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37–305 2007

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–4]

ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE

PRESIDENT’S STRATEGY FOR IRAQ

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

JANUARY 17, 2007
(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana

NANCY BOYDA, Kansas

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

KATHY CASTOR, Florida

DUNCAN HUNTER, California

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

KEN CALVERT, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

TOM COLE, Oklahoma

ROB BISHOP, Utah

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

ERIN CONATON, Staff Director

ANDREW HUNTER, Professional Staff Member

STEPHANIE SANOK, Professional Staff Member

REGINA BURGESS, Research Assistant

MARGEE MECKSTROTH, Staff Assistant
(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Wednesday, January 17, 2007, Alternative Perspective on the President’s

Strategy for Iraq ................................................................................................... 1

APPENDIX:

Wednesday, January 17, 2007 ................................................................................ 55

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2007

ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE PRESIDENT’S STRATEGY FOR

IRAQ

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

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

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 3

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

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

WITNESSES

Kagan, Dr. Frederick W., Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute ..... 9

Korb, Dr. Lawrence J., Senior Fellow, The Center for American Progress ........ 7

Perry, Dr. William J., Center for International Security and Cooperation,

Stanford University ............................................................................................. 4

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Korb, Dr. Lawrence J. ...................................................................................... 65

Perry, Dr. William J. ........................................................................................ 59

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Choosing Victory—A Plan for Success in Iraq, Executive Summary submitted by Frederick W. Kagan .................................................................... 81

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Questions submitted.]

(1)

ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE PRESIDENT’S

STRATEGY FOR IRAQ

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, January 17, 2007.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:20 p.m., in room 2118,

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

committee) presiding.

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

SERVICES

The CHAIRMAN. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. This is the second Armed Service Committee hearing of the 110th Congress.

First, I want to thank the members for doing a good job last week

during the first hearing abiding by the five-minute rule. We will

continue that effort and five minutes means five minutes, and I appreciate your cooperation along that line. I have to shorten up the

time because I do know that two of our witnesses, Dr. Perry and

Dr. Kagan, must leave at 4:15 and 4:30 respectively, as I understand it. And so we can get as many members to ask their questions in their five minutes, we are going to ask the presentations

be limited to four minutes, if at all possible. I think you have been

contacted on that. My favorite phrase is ‘‘Please do it in 25 words

or less.’’ We will take it in a few more than 25. But if you can do

that, we will certainly appreciate it.

Last week the President appeared before the American people

and outlined a plan in Iraq which includes the increase of American troops. The next morning, Secretary of Defense Gates and

General Pace appeared before us and discussed the Administration’s plan in greater detail.

Today we will hear perspectives on and alternatives to that plan.

Joining us today is Dr. William Perry who was the Secretary of Defense when President Clinton was President, and, more recently, a

member of the Iraq Study Group; Dr. Lawrence Korb who served

as an Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1982 through 1985 and

is at the Center for American Progress; and Dr. Frederick Kagan,

former history professor at West Point, now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. You all have their full biographies in

front of you, and I am sure you will know that this is a very impressive trio that we have, and we look forward to hearing from

them.

Over the last month or so, I have made a point to emphasize that

under my chairmanship, this committee would redouble our efforts

in pursuing oversight responsibilities under which we are charged
2

by the Constitution. This is an important hearing. It is part of that

process. We have heard at some length the Administration’s position on the way forward in Iraq. As we consider that position, it

is also our responsibility to explore our alternatives. We must

weigh the pros and cons of each. Now, while the President’s choice

may be limited, it does not relieve us of the obligation to fully explore the ramifications of that policy. Additionally, by challenging

the Administration on the specifics of the plan, any plan, we compel them to defend it in detail, warts and all. And where those

warts are serious flaws, this process will expose them.

The light we shine on them will enable us to explore those problems before we ask our service members to execute a flawed policy

again.

No longer will this Congress allow any vague statement of a halfformed plan from this or any other Administration to pass by without serious questioning—and there will be serious questioning.

Furthermore, we are a government for the people and by the people. A robust hearing and oversight process gives the American

people the opportunity to understand the full range of implications

inherent in the policies of their government.

The war in Iraq is the single most critical issue facing our country today. The outcomes of this conflict will have repercussions that

affect United States national security for decades and will reverberate throughout the Middle East and, of course, the rest of the

globe. Therefore, it is important that we proceed in a way that allows us to refine our policies and develop the best plan possible

while keeping our citizens fully informed.

At the hearing last week I was pretty clear about my concerns

regarding the type of troop increase. I won’t go back through them

today, except to note that we have got a real problem on our hands.

It is past time for the Iraqis to assume greater responsibility for

their own security. And whatever we choose to do, it needs to contribute to the overarching goal of reducing our force levels there in

the next several months. That is how we will continue to watch out

for the welfare of our forces and hedge against strategic risk, which

is a real problem before us.

Today we are looking forward to hearing what you think about

the way forward in Iraq. We should not lose sight of the fact the

President has made his choice on what to do and our options in

this case are limited. Therefore, I hope you spend some time discussing the implications of his plan, your ideas for improving it,

and ways to evaluate its success as we move forward.

And before I ask my friend and colleague Mr. Hunter, Ranking

Member, for his comments, let me again remind you that I intend

to adhere strictly to the five-minute rule, and I know last week you

did a very good job in that regard, and I hope that we can do the

same today.

I introduce now the Ranking Member, Duncan Hunter, my friend

from San Diego, California. I got it right.
3

STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

ARMED SERVICES

Mr. HUNTER. I want to thank my good friend, the Chairman, Ike

Skelton, and join with him in welcoming our guests to this very,

very important hearing by the committee.

Last week President Bush and his advisers met with congressional leaders to discuss this new strategy for Iraq, and the President then outlined this plan of the American people both in an address to the Nation and in several media interviews. And after

that, Secretary of Defense Gates and Chairman of the Joints Chief

of Staff, Chairman Pace, provided more detail before the committee, including information about the strategy’s three key pillars. In

fact, General Pace referred to the strategy as a three-legged stool,

so that if any one of these elements, political, military, or reconstruction is missing, the strategy cannot stand. I agree that to have

a chance of success, any strategy or proposed alternative needs to

rest on these elements, and I think we have received a lot of information about each. But I look forward to hearing your assessments

of the Administration’s new plan in these areas.

Gentlemen, from my perspective, we are on the second phase of

a basic blueprint that we have used for 60 years to bring freedom

to other nations, whether you’re talking about Japan or the Philippines or El Salvador, and that is, you stand up the free nation

or government, you stand up a military capable of protecting that

free government, and, third, if you don’t have an external force like

the Warsaw Pact backing the division that stayed on the overfold

of the gap for so many years, the Americans leave.

We are right now in the most difficult part of this challenge,

which is standing up an Iraqi military apparatus capable of protecting that free government. And let me just lay out for you what

I have taken from the President’s statement with respect to the

Baghdad plan, and I would hope that you could comment on this

perspective and add to it or subtract from it if there are portions

that you think we have missed in this plan.

But this plan involves the sectoring of Baghdad into nine sectors;

the establishment of an Iraqi brigade in each of the sectors. The

brigade may have two or three maneuver battalions, and backing

up those battalions is an American battalion. And a recommendation that we have made to the President, a number of us have

made, is to bring Iraqi battalions from the quiet areas of Iraq—that

is, 9 of the 18 provinces that average less than one attack a day—

and saddle them up and move them into the night and rotate them

and move into Baghdad or the Sunni Triangle or Al Anbar.

As I understand it, three brigades that will be moving in for the

Baghdad operation will, in fact, come from three of these provinces

that are relatively quiet.

Now, my recommendation has been to the Administration that

we could use this blueprint, this idea of having several Iraqi battalions in front, in operations in contentious zones, backed by an

American battalion and, of course, utilizing embedded American

forces to mentor and to advise down to the company level in the

Iraqi battalions; but we could use that blueprint to stand up virtually the Iraqi force. That is the full 114 battalions that have been
4

described to us by the Department of Defense as having been

trained and equipped by U.S. forces.

So I would like you to comment on that, on the prospects of using

the Baghdad plan as a pattern to stand up the full complement of

Iraqi forces. And I think if this works in Baghdad, that that has

some promise.

You know, I have looked at the—and I am sure other members

of the committee have also looked at the other commitments that

the Iraqi government has made that the President has reported to

us have in fact been committed to, but obviously have not been executed with respect to consolidation, the division of petroleum assets, and of course the modification of the deBaathification plan

and other things such as handling the former officers in Saddam

Hussein’s military. And of course there are a number of elements

of this plan that are controlled by the Iraqis and that will require

execution by them, and we will see if they deliver on this plan.

I would simply say at this time we have a plan that the Commander in Chief—as the person who has been elected by the people

of this country to carry out our military policies and to put forward

those military policies—the President, has come up with this plan,

and he is delivering reinforcements in the strength of 21,500 troops

to the Iraq theater; 4,000 of those reinforcements to go to Al Anbar

Province where the Marines have requested them, and I verified

that in talking to Marine commanders. They do feel that they need

those additional 4,000 Marines. And, of course, the remainder of

the troops to be dedicated to the Baghdad plan and other operations in the Sunni Triangle and the Baghdad area.

It is my position that when you have a shooting war and the

President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, is moving

reinforcements to execute a plan in that war and to execute the

strategy in that war, that it would be unthinkable for Congress, either body, to move to cut off the reinforcements to the American

forces that are presently working in the war.

So I would like, along with your analysis of how you think this

plan is going to work, your own observations as to whether or not

you think that that is an appropriate move by the legislative body

to move to cut off reinforcements or to cut off supplies for the

troops that are in theater or the troops who are arriving in theater.

So I want to thank my great colleague, the gentleman from Missouri, for holding this hearing. I think it is absolutely timely, and

I look forward to your comments.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman from California.

We welcome you, gentlemen, and if you can summarize in four

minutes to give us time for questioning, we would certainly appreciate it.

Dr. Perry.

STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM J. PERRY, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND COOPERATION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Dr. PERRY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you turn that on, please?
5

Dr. PERRY. I am going to submit my testimony for the record, if

I may, and I will give only highlights from that testimony in my

oral comments.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Dr. PERRY. In December, the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan group formed by the Congress, concluded nine months of study

and proposed a new way forward. Last week President Bush announced his new way forward that is significantly different from

the ISG’s recommendations. So in my testimony today, I will explain the differences in the two approaches and why I believe the

ISG’s proposal serves our country better.

We may never know whether the Administration’s goal of achieving a democratic stable government in Iraq was, in fact, feasible

since the Administration’s attempts to do so, were burdened with

serious strategic errors. The Administration failed to get support

from regional powers, from key allies. They did not send in enough

troops to maintain security after the Iraqi Army was defeated.

They disbanded the Iraqi Army, police, and civil servants a few

weeks after the Iraqi Army was defeated. And they pushed the

Iraqi Provisional Government to establish a constitution and hold

elections by the end of faulty processes, and not adequately protect

minority rights, thus setting the stage for a bloody power struggle

between Sunnis and Shi′as.

The cumulative effect of all of these strategic errors is a disastrous security situation in Iraq which continues to deteriorate.

Each month, hundreds of U.S. military personnel are killed or

wounded. Each month, several thousands of Iraqis are killed. Well

over a million Iraqis have left the country, including large numbers

of Iraqi professionals, and the violence is still trending up.

As grim as this situation is, it could become even worse when

U.S. soldiers leave. But that could be true whether we leave a year

from now or five years from now. In the face of this growing disaster, the Congress commissioned an independent bipartisan study

charged to its consensus on the way forward in Iraq. Our report

called for a change in mission, a reinvigoration of diplomacy in the

region, a strengthening of the Iraqi government and the beginning

of group redeployments.

The change in mission proposal was key to everything else in the

report. We believe that we should try to strengthen the ability of

the Iraqi government to stem the sectarian violence. We believe

there was—we should continue our efforts to defeat al Qaeda in

Iraq. We believe that we should reduce the commitment of our

ground forces in Iraq and reestablish their readiness for other missions.

We recommended the following actions to carry out these missions:

First, shift the mission of U.S. troops from combat patrolling to

training and embedding.

Begin pulling out U.S. combat brigades with the goal of having

all out by the first quarter of 2008, except for a strong rapid reaction force needed for force protection and to continue the fighting

against al Qaeda in Iraq.

Continue to support Iraqi forces with intelligence logistics in

their support.
6

Provide both positive and negative incentives for the Iraqi government to accelerate the reconciliation process and oil revenue

sharing so the Sunnis have a stake in a stable Iraq.

And, finally, mount an intense diplomatic effort to persuade

friendly regional powers to assist economically, politically, and with

training, and to put pressure on unfriendly regional powers to stop

arming militias and fomenting violence.

If the recommendations of the ISG would be followed, many of

our combat brigades would be out of Iraq this year. The Defense

Department at that time would have a huge budget and management problem in restoring them to full combat readiness. This

problem is of special concern to this committee because of your constitutional responsibilities. The Army, all of whose brigades were

at high readiness level at the beginning of the war, is dangerously

close to being broken, and low readiness levels invite contingencies.

Indeed, our security may have already suffered because of the perception of Iran and North Korea that our forces are pinned down

in Iraq.

We also need to reconsider the role of the National Guard, since

the compact with these citizen soldiers has been shattered by extended deployments that have caused many of them to lose their

jobs or even their families.

Last week, the President announced what he called a ‘‘new way

forward’’ in Iraq. His strategy calls for adding more than 20,000

combat forces, the bulk of them who are employed in securing

Baghdad.

When the ISG was in Baghdad, we discussed the Baghdad security problem with General Casey and General Chiarelli and asked

specifically if they could increase the likelihood of success if they

had another three to five American brigades. Both generals said

no. They said that the problem of conducting combat patrols in the

neighborhoods of Baghdad had to be carried out by Iraqi forces,

and that bringing in more American troops could delay the Iraqis

assuming responsibility for their own security, and that any solutions to the security problem required the Iraqi government to

start making real progress in political reconciliation.

That assessment was consistent with what we had heard from

General Abizaid in an earlier briefing in the United States.

I believe we should stay with the recommendations of our most

recent commanders in Iraq and not send in more American combat

forces.

The best chance of bringing down the problems in Iraq lies within the Iraqi army, and we can improve their chance of success by

using U.S. ground forces to provide the on-the-job training that

would result from embedding American troops in Iraqi combat

units, as proposed by the Iraq Study Group. Moreover, none of this

military action will be effective unless the Iraqi government moves

promptly to carry out the programs of political reconciliation they

have committed to do. This involves the sharing of powers and the

sharing of oil revenues with the Sunnis. The Iraqi government has

delayed carrying out these programs for almost a year now.

Our proposals: the Iraq Study Group proposal puts real pressure

for timely action on the part of the Iraqi government. We are send-
7

ing in additional American troops, providing the Iraqi government

with the rationale for further delays.

The President’s announced strategy also entails diplomatic actions that are far less comprehensive than envisaged by the ISG,

and none at all with Syria which plays a pivotal role in the region

and with whom we could have considerable leverage.

In sum, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the President’s diplomatic

strategy is too timid, that his military strategy is too little and too

late to effect the lasting and profound changes needed. His strategy

is not likely to succeed because it is tactical and not strategic, because it does not entail real conditionality for the Iraqi government, and because it would only deepen the divide in our own

country.

The ISG proposal has a better chance because it recognizes that

the key actions needed in Iraq to effect lasting results must be

taken by the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army and because it

divides the incentives for those actions.

Most importantly, the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq

Study Group provide an opportunity for the Nation to come together again.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Perry, for your advice

and your testimony today.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Perry can be found in the Appendix on page 59.]

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Korb.

STATEMENT OF DR. LAWRENCE J. KORB, SENIOR FELLOW,

THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

Dr. KORB. Thank you very much, Chairman Skelton. Mr. Hunter,

it is a privilege to appear before this committee once again and in

such distinguished company.

Let me begin by saying that because of why we went in and the

way we went in, some of the reasons outlined by Dr. Perry, there

are no good options. What we have to do as a country, as a government, is pick the least bad option. I believe that rather than surging militarily for the third time in a year, we need to surge diplomatically. Further military escalation, in my view, would mean

repeating a failed strategy.

