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i 

45–061 2009

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–80] 

HEARING ON H.R. 3087, TO REQUIRE THE PRESIDENT, IN COORDINATION WITH THE SECRETARY 

OF STATE, THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, THE 

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, AND OTHER SENIOR 

MILITARY LEADERS, TO DEVELOP AND TRANSMIT TO CONGRESS A COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY FOR THE REDEPLOYMENT OF UNITED 

STATES ARMED FORCES IN IRAQ; AND H.R. 3159, 

TO MANDATE MINIMUM PERIODS OF REST AND 

RECUPERATION FOR UNITS AND MEMBERS OF 

THE REGULAR AND RESERVE COMPONENTS OF 

THE ARMED FORCES BETWEEN DEPLOYMENTS 

FOR OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM OR OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 27, 2007 
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

MARK E. UDALL, Colorado 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

NANCY BOYDA, Kansas 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director 

MICHAEL CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

STEPHANIE SANOK, Professional Staff Member 

MARGEE MECKSTROTH, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2007 

Page 

HEARING: 

Friday, July 27, 2007, Hearing on H.R. 3087, To Require the President, 

in Coordination with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Other Senior Military Leaders, to Develop 

and Transmit to Congress a Comprehensive Strategy for the Redeployment 

of United States Armed Forces in Iraq; and H.R. 3159, To Mandate Minimum Periods of Rest and Recuperation for Units and Members of the 

Regular and Reserve Components of the Armed Forces Between Deployments for Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom ............ 1 

APPENDIX: 

Friday, July 27, 2007 ............................................................................................... 45 

FRIDAY, JULY 27, 2007 

HEARING ON H.R. 3087, TO REQUIRE THE PRESIDENT, IN COORDINATION WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE, THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, AND OTHER SENIOR MILITARY LEADERS, TO DEVELOP AND TRANSMIT TO CONGRESS A 

COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY FOR THE REDEPLOYMENT OF 

UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES IN IRAQ; AND H.R. 3159, TO MANDATE MINIMUM PERIODS OF REST AND RECUPERATION FOR 

UNITS AND MEMBERS OF THE REGULAR AND RESERVE COMPONENTS OF THE ARMED FORCES BETWEEN DEPLOYMENTS FOR OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM OR OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

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

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

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

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

WITNESSES 

Keane, Gen. John M., USA (Ret.), Former Vice Chief of Staff, Department 

of the Army ........................................................................................................... 4 

Korb, Lawrence J., Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress ...................... 8 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Korb, Lawrence J. ............................................................................................. 49 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to H.R. 3159 Offered by Mr. 

Skelton of Missouri ....................................................................................... 67 

H.R. 3087 ........................................................................................................... 72 
Page

IV 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Murphy ....................................................................................................... 79 
(1) 

HEARING ON H.R. 3087, TO REQUIRE THE PRESIDENT, IN 

COORDINATION WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE, 

THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, THE JOINT CHIEFS OF 

STAFF, AND OTHER SENIOR MILITARY LEADERS, TO 

DEVELOP AND TRANSMIT TO CONGRESS A COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY FOR THE REDEPLOYMENT 

OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES IN IRAQ; AND H.R. 

3159, TO MANDATE MINIMUM PERIODS OF REST AND 

RECUPERATION FOR UNITS AND MEMBERS OF THE 

REGULAR AND RESERVE COMPONENTS OF THE 

ARMED FORCES BETWEEN DEPLOYMENTS FOR OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM OR OPERATION ENDURING 

FREEDOM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC, Friday, July 27, 2007. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:34 a.m., in room 2118, 

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

committee) presiding. 

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

SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. Ladies and gentlemen, we will come to order. 

I might mention there will be absolutely no demonstrations of 

any sort tolerated today. 

The House Armed Services Committee meets to hold hearings on 

two bills: H.R. 3159, concerning deployment policy, and H.R. 3087, 

a bill regarding planning for redeployment of troops from Iraq. 

Later, at 1 p.m. today, in this room, our committee will be holding a markup of each of these two bills, so our witnesses’ statements will have an immediate impact—something not often seen. 

Today, I am pleased to welcome two very familiar faces and old 

friends coming back to our committee: General John Keane, former 

vice chief of staff of the Army, and Dr. Larry Korb, currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former assistant secretary of defense. 

Gentlemen, we welcome you, and we appreciate your being with 

us very, very much. 

First, an administrative note. I understand that General Keane 

has to leave at 11:30 a.m., promptly. 

Is that correct, General? 

General KEANE. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the staff has to rearrange the room before 

the markup. And this means that the hearing has to end promptly 
2 

at 12 p.m. So I will ask members and witnesses to be as brief as 

they can. I will keep my opening statement short, and hopefully 

Mr. Hunter will agree to do that as well. 

We are here today, as I mentioned, to consider two bills, two 

issues. 

First, this hearing is an important effort to learn and to understand what the impact is on our troops and their families from frequent and extended deployments. The Department of Defense has 

established a goal that active-duty servicemembers should be deployed for one year with two years back in home station. The goal 

for our reservists and guardsmen is five years between deployments. 

Unfortunately, the service is not meeting that goal, and the 

Army is actually deploying soldiers for longer periods than they 

have back at the home station. This is a troubling sign, since the 

time back in home station is usually to reset, retrain and re-equip 

the forces. 

It is also having an impact on morale of the troops, as well as 

their families. Military families don’t ask for much, but one thing 

they do want and need is predictability and stability in the time 

between deployments. The loss of dwell time back home is increasing the burnout among our troops, as well as their families. 

And I look forward to hearing from insights from witnesses on 

their insights into the impact these deployment lengths are having. 

Second, this afternoon the committee will mark up a bill planning for a redeployment from Iraq. And I believe that we have 

reached a bipartisan agreement on this particular subject which 

will be discussed at the markup, but I think it is a subject that is 

well worth exploring. 

A redeployment from Iraq whenever it happens will be huge and 

a complex endeavor, requiring us to move tens of thousands of soldiers and other civilians and their equipment as well as their supplies out of that country. 

It will be like moving the entirety of several small cities. And it 

can only be done well through the exhaustive and detailed planning that has to happen well in advance of any actual redeployment. 

We can all think of recent examples where plans by the Department of Defense were either inadequate or wholly lacking. And 

many observers have blamed Congress for not conducting oversight 

to ensure that there were effective plans. 

Whatever the justice for these comments, I am determined, as I 

think all members here, that such criticisms not be leveled at us 

in the future. 

So, gentlemen, we thank you again, Mr. Korb, General Keane, for 

being with us today. And thank you for your contributions to our 

country as well as your testimony today. 

My friend, my colleague, the gentleman from California, Ranking 

Member Mr. Hunter. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON 

ARMED SERVICES 

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, thank you and good morning. 
3 

And good morning to our witnesses. We appreciate both you gentlemen for your longstanding service to the country and to this 

committee, particularly with your insights in important areas. This 

is one of those times when we need those insights. 

This morning, the committee is going to benefit from your testimony with respect to a couple of very important issues that we are 

going to be discussing and marking up, as I understand, this afternoon. 

One would impose statutory requirements regarding periods of 

rest and recuperation for Armed Forces units that deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And one would require the President to provide Congress with a comprehensive strategy for the redeployment of the Armed Forces from Iraq. 

To be honest, I have got concerns about both of these legislative 

initiatives. And I hope that you can help us better understand their 

implications on our national security interests, on U.S. military 

personnel and readiness, on Iraq and on the broader Middle East 

region. 

H.R. 3159, as well the substitute to it that will be offered by 

Chairman Skelton today, would prohibit the deployment of active 

and reserve component units that did not meet certain minimum 

stand down or dwell time requirements between deployments. 

I believe that such prohibitions intrude heavily and inappropriately into the constitutional duties of the President as Commander 

in Chief. 

Beyond that, both dwell time proposals appear to be not so much 

efforts to improve the readiness of units and quality of life of members of the Armed Forces, but rather to force a withdrawal and reduction of U.S. forces committed to Operations Iraqi Freedom and 

Enduring Freedom. 

I say that because the structure of Chairman Skelton’s substitute 

would focus deployment prohibitions on Iraq. As I understand it, 

his substitute would prohibit the deployment to Iraq of certain 

forces which did not meet certain dwell time minimums, but allow 

those very same forces, regardless of dwell time, to be committed 

to combat in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world that they 

might be needed. 

Moreover, I am concerned that by statutorily reducing the pool 

of forces available for deployment, essentially putting brigades and 

battalions on the shelf, so to speak, either H.R. 3159 or the proposed substitute will have the actual effect of increasing the stress 

on the readiness, personnel tempo and deployment tempo of the 

units that remained available to meet combatant commander requirements. 

It may also put forces deployed in-theater at increased risk if the 

Army and Marine Corps, for example, cannot meet these requirements. 

And, further, it may create a requirement to extend committed 

forces in-theater. So I will be very interested in your comments on 

those issues. 

The other piece of legislation, H.R. 3087, would require the President to submit to Congress as a comprehensive strategy for redeploying our troops from Iraq, including a plan to achieve ‘‘the transition of United States combat forces,’’ and to limit U.S. military 
4 

missions to a handful of vaguely worded tasks that include supporting Iraqi forces and protecting Armed Forces facilities. 

In my view, this language also crosses the well-defined line established by our Constitution. We have heard this statement in relation to withdrawal plans on the floor of the House and in other 

places, but in light of this legislation, it clearly bears repeating: 

The President shall be Commander in Chief. 

It is true that the legislative branch must conduct vigorous oversight over the activities of the executive branch. It is our congressional prerogative to conduct oversight of the Administration, and 

we do that regularly, oft-times here in this very room. 

However, it cannot be our congressional prerogative to limit our 

Nation’s Commander in Chief in such a way that would effectively 

paralyze our military, remove operational flexibility and impose in 

statute a rigid set of parameters that our military commanders 

have not requested and by all accounts don’t want. 

Let us also seriously consider the message that this legislation 

sends to our adversaries. 

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me for interrupting. 

There will be no demonstrations in this room. Next time we see 

that, out you go. 

Pardon me, Mr. Hunter. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again we are telegraphing intentions by using our legislation 

forum to define limited military missions and sound the retreat, all 

before we receive the recommendations and advice of perhaps the 

most gifted military commander currently in the U.S. Armed 

Forces. And, of course, that is the Petraeus report that we expect 

on September 15th. 

If we want the Department of Defense to share information at 

the appropriate classification levels about our contingency planning, let us ask for that. Secretary Gates confirmed yesterday that 

this planning is ongoing. 

Let us get the Department’s smart military planners in here, listen to what they have to say and provide feedback. Let us not presume to become 435 commanders in chief. 

Mr. HUNTER. Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this 

hearing. I think it is very timely, very important. And I look forward to a vigorous discussion. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Hunter. 

Without further ado, we will go to General Keane. 

We, again, appreciate your past service and your present service. 

And thank you for being with us. 

Followed by Mr. Larry Korb shortly. 

Mr. Keane—General Keane. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. JOHN M. KEANE, USA (RET.), FORMER 

VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY 

General KEANE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman—Congressman Skelton, and also Mr. Hunter, fellow members of the committee. 

Thanks for the invitation, even on short notice, to provide testimony to you today. And I will make a brief opening statement, if 

I may. 
5 

I come before you today with 40 years involved in national security, and the last 6-plus years involved in Iraq, from initial planning, the oversight of the invasion, and the last 4 years dealing 

with the counterinsurgency. One year of that was in uniform and 

the remaining three years I have been a member of the Secretary 

of Defense’s policy board, and the last six months as an advisor to 

General Petraeus and General Odierno. 

I have been to Iraq, from the outset in 2003 up to the present, 

many times. And the last five months, two times, for almost two 

weeks each time. And I leave Thursday for another two weeks. 

Let me say from the outset that I understand the frustration of 

the Members of Congress, because I have been there myself. The 

fact is, our strategy from 2003 through 2006 failed in Iraq. 

It was a short war strategy designed to get a representative democracy as quickly as possible before the political culture was mature enough to support it, and a military strategy designed to train 

the Iraqi security forces and transition to them as quickly as possible. Nowhere in that strategy was there a plan to defeat the insurgency. Our intention was to leave it to the Iraqis. 

The level of violence increased, as we are painfully aware, every 

single year, despite the progress of a series of national elections in 

2005 and the installation of a final and third government in 2006, 

while the Iraqi security forces made slow, steady and at times uneven progress toward taking over from us. 

But as the level of violence continued to escalate and then rage 

out of control in 2006, it was, in fact, beyond the Iraqi security 

forces’ capacity to cope with it. 

As we ended 2006, we were in a real crisis, with violence, particularly in Baghdad, raging out of control, thousands being killed, 

many more being evicted from homes, schools shut down, markets 

closed, people afraid to leave their homes, streets deserted, and the 

government unable to provide services and certainly unable to protect their own people. 

This newly installed government was moving ever so predictably 

to a fractured state in its first year, which would lead to an allout civil war and then a failed state. Horrific consequences would 

follow: a serious threat to our national security certainly, with a 

much larger war in the region, an al Qaeda sanctuary in Iraq, an 

Iranian hegemony developing in the region. 

We, the United States, tried to stop the violence in 2006 with two 

major operations in Baghdad. Both failed due to a lack of forces, 

both U.S. and Iraqis. 

By the end of summer 2006, it was clear even to the casual observer, that our strategy had failed, that we were in a major crisis, 

and that many believed we were in a hopeless situation. It was certainly reflected in the November elections that we certainly lacked 

progress, and we were in trouble. 

