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i

37–323 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–49]

OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON

TRANSITIONING SECURITY TO

THE IRAQI SECURITY FORCES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

MARCH 28, 2007

(II)

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts, Chairman

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

JEFF MILLER, Florida

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

LORRY FENNER, Professional Staff Member

ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member

SASHA ROGERS, Staff Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Wednesday, March 28, 2007, Outside Perspectives on Transitioning Security

to the Iraqi Security Forces ................................................................................. 1

APPENDIXES:

Wednesday, March 28, 2007 ................................................................................... 39

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2007

OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSITIONING SECURITY TO THE

IRAQI SECURITY FORCES

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Meehan, Hon. Marty, a Representative from Massachusetts, Chairman, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 1

Miller, Hon. Jeff, a Representative from Florida, Oversight and Investigations

Subcommittee ....................................................................................................... 2

WITNESSES

Cordesman, Dr. Anthony H., Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center

for Strategic and International Studies ............................................................. 3

Kagan, Dr. Frederick W., Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute ..... 5

Oliker, Olga, Senior International Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation .............. 11

Perito, Robert M., Senior Program Officer, Center for Post-Conflict Peace

and Stability Operations, United States Institute of Peace ............................. 9

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Akin, Hon. Todd ................................................................................................ 45

Kagan, Dr. Frederick W. .................................................................................. 48

Meehan, Hon. Marty ........................................................................................ 43

Oliker, Olga ....................................................................................................... 62

Perito, Robert M. .............................................................................................. 56

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Choosing Victory, A Plan for Success in Iraq, Phase II Summary and

Recommendations by Frederick W. Kagan ................................................. 125

Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War, The Critical

Problems and Failures the U.S. Must Address if Iraqi Forces Are

to Do the Job by Anthony H. Cordesman ................................................... 81

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. Meehan ....................................................................................................... 143

(1)

OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSITIONING SECURITY

TO THE IRAQI SECURITY FORCES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 28, 2007.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:44 p.m., in room

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Marty Meehan (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTY MEEHAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much for your patience. We had

a vote over at the House, but we are going to get started.

I spoke to Mr. Akin on the floor. He said that he would be a couple of minutes late, but I think Mr. Miller will take his place if he

is not here.

Good morning, and welcome to the first open hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Today, we will continue our examination of the most pressing

issue facing the country: the war in Iraq.

The Iraq Strategy Review unveiled by the president on January

10th identified the continued strengthening of the Iraqi Security

Forces (ISF) and the acceleration of the transition of security responsibility to the Iraqi government as an objective achievable in

the next 12 to 18 months. Key to whether this transition will be

successful will be the capability of the ISF, both military and police.

In addition to a number of full committee sessions, this is the

fourth time that our subcommittee has met to consider the development of the Iraqi Security Forces.

In the closed briefings we held this month, we learned about

ISF’s logistics systems and issues related to size, composition,

training and end strength of the Iraqi Security Forces. Last week,

we examined financial aspects of the transition of funding responsibilities to the Iraqi government.

In today’s hearing, we will receive testimony from experts who

have been analyzing the development of the ISF. The witnesses’

testimony will cover a variety of issues associated with the administration’s goal of transitioning security operations by January

2008, including manning, training and equipping the Iraqi Security

Forces, the logistical and ministerial support necessary to sustain

the ISF and, most importantly, the actual and projected capabilities of the ISF.

2

Other issues we would like to address include the critical role

that advisers and transition teams play in assessing the performance of Iraqi Security Forces, the degree to which we have relied

on contractor support for the development of the ISF, and the transition of primary financial responsibility for the Iraqi Security

Forces.

We hope to hear our guests’ frank appraisals of whether it is realistic to expect the Iraqi Security Forces to take the lead in providing security by January 2008. Today, we hope to hear about the

Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) challenges and recommendations

for overcoming those challenges.

Today, this hearing will begin with testimony from Dr. Anthony

Cordesman, who holds the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center

for Strategic and International Studies. He will be followed by Dr.

Frederick Kagan, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Mr. Robert Perito, who is a senior program officer with the

United States Institute of Peace; and Ms. Olga Oliker, who is senior international policy analyst with the RAND Corporation and

served with the coalition provisional authority (CPA).

To encourage discussion, I would like to follow the same less formal procedures today that we have in our prior briefings. I have

talked with our distinguished ranking member, and he has agreed

to dispense with the five-minute rule during today’s hearing.

So, pursuant to Rule 11(b)(2) of the rules of our committee, the

subcommittee will dispense with the five-minute rule, allowing

questioning to proceed as subcommittee members express interest

rather than strictly by seniority. I will endeavor to alternate in recognizing members between the majority and minority.

I would like to remind everyone that, while this is an open hearing, we have received closed briefings in which classified information was presented. So, please, be mindful of anything that you

might say based on what you heard in earlier briefings.

Welcome again to our witnesses. We appreciate you taking the

time. We looking forward to your remarks.

We will take your whole text for the record, if you wish, but we

would like you to present remarks fairly briefly so that we can get

to our questions.

And now, in lieu of Mr. Akin, I would like to turn to Mr. Miller

for any opening remarks that he may have in Mr. Akin’s absence.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Meehan can be found in the Appendix on page 43.]

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM FLORIDA, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. MILLER. Yes, I thank the distinguished chair, and I ask

unanimous consent that Mr. Akin’s remarks be submitted for the

record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the Appendix on page 45.]

Mr. MILLER. To the witnesses, thanks for being here today.

Dr. Kagan, it is good to see you again, sir.

Before we get to your testimony and the questions that we will

have to ask, I think some points need to be made.

3

Certainly, criticism of the ISF and our training efforts is easy to

come by these days, you see it everywhere, but as most of us would

say, what is the alternative? I, for one, and I think every member

of this committee does not believe that we should have American

troops in Iraq indefinitely. So, as a reminder, I think we must succeed in this mission.

I believe Dr. Kagan has said it very well. From the outset, it

would have been wiser to see the ISF as a force that could assist

the coalition in suppressing the Sunni Arab insurgents, al Qaeda

and related terrorists, and then Shiite militias, but that would,

above all, be able to maintain order once it had been established.

The President’s new strategy has embraced this more realistic

view, and events on the ground are beginning to validate this approach. So, in order to ensure success, we as a congress must be

wary of requesting too many documents that are at the tactical

level and in previous wars would have never been available due to

the lack of current available information technology assets.

But, on the other hand, our friends at the Office of the Secretary

of Defense must ensure that they meet our requests for relevant

documents in a timely manner, and if the department does not

want to submit them to Congress, they should say so and not just

slow roll us.

Last, we must keep the proper perspective on this entire endeavor. In our instant gratification society, it is easy for someone in

Washington, D.C., to say the level of illiteracy amongst Iraqi recruits is too high. Throughout history, many armies and navies

conquered entire civilizations with thousands of illiterate soldiers.

Training coupled with effective leadership and accountability are

key, and I hope at some level our subcommittee can address these

issues.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Akin, he just read your remarks. He did it quite well.

Mr. MILLER. You were very good.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you.

Mr. MEEHAN. Dr. Cordesman, if you could begin.

Again, thank you very much, and I apologize for being late. We

had a series of votes.

Dr. Cordesman, if you could start?

STATEMENT OF DR. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN, ARLEIGH A.

BURKE CHAIR IN STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

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

I have prepared a detailed formal statement and analysis of Iraqi

Security Forces, and I do request it be included in the record. It

describes a whole series of issues in the development of these forces

that, I think, show clearly that they are years away from being

ready to take over the mission in early 2008.

But, in my brief oral remarks, however, I would like to strike a

somewhat different theme. Nearly half a century ago, I entered the

Office of the Secretary of Defense at a time when it was neoliberals

that had thrust us into a war in Vietnam. Over the years that followed, I saw the same tendency in that war to downplay the risks

4

and threats and the internal divisions in the Nation where we

fought that I see in the way this Administration treats the Iraq

war today.

I also saw a subculture build up within the executive branch that

exaggerated our successes in introducing democracy, in using foreign aid and in bringing security to the people. I saw a shift over

time from reliance on to our own forces to what we call Vietnamization, and then I saw withdrawal from a nation where we had

created a government and military forces that remained dependent

on us—for money, for vast amounts of weapons and supplies, and

for the threat that Vietnam would be bombed if it invaded.

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was never running

for independent action. It had made real progress in many areas,

and key units did fight well and with great courage, but its overall

development and capabilities, however, had been grossly exaggerated in virtually all of the reporting to the Congress and indeed to

the Secretary. It remained dependent on American support, and

when the Congress ceased to fund and provide aid and the U.S.

ceased to provide a credible threat to North Vietnam, it could not

possibly survive.

Much of the tragedy that has followed has been eased with time.

Vietnam is now a friendly state and making progress in many

areas. The fact remains, however, that I watched for nearly three

decades as many of the ARVN and as Vietnamese intelligence cadres which had served us remained in camps and were subject to

threats and constant political pressure. When I visited Vietnam

several years ago, I found their sons and their grandsons were still

under that pressure.

As I testify today, I cannot forget these experiences. I cannot forget the problems we created by exaggerating our successes in Vietnam, in training Lebanese forces in the 1980’s and, indeed, as we

have done in the first five years in Afghanistan.

We have been where we are in Iraq several times before, and we

have done great damage to the countries we were supposed to aid

in the process. We are now dealing with the legacy of

neoconservatives in a badly planned and executed gamble with the

lives of 27 million Iraqis. We have again lied and exaggerated our

progress in political development, in security efforts, in economic

aid and in the development of post-country forces.

For the second time in my life, I fear that we are going to see

a failed president and a failed administration preside over a failed

war. I cannot promise you that we can avoid this. The chances are

all too great that we cannot.

I cannot believe, for example, that we can ever succeed in Iraqi

force development unless we can succeed in persuading the Iraqis

to achieve political conciliation between Arab Sunni, Arab Shiite

and Kurd. As General Petraeus and many other senior military officers have said, the key to security is not military. It is political.

I also cannot deny that much of the official reporting on Iraqi

force readiness and progress in Iraqi force development is the same

tissue of lies, spin, distortion and omission I saw in Vietnam. There

is no integrity in the reporting on manpower and in the number

of units in the lead. Very real progress and success has been distorted and exaggerated almost to the point of absurdity. The critiVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:41 Jan 04, 2008 Jkt 037323 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-49\087160.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
5

cal linkages between creating effective regular military forces and

creating effective police, rule of law and government services have

been misrepresented or ignored.

As in Vietnam, we have downplayed the present and future degree of Iraqi dependence on U.S. equipment and aid. We have

downplayed how dependent these forces are and will remain in on

U.S. air power, armor, artillery, embeds, partner units and support.

I have seen us rush undertrained, underequipped and inexperienced units into combats and missions for which they were not

ready. I have seen us basically create a force that can sometimes

win, but is not ready to hold and is certainly not ready to build.

And now when I come before you this committee, this country is

in the middle of an ever more bitter partisan debate over withdrawal from Iraq. The irony is, however, that we may collectively

be moving toward a bipartisan effort to rush our forces out of Iraq

years before Iraqi forces are really ready and with far too little regard for the human cost to Iraq and our strategic position in the

Gulf.

The Congress seemingly wants out in order to end the war. The

administration seemingly wants a cosmetic victory in Baghdad to

declare victory and to leave. We may have to leave. Open civil war,

failure at conciliation, the inability to provide nationwide security

and/or a steadily more bitter low-level sectarian and ethnic conflict

may leave us no choice.

But I urge you in your deliberations to think long and hard about

such actions and particularly about abandoning Iraq too soon if

there is still hope. I urge you not to confuse the lies and exaggerations about ISF readiness with our ability to rush out of Iraq and

leave the fighting to them. I urge you not to ignore the real

progress these forces have actually made and what a meaningful

and honest long-term force development program could do over the

next three to five years if Iraq moves toward conciliation.

You cannot win by relying on these forces to take over in January 2008. They need years of continuous support. We talk about

long wars and winning them. It takes patience, resources, persistence and time, but there is a core of real competence under the

smokescreen of spin and propaganda.

As long as there is real hope of broader progress in Iraq, the ISF

and the Iraqi people should no more have to pay for the mistakes

of American neoconservatives than the ARVN and the Vietnamese

people should have had to pay for the mistakes of neoliberals.

Thank you.

[The document submitted by Dr. Cordesman can be found in the

Appendix on page 81.]

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you.

Dr. Kagan.

STATEMENT OF DR. FREDERICK W. KAGAN, RESIDENT

SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Dr. KAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. It is a pleasure to be here before you speaking about

this extremely important topic. I will try to keep my remarks brief

so that we can get to your questions and address your concerns.

6

I would like to pick up on one comment that Dr. Cordesman and

many others have made, which is the consistent comparison between Iraq and Vietnam.

Apart from the many, many, many obvious differences between

Iraq and Vietnam, including the differences between jungle and

desert and the fact that there were hundreds of thousands of North

Vietnamese conventional soldiers in South Vietnam which rather

complicated the task at hand, one of the most important differences, I suspect Dr. Cordesman would agree with me on, is the

consequences of leaving the Vietnam were far less than I fear the

consequences of leaving Iraq prematurely would be, and that is

something that I think we must take into consideration.