As you know, in the last six months we have surged twice in

Baghdad; yet the violence and death of Americans and Iraqis have

increased dramatically. An additional surge would only increase

more targets, put more American lives at risk, increase Iraqi dependence on the United States, further undermine the precarious

readiness of our ground forces, and, most importantly, would go

against the wishes not only of the American people but the Iraqi

people.

Rather than escalating militarily, I believe, and we at the Center

for American Progress and my colleague Brian Katulis and I have

been arguing since September of 2005 the United States must strategically redeploy its forces from Iraq over the next 18 months.

This is the only leverage we have to get the Iraqis to make the

painful political compromises necessary to begin the reconciliation

process. These compromises involve balancing the roles of the cen-
8

tral and provincial governments, distribution of oil revenues, protecting minority rights.

Until that process is completed, let me put it very bluntly, we

could put a soldier or Marine on every street corner in Baghdad

and it will not make a difference.

A diplomatic surge would involve appointing an individual with

the stature of a former Secretary of State, such as Colin Powell or

Madeleine Albright, as Special Envoy. This person would be

charged with getting all six of Iraq’s neighbors—Iran, Turkey,

Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—involved more constructively in stabilizing Iraq. It is important to note that these countries are already involved in a bilateral, self-interested, and disorganized way. And while their interests and ours are not identical,

none of their countries want to live in an Iraq after our strategy

deployment backs a failed state, or a humanitarian catastrophe

that would lead it to become a haven for terrorists or hemorrhage

of millions of more refugees streaming into their countries.

This high-profile envoy would also address the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict, the role of Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, and Iran’s rising influence in the region. The aim would not necessarily be to

solve all of these problems but, as a minimum, prevent them from

getting worse and demonstrate to the Arab and Muslim world that

we share their concerns about the problems in the region.

I think, finally, that the Congress must take a greater role in

shaping Iraq policy. In terms of what Mr. Hunter said in the beginning, I think there are things that Congress can do and should do

to take a greater role in shaping our Iraq policy. First of all, I think

you can require clarification of the law that allows the President

to mobilize guards and reserves for up to two years. In my view,

the clock should start on 9/11. If a unit has been mobilized two

years since then, before mobilizing that unit again, the President

should come back to the Congress and demonstrate why that is

necessary.

I think you should require a new national intelligence estimate

(NIE) on Iraq’s internal conflict. My understanding is last summer

congressional leaders requested that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) prepare an NIE that includes an assessment on

whether Iraq is in a civil war. I think you should require recertification that the war in Iraq does not undermine the war against

global terrorist networks. The joint resolution of 2002 that authorized the use of force in Iraq required the Administration to certify

that the Iraq war would not harm the effort against terrorism.

And, finally, I think that you should require a transparent, verifiable plan that conditions funding for military escalation not for

the troops that are already there, but on the performance of the

Iraqi leaders to fulfill their commitments and responsibilities.

I think that if we go back and we look at the history of our involvement in Iraq when historians write about it, they will find

that many of us failed in our obligations to speak up, whether it

is the Congress, the media, the academic community, and I think

it is time for people to speak up now before this problem gets any

worse.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.
9

[The prepared statement of Dr. Korb can be found in the Appendix on page 65.]

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Kagan.

STATEMENT OF DR. FREDERICK W. KAGAN, RESIDENT

SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Dr. KAGAN. Mr. Chairman, honorable members, it is an honor for

me to be here today to talk to you about this incredibly important

topic. Congressman Hunter laid out a daunting list of topics that

he would like us to address as well as our statements in four minutes. I will not be able to do that, but hopefully be able to discuss

some of those issues in greater detail in questions.

I think this is a pivotal movement in American history. I think

this is a pivotal moment in world history. I say that without any

rodomontade. I really do believe that we have come to a bifurcation

point in the history of the world. If we lose in Iraq, that is to say

if we allow Iraq to descend into complete unfettered chaos, I believe

that it is extraordinarily likely that the conflict there will spill over

into Iraq’s neighbors, involving them in instability, involving them

in subsidiary wars, and potentially involving them in regional conflict with one another. That sounds like a nightmare scenario that

one conjures up to make people feel consequences, but my explorations of this issue with experts who have looked into it in much

greater detail than I convinced me that it is, in fact, a very likely

outcome of our possible withdrawal or failure to accomplish a mission of stabilizing Iraq.

That would be a world-changing event. And I think that before

we make the decision to constrain the President’s options, before

we make the decision to abandon this fight either because it is

hopeless or we think it is hopeless, or because we think that we

can accept defeat here in order to move on to other things, I think

that it is incredibly important that we think very carefully through

precisely what the consequences of our withdrawal will be. And I

would urge this committee, as it continues its deliberations, to hold

a number of hearings with regional experts to discuss in detail precisely what they think the consequences of American withdrawal

would be, and why, and to paint that picture for you so that you

have in it in your mind when you make your decision.

I think that is one of the elements that is at root in this debate,

the question of whether it is okay for the United States to lose in

Iraq so as to go on to do other things, or whether we have already

lost in Iraq and therefore should simply cut our losses and move

on.

I don’t think that it is okay to lose for any of the reasons I have

said, and I don’t believe we have already lost. There continues to

be a government in place in Baghdad. It is not functionally perfect

by any means. It does not hold the legitimacy of the entire country,

although we should remember that it is seen as legitimate to a

very large proportion of Iraqis. It is not sufficient but it is a start.

There are more than 130,000 Iraqi soldiers in Iraq, soldiers who

are fighting, putting their lives on the line every day. They continue to come to work; that is a volunteer force in many senses because of the system of pay that imposes upon them monthly leaves.

Iraqi soldiers effectively re-up every single month, it is a testament
10

to their determination that they continue to come back to the colors

and put their lives on the line. Once again, it is by no means sufficient; but neither does it look to me like a situation where defeat

has already occurred and there is no prospect for turning the situation around.

Another viewpoint, which leads to criticism of the plan that our

group at AEI proposed and also to the President’s plan—and I

would call the committee’s attention to the fact that what we described is by no means identical to what the President will—well,

what the Administration has been briefing. We will see what actually happens—is that there is another way to win; that success is

possible if only we would motivate the Iraqis sufficiently, if only we

would incentivize them to take responsibility for their own problems in their own country and step up in some way.

I would submit this is unrealistic. The Iraqi Army has been in

existence for less than two years. They started from scratch. We

can, if you like, debate the wisdom of the decisions that were made

in 2003 to disband it. But those have become increasingly irrelevant with the passage of time. The fact is that we did disband it.

We have tried to rebuild it from scratch. The problem is that we

have never set as our military task in Iraq establishing or maintaining security or civil order for the Iraqi people. That is one of

the first obligations of any occupying power, in my view. It is one

of the first obligations of any government, and it is one of the key

requirements of successful counterinsurgency techniques. I believe

that it has been an error in our strategy all along that we have not

prioritized Iraqi security. The question is: can we now find some

way to turn that responsibility over to Iraqi security forces as they

are constituted, with or without additional American forces embedded in them, to stipend and continue to train them in some way.

In my view, it is not possible. And I think we must be very clear

about what we are expecting the Iraqi forces to do and what it is

reasonable to expect the Iraqi forces to do.

Clearing and holding prepared insurgent strongholds is a very

high-end military task. It requires the very high ability to plan operations, very high abilities to coordinate various aspects of military and diplomatic and political and economic power, and a very

high ability to operate with a very high degree of professionalism

in a very dangerous situation and very complex situations. That is

an extraordinarily high-level thing. It is something that our American soldiers are capable of doing and have done on numerous occasions. It is not something that is reasonable to expect a fledgling

army to undertake, and I believe that it has already been an error

in our strategy to say it is only when the Iraqis can accomplish

such a task that we will be able to turn responsibility over to them.

Instead, I believe that we need to lower the bar for the Iraqis to

a point where we can reasonably expect them to obtain it, and we

do that by lowering the overall level of violence in the country to

the point where the main responsibility on the Iraqi security forces

is to sustain and maintain order that we have already largely

helped them to establish. That is a task that I believe will be within their capabilities by the time we are done with this process. And

it is why I and some of the members of our group have urged that

we have a fundamental change in our strategic approach to Iraq.
11

This is not a question of tactics, this is a question of strategy.

What we are saying is that rather than saying that our number

one priority in Iraq is training and transitioning, we will say that

our number one priority in Iraq at this moment is establishing the

security that is an absolute precondition for any sort of transition.

I would add that it is also a precondition for the sort of political

compromise that this committee quite rightly insists that the Iraqis

must carry out. It is simply unreasonable and unrealistic to ask

people or expect people facing the level of sectarian violence that

is now ongoing in Iraq to make the hard compromise and make the

hard choices that they will ultimately have to make. It is simply

not going to happen in this security environment. We must first

bring the security level to a much higher point, and then it will be

possible.

And last, I would point out that if you peel this onion a little bit

more, you will see that one of the things that we want to do is to

encourage, shall we say, Prime Minister Maliki and his government

to disarm the Shi′a militias, and this has become increasingly the

test in the American political discussion about whether or not that

government is serious. The problem is that as long as we are not

providing security, as long as we are not protecting the Shi′a population, those Shi′a militias are seen as the protectors of the Shi′a

population. It is very, very hard to imagine how Prime Minister

Maliki could require those militias to be disbanded without having

a reliable alternative to offer to the Shi′a population about how

they will be protected from Sunni attacks.

I submit to this committee that if we change our strategy in Iraq

and if we provide the additional forces necessary to carry out that

strategy, it will be possible to reduce the level of violence to the

point where the prime minister will gain the necessary leverage

within the Iraqi political system to make the changes that we desire. Will he at that point do it? I can’t promise the committee that,

and we will have to see. What I am confident of is that the forces

that we have proposed in our report to send to Baghdad, along with

the change of strategy, can dramatically reduce the level of violence

in the capital and create the possibility for a much more successful

outcome.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

And, gentlemen, thank you for your excellent testimony and your

thoughts as well as your wisdom.

At this point, I will reserve my questioning for a short time, and

the gentleman from California, Mr. Hunter.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, following your lead and the fact

that we didn’t get through all of our membership in our last full

committee hearing, I will reserve mine, too, and let us let our other

members get their questions. And I have to leave for a quick emergency meeting, but I will come back and weigh in here as we get

toward the end of the meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Spratt.

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all three of

you for your excellent testimony.

One of the key issues before us is an eventual schedule of benchmarks or specific things that the Iraqi government is expected to
12

accomplish. What sanctions—because we have not specified any—

but if we want to link these somehow to sanctions or to incentives,

carrots or sticks, how could we do that and what would those sanctions or incentives be? The whole panel, any one of you.

Dr. KAGAN. Yes. I would say that it was a very excellent point

that you make that we might want to consider carrots as well as

sticks here. I think that too often we have had discussions of

incentivizing Iraqis that really focus on threatening them. I would

not threaten them with the withdrawal of our forces, which is the

only thing right now which prevents Iraq from falling into full-scale

sectarian civil war and sectarian genocide.

I think it would be appropriate to contemplate a series of packages, perhaps economically constructed packages, that we could

offer to the Iraqis on the condition that they meet certain benchmarks. I think that would be a much better way to go. And remember, I would remind the committee that we are dealing with an allied government here in the Iraqi government, and it would be

much better if we could find positive incentives for them to spur

them along the path rather than be continually threatening them

and hectoring them.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Korb.

Dr. KORB. The Iraqi government elections took place over a year

ago. They promised that within four months they would make the

modifications to the constitution. This is before the violence got out

of hand. They didn’t do it. The fact of the matter is that in the 13

months since they had their election, we have lost 13 battalions’

worth of soldiers and Marines killed and wounded, while we have

been waiting for them.

I believed a while ago, and I believe now, until you set a date

certain to leave—and I would say over 18 months because if you

go 18 months from now, this will mean we have been there longer

than 5 years, which is certainly time enough for them to get their

act together and fulfill our moral responsibilities for overthrowing

that government—until you do, that they will not do these things,

because they are tough. It is not because of violence. It is because

they are difficult compromises to make. You are asking basically a

Shi′a government to secede power to the Sunnis. They don’t want

to do that. And that is why I think that you have got to put the

pressure on them.

In my testimony, I mentioned metrics that you could use to condition the funding for this surge, steps to disband the ethnic and

sectarian militias, measures to ensure the Iraqi government brings

justice to Iraqi security, personnel who are credibly alleged to have

committed gross violations of human rights, and then of course taking steps toward the political and national reconciliation.

Mr. SPRATT. Secretary Perry.

Dr. PERRY. The positive incentives we can offer the Iraqi government is the training and strengthening of the Iraqi forces not only

by training them, but by embedding some of our forces in their

units. The negative is they must understand that we are done with

street patrolling with the U.S. Army, and that we are going to be

pulling our troops out on a schedule, and that they have to step

up to the plate now.
13

As Mr. Korb said, they have to step up to the plate, which is

power sharing with the Sunnis, which revenue sharing with the oil

is a very difficult thing to do, which they do not want to do. We

have to have pressure for them to do that.

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Saxton, please.

Mr. SAXTON. Dr. Perry and Dr. Korb, you have both indicated in

slightly different terms that you favor setting some kind of a schedule for pulling out troops in order to put pressure on the majority

Shi′a population and government to step up to the plate and do

what they said they would do.

On the other hand, Dr. Kagan asked a very pertinent question

and that is, should we pull our troops out, what is the effect of

that? And I think that is a very serious question and one that we

ought to contemplate thoroughly. We know that the Shi′a government—that the majority government, excuse me, is mostly Shi′a.

And we know that there is a potential, if not a real level of support,

from outside of Iraq; namely, from Iran and perhaps from Syria as

well.

On the other hand, the Sunni minority finds favor in other countries, particularly to the south, the Saudis and Jordanians, and

perhaps Egypt and other countries.

And so it seems to me that a pull-out of troops at this point could

very well result in a broader conflict, in a more serious conflict

than what we are seeing inside of Iraq today.

What do you think?

Dr. PERRY. Mr. Saxton, I think that the presence of our troops

there is indeed holding down the violence. The violence would be

greater if they were not there, and that if we pulled them out next

week, the violence would increase. My concern is that that would

be true if we pulled them out six months from now, a year from

now, five years from now, if something is not done to deal with the

political problem in Iraq. Until or unless the Sunnis feel that they

have some stake in the government and some stake in the oil revenues, they are going to continue this—whether you call it sectarian

violence or war, whatever you call it, it is causing huge grief in the

country. That is the problem that has to be resolved, and anything

we do has to be pointed toward resolving that problem.

My own belief is the only pressure we have on the Iraqi government to force them to take that move is the understanding that

they are going to have to stand alone at some time in the future.

Dr. KORB. Congressman, when our troops leave, and they will

have to leave at some date, as Dr. Perry said, we won’t leave the

region. We still have interest in the region and in the plan which

we put forward. We can leave forces in Kuwait. The Kuwaitis welcome us because we liberated them in 1991. You can have a carrier

battle group and Marine expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf,

and if you take a look at what happened when we killed alZarqawi, the Iraqis gave the information to their forces, they gave

them to us, we sent in an F–16 to get rid of them so we would still

be able to apply power if something should happen. If Iran should

try to invade or something like that, we would be able to take military action.
14

It is also important that we do a diplomatic surge, because once

we say we are leaving by a date certain, the countries in the region

know that they are going to have to cope with the chaos that is

there. Even the Iranians don’t want to see millions of Iraqi refugees streaming into their country. They don’t want to see it become

a haven for al Qaeda because al Qaeda is predominantly a Sunni

group, and they are Shi′as.

Remember that the Iranians are cooperating with us in Afghanistan. Why? Because they share our goals? No. Because they do not

want to see an Afghanistan run by the Taliban again because they

saw that as a threat. They are building roads in Afghanistan. They

are providing money. They provided intelligence to help us when

we went into Afghanistan.

Dr. KAGAN. I want to say in response to these two comments, we

have differing opinions about the objectives that the Iranians might

have. I believe that the Iranian objective is regional hegemony, and

I think there is a lot of basis for that belief. And I think a lot of

countries in the region believe that. And I think their view of Iraq

is very different from their view of Afghanistan. Remember, in the

1990’s Iraq was the only state that posed an existential threat to

Iran. I see no reason to believe that the Iranians will work to create a strong state in Iraq to create a threat to them.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Snyder.