It was a difficult, complex situation where serious mistakes were 

made. But in my view, it is far from hopeless. 

As I analyzed this, I came to the conclusion that there was only 

one option that remained that could help stabilize the situation. All 

other options resulted in a worsening situation. Increasing advisors, having more of them, pulling back to larger bases, pulling our 

forces or reducing them all led to a worsening situation. 
6 

The option to conduct a counteroffensive—which is the appropriate military term for what we are doing—with the appropriate 

level of forces to do what we had never done before, to control the 

population and protect it while we aggressively attacked the al 

Qaeda simultaneously in every major area that they are in—again, 

something we had never done before. 

Underlying this operation was the recognition of some profound 

truths: number one, that we had the wrong strategy from 2003 to 

2006; number two, that we had significantly underestimated the 

enemy for three-plus years; and number three, that security was a 

necessary precondition for political progress and any chance at economic development, that without security we could just not make 

progress. 

We had a Presidential decision in January to change the strategy 

and to conduct a counteroffensive. The operation began in February, and it is now in full stride this month with the arrival of 

the last forces in June. 

The counteroffensive, from its inception, has always been temporary. It is not designed to keep the force levels indefinitely. The 

time frame is 12 to 18 months, with the intent to stabilize Baghdad, create the conditions to permit movement toward reconciliation, and to buy time for the growth and development of the Iraqi 

security forces. 

The operation is recognized by everyone involved that this is our 

last effort to attempt to achieve some definable progress and permit political solutions. 

It was never intended to be a military solution, but by design to 

use force to change attitudes and behavior to affect political outcomes, which is the environment that all military operations are 

conducted. 

So where are we? In the six months since the operation began, 

and the one month since we had all the forces, there is a significant change. First, we are on the offensive, and we have the momentum, which was in the opposite direction in 2006, when the 

enemy was on the offensive and had all the momentum and we 

were clearly on the defensive. 

Two, security has improved in every neighborhood and district in 

Baghdad and in the suburbs surrounding Baghdad. I have visited 

almost every neighborhood in Baghdad more than once. Schools are 

open. Markets are teeming with people. Most are operating at full 

capacity; some are returning to it. Cafes, pool halls, coffee houses 

that I visited are full of people. Government services, albeit some 

in a limited and uneven fashion, are being applied to the people. 

Almost all Iraqis I have spoken to—and there are hundreds 

across the full socio-economic spectrum, to include Sunnis and 

Shia—almost to a person believe that security has improved and 

we do not want the Americans and the Iraqi security forces to 

leave. 

We are now living with the people in Baghdad on a 24/7 experience. Sectarian violence, which is the Sunni-Shia violence, is down 

significantly from 2006, with June being a one-year low. 

U.S. casualties, while initially increasing—which is what you 

would expect in a counteroffensive; it was true in Inchon in Korea, 

it was true in the Normandy invasion of World War II, it was true 
7 

in the Pacific in World War II, and it was true in the 

counteroffensives in Vietnam. 

But the casualties will come down as the operation progresses 

and succeeds. And in fact, this month, they are down 30 percent. 

There are two more significant changes. 

First, the grassroots movement among the Sunnis; the fact that 

they are rejecting the al Qaeda, that they are willing to fight alongside us against the al Qaeda; and most importantly, seeking reconciliation with the Shia-dominated government. 

This is a huge turnaround, which is underappreciated in the 

United States. This is what we have always wanted, the Sunnis to 

achieve their political objectives not through armed violence, but 

through the political process, and it is beginning to happen. As 

such, Anbar Province is almost secure, a shocking reality given the 

events in 2006. In Diala, Ninewa, Saladin Province and Babil Province, all have Sunni movements toward reconciliation and rejecting 

the al Qaeda. 

Second, the al Qaeda are on their way to being defeated. Time 

and time again since January, they have tried to derail this operation with suicide car bombs, as they have just done recently, with 

the intended purpose to provoke Shia militia, similar to what they 

succeeded at doing with the Samara Mosque bombings and their 

assassination squads in 2006. It has failed. The Shia militia are 

not responding in any way like 2006. 

Moreover, al Qaeda has lost its sanctuary in Anbar and is losing 

it in Diala Province. 

A parenthetical statement: The reasons why the Shia militia 

have not responded are threefold. One is certainly they know that 

we are protecting the Sunni population, which they killed and 

evicted from their homes in 2006 as a result of the al Qaeda provocation. They would have to fight through us to get to them. They 

would lose that fight. 

Number two, they know that we are protecting millions of Shia, 

and the feedback of the Shia militia leaders from the millions of 

Shia that are being protected is not lost on them, and they do not 

want to risk that protection. So they stay behind their barricades, 

and they are not attacking Sunnis. They are attacking us because 

they want us eventually to leave. 

But my point with the al Qaeda is their strategy has failed. The 

Shia militia are not responding to anything like 2006. 

Moreover, the al Qaeda has lost its sanctuary in Anbar and is 

losing it in Diala Province. They are hurt badly. They are still dangerous, to be sure, but they are very much on the defensive. 

Not all is rosy in Iraq, to be sure, and I am not suggesting as 

such. The Shia militia are attacking U.S. forces, but they are fragmented. Sadr is not the leader he was. Maliki is on public television taking issue with Sadr because he knows that Sadr and he 

are not aligned in terms of their political objectives for Iraq. Sadr 

is back in Iran depressed and frustrated with what has been happening in Iraq. 

The cumulative effect of increased security over a series of 

months, not days and weeks, has the very real prospects for the beginning of favorable political reconciliation between the Shia and 

Sunnis. The truth is it has already begun, initiated by the Sunnis, 
8 

and in time, in my judgment, will be followed by Iraqi government 

actions. 

Your actions here in the Congress appear to be in direct conflict 

with the realities on the ground, where the trends are up and 

progress is being made. Your resolution, like so many others proposed, ties the hands of our military commanders and deprives 

them of the opportunity to use the appropriate level of force for the 

time that is required to use that force. 

Let me just tell you straight out that our troops took this counterinsurgency offensive in stride knowing it would mean more loss 

of life and more catastrophic injuries. 

Their idealism, their courage, I am in awe of. They do not want 

to die, but they are willing to, and that is what separates them 

from the rest of the American people. They are willing to give up 

everything that they care about in life, everything, the opportunity 

to have a full life, the opportunity to have parents, to be a parent, 

to have friends in your life, the opportunity to have love in your 

life, to love and to be loved. They do this out of a profound but simple sense of duty, and they do it for one another. 

This, in my judgment, is true honor. This kind of devotion needs 

to be supported. 

Members of Congress, I respect your constitutional obligations, 

and I took an oath to willingly defend them, but I ask you to fight 

your demons, to find the courage that our troops display so openly, 

to deserve their honorable and selfless sacrifice, to not squander 

their sacrifices and the gains they have made. 

This is not about a President. It is not about an Administration. 

It is not about Democrats and Republicans gaining advantage over 

each other. This is all about the American people, their security, 

and as such, our very real national interests in Iraq and the region. 

Members of Congress, I ask you to put these well-intentioned, 

but, in my judgment, senseless and embarrassing resolutions aside. 

Yes, we have made mistakes, serious ones. This is not the time to 

give in to our frustrations, to give in to our anger, and to give in 

to our fears. 

I ask you to wait for General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker 

to have their say here in September and then you decide if you can 

support the prospects of future success in Iraq. 

Thank you. I look forward to your questions. 

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

statement. We appreciate it very much. 

Mr. Korb. 

STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE J. KORB, SENIOR FELLOW, 

CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS 

Mr. KORB. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Leader Hunter. 

It is a privilege to be back here before you once again to talk about 

the two bills that you have before you which, in my view, you must 

pass as quickly as possible. Let me explain why I think that is so. 

First of all, you have the power, and it is very clear if you go 

back—and the Congressional Research Service has just prepared 

an analysis of things you have done in the past, whether it is during the war in the Philippines, the Korean War, the Cold War or 

Central America—you have put restraints on military forces. 
9 

For example, during the Korean War, it was the Congress that 

insisted that people not be sent into that battle unless they had 

four months of training. Can you imagine that we needed to do 

that, that the executive would even think about that, and the Congress had to step up? So you have the power to do that. 

Similarly, I think in terms of getting the President to prepare a 

redeployment plan, you need to do that because there is no fallback 

position. As much as I respect General Keane and some of the 

things he said, I cannot emphasize this too much: This surge is 

built on sand. It cannot succeed, and I will explain why it cannot. 

But let me talk first about the situation with our troops. What 

are you asking? You are allowing the Administration to violate its 

own policies when it comes to deploying troops. When I had the 

privilege of serving in the Reagan Administration, the idea was 

that for every month you spent in a combat zone, you would spend 

two months at home. 

You are allowing them one month, and you are also allowing the 

President to waive it. That is nonsense. The fact of the matter is 

you are doing what is right for the troops because this Administration will soon be history, but you are going to have to live with that 

military force, and if you do not act now, it is not going to be in 

the shape that it needs to be to carry out our security, and I will 

get into some of those reasons. 

Now, if you take a look at what is happening to our readiness— 

and, again, as much as I respect General Keane, take a look at 

what other generals have said—General Powell, General McCaffrey, General Abizaid, General Blum, General Odom—about the 

situation with our Army, okay. It is broken, okay. 

General Abizaid put it very well: This Army was not designed for 

a long war. And I say to those people who want to keep up this 

surge indefinitely, if you have the courage of your convictions, then 

call for reinstatement of the draft, because our volunteer Army was 

not designed, as General Abizaid said, for the long war. 

We had a small active-duty Army. The Guard and Reserve was 

going to be a bridge to conscription. If you want to do that, have 

the courage of your convictions. If not, then you have to do what 

Congressman Tanner and Congressman Abercrombie are talking 

about in terms of preparing a redeployment plan and what Congresswoman Tauscher and Congressman Skelton are talking about 

in terms of allowing the people to have this time in between deployments. 

Not only is it strategic because, because of this surge, you do not 

have a single brigade of the 82nd Airborne on strategic operational 

ground reserve left in this country. We have other interests. Our 

objective is not ‘‘whatever it might mean to win the war in Iraq,’’ 

but to provide for the overall security of the United States. 

Not only do you have to worry about military readiness, but what 

about your moral obligation to the men and women who volunteer 

to serve? When they volunteer, we have certain understandings in 

terms of how long you will be mobilized if you are in the Guard 

and Teserve and how much time you will get between deployments. 

And if you look at every poll, whether it is conducted by the 

Army Times, whether it is conducted by CBS, the support among 

the troops for this ill-considered war is declining, and if you do not 
10 

believe the polls, look at the suicide rate, look at the desertion rate, 

look at the divorce rate. This is what is happening. 

Look at what is happening to recruiting because American people 

have turned away from this war, and they are discouraging—as we 

call them, the influencers—the men and women who ordinarily 

would be attracted to join the Army from coming in. 

Last year, the Army increased its age for first-time enlistees to 

42. It took the number of non-high school graduates to about 20 

percent. It tripled the number of people scoring below average on 

the Armed Forces qualification test. 

And what happened? Even with that, it had to give over 8,000 

moral waivers—8,000. That is 10 percent for the active force. This 

year, the Army is not meeting its recruiting goals, and those waivers are up to 12 percent. 

You have taken in, last year, 900 people with felony convictions. 

That is the Army that will be left when this Administration leaves 

office, and this is the Army you have to deal with. 

And they say, ‘‘Well, retention is good.’’ Yes, retention is good 

among career people, but it is not good among first-term people, 

people who have not made the career decision. The Army is seven 

percent short of people completing their first tour. 

And what about officers? Retention among West Point people— 

these are your future leaders—is as low as it has been in the last 

30 years. The Army is 50 percent short of senior captains, and the 

promotion rate from captain to major is almost 100 percent. These 

are going to be our future leaders. This is the Army that we are 

dealing with if we do not do something. 

Now we have done studies at the Center for American Progress 

in terms of the deployment of active-duty brigades and enhanced 

brigades in the Guard, and if you take a look at those numbers, 

they are startling. You have two brigades on their fourth deployment. You have nine on their third deployment. Twenty have been 

deployed twice. 

The four Guard brigades that have been alerted and are scheduled to deploy to support this surge are not ready because they do 

not have the equipment to get themselves ready, and all of them 

are being sent back without the minimum of three years at home. 

The governor of Ohio asked the President, ‘‘Before you call them 

up, you certify that this is ready to go.’’ He has not done it. So this 

is basically, you know, what the situation is. 

I remember when I got off active duty and went back to graduate 

school and was writing about how did we get ourselves involved in 

this mess in Vietnam, and I remember interviewing General Maxwell Taylor and then later on, he said, ‘‘We sent the Army to Vietnam to save Vietnam. We took it out to save the Army.’’ And this 

is the situation you are now in in Iraq. 

Now let me conclude by talking a little bit about the surge. The 

surge was premised on the fact that if you got security under control, the Iraqi government would make the painful political compromises. That is not why they are not making them. They do not 

want to. They do not have the capacity to do that. 

Remember that Maliki promised four months after the 2005 election he would amend the constitution. They have not done it. You 
11 

take a look at those 18 benchmarks the last time. Even though 

they claimed progress on a couple, they simply were not true. 

The other premise is that the Iraqi security forces, if we gave 

them time, would be ready to do what they need. Nonsense. They 

have had enough training. The question is motivation for these 

Iraqi forces. There is no Iraq for them to fight and die for. 

If you take a look in Baquba, we asked for 11,500 Iraqis to come; 

1,500 showed up. They are loyal to their tribe or sect, not to the 

country. Many of them have more training than young men and 

young women we are sending over there as part of brigades. 

