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WINNING THE PEACE: COALITION EFFORTS TO

RESTORE IRAQ

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 8, 2003

Serial No. 108–90

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on October 8, 2003 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Brownlee, Les, Acting Secretary of the Army; Philo Dibble, Principal

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs;

Tom Korologos, senior advisor to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority; Major General Carl

Strock, U.S. Army, director of operations and infrastructure, Coalition

Provisional Authority; and Bernie Kerik, former director of the interior,

Coalition Provisional Authority ................................................................... 14

Haidari, Alaa H., Iraqi-American; Beate Sirota Gordon, constitutional

scholar; and Lamya Alarif, Iraqi-American ................................................ 148

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

Alarif, Lamya, Iraqi-American, prepared statement of ................................. 167

Brownlee, Les, Acting Secretary of the Army, prepared statement of ......... 17

Burgess, Hon. Michael C., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Texas, prepared statement of .................................................................. 193

Chocola, Hon. Chris, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Indiana, prepared statement of ................................................................... 191

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia:

Letter dated October 6, 2003 .................................................................... 182

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Dibble, Philo, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of

Near Eastern Affairs, prepared statement of ............................................. 25

Frelinghuysen, Hon. Rodney P., a Representative in Congress from the

State of New Jersey, prepared statement of ............................................... 140

Gordon, Beate Sirota, constitutional scholar, prepared statement of .......... 160

Haidari, Alaa H., Iraqi-American, prepared statement of ............................ 150

Kerik, Bernie, former director of the interior, Coalition Provisional Authority, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 39

Korologos, Tom, senior advisor to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, prepared statement of ... 30

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 124

Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 195

Shuster, Hon. Bill, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, prepared statement of .................................................................. 196

Van Hollen, Hon. Chris, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, followup questions and responses ......................................... 110

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 11

(1)

WINNING THE PEACE: COALITION EFFORTS

TO RESTORE IRAQ

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:13 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis of Virginia

(chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tom Davis of Virginia, Shays, Ose,

Platts, Miller, Murphy, Turner, Carter, Janklow, Blackburn, Waxman, Maloney, Cummings, Kucinich, Davis of Illinois, Tierney,

Clay, Van Hollen, Sanchez, Ruppersberger, and Norton.

Also present: Shuster, Rogers of Michigan, Shimkus, Walsh,

Sherwood, Kolbe, Tiahrt, Hoekstra, Frelinghuysen, Pomeroy, Dicks,

and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas.

Staff present: Peter Sirh, staff director; Melissa Wojciak, deputy

staff director; Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; David Young and

John Hunter, counsels; Robert Borden, counsel/parliamentarian;

Ellen Brown, legislative director and senior policy director; David

Marin, director of communications; John Cuaderes, senior professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Brien Beattie, deputy clerk; Jason Chung, legislative assistant; Corrine Zaccagnini,

chief information officer; Phil Barnett, minority chief counsel; Kristin Amerling and Michael Yeager, minority deputy chief counsels;

Karen Lightfoot, minority communications director and senior policy advisor; Anna Laitin, minority communications and policy assistant; Jeff Baran, minority counsel; Earley Green, minority chief

clerk; Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk; and Cecelia Morton, minority office manager.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Good morning. A quorum being present,

the Committee on Government Reform will come to order.

I want to welcome everybody to today’s hearing on the U.S. coalition efforts to restore peace, freedom, security, and dignity to the

people of Iraq. On August 24th, I led an 11-member bipartisan delegation to see firsthand our efforts in Iraq. Before leaving the

United States, I had no real idea of what to expect on my visit.

After all, most press accounts of our efforts in Iraq were full of

gloom and doom. But what we witnessed was an Iraq of great

promise, vibrancy and vitality. We saw a nation with potential and

a people that were enjoying the fruits of freedom in its infancy. We

saw a remarkable progress throughout the country, whether it was

a hospital in Baghdad or a new police station in Mosul.

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We witnessed a busy market in Mosul where one could buy anything under the sun, including items that were forbidden under

Saddam Hussein’s regime, such as satellite dishes, one of the hottest selling items in the country. We met with newly elected regional council members—men and women, Kurds, Shiites and

Sunnis—who spoke of embracing democratic values and representing all of Iraq, not just their own religions, tribes and home towns.

We also witnessed the greatness of our military; not of their

might, but of their humble actions in assisting a people in need.

Our soldiers are firm in their resolve to stay until the job is finished. These young men and women are not only soldiers but also

peacekeepers, and when called upon, diplomats and friends. There

is no doubt, we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Our military

is still in harm’s way, but, from what I have seen, we can be successful as long as we remain steadfast, patient and committed.

The coalition’s work is far from over. Iraq is still a work in

progress, and new challenges arise every day. We must overcome

the many security threats that, to this day, continue to be the

greatest challenge to our troops and the stabilization of Iraq. Rebuilding efforts, although well under way, and perhaps well ahead

of schedule, will not succeed in the end if we cannot overcome the

prevailing threats against those who are there to help.

While I am confident that we will succeed in ridding Iraq of elements that want to see the coalition fail, we need to keep in mind

several important lessons, such as: while the rotation of military

forces in Iraq is essential, increasing the number of military personnel in the area may not be necessary or advisable to accomplish

the mission.

Second, reconstituting a qualified and effective Iraqi military police force and border protection guard is a key element to improving overall security in Iraq. The development of functioning institutions in a secure environment is essential to Iraq’s success. Furthermore, the sooner Iraqis can take responsibility for their own affairs, the sooner U.S. forces can come home.

For human intelligence to improve, we need the participation of

Iraqi-Americans who have the skills, the knowledge and the willingness to assist in the intelligence gathering and analysis. However, we need to actively recruit, vet and train these individuals.

In order for these people to be effective, we need to expedite the

security clearance process. Iraqi citizens can provide vital intelligence about the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction, but

the coalition forces need the authorization to grant relocation and

protective status to informants and their extended families.

Saddam Hussein misappropriated much of the money loaned to

Iraq for his own personal benefit to the detriment of the Iraqi people. My colleague, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, has introduced H.R. 2482, which could greatly benefit the people of Iraq by

canceling Odious Debt in accordance with customary international

law. This is potentially a very wealthy country, second largest oil

reserves in the world, the Fertile Crescent there between the Tigris

and the Euphrates River, the Garden of Eden, Ancient Mesopotamia, but with a debt structure that is four times the gross domestic

product, no nation can survive under that structure, so that is obviously going to have be revisited as this country is succeeding.

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While operations in Iraq are still young—we are only 160 days

into the rebuilding effort—we have accomplished much. We are

building schools, upgrading hospitals and modernizing the utilities

infrastructure at a pace that surpasses operations we led after

World War II, and we are well ahead of the pace of our reconstruction efforts in the Balkans.

Still, most of the media accounts of post-war Iraq discuss rampant chaos and mismanagement. However, according to a public

opinion poll conducted in August by the Zogby Group, more than

two-thirds of those Iraqis who expressed an opinion wanted coalition troops to remain in Iraq for at least another year, and 70 percent of Iraqis said they expect their country and their personal

lives to be better in 5 years.

During our visit to Iraq, the delegation visited a site southwest

of Baghdad, in a sector guarded by the U.S. Marines known as AlHillah. One cannot begin to describe this site. There are no landmarks to identify its location, but we know of this place because

once we overthrew Saddam, the Iraqi people themselves were our

guides. In those early days after we swept through this area, Iraqis

by the dozens came to Al-Hillah to do something that is hard to

put into words: they dug. Yes, many came to this nondescript place

to dig, many with their bare hands. They dug because it is here

that we learned of Saddam’s brutality. Al-Hillah was a killing field.

For reasons unknown except to Saddam and his henchmen, men,

women and children were summarily executed over a span of many

days. They were buried, and the process was repeated time and

time again, people buried on top of one another. This was a scheme

designed by a sociopath bent on crippling the Iraqi people. Now the

people return, most with kitchen utensils and their hands, to find

and dig up remains of loved ones.

Under the protection of coalition forces, Iraqis are learning what

it means to be free. Our role in Iraq has just begun, and it is a

new fight, a fight that is far greater than simply ridding Iraq of

Saddam Hussein. We need time, patience, and, most of all, the resolve to finish the job we started. The people of Iraq deserve no

less. Our men and women serving in Iraq want to finish the job,

and we need to support them while the Iraqi people savor freedom

and bring stability to a region that desperately needs it.

Through this hearing, the committee hopes to gain insight from

the on-the-ground experience of the people performing reconstruction projects in Iraq, as well as the viewpoints of Iraqi-Americans,

scholars and others who have recently observed the reconstruction

process. I also welcome my colleagues, many of whom are not members of this committee but have traveled to Iraq and have their

own views, emotions and experiences that they want to share.

With that in mind, we have assembled an impressive group of

witnesses to help us assess our efforts and our progress in Iraq. We

will hear from the Department of Defense and the Coalition Provisional Authority. We will also receive input from some distinguished Iraqi-Americans, as well as a constitutional scholar who

will provide us her thoughts regarding the inclusion of women’s

rights in the yet-to-be-determined constitution. I want to thank all

our witnesses for appearing before the committee; I look forward to

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their testimony. I also want to acknowledge and welcome the many

non-committee members attending today’s hearing.

Due to time constraints, we intend to limit opening statements,

the ranking member and myself. Members will have 5 legislative

days to submit opening statements for the record. All Members will

have ample opportunity to give their views and question today’s

witnesses. I do intend to recognize committee members first, followed by the other Members in order of their appearance.

And, Mr. Waxman, I am going to have to leave in the middle of

the hearing and come back, because we have bills that will be

pending on the floor, but it shouldn’t take much time, and I will

yield at that point to another committee member to preside.

I would now yield to my ranking member, Mr. Waxman, for his

opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am very

pleased that you have called this hearing on the important subject

of the restoration efforts in Iraq, and I want to commend you for

traveling there to seek firsthand information. All of us here share

deep appreciation for the efforts of our military and our civilian

employees in Iraq to promote stability in Iraq and improve the

well-being of its citizens.

Congressional oversight is essential to help ensure that reconstruction is proceeding in a manner that gets results and makes efficient use of American taxpayers’ dollars. My own oversight efforts

began in March, when I wrote the administration about the multibillion dollar contract it entered into with Halliburton on a solesource basis. Since then, I have written many other letters seeking

basic information about how taxpayer funds are being spent in

Iraq. This August I sent senior staff to Iraq to gather additional

information as part of the chairman’s delegation.

Overall, this has been a frustrating process. Transparency is the

only way to dispel public concern about the lucrative contracts that

the administration has entered into with Halliburton, Bechtel and

other large campaign contributors operating in Iraq. Yet, with the

exception of the Corps of Engineers, the administration has provided virtually no meaningful information to Congress, or the public, about how it has spent taxpayers’ dollars in Iraq. For example,

in April I asked the Administrator of AID for basic information

about the contracting process with respect to contracts worth over

$1 billion that were limited to only a few handpicked companies.

AID has still not provided copies of the contracts or information on

source selection. Despite a recommendation by the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers to allow public scrutiny of a no-bid sole-source

oil field contract with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown &

Root, the Defense Department continues to classify the details of

the contract as a national security secret. The administration still

has not responded to my letter on September 12th, requesting that

it explain why the President’s request for an additional $2.1 billion

to repair Iraq’s oil infrastructure is over 2.5 times larger than a detailed estimate prepared just a few months ago by the CPA, the

Corps of Engineers and the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. This secrecy is

simply unacceptable. Two companies alone, Halliburton and Bechtel, have been given contracts worth over $3 billion relating to the

conflict and reconstruction in Iraq. Members of Congress and taxpayers who are footing this enormous bill should know how this

money is being spent.

While the administration has declined to respond to basic requests about its contracts, information I have received from a variety of sources is painting a disturbing picture. It appears that big

American contractors are receiving too much money for too little

work and too few opportunities are being afforded Iraqis. Members

of the Iraqi Governing Council, for example, have told my staff that

costs to the American taxpayers could be reduced by 90 percent if

the projects were awarded to Iraqi contractors, rather than to large

American companies. Anecdotal information from innovative field

commanders in Iraq confirms this account.

During the chairman’s congressional delegation, the members

and staff met with Major General David Petraeus, the general in

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charge of Northern Iraq. General Petraeus said that the U.S. engineers estimated that it would cost $15 million to bring a cement

plant in Northern Iraq to western production standards. But because this estimate was substantially higher than funds available,

General Petraeus gave the project to local Iraqis, who got the cement plant running for just $80,000. Think about this. General

Petraeus reduced the cost to U.S. taxpayers by 99 percent by using

local Iraqi contractors instead of Halliburton or Bechtel.

Many people don’t realize this, but the billion dollar contracts

with Bechtel and Halliburton are what is known as cost-plus contracts. These contracts are structured so that the bigger, the more

complex and the more expensive the project, the greater the profits

for these companies. This is obviously a good deal for the companies, but is it a good deal for the taxpayer? The administration’s supplemental request for an additional $20

billion for reconstruction raises many questions. It includes numerous proposals for complex, state-of-the-art Western facilities that

almost certainly will have to be performed by large government

contractors under abuse-prone cost-plus contracts. Of the 115 discreet projects described by the CPA in the supplemental, fewer

than 25 mention employment opportunities for Iraqis.

I hope that the Army and CPA witnesses here today will be able

to shed light on some of the questions about reconstruction contracts that remain unanswered to date, and I encourage the majority on this committee and in the rest of the Congress to move forward with the minority in conducting meaningful oversight of the

restoration process in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, I hope this hearing will be a beginning of that opportunity for oversight. I thank you for holding this hearing, and

I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

I just want to say, on the cement plant, I remember talking to

General Petraeus about that, and he awarded the contract to an

Iraqi firm, but he never said it would be up to Western standards.

But he did what he could with the money, and I know firsthand,

and our witnesses can talk about this, that we are trying to give

Iraqis as much of that work as we can, because their economy is

a major part of what is happening. But our witnesses can address

that, and we will have ample time to do questions and answers, so

why don’t we move to our panel?

Members’ written statements will be in the record, and all of you

will have ample time under questions and answers to make statements.

If you will all rise with me and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Please be seated.

We have the Honorable Les Brownlee, the Acting Secretary of

the Army, former staffer with Senator Warner, and we are happy

to have you here; Philo Dibble, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; we have

Tom Korologos, senior advisor to Ambassador Paul Bremer; U.S.

Major General Carl Strock, who is the director of operations and

infrastructure of the Coalition Provisional Authority; and Mr. Bernie Kerik, who is the former Director of the Interior, Coalition Provisional Authority and former police chief in New York.

Why don’t we start, Secretary Brownlee, with you, and we will

move right down. I think you know the rules. Your entire statements are in the record. Our Members have a lot of questions and

comments they are going to want to make, and I won’t start with

questions, I will start moving down the way. So welcome. And

when the light turns orange, that means 4 minutes are up, and

when it is red, 5 minutes. We want to give you an opportunity to

say what you need to say, but your entire statement is in the

record, thank you.

STATEMENTS OF LES BROWNLEE, ACTING SECRETARY OF

THE ARMY; PHILO DIBBLE, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS; TOM KOROLOGOS, SENIOR ADVISOR TO AMBASSADOR L. PAUL BREMER III, ADMINISTRATOR OF THE COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY; MAJOR GENERAL CARL

STROCK, U.S. ARMY, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURE, COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY; AND

BERNIE KERIK, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE INTERIOR, COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY

Secretary BROWNLEE. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members

of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you

today to testify on the tremendous accomplishments of our soldiers,

both active and reserve components, and the great progress they

are making in winning the peace in Iraq. I know that many of you

have just recently returned from Iraq, and on behalf of the soldiers

who are serving our country, let me begin by expressing gratitude

for the exceptional support you provided to them and their families

as well. I am happy to join you here this morning to talk about the

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marvelous work our soldiers are doing and the great progress that

is being made every day in Iraq. I visited Iraq in June and again

in late September, and I am pleased to share with you what I

learned.

The insurgency being waged in Iraq includes foreign fighters and

terrorist groups, along with former Ba’athists, making this the central battlefront in the war on terrorism. After our lightning ground

attack into Baghdad, an overwhelming military victory by coalition

forces, the mission in Iraq now remains clear: to win the peace.

Our soldiers understand this mission, and their commitment to getting the job done is having an extraordinarily positive effect on the

people of Iraq. Soldiers are working with the Iraqi people, our coalition partners and the international community to achieve a better

Iraq for the Iraqis, the region and the world.

During my visits to Iraq, I have witnessed the progress being

made, and I can tell you that things are getting better, and will

continue to get better both for the people of Iraq and for our men

and women serving there. Here are a few of the great things that

are happening: local government councils exist in over 90 percent

of the country and are taking increasing responsibility for civic administration and services; our Army divisions are training Iraqi police, facility protection forces, and civil defense corps to assume responsibility for local security and law enforcement; our units are

helping getting Iraqi schools running again—in the Baghdad region

alone, we will have 820 schools refurbished by the end of October.

We are continuing to make things safer for the people of Iraq and

our own troops by removing ammunition caches from around the

country. The nation’s infrastructure was badly neglected under the

Ba’ath region, and we are helping to restore and modernize it. For

example, we are hiring Iraqis to help restore the oil industry and

power generation, and to repair roads. These are but a few of the

thousands of things our Army is busy doing for the people of Iraq,

and for our own troops.

Last month soldiers began taking advantage of the R&R leave

program, which allows them to spend 2 weeks away from the theater during their 12-month tour. Since my last visit to Iraq in June,

we have opened 31 new dining facilities for our troops, as well as

Internet cafes, chapels, and exchanges. Most soldiers are living in

hard structures or climate-controlled billets so troops returning

from patrols can adequately rest and refit.

In Iraq, the mission for our soldiers continues. They must attack

and eliminate remaining anti-coalition forces and assist interim

governments to deliver basic services to their people. Our soldiers

must simultaneously conduct combat operations and provide humanitarian assistance, often shifting between these two in the

same day. The administration is aware of our concerns and requirements. President Bush has asked Congress for the resources

to help fight the war on terror, and they are addressed in the fiscal

year 2004 supplemental. We urge Congress to assist us by quickly

passing this legislation.

Despite remarkable successes, our fight is not over. Our enemies

are committed and believe we lack the resolve to win the peace in

Iraq. I can assure you this is not true. Our commanders and troops

are determined and optimistic, and feel that we are gaining moVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Mar 11, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\91303.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mentum in the fight. In years to come, when historians write the

story of this critical period, they will note that in Iraq and around

the globe, the unwavering commitment, courage and compassion of

the American soldier led the way in the fight against terror. By

carrying the fight to the enemy, the Army is destroying terrorism

today in its home nests and spawning grounds, providing protection to the American people and striking fear in the hearts of our

enemies.

In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank this

committee for the opportunity to appear today and for your continued support for the men and women in uniform deployed in Iraq,

Afghanistan and around the world fighting terrorism. I would like

to take this opportunity also to thank all our soldiers for their service, and their families as well, for the sacrifices they are all making

for our Nation. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to answering your

questions.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Brownlee follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much, Secretary

Brownlee.

Secretary Dibble, thank you for being with us.

Mr. DIBBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning, and I will

keep my remarks brief.

Several senior administration officials, including Ambassador

Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad and Deputy Secretary of State Armitage have testified in recent days on

key issues concerning U.S. policy on Iraq. Their statements stand

alone as the administration’s position on Iraq but I am here to attempt to address any questions you may have.

It is in the interest of all Americans and, indeed, the international community, to see peaceful and prosperous countries

across this important region. For far too long Iraq exported destabilizing waves of violence and terrorism across its borders and

around the world. Iraq now has the potential to turn the situation

around and become a source of stability and prosperity in the region, around the world and for Americans here at home.

Meeting our military objectives in Iraq was only the beginning of

reaching that vision, however, not the end. While it is in our interest to stabilize the situation, we also owe it to our men and women

in uniform, to their courage and sacrifice, to accomplish the entire

mission. In addition, we need to support our own people who also

serve on the front lines of this fight, providing assistance in what

are often dangerous circumstances and insecure settings.

I would like to continue by paying tribute to my friends and colleagues throughout Iraq on both military and civilian sides. They

are working extraordinarily hard, at heavy personal risk, to restore

stability and security, reestablish normal life for Iraqis, and help

lay the basis for Iraqis to succeed in the election of a representative

government, and they deserve all our thanks.

Mr. Chairman, succeeding in this project in all its aspects is of

vital interest to the United States, and we cannot fail. The task

has three main dimensions: security, restoring normal life for

Iraqis and establishing a political process. Each dimension is related to the others and is a necessary condition for success. Security

is a fundamental requirement for normal life and for a legitimate

political process. Restoration of normal life meaning access to employment, to health care, to education, and clean water, among so

many other things, is desirable in itself and underpins security. Finally, a political process provides confidence to the Iraqi people

that they will soon take on the task of governing themselves. That

confidence, in turn, contributes to security.

These are difficult times, as the situation in Iraq continues to

shift and take shape. With the clarity of hindsight, however, I believe we will know this Nation had the courage to take tough decisions to safeguard our future peace and prosperity at the time

when it mattered most. In so doing, the U.S. Government has the

opportunity to help not only our own people, but also the people of

Iraq, the region and around the world. Success in Iraq, however,

is also of vital interest to the international community. As such, we

have sought and achieved international participation in the coalition. We look to the United Nations to contribute a substantial exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Mar 11, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\91303.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
24

pertise and experience in this connection, and we are aggressively

seeking substantial financial support from the international community for the reconstruction effort.

This outlines the main elements of our policy on Iraq, and I

would be happy to respond to the committee’s questions. Thank

you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dibble follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Tom Korologos, thanks for being with us.

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my

name is Tom Korologos. I am a senior counselor to Ambassador L.

