired, electricity will continue to be produced and go to Mosul in order 

to maintain an appropriate reservoir level and protect the integrity of the dam.

Mr. SHERMAN. I look forward—and finally, we had a zero civilian 

casualty approach to our strategic bombing so we weren’t hitting 

the tanker trucks. Now again if we had had a zero civilian casualty 

approach——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Sherman, we are over your time, so finish your question and maybe he could give a final answer. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. Obviously in World War II we hit trains 

and trucks and factories. Are we hitting ISIS’ economic targets 

even knowing that that will cause civilian casualties, for example, 

oil tanker trucks? 

Mr. MCGURK. I addressed the issue of trucks earlier, Congressman. Yes, we are hitting the trucks. We are trying to do it in a 

way that limits the possibility of killing the truck drivers, but we 

have actually figured out a way to do that. But the trucks are 

not——

Mr. SHERMAN. But are we willing to hit the trucks while they are 

being driven? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, we have figured out a way to hit the trucks 

and the trucks are not being driven. 

Mr. SHERMAN. In other words, you are only willing to hit the 

trucks when they are parked and if they are being driven you won’t 

hit them. 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, we don’t want to needlessly, and I would 

really defer to my military colleagues here who work at this very 

closely. We don’t want to needlessly——

Mr. SHERMAN. I yield back. 

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

Sherman. Dr. Yoho of Florida. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Sherman, I feel your 

anxiety and your pain. I feel the same way. Is the administration 

planning on dropping humanitarian aid to Aleppo? I think—a yes 

or no. 

47

Mr. MCGURK. Well, I think we are looking at all options on the 

humanitarian side right now. 

Mr. YOHO. That is not really answering. That is just saying you 

are looking at them. And that kind of reminds me of the President’s budget that says national security and global leadership in 

President’s budget, and it says that is why the United States is 

leading the global coalition that will destroy the Islamic state of 

Iraq and the Levant, and the budget provides for over $11 billion 

for the DoD. 

That is like wanting to learn to play the piano and you buy the 

piano and you put in the money for lessons but you don’t practice 

it you are not going to play the piano. I hear a lot like we are looking at it. We are looking at the safe zones in Syria by Jordan and 

by Turkey, we are looking at that. We have been studying that 4 

years. At some point it has to be acted upon. 

And I want to follow up with Mr. Sherman’s comment. The reasoning to continually not bomb these transport vehicles with oil 

when the no-fly zone that was initiated by this administration 

along with Hillary Clinton to create a no-fly zone that led to a 

failed state, the fall of Gaddifi, and now Libya is an ISIS recruiting 

and training center and they have one of their biggest camps 12 

miles from Libya’s largest oil production facility, why are we not 

just bombing them? Like Mr. Sherman said, in World War II we 

had a strategy. Yes, that is one of the fallouts of war, but it 

brought that war to an end. 

We have been studying things and we are looking at options for 

4 years, or 5 years now, close to 300,000 people have died. The 

Assad barrel bombs, we have been looking at maybe putting pressure on that and we are still studying it, but yet nothing happens. 

And we have the largest migration of refugees around the world because of the failed policies of this administration. What are we 

doing? I mean, when are we going to stop looking and start acting 

stronger and leading? 

Mr. MCGURK. Well, Congressman, I was just in Kobani. I stood 

in the streets of Kobani where we killed 6,000 ISIL fighters with 

air strikes there; in fact still pulling bodies out of the rubble near 

where I was standing of ISIL fighters, killed 6,000 in that battle 

alone. We have destroyed 400 tanker trucks. So the idea that we 

are just watching this is not——

Mr. YOHO. When were the 400 tanker trucks destroyed? What 

time period? In the last 6 months? 

Mr. MCGURK. Probably the last 4 to 5 months. 

Mr. YOHO. Okay. But we have known about this for over 3 years. 

I mean, we hear constituents saying, why is ISIS having oil production facilities? Why are they even allowed to produce anything? 

They should have been destroyed back then had we had a clear cut 

strategy. 

This is a real pointed question. What is this administration’s reasoning to continually press for refugees from Syria and other areas 

in the Middle East, to relax the entry requirements into the U.S. 

especially when France, Germany and Belgium have documented 

that over 70 to 80 ISIS members entered the EU through Syria 

with fake passports, and those were the people that did the shootVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:25 Mar 23, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_FULL\021016\98599 SHIRL
48

ings in Paris. Why is this administration hellbent on relaxing these 

restrictions? What is the reasoning for that? 

Mr. MCGURK. I think we have the most stringent entry standards on the refugee program in the world and that is something 

that is going to continue. 

Mr. YOHO. Yes, but yet FBI Director Comey and Jeh Johnson of 

DHS says there is no way to vet these people. So why not put a 

pause on this until we know for sure that they are not fake passports, they are not this? You are saying that but yet France and 

Germany and those other countries are kind of saying, hey, wait 

a minute, we are not doing this anymore. Why are we not heeding 

the warning that we know is going to happen? 