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Perry, one of the specific things you say in your

opening statement, I forget the wording that you used, you state

that you know that al Qaeda is there; while they were not there

in any meaningful way, that they clearly are there now. They have

a future hold. They have it, will be in a position of a sustained

place to train, you know, if we leave.

Now, Dr. Korb’s answer is that we can have F–16s or whatever.

It seems like that that may be an unsatisfactory way of dealing

with what you describe as a well entrenched foothold of al Qaeda

now in Iraq. That is not how we dealt with the foothold that al

Qaeda had in Afghanistan. Would you—I am playing devil’s advocate with you on that. Would you amplify on that? I don’t think it

is going to be as clean as we would like it to be. We will see signs

of al Qaeda’s activity. We have troops in Kuwait. We will go in for

a quick strike operation and take care of it. Will you——

Dr. PERRY. I want to be clear that the Iraq Study Group did not

recommend pulling our forces out of Iraq. They recommended stopping the street patrols and moving our combat patrols out. But it

also explicitly recommended keeping a strong rapid reaction force

with two missions:

The first mission is exactly to your point. It is continuing the

fight against al Qaeda in Iraq. And the second mission is providing

ongoing support for the Iraqi Army, the air support, intelligence

support.

So we see a relatively long-term role of the U.S. forces in Iraq,

but in the support role of the Iraqi Army, except for specifically the

fight against al Qaeda in Iraq that we wanted to have a strong

combat force to carry out that mission.

Dr. SNYDER. The second point I wanted to bring up, again I will

address to Dr. Perry and Dr. Kagan, I have been a bit frustrated.

It seems the President and Vice President have been making state-
15

ments, and I assume they put their heads together. Well, those

who criticize the President’s plan need to show an alternative.

Well, the Iraq Study Group is an alternative.

Dr. PERRY. It was intended.

Dr. SNYDER. In my facetiousness I said maybe. I should get a letter and sign it and send it to the President and say by the way,

here is an alternative which is a bipartisan alternative co-headed

up by very prominent Republicans and it is an alternative. There

are alternatives out there to the President’s plan, it seems to me,

where this is pretty summarily rejected by the Administration. But

have you all, as members of the Iraq Study Group, taken some offense when you hear Administration people talking about there is

no alternative out there to the plan, to the President’s plan?

Dr. PERRY. Well, I hope this alternative is in front of the American public as a real alternative. I want to also say that having this

bipartisan group come to a consensus on this recommendation was

not easy. It is a very difficult problem, and I think great credit to

Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton, who brought that group together, to

reach a unanimous conclusion. They did it because we felt it was

necessary to have a consensus in order to have any support, any

credibility with the American public that this would be a way forward to be considered.

Dr. SNYDER. I, like the Iraq Study Group, I don’t understand why

the President and his people are so dug in against expanding diplomatic initiatives with Iran and Syria. But playing devil’s advocate

again, the Iraq Study Group does acknowledge the possible need

for a temporary surge. I don’t think you used the word ‘‘surge,’’ but

you talk about the possible need for a temporary increase in troops.

Would you reflect on that? That was what you said in the Iraq

Study Group.

Dr. PERRY. What we said in the Iraq Study Group was if our

military commanders believed that a temporary surge could happen in the Baghdad situation, that we would not be opposed to it.

We then talked with the military commanders, and they did not

recommend that, as I mentioned in my testimony. None of the military commanders who were there at the time thought that was a

good idea.

And in any event, what we are talking about is that the term

‘‘surge’’ to me and to the group meant a temporary increase in

troops. What is being proposed now I don’t see as being very temporary. It looks to me like a new level of deployment.

Dr. SNYDER. And Dr. Kagan, is 21,500 sufficient for what you

think needs to happen?

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, we proposed in our report a surge of

five brigades into Baghdad, which I counted as about 25,000 troops.

There is a lot of confusion about how many brigades we are counting. And I believe the total surge we advocated is 35,000 combat

troops into Iraq, more than that when you add the support troops.

I do believe that a surge of five additional combat brigades is sufficient to establish the objectives we laid out in our presentation,

which is to establish security in the critical terrain in Baghdad and

Sunni and mixed Sunni-Shi′a neighborhoods around the Green

Zone.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McHugh.
16

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you very much.

Dr. Kagan, just to follow through on the point you were just

making. I read your report. Refresh my memory. Are the numbers

you are talking about in line about the current manuals and

metrics associated with the counterinsurgency?

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, they are. We looked at the areas that

we thought critical to establishing security in Baghdad. We identified 23 districts with a population of approximately 2 million.

And we proposed a surge of American forces into Baghdad which

would place a total of 50,000 or so combat troops in Baghdad, more

when you included the support troops. And remember that support

troops are very important in this conflict, and we did not take account of Iraqi forces which will also be there. That is sufficient to

generate force ratios that are well within not only what is recommended in the recent U.S. counterinsurgency manual General

David Petraeus put out, but were also successful in clear-and-hold

operations in Tall Afar in September of 2005.

Mr. MCHUGH. Dr. Korb, I believe I heard you to say the only leverage we have is the active redeployment. Don’t we as well,

though, have some leverage on funding or the lack of funding in

the future? Why would you not include that as something that

could motivate the Iraqis to step forward and do the things that

they need to do?

Dr. KORB. If you look at the reconstruction money that we allocated, that Congress has allocated, it is $20 billion. Basically, it is

very difficult to spend that correctly, as your inspector general has

told us. But my view is, as long as you have close to 150,000 Americans there, they are crutched. They know they can keep the violence down. They can postpone the day of reckoning for them. The

funding may be marginal. The problem for you is once the troops

get in there, you have got to continue to fund them.

Mr. MCHUGH. I understand your point. But let me clarify. Is it

not leverage to say to the Iraqis, say through a war supplemental,

that we are portioning off that supplemental by, say, half; list some

benchmark performance measures that I think all of us agree on,

and say we will revisit continuation and fuller funding of that initiative and the completion of it based on your genuine effort? That

way it is a future leverage rather than a more immediate one that

you are talking about. Would that have no——

Dr. KORB. That might have a marginal impact, but I think the

only card you have really left in terms of getting them to do these

things is the presence of American troops because basically it is a

crutch on which they can rely. And if you go back and you take a

look since they have had their election, it is over a year and they

haven’t done anything. And the question becomes why haven’t they

taken even step one to do what they need to do? And in my view,

basically it is because it is dependent on us. Remember that Generals Casey and Abizaid came before the Congress: more troops will

increase the dependence. We don’t need to do that.

Mr. MCHUGH. Well, I met with General Casey two days ago. I

got back from Iraq yesterday, and he is in support of this. I want

the record to show that as well is General Odieno. Whether or not

he is right is another issue. That is why we are here today. But
17

he has kind of agreed on the direction and the opportunity that it

provides.

Let me ask you another question. In all the meetings that we

had in that visit from Prime Minister Maliki to the speaker of the

Iraqi parliament to the national security adviser, foreign minister,

and our ambassador as well as our military leaders, they said that

deadlines and threats of withdrawal at a date certain do nothing

more than encourage their enemies, the insurgents, particularly al

Qaeda, to stick it out. Would you want to comment on that?

Dr. KORB. I think it is important that—the Intelligence Committee tells us that al Qaeda groups represent two to three percent of

the people causing the violence. The main problem is the civil war.

It has morphed into a civil war. Remember that 95 percent of the

Iraqis don’t support al Qaeda, and if we were to leave or announce

a date certain, you would get less support for al Qaeda in Iraq from

the Iraqi people. A lot of them are making common cause with

them now because they want us to get out. Remember that more

than 70 percent of the Iraqis want us out within a year; 60 percent

think it is okay to kill—okay to kill Americans.

So I think when you look at the threat now, the main threat is

a civil war. Our troops are primarily refereeing a civil war. They

are not fighting al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is not their primary mission

any more.

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Davis.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you

to all of you for being here.

Could you expand a little further on the notion that if in fact

things stabilized, that the Iraqi government would be positioned to

take advantage of that? What do you think would be the first steps

that were taken; and if in fact those were not, do you think that

then is an occasion for some of the negative incentives, if you will?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, I think that the first, in many respects, most

important thing is increasing security in Baghdad would allow us—

it would make it possible for the Maliki government to begin the

process of bringing the militias under control. And I think what we

need to see in Iraq as a matter of priority is a demobilization of

Iraqi society, and what we have been seeing is a gradual mobilization for Iraq for civil war.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Could you be specific about how that

would occur?

Dr. KAGAN. It is hard to see into the future how this would be

done. It would depend on circumstances. I would hope in the first

instance, Prime Minister Maliki would negotiate with Sadr and his

guys and some of the fringe elements in the Jaish al-Mahdi, and

work to have them demobilized. I think their falling of the need for

them for defenders of the Shi′a would lead to a drop in recruitment, and some of their fighters would fall away to begin with.

And I think ultimately Prime Minister Maliki would need to send

his own reliable Iraqi security forces against the hard-core Jaish alMahdi fighters in order to clear them out.

In the worse case, I think we would end up having to support

him in that effort. But those would be some of the most important

results that I think would be made possible by establishing secu-
18

rity in Baghdad. They are absolutely not possible, in my opinion,

until we have done that.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. And if I could just ask one more question and then I would love to have the others respond to that.

What is your definition of clearing them out? Where would they

go? Would they be incarcerated in some way? What do you think

realistically Maliki would do with them?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, I think that many of them would be detained.

I think many of them would be incarcerated. I think some of them

would be ultimately disarmed and returned. Many of them would

be simply put in jail. I think it would depend on the magnitude of

their crimes and the level of commitment to continue fighting, and

that is something that has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Dr. Korb.

Dr. KORB. A couple of things that it is important to keep in mind:

that the Iraqi Army, which is certainly much better than the police,

basically is not a multiethnic army. People are still loyal to their

sects and tribes, which is why in the last surge that we had, Mr.

Maliki ordered six battalions into Baghdad and only two showed

up. I must say when Mr. Maliki appointed the new head of the

Army, he ignored our recommendations and appointed a Shi′a general.

So that gets me to ponder will he take action to a Shi′a group?

And the record so far I think is not—is not encouraging. Remember, people talk a lot about training of the Iraqi military. Certainly

training is important. But what about motivation? Are they motivated to fight and die for Iraq like the brave young men and

women we bring into our service who are motivated to fight and

die for this great country? That is still lacking, and it is not going

to be there until you do these political compromises.

If you get the political compromise done, then there will be less

reason for the violence. But those have got to come first and they

have got to come sooner. We have waited a long time. We have

been there longer than we were in World War II. So it is not like

we came in, knocked them over and left. I mean, we are there a

long time. We have given them these opportunities. And you have

got to keep in mind what this is also doing to U.S. security around

the world. We haven’t mentioned it yet. We need troops in Afghanistan. General Eikenberry said that yesterday.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. I want to give Dr. Perry

a chance to respond as well, since the time is running out.

Dr. PERRY. I think it has been demonstrated that the U.S. Army,

surge of U.S. Army troops, could establish security in Baghdad, as

they did in Fallujah, as they did earlier in other cities. As soon as

the U.S. Army troops left, the disorder came back again. What happened was the militia simply left the area, and then as soon as the

U.S. soldiers left, they came back again. So maintaining security in

Baghdad can only be done by a strong Iraqi Army, and that is why

our emphasis was on strengthening the Iraqi Army.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bartlett.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, 14 years ago I joined this committee in the minority, sitting in the lowest seat. Most hearings ended,

and I never had a chance to ask any question. Remembering the
19

frustration of junior members, I want to yield my time to the lowest-ranking member on our side of the aisle, Mr. Geoff Davis from

my first State, Kentucky.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I want to thank the distinguished gentleman from Maryland for the honor he has given me. I find it ironic Dr. Korb mentions World War II as an analogy for troop presence, since we still have troops in West Germany right now, and

I know there are bigger pictures related to the Cold War for that.

I would like to step away from the immediate tactical and technical discussions on Iraq and go to a bigger question I observed

personally on the ground in Afghanistan, Iraq, surrounding countries in the area, and that has to do more with the interagency

process in conducting a classic counterinsurgency.

I am quite confident that our troops, many of them friends of

mine for 30 years, will do their jobs to secure the areas from the

kinetic perspective where they are sent in to do that. But my question becomes what next, from a localized standpoint of being able

to use not only existing social networks but using the power behind

the agencies that we have?

I have observed in numerous countries in combat arms, officers

who are quite diligent, great, young noncommissioned officers serving in functions that effectively can be performed better by Department of Treasury, Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture in one case, and as well as the Department of State, given

the personnel limitations there. One thing I would appreciate each

of you commenting on for a moment is considering the symptoms

that we have seen, that we are candidly discussing here and in

other hearings, how should our national security apparatus be organized differently not to have some of the errors that have taken

place promulgate themselves in the future?

Dr. PERRY. Mr. Davis, I think that is a great observation, and I

welcome the opportunity to comment on it.

I think it is a deficiency in our government organization today

in that we can send a first-class military operation out to a place

like Bosnia or a place like Baghdad or a place like Afghanistan, but

we do not have the same organization in the civilian infrastructure

that has to go in behind them. We did not have that in Bosnia. We

did not have it in Baghdad, and I do believe a reorganization is

needed to allow that to happen not only in the United States, or

as a way of bringing the Justice Department, the State Department

and so on into this kind of an organization, but into our North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as well, which similarly lacks

it.

When we go into Baghdad or Bosnia with military, we go in with

a professional team that has worked together, that has trained together and that is trained to do that job. When we go in with civilians after that, we go in with a pickup team that has not had the

right kind of training, that has not worked effectively together, effectively with a military counterpart. And I think that needs to be

corrected, and I think you are heading in the right direction.

I would encourage this committee to look for legislation that

might push us in that direction.
20

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. So you support expanding jointness,

both from a personnel policy standpoint over the——

Dr. PERRY. Absolutely.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Dr. Korb.

Dr. KORB. Yes, I agree because we are asking the military to do

too much. And part of the reason is not only, as Dr. Perry said,

that they work together, they have these skills, and they can order

people into dangerous zones, where in the other agencies you are

looking for volunteers to go. So I think we need to work more on

that, and we need to send our best people over there. I believe,

reading the book Inside the Green Zone, they were sending people

there more based on political loyalty to them than confidence, and

I think that has set back the effort even more.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Dr. Kagan.

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I would first like to observe that whatever we have in terms of reforming an interagency, it is not going

to happen this year. It is not going to happen by March, and it is

not going to happen in time to affect the operations that are going

to be underway in Iraq right now. And so what I would say is, unfortunately, I think in the short term we are going to have to continue to place the burden on the military, and I would encourage

Congress to make the necessary authorizations to allow military

commanders to do what is necessary in recognizing that. In the

long term, the problem that you raised absolutely has to be addressed, but I would make one point to add to those of my colleagues.

It is a very different thing, knowing how to do something and

knowing how to teach how to do something, and I am concerned

that we have become so focused with making some sort of

deployable State Department where you can pick a lot of people

who know how to do the various things that you want to have done

and send them over there, and the instinct of people like that is

to do them. But if the issue is actually, in many of these cases,

helping to teach the Iraqis how to do these things, that requires

a different sort of training and a different sort of skill set, and so

I think this problem actually is even deeper and more complex, and

we will soon be figuring out how to get all of the agencies on the

same sheet of music.

It actually goes to the question of creating an organization that

is able to train new democracies, whether we have invaded them

or not, and help them develop full democratic standards.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

I might mention at this juncture that what we know as Goldwater-Nichols—and I think you are making reference to what some

of them term as Goldwater-Nichols II, which of course would be

multiagency. I might point out that it started in 1982 and finally

was passed into law by this Congress in 1986. It is a massive undertaking, I think, even more because only this committee and

then our counterpart in the Senate dealt with Goldwater-Nichols,

the original Goldwater-Nichols.

Mr. Cooper.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to each one

of the witnesses. And I want to make it clear for the record that

each one of you disagrees with the President’s strategy in Iraq for
21

different reasons, to be sure. I am still searching for a strategy that

is as good as our troops.

