[Senate Hearing 108-569]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-569
U.S. MILITARY COMMITMENTS AND ONGOING MILITARY OPERATIONS ABROAD
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 9, 2003
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JOHN WARNER, Virginia, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona CARL LEVIN, Michigan
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama JACK REED, Rhode Island
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada BILL NELSON, Florida
JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina EVAN BAYH, Indiana
ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
JOHN CORNYN, Texas MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
Judith A. Ansley, Staff Director
Richard D. DeBobes, Democratic Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
U.S. Military Commitments and Ongoing Military Operations Abroad
september 9, 2003
Page
Wolfowitz, Hon. Paul, Deputy Secretary of Defense................ 7
Grossman, Hon. Marc I., Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs........................................................ 24
Myers, Gen. Richard B., USAF, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Accompanied By: Major Gen. James Mattis, USMC, Commander, First
Marine Division................................................ 35
(iii)
U.S. MILITARY COMMITMENTS AND ONGOING MILITARY OPERATIONS ABROAD
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2003
U.S. Senate
Committee on Armed Services
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m. in
room SD-106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John
Warner (chairman) presiding.
Committee members present: Senators Warner, McCain, Inhofe,
Roberts, Allard, Sessions, Collins, Ensign, Talent, Chambliss,
Graham, Cornyn, Levin, Kennedy, Byrd, Reed, Akaka, Bill Nelson,
E. Benjamin Nelson, Dayton, Clinton, and Pryor.
Majority staff members present: Charles W. Alsup,
professional staff member; Mary Alice A. Hayward, professional
staff member; Ambrose R. Hock, professional staff member; Ann
M. Mittermeyer, counsel; Lynn F. Rusten, professional staff
member; and Scott W. Stucky, general counsel.
Minority staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes,
Democratic staff director; Daniel J. Cox, Jr., professional
staff member; Kenneth M. Crosswait, professional staff member;
Evelyn N. Farkas, professional staff member; Richard W.
Fieldhouse, professional staff member; Maren R. Leed,
professional staff member; Gerald J. Leeling, minority counsel;
and Peter K. Levine, minority counsel.
Staff assistants present: Leah C. Brewer, Andrew Kent, and
Nicholas W. West.
Committee members' assistants present: Christopher J. Paul
and Dan Twining, assistants to Senator McCain; John A. Bonsell,
assistant to Senator Inhofe; James Beauchamp, assistant to
Senator Roberts; Arch Galloway II, assistant to Senator
Sessions; James P. Dohoney, Jr., assistant to Senator Collins;
D'Arcy Grisier, assistant to Senator Ensign; Lindsey R. Neas,
assistant to Senator Talent; James W. Irwin and Clyde A. Taylor
IV, assistants to Senator Chambliss; Aleix Jarvis, assistant to
Senator Graham; Christina O. Hill, assistant to Senator Dole;
Russell J. Thomasson, assistant to Senator Cornyn; Mieke Y.
Eoyang, assistant to Senator Kennedy; Christina Evans and
Terrence E. Sauvain, assistants to Senator Byrd; Elizabeth
King, assistant to Senator Reed; Davelyn Noelani Kalipi and
Richard Kessler, assistants to Senator Akaka; William K. Sutey,
assistant to Senator Bill Nelson; Eric Pierce, assistant to
Senator Ben Nelson; Todd Rosenblum, assistant to Senator Bayh;
Andrew Shapiro, assistant to Senator Clinton; and Terri Glaze,
assistant to Senator Pryor.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN WARNER, CHAIRMAN
Chairman Warner. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The
committee meets this morning to receive testimony on U.S.
global military commitments and ongoing military operations. We
welcome our witnesses this morning: Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz; Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs,
Ambassador Marc Grossman; and General Richard B. Myers,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
We also are privileged to have with us a special guest here
this morning. General Mattis, if you would stand, please.
General Mattis is commander of the Marines in country in Iraq.
I had the privilege of visiting him in Iraq with a
congressional delegation (CODEL), and at some point in time we
are likely to have you come forward, General. Thank you.
We meet today, 2 days before the second anniversary of the
September 11 attacks on this Nation, terrorist attacks which
took the lives of over 3,000 innocent victims and forever
changed our sense of security, forever changed the manner in
which we in this great Nation will conduct our lives for
ourselves, our families, and indeed our Nation's defense
posture.
As we reflect this morning on the request by the President
for $87 billion, we should keep in mind, apart from the tragic
loss of life, what was the cost of September 11, what is the
cost to do everything we can as a Nation to prevent a
recurrence of any incident similar to that or others?
Since that fateful day 2 years ago, U.S. military forces,
working side by side with coalition partners from around the
world, have been engaged in an all-out global war on terrorism
in an effort to prevent future terrorists from reaching our
shores. As the President stated so eloquently on Sunday
evening, and I quote him:
``And for America there will be no going back to the
era before September 11, 2001, to false comfort in a
dangerous world. We have learned that terrorists
attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are
invited by the perception of weakness. The surest way
to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the
enemy where he lives and where he plans and where he
trains. We are fighting the enemy in Iraq and
Afghanistan so that we do not meet him again on our
streets, in our cities, in our towns, and in our
villages.''
What has been accomplished over the past 2 years in the war
on terror? That is the question before us today. What are the
future tactics, plans, and costs? That is before us today.
I think myself we have accomplished a great deal. The
Taliban regime which provided a safe operating base for al
Qaeda in Afghanistan no longer controls that nation and has
been driven into the hills. Do they appear? Yes, occasionally,
but certainly not with the force they once had. They have been
replaced by an emerging democratic government. Al Qaeda's
training camps in Afghanistan have been destroyed. Many of its
top leaders and operatives are dead or in custody, and the
remnants again are scattered.
Over the past 2 years, thousands of terrorists around the
world have been captured and many terrorist operations have
been disrupted. That is progress. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein's
reign of terror has ended, never to return. The threat he posed
to his people, his neighbors, and indeed to the world has been
removed, and Iraq is in the early stages of establishing a
democratic form of government representative of the needs of
all the Iraqis, not just selected portions of that population.
Saddam Hussein doled out the largesse to only a few, and most
of all himself.
Much remains to be done in both Iraq and Afghanistan to
consolidate our military victories, and we as a Nation are
committed to seeing it through to the end, let there be no
doubt. We must not lose sight of the many achievements of the
past 2 years. I believe, and I think most Americans believe,
that the world is a safer place because we and a coalition of
partners acted promptly and decisively.
Recent military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are a
tribute to the professionalism and dedication of the men and
women in the United States Armed Forces and their families. We
are proud to have with us today the distinguished Chairman and
other military officers as symbols of those achievements by our
professional military.
Both operations achieved their basic goals in record time.
Their primary military objectives were removing regimes from
power that were a threat to the security of the United States
and indeed the world. They were led by a team--Secretary of
State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and
their deputies, one of whom, Secretary Wolfowitz, is here
before us today; and on the military side, General Myers,
indeed General Franks, and General Abizaid.
I personally am very proud of that team, to have had the
opportunity to work with them. While we have had our
differences, I respect them. I commend their leadership, and we
are going to stick together to get this job done.
We have assumed extensive post-conflict stability
operations that are ongoing and require significant manpower,
resources, time, and commitment to fully secure the peace. Has
everything gone exactly as envisioned? We all know that is not
correct. But when in history has an operation of this magnitude
gone exactly as planned?
But now is not the time, in my judgment, to try and assess
what went right and what went wrong and who may be at fault for
faulty vision. What we should do now is resolve to remain
strong behind this President and this team, to do everything we
can to cut back on the tragic casualties we are taking, not
only loss of life but loss of limb, and to care for those
families and to press on as quickly as we can to establish this
nation in a security framework so that they can take the nation
back, the Iraqis themselves, and to run it.
As we meet this morning, we are ever mindful that the U.S.
and Coalition Forces continue to be exposed to significant
personal risks through this ongoing phase of operation.
On Sunday the President went before the American people to
forthrightly give his views and ask for their continuing
support. As part of that thoughtful address to the Nation, the
President clearly stated, ``We will do what is necessary,'' and
asked Congress for $87 billion to fund the ongoing operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I am confident that Congress will support him. It is
imperative that Congress, we the representatives of the people,
provide the President and the men and women of the Armed Forces
and those engaged in the stability operations and the
reconstruction the resources they need to fight this war on
terrorism. Ultimate victory in this global effort depends on
our continuing support.
It is a war we will win. It is a war I am confident the
American people will continue to support, provided we continue
to give strong leadership.
I heard this morning that there may be a division of
opinion about this $87 billion: support for that portion that
goes for the troops, but a question mark on that portion that
goes to the reconstruction and the political reconciliation so
that the Iraqi people can take over their own government. I am
open to listen to those who have ideas, but in my judgment the
reconstruction is a direct corollary to the casualties we take.
The sooner the electricity is on, the sooner the water is
running, the sooner that we give that nation a quality of life
over and above what Saddam Hussein allowed his people, in my
judgment the sooner the Iraqi people will in greater numbers
turn to support the coalition and finish the job. So look at
the timetable, those who want to try and change course, on
exactly who, how, why, and when we do this reconstruction.
Over the past several months, approximately half the
members of this committee took the opportunity to join our
forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and indeed Liberia and other
locations around the world. I want to thank them and I urge
others to avail themselves of the opportunity, because the on-
scene presence not only says to the troops we are with you, but
much can be learned and brought back to bear on the decisions
that this committee and other committees in Congress have to
make.
We have all come away from these visits with our own
impressions, and I share my own. First and foremost, as
Americans we can take pride in the magnificent performance and
the professionalism of our troops. Soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and marines I met with are doing their jobs and doing them
well, often in the harshest of conditions, on land and afloat.
It is very clear that our troops understand the importance and
the necessity of performing their duty and the enormity of the
task and they appreciate the support of the American people.
Their morale is strong and they are fully committed to getting
the job done.
All of America appreciates the sacrifice they have made,
together with their families, and we commend them for the
strength that they have shown in the face of the strongest of
adversity.
In Iraq, I was encouraged by the level of involvement of
other nations, and I fully support the administration's renewed
efforts to obtain a new United Nations (U.N.) mandate, which
will hopefully result in additional troops from other nations
to share the burdens in Iraq. Currently, 29 countries have
forces on the ground in Iraq and others have committed to the
effort. A Polish division composed of troops from many nations
has recently taken over a sector in central Iraq. Significant
numbers of Dutch and Italian forces have joined the British
division in the south.
Clearly, the significant commitment of U.S. Forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan as well as Liberia will have an impact on the
ability of the U.S. to meet other military commitments.
Discussion has begun about the nature of our future force
presence abroad. Last week General Myers was quoted as saying,
``We are still in Bosnia, we are still in Kosovo. Should we be
there? Should the Europeans pick up more of that? We are in
many places, in numbers that perhaps we do not need to be in.
Given the new security environment, it cannot be business as
usual in the rest of the world.'' I commend you for that
insight, General.
We are greeted this morning by the news of extension of
some of our National Guard and Reserve units and others in
terms of their period of service in Iraq. All of this ties
together to focus attention on the overall size of the forces,
and there is a legitimate debate as to whether the in-country
force level meets the requirements of the commanders. We expect
to hear discussions on that today.
In my opinion, the framework of national security and
foreign policy issues before the administration is the most
complex since World War II. We are fortunate to have this
Defense-State team before us today in public service addressing
these challenges. I welcome our witnesses.
Senator Levin.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN
Senator Levin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I join
you in welcoming our witnesses today.
As we meet, Iraq is anything but secure. Attacks on
Americans continue. Just within the last month, the Jordanian
embassy was bombed, the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was
bombed, the Shiite mosque in Najaf was bombed, a Sunni mosque
in Baghdad was attacked by gunmen last Friday, and there are
reports that al Qaeda and sympathetic foreign fighters are
infiltrating Iraq to attack U.S. and coalition personnel.
Our military forces are stretched thin. Over 180,000 are
fighting the war in Iraq or supporting it from Kuwait and other
Persian Gulf states. Another 10,000 are conducting combat and
stability operations in Afghanistan. At the same time we are
helping to maintain the peace in Liberia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
Of course, we have thousands of troops deployed in South Korea,
dedicated in war plans to the defense of that nation in a
region that is becoming ever more volatile with the North
Korean drive to obtain and develop nuclear weapons.
We read in the paper this morning that thousands of
National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq and the Gulf area are
going to have their tours of duty extended, and that is indeed
very troubling news to people back in all of our States.
Sunday night the President finally came forward with the
amount that he will ask in a supplemental appropriation request
for fiscal year 2004 for military operations and reconstruction
in Iraq and Afghanistan, $87 billion. This huge sum is a bitter
pill for the American people to swallow in a year when the
President's budget falls billions short in funding education
programs and the No Child Left Behind Act; proposes to cut
highway funding by $2.5 billion from current levels; when the
administration proposes to cut after-school programs by $400
million, or 40 percent, from this year's level; when it
proposes new costs on veteran's health care programs that will
be a real hardship for those who have served our country in
uniform in the past; proposes huge cuts in funding for programs
to help small- and middle-sized manufacturing firms at a time
when we are losing tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in
this country every month.
This $87 billion comes on top of the $79 billion
appropriated for those purposes in this fiscal year. It is
ironic to note that administration officials denounced Mr.
Lindsey's estimate that the cost of the war before it was
launched would be in the range of $100 to $200 billion. We are
already in the upper reaches of that estimate for the first 2
years of a long commitment.
Secretary Wolfowitz, you told Congress in March that, ``We
are dealing with a country that can really finance its own
reconstruction, and relatively soon.'' Talk about rosy
scenarios. Before this committee, when senior military leaders
tried to give us realistic estimates that Iraq will require
substantial numbers of U.S. troops for the foreseeable future,
they were contradicted and at times ridiculed by the civilian
leadership of the Department of Defense (DOD).