If you take a look at one of the brigades of the 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, what happened was 140 people joined that 

unit right out of basic training, missed the unit training, got 10 

days of deployment before they were sent over there. And I have 

other examples, you know, in my testimony. 

Why did they fight and die for us? Because they have a country, 

they are loyal to us. So, with the Iraqis, it is not training. They 

have the training. The real question is motivation. 

The other is that we did not send enough troops. If you read 

General Petraeus’ own manual, we do not have enough troops. If 

you had a couple hundred thousand more troops, you were willing 

to stay there for 10 years and the Iraqi security forces could step 

up and these political leaders would do what they need to do, then 

maybe you would have a chance, but that is not going to be the 

case. 

We have put out a plan at the center called Strategic Reset 

which says we have to change our policy toward the whole Middle 

East, and part of it is to set a withdrawal date and undertake a 

diplomatic surge. Until you set that withdrawal date, the countries 

in the region, all of whom are involved in Iraq in a non-constructive way, will not get involved constructively, and I am convinced 

that once you set that withdrawal date, those countries will know 

that, in fact, it will be their problem as well as our problem, and 

none of them want to see Iraq become a failed state or a haven or 

a launching pad for international terrorism that can contain them. 

All right. Let me conclude with this. Twenty-five, 26 years ago, 

this Congress gave me an unprecedented opportunity to deal with 

the readiness of our Armed Forces, and at that time, it was not 

good. But because of the support of this committee, Congress and 

future Congresses, Administration, we were able to rebuild our 

Armed Forces, particularly the Army, and the Army that we sent 

into Iraq was probably one of the finest we have ever had, but it 

is not there now, and the longer you stay, the worse it is going to 

get. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

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

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Korb, thank you very much. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Korb, thank you very, very much for—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Point of inquiry. 

The CHAIRMAN. You bet. 
12 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, you are aware and I think most of the members 

are aware that at least where 3087 is concerned—I am not sure 

about the other one—it is my intention to offer an amendment. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am about ready to mention that. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Oh, okay, because I was hoping—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE [continuing]. That it might help clarify things. 

The CHAIRMAN. I was going to do that. 

First, let me mention that because of the time limitations of the 

witnesses, we hope we can condense our questions as much as possible. There are two substitutes, one on the 3087. A substitute will 

be offered by Mr. Abercrombie and Mr. Turner to that at a later 

moment, and, hopefully, you have that in front of you. And I have 

a substitute to 3159. I hope you have a resume of that in front of 

you. If not, the staff will be glad to get it for you. 

I will ask one question, then ask Mr. Hunter to proceed. 

I have a serious concern, and that is this thing called readiness. 

If the future is anything like the past, as sure as God made little 

green apples, we are going to have military challenges in the future. 

Out you go. Out you go. All of you, out. 

As sure as God made little green apples, something is going to 

happen in the future. We do not know what. 

The last 30 years, we have had 12 military contingencies, 4 of 

which have been major in scope, most of which have been unexpected. Mark Twain once said that history does not repeat itself, 

but it sure rhymes a lot, and we do not know what is around the 

corner. 

And that is the job of this committee. It is the job of Congress 

to keep the readiness level high. That worries me. That really does. 

I think it worries every member of this committee, and that is one 

of the purposes of our meeting today, our hearing today, and the 

markup this afternoon, to make steps toward having readiness for 

the future and a higher level of—— 

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, could I interrupt for a second? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes? I cannot hear you. 

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, let me interrupt for a second, if I 

could. Having our guests walk in and out of the door while previous guests are shrieking outside makes it tough for us to hear 

you, and I think that this is very serious. We need to be able to 

hear everything you said. 

I would request that if folks want to stay in here in the hearing 

that you keep them in; if they want to go back and forth for breaks, 

that they stay outside and watch it on television. There is another 

gentleman just ready to leave right now, and it makes it tough for 

us to hear you. 

The CHAIRMAN. That is a good idea. 

If you are going to leave, leave right now or else stay until we 

have a break or a moment. 

Thank you for your suggestion. 

Mr. TAYLOR. He just came in. [Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. We make an exception for North Carolinians. 
13 

A few moments ago, I was given a report by Solomon Ortiz, the 

gentleman from Texas, the subcommittee chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, on the dire straits of part of our military 

equipment, which goes to the readiness issue, and all of this ties 

together and is of deep concern to each of us. 

So let me ask this one question. Given the short duration of 

dwell time at home station under the current policy, are units able 

to train for missions that would be involved in contingencies somewhere else in the world? 

General Keane. 

General KEANE. In my judgment, they are not. The troops at 

home station in between deployments to Iraq do essentially two 

things. One is they are recovering from Iraq or Afghanistan, and 

that means recovering their equipment, and people are moving out 

and new people are being assigned, and there is a transition period 

there, and then they are preparing to go back to Iraq on deployment. 

And so I think certainly with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps that it is today, which is far too small, the commitment 

that we have of about 150,000 to a protracted war that lasts more 

than a few years certainly adds stress to that force, and it definitely affects the readiness of the force. 

I mean, the issue for me underlying what you are saying is that 

we knew this at the end of the 1990’s that these ground forces were 

too small. We certainly were painfully aware of it as a result of the 

confrontation that took place with radical Islam and us on 9/11, 

and until just recently, we have not done much about it, and the 

fact that finally the President of the United States has authorized 

an increase will start to relieve some of that pressure. 

But, in my judgment, that increase still is not sufficient because 

you will by definition have to rely still disproportionately on the 

Guard and Reserves, and I believe we have flat broken the social 

compact with the Guard and Reserves, and that truly has to be adjusted, and making them more operational, in my view, is not the 

answer for people who are trying to maintain careers and other 

professions. 

The only answer is to continue to professionalize the active forces 

and increase their size, and so I do believe that still can be done, 

and I believe the American people are up to the task, and it can 

be done within the confines of a volunteer force, and then if it could 

not be done, to meet our national security objectives, then certainly 

I would not stand in the way of going back to a draft, but you 

would have to convince me that the American people and the 

American youth are not willing to come forward and participate in 

the Armed Forces, and every indication we have is that they are. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. 

Mr. Korb. 

Mr. KORB. Well, General Pace, in January, conducted a study 

and basically said we are not prepared to meet other contingencies 

around the world. 

We had a chance to increase the size of the Army right after 

9/11. We did not take it. This Congress has been urging the Administration to do it. Finally, they agreed this year. But the Congress 

has been pressing them to do that. 
14 

This is not the time to do it. When you have the majority of the 

American people having turned against the war, it is going to be 

very, very difficult to get them to allow their sons and daughters 

or encourage them particularly to join the Army. 

It was a missed opportunity. Right after September 11, you could 

have done it. We should have been called as a nation to sacrifice. 

We were not. 

I did not support the invasion of Iraq, but you have a President 

that was determined to go in 2001. He knew it. That was the time 

for him to expand the size of the Army. He could have done it. Instead, we did not do it. 

In fact, it is very interesting. Right before September 11, this Administration was actually considering, under Secretary Rumsfeld, 

getting rid of two active Army divisions. 

So we missed the opportunity. I am afraid it is too late to do it, 

and my recommendation is now that you have to begin redeploying 

from Iraq in order to save this Army and not have to go through 

conscription. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Hunter. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to begin on a happy note here. Our great member, 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, is just now rejoining us. This is her first 

hearing back since adding a member to the family, Cole. So Cole 

McMorris Rodgers. We want to welcome him, and, Cathy, welcome 

you back. Congratulations. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. HUNTER. Gentlemen, thank you for two very good statements, and, you know, I think that your two statements taken together frame this issue fairly effectively. 

There are two issues. One is: Is the counteroffensive working? Is 

it a good mission? Is it the right mission? And do we need to solidly 

back this mission to its completion? And the second question is: 

Are the personnel policies that are being proposed by the majority 

that are manifested in these amendments hurting or damaging 

that mission? Will they keep us from maintaining the counteroffensive? 

And, Mr. Korb, particularly you have gone back and forth in your 

statements. You have focused on personnel policies, and then you 

have gone to your criticism of the counteroffensive. You have said 

it cannot possibly work, it is built on sand. 

But I think the question for us is—the first question that I think 

we have to look at because we need to make a judgment with respect to the counteroffensive which General Petraeus is going to report on on September 15—would the changes in policy that are 

being recommended by the majority with respect to dwell time 

damage this mission? 

And if it would—and this is clearly a mission that we are embarked upon, which has the support, obviously, of a number of 

members, does not have the support of other members—I think the 

threshold question is: Do we support the mission? 

So the first question I would ask you, Mr. Korb and General 

Keane, is: Do you believe that changing these policies, the policies 

that are manifest with respect to the dwell time that are in the 
15 

proposed amendment, would damage the mission or hamper the 

mission that we have defined as this counteroffensive? 

Mr. KORB. No, I do not think so because you give the President 

the authority to waive it, and I think the key issue here is that he 

then must tell you and the American people why this is in our vital 

national interest. So I do not think it will. 

The other is everybody agrees, even Secretary Gates, that by 

next spring, you are not going to have enough troops anyway. So, 

I mean, that, I think, is another constraint. Even without changing 

the policies, the agreement is by spring of next year you cannot 

keep this level of troops there. 

Mr. HUNTER. General Keane, what do you think? 

General KEANE. Well, absolutely it undermines the mission. I 

mean, it takes away flexibility. The commander should be given the 

required force levels for the amount of time that they need to prosecute the mission, and that amount of time has to be determined 

by conditions on the ground, not by conditions in Washington. 

Those conditions on the ground are the enemy, which we are not 

underestimating as we have done in the past, and we are not letting our arrogance get in the way of it, and, two, the capacity of 

the Iraqi security forces to participate as good partners with us in 

the prosecution of the mission. 

Now, based on that, the commanders, if they have the right force 

levels the amount of time that they need it, they have the flexibility to do this. 

And we have to be frank about something here. We are fighting 

a war that is in our Nation’s interest. Therefore, the forces that are 

fighting that war are expected to be strained and stressed. This is 

a war. 

To be able to say to ourselves that the Army and the Marine 

Corps are stressed and somehow we should not stress and strain 

them to me makes no sense. This is a war. We are fighting a war. 

And, therefore, they are going to be stressed and strained, just as 

they have been in every war that we have fought. 

To be quite frank about it, in some of the wars that we have 

fought in the past, because of the difficulty, complexity and the 

weapons used, these forces were expended because of our Nation’s 

interest, and that is why our military exists, to defend our Nation’s 

interests. 

And, yes, it does cost lives and it is tragic and the human dimension of that is horrific, but they are there to support our Nation’s 

interest, and the stress and the strain of that force is something 

that we should never be cavalier about, and we should do everything we can with programs and policies to reduce it, but it is a 

fact of life when you are fighting a war. 

We have choices, and I said this to the President back when I 

was still on active duty when Secretary Rumsfeld asked me to take 

over the recommendation to him that we would do a one-year rotation, and I said we have choices. We do not have to do a one-year 

rotation. We can fight this war until its completion, as we have 

fought most of the wars that we have been involved in, and that 

would add a different level of stress and strain to the war, I would 

submit. 
16 

It was in our judgment, based on what we knew at the time, that 

we would do it on a one-year rotation. Little did I know at the time 

that we had the wrong strategy and we were beginning to embark 

on a campaign that so significantly underestimated the enemy that 

by definition we protracted the war unnecessarily. 

But, nonetheless, we have choices here, and we have made them, 

and I cannot for the life of me believe that we would bring an Army 

home and lose a war because it is under stress and strain. 

And this comment about Maxwell Taylor that my colleague here 

made, he brought the Army home to save it, the Army embarked 

on a 10- to 15-year psychological and emotional catharsis based on 

a humiliating defeat in Vietnam. We struggled with everything we 

had to rebuild that Army out of the ashes of that defeat because 

the officer corps was intellectually weakened and the very fiber and 

soul of the Army was hurt significantly by that humiliating defeat. 

We hardly saved the Army by pulling it out of Vietnam. 

Mr. HUNTER. Well, General Keane, just one follow-up on that. 

Mr. Korb said that the Army is broken, or he cited a statement by 

one of our generals to the effect that the Army was broken. Do you 

agree with that? 

General KEANE. This statement is one of the most offensive 

statements we can make, and I would ask the Members of Congress, regardless of how you feel about this counteroffensive, not to 

use that term. Stop using that term. 

These troops in combat know that the majority of the people in 

the United States do not agree with this war effort. These troops 

know in combat that members—and a significant number of 

them—do not agree with this war effort. Yet they are pursuing it 

and risking their lives, and they are volunteering to stay in this 

force at overwhelming numbers. The highest re-enlistment rates we 

have are those in Iraq. That is staggering. 

We have none of the major indicators that we had in Vietnam 

that an army is broken. Our absent without leave (AWOL) and desertion rates are very low. There are no chain-of-command and discipline problems. We do not have personal abuse problems like we 

had in Vietnam, and we are certainly not killing our officers to disrupt the chain of command. 

That was an army that was disintegrating in front of us because 

it lost support of its people. This Army, because it has been a volunteer force and it is so professionalized and it is so disciplined 

and, in my view, it is extraordinarily idealistic, it is so far from 

broken. It is performing, in my judgment, in one of the highest moments we have ever had in our military capacity since the inception of the Nation. 

And to use that phrase is a horrible description of who they are 

and what they stand for and what their commitment is. They are 

not broken, and it is not even close. 