The practical question that we have to face as a committee is

what can we do to change the President’s policy. He is the commander in chief. Former Secretary Perry said that his proposal was

too little, too late, and of course prefers the Iraq Study Group’s proposal. Dr. Kagan was saying that we need to put in more troops,

and we need to have a different objective for those troops to secure

the population. But as a practical matter, what can Congress do to

change things? We can cut off money. We can condition money, but

there is still just one commander in chief, and it seems to me that

it is almost more difficult to have a more hawkish strategy than

the President, as Dr. Kagan is suggesting, than it is to have a more

devilish strategy. It is just the way the appropriations process

works.

So I was wondering if Dr. Kagan had any practical suggestions

as to what we could do to implement his sort of policy if the commander in chief has chosen not to implement it.

Dr. KAGAN. Well, I would say it remains to be seen what strategy

exactly will be implemented in Iraq. And there is a name that has

not been mentioned with sufficient prominence here but that needs

to be, and that is Lieutenant General David Petraeus. We have

spoken about General Casey and how he feels about things and

General Abizaid and how he feels about things, but the commander

who is going to implement this plan is General David Petraeus

when he becomes the commander of the multinational forces in

Iraq. I eagerly await what he has to say. He is a tremendously

qualified officer, and I believe that at this moment the hopes of our

Nation rest on his shoulders.

The President has committed to sending five brigades to Baghdad, which is what our group recommended, and he has said that

he will change the strategy to focus on securing the population.

Now, the Administration officials have subsequently briefed a variety of details of the plan. Honestly, it is a little hard to imagine

why they have gone into quite so much detail in these circumstances before the new commander has taken power, but I believe that General Petraeus will use the resources that the President has committed to giving him, wisely, to pursue the new strategy that the President has given him. And I think that we should

wait until we have heard General Petraeus’ recommendation for

going forward, and then I would recommend that the committee,

Congress in general, and the Nation rally around this new commander who is, by far, our best hope in this dangerous situation.

Mr. COOPER. I too admire General Petraeus, but don’t we have

civilian control of the military in this country, and are not you urging General Petraeus to countermand the President’s policy?

Dr. KAGAN. No. The President gave one speech in which he said

that he was going to commit to sending five brigades to Baghdad

and that he was going to have a change in strategy. Various Administration officials have subsequently briefed a variety of details

to that plan, some of which bring concern to me. It very clear that

those are the sorts of details that the commander on the spot would

be the one who is in the best position to make recommendations.

And I am not suggesting that General Petraeus will do anything
22

the President is uncomfortable with, but I do believe that we

should wait until General Petraeus has made his recommendations

to the President about how he would like to proceed before we

evaluate the strategy.

Mr. COOPER. If each of the gentlemen would help me understand

which would be a greater blow to American prestige this spring—

continuing problems in Iraq or surprise Taliban successes in a

spring offensive in Afghanistan, due primarily to weak NATO

forces and a lack of U.S. troops.

Dr. KORB. I think Afghanistan is much more important to the security of the United States than Iraq is. After all, that is where the

attacks of 9/11 occurred. That is the central front in the war on terror. We cannot let that fail. We cannot let that fail.

So, if you ask me if I had to say which would be a greater threat,

it would be a renewed effort by the Taliban that has great gains.

Iraq is primarily a civil war now. I do not see Iraq, as I mentioned

before, as mainly a haven for al Qaeda, and everything I know

about Iraq tells me that once we are out of there, the Iraqis are

not going to be supporting al Qaeda.

Mr. COOPER. Dr. Kagan, any thoughts for what we should do in

Afghanistan?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, the situation in Afghanistan is very grave, and

I am very concerned about it. But I think that for all of its significance in the war on terror, its significance to America’s national security pales in comparison to the consequences for our Nation of

the possibility of real defeat in Iraq and the collapse of the Middle

East entirely. Afghanistan does not pose that sort of existential

threat to our security at this point, but I do believe that disaster

in Iraq does.

Mr. COOPER. I thought you said in your testimony that you predict the President’s plan would fail, at least as it is currently outlined, unless General Petraeus changes it.

Dr. KAGAN. I have serious concerns about elements of the plan

that have been briefed by members of the Administration. I do not

take those to be canonical statements of what will happen when

the new commander has made his recommendations to the President.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Jones of North Carolina.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

I sit here as a Member of Congress for three and a half years,

now going on four years, and I am amazed where we are. And I

want to just read—and then I have got a couple of questions, and

I would like for—I am not going to give the name of the person I

am quoting at this time, but all three gentlemen, I have great respect for you, and thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise with this committee and with the American people. This is the

quote.

‘‘You will never find in my lifetime one man that all of the Iraqis

will coalesce around. Iraqis are too divided among sectarian, ethnic

and tribal loyalties, and their loyalties are regional, not national.’’

Does that sum it up pretty well, in your opinion, of the situation

with the chaos in Iraq?
23

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I do not think it does. I think that the

situation is more complex than that, and I think that a lot of people have been trying to portray Iraq as a country that exists in

three divided areas that hold the loyalties of their populations.

Something like 10 million Iraqis, I believe is the figure, live in

mixed cities. Many of them, especially before the sectarian violence

occurred, had been living in mixed neighborhoods, living door-todoor with Shi′a, Sunni, Turkmen, Arab, and so on.

Mr. JONES. Dr. Kagan, let me just real quick—because the time

will go fast and I do have a lot of respect for you. I might disagree

but have a lot of respect. I think it was in the 1920’s that the

English said, you know, ‘‘We have done all we can do.’’ This was

Army General Jay Garner who made that statement, and I think

he does bring some credibility because he was the first U.S. official

in charge of postwar Baghdad. Now, whether you agree or not, I

mean—but the point is that, as Dr. Perry has said and as Dr. Korb

has said, if we do not understand that this is not going to be won

as a political—it is going to be won politically speaking, rather

than with war. And I sit here in amazement of how, after four

years, we are still falling over ourselves, not the military—God

bless them—and I hope the new leadership in Iraq maybe will

bring us some direction so that we can transition to the Iraqis. But

I listen to Dr. Korb, and he is saying that, you know, it is hard

to motivate these people. Well, I think that is exactly what General

Garner was saying.

I think that the Iraq Study Group and Dr. Perry—I think you

all came forward with some very fine recommendations. I think,

Dr. Korb, you have as well in your group, and I just hope—and

then I want to ask the question and I will stop. I just hope that

this Administration, which has said so long that I am going to listen to the military in the field and, yet this surge of 22,000

troops—I do not know what we are doing to these young men and

women but making them referees in a civil war. The only thing different about being a referee in this war versus a referee on a football field is they get shot and killed and wounded. I guess my—

I will go to you, Dr. Korb.

Can you give—I mean, you definitely believe that we cannot motivate because of the differences in the tribes and that what we

have to do is to seriously consider some type of redeployment with

support?

Dr. KORB. Well, I agree this is something we should have

thought of before we went in there. And what happened is the way

we went in, we unleashed these feelings, these ideas that had been

there all along, ever since the British were in there, and now we

are having to live with that, and that is why I think two things.

One, we have got to put them on notice they have got to move

to deal with these things. If they do not, it is going to be their problem, not just ours anymore. And as Dr. Perry said, at some point

you have to leave, and if they have not done this, the violence will

break out again because they are dealing with disputes that go

back over 1,000 years, and we need to realize that.

When I was in Iraq, I was talking to somebody in Hilla, and it

was at the university, and he said something to me. He said, You

are saying the same things that the British said when you came
24

here. You know, ‘‘we came as liberators, not occupiers.’’ It was very

interesting. I went back and looked it up, and he was correct.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Marshall.

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate each of your individual views concerning the way

forward where Iraq is concerned, but at this point, I am certainly

more interested in what the President has proposed and what each

of you think of that proposal.

Dr. Kagan, just a minute ago in response to Mr. Cooper’s questions, you indicated that as different Administration officials had

fleshed out what the President had to say in his speech, you were

concerned about some of those details.

Would you be specific about the details you are concerned about

and what your concerns are?

Dr. KAGAN. Yes, Congressman.

Listening to the testimony last week, the Administration has

been briefing that the Iraqis will be in the lead of this operation,

and it has briefed a great deal of detail about the tactical arrangements for that, including who will be actually knocking on doors

and what the role of the American forces will be, how American

forces will be deployed throughout Baghdad. And in addition, there

has been some briefing about the force flow into Iraq with suggestions made that the initial increase would only be two brigades in

Baghdad with three other brigades on standby. I am very concerned about all of these things.

I think that this is an operation where we cannot rely necessarily

on the Iraqi security forces, as they are, to do an adequate job here,

that there are going to be some places——

Mr. MARSHALL. I am going to have to go ahead and interrupt

here. So do you think—I mean I also know you do not think 20,000

is a sufficient number. Your initial recommendation was 30,000,

something like that?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, again, the numbers are very complicated because the Administration has been briefing brigades at a certain

level, and I think that, in fact, what they are saying is there will

actually be more forces going into Iraq, more than 20,000.

Mr. MARSHALL. So your expectation is that a larger American

force, not dependent upon Iraqis taking the lead and doing some

of the things that you are a little concerned they may not do or

may not do very effectively, that a larger American force could accomplish dampening the sectarian violence and calming Baghdad.

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I believe that it is the force that we

recommended in our report, which was five American combat brigades, in addition to those already in Baghdad, partnered with

such Iraqi forces as are available.

Mr. MARSHALL. How would you use the Iraqi forces?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, you would partner with them, and that would

mean that you would use them to plan operations together. They

would conduct operations together, but they would not necessarily

always be in the lead. There would be some circumstances where

American forces might be in the lead in the planning.

Mr. MARSHALL. And the reason why the American forces would

take the lead is because the planning is too difficult for them to figure out; or do you really have in mind that there is a tough target
25

that is well-defined, that a truly talented, capable, conventional

force needs to hit?

Dr. KAGAN. There will be circumstances in both natures. But also

I am concerned about the number of Iraqi forces showing up, and

we wanted to design a plan that would be able to succeed even if

the Iraqis did not show up in the numbers that we hoped that they

would.

Mr. MARSHALL. You contend that we are heading in the wrong

direction by focusing upon trying to get Iraqis in the lead, training

Iraqis, trying to push them out front, embedding with them, that

sort of thing, and that, in fact, what we should do is change the

nature of this and say, ‘‘Look, we the United States, the coalition

forces, are going to provide security for that country,’’ and at the

time you said that, you said there are examples in history where

that has been done by an army constrained by our rules, with an

indigenous population where we largely do not speak the language

and cannot even drink the water.

Could you give me the examples where that has been accomplished?

Dr. KAGAN. Certainly, Congressman. We did that in Tall Afar in

September 2005 with a great deal of success.

Mr. MARSHALL. So Tall Afar is what you are relying upon?

Dr. KAGAN. Yes. We have also been undertaking similar operations in Ramadi. We undertook similar operations in Baghdad

itself, and Sadr City in 2004.

Mr. MARSHALL. Now, Ramadi, I was just there over Christmas.

The brigade that is principally responsible now for tackling Ramadi

has lost 75. As of Christmas, it had lost 75 soldiers. It had over

500 wounded. And yet the brigade was quite optimistic about the

future, not because they felt they were capable of taking care of

this situation but because the local sheiks had suddenly decided

within the last couple of months to team up with the Americans.

And the brigade commander said this: If you turned on the

cellphone communication in Ramadi and gave me 100 Silverado

pickup trucks and 1,000 weapons that I can turn over to this newly

established police force—because that is how they are funneling

these folks through—these guys will take care of al Qaeda in this

area to provide security.

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, when I was talking about al Qaeda, I

was talking about bringing a greater degree, granted a far from

perfect degree, but a greater degree of security to Ramadi. And the

units that are there have been accomplishing that largely by moving in among the local population, partnered with Iraqi units, and

conducting joint patrols. That has been a lot of the methodology

there, and it has shown some success.

Mr. MARSHALL. I went out on patrol myself in Ramadi three

years ago, and I have been following Ramadi. I have been there ten

times now and focusing on Al Anbar and Ramadi, and the first optimistic news I have heard about Ramadi came from that brigade

commander talking about Iraqis doing this, not American forces.

Is my time—I am sorry. My time is up.

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis from Virginia.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,

gentlemen, for your testimony today.
26

Dr. Perry, I noticed in your prepared testimony and in what you

said, that you noted your criticism of the President’s plan for Iraq

and you called his approach more tactical than strategic, and that

you questioned the ability of this new plan to hold the Iraqi government accountable. And I think you also warned that it would only

deepen the divide within the country, if I am correct.

Is there one recommendation that either you personally or the

Iraq Study Group would make; and, if so, what would it be? In

other words, what is the greatest omission that you see from the

President’s plan? And then let me ask one other quick question so

I do not run out of time.

Secretary Gates was in the other day, testifying, and he has proposed an additional 92,000 troop increase. So let us assume you

were Secretary of Defense again. Would you support that 92,000 increase in troop strength?

Dr. PERRY. If I were, would I what?

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. The 92,000 increase in troop strength;

not in Iraq, but an increase in troops, period.

Dr. PERRY. The answer to your second question is yes.

As to the first question, I think the President’s proposal was not

likely to succeed because it puts an emphasis on American troops

coming in for security rather than for strengthening the Iraqi

army, which is our only long-term way, our strategic way of accomplishing the mission, and because it does not put pressure on the

Iraqi government to make a political reconciliation that is absolutely necessary for stabilization in that country.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me ask you quickly—and I hate to

interrupt—but how would you propose that we put that sort of

pressure on the Iraqi government for political as well as for

strengthening——

Dr. PERRY. The only way I know of doing that is by telling them

this is going to be their problem sooner rather than later. We are

going to start to move our combat patrols out of there. Again, I am

not suggesting pulling American forces out of Iraq. I think we have

a great stake in Iraq. I am saying we should stop the combat patrols in Iraq, turn that over to the Iraqi army, use our forces to

support the Iraqi army and to help train them better.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Dr. Kagan, you or Dr. Korb, do you

have any comments on that as well?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, I think it is very important to understand what

the problem is here, and I think we are trying—we are moving

dangerously in the direction of saying this is a civil war and therefore it is not our problem, and we do not have to deal with civil

wars. And I would like to make a couple of points about that if I

may.

The first is that we have, in fact, successfully refereed civil wars

in the recent past in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the consequence of

that refereeing was to keep a region, which looked for a moment

as though it was going to explode, completely stable to the point

where you can now go to luxurious resort hotels on the Croatian

coast, which did not look like something that was going to be very

likely in 1995. That is a tremendously important thing.

In other places such as Rwanda, Somalia, and Afghanistan

where we said, well, we do not do civil wars and we are not going
27

to intervene, the consequences were wider regional problems, terrorist spin-offs and a continuing cycle of violence throughout the

area.

This is a civil war. We do have to be concerned about that. But

I do not think that we can simply decide that because it is a civil

war, therefore our concerns should end; therefore, that is not something that we should be responsible for. On the contrary, because

it is a civil war, it becomes that much more dangerous and that

much more urgent that we respond to it effectively.

Dr. KORB. I support the increase in the number of troops. I think

that is long overdue, something we should have done right after

September 11th, because we have overextended the forces now in

Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, for the President to implement his

surge, he is extending the tours of people and sending units over

that have not really been home in as much as a year.

I agree with Dr. Perry that basically we have got to give them

an incentive to make these political compromises. Yes, it is true

that we went to Bosnia, but before we went there we had the Dayton Peace Conference, in fact, where we got the parties together to

come up with a framework. And in my prepared testimony, I recommended that part of what we should do is get these people together in a Dayton-style conference to begin to iron out their difficulties, because that is the first step.

The difference between a civil war—the key about a civil war as

opposed to al Qaeda is when we say this is the central front in the

war on terror, that is al Qaeda; it is not a civil war. And that is

where I think you have to be very careful about what you are talking about.

The congressional resolution authorized us to go in and get rid

of Saddam Hussein and see if there are weapons of mass destruction. It had nothing to do with settling the 1,000-year conflict between the Sunnis and Shi′as.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Udall, please.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for holding what I think

is the first discussion—if not, it is certainly one of the first discussions—that considers all of the alternatives that are in front of us

in this region of the world. And I think all of us who sit up here

on the dais do so today in the interest of, frankly, not having a conversation about losing or failing or winning, but how do we regain

our strength and our status and apply our leverage not only in this

part of the world but in other parts of the world. And I want to

thank everybody involved today. I think we have set aside most of

the sound bites, and we are attempting to have a very substantive

discussion.