We can talk as much as we want to about similarities and differences between these conflicts, but we should not in any way take

it for granted that the consequences of making the same decision

today will be the same as they were then, which is to say decades

of the sort of hardship that Dr. Cordesman so pointedly described

followed ultimately by some sort of reconciliation and no great

pain. I do not believe and many analysts do not believe that that

would be the likely result of a premature withdrawal from Iraq.

I would like to start by pointing out that what we have actually

accomplished in Iraq with the Iraqi Security Forces in the past four

years—really three years is about how long we have been actively

working on trying to get the right sort of Iraqi Army going—has

really been rather remarkable. We have something like 135,000

soldiers in the Iraqi Army trained to some standard, not as high

as we would like necessarily, but not nonexistent, equipped to a

basic standard, again not as high as we would like, but still

equipped.

I would like to remind the committee that 135,000 soldiers is

larger than the standing armies of France and Britain and that we

started from scratch. And we started from scratch doing it all over,

building an army of the sort that Iraq has not seen before. Iraq

used to have a conscript army on the Soviet model without a meaningful non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps.

We have built an all-volunteer force that is more similar to our

model with an increasingly professional NCO force. We have

changed all sorts of things about the way officers are seen, the way

NCOs are seen, the way privates are seen and the way they all relate to one another. We have fundamentally revolutionized the way

that the Iraqis think about their Army and what it is.

We have done that in four years. That is quite a remarkable accomplishment, and I think that we should keep that in mind.

With the Iraqi police, we have been rather less successful as is

well known, and I would like to pause here to make it a general

comment, just to step aside from the Iraq debate and make a point

that I think is vital for our national security across the board. We

actually do not know how to build police forces very well, and by

we, I mean not just the United States, but North Atlantic Treaty

Organization (NATO) because NATO has had the mission of building the Afghani police and it has had the mission of building the

police in the Balkans and it has been heavily involved in the mission in Iraq, and this seems to be a capability that is not actually

resident in the alliance.

7

It is objectively difficult. It is objectively difficult for the United

States to do because we do not have a national police force or paramilitary capabilities to draw on. So, as we look at the difficulties

that we face in Iraq here, I think we need to recognize broader difficulties that it would well behoove us to address in a larger schema.

As I noted in my testimony, I would like to highlight again the

expectations that the administration fostered and that many in

Congress are now fostering and many people are attempting to foster that we would be able rapidly to turn the task of establishing

security in Iraq over to the Iraqi Security Forces were always exaggerated and unrealistic, and I have never believed that that was

an appropriate way to go, as I have noted on numerous occasions

in the past.

The tasks involved in creating peace when you have a large-scale

insurgency morphing into insurgency and sectarian conflict are

very likely to be beyond the means of a brand-new force that is

only a couple of years into its existence, especially a force that has

been formed in that context, and that is why I and others have consistently argued that before we can think about transitioning responsibility for security to the Iraqis, we first have to take the lead

with them in establishing a basic level of security that they can

then maintain, and this has not been our strategy to date.

Our strategy to date, prior to the President’s change of strategy

this year, has been to focus on transitioning and transferring responsibility, and we have been given a lot of metrics, which I agree

are fairly meaningless, about how many Iraqi units are in the lead

here, hither and yon. That has not been significant because we

have not been taking the lead in fulfilling our part of our responsibility to help the Iraqis establish security in their country.

We have finally started to do that, and I believe that the president’s strategy, which focuses on establishing security with the

Iraqis so that the Iraqis, initially with our help and ultimately

being weaned off our help, will be able to maintain the security

that has been established, is the only reasonable approach and is

an approach which I think is already bearing fruit.

I would like to just mentioned a number of accomplishments that

have been made not in terms of numbers but just in terms of reality. The Baghdad security plan, which the Iraqi government participated in forming and developing and which it has backed, which

incidentally also has the formal stated backing of Abdul Aziz alHakim and even Muqtada al-Sadr, although he does not like the

American participation in it, called for the deployment of nine Iraqi

Army battalions and a similar number of Iraqi National Police battalions into Baghdad.

Many people were skeptical that anyone would be able to accomplish this feat because looking back at Operations Together Forward I and II last year, the Iraqis were not able to deploy a smaller

number of forces into Baghdad when we requested them to.

This time around, we have it right with them, and there are a

number of reasons for that, including fairly trivial things, planning

for where the Iraqis would arrive when they got toward Baghdad,

giving them extra hazardous duty and combat pay, giving them a

normal deployment cycle and so forth.

8

We did not do those things in Operations Together Forward I or

II. We have done them in this operation, and as a result, of the

nine battalions called for, nine battalions have arrived. The have

arrived at anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of their strength. The

later in the sequence they have arrived, the higher their strength

levels have been.

General Dempsey reports that those units that have arrived

under strength because soldiers chose not to come with their unit,

that those soldiers will be dismissed, that they will be replaced

from the pool of Iraqis who are now training to join the force; in

other words, that the Iraqis are serious about getting forces into

their capital to participate in the security plan.

But this is not just about what is going on in the capital, and

I think that we can talk too much about the Baghdad security plan

without recognizing sea changes that have occurred in Al Anbar

province.

For the first three years of this conflict, we thought—and most

people thought—that the major problem that we faced was the

Sunni Arab insurgency based in Al Anbar province and allied with

al Qaeda, and it was said that we would never be able to make any

progress there and reconciliation was impossible.

One of the things that was identified as a major problem was

that we could not get Sunni Arabs in Anbar to join the Army or

the police. We have seen that situation reversed in recent months.

Al Qaeda has made a number of stupid mistakes, and we have

done a number of things right, and as a result, the majority of

major Sunni tribal leaders in Al Anbar have now turned against

al Qaeda and are flooding the police forces at Fallujah and Ramadi

with their sons who are now actively combating al Qaeda in the

streets, something that would have been unimaginable even six

months ago. That is a major accomplishment.

In the north of Iraq, Multinational Division North has a single

brigade to cover all of Ninewah province and additional parts of its

area of responsibility (AOR), but one brigade in Ninewah province.

It is supported in that endeavor by 18,000 Iraqi police and 20,000

Iraqi Army soldiers. Now, the peace in Ninewah is certainly precarious, and there was an unfortunate incident just recently in Tal

Afar that was reported. Obviously, the situation is not perfect.

On the other hand, when you look at the force ratios in Ninewah,

which is a very large area and includes Iraq’s second largest city

of Mosul where there is a single U.S. battalion assisting Iraqis to

maintain peace in a city of 1.8 million, you have to recognize that

we have made significant progress there. The Iraqis have made significant progress in establishing a headquarters, a general Iraqi

ground forces command, in establishing division headquarters.

Progress is being made, as you have been briefed on, on logistics.

Nothing is perfect. The Iraqi Security Forces are far from perfect,

and I agree with Dr. Cordesman that it will not be overnight that

you will see an Iraqi security force that is going to be able to function independently. We have not until very recently even tried to

create a force that could function independently.

We have focused excessively on getting Iraqi light infantry into

the fight rapidly at the expense of developing the institutional

base. We are now addressing that problem. I think that we are cerVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:41 Jan 04, 2008 Jkt 037323 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-49\087160.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
9

tainly a year away from having that problem addressed. I cannot

predict when exactly it would be possible to transition lead for

maintaining security in Iraq over to the Iraqis. This is a war. You

cannot make precise predictions about how long things will take,

and I think we make a mistake when we can imagine that we can

have a railway timetable for this conflict anymore than you could

have had for any previous conflict.

What I am sure of is that if we establish security beginning in

Baghdad—Anbar is already establishing a much greater degree of

security than it has seen before; Ninewah is also working toward

establishing a greater degree of security; we will have to work in

Salah al-Din and Diyala and other areas in Iraq—if we help the

Iraqis to establish security, then we will hasten the day when we

can transition responsibility to an Iraqi force which is also growing

in strength and capabilities, not only through our embedded teams,

not only through our training systems, but by partnering with our

outstanding soldiers on a day-to-day basis where they see what excellence in operations looks like and where they see what professionalism looks like.

That is an essential component. It is a component of this plan,

and is something that I think will help lead us to the ultimate goal

which we all share which is an Iraq that can maintain security, defend itself and function independently.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kagan can be found in the Appendix on page 48.]

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Perito.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT M. PERITO, SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER, CENTER FOR POST-CONFLICT PEACE AND STABILITY

OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

Mr. PERITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you

and the other members of the subcommittee for inviting me here

this afternoon. I will give a summary of my statement, and I am

glad to know that the entire statement will be submitted for the

record.

I have to say that the views that I express this afternoon are my

own and not those of the United States Institute of Peace which

does not advocate specific policy positions.

The year 2006, which the Defense Department had declared as

the year of the police in Iraq, ended with the completion of what

was called the force generation phase of the U.S. Police Assistance

Program. One hundred eighty-eight thousand police have been

trained and equipped; 220 police transition teams were embedded

with Iraqi forces; nearly 100 American advisers were working in

the interior ministry.

Now, these statistics are impressive, but they mask a troubled

reality. In truth, U.S. military authorities did not know how many

police there were in Iraq or how many police stations. They did not

know how many people that had passed through our training programs were actually serving in the police, nor could they account

for the weapons or the equipment that had been issued.

The Iraqi police were unable or incapable of controlling crime or

protecting Iraqi citizens, and the Iraqi border police could not control the country’s borders. Some Iraqi police commando units were

10

operating as sectarian death squads. Only five Iraqi provinces had

an adequate number of U.S. police advisory teams. The Ministry of

the Interior which controlled the police was administratively dysfunctional and heavily influenced, if not controlled in some cases,

by Shiite militias.

Now, how did this happen? Under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi police were at the bottom of a hierarchy of security agencies. They

were poorly trained, ill-equipped, badly led, corrupt, brutal and distrusted by the population. Their duties were largely limited to traffic control and dealing with petty crime.

However, U.S. war planners counted on the Iraqi police to remain on duty and provide internal security after the United States

captured Baghdad. Instead, the Iraqi police took their weapons and

went home. Baghdad was looted, and Iraqis were victimized by an

epidemic of violent crime.

Now, how did the U.S. respond to this? After weeks of chaos,

United States military invited the Iraqi police to return to duty,

but, by then, Iraqi police stations had been destroyed by looters,

and their equipment and vehicles had been stolen.

In May 2003, the United States Justice Department (DOJ) police

assessment team determined that the Iraqi police could not maintain order without extensive assistance and external aid. This team

recommended the provision of 6,600 international police advisers,

an extensive training program, new equipment and a major building program to repair the destroyed infrastructure.

In Washington, these recommendations were not acted upon, and

little was done until the following year when a growing insurgency

compelled action. The United States response was for the first time

to put the Defense Department in charge of training a local police

force.

In March 2004, President Bush signed a directive which assigned

responsibility for the Iraqi police assistance program to the Defense

Department. The result was an emphasis on militarizing the police

and utilizing the police to assist the United States in fighting the

insurgency.

The results were predictable, and they were tragic. The Iraqi civilian police, the street cops, were not trained, nor were they

equipped for this role. Concentration on the insurgents left criminals free to operate with impunity and organized crime to flourish.

When the civil police faltered, the U.S. military organized

counterinsurgency police units, commando style units made up of

former Iraqi soldiers, that were not given police training. In 2005,

when a Shiite senior political leader took over control of the Interior Ministry, Shia militia moved into the Interior Ministry and

took over these police commando units.

Now, what can we do about this? The current interior minister,

Jawad al-Bulani, has publicly called for reform of his ministry and

the purging of those police who are guilty of crimes and sectarian

violence. Now, this is a good start. The United States should now

double the number of its advisers and undertake the slow and often

painful work of organizational transformation of the interior ministry.

The Iraqi police service, the street cops, need to be retrained, reequipped and legally authorized to fight crime and protect Iraqi ciVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:41 Jan 04, 2008 Jkt 037323 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-49\087160.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
11

vilians. This will involve giving the Iraqi police service new authority to conduct criminal investigations and strengthen its organized

crime unit and task force and authorizing these units to operate

nationwide.

The commando units that have been brought together under

what is called the Iraqi National Police should be vetted, retrained,

a process going on now, and then transferred to the Iraqi Defense

Ministry along with the Iraqi border police. Transferring these

units will bring them under closer U.S. supervision. It will also enable these units to better perform their counterinsurgency mission.

Today, all of the battalions and all of the brigades of the Iraqi

National Police, with one exception, are operating in Baghdad

alongside U.S. and Iraqi military forces.

Now, that DOD has completed the force generation phase of the

Police Assistance Program, it is time to transfer responsibility for

the U.S. Police Assistance Program to the Department of Justice

which should be placed in charge. Congress should give DOJ the

authority and the funding to enable American law-enforcement professionals to work with and assist their Iraqi counterparts.

Never before in all of the peace and stability operations in which

the United States has engaged has the United States military been

placed in charge of police training, and I agree with Dr. Kagan this

is not a skill which the United States military nor our NATO military alliance partners should address. It is time to switch this responsibility to civilian law-enforcement personnel who have done

this work in many other countries.