Mr. KORB. Mr. Chairman, could I respond to that? Because I 

think this is a really key issue here. This is not a war of necessity. 

It is a war of choice. The idea that somehow or another this is the 

central front on the war on terror is not true. In fact, going in here 

has made us less safe. 

There is no doubt about the fact that these brave young men and 

women have done their job and they will because they are sent 
17 

over there, and I have no disrespect for them. But, with all due respect to General Keane, I am quoting General Powell, General 

McCaffrey, General Abizaid, General Odom. These are not people 

who do not know what is going on in this conflict. 

And what you have is the same problem. Once you lower your 

recruitment standards, you are asking for trouble. The suicide rate 

is up. The desertion rate is up already. Are they at the same levels 

that we had in the 1970’s? No. But this is the first war, extended 

war, that you have fought without conscription, and not only have 

you not raised taxes to pay for it, you have cut them. 

So the idea that somehow or another, you know, we have this obligation because we were put in here under the wrong reasons, we 

were not told the truth about it—and then to blame the American 

people for turning against it? No, it is not the American people’s 

fault. It is the fault of the Administration, and these brave young 

men and women are paying the price for that, and the country will 

pay the price for it in years to come because of the quality of people 

that are coming in. 

Mr. HUNTER. But, Mr. Korb, I do not think those gentlemen, I 

do not think General Odom has said that the Army is broken, and 

that was the point that General Keane addressed. 

And you have two points here. You go back and forth between 

not liking the war and saying that it is going to have an extraordinarily bad effect on our soldiers and that the soldiers are broken. 

You have not made that connection. 

Have any of those people that you have quoted, did General 

McCaffrey say the Army is broken? 

Mr. KORB. I will give you the exact quote, okay? 

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. 

Mr. KORB. ‘‘The ground combat capability of the U.S. Army forces 

is shot.’’ And he said that with me when we testified before the 

Senate Armed Services Committee, okay. 

And if you would like, I would read General Odom’s statement 

here about what is happening, the damage, to the forces. I would 

be happy to enter it into the record. I quoted some of it in my statement. 

Mr. HUNTER. You said ground combat capability. That did not 

say the Army is broken. 

Do you disagree with that, General Keane? 

General KEANE. I certainly disagree with any characterization 

that the Army is broken. I mean, it is not and it is not even close 

in terms of their performance, their morale, their discipline, all the 

indicators that we judge the capacity of an Army to perform, and 

the best crucible to the judge and Army is in the field in combat, 

and it is magnificent, and their re-enlistment rates are off the 

charts for wanting to continue to do it. That is amazing. 

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

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hunter. 

Mr. Ortiz. 

Mr. Ortiz will be followed by Mr. Saxton. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would like to welcome our witnesses today. Good to see 

both of you. 
18 

But, you know, we are involved in two vicious wars, and we are 

at war, but in order to win a war, we have to be successful, and 

in winning a war, we need to be able to train our troops and to 

be able to give them the equipment that they need. 

As I visit the troops and we talk to industry, one of the problems 

that we have now is that industry has not been able to turn 

enough equipment to send to either Iraq or Afghanistan, and before, we were not even giving the troops the equipment to train before they went to Iraq. 

And, yes, we have choices. Mr. Korb mentioned one of the choices 

that we have is a draft, and I do not believe in the draft. And the 

reason I say that is because we have some other hot spots around 

the world. I am concerned with Iran, I am concerned with North 

Korea and now a little concerned with Russia, and then I have a 

concern with what is going on in Central and South America, you 

know. 

So what do we do to be able to motivate? Something has to be 

done to be able to give the soldiers the equipment that they need. 

They cannot produce enough mine resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs). They cannot produce enough High Mobility Multipurpose Military Vehicles (HMMMVs). They cannot produce 

enough equipment. So how do we surge industry to be able to give, 

you know, the troops what they need? 

I mean, we have 25,000 of them wounded, and we go to, you 

know, Walter Reed, and we go to Bethesda. In my opinion, we have 

serious problems, and maybe for future discussion and classified 

discussion, we need to talk about our prepositioning ships, and 

maybe that would be a subject for another hearing. 

In my opinion, as chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, I 

feel that we have serious, serious problems with equipment and 

training of the troops, and maybe you can enlighten me as to what 

I am concerned with. Maybe I am wrong with what I have seen and 

what I have heard, and this is a question for both of you. 

General KEANE. Well, Congressman Ortiz, I think your comment 

has a lot of merit. We do have choices, and we have made some 

difficult choices that have had some rather unhappy consequences. 

One of those choices deals with the industrial base. 

The industrial base that supports the Army, the last time I 

checked, a number of months ago, was operating at a capacity 

under 60 percent, and yet we are at war. The industrial base that 

I am speaking of is the depot system inside the Army and the defense industry that assists the Army in dealing with resetting and 

re-equipping, and that is not operating anywhere near full capacity 

even now while we are at war. 

Now why is that? Funding, money, a conscious choice not to take 

the industrial base capacity up to full capacity. 

The CHAIRMAN. Noted disturbance. The gentleman will leave. 

Please proceed, General. 

General KEANE. Congressman, those are choices that we have 

made, and it also impacts on something the committee is very concerned about, as the chairman started out in his comments. It has 

an impact on the readiness of the force. 

The reason why we had to move these brigades one a month is 

because equipment was the pacing item. We could not get the 
19 

equipment there fast enough because the industrial base is operating in the high 50 percent. Maybe it has changed a little bit in 

the last few months, but it could not have changed dramatically 

since the last time I checked. 

If we did as you are suggesting, if we had a better strategy in 

terms of our equipment and we are willing to spend more money 

on it—and that is what the choice is here—then more of these 

units would be ready sooner, and I also believe they would, therefore, be able to train on some other things because they would have 

that equipment in time to be prepared for other contingencies as 

well as have enough time before they redeploy to Afghanistan and 

Iraq. 

But these are choices we made, and we are living with those 

choices. 

Mr. KORB. Congressman Ortiz, the problem is that the Pentagon, 

particularly civilian leadership, never went on a wartime footing 

when it came to procuring equipment. The reason for that is they 

did not think this war would go on this long. 

Remember that they thought we would be down to 30,000 troops 

by the end of 2003. The President in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 

kept telling us the progress we were making, so they never did 

what they should have done, and as a consequence, the young men 

and young women are suffering because of it. 

I mean, Secretary Rumsfeld made a comment about you go to 

war with the Army you have. No, the fact of the matter is you 

started this war at a time of your own choosing, it was not necessary to do it when you did, you should have made sure that you 

were ready. 

I am not a military expert like General Keane. I have some experience in the Pentagon and some experience in the Navy, but we 

were always taught when you go to war, you obviously hope for the 

best, but you plan for the worst. What they did was plan for the 

best. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Saxton. 

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you. 

General Keane, in your opening statement, you made six points. 

The first is that we are on the offensive. The second is that security 

has improved across Baghdad. The third is that the grassroots 

movement among the Sunnis has taken hold, meaning the tribal 

leaders have taken over in Anbar and other places. The fourth is 

that al Qaeda is being defeated by our forces. The fifth is that the 

Shia militias can no longer get to the Sunnis because our troops 

are in the way fighting them back. And at the same time, our 

troops are protecting the Shia. 

Those seem like six pretty good objectives being met by our 

Armed Forces. Would you think that we could do that if we had 

a broken Army? 

General KEANE. Well, no, absolutely not. The quality of the leadership—and when I mean leadership, I am talking officers and 

non-commissioned officers—is extraordinary, and their commitment 

to the mission is. 

We have so fundamentally changed what they were doing. Some 

of you who have been to Iraq, and some of you have been, but, you 
20 

know, for reasons I never quite understood, many of you were really denied the opportunity to get out and truly see how things are 

happening. But, nonetheless, the mission in the past was one of 

staying behind your forward operating bases, on occasion conducting presence patrols, focusing our classified forces on the al 

Qaeda and training the Iraqis. 

We were never truly on the offensive except intermittently in 

Fallujah, Samara, a couple operations in Baghdad, and those were 

for a very short period of time. Now we are completely on the offensive. Our troops are out there protecting the people every single 

day, and they are much in for the mission. 

One is they believe they are having an impact, and they see the 

results of what they are doing, and certainly, the second thing that 

is clearly happening is the impact that that is having not just on 

our own troops’ morale, but even more importantly on the Iraqi 

people themselves. People were so concerned about it initially. 

When we go out into the neighborhoods and start living in them, 

the troops are going to be more vulnerable. On the surface, that is 

true. 

But what actually happens, in fact, is the security becomes the 

people themselves because they start to provide information to us, 

and that is the other positive thing that is happening. All those 

Iraqis in the city and in the suburbs know that the security situation has improved, that 2007 is better than 2006, and certainly 

2008 promises, you know, to be even better. 

That kind of performance that they have turned in, to be able to 

change the strategy, change the tactics immediately and perform a 

mission to a very high standard is because they are exceptionally 

well-led, they are extraordinarily disciplined, and they are very, 

very dedicated. 

Mr. SAXTON. General Keane, let me just ask you to look into your 

crystal ball for a minute. Having been where you have been in this 

process since and before the inception of operations in Iraq, if you 

had a crystal ball and could look in it, what do you see relative to 

the disposition of our troops going forward? 

There are many members of this committee who would like to 

bring our troops home sooner rather than later. I guess all of us 

would. Do you see the surge continuing for an indefinite period of 

time, or do you see us getting into a position where we, in fact, will 

be able to begin to conduct operations in a different way or come 

home? 

General KEANE. Yes, that is a great question, and I certainly do 

not want to prejudge what Ambassador Crocker or General 

Petraeus would say here in September. They are their own people, 

and they are going to speak their minds. And having spent many 

years with General Petraeus and just recently having acquired a 

relationship with Ambassador Crocker, I know they are going to be 

very forthright with you and very credible in doing it and comprehensive in letting you know what is happening. 

But my view is this. This progress that we are making is steady, 

and it will continue to be steady, and it will cement the gains that 

we have made in terms of security and stability. I do believe that 

as time moves on, the significant change among the Sunnis is al-
21 

ready beginning to impact the Shia government because the sheer 

scale of it, and it is something that they have to deal with. 

I believe that more than any of these benchmarks, as we call 

them, will have more impact on the Shia government making a 

positive move toward reconciliation than some of the imposed artificial legislation, if you will, that we are imposing on them. That 

will be the most significant movement toward political reconciliation. 

In terms of our troops, it was never intended to be permanent. 

It was always intended to be temporary. I believe the President 

was probably right in not talking a lot about it publicly, because 

he certainly did not want to flag all of that to our enemy even before we got started. But the fact of the matter is, in my own mind, 

I knew that we were going to pull forces back in 2008 regardless, 

regardless of whether we succeeded or regardless of whether it did 

not work. 

Now I believe it is working, and what I would imagine would 

happen—and I do not want to prejudge what General Odierno and 

Petraeus are going to do, but in my own mind—and that is what 

you asked for—I think for sure—in 2008 we will see ourselves 

going back to pre-surge levels. In other words, coming down from 

20-plus brigades to 15 brigades and, based on continued success 

and continued security, maybe even further in 2008, and then continue that movement in 2009, if that situation continues as we 

think it will, and that is with continued security and a stable process. 

I know for a fact right now there are places in Iraq where we 

could transition with the Iraqi security forces based on their capacity to do it by themselves. So I think what you should do, in my 

view, is leave it up to Odierno and Petraeus to decide what the 

timing of this would be, sometime in 2008, where it is going to take 

place based on two things, enemy situation in a particular area and 

capacity of Iraqi security forces. Let them make that judgment. 

This is in a public arena. I think I know how that would be done, 

but I would rather not say it here because it impacts on how the 

enemy would react to us. But, nonetheless, those forces would be 

reduced in 2008 based on the positive trends that we would have, 

and there is no reason to think that that could not continue, and 

let the tools stay in the hands of the commanders to do that deliberately, very methodically based on those two variables, the enemy 

and the capacity for the Iraqis to take over. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Abercrombie. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, the staff has passed out an amendment in the nature of a substitute to 3087. I would like to concentrate on that if 

I might because I am hoping that our guests would have an opportunity to take a look at that. I think that it may answer some of 

the observations that have been made and most particularly for 

Mr. Hunter because I want to tell you more about the motivation 

for this than the substance of it at this particular time. 

The argument that goes back and forth is, ‘‘Well, you do not support the troops,’’ or ‘‘You are not trying to end the war fast 

enough,’’ that kind of thing. And so what we tried to do—and I say 
22 

we, this is a product of several people on both sides of the aisle— 

is to get beyond that so that the President is not in the situation 

of accusing the Congress of micromanaging. And we want most 

particularly to make sure that we do not end up making policy by 

default in the appropriations bill. 

I am sure Mr. Hunter would agree with Mr. Skelton, both having 

been chairs, that it is crucial for the well-being of the Nation that 

we not end up making policy by default and in appropriations bills 

and that this is particularly the committee that should be doing 

that. 

What we are saying is, ‘‘It is necessary and prudent for the Department of Defense to undertake robust and comprehensive contingency planning.’’ 

By coincidence of events, Secretary Gates has sent a letter, because of circumstances taking place in the Senate, exactly the kind 

of argument that I am talking about where you get into accusations 

back and forth that undermine everything, where he says—and I 

am quoting from The Post today—that he is ‘‘personally engaged in 

developing contingency plans’’ and emphasized efforts that constitute ‘‘a priority for the Pentagon.’’ 

And again, quoting Secretary Gates, ‘‘Such planning is, indeed, 

taking place with my active involvement as well as that of senior 

military and civilian officials and our commanders in the field,’’ as 

General Keane and others and Secretary Korb have pointed out as 

being essential. 