I think Congressman Cooper pointed out we have three very viable alternatives worth discussing here today, and I have associated

myself more with the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations than

Dr. Korb’s. But in the interest, Dr. Kagan, of giving you full hearing today, there is a school of thought—and picking up on Dr. Snyder’s earlier devil’s advocate point of view—that what President

Bush has proposed could succeed militarily, but it actually puts us

further behind the eight ball politically because it would embolden

the Shiite majority. Because we, I think advertently and inadvert-
28

ently, cannot help but pressure the Sunnis increasingly in the plan

that is in front of us and that therefore provides the Shi′a with less

reason to amend the constitution to bring the Sunnis into the government, and we actually, in fact, could push the country closer to

civil war and, in the process, push the Sunni into the arms of al

Qaeda.

Would you care to comment, Dr. Kagan?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, yes. I do not think that that is true. I think

we have already seen—we have been pressing consistently on the

Sunni insurgency. I think we have not been doing it effectively

enough. I think it is very important to point out that the purpose

of the operation that we propose in our report is not to press on

the Sunni community but to bring security to Sunni and mixed

Sunni-Shi′a neighborhoods in Baghdad. This is not a program of

going after the Sunnis. This is a program of ending the violence in

the neighborhoods that are suffering most from it right now, and

I think that that is a very different thing.

And I also think that the reconstruction element of the plan,

which we try to highlight in our report, is extremely important because it would have us bring significant reconstruction efforts into

Sunni neighborhoods to emphasize that this is not, in fact, an assault on the Sunni population, but an effort to bring them security

and to improve their quality of life.

So, no; on the contrary, I think it will help in the process of

bringing the Sunni back into the process, and I think we have seen

that already in Al Anbar where we have been consistently pressing

on the Sunni insurgency, and we are seeing the movement of some

Sunni sheiks to attempt to renegotiate and to reengage.

Mr. UDALL. I think it strikes many of us here on the committee

that it is a little too late and too little when we hear about reconstruction efforts and job creation because, for the last three years

we have heard that those efforts were underway and yet they have

borne no fruit. That is an editorial comment from me, obviously.

If I might, I would like to direct a question to the entire panel.

Experts suggest that we do not have one war, one conflict in

Iraq; we maybe have as many as five. And although we hear about

the counterinsurgency doctrine being better understood and applied—and incidentally, I think we have to do more of that in a

broad-based way. And if I were to hold this Administration responsible in that regard, it would be that I do not think the American

people fully understand the nature of the global counterinsurgency

that we have to muster, which I think is a better way to characterize what we face instead of the Global War on Terror, but that is

another conversation.

The counterinsurgency doctrine, Dr. Kagan, that you suggest will

work in a counterinsurgency setting; but we have a civil war, and

I am not convinced that a counterinsurgency doctrine works in the

context of a civil war. And I would be interested if the panel would

respond, all three of you.

Dr. KAGAN. Well, it seems to me that the first premise of the

counterinsurgency that I am focusing on is the question of establishing security for the population. I think that applies to

counterinsurgency. I think that applies to peacekeeping operations.

I think that applies to ending civil wars. It is the approach that
29

we used in Bosnia. You cannot use a Dayton approach here because

you do not have a Sunni leadership that is sufficiently coalesced

that you can negotiate an accord with it in the same way. That is

something that we have to make possible.

But what is very clear to me, not only from a counterinsurgency

but also from a variety of civil war lessons in the past 15 years,

is that as long as violence persists at a very high level, there simply is little to no prospect of serious political accommodation that

can be long-lasting. This is the basis of my disagreement with Dr.

Korb and possibly with Dr. Perry.

The question is, what order do you have to do things in? And my

considered opinion, based on the examples that I have looked at,

is you first have to establish a basic level of security. They think

you first have to use a political process. That is the basis of our

disagreement.

Mr. UDALL. Dr. Korb, would you comment, please?

Dr. KORB. I think you are quite right. There is not just one conflict going on, but we focused—the President focused in his remarks on al Qaeda. You have got violence between different Shi′a

groups. You have got Arabs versus Kurds. There is no unity among

all of the Sunni groups, so you have got several conflicts going on

there at once, and I think it is important to keep that in mind.

The next is our goal is not to, quote/unquote, win the war in

Iraq, whatever that means. Our goal is to prevail in the struggle

against the violent extremists. And I think at the end of the day,

you have to sit down and say, ‘‘Our trying to solve the problems

between the Sunnis and the Shi′as, is that helping us prevail

against these people or is it creating more enemies?’’

The British Ambassador to Italy, shortly after we invaded Iraq,

said that that was the best recruiting tool that al Qaeda has, was

our going in there. And there is no doubt about people getting

training there and applying it in Afghanistan, if you look at the

number of similar tactics that are being used there.

So I think you have to take a look at it in that sense, and that

is why I recommend setting a date certain, keeping your troops in

the region to prevent anything that would harm our interests. And

while a civil war between the groups would certainly not be something we would like, there are civil wars going on all over the

world, and I think what we have to keep in mind is that that is

something the international community should be concerned about,

something we should try and do something about, whether it is

Darfur, for example, or if it should break out when we leave Iraq.

But our interest is to make sure it does not become another haven

for al Qaeda, and it is also in the interest of the countries in the

region that it does not become a failed state, because if nothing

else, there will be millions of refugees that they will have to deal

with. And I do think you can work those with all of the countries,

and as the Iraq Study Group mentioned, you have got to get Iran

involved. They were helpful to us in Afghanistan, and they have

been helpful in the initial phases in our invasion of Iraq.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me remind the members of the committee

that because we did not reach the members in the front row when

Secretary Gates testified before, we will begin with the front row
30

when Secretary Gates does return in several days, just in case you

lose heart today.

The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Akin.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of quick questions

and maybe a thought or two.

First of all, Dr. Kagan, you said that right off the bat we had

made a big mistake, and that was that we did not create stability,

social stability, to start building on. At the time I was over there,

I thought that was the main objective of our troops was to try to

create stability and a working environment where we could get

civic works and things done. How do I misunderstand what you are

saying, first of all?

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, to my knowledge or to the knowledge

of the various military officials that I have spoken and consulted

with, it has never been the primary objective of the American military forces in Iraq to establish or maintain civil order in that country. It has always been our purpose to train an Iraqi force to do

that and to put that Iraqi force in the lead in accomplishing that

mission. And we have been extremely reluctant to undertake that

mission overall in Iraq for all of the reasons that General Casey

has given, which I believe are worthy of consideration, but which

I think are not sufficient to overcome the urgent need to provide

security for the Iraqi population.

Mr. AKIN. It is just a different way of looking at it. It seems to

me that we were trying to provide the social order until we had the

people trained. At least that was my understanding.

Now, second of all, if I were one of the terrorists over there, al

Qaeda, the first thing I would consider doing would be to start a

civil war. What a simple thing. You just go in and make it look like

somebody did it. You get everybody stirred up, and it makes it ten

times harder for the Americans. Can’t we assume that that is

something—that they are going to create civil war and take advantage of that situation? Is that not something we should assume

they are going to do?

Anybody who wants to answer that.

Dr. KAGAN. Well, Congressman, that is exactly what happened.

Zarqawi told us, he told the world, that his objective was to create

civil war in Iraq. He was going to do that by establishing the Shi′a.

He believed that it would benefit the Sunni population, his part of

the Sunni population, for a civil war to occur because he thought

he could use it as a tool to mobilize the Sunni population.

Mr. AKIN. Okay. So let us agree that is what has been happening. Now, the anecdotal stories that I hear from my son, who is at

Camp Lejeune and who is now on his way over to Iraq with the

Marines—in the stories of our training the Iraqi troops, it seems

like to me, is that we are starting in that training process with all

of the rules against us.

First of all, their enlistments are so short. They go home every

weekend. The first thing they described was we gave them cold

weather clothing. They take them home and sell them on the black

market, and then they come back and complain they are cold at

night. They will work fine as long as they are in a place where nobody is shooting anything, but if we send them to where there is

some action, then three-quarters of them do not show up for work.
31

And then some of their social habits are indescribable in public, but

there are some technologies, very basic technologies used in bathrooms, that they do not seem to understand, and they will not

clean up after themselves, and just the overall sense of people in

a military unit.

It just seems like we do not have the discipline to train people

who can really do a tough mission. Does anybody want to comment

on that?

Dr. KORB. Well, as somebody said, they have the real all-volunteer military. You can volunteer in, and you can volunteer out anytime that you want——

Mr. AKIN. Anytime you want.

Dr. KORB [continuing]. And I think that that is the point I was

trying to make. It is motivation for those people, and they are not

motivated because there is not an Iraqi nation, that Congressman

Jones was referring to before, that they all feel devoted to and

want to sacrifice their lives for.

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I would like to take issue with the

portrayal of these Iraqi security forces and people who simply do

not show up when people are shooting at them.

I have heard the briefings, heard the reports from the commander of the operation in Tall Afar, read Bing West’s magnificent

book about his own experiences in Fallujah. And it is absolutely

not the case that Iraqis are unwilling to risk their lives, and they

are perfectly capable of fighting ferociously against great odds in

a number of circumstances. And I think that Dr. Korb has this

thing turned on its head.

They do go home every month, and they come back every month.

The enormous majority of them come back every month. They are

continuing to re-up on a continual basis, even as the security situation is deteriorating, even as their families are threatened because

they are part of the Iraqi security forces, even if they are asked to

do more and more dangerous things.

Mr. AKIN. I guess the point that I was hearing was—and there

may be—I do not deny that there are probably some people who

are like that.

My question is do we have the rules set up for when somebody

volunteers, that we can hold their feet to the fire; that if you are

really going to be in this thing, now you are going to have to do

these various things? And my sense was, at least in the case of

many of them, we did not have that rule set up ahead of time that

this is an army, and it is going to be run like an army.

Dr. KORB. The majority of units are no more than 50-percent

manning at any one time, and that is why when they tried to get

six battalions to go into Baghdad, only two came.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Courtney, please.

Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, I pass right now.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Courtney passes.

Mr. Loebsack.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to the three of you for coming and testifying today. I appreciate your testimony and the different points of view expressed

today as well.
32

But I do want to state—I was unable to do so at the last meeting,

I had to leave early—the people of Iowa I have had the honor and

the privilege and the responsibility to represent in the short time

that I have been here in Congress and on this committee, have

truly grave reservations about what is happening in Iraq, as I

think the majority of the American people do at this time. Many

of us have been opposed to what we consider, quite frankly, a misadventure from the start, and we grow wearier of the Administration’s lack of a coherent plan as each day passes.

And I just want to state for the record that Iowa has carried a

very heavy burden in this war. We have one of the highest per capita rates, death rates, of any state. And we had a young soldier

from Ottumwa killed just in the past couple of weeks, as well, in

my district. The policies have placed tremendous strains, then, on

families and friends in Iowa, as has been the case across the country. And with that in mind, many of us have stated that we are

not in favor of a continued presence here in Iraq on the part of the

United States. And I will go one step further than Dr. Korb has,

and I would make the argument that we should be gone within the

next year. With all of that in mind, I do have a couple of questions,

a couple of points, I guess, for Dr. Kagan.

You mentioned that you do not want to see a failed state. I do

not think anybody wants to see a failed state in Iraq. Clearly,

stakes are high, there is no doubt about it. But if you could, sort

of lay out what a ‘‘failed state’’ is for you, because we have talked

a little bit about what it might mean—refugees falling across borders, what have you. Is this simply a power vacuum or is it something more than that?

And also I guess I wanted to just make a comment about your

mention of Bosnia, and you can correct me if I am wrong. We will

have to maybe have a dispute about Bosnia as a relevant comparison to Iraq, because I believe that the Dayton Accords took place

with respect to Bosnia at a time when there really was already

pretty much an equilibrium reached among the three parties in

that civil war, because that did not happen until 1995. That war

had been going on for quite some time, and there had been Croats

killing Bosnians and Bosnians killing Serbs and Serbs killing both,

and what have you. And as far as the territory was concerned and

who was controlling what, it was pretty much stabilized, if I remember correctly, by the time the Dayton Accords were actually

agreed to. Maybe I am overstating the case a little bit.

So I do not think the comparison between Bosnia and Iraq is entirely apt in this case. We may have to disagree about that, but

talk about what it means to have a failed state in Iraq and if it

is simply a power vacuum—and it may be more than that—but

your concern about al Qaeda falling into the power vacuum. Address, if you would, what Dr. Korb has said, for example, about

only two to four percent of the problems in Iraq are al Qaeda. And

if the sheiks, in fact, in Ramadi are cooperating with us—they have

finally decided that al Qaeda is their enemy, and the Shi′a are not

likely to support al Qaeda either—what is the concern in that

sense?

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I have never said that I think the

major reason—or I have not said in recent months that I think the
33

major reason to be concerned about Iraq is because of al Qaeda.

And I think that Dr. Korb is narrowing our interests in the region

too tightly to say, if this is not directly a fight about the Global

War on Terror, then we do not have interests here.

I think it is demonstrably not the case that American interests

around the world are confined strictly to whether or not something

is directly related to the Global War on Terror.

A ‘‘failed state’’ for me in Iraq is not simply a power vacuum. I

think that we have seen the emergence of sectarian war mobilization going on at a very primitive level right now. I think that if we

pull out now, what you will see is the collapse of the Iraqi government, the collapse of the Iraqi armed forces, the dramatic strengthening of the militias on both sides, sectarian cleansing on a vast

scale, and efforts at genocide, which I really believe will occur, refugee flows across borders which will have the effect of destabilizing

neighboring states.

Remember that even Saudi Arabia has a significant Shiite minority. There are already about 900,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

All of that will intensify. And what I fear is that you will find that

the neighboring states will begin to intervene militarily in the Iraqi

cauldron out of sheer self-defense, in addition to self-interest, and

I fear that you can readily get to a regional conflict which we would

not be able to watch with equanimity. There certainly are civil

wars around the world, and some of them we do not intervene in,

but I find it very hard to imagine how we could say that we can

watch, you know, with unconcern a civil war in the Middle East.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Forbes.

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here this afternoon and for your expertise and

knowledge.

After listening to your testimony, it is clear to me that each of

you has valid points, and it would be difficult to concur with any

position that would say that if someone did not agree with everything you said, they would be totally wrong. We are kind of like

the President; we have to extract the most valid points from each

of you to help formulate a plan. Now, I am going to try to be precise in the four and a half minutes or so I have left, and I hope

that you can in your answers.

Dr. Perry, I want to ask you, did you concur with the Iraq Study

Group report’s conclusion that said that a premature withdrawal of

troops would lead to, one, greater human suffering, two, regional

destabilization, three, the threat to global economy, and four, it

could eventually lead to the U.S. having to return to Iraq?

Dr. PERRY. Yes, I concur with that conclusion and all other conclusions and recommendations of the report. I signed off on the report entirely.

Mr. FORBES. But that part of it you did agree with, and based

on your testimony today and what you said the generals told you

when you were in Iraq about additional troop levels in Baghdad to

try to stabilize Baghdad, you really do not oppose the need for

more security forces in Baghdad to stabilize the violence. You were

just concerned that additional U.S. forces could delay Iraqi forces

from taking charge. Is that a fair statement?
34

Dr. PERRY. That, and I want the role of the U.S. forces to be

strengthening the Iraqi forces rather than going out on street patrols.

Mr. FORBES. Good.

Dr. Korb, as to Iraq itself, geographically Iraq itself, there really

is not any difference between redeploying and withdrawing troops.

We are talking about taking troops out of Iraq, and it is just the

semantics of where you put them after you pull them out of Iraq.

Is that a fair statement?

Dr. KORB. Well, I am using the same word that President

Reagan used when I worked with him when we left Lebanon——

Mr. FORBES. I am just asking you whether——

Dr. KORB [continuing]. Because you are staying in the region,

and you are putting—you are not leaving the region.

Mr. FORBES. But you are taking troops out of Iraq, fair?