Mr. MCGURK. Again, I think I defer to my colleagues who work 

this issue every day and I can get you a more detailed answer. But 

we have one of the most stringent refugee admissions processes in 

the entire world and that is why I am not aware of any terrorists 

who have entered through the refugee program. 

Mr. YOHO. Again going back to the ISIS transport. We talked 

about the administration’s failure to go after this early. Four to six 

months ago they did this. And we are at a war at terrorism, right, 

and ISIS is the terrorist organization that we are in conflict with. 

And I don’t know what poll you have, but I sure wish you guys 

would crank down on this administration and say that. Because 

what I see is a reckless endangerment and a dereliction of duty on 

our national security by this administration. And I hope you would 

help them straighten that out. I yield back. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Dr. Yoho. Now my other 

Florida colleague, Mr. Deutch of Florida. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Just on the subject 

of reckless endangerment as long as we are talking about some of 

these issues, I am not going to ask you, Mr. McGurk, to comment 

on this. But it is really hard for me to comprehend how we have 

this entire hearing with all kinds of accusations made about the 

administration’s policies, the request that the administration actually take certain actions only to have you explain that we are taking them and then the criticism be, well, why didn’t we take them 

sooner, when the concern that we have about fighting terrorism at 

least in one small respect can be addressed if we simply acknowledge that individuals who can’t fly into this country because they 

are on a terrorism watch list can still, if they are in this country, 

go to any gun store and purchase a gun. 

I don’t understand it, and if we are going to talk about reckless 

endangerment that is something that this Congress ought to be 

doing that the Speaker ought to allow us to have a debate on. And 

it is impossible for me to understand how after this entire hearing 

that single step that is logical that has the overwhelming support 

of the American people has yet to be done. 

Now Mr. McGurk, I want to circle back to a comment, an exchange you had earlier on Iran that focuses really on Iraq. But I 

want to talk about Iran’s activities in Syria and the question I have 

is really straightforward. After the Iran nuclear deal and implementation day which has now passed, has that had any impact in 

the way that we interact with the Iranians with respect to their acVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:25 Mar 23, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_FULL\021016\98599 SHIRL
49

tivities on the ground in Syria both supporting Hezbollah, propping 

up Assad, but at the same time fighting ISIL? 

Mr. MCGURK. Congressman, thanks for your question. Iran, since 

the nuclear deal they are a part of the Vienna process. They are 

at the table with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey; everyone else. So 

that is significant. But certainly I think their tactic strategies in 

Syria, if anything, have made the conflict worse. I think we have 

been very clear on that. Iran is focused on, they have an election 

upcoming later this month which will decide some things about the 

direction the country is headed, but certainly we have not seen a 

significant change in terms of what they are doing in Syria. 

Mr. DEUTCH. And just the only other thing I would observe that 

I am not sure how many things will be decided when the number 

of reformers who are allowed to run is mere tens out of the thousands who had sought that, but I appreciate that. And I want to 

just ask a follow-up. 

But the fact is that Iran and its proxies are responsible for so 

much of Assad’s, propping up Assad and Assad’s ability to massacre his own people. In the earlier stages of these debates there 

was talk about individuals who would like to go after Assad because of the butchery, the brutality against their family members 

and their community members, and if they didn’t have that opportunity sometimes they turn to whoever would give them the chance 

to fight no matter how awful that group might be. 

What are we doing now to ensure that the battle they wage is 

one that is against ISIL and yet also acknowledges that the Assad, 

the brutal Assad regime ultimately is responsible for so much of 

the problem that exists? 

Mr. MCGURK. This is real problem, because so long as the conflict between the regime and the opposition is running at full bore, 

which it is right now enabled by the Russian air campaign, the pool 

of fighters particularly in those parts of the country to fight ISIL 

are reduced. So I discussed in some detail north of Aleppo, the 

Mari line, groups we were working with to fight ISIL have now 

peeled off to fight the regime, again which is why the Russian air 

campaign in this respect has made the fight against ISIL more difficult. 

Mr. DEUTCH. And finally, I know the chairman joins me in telling you that while—first, I want to commend you personally for 

your efforts in helping to secure the release of American citizens 

who had been held in Iran. As you know, my constituent, Bob 

Levinson, was not among them. I was with the family this morning 

over on the Senate side at a markup of a resolution that we are 

going to be taking up here. They deserve to have that same feeling 

of joy and relief that the other families are now feeling, and I just 

can’t emphasize strongly enough how important it is for us, for the 

American people, and for you specifically to be unrelenting in your 

efforts to bring Bob home. 

Mr. MCGURK. Congressman, I assure you the issue with the prisoners was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I have 

gotten to know the families quite well. I have met the Levinsons 

a number of times. I saw them in the West Wing yesterday before 

they saw the President. And we certainly will not cease in our efforts. 

50

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much. Thank you for that Mr. 

Deutch. Mr. Keating of Massachusetts. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you for 

having this hearing. I would like to thank Mr. McGurk for your 

service and the work you have done. It is important and you have 

done a great job and I appreciate that personally, and I am speaking as a Member of Congress as well. 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you. 