My point here is that this bill 3087 was developed independent 

of all that because of the recognition that we have in Section 2 

there that ‘‘contingency planning for redeployment of the Armed 

Forces should address’’—and then I think it deals with virtually everything that Mr. Hunter has articulated and dealt with everything 

that both Mr. Korb and General Keane have articulated and for 

good reason, not because we are particularly perceptive, but we are 

trying to use the common sense and perception that we have as 

members of this committee and concerned individuals. 

So what I am asking here, Mr. Chairman, and asking the witnesses if they can take a look at it. I realize you are here on short 

notice to begin with, let alone having to look at the substitute. 

But our point here is stated completely, I think, and succinctly, 

in what we are asking the President to do, is that he present not 

later than 60 days—and what we are taking into account here is 

the recess that the Congress will be in and the presentation of the 

report by General Petraeus—then submit to the congressional defense committees the status of planning for the redeployment of the 

Armed Forces from Iraq, exactly the kind of contingency planning 

that sensible people in the Pentagon are doing anyway at the direction of the President, I am sure, and that we then have that before 

us so we can contemplate how to be helpful in bringing this to a 

conclusion. 

So what I am asking you both to do is in the light of the substitute that is here, that is before us now, and in the light of the 

contingency planning protocols ensuring ‘‘appropriate protection of 

our Armed Forces, appropriate protection of contractors, Iraqi nationals,’’ et cetera, ‘‘maintaining and enhancing the ability of the 
23 

government to eliminate and disrupt al Qaeda,’’ et cetera, could 

you find that 3087 was useful? 

General KEANE. In my judgment, the answer to that is no. And 

the reason is that, one, the Pentagon has already told you that 

they are conducting contingency planning dealing with a whole 

range of scenarios, and, two, I mean, certainly, you do not have the 

right legislation to ask them to share some of their thoughts with 

you. 

The third thing is you are dictating missions, and that is what 

this is when you say ‘‘conduct the United States military operations, protect vital interests, conduct counterterrorism operations, 

protect the American forces,’’ et cetera, et cetera, and what you are 

also doing in that is leaving out missions. And I think that should 

be left to the province of the commanders in terms of what they 

are doing. 

And just let me say here that there is a thought—and I think 

it is probably the most prevalent thought—among the options that 

people consider, is that all we need to do is pull back from the active and aggressive activity that we are currently conducting and 

train the Iraqi security forces, focus on the al Qaeda, therefore 

counterterrorism, and protect ourselves. 

Well, that was the failed strategy that we have been doing for 

three years. That is the problem that is with that. That will get 

us a worsening situation. We would like to do that if we could be 

successful at it, but we are painfully aware that we failed at it, and 

there is no panacea there. It will get us a worse situation. 

Second, we cannot dissect these activities by saying focus on the 

al Qaeda and kid ourselves that we would have forces who would 

only be able to focus on the al Qaeda. That is not possible. The al 

Qaeda is supported by a Sunni infrastructure and by Sunni insurgents, and the al Qaeda preys on Shias, and as a result of that, 

at times, they are going to respond. 

So, by definition, you cannot just isolate the al Qaeda. We are 

kidding ourselves by suggesting that. It gives us comfort to say, of 

course, we will focus on the al Qaeda because the al Qaeda is a 

threat worldwide, and defeating the al Qaeda is in our Nation’s interest, as we are aware of, post 9/11. 

But it is not that simple militarily in the application of force, is 

what I am suggesting to you, and that is why you cannot legislation these missions from here. These are tactical missions that you 

are providing here, and you have to leave this up to the commanders to make this kind of judgment, in my view. 

Thank you. 

Mr. KORB. I think it is rather interesting that we have now admitted that the strategy failed for three years. I never heard that, 

okay. I never heard that from people in the Pentagon, people in the 

field, a lot of the commentators who supported war. I never heard 

that, and all a sudden now, we are saying, ‘‘Well, this strategy 

failed. Therefore, we have to do the other one.’’ 

Your amendment should be adopted for the following reason: 

This Administration never did a cost-benefit analysis of going into 

Iraq, and because of that, we are in the mess that we are in now. 

And I think it is important that you get them to do what they 

should be doing. 
24 

And, again, your amendment says, ‘‘Tell us what you are doing,’’ 

and if General Keane is right with some of these reasons, then you 

will know about it. 

But it is incredible to me that we could go to war without doing 

a cost-benefit analysis. So I think it is important to get them to do 

it now. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McHugh. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Mr. Korb, where can I get the cost-benefit analysis 

of World War II? I would like to read that. 

Mr. KORB. Well, I would be happy to talk to you about that because World War II was—— 

Mr. MCHUGH. Just all I need to know is where the cost-benefit 

analysis was done for World War II prior to our going to war. I 

would like to read it. You said you cannot believe we have not done 

it. 

Mr. KORB. You do not do that for a war of necessity. You do do 

it for a war of choice. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Korb. 

General, let us get down to the basics of this resolution, this 

piece of legislation before us. Simple question: Can we continue the 

fight in Iraq without waiver if this piece of legislation is passed? 

General KEANE. No. In my judgment, not. You tie the hands of 

the commanders, and it results in reduction in forces. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Mr. Korb, do you agree with that? 

Mr. KORB. No, because you give the President a waiver. 

Mr. MCHUGH. That is what I said. Can we fight it without waiver? 

Mr. KORB. Well, no, that is the reason. The President then 

has—— 

Mr. MCHUGH. No is the answer. No is the answer. It is a simple 

answer. Yes or no. 

Mr. KORB. Well—— 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Korb. 

General Keane, have you done any analysis or had the opportunity? And I know, as Mr. Abercrombie said, you have not had a 

lot of chance to look at this. How many brigade combat teams, how 

many units, whatever the measurement would have to be, would 

be taken off the board for deployability were this to be passed? 

General KEANE. No, I would not be able to answer that, you 

know, at this session without doing some more analysis. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Mr. Korb, could you answer that question, do you 

think? 

Mr. KORB. What question? 

Mr. MCHUGH. Well, did you do an analysis of this bill to understand how many forces would become unavailable were the bill to 

pass? 

Mr. KORB. Well, I think that is what you want to have the plan, 

to find out how many you would need to do these things. That is 

why you want the planning to be done, and then you take a look 

at it and see if it makes sense. But it is important to know, in fact, 

what is going on and what people are thinking. We do not want 

to be caught short again like we were when we planned this inva-
25 

sion and assumed we would be down to 30,000 troops by the end 

of 2003. 

Mr. MCHUGH. You made the comment, Mr. Korb, that it was 

your opinion—and I can understand why you might have it—that 

we simply with a volunteer force cannot field the kind of long war 

army that is necessary. I think the phrase you said was we need 

to be honest with ourselves in contemplation of re-imposing the 

draft. 

As I recall, the Reagan Administration had an all-volunteer 

Army. When you left that Administration, how many divisions 

were in the United States Army? 

Mr. KORB. I think there were 16 divisions. 

Mr. MCHUGH. And there were 18 at their peak under the all-volunteer Army. So we voluntarily have come down to 10. Do you 

think you could have fought a long-term war under the leadership 

of Ronald Reagan with 16 to 18 divisions? 

Mr. KORB. No, we did not intend to, which is why President 

Reagan kept draft registration, because the idea was—— 

Mr. MCHUGH. Which we still have today, sir. So that is not really 

the issue. 

Mr. KORB. That is why we kept it. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Congratulations. Every Administration since has 

kept it as well. I do not think that is really the point. 

Mr. KORB. No, it is—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Let the gentleman answer the question. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Well, it is my time, Mr. Chairman, and the gentleman is very good at eating up other people’s times. I would like 

to go to another question with General Keane. He has answered 

the question to my satisfaction. 

General, do you think under the leadership of President Reagan 

we could have with 18 divisions fought a long war, even an Iraqi 

war? 

General KEANE. Yes, absolutely. Essentially, the Cold War posture of the Army that had that kind of force structure—volunteers, 

I may add—would definitely be possible to make a commitment of 

around numbers of 150,000 and then, most importantly, be able to 

maintain a reserve of active-duty divisions that are not engaged in 

the war. 

You could probably be able to sequester about four or five of 

them that would always be dealing with the possibility of another 

contingency someplace in the world, and you would rotate who they 

were so there would be obviously burden sharing with the war that 

you are currently fighting. 

I mean, the stress and strain that we have is driven by the inadequate size of the active forces fundamentally and the disproportionate reliance we have on the Guard and Reserves. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Mr. Korb, tell me. Who is the president for the 

Center of American Progress, that organization you are associated 

with here today? 

Mr. KORB. His name is John Podesta. 

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, sir. I do appreciate it. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman yields back. 

Dr. Snyder, please. 
26 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. We appreciate your opinions and exchanges. 

And, General Keane, we are looking forward to you being at our 

O and I (Oversight and Investigations) Subcommittee next week 

and to your contributions to your country continuing. 

Mr. Hunter, I need a Vietnam infantry guy with legal experience 

that knows something about defense policy to answer my question, 

but I would like to just have a minute or two discussion with you 

about what you said during the opening statement. 

You used the language that—I am talking about Mr. Skelton’s 

bill now—it is putting units on the shelf, your word, and paralyzed 

the military. Tell me why you do not think that the language with 

the waiver takes care of it. 

When we did this bill or did a bill several months ago, you were 

absolutely right about the way it was drafted. The way it was 

drafted, you know, they would have to sit for 30 days if their readiness levels were good. I mean, I thought it was poorly drafted, but 

I think the staff learned from you and Mr. Skelton and has responded to that. 

Why does this cause any kind of limitation? The way I read it, 

the President can say, you know, I mean, these forces are going. 

Somebody sends a note. The President says, ‘‘Hey, they are in the 

planes. They are on their way.’’ But the next three days, you just 

need to certify—and we are putting you on notice, Mr. President— 

these folks are going back sooner than our original plan was. 

Why does this language paralyze the forces, or why do you think 

units are on the shelf the way that it is written? 

Mr. HUNTER. Sure. Thanks for asking the question. 

I think the Marines have said it best in this memo that they sent 

back to us. They said, ‘‘In order to support OIF requirements during fiscal year 2008 and comply with the minimum period between 

deployments proposed by the Skelton substitute, a 1:1 ratio, the 

Marines would have to adjust force generation plans. These plan 

adjustments could include extending unit deployments, creating 

provisional units and forcing units to execute missions as’’—— 

Dr. SNYDER. If I want to reclaim my—— 

Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. ‘‘In lieu of forces’’—— 

Dr. SNYDER. But—— 

Mr. HUNTER. But let me shorthand that, though, so I can finish 

my statement here. 

Dr. SNYDER. Well, now let me reclaim my time because I understand all that. If there was no waiver, I would vote against it. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes. So here is the problem. You have—— 

Dr. SNYDER. All the Marine Corps has to do is go say to the 

President, ‘‘We sent these units or we had to send them within six 

months, not seven months. Sometime in the next 30 days, we need 

you to just waive these for us.’’ But that takes care of that problem. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, as I read this thing, it is waivers down to a 

unit that is commanded by a major. That is a small unit. So, in 

theory, we could micromanage every personnel policy in the military as long as we included a Presidential waiver. Now you know 

how long it takes for us to get a reprogramming on a vital piece 

of equipment that simply requires four signatures. 
27 

Dr. SNYDER. Reclaiming my time, we all had a very vigorous discussion this morning about—— 

Mr. HUNTER. But, first, Victor, there is a substantive reason 

here. 

Dr. SNYDER. Reclaiming my time, please, we had a very vigorous 

discussion about the surge, whether it is working or not working. 

To me, I do not see that this legislation has anything to do with 

that. 

The President could have, when he announced the surge, said, ‘‘I 

recognize this is going to be a burden on our troops. We are going 

to have to go back perhaps longer, and because of that, I want you 

to know that I am going to get a notification any time a unit is 

going to go longer than our original plan of having to stay home 

for this length of time, and my staff and I will personally, you 

know, sign off on that.’’ 

I do not see that this does anything more than give reassurances 

to military families and folks that they are being looked at, that 

they are being recognized that they are having to stay longer than 

what you originally cited, General Keane. I just do not see that the 

waiver interferes with it. 

I am one of those Democrats, by the way, that voted against the 

bill a couple of weeks ago, because I thought that we had given assurances we would wait until mid-September, but I do not see that 

this does all the dire things of paralyzing units and putting units 

on a shelf. 

To me, it is no different, Mr. Hunter, than every 30 days we sign 

off on our employees that this is the payroll. Well, there may not 

have been any changes for the preceding several months, but it is 

a reminder to us that, yes, we are certifying that that is where 

they are at. 

Mr. HUNTER. Will the gentleman yield for just a second? 

Dr. SNYDER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, I think taking this thing down to any unit that 

is commanded by a major, that amounts to us micromanaging. I 

mean, Vic, that means that you are going to have units that have 

specialties. One aspect of this war and any war is the unevenness 

of requirements of personnel. You are going to have the President 

doing nothing but signing off waivers for units right down to those 

commanded by a major? 

Ms. TAUSCHER. If the gentleman will yield—— 

Mr. HUNTER. That is a small unit. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. If the gentleman will yield, it is my bill, and I 

can perhaps answer this question. Will you yield? 

Dr. SNYDER. I have no time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Take the time. Take the time. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. We will give you 30 seconds. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. I think that the real issue here is the question 

of: Are we going to argue continuously about the surge, or are we 

going to argue about the legislation before us? 