Dr. KORB. Correct.

Mr. FORBES. And you would concur with the fact that your recommendation, whether you call it withdrawing or redeploying

troops, would be in opposition to what the study group recommended, would it not?

Dr. KORB. That is correct.

Mr. FORBES. Dr. Kagan, I am going to ask you two questions.

You indicated that failure in Iraq could have a tremendous negative impact, I believe, on the surrounding countries. And I am not

going to ask you to describe all of them, but could you tell me in

a nutshell the negative impact you think could occur in Saudi Arabia if we fail in Iraq and what, if any, impacts that could have on

world oil supplies?

And second—and this is something maybe you could submit to us

later—could you supply to us at some point in time the matrix of

how you come up with the number of troops—the total troop forces

we need in Baghdad, but for today’s testimony, the Saudi Arabia

portion?

Dr. KAGAN. Yes, Congressman, I can, although we described that

process in detail in our report, and I can certainly highlight those

sections to you, and I would be happy to explain more fully.

I do believe that what you will see is refugee flows pushing toward Saudi Arabia and also a tremendous amount of pressure

within Saudi Arabia to support the Sunni population in Iraq as it

comes under increasing attack by mobilized Shi′a groups. I think

this can all have the effect of destabilizing the Saudi government,

which is none too stable to begin with. And obviously it goes without saying that destabilization of the Saudi government or the collapse of the Saudi government would have a dramatic effect on

world oil supplies simply because of the proportion of those supplies that come from Saudi Arabia. I think you can also see a

radicalization of Saudi Arabia even beyond its current stage if this

actually does become a full-scale regional Sunni-Shi′a conflict.

There is already, as we know, significant pressure in that direction

within Saudi Arabia, and I think you would find that intensified,

the broader that conflict becomes.

Mr. FORBES. If I could address the troop levels for just one moment, I know we have heard the numbers 20,000, 25,000, 30,000.

Can you tell me, based on your analysis, the total troop levels,
35

whether it is Iraqi, U.S. troops, or even police forces, that you believe you would need, based on the population currently in Baghdad, to stabilize Baghdad itself, total forces?

Dr. KAGAN. To stabilize the entire city?

Mr. FORBES. The entire city.

Dr. KAGAN. Well, based on historical forums, you would need a

total of about 120,000 troops to stabilize a population of 6 million.

We proposed a plan that does it in phases which we think is appropriate based not only on what forces we can make available but

even more on the political situation in Baghdad and the country.

Mr. FORBES. After the President’s plan, can you tell me the total

number of forces that you believe would be in Baghdad?

Dr. KAGAN. According to the President’s plan, he is going to be

adding—if they add all five brigades, as the President has said

they will, that would be approximately 25,000 additional forces to

the 25,000 that are already there, which would be 25,000 American

combat forces—I am sorry—50,000 American combat forces immediately in the city, supported by Iraqi forces, Iraqi police, several

tens of thousands. It is very hard to know the precise number.

Mr. FORBES. General Pace——

Mr. ANDREWS [presiding]. The gentleman’s time has expired. The

Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Sestak.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Doctors, thanks for your time today. I had one quick question,

hopefully for each.

First, Dr. Kagan, in your executive summary that you provided

to us, you said that the political process has failed, and then you

turned to the military. It is a military that some have said have

been strained almost to the breaking point, and you said that what

needs to be accepted is that there be increased, longer deployments

for the active forces and more deployment for the National Guard

and reserve. You say that the replacement equipment for our

troops over there, of which 40 percent of our equipment in the

Army is already there, needs to be made up by taking the equipment away from our active forces here at home that are not deployed at the moment, as well as the guard and reserve forces that

are here at home not presently deployed. You then say the military

industry needs to gear up urgently and replace all of that equipment and that we need to increase our reconstruction fund at the

Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

My understanding is we have got $100 billion sitting over in the

OMB to come over here in addition to $70 billion already paid this

year, so that the cost of Iraq will almost double, not quite, from $8

billion a month to $14 billion a month.

General Pace was over here, and there are generals who are asking for more troops in Afghanistan, and when asked about are we

still able to meet what we did a few years ago—have an Army, a

military, that could deploy nearly simultaneously to two major conflicts—the general said we could. It would not be pretty. He also

expressed concerns about Chad and many, many other issues

around the world.

At what point do you step back, as you all talk strategically and

tactically, and place Iraq in the overarching strategic security global environment of which America is concerned and say, ‘‘When does
36

it cost too much for Iraq?’’ Our overall strategic benefit, if China

emerges and others—is it is about time that we pay attention and

invest elsewhere in our security interests, more along the lines of

where Dr. Korb is.

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I think it is a good question, and I

think it is something that I have considered and what we have considered in the process of the report.

What we are talking about is the prospect, in my view, of imminent defeat in Iraq if we do not take dramatic action to reverse the

situation along the lines of what we are proposing, or the possibility that other scenarios will arise elsewhere that will require more

forces that we may or may not have available. So it is not simply

a question of an equal play here that, you know, things might go

bad in Iraq or they might go bad elsewhere, and we have to hedge.

We have in mind for you a very high likelihood that things will

go very, very badly indeed in Iraq, that will cost our national security enormous amounts, both in terms of money and in terms of

troops in subsequent deployments and subsequent threats to our

security against contingencies that might arise elsewhere. And I

would submit that you can go too far.

You can go just as wrong in making the mistake of not committing to the war that you are actually fighting at the moment, and

losing, in the name of remaining prepared for contingencies that

might or might not materialize as you can in focusing so much on

the war that you failed to match those contingencies.

Now, I fully support the recommendation for increasing the size

of the ground forces. I have been pressing that since 1997. And I

think, honestly, the Administration does not go far enough. But I

do think that winning this war, or at least not losing it at this moment, that there is no greater task that we have right now.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you. I gather it is a matter of judgment. I

think we have gone beyond that point.

Dr. Perry, I had the honor of working for you way down in the

bowels at the Pentagon, in the basement, when you were Secretary

of Defense. I was one—as the old saying goes, one of those 20,000

ants that are in a log in the Department of Defense, going down

this river, and each of them are thinking they are controlling the

Pentagon, but at all times we knew it was you, and it is a real

honor to ask you a question, sir.

Sir, the pressure you talked about placing on Iraq, the incentives

to be placed upon them, positive and negative, so that eventually

they kind of accept that they must do this reconciliation program,

when is it that you personally would say that incentive, that pressure, becomes a date certain? I know you did not—the Iraqi survey

group is not there, but when is it for you to say would that day

come?

Dr. PERRY. I have a hard time putting a date on that, but I

would say if they have not really produced something by midyear,

I would think we have failed in our pressure.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you.

Dr. Korb, if I could ask you——

Mr. ANDREWS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you very much.

Mr. ANDREWS. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Miller.
37

Mr. MILLER OF FLORIDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Perry, thank you for your long service both in and out

of public service and, reading from your bio, all the way back to

occupied Japan. And I will say that during your various services

under Democrat Administrations, especially under the Clinton Administration as Secretary of Defense, what was your perception

during that time with a Republican-controlled Congress and a

Democratic Administration where Congress began to meddle, if you

will, or put congressional prohibitions on the commander in chief’s

ability to deploy forces as he would wish to do so?

Dr. PERRY. I like that question, Mr. Miller.

I can answer quite honestly that, as the Secretary of Defense, I

found the pressure from Congress, particularly from a Congress

controlled by the opposite party, to be very difficult. It made my

job very, very difficult. But as I look thoughtfully at it, I would say

our Administration benefited by the very tough pushback that we

got from Congress on everything we did. It made us work doubly

hard to be sure that what we were doing could stand up under

scrutiny.

I think that Congress’ role of oversight and really tough oversight is a very important role, and I say that even from somebody

who has suffered from it when I was in the Administration.

Mr. MILLER OF FLORIDA. In 1996 you recommended that the

President veto the defense authorization bill because it included

several billion dollars of additional spending, and also there were

contingency plans that were affected by what Congress wanted to

do at that time.

Would you recommend a veto if you were in the same position

today, if Congress recommended doing something that the President is entitled to do by the Constitution?

Dr. PERRY. I would have to consider in a very special case specifically what the issue was, but I do think that even in the case

where the Administration is recommending a veto, they are influenced by the action of the Congress, even if they successfully veto

it. They do. The Congress does have a profound influence on the

Administration’s action, and I would encourage the Congress to exercise that role.

Mr. MILLER OF FLORIDA. But you did not like the Congress’ exercise.

Dr. PERRY. Of course I did not like it. It was a pain in the neck,

but it made me a better Secretary.

Mr. MILLER OF FLORIDA. Dr. Korb, if I understood you correctly,

you said something about a certification—let’s see if I wrote it. It

says you believe some type of certification is required to ensure

that operations in Iraq do not detract from the Global War on Terror. I guess my question is how would anyone certify what you are

proposing, and what exactly does the certification mean?

Dr. KORB. Well, this was in the resolution that Congress passed

in 2002, and I think what the President would have to say is, ‘‘Is

our being in Iraq creating more members of al Qaeda or is it not?

Is it drawing our Army down so much and our ground forces down

so much that they cannot do the things that they need to do? What

is it doing to the war of ideas that we are waging with people who

might be attracted to violent extremists like al Qaeda?’’
38

Those are the things that I think the President should certify.

And after all of that, I go back and read that that was the intent

of Congress, because many in Congress were concerned that Iraq

was not the central front in the war on terror, that it was a diversion from dealing with groups that caused the problems that led to

9/11.

Mr. MILLER OF FLORIDA. Dr. Kagan, with the polls against the

war in Iraq and the surge in Iraq and the media certainly fanning

those flames, if you will, do you think the insurgents expected

President Bush to go counter to what the polls showed and actually

talk about a surge?

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I do not, and I believe—I actually disagree also—I am glad you brought this up so I can say that I disagree with my colleague’s view that the Iraqis think we are going

to be there forever.

I think, on the contrary, most Iraqis have looked at us as having

one foot out the door and ready to go at a moment’s notice, and I

think you have already seen some of the dominant games, beginning within the Shi′a community, about who is going to run the

post-U.S. Iraq, which they think is coming very imminently.

I do not think that anyone over there expected us to reaffirm our

commitment or recommit the necessary troops to succeed. I believe

the insurgents will be surprised and dismayed, and I think that it

will change the Iraqi political situation fundamentally and in a

very positive direction.

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. Gentlemen, your time has expired.

The gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Castor, is recognized.

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for

your expert testimony today.

At the outset of President Bush’s war in Iraq, he proclaimed that

he would assemble a large coalition force from other countries and

that he would ask other countries throughout the world to carry

part of the load. And here we are, almost 4 years later, over 3,000

American deaths, and the burden remains primarily on young

Americans and National Guard and reserve troops. American taxpayers have now been asked to pay almost $400 billion to support

President Bush’s effort.

The Iraq Study Group explained in the report that most countries in the region are not playing a constructive role at all, and

last week, when I listened to President Bush’s speech, he did not

mention any other nation or even that he would ask any other

country to assist in the escalation of forces or in a supporting role,

and he continues to resist any diplomatic or political effort.

How do you explain this resistance to political and diplomatic efforts, and do you view it as another one of these strategic errors

that you mentioned early on in your testimony?

Dr. PERRY. I do view it as a strategic error from the beginning

and an error which has been sustained through the years.

We have a coalition in Iraq, but the United States comprises almost 90 percent of those coalition forces, both in numbers and in

casualties, so it is not an adequate coalition, in my mind. At this

date, I think it is unrealistic to expect we are going to get other

nations to provide troops to Iraq. The allies who are there now are

moving in the other direction. They are planning to leave. What we
39

can reasonably expect, though, from the regional powers is economic and political assistance and assistance in training Iraqi

forces. Those things we have every right to expect and I think we

have the leverage to try to get.

Ms. CASTOR. Dr. Korb.

Dr. KORB. The person I think who sums up what you are trying

to say best is Dr. Francis Fukuyama from Johns Hopkins, one of

the original supporters of the war. And he said, if you had told the

American people in early 2003 that the United States would go to

war in Iraq—over 3,000 dead, 23,000, 24,000 wounded, spend $400

billion to $500 billion so Iraq could have an election—and these are

Dr. Fukuyama’s words—you would have been laughed out of the

ball park. Americans supported the war for reasons that turned out

not to be true. They were also told there would be a multilateral

effort. That is why they used the term ‘‘coalition’’ all the time.

I think what was most interesting is, after President Bush’s

speech announcing that we were going to send more troops, our

British allies said they are going to continue to cut down the number of their troops. And that is why I think, as I mentioned in my

testimony, it is so important to get the countries in the region involved, because it is not just our problem to the extent that it is

also their problem; and if they do not work constructively on it,

they are also going to have to live with the consequences.

Ms. CASTOR. Dr. Kagan.

Dr. KAGAN. Congresswoman, I think that it would be both right

and desirable for the Administration to make a significant effort to

engage our regional allies and our worldwide allies in assisting us

with this project. I think we have received some assistance. I think

that we have not received as much as we might like. I think it is

very important to keep in mind the British are drawing down—excuse me—because the British Army is significantly more restrained

than ours is. There are very few armies in the world, actually, that

are capable of sending significant forces to Iraq. Let me say very

few armies, I believe, would actually want to have sent forces to

Iraq. And so from that perspective, we are suffering from the fact

that the west has generally disarmed itself and has not begun to

rearm in the face of a new challenge.

I do think that it is reasonable to expect that assistance from our

allies and states around the world and stability in the Middle East

to help sustain this effort economically, and I would like to see the

Administration make the renewed effort to help to achieve that

kind of support.

Ms. CASTOR. Dr. Kagan, I have a few other things. How do you

explain the resistance, though, of the Bush Administration and to

President Bush even speaking out and mentioning it during a

speech when we all expected him to announce some change of

course in Iraq, and included in that change, of course, some diplomatic outreach?

Mr. ANDREWS. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. You may

briefly answer the question.

Dr. KAGAN. Thank you.

I have been a consistent critic of the way the Bush Administration has fought this war in a variety of ways, and so it is not for
40

me, I think, to try to explain why the President has made one decision or the other.

Mr. ANDREWS. The gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Kline.

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

Just in the couple of moments before we dropped the gavel and

started the hearing, I was thinking to myself and mentioned to you

what an extraordinary group of intellectuals and intelligent Ph.Ds,

if nothing else, we have got accumulated here. And it is interesting

that the three of you, with your experience and your education and

your attention to this issue, you disagree. All three of you have different ideas. And we 535 Members of Congress, many of us are

going to have different ideas as well.

And I think it was the gentleman from Tennessee Mr. Cooper

who said that we, for better or for worse, that we have one commander in chief, and the first person in charge of fighting the war,

and considering how hard it is to get a consensus, it is probably

not a bad thing.

A couple of comments, because I didn’t imagine fighting the war

by a 535-person committee. It is not going to work.

Dr. Korb, just a comment. I think you said that in quoting or observing the comments of a British diplomat and Italian, the best

recruiting tool that al Qaeda had was our going into Iraq. I would

submit that probably the best recruiting tool now would be American defeat in Iraq. If you are really going to recruit large numbers

of jihadists, do you think that is possibly correct?

Dr. KORB. No, I don’t, because I think what would happen when

we leave Iraq is al Qaeda will still be there, and they can’t win either.

Mr. KLINE. You don’t think there would be celebrating in the

streets, gunfire and so forth?

Dr. KORB. No.

Mr. KLINE. You and I disagree about that as well.

Dr. Kagan, you talk about the importance of the new military

commander coming into Iraq, and we have an entire new team,

don’t we, defense team coming in. I think that I was told by General Pace that General Casey did ask for more troops, and in an

earlier discussion with you I know that General Casey was involved in this planning, but it is General Petraeus. He is the man

who is going to have to execute this, and General Odierno, because

we have a new team over there. If we are going to have a new way

of doing business, we probably need some new leadership. Looks

like we are doing that.

You have been critical of the Administration and—as am I in

talking about the tactics that we are going to use. It is sort of a

three up and one back, and, you know, this many on this side of

the river and that many on this side of the river. And I think that

is a mistake in trying to be too detailed in those tactics.