Paul Bremer, the Coalition Provisional Authority Special Envoy in

Iraq. My responsibilities include working with three other senior

counselors, the various coalition ministers, and staff, and also handling visiting congressional delegations as they come through Iraq;

and your group was among them, and I see other members here

on the committee who were there.

When I first got to Baghdad last May, it was a city burning. We

were given earplugs to shut out gunfire so we could sleep. Today

we are living in the midst of a rebirth for this maligned country

that has enjoyed more religious and political freedom in the past

4 months than in the past 40 years. I have traveled the country

extensively with Ambassador Bremer and with the Members of

Congress, and I have seen firsthand the successes that have followed the ceasing of these hostilities.

As many of you who visited us this summer know full well,

Baghdad is not a war-ravaged city. Baghdad is a hustling and bustling city where you can buy everything on the streets from air conditioners to refrigerators to satellite dishes to shoes. To be sure, all

of us dread hearing about the shootings or attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, and as Ambassador Bremer said 2 weeks ago, our day

begins 8 hours ahead of yours here, and we learn about those attacks before you awaken. We deplore those losses and wish they

weren’t so.

Mr. Chairman, as you have heard us say time and again, and as

my colleagues on the panel have stated, we have three goals in

Iraq. Our plan from the start has been to restore security, restore

the economy and restore the government. We are making progress

on all three fronts, and those of you from the committee who joined

us know this firsthand. What we have in Iraq is a rich country

which, as the chairman said, is temporarily poor. It has oil; it has

water; it has an energetic, smart population. It is not unlike California, as a matter of fact, including problems with the economy

and the government. Let me list a few facts. Schools reopened last

week, as Secretary Brownlee said, and we are luring children back,

where attendance had plummeted 50 percent of the eligible

attendees. We have prepared and distributing 5 million new math

and science text books minus Saddam’s ideology. When I first arrived there, we had 9 mile-long gasoline lines. Today we have traffic jams. We love traffic jams; they mean that gas is flowing and

people are out working. General Strock will give you the details of

the oil business. The central bank is now open, providing loans and

conducting commerce. In 2 weeks we are distributing a new currency to the Iraqis. Foreign investment is poised to come to Iraq.

One member of the Governing Council told me 2 months ago, when

Ambassador Bremer first approached the issue, that if anybody had

said the word foreign investment under the old regime, he would

have had his throat cut. Independent voices are being heard for the

first time in 40 years. We have almost 200 newspapers up and running, 27 TV stations and 26 radio stations functioning.

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The coalition, as Secretary Brownlee and General Strock, in a

minute, will tell you, has completed more than 8,000 projects

around the country, refurbishing everything from soccer fields to

health clinics, to roads and bridges throughout the country. Saddam budgeted $13 million for health care in 2002. We have allocated $210 million, a 3,200 percent increase. On April 9th only 30

percent of the hospitals were running; today, all 240 around the

country are open; 4 million Iraqi children have received 22 million

doses of vaccine. Prewar, the country was averaging 4,000

megawatts of power. The demand was 6,000, we are now around

3,900, closing in on that issue. Oil is pumping: we are about 1.7

million barrels a day, and hope to get back to prewar levels, around

3 million.

The Governing Council is up and running. They have just named

25 various ministers to run the government, and those ministers

probably constitute the most educated cabinet group in the world,

since most of them have Ph.Ds. And as Secretary Brownlee also

said, there are more than 700 democratically selected district council members. They include Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Arabs, and

Kurds, with more than 75 women among them; 90 percent of the

Iraqi people are now under local representative governing councils;

90 percent of the courts are up and running, and last week I saw

they even created the Iraqi Bar Association.

On and on the list runs, Mr. Chairman, and those of you who

have been there can see those lists as we present them to you. The

lament for those of us enduring 50 and 60 straight days of 100 degree heat—we had a 137 degree day once this summer—of wearing

flak jackets when we leave the compound, we run around in armored cars when we go downtown, and in talking with about 95

to 98 percent of the Iraqis who support us, our lament comes from

the fact there are good things happening that very few Americans

know anything about. The reporting of those accomplishments, unfortunately, takes a back seat to the police blotter-type journalism

that fills the front pages of the American papers.

And as the chairman said, those of you who went to the AlHillah grave site on our trip, I repeat what I said then: I find the

silence on the mass graves deafening. A total of 1.3 million Iraqis

are missing from wars and mass murders. Human rights groups estimate that 300,000 of those are in mass graves. One mass grave

alone holds the bodies of 1,200 children. There are some 35 or 40

mass grave sites all around Iraq filled with Iraqis who opposed

Saddam. If there is any doubt about our going in there in the first

place, come see me, I will take you down to Al-Hillah for a poignant awakening. Yes, there are bumps in the road, and, yes, Ambassador Bremer has made audibles throughout the process. We are

going to need many, many dollars to bring this country back to

some semblance of freedom. And once that happens, the entire

Middle East hopefully will stand up and take notice and some sanity will come to that part of the world.

Let me close with a couple of points. Everybody wants to know

when our troops are coming home. The troops will start coming

home when Ambassador Bremer comes home and the CPA succeeds. And when will that be? Let me cite a Rand Corporation

study, which took a look at post-war rebuilding efforts in Germany,

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Japan, Kosovo, and Bosnia. The study said of Iraq: ‘‘Staying there

does not assume success. Leaving early guarantees failure.’’ Thank

you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Korologos follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. I was feeling pretty confident

until you told me the lawyers were getting organized over there.

General Strock, thanks for being with us.

General STROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Major General

Carl Strock. I am the Director of Civil Works for the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers. As a soldier and a citizen I would like to start,

as the other members did, by thanking this committee and the

Congress for your continued and unwavering support of our military as we pursue the global war on terrorism.

Sir, I have recently returned from Iraq after 6 months, where I

served with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and then with the Coalition Provisional Authority. I held several positions, culminating as deputy director of operations and infrastructure for Ambassador Bremer. I was also the Senior Corp of

Engineers Officer in Iraq and had responsibility to ensure that my

agency was adequately and appropriately represented in supporting the effort. We do that in many ways. We have responsibility for

the restoration of Iraqi oil infrastructure; we are supporting the

U.S. Agency for International Development in the administration of

their large construction contact; we are providing forward engineer

support teams to each of the regional coordinators to assess, plan,

prioritize, and execute projects in their areas; we provided ministry

advisory teams to eight of the ministries of the Iraqi government;

we are supporting the creation of a new Iraqi army with facilities;

we have recently sent a task force in to assist in the restoration

of electrical power. In all, 39 of our 40 districts are represented

with about 400 people, mostly civilians, all volunteers, who are out

there on the front line on a daily basis risking their lives in support of the Iraqi people and our country.

Sir, we are working in partnership with many, many agencies

and international organizations: the USAID, other departments

from our Government—State, Transportation, Health and Human

Services, Agriculture, Commerce. We are working with international organizations: UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP. Non-governmental organizations: the International Committee for Red CrossRed Crescent, CARE and others. We are also working with the coalition military forces who have been a tremendous augmentation to

the CPA capability to reconstruct infrastructure, as has been mentioned by the committee.

Sir, most importantly, though, I think it is important to note that

it is the Iraqi people themselves who are really doing the heavy

lifting in this. The ministries and the private sector there have

proven to be competent, committed and courageous in their support

of this effort. We simply could not do what we have done if the

Iraqis had not been involved from the very beginning.

We came into a situation which is desperate. The infrastructure

of this country has suffered a 30-year insult. There are many reasons for that. First of all, and fundamentally, is a neglect of the

system; in some cases benign neglect, in some cases very deliberate

neglect on the part of Saddam’s regime. Services under Saddam

Hussein were used as a reward or punishment. You can see a dramatic difference in the quality of life in Baghdad, where citizens

typically enjoy 22 to 24 hours of power a day, and Al-Qud, where

they only get 2 hours of power a day. So the infrastructure was

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built around those who supported him and were denied to those

who did not.

We also suffered war damage but because we made very careful

efforts to limit damage through what we call effects-based targeting—where you decide what effect you want to create and do it

with minimum impact to the infrastructure—we were able to keep

actual war damage to a minimum, a very insignificant aspect of the

problems we are facing now.

We suffered tremendous looting after the fall of the regime.

Much of this was individual looting by people out for personal gain,

and much of it then turned to a criminal element of deliberate and

structured dismantling of the infrastructure. There has also been—

and I think the largest factor has been—deliberate sabotage by the

former regime loyalists who are doing everything they can to

thwart our efforts and make it difficult for us to restore some level

of normalcy to this country.

The result of all these things has been almost a total devastation

of this country; not only the physical infrastructure, but the human

infrastructure. Those people who are committed to maintaining the

infrastructure have suffered dramatically in how they were able to

do their jobs, and they continue to suffer intimidation and coercion

as they support the effort.

The other panel members have already discussed some of the results, so I won’t go into the details of those. One of the most important, though, that I would mention is the electrical power restoration, which now exceeds 4,500 megawatts, which is more than

enough to provide for the daily needs of the Iraqi people. Oil production has now reached the 2 million barrel per day level, and we

are simply now in the process now of developing the export facilities.

There is much work to be done, a good foundation has been laid,

and, I might add, largely with Iraqi resources supplemented by our

taxpayer’ dollars, but resistance continues. Those within Iraq and

outside of Iraq that have an interest in this outcome are working

very hard to counter our efforts. We are fighting for the will of the

Iraqi people and, to a degree, we are fighting for the will of the

American people. Our soldiers won this war because they had the

will to fight for what they believe in, and I think the Iraqi soldiers

lost because they did not have the will to fight for a corrupt regime.

I firmly believe that they melted away because they knew that was

in the best interest of their country. We must not disappoint those

Iraqi soldiers, and we must not neglect the sacrifices of our soldiers. We have to continue this effort. There is no option but to see

it through.

As you mentioned, sir, Iraq is an impoverished country with tremendous potential; vast natural wealth and tremendous human

capital. All they need from us right now is continued support and

substantial assistance in accelerating their return to normalcy. I

am intensely proud that I had the opportunity to serve this Nation

and the people of Iraq, and I thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee today.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, General.

Bernie Kerik, thanks for being with us, chief.

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Mr. KERIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too would like to echo

the General’s comments in thanking the committee here and other

Members of Congress for coming to Iraq and seeing for yourself,

seeing firsthand what has happened there, what it was like before,

what it is like today, and the great successes we have had in the

CPA.

I am Bernard Kerik. For 4 months I oversaw the Ministry of Interior as the senior policy advisor to Ambassador Bremer for the

Interior. The Interior houses the police, customs, borders, immigration, emergency management and fire services for the entire country.

The Iraqi police service, as they stand today, are unable to independently maintain law and order and need the assistance and

guidance of the coalition forces to accomplish this task. They have

suffered years of neglect, coupled with a repressive command structure that prohibited training, proactive initiative, and stifled attempts toward modernization of the police. Unless redesigned and

redeveloped, the Iraqi police will not constitute a suitable, viable,

supportable, or sustainable police service for a free Iraq.

Although the police force in Iraq was only a part of the security

apparatus used by Saddam’s repressive regime, they are the only

institution which remains somewhat intact following the conflict.

In the opinion of many citizens, the police are inexplicably linked

with a cruel and repressive regime that has been substantially

tainted by their association. Generally seen as a part of the regime’s enforcers, the populace normally describes the police as corrupt, unprofessional, and untrustworthy. The police force was a

quasi-military institution heavily steeped in military tactics, doctrine, discipline, and philosophy, concurrently staffed with active

military personnel who were tightly controlled by Baghdad and

Saddam. Because of this restrictive control, the police services languished for the last 35 years and now displays the results of poor

standards, inadequate expectations and performance, absence of

understanding and appreciation for human rights, poor management, and insufficient and inadequate training.

Following the conflict, most of the police infrastructure was badly

damaged, stolen or destroyed during the cathartic looting which

succeeded the end of hostilities. As the public order situation has

improved, many of the police who fled coalition forces have returned to work, not only within Baghdad but across the country,

now nearly 40,000 in strength. Their ability to operate effectively

in general was hampered by their inadequate knowledge of basic

police skills such as patrol techniques, interviewing and crime

scene investigation and was hampered by a lack of equipment.

As a result of the training, oversight and assistance by the coalition, and their willingness to cooperate with the coalition, they

have demonstrated enormous progress in securing and stabilizing

Iraq in the last several months. Establishing a sufficient proactive

deterrent police presence remains one of the principal priorities of

the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraq police services are

presently engaged in extensive administrative and operational reforms. The thorough vetting of existing personnel was and is required, along with extensive retraining of those who survived this

process. The recruitment and screening of new Iraqi police has

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begun, and the training of new recruits untainted by the vestiges

of the former regime must be accomplished as soon as possible.

This infusion of new ideas, ideals and expectations will invigorate

the police service, while forcing existing personnel to challenge

paradigms of behavior that have held them hostage throughout

their careers. Complimenting these ideas is the installation of a

proactive and aggressive office of professional standards that will

hold officers accountable to a standardized set of intentionally accepted policies, rules and regulations that will guide the police

service long after international advising and police assistance have

ended.

The reform of the police is a long-term program that will require

considerable international assistance through financial in-kind contributions and qualified police personnel to train, monitor and advise their Iraqi counterparts. As there are too many accomplishments to mention in the Interior in this statement, I welcome the

opportunity to go over them with you and other members of the

committee at your request. And, again, thank you for the opportunity to be here.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kerik follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. And I have made

an opening statement.

Tom, let me just ask you one question. I get a lot of questions

from my constituents when I go out; they say, well, even if everything goes well in Iraq, even if we rebuild this country, it is taking

tremendous resources from America, minimum of $87 billion, probably well in excess of that, American lives and American dollars to

rebuild Iraq. Ultimately, is this a good use of our resources, or

could they have been better used to rebuild our own infrastructure

and our own cities, and help our own people?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Mr. Chairman, the $87 billion includes $20.3

billion which is for the coalition; the other piece of it is for the military side. The short answer is yes, it is in the national interest of

the United States to go in there and provide stability, create a

country in the heart of the Middle East, which has been in turmoil

for 2,000 years, a democratic state where even today you have the

Iranians all nervous over what is going on in Iraq. My view is that

it will stabilize that whole part of the world.

In addition, the example that we can use historically is the Marshall Plan. Ambassador Bremer keeps mentioning that in his testimony as an example of American interest and American support

for a war-torn Europe that has brought us today the Europe we

know. Right after the war, World War II, it was a shambles, and

American generosity went in and created the stability that we have

had in Europe ever since. World War I ended, and it was the war

to end all wars, but it wasn’t long before we had the creation of

a Hitler and we had the creation of a Mussolini, which created

even more problems for the world in World War II. So, yes, it is

worth it. And to wipe out a regime like Saddam Hussein shows

other regimes around that, ‘‘Holy cow, these Americans mean business, we better perhaps shape up.’’

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Thank you very much.

Let me recognize Mr. Kolbe, one of the key appropriators in this

area, and somebody who has taken a leadership role.

Mr. KOLBE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much

for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to be here. I really

applaud you for doing this. It is, as we have heard from the witnesses already in their opening statements, a very important issue.

Mr. Chairman, as you suggested, because I do chair the Foreign

Operations Subcommittee, I am keenly involved, deeply involved,

in the reconstruction of Iraq. In fact, I was first there in Kuwait

in April, just shortly after the fall of Baghdad, with our USAID

Disaster Action Response Team [DART], and our Mission Director,

Lou Luck, as they prepared to deploy to Iraq. At that time I had

the opportunity to see my good friend, Chris Shays, a member of

this committee, who was there at that time and made the first

entry into Iraq.

Initially, last winter, going back even before that, part of the

U.S. Interagency Team in Washington, USAID was tasked with

getting contractors ready to hit the ground running in Iraq for various sectors such as reconstruction and governance. USAID used

what they called a ‘‘limited competition system,’’ in which the

Agency personnel selected particular vendors and solicited bids.

USAID then selected the winners from this limited competition and

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the Bechtel contract, of course, for reconstruction of the infrastructure is probably the best known of these awards that were made.

Since then we have been arguing to the administration and

USAID that they need to begin efforts now so that the next set of

contracts is awarded through full and open competition; and I am

talking about the $20.3 billion that Tom Korologos just referred to

as the part that is in the supplemental for the next round of reconstruction. That is on a track, we are moving rapidly forward with

that, but we have no time to lose if we are going to be prepared

to make sure those are awarded on a competitive basis.

Frankly, there has been some reluctance downtown to do this, in

part, I must say, Mr. Chairman, because the roles and missions of

the U.S. agencies and the Coalition Provisional Authority have

never really been sorted out completely. As recently as the hearings of our subcommittee 2 weeks ago, it still was unclear; the administration still hadn’t decided who was going to do what in the

Iraqi effort. The regular fiscal year 2004 bill that passed the Foreign Operations subcommittee and then the full committee and the

House, included a provision that does require full and open competition, and I am happy to say, Mr. Chairman, we have been

working with you and your staff very closely to develop language

for the Iraq supplemental bill that we will mark up tomorrow, and

I think that we have agreement on that language.

I really just want to conclude with this comment, and I can’t

overstate the importance of this issue. If we are going to have

credibility with the American people, they need to know that American companies that either they represent or have done their work

through the sweat off the brow of American workers are going to

have a fair shot at securing contracts in the rebuilding of Iraq.

That is what America is about, open competition, about giving everybody an opportunity; it is about basic American values and

doing the right thing. The perception, the very perception, Mr.

Chairman, that we might use something other than open competition would really undercut, I think, the support of the mission of

the CPA.

There are some good signs; we have heard some of them here

today, there is no doubt about it. And I think USAID has gotten

the message. They have recently published a request for proposals

for $1.5 billion in additional construction projects. That is in preparation, and I am glad to see that, for the fact that this $20.3 billion

will be coming. Clearly there are emergency situations that may require sole-source or other than fully competitive methods, but I

think it is fair to say that full and open competition ought to be

the rule; it is fair and transparent, and I think it usually results

in savings to the taxpayer as well.

And so, Mr. Chairman, I would thank you again for this chance

to be here. And if there is an opportunity to ask one question of

Mr. Korologos or any of the members of the panel there, it is, do

you feel we are ready to win this next round, to have true open

competition for these contracts?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Mr. Chairman, Ambassador Bremer testified before the committee and said, yes, indeed, it will be transparency,

it will be open competition, and the process, I think, has already

begun toward that end, yes, sir.

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Mr. KOLBE. Thank you. I appreciate that answer. I certainly

hope that will be the case. I will be over there in about 3 weeks,

Tom, to visit with you, and we will have a chance to talk some

more about this.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Kolbe, thank you very much.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Pomeroy is here. He had some business

on the floor, so I would ask unanimous consent.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, are you calling people as to when

they came?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I am asking minority staff how they would

like me to recognize them; I am working with them. So I am letting

your leadership call the shots.

Ms. NORTON. Well, if the gentleman has to go to the floor, I

would be pleased to let him go now. I was the first member here.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand.

The gentleman from North Dakota, Mr. Pomeroy. Thanks for

being here.

Mr. POMEROY. I thank both of my colleagues. There is a pension

issue on the calendar on the floor now, the Ways and Means jurisdiction, and I am asked to speak on it, so I do apologize for going

out of order, and I will be brief.

I went to Iraq in August with the House Intelligence Committee

CODEL, led by Pete Hoekstra. I especially appreciated the work of

Tommy K., as we call him, because I have trouble with that last

name, Korologos, in the extraordinary time and commitment you

made to making certain we saw everything that could be seen. Also

very much appreciated the briefing we had from Commissioner

Kerik right in the middle of a very busy time for you there.

I think it is important for Members coming back to draw a very

clean line of what we saw and what we, therefore, could learn from

firsthand exposure, and what we didn’t see, and not assume by seeing something that we have an expertise in other areas. In my

case, what we saw was extraordinary performance by the military,

absolutely extraordinary. Our troops made me so very proud about

the resolute way they were carrying out their functions under excruciatingly difficult conditions. It was 133 degrees there one of the

days during our trip, and yet there they were, full field dress,

Kevlar vests, helmets, getting the job done and not complaining a

whit. The members of the CODEL had plenty to say about the conditions, but our military escorts performed absolutely as one might

expect, the highest conditions of the military. That was reflective,

I believe, of what we saw in true performance right across the

board.

We were also very impressed by military leadership. The division

commanders impressed us a great deal. And, in fact, some of the

ad-hoc successes that I believe we have seen in the country have

been achieved by a great deal of initiative and just flat out creativity of the military division commanders making the best of what

was available to them without particular guidance from any central

planned authority. So for the military component of it really the

highest thoughts relative to being impressed.

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Due to security conditions, we didn’t visit with one Iraqi, not one

member of the Provisional Council. That was a significant flaw to

the trip. It left us with just half the picture. In visiting with Ambassador Bremer, Ambassador Kennedy, it is still unclear to me

the organization running the reconstruction efforts or the stabilization efforts, whatever you want to call them. Ambassador Bremer

was boxed out by Ambassador Kennedy, but Ambassador Kennedy

was a direct report not to Ambassador Bremer, but to the Secretary

of Defense. It appeared that the Office of Secretary Defense had a

very major imprint on the reconstruction efforts, but all of that was

shaken up recently, and today’s Washington Post reports that Secretary Rumsfeld did not learn about the new commission being established in the White House under Condoleeza Rice, the President’s Security Advisor, until he received a memo from Condoleeza

Rice.

This kind of unclarity, lack of certainty about the structure that

I got on the ground in Iraq has only been amplified by what I have

been reading in the paper upon my return. It just seems to be a

very chaotic organizational structure, and, unfortunately, the resident expertise, in terms of actual program implementation, residing in the Secretary of State or the State Department, residing in

USAID, do not appear to have prominent and well defined roles in

this part of the action, and I think that has to happen.