Now, if you are going to argue about the surge, you can find all 

kinds of reasons and excuses to be for it or against it, but the bill 

3159 that Mr. Snyder was just talking about is a bill that effec-
28 

tively does what the Congress is meant to do by our constitutional 

prerogative. 

And part of it is to make sure that when we have forces in our 

military, that they are taken care of and that they have the welltime necessary to be sure that they can perform the duties for the 

American people, not only for the engagement that they may be in, 

but for future engagements and other contingencies that are surprising. 

The bill does not require captains and lieutenants to ask for 

waivers. It can go all the way up to the brigade level. It can go 

even up to the division level. So that is the essence of what the bill 

does. So it is not requiring lower-level military to ask for waivers. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. 

Mr. Hunter wishes 30 seconds. 

Mr. HUNTER. Yes. Just one point: The combatant commanders 

give us the requirement for the mix of forces that are needed and 

the rotation of forces that are needed. So if we get to the point 

where the President has to give a personal waiver every time you 

come to a unit that is major or above, I think you are getting way 

down in the weeds. And you are forcing the President to spend a 

ton of time overturning what are going to be recommendations that 

he is obviously going to accept from the field. 

There is probably going to be no recommendation from the field 

on a force mix that the President does not agree with. So what we 

are doing is basically micromanaging and forcing him to undertake 

this analysis every time you have a unit that is commanded by a 

major or above. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. HUNTER. It does not make sense. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. If our military is too small to do the military mission, then that is the cost of doing business, with all due respect. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are going to have to cut this short and—— 

Mr. HUNTER. Let me just say to the gentlelady that is why we 

recommended that we go much higher and have done it for several 

years. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are going to have to cut this short. 

Mr. Bartlett. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. I know. I carried that bill, too. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

Thank you for your testimony. 

Both of you are very familiar with our Constitution. Article I, 

Section 8 says that the Congress will make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. And Article II, 

Section 2 says the President shall be the Commander in Chief. 

What we are talking about in 3087? Is that an Article I, Section 

8 issue, or is that an Article II, Section 2 issue? 

General Keane and then Mr. Korb. 

General KEANE. Well, in my judgment, the requirement for the 

level of forces and the amount of time that they are going to spend 

in a combat situation, is really the issue, and that is the province 

of the Commander in Chief and his commanders. 

And when you nibble around the edges of that by playing with 

dwell time because of the perceived stress and strain on the force, 
29 

and that becomes your preoccupation, dwell time, then you are denying the commanders and the Commander in Chief, even though 

there is a waiver—I understand that—the full use of the forces for 

the time that they believe is necessary and the inherent flexibility 

that they need to prosecute the war. 

You are putting the emphasis on back home here in the United 

States, in my view, as opposed to where it needs to be, is prosecuting the war. If you are going to do the war, then let us try to 

do it to the best of our ability. We have made—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. So you then—— 

General KEANE. We have made enough mistakes with this thing 

as it is. 

Mr. BARTLETT. So you think it is an Article II, Section 2. 

Mr. Korb. 

Mr. KORB. No, I think it is Article I, and, in fact, if we take General Keane’s position, you should not have prevented people during 

the war in Korea from going into battle with less than four months 

of training. So Congress has that power. 

And I think it is important to keep in mind Article I comes before 

Article II when you are looking at the Constitution, and I can go 

back and give you a whole host of times where the Congress has 

had to step in when the policies of the Administration were actually not only strategically unsound, but morally unsound. 

Mr. BARTLETT. If you would look at H.R. 3087, in the findings, 

it asserts there that the law that we passed on October 16, 2002, 

authorized ‘‘the President to use the Armed Forces as the President 

deemed necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national 

security of the United States against the continuing threat posed 

by the government of Iraq’’ at that time. Do you think that that 

is a fair summary of the law that we passed? 

Mr. KORB. I believe it is, and I think that those conditions no 

longer apply. You overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein, 

and the weapons of mass destruction are found not to be there. 

Mr. BARTLETT. General Keane, do you agree that that was the 

sense of the law that we passed in 2002? 

General KEANE. I think so, and, certainly, I agree with Larry the 

conditions have dramatically changed. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Well, if that was the law that we passed in 2002 

and if you agree with the second finding, and that is that Iraq no 

longer poses a threat, that government is gone, the leader is now 

tried and executed, would one then conclude that the President has 

no congressional authority? Because we are the ones who commit 

the troops to war, that we need to now determine whether or not 

the troops are going to be used in an additional capacity? They 

have done what we authorized the President to use them to do. Is 

that not true? 

General KEANE. Well, the problem we had—and a number of us 

who were in uniform at the time, you know, bear some responsibility here—when we looked at conducting the invasion certainly, 

the military leaders—we did not anticipate that one of the options 

the regime had was not to surrender and—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. General, excuse me. My time is limited. I understand that. 

General KEANE [continuing]. To continue to fight us. That is—— 
30 

Mr. BARTLETT. The only point I am making is do you not think 

it is—— 

General KEANE. That is the basis for the struggle. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Do you now think it is appropriate for the Congress to now take a new look at what we are doing there because 

what we authorized the Administration to do has been done, they 

did it very successfully? Isn’t it appropriate that we take a new 

look at that? Don’t you think this dialogue will benefit the American people? 

General KEANE. Dialogue about something as serious as war always benefits the American people, to educate and to inform. I believe that law certainly covers the fact that the Sunni insurgency 

was the basis for the insurgency aided by the al Qaeda. It was the 

former regime elements that began it, and that is who we are fighting. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. General, earlier—I wish I could phrase it exactly—you said that Congress must fight its demons and not adopt 

this policy. We do not fight demons, General. We try to legislate. 

That is the purpose of our hearing. That is the purpose of excellent 

witnesses, such as you and Mr. Korb. I hope that that was said 

more in a moment of passion, rather than reflection, General. 

General KEANE. It is rich language, Mr. Congressman. I understand that, I know that, but it was made not so much with this 

piece of legislation, but in a general comment to some of the things 

that have been happening up here, to be frank about it, and I fight 

my own demons, Mr. Congressman, and I do think we are fighting 

our demons and we are dealing with our fears here, and we are 

dealing with our frustration and also with our anger, and so I 

think the comment is appropriate. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are dealing with legislation. 

Ms. Tauscher. 

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am proud to offer H.R. 3159, which is the bill to mandate minimum periods of rest and recuperation for units and members of 

the regular and reserve components of our Armed Forces between 

deployments. 

You know, I think that part of our responsibility here in Congress is not only to speak for the American people and be congruent with the Constitution, but to also understand, when there 

are very complicated issues, there are times when we have to use 

the legislative abilities that we have to clarify things for people. 

There were many of us that, for many years since the 2002 invasion of Iraq, that wanted to increase the size of the active-duty 

forces and were completely thwarted by General Schoomaker. Certainly, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld basically laughed at us, told 

us we were out of our minds, we did not really need any more 

forces. 

This is when they had that momentary burst of enthusiasm 

where they thought we were going to go down to 30,000 troops before they understood what President Bush the first understood, 

which was decapitating the government in Baghdad was going to 

cause all kinds of problems. 
31 

I think our bill is responsive to the American people, not only because of their significant turn-away from the Iraq war, but because 

they love our military. They deeply love our military. They understand their sacrifice, they understand what their families are going 

through, and their turn-away from the Iraq war is for many reasons. 

Some of them were against the preemptive strike. Some of them 

were against war to begin with. Some of them over time increasingly are against it, and it is partly because we are using too much 

of their money and losing too many fine Americans over there for 

what they consider to be a civil war that cannot be won militarily, 

but also because they live in communities where our military live, 

and they see the strain on the families for no dwell time at home. 

Now there is nothing about the bill that I propose that would 

cause the President 30 seconds of paperwork to continue military 

operations going forward. We can continue to distract each other 

absolutely out of our minds that this is about the surge, which I 

do not support, or even about the Iraq war. It is not. 

The Congress has the duty, constitutional responsibility and the 

moral authority to speak for the American people. The American 

people are heartbroken that these military families see moms and 

dads coming home for five, six, seven months only to be turned 

around on a dime and sent back, knowing full well that they are 

not ready, they are not rested and they are not well-equipped. This 

is the point of this bill. 

Now my colleagues can choose to find one more fig tree with one 

more fig leaf on it and decide that to pass, maybe a sense of Congress that wouldn’t it be nice if we can do this, but this is the time, 

ladies and gentlemen, for us to take our spine-stiffening medication 

and stand up and do the right thing. 

Now, General Keane, I honor your service, but, frankly, back in 

2005, you were very optimistic, like you are right now, about training the Iraqi forces, ‘‘Although a civil war would be a tragedy with 

immense costs, it would be at least a force of definitive outcome to 

the ongoing struggle in Iraq, but there are no signs of this happening at the time.’’ 

With all due respect, sir, you were wrong then and you are 

wrong now. This is a bill we have to pass, and I hope my colleagues 

will indulge me. I do not have any questions. I think the answer 

is in the two bills that we are proposing today, and I hope my colleagues will support them. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And, Dr. Korb and General Keane, I am going to read a couple 

of statements, and then I am going to have a question. 

From the April 7, 2007, National Journal article for the Army 

Code Yellow, this is Barry McCaffrey, General McCaffrey, because 

I think all in this House and all in this committee probably have 

great respect for, as we do you, by the way. 

‘‘Despite all of those gimmicks, young battalion commanders tell 

me that recruiting standards have slipped terribly due to waivers. 

Drug and alcohol abuse have increased dramatically. The word has 

come down not to flunk anyone out of basic training, and we will 
32 

increase the age limit to allow 42-year-old grandmothers to enlist 

in the Army.’’ This is Barry McCaffrey now, not Walter Jones. 

He further stated, ‘‘My bottom line is that the Army is unraveling, and if we do not expend significant national energy to reverse 

that trend, sometime in the next two years, we will break the Army 

just like we did during Vietnam. Only this time we will not have 

10 years to fix it again. There will be no time-out from the global 

war on terror or threats like North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, 

you name it.’’ 

That is Barry McCaffrey. That is Barry McCaffrey. 

From that article ‘‘Code Yellow,’’ the Pentagon Health Study released in January 2007, ‘‘the rate of binge drinking in the Army 

ballooned by 30 percent between 2002 and 2005, and the increase 

in illicit drug use nearly doubled between 1998 and 2005.’’ That 

sounds like to me there is a problem somewhere, okay. 

Further—then I will close with a question—about March, April 

of this year, the President felt that he needed a war czar. I think 

we have a great Secretary of Defense, but, anyway, if he felt this, 

I respect what he felt he needed. 

I do not know General John Jack Sheehan, but, like you—General Keane, I have a lot of respect for you—I have a lot of respect 

for him. But I do not know him—35 years Marine service. This was 

his quote in The Washington Post when he turned down the opportunity to be war czar. I am not going to read the whole quote, but 

just his last sentence: ‘‘The very fundamental issue is they do not 

know where the hell they are going.’’ 

This is a Marine general, like you General Keane, a hero, you 

both. That is why Mrs. Tauscher, that is why Chairman Skelton, 

that is why this Congress, which has a constitutional responsibility 

to fund the military, also has a constitutional responsibility to debate the policy for the military. Whether that is good or bad, it 

does not matter. That is what we are required to do. 

The fact is what General Sheehan said is why this Congress is 

trying to somehow be involved, as it should be involved. 

And now I get to the question, and, Dr. Korb, I will start with 

you first after this rambling I have done. I am not going to read 

anything from this, but in May of this year, in the Raleigh, North 

Carolina, paper, the front page, ‘‘Deployed Depleted Desperate.’’ 

I go to church with a family psychiatrist that works at Fort 

Bragg. He has asked me to please this August come visit with him 

and some families. Now I know this is one man, but he is doing 

something every day I am not doing, so I have to trust him. He 

wants me to hear the families because they are desperate, the families are depleted, and that is why it is important to have this debate, whether you vote for these bills or not. 

We have not for five years, until this other party became the majority, had these debates. Would you answer me if you can, fairly 

quickly, because my time is going to expire? I guess they can finish 

the question. Would you respond to the things I read and maybe 

said? 

Mr. KORB. Well, I know Jack Sheehan. I worked with him when 

he was the military assistant to Frank Carlucci, and I kept in 

touch with him when he was one of our combatant commanders. 

And I think he sums it up quite correctly, that, in fact, the Admin-
33 

istration does not have an overall plan for what they are doing, and 

it is—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Finish your answer. 

Mr. KORB. Okay. And I agree with the people there, with General 

McCaffrey that things are getting progressively worse. They were 

bad in 2006, their recruiting in 2007 is bad, and you have had the 

lowest retention rate among your West Point people—those are 

your future leaders—after their first tour, lower than it has been 

in 30 years. 

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Does General Keane have an answer to that? 

General KEANE. No, I am not going to dispute General McCaffrey. He is welcome to his opinion. I just do not think it is anywhere near the degree of gravity that people are suggesting it is. 

There are some of those challenges, to be sure. It certainly is not 

affecting the performance of the force, is the way you have to judge 

it, and it is not affecting the overwhelming majority of the people 

who want to stay in it. 

There are some recruiting challenges. I think the Army will probably miss their recruiting objective this year. They are trying to recruit a much larger force with the authorized increase that the 

President has given them. And I think there will be some challenges there but, overall, I think they will continue to make 

progress with that. 

And, yes, the force is under stress and strain of being too small 

a force, fighting a war as long as we are fighting it. That is the 

reality of it. I do not dispute that. I think it is under stress and 

strain. But it is performing to a very high degree, and I do not see 

any indication that it will break in the next year or two—and that 

statement was made some time ago—and I think it will continue 

to perform at a very high degree. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much. 