Having said that, could you talk a little bit about the tactics that

are involved in your approach here? I know, for example, that you

wanted to do this sequentially, perhaps putting Sadr City off. Can

you talk about that? We only have a couple of minutes. Talk to us

about that.

Dr. KAGAN. I am very reluctant to have us taking on Sadr City

as the first order because I think it is impossible to keep the two
41

major Shi′a blocs, which is to say the Jaish al-Mahdi Army and the

Badr Corps, separated as they are now separated as rivals for control of a post-U.S. Iraq. I think if we actually invaded Sadr City

in the Fallujah-type way right now, we would clear it out, but we

would probably unite them.

Instead, I would propose to focus on the Sunni-Shi′a neighborhoods and hold them with U.S. forces, partner with Iraqi forces if

possible and literally sweeping through the entire neighborhood

going house to house as we have done before. The difference would

be sustaining the hold more than the few weeks that have been

customary in past such operations.

Mr. KLINE. Let me interrupt. I wish we had ten minutes for each

of you with these things, but I know the guy sitting up there now,

he has got his finger on that red button.

Just very quickly, if you were to employ the sort of approach that

you had put forward, you wouldn’t have an equal distribution of

Iraqi and U.S. troops, and by the way, the Iraqi troops, in accord

with the Iraq Study Group, are now going to have embedded U.S.

troops down to the company level. So you are going to have U.S.

troops involved in this even with the Iraqi lead, per the Iraq Study

Group, but that would change that number mix, wouldn’t it, of the

number of troops, in response to, I think, the gentlewoman’s question earlier about how many troops it would take. Can you do that

in about the 10 seconds that are left?

Dr. KAGAN. Certainly. We would not have equal numbers because some districts are more important than others, and some are

more dangerous. We use metrics sort of coming up with an average

based on what we thought on a hard district was. But you certainly

would not have a common mix because you don’t face a common

challenge, and you would identify the critical terrain in Baghdad

that it is most important to secure first and your efforts in having

force ratios there. And once you have established the clear there,

then you would move on to other areas.

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. The gentlelady from Arizona, Ms. Giffords.

Ms. GIFFORDS. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

As a new Member of Congress, I listened very clearly to what

President Bush had to say last week, and we heard both from Secretary Gates and General Pace. This morning Madeleine Albright

came to testify in our Foreign Affairs Committee, and, again, as a

new member listening to both sides of the aisle, the really good

questions that have been asked, it has been pretty enlightening,

and for me personally this plan the President has put forth is not

enough, and in the words of the chairman himself, it is too little

too late.

I would like the three of you to address what I heard is a real

absence in force in the terms of ministries that exist in Iraq. Madeleine Albright talked about a surge in—not in troops, but diplomacy. But if the three of you would address whether or not we

could or should bring in first other countries to help with the rebuilding process in terms of banking, health and human services,

in terms of the environment, in terms of commerce, and whether

or not it is fair that the Pentagon be shouldering the breadth of

this rebuilding effort. Other departments here in the United States,
42

other countries do step forward not in troop numbers, but in other

areas to help rebuild.

Dr. PERRY. I think it is a very good point. As I commented earlier, I do not think it is reasonable to expect these regional powers

to provide troops in Iraq at this stage. I do think it is quite reasonable to ask them to do the things you have described. They can provide economic assistance, they can provide training assistance, they

can provide political assistance, and all of that would be enormously helpful. And I think we have the leverage to get them to

do these if we use our diplomacy properly.

Dr. KAGAN. I would like to say I think it is highly desirable to

bring in all of the assistance that we can, and I think we should

make every effort to do that.

Ms. GIFFORDS. I think the number of questions, though, if we

can’t, shall we throw up our hands, or do we have to try to do the

best we can with what we have.

Dr. KAGAN. If we can’t get other states to step in as appropriate—and we must recognize the complexities of that because, of

course, Iraq’s neighbors all have interests. They are not, you know,

just simple innocent bystanders. So it is appropriate to ask some

of them to do some things, not other things. If we can’t get them

to step up, in my view, this remains a critical, vital national security interest of the United States and something that we have to

do. And, likewise, if the other agencies are not, in fact, able or willing to step up, I don’t think—we can talk about the unfairness of

it, and it is indeed unfair and it is something we should try to address, but we—I am not prepared to say we should abandon the effort, because I think it is too important, the dangers are too high

of failure to say, well, we gave it the best shot, but the other people

didn’t step up, so we have to walk away. I am not suggesting that

you are saying anything like that. But I think it is important to

keep in mind that whatever fairness dictates, there is also a reality; and we have to be prepared to deal with what are the consequences of various decisions including withdrawing or abandoning this project because we are frustrated that other people won’t

help us.

Dr. KORB. You don’t have any good options because ignoring

General Shinseki’s advice, hyping the intelligence and all of those

things, and so no matter what course you pick, there are going to

be risks. And I think what you try and do is minimize the risk because there are no guarantees.

I think it would be good to let other agencies get involved. The

problem is it is late, just like the counterinsurgency is too late. You

should have done that in the beginning; you didn’t. Because we are

not dealing with an insurgency. Now it is more of a civil war, and

as we all wish General Petraeus a lot of luck in giving him a

chance to implement the next manual he put out, it is for the next

war, not for this war. And, again, when it is clear that we are no

longer going to stay in Iraq beyond whatever that date is, and we

are not going to have any permanent bases in Iraq, the countries

in the region, as well as countries in Europe, know that it becomes

their problem as well as ours. Right now they are content to let us

stand back and bear the burden because we are willing to. I mean,
43

when we said we will stand down when Iraqis stand up, that basically put no timetable on it.

As I read the President’s speech, he talked about how important

it was, and we couldn’t fail, but then he said, ‘‘Well, our patience

is not unlimited.’’ Well, what happens if they don’t do it? Is he willing to let us fail in what they think is that critical to our interests?

There is that inconsistency. And that is why I think that unless

you set a date, and I think, you know, 18 months would be a reasonable amount of time, you are not the—the situation is not going

to get appreciably better.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Gingrey.

Dr. GINGREY. Thank you.

Dr. Korb, I want to address my question to you. You said in your

testimony, you said you didn’t think there were any good options.

You said we ignored General Shinseki. You said what the President is planning is too little, too late. In fact, you said you weren’t

in favor of the plan, that you didn’t think it would work.

In light of those comments and your testimony, I want to let you

know that yesterday I was at Bethesda to visit a Navy corpsman,

a native, a petty officer corpsman from my district in Palace

Springs, Georgia, Dustin Kirby. This corpsman was shot by a sniper in the face on Christmas Day with a .30–06 type rifle, equivalent

of a deer rifle. Lost half his tongue and all of his jaw. And after

the President made his speech last week, his parents watched—he

was in surgery for 20 hours, so he didn’t get to see that speech.

What he thought about the naysayers not wanting to proceed with

the plan—and I want to read to you his comments and then get

you to comment on it.

And this is what Dustin Kirby said: ‘‘In my opinion, sir, we have

made great sacrifices. Men and women are wounded for the rest of

their lives. I would like to think it was for something. That is, perspective from those on the ground, I feel we have taken one step

forward, two steps back, and all of our sacrifices appear to be in

vain, and that, sir, appears to be a tragedy. If you could bring everyone home and actually accomplish something, I would be all for

it; but if not, let us get the job done by changing our rules of engagement. We are also restricted and our hands tied behind our

backs. The argument is that the armed forces fight a war where

they can’t find the bad guys because they don’t fight face to face

the way Marines and soldiers are trained to do. But it is not my

place to argue with the taxpayers of the United States Government; only follow orders given to me and react to the given situation that I’ve been trained to do. But as I said, I worry about my

Marines, and I am not there to take care of them.’’

And then he went on to say that he felt the President’s plan

would give us at least one last chance at victory.

Now, what do you say, Doctor, to his wife Lauren, his mom Gail,

his dad Jack, and his brother and sister when you talk about wanting to either withdraw or deploy? You can couch it in whatever

terms you want to. But what do you say to this family when you

leave them with that sacrifice on the ground?

Dr. KORB. Well, I think I say the same thing to those I served

with in Vietnam. We followed our orders, and we should have been

commended for our service, and I commend him for his sacrifice.
44

I commend him for doing what the country asked of him to do. You

asked me my opinion about what is the best way to go, I can give

you my opinion.

If I thought that the President’s plan would lead to victory, I

would support it. But I know that the President told us on October

25th of this year we were winning, no doubt about it. Then he said

after the election, ‘‘Well, I only didn’t mean that. I just said that

for the election.’’ I also know from the interviews that the President has given to 60 Minutes and to the News Hour basically that

he knew last summer that things were not going well, and yet he

waited this long to come up with a different strategy, and I would

say, why did you wait so long? Was it the political process? What

was the reason that you waited so long? I hope it was not.

I would also say to him that I have the greatest respect for anybody who puts the uniform of the country on like I did, because

when I was growing up, I had deferments, and I won’t mention the

political leader who took them when I was——

Dr. GINGREY. Let me interrupt. With all due respect to this Monday-morning quarterback, and I understand that hindsight is 20/

20, but at this point, don’t you think, Doctor, that we ought to give

these troops—that we owe them, we owe their moms and dads,

those 3,000 dead and many more injured like this soldier, this

corpsman, this Navy corpsman; don’t you think we owe it to them

to give it one last opportunity at a knock-out blow so we can put

them on the ropes and get us off the ropes?

Dr. KORB. As I say, if I thought it would enhance American security, lead to less loss of American lives, I would support it. I don’t.

I think it is going to lead to more death, and I don’t think it is

going to bring us any closer to victory.

Dr. GINGREY. Sure, doctor, and of course you might be wrong.

You may be right, and at that point in time, maybe this entire committee would agree with you. But I think we need to give them

that one last opportunity.

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Shea-Porter.

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was a military spouse, and my husband is a Vietnam-era veteran, and I understand that young man’s dilemma. However, I am

not certain that the question should be phrased like that because

I think it is more important to ask the people of our country is it

worth it, and that is what we are doing here to try to find out. Is

it worth it for other people’s children to continue to die to justify

somebody else’s damage or death? And so I think this is—these are

the questions that we need to take very seriously today.

You mention, Dr. Kagan, that this war, if we lost it, would be

a world-changing event, and I would point out to you that it already is a world-changing event, and that Vietnam was a changing

event also. And the argument that I am hearing now that if we

don’t win, we will see everything fall apart is exactly the same argument that I recall during the Vietnam era, that everything

would fall apart. We would have the domino effect, that Southeast

Asia would be controlled by the Soviets, that China would intervene. So I think we need to be cautious about our prediction because every prediction to date has been wrong.
45

I would like to say I am not certain why we have not been able

to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Seventy percent

of the country wants us out of there. Sixty percent say it is okay

to kill an American. Now there is internal discipline and external

controls, and so far all of the United States has been able to accomplish are these external controls, and I am not sure why we don’t

have the internal discipline there after all of the money that we

have spent, after all of the efforts our brave soldiers have given.

And I would also like to take some offense saying that we never

had a mission to secure Iraq, Dr. Kagan, because I think those

brave soldiers worked very hard to provide security for the Iraqis.

It hasn’t happened, and this is a question that I would like to ask

each one of you.

Is the reason we have been unable to win the hearts and minds

of the Iraqi people because we are perceived as occupiers, that the

mission was wrong from the beginning; and is there any chance at

all that they are going to stop seeing us as occupiers and work together?

And my follow-up question is what and who is the political center

for Iraq, and when do you expect them to emerge, if they emerge,

to start taking control of the country from the factions?

So I would like to ask each one of you to answer that, please.

Dr. PERRY. Yes, they do see us—it is not the whole problem, but

it is an important part of the problem. I think for us to have a

chance for success, we have to be able to, as quickly as possible,

to turn the security problem over to the Iraqis. I do not think they

are ready to do that now. I think our primary role ought to be

strengthening the Iraqi Army so they can take over that security

function. Only when they do that, we can start to get out of there,

will the image of Americans in Iraqi minds change.

Dr. KAGAN. In the first instance I would say I think Iraq—how

Iraqis see us is secondary to how they see their own government.

I would agree with you we have not achieved success in that measure. I am less interested in the question of how much they like us

than whether they can come together to form a government that

is stable. So I think we can get a little confused about what the

purpose of hearts and minds actually is.

I did not mean to imply any denigration of the efforts of our fine

soldiers in Iraq. What I have—what I was saying simply was they

were not given the correct strategy from the outset. The strategy

that they were given was train and transition and stand up and

stand down. I would submit to you that is a large part of the reason why we face antipathy in Iraq.

One of the obligations of an occupying power, and we were one

before the sovereign Iraqi government came into being, is to provide security for the people. If you are going to have forces in another country, there is going to be a certain amount of resentment.

That can be offset if you provide the number one deliverance that

those people want, and that is security. We have not been doing

that because of the strategic mistake, the decision not to focus on

that, and I think as we begin to turn that around and provide the

number one deliverable that we can provide that justifies our continued presence in Iraq, I think you will find attitudes in Iraq turning around.
46

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. We have seen our troops go door to door. They

have gone block to block and worked their way through the neighborhoods. If they weren’t trying to secure the neighborhoods, what

were they doing at two and three o’clock in the morning? I believe

they were trying to secure the neighborhoods for Iraq’s people,

but——

Dr. KAGAN. The problem is they left almost immediately thereafter in the belief we could return responsibility for maintaining

Iraqi security over to Iraqi forces, who were not able to accomplish

that mission.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady.

The gentleman from California is now recognized.

Mr. HUNTER. I want to apologize to our guests for having to step

out for quite a while, but it has been a very instructive hearing,

and I want to compliment the Chairman for putting this together.

Let me go to where I think there is—some value can be—some

real value added to the mission in terms of the Baghdad operation

and just get your take on this.

We are going to have nine sectors in which—in Baghdad in

which each sector will have an Iraqi brigade which will be several

maneuverable battalions, in some cases two or three, and they will

be backed up by the embedded troops, embedded in the company

level, but also by an American battalion. And the American battalion will be there to back up, to help to mentor and, as the Iraqis

hit their stride that has become operationally proficient, to trade

out with another Iraqi battalion.

I think that this could be a pattern, a blueprint for standing up

the Iraqi military in total. And, again, if you look at the Iraqi battalions in the way they are dispersed across the country, in nine

of the provinces you have less than one attack a day, relatively

peaceful provinces. You had—and the number should be a little

higher now—but you had, as of the last month, some 27 Iraqi battalions in these peaceful provinces.

We have been standing up the country if you—if you look at the

progress maps essentially in terms of geography. That is, this area

is now an area in which the Iraqi forces are now in the lead, and

that implies that you have battlefield competency in the Iraqi

forces that are in that area. But what it may mean, that the Iraqi

forces in that particular area simply don’t have any opposition.

They are in an area that is relatively quiet, and it doesn’t require

them to be combat proficient.

And my recommendation is this: is that we use this Baghdad

plan, three-to-one plan, if you will, or two-to-one plan where there

is three Iraqi battalions up front doing the operation up front and

American backup, and as the Iraqi battalions become operationally

proficient, bringing out the American battalion or turning it over

to another Iraqi battalion so that you end up with an Iraqi-controlled vital space.

Now, what that would do is develop the stand-up of the Iraqi

military based not on geographical control, which it is based on

now, at least apparently from the reports in the briefings that we

have now received, but it would be a capability-based stand-up of

the Iraqi military. That is, at the end of four or five or six months,

every Iraqi battalion could be given a combat tour, an operational
47

tour, and I think we all agree that nothing stands up the military

operationally like operations—like actually going out and working

the operations, working the missions, especially when you are

hooked up with a unit which has some capability.

So, for example, as you worked in combat in Baghdad, and you

have three Iraqi maneuver battalions up front, you might want to

trade out after several months one of the battalions and bring up

a battalion from a quiet area from the north or the south. Let them

operate until they have had their operational tour and then rotate

them out.

What that will tell us is whether or not you have battalion commanders who will respond when they are called by the Ministry of

Defense and told to saddle up, number one, whether they will

come; whether they will move out, saddle up their troops, bring

them into the area of operation (AO) and operate.

Number two, it gives you a chance to develop unit cohesion, to

develop combat effectiveness, to develop an adherence to the chain

of command, all the things that produce an efficient military.