Finally, we really didn’t learn about a well-developed plan. Even

going over there, I didn’t come back with the sense that we have

a global plan we are operating on. And the money requested fills

neatly into specified priorities on a time line appropriately

sequenced. We learn of ad-hoc successes and now we have a significant budget request. It doesn’t all fit together in some kind of

framework that really makes sense.

Finally, I did come away with significant concern about the treatment of National Guard troops. They were called up, in North Dakota’s instance, with 5 days notice. When we were there, General

Sanchez said he was anticipating re-deployments in October, November. Two weeks after our return we learned that the plan is

that the National Guard will remain in-country until April. That

is a deployment away from their families of 15 to 16 months. I believe that is disastrous for their morale; it is very hurtful to their

families; and I am not at all sure how we are going to keep National Guard recruitment up in light of this experience, this very

experience our National Guard soldiers are having.

That concludes my impressions. I have a written statement for

the record. Again, my deepest gratitude to the efforts being made

on the ground, it is really heroic. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Anyone want to respond? Secretary Brownlee.

Secretary BROWNLEE. Sir, if I could, when I was there just a

week or so ago, I specifically went and met with some of the troops

of the National Guard who, of course, have had their mobilizations

extended. When we made the decision to keep everyone there, boots

on the ground for 12 months, there were really three factors involved. One was that the combatant commanders were very interested in continuity and stability of the force, and keeping the team

together. The second factor was predictability for those troops, both

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active and reserve components. And we also have to look at the resources we have remaining, both within the active and reserve, for

future rotations. So it all became a matter of trying to balance this,

and all of the troops that I talked to there, from units that were

expecting that their deployments would be shorter, while they all

clearly expressed, as most soldiers do, that what they would really

like to do is go home, they also acknowledged that they understood

their mission and they were perfectly prepared to conduct it. And

we understand this creates hardship for the reserve components,

and I assure you that we continue to look at this, and we will do

everything we can in that regard.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Secretary BROWNLEE. Thank you, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Sherwood. We are recognizing Members in the order they

came. We are going to try to get to everybody.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the

hearing.

I just came back from Iraq, and a lot of the things that have been

said I certainly agree with. My initial impressions when you fly

over were how much water there is, and we don’t understand that

in this country. And another initial impression was how little damage our military did to their housing and their structures and their

infrastructure. You drive down a street in Baghdad and it looks a

lot like Palm Springs in places; they didn’t even blow up or cut

down the royal palms. But there are some things that I think we

have to pay attention to.

Secretary Brownlee, I have to followup. The morale over there of

the regular Army people is sky high, but the reservists don’t feel

they are being treated properly. They are there, they are glad to

be there, they are glad to do their job, but they want to tell you

about a million little indignities that they feel they suffer under,

like having to input their time manually every time to get their

hazardous duty pay. We have a lot of things that we could do in

that regard. What is your comment on that?

Secretary BROWNLEE. Sir, I agree. One of the things that has impressed me the most about this, and I am sure you would agree,

is how the forces have acted as a total Army, the reserve components and the active components. When you go out there, you can’t

tell the difference; that is how good they both are.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Except when you talk to them.

Secretary BROWNLEE. And, of course, as I said, most soldiers in

any war would prefer to go home, but, again, I was impressed by

their commitment. I have said before that I think that what we

have here is another greatest generation; the sacrifices they are

making, both financial and otherwise, are extraordinary. And all of

them acknowledge to me that while they may have difficulties and

they, of course, would like to go home, they understand their commitment, their mission, and they are prepared to do that. And as

I have said before, we are going to continue to look at each one of

these and try to do the best we can, but we have to respond to the

commander’s requirements also, and so we are trying to balance

that with predictability for the families and the resources that we

have.

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Mr. SHERWOOD. Sir, you entirely missed my point.

Secretary BROWNLEE. I am sorry.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Those folks are willing to do what they have to

do. They don’t like to be there an extra 6 months, but they are

going to do it. But they feel they suffer a great deal of indignity

from the regular Army people who don’t pay attention, who don’t

treat them right. They are so willing to do what they have to do,

and I don’t want to belabor this point, but I think we have some

administrative details to work over.

The other thing that was impressive to me was what was going

on in the north and how, when a commander has some resources

and is able to take control of a sector, he can really get things done.

In Baghdad, though, it was impressive to me. We were at the AlDurah power plant and is there anybody here that can tell me

what we are going to do with that monstrosity? We have this huge

power plant which doesn’t even have a 50-caliber machine gun hole

in it, as near as I can tell, but where there are four huge turbines.

There is one that is working relatively well, one that is working

about 35 percent and the other two are shut down. Now, we didn’t

cause this, I understand that, but I think we have a relatively

short window to keep the Iraqi people coming our way before we

are seen as occupiers. What are we doing to get that power plant

going?

General STROCK. Yes, sir. We are in fact working in Al-Durah

right now, sir. We have reactivated the U.N. contracts to rebuild

the boilers there and we are rewinding the turbines and that power

plant is going to be brought back in service. But you are absolutely

right, it is antiquated technology and part of the supplemental is

to actually create new generation there, state-of-the-art generation

that is reliable and stable. But Al-Durah is very definitely one of

the key projects we are working on right now, sir.

Mr. SHERWOOD. But it was a little surprising to me that with all

our resources we couldn’t get that thing cranked up a little better.

I mean, that needs some management. That needs somebody to go

in there and kick ass and take names. It is a mess.

General STROCK. Sir, we have that. The U.S. Agency for International Development has created a project management team

headed by a Mr. Dick Dumford, who is a power expert, and they

are doing marvelous things. In the last month we have increased

generation in the country by about 1,000 megawatts. Al-Durah is

not yet online, but it will be very shortly. That power plant was

down before the war.

Mr. SHERWOOD. Yes, I understand.

General STROCK. And we will get it back up. And, sir, as far as

security goes, I know that is one of our prime security objectives

and I know that is being well secured by the U.S. forces there.

Mr. SHERWOOD. I don’t want anything I have said to be critical

of our troops over there they were of the highest caliber; you just

can’t understand the commitment. I am trying to talk about the

support from the top. Those young men and women are the highest

caliber people I have ever been around in my life.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Clay.

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for holding

this hearing and thank the panel of witnesses for being here.

I have not had the pleasure of visiting Iraq, but would like to

know the extent of collateral damage to the Iraqi infrastructure by

the U.S. military. I mean, was there much damage to hospitals,

schools, bridges, and roads during the war, and are we building or

repairing that infrastructure that was damaged?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Congressman, I can respond by saying smart

bombs work. They knocked down the military targets, they knocked

out the Ba’athist ministries, they knocked out the palaces where

Saddam was thought to be. The infrastructure troubles occurred for

two reasons. First, 30 years of mismanagement, coupled with sanctions. Saddam used to use them for political purposes; he would

shut down electric plants, he would shut down mills and textile facilities for political and ideological reasons. In addition, after our

soldiers got close, the looting began in all of those areas. The population decided that they were going to take it out on the 30 years

of repression, and they went in and not only looted, but sabotaged.

What can you loot at a power plant? They took away anything that

moved; they took windows out, they took bars off the windows, and

were using those for their own way of retribution.

So the infrastructure, and those Members that have been to

Baghdad and to Iraq saw firsthand , was not damaged. It is amazing how little damage was done. And most of the damage that we

are reaping the whirlwind on now, and the power plants, as General Strock said, and even in the ministries around, the prisons

and what have you, was all done by looters.

Mr. CLAY. So you are telling me that most of the damage was

minimal due to the war.

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Yes, sir.

General STROCK. Could I just add one thing, sir? Our military

now uses a process called effects-based targeting when we go in

with these kind of operations, and that is to understand the effect

you want to create. And sometimes we do have to attack civil infrastructure to deny power to military facilities, for example. The easy

way to do it is to take out the power plant; it is big, it is a onestop shop, and you can do it quickly. The tough way to do it is to

take out the transmission lines, but they are much easier to repair

post-hostilities. And that is what we targeted, transmission systems and distribution systems, not the generation systems.

The only exception I would say was the communications systems

of the country. In Iraq, the civil communications and military communications are one in the same, and while we protected those and

did not attack those early on, we learned late in the war that we

really had to go after them to accelerate the collapse of the regime.

So we did attack the communications structure, which we are now

rebuilding.

Mr. CLAY. Did you take out many bridges or roads?

General STROCK. Only where it was military necessity, sir, and

those were typically on-the-spot decisions by commanders in combat.

Mr. CLAY. OK. I don’t know who can tackle this question, but recently Senator Kennedy, citing a Congressional Budget Office report, said that only about $2.5 billion of the $4 billion being spent

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monthly on the war can be accounted for by the administration. He

goes on in this AP story to say that, ‘‘My belief is that this money

is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts

of the world, bribing them to send in troops.’’ And I don’t know if

I want to use that strong of a term, but can any of you explain to

this committee and account to this committee for where the other

money is going? If $2.5 billion is going to the troops, where is the

other $1.5 billion going? Can anybody, or is it a national security

consideration?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. I am not a budget officer, Congressman, except

to say that we have inspectors general, we have GAO over there,

and OMB even had a representative there. We account for every

dime that is spent. Having said that to you, there were two funds

that we were using. First, we had the vested and seized assets that

Saddam had put in plastic bags and was trying to take out of the

country as he fled. That was Iraqi money, and the vested assets

that we have taken from other countries that he had in banks, and

have used that to restore Iraqi infrastructure. And what happens

with that money is, money that the coalition presents to the commanders in the field to go around and repair schools, repair soccer

fields, repair whatever damage has been done, clean up the environment and garbage-strewn areas. This is called a rollover fund,

which is not appropriated. Mr. Kolbe was there and we showed him

some of those projects, as other members of the committee saw.

That money also is accounted for. It does not go through the regular appropriation process because it is Iraqi money that we are

using for Iraqis at the discretion of the commanders in the field

and the new ministers that have been formed to say, ‘‘we need this,

we need that;’’ and it is a rollover account.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. CLAY. I thank you for your answers. It seems like a pretty

fast clock, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Time flies sometimes. I just want to make

one comment that may help the gentleman. As we drove through

Baghdad and areas that were heavily bombed, how little damage

there was. It was a normal city, up and operating. Once in a while

you would see a pile of debris here or there, and those were generally military installations or governmental installations that we

had bombed with precision. Nobody wages conventional war as well

as we do. Nobody has ever done it as well, that is very clear. The

problem is, of course, the aftermath; when we are sitting there in

an occupying status, it becomes a lot more difficult. But conventional war, all of the predictions we heard about mass casualties,

didn’t come true; we did an outstanding job there.

I recognize the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Tiahrt.

Mr. TIAHRT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also had the opportunity to go with Mr. Sherwood, Mr. Shimkus and others to Iraq

about a week and a half ago, and I was a little bit shocked to find

out that the country wasn’t in chaos like they were reporting on

the news, that the criminals were not controlling the streets and

the lights and water were actually on. So I was a little bit surprised.

One thing that I did notice is that we have troops over there who

are doing an excellent job, and our generals and those in charge

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over there have excellent plans in place, but there seems to be a

lack of interagency support. Now, I am told that there is good cooperation over in Iraq, but we have people in our military training

border guards. I think the INS probably has more experience doing

that job. We have people in our military who are training police officers. We probably have FBI agents that have more experience in

those areas. We have military people teaching them how to become

highway patrolmen, as far as Iraqis are concerned, and I thought

we may have some reservists that have highway patrol experience.

But, in general, we have the military taking on a whole lot of tasks

besides trying to bring peace and security to the country, and it

just seems to make sense to me that we should have more interagency cooperation, that we should have personnel from other

agencies that have experience along those lines do the training

with the Iraqis, rather than put that burden on an overloaded work

force right now in the military trying to bring peace to the place.

So if you could sort of let me know what you think, whether there

is cooperation, if it is increasing. Do we have plans to increase it,

or are we just going to tolerate the status quo?

Mr. KERIK. No, sir. We have made a number of requests to the

FBI, to the Department of Homeland Security, and they are dispatching people from the United States to assist us in training the

Iraqis. On the border and customs side, we will be getting agents,

and we have had agents. In fact, when we put together the team

that stood up and put together the Baghdad airport, we had U.S.

Customs agents come in to train the Iraqis on the Pisces System

and other systems that we would need to have in place for us to

open up the airports at Baghdad and Basra and in the north.

Those programs are continuing. We have had the military assist us

in the area of in-service training, in transitional training.

We brought back, as you may know by now, nearly 40,000 police

officers. There were several more pre-war; many of them, most of

them probably that did not come back didn’t come back because

they were violators of human rights; they figured they would be arrested. Some came back and they were terminated, fired or retired.

Several were members of the Ba’ath party, the senior levels of the

Ba’ath parties, and they were removed.

We have created a 3-week transitional program, and that is what

the military police are assisting in the training of, and that is to

make sure that the people that we have brought back and reinstated are learning principles of policing in a democratic society.

You know, simplistic things like police patrol and understanding

that an interview and an interrogation doesn’t mean that you hang

somebody upside down by your feet and beat him until he is unconscious. Those things have to be taught to the people that are on

the ground right now and that is what we are doing with the help

of the military.

But as the program continues, and as the President mentioned

last Friday, we are now going to be working with the Jordanian authorities to train the Iraqis that we are recruiting to stand up the

rest of the police. We need a number of between 65,000 and 75,000

civil police and probably another 15,000 border and customs officials to secure the civil end of the country. Those people that have

to be trained, recruited and vetted will be trained in Jordan with

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the assistance of the Jordanian police and military; and that program is continuing.

And just one last point. There is an 8-week training program for

the police that will be trained in Jordan, but they will come back

into the country of Iraq and for 6 months they will have field training officers assigned to them. Those will probably be people out of

the United States and some of the other 37 countries that are

working in Iraq. We now have Italians, Poles, Spanish, more than

30 countries that we are working with as a part of that program

to train them when they come back into the country.

Mr. TIAHRT. One of the things that we did while we were in Iraq

was tour the Al-Durah power plant, which was mentioned by Mr.

Sherwood. It is like a 1950’s, 1960’s old power plant put in place

by the Germans, and they are trying to get it back up and running;

I suppose it is a holdover, because there must be much more efficient power generating facilities. I know we have peak power

plants in America, we have municipal power plants that are cheaper, less capital, much more efficient, and we ought to be looking at

that rather than rebuilding this 1950’s technology; that makes

about as much sense as flying these old tankers when we could be

flying KC–767 tankers, at least for the Air Force. So we ought to

be thinking about what is the best technology available, and not

being stuck in the past.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mrs. Norton. Thanks for being patient.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think we all agree, when we say, ‘‘turn the country back to the

Iraqis,’’ we mean first democracy and then turn over their own

economy to them, and my questions go far less to contracts for

American companies than contracts for Iraqi companies, particularly since there are numerous press reports that, now that Iraqi

businesspeople are talking to the press about how they feel shut

out of our contracting process, they complain that they could do the

work for many times less than the work is being done.

Now, I don’t know if this involves the ability of our companies

or our own Army Corps of Engineers to translate price bids as between our companies and their companies. Obviously, they will underbid us all the time, given the difference in the economies. But

how do you deal with these complaints? How do you respond to

these complaints? They know their country, they can do the work

for a whole lot less than we are doing it and they are not getting

the contracts.

Mr. KERIK. Good morning. I want to talk about the Ministry of

Interior, for example, for one moment. And I have read some of the

things in the newspapers and I have heard some of the criticism.

In the Ministry of Interior in the city of Baghdad, we stood up 35

police stations in 4 months. Faster than anything you could have

done in the United States, and we did so with Iraqi contractors.

Ms. NORTON. I would like a response to this question. In other

words, are you saying that this is all anecdotal? I want to know

about the ability to translate the price information so that the

Iraqis understand why, for example, we are paying more than they

have bid, because, you know, in this country, if you bid and you

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had the lower bid and you don’t get the work, then you think something is crooked. So I am trying to find out whether or not we have

the capacity to make them understand our bidding process and to

translate their bids to meet our system. Or what is the reason for

these reports that are cropping up everywhere with complaints

from Iraqi businessmen? I don’t doubt that you are able to build.

I don’t doubt that you are using Iraqi businesspeople. I am asking

a more technical question, about how the bidding process works,

when you are dealing in a foreign country with people with a bidding process that is very different from the one we use here.

General STROCK. Well, ma’am, I can’t comment. I am not aware

of any case where bids have been received and it did not go to the

low bidder, unless it was a best value sort of contract. So I don’t

know any specifics on that. I do know we are making great efforts,

though, to employ as many Iraqi companies as we can.

One of our problems early on was the fact that most of the infrastructure-related companies in Iraq are state-owned enterprises,

and as parts and extensions of the government, they suffered the

same amount of destruction and devastation as the rest of the

economy; and so to even get them to mobilize and be prepared to

come to work was very, very difficult, and that is getting better and

better all the time.

Ms. NORTON. Actually, I very much appreciate what you are

doing in trying to deal in a foreign country, trying to get the work

done quickly. Let me suggest this. Among the complaints I have

read, again, these are Iraqis talking to the press, that, for example,

the bidding period is so short, a couple of days, that they can’t possibly deal with that kind of turnaround. There have been complaints that the information on the solicitations are inaccurate and

misleading. Somebody doing these solicitations doesn’t even understand the country and understand what needs to be done. There

are complaints that because the bidding process opens and closes

so quickly, probably because you are trying to get the work done

quickly, it looks like a prefix setup, and that you have already chosen.

Now, let me just say something to you. I am on another subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the GSA. In this country, the

GSA has to do weekly meetings in order to tell people how to get

on the GSA Schedule and how to bid, and what I want to know is,

whether you are doing the job that it will take to bring Iraqis into

the process or if you are just throwing out a bid and saying, ‘‘we

need a response in 2 days.’’ How do you expect people to be able

to bid, especially when you look at figures like Bechtel, which has

$900 million in contracts and only $50 million in subs to Iraqis.

Part of the reason may be that we haven’t done our job in informing, teaching, training Iraqis how to use our bid process, so you

just simply go along with whoever looks like he can do it and gets

the work done. So I want to know what you are doing to bring

them into the process so they know how to become a part of the

process you are using.

General STROCK. Ma’am, Bechtel Corp. did hold a session for all

Iraqi contractors about 2 months ago to explain the opportunities

and processes to compete. There are some challenges, many of

which are associated with just the lack of communication in the

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country, the inability to even know when there are opportunities

presented. So that is definitely a problem we are working on. I

know that when the supplemental comes through, there is a plan

afoot that will have, as part of the performance specification, the

contractor’s plan to employ Iraqis and how they are going to go

back doing that, educating them on the process and then actively

soliciting their support. So we are very aware that this is a problem and we are working on it.

Ms. NORTON. I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman.

I wish you would make the committee aware of how you inform,

in writing, of how you inform contractors that they are to, in turn,

inform Iraqis of how to use this process so that we have a greater

understanding of what you are doing to bring Iraqis into your own

bidding and contract process.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That would be helpful to get that information to us, and we will circulate it to the Members.

Secretary BROWNLEE. Could I respond for just a moment?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sure.

Secretary BROWNLEE. The Army is the executive agent to assist.

Ms. NORTON. I can’t hear you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Go ahead.

Secretary BROWNLEE. The Army is the executive agent to assist

Ambassador Bremer’s organization with contracting. Could I please

provide for the record how we are doing that and what we intend

to do to try to make sure the process is perceived as fair and transparent by both United States and Iraqi companies?

Ms. NORTON. That would be very useful, I believe. Thank you

very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That would be helpful. Thank you, Mr.

Secretary.

The gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would

like to take the opportunity, first, to thank you for holding these

hearings, thank all of our patriots who are our panel and thank

them very much, and to recognize Dr. Julian Lewis, who is a member of Parliament, if he would stand, from Great Britain. We appreciate your great country’s help in this effort.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. Welcome to the committee

room. I hope he enjoys his stay over here in the colonies.

Mr. SHAYS. In my first visit to Iraq, I met a gentleman in Unm

Qasr, whose name was Mohammad Abdul Hassan. He said, ‘‘you

don’t know us and we don’t know you.’’ And that spoke volumes to

us in this rebuilding effort. Winning the war on a scale of 1 to 10

is an 11; winning the peace, I don’t know where it is, but it is not

an 11 or a 10, maybe not even a 9, and we need it to be up much

higher.

I would love to ask you, not because I agree with all of his criticisms, but because I think you should respond to them, in the next

panel we have Dr. Alaa Haidari, and he basically expresses gratitude for the United States coming into Iraq—he is an Iraqi-American—and he then proceeds to be somewhat critical. I am going to

state his criticisms up front and then have you just respond to

them.

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One of them is, he said the current council makeup—the governing counci—simply does not reflect Iraqi reality. He said, sadly,

most of the members of the current council have neither the support nor the approval of the people in their respective groups; nor

does the current council provide any representation for many Iraqi

provinces, and so on.

In disbanding the army, he said Iraqi police forces must take

over as soon as possible. I think you have spoken somewhat to

that. He said the U.S. administration must accept the fact that disbanding the Iraqi army and police force was a huge mistake.

His other point is on ministry employees. He said qualified Iraqis

are more knowledgeable than anyone else in the affairs of their

country, and can quickly determine the steps needed to rebuild the

economy. And he said, except for the top echelons of Ba’athist leadership, it is essential that employees of the Iraqi ministry be rehired.

So those were his basic points and I will just end by saying,

when I met with Colonel Buhani, who was the individual who allowed us to go into Iraq from Kuwait, he said ‘‘you Americans don’t

get it. You need to be hiring more Iraqi-Americans, you need people

who speak the language and you need people who know the culture, and you need people who know the tribes.’’ So I would love

you to respond to that.

And just a quick first question to you, Mr. Korologos. Why should

you basically be answerable to Defense? Why shouldn’t you be answerable to State? I have never quite figured that one out.