It has been clear from the beginning that the United States
cannot do all of this alone. The U.S. needs the support of the
international community in Iraq, including the troops of Muslim
nations, not only to share the burden, but also to change the
perception of many Iraqis from that of a western occupation to
that of an international effort to stabilize and rebuild their
country.
The administration was long overdue in recognizing the need
for the increased involvement of the world community through
the United Nations in Iraq. The administration only belatedly
and begrudgingly now has gone back to the United Nations for an
explicit mandate, a mandate that many countries such as
Pakistan, Turkey, and India have said for months that they
needed if they were going to send troops to Iraq.
The administration's task is now more difficult because it
delayed so long. Their go-it-alone chickens are coming home to
roost. Ninety percent of the troops in Iraq are American troops
and probably a larger percentage of reconstruction funds are
going to be American if the administration's proposal is
adopted, unless we change the context, unless we change the
dynamic in Iraq, to one of an international community effort
with the support of the United Nations.
But if the administration is going to win international
support, it is going to have to be willing to provide a
substantial and meaningful U.N. role in the political
development of a new Iraqi government and in the reconstruction
of Iraq.
The issue, by the way, is not whether there will be a
unified military command under a U.S. commander. There must be
and there will be. We have the dominant share of the troops.
There is no doubt about that issue. But based upon my visit to
U.N. headquarters in New York yesterday, my meetings with our
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Negroponte, and with U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, I do not believe that we will
receive a substantial contribution of troops and resources from
other nations unless the administration is willing to give the
United Nations a substantial and meaningful role in the
civilian side of the reconstruction effort.
It is imperative that we do so, so that we will be clearly
exposing the lie that the jihadists use to attract soldiers for
their army of terror, that the west intends to dominate a
Muslim country.
Congress will provide the funding to give our troops what
they need, let there be no doubt about that. But before
providing reconstruction funds, partly to assure that those
funds can be effectively spent in an effort that will be
successful, we must assure ourselves that the administration is
willing to give more than lip service to enlisting the support
of key additional nations in providing troops and resources for
the long struggle that lies ahead in Iraq.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Warner. Thank you very much.
Several members have asked for time for opening statements,
but I had to make the judgment call that we would proceed
directly to our witnesses. In that context, I will extend the
time for a questioning period to enable members to add some
observations prior to their questions.
Secretary Wolfowitz.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Secretary Wolfowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
the committee. I have submitted a fairly long statement that I
will put in the record and I will try to give you a reasonably
short summary.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. The full text of
all statements will be incorporated in the record.
Secretary Wolfowitz. One of the things that is most
important for troops facing danger on the front lines is the
knowledge that their dedication and sacrifice is appreciated by
the people of America. On behalf of the men and women who serve
our country so faithfully and so well, let me begin by
expressing thanks to Congress for the bipartisan support that
you give our Armed Forces.
Just 2 years removed from the most brutal attack on our
Nation's soil since Pearl Harbor, we remain a Nation at war. We
fight a threat posed by an enemy that hides in the shadows and
has burrowed into scores of countries around the globe. With
the help of a coalition of some 90 nations, we have gone after
that adversary of freedom wherever he may be found, using every
resource at our command, including our instruments of
diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, financial influence,
and of course every necessary weapon of war, to defeat the
global terror network.
It might be worth mentioning, Mr. Chairman, that I just got
an unclassified summary from the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) of where we stand in that larger war, and let me just
read two sentences from it: ``2 years after the September 11
attacks, al Qaeda's central leadership is reeling from the
impact of the counterterrorist successes of the U.S. and our
allies. The central leadership of al Qaeda is at growing risk
of breaking apart, as our blows against the group create a
level of disarray and confusion throughout the operation that
we have not seen since the collapse of the Taliban in late
2002.''
I think that is a good news story. I guess one should also
remember that in war good news can be followed by bad news. But
I think the point is that we are moving to victory.
Like World War II and the Cold War, this war is being
fought on a global stage. Like those previous conflicts, the
stakes are enormous and our very freedom is threatened.
However, we also need to realize that this war is different
from any previous war. If we react based on experiences from
past conflicts or from prior peacekeeping experiences, we are
likely to act incorrectly in many cases. We face a new
situation and we need to constantly think anew about it.
At the Pentagon, just 1 year removed from sealing the
horrible gash that the terrorists made in our outer wall, the
memory of our lost comrades remains strong. Our military and
civilian forces have not forgotten whom we are fighting and
what we are fighting for. They above all know what is at stake.
It is a big job. It is going to take patience and time and
determination. It will take more than killing and capturing
terrorists and dismantling terrorist networks, as important as
that is. It also requires winning on what I would call the
second front of the war on terror, what the President called in
his State of the Union message building a just and peaceful
world beyond the war on terror, and particularly in the Muslim
world.
We do not start a job that we cannot finish, and when we do
start a job we give it our best. That is the American way. As
the President said on Sunday night: ``Our strategy in Iraq has
three objectives: destroying the terrorists, enlisting the
support of other nations for a free Iraq, and helping Iraqis
assume responsibility for their own defense and their own
future.''
``First,'' he said, ``we are taking direct action against
terrorists in the Iraqi theater, which is the surest way to
prevent future attacks on coalition forces and the Iraqi
people. Second, we are committed to expanding the international
cooperation in the reconstruction and security of Iraq, just as
we are in Afghanistan. Third, we are encouraging the orderly
transfer of sovereignty and authority to the Iraqi people. Our
coalition came to Iraq as liberators,'' the President said,
``and we will depart as liberators.''
I would like to focus in these brief opening remarks on
three critical areas where we seek the support of Congress and
particularly of this committee: First specific issue, obtaining
the resources and the authority to train and equip and field
foreign military forces fighting along side our own; second, to
give us the flexibility that we have asked for to reduce the
stress on active duty end strength by making it easier to
convert military jobs to civilian jobs; and most important,
most demanding, to support the President's request expressed so
forcefully Sunday night for the resources needed to wage and
win this war. We need resources for our military. We also need
resources to win that second battle front, both in Afghanistan
and Iraq, to help those people build new and free countries
that will remain free of instability and terrorism and to send
a message to the world, especially to our enemies, that we have
the staying power to finish the job.
Concerning the first point, General Abizaid and his
commanders have said repeatedly that they not only do not need
more troops, they do not want more American troops. What they
do want are more international troops to share the burden of
providing stability forces. But most of all what they want are
more Iraqi troops, because it is their country that we have
liberated and it is they who need to take over the main
security tasks.
In July, when I visited the marines in southern Iraq, the
commander of the First Marine Division, Major General Jim
Mattis, who, as the chairman noted, is here with us today, told
me how he had sent some of his 15,000 troops home already
because he had enough of them to do the job and he did not want
what he called ``the reverberations of a heavy footprint'' that
a large army requires. He said that if you want more people on
your side, do not bring in more Americans.
General Abizaid mentioned in his briefings here last week
that what we really need are more Iraqis fighting with us. We
have begun recruiting and training Iraqis for an Iraqi Civilian
Defense Corps to take over tasks such as guarding fixed sites
and power lines.
It is the same with former New York City Police Chief
Bernie Kerik, who just volunteered for 4 months helping Iraqis
rebuild their police force. He favors empowering Iraqis over
sending more American troops. He said if you triple the number
of coalition forces, ``you will probably triple the attacks on
the troops.''
The future is not in the military, but in getting control
back in the hands of the Iraqi people. We are making rapid
progress in that area. We have gone from no Iraqis fighting
with us when Baghdad fell to currently more than 55,000--
55,000, Mr. Chairman, serving with us and providing security
for their country. That makes Iraqis the single largest member
of the coalition after the United States, and they are taking
on the hard missions. They are fighting and taking casualties
with us. Just a few days ago, one of them was killed by a
suicide bomber attempting to attack our troops.
Those numbers are predominantly Iraqi police, some 40,000.
But we have started two new formations, the Iraqi Facilities
Protective Service and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. By
January we plan to have 15,000 members of the Civil Defense
Corps and 20,000 members of the Facilities Protective Service.
Those numbers, as well as the police numbers, can be increased
more rapidly with the resources that the President is asking
Congress to provide.
We should not, however, find that we are held back by a
shortage of money or authority to give those willing and able
to fight on our side the proper training and equipment to get
the job done.
On converting military jobs to civilian jobs, we ask
Congress to give us the flexibility to make it easier to do
that because it would help relieve some of the current stress
on the Active-Duty Force. Right now the complexities of putting
civilians in the thousands of jobs that do not need to be
performed by men and women in uniform puts unnecessary strain
on our uniformed personnel. I could also add, Mr. Chairman,
from personal experience, that it makes it more difficult to
recruit the great talent pool that we have out in this country
among Iraqi Americans and Afghan Americans who are ready and
willing to serve either as civilians or as military.
In the current situation, bringing more troops on line by
increasing our end strength will not provide a short-term
answer. It takes time to recruit and train people and any
increase we put into effect now would have no appreciable
effect for some time to come. If the current strain on our
military forces reflects a temporary spike from an increase in
wartime operations tempo, it would be better to resist
increasing forces for the long term because doing so will
impose a sizable personnel cost in the out years that will
inevitably come at the expense of other things that our Armed
Forces need.
What can deliver results more quickly are the things we are
looking at to reduce the stress on our current end strength.
That includes an examination of our entire global footprint, as
you just suggested in your remarks, Mr. Chairman. It means
looking at how to make adjustments in the active-Reserve mix so
that particular portions of our force, and particularly
specific portions of our Reserve Force, are not inordinately
strained. It means looking at how we can shift some jobs
performed by people in uniform to civilians who can do them
just as well or perhaps better.
We are asking you now to help us with our proposed national
security personnel system. The fact that we are fighting a
tough and sustained war on terrorism only makes the need to
take that step even more pressing.
But finally and most important, Mr. Chairman, we are asking
you to provide substantial means to fight and win this war. The
bulk of the President's request, some $66 billion, will be
dedicated to ensuring that our men and women in uniform have
the resources they need to complete their missions in the war
on terror. The rest, $21 billion, would help build safe,
stable, and self-governing societies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In recent weeks, many of you have said that even if this is
a formidable venture, even if it costs substantial resources,
it is important enough to our country, to our security, to our
national interest, to merit Congress's full support. The costs
are large, but it is a battle that we can win and it is a
battle that we must win, because victory in this battle will be
a major victory in the war on terrorism and a major defeat for
the global terrorist networks.
As large as these costs are, they are still small compared
to just the economic price that the attacks of September 11
inflicted, to say nothing of the terrible loss of human life.
Even those costs are small in comparison to what future, more
terrible terrorist attacks could inflict.
By those actions and by what Congress says, you can help us
send the message to the world and particularly to our enemies
that America is behind our troops, that America has the staying
power to fight this war on terrorism to victory.
The Baathist bitter-enders and their foreign terrorist
allies believe that if they can inflict casualties on us, as in
Beirut and Somalia, we will give up and go home. We know that
Osama bin Laden saw Somalia as an example of how Americans can
be driven out by inflicting casualties. We know that Saddam
Hussein told Ambassador April Glaspie in 1990 that he could
take massive casualties and we could not stand even a few.
The sooner these terrorists and Baathists understand
clearly that our will cannot be broken and that the Iraqi
people, despite hardship and difficulty, will persevere in
building their new society, the sooner we will win. That is why
it is so urgent that Congress pass this supplemental request,
and I would encourage speedy action when the request is
formally submitted, because just as the speedy action of
Congress after September 11 sent a strong message to friends
and enemies alike and to our troops, so too a rapid response
now will send that same message, and particularly to the troops
who are giving us 100 percent. They need to know that we are
behind them 100 percent.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to join you in expressing my
thanks and the thanks of our troops for the special efforts,
for the special efforts that members of this committee and
Congress more generally have made to visit Iraq. Your visits
have been important not only for the morale of our men and
women; they have also given you an opportunity to get a much
clearer picture of the situation on the ground.
The common experience of almost everyone I have talked to
who goes to Iraq seems to be that, while we all see the
problems that are so frequently reported in the press, we also
see a great deal of good news. In the case of Iraq, where the
only news for 35 years was horrible news, the remarkable amount
of good news is indeed a story.
It is impossible to generalize about Iraq, Mr. Chairman. I
am afraid when a bomb goes off in one place people get an
impression that the whole country is about to come apart. The
truth is--and I suppose when I say it I should knock on wood--
one does not know what tomorrow will bring. But the truth is
that so far the predominantly Shia south has been remarkably
stable and I would say far more stable than most pre-war
predictions would have given you. The mixed ethnic Arab-
Turkish-Kurdish north has also been remarkably stable, again
contrary to fears many of us had that we might face large-scale
ethnic conflict.
Our problems, and they are real, have largely been
concentrated in the Baathist areas in central Iraq and parts of
Baghdad. I have tried in my statement at some length to give
some feel for that wide variation. I am not going to take you
through it now, but I would like to mention southern Iraq, and
Najaf in particular, partly because it was in the news and
partly because General Mattis is here and if you wish to hear
more from him he can tell you much more than I can.
But it is interesting, I think, what stunning successes the
Marines achieved in those two cities, Najaf and Karbala, the
holiest cities of Shia Islam. It is a success that can be
perceived, I think, even despite the recent tragic bombing in
Najaf. That event of course was a terrible tragedy and has
contributed to unease and fear in Iraq, and that is precisely
what the people who did it intended, and as far as we know they
were probably outsiders.
It does not take many people to plant a car or a truck
bomb. They have done that here in the United States. To me, the
real news has been the remarkable calm and restraint that Iraqi
Shia have shown in the wake of that horrible provocation. Some
hundreds of thousands of people came out to witness the funeral
procession of Ayatollah Hakim as it passed, with no major
violence reported. Fears have been expressed that this
horrendous act could lead to attacks by Shia on Sunni, but so
far at least that has not happened.