Ms. Davis please. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all, both of you, for being here. 

It is really interesting because I think that our discussion today 

has gotten around to the role of the Congress. And I wonder if you 

could share with me, from the resolution initially proposed to go 

into Iraq until today, what your perceptions are of the Congress, 

and the way that role has been taken on? 

And I know this is a big question, but if you can just be brief 

about that. You know, are there times when you have seen that 

that oversight has really not been present and does that in any 

way really inform the discussion that we are having today? 

General KEANE. Well, I was here in uniform for most of that. 

And I have provided testimony before this committee many times, 

not on how the war was going, but, certainly, you know, how the 

Army was doing in support of it. And I believe this committee, as 

well as your counterparts in the Senate, have been very involved 

right from the beginning and have been concerned and tried to do 

things that should have been done, which I respected. 

And that was make sure our readiness was right, make sure the 

size of the force was correct to meet the expanding obligations that 

the United States has in the 21st century. And I have agreed with 
34 

those efforts that you have made here, and I applaud you for them, 

and I have always respected your commitment to do these as well. 

The law that was passed to support our efforts in Iraq, I certainly agree with. I thought it would have probably been better to 

wait a little while, while we were focused on the al Qaeda initially, 

but we are where we are and everybody has their opinion on it. But 

the fact of the matter is, that this body and the Senate has, I 

think, exercised appropriate oversight, and I think you should continue to do it. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Mr. Korb, did you want to respond? 

Mr. KORB. I think the problem was that the government was controlled by one party, the Republican Party, and I think, because of 

that, the Congress was not able to provide some of the oversight 

that many members wanted. 

I go back to when Senator Levin asked General Shinseki how 

many troops we would need to secure Iraq after the fall of Saddam 

Hussein, and he gave the number of several hundred thousand. He 

was denounced for that by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and 

I think because the Congress was controlled by the same party, you 

did not, you know, follow up on that. 

And I think it is very helpful for our democracy, now that Congress is beginning to play the role and ask the hard questions. And 

with the efforts of some of the bills here—Congressman Tanner, 

Congressman Abercrombie, Congresswoman Tauscher, Chairman 

Skelton—to begin to try and get this back under control as the 

Congress did—and people forget this—in 1951, insisted, because we 

were rushing people into war without adequate training, saying, 

‘‘No, you have to have four months of training before you go into 

combat.’’ And I think that was important, and, in fact, my understanding is that law still exists today, that, you know, people must 

have that. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Can I ask you both, would it be appropriate for the Congress to be taking a much closer look at the 

relationship between military and civilian leadership at this time, 

and do you think that there were problems with it? Just a yes or 

no, because I have one or two other questions. Quickly. 

General KEANE. I do not have any problem with that in time of 

war, when the stakes are so high, and we are losing lives, and the 

interest of the United States is so accented. 

Mr. Chairman, I have to excuse myself. I agreed I had to leave 

at 11:30, and it is past that, and I—— 

The CHAIRMAN. General Keane, we understand that. As a matter 

of fact, we have four votes coming up at 11:30 a.m. ourselves. So 

we will excuse you. 

Mr. Korb, if you could stay until 11:30 a.m.? 

Thank you very much for coming and for your testifying today. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I look forward to future discussions, 

General, with the oversight. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Mr. Korb, did you want to respond 

to that in terms of—— 

Mr. KORB. Well, no, I certainly think this is the oversight role, 

to look at the relationship between civilians and military, and 

make sure that the military people can be completely forthright 
35 

with you without suffering any type of retribution if they disagree 

with the Administration policy. Because remember that the Congress has the power to raise armies and maintain navies and declare war, and the Congress back during the war in Vietnam insisted that the chiefs of service get a four-year tour. So they can 

be completely honest with you, and I think that is really what you 

need. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Korb. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cole. 

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

Well, I regret very much Mr. Keane had to leave. 

First of all, I want to begin by honestly thanking both of you for 

your testimony. I think it has been some of the most passionate 

and some of the most interesting, and even though there is a great 

deal of disagreement, obviously, between the two positions represented, it has been enlightening. And it has been a good exchange and a helpful exchange. 

I do want to take a moment of personal privilege just to disagree 

with you somewhat on your statement about a Republican Congress and Republican President, because if I followed that logic, I 

would say Korea did not work out well because we had a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, or Vietnam did not 

work out well because we had a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, or maybe World War II was not fought well because we had a Democratic Congress, a Democratic President. 

I think the criticism is legitimate, if you want to say Congress 

did not do oversight. I think if you are going to draw that kind of 

partisan line, then you might as well draw it through all of American history. I do not think it is particularly helpful, but that is my 

view. 

Let me ask you a question that I really wanted to put to both 

of you because you would have very different answers, and I really 

wanted to continue to hear this. 

But I think the key issue here is not really the question of just 

what is happening militarily. I have a lot of confidence in our 

forces, and I do believe you both made the point about them being 

under strain, but I think they function well, I think they can do 

their mission, and I think they will. 

But I will make the same point frankly to you that I have made 

in other contexts to the President, which is this really gets down 

to what the Iraqis can do at the end of the day. Our people will 

do their part of the mission, in my opinion. Whether Iraqi politicians are up to their part of the mission, I think is a very legitimate question. 

And so I want to give you the opportunity, which I would have 

liked to give to Mr. Keane too, unfortunately, to respond to that. 

Mr. KORB. Thank you very much. 

I did not mean to imply it was just partisan, and that was my 

opinion, because it took a while in Vietnam, for example, for the 

Congress, even though it was controlled by both parties, to—— 

Mr. COLE. It was only controlled by one party. 

Mr. KORB. Yes, that is what I mean. Well, controlled by one 

party. And I made that in my testimony. 
36 

The problem is the Iraqi government. And that is why I think 

the surge assumed that if you got the violence somewhat under 

control—and I do not agree. I mean, the number of attacks in June 

was 178 a day, so I do not think it is as under control as some people claim. 

But it is the government. I was over there in April, sent over as 

part of a group from the National Academy of Public Administration to assess the capacity. I do not believe that they have the desire to do it because they are tough things to do. They are not willing to make these hard choices. 

Mr. COLE. Can I follow up and get your opinion then on another 

issue related to that? 

Accepting that viewpoint, what happens then afterwards? We all 

agree the numbers are going to come down. We all agree at some 

point the mission will end, Americans will come home. What do you 

see looking forward as far as you can in a very difficult situation? 

Mr. KORB. Well, I think it depends on how you leave, when you 

leave, but until the Iraqis make these painful political compromises, no matter how long you say, there are going to be problems in the region. I do think if you set a date, if you work with 

the countries in the region, that gives you your best hope of making sure that whatever happens there does not undermine our national security. 

Mr. COLE. Let us assume the worst. Let us assume that we do 

essentially leave, reduce our presence very dramatically, and they 

do not make the right decisions. What are the consequences for our 

country, not just for the region, but how would you see that? 

Mr. KORB. Well, we have two vital interests there. One is to ensure that Iraq does not become a launching pad for international 

terrorism, and the other is that whatever happens there does not 

spread throughout the region. Those are our interests. 

We have urged since 2005 to redeploy our forces out of Iraq, 

leave them in the region, which I think can prevent those things 

from happening, and the other is the countries in the region do not 

want to see that. I mean, even Iran does not want to see Iraq become a launching pad for a group like al Qaeda because that is a 

Sunni-dominated group, and they are Shias. 

So I think that is our best hope to try and get this situation 

under control. 

Mr. COLE. Couldn’t al Qaeda continue to play off the division between Sunni and Shia? Couldn’t the Sunni countries be drawn into 

the region out of fear of Iraq? 

Mr. KORB. Well, I think they—— 

Mr. COLE. Excuse me. Iran. 

Mr. KORB. Yes. I think they could be, and that is why you have 

to work with all of the countries in the region. I am also convinced 

that the Iraqi people do not support the foreign members of al 

Qaeda, and I think that once it is clear we are not there, the Iraqis 

themselves will deal with these foreigners. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Cole. 

Mrs. Boyda. 

Mrs. BOYDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
37 

I was certainly hoping that General Keane would be able to be 

here as well. 

Let me just say thank you for your testimony so much, Mr. Korb. 

And I just will make some statements more for the record based 

on what I heard mainly from General Keane. There was only so 

much that you could take until we, in fact, had to leave the room 

for a while, and so I think I am back and maybe can articulate 

some things after so much of the frustration of having to listen to 

what we listened to. 

But let me just first say that the description of Iraq as if at some 

point or another that it is a place that I might take the family for 

a vacation, things are going so well—those kinds of comments will, 

in fact, show up in the media and further divide this country, instead of saying, ‘‘Here is the reality of the problem, and, people, we 

have to come together and deal with the reality of this issue.’’ 

Second of all, we have probably as much or more military in my 

district than anyone, and I hear over and over again that the Marines are at war, the Army is at war, and this country is at the 

mall, and the implication that it will take too much time for the 

President to come together and say that will take too much time 

for him to sign this waiver is almost more than I can sit here and 

bear. 

This country has to come together, and to ask him to sign a 

waiver, I think, is very much not only the right of this Congress, 

but it is our moral responsibility to do so. 

And, finally, I would just like to share a story. When I was 

speaking back at home with one of a very right-wing conservative 

talk-show hosts and, thank God, after we were off the air—I said 

something that I assumed he would agree with, and I just said, you 

know, ‘‘I am really worried about these guys and gals—mainly 

guys—that have gone and they have been redeployed now three 

and four times.’’ 

He came back to me and said, ‘‘You know what? They should 

have thought about that before they enlisted, before they signed 

up.’’ He said, ‘‘It is their fault.’’ 

And I was so upset. I looked at him, and I said, ‘‘With all due 

restraint’’—and I said no respect, not with all due respect, because, 

quite honestly, I have no respect for that kind of an opinion—with 

all due restraint—and I got myself calmed down and left the room. 

But I am very disappointed. I would hope that General Keane 

would not say that, but I am very disappointed that, where is he 

to get up and defend and take care of the men and women who 

have so honorably served our country? Where is he? And where is 

the rest of this military to say this is the right thing to do? 

Now, with all due respect, this country has to come together and 

first and foremost deal in the reality of the situation and find a 

way to come together and put these crazy partisan politics behind 

us and come up with a way forward, and maybe that is where I 

should stop. 

And I will yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. 

Mr. Wilson from South Carolina. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
38 

And, indeed, we are expecting votes any time now, so I will just 

make a statement myself. And, in fact, my statement is how much 

I appreciate the heartfelt praise that General Keane has given for 

our troops. I share his view. I share the view that we have the new 

greatest generation who has dedicated themselves to protecting 

American families by understanding that we must stop the terrorists overseas so they do not return to the United States. 

Additionally, I have the perspective that I have visited Iraq 

seven times. I have visited Afghanistan three times. I particularly 

am very proud of the National Guard. I served 31 years in the National Guard. I was able to visit in Afghanistan 2 months ago with 

the 218th Mechanized Infantry Brigade that I served with for over 

20 years. I know hundreds of the people in that unit. They are so 

proud to be serving. They are so proud and understand the importance of what they are doing. 

There is not this feeling that I have heard of negativism at all, 

and their families are so proud of their service, and, again, I understand the extraordinary circumstance of the young people serving 

our country because I have four sons who are serving in the military. One served for a year in Iraq. Another has served in Egypt. 

Another will be deployed soon. And so I am very, very grateful for 

the young people serving our country. 

Additionally, this month, I visited and participated in the graduation of the recruits at Parris Island that I represent. I earlier 

had been at a graduation at Fort Jackson that I represent for new 

recruits. The young people coming in are extraordinary. I mean, it 

just makes you feel so good. 

And I really wish the American people could see the quality of 

the young people who are enlisting, the quality of the young people 

who are serving. It just would make your heart burst, as General 

Keane indicated, and so, again, I hope more people have the opportunities that I have had and get to know the people, as I have, particularly the persons serving in our military. 

And, again, I am just grateful for their service. They are protecting America, and their success, I believe, has been shown because we have not had a major attack in the United States since 

9/11, and we need to keep that in mind, that that was an attack 

on us. It was preemptive by the enemy, not by us. 

I yield the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Loebsack please. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

First of all, I do want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for bringing up 

the issue of demons. I have only been in this Congress since January 4, and I wish General Keane were still here, because I would 

ask him specifically what demons he is referring to. Not much has 

sort of gotten to me since I have been here, but that statement did, 

as a matter of fact, get to me as a new Member of this Congress. 

I am not here to deal with demons or fears or whatever the case 

may be. I think I am here to, as the chairman said, legislate and 

do the best I can for the people in my district, and for the people 

of America. 

So thanks again, Chairman Skelton, for bringing that issue up 

at the time. 
39 

I want to ask you, Mr. Korb, to respond to the general’s comment. I think he said—I could be wrong—that this war is in America’s national interest. Can you respond to that? 

Mr. KORB. This war was a war of choice that basically got us 

away from dealing with the real threat to the country. There were 

no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al Qaeda, no connection 

to 9/11. And what it has done, as the recent National Intelligence 

Estimate pointed out, it has allowed al Qaeda to reconstitute itself 

on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Going in there was the best 

recruiting tool that al Qaeda has had. 

You have also had—and it has not even been discussed that 

much—evidence of blowback. A lot of the people, foreigners, who 

have gone into Iraq are going to go home with this training and 

cause problems in other parts of the world. 