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Well, the short answer is, because Congress

passed a law creating the supplemental the first time in March,

placing the Coalition Provisional Authority under the President, reporting through the Secretary of Defense. You saw, when you were

there, Mr. Shays, the co-mingling of the coalition forces and the coalition Joint Task Force 7, which is General Sanchez. We are in the

same building, we use the same lunch rooms, we use the same facilities. They are an integral part of each other’s operation. The soldiers and the commanders out in the field are rebuilding, through

their civil affairs operation, a great deal of the country. The Coalition Provisional Authority, through creating the general council

and the ministers who are now operating, is creating a governance

side. All of us are working on the security piece, which is a huge

undertaking; and the co-mingling and the putting them together

works a lot better for reporting purposes. There is a big State Department presence, as you saw.

Mr. SHAYS. I am sorry, I think you answered the question. Could

you get on to the other points that were made by our panelist, the

second panelists, the quotes that I did? Could some people respond

to those? The issue of the ministries, the issue of the representation of the council not being true, can people address that, please?

Mr. DIBBLE. I can address that, or at least I hope in part.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. DIBBLE. With respect to the council not reflecting reality, in

fact, that is true. The council, we have to remember, is an interim

body; it was selected, not elected and does not perfectly reflect

Iraq’s population. It was necessary to get a body in place as soon

as possible. A lot of work went into that; I don’t want to minimize

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that. The council does, broadly speaking, reflect Iraq’s general

makeup. It is not perfect, and I think the coalition, and Ambassador Bremer in particular, are making an enormous effort from

now to reach out to those parts of the population who believe they

may not be perfectly represented on the council, because at the end

of the day what will represent the Iraqis is an elected government,

not something that has been appointed in any case.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, that is helpful. How about the issue of

the ministries?

Mr. DIBBLE. We take the point that the people who know how

to run Iraq are probably Iraqis; they know where the keys are, they

know where the supplies are, they know the people, and they know

the language; this is their country, after all. I think CPA is making

an enormous effort to get the ministries up and running and to

bring back those employees who are necessary to make the ministries run; I think that is a priority. It is not a high profile priority, but it is definitely happening.

Mr. SHAYS. I know my time is up, but maybe in the course of this

panel they can address some of those questions that were raised by

the next panel. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

The gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank all of you for being here today. As you all know, we have

a request of about $20 billion, asking the American taxpayer to

help with construction, reconstruction in Iraq. That is on top, of

course, of billions that have been spent and billions that probably

will be spent in the future. Given that, I think we would all agree

that we would like to share the financial burden, as much as possible, with our allies and others in the international community.

We have been working, trying to get a resolution out of the United

Nations. The news today looks bad. I mean, the reports are that

it doesn’t look likely that we are going to get a resolution. My question is this: If we do not get a resolution out of the U.N. Security

Council, what is your prediction as to what kind of support we are

going to get at the upcoming donors’ conference in Madrid? And I

would like you to be as specific as possible in terms of what exactly

you anticipate in terms of dollars we’ll receive from other potential

donors.

Mr. DIBBLE. It is very difficult for me to give you specific numbers because the campaign is now underway to persuade donors to

come to Madrid to pledge significant amounts of money, both for

the coming year and for out-years. The needs are enormous. The

U.N. and the World Bank have either just released or are about to

release their needs assessment. Other donors will be looking at

that and will be looking at specific areas where they can slide in

their contributions. I don’t think we can abandon that effort, obviously, no matter what happens to the Security Council resolution.

We need the international community up front, we need them with

their checkbooks out, whether we come to some agreement in the

Security Council or not.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Would you agree that failure to get a resolution in the Security Council will make it more difficult for us to get

support?

Mr. DIBBLE. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me ask you this. I mean, we have had

some talk about the current Iraqi Governing Council and whether

it reflects the country. I assume, regardless of exactly how represented they are, it is our goal to enhance their credibility rather

than to undermine their credibility. Would that be a fair assumption?

Mr. DIBBLE. Yes, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. In light of that, given the fact that all reports indicate that the Iraqi Governing Council does not support

the addition of Turkish troops, 10,000 Turkish troops, into the

country, will we honor their request if they were to make that request official?

Mr. DIBBLE. I don’t want to speculate on what may be happening

now between the Governing Council and the CPA on discussions.

What I do understand, however, is that the expression of opposition

to the presence of Turkish or other foreign troops in Iraq was the

opinion of a single member of the Council attributing that opinion

to everybody else too, but it was not an official act of the Council.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Understanding that, if the Council were to

take an official position in opposition to the 10,000 Turkish troops,

would we honor that request, given the fact that although they are

an imperfect reflection of Iraqis, as you just said, they are, broadly

speaking, reflective of the Iraqis?

Mr. DIBBLE. The best answer I can give you is that we would certainly weigh their opinion very heavily against the obvious military

necessity for the additional troops.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, it seems to me if we are trying to diminish the view that we are an occupying force that does not represent

the will of the Iraqi people, we should honor the request of whatever group exists now that has at least some reflection.

Let me ask you this: Did the United States make any commitments to Turkey with respect to actions we would take against the

PKK in the event that they were to provide their forces? And if so,

what specific commitments have we made to the Government of

Turkey with respect to the PKK?

Mr. DIBBLE. I would prefer not to go into specific commitments

in open session. The PKK has been an issue for us as a terrorist

organization for some time, irrespective of any specific commitments the Government of Turkey may have made to help on Iraq.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, let me ask you this. As part of our agreement with Turkey, do we expect that U.S. forces will be involved

in any military actions against the PKK? Was that part of our understanding with the Turkish Government?

Mr. DIBBLE. Sir, I would prefer not to discuss that in open session.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. Well, I am going to pursue an answer

with you, then, in closed session, if that is classified.

Mr. DIBBLE. By all means.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me just ask one last question, if I could,

Mr. Chairman.

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The $9 billion loaned to Turkey that has been held up pending

this question on forces, do you expect that to go forward? And is

my assumption correct that is not part of the $87 billion; that is

in addition to?

Mr. DIBBLE. I don’t know the answer, but I will get it for you.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK.

If I have a little more time, I would like to ask you, with respect

to Iran, what role you see Iran’s Government currently playing in

Iraq? Are they being constructive? Are they undermining our efforts? What is your assessment of that as of today?

Mr. DIBBLE. The role is difficult to assess with any precision because it is ambiguous. The Iranian Government has come out with

a statement of objectives that are broadly consistent with ours—

stability in Iraq, they have supported establishment of the governing council—all of which is positive. However, we also note that

there are present in Iraq elements of the Iranian Government

whose purpose is not obvious to us and who may be positioning

themselves to undertake activities that are not consistent either

with our objectives or the stated objectives of the Iranian Government. So it is hard to assess with any real precision at this point

but we are watching very carefully.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like

to say I would like to followup later on some of these questions that

were raised.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Shimkus.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for allowing us to join with you in this hearing today.

I want to mention a couple of things and I will try to go quickly.

Rick Jenkins, Dave Brown, John Agoglia, Ben Hodges, Mike

Lenington are all classmates of mine from West Point, also colonels

serving in theater. I got a chance to visit with them all and am

very proud of their service. I think they are very reflective of what

the Army and everybody is doing over there. I just want them to

see that I remembered their names and mentioned them.

I have also been impressed and I would encourage Members to

get over to Iraq. We have had a lot of Members go. I have been

really pleased with the response from a bipartisan group of Members who have been on the ground, have seen the needs, seen the

progress, and are in essence vocally supporting what the emergency supplemental is trying to do, especially the $20 billion. The

field commanders say this is what we now need to move forward.

I think everything I have read—and hearing others comments will

confirm that. I would encourage Members, there are going to be a

lot of opportunities to go.

The third thing is, I had dinner with four soldiers from the 101st

and I said, ‘‘what one thing do you want me to bring back.’’ One,

a female Sergeant E–5 from Chicago said, ‘‘family has to be with

us 100 percent.’’ The second one said, a Sergeant E–5 was concerned about the care that was being given to an Iraqi friend. He

had made a friend, a truck driver, and this Iraqi was injured and

he is just not receiving the care a soldier would. What a great

statement; here this soldier is in harm’s way, he drives in the community and he is concerned about an Iraqi citizen, a great comment. Another said, ‘‘we are willing to pay the price.’’ They know

they are in a tough environment. The last one said, ‘‘America needs

to be patient.’’ You can’t turn over things overnight. I want to make

sure I put that out on the record.

The first question kind of goes with my colleague, Congressman

Shays’, line of questioning. What would be the political result if we

would move sooner rather than later on turning power over to the

Iraqi people without a developed constitution and without elections? What party is in the best position to recover and gain control? Mr. Dibble or Mr. Korologos.

Mr. KOROLOGOS. It is hard to say. First of all, the religious freedom that has grown as a result of the war and the new status of

the country has created a whole group of religious groups: the Shiites, the Kurds and what have you. So I suppose the short answer

is that it would probably end up being a religious decision.

Mr. SHIMKUS. I was told in theater that even the Ba’athists still

have money squirreled away, they are still organized and you really risk a return of the Ba’athist regime. I think that really makes

sense.

I also want to turn to one of the other people who will make comments on the second panel, Beate Sirota Gordon, who has this line

in her testimony, ‘‘When General Whitney, General MacArthur’s favorite advisor, called in about 20 members of the staff and said,

you are now a constitutional assembly and, by order of General

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MacArthur, you will draft the new constitution of Japan in 7 days.’’

This kind of goes to the point of where are we in Iraq. We have

to move and get a constitution drafted and then we have to move

to free and fair elections; that will take time.

The question is, we don’t want to push the Iraqis too fast and

push our own constitutional positions on them, although that is

what happened in Japan. We want them to have ownership but we

don’t want to wait too long. How do we balance that, because the

key to success here will be a constitution followed by free and fair

elections and then letting the Iraqi people make their decisions?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Ambassador Bremer has testified and said that

the Iraqi constitution will be written by Iraqis. The Governing

Council has appointed the Constitutional Preparatory Committee

that is going around getting advice and counsel from these advisory

committees throughout the country on what they may want in the

constitution. That process is now underway. We don’t want to put

a timetable on it. Will it happen in 3 months? I doubt it. Will it

happen in 3 years? No. Somewhere in the middle of that. Secretary

Powell said, and all of us hope, that it happens sooner rather than

later. The sooner the Iraqi constitution occurs, the sooner you have

an election which means when we turn over the reins of the government to the Iraqis. That process is underway and I say again,

it would be written by and for Iraqis.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your diligence in allowing me to join you here today.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,

and let me thank you for calling this hearing. I also want to thank

the witnesses for coming to testify and share with us this morning.

Let me also express my appreciation to our soldiers and all of

those who are on the ground in Iraq given the highest order of

their service as well as the indefinite situation of what may very

well take place and happen to them while they are there. So I appreciate all of the efforts being made to try and reconstitute and

rebuild this country.

I want to get back to the line of questioning that has been started by Delegate Norton relative to contracting which seems to be

very complex, very difficult, hard to understand, and hard to get

at. I can certainly understand the fact that we need to be on a fast

track—that is, things need to move with some rapidity—and also

the complexity of what is needed in many instances to rebuild what

has been torn down or what did not exist in the first place. Iraqis

have expressed concern about not really understanding how they

can get cut in or if there is an opportunity to do so. I am concerned

as to whether or not, as we deal with this complexity, there is any

room for small businesses? We have developed a concept in this

country that small businesses, women-owned businesses, minorityowned businesses, ought to have an opportunity to participate in

economic development activity. Although that is not the main reason for the redevelopment, there ought to be those opportunities.

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nesses, for minority and for women-owned businesses to participate

in the rebuilding of Iraq?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. Congressman, there is in the plan that we have

submitted to Congress a request for a good deal of money for something called essential services and infrastructure. The objective is

to restore to acceptable standards and try to create a civil society

to provide the foundation from which Iraqis can rebuild Iraq. In

that piece, I guess a month now, the Central Bank has opened, has

already started making small business loans. They are starting, I

think on October 15th, to distribute the new currency.

This was an economy flat on its back. They had 50–60 percent

unemployment before the war. We have made every effort to startup small businesses. It is our feeling that small businesses are

going to be the basis for the restoration of this country. From the

small businesses, you are going to get political input and political

extensions so they can start governing themselves. There is a big

effort; small business is a big piece of what we are doing. Today

in Iraq, you can walk or drive down the streets and see, as those

Members who have been there have seen, huge marketplaces that

are selling, as I said in my statement, satellite dishes, shoes, refrigerators, air conditioners, commodities that had not been available

to the Iraqi people, all of it run by small businesses.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Let us talk about American companies

that might want to try to get a piece of the action that Bechtel and

Halliburton are getting. We have these big umbrella contracts and

they are indefinite in terms of delivery or indefinite relative to

quantity of what they are to provide and to deliver. Are there any

ways to ensure that American small businesses can interact with

the Halliburtons and the Bechtels of the world and get a piece of

these large umbrella contracts?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. The answer to that is that Bechtel and the big

umbrella companies have held seminars both in the United States

and in Europe. At one I recall there were 2,500 subcontractors who

showed up to get in on the process of how to do this. Understand

something else here: all the contractors that have come through

Iraq and by hopeful guidance from the Coalition Provisional Authority have been asked to make sure that Iraqis are put to work

on these projects. There was one contractor, I understand, who

wanted to bring in some Pakistanis to do some labor tasks. That

contractor was turned down and said, no, you must go out and hire

Iraqis, even to the extent that we are paying Iraqis to go dig irrigation ditches, to go clean up streets, restoring pension plans and

what have you. So the whole effort is aimed at getting people to

work. I understand and you understand that when you build a

bridge or restore something, that project is over and we have to

find something else for them to do after that, but small business

has an input. I will let General Strock comment on the bidding

process that has been made through these contract service seminars held throughout the United States and Europe in order to

spread the subcontracts around.

General STROCK. I can’t add much more to that, sir, except to say

it is just standard practice in the Federal acquisition regulations

that we include a component of small business opportunity. Again,

we can provide the specifics of that for the record of how we are

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doing that, but I know it is certainly encouraged. As Mr. Korologos

has said, that is a fundamental aspect of the economic stimulus

package that is being discussed in CPA, how to encourage small

business entrepreneurs.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate your answers and we know that standard practices

do not really work for small businesses and minority-owned businesses, so I appreciate your answer.

Secretary BROWNLEE. May I add one thing, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sure.

Secretary BROWNLEE. There are also efforts within the Army’s divisions to demonstrate innovativeness and ingenuity and a desire

to help. There are efforts within these divisions to go out and assist

in standing up small businesses so they are capable of bidding for

some of these contracts. That is being done by the Army within

their respective areas of operation.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. The Chair would recognize Mr. Murphy.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank all of you for your important testimony. You

have helped remind us that there is another point of view, a reality

of what is going on in Iraq, and helped us understand that economic and social instability breeds vulnerability. Of course, that is

the root of terrorism and how the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were able

to lay such a strong foundation in Afghanistan after the Soviet

Union played cut and run; or how an effort more focused on punishment than rebuilding after World War I led us into World War

II and gave birth to the likes of Hitler and Mussolini and others

that ended up killing millions. So we have a lot of work to do.

I want to focus primarily on some of the health issues, if I may.

We have heard that prior to the war, many medical supplies and

humanitarian assistance that was sent to Iraq was diverted by

Saddam Hussein for personal use or some other uses. We had some

testimony that the number of clinics is growing and improving as

well as vaccinations. I wonder if you could give me a little more

detail on pre-and post-war conditions of hospitals and clinics in

Iraq in terms of were they filling needs before and what is happening now? I am not sure who would answer that. Perhaps Mr.

Korologos.

Mr. KOROLOGOS. When the war ended, we fully expected several

things to happen. We expected a food crisis, refugees, health crisis,

the oil fields to be burning, flooding, and none of those happened.

The health crisis was a creation of Saddam not funding any health

projects. Before the war, as I said, he budgeted $13 million for

health care in 2002 which came to about 50 cents per person. We

have struggled and have sent in more than 9 million tons of health

equipment, oxygen, beds, and what have you. When Ambassador

Bremer and I first got there, we visited hospitals that were horrible. It was open windows, flies, the sanitary conditions were as

grim as you can imagine. We still take congressional delegations to

those same hospitals and they come back aghast at how bad they

are. I hate to say you should have seen it before we fixed it. They

are still way below any standard that we have all come to know.

We are doing our best to rebuild the hospital structure. They had

an excellent medical operation that existed in Iraq.

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One other interesting thing, is Saddam forbade anybody from attending international conferences so the entire science community,

including doctors, was forbidden from leaving the country to attend

any seminars to find upgrades in medical treatment. One of the

first things Ambassador Bremer did was open the doors to let this

very brilliant medical operation running this thing under those circumstances to go find out what is new.

Health care is a big priority and has been. We have opened all

the hospitals, we have opened clinics. The budget we have requested shows a huge increase in requests for health facilities. We

have asked for clinics, hospitals and what have you all over the

country and I hope we can get them.

Mr. MURPHY. Is there an adequate number of positions for

nurses and medical staff in Iraq or is there also a need for people?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. I didn’t hear you.

Mr. MURPHY. I was wondering if there are adequate numbers of

medical staff and physicians in Iraq? Is there also a need for people?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. I don’t know how to answer that. Probably not,

given the conditions I have seen in the hospitals. They could always use more. There are a lot of NGO’s that have come in to provide assistance. I can’t give you a precise answer but just in observing when you are at these hospitals, the crowds that are outside,

the lack of wheelchairs, the deterioration of the hospitals, is a horrible thing to observe. One of the first things we have to do is start

building the facilities in which these doctors can start functioning.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to request that if we

could get more information on such things, I would appreciate it.

I know there have been programs for more inoculations and vaccines provided, information on some of the disease risks that continue there and other medical needs. I certainly think we need to

know for future budget reasons but I also have to think the American people would like to know because that is something with

which we can all identify and our hearts go out to folks who have

been subjected for so many decades to a medical disaster.

Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the chairman and thank all of you gentlemen for your testimony and for the work you are doing.

I think the recent edition of Time pretty much says a lot about

what the American people are thinking. The mission is not accomplished and how Bush misjudged the risk of fixing Iraq. I don’t

think anybody raises issue with the performance of our troops or

the military aspects of winning the battle. The fact is, there was

total misjudgment apparently of what it was going to take to go in

and put this thing on solid footing. On May 1, 2003, clearly the

mission was not accomplished. We have had 170 deaths of U.S. soldiers since that date and we have many, many wounded. To my

knowledge, I am not aware that the President has visited any of

these returning wounded soldiers to this country. We have had two

potential Iraqi leaders assassinated. Sergio deMello of the United

Nations has been killed. The oil flow which this administration told

the American people would be used to fund reconstruction is some

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days doing less than one-half of what it was producing pre-war and

all the administration says is that there are challenges greater

than we anticipated. That probably should not be the case and I

don’t, Mr. Korologos, do you want to tell us, was there too much

reliance by this administration on Mr. Chalabi or people like him?

How was it that with the intelligence they claimed to have had and

all the information they claimed they knew about this country preentry, that we now hear stories of things that weren’t anticipated?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. First of all, Congressman, the President has

visited the troops, the wounded troops here in the hospitals, so I

want to set the record straight on that.

There are problems. The war, quite frankly, and I say this with

careful thought, ended too soon. What I mean by that is, as we got

closer to Baghdad, the Ba’athists and the fedayeen disappeared

and melted into the population. They took their AK–47s with them

and still harbor hope of trying to come back. Our soldiers are out

there on dangerous missions trying to root them out.

I also must say very quickly that it is in what we call the Sunni

Triangle, which is an area between Tikrit and Baghdad and over

to Ramadi, where most of these problems occurred. That is about

1 or 2 percent of the country. It is about 1 or 2 or 3 percent of the

population that has hope they might return to their old glory days.

The poll the New York Times and the Zogby people had 10 days

ago, 2 weeks ago, showed that there is support for what we are

doing. Those of you who have been there have seen the population

and the children on the streets waving at our soldiers and waving

at us as we go by. Yes, there are problems. Security issues have

arisen. First of all, those people who are Ba’athists and fedayeen

who disappeared into the population. Second, the 100,000 prisoners

that Saddam released 10 days or 2 weeks before we got into Baghdad are all murderers and thugs; we are trying our darnedest to

get them back. There are no records, no computers, no files on who

these people are. Yes, there were some political prisoners, but most

were criminals and if you can imagine a criminal being put in jail

in Iraq, he must really have been bad. So those guys are out there

doing damage to us. The third element, as the military will tell

you, is the outsiders who seem to be wanting to come in from Iran

and Syria and disrupt and throw oil on troubled waters. So the security issue is one that has taken a lot of emphasis and a lot of

support from General Sanchez and our soldiers over there and it

is a problem with the Coalition and it is a problem with the U.N.

Mr. TIERNEY. I don’t think anyone disputes that we have problems. I think the issue is the failure to plan ahead of time to do

this. I think now, in the face of this $87 billion request that confronts the American people, apparently we didn’t have a plan going

in. What is the plan now, what happened to the almost $400 billion

that we have budgeted in our regular Department of Defense budget, and the first $69 billion supplemental appropriation? Why do

we still hear stories of people being over there without kevlar vest

protection, some of our equipment still needing repair not from normal wear and tear that should have not been anticipated but from

things that should have been anticipated in an effort when you go

in on this basis? I think that is what people are having a hard time

getting their arms around. Why should we be looking at passing an

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entire $87 billion at this point in time when there is some evidence

that we have existing funding to take us into next year that clearly

we want to know more about what is happening with internationalizing this effort. Perhaps, Mr. Dibble, you can tell us. Today’s

newspapers don’t seem very encouraging, but what is happening on

the diplomatic front? Do we have anybody else that is going to be

coming in to help us out here? What is going on with the international conference in Madrid that is planned for October? Are any

other countries stepping forward to give us something more than

the $1 billion small amount we hear about?

Mr. SHAYS. Candice Miller.

Mr. TIERNEY. My apologies. I would have thought the Chairman

would let you answer.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you care to answer? I thought it was a statement.