Last week, General Abizaid told reporters that, after being
in the United States a week and a half and reading news reports
on conditions in Iraq, it could lead him to think that perhaps
he should go back to Iraq, he said, and find someone to
surrender to. Yet when he talks to our troops, well-informed by
first-hand knowledge, he said, ``They are so confident and so
positive that it takes me only about 30 minutes,'' the General
said, ``to understand that we have this under control.''
Of course, there are still many challenges remaining for
our troops and, as our commanders consider military operations
in Iraq, there are at least two things they tell us they would
like more of. Number one is Iraqis fighting to secure their own
liberty, as I mentioned earlier. The number two critical item
is forces of other countries, and we are making progress there
as well.
So far, close to 30 nations have sent close to 23,000
personnel to Iraq. Over 40 nations have pledged more than $3
billion in assistance. In southern Iraq, Polish forces have
assumed command of an international division and we are hoping
to add another division above and beyond that. The President's
request will provide some $800 million to support the troops of
our coalition partners who need that help to provide support.
In the wake of the bombing on the U.N., we have a new
opportunity to get a more extensive resolution from the U.N.
that will make it easier for those countries that are
contributing to continue to do so and hopefully easier for new
countries to enter as well.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to conclude by mentioning
something that General Mattis said to me when I visited Iraq in
July. He said the people that presented the fiercest opposition
to them as they drove north in that phase of major combat
operations were the Fedayeen Saddam, a group of thugs with a
cult-like dedication to Saddam Hussein who, though their
numbers are reduced, are still a problem, and foreign
terrorists.
I asked him: ``How did you know that foreigners were
fighting?'' He said: ``Well, we found a lot of foreign
passports on the battlefield.'' He was good enough to bring a
few of these that he found back with him. This is one, a
foreigner who came into Iraq on March 24 through Syria--not a
Syrian, but through Syria. The entry permit on his passport
said he came to, ``volunteer for jihad.''
Here is another one who came into Iraq through Syria, the
same crossing point. The entry permit said ``to join the Arab
volunteers.'' Here is a third one that came in on April 7.
In other words, from the very early stages of the war
foreign terrorists were coming into Iraq, obviously with the
full knowledge and cooperation of the Iraqi government, and
sent to the front lines to fight Americans. They are still
there. Others are coming. Getting better border controls is one
of our important objectives.
But I think it is a strong illustration of the major threat
that we face today. As the intelligence briefings put it, it is
the combination of former regime loyalists and foreign
terrorists. The level of cooperation between them is something
that is hard to determine. There is some, we know. There is
probably a lot more that we do not know.
The foreign terrorists, Mr. Chairman, who go to Iraq to
kill Americans understand this: If killing Americans leads to
defeat and the restoration of the old regime or any new
tyranny, it would score an enormous strategic victory for
terrorism and for the forces of repression and intolerance,
rage and despair, hatred and revenge. As the President told
members of the American Legion recently: ``Terrorists know that
a democratic Iraq in the Middle East would be a further defeat
for their ideology of terror.''
Iraqis understand this. Along side us, they are working
hard to fight the forces of anger and helplessness and to seize
this historic opportunity to move their country forward.
When I met with General Abizaid when we were both in Iraq
in July, he put the battle in Iraq into a larger perspective
that I think is worth quoting. I would remind everyone too, as
most of you know, that he is not only a distinguished general,
he is a real Middle East expert, a fluent Arabic speaker who
has spent many years in that part of the world.
The general said: ``The whole difficulty in the global war
on terrorism is that this is a phenomenon without borders. The
heart of the problem is in this particular region and the heart
of the region happens to be Iraq. If we cannot be successful
here, we will not be successful in the global war on
terrorism.''
``Success in Iraq,'' the general said, ``offers a chance,
when you combine it with initiatives in the Arab-Israeli
theater and initiatives elsewhere, to make life better, to
bring peace to an area where people are very, very talented and
resources are abundant, especially here in Iraq.''
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, America's troops
and those of our coalition partners, among whom I would
emphasize are the Iraqi people themselves, are determined to
win, and they will win if we continue to give them the moral
and the material support they need to do the job. As the
President said, our forces are on the offensive. As Army Vice
Chief of Staff General Jack Keane said in testimony here:
``They bring the values of the American people to this
conflict. They understand firmness. They understand
determination. But our troops also understand compassion. Those
values are on display every day as they switch from dealing
with an enemy to taking care of a family.''
I have seen the troops in Iraq, as many of you here have as
well, and I think you would all agree General Keane is
absolutely right.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Wolfowitz follows:]
Prepared Statement by Hon. Paul Wolfowitz
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: One of the things that
is most important for troops facing danger on the front lines is the
knowledge that their dedication and sacrifice is appreciated by the
people of America. On behalf of the men and women who serve our country
so faithfully and so well, let me begin by expressing thanks to
Congress for the bipartisan support that you give our Armed Forces.
The enemy are people who show no mercy toward women or children.
They are people who kill Arabs and Indonesians and Iraqis and Afghans,
not just Americans and Europeans and Australians.
Although they claim to act in the name of Islam, they attack not
only churches and synagogues, but mosques as well. They pride
themselves on being people who love death above life. They fear
democracy because, as one recent al Qaeda publication makes clear, in
their view, the goal of democracy is to ``make Muslims love this world,
forget the next world and abandon jihad.'' Evidently, they are not
happy that citizens of democracies can freely choose to remain faithful
to their religious beliefs and traditions--apparently in their view,
religion can survive only if it is imposed by tyranny and terror.
AMERICA: A NATION AT WAR
It is fitting that, during this week of September 11, we gather in
this seat of American democracy to take stock of America's efforts
since that tragic day, in the global war on terrorism.
Just 2 years removed from the most brutal attack on our Nation's
soil since Pearl Harbor, we remain a Nation at war. We fight a threat
posed by an enemy that hides in the shadows and has burrowed into
scores of countries around the globe. With the help of a coalition of
some 90 nations, we've gone after this adversary of freedom wherever he
may be found, using every resource at our command--including our
instruments of diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, financial
influence, and, of course, every necessary weapon of war to destroy and
defeat the global terror network.
Like World War II and the Cold War, this war is fought on a global
stage. Like those previous conflicts, the stakes are enormous and our
very freedom is threatened. However, we also need to realize that this
war is different from any previous war. If we react based on
experiences from prior conflicts--or from prior peacekeeping
experiences--we are likely to act wrong in many cases. We face a new
situation and we need to think anew about it.
I've traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq, as have many of you here,
and I think you'll agree, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,
that the men and women of America's Armed Forces support this national
endeavor with the greatest pride, their very best efforts, a clear
understanding of their mission, and the strongest possible
determination to win.
At the Pentagon, only 1 year removed from sealing the horrible gash
the terrorists made in its outer wall, the memory of our lost comrades
remains strong; our military and civilian forces have not forgotten
whom we are fighting and what we are fighting for. They, above all,
know what's at stake.
If you go to the Memorial Chapel in the Pentagon, which is located
at the restored site of the deadly impact, you'll find that service
members and civil servants, as well as other Americans who come to
visit, to this very day, write their thoughts into a book there--they
leave their condolences for those lost at their posts, killed simply
because they were defending America. Visitors put into words their
faith that America will prevail over the forces that would destroy
freedom.
We will prevail. We will prevail because we're the people who meet
adversity head on and come out better for it. When the terrorists
attacked, they seem to have thought we were a weak people, grown used
to comfort, and softened by everything we enjoy in this great Nation.
But, since September 11, they've come to learn just how wrong they are.
We rebuilt the Pentagon. The builders who labored so tirelessly to
put it back together made it better than it was before. That's the
American way.
We fought back. When the time came to make a choice, America took
the fight to those who would rob us and others of our freedom. We acted
decisively to keep gathering threats from becoming even more deadly
attacks on the American people--because sitting back and hoping we
don't get hit again is not a strategy.
We worked with those dozens of countries, exchanging intelligence,
closing bank accounts to keep funds from moving to terrorists; sharing
information and police records, keeping people from crossing borders--
to keep applying pressure across the globe. Of course, we're working
with our coalition partners in Afghanistan and Iraq and in other
regions of the world to root out terrorists. It's a big job, and it's
going to take patience and time and determination.
It will take more than killing and capturing terrorists and
dismantling terrorist networks--as important as that is. It also
requires winning on what could be called the second front of the war on
terror, what the President called ``building a just and peaceful world
beyond the war on terror,'' particularly in the Muslim world.
We don't start a job we can't finish. When we do start a job, we
give it our best. That's the American way.
As the President said on Sunday night: ``Our strategy in Iraq has
three objectives: destroying the terrorists, enlisting the support of
other nations for a free Iraq and helping Iraqis assume responsibility
for their own defense and their own future. First, we are taking direct
action against the terrorists in the Iraqi theater, which is the surest
way to prevent future attacks on coalition forces and the Iraqi people.
Second, we are committed to expanding international cooperation in the
reconstruction and security of Iraq, just as we are in Afghanistan.
Third, we are encouraging the orderly transfer of sovereignty and
authority to the Iraqi people. Our coalition came to Iraq as liberators
and we will depart as liberators.''
HELPING WIN THE WAR ON TERROR
To help this Nation finish what it has begun and continue to
victory in the war on terror, I'm here today to ask for help in three
critical areas:
1. Obtaining the appropriation and the authority to train and equip
foreign military forces;
2. Giving us the flexibility we've asked for to reduce the stress
on active duty end strength by making it easier to convert military
jobs to civilian jobs; and,
3. No single thing is more important or more demanding than
supporting the President's request, expressed so forcefully Sunday
night, for adequate resources to wage and win this war. We need
resources for our military, we also need resources to win that second
battle front, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, to help those people build
new and free countries that will remain free of instability and
terrorism--and to send the message to the world, especially to our
enemies, that we have the staying power to finish the job.
Training and equipping foreign military forces
In the authorization bill, we asked Congress to provide us with
$200 million in authority to provide assistance or support to foreign
nations aiding U.S. military operations to combat terrorism. We intend
to use this authority to train and equip foreign forces that are
fighting alongside our forces--and often in place of our forces--in the
war on terrorism. Both the House and Senate deleted that provision from
the bill. While we have been asking on an urgent basis for the
conference committee to restore this authority, we will undoubtedly be
requesting it again, and probably on a larger scale, in the
supplemental request that the President spoke about Sunday night.
However, I would still urge the conference to consider restoring our
original request because it is impossible sitting here to predict that
Iraq and Afghanistan will be the only places in the world where well
trained and equipped foreign forces fighting alongside our own could
help our forces be more effective and save American lives.
To fight the kind of war we face, we need maximum flexibility to
benefit from the effect of foreign military forces who share our goals.
We can't do it alone. Nowhere is this more clear than in Iraq.
General Abizaid and his commanders have said repeatedly that not
only don't they need more troops, they don't want more American troops.
They do want more international troops to share the burden of providing
stability forces and to reduce the political liability of a U.S.-only
occupation. But most of all, what they want are more Iraqi troops
because it is their country that we have liberated and it is they who
need to take over the main security tasks.
In July, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, Major General
Jim Mattis, told me how he'd sent some of his 15,000 troops home
already because he had enough of them to do the job, and he didn't want
what he called the ``reverberations of a heavy foot print'' that a
large army requires--the fuel, the food, the equipment, and all the
materials a sizable force in place requires. He said that if you want
more people on your side, don't bring in more Americans.
As General Abizaid mentioned in his briefings here last week, what
we really need are more Iraqis fighting with us. We've begun recruiting
and training Iraqis for an Iraqi civilian defense force to take over
tasks such as guarding fixed sites and power lines.
It is the same with former New York City Police Chief Bernard
Kerik, who just completed 4 months helping Iraqis rebuild their police
force. He favors empowering Iraqis over sending in more troops. He
said: If you triple the number of coalition forces, you'll probably
triple the attacks on the troops. The future is not in the military but
in getting control back in the hands of the Iraqi people.''
Currently we have more than 55,000 Iraqis serving with us in
providing security for their country, making Iraqis the single largest
member of the coalition after the United States. These Iraqis are
fighting with us and taking casualties with us. Just a few days ago,
one of them was killed by a suicide bomber attempting to attack our
troops.
Their numbers are made up of roughly 40,000 members of the Iraqi
police, as well as members of the new Facility Protection Service, the
new Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, and the border guards. By January, we
plan to have 15,000 members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, and
20,000 members of the Facility Protection Service.
With additional resources, those numbers could be expanded further,
because there is no shortage of Iraqis willing to serve. We also have
plans to field 66,000 police and 3 divisions of the new Iraqi Army
which could be speeded up substantially with the additional resources
the President has called for.
Iraqis want to do their part to help secure public order and create
a civil society. In fact, some 50 Iraqis have already died and many
more have been wounded working with us to do just that.
We should not find that we are held back by a shortage of money or
authority to give those willing and able to fight on our side the
proper training and equipment to do the job.
Converting military jobs to civilian jobs
Along with preparing more Iraqis to fight with us, giving us the
flexibility to make it easier to convert military jobs to civilian
jobs--my second point--would help relieve some of the current stress on
the Active-Duty Force. Right now, the complexities of putting civilians
in the thousands of jobs that don't need to be performed by men and
women in uniform puts unnecessary strain on our uniformed personnel.
Today, as some thousands of uniformed personnel perform non-military
jobs, we are calling up Reserves to help deal with the global war on
terror.
In the current situation, bringing more troops on line by
increasing our end strength is not the answer. It takes time to recruit
and train people, and any increase we put into effect now would have no
appreciable effect for some time to come. If the current strains on our
military force reflect an inevitable, yet temporary, spike from an
increase in wartime operations tempo, it would be better to resist
increasing forces for the long-term. If it turns out that an increase
was unnecessary, a sizeable increase in personnel costs would come at
the expense of other things our Armed Forces need.