And finally, in December 2006, Prime Minister al-Maliki ordered

the Interior Ministry to exert control over the 155,000 members of

the facilities protection service. Now, this is an undisciplined collection of ministry guard forces that the Interior Minister has publicly

accused of engaging in crime and sectarian violence. This is a

major step, new responsibility for the Interior Ministry, but it can

only take on this responsibility with new and invigorated U.S. support.

These recommendations are within the capacity of the United

States to undertake even under today’s dire circumstances, and I

recommend them for your consideration.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Perito can be found in the Appendix on page 56.]

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much.

Ms. Oliker.

STATEMENT OF OLGA OLIKER, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL

POLICY ANALYST, RAND CORPORATION

Ms. OLIKER. Thank you very much.

Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Akin, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am very honored to be here today.

I was asked to talk about the Iraqi Security Forces, their development, and what I thought I would also talk about a bit is this

question of how can we tell how well they are doing and how much

they are improving.

There is a very useful and very simple formulation that a colleague of mine, Terrance Kelly, who spent a lot of time in Iraq, has

12

put together on how can you tell what is going on with the Iraqi

Security Forces, and what he says is it is a matter of quantity, how

many of them not just are there total, but are there on the job and

available to do the job; quality, what can they do; and loyalty,

whom do they owe their allegiance to.

The short answers to these three questions are that on quantity,

no one knows; on quality, it is very limited; and on loyalty, it is

severely fractured amongst sectarian groups, political factions, regions and individuals making up Iraq’s polity. I am going to touch

on each of these in turn.

On quantity, Dr. Kagan mentioned a 135,000 number for the

Ministry of Defense forces. That is a number that DOD can tell you

the Coalition has trained and equipped. As several people have

mentioned, Mr. Perito mentioned, in regards to the police, they

know how many people they have trained and equipped.

They have no idea how many of those have left or died. They do

not know how many people are gone. About a quarter of police and

military personnel are off at any given point in time, a lot of them

taking their paychecks home to their families because, in the absence of a banking system, that is the only way the people get their

money.

There are also thousands of people serving in the Ministry of Interior the Coalition did not train, and there are thousands of people

who work for the government but do not work for the Ministry of

Defense or the Ministry of Interior, including the facilities protection service folks that Bob Perito just mentioned and also various

agents of Iraq’s intelligence services.

All these people are armed, and they are variably trained.

The Iraqi government also cannot tell you how many security

forces they have. They might be able to tell you how many people

they are paying possibly, but a large number of the people they are

paying do not show up to work, and in regards to the local police,

they are turning over bulk sums of money to local governments,

and those are the ones who are paying people. So quantity we do

not know.

Quality: I think you have a sense of who the different forces are,

right? There are the Minister of Defense forces, which is the Iraqi

Army, 99 percent ground troops. There are the Ministry of Interior

(MOI) forces which are, on the one hand, local police, community

policing, and the national police built, as Mr. Perito said, of the

commando units that preexisted, put them all together, try to put

them under some sort of control, with a primarily

counterinsurgency mission. And then there are all these other

structures.

Training varies: different times, different programs, different

trainers. People who joined the Ministry of Defense through the

Iraqi Civil Defense Corps that became the national guard mostly

got on-the-job training. People who joined the Iraqi Army from the

start got very formalized training. Most basic training is now being

done by Iraqis.

Most of the training for everyone has been, as Bob Perito said,

military training, and this is a problem. Military training is a problem because when you are fighting an insurgency, policing makes

the difference. Why does policing make a difference? Very simply,

13

fighting insurgents is about winning over the populace. Policing is

about protecting the public. Military operations are about fighting

an enemy. If you want the public on your side, they have to feel

protected.

Equipment: Equipment varies too. It is not very good. The enemy

is usually better armed. Most Iraqi force personnel have an AK–

47 and a pistol. Most of their vehicles are not armored. Maintenance and repair have been a problem.

There are two very good reasons the Coalition has been reluctant

to provide heavier equipment. One is fear that it will disappear,

and the other is fear that the government itself will use it to oppress people. These are valid fears. But the end result is that these

folks are not very capable.

The effort now is on improving coherence and maintenance, but

the core problems are still there. They are going to continue to be

there for a while.

The mentoring program, which has been mentioned, is very important. It is important not just in improving these forces; it is also

important in monitoring their capacity and seeing how well they

are doing. But, again, most mentors, including for police, are military which creates problems for instilling policing culture.

Military police are not the same thing as civilian police, so putting a lot of military police might be better than putting a lot of

combat soldiers in, but it is still not the same thing as police forces.

So it is not just a matter of getting more mentors out there. If this

is really going to be successful, civilian mentors are going to have

to somehow be found.

A little bit on loyalty: The security forces, like Iraqi society, have

been increasingly fragmented, also increasingly Shia. In units that

used to be predominantly Sunni, structures like the Iraqi Armed

Forces Officer Corps, the Sunnis are leaving. They are being forced

out. There is a real effort under way by members of the government to cement control, and the result is that some people are

being forced out, and some people are leaving while they think they

can still leave.

Infiltration by insurgents we have all heard about, high levels of

the militia membership. Also, if people are not personally affiliated,

they might be intimidated, threats to their family, into cooperation,

or they may not be loyal to militia, but they might still not be loyal

to the Iraqi armed forces. They might be loyal to regional, religious

or political leaders, which is not a big problem if you are talking

about the Iraqi local police forces; they should be loyal to the community. It is a problem if you are talking about forces you are deploying outside of their neighborhoods.

The problem of sectarianism is a problem of the Iraqi political

system, as Dr. Cordesman pointed out. Senior officials reinforce

sectarianism because they are hedging against the failure of this

experiment. They want to make sure that if a unified Iraq does not

happen, their factions have enough fighters and their rivals cannot

take control. Of course, in addition to contributing to sectarianism,

it contributes to corruption and lack of accountability.

I want to put us in a broader context also. Iraqi Security Forces

will never work without institutions to support and run them, and

they will not work without a justice sector. The best police in the

14

world—you can build democratic, accountable police, but if there

are no prisons and courts, you have nothing to do with the criminals, and there are not, of course, judges or prisons in Iraq and existing prison facilities, including ones run by the NLG and the

MLI, so under the purview of this subcommittee, have been very

credibly accused of abuses, and coalition personnel have had trouble getting access to them.

If Iraqis are taking their future seriously as a unified state, they

have to develop vetting and investigative capacity as well as being

helped to develop a judicial system. They need to work to ensure

loyalty of the security forces to the state, not to its components.

They need to investigate malfeasance at senior levels.

In the past when senior personnel have been found complicit in

abuses, they were not fired; they were reassigned. So, when we see

senior personnel with strong connections to the current political

leadership brought to trial for abuses, we will know that something

has changed. We have not seen that so far.

In the meantime, as we have heard already today, we read about

more and more units and regents transitioning to Iraqi control.

Now, as you know, if you read between the lines or if you read the

small print, when units transition, they are still very dependent on

coalition personnel, logistics and capacity for pretty much everything they need to do.

The fact is that while there are areas where the coalition has

been able to reduce forces in operation, there is nowhere in Iraq

right now where Iraqi forces can truly stand alone, provide security

to the public in a way that is capable, responsible and that we can

be confident does not foment conflict and distress rather than

eliminating them.

My written testimony has a bit of a wish list of the sorts of

things we would want to know. I am not going to go through that.

I would like to focus on some general issues of oversight in watching this process continue. If it is to be successful, it will have to

continue for many, many years, but there are indicators we can

look at to see what is going on. DOD has gotten better at providing

some reporting, not just telling us about forces trained, but admitting to some of the challenges.

For example, DOD rates Iraqi units in a number of categories.

They will tell you a number of categories, but they will not tell you

the results of the evaluations, and I am told by colleagues in Iraq

that they will not tell their State Department colleagues in Iraq

how they are evaluating them either.

Published DOD readiness assessments of Iraqi units combines

into a single number the units that can operate fully independently

and those that can function in the lead with coalition support. We

need to desegregate those numbers. We know they desegregate

those numbers, and some of them are material.

At its core, it is not about the numbers. I mean, there are numbers that you want to know. You want to know how the number

of people you are paying stacks up to the number of people at work.

You want to know to know about recruitment, retention, casualty,

desertion rates.

But, really, what you want to know is how are things going, and

that is not about numbers. That is about asking people on the

15

ground, U.S. and Iraqi personnel, the right questions, to find out

if U.S. forces feel they have the tools to determine what their Iraqi

counterparts can do, to find out if Iraqis feel that their forces can

protect them and if they are right in feeling this way, to assess how

secure innovation is affecting security, to track what happens when

abuses are reported and whether those responsible are held accountable, to track development of oversight capability amongst the

Iraqis.

As the mentoring process continues, we want to hear if civilian

mentors are being deployed and how they are doing. We will want

to know what our national police can really transition into a more

policing structure, which is what is being done now, or if that is

not working at all. We will need to know about Coalition access to

prison facilities. We also want to know what questions cannot be

answered and why because that is data in and of itself.

You know, it is not just a matter of getting reporting. You know,

as we have learned, it is not how many forces are trained. It is

what training have the people who are fighting gotten and how

well are they doing. It is not how many tips are coming in from

Iraqis. It is who is getting the tips—the Iraqis or the Coalition.

How good are the tips? Are they coming when the violence is worse

or when the violence is better?

Development of Iraq’s security structure and the Iraqi security

sector as a whole is crucial to any hope of stabilizing the country

in the long term. The forces they have now might possibly be able

to function in a safe and secure Iraq. We do not have a safe and

secure Iraq.

Having a better understanding of what is and is not working will

assist the U.S. in supporting programs that work and ending ones

that do not, but effective assessments demand up-to-date and accurate information, and that means asking the right questions. Good

policy requires proper and adequate oversight. If we do not know

what works, we are doomed to fail.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Oliker can be found in the Appendix on page 62.]

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much.

Let me ask each of you. It seems from each of your testimony,

your written statements and other writings that have been available to the committee that none of you necessarily think the president’s goal of transferring primary security responsibilities to the

Iraqis by January 2008 is realistic or even advisable in some cases.

Would each of you briefly tell us what you think is the most significant obstacle to the Iraqi Security Forces being able to meet

that time line?

What is the most significant obstacle, particularly something

that the Department of Defense could do or action it could take.

Mr. Perito had some pretty specific recommendations, but I am interested if there is something that each of you think DOD should

do, but primarily what is the most significant obstacle?

Doctor.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Congressman, I think the most significant obstacle, quite frankly, is the lack of meaningful political conciliation.

We are not dealing with counterinsurgency; we are dealing with

16

sectarian and ethnic conflict as the dominant source of problems in

Iraq. That cannot be done by the way you restructure the military

or the police force.

Having said that, as my colleagues have said, there is a deep division between the readiness of the Army and the police force. The

truth is that if you really want Army units to work you move them

into the partnership and embed phase and you give them the time

and practice to learn how to operate, to see who can lead, to shake

out the people who will stay and not stay.

Training and equipped is not necessarily meaningless, but it

comes pretty close when you are creating an entire new force. One

way that you do that is you focus on which battalions actually perform on unit capabilities and unit diaries, not meaningless statistics and bar graphs.

On the police side, I do not, I think, agree with my colleagues

simply because I think the level of ethnic and sectarian division

has already reached the point where most regular police in the real

world are going to be local, dictated by local authorities and subject

to ethnic and sectarian divisions.

The problem then is how do you live with that. One way is to

provide as competent a national force to supplement them as possible. Another is to have local elections that are meaningful and to

really see what you can do to fix this fragmented structure in a

way that individual areas, cities and towns can justify.

Here, let me just make a final point. For all the reporting that

is provided in terms of these statistics, the fact is that there are

very detailed maps of Iraq, down to the individual street and

neighborhood which are sort of red, yellow and green, showing

what the level of security is and when it comes down to police and

other posts rating them as to their performance, whether they are

a threat, whether they are seen as being part of the problem or

part of the solution.

We have the data on individual unit histories. The fact is that

people simply are not providing it, and instead, they are providing

the kind of numbers which I think we all agree are meaningless.

Dr. KAGAN. Mr. Chairman, the largest obstacle that we face in

turning over responsibility to the Iraqis and leaving is the lack of

security in the country, and that is the number one obstacle that

is hindering most of the other positive progress that we would like

to see made, including the progress, as Dr. Cordesman points out,

which is so important in reconciliation.

Even though there have been a number of promising steps in

that regard, including the change in attitudes of the Al Anbar

sheiks, of Prime Minister Maliki’s visit to Ramadi and the recent

announcement of an initiative from Maliki and President Talabani

to reform the Debaathification rules which is an important component of reconciliation with the Sunnis. We have seen some of those

steps begin even before we have actually managed to establish security in Baghdad, let alone throughout the country.

So the number one priority has to be, in my view, bringing the

level of violence in the country down to a point at which it is reasonable to start talking about normal policing because when you

actually have violence of the sort that we have seen through the

end of last year and continuing, even if diminishing, after the

17

president’s announced change of strategy, it is not the sort of environment in which you can hope to have local police policing effectively. We have to help the Iraqis bring it down, and that is number one.