So that is a recommendation that I have made to the Administration. I would like your take on it. Do you think that that would

be a blueprint for standing up for the Iraqi forces so that regardless of the number of car bombs that are going off, and regardless

of all of the externals that we have talked about, we could have at

the end of four or five or six months an Iraqi military every battalion of which has some modicum of combat or operational experience? That is my question.

Dr. PERRY. First of all, I am not sure that we have enough troops

in Baghdad to accomplish what you are talking about. I tend to believe the numbers of troops proposed in Dr. Kagan’s report to be

closer to the number needed.

But assuming that we do have enough troops, then we will be

able to establish the security in the region of the problem, though

that security will go away as soon as the American troops leave,

unless—and this is the big unless—unless the Iraqi battalions are

able to sustain that security; and that depends on their having

much more proficiency and discipline and motivation than they

have demonstrated in the past. The key to that, I think, is the embedding of the American troops down to the company level.

So I am sort of halfway where you are, Mr. Duncan, in that I

believe that any chance to succeed does revolve around this embedding plan.

Dr. KORB. Our concern is that you mentioned, Mr. Hunter,

whether they will all show up and whether they will follow orders

if the orders go against their sect, because I understand these units

are as—not as multiethnic as we might like. What I read in the

newspaper, they are talking about bringing down Kurdish brigades;

for example, how that will play if they have to go into a Sunni

area.

Mr. HUNTER. Let us presume, Dr. Korb, that they do show up.

I mean, we all agree if the team doesn’t show up for the ballgame,

you are probably not going to win it. But let us presume that they

do keep their commitment and they arrive on time at the AO, so

you have got a green Iraqi battalion, and you have got two experienced Iraqi battalions and an American backup battalion.
48

Dr. KORB. I am also concerned, as I mentioned, about the new

Iraqi general that is in charge. From what I read, he is not the one

that the United States would have liked to have put in charge of

this operation. So I am worried about, you know, the orders that,

you know, that they might give. And then even if they are—if they

do show up, will they act fairly and responsibly in terms of the

things that they are supposed to do? Are they—have they been infiltrated by some of the insurgents? Those are the—are they going

to get the right orders from the top? Those are the things I would

worry about as well.

Dr. KAGAN. I would agree with you absolutely that it is a priority

in training the Iraqi army that they be brought in to conduct operations alongside of our troops rather than simply being pushed out

to conduct operations on their own with or without Americans embedded in them, and I think the partnership training, the training

the Iraqi forces get through partnership, is the best possible training and the fastest way to get that army stood up.

The specifics of the proposal you made I think are a little bit

complicated. Some of the regions that are peaceful may be peaceful

because there are Iraqi army forces there, and we want to be careful not to denude those forces where they are necessary. So that

should be something that is done on a case-by-case basis.

I am also not convinced that the force ratios would work across

the city. I want to make sure we maintain adequate American

forces in those neighborhoods, that we would be rotating Iraqi

units through so we could ensure that stability and security was

maintained even if there was some sort of slips, even if some of the

Iraqi units didn’t show up, even if they didn’t perform adequately,

because I think the core responsibility in the first instance is maintaining security, and that will give us the opportunity to conduct

all of the sort of training of the varieties you are discussing.

So I think that is the sine qua non, and as long as you can ensure that, then we can talk about the varieties that you are discussing.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you.

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

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Kagan, you were a supporter of this war effort from its inception; were you not?

Dr. KAGAN. I supported the invasion of Iraq, yes, I did.

Mr. JOHNSON. And we were told that there was a danger of

weapons of mass destruction, and that is why we needed to go into

Iraq; isn’t that correct?

Dr. KAGAN. Among other things, yes, although I supported it for

more complicated reasons than that.

Mr. JOHNSON. But the point is there were no weapons of mass

destruction; isn’t that correct?

Dr. KAGAN. Apparently not.

Mr. JOHNSON. And then the second reason is the alleged imminent danger to the U.S. from Iraq’s support for terrorism. That was

the other reason given for us going into Iraq in the first place; isn’t

that correct?
49

Dr. KAGAN. Yes, although, again, there are other reasons why I

supported the war that were different than the ones that the Administration laid out.

Mr. JOHNSON. Bottom line, I think your testimony has been that

the war in Iraq has acted as a cesspool of development for al Qaeda

terrorist activity. And we have also been given a third reason once

those two reasons came up empty for going into Iraq, and the third

one was that we needed to create a democratic government in Iraq,

correct?

Dr. KAGAN. Yes. That was another reason the Bush Administration gave us.

Mr. JOHNSON. And we have not been able to create a democratic

government in Iraq over the last 4–1/2 years for $400 billion and

3,000 American deaths; isn’t that correct, Dr. Kagan?

Dr. KAGAN. We have not fully succeeded in establishing a democratic government even though we have had elections.

Mr. JOHNSON. And I understand that we were told that the

American invasion would be a cakewalk, and we would be greeted

as liberators, and we could rebuild Iraq at a cost of $1.5 billion a

year, and that we would start reducing our troop strength, which

would be down to about 30,000 troops by the end of 2003. And of

course none of that has happened, and it looks like we are, according to you, Dr. Perry, involved now in a quagmire, I think is what

you mentioned in your report which I have been——

Dr. PERRY. It is—it did not originate with me.

Mr. JOHNSON. And quagmire is defined by the dictionary, I believe it was Webster’s, an area of soft, muddy land that gives way

underfoot. And also it says it is a marsh, and a ‘‘marsh’’ is defined

as an area of low wetland, a swamp. And it appears to me that we

are embedded deeply in a muddy swamp, in a quagmire, and we

are spinning our wheels. And there are those who would say that

we need to increase troop strength by 22,500 people, and that

would suddenly enable the United States to do what it has been

unable to do in the last 4 years or so.

Would it be fair to conclude, Dr. Kagan, that the Bush Administration has bungled this war effort?

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I have been a consistent critic of the

way the Bush Administration——

Mr. JOHNSON. Would you say that?

Dr. KAGAN. Yes. They have made important mistakes in this war

to date.

Mr. JOHNSON. Actually now with those three things that were

given as the reasons for going into Iraq now having been found to

be erroneous, or actually two things, and then the third has been

badly mishandled, badly executed, establishing democracy in Iraq,

one could say that this was a mission that was doomed to fail from

the outset because it was wrong in the first place.

Dr. Korb, you stated in your report that at this point it looks

like—bear with me. You said that Iraq now has more than 300,000

members in its security forces which do not lack the necessary

training to quell the violence. In fact, some of them have had more

training than the young soldiers and marines the United States

has sent to Iraq.

Would you explain that statement, please?
50

Dr. KORB. What I am saying there, people basically focus on the

training. In my view, it is motivation. We are not asking the Iraqi

military to take on the Soviet military and the planes of Europe.

We are asking them to do police work. And basically I think the

question really is do they want to do what they need to do? And

as I pointed out, we take young men and young women, we send

them to three months of training, we send them to war. So in many

cases, some of the people there have had less training than some

of these Iraqi units.

And so that is my point. We are not asking them to do major conventional battles. We are asking them to do police work, go in and

control the situation, and they simply don’t want to do that.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman from Georgia.

Let me inquire of our panel. I was told, Dr. Perry, you had to

leave at 4:15.

Dr. PERRY. Yes, 4:15.

The CHAIRMAN. I think we will proceed until 4:15. And I know

some will not have the opportunity to ask questions, but we have

done the best we could, and people have lived by the five-minute

rule, so I compliment them.

Mr. Franks.

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Chairman Skelton, Ranking Member

Hunter. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

Sometimes in a complex debate it is important to return to the

very basic equation and paradigm. And, Dr. Kagan, or is it Mr.

Kagan, my first question is to you. Let me preface it by some comments Mr. Bush made in 2005. He said that militants, in this case

talking terrorists, militants, insurgents believe that controlling one

country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow

all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. With greater economic and military political power, the terrorists would be able to

advance their stated agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people and to blackmail our government into isolation.

Do you—Mr. Kagan, do you believe that that is a—at the time,

2005, those words were spoken and it represented essentially an

accurate perspective of the intentions of terrorists including al

Qaeda, and how that—has that changed today?

Dr. KAGAN. Well, I do believe that it demonstrated an accurate

portrayal of their intentions. I think they expressed their intentions on a number of occasions going back to the 1960’s, and as recently as 2004 and 2005 in exchanges from al-Zarqawi. I think that

it is the intention of al Qaeda, I think that is the parallel intentions of the parallel movements in Iraq, and I think it remains the

intentions of today.

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you. I certainly believe that you are correct.

Let me, if I might. There were some parallels made to Vietnam

and some discussions surrounding Vietnam. Let me first say to you

that I honor you for your service in Vietnam, for the courage that

you showed, and for making the sacrifice that you did on the basis

of trying to protect human freedom.

And I would submit to you that it was not people like yourself

that lost the war in Vietnam. It was people in the halls of this Con-
51

gress that lost the war in Vietnam with the debate not so unlike

some of the challenges that we are facing here today.

With that said, when the Americans did withdraw from Vietnam,

and I know there were great, great differences, the fact was that

not thousands, not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands,

but millions of people died, most of them innocent Cambodians.

And we fought then an enemy that was not of the terrorist

mindset, but that was of a Communist mindset that was committed

to the slow domination of the world, and that culminated in the

fact that the Soviet Union grew very, very strong, and if not for one

Ronald Reagan that had the courage to stand up against them and

see that collapse, I wonder where we would be today. Now, that is

the only parallel I will make with Vietnam.

I will say to you that I believe that if we fail in Iraq, I believe

the implications are profound. I think if we succeed in Iraq, it could

sow the seeds of freedom in that region and turn the whole of humanity in a better direction.

Might I ask your perspective, if you think the President’s plan

here is defective, and you certainly have every right to do that, but

if you do, can you give me or this panel your—just your general

plan of what might work to win in Iraq? And by that I mean by

allowing the government enough strength to stand on their own;

not stopping all the bombs, but enough to survive on their own so

that what happened in Vietnam does not happen there.

Dr. KORB. Congress didn’t lose the war in Vietnam. I think it is

very important to say that. The fact of the matter is you were trying to create two states where there was only one state. And we

never had a government that we backed in South Vietnam that enjoyed the support of the people. It wasn’t the fault of the people

fighting the war. It wasn’t the fault of the things done here. It was

basically trying to do something that was impossible to do.

Now, I have said here today, and I will say it again, that what

we are talking about in Iraq has a certain semblance to Vietnam.

Let me quote somebody who will surprise you, William Buckley,

the editor of the National Review. He said, had we not left Vietnam

when we did and realized that we couldn’t achieve our objectives,

we would have lost the Cold War. He also said, if we don’t do the

same in Iraq, we are not going to win the war on terror. And——

Mr. FRANKS. Because I am out of time, what is your plan to win

in Iraq?

Dr. KORB. My plan basically is to win the war on terror. My plan

is basically to make the best of a bad situation that was created

by giving false reasons and then not doing it correctly. When General Shinseki told us how much we needed to stabilize the country

after the overthrow of Saddam, we didn’t follow that advice. Had

we done it, I think things would have been better. So what I am

saying is we are where we are because of decisions that have been

made.

Now, what you have to do, victory will be the Iraqis making

those painful political compromises. And the best lever we have, in

my view, is to set a date certain which will put them on notice and

also the countries in the region that they are going to have to deal

with the problem as well.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlemen.
52

Well, we almost made it. We have time for one more Member to

question. And if it is any consolation to those that did not get a

chance to ask questions, I have been there before, so I know just

how you feel.

So I will call on Ms. Gillibrand, and with that, we will thank the

panel, and I will have a closing comment.

Mrs. Gillibrand.

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and

thank you for coming to talk to us today about these very important issues. This was indeed the number one issue in the 2006 elections, and we were all sent here to find answers, and you are helping us to do that.

When we had Secretary Gates and General Pace come in to testify, both of them said that the President’s plan could not work unless there was significant progress on the political and on the economic development of Iraq. And all of you have talked a bit about

those issues.

And I watch your impressions and thoughts on your best advice

to the President right now on how to focus our efforts on the political and the economic front. Certainly, it has been discussed to have

a congressional resolution saying that we won’t have permanent

bases in Iraq, and we won’t have a claim on the oil as a way to

set the stage for diplomacy.

And we have also had discussion, and the President mentioned

in his speech, the issue of the Iraqi oil revenues. We were unable

to get clear answers in our last hearing about the current state of

the oil revenues and how indeed they will be effectively transferred

to the Iraqis, and then, once transferred, how they can be divided

among the three sectarian groups, and then there can be some

oversight to make sure that that is maintained.

And second, the reconstruction contracts. Currently most of the

reconstruction contracts are being handled by Americans; if we can

shift them effectively to the Iraqis so their 20-year-olds are rebuilding the roads and the schools and hotels and working to rebuild

their own country.

And then third, many of you talked about a regional peace summit to actually bring in our allies and countries that we are not

necessarily allied with to begin to participate.

Can you speak to how we can increase the likelihood of this

transformation taking place, and what actions the President can

take on your best recommendation to make this a possibility of success, because both the general and the Secretary of Defense said

it can not succeed if we don’t have movement on the economic and

the political front.

Dr. PERRY. I think my best judgment on how we have our best

chance of success in Iraq is really embodied in this Iraq Study

Group report, which I helped write and whose recommendations I

agree with.

All three of the points that you made, I think, are things that

are important to do and things that we could do. And, again, I emphasize that whatever we do there, the emphasis has to be on the

political and economic—this problem cannot be solved by the military alone, certainly cannot be solved by the U.S. military alone,

and every general that I have talked with has that view.
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Dr. KORB. I think we have to conclude this cannot be won militarily, so, therefore, you have to make the political compromise, as

I have talked about.

You also have to do more in improving the lives of Iraqis. We

ought to allow them to do the reconstruction rather than have

American or foreign firms do that. I would give money to the provincial governments allocated so the reconstruction money to the

provincial governments is based upon them meeting certain criteria

for doing things in their own districts, but get it down to the local

level.

One of the problems we have in Iraq is because we are such a

powerful country, people there could not believe that we didn’t do

it right when we got there. They thought there must have been—

you know, we must have done that on purpose. It wasn’t the case,

but that is what they believed.

So I do think we have got to do those things, but I don’t think

anything will happen until the political compromises are made, because they are going to keep fighting until those things are done.

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. One thing we agree on is giving the Iraqis a

notice period about a redeployment and when that will take place,

and allowing our military leaders to consult on what that time period will be. But do you agree that it is a way to incentivize the

Shi′a, in particular, to come to the table to make compromises? Because right now we are protecting their government. We are building their security forces. Do you think that leverage actually would

have an impact?

Dr. KORB. I hope so, but I don’t know any other leverage than

we have right now. Look, Mr. Maliki dissed the President of the

United States in Jordan. I mean, he dissed him. He didn’t show up.

Okay. He then, after the President gave a speech, didn’t come out

the next day to the press conference. Okay.

So that is what I am saying to you. These are the people that

our sons and daughters, husbands and wives are fighting and

dying for, okay, and that is what concerns me. That is why I think

we have got to put them on notice that this thing can’t go on forever.

Dr. KAGAN. I must say, since I only have a few seconds, I am

very concerned about the ethical position of attempting to

incentivize people by threatening them with limitless genocide. I

really do feel that when you start to talk about pressing the Iraqis

to do things by threatening to withdraw forces and allowing it to

collapse into chaos, I am very uncomfortable with the moral, ethical position that is entailed in that.

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Don’t you think there is a difference, however,

if you are using leverage to bring parties together to compromise?

Dr. KAGAN. If you are serious on carrying through on that threat,

then I think you have to follow the moral and ethical argument all

the way through.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady, and I thank all of you for

your patience. Sorry we didn’t get to complete the entire list. But

we are very grateful, Dr. Perry, Dr. Korb, Dr. Kagan, for your

being with us. Some of the finest strategic figures are sitting right

before us today. And we are very, very thankful for your testimony,

for your straightforwardness, and for being of great assistance to
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us. You have been very helpful in helping tell about the challenges

that we have in that sad country of Iraq, and we appreciate your

being with us and the education that you have given us as well as

the American people today.

So with our gratitude, we will close the hearing. Thank you very

much.

[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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