I am sorry.

Mr. DIBBLE. I can speak in general terms. The conference in Madrid is scheduled for October 23–24. There has been a meeting of

the core group which is the lead donors for this effort earlier this

week. There is a systematic campaign underway, diplomatic as well

as personal, to ensure that we get as much as we can as soon as

we can, if possible before Madrid to ensure the burden is adequately spread across boundaries.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Miller.

Ms. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question. I certainly appreciate the panel for coming

today. I have listened to your testimony. It is fascinating to hear

what is happening in Iraq.

I think we are at such a pivotal moment in world history, quite

frankly. We have the ability, I think, to either get the job done or

not, to really have a positive impact on what is happening in the

Middle East positively or not, and I think the question for us is

whether or not we actually have the political will to finish the job,

to reconstruct as necessary and to do what needs to be done there.

I also believe that Al-Qaeda certainly has underestimated the resolve of the United States. It certainly underestimated the resolve

of George W. Bush. I think they thought that after September 11,

a couple of cruise missiles, we would go back to our football games

or something. They never thought about Afghanistan, they certainly never considered the possibility of what has happened in

Iraq. As I listened to some of you gentlemen talk about the Iranians being a little nervous, I am glad to hear those kinds of

things. I think we are having the desired impact on some of these

rogue regimes.

I think it is also important, and it was very interesting to hear

all of you, to continue to point out that the kinds of problems that

are occurring in Iraq, that we are encountering in Iraq, are not because of collateral damage, because of the theater there. If you

have inadequate underground, inadequate transmission lines, problems with the water supply, that would have been there whether

we went in or not. It is because of the Saddam Hussein regime and

what happened there.

My question is probably to Mr. Kerik. I listened to you talk about

how you were vetting the various individuals that you are putting

into the Iraqi police force there. I think that is making certain the

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ability to police themselves, such a critical component for any society. But it is also my understanding that there were several, perhaps two, Republican Guard units that were not engaged during

the war. As you mentioned, some of these have sort of faded into

the country and a free Iraq to them is a dangerous thing. They are

apparently the ones, certainly some of them, who are causing a lot

of the terrorist problems in their own country, among their own

people. Can we be certain, do you feel comfortable, that these individuals who have to be quite intelligent individuals are not infiltrating the police force and that they don’t appear at a later date

and manifest themselves with further problems?

Mr. KERIK. The vetting process we have gone through in Iraq

from the beginning was ordered by Ambassador Bremer. Within

the police force, the police services, customs, immigration and border services, we took the top three levels of the Ba’ath Party and

eliminated them from the agencies. From that point on, we tried

to identify leaders within the agencies, within the different departments, that we felt confident were trustworthy, loyal and had integrity and honor.

Today, the Senior Deputy Minister of Interior is a man by the

name of Ahmed Ibrahim, who before he was appointed by me as

the Senior Deputy Minister, was the chief of operations for Baghdad and before that, he was the Commandant of the Academy. In

all of those positions, over about a 4–5 month period, we gained an

enormous amount of trust in him beginning with the fact that he

had been arrested by Saddam, been imprisoned for more than a

year, been tortured on a weekly basis, had been electrocuted, and

was adamant about his opposition to the regime, to Saddam and

Saddam’s loyalists.

In the time that we have been in Iraq and Ibrahim has been in

charge of the police service, he has put together special operations

units and special enforcement units to go out and hunt down the

Fedayeen Saddam which are Saddam’s trained assassins and killers, to hunt down the former Ba’athists out there committing attacks against the Coalition. We have found that if you pick the

right Iraqi leaders, they will find the people they need to get the

job done. I will give you one example before I close.

I told Mr. Ibrahim when he had the Academy that I didn’t want

anybody affiliated with the Ba’ath Party or with former ties to Saddam involved in the Baghdad Police Department. The next day I

came back to the academy where he had his office and there were

about 1,000 Iraqis outside the gates. He was on the inside with a

small staff of people. When I finally got through the crowd and

pushed through the gates and got inside, I said to him, ‘‘what is

going on, what are you doing?’’ He said, ‘‘you said no Ba’ath affiliations; they are outside, I will pick one by one who is going to work

for the new Iraqi police service.’’ I think that is the key to our success. Let the Iraqis do their job. They know who the fedayeen are,

they know who the Ba’athists are, they know who the loyalists are.

Pick the right ones at the top and let them do their job and that

is what we are doing.

Ms. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman and the lady.

Mrs. Maloney.

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Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

First, I would like to welcome Bernard Kerik, the former police

chief from the city of New York who led us so brilliantly after September 11. Welcome.

I would like to know how the members of the Governing Council

are being protected? I was deeply concerned when the woman

member was murdered. I have read reports where women cannot

even go out on the streets.

Second, I would like to thank the chairman for including Mrs.

Beate Gordon who I think is one of the world’s most extraordinary

women. She single-handedly created civil rights for Japanese

women; she is on the next panel. I personally believe it would be

a disaster beyond words if the women of Iraq are not included in

the constitution with the right to vote, the right to health care, the

right to education. It would be a tragedy if women’s rights were

rolled back because of American invasion.

My most troubling question deals with two articles that were in

the paper today and I ask permission to put them in the record.

It talks about Secretary Rumsfeld not even knowing about the reorganization of the Iraq reconstruction. He is supposed to be in

charge of the reconstruction. I deeply believe, Mr. Chairman, that

he should come before this committee before we vote on the $87 billion and the reconstruction to give us an update.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection the articles will be inserted in the

record.

Mrs. MALONEY. There has been a lot of talk about contracts. I

have a positive story on contracts. When I was in Iraq, I met with

General Petraeus from the 101st Airborne. He is doing a remarkable job. He told us this story: he had a contract—he needed cement to rebuild the houses in the area—and a $15 million contract

was given to an American company. He kept prodding them, prodding them, prodding them to act. They never acted so he put on

a bulletin board the fact that he needed to build a cement factory,

could anyone help him. An Iraqi businessman came forward, used

$80,000 from the confiscated money from Saddam Hussein and the

cement factory is up and running. So the story shows, I think, brilliant management. He saved taxpayers money and he employed the

Iraqi people so they are on our side, not fighting us. Another moral

of this story is that you don’t have to build the cement factory to

American standards, build it to Iraqi standards; it is working. Let

the Iraqi businessman follow the American model of investing his

profits into making the business bigger and stronger. I am disturbed by the fact that one sole-source contract to an American

contractor of $900 million, only $50 million is contracted to the

Iraqi people, employing them and saving taxpayers’ dollars.

I want to come back specifically with an issue that I feel so

strongly about that I place the question in writing to the panel. It

concerns the request for rebuilding the oil fields. According to the

supplemental request and the Army Corps of Engineers, it would

cost $1.1 billion to restore the oil production to prewar levels of 3

million barrels per day. Then the supplemental asks for twice that

and then you include the $1.4 billion we have already spent. That

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posed by the Army Corps of Engineers projected. This shows, I

would say, mismanagement, but I will wait for your answers.

Second, I would like to place in the record page 28 of the Rehab

and Reconstruction for Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority, and

that says, and I question this with great sincerity, ‘‘The funding

will also initiate the development of new oil and gas fields.’’ I believe many Americans would like to help with reconstruction but

I don’t think they feel they need to build new fields in another

country when we have so many problems at home.

Mr. SHAYS. If the gentlelady would suspend for a second, we just

have 20 seconds left. You have to give him a chance to answer

some questions.

Mrs. MALONEY. Very quickly. It said that, ‘‘Funding will allow

commencement of the planned new refinery that will increase domestic capacity.’’ I am for rehabbing but are we going to invest in

new structures, particularly when the Army Corps of Engineers

said it would only cost $1.1 billion and we are now up to $3.3 billion? I for one would like to go back to the Petraeus model of doing

things cost effectively, saving the taxpayers money and employing

the Iraqi people.

Otherwise, congratulations to the Army for your brilliant bravery

and the fine job you are doing. I met many wonderful members of

the military from the district I represent who are really putting

their lives in harms way every day. The American people are very

proud of them and I am particularly proud of the work that General Odinaro and General Petraeus are doing.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Janklow, you have the floor.

Mrs. MALONEY. Can I say one thing because we don’t have much

time. Chris, this is very important. Some of the generals told me

that in creating the domestic centers in Iraq, they are putting

women on those centers. I think that is incredibly important. I

would like a listing from the CPA of all the women who have been

put in positions. I think this is tremendously important. And second, the point that Senators and Members of this Congress cannot

get the information on the contracts. In all sincerity, I want to be

supportive but we have to have this information before we vote. We

have to know where is the money, where was it spent. Petraeus

gave us the information, the CPA should be able to give us the information.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mrs. Maloney, hold on for a second. You had 61⁄2

minutes and I just wanted to say to you we will have a second

round if you have specific questions, but there was so much to be

said. I am going to go to Mr. Janklow and we can come back if you

have specific questions you want to ask and we will make sure he

answers.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, before Mr. Janklow. Mrs. Maloney

asked a couple of questions. Maybe we can see if anybody wants

to respond to her.

Mr. SHAYS. Just wait a second, please. The way we are going to

do it is, we are going to Mr. Janklow. We will come back to Mrs.

Maloney and she can ask her specific questions and we will take

them up. She will have her time. She had 61⁄2 minutes to make a

statement.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I might just——

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Waxman, please don’t.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I know you like to do what you like

to do, but we do have rules and the rules are that Members can

take 5 minutes to ask questions. They can, within that 5 minutes,

ask for responses to the questions. Mrs. Maloney did ask some

questions. I think we ought to give the panel, if they want to say

something in response to some of the questions she asked, give

them an opportunity. If they choose not to, they don’t have to. Mrs.

Maloney did ask for things for the record.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. This is what I would prefer and I think

Mrs. Maloney knows me to be a very fair person. She had 61⁄2 minutes and I would like Mr. Janklow to ask questions. We will come

back to her, she can ask specific questions and we will take each

one. I will be happy to yield her my time in the second round.

Mr. Janklow.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

As you folks can see, we try and put tight timeliness on you in

getting stuff done in Iraq and you have to meet it by the deadline

but we have a very difficult time ourselves meeting our own speech

deadlines when it comes to working within the framework that we

have allocated to us.

Back a long time ago when I was a Marine in the 1950’s, we used

to say we dealt with scuttlebutt, we dealt with rumor in ascending

order, we dealt with gossip, we dealt with speculation and if it was

really rank, we called it grapevine. That is what is going on and

I am picking up from what Mr. Sherwood said about the issues visa-vis the National Guard and Reserve versus the full-time military.

All of us are getting a huge amount of correspondence from our

constituents who were called to active duty who feel they may not

be getting equal treatment in terms of rotations and other things.

It may not be the case, but as my mother used to say to me when

she sent me to my room, ‘‘you are going up there not for what you

said to your sister but for the way you said it to your sister.’’ I am

wondering is there a better way, Mr. Ambassador, that you can

communicate to those troops as to what the policies and procedures

are? By the time it gets to their families at home and then gets

to us, it is third, fourth or fifth-hand and it is pretty rank. I guess

I am making a statement is what I am making but do you think

there is a better way the military can pursue the information to

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their troops in the field so at least they get the feeling of the reality, that they are being treated equally because I don’t think

there is anyone who really believes you are treating the active

forces differently than the Reserves or National Guard you called

up but people feel they are being treated differently. Do you understand what I am saying?

Secretary BROWNLEE. Sir, we have been frustrated by this too because it seems there would be a discussion of something and the

next thing you know, it is on the Internet and in the papers.

Mr. JANKLOW. Let me give you an example, and I am interrupting you and being rude, but I wrote on behalf of constituents of

mine a letter to the Department of the Army. I got back June 25

the most sterile generic letter you could possibly get dealing with

rotations, to the point I didn’t send this back to my constituent. I

felt all they would do was become offended by what they felt would

probably be bureaucratic runaround. I will leave a copy of this with

you but the point is, you need to be a little more hands-on in terms

of how you treat people given the fact that they have been called

up a lot over the last 8 or 10 years. It used to be we called them

weekend warriors and if there was a big war, they would be called

up. Now they are called up for Panama, for Grenada and to work

with the Norwegian Air Force on a mission, they are called over

to Bosnia, they are being called up all the time. They are having

to drop the plow, drop the pen, shut down the cash register and

go off to war or a mission and come home. That is all well and

good. It was the Minutemen who saved us at Concord Ridge but

the point I am making is, it is the way people feel they are being

treated as opposed to the way they are being treated. Can you go

to work on a better plan? That is all I am suggesting.

Secretary BROWNLEE. I assure you that we are and in fact, one

of the reasons we put down the policy we did of up to 12 months

on the ground was because we wanted to establish clearly what the

policy was and try to stop just what you are discussing, the rumors

and those things floating around.

Mr. JANKLOW. I am switching subjects now but we hear the tragedy virtually every day or every couple days of more American

troops being wounded or killed in the theater of operations. I think

it would be important for the American people to know and I wish

you would place in the record in the first 12 months after the peace

accord was assigned on the battleship Missouri, how many American soldiers were killed in the Pacific? It would be important to

know how many American soldiers were killed or injured in Europe

after the Germans surrendered in World War II. It would be important to know how many Americans were injured in other theaters

of operations. As a Marine in the 1950’s, I can remember Japanese

still surrendering in islands in the Pacific where they held out for

great periods of time. I think it is important that we put history

into perspective, that this is not a friendly place. We had to go over

there and invade it and trying to bring the peace is incredibly important.

My time has expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Secretary BROWNLEE. Thank you, sir, for your interest.

Chairman TOM DAVIS [presiding]. Mr. Waxman.

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Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do want

the chance to ask some questions. I let others go ahead out of courtesy to them.

As I indicated earlier in my opening statement, based on the information I have received from many different sources, I am concerned that taxpayer money is being wasted in Iraq. Billion-dollar

contracts are going to well-connected companies like Halliburton

and Bechtel when the work could be done much more cheaply by

local Iraqi companies. I want to go through some examples.

I mentioned earlier, and Mrs. Maloney mentioned, the general in

charge of northern Iraq, General David Petraeus, told a congressional delegation that included my staff that it would cost $15 million to bring a cement plant up to working order. He ended up giving that to local Iraqis to do and it cost only $80,000. Another example, according to Judge Wael Abdul Latif, a member of the Iraq

Governing Council from Basra, western contractors charged approximately $25 million to refurbish 20 police stations in Basra by

providing new doors, windows, paint, and furniture. Latif contends

that a qualified Iraqi company could have done the work for just

$5 million. Ms. Sondul Chapouk, another member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a civil engineer, described an instance in which

the Coalition Provisional Authority renovated 10 houses in Baghdad for Council members at a cost of $700,000. Ms. Chapouk believes an Iraqi firm could have built 10 houses from scratch at that

price and employed more Iraqis in the process. The estimates from

the CPA confirm this point. According to the CPA, when the work

is done by Iraqis, ‘‘cost of construction is one-tenth the U.S. standard per square foot in general construction.’’

Despite the fact that we are overpaying U.S. contractors like

Halliburton and Bechtel, there seems to be almost no attention

being given to restructuring how we are awarding contracts to take

advantage of low-cost Iraqi contractors. The CPA’s justification for

the $20 billion supplemental, for example, contains no discussion

about how to restructure these contracts. General Strock or Mr.

Korologos, why aren’t you doing more to reduce costs to the U.S.

taxpayers by using local Iraqi companies?

Mr. KOROLOGOS. I am going to yield to General Strock who does

the contracting. The short answer, Mr. Waxman, is that when we

first got in there and found this devastation and found the economy

flat on its back, we had to get started. We had a security problem,

we had to get this country off the ground quickly and contracting

was done as quickly as possible. For these individual anecdotal

events, I don’t have any answers except to say there is a lot of misinformation coming out of these Iraqi companies. I am not sure

they could have done it for $80,000; I am not a contractor.

Mr. WAXMAN. This is what they maintain. So your position is,

and it is understandable, that faced with all the chaos, you turned

to the companies with which the Army had contracts, Bechtel and

Halliburton, and asked them to jump in immediately and do the

work. Is that what happened, General Strock?

General STROCK. Sir, I think that is essentially correct, yes. We

went into a nation that had no power, no communications, no

water, nothing, and we did not have the ability to even inform people of opportunities, much less that they would have the opporVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Mar 11, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00133 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\91303.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tunity to mobilize their forces and come to work. It has been very,

very difficult.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would submit that part of the problem is a structural one. As long as we are hiring big government contracts on a

‘‘cost plus’’ basis, these contractors have little incentive to reduce

their costs. The more elaborate the project, the bigger they get

paid, the more money they make. One example of that is, the administration offered points to Bechtel as an example of a contractor

that is using local Iraqis as subcontractors. Although Bechtel’s capital construction prime contract is currently at $920 million, Bechtel has said that as of October 1, only $54 million in subcontracts

have been awarded to Iraqi firms. That is 6 percent of this work

that is going to Iraqi firms.

I think what we are doing, and I would be interested in your response, is we are over-relying on large umbrella contracts with no

opportunity for competition on task orders. We give a contract to

Halliburton and it is broad—IDIQ or indefinite delivery, indefinite

quantity contract. That means once the contract is awarded, the

Government can award task orders worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars without any competition. Isn’t that the way it is

done, General Strock?

General STROCK. In essence, I think that is correct, sir. The reason we go to those kinds of contracts is due to the great uncertainty. We were not able to definitize the requirements and do incremental competition for each of those task orders. In a situation

like this, we typically operate in an indefinite delivery and indefinite quantity mode.

Mr. WAXMAN. In the case of oil infrastructure work in Iraq, the

Army gave Halliburton a sole source contract with no competition

whatsoever. There is no other company that is allowed to compete

even though there are other corporations on the ground in Iraq

that could do some of the work for less. The Government task orders to Halliburton are not subject to any competition and together

they are now worth $1.39 billion.

I would submit to you that there are a lot of jobs that either Halliburton or Bechtel could do but, the way the situation is set up,

they never submit competing bids. Instead, Halliburton has a monopoly on the oil work, Bechtel has a monopoly on the reconstruction work. It seems to me if we either issued smaller contracts with

competition or we could award larger, multiple award contracts,

that would mean that more than one company would be awarded

large umbrella contracts and could compete for individual task orders. That is the approach favored by OMB because it imposes

greater price competition and results in savings for the taxpayers.

Now that we are moving away from the crisis of war contracting

to a more orderly and predictable process of reconstruction,

shouldn’t we think about moving away from these anti-competitive

IDIQ contracts?

General STROCK. Sir, in fact, when we determined that the most

practical and appropriate way to fix the oil infrastructure was to

go sole source, at that very moment we embarked on a competitive

process to provide a follow-on contract. Within this month we

should see that competitive contract for the oil industry being

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awarded. We recognize that it is much better to go in an open and

competitive way.

Mr. WAXMAN. Isn’t that going to give one contract to the north

and one to the south without competition?

General STROCK. It’s competed.

Mr. WAXMAN. But one for the north will be awarded?

General STROCK. As I understand, it is one for the north and one

for the south. I haven’t been personally involved but I think that

is correct. I think the plan for the supplemental is that it will be

full and open and we will go to multiple contractors so we can mobilize a much greater portion of our capability. Certainly the performance measure on that will be their plans and records for employing local Iraqi companies.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. As I understand it, Halliburton’s role in

Iraq is based on its Brown & Root subsidiary. Brown & Root holds

a very competitive award, one for which they had to compete with

other companies, the LOGCAP Contract, which provides a wide variety of logistics services to DOD overseas; I think that came out

of Bosnia. They were awarded that, it was competitively bid. You

come into a new country, there is no economy out there working,

it is in shambles, and it sounds like some Members would like to

have gone to a competitive bid and waited 6 months before we

could have capped the oil fields and done those things. Obviously

we couldn’t do that, so we went with a pre-competitively bid contract that in fact was a legal scheme to do this and now, as soon

as we are up and running, we are going to go out and competitively

bid this area again. Is that basically it?

Secretary BROWNLEE. Yes, sir. The LOGCAP Contract to which

you referred was competitively bid and awarded to Brown & Root

in December 2001. This is a contract the Army keeps in place so

when there is a contingency, the contractor can respond to provide

logistics, dining facilities and all the things we need these days

when we go on these contingencies.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And other companies bid on that at the

time?

Secretary BROWNLEE. Yes, sir, they did. In fact, another company

had it prior to Brown & Root getting the contract in December

2001. These are kept in place for the kind of contingencies you

mentioned; that is what we took to war.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me make one point. When we start to

talk about fees and costs, let us remember that we are working

under rules and regulations. Only costs that are allocable, specifically allocable under the FAR, the Federal Acquisition Regulations,

are allowable. Other costs and fees, and this is scrutinized by the

Defense Contract Audit Agency, have to be allowable and reasonable, and only those are reimbursed. It is not uncommon in these

situations that they withhold final payment to go through the audits to confirm that they are allowable costs; that is standard procedure. Also, the fees in this area are not big fees compared to

what you get in the private sector; that is my recollection, and I

was a government contracts attorney for close to 20 years before

I came here. Is that fair?

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Secretary BROWNLEE. Sir, I think that is fair although you have

to understand also, when you are in a combat zone and the contractor has to be indemnified and all those things, sometimes the

costs go higher than they would if you were just on normal basis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Of course.

I would be happy to yield, Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you.

I thought what you pointed out in this questioning was helpful

to understand how it operates. The point I am trying to make is,

if you have one big contract without specified tasks, sometimes you

can’t specify them but sometimes you can, there is no real competition for the task. So you give a contract to do north and south, and

one competitive contractor will compete for the monopoly. I would

like to see, and I think OMB is recommending this, if you can settle on some of the tasks and have price competition for those tasks.