Number two is, if you ask the question what can we do to accelerate this hand-over, apart from accelerating efforts to establish security throughout the country, I would say that there is a limit to

how much you can accelerate it. Militaries are not like race cars,

especially when you are trying to develop them. You cannot just

put your foot down on the gas and feed it more something and

have——

Mr. MEEHAN. So you do not think the president’s January 2008

timetable is realistic?

Dr. KAGAN. The timetable for what? If you say timetable for

turning over responsibility for the security of the country to

Iraqi——

Mr. MEEHAN. Primary responsibility for security.

Dr. KAGAN. As I have argued previously and on my own recommendations, I thought that we were going to have to maintain

levels of forces similar to what is being proposed now through the

end of 2008, and only then did I think it would be possible to begin

drawing down. So I am on record as not thinking that that is a realistic approach.

But I think we have to understand that the challenges involved

in moving the Iraqi Army forward are challenges that are going to

take time. It simply does take time to develop military systems, logistics systems, standard operating procedures, to retrain officers,

police and Army in how to do all of these things. There is simply

a limit to how fast it is going to be possible to accelerate this.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Perito.

Mr. PERITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The first thing we need to do is recognize that there is an essential difference between creating armies and training soldiers and

creating police departments and training civilian police. The job of

training a civilian police force is one of developing people who have

an ethos which is different from a military ethos. As one colonel

put it, soldiers are trained to kill people and break things. Civilian

police are trained to preserve and protect. It is that ethos that we

need to accept as the basis for training a civilian police force in

Iraq.

We then need to start by creating a Ministry of the Interior

which functions and supports the police, and then we need to move

to train and equip and authorize civilian police to perform civilian

police functions. Since the beginning of the U.S. intervention in

Iraq, there has been a massive crime wave that has swept that

country. Much of the violence in that country is simply criminal activity. It is not politically motivated.

To the extent that the Iraqi police are able to get control of crime

and demonstrate to Iraqi civilians that they are there to protect

them, then information will flow and the civilian police will be able

to engage in a counterterrorism operation.

The way to defeat terrorists is the way the British police defeat

terrorists. You arrest them in there about at night when they are

asleep, not when they are armed and out and ready to press the

18

button on an explosive device. We do not have that in Iraq. We

have not had it from the start.

There has been a bifurcation in our training, which is focused on

trying to create a civilian police, and the utilization of these forces

which is used in counterinsurgency mode. We need to bring that

to an end. We need to create a civilian police in Iraq that concentrates on fighting crime and protecting civilians.

Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Oliker, the most significant obstacle?

Ms. OLIKER. You know,it depends on what you are willing to settle for in transferring authority. If you are of the opinion, Mr.

Chairman, members, that we cannot do this well, that Iraq is

doomed to descend further and further into civil war and that what

were doing is not having a real effect in stemming the tide, then,

you know, you can leave now and Iraqi Security Forces are going

to be part of the conflict. They are going to fight one another as

they are doing now.

If you think that it is possible to develop some level of stability

and security, which, as Doctors Kagan and Cordesman have pointed out, you know, security is the first thing. If Iraq is to move forward, it has to first be made secure. The Iraqi Security Forces cannot do it. They will not be able to do it in a matter of months. They

will not.

Nobody will be able to do it unless Iraqi political groups have decided that violence is not the way out. As long as Iraqi political

leaders feel that they want to maintain the capacity to use violence

as a political tool, violence is going to continue.

So the only way to end that is to make violence not as attractive

to them, and the way to do that is to bring peace to Iraq. To be

honest, the level of troops and the level of commitment that would

require is not something that we have seen to date.

So it is a bit of a catch 22, right? On the one hand, you can see

ways that you could make it better, and then you could develop

this security force that will take years to develop that can function

in a steady state of peace, or you can leave and you can hope that

eventually they get there on their own, but it is going to be a

bloody getting there.

Thank you.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you.

Mr. Akin.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The first thing I would do would be to quote a diplomat from

Egypt. He said, ‘‘I did not support your going into Iraq, and I do

not support your rapidly withdrawing from Iraq.’’ He said, ‘‘You

might think that is being inconsistent, but,’’ he said, ‘‘I look at it

as you started open-heart surgery, and now you have a sore back

from leaning over the patient, but you cannot walk away and leave

him.’’

So my first question is: Is there anybody here who is advising a

quick withdrawal from Iraq? I have heard all of your testimonies.

I think I have heard every one of you say that is a problem. Is that

correct, that being the case?

Mr. PERITO. That is right.

Mr. AKIN. Second question, one of the things we did in the supplemental that really concerned me a lot was to cut funding for the

19

Iraqi Security Forces. Let me put it in context to be fair. There

were a number of provisions that were said. For instance, you have

politicians. You have to put an oil deal together in six months, or

we are going to cut your funding. That is something that I would

have supported. They are talking about a constitutional amendment and a whole lot of very difficult things to do in six months.

Would you use cutting forces for Iraqi Security Forces as leverage? Yes or no or make a comment.

Dr. CORDESMAN. May I make a comment?

I think something that bothers me both in Iraq and Afghanistan

is the confusion between funding something and achieving something. What I cannot find is any trace between these requests for

money and what they are actually supposed to impact on and the

programs that are supposed to be implemented, and one of the

things I would have said is I cannot tell you—and nobody can—on

the basis of the administration is requests whether that money is

needed or not because no one has ever explained what is actually

being done with it.

Mr. PERITO. I would like to comment as well.

As long as there is a disconnect between the people that are

passing through our training programs and the people that are actually showing up in the police force, then cutting off the funding

or providing funding really has very little impact.

If you read the Defense Department’s report to Congress in

March 2007, it says that there are large numbers of people that

have been hired outside the system set up by the United States

military to train and equip the police. We do not know who these

people are. We do not know also what happened to the people that

passed through our training programs, but there is a lot of anecdotal information that suggests that some people just went in, took

the money, got the weapon, got the uniform, went out, sold it on

the black market and went on their way.

So I agree with Dr. Cordesman.

Mr. AKIN. So I think I heard both of you—now I do not want to

put words in your mouth—saying there was so little accountability

that there is no point in funding it anyway. It is just a waste of

money to put any money in it, so do not fund it at all.

Dr. CORDESMAN. I think we would all agree if you do not fund

it, you are going to end up with this whole structure collapsing.

What we are saying is—you asked should you have this at the

same amount of money, cut it or increase it—I do not believe that

anyone can answer that question because of the way we are looking

at this problem.

You put money into something to buy capabilities, and what we

desperately need is not to reduce the money, but to establish accountability. Without accountability, all we can say is that if you

reduce the money further or cut it off, of course, it will collapse.

Mr. AKIN. I guess that was my point. If you do not fund it, it is

going to collapse.

Dr. KAGAN. Yes, I would agree with you, Congressman, and I

would like to go further and answer the question that you asked,

which was: Is it a good idea to use the threat of cutting off funding

for the Iraqi Security Forces as a lever to try to force the Maliki

government to do certain things within a certain time period?

20

My answer to that is an unqualified no. That is a very, very bad

idea for a number of reasons. First of all, of all of the levers that

you might choose, threatening to cut off funding for the only force

other than the American and British military in Iraq that might

actually be able to maintain order, threatening to cut that off as

a way of leverage, makes no sense to me.

If you think that we are going to leave and anything other than

complete chaos is going to ensue and if you think that we should

leave quickly, then you surely have to make an argument that

something other than complete chaos will ensure. Then, obviously,

the Iraqi Security Forces are going to have to be a key component

of that.

So threatening to cut off funding makes no sense.

But I would also like to speak to the larger issue of these specific

political benchmarks. As the House of Representatives has found

and especially as the Senate has found, meeting particular legislative benchmarks is not always an easy thing to do even when there

is not a civil war going on outside, and I would be very reluctant

to see specific funding tied to specific passage of specific legislation

that we say has to look in a certain way, to tie that kind of legislative action to funding for such an essential organ as the Iraqi Security Forces. I think that would be extremely unwise.

Ms. OLIKER. Let me just comment on the question of leverage.

One of the things we can learn from the development world is that

you could have smart conditionality and you can have dumb conditionality, right? Dumb conditionality is ‘‘We are going to cut your

AIDS funding if you do not drive your defense budget.’’ Smart conditionality is, ‘‘If I cannot tell that you are doing a good thing with

us, if I cannot tell that you are doing what you are supposed to do

with this assistance, I am going to stop giving you this assistance.

So I think the question is not putting conditions on the Iraqis;

it is putting conditions on our own people to explain to us exactly

how this money is being used, and that does not mean necessarily

prove that it is all working, sometimes things do not always work,

but it is about tracking and accountability and demonstrating that

the money is being used right.

Thank you.

Mr. AKIN. Yes, I guess my question was not about tracking and

accountability. I think most people would agree to that. This set

what seemed to me to be a very, very high political bar, not only

just getting the oil thing done, which I would have even gone along

with, but it also said you have to pass a constitutional amendment

on some things, and it seemed in six months to be asking so much,

and the only thing we are really hoping on, if there is any hope

we have, it seems like it is Iraqi Security Forces and their ability

to try to keep the lid on things.

So I have a couple of things that are connected questions. I am

going to call it an experiment. Maybe that is being pessimistic. I

do not know. The Baghdad experiment of increasing troops and assigning them to neighborhoods and mixing the police and security

and the U.S. forces—is that a good method of training question?

That is the first part of the question.

The second thing is: Is it a good measure of the success of the

ISF? Is this a good metric to say that is how good the security

21

forces are? And even the other way, is it something that is going

to train the Iraqis, not only the police, but the security forces?

So those two kind of go together as questions.

Dr. CORDESMAN. I think one key problem we have is it is an experiment, and to find out what happens does take time. It is possible that if we do this properly and slowly, we are going to bring

a lot of Iraqi elements online with real capability. Many of the

units which have deployed down into Baghdad at this point do go

along for the ride, but they certainly are not ready. The bulk of the

police in Baghdad certainly is not ready. It basically is, to put it

politely, not only a garrison force; it sometimes has trouble even

getting to the police station.

Mr. AKIN. That is sort of the question, though. Is it a good way

to train them, one, and two, if it works well, is that some measure

of the fact that they are effective?

Dr. CORDESMAN. Congressman, you can assert everything you

want and anything you want, and the only way to find out, since

we are committed to doing it, is to do it. My guess is, with the police, we are going to have to edge around them, avoid being committed to using the police, take a lot of time and find out whether

security emerges in a way where then we can deal with the police

elements.

Experience will train Iraqi Army units if they are not somehow

involved in ethnic and sectarian fighting on a broader level. So far,

they have avoided that. But to give this, I think, more than experimental status, to judge it now, to rush into saying it is good or bad

to me is far more a matter of ideology than substance.

Mr. AKIN. I guess my point was, you know, we talked to the generals over there. They said, ‘‘do not even make any assumptions

about whether this is working well or not until this summer.’’ They

said, ‘‘We are not going to have everything in place and up and

working until June or July.’’

So I am talking about in the June or July timeframe, one, does

it work to help train? Is it a good training mechanism to actually

do what you are supposed to be doing? And second, is it a good

measure?

Let us go right down the panel. I did not really hear an answer

to my question. That is why I was trying to get to the point.

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I think that the short answers are yes

and yes. It is a good way to train, and we are in the process of

helping the Iraqis or we have actually helped the Iraqis to develop

a system of rotating the units in their Army through participation

in the Baghdad security plan in part as a method of training them,

and I have long been of the opinion, something which Dr.

Cordesman said, that you can train and train and train in garrison,

but the way that you really train a unit, especially in this context

is by actually putting it out on the street, having it conduct real

operations, but having it conduct them in tandem with outstanding

excellent forces so that it can see what excellence is and also so

that there will be a check on its behavior.

One of the reasons why you are tending not to see Iraqi Army

units and Iraqi police units in Baghdad now participating directly

in death squad activity is because American forces are present with

them, and we have seen this repeatedly. They do not tend to do

22

those things when we are there. Ultimately, were going to have to

get to the point where they do not do those things even when we

are not there, but that is something that is going to take a matter

of time and it is also part——

Mr. AKIN. Thank you. I think you answered my question. It is

a means of training, and you think it is a way to measure progress

when we give it enough time.

Dr. KAGAN. When we have given is enough time, yes, it will be

a way to measure progress.

Mr. AKIN. Right. Okay.

Either of the others?

Mr. PERITO. Yes, it is not an effective way to train police. The

police ‘‘units’’ that are engaged in Baghdad are these commandostyle units that are part of the Iraqi National Police. These are not

police as we understand police. These are former soldiers who are

engaged in a counterinsurgency mission who have been given a

light in a motif of counterinsurgency training. There is nothing

going on here that impacts on civilian police that are there to protect Iraqis and to fight crime. That is out of the——

Mr. AKIN. I guess my question was mostly geared to the security

forces. I agree. You know the police is kind of a different can of

worms.

Mr. PERITO. Yes. Police are different, and——

Mr. AKIN. You brought up a great point, and that is so the police

do their job, they put somebody in the slammer, and now we have

no judicial system to process them. So the police is a little different.

I was mostly talking about the security forces.