What makes more sense--and can deliver results more quickly--are
the kinds of things we're looking at to reduce the stress on our
current end strength, including reexamining our entire global
footprint, looking at how best to make adjustments in the active/
Reserve mix, and most of all, looking at how we can shift some jobs
performed by the military that would be more appropriately be done by
civilians.
We realize that achieving the goal of reforming the Defense
Department's civil service system requires some bold moves to
constitute real transformation. We are asking you now to help us take
such a bold step and help us with our proposed National Security
Personnel System. That we are fighting a tough and sustained war on
terrorism only makes the need to take that step to reform our personnel
system even more pressing.
Providing the necessary resources
That we fight this war to win is why, in his address to the Nation
Sunday evening, President Bush announced his intention to submit a
request to Congress for additional funds to pay for military and
intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the
war on terror and to help pay for the reconstruction of both nations.
The bulk of the President's request ($66 billion) will be dedicated
to ensuring our men and women in uniform have the resources they need
to complete their missions in the war on terror. The rest ($21 billion)
would help build safe, stable, and self-governing societies in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
In recent weeks, many of you have agreed that even if this is a
formidable venture, even if it costs substantial resources, it is
important enough to our national interests to merit Congress's full
support.
As the President said to the Nation on Sunday, the undertaking in
Iraq is ``difficult and costly--yet worthy of our country, and critical
to our security.'' This undertaking is so critical because, as the
President said, ``Iraq is now the central front'' in the war on terror.
``Enemies of freedom,'' he said, ``are making a desperate stand there--
and there they must be defeated.''
There's no question that a powerful signal will go out to the
terrorists and their allies that defeat in Iraq will be theirs when
Congress acts quickly on the President's request.
For Iraq, the roughly $51 billion of the total amount the President
has requested for military expenses will be key to eliminating the
remnants of Saddam's regime, as well as the foreign terrorists who've
been fighting in Iraq. The President will request $20 billion to help
in Iraq's transition to self-government, and to create the conditions
that will encourage economic investment. Iraq's infrastructure was
badly decayed. It is estimated that between $50-$75 billion will be
needed to address the infrastructure's decades of malicious neglect.
Roughly $5 billion will go to addressing security, so crucial to
overall success, by training people who can guard borders and enforce
customs laws, as well as a new Iraqi army, police force, and local
civilian defense corps.
As the President said on Sunday, this victory will require us to
commit ``years and resources,'' just as in the aftermath of the Second
World War, when we helped rebuild Germany and Japan. But that effort
and investment, he reminded us, ``has been repaid in three generations
of friendship and peace. America today accepts the challenge of helping
Iraq in the same spirit we have helped others.''
The costs are large, but it is a battle that we can win and we must
win. Because victory in this battle will be a major victory in the war
on terrorism and a major defeat for the global terrorist networks. As
large as these costs are, they are still small compared to just the
economic price that the attacks of September 11 have inflicted, to say
nothing of the terrible loss of human life. Even those costs are small
in comparison to what future more terrible terrorist attacks could
inflict.
America is behind the troops
By those actions and what Congress says, you can help us send the
message to the world, and particularly to our enemies, that America is
behind her troops, and has the staying power to fight this war on
terrorism to victory.
The Baathist bitter-enders and their foreign terrorist allies
believe that if they inflict casualties on us, like in Beirut and
Somalia, we will give up and go home.
We know that Osama bin Laden saw Somalia as an example of how
Americans can be driven out by inflicting casualties. We know that
Saddam Hussein told Ambassador April Glaspie in 1990 that he could take
casualties and the Americans could not.
When the terrorists exploded a bomb outside a shrine in Najaf, and
when they detonated a bomb in the U.N. Headquarters, the men and women
killed weren't the only targets.
Terrorists were aiming a blow at something they hate even more--the
prospect of a country freed from their control and moving to become an
Iraq of, by, and for the Iraqi people. Terrorists recognize that Iraq
is on a course towards self-government that, once achieved, will be an
example to all in the Muslim world who desire freedom, pointing a way
out of the sense of failure that the extremists feed on. They test our
will, the will of the Iraqi people, and the will of the civilized
world.
The sooner these terrorists understand clearly that our will can't
be broken and that the Iraqi people, despite hardship and difficulty,
will persevere in building their new society--the sooner the terrorists
will come to terms with their defeat.
That is why it is so urgent that Congress pass this supplemental
request to cover ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to
ensure our troops have the resources they need to complete their
mission.
Just as after September 11, a speedy bipartisan passage of the
supplemental request would send a strong message to our friends and our
enemies--and to our troops, who are giving us 100 percent. They need to
know we are behind them 100 percent.
View of the Military Front: Afghanistan
Afghanistan was the first arena in the global war on terrorism and
the United States remains strongly committed to success in that
country. Success in Afghanistan entails the establishment of a moderate
and democratic political order that is fully representative of the
Afghan people. Afghanistan has suffered a great deal over the last
quarter century and it has come a long way since the fall of the
Taliban regime in 2001. The United States shares and supports President
Karzai's and the Afghan people's hopes for a peaceful, democratic, and
prosperous country that can serve as a partner in the region and as a
model for other Muslim states.
As part of our ongoing commitment to success in Afghanistan, we
seek to accelerate the progress the United States, our Coalition
partners, and our allies in the Afghan government have been making to
bring lasting peace to the war torn country. Together, we have
accomplished a great deal over the last 2 years. The Afghan people are
experiencing restored liberties, some as simple as the right to
education. The Afghan government, under the able leadership of
President Karzai, continues to establish legitimate authority
throughout the country and in the international community as a
respected and recognized member of the community of nations.
Over a million Afghan refugees have returned, and many more
continue to do so with hopes for a better future in their native land
after years of refuge in neighboring countries. Schools, clinics, and
businesses continue to open around the country. The International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF), now under North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) command, continues to help provide security in the
capital, Kabul. NATO's mission in Afghanistan is testimony to the
Alliance's commitment to redefining its role in the new global era. We
continue to support the ISAF mission in Kabul and look favorably upon
possible expansion of the mission beyond the capital.
The United States continues to lead the international community in
reconstruction and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, with close
to a billion dollars in 2003 alone. We are assisting the Afghan
government in its effort to rebuild the Afghan National Army (ANA). The
ANA has already proven effective in support of the war on terrorism.
We have accomplished a great deal and we recognize that much more
remains to be done to ensure success in Afghanistan. The war on terror
is one aspect of our involvement in Afghanistan. The other is our
commitment to promoting a functioning moderate and democratic political
order that can serve as the foundation for lasting peace in the
country. Realizing this vision will require increased commitment on the
part of the United States and the international community.
Recent weeks have shown that security in Afghanistan must be
protected and enhanced as an important prerequisite to lasting peace.
Taliban forces and their allies operating out of their sanctuaries
along both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border are attempting to
regroup and destabilize Afghanistan. Taliban elements are targeting
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) workers, Afghan civilians,
including moderate local religious leaders, in an effort to impose
their tyrannical and alien ways on the Afghan people. ANA forces
working with U.S. and Coalition forces continue to successfully target
and neutralize Taliban forces in southern and eastern Afghanistan. ANA
forces have successfully conducted their first operations in support of
their efforts.
President Karzai continues to assert the legitimate authority of
the central government in an effort to improve governance and security
in the provinces. Over the last year alone, he has appointed new
governors to key provinces and has initiated the important reform of
the National Ministry of Defense. The United States stands firmly
behind President Karzai and his administration in their effort to
implement the will of the Afghan people. Afghanistan will soon usher in
a new constitution by the end of this year with elections scheduled for
June 2004. The Bonn Process has been a vital political roadmap for the
country. We remain committed to its success and we recognize that our
commitment will require increased resources to help the Afghan people
realize their hopes for a better future free from religious tyranny and
warlord banditry.
Iraq
I would like to express my thanks and the thanks of our troops for
the special efforts that members of this committee have made to visit
Iraq. Your visits have not only been important for the morale of our
men and women, they also give you an opportunity to get a much clearer
picture of the situation on the ground. The common experience of almost
everyone who goes there seems to be that, while we can see the problems
that are so frequently reported in the press, we also see a great deal
of good news. In the case of Iraq--where the only news for 35 years has
been bad news--the remarkable amount of good news is indeed a story.
I had an opportunity to get some of that good news first hand in
July when I visited the troops of the 1st Marine Division in the Shia
holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. The Marines achieved some stunning
success in those cities in Iraq's Shi'a heartland, success that can be
perceived even despite the recent bombing in Najaf. That event was, of
course, a terrible tragedy and it has contributed to unease and fear in
Iraq. However, it doesn't take many people to plant a car bomb or truck
bomb. They've done that here in the United States. To me, the real news
has been the relative calm and restraint that Iraqis have shown in the
wake of this horrible provocation. Some hundreds of thousands of people
came out to witness the funeral procession of Ayatollah Hakim, with no
major violence reported. Fears have been expressed that this horrendous
act could lead to revenge attacks by Shi'a and Sunni, but so far at
least that hasn't happened.
Last week, General Abizaid told reporters that, after being in the
United States a week and a half, overheated news reports on the
conditions in Iraq could lead someone to think he should go back to
Iraq ``to find someone to surrender to.'' Yet when he talks to our
troops--well-informed by first-hand knowledge--he said, ``They are so
confident and so positive that it takes me only about 30 minutes to
understand we've got this under control.''
Secretary Rumsfeld has just returned from Iraq, and reports that
the general is exactly right. Our troops do have the situation under
control. We must ensure they have the tools, the resources, and the
moral support back home, to keep it that way.
There are still many challenges remaining for our troops in Iraq.
As our commanders consider military operations in Iraq, there are at
least two things they tell us they would like more of. Number one is
Iraqis fighting to secure their own liberty, which I mentioned earlier.
Their number two critical item is forces from other countries, and
we're making substantial progress there. So far, close to 30 nations
have sent close to 23,000 personnel to Iraq. Over 40 nations have
pledged more than $3 billion in assistance. In southern Iraq, Polish
forces have assumed command of an international division, and we are
hoping to add another division above and beyond that. The President's
request will provide some $800 million to support the troops of our
coalition partners with limited resources who are interested in
providing support.
In that same multinational division, the Spanish brigade has taken
charge of the other major holy Shia city, Najaf. Further south, under
the British multinational division, an Italian infantry brigade--which
will include some 400 carabinieri--who will be performing security and
stability operations.
We are actively pursuing the option of a U.N. resolution, which
would lead other countries, whose laws or domestic politics require
such a resolution, to contribute more.
We want these troops not merely to supply additional military
manpower and to relieve the pressure on our own forces. More
importantly, their presence will demonstrate to the Iraqis and to the
world that the transformation of Iraq is of importance, not only to the
U.S., but to the entire international community.
The other critical item that General Abizaid wants more of is
actionable intelligence. The key to getting more intelligence is
cooperation from Iraqis. That cooperation has been increasing
substantially. One example of that cooperation was the Iraqi who turned
in the Hussein brothers. That event itself has led to a large increase
in the amount of intelligence that Iraqis are bringing to us--indeed
such a large increase that we now have the challenge of sorting out the
wheat from the chaff.
As many of our commanders have told me and told Congress, in Iraq,
it is now mostly a battle for intelligence. As General Mattis has said,
``any victory we get is brought to us by the Iraqi people.'' Such
victories are all a matter of building trust. Here are some examples of
how the marines of the 1st Division did it.
One of the division chaplains suggested that his marines bring cold
water to the Iraqis they encounter, because when it's 115 degrees, it's
hard to hate someone who's giving you cold water. The troops employ
what they call ``wave tactics''--when they see Iraqis, they wave. When
the marines are talking to people, they take off their sunglasses. It's
quite common for young children to run quite a ways to meet up with the
marines, and take their hands as they patrol the streets. A young
corporal or lieutenant gets credit for this next idea--when marines see
an Iraqi funeral procession, as the body passes by, they stop and
present arms to show their respect. This practice has spread throughout
the country, because it's working.
In these ways, and many more, our troops are breaking through the
walls of that ghastly prison Hussein built, and they are earning the
trust of the people they have liberated. I would add, they're gaining
valuable intelligence, one of the sure keys to winning this fight.
A VARYING PICTURE, REGION BY REGION
While many Iraqis may still remain in the grip of fear conditioned
by the old regime, our troops, our coalition allies and the new
national and local Iraqi councils continue to make other significant
progress in lessening its iron hold.
The Governing Council of Iraq is easily the most representative
body of governance ever formed in that nation, and is rapidly gaining
real powers and responsibilities, such as appointing ministers,
representing Iraq to the international community, and beginning the
process of drafting the first-ever Iraqi constitution.
This transfer of power to the Iraqi people is taking place at the
local level as well. Over 90 percent of Iraqi towns and provinces now
have their own governing councils, including the holy Shiite cities of
Najaf and Karbala.
Those military commanders I talked with in Iraq who also have
experience in the Balkans all said that, in Iraq, we are far ahead of
where we were in Bosnia and Kosovo at comparable times, and in some
cases, we are ahead of where those places are today.
Lieutenant General Ric Sanchez, the outstanding new commander of
Combined Joint Task Force 7 and a veteran of Kosovo, told me that
things are happening in Iraq after 3 months that hadn't happened after
12 months in Kosovo. I asked him to elaborate, and off the top of his
head, he jotted down a list of 10 things. Included on the General's
list of developments are these:
The judicial system is functioning at a rudimentary
level. Investigative judges are working and misdemeanor trials
are ongoing with convictions.
The political infrastructure is functioning.
Neighborhood, district and city councils have been stood up.
Over 90 percent of major cities have city councils and there is
a National Level Interim Governing Council.
The police force is at more than 50 percent of the
requirement. Police are conducting joint and unilateral
effective operations.
Schools were immediately stood back up. At all levels
the school year was salvaged.
The medical system is operating.
Local economies are bustling, including oil,
agriculture and small business.