That can help us hold down the price on it rather than give a monopoly to Bechtel for one purpose and a monopoly for Halliburton

for the other or divide the country north and south and let them

compete for a monopoly for the north.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me recall my experience. I don’t know

what the right vehicle is. I am not close enough to this, and what

Mr. Waxman says may in fact be true, but it may also be true that

we are dealing with a foreign country where people there have

their lives at risk and you are not going to have a lot of companies

move people over there on a contingency that they might get something. In that case, by that doing large contracts you have the infrastructure up and operating; it is competitively bid originally but

if you compete each task you may not get the same kind of commitment and economies of scale you could get. I don’t know the answer, and I think what we are saying is let us look at this very

carefully because obviously the more competition we get, the more

we are able to involve Iraqis in doing their own work. It is not only

a nation building exercise, it helps their economy as well. I think

that is the point. I don’t know what the answer is. Obviously we

need to look at this in some detail.

Mr. WAXMAN. Just one last point because I think we all want the

same objective. My concern is Halliburton has a sole source contract to deal with the oil industry and Bechtel has an exclusive

contract to deal with reconstruction. They are just sitting there

with monopolies. That isn’t going to produce the cost savings. We

have to figure out some way, if you will forgive me as a Democrat

for lecturing the Republicans, on some way to get competition and

market force where it is possible. There are times when it is not,

that is why we have these ongoing contracts. But right now we

have put ourselves in a position where we have an ongoing, contractual monopoly with two major corporations. I don’t think it is

serving the taxpayers’ interest or the Iraqi reconstruction.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Aren’t there over a dozen contractors?

There are dozens of contractors over there in Iraq, am I right?

General STROCK. There are, but in these particular sectors, it is

Bechtel on the infrastructure and Halliburton in KBR on the oil.

It is our job as the government agency with the technical capacity

to monitor how these funds are spentto not simply turn the contractor loose with a bag of money. He has to come in, we write the

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statements of work, we ensure that cost, quality and schedule are

met, and we demand that only the necessary things are done. That

is the responsibility of our agency. So the competition occurs up

front, ideally. Not so in the case of the KBR contract, and I think

there are good reasons for not being competitive in that situation,

but it is our responsibility to make sure we get best value for the

taxpayers’ dollar.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, let us get to the nub of this thing.

There are some people who don’t like the contractors you chose because they have had affiliations with people in office. A senior Senator’s husband’s company also received a large contract for work

over there, just to make this a bipartisan bashing, if you will. We

haven’t been complaining about that. Factually, we have people

making these decisions that aren’t in the political loop at all. These

are professional contracting agents and procurement officials who

are doing their job.

You need to understand that there is a lot of scrutiny on this and

there are political ramifications and there are financial ramifications and I think we need to be aware of that. So to the extent we

can get competition, even on the small tasks, to the extent we can

involve Iraqis, we think that is a good thing. Is that a fair statement?

General STROCK. Absolutely.

Mr. WAXMAN. No, it is not a fair statement and I take some exception to it because I thought it was rather personal. I don’t think

you ought to question my motivation, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I didn’t.

Mr. WAXMAN. I am not questioning the contract to Halliburton.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You only mentioned it 20 times.

Mr. WAXMAN. Or the administration and Vice President Cheney.

I am questioning Halliburton’s contract because it was a sole

source, no competition for it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is not accurate.

Mr. WAXMAN. Just a minute.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. They won it. It is my time, Mr. Waxman

and they won this competitively in Bosnia, they beat out other companies for this, you had an emergency situation and now it is being

competed again.

Mr. WAXMAN. No, they got a sole source contract to do the work

in Iraq.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That was KBR.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I make a sentence? I know it

is your time and your committee but when you say that I am motivated because of people being close to the administration, I want

to make it clear that I am motivated because I think the taxpayers

are getting ripped off. If we have a contract where there was no

competition for it, on a cost plus basis, to a company that has a

record of over-charging the taxpayers of this country. And I will be

glad to put into the record of this committee the background for

that statement.

I would rather see, if we are going to have reconstruction in Iraq,

that we try to get competition and not close out the Iraqi people,

not close out other companies, from competing for some of these

tasks. I don’t think my motivation ought to be questioned. As I

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said, I think we all want the same goal. I am afraid we are not

achieving that goal. I have gone through instances where I believe

we are over-paying and these contracts end up being goldplated.

I must say, General, the Army does not have a good record, when

you look at Halliburton’s history of scrutinizing the contracts where

we have overpaid in the past. We want to work with you to do better, but by its nature, I think we end up hurting the taxpayers’

best interest in some of these contracts.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me say this. I didn’t pull this out of

the air. There have been numerous statements by my friend and

others in point of fact linking Halliburton to administration officials in the same sentences, in the same press releases, although

maybe not today. Let us understand that there are political ramifications and it is important that they understand this, Mr. Waxman, because as they make decisions at the administration level,

they should be more sensitive to those kinds of things and ask for

more competition. That is something we both agree on.

Mr. WAXMAN. That is one of the reasons why I thought this administration would have been more sensitive, because of the connection of the vice president, not to give Halliburton a sole source

contract, with no competition.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Waxman, reclaiming my time, the fact

of the matter is, that is not what happened. The fact of the matter

is, and let me just restate this because I think it is important everyone understands it: Halliburton’s role was based on its Brown

& Root subsidiary, and they won a competitively awarded contract

under the previous administration in Bosnia called LOGCAP to

provide a wide variety of logistical services to DOD overseas. A

task order under that contracting vehicle was used to perform the

contingency planning for extinguishing oil fires and to assess the

damage to the oil fields. Through LOGCAP, Brown & Root

prepositioned people and equipment to be able to provide emergency response relating to the Iraqi oil system as well as other

needs and services outlined under this contract. As we have heard

today, we are now going forward and are going to recompete once

we have this up and stabilized but there was nothing there otherwise. We had to move in quickly.

Mr. Waxman, you have had your time.

Mr. Brownlee.

Secretary BROWNLEE. If I could quickly make three points, sir.

One, the LOGCAP contract was, as you stated, competed. Two,

there was a subsequent contract awarded to restore Iraqi oil. That

is being recompeted, as General Strock said, as we speak.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Correct.

Secretary BROWNLEE. The third point I would make is, what normally drives us toward these different kinds of contracts is the degrees of certainty and uncertainty and the degree of urgency; sometimes that costs more.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

I think we have another panel waiting and we have a couple of

other questions. If we could be very quick, let us try to do maybe

a question and we will start on your side, Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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On another subject, Mr. Dibble, I recently received a letter from

the Department of State regarding Iraq that I found confusing. I

believe the subject is relevant to the work of your bureau and I am

hoping you may be able to provide some clarity on the matter. The

letter was dated September 25 in response to a letter of July 21

I sent to the State Department regarding its December 19, 2002

fact sheet entitled, ‘‘Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the

Iraqi Declaration to the United States Security Council.’’ This fact

sheet listed eight key areas where the Bush administration found

fault with Iraq’s December 7, 2002 weapons declaration. Under the

heading ‘‘Nuclear Weapons,’’ the fact sheet stated, ‘‘The Declaration

ignores efforts to purchase uranium from Niger, why is the Iraqi

regime hiding their uranium procurement?’’

Since the issuance of that fact sheet, it has become known that

by the time of the December 19 fact sheet itself, intelligence analysts at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and at the CIA, had already rejected evidence that Iraq was

attempting to procure uranium from Niger. I asked the State Department to explain how this statement could have ended up in the

December 19 fact sheet and who was responsible for creating the

fact sheet. The State Department responded to me that, ‘‘The Public Affairs Bureau prepared the fact sheet based on information obtained from other bureaus of the State Department.’’ The letter

didn’t specify which bureaus provided the information.

My first question to you is about the creation of this December

19 fact sheet. You are the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in

the Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Did the Bureau

of Near Eastern Affairs participate in the creation or review of the

fact sheet?

Mr. DIBBLE. Mr. Waxman, I was not there but I will assert for

the record that I am sure we were, yes.

Mr. WAXMAN. What would have been the nature of the Bureau’s

participation?

Mr. DIBBLE. I would assume it would have had some sort of coordinating role.

Mr. WAXMAN. Would the Bureau have provided information or

recommendations regarding the language about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger, and if so, could you describe the information and

recommendations?

Mr. DIBBLE. Probably not.

Mr. WAXMAN. Probably not. Why not?

Mr. DIBBLE. I don’t know the source of the information, how the

information found its way into the report or the fact sheet was

sourced. I would expect, however, that it would have come either

from the intelligence community or from another bureau in the

State Department, for example, the Non-Proliferation Bureau.

Mr. WAXMAN. Can you describe what else you know about who

would have participated in the creation of that December 19 fact

sheet?

Mr. DIBBLE. I know very little. I would speculate that it was a

broad, department-wide effort, led perhaps by the Bureau of Public

Affairs but with input from many other bureaus in the Department.

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Mr. WAXMAN. The State Department’s September 25, 2003 response also asserted that, ‘‘Both the NSC staff and the CIA were

consulted on the fact sheet’’ but we know from CIA Director Tenet’s

statement that the CIA had discredited the Niger evidence before

the issuance of the December 19 fact sheet. Further, according to

a June 13, 2003 Washington Post article, CIA officials denied a role

in creating the fact sheet, stating that the CIA raised an objection

to the Niger claim but it came too late to prevent its publication.

I am wondering, Mr. Dibble, whether you can shed any light on

this issue? Could you describe what you know about whether the

CIA was consulted about the fact sheet, when such consultation occurred and the input the CIA provided with respect to the Niger

statement?

Mr. DIBBLE. Again, I cannot speak from personal knowledge, so

I cannot say when or exactly what input was provided. I can only

speculate on the basis of experience that when such products are

put together, the CIA and others who may have relevant information are consulted.

Mr. WAXMAN. What is a mystery to me is that you said it might

have been the Bureau of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, which would

have been Secretary Bolton. They deny they had any role in this.

Then you indicated it might have been INR but you say INR

wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. I am trying to figure out

who had something to do with this?

Mr. DIBBLE. It is a fair question. I can certainly take it back. I

am speculating myself at this point.

Mr. WAXMAN. Perhaps you could help us and get some answers

for the record from your colleagues at the State Department?

Mr. DIBBLE. Certainly.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I think that is really outside your scope.

Ms. Norton, you have been sitting there patiently. I think we can

wrap up with you and let the panel go.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am overdue to give a

presentation so I particularly appreciate your consideration.

I have two questions. One involved the dilemma I am sure you

face. Again this comes from reports that we don’t want to do policy

with contracting with former members of the Ba’ath Party. According to some reports in the press, some of the Iraqis say they didn’t

know about that and when informed about that, this is a quote and

I wonder what is your reaction and how you deal with the dilemma, ‘‘I can’t believe that. Saddam was here for 35 years and to

work you had to have contracts with the government. It was a government-run country. Otherwise, it was impossible, so why should

we be punished.’’ How do you deal with the fact that almost anybody who did business had to do business with this government?

That may have meant like people who join the Communist Party,

OK I have my card and these may be among the most experienced

contractors and yet we don’t want to have anything to do with real

rogues from the Ba’ath Party. What is your policy and how do you

ferret out that?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is a good question.

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General STROCK. It certainly is a dilemma and so many of the

Iraqi people were members of the Ba’ath Party, many for simple

survival as you pointed out, because you have access to education

and other benefits. The de-Ba’athification order that Ambassador

Bremer issued really looked at the upper levels of the Ba’ath Party,

those committed members of the Ba’ath Party that competed for increased position in the Party. So we try to make a distinction between those. The de-Ba’athification order was very rigid in its application but it does leave room for reconsideration of those people

who can clearly demonstrate they were members of the party

strictly for convenience and for survival. You will find that particularly true in the academic world where you could not hold a professorship if you were not a party member; it is a dilemma.

Ms. NORTON. With contracting, could you have a contract with

the government without being a member of the Ba’ath Party?

General STROCK. I don’t know the answer to that.

Ms. NORTON. That is what we need to find out. Mr. Secretary,

do you know that?

Secretary BROWNLEE. No, ma’am, I don’t but it is a good question

and I will be happy to take it for the record.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much and I wish you would get

back to the chairman on that.

One more question. Again, there are reports that are coming up

that we know corruption is rampant, we have done lots in our

country because we have corruption here too. We have all kinds of

rules and regulations and disqualification if we find out what you

have been doing. Again, there are reports that companies demand

kickbacks. Here is a quote I would like clarified, the claim that,

‘‘when American companies hire Iraqi firms as major contractors,

the Iraqi companies then demand a kickback called the ‘commission’ from smaller firms in exchange for a piece of the job.’’ What

do you know about commissions? What can you tell us about commissions? It may have been the practice for doing business before.

Are commissions part of the way in which Iraqi firms and subcontractors believe they have to do business today and what are

you doing about it if it is?

General STROCK. Ma’am, I heard some peripheral discussions

about a process used under the Saddam regime of a 10-percent

commission that was paid to a government official for issuance of

a contract. That money sort of disappeared and went into accounts.

There is a name for it and I don’t recall the name but it was a common practice apparently under the old regime.

Ms. NORTON. So what do you do about it now? Now you are faced

with a culture that said you had to pay a kickback called a commission what does the Provisional Authority do about it, what does the

provisional government in place do about it? Is it possible to issue

regulations? How do you change the culture if you just accept that

was the way business was done under Saddam?

General STROCK. I think we don’t work that way and we make

that clear to the Iraqis.

Ms. NORTON. But these are subcontractors. You don’t work that

way of course but we are saying, what are you doing about the fact

that it was a part of the culture to demand a commission from a

subcontractor? What are you doing about that practice?

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General STROCK. As I said, I am not sure the practice currently

exists.

Ms. NORTON. That is part of the problem.

Mr. Secretary, I can’t expect the General to know everything.

This is a policy matter.

Secretary BROWNLEE. I understand.

Ms. NORTON. Obviously you have a provisional government in

place that is trying to deal with these pre-Saddam or Saddam practices. Very serious practice if we are allowing this to be built into

the way we do business too because we see no evil and do no evil.

What can you tell us you can do about the apparent culture of kickbacks that was a part of the way subcontractors had to do business

with Iraqi contractors under Saddam?

Secretary BROWNLEE. Well, I can tell you, as General Strock was

going to tell you, that is not a part of our process, and if we were

aware of it, then we would do what we could to eliminate it. I will

look into it. I was not aware of it. The kind of kickbacks that you

talk about would be considered a crime in this country and I hope

would be considered a crime in their country under their new democracy.

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask that you look into it.

Secretary BROWNLEE. I will. I would be happy to.

Ms. NORTON. And two, because this is very difficult to deal with.

We find it difficult to deal with in this country and in this country

when we are giving contracts to other countries who have such corrupt practices, it even gets worse, but this is different. We are remaking this country, we are helping them to do it the way we

think it ought to be done, and the way I think most of them would

believe it ought to be done. I would like to know from you what

it is that you think you can do to halt this practice, if you find

there is such a practice. I wish you would give that information to

the Chair of the committee.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. Did you want to make a response?

Secretary BROWNLEE. Just a quick point. We are in the process

now, as Mr. Korologos can tell you, of standing up a government,

standing up a legal system, standing up a justice system, and what

you are describing, as I indicated to you, would be considered

criminal in our country. It still happens on occasion and we prosecute it. So we will do everything we can to eliminate it from the

system as we know it, as we are administering it now and also insist that it be a part of their legal system and they will have to

deal with it also.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

Secretary BROWNLEE. As far as we are doing now, I will do what

I can to look into it and see if that kind of practice is existing now

as it used to.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Frelinghuysen and then we will go to Mrs.

Maloney and close with me and get to the next panel.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon. I am Rodney Frelinghuysen. I sit on the Defense

Subcommittee on Appropriations and was part of a group of 17

Members of Congress who recently returned from Iraq and had, I

think, a very positive experience.

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Let me say, Mr. Chairman, I am most impressed by Ambassador

Bremer and his team working in some very difficult circumstances.

He has put together a first class team and they are doing so much

to support the Iraqi people to be free; they are free but with

100,000 criminals let out by Saddam Hussein just before he hid

himself, those people as well as Ba’athists and Saddam supporters

and terrorists coming in over the border from Syria, Iran and probably from Saudi Arabia, it is remarkable what the Bremer team

has done to establish security and provide the Iraqi people with the

means to develop themselves into a first rate economic, freedomloving powerhouse in the Middle East.

Let me pay tribute. It is truly an inspiration to see, have met

and all politics is local with some of my New Jersey Army men and

women on the ground. It is a damned shame that a lot of the good

work they are doing there is not being reported. As it was described to me, after the 1,000 embedded reporters left, they sort of

left the third string of the press corps there. Most of those people

file their report from the Al Rashid Hotel and they are not reporting on what the Coalition and Provisional Authority are doing and

what a lot of brave Iraqi leaders are doing, men and women, in

provincial capitals and cities throughout Iraq.

Yes, the Sunni Triangle is a dangerous place for any soldier or

civilian that is helping the country to operate, but I was most impressed by General Odinero, who actually is a New Jersey native,

and he is on the ground leading in a major way reconstructing the

lives of the Iraqi people who have lived under incredible oppression

for 35 years.

It was said to me, and I think it is an interesting fact, Mr. Chairman, that 70 percent of the population in Iraq today has known no

other leader than Saddam Hussein. So we have a long way to go

to tell them and show them the road to democracy. With your permission, I would like to enter into the record some more formal,

perhaps less strong comments, but certainly cogent comments, with

your permission.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. We will note for the record that you said different reporters are now there. We also thank the gentleman for being here

and thank him for going to Iraq.

At this time, the Chair will recognize Mrs. Maloney. She has the

floor for 5 minutes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I too had the opportunity to go to Iraq. Progress is being made.

There are still some security problems, challenges, but as one New

York soldier said to me, ‘‘We are fighting for the greatest gift of all,

freedom,’’ and I am hopeful we will be able to achieve it.

I respectfully request that my five prior questions be responded

to in writing and I will get them to you this afternoon. I would like

to build on the questioning of others. There has been a lot of talk

about transparency and contracts. I think certainly before we vote

on the $87 billion, we should have that transparency, not only in

rhetoric but in the reality of numbers and information.

I was impressed in Iraq how the generals in great detail could

show you how they are spending their money, what they are doing

and where they are going. Yet, when we ask for information on taxpayer dollars going there, we are not getting the answers. I think

Members of Congress should be able to get detailed information on

the process by which contracts are being awarded, the scope of specific contract terms, the details of task orders, and the payments

being made to prime contractors. They have said in the press, they

have said in this panel they are not getting that information. That

is not fair to the people they represent, that they face a vote on

$87 billion without having received that information.

Likewise, I would like to request an accounting of all the confiscated money that our people retrieved from Saddam Hussein. I

truly believe it would be a positive story if other generals are following the Petraeus model of creatively hiring Iraqi people to rebuild their own country. I request that. I have asked for it several

times. Again, we should have that information before we face a

vote.

Again, I am concerned about how decisions are made in the supplemental budget request. I have a document from the CPA or the

Army Corps of Engineers and the Iraqi Oil Ministry that says it

would take $1.1 billion to restore oil to the pre-war levels of 3 million barrels a day; the supplemental asks for twice that, and when

you combine it with what we have already spent, then it is three

times what the Army Corps of Engineers in their plan, the agency

that was tasked to come forward with what it would cost and I am

concerned about this. How did you come up with your numbers? If

you are not even listening to the agency tasked to come up with

the numbers, then I am concerned.

I know General Strock that you are with the Army Corps of Engineers and possibly you were consulted but as I said, my staff met

earlier with the Central Army Corps of Engineers here in Washington and they said they were never consulted or talked to. Why is

the number now three times what they projected?

General STROCK. I could perhaps quickly respond and will provide a more thorough response in writing. A big part of the additional supplemental was $900 million for

the import of fuels that we did not anticipate we would need but

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we have not been able to get the refinery system to provide those

fuels for the internal consumption in Iraq. That is a big portion of

that.

The other part, about $575 million of the supplemental, is for requirements outside of the Corps of Engineers and Ministry of Oil

work plan that was submitted in July. So those are longer range

and yet very important elements. It is the development of the oil

fields you mentioned and it is also building the new refinery,

things we know we need to get started on now to put the infrastructure in a position where it can truly support the needs of the

nation.

The rest, about $500 million of the supplemental, really has to

deal with elements of the work plan that require more investment.

Much of that has to do with security, the creation of rapid response

teams to go in once the infrastructure is hit to reduce the impact

of the sabotage by rapidly returning it to service.

I think there is a fairly detailed accounting of that in the CPA

request that shows those elements which do aggregate to a good

sum of money but there is a good reason for each of those. In fact,

we were consulted throughout the development of this budget request.

Mrs. MALONEY. The Army Corps of Engineers Central said they

were not. As I said, there were several items that appeared not to

be involved in reconstruction. I mentioned them earlier, I will place

them in writing.

My final question is, will we get transparency before the vote?

Will we get an accounting of the contracts? Senators and members

of this panel and others have said they request the information and

it is not given to them. I feel transparency means facts and figures

and documents, not a statement, we are transparent.

You have a tremendous challenge ahead of you. I would say

peace in the whole region if we are successful in bringing a democracy there, but it has to be well-managed or you don’t have the

faith of the American people and you don’t have the faith of the

Iraqi people. It begins with documentation and management and so

far we haven’t gotten that.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlelady.

I am going to recognize myself and then we will let this panel

get on its way.

First, I want to say that I think you realize we could almost just

ask one of you the questions. We have such a fine group of individuals that I apologize if we haven’t utilized all your expertise. I

think, Mr. Kerik, I could spend a day trying to understand what

you encountered. I would like to have you give me a perspective because I believe you found yourself interacting with a lot of Iraqis.

I want to know if you feel the comment made to me way back in

April by Mohammed Abdul Hassan Inemkassa was still a problem

today and that was, ‘‘you don’t know us and we don’t know you.’’

One, do you think they are getting to know us? Do you think

they are getting to know us in a right way, the Iraqis? Two, are

we getting to know them? Is there interaction or are we finding

ourselves in the palaces having to do our work not able to interact

in a way that would be helpful? Maybe you could respond to that?