Mr. PERITO. Okay.

Mr. AKIN. Anything else on security forces?

Ms. OLIKER. The one thing I would say is these guys have been

getting on-the-job training all along. You know, they get a bit more

of it in Baghdad. You know, it depends. It depends on what they

end up doing. Right now, you know, we have had a surge of U.S.

forces operating without Iraqis, which means that they are not

coming along.

You know, the answer to your question is it depends. It depends

on how it is done, it depends on how the Iraqis are integrated, and

then, as Dr. Cordesman pointed out, we are going to have to see

if it actually works. So there is no clear answer yet.

Mr. AKIN. But that is my question. If it actually works, is that

a measure of the security forces doing a good job?

Ms. OLIKER. If it works in the sense that some of the security

forces that you have put out in Baghdad become more effective as

a result of their training, those individual units will be more effective. What does that do for the rest of the forces, of course, as a

whole? We do not know, and unless they actually are not just more

capable in the sense of being able to go out and shoot somebody,

but are, as has been said, capable of operating on their own in a

way that secures the population of Iraq and does not threaten it,

then they are more effective. But I have no way of knowing if this

is going to help with it.

Mr. AKIN. Yes. I do not know it if it is going to work or not. My

question is, if it reduces violence, is that a good metric to say we

are making progress. That was all.

23

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you.

Ms. Tauscher.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Since the spring of 2003, when the Coalition Provisional Authority took over, the government was decapitated, Saddam Hussein

was captured and we began to stabilize Iraq—it is still a failing

proposition, by the way—I have been fascinated by everyone’s general acceptance that the metric for success would be the establishment of security and the excuse being that the reason why we cannot do anything else is because there is no security in Iraq.

I think that generally people have said the antecedent issue to

progress any further, whether it is about the sovereignty of the

government, the ability for the Iraqis to have representative governments, moving forward, stability in the region, extrication of

American troops, stop spending our money, it has been about security, security, security, security.

Well, I guess the question really is: How are we going to get security? Would you say that that is fair, Dr. Cordesman?

Dr. CORDESMAN. I do not, no. I think that, frankly, security is

important, but if you cannot get conciliation——

Ms. TAUSCHER. There you go. That is what I wanted you to say.

Dr. CORDESMAN [continuing]. Between factions here and you cannot bring these two things together——

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. The question then is: Are we going

to fight our way to security, which apparently is the Bush Administration’s way of doing it, or are we going to persuade our way to

security? My concern is that we have our foot down on the pedal

of fighting our way to security, and all we have done is find ways

to excuse away for the now permanent Iraqi government for over

a year to not deliver on the political reconciliation and negotiations

to cut the insurgency in half.

Would you agree, Dr. Cordesman, that if the insurgency in the

classical sense was cut in half, it would be a lot easier for the

Iraqis to take over the security of their country by January of

2008?

Dr. CORDESMAN. At this point, no, I do not. I think we have

reached a level of factional and ethnic fighting where the insurgents, important as they are, too serious a problem. That definition

says that if you cannot really achieve very tangible progress—and

I have to say in fairness to the Administration that they do have

an eight-point program for conciliation—if you cannot move in

these areas, security does not solve the problem.

Ms. TAUSCHER. But in order to get security, one of the opportunities has always been for the Iraqis to do the kinds of political reconciliation that would cause significant portions of the insurgent

groups that are indigenous to put down their arms and go to work

as opposed to fighting.

Dr. CORDESMAN. You know, my first trip to Iraq was in 1971. I

really have to say that, very quickly, we created an electoral system that divided them by ethnicity and by sect. We insisted on a

written constitution, which forced every possible issue. The way

you phrased that, it is somehow incumbent on the Iraqis to solve

24

the problems which in many ways we created and where they were

elected to be ethnic and sectarian, and we cannot make those

changes between now and the beginning of 2008.

Ms. TAUSCHER. So I do not disagree with you, by the way, that

almost every problem that we have in Iraq right now is by our own

making, and my concern is—and I think why many of us are insisting upon benchmarks for the Iraqi government to perform—is that

we find ourselves with only two choices, fighting our way to security, which puts two huge American assets, our fighting men and

women and money, on the table for an open-ended engagement

with a blank check or persuading and having at least some sense

that the Iraqis are stepping up and making the political negotiations and conciliations necessary to perhaps take some of their own

future in their hands and to make the tough decisions necessary.

I think that, you know, many of us are just at our wits end. We

do not know how to get the Iraqi government, which I consider to

be feckless, to step up and do the things that they are meant to

do, and if I do not know why they are not doing it, what would

cause anybody wearing an Iraqi military uniform to want to fight

and die for them?

In the end, this military that we are growing with a lot of American effort and a lot of American money has to make a decision

that they are going to fight and die for this government, and I do

not see anything about this governments that would cause Iraqis

to make that risk. So, you know, for too long, we have had a situation where it has been about security, we have had to deliver security, and we are going to fight to get security.

Then the excuse was, well, we have to have indigenous Iraqi

forces, so now we are going to spend a lot of time and money recruiting and training those forces.

Then we were promised that we had reached the ultimate number that we needed, and then we were told that the number we

needed was the right number, but, as Ms. Oliker has pointed out,

they do not stay and fight, they do not stay in the military they

have a very high regressive rate, so we do not actually have the

quality we need.

I do not know what the next series of excuses are going to be,

but I promise you somebody is going to think of them, and our

challenge is: How do we stop spending our two primary assets,

American fighting men and women and our money, on what is

clearly a failing preposition?

I do not know of anybody, frankly, that is advocating that we

leave immediately. We are going into our fifth year.

My final question really is: What do you think it is going to take

to get the Iraqi government to make the political conciliations and

negotiations that you recommended, Dr. Cordesman?

Dr. CORDESMAN. I think it is going to take time, patience and

constant pressure. I think it is going to take the understanding

that even if we can get them to agree to these benchmarks—for example, Dr. Kagan mentioned the Debaathification law—I do not

want to use the phrase ‘‘so what,’’ but it is to present a concept to

the parliament without the detailed annexes.

If the parliament passes the law, you then have to implement it.

You have to hope that Debaathification occurs faster than Sunnis

25

who are not Baathists are actually pushed out or marginalized. To

do that, you have to watch what is actually happening.

To make this process work, we are talking 12 to 18 months, and

that is virtually every major area of conciliation. I wish I could say

to you that you could do any of this quickly, that you could force

these people into something that would actually accomplish it. I

think all you can do is give them impossible deadlines, and we will

either end up having to leave a sectarian and ethnic mess behind

or we will have to stay, having rushed something we did not succeed in.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Anybody else have comments?

Dr. KAGAN. Yes, I would like to comment on that.

I am not sure why some people are very determined not to see

any of the progress that is actually being made in this area as

being of significance. I think that the Sunni Arab insurgency continues to be very important. The continued al Qaeda attacks, for

which, by the way, we are not responsible, has been an element of

this equation that was the critical factor in kicking off the sectarian violence to begin with, and that came about as the result of deliberate al Qaeda strategy.

We certainly did not do what we needed to do to prevent that

from happening, but it was the enemy’s initiative that led to that

in the first place.

Mr. MEEHAN. Dr. Kagan, but would not you agree that the unrealistic expectations set by the Administration certainly has contributed to this? I mean, we were in the last throes of the insurgency

3–1/2 years ago. The war was going to last a few months. I mean,

it was the Administration themselves that set up totally unrealistic

expectations.

Dr. KAGAN. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you, and I have been

consistently critical of the way the Administration has been fighting this war right up until the change in strategy, and I agree that

this Administration raised expectations unreasonably, and we have

gone through a series of these, yes we are just about there we are

just about there routines.

One of the things that we have not done before is to give the U.S.

military forces in Iraq the primary mission of establishing security.

That has never been the primary mission of U.S. military forces in

Iraq prior to this change in strategy. The mission has always been

train and transition, and that has powerfully affected the effect

that we have not gone far enough to establish security.

But I did want to point out that not every bad thing that is going

on in Iraq is our fault. There is an enemy out there that is trying

to make us fail.

Ms. TAUSCHER. You are suggesting the fact that when we decapitated the government, we had no plan to secure the contrary, no

plan to close the borders and that when we let al Qaeda in, because

they had not been there before under her Saddam, that is not our

fault?

Dr. KAGAN. The attacks that al Qaeda has staged are al Qaeda’s

fault. I have been very critical of the mistakes that we have made.

Ms. TAUSCHER. How did al Qaeda get into Iraq?

Dr. KAGAN. There were some al Qaeda in Iraq before, and then

they flowed in afterwards. I have been very critical of this strategy

26

all along, but the bombing that took place at the Samara Mosque

was done by al Qaeda.

We may not have done everything possible and everything appropriate—and I said that we did not do everything appropriate—to

prevent that from happening, but at the end of the day, we must

recognize that there is an enemy out there that is trying to make

us fail and is trying to kill innocent people, and I really do not

think it is appropriate for us to take full responsibility for the enemy’s actions.

Mr. MEEHAN. But, sir, even the president has admitted this idea

of bring it on, to all the terrorists in the world, bring it on. Even

he has admitted that that probably was not a very smart thing.

Dr. KAGAN. It was not a smart thing.

Mr. MEEHAN. And they brought it on.

Dr. KAGAN. They did, but they were the ones who placed the

bomb, and all I am asking is that we recognize that there is an

enemy that bears responsibility for that.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Dr. Kagan, we have to take responsibility for the

fact that al Qaeda is in Iraq. You know, maybe al Qaeda ate your

homework, but I am telling you right now that you are conflating

the enemy to be al Qaeda when 8 out of 10 fighters are Iraqis fighting Iraqis and the idea that we now have and consistently for 3–

1⁄2 years have had American fighting men and women in the middle of a sectarian war that even the Pentagon now calls a civil war.

A small faction of them that may be doing bigger things is al

Qaeda that were allowed in the country because we did not close

the borders, because we did not have a plan and we had no bloody

idea what was going to happen when we decapitated that government. We were not ready for it, and you are conflating al Qaeda

to be the enemy. The enemy is elusive in Iraq right now, and we

are in the middle of it.

Dr. KAGAN. Congresswoman, I agree with you that there are

multiple enemies in Iraq, and it is a very complicated situation. I

did not mean to say that al Qaeda is the only enemy that we face,

nor do I mean to exculpate the Bush administration from any of

the mistakes that it has made in the way that this war was handled from the outset. I was criticizing the way people were talking

about fighting this war before we even went into Iraq.

Believe me, I agree with you that we have not handled the situation properly after 2003 or going into 2003. I am in total agreement

with you that we have not handled the situation properly. All I was

trying to say is that I think it is a little bit strong to say that every

bad thing that is going on in Iraq is our fault.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, it may be a little strong to say, but let me

tell you this right now. The next time I do something wrong, I

would like to have you be the guy that is criticizing me because you

sound a little like an apologist for the Bush administration to me.

I yield back my time.

Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Davis

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

I think that we all recognize that with proper planning perhaps,

we certainly must have anticipated that al Qaeda would move from

Afghanistan or wherever it was into Iraq. So we had to be planning

27

for that possibility, and that is part of the problem that we face

today.

I think it is so much of our concern is that we cannot be apologetic for multiple mistakes. I mean, there is a point at which we

have to say that there needs to be a better way to do this, and I

actually appreciate today that I think we are trying to move in that

direction.

I had an opportunity to go to Fort Riley a few days ago and to

visit with our troops who were training to embed there or have returned, and there are some good stories. However, we are just beginning now to understand the sensitivities in trying to help develop the forces, be they Army or be they police, and I think that

had we done that a number of years ago, hopefully, we would not

have been having the same kind of discussion today.

Would you agree with that, I mean that had we done some of the

things that we have all talked about are important in terms of development of our own sensitivities in working with the Iraqis that

perhaps we would not be in this position or perhaps we would be,

no matter what we would have done in the past?

Dr. KAGAN. I agree with that. I think that if we had focused on

establishing security from the outset, we would be in a much better

place. I have said that, as I said, before the war started, and I have

been consistently critical of the failure to try to do that all along.

I agree with you that if we had not made many of the mistakes,

many of which were foreseeable and many of which many of us—

or some of us anyway—at this table criticized at the time, then we

would be in a better place. I absolutely agree with that.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. I wanted to go on to Ms. Oliker. One

of the statements here was you are trying to kind of look at the

capacity of the Iraqi Army and what that means as opposed to

numbers that we should be looking at, and the question arises

about Iraqi public opinion of security force capacity, of government

capacity, local safety and the prospects for the future. How do they

correlate with these developments?

I wonder if you all could comment on that a little bit. Are we seeing some correlation? Is it too early to see that correlation? What

roles do the Arabic media play in that as well? Are there parts of

that that we can counter, or are we just, you know, really at the

mercy essentially of public opinion as it is overwhelmed by the

media there?

Dr. CORDESMAN. I think that is, Congressman, one of the things

that really we have to be careful about. The polls we often take—

and I have worked very closely on one the ABC, BBC, Germans

and USA Today did—deal with these in terms of national averages.

When you break them down by town or area, you find Iraqis are

not being shaped by the media. Iraqis are being shaped by their

day-to-day contact with violence, with the security they feel.