Public services--electrical, water, sewage--are nearly
up to pre-war levels.
Recruiting and training for new Iraq security forces
is underway--and, as already noted, we have gone from zero to
55,000 in just 4 months.
In fact, despite the terrorism, the entire south and north are
impressively stable, and the center is improving day by day. The public
food distribution is up and running. We planned for a food crisis, but
there isn't one. Hospitals nation-wide are open. Doctors and nurses are
at work. Medical supply convoys are escorted to and from the
warehouses. We planned for a health crisis, but there isn't one.
Oil production has continued to increase, and recently it has
averaged between 1.5 and 2 million barrels per day.
We planned for the possibility of massive destruction of this
resource of the Iraqi people, but our military plan helped preserve the
oil fields for the Iraqis.
The school year has been salvaged. Schools nationwide have reopened
and final exams are complete. There are local town councils in most
major cities and major districts of Baghdad, and they are functioning
free of Baathist influence.
There is no humanitarian crisis. There is no refugee crisis. There
is no health crisis. There has been minimal war damage to
infrastructure. There has been no environmental catastrophe, either
from oil well fires, or from dam breaks.
However, Saddam's legacy of destruction and decay is another story
entirely.
South
In the south, the Marine Corps made wonderful progress. General
Mattis has told us how effective his battalion commanders--typically
lieutenant colonels--have been as the hub of activity in the cities.
They have stressed creating a supportive environment by parking their
tanks out of sight, and getting in among the people to win their trust
and confidence. In one example I mentioned earlier, the marines gave
out chilled water to demonstrators at political rallies. Whenever the
marines have rebuilt a school--and in Karbala alone there are nine such
schools--they present a brass bell with the inscription: ``To the
children of Iraq from the First Marine Division.''
Our Army Civil Affairs teams are equally impressive. They have
created functioning local governing councils free from Baathist
influence. The governor of Karbala captured this development best when
he told me: ``We Shi'a have theological ties to Iran, but we refuse to
be followers of any country outside Iraq. I want to stress, we aspire
to independence and democracy. We want to heal the wounds from the past
regime's atrocities. We want to build factories, bring in the internet,
practice our religious rites in freedom, and have good relations with
our neighbors and the world. The marines in Karbala--commanded by Lt.
Col. Lopez--work day and night with our Governing Council to provide
security and services.''
Of course, the peace in the south was recently shaken by the
bombing at the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf. While this attack was a
particularly heinous and outrageous act, even by the standards of
Middle Eastern terrorism, it is not representative of greater
instability in the South any more than September 11 was a symbol of
instability in the United States. It was what it appeared to be--the
desperate act of evil men.
Yet as the funeral marches for Shaik al-Hakim illustrate, hundreds
of thousands of Iraqis were able to come out together without incident
to pay respects to this spiritual leader. Despite the large numbers of
people, and the intense emotion aroused by the bombing, the funeral
processions were generally peaceful overall.
North
Stability in the north is another success story. General Dave
Petraeus and his troops of the 101st Airborne arrived in Mosul on 22
April and over the next 30 days they put together this impressive list
of accomplishments:
Met with community leaders;
Agreed on an election plan;
Established an elected interim city council;
Re-opened hospitals, schools, banks, and businesses;
Set up a Civil-Military Operations Center (CMOC);
Repaired the strategic bridge on the Mosul-Irbil road;
Fixed the benzene and propane shortages;
Opened the airport to humanitarian assistance flights;
Signed the Makhmur harvest accords between Kurds and
Arabs;
Completed the wheat harvest;
Re-opened the border with Syria so trade could resume;
Set up the new Mosul newspaper;
Paid government workers;
Re-established train service;
Established Task Force Neighborhood and Task Force
Graffiti and helped clean up the city; Task Force Pothole
employs Iraqis and improves the roads;
Conducted joint police patrols;
Began training a new police force;
Diplomatically removed Peshmerga forces from disputed
areas to back above the green line;
Average 300 day, 300 night, and 90 joint sector
security patrols (U.S. with local police); and have established
air and ground quick reaction forces to respond to Baathist
attacks;
They are currently supporting 10 major Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) funded reconstruction projects.
General Petraeus said they have invested in water, electricity,
roads, schools, hospitals, banks, agriculture, summer youth leagues,
community swimming pools, orphanages, and kids' amusement park
projects. He believes there are reasons for continued optimism in the
north. They include: the quality of interim government leadership;
citizen trust and confidence in Coalition Forces; a good university and
school system; functioning food and fuel distribution systems; access
to trade with Turkey and Syria; relatively good infrastructure; natural
resources (water, oil, farm land); growth of small businesses;
educated, hard-working, entrepreneurial populace; and as the locals
have said, there is a ``thirst for democracy.''
Center and Northeast (4th Infantry Division)
General Ray Odierno has a more difficult security challenge in the
predominately Sunni areas and in areas close to the Iranian border. He
understands the nature of the Baathist and foreign terrorist threat and
how that interacts with and affects his civil-military programs. He
said they have incredible tactical intelligence on the Baathist cells
and are making solid progress in defeating this threat. Operations like
Operation Peninsula Shield, Operation Sidewinder, and Operation Soda
Mountain have been effective in rooting out Baathists and foreign
terrorists. He said as we capture or kill the foot soldiers, it is
becoming increasingly difficult for the mid-level Baathist financiers
to organize, recruit and maintain an effective force.
As Odierno deals more and more effectively with the Baathist
forces, he too has been able to complete an impressive array of civil-
military projects in his area of responsibility. In Kirkuk, the
northern part of his area of responsibility, General Odierno's troops
have established Battalion Commander ``safe houses'' to more
effectively interact with the population. They have stood up and are
training a police force.
My meeting in July with the Kirkuk Interim Governing Council
members was one of the most heartening of all. Many of the 18 members
spoke of their gratitude to President Bush and our troops for their
liberation. The word ``liberation'' was used repeatedly by the members.
An Arab member spoke eloquently of the need to return Kurdish property
to their rightful owners. ``All Iraqis were victims of the last
regime,'' he said. Others spoke of American troops working with us ``in
a nice way to help solve our problems,'' that ``doors are always open
to us'' and that ``we found out the Americans are our brothers who came
as liberators not as conquerors.''
One member said: ``Please tell President Bush thank you for his
courageous decision to liberate Iraq. Many American soldiers have
volunteered their lives [for liberation].'' The Turcoman member asked
that I convey to President Bush the Turcoman communities' thanks for
liberation. Another member commended the ``tireless efforts of General
Odierno and his army'' in helping the Iraqi people. Finally, a member,
speaking English, asked me when the U.S. Government was going to
``confront Arab television for their incitement to kill Americans?''
That council member's question suggests something else we don't
hear reported enough: the vast majority of the Iraqi people are with
us.
This fundamental truth was reflected in the statement issued on the
occasion of the Najaf attack by the Iraqi Governing Council: ``This
type of criminal act will only make our people more determined to move
forward in building a new Iraq so that security and prosperity will
prevail.
IRAQI PEOPLE ARE WITH US
The people of Iraq are not only looking ahead to the day when they
have their own representative government, they are taking active steps
to make that happen now. There are some who still ask the question: Is
democracy possible in Iraq? There are even some who doubt that
democracy could ever take root in the Arab world. But, the people of
northern Iraq, beyond the reach of Saddam Hussein and his regime, over
the course of more than a decade demonstrated an impressive ability to
manage longstanding differences and develop relatively free and
prospering societies.
The mayor of Karbala expressed his personal gratitude, telling us
they would, ``never forget that America saved us and delivered us from
the regime.'' He added: ``We want to establish a national government
and maintain relations with America.''
My meetings with Iraqis convinced me that they are looking to do
the same thing. We attended a meeting of the Mosul city council, which
was instructive in debunking the myth that Arabs, Kurds, Turcomen,
Assyrian Christians, and Yezidi cannot live and work together. The
mayor of Mosul--who is a Sunni Arab and former Army commander who spent
a year in prison and whose brother and cousin were murdered by the
regime--said life under the old regime ``was like living in a prison.''
He described the regime as ``a ruthless gang that mistreated all
Iraqis.'' Now that that regime has been removed, he and his council can
turn their attention to more ordinary problems. Investment and jobs, he
said, are their top priorities. He credited the wisdom of General
Patraeus in improving the security situation. He added that jobs and
investment will follow.
When I asked the mayor if ethnic differences will prevent people
from working together, the Turcoman assistant mayor immediately said:
``We have never had ethnic problems in the past. Saddam created them.
We have always considered ourselves members of the same family. It
never crossed our minds that the next person is different.'' To that,
the mayor added: ``What caused this great [ethnic] gap was Saddam.
Throughout our history we have had no problems. This has happened only
in our recent history. We consider ourselves one garden with many
flowers of different colors.''
Even though the enemy targets our success, we will win the peace.
But, we won't win it alone. We don't need American troops to guard
every mile of electrical cable. The real center of gravity will come
from the Iraqi people themselves--they know who and where the criminals
are. They have the most at stake--their future.
When inevitable challenges and controversies arise, we should
remind ourselves that most of the people of Iraq are deeply grateful
for what our incredibly brave American and coalition forces have done
to liberate them from Saddam's republic of fear.
When we've shown Iraqis we mean to stay until the old regime is
crushed, and its criminals punished--and that we are equally determined
to give their country back to them--they will know they can truly begin
to build a society and government of, by and for the Iraqi people.
In many ways, the people of Iraq are like prisoners who endured
years of solitary confinement--without light, without peace, without
much knowledge of the outside world. They have just emerged into the
bright light of hope and fresh air of freedom. It will take time for
them to adjust to this new landscape--but, all things considered, they
are doing rather well.
Today, we are fighting a war on terror--a war that we will win. As
the council member's question about the incitement to violence he saw
on Arab television suggests, however, the larger war we face is the war
of ideas--a challenge to be sure, but one that we must also win. It is
a struggle over modernity and progress, pluralism and democracy, and
real economic development.
When I was in Iraq, General Mattis told us that the two groups who
fought most aggressively during major combat operations were the
Fedayeen Saddam--homegrown thugs with a cult-like attachment to
Saddam--and foreign fighters, principally from other Arab countries.
How do we know this? For one thing, the terrorists themselves tell
us. General Mattis and his men found foreign passports on many of the
enemy they killed, some of which stated openly that they had come to
Iraq for the purpose of fighting jihad.
Today in Iraq, we still face that poisonous mixture of Baath regime
loyalists and foreign fighters.
Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, the commander of the Army's 1st
Armored Division, recently described those foreign fighters as
``international terrorists or extremists who see this as the Super
Bowl.''
Foreign terrorists who go to Iraq to kill Americans understand
this: if killing Americans leads to our defeat and the restoration of
the old regime, they would score an enormous strategic victory for
terrorism--and for the forces of oppression and intolerance, rage and
despair, hatred and revenge. As the President told members of the
American Legion recently: ``Terrorists know that a democratic Iraq in
the heart of the Middle East would be a further defeat for their
ideology of terror.''
Iraqis understand this. Alongside us, they are working hard to
fight the forces of anger and helplessness and to seize this historic
opportunity to move their country forward.
When I met with General Abizaid during my trip to Iraq, he placed
into larger perspective the battle in Iraq. He said, ``The whole
difficulty in the global war on terrorism is that this is a phenomenon
without borders. The heart of the problem is in this particular region,
and the heart of the region happens to be Iraq. If we can't be
successful here, we won't be successful in the global war on
terrorism.'' Success in Iraq, said the general, offers ``a chance, when
you combine it with initiatives in the Arab/Israeli theater and
initiatives elsewhere, to make life better, to bring peace to an area
where people are very, very talented and resources are abundant,
especially here in Iraq.''
Each time terrorists have achieved a tactical success, whether in
New York or Bali or Riyadh, or more recently in Najaf and with the U.N.
bombing in Baghdad, they've temporarily shaken people, but each time
they've aroused people.
In fact, the statement released by the Iraqi Governing Council
following the Najaf bombing decried ``the brutality and descent into
insanity of the criminals who target a person while he is worshipping.
This type of criminal act will only make our people more determined to
move forward in building a new Iraq so that security and prosperity
will prevail. The evil hand that struck Ayatollah Bakr al-Hakim and his
brilliant record in confronting the buried regime will not be able to
prevent the realization of Hakim's legitimate goals and supreme
humanitarian values.''
Based on his experience training the new Iraqi police, Bernie Kerik
is reported to have said that attempts to frighten the new police
force--such as in the bomb blast at the Iraqi police academy in Baghdad
that killed one and wounded a dozen others--won't work. He said,
``They're not going to intimidate them. They are courageous people who
have been fighting for 37 years and now they finally have a chance to
win.''
* * *
America's troops and those of our coalition partners--among whom we
would emphasize are the Iraqis themselves--are determined to win. They
will win, if we continue to give them the moral and material support
they need to do the job. As the President said recently, our forces are
on the offensive. As Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane said in
congressional testimony, ``They bring the values of the American people
to this conflict. They understand firmness, they understand
determination. But they also understand compassion. Those values are on
display every day as they switch from dealing with an enemy to taking
care of a family.''
I've seen the troops in Iraq, as have many of you here. I think
you'll agree that General Keane is absolutely right.
The President on Sunday clearly stated the mission and the stakes
involved, exactly as our troops understand them: He said, ``We are
fighting the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today, so that we do not
meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.''
America's Armed Forces will not be deterred from their mission by
desperate acts of a dying regime or ideology. There is no question that
America's commitment to secure a peaceful Iraq--back home--must be at
least equal to the commitment of our troops and to the stakes, for it
is related to nothing less than our security and that of our children
and grandchildren.
We look forward to doing our part to work with the Members of
Congress to help support our Armed Forces throughout the world who are
doing their part to make America and her people more secure.
Thank you.
Chairman Warner. Mr. Secretary, we thank you for your
strong leadership and a very informative statement this
morning.