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Mr. KERIK. I can speak from the perspective of dealing with the

police, dealing with customs and borders and a lot dealing in the

local communities in and throughout Baghdad. I travel throughout

Baghdad on a daily basis and when you listen to the press and

they talk about lawlessness and looting and chaos in the streets,

I am proud to say from my last probably 30 days, I just about ate

dinner out every night in Baghdad at a restaurant or a hotel. The

shops are open, the markets are open and it is not really what I

have read about and what I have seen since I have been back.

Do we know them and do they know us? We are getting to know

them better, they are getting to know us much better. In dealing

with the police, I think initially they were skeptical. I think history

between us, they thought initially we were going to come in and

would leave. I think as time has gone on, they have begun to trust

us, they have learned to trust us and I have seen that with the police but I have also seen it a lot with the Iraqi people.

That has helped us when it comes to information to fight the

fedayeen and the Ba’ath Party. Initially, no one would come forward with information concerning terrorism, concerning attacks,

concerning weapons. As time has gone on and we saw a major

surge in information flow after the two sons of Saddam were killed.

For every day that Saddam doesn’t pop his head out of the ground

and take over the country, that information flow is growing and is

growing by the people in Iraq and it is growing internally in the

police.

The police today overwhelmingly want to bring back a new country. They are working extremely hard. The police in Baghdad are

working on retraining their own people. They are extremely happy

with their new equipment, with their new weapons. As you know,

we had a difficult time initially getting uniforms, getting weapons.

When we talk about contracts and contractors, we used as many

Iraqis as possible but initially, we just couldn’t get a lot of this

stuff in Iraq with the local vendors, so we had to go where we had

to go to get it done and get it done quick. It is moving along and

it is moving along much better at a much faster rate than anyone

would have imagined. As I said earlier, think this way; in 4 months

we went from zero precincts or zero stations in Baghdad to 35.

There is no way you could have done that anywhere in this entire

country in 4 months. It just couldn’t happen. We stood up 35 police

stations, 400 cars, 3,000 radios and I can go on and on but that

is a result of this relationship.

I will share with you one last thing. It is rather frustrating to

sit here and listen to a lot of the criticism based on press and

media reports. I will share with you a comment that was made to

me by the Senior Deputy Minister of Interior just a few days ago.

I told him I was going to see the President on Friday and he said,

‘‘please tell the President to stop the complaining. The people in

the United States have to stop complaining, the politicians have to

stop complaining. You are making friends of our enemies.’’ I said,

‘‘what do you mean by that? He said, ‘‘the fedayeen and the

Ba’athists, today they can watch television, they have satellite

dishes, they can see things today they have never seen before. They

see that criticism, they hear it. In their minds, they are winning.

In their minds, them attacking our people, them attacking the poVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Mar 11, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00150 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\91303.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lice, them attacking the Coalition, they are winning, they are doing

a good job. That criticism is hurting us.’’

Mr. SHAYS. I just want to say you said they are winning, that

is what they think.

Mr. KERIK. That is what they think.

Mr. SHAYS. Based on what they see?

Mr. KERIK. Based on what they see and I think it is hurting us.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to ask you, General, if you feel that our

troops are getting the opportunity to interact with Iraqis or are

they having to be very distant? I want to also ask you, I had so

many Iraqis tell me that they did not like seeing Americans killed

and it hurt them, but they said, why can’t we stand guard over a

hospital? Why does it have to be an American? What skill would

prevent them from having that opportunity? If you could speak to

both issues, the interaction of our troops and the guarding of places

like hospitals.

General STROCK. Sir, perhaps the Secretary could talk more

about the interaction of troops. Most of my attention was as a

member of CPA and I was not out on the streets with the troops

a lot but as I did have occasion, I thought it was a developing relationship and one that I think our troops are forming a bond with

the Iraqi people. They know why they are there and they are serving the Iraqi people just like they are serving our people.

We are in fact trying to transfer the responsibility for security

of places like hospitals to the Iraqis by facility protection services

by the police forces. That is an ongoing effort of ours to relieve our

troops from that responsibility. That is very much happening.

Mr. Secretary, perhaps you would like to comment?

Secretary BROWNLEE. My experience is based on my visits there

on two occasions and talking to all the soldiers I could and their

commanders. Some of the frustrations they mention are that they

do have contact with the Iraqi people and there may be an incident

and they are out there with the Iraqi people and there may be 35

or 40 Iraqis coming to try to help them and pointing out areas

where something might have happened or might happen but the

press reports will go find one disgruntled Iraqi and that turns out

to be the story. Our soldiers are even frustrated by that. They do

have contact with them, they are out in the streets on a daily basis

running patrols and doing the security things they do. Hopefully it

will continue to grow and get even better.

Mr. SHAYS. Before we end this panel, is there any comment any

of you wants to put on the record before we get to our next panel?

May I say parenthetically, the chairman of this committee is on the

floor of the House now and wanted me to let you know that is why

he is not here right now.

Secretary BROWNLEE. You talked about turning things over to

the Iraqis and of course all of our division commanders are busy

and I think all of us see that as a way to replace troop strength

there is to replace it with Iraqis.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

I would conclude by saying to you that I have known Ambassador Bremer the entire time I have been in Congress and I am

very proud of the work that he and his people are doing, very

proud of what our military is doing and very grateful, Tom, that

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you are there to help. He is blessed to have you help him. You have

a difficult job, we thank you. I am absolutely certain that Republicans and Democrats alike share that sense of gratitude to all of

you. Thank you.

We are going to get to our next panel. We have Mr. Alaa H.

Haidari, an Iraqi-American from the chairman’s district; Dr.

Lamya Alarif, an Iraqi-American from the chairman’s district as

well; and Ms. Beate Sirota Gordon from the great district in Manhattan of Congresswoman Maloney; she is our Constitutional scholar.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. It is an honor to have you here. I have been looking

forward to this panel and we will start with Mr. Alaa Haidari. You

will start with your testimony, sir.

STATEMENTS OF ALAA H. HAIDARI, IRAQI-AMERICAN; BEATE

SIROTA GORDON, CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR; AND LAMYA

ALARIF, IRAQI-AMERICAN

Mr. HAIDARI. I would like to thank all of you for giving me the

opportunity to speak to you about the situation in Iraq. First of all,

I would like to say that ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein and his

regime was the best thing the United States could do for the Iraqi

people, regardless of any controversies about how Saddam was removed from power. Second, this administration is putting forth a

tremendous effort in rebuilding Iraq and establishing a normal life

for the Iraqi people. In spite of this huge effort, we still have a difficult road ahead of us because we don’t have a clear and comprehensive plan. Allow me to put out a few issues which will help

us and can be accomplished in a 6-month period.

First, the current governing council does not reflect the Iraqi

population. Also, it does not have a representative for many Iraqi

provinces which have more than 1 million people in each of them.

So, we need to revise and enhance this current council structure.

The second issue is the disbanding of the Iraqi Army. We must

accept the fact that disbanding the Iraqi Army and police forces

was a huge mistake. Police forces played a vital part in keeping

law and order. Most of the soldiers and policemen were against

Saddam Hussein. Bringing them back will allow the U.S. military

to move the bases outside of the cities and this will keep U.S. soldiers out of harm’s way.

The third issue is the economic situation. The Iraqi economic situation today is horrendous. Power, drinking water, health care,

education and infrastructure, almost everything has been destroyed

and there are millions of unemployed Iraqis. Reconstruction and

economic revival must be top priorities. I think it is necessary for

the United States to initiate a Marshall Plan-style program with

funds of $100 billion over the next 4 years. Much of this money

should be financed by neighboring oil producer states such as

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the Emirates. I am surprised

that this has not happened yet. Also, we must encourage investment by American business with cooperation with OPEC and the

Import/Export Bank.

The fourth issue is ministry employees. Qualified Iraqi people

are capable of managing their own affairs and we should let them

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do so. They are more knowledgeable than anyone else in the affairs

of their own country. Ex-employees of Iraqi ministries should definitely be rehired and the U.S. administration can oversee their

work.

The fifth issue is the local governments. Each of the 18 provinces

must choose a Governor and a governing council. This will build

confidence and a better relationship between the U.S. administration and different groups in Iraq. It will also relieve some of the

burden of the U.S. administration in Baghdad.

In summary, there are five things that must be done in Iraq.

One, revise and enhance the Governing Council; two, rehire the

Iraqi soldiers and policemen who were not a part of the Saddam

regime; three, bring back Iraqi employees of the ministries except

those who were loyal to Saddam Hussein; four, organize the administration of all 18 Iraqi provinces; and fifth, revive the Iraqi economy with a Marshall-style plan by using money from neighboring

oil producing states for Iraq. These countries have the money and

it is for their well being and for the stability of the region. Thank

you very much for the time. I would be happy to answer any of

your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Haidari follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Our next witness will be introduced by her Representative.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you so much and I want to thank Chairman Davis and you, Acting Chairman Shays, for including in our

panel one of the most extraordinary women I would say in the

world although she is often non-recognized, Beate Gordon. Her

story is groundbreaking and important because she single-handedly

created civil rights for Japanese women. I hope we will be able to

create civil rights for the Iraqi women and the Afghani women.

She was born in Vienna, grew up in Tokyo and became fluent in

the Japanese language. Just before World War II she came to

America to attend Mills College. Because of her fluency in Japanese, she was hired by the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service

during the war to listen to and interpret radio broadcasts from

Japan. At that time, she was 1 of 66 Caucasians who could speak

Japanese. This is a thing you raised, Mr. Chairman, many times

in Iraq that we need more people who speak Arabic, not only here

in the United States but in Iraq working with the Iraqi people and

with our people there. She became the American counterpart to the

notorious Tokyo Rose, writing radio scripts each day.

Following the war she returned to Japan and worked for the Supreme Commander, General MacArthur. She became one of the

drafters of the 1947 Japanese Constitution, the only woman at the

table, and she wrote a book about her experiences. She was assigned to draft the section of the constitution relating to women’s

rights. At the time, Japanese women had no say in marriage, divorce, education, property, or inheritance rights. The provisions she

drafted gave Japanese women fundamental constitutional rights

that literally changed their lives and the society. She ultimately

worked for the Japan Society and the Asian Society in New York

and I believe in her presence today she will have very important

insights because of her experience in Japan. She originally drafted

25 provisions guaranteeing civil and social welfare rights for

women. Only one of these provisions made it into the constitution.

She was told the rest would be adopted by the government, the bureaucrats. Fifty years later, not one of her other provisions made

it into law. Her experience shows that if women’s rights are not expressly spelled out in the constitution now, the civil authority in

Iraq cannot be counted on to adopt these rights later in legislation.

I thank her for the role she played in guaranteeing rights for

women in Japan and I earnestly hope that the drafters will be as

successful as she was as they draft the new constitution for human

rights for all people in Iraq. Thank you for your life service, Ms.

Gordon.

Mr. SHAYS. That was a lovely introduction. My only regret is that

the chairman is not here to introduce our other two witnesses. It

is wonderful to have you here. You have the floor.

Ms. GORDON. Thank you so much, Representative Maloney, for

your wonderful words. I am honored to have been invited by you

to talk about my work as a drafter of the women’s rights of the

Japanese Constitution, and how that might apply to Iraq. In the

last 4 years, I have testified about these rights in both Houses of

the Japanese Diet.

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Since Japanese women had no rights at all under the constitution before World War II, I drafted 25 separate provisions. Only

one survived, as Representative Maloney said, and I will read that

to you now. ‘‘Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent

of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. With regard

to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile,

divorce, and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family,

laws shall be created from the standpoint of individual dignity and

the essential equality of the sexes.’’ I also collaborated on Article

XIV which in part reads, ‘‘All the people are equal under the law

and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social

relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.’’

In 1946, I was working for the Government Section of General

Headquarters in Tokyo. On February 4, 1946, General Whitney,

called in about 20 of his staff members for a top secret meeting.

He said, ‘‘You are now a constitutional assembly and by order of

General MacArthur you will draft the new constitution of Japan.’’

He also said the task had to be accomplished in 7 days.

I was in the Political Affairs Division which was ordered to write

the chapter on civil rights. My division chief assigned the article

of Women’s Rights to me because I was a woman. I immediately

researched many of the world’s then existing constitutions and

compiled detailed women’s rights articles including specific social

welfare rights for women and children. When I presented my draft

to the Chief of the Steering Committee, Colonel Kades, he said,

‘‘Beate, you have given the women more rights than are in the U.S.

Constitution.’’ I replied, ‘‘That is not difficult since the U.S. Constitution does not even mention the word woman.’’ Eventually, the

social welfare rights in my draft were eliminated because the

Steering Committee felt they were not appropriate for a constitution but belonged in the civil code. I argued that the Japanese bureaucrats would never write such laws into the civil code. Colonel

Kades said, ‘‘Don’t worry, we will be here for a long time and we

will see to it that they get in.’’ Unfortunately, this did not turn out

to be so. Fifty-six years after the constitution was promulgated, social welfare rights for women have not entered the Japanese civil

code.

When I lecture in Japan, I am always told, ‘‘If only your social

welfare rights had been in the constitution, how much struggling

we would have avoided.’’ It took 11⁄2 years between the drafting of

the constitution and its adoption. Now, Japanese women are exercising the constitutional rights they received as a result of American participation in preparing the post-war constitution. Japanese

women participate in central and local governments, as legislative

representatives, mayors and Governors. Women have held positions

as Speaker of the House, chairman of a political party and Supreme Court justice. Women are also prominent in the media as reporters, talk show hosts, documentary filmmakers and editors.

Women practice law. One woman is even the CEO of the largest

publishing firm in Japan. The one field where Japanese women

have not made enough progress is in the corporate world but they

are trying very hard.

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Although conditions in Iraq are quite different from the conditions in Japan in 1946, certain lessons can be learned. Women who

have been suppressed all over the world for many centuries must

be made equal with men in any real democracy. Women everywhere are peace loving, interested in social issues, in education for

their children and in living a useful life. Women all over the world

are demanding equality. I think that Japanese women who have

gone through the miseries of war, the deprivation of housing and

food, the reconstruction of devastated cities and the institution of

a new constitution are in a unique position to serve as models and

advisors to the women in Iraq. I am sure they will urge the women

of Iraq to make sure their new constitution includes not only fundamental rights but also social welfare rights. May the United

States help them in this noble cause as it did so successfully in

Japan.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gordon follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Ms. Gordon. As I look at you,

I think you must be an imposter to tell me that somehow you were

involved in legislation in the 1940’s.

Dr. Alarif.

Ms. ALARIF. Thank you. I will read my summary in the interest

of brevity.

I wish to thank the office of Congressman Davis for giving me

the opportunity to appear before this distinguished committee to

share some observations and reflections on the events of post-war

Iraq from the perspective of an American who was born in Iraq.

The mere fact that I am appearing before you in this public forum

is a sign of significant accomplishment directly resulting from the

fall of Saddam Hussein. Prior to this time, I would have had serious concerns for the safety of my family had I taken such a public

position on any matter relating to Iraq.

Many questions were posed by Congressman Maloney and by

Congressman Shays on some things that are happening in Iraq. I

hope some of them might be answered during my testimony. I hope

you will forgive me for diverting the conversation into a little bit

more of a historical perspective of the social and forces that have

shaped the political destiny of Iraq and they continue to do so.

These are contradictory, religious, ethnic and social factors which

can be grouped into four groups.

One we are all very familiar with, the religious and ethnic diversities. The second is the traditional tribal conservative value system. This has played and continues to play a very divisive influence on Iraqi politics. The third is the ever growing middle class

which was the unifying factor among all these political factions and

finally, there is the working classes. A combination of the various

wars that were initiated by Saddam and the crippling effects of the

embargo effectively gave Saddam Hussein a free hand in eliminating any and all opposition to his party and his politics. Therefore,

the Iraqi people could not overthrow him and needed the help of

outside power like the United States and its allies.

My humble observations as to the situation in Iraq in winning

the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people are as follows. I agree

with my esteemed colleague and several of the members of the administration that the reconstitution of the Iraqi army should reduce the need for more American troops. The use of a reconstituted

Iraqi military can serve multiple purposes. One is to relieve the

CPA troops from various security details; two is to have additional

military support without having to ask other countries for it; three

is to put an Iraqi face on the various operations among the civilian

population; and fourth is to provide some gainful employment for

those soldiers who have been laid off. I would say it would be anyone below the rank of major, a lower ranking officer.

We are talking about winning the hearts and minds. Wherever

possible, alternative methods should be sought to reduce the direct

contact between the Coalition military forces and the Iraqi civilian

population. Since this is a long term association, it is better to set

a pattern of peaceful coexistence such as removing some of the intimidating hardware, and that can happen over time, slowly, so as

to restore normal civilian life.

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In traditional tribal areas, much of the violence, I feel, is caused

by cultural misunderstanding of the conservative norms. I would

put a special effort into friendly persuasion and cultural understanding and dialog.

The final point of my presentation touches upon what my colleague said earlier and that is, there has been an undue emphasis

on quotas and ethnic and sectarian differences in Iraq. We all know

that Saddam used those differences effectively. Therefore, we

should try to avoid that. Most Iraqi families I wish to emphasize

are ethnically and religiously mixed. There are millions of Sunnis

who have never supported Saddam; they are the silent majority. I

don’t like to mention Mr. Hussein’s name too much but he feared

the Sunni leaders because they posed the most direct threat to his

rule. Other than his immediate tribe, 90 percent I would say of the

Sunnis were oppressed like every other sector in that country. They

did not support his regime. This group included or happened to include the middle class technocrats, the bureaucrats and those who

have been the engine driving the country for years. Therefore, we

need to be more inclusive of that group and open dialog with them.

At this juncture, I will add a few factors that might shed some

light on your questions, Congresswoman Maloney. A law was promulgated and established in 1959 after the first Iraqi Republic giving women equal rights, social and political rights with men. That

law was promptly abolished by the Ba’athist regime. During that

period, women enjoyed equal inheritance, rights in divorce and so

forth. That law was enjoyed for 31⁄2 years. After the Ba’athist regime, it was abolished. You can imagine what an uproar that created among the religious clerics but this was a secular government,

the first Iraqi Republic.

There was an unsuccessful attempt by the first Iraqi Republic to

establish democracy, so a constitution, a secular permanent constitution was written. It took a year to write it, by the minds of

the Justice Department at that time. It was finished after about a

year by 1963 but unfortunately was abolished and not adopted

when the Ba’athist coup came, so that was out too. Also just something everyone should know or perhaps you are aware that Iraqis

have always had free access to education, medical care and have

no income tax, although all of them do pay social security.

In conclusion, I have tried to condense a lot of information with

a historical perspective. However, I have provided a bit more detail

in my written testimony. I believe that Iraq has a good chance of

being helped through its rebuilding process. I am optimistic for the

future because all the ingredients are now in place for success.

Thank you for your time.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Alarif follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. Thank you all.

I apologize for missing the first three speakers, I was on the floor

managing a bill that came out of the committee—the chairman had

to do that.

I am going to start the questioning with Ms. Blackburn. Thank

you very much.

Ms. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say thank

you to each of you for taking your time to come and to talk with

us and be before us today, looking at Iraq and the reconstruction

efforts and your moving forward and having a healthy, productive,

viable country is so very, very important to us.

Dr. Alarif, I enjoyed your comments very much and appreciate

those. I have a constituent who is an Iraqi-American physician and

he is currently back in Iraq and working with the Coalition partners in rebuilding the medical training facilities and the programs

that will train nurses and doctors. Some of the correspondence that

I have had with him is that if anyone doubts that we have made

an impression, they need to be here. If anyone doubts that Saddam

Hussein had or used or exposed his people to chemical weapons,

they need to be here and see some of the children that are suffering

from leukemia and other diseases. I think he holds the position

that many of us do that Saddam Hussein himself may have been

the biggest weapon of mass destruction. I would like you to talk

just another brief moment if you will about the medical care delivery systems and how quickly you see all of that coming back up

to what you would consider to be par.

Ms. ALARIF. Please forgive me if I keep looking at the historical

perspective because I think there was much achieved in Iraq in the

1960’s in the pre-Saddam era. Therefore, I don’t know how bad it

is right now but I can tell you how good it was before. Iraq was

considered the most advanced Middle Eastern country in terms of

medical care. It had the best medical schools, had the best doctors,

had enough doctors and Ph.D.s per capita than some of the western

countries who had more per capita. Of course all of that I imagine,

thank God I had not seen the mess he had created. So I think the

basis is there. The Iraqi people are highly sophisticated and educated. I just don’t see those ones on the street. I just see some

young rabble rousers but most of the Iraqi people are easier to

work with than any other country in the Middle East. You have an

excellent cadre of people, of scientists, of medical professionals but

they just haven’t had the support they should have had from Saddam.

As far as the leukemia, I have heard that. I have not seen it but

I have heard that from our relatives and it is frightening. I don’t

know what he was doing there. Nobody knows what he was doing

there and what he did to the population but we do know there is

an increased frequency of susceptibility to leukemia and other malignancies that were not there, especially among children.

Ms. BLACKBURN. Thank you.

I certainly appreciated the work this constituent has relayed he

is doing. As I said, he is Iraqi by birth, an Iraqi-trained physician,

left there in 1991, came to the United States, received his citizenship, has worked and lived in my district, has a wonderful family

and now he is back there to help his people and to share the exciteVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Mar 11, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00176 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\91303.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ment that I know all of you share and have with the opportunities

for freedom.

That leads to my next question. Ms. Gordon, I have been so intrigued with what I see as a fabulous opportunity for the Iraqi people as they move forward with writing their constitution. I appreciated your comments on that. To me it is a little bit miraculous

to look at the fact that we are 160 days into this process and it

seems they are moving forward really rather quickly, with a governing council in place, with the 25 heads of different ministries in

place. I would like to see if you could speak for just a moment as

to what you think the timeframe will be for completing a constitution and then moving that to ratification by the people and moving

from that to election of their officers. Do you think we are looking

at a 5-year period, a 3-year period or what would be your thoughts

on that?