There is not a nation of attitudes. Attitudes are extremely local.

In Baghdad, you can break them down in districts. In divided cities, it depends really who is in control, whether you are the Sunni

or the Shiite. When you look at this in the 12 major cities that the

U.S. military monitors, what you find is this: Iraqis see the outside

threat, but they rank us—that is the Coalition and the U.S., the

28

Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police—in conflict areas as major areas

of threat.

You will find the poll reflected in the testimony that I provided.

You will see this varies by whether it is Sunni or Shiite and whether it is a conflict area. The Kurds do not see this problem. So blaming this on the Arab media or television or people outside Iraq is

something which survey after survey—there is an LRB survey

which draws the same conclusions, and there are others—simply is

not realistic. That is not how Iraqi public opinion is being shaped.

Mr. PERITO. I would agree with that.

Ms. OLIKER. I would agree with that. I would add to that one

measure of Iraqi public opinion which is not polling, and that is the

thousands of people fleeing Iraq day after day after day. I mean,

these people are not fleeing because they read in the newspaper or

see on television that their country is unsafe. They are doing it because they know that they personally are not safe, and they are

trying to get out.

Mr. PERITO. The subversion of the Iraqi Security Forces, particularly the subversion of the Iraqi National Police, is a tremendous

problem, and Iraqis know this.

The U.S. military tried something in October, just to share a

story with you. The accusations had been made that men in uniform going about carrying out sectarian violence were actually people who had stolen police uniforms. So the United States introduced a new police uniform based on a digital pattern, very difficult to copy.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Yes, I saw that.

Mr. PERITO. I have a friend who is an adviser in Iraq. There was

an incident in which armed men in police uniforms went in and

seized people out of the ministry of the higher education. I emailed

my friend and said, ‘‘Well, it is very good that we have these new

police uniforms because we will know whether these people are real

or not.’’ The email came back, ‘‘They were wearing the new police

uniforms.’’

So, you know, it is not the Iraqi media. The Iraqis know what

they see, and this is a terrible problem we have to deal with.

Dr. CORDESMAN. If I may, Congressman, just give you a tangible

set of statistics, and these are a poll completed in February, and

the sample was statistically relevant, and it was direct sampling,

not the use of the Internet or phones.

If you take out the Kurdish area, which does like us, 47 percent

of the Iraqis perceived unnecessary violence by us, 32 percent perceived it by the local militias, 22 percent by the Iraqi police and

22 percent by the Iraqi Army.

Now, these are not fair. We are seen as occupiers, we are seen

as crusaders simply because we are not Iraqis. It is not an objective

view, but those kinds of public opinion polls have been, I think,

fairly consistent, and we are not at this point going to change it

by having better television programs.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. I appreciate your speaking

to that because I think that, you know, there is a lot of effort being

put here to change that.

I would think as well that Iraqis, like all of us, would be persuaded by the here and now on what they are perceiving to be their

29

security, and I think my question has been all along what would

it take—and you have answered this to a certain extent—to give

Iraqis the confidence in their own government to move forward

with their lives and to actively participate in trying to change the

situation on the ground? That is what we have to deal with.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mrs. Davis.

It has been the policy, because we are an oversight and investigation subcommittee, to have subcommittee staff ask questions,

but before we go to our subcommittee staff, I want to give Mr.

Akin, the ranking member, an opportunity for follow-up.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have just one quick follow-up question, but I would like to say,

first of all, I realize that you all volunteered to come in and share

your time and your thoughts with us. I appreciate that and your

attitude and tone of trying to solve problems and be candid and

kind of work through what is a dicey situation for all of us.

Dr. Kagan, I think that maybe you were accused of being a Bush

apologist or whatever, and I do not feel that way. I am an engineer

by trade. They do not let many of us in this place, but I appreciate

just a straight problem-solving approach and let us move forward

as Americans.

I think you have all contributed, and so I wanted to thank you

for that.

What I am going to ask is what I think of in a way as the old

Harvard Business School question, and what that was was, if you

had one thing—you are all of a sudden now president for the day

or whatever—you are going to change, you only get one wish,

where would you put your focus? What is the most important thing

that you would focus on in trying to put things back on track or

get out if there is no way to do that, but whatever it would be?

I will say that from the considerable testimony I have heard—

and I do not want to prejudice your thoughts—my impression has

been that the military component, that we have done a better job

managing that, and the civilian component, such as establishing a

justice system, wire transfer of money, proper electrical power, the

running of the oil, the civilian stuff seems to me to have fallen

through the cracks. While the military has been not well-managed

necessarily, certainly, we are better equipped to send an army over

to do the military piece. But we have not much in the civilian.

So that would have been my guess, but I wanted to give all four

of you just a chance, if you would fairly quickly, ‘‘This would be my

one wish’’ or ‘‘This is where I would focus.’’

Thank you.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Congressman, I would say very simply, I would

tell you and the American people that we are going to have to take

three to five years to make this work. It is not just security, but

it is not just conciliation and it has to be a coherent program with

some kind of bipartisan support. One of the worst things you can

say is we can have a 12-month turnaround based on one parameter.

To go back to your Harvard Business School model, there are an

awful lot of ways you can go out of business, and one of them

seems to be promising success.

Mr. AKIN. Well, I could not agree with you more on that.

30

Yes? Dr. Kagan?

Dr. KAGAN. I agree with that. If I could do one thing, apart from

establish security tomorrow, which is impossible, I would like to

see the development of an overarching strategy that has bipartisan

support, that he has as its focus establishing security in the country, helping the Iraqis move toward reconciliation, helping them

build ministerial capacity, getting American civilian agencies actively involved in all of that process, but have an overarching strategy that brings all of these things together with the right focus.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you. I could not agree more with that, too.

Thank you.

Mr. PERITO. Yes, building on what has been said before, I would

do those two things, and then the third thing I would do would be

to develop a comprehensive strategy toward implementing the rule

of law in Iraq. We have been talking a lot about police, but, as has

been said before, without a functioning judicial system and an effective corrections facility and capability, we go nowhere and so all

of this is essential.

Ms. OLIKER. Security first, but also accountability. We need to

have a better understanding of what it is we are trying to do and

whether or not it is working. I think we have not spent enough

time thinking about whether what we are doing works or whether

it does not and how we measure that, and I think we need to get

better at it.

Mr. AKIN. Well, if I were their Harvard B School professor, I

would give you all A’s.

Thank you very much, gentlemen and gentlelady.

Mr. MEEHAN. Now, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Lorry

Fenner who is our lead subcommittee staff for questions.

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

I have a longer question, but I want to ask you a very short question first, following on to this question by our ranking member, Mr.

Akin, and that is have any of you in your research or interviews

of anyone in the government heard anyone talking about a plan

other than transferring responsibility for security to the Iraqis in

January 2008; in other words, a plan B?

You do not have to mention any names, but has anybody heard

of a plan not to do that since you uniformly seemed not to believe

that that is possible?

Mr. PERITO. Yes.

Dr. FENNER. Okay. Thank you.

Dr. KAGAN. You mean a plan other than the strategy that is currently under way?

Dr. FENNER. The strategy to turn over primary security responsibility to the Iraqis in January of 2008.

Dr. KAGAN. That is not the basis on which I have usually had

discussions with people, so I am not quite sure how to answer the

question.

Dr. FENNER. That is what is stated in the president’s message

now.

Dr. KAGAN. No.

Ms. OLIKER. I think that there are different interpretations of

transferring primary responsibility. I think that in the sense of actually turning it over to the Iraqis, most people that I talk to do

31

not think that actually going to happen. I think they think we are

going to continue working with them, and we might transfer primary responsibility the way that we, you know, call units in the

lead.

Dr. FENNER. Thank you.

My real question is actually—most of us have recognized what

most of you have, and that is that the measurement of capability

is not really in the number sets that we are usually given—have

any of you lately been to Iraq, and whether you have or not, have

you either there or here been able to talk to working-level members

of the military transition teams, the police transition teams or the

border transition teams?

Mr. Perito, you mentioned that you had recently talked to a

friend of yours who was an adviser.

So, any of the others of you, have you recently been to Iraq and

talked to that working level, or have you talked to them here and

how has that informed your work?

Dr. Cordesman, please.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Well, I have talked to them. I have not very recently been to Iraq. I have been to the Gulf and met with people

there, and, certainly, I meet with many people here.

I think there is another question you probably need to ask, which

is to what extent does the U.S. intelligence community actually

monitor the activities of many of these so-called blue forces on the

ground—they may not be all that blue—and how do they assess

them in terms of actual capability and capacity? To what extent

have they mapped these issues?

The one thing that sometimes gets lost here is the operational

groups in the U.S. military have to break down these forces and

look at them as both allies and potential threats. So I think the

level of sophisticated analysis of actual unit capability goes far beyond the advisory teams.

If you are talking about capability, I think that is a key issue because, for example, I think you would find that there are detailed,

almost battalion-level diaries of how individual elements operate,

that people do know how the police in each district in broad terms

operate, that nobody has a mystery as to who the police really are

in places like Basra, the major city in the southeast.

But what people do not like is talking about it because not so

much we are failing, but it does have a level of challenging time

and resources which people fear we are not prepared to commit.

Dr. FENNER. Thank you.

Dr. Kagan.

Dr. KAGAN. Yes, I have spoken on a number of occasions to various different people. I have not been there recently. I am, in fact,

going to depart shortly for a trip that will bring me to Iraq next

week.

I have been speaking with people who have been involved in the

training effort, primarily of the Iraqi Army, at various levels, and

it has informed my work.

Mr. PERITO. Two years ago, I ran a lessons learned project at the

U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) in which we interviewed about 130

people who had served in the Coalition Provisional Authority. We

did in-depth two-hour interviews, and the transcript of those interVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:41 Jan 04, 2008 Jkt 037323 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-49\087160.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
32

views are on the USIP web site, so if you want to read what the

first-hand experiences of these people were, they are there.

I just want to comment on the way in which the military authorities in Iraq have taken a quantitative approach to their work. You

know, we are told that there are 135,000 Iraqi police that have

been trained, but when you look at that number, you will find that

40,000 of those actually went through a training program that was

a three-week orientation program taught in Iraqi police stations by

U.S. military police.

If you look at the content of that training, it was not really training at all. It was sort of an orientation to what is the role of police

in a democratic society and a kind of getting-to-know-you exercise,

and so, you know, when you talk to the people, the police advisers

that actually had to conduct that training, they will tell you that

that really was not training at all.

So you really have to look past the numbers.

Ms. OLIKER. I was one of those people interviewed by USIP for

that study, but I think my transcript is not online for a number

of reasons.

I have not been back to Iraq in over two years. I do talk a lot

to people there, people who have recently returned and to Iraqis.

One thing I have to say that I do not know has been said is,

when people do speak frankly with me, when people who know me

talk to me, it is astounding how pessimistic assessments are these

days and just how little hope and how little expectation for things

to improve there is.

Mr. MEEHAN. Now, Roger Zakheim, one of our staff counsel.

Roger.

Mr. ZAKHEIM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Through all the work I think the subcommittee has done in the

past month, when we talk about ISF, the focus tends to be on the

Ministry of Defense. So my question really wants to focus you on

the Ministry of Interior and get your thoughts on a couple of

issues.

First—and this has come up indirectly in the hearing today—the

police transition teams, particularly the transition teams for the

local police: There was a recommendation made that maybe the

Justice Department should take over that mission. Can you identify deficiencies in terms of the current training that goes on? I

know it is basically the military police that carry that out, and

then I guess it is contracted out as well. That is the first part, but

that falls within MOI.

There are a few other issues we can touch on and maybe go

through all the witnesses: Assessing the capacity of the ministry,

MOI. How do we assess that? The transition readiness assessments, you know, seems to be the critical assessment piece to look

at when we are talking about unit capability. We met with some

troops from Fort Riley who are the ones who write for the majors

and the lieutenant colonels. There was objective piece, subjective

piece.

Is that the way to go about it, and, you know, should we add the

track, change it, and should we believe them? I guess there was a

comment earlier that maybe, you know, those assessments maybe

should not be considered. Are we using them correctly?

33

And then the detainee policy falls into the ministry of interior as

well. The people that we are picking up and detaining, are they the

right people? Are we not picking up enough people? I understand

that we do not have enough capacity to really have an effective

local police unit.

So those are kind of the issues I see associated with the Ministry

of Interior, and if you could comment on those issues, that would

be valuable.

Thank you.

Dr. CORDESMAN. Let me just begin. I think the Ministry of Interior still is a very serious problem area. It says it in the March

quarterly report. My own discussions with people who have been

involved with it find that the problems are considerably more serious than that quarterly report presents, and if you read through

this section on the ministry, it is not reassuring.

I think in terms of the training teams, I would have to issue a

caution here. One thing we do not have, as was pointed out by Mr.

Perito, is a map of the people in the police who are not the ones

we have trained and equipped, who are not national. Those are in

most of Iraq the actual police.

One of the problems we really have is, if you are going to talk

about the this, you have to talk about police versus militias versus

police because we really have three different groups here.