We have excellent attendance here at our committee. We are
anxious to get into the questioning, but we also want to
receive your observations, Secretary Grossman, and those of the
Chairman, and we will invite General Mattis to the table so
that he can respond to areas of his special expertise in the
course of the questioning. Thank you.
Secretary Grossman.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARC I. GROSSMAN, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS
Secretary Grossman. Mr. Chairman, I do not know if perhaps
I should yield to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
General Myers. Go.
Secretary Grossman. Okay, thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Levin, other members of the
committee: I thank you very much for this invitation to appear
today. Senator, I would like to also put my full statement in
the record, and I will try to limit it as much as I possibly
can.
Let me first of all say that, since we are here all
together at this table, that the State Department, we, every
single one of us, are committed to supporting in every way
America's men and women in uniform. As I have on many occasions
in front of this committee, I want to thank all of the members
of this committee for your support for the 46,000 men and women
of the State Department who also defend their country in 258
diplomatic posts around the world and I think do a very
important job in winning the war on terrorism.
They have suffered as well, in embassies in Nairobi and
Dar-e-Salaam, and also, as Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz said,
have made I think a substantial contribution to the effort to
create diplomatic coalitions, mop up terrorist financing, and
bring more people to this fight. In fact, after the defeat of
the Taliban in Afghanistan, State Department people volunteered
to staff our reopened embassy in Kabul, where they endured, and
still do endure, hard living conditions.
We are not a big organization, so these numbers may not
seem large compared to our colleagues, but 33 State Department
employees joined General Garner in Iraq in April, 47 of my
colleagues serve today with Ambassador Bremer, and 22 more are
scheduled to go out in the next few weeks. Altogether, almost
300 State Department people have volunteered to go since July
and I think that is a credit to the dedication and patriotism
of the men and women of the Department, foreign service, and
civil service.
Mr. Chairman, in your letter of invitation you asked us to
talk a little bit about America's global commitments. I think
it is important in that regard to first step back and remember
that, almost exactly a year ago in fact, President Bush signed
the National Security Strategy of the United States. It is that
document which forms the basis of the conduct both for
America's foreign policy and military policy. It says that the
primary aim of the United States is to not just make the world
more secure, but also to make the world better.
In order to bring about, as Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz
said, political freedom, economic freedom, peaceful relations
with other states, and respect for human dignity, the President
has designated a number of tasks. I hope you had a chance to
see Secretary Powell's speech at George Washington University
last Friday, in which he laid out what we are doing together
with our military colleagues to meet these tasks, including
strengthening alliances to defeat global terrorism, building
cooperative partnerships with other major powers, including
Europe, Japan, Russia, China, and India, and working with other
nations to defuse regional conflicts and prevent our enemies
from threatening us, our allies, our friends, with weapons of
mass destruction.
Luckily, as a number of you have said, we are not alone.
The United States is not alone in this effort to make a better
world. So at the President's direction, we seek partners and
allies because it enables us to achieve better our national
objectives.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Levin, you asked in your letter about
cooperation with individual countries, with NATO, with the
United Nations, and other multinational organizations. All NATO
countries contribute to the global war on terrorism. Indeed, as
we have discussed at this committee, Afghanistan represents an
historic first out-of-area operation for the alliance as a
whole.
We are also working with the United Nations in Iraq. We
have said from the very beginning, our President has said, the
United Nations has a vital role to play in the reconstruction
of that country, and the criminal bombing of the U.N.
headquarters in Baghdad only further shows the importance of
galvanizing international support for Iraq's reconstruction.
As the President announced to the Nation on Sunday and
Senator Levin talked about yesterday in his meetings in New
York, the United States is seeking a new U.N. Security Council
resolution to build on those we already have in 1483 and 1500.
That resolution would try to accomplish three things: First, it
would invite the Iraqi Governing Council to submit a plan and a
timetable for them--not anybody else, but for them--to write a
constitution, develop political institutions, conduct free
elections leading to the Iraqi people's resumption of
sovereignty over their own country.
Second, as Senator Levin mentioned, it would authorize a
United Nations Multinational Force under a U.S. commander; and
third, afford the United Nations a more comprehensive and
active role in the transition back to Iraqi sovereignty.
We are also working, as members of this committee know, for
successful donors conferences both for Afghanistan and for
Iraq, so that we can galvanize the financial support not just
of other countries and other multilateral institutions, but
also the international financial institutions.
Mr. Chairman, in my statement I have tried to describe how
the State Department and the Defense Department and the
combatant commanders work together to try to develop these
needs, and so I hope that people will take a look at that. I
will not go through all of that, but it is a very important
area of cooperation between the military services, the DOD, and
the State Department.
I would say one other thing about the work of the
Department, that we have two other dimensions that are key and
fully integrated with what we do with our defense and military
colleagues. Those are to work with allies and partners to help
them solve regional conflicts; and working with partners to
address the internal security problems that can lead to
terrorism and other trans-national threats.
Mr. Chairman, in your letter you asked me to highlight what
we were doing to get other countries to be involved in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Liberia. If I could, sir, ask that the charts
that we have, which I think we distributed to each one of you,
be part of the record. I will not go through every single one,
but I think that they show graphically what it is that we are
trying to accomplish with this coalition.
Forty-nine nations publicly declared their support to
become part of the Coalition for the Immediate Disarmament of
Iraq. Forty-five countries provided access, basing, overflight
rights; and 24 countries contributed military assets in one
form or another to operations in Iraq. Additional countries
have joined the stabilization effort. As you have noted and
Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz has noted, a total of 29 countries
have now deployed approximately 23,000 troops for stability and
humanitarian operations, and you can see in the next two
columns our plans for the future.
We followed a clear strategy and that is we have tried to
take the needs presented to us by the combatant commanders and
the Coalition Provisional Authority and tried to go out and get
other countries to help us meet those needs.
If I could do the same, sir, for Afghanistan: the
international community is again working together in
Afghanistan, with 70 countries joining the coalition in
Operation Enduring Freedom. Thirty-four countries have
contributed forces to Operation Enduring Freedom and to ISAF.
In a milestone for NATO, NATO as an organization has recently
taken over the lead role in ISAF after supporting NATO members
Germany and The Netherlands in their cooperation in the force.
Fifteen NATO countries make up ISAF, contributing some
5,800 troops on the ground. You can see the main contributors
to this force include Canada with 900 soldiers, France with
500, and the United Kingdom (U.K.) with 400 soldiers. So I
think this idea that we are working with other countries is
also extremely important.
Finally, a slide on countries contributing troops in
Afghanistan. You will see the total down at the far right,
5,830. That has been a very important job that the Department
has done, I believe, in support of our military operations.
In my statement, Mr. Chairman, I have talked about the
importance of the Afghan National Army, the importance of
provisional reconstruction teams, where our officers and
military officers work together in Afghanistan, and we are
proud of that and that is part of my written statement as well.
Mr. Chairman, you had the very important visit to Liberia
and I know you also visited our embassy there and our people
there. They were very pleased and proud that you had a chance
to visit them as well. They also are doing an important job in
Liberia.
Chairman Warner. Could I just interrupt and say that yes, I
did have that privilege. Ambassador Blaney told me a very
interesting story. He said in the height of the struggle he had
his simple Marine detachment, 8 or 10, himself, and maybe 1 or
2 others, and the embassy was being bombarded, the embassy was
being riddled with bullets. Today the Ambassador lives in one
room on the third floor with a bathroom adjoining, and that is
all, his office and everything else, and there are .50 caliber
machine guns hanging out of the windows protecting the embassy.
This is a great credit to the foreign service. The
President sent him a message: You can bring down the flag; it
is your call. He decided, together with his Marine contingent,
to let the flag stay. As a result and with the intervention of
our forces, the main threats have been quelled and we see the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the ECOWAS
Military Mission in Liberia (ECOMIL), and eventually the United
Nations bringing about stability in that region.
Thank you for mentioning Ambassador Blaney. Great credit is
owed to him and his team.
Secretary Grossman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
of course they will be very happy to hear that. Of course you
said that not only here, but also when you were there.
I think it also goes to the point that Deputy Secretary
Wolfowitz made and that the President has made so well, which
is that if we are to win this global war on terrorism it is
going to take all of the aspects of our Nation's power--
diplomatic power, intelligence power, military power--working
together.
Mr. Chairman, you have essentially taken my section on
Liberia. We are working very hard to support the West African
peacekeeping troops there. On August 1, the U.N. Security
Council passed Resolution 1497. The West Africans have, as you
have seen, stepped up to this challenge and, led by Nigeria,
over 3,000 troops from Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Togo, Gambia,
Guinea-Bissau and Benin are deploying to the region with U.S.
assistance and will likely be submitted--subsumed, I am sorry,
into the U.N. mission.
We are looking to try to get that U.N. mission up and
running by the 1st of October. To date, Mr. Chairman, we have
committed over $15 million to this effort and we are in the
process of identifying additional resources to ensure that the
ECOWAS force is able to fulfill its mission until the U.N.
Peacekeeping Operation (UNPKO) is in place.
Chairman Warner. That is needed and it is needed urgently.
I think the correct decision was made by our administration to
help the Africans solve their own problem.
Secretary Grossman. Thank you, sir.
I will let General Myers talk a little bit about Bosnia and
Kosovo, as you have, but it is very important that we went
there and did a job. Our troops are reducing in number, but we
still have important work there to do.
One final point about resources, and I join Deputy
Secretary Wolfowitz in asking for your early and positive
consideration of the President's request when it comes
formally. I would also welcome your support for the State
Department foreign operations budget request, which has passed
the House and is awaiting floor action in the Senate.
Mr. Chairman, I can only conclude, as Deputy Secretary
Wolfowitz did, that the world is a dangerous place. The
President made it clear that all of us will do what it takes to
make it safer and better by working to be rid of terrorists and
tyrants who threaten the United States, their neighbors, and
their own people. By fostering democracy and the rule of law,
building coalitions with allies and friends, and pursuing
regional stability and funding military aid programs and
training, we are actively pursuing the President's national
security strategy and, together with our colleagues at the
Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we are
committed to these goals and will continue to work unceasingly
to attain them.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Grossman follows:]
Prepared Statement by Hon. Marc Grossman
Mr. Chairman and other members of the committee, thank you for your
invitation to appear today.
The State Department is committed to supporting, in every way,
America's men and women in uniform. I thank you for your support of the
46,000 men and women of the State Department who defend our country
every day in 258 diplomatic posts around the world.
After the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, State Department
people volunteered to staff our reopened Embassy in Kabul, where they
endured, and still do endure, hard living conditions and danger.
Thirty-three State employees joined General Garner in Iraq in
April. Forty-seven of my colleagues are there now with Ambassador
Bremer, and 22 more are scheduled to go out in the next few weeks.
Altogether, 282 have volunteered to go since July. That so many people
have gone or volunteered to go to Iraq is a tribute to the
professionalism and patriotism of State Department employees, civil,
and foreign service.
* * * * * * *
Last September, the President signed the National Security Strategy
of the United States. This document is the basis for the conduct of
U.S. foreign policy as well as military policy. It says that the
primary aim of America's security strategy is to make the world not
just safer, but better.
In order to bring about political and economic freedom, peaceful
relations with other states, and respect for human dignity, the
President has designated a number of tasks.
As Secretary Powell highlighted in his speech at George Washington
University last Friday, these include strengthening alliances to defeat
global terrorism, building cooperative partnerships with the other
major powers, including Europe, Japan, Russia, China, and India,
working with other nations to defuse regional conflicts, and preventing
our enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our friends, with
weapons of mass destruction.
America is not alone in its desire for a better and safer world,
and so at the President's direction we seek partners and allies because
it enables us to better achieve our national objectives.
You asked in your letter about cooperation with individual
countries, with NATO, the U.N. and other multinational organizations.
All NATO countries contribute to the global war against terrorism.
Indeed, Afghanistan represents an historic first out-of-area operation
for the Alliance as a whole.
We work with the United Nations on Iraq. The U.N. has a vital role
to play in the reconstruction of that country, and the criminal bombing
of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad only further shows the importance
of galvanizing international support for Iraq's reconstruction.
As the President announced to the Nation Sunday, we seek a new U.N.
Security Council (UNSC) resolution on Iraq to build on UNSC resolutions
1441, 1483, and 1500.
This resolution should:
1) invite the Iraqi Governing Council to submit a plan and a
timetable for them to write a constitution, develop political
institutions, and conduct free elections, leading to the Iraqi peoples'
resumption of sovereignty over their own country.
2) authorize a United Nations multinational force under a U.S.
commander.
3) afford the United Nations a more comprehensive and active role
in the transition back to Iraqi sovereignty.
We are also working with friends and partners around the world for
a successful Iraq donors' conference in Madrid in October. This
conference should further mobilize international efforts to help the
Iraqi people reconstruct their country and rebuild their lives.
In addition to using structures like NATO and the U.N., we have
reached out to our friends and allies, including many new partners, in
order to attain the goals that are crucial to our national security and
that of other nations in the world.
We are in constant coordination with the Combatant Commands to find
out what is needed, and then we approach our friends to try to meet
those needs.
We have sought troop contributions and for basing and staging
rights, material support, overflight permission, and refueling.
The task of working with foreign governments intensifies with the
termination of major combat, as both Afghanistan and Iraq have shown.
In both these places we continue to call on our friends and allies to
support stabilization and reconstruction. Many countries which were not
in a position to offer combat troops have offered humanitarian and
reconstruction relief.
As the President highlighted Sunday night, we do not underestimate
the challenges: terrorists and Saddam loyalists have done great harm in
Iraq; in Afghanistan, al Qaeda and Taliban fighters seek to regroup and
have attacked Coalition and Allied Forces and NGO workers and others
trying to stop the essential work of reconstruction.