Ms. GORDON. In Japan, it took a year and a half from the beginning to the end but I think it was a much easier task. I have a

feeling that in Iraq it will probably take longer.

Ms. BLACKBURN. Dr. Alarif, do you have some comment you

would like to share with me?

Ms. ALARIF. I agree with her in the fact that, academically

speaking, that is appropriate. But in reality, as I said, we have had

maybe two constitutions. One was the monarchy constitution and

then it was redone as I said earlier by the first Iraqi Republic, and

this was done by professionals, the Justice Department, Court of

Appeals, all the judges. This was a functioning government with

highly educated people. They wrote a secular constitution that

could serve as a base for perhaps the new constitution. I don’t

know where that constitution is, I am sure there are some copies

somewhere that the Ba’athists have hidden in Iraq, but that addressed a lot of the questions at that time. It could be updated to

the present because it was highly secular and it was opposed by

the clerics and the religious groups, so it must have contained

something quite good for women.

Ms. BLACKBURN. Thank you, Dr. Alarif.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you so much and I thank all of the panelists. I want to publicly thank you, Mr. Chairman, for including Ms.

Beate Gordon at my request to testify. She has brought important

insights. Dr. Alarif, your historical perspective is tremendously

helpful and I would really like to organize a meeting with the

Women’s Caucus for you to come and share your insights. I think

it would really be very, very important.

I can’t underscore, particularly after reading Ms. Gordon’s book,

how important it is to get these rights in the constitution because

even in America you can’t get rights into the Constitution; it is

very hard. The document is tremendously important and I was

very concerned about a news report, and I am going to find that

article and send it to you, about a Gallup poll that was taken in

Iraq which I found disturbing. It said that the Iraqis didn’t want

the women to have as much freedom as they had under Saddam

Hussein. I found that hard to believe but I am very concerned

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about the constitution because it would be a tremendous travesty

if the women do not, at the very least, hold on to the rights they

had in the constitutions that were written in 1963 and whatever

you said, 1958. When I was there, I met many educated doctors,

teachers—women—who were very involved in rebuilding their

country and actually very much a part of the fabric of it.

I just want to know, do you think there will be difficulty in drafting the constitution? I understand there will be a number of

women on the constitutional committee, getting these rights in the

constitution—the right to vote, the right for medical care, the right

for education, the rights that Ms. Gordon outlined in her testimony? Do you think there will be any problem?

Ms. ALARIF. It is a little different. We are addressing two different things. I will explain myself in 1 second very briefly. In Iraq,

in that culture, especially in Iraq, women have always had rights

guaranteed under whatever things but they were not all specifically equal. They had the right of inheritance. A woman my age—

I am not young, but my mother is in her late 80’s and was a teacher—her classmates were doctors, judges. Show me what country

that at 85, has these people. So they had that right but they did

not have social rights such as the divorce. These have to do with

religious sharia—divorce, inheritance, we have one for women, two

for men, it is guaranteed. You get an inheritance but it is not

equal. Therefore, I see only a problem if the religious clerics start

objecting to the fact that this is against this and so forth. It has

to be a completely secular, social welfare for women.

As far as rights are concerned, I am appalled to be honest with

you as to the condition of women under his regime. I don’t want

to mention his name continuously, under the old regime of Saddam

Hussein versus the first Iraqi Republic, even the second Iraqi Republic. By the way, we are going to be on the fifth Iraqi Republic

now. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, women had a lot more rights and

even in the 1950’s, we began to have these rights only to be reversed by Saddam by adopting this so-called phoney religious overtone which he never believed in anyway but it served its political

purpose. So he abolished that.

Mrs. MALONEY. I have a few seconds left. In this book by John

Dower, ‘‘Embracing Defeat,’’ which really goes through the Japanese experience in writing their constitution and building their

country, Ms. Gordon you are treated very positively in this book

with your role in the constitution. They talk about a peace clause

that they placed in the constitution and this was about the defense

of the country. I would like Ms. Gordon to respond to it and also

Dr. Alarif, you were saying we need to employ and build the army,

you said to protect the people, to protect the streets and so forth.

In our structure, that would be the police. The police protect the

government building, the police protect the people. Why would you

want the army instead of the police to have this function because

the army sometimes has a vision of invading others or whatever.

Ms. Gordon, could you briefly talk about the peace clause and its

importance?

Ms. GORDON. It is a very short paragraph in chapter two of the

constitution of Japan. It is called ‘‘Renunciation of War’’: ‘‘Aspiring

sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the

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Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the

Nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding

paragraph, land, sea and air forces as well as other war potential

will never be maintained. The right of the belligerence of the state

will not be recognized.’’

It is true that the Japanese have built a defense force because

it doesn’t say here that you can’t defend yourself. It doesn’t specifically say you can defend yourself but it doesn’t say that you can’t.

So they have built a defense force. However, in these 56 years since

the constitution has been active, no Japanese soldier has been sent

outside of Japan, no Japanese soldier has killed another soldier,

neither has any Japanese soldier been killed. Not many countries

can say that. Costa Rica also has a constitution in which an army

is not permitted. They don’t have an aggressive army. They also

don’t have a defensive army. I think that is one of the great things

about this constitution, that it leads to peace if other countries in

the world would also have such clauses that are against war. The

interesting thing is that it was the women in Japan who mostly

supported this clause of peace and they have kept on being behind

it even though the government right now is trying to change the

constitution, especially this Article IX. They want to participate in

peacekeeping forces for the U.N. and they want to be ‘‘a normal nation.’’ It is very sad to think that the ability to make war is normal.

I don’t know what will happen but in the meantime, I think 65 percent of the women have come out against any amendments to the

constitution, especially not to the renunciation of war. I think very

few people know about this. I am so glad Representative Maloney

asked about it because very few people in general in the United

States know about this clause. I think it is something to think

about.

Ms. ALARIF. Do you want me to address your question?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sure, go ahead.

Ms. ALARIF. The reason I have given in my written testimony a

brief history of the Iraqi Army is it never belonged to Saddam. He

did not organize the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Army was organized in

1921 by a British mandate. It became the most highly respected

and educated group of people that came in there; its history is very

rich. I don’t know what Saddam did to the army but I don’t think

most of them, the rank and file, were loyal to him.

Mrs. MALONEY. My specific question was why the army and not

the police force for protection of people which in our structure. As

you know, the police protect our people, protect our buildings. The

army is the army.

Ms. ALARIF. Well, because of the historical role that the army

played versus the police. Police in Iraq—psychologically, the Iraqis

don’t like their police because they were always used as spies, as

intelligence agents and it is a psychological turnoff. So when they

see a policeman, there is no respect. But the army has always been

on the side of the people, so they always liked to see an army man.

They trust them more.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

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Mr. Haidari, can you tell us how we can get the Shias to help

us with the old Ba’athist regime, turning in these people and

breaking their underground network?

Mr. HAIDARI. I think to fix the situation in Iraq we need to talk

about Iraqi total people, not one group. If we talk about one group,

that will be very dangerous for us in the future in Iraq. As I see

it, the Governing Council, we need to extend it to enhance it, put

people who have mandates from their groups to make a big influence. I will give you a simple example. In the Sunni Triangle, we

have five new members in the Iraqi Sunni, a five-member Sunni

in the Iraq Council. Where is there a role in the Sunni Triangle?

There is no role. We didn’t find it. How to convince the area. I can’t

see anything. You can’t see anything. We need people who make

influence in their roles not only Shiite or only Sunni, no, that is

not enough. We have five Sunni now in the Council. There is no

influence in the Sunni area. We have 13 Shiite, some of them have

some influence but also there are a lot of Shiite who have good influence outside the Council. These people are not against the

United States. The people who are not in that Council, are not

against the United States but we need to open nice dialog with

them.

About the Army, Shiite and Kurd in general against the army

because they believed Army is Sunni organization. From 1921 until

1963, you can’t find high rank in the Iraqi Army from Kurd, from

Iraqi Turk, from Arabic Sunni but it is very, very few people Shiite

with high rank. From 1963 until 2003, the most of the high ranks

in the Iraqi military, the Iraqi Army are Arabic Sunni. So now

when we want to rebuild the Iraqi Army to help United States, we

need at last 300,000 Iraqi soldiers, soldiers, all of them, against

Saddam Hussein. I will not say most, I say all of them. That means

it is not right to disband the army, all the soldiers against Saddam

Hussein. High ranks avoided them but lower ranks keep them to

help us. In Iraq there was school and high school, high college for

officers and high officers. This school started in 1930’s, so we need

to depend also on the army.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask everybody, what can we do to

try to get more Iraqis maybe to go back and help us with translations and intelligence gathering? We actually have a shortage of

people that can do that kind of communication right now. We

would have to have proper screening. Is there anything we can do,

any signals we can send to American Iraqis that may want to help

us in that? Let me start with Dr. Alarif.

Ms. ALARIF. I will comment on one thing he said because I basically agree with Mr. Haidari, except I will just correct you once and

that is that General Qasim was a Shiite.

We basically are in agreement about the Iraqi Army and I did

suggest earlier that we do use the lower ranking officers, so that

is an agreement. To galvanize the Iraqi-Americans, what you need

are some basically on the ground going with the soldiers, translating. So you can’t have Ph.D.s doing that for you. You perhaps need

to look at where the Iraqis are concentrated, maybe around the Detroit area, I don’t know where they are, northern Virginia, put out

some kind of a feeler that we would like them to participate in this

for ‘‘x’’ amount of time and you may be surprised. But they do have

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to go through the screening mechanism and all that. I am sure in

your district, for example, in northern Virginia, there are a lot of

Arabs and Iraqis, but mostly we need Iraqis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The Governor of one of the provinces over

there who was just elected had been in the PTA with me at Belvedere Elementary School. He had gone back to Iraq and was elected Governor of his province. Mrs. Maloney was there with me when

we had a reunion. We are seeing some of that, but I think more

of that would be helpful. When we talked to military leaders, they

thought that would be helpful as well.

Ms. ALARIF. Absolutely.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. A lot of people came here because of Saddam and the fact that they were being oppressed. We could use

their help. So we need to figure a way to do our best recruitment

on that. I think that can help our cause.

Ms. ALARIF. Absolutely.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Gordon.

Ms. GORDON. May I comment on what Mr. Haidari said?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Of course. Please.

Ms. GORDON. Because in Japan, I think General MacArthur had

very much the same idea of using the Japanese in various phases

of the society and what we had was a political purge. We also had

an economic purge. It was a little bit like the ‘‘denazification’’ program in Germany. As you said, the higher-ups in the army maybe

should not be used but the people lower down. That is exactly what

we did in general; we had lists of who had been in what kind of

militaristic group, who had been an ultra, ultra conservative, etc.,

and the Japanese Government provided that for us. If anybody was

going to be elected to parliament or a high official in the army or

whatever, they would have to be scrutinized according to that list

that we and the Japanese Government together had formed. So

there were many people later on who were brought back into government or brought into the army who had not been on the correct

side but they were on a lower level. They did not have the power

of the higher level and it worked very well in Japan.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask, it seems that much of the

Ba’ath Party, instead of fighting us in the north, took off their uniforms and went back into the population. Their strategy seems to

be to become terrorists, take out as many Americans or whoever

else they can to get publicity and hopefully Americans will dissipate, America will give up, go home and they can come back into

power. It seems to me that is their strategy. They are not winning

strategic victories by what they are doing but they are hopeful they

can have an effect back here and discourage us from pulling out

early and they have a shot to come back into power. What is your

analysis? When I say that, is that a fair analysis?

Ms. ALARIF. You know, the Ba’athists have now had two shots

at Iraq and they’ve messed it up both times. This last time was a

total disaster for the people. After what the Iraqis have seen right

now, I think we are making too much of an issue of these people;

I think they are just going to die a natural death.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But the problem is that is where the disturbances are. If you didn’t have that, it would be a much different

situation.

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Ms. ALARIF. I understand, but if you look at Iraq’s history, there

have been several revolutions. Whenever there is a new revolution,

and let us assume this was like a revolution but from the outside,

it takes time to purge the old regime. So La Regime Marcienne has

to be gone but you can’t kill everybody, so eventually, once the

leaders are gone and for me, for all intents and purposes right now,

I see just discontented people who are without work and losing

power. There are not that many of them. They should be rounded

up at some point and isolated. I think with the passage of time, I

don’t think really they’re lethal. They are lethal to the persons who

get killed but they are not that lethal in terms of numbers, let us

put it this way. During revolutions, as I said in the past, there

have been more killings.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand, but from an American perspective, it is lethal. If you remember what one sniper did to the

Washington area last year, here you have literally 1,000 snipers

sitting around and it is having a very chilly effect on Americans’

perception of this war. We have to take them out as quickly as we

can, and we can’t do it without cooperation from the Iraqi people.

Ms. ALARIF. I basically stated here how you can get the cooperation of the Iraqis—by including them all, by getting cultural understanding. They come around, they really do come around. I think

they are so tired of those wars and Saddam and his problems and

they need to live a normal life. I think by inclusiveness and making

life more normal for the civilian population, you may be seeing it

now, I think. I don’t know. I haven’t been to Iraq but I think things

are a lot better now than they were before, aren’t they?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Right.

Ms. ALARIF. So perhaps.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Haidari.

Mr. HAIDARI. I believe there are two ways to eliminate Saddam’s

party. First, we need to open investigation. We will not know

Saddam’s loyal followers, about 10,000, not more. We need to depend on the Iraqi people to know them. How? By investigation. Let

the Iraqi people come to this kind of office and give us their names,

give us their history and then we can find them or Iraqi people will

help us to find them; this is one way.

Another way, we want to build a good relationship with the Iraqi

people. Iraqi people should be our eyes in all areas. If we can build

a good relationship, we can eliminate Saddam and his party. Until

now we didn’t build that well. I give you the best example. Shiite

suffered from Saddam a lot, massacres the best example, and until

now they don’t help us well. They are watching the situation. We

need to deal with them to attract them to our side. If we do that,

we eliminate Ba’ath. Ba’ath is not a problem, Ba’ath is a small

group, I know them. I don’t read about them in book, I know them.

We can eliminate them very easily but we need to depend on Iraqi

people. When? How? This is the question.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Janklow.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Gordon, if I could ask, when did the occupation by the Allies

end in Japan? Do you remember?

Ms. GORDON. When did it?

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Mr. JANKLOW. When did the occupation by the Allies end in

Japan?

Ms. GORDON. As you know it started in 1945 and it ended in

1952.

Mr. JANKLOW. So it was really 7 years after the surrender of the

Japanese regime that finally our soldiers left Japan as an occupying force?

Ms. GORDON. Right.

Mr. JANKLOW. I lived in Germany in 1948, 1949 and 1950 and

my father was part of the army of occupation in Germany. The

point I am making is, we become pretty frustrated in America

when we haven’t solved all these problems in 6 months after the

invasion of Iraq when in reality, it takes a while to write a constitution, assemble a provisional government, unless we are going

to write it for them. We can write a constitution for people but if

they are going to write a constitution, it takes a while. Then they

have to go through a process of debate—it isn’t like ours gets

changed very often after an awful lot of debate and discussion—

and then they get around to elections. The point I am trying to

make is, these things take time; Iraq wasn’t just waiting there to

throw off the yoke and rise up and do all of these functions.

Mr. Haidari, let me ask you, as I read your resume, you were a

member of the Ba’athist Party. As a matter of fact, you were part

of the regional command wing at one time. So when you speak

about the Ba’ath Party, you obviously speak from very personal

knowledge, am I correct?

Mr. HAIDARI. Yes.

Mr. JANKLOW. When did you decide you weren’t a member of the

Ba’ath Party, that you no longer believed in their ideals or goals?

While you are thinking, go ahead, Ms. Alarif. Do you have a response to that?

Ms. ALARIF. I have never been a member of the Ba’ath Party.

Mr. JANKLOW. I was talking to Mr. Haidari.

Mr. HAIDARI. I was a friend for Ba’ath in 1958.

Mr. JANKLOW. It says in your resume, ‘‘In 1962, I became a member of the Regional Command Wing of the Ba’ath Party.’’

Mr. HAIDARI. Yes. In 1959, we left Ba’ath Party as original member but in 1962, I was in the top of the responsibility.

Mr. JANKLOW. If I could ask you two gentlemen and also the

lady, the three of you of Iraqi heritage, are we doing anything right

in Iraq? Is our country doing anything right, in your opinion? Yes?

Ms. ALARIF. Yes, many things right.

Mr. JANKLOW. Could you elaborate a little, please?

Ms. ALARIF. First of all, as I said earlier, the fact that Iraq is

actually for the first time in its life—and they have been trying for

50 years now to be free—they are free. The Iraqis are free. As I

said earlier, I am a testament when I am talking. I have never

done this in my entire life. I have been in the States since 1957

and I have never done this, my family would have been shot.

Second, Iraq has longed to be a modern Iraq. It is the cradle of

civilization but it has remained in the dark ages. It has not come

into the industrial age. It has longed to belong to the 21st century

and America is bringing it to the 21st century.

Mr. JANKLOW. Mr. Haidari.

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Mr. HAIDARI. The most important thing we did in Iraq, we have

rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein.

Mr. JANKLOW. Are we doing anything else?

Mr. HAIDARI. This is the most important thing. How can we invest this truth? We have good balance in Iraq.

Mr. JANKLOW. If I can personalize this for a moment, have you

gone back to Iraq since the war has been over?

Mr. HAIDARI. Yes. I went in June. I stayed there 3 nights, 4

nights and came back.

Mr. JANKLOW. Do you consult with our Government on what they

should be doing?

Mr. HAIDARI. I have a long talk with our Government people. I

talk with them about many things but now I have been talking for

2 years.

Mr. JANKLOW. How long do you think it should take to write a

new constitution for Iraq?

Mr. HAIDARI. A new constitution? First, how will we do the constitution? Not only the constitution, now I think we are not in correct way to put this constitution. We appoint people for that and

Iraqi people are not support this direction. Some of them support,

others don’t support.

Mr. JANKLOW. My time is up but I notice from your testimony

that you do say the Iraqi people don’t support the provisional council that has been appointed. How should we select one and how

long should it take to select the appropriate council to help draft

the constitution for Iraq? I understand you suggest who should be

included but how should they be selected and how long should that

take?

Mr. HAIDARI. It doesn’t need more than 6 months, I believe,

enough to make everything stable in Iraq, 6 months, not more. I

don’t want to say to cancel it, extend it, enhance it. We can choose

a lot of people to make this council stronger, make good influence

on Iraqi people.

Mr. JANKLOW. In other words, the basic council is OK, it needs

to be enlarged?

Mr. HAIDARI. I would not say OK, I said some of the members

are OK, some of them are not OK from point of view of Iraqi people. Some of them are OK, some of them are not OK.

Mr. JANKLOW. Isn’t that the way democracy works, some are OK,

some are not OK?

Mr. HAIDARI. When you want to choose, especially in these days,

the people choose this guy or that guy, they are free to do what

they want, but we want to appoint some people to help us in our

plan in Iraq, I think we have to look for the good people who can

help us and be a good influence on the Iraqi people. Now we need

to understand this concept.

Mr. JANKLOW. All of you emphasize that we must do something

about the former police and the former military. Clearly the history

in most countries, be it Japan, Germany or Panama, it doesn’t

make any difference, there is a long history of bringing the protecting forces back into play after some of the leadership and the troublemakers are eliminated or removed, not eliminated in the physical sense but removed from the possibility of being involved in control. My question is, the former police commissioner from New York

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testified today that they have 40,000 policemen employed back in

Iraq. Is that a good start?

Mr. HAIDARI. In Iraq, we need policemen and soldiers, at least

300,000.

Mr. JANKLOW. You need 300,000 for a nation of 26 million?

Mr. HAIDARI. We need them to help our administration and Iraqi

people to reach the peace inside Iraq. I prefer in my opinion if we

let our army be outside of the Iraqi cities. We don’t want to see our

army to have any conflict with the Iraqi people. We have army in

Iraq, not policemen, so we want to depend on Iraqi police, not

American soldiers. That is much better to us. Also, it is much better to us than asking Turkey and we have some differences now in

Iraq about asking Turkey army to come to Iraq. Let us depend on

Iraqi army.

Mr. JANKLOW. Dr. Alarif, you say the Iraqi people don’t like the

police, so have the army do it. He says, they don’t like the army,

have the police do it.

Ms. ALARIF. No, no, he didn’t say that, his English——

Mr. JANKLOW. He said the Army should not be in the cities.

Mr. HAIDARI. The American Army.

Ms. ALARIF. The American Army.

Mr. JANKLOW. I apologize. I thought you meant the Iraqi army.

Mr. HAIDARI. The American Army should not be in the cities.

Ms. ALARIF. We are in agreement.

Mr. HAIDARI. Also, we don’t need to invite Turkey army to come

to Iraq. We want to depend on Iraqi army.

Mr. JANKLOW. We agree with that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I think we agree with that. Thank you

very much. This has been very, very helpful to the committee as

we move forward.

I want to ask unanimous consent to put into the record a letter

from Gary Sinise, a Tony and Emmy Award-winner and Academy

Award nominee; he wrote the committee. Also, an article from Vanity Fair by Mr. Hitchens on the situation that I think will be helpful for the record. Without objection, these will be put into the

record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Any other questions from committee members?

[No response.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me thank this panel. It has been very

helpful to us in our deliberations. We appreciate your staying with

us through the afternoon and being here to answer our questions.

Your total testimony will be made a part of the record.

Thank you all very much.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 2:37 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Chris Chocola, Hon. Michael

C. Burgess, Hon. Mike Rogers, Hon. Bill Shuster, and additional

information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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