I think in general, the problem is the police training system is

not putting people into the field capable of doing much more than

sitting in a police station.

Your third issue, transition readiness assessments, I think the

problem is, in some areas, it is like a kaleidoscope. We are transferring readiness in areas where there are very good units, with very

bad units, with very different levels of threat, with mixes of insurgency, ethnic, sectarian conflict, and we are acting is that if there

was some ordered system for doing that.

Yet I think Michael Gordon, to give an unclassified example,

published a map in The New York Times. The color version shows

that in most of these areas where we claim to have transferred responsibility, there really was nothing approaching any kind of symmetry or match between what had been claimed and what was occurring.

On detainees, I think it is become apparent again just in the last

week this is a major problem, perhaps the first one to surface in

the Baghdad operation. We have not made the transition, we cannot trust the Iraqi MOI to handle it, but we do not have the facilities all of a sudden to handle the people we have already taken in

Baghdad.

So this is not simply them; it is us as well.

Dr. KAGAN. I will tell you to begin with that my focus has been

more on the Iraqi Army and the MOD, and so I will make just a

brief comment.

First of all, it is my understanding, certainly going into this plan,

there was an understanding that detainee facilities and capabilities

were inadequate, and measures are being taken to address the

problem. Clearly, it has not been fully addressed yet.

In the Ministry of Interior, I would note that there were recently

3,000 people who were let go from that ministry. There clearly is

34

an effort under way on the part of the Prime Minister to work

through the problem of militia infiltration.

Of that organization, I would point back to the firing of the Deputy Health Minister who was also actively involved, a little bit outside the scope of your question, but still relevant.

So there clearly is some growing political will on the part of the

Maliki government to address what I regard as one of the most serious problems that we face in the ministry of the interior, which

is the militia infiltration.

As far as ministerial capacity building goes, it is very, very difficult, and I agree with some of the comments that I think Dr.

Cordesman made earlier in regard to a different point, which is we

must not measure success by the inputs that we throw at the problem, and we have to be careful about what outputs we measure.

At the end of the day, the purpose of the Ministry of the Interior

is to put police on the streets that can help support and sustain

the establishment and the maintenance of security and that are not

engaged in death squad activities and so forth. That is the metric

that matters at the end of the day, to the extent that that is a metric, and it is very hard to measure, which is one of the problems.

In terms of looking at numbers of trained and equipped, I think

it is very clear that we do not have meaningful numbers at the

Ministry of Interior. Will we? I am not sure, but this is something

where I go back to Congressman Akin’s point. As the Baghdad security plan goes forward, as we work to establish security throughout the country, we will be able to see to what extent the Iraqi police, both national and local, are participating actively and positively and to what extent they are not, and that is going to be an

important measure of success.

Mr. PERITO. Let me take a shot at some of the questions you

asked, and let me begin by talking about police transition teams.

At the beginning of 2006, the Defense Department deployed police transition seems which were composed of mostly military police

with a few U.S. civilian contractors provided by the DynCorp Corporation under an agreement with the Department of State.

Their initial task was to go out and visit all the police stations

in Iraq to find out how many police stations there were and then

to do an evaluation of those police stations, and while they were

there, if they had the time, to deliver on-the-spot training to the

Iraqi police.

That effort was never finished. It got about halfway through, and

then many of these PTTs were pulled off line and dispersed among

police stations in Baghdad.

The whole idea that you could send out a team of four or five

people that would visit a police station in a day, do an evaluation

and then train the police, you know, to an acceptable level and

then move on is kind of ludicrous on the face of it.

Now, who were the people that were involved here? Who were

these military police? Well, mostly, they were not people who had

been military police before. They were people in the reserves who

had been in other specialties, such as field artillery, that were not

being utilized. They were put through a rush two-or three-week

training program, recycled as military police and sent out basically

to provide force protection.

35

Who were the people who were the civilians in this? They were

independent subcontractors of DynCorp Corporation. It is difficult

to know the standard of recruitment that was used, but sufficient

to say, they probably were police at some point in their careers, but

who knows? They certainly were not people who were trained either police evaluators or police educators and trainers. So we have

that.

If you look at the Ministry of the Interior, not only, you know,

are we aware that Shiite militia had infiltrated the ministry, but

we are also aware that the ministry really does not function as a

bureaucratic entity. It does not have established rules or procedures. It does not have codes of conduct. It does not have a functioning budget process. It does not have a personnel process. It

does not do any of these things.

One of the things that it does not do, for example, is it does not

have an effective system of accountability. So it does not know

where its people are, where its equipment is, et cetera. So all of

that is a huge problem.

When you look at the issue of detainees, I think this raises an

opportunity to talk about a program that has worked. The U.S. Department of Justice has had a small number of people in Iraq since

the very beginning working on establishing an Iraqi prison system.

The prison system takes people who have been to trial and then

convicted.

Okay. This is a small number of people, several thousand. These

are facilities not too numerous. This is a new force that has been

raised. But if you read the Department of Defense report to Congress of March 2007 and previous, you will find that it says that

the Iraqi prison system and its personnel meet international standards, that the Iraqi prison system conforms to international levels

and is working well at this point. It is too small, but it is working

well.

I think that is the kind of thing with the Department of Justice,

where you are dealing with career professionals who have done this

all their lives, that can happen. So that is one of the reasons behind my recommendation. that we transfer responsibility for the

police from the Department of Defense and the United States military, which does not do police, to the Department of Justice and

let the professionals take over.

Mr. MEEHAN. Before Ms. Oliker answers, Dr. Kagan, we told you

we would get you out of here at 3:30, and I want to give you this

opportunity to leave and thank you for your testimony and thank

you for your coming before the committee.

Dr. KAGAN. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you.

Ms. OLIKER. On the police transition teams, I have very little to

add to what Mr. Perito said, except to just underline the fact that

we do not have enough of them to cover the local police, and the

people in them are often the wrong people.

You know, this raises the question of getting the right civilian

capacity in there, and this question of DOD being in charge of the

police and, you know, back in 2004, when that decision was made,

the decision was made because it was not working under civilian

control. It was not moving quickly enough, and the thought was

36

that DOD was getting the Ministry of Defense moving, you know,

and the Army moving—the Army training was under way, the Ministry of Defense did not actually exist yet, but the Army training

was under way—so surely they could deal with the police.

There are all sorts of things wrong with that, but the problem

is still how do you get civilians out there? Be they Department of

Justice civilians or contractors, we just do not have that ready reserve of people to pull on to do these jobs, and that is going to continue to be the problem.

In regards to ministry capacity, the Ministry of Interior, I have

heard very little good about the Ministry of Interior since it was

first set up from, you know, its very first minister. I have heard

people say, ‘‘let us dismantle the Ministry of Interior,’’ you know,

people speaking frankly about Iraq, but the thing is if you dismantle the Ministry of Interior, you have nothing resembling a police

force out on the streets and what you do have is all these guys who

might be criminals anyway, but they are still there with all their

weapons running around.

So is it possible to reform it from the inside? That has been the

question all along, and, frankly, you know, its not working so far.

It is a series of fiefdoms. It is corrupt. It is a very broken system.

On detainee policy, the one thing I would say is that I also read

the DOD, and I read the conclusion that the justice ministry prisons, the post-trial prisons meet international standards by some

people in Iraq who were somewhat skeptical. Now, that is just an

additional data point. I do not know. I have not seen the prisons,

and, you know, I have not seen the detailed report. I think actually

getting a real sense of what is going on in the broad range of detention facilities coalition in Iraq would be helpful.

Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Oliker, you were with the CPA in Iraq early

2004, I believe. A Washington Post reporter wrote a book, ‘‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Life Inside the Green Zone.’’ Did you

read it by any chance?

Ms. OLIKER. Well, I was interviewed for it, so, yes, I read it.

Mr. MEEHAN. Did you find it—we are out of time, but I want to

ask you—A, accurately capture the culture in Iraq; B, somewhat

capture the culture in Iraq; or C, did not capture the culture in

Iraq?

Ms. OLIKER. Somewhat captured the culture in Iraq. He did not

live in the Green Zone. He talked to a lot of people who had been

there. It is a long story on what is right and what is wrong in that

book, but it is one of the most surreal places I have ever been.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much.

Dr. FENNER. Mr. Chairman, can I just follow up quickly?

Mr. MEEHAN. Sure.

Dr. FENNER. I read that too, and it is certainly interesting.

From all the comments that you have made, though, about the

changes or shift with the Department of Justice taking over from

the Department of Defense, are those discussions going on? Are

people seriously contemplating that kind of a shift? I think part of

it is our role here, which part of the discussions we really can focus

on to the greatest extent, and whether the discussions are there or

they are not.

37

Mr. PERITO. I do not believe so. The way the funding works is

that funding goes to the State Department, and then the State Department make the decision, and then the funding would go to the

Justice Department. So it is one reason why I said in my statement

that Congress would have to give the Justice Department the authority and the funding to take over and run this program.

Dr. CORDESMAN. May I just make a quick remark?

Dr. FENNER. Yes.

Dr. CORDESMAN. There are 135,000 people shown as trained and

equipped in the police force. As it says very clearly, we haven the

faintest number how many of those people have actually stayed,

and, as Mr. Perito has pointed out, it also is not clear what is relevance.

What bothers me a little about this discussion is I know in about

at least 8 of the 12 cities that we monitor, those police are largely

irrelevant, and when you do an actual map of who is the real security structure, not the Army, in most of Iraq, it really is not the

police.

So one of the things you honestly have to address is what would

it take to deal with the mixture of militias, locally recruited police,

party factions, FPS and other groups and actually fix this thing as

distinguished from who are you going to put in charge, and then

remember that you are asking us whether we can get this done by

the beginning of 2008.

When will anybody actually show up in the field and start any

of this because it is not done in the ministry of interior in Baghdad.

It is done in all of these police posts, in villages, in individual

areas, and I get very concerned about the somewhat surrealistic

discussions of putting people in charge in the ministry when the reality is who is doing what in the field.

Dr. FENNER. Thank you.

Was there anything else you would like to say? I really appreciate that, but I think it is always an important question, is what

have we been missing, and continue to communicate with us. We

would appreciate that.

Thank you.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much.

Again, I think the witnesses for taking the time. Your testimony

was enlightening, very important to this subcommittee, and thank

you very much for appearing.

The subcommittee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:41 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. According to DOD, improving the proficiency of all Iraqi military

and police units is accomplished primarily through the efforts of Military Transition

Teams. These MiTTS, composed of 6,000 advisors in more than 480 teams, are embedded at all levels of Iraqi units in all major subordinate commands. A wide variety of transition teams are advising the ISF in a variety of venues. In its first assessment of transition teams done in 2006, the Center for Army Lessons Learned

(CALL) said that advising the Iraqi Forces is one of the toughest jobs in the military. Transition teams typically operate far from secure forward operating bases and

may have poor communication with other coalition units, limited sanitation and uncertain force protection. The Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report raised the issue of

whether the military is putting the most qualified soldiers and leaders on transition

teams and whether the career incentives that the military has in place to attract

and retain qualified advisors are sufficient. The ISG recommended that ‘‘the most

highly qualified U.S. officers and military personnel should be assigned to the

imbedded teams, and American teams should be present with Iraqi units down to

the company level. The U.S. should establish suitable career-enhancing incentives

for these officers and personnel.’’ Based on your research and experience, what steps

do you believe the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve

these unconventional forces in terms of their: qualifications, leadership, selection,

and training?

Dr. CORDESMAN. [The witness did not respond in a timely manner.]

Mr. MEEHAN. According to the 2006 CALL study, advisor teams operate under

multiple chains of command simultaneously causing confusion of roles and authority, when they should have a clear unambiguous chain of command. Advisor teams

are administratively controlled by the Iraq Assistance Group. They have a command

relationship from their next higher level team. They support their Iraqi counterpart

which is operationally controlled by the next higher level Iraqi formation or by the

local coalition unit. The advisor team is operationally controlled by the coalition

force in whose battle space they reside. Based on your research and experience,

what steps do you believe either the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve these unconventional forces in terms of these command and control

issues?

Dr. CORDESMAN. [The witness did not respond in a timely manner.]

Mr. MEEHAN. In a December 2006 HASC Hearing on Military Transition Teams

in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of how effectiveness of transition teams is

measured was raised; DOD’s witnesses were not able to fully answer the question.

While they agreed that the proficiency of the Iraqi Army unit a transition team is

partnered with should be an indicator, they were not able to offer any definitive set

of effectiveness measures. A MiTT leader who returned from Iraq in March 2007

said that the measure of success for an advisor team is proportional to the challenges of the unit they partner with and how that unit develops during the tenure

of that team. He said that the Transition Readiness Assessment (TRA) are not a

useful tool for measuring success. He stated that TRAs really reflect a shortsighted

view that is useful only in gauging dependency on coalition forces. What do you believe would be good measures of effectiveness for both the ISF and the U.S. advisor

teams supporting them?

Dr. CORDESMAN. [The witness did not respond in a timely manner.]

Mr. MEEHAN. Please provide a copy of part two of your report on the strategy for

Iraq after its completion.

Dr. KAGAN. Phase II of the IPG Report has been sent under separate cover to the

committee. [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 125.]