Mr. KEATING. I would like to, at first, associate myself with some 

remarks my colleague Mr. Deutch made about even when putting 

things in perspective in terms of threats here at home, even with 

the language and to scrub the Terrorist Watch List, I think it is 

just important that we get a vote on that. The idea that people on 

that Terrorist Watch List that can legally procure explosives and 

weapons and do that legally in this country is something that we 

have to address as part of our own homeland security. 

A question I have along those lines, earlier this last year I went 

with a group of my colleagues from the Homeland Security Committee. We were looking at tracking the issues surrounding foreign 

terrorist fighters and those issues. Could you give an update on the 

Security Council resolution in that regard, 2178? And also more 

specifically, my concern is too with some of the progress we have 

made, you mentioned with Turkey that we will see how that turns 

out. I am hopeful but somewhat skeptical about their ability to secure that border area. 

But two issues that stand out, the passenger name record issue 

with EU countries and even the kind of security that is done on 

the exterior border of the Schengen countries. Can you tell me any 

progress that you are aware of that we have made with our European allies so that they can tighten that up? That has a direct effect with our security here at home, their ability to do that. 

Mr. MCGURK. So great questions, Congressman. I addressed this 

somewhat in my written statement. Since Paris we have certainly 

seen a lot of movement in this regard. The first step was to focus 

international attention on this problem and then to get something 

concrete out of it which was Resolution 2178 which came out of the 

U.N. General Assembly in 2014. Since then, I think as my testimony mentioned, about 45 countries have updated their laws to 

track down foreign terrorist fighters. 

What we are trying to do now as we learn more about the networks and through the coalitions—it is why our global coalition is 

so important. It is not just the military which gets a lot of the 

focus, it is sharing information across these multiple lines of effort, 

and in the foreign fighter side we have a cell which shares information across borders. 

So we have had arrests now in Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, 

Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, Qatar, here in the United States, and now 

what we are doing is sharing information to try to really collapse 

these foreign fighter networks. 

And it is a very difficult endeavor. It is law enforcement, it is intelligence, but it is constantly sharing information. We have found 

that many of the countries we work with, they have a difficult time 

51

sharing information amongst themselves in their capital. It is a 

problem we had before 9/11. 

Mr. KEATING. Yes, there are different laws, privacy laws. 

Mr. MCGURK. So we have broken down a lot of those stovepipes 

here in the U.S. post 9/11, and we are finding out post Paris, particularly in the EU they are also working to do the same thing. 

Passenger name recognition is a critical thing. That was getting 

in the way, getting hung up on privacy laws in the EU. Now the 

EU Parliament has passed, finally, the passenger name recognition, so we know everybody who is on—they know everybody who 

is on those airplanes. We of course know everybody coming into the 

U.S. So something we are diligent about, something we raise all 

the time, and within the coalition we now have a permanent structure set up on the foreign terrorist fighter side, so—and it is a permanent platform now, constantly sharing information and figuring 

out, connecting dots. It has led, as I mentioned in my testimony, 

to a number of FBI investigations. This came right out of our coalition activities, and it is something that we are going to continue. 

Mr. KEATING. Quickly, one other question before my time expires. There have been written reports out there that the terrorist 

fighters that their salaries and the money they are getting has 

been cut by as much as 50 percent. What do you know about those 

reports, how real are they, and obviously what kind of impact 

would that have on their recruitment when this begins to break 

down? Because we are trying to hone in and really damage their 

ability to finance these terrorist activities. 

Mr. MCGURK. Again a very good question. And one reason we decided to go after these cash, bulk cash storage sites particularly in 

Mosul, look, they are right in downtown Mosul. To answer some of 

the questions from your colleagues earlier is there a risk that some 

civilians might lose their lives in an air strike like that? The answer is yes. However, the judgment was that it is important to 

strike those sites because this is how they are paying and recruiting their fighters. And we eliminated those sites. 

But I just want to go back. We are very careful about civilian 

casualties for a reason. We are not going to be like the Russians 

or some others who are just using dummy bombs on civilian areas 

and trying to kill people they consider extremists. This has been 

the most precise air campaign in history and we are very proud of 

that. It is also, I think history will show, it has been one of the 

most effective air campaigns in history. 

And what we have done to ISIL’s finances by a careful infusion 

of intelligence, sharing information across the coalition and within 

the U.S. Government to identify the targets and then to action 

those targets is something that takes time to piece together. Sometimes it takes longer than we might want, but we have pieced it 

together. We have now done those air strikes, they have been very 

effective, and as you said they have led to very credible information 

we have now that ISIL has cut its pay to foreign fighters by nearly 

50 percent. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McGurk. And I wish 

we could say the same thing about the Russians and the way they 

are conducting their bombing exercises as we can about our own 

exercises. I yield back, Madam. 

52

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Keating. And Mr. 

McGurk, we appreciate the time that you took with us this morning. I know that you are headed to the airport to continue your 

work, but ISIS is an incredibly dangerous threat that is global and 

continues to grow and the committee looks forward to continuing 

to work with you on this important issue. With that the hearing 

is adjourned. 

Mr. MCGURK. Thank you so much. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Safe journey. 

[Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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