And with all due respect to the people fighting, I have the greatest admiration for them, but if you look at the long-term trends of 

the people that you are bringing in, you are not going to have an 

Army that is as good as the Army that you sent in. If you take in 

900 felons, if you cut down the number of people in basic training 

flunking-out by half, you are not going to get as good people. 

And when you see your West Point people leaving in levels that 

they have not done in 30 years, that is your future leadership. And 

people have talked a lot about retention here. Yes, retention is up 

for career people, but not for people completing their first tours. 

Those are the people that you need to keep in, and in a couple of 

years, we are going to have to deal with that situation. 

We do not have, even according to General Pace, the troops we 

need if something should happen in another place—Iran, North 

Korea, Pakistan—where we need to go. So we basically by doing 

this unnecessary war have weakened our security. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Let us say that the United States is out of Iraq 

in the next 10 to 12 months, as I think you suggest in your testimony—and I know early on you talked about it being 18 months, 

but we have seen a number of months go by now, and I assume 

that is how you are getting to 10 to 12 at this point—but you mentioned that it is not necessarily in the interest of the neighbors of 

Iraq to intervene once we are out. 

Can you elaborate on that a little bit, and speak to the Syrians, 

if you will, too, and what might happen in Kurdistan as well? 

Mr. KORB. None of the nations in the region have an interest in 

Iraq becoming a failed state or a launching pad for international 

terrorists. And as we saw with the Iranians in Afghanistan, countries will do what is in their best interest. The Iranians helped us 

initially in Afghanistan because they felt threatened by al Qaeda 

and the Taliban. 

So you have to work with the countries in the region because 

each of them has got to realize that if it becomes a failed state, 

they are all threatened. They are all involved. Iran is involved. 

Syria is involved. Saudi Arabia is involved. And, basically, what 

you have to have them is involved constructively so that Iraq does 

not become a threat to its neighbors. 

We have urged at the center, back when the President came out 

with this military surge, a diplomatic surge could get the countries 

in the region involved, and I am convinced, until we set a date to 
40 

leave, they are not going to do it because it is not in their interests 

to do so. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Korb. 

For the record, I do want to thank you and General Keane for 

your service. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Turner, please. 

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this 

hearing. And this is so important to have this discussion in this 

manner because some of the statements that are made can be evaluated for the weight in which we need them for policy decisions. 

Mr. Korb, I was looking at your bio. We had a summary that was 

given to us by staff that incorrectly, I believe, referred to you as 

Dr. Korb, and you do not have a Ph.D. 

Mr. KORB. I do. 

Mr. TURNER. You do have a Ph.D.? It is not in your bio, and we 

have materials that are conflicting, Mr. and Dr. What is your Ph.D. 

in? 

Mr. KORB. Political science. 

Mr. TURNER. Political science. And that would go along with then 

when you told us that you are not a military expert because that 

was your words. 

Mr. KORB. I said I am not the expert that General Keane is, but 

my concentration has been on military affairs. That is what I have 

worked on. I have taught at the Navy War College, the Coast 

Guard Academy, and, obviously, I had some time in the Pentagon 

in the Reagan Administration. 

Mr. TURNER. Yes. Yes, I see that in your bio. I did write down 

your words when you said you were not a military expert. 

What fascinated me, which I think is what is so important about 

your testimony, is that it says in your bio that you have made over 

1,000 appearances as a commentator on shows such as ‘‘The Today 

Show,’’ ‘‘The Early Show,’’ ‘‘Good Morning America,’’ ‘‘Face the Nation,’’ ‘‘This Week with David Brinkley,’’ ‘‘The MacNeil-Lehrer 

NewsHour,’’ ‘‘The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,’’ ‘‘Nightline,’’ ‘‘60 

Minutes,’’ some pretty substantial appearances on talk news on discussing the important policy issues that we have here. 

In looking at your testimony, you have given your testimony, you 

have made some statements that I think are consistent with a television commentator, but I looked at the citations because you have 

given us this testimony as if it is in an academic form, and I have 

not seen the citations like this before before the committee. That 

is why they caught my eye. 

Your first three footnotes of your testimony are to your own article. You cite yourself as the source of information for the first three 

footnote citations. I have not seen that very often where someone 

cites themselves. 

Then the next one that you cite, the first footnote that is not citing yourself, you cite the Web site of House Majority Leader Steny 

Hoyer as part of your credential for your testimony before the 

House Committee, a Web site of the Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. 

Then the remainder of your citations are all news articles. You 

cite the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Plain Dealer, 

the New York Times, USA Today, the Inter Press Service, Niemen 

Watchdog. 
41 

You get down to the end where you cite the Congressional Research Service for the first time that you cite something that is not 

just a news item, and that citation relates to the Philippines in 

1915, the Korean War in 1951, and the U.S. forces deployed to 

NATO in 1985, and then your citations end. 

So your citations are all—about this conflict and about this information that is before us—news sources. And I can tell you and the 

people on this committee I have a great deal of respect for, and I 

know we are all well-read. We have all read The Washington Post, 

The New York Times, USA Today. 

Usually, when we have a hearing where we have someone come 

before us to testify, we are looking for them to bring us information 

that is not just what we could have read in Time or New York. 

They do not just state their opinion as a TV news commentator, 

but they actually give us statistics and information which is relevant to the decision-making process, and I believe General Keane 

did that. 

I yield back. 

Mr. KORB. Do I get to respond? 

Mr. TURNER. I yield back. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. KORB. General Keane had no footnotes and his were all opinion. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chair, may I make a—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Just a minute. Just a minute. 

Mr. Korb, do you want to respond? 

Mr. Turner, please listen to his response. 

Do you have a response to that? 

Mr. KORB. Normally, people do not. If you go and you look at the 

things I cited, the studies we have done at the center, they are 

footnotes, and you can take a look at it here. We tell you the 

sources. Then when I quote The Post, for example, it was an Army 

mental health study that was reported in The Post. That is what 

I am getting those, you know, figures from. 

The Niemen cite basically is General Odom, Lieutenant General 

William Odom’s cite, about comparing what has happened. This is 

not a refereed article. Most people do not—General Keane had not 

a single source. His were all opinions, okay. 

If I were preparing this for an academic referee journal, I would 

obviously, you know, do better, but I had no time to do this. I was 

just called very quickly. And what I was trying to tell you is if you 

want more information, you can go to these things. 

And the Congressional Research Service was asked by the Congress to take a look in support of these amendments, which is why 

I went to those things. 

But I will put my record in terms of scholarship, in terms of 

analysis of war, in terms of military issues up against anybody. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Korb. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Korb—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, a point of information. 
42 

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Just so the record is clear on this, my first 

contact with Mr. Korb, which he will not remember after his long 

and distinguished career, was when he was the Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for manpower, reserve affairs, installation and logistics, 

and I was a member of the Hawaii state legislature in charge of 

education and impact aid. 

Mr. Korb was kind enough to take time out to spend time with 

a little state legislator who had all these serious concerns. And if 

he was good enough for Ronald Reagan, apparently, he was good 

enough to talk with Representative Abercrombie and inform him. 

And I never forgot that exchange, I can tell you, and that must 

be more than a quarter of a century ago. He does not remember 

me, but I remember him. 

The CHAIRMAN. Everybody remembers you, Mr. Abercrombie. 

Mr. KORB. I remember you. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Mr. Chair, may I have 30 seconds? 

The CHAIRMAN. First, let me say that I worked, well, a good 

number of years ago when you were on Ronald Reagan’s staff and 

you were an assistant secretary. We thank you for your service 

then as well as now. This is very, very important. 

Mr. Loebsack, do you have a comment? 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Yes, just for a few seconds. As someone who has 

a Ph.D. in political science myself, and having taught for 24 years 

at a small college, I am happy to say I believe that Mr. Korb is 

eminently qualified to speak on these issues, much more so than 

I am, certainly. 

And I have had the pleasure of having him in class two times 

at Cornell College in Iowa, and I can attest to his credentials. And 

I think that he is one of the very few people here in Washington, 

D.C., who has managed to combine academic credentials and government service to the extent to which he has. And I vouch for his 

academics as well as his professional career. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very, very, very much. 

Now, Mr. Sestak, before calling you, we did announce earlier that 

there is a drop dead moment on this hearing, which would be high 

noon. So you take your five minutes. Then, unfortunately, we will 

have to close this hearing. 

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Please proceed. 

Mr. SESTAK. I think I will have three comments, if I might. 

On the first, the general has left, but it would be remiss of me 

not to talk about the comment about demons. I think the general, 

if he was here, would recognize that General Shelton, who he and 

I both respected so much, when he was chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff at the beginning of Mr. Rumsfeld’s era, used to hand 

out a book called ‘‘Dereliction of Duty.’’ 

He just asked all of us to remember that the failure at times during Vietnam for men and women to speak up might have helped 

lead to the wrong course. And so I think in the emotions of all this, 

there are demons, but I like to think about it as the debate of frank 

ideas. 

Second, I want to speak about these two pieces of legislation that 

Ms. Tauscher brought and said we really are here today. In the 
43 

very first one, I think a good comment was made by the general. 

The study that was done at the end of Vietnam had shown that if 

we had not rotated our troops out of Vietnam, we actually would 

have had better warfighting capability. Men and women learn, and 

then they are more proficient. 

Like we did in World War II, we kept our men and women out 

there. But the difference between World War II and this war is 

that, on average, a man, a woman in combat in World War II did 

180 days combat. Our men and women in Iraq, in their 15 months, 

every day, they do combat. Every day, they go outside the wire, 

and they do not know when that car is there. 

And so there is a constitutional duty that says for Congress to 

provide for the rules and regulation of our armed services. We 

would be remiss not to see if the rule of turnaround time was proficient. 

To my colleague from California, it is a requirement, I understand, that might take a little bit of more effort, but our national 

command authority, is by law the President and the Secretary of 

Defense are required before any unit deploys overseas to approve 

it. It is just merely a paper over here to say they need it. Now, normally, the Secretary of Defense approves it, but they have national 

command authority, and both of them have to approve it. So I 

think that is good. 

The second one is I am very interested in this one by Mr. Abercrombie that is being submitted because we can learn from it. We 

have to keep in mind that before we set any date certain, we have 

a lot to learn over here. Somalia took us 5 months to get 6,300 

troops out, and we inserted 19,000 personnel to protect them. The 

Russians took 9 months to get out of Afghanistan with less troops, 

and 500 died on the way. 

Right now today, we have 40 brigade combat teams in Iraq 

equivalent. You can only put two through Kuwait because you 

know you have to wash them, customs, put shrink wrap on them, 

put them in a boat. They can do two brigades, maybe two and a 

half a month, unless we build more facilities there. That is 15 to 

20 months alone, if you go by how we do it. 

And if you look at the plan the Army had in 2006 to close the 

forward operating bases (FOB) in Iraq, because they did look at 

this, there are 58 of them. They want to do four at a time in that 

plan. You know what that means? It is 100 days to close 4 at a 

time. You work that out, you are almost to four years, if you want 

to close up the FOB and clean up after it. 

So this is an important piece of legislation. And I am a person 

who believes in a date certain for the reasons, Mr. Korb you say, 

but we have to make sure that ending this war is necessary, but 

insufficient, how, and the means by which we do it have a lot to 

do with the safety of our troops, as they have to come down Route 

Tampa, one road to Kuwait. 

It already has 2,000 trucks a day on it. Imagine everyone coming 

together, packing their stuff. You have to have security convoys. 

You have to get in Kuwait. You have to time the ships. Our due 

job is to make sure as we provide for the common defense to make 

sure that there is some thinking on it so that we do not inherently 

put more of a mess out there by the wrong date certain. 
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So I am taken by these comments, and I will wrap up of why 

these two pieces of legislation are important for us and our constitutional duty and to make sure as we do do things, we have the 

data not to make a mistake. 

Comment? 

Mr. KORB. Well, I think you are quite right. We want to make 

sure that we get out much more carefully than we went in. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

And, Dr. Korb, we thank you. 

And we have already said goodbye and thanked General Keane 

a few moments ago. 

We will reconvene at 1 p.m., and I hope we have full attendance 

to mark up two bills. 

And I thank you for the testimony and the participation today. 

[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JULY 27, 2007 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MURPHY 

Mr. MURPHY. In December, sir, you wrote in the Washington Post that: ‘‘Bringing 

security to Baghdad is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops 

lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail.’’ Despite the fact that my 

former unit, the 82nd Airborne, has been part of this most recent escalation since 

January, we constantly hear from my friends on the other side of the aisle that the 

‘‘surge’’ only really went into place in June. Therefore, General Keane—from my calculation—you believe that we need to wait until January of 2009 if we are to see 

true progress resulting from an escalation of troops. 

I therefore have two questions: (1) In light of the testimony we have heard—especially from Dr. Korb and Chairman Skelton—as to how this conflict has overextended our Armed Forces, do you believe we could find the troops to maintain 

such an escalation? And a closely related follow up: (2) given that there is a near 

unanimity that we can’t maintain such heightened troop levels—is there any point 

in this Congress waiting until September to act when you yourself admit that a 

surge of that time frame ‘‘is likely to fail.’’ 

I also want to take your arguments to their logical end. In the same article, sir, 

you state—‘‘of all the ‘surge’ options out there, short ones are the most dangerous.’’ 

So from my understanding of your logic—and if history is any guide most likely the 

President’s—if General Petraeus reports progress in September, should the American people prepare themselves for a recommendation from this Administration that 

140,000 to 150,000 troops remain in Iraq for an extended period of time? 

General KEANE. [The information referred to was not available at the time of 

printing.] 

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