Mr. MEEHAN. According to DOD, improving the proficiency of all Iraqi military

and police units is accomplished primarily through the efforts of Military Transition

Teams. These MiTTs, composed of 6,000 advisors in more than 480 teams, are embedded at all levels of Iraqi units in all major subordinate commands. A wide variety of transition teams are advising the ISF in a variety of venues. In its first assessment of transition teams done in 2006, the Center for Army Lessons Learned

(CALL) said that advising the Iraqi Forces is one of the toughest jobs in the miliVerDate 22-MAR-2001 08:41 Jan 04, 2008 Jkt 037323 PO 00000 Frm 00147 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\110-49\087160.000 HNS1 PsN: HNS1
144

tary. Transition teams typically operate far from secure forward operating bases and

may have poor communication with other coalition units, limited sanitation and uncertain force protection. The Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report raised the issue of

whether the military is putting the most qualified soldiers and leaders on transition

teams and whether the career incentives that the military has in place to attract

and retain qualified advisors are sufficient. The ISG recommended that ‘‘the most

highly qualified U.S. officers and military personnel should be assigned to the

imbedded teams, and American teams should be present with Iraqi units down to

the company level. The U.S. should establish suitable career-enhancing incentives

for these officers and personnel.’’ Based on your research and experience, what steps

do you believe the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve

these unconventional forces in terms of their: qualifications, leadership, selection,

and training?

Dr. KAGAN. Based on my recent trips to Iraq (in early April and early May 2007),

I believe that many of these concerns have already been addressed or are in the

process of being addressed. The command in Iraq, particularly MNSTC–I, which has

responsibility for these issues, is acutely aware of the importance of fielding teams

of excellent officers with combat experience. The major problem is that officers at

the ranks required, especially 0–5 and 0–6, with the desired expertise and skill sets

are a scarce commodity in the Army, and they are needed as badly in the combat

forces engaged in providing security to the population as in the MiTT teams. I believe that the Army as an institution and the commands in Iraq are balancing the

requirement between fielding good MiTT teams and maintaining qualified personnel

in the fighting BCTs appropriately. Given the importance of establishing security

and the rapidly improving quality of the Iraqi Army, I would not recommend taking

steps to improve or expand MiTT teams that would harm the Army’s ability to field

the necessary number of capable BCTs. I would take issue with the notion that

MiTT teams are the only or even the best way to improve the capacity of the Iraqi

Army at this point, moreover. MiTTs are extremely important, but the partnership

between American Army and Marine units and Iraqi Army and Police units is at

least as important. This partnership is growing in importance, moreover, as the

Iraqi Army units are advancing in capacity and capability, and as our focus shifts

appropriately to identifying and weeding out sectarian actors within the security

forces, something that MiTTs are ill-equipped to do, but that partnered units do on

a regular basis. This discussion does argue strongly for an expansion of the ground

forces as rapidly as possible, and for the desirability of maintaining a reserve of officers at all ranks who can be used to fill out unexpected requirements like MiTT

teams, rather than attempting to maintain a lean force with just enough personnel

to man it.

Mr. MEEHAN. According to the 2006 CALL study, advisor teams operate under

multiple chains of command simultaneously causing confusion of roles and authority, when they should have a clear unambiguous chain of command. Advisor teams

are administratively controlled by the Iraq Assistance Group. They have a command

relationship from their next higher level team. They support their Iraqi counterpart

which is operationally controlled by the next higher level Iraqi formation or by the

local coalition unit. The advisor team is operationally controlled by the coalition

force in whose battle space they reside. Based on your research and experience,

what steps do you believe either the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve these unconventional forces in terms of these command and control

issues?

Dr. KAGAN. Based on my recent visits and research, I believe that the problems

identified in this question have been resolved as much as they can be. Iraq is a sovereign state with a chain of command of its own, a fact that is both inevitable and

desirable. The MiTT teams, as I understand it, have now been placed under the authority of the BCT commanders in whose AORs they operate, thus greatly reducing

the administrative confusion the committee rightly addresses here. This changed relationship has helped to ensure much greater coordination between the MiTT teams,

the Iraqi units they advise, and the U.S. forces with which they are partnered. I

observed a great deal of close coordination and solid partnership in all of the units

I visited. I do not believe that further intervention is warranted in this area.

Mr. MEEHAN. In a December 2006 HASC Hearing on Military Transition Teams

in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of how effectiveness of transition teams is

measured was raised; DOD’s witnesses were not able to fully answer the question.

While they agreed that the proficiency of the Iraqi Army unit a transition team is

partnered with should be an indicator, they were not able to offer any definitive set

of effectiveness measures. A MiTT leader who returned from Iraq in March 2007

said that the measure of success for an advisor team is proportional to the challenges of the unit they partner with and how that unit develops during the tenure

145

of that team. He said that the Transition Readiness Assessment (TRA) are not a

useful tool for measuring success. He stated that TRAs really reflect a shortsighted

view that is useful only in gauging dependency on coalition forces.

Dr. KAGAN. Measuring the effectiveness of transition teams is extraordinarily difficult. Metrics that focus on the number of ‘‘trained and ready’’ units or the number

of units ‘‘operating independently’’ are nearly meaningless. Tens of thousands of

Iraqi soldiers and police are actively fighting the insurgents, both Sunni and Shi’a,

across Iraq today. They are in various states of readiness and capability and would

no doubt produce an intriguing mosaic of metrics. What matters is that they are

fighting and dying against our common enemy, and that is, at the end of the day,

one of two key immeasurable ‘‘metrics’’ that matter. The other is at least as important but can be even more difficult to measure numerically—the degree of sectarian

infiltration of the Iraqi units. Anecdotally (and I observed a number of units in

many parts of the country during my two trips there), Iraqi Army units are functioning professionally, competently, and in a reasonably non-sectarian fashion. Certain Iraqi National Police units are also functioning in this way, but others have

been infiltrated by sectarian actors. These units can be harmful when they are

placed in positions that allow them to pursue their sectarian agendas.

There is, therefore, an important tension in our efforts to improve the capacity

of the Iraqi Security Forces across the board. Simply improving the capacity of sectarian units will hinder, not help, our efforts to stabilize Iraq and create a state that

can survive our withdrawal over the long term. Some MiTT and NPTT teams that

I observed are focused too heavily on simply building capacity. They must focus

heavily as well on observing, identifying, and stopping sectarian behavior, reporting

(with detailed evidence packets) sectarian behavior to their commanders and to the

Iraqi commands, and pressing for units pursuing sectarian agendas to cease such

activities or be removed and even disbanded if they persist. I have observed a number of U.S. units doing precisely these things to very good effect. They can restrain

sectarian behavior, however, only by operating alongside the Iraqi units. MiTT and

NPTT teams have a much harder time even recognizing sectarian behavior because

they have much less opportunity to develop their own understanding of the neighborhood and the situation independent of the information they receive from Iraqi

units. Improving the quality of the ISF overall will not come from an intensive focus

on MiTT and NPTT teams. It requires the close integration of their efforts with

those of coalition forces partnered with Iraqi units and operating together with them

against insurgents, terrorists, and militias. Only in this way, finally, will we be able

to gain an understanding of the real effects that ISF units are having on the

ground—the ultimate measure of their effectiveness.

Mr. MEEHAN. According to DOD, improving the proficiency of all Iraqi military

and police units is accomplished primarily through the efforts of Military Transition

Teams. These MiTTs, composed of 6,000 advisors in more than 480 teams, are embedded at all levels of Iraqi units in all major subordinate commands. A wide variety of transition teams are advising the ISF in a variety of venues. In its first assessment of transition teams done in 2006, the Center for Army Lessons Learned

(CALL) said that advising the Iraqi Forces is one of the toughest jobs in the military. Transition teams typically operate far from secure forward operating bases and

may have poor communication with other coalition units, limited sanitation and uncertain force protection. The Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report raised the issue of

whether the military is putting the most qualified soldiers and leaders on transition

teams and whether the career incentives that the military has in place to attract

and retain qualified advisors are sufficient. The ISG recommended that ‘‘the most

highly qualified U.S. officers and military personnel should be assigned to the

imbedded teams, and American teams should be present with Iraqi units down to

the company level. The U.S. should establish suitable career-enhancing incentives

for these officers and personnel.’’ Based on your research and experience, what steps

do you believe the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve

these unconventional forces in terms of their: qualifications, leadership, selection,

and training?

Ms. OLIKER. There is, indeed significant concern regarding the training and quality of personnel chosen to embed with Iraqi security forces. I would divide the problem into two categories. First is the question of embedding military personnel with

civilian police units. As I noted in my testimony, because of the differences between

military and civilian goals and methods, this creates fundamental problems in the

development of Iraq’s police capacity—which is crucial to both today’s ongoing conflict and, in the event of eventual stabilization, to the institutions that a future

peaceful Iraq inherits. In regard to the military personnel who are embedded, my

understanding is that the U.S. armed forces have improved training and sought to

improve incentives for U.S. personnel being prepared for the embedding mission,

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but more could certainly be done. The integration of personnel who have served as

embedded advisors into the development of the training program is a key component. The focus on stability operations and policing type tactics and approaches is

also crucial—the Iraqi forces that U.S. forces are advising must work among the

Iraqi population and gain their trust, the U.S. forces should be in a position to help

them do that. For that they need to understand the mechanisms of operating under

circumstances in which the population may be hostile, but must be protected nonetheless. Selection is another issue. Identifying the best people is far easier than convincing them to take part in a job that is dangerous, lengthy, and may not be rewarded with promotion. Ensuring that the opportunities for promotion are there can

be helpful, but the experience of Vietnam, where many former advisors found that

they were not given the opportunities they had been promised, is telling. The U.S.

military will have to follow through. Of course, insofar as future missions are likely

to have as a component the building of security forces in post-conflict and conflict

countries may indicate that this is a new area of specialization for the armed forces.

It is worth considering whether it should be treated as such.

Mr. MEEHAN. According to the 2006 CALL study, advisor teams operate under

multiple chains of command simultaneously causing confusion of roles and authority, when they should have a clear unambiguous chain of command. Advisor teams

are administratively controlled by the Iraq Assistance Group. They have a command

relationship from their next higher level team. They support their Iraqi counterpart

which is operationally controlled by the next higher level Iraqi formation or by the

local coalition unit. The advisor team is operationally controlled by the coalition

force in whose battle space they reside. Based on your research and experience,

what steps do you believe either the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve these unconventional forces in terms of these command and control

issues?

Ms. OLIKER. I think that the Command and Control component is important, and

should be streamlined to the extent possible. That said, ensuring appropriate accountability and transparency is no less important. A thorough review of C2 systems

and accountability requirements might be called for to rationalize the process.

Mr. MEEHAN. In a December 2006 HASC Hearing on Military Transition Teams

in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of how effectiveness of transition teams is

measured was raised; DOD’s witnesses were not able to fully answer the question.

While they agreed that the proficiency of the Iraqi Army unit a transition team is

partnered with should be an indicator, they were not able to offer any definitive set

of effectiveness measures. A MiTT leader who returned from Iraq in March 2007

said that the measure of success for an advisor team is proportional to the challenges of the unit they partner with and how that unit develops during the tenure

of that team. He said that the Transition Readiness Assessment (TRA) are not a

useful tool for measuring success. He stated that TRAs really reflect a shortsighted

view that is useful only in gauging dependency on coalition forces. What do you believe would be good measures of effectiveness for both the ISF and the U.S. advisor

teams supporting them?

Ms. OLIKER. The measures of success depend on what goals are to be attained.

If the goal is simply to improve Iraqi security forces, then the measure of success

is the difference in their capability, in any given area, from the time training begins

to the time it ends. That, however, does not bring us closer to the goal of having

Iraqi forces that are capable of carrying out specific tasks, such as ensuring the security of a community or a region, being able to apprehend and interrogate prisoners without violating human rights, be trusted by the public sufficiently that they

are provided with tips and other intelligence, and be able to carry out operations

of various sorts independently (to name just a handful). Their dependence, or lack

thereof, on coalition forces is also a very important indicator, and should not be dismissed. It is true that overall assessments like the TRAs seek to condense scores

and capabilities in a number of areas such as these into a single assessment. This

is, indeed, not as informative as it could be and it is important to be able to understand the components that go into that score, so as to assess whether or not the

right things are being measured, and whether the weights assigned to them in preparing the overall score are appropriate. The true measures will be a variety of

qualitative and quantitative indicators that measure the Iraqi forces’ capacity to

carry out the key tasks called for by their job description (which will vary based

on whether they are local police, national police, or various units of the Iraqi military), their capacity to gain the trust of the community, their loyalty, their absentee

rates, their desertion rates, their death rates, their recruitment rates and vetting

procedures, their deployability (if relevant), the numbers of tips that they receive,

the rates and forms of violence in the areas they are responsible for, and what happens when abuses are reported. Evaluations of U.S. trainers are somewhat trickier,

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but two key factors should be considered. The first is their ability to improve the

performance of the Iraqis they work with, bringing them closer to independent capacity. The second is their ability to recognize when efforts aren’t working or could

be improved and to find ways to adjust them to make them more effective.

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