Our work at the State Department has two other dimensions that are
key: we are working with allies and partners to help them to solve
regional conflicts; and working with partners to address the internal
security problems that can lead to terrorism and other transnational
threats.
* * * * * * *
As you requested in your letter, I would like now to highlight some
of the activities that I have just mentioned, in particular, Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Liberia.
Iraq: Forty-nine nations publicly declared their support for our
policy by joining the Coalition for the Immediate Disarmament of Iraq.
A number of other countries quietly cooperated with and supported the
military operation in various ways. In total, there were 45 countries
that provided access, basing, and/or over-flight rights, and 24
countries that contributed military assets in one form or another for
operations in Iraq.
Additional countries have joined the stabilization effort. A total
of 29 countries have now deployed approximately 23,000 troops for
stability and humanitarian operations in Iraq; three more countries are
in the process of deploying additional troops. We are in discussion
with approximately 10 other countries concerning additional potential
contributions.
We have followed a clear strategy: we have taken the needs of the
U.S. military and the Coalition Provisional Authority as we seek to
help the Iraqi people build a democratic and secure Iraq and have then
sought assets other countries might be able to provide to meet those
needs. These contributions have not only been support for U.S. efforts.
Other countries, such as Spain, Italy, and Ukraine have taken key roles
in providing brigade headquarters in the U.K. and Polish divisions.
Other countries have offered to take on support functions such as
engineering that contribute to reconstruction. We continue to talk to a
range of foreign governments about the possibilities for further
contributions.
Afghanistan: In the wake of September 11, the international
community worked with us in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban
regime. Over 70 countries joined our coalition and over 34 countries
have contributed forces to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and to the
International Stabilization Force for Afghanistan. In an historic
milestone for the North Atlantic Alliance, NATO as an organization has
recently taken over the lead role in ISAF after supporting NATO members
Germany and the Netherlands in their co-leadership of the force.
Currently, 15 NATO countries make up ISAF, providing some 5,800
troops on the ground. The main contributors to this force include
Canada with almost 900 soldiers, France with more than 500, and the
U.K. with approximately 400 troops.
It is crucial for Afghanistan's long-term security and prosperity
that Afghan citizens themselves be prepared to take responsibility for
maintaining peace and order in their own country. This will require a
national army that is multi-ethnic, subordinate to civil authority,
subject to rule of law and international norms of human rights. The
Afghan National Army (ANA) Train and Equip Program, initiated for this
purpose, will establish a central corps of sufficient size and military
capability (10,000+ soldiers) to provide security for the June 2004
elections and eventually relieve the International Security and
Assistance Force and OEF elements of security duties. With over two
dozen countries contributing to the establishment of the ANA we have
made significant progress toward our goal of a Central Corps by June
2004.
One crucial project is the establishment of Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRT). The U.S. has already set up three of these,
in Gardez, Bamiyan, and Kunduz. The U.K. has recently opened a PRT in
Mazar-e-Sharif, and New Zealand will relieve U.S. forces in Bamiyan
later this year. The mission of the PRTs is to provide additional
stability to provincial areas, allowing for increased reconstruction
and assisting the expansion of central authority and linkage to local
governments. Each team includes State Department and Agency for
International Development (AID) officers working side by side with
military personnel.
Against these efforts we face al Qaeda and Taliban fighters
determined to regroup and to attack Coalition and Allied Forces, NGO
workers and the international community. Recent attacks on the critical
Kandahar-Kabul highway and killing of international workers show us the
threat continues.
Liberia: The Liberian civil war has generated unrest and misery
throughout West Africa. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced
internally and in neighboring countries. Participants in the Liberian
conflict have destabilized Liberia's neighbors, and gross violations of
human rights have occurred. With the departure of Charles Taylor and
the decision by the parties to sign the Accra peace agreement, there is
an historic opportunity to restore peace to Liberia and to the region.
On August 1, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1497,
authorizing deployment to Liberia of a Multinational Force (MNF) under
Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter and a follow-on U.N. PKO. The West
Africans have stepped up to the challenge, using their regional
Economic Community of West African States, providing the MNF that will
help restore order and separate the parties pending the arrival of U.N.
peacekeepers. Led by Nigeria, over 3,000 troops from Ghana, Mali,
Senegal, Togo, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Benin are deploying to the
region with U.S. assistance and will likely be subsumed into the U.N.
mission.
Because of this positive action by ECOWAS, and since the U.N. is
planning to take over responsibilities from ECOWAS by October 1, there
has been a decreased need for the U.S. to send troops. An Amphibious
Readiness Group comprised of 3 ships and more than 4,000 service
members is standing by off Monrovia to respond to emergencies, but our
work has been primarily in logistics support and diplomatic
coordination. We have assisted with the deployment and sustainment of
the West African troops, and expect to continue to do so until the
transition to the U.N. PKO is complete.
To date, the U.S. has committed over $15 million for this effort.
We are in the process of identifying additional resources to ensure the
ECOWAS force is able to fulfill its mission until the U.N. PKO is in
place.
Bosnia/Kosovo: The U.S. remains committed to ensuring peace and
stability in the Balkans and remains an active participant in the NATO-
led operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. Through intense diplomatic
activity and coordination with our allies, we have been able
substantially to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the region as the
security situation in the region improves. In January 2001, the U.S.
provided 9,600 of the roughly 56,000 troops in the Balkans. Today, the
United States contributes 4,050 troops to those same missions--1,800
U.S. troops in Bosnia and 2,250 U.S. troops in Kosovo. The total size
of the forces will drop below 30,000 by the end of the year. In recent
years, the U.S. has generally tried to keep our forces in the Balkans
at approximately 15 percent of the overall, although, originally, we
provided one-third of the forces in Bosnia. We continue to work within
NATO to restructure and reduce the forces, lowering our contributions
in line with the overall reductions of the Alliance. At present, the
French, German, and Italian contribution to Kosovo Force (KFOR) surpass
that of the U.S. In Bosnia, where the U.S. commands the Stabilization
Force (SFOR), we are among the largest contributor of troops.
There are many other areas in which we work to support the
President's vision in the National Security Strategy--North Korea,
Colombia, the Philippines, Georgia--I would be glad to discuss these
with you if you wish during the hearing.
Resources:
As the President indicated in his recent address, $87 billion will
be needed to accomplish administration goals in Iraq and address other
complex contingencies. We welcome the opportunity to work with you to
make that pledge a reality. We also welcome your support for our
Foreign Operations budget request, which has passed the House and is
awaiting floor action in the Senate.
* * * * * * *
The world is a dangerous place. The President has made it clear
that we will do what it takes to make it safer and better, by working
to rid it of terrorists and tyrants who threaten the United States,
their neighbors, and their own people. By fostering democracy and rule
of law, by building coalitions with allies and friends, and by pursuing
regional stability through funding military aid programs and training,
the State Department actively pursues the President's goals of peace
and security. Together with the Department of Defense and our military
colleagues, we are committed to these goals and will continue to work
unceasingly to attain them.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
General Myers.
STATEMENT OF GEN. RICHARD B. MYERS, USAF, CHAIRMAN, JOINT
CHIEFS OF STAFF, ACCOMPANIED BY: MAJOR GEN. JAMES MATTIS, USMC,
COMMANDER, FIRST MARINE DIVISION
General Myers. Chairman Warner and Senator Levin: Thank you
for the opportunity to address the committee, and thank you,
Mr. Chairman, for agreeing to put my written statement into the
record.
I would like to first thank you for your continuing and,
for that matter, tremendous support of our men and women in
uniform. It is very important given the situation that we are
in today.
When I came before you in July with General Pace, I made
some points that are still true today. The first one of those
is that we are totally committed to winning this war on
terrorism, and the stakes could not be higher. Defeat means the
destruction of our way of life that we forged over two and a
quarter centuries. Victory will restore the sense of security
that was shattered on September 11, 2001.
I also said that I am positive we are making great progress
in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere
around the world. I have visited Iraq and Afghanistan recently,
as some of you have, and every time I talk to a commander or,
perhaps more importantly, to the captains and the corporals,
they were all very confident about being able to accomplish the
mission and the task they were given and about ultimate
victory.
The third point I made back in July that is still true
obviously is that our service men and women are doing a
fantastic job. This is their moment in history to ensure that
peace and freedom triumph over tyranny and terror.
Let me focus briefly on some of the accomplishments of the
last few months. The coalition division led by the Polish
military and consisting of more than 8,000 troops from 17
countries is now in place in Iraq and they are well under way
in establishing their presence in that country. As Ambassador
Grossman and Secretary Wolfowitz have said, 29 countries have
troops deployed to Iraq. Many of them have very recently had to
struggle for their own freedom and they all understand fully
what is at stake.
It is vitally important that we have a broad coalition in
Iraq. Why? Because it is in the interest of the world community
for Iraq, now liberated from a brutal dictatorship, to emerge
as a legitimate member of the world community.
Also when I last spoke to you, I mentioned the large number
of Iraqi police that have been trained. I think in July we were
saying 31,000. Those numbers have since grown. There are now
more than 40,000 Iraqi police and thousands more Iraqis
recruited for duty with the new Iraqi army, the Civil Defense
Corps, the Facilities Protection Service, and the Iraqi Border
Guard. So I think the total number today is over 55,000 that
are on duty; and there are more in training. The numbers
continue to grow and will grow.
These numbers highlight that the Iraqi people are eager to
play a leading role in their own peaceful future. Iraqi police,
among others, are already making significant contributions to
preventing attacks and some of these Iraqis have given their
lives in the service of their new free Iraq.
The recent acts of terrorism, such as the bombing of the
U.N. headquarters and the mosque in al-Najaf, show a couple of
things: first, that Iraq is still a dangerous place. They also
show the desperation of the adversaries that we face. We are
actively engaged in rooting out this threat, with more and more
Iraqis coming forward with information and a willingness to
help us.
I am equally positive about our progress in Afghanistan.
Remnants of the Taliban have made desperate attempts to
regain control over sections of the country, but continued
pressure from the coalition operations is thwarting their
efforts. I believe that we are fully capable of meeting today's
commitments while preparing for future threats. We are working
hard to improve our warfighting capability, including focusing
on transformation initiatives, reevaluating, as Secretary
Wolfowitz said, the mix of capabilities that we have in our
Active and our Reserve Forces, refining our deployment and
mobilization processes, and many more activities.
Before I close, I would like to reiterate the importance,
as Ambassador Grossman said, of the cooperative effort in this
war on terrorism. General Abizaid and General Sanchez have said
recently that the forces we are fighting in Iraq could not
defeat a single company of our infantry. I believe they are
right. But this is not just a military fight alone. It requires
close cooperation between the Department of Defense and other
government agencies, between U.S. departments and agencies, and
those agencies of our allies and our friends, between the
coalition that is in Iraq right now, and the people of Iraq and
Afghanistan, who want to be free of violence and repression.
I think we need to take a moment and pause and just think
about what this is all about. We are a Nation at war. We have
been a Nation at war for almost 2 years. The stakes could not
be higher. Certainly in my 38 years of service the stakes have
never been higher. You may have to go back to the Civil War to
find a time when the values that we hold dear have been
threatened like they have been threatened today. Osama bin
Laden said some years ago that what he wanted to do was reduce
the United States to a former shadow of itself, and by
implication the rest of the free world.
So what is it going to take to win this war? It is going to
take patience. Every time I have come in front of this
committee, every time anybody senior in this administration has
talked about it, we have talked about the patience required.
Why? It is a different enemy. It is a difficult enemy. It is
not just military might, as we just talked about. It is hard
work. It is hard slogging. We have made tremendous progress and
we are winning.
To continue to win, in my mind we need three things. First
is patience. The second is commitment. I can speak for the
Armed Forces, I cannot speak for others. I have tremendous
admiration for the foreign service and other government
agencies that have been alongside us in this from the start.
But I can tell you about our Armed Forces. We have never been
more focused or more committed to winning this war. Failure is
not an option. We have to win.
Other countries understand that. I just hosted my
counterpart from Macedonia last week. Here is a country that a
year ago, 2 years ago for sure, you could say was on the brink
of chaos and of failure of their political system. But they
have come out of that. They also understand the value of
freedom, and that is why they have troops in Afghanistan and
why they have troops in Iraq.
Are they a lot of troops? No. In Iraq they have I think 28
individuals, special forces. But they are not a large country
and they are not a large armed force, and they have an internal
problem they are trying to work. But they understand the value
of freedom and they are with us. As Secretary Grossman showed
you on his charts over there, there are many others that are
with us as well.
Besides patience and commitment, the third and most
important point is we have to have the will to win. This is a
battle of wills. Boil it down to what it essentially is, it is
a battle of wills. The terrorists think and have said they are
going to win. They are absolutely wrong about that. They will
not win. They cannot win. We cannot and will not let them win.
They are not going to win as long as we have the continuing
will of the American people and, for that matter, freedom-
loving people everywhere.
If you need inspiration for patience and for commitment and
for will, you can look many places. But, being a military
person, I can tell you you need look no further than the men
and women of our Armed Forces. In the last 2 years they have
made tremendous sacrifices--personal sacrifices, family
sacrifices, employer sacrifices for those Reserve component
individuals that have been called to duty.
One final thought. Those that have been killed in action,
wounded in action, and their families have sacrificed, of
course, more than all the rest, and they are truly America's
heroes. They have to be considered America's heroes because
they understand what this is all about. They have been out
there and they have sacrificed.
Some of you I know have visited wounded servicemen around
the country. You have seen them up here at Walter Reed and
Bethesda Medical Center, and you know the inspiration we gain
from them and their devotion to duty and their understanding of
the mission. They have it and they understand.
So with that, I thank you for the opportunity to be here
today. We thank you for the support we have gotten from
Congress. All this would not have been possible if we had not
had your support, and we look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Myers follows:]
Prepared Statement by Gen. Richard B. Myers, USAF
It is an honor to report to this committee on the state of our
Armed Forces, our current military commitments, and ongoing operations
around the world, as our Nation enters its third year of the war on
terrorism.
I would like to start by thanking you for your great support of our
men and women in uniform. What they are doing is vitally important. The
stakes could not be higher: defeat means the destruction of the way of
life Americans have enjoyed over two and a quarter centuries; and
victory will restore the sense of security that was shattered on 11
September 2001.
We are winning the war on terrorism, but it will be a long fight,
and requires our patience, our full commitment, and most importantly
our will to win. Every day, U.S. service men and women, along with
other U.S. agencies and our Coalition Partners, are making great
progress disrupting terror networks, eliminating safe havens, seizing
financial assets, and hunting down terrorists worldwide.
I have visited our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in
the region, as have many Members of Congress. I am convinced that our
service men and women's sense of purpose is clear, their resolve is
steadfast, and their morale is excellent. They have shown their
commitment and will to win. We should all be very proud of their
bravery and dedication to duty.
WAR ON TERRORISM
Here at home, our service men and women are also working hard to
protect our own shores from future attacks. Two weeks ago, I had the
opportunity to observe a bio-terrorism consequence management exercise,
Operation Determined Promise 03, in Clark County, Nevada. U.S. military
Active, Reserve, and Guard Forces along with U.S. Federal, State, and
local officials did a magnificent job coordinating efforts to respond
to a simulated terrorist attack.
We must be able to provide adequate defense within our own borders,
and standing up U.S. Northern Command last year fully integrated our
Armed Forces into the homeland defense role. However, when possible,
the better military option is to take the fight to the enemy.
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, we currently have nearly 10,000 U.S. troops and
8,000 Coalition Forces conducting security and stability operations in
Afghanistan. Together with our Coalition Partners, we are training the
Afghan National Army (ANA) and police in Kabul and the provinces,
contributing to election preparations, building schools and clinics,
and providing a secure environment to support the emerging private
sector.
Most of Afghanistan is stable and secure, but pockets of resistance
still remain, mostly in the South and East. The threat is primarily
from the Taliban, in loose coordination with al Qaeda and Hezb-e Islami
Gulbuddin. The ANA is key to increasing stability and security in
Afghanistan. ANA training is going very well. Ten battalions totaling
4,600 soldiers have been trained so far. The ANA is already patrolling
the borders side by side with U.S., Afghani Militia, and Coalition
Forces. Last week they were part of the forces that fought and
successfully defeated a large number of Taliban forces.
We are in the process of expanding the number of Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan from four to eight, to
provide coverage for more of the country. PRTs are improving roads,
bridges, wells, clinics, and schools, and having a very positive effect
on the lives of Afghani citizens in the outlying regions of
Afghanistan. I believe that with the Coalition's support, Afghanistan
is on a steady road to peace, stability, and prosperity.
Iraq
In Iraq today, we have approximately 129,000 U.S. Forces and more
than 22,000 Coalition Forces. Over 40 nations are providing various
levels of support to the coalition in Iraq, and 29 of those are
providing military forces. The goal in Iraq is to restore freedom,
peace, and prosperity to the Iraqi people through the combined efforts
of the U.S. Government, the Iraqi Governing Council, and the
international community. The CPA has developed a four-pronged
reconstruction strategy for Iraq consisting of increasing security,
restoring essential services, creating economic growth, and helping
establish a democratically elected government.
The threat in Iraq is from former regime loyalists and Ba'athists
as well as foreign jihadists and other terrorist groups. U.S. and
Coalition Military Forces are on the offensive against these threats.
Every day, more Iraqi citizens are reporting suspected regime
loyalists, and the locations of arms caches to Coalition Forces. To
date, 42 of the 55 ``most wanted'' and approximately 100 of the top 235
wanted Iraqis have been captured or killed, and we are making good
progress eliminating other terrorist elements. Terrorists are
continuing to target humanitarian facilities, police stations, and
other civilian targets such as oil, water, and electric infrastructure,
slowing our efforts to repair damage caused by the war and by the
neglect of the former regime.
In spite of these attacks, we are making progress restoring
essential services in Iraq. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the CPA
are working with leading industry, agency, and international experts to
assess and fix the short- and long-term requirements for Iraqi
essential services.
There has been discussion about the need for additional troops in
Iraq. I fully support CENTCOM's assessment that the answer is not more
U.S. Forces in Iraq, but more focused intelligence, assigning more
Iraqis to critical, more visible security roles, and getting the
international community more involved--and CENTCOM is doing just that.
To improve security conditions in Iraq, we are training the Iraqi
police force, a Civil Defense Corps, a National Defense Force, a
Facilities Protective Service, and a Border Guard Service. There are
currently over 50,000 trained Iraqis under arms working side-by-side
with U.S. and Coalition Forces, and more coming onboard every day. As
in Afghanistan, this will improve security in Iraq by allowing Iraqis
to protect their own country. Working closely with U.S. Forces, Iraqi
police are making significant contributions to preventing attacks, and
some of these Iraqis have given their lives in the service of the new
Iraq.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
The Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) continues to make progress in
collecting new information on Iraq's WMD programs. Today, over 1,300
personnel are actively engaged supporting the ISG's strategy pursuing
individuals with knowledge of Iraq's WMD programs and exploiting
selected facilities. As Iraqis become more convinced that the former
regime will never return, and more certain of the world's commitment to
the reconstruction of Iraq, it is only a matter of time before we
locate the remnants of all of Saddam's weapons programs.
KOREA
We currently have over 37,000 personnel assigned to South Korea.
North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, missile programs, and
weapons proliferation constitute a substantial threat to the peace and
security of the peninsula, the region, and the world. While a
diplomatic solution to the North Korean threat is preferable, our
military forces remain ready for any contingency if called upon.
OTHER GLOBAL OPERATIONS
In pursuing our global efforts against those who pose a continuing
and imminent threat to the United States and our allies, we continue to
work closely with many other governments. Approximately 4,500 U.S.
personnel under command of Joint Task Force-Liberia (JTF-Liberia) are
deployed to the West African region to assist the ECOWAS Mission in
Liberia. We are helping ECOMIL forces stabilize the environment,
allowing humanitarian assistance for the people of Liberia and
facilitating the transition to an U.N.-led peacekeeping operation,
currently scheduled for 1 October 2003. JTF-Liberia consists of the IWO
JIMA Amphibious Ready Group, the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the
398th Air Expeditionary Group, and other supporting elements.
We have made good progress in the Philippines, where we have
approximately 250 personnel working closely with the Armed Forces of
the Philippines to enhance their counter-terrorist capabilities.
The nearly 1,500 U.S. Forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina supporting
Operation Joint Forge, and the 2,000 Forces in Kosovo supporting
Operation Joint Guardian, not only promote peace and stability in the
region, but also enhance our ability to conduct counterterrorism
operations in the Balkans.
U.S. Southern Command has over 2,000 personnel deployed to
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and over 2,400 personnel deployed throughout
Central and South America conducting counter-narcotics and
counterterrorism operations. The U.S. has a strong national security
interest in a secure, democratic, and economically viable Western
Hemisphere.
Helping the Colombian Government become free from the grip of
terrorist and narcotics trafficking groups is critical to securing the
stability of the entire region. After my recent trip to South America,
I believe that we are helping the Colombians achieve some real
successes. The U.S. military's training and equipping of the Colombian
Military is significantly contributing to their efforts to defeat
terrorism and narcotics trafficking.
U.S. Forces are engaged throughout the world conducting bilateral
and multilateral exercises with many countries to foster military to
military relations that enhance U.S. national security objectives.
IMPACT OF U.S. MILITARY COMMITMENTS
We are a Nation at war. Our military forces are actively engaged to
meet our national security interests by combating terrorism, providing
peace and stability in many troubled regions around the world, and
conducting military exercises with many different countries. U.S.
military ground forces are currently experiencing a high tempo of
operations. Selected high demand units resident in both the Active and
Reserve Force are also heavily committed.
We must reexamine which military capabilities best reside with our
Reserve and Guard components and which belong in the Active-Duty Force.
Our goal is to minimize future demands on high demand units in the
Reserve Force, such as civil-support teams, military police, and
intelligence teams. We also need to ensure we have enough of a given
specialty, regardless of whether it is in the active or Reserve
component.
We are also reviewing our overseas basing requirements to ensure
that they meet the needs of today's worldwide commitments, support the
war on terror, and posture U.S. Forces to meet any future threats to
our national security. For the most part, our current overseas presence
and basing is representative of a Cold War strategy that evolved over
the course of 50 years. In places like South Korea, the aging and
failing infrastructure exacts a greater toll on readiness and quality
of life of our forces each year. In other regions such as Europe, our
broad array of installations may no longer provide us the flexibility
it once did. Focused investments in military construction are needed
now to overcome these challenges and enhance our overseas posture in
meeting future military commitments.
Maintaining a high level of readiness for our forces, along with a
decent quality of life, is key to meeting future threats to our
national security. Predictability in the lives of our active and
Reserve service men and women and their families is an essential
quality of life issue we are addressing. To improve predictability, an
Operation Iraqi Freedom force rotation policy was developed and
communicated to the force. Competitive pay and benefits programs are
also important to maintaining a high quality of life for our troops.
One of the reasons for our many successes to date in the war on
terrorism is the unprecedented level of cooperation between our joint
military forces and other Federal agencies. Another reason for our
success is the continued support of our many allies--more then 70
countries since 11 September 2001. In order to maintain our momentum
and defeat future threats, we must continue to improve on this level of
cooperation.
Most importantly, our military success in the global war on
terrorism depends on our service men and women. They bravely fight to
protect our freedoms. I want to thank this committee for your continued
strong support providing our Nation's best with the resources and
benefits they need and deserve. Our collective will, commitment, and
patience will defeat global terrorism and ensure our ultimate victory.
Chairman Warner. General, that message is not just for the
Senate or the American people. It goes worldwide. Your troops,
wherever they are, under your command and your subordinate
commanders, whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, or the
Far East, they are very proud of the leadership that you
display today and have displayed. Thank you.
General Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Warner. I will be very brief, colleagues, in three
quick questions, because you have been generous in your time
for me. Then each Senator will proceed for about 7\1/2\
minutes.
First I want to reflect on this issue of the United
Nations. I personally support it, even though I do not fully
understand precisely what is expected and what can be achieved.
Secretary Grossman, these charts are impressive. There is a
factual record of participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can
you tell us what you, as a professional of long standing in
this Department, would hope that the U.N. can bring which is
not presently being done. Please dwell on the issue which
concerns me, that is, while we would welcome enlarged U.N.
participation, we cannot afford to lose the momentum that
Ambassador Bremer and others now have under way, whether it is
in dealing with electricity or water or the like. In my
opinion, there is a direct correlation to that and the
casualties we are taking and the attitude of the people.
So what is it that you would hope, in a very short
response, that the U.N. will bring which is not present today?
Secretary Grossman. Yes, sir, thank you very much. I will
answer your question three ways. First, if we are successful in
getting a U.N. Security Council resolution along the lines that
we have proposed, I think three things will happen: first, that
there are countries, for their constitutional reasons, for
their legal reasons, for other reasons, that do not wish yet to
send troops to help the Coalition effort in Iraq, and if we get
a resolution that authorizes a multinational force under
unified command more countries--perhaps Turkey, India, and
Pakistan--will feel that they can send their troops in a way
that they cannot today.
Second, Mr. Chairman, the United Nations brings to the
political effort skills that we would like to have as part of
the effort. The President talked about a vital role for the
United Nations, and of course the great U.N. Special
Representative Serge DiMello died in a building trying to bring
that vital effort to life. So the United Nations can help us in
elections, in helping constitution writing, in bringing a
census, for example. All of those things are in the resolution,
listed as the kinds of things that could help us and help the
Coalition in Iraq.
I want to be clear, to your last point, that the resolution
specifically talks about the United Nations working with
Ambassador Bremer and with the Coalition. We think actually
that if a resolution was to pass quickly and more troops were
to come in a focused U.N. effort, that we would actually
increase momentum rather than decrease it.
Finally, one more point, and that is the philosophy here.
This U.N. resolution is not about transferring authority from
the United States to the United Nations. It is about getting as
much authority as possible, as quickly as possible, to the
Iraqi people. I think as we go through the debate over the next
week or so on this resolution that is an important point to
keep in mind, sir.
Chairman Warner. Do you wish to add to that, Secretary
Wolfowitz? What is it that the U.N. will bring that we do not
presently have? He has said that the resolution could give
various nations the basis on which to bring troops and I hope
contribute financially to this. Do you have a supplementary
comment?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Absolutely all three of those things:
help on the troops front, help on the political front, and help
on the economic front. I think it is important to stress that,
with respect particularly to the political front, that we got
enormous help from the U.N. and by Sergio DiMello personally.
It is not only a tragedy, it is an enormous loss to our efforts
in Iraq that he was killed. He played a crucial role with
Ambassador Bremer in standing up the Iraqi Governing Council,
and it was not just advice and counsel, it was active work.
We have no desire to own this problem or to control it. Our
only desire is what will get things fixed most rapidly, and you
have to look at these pragmatically case by case. More
resources are great, but too many hands on the steering wheel,
especially in the military area, is not great. But I think we
have reached a very good understanding with the Secretary
General.
Chairman Warner. You are prepared to make a sharing of the
responsibility and the authority and the direction on that
side; do I understand that?
Secretary Wolfowitz. It is completely pragmatic and
whatever works best, we will do.
Chairman Warner. Fine.
Now, General, we talk about the unified command. A few days
ago when Secretary Wolfowitz and General Abizaid were here that
question was put to General Abizaid and he specifically said
that he felt U.N. officers could be integrated. Although there
is a unified command, they could be integrated into the
framework in some manner.
Can you expand on what the U.N. can bring to the current
command and control to maintain a unified command, but at the
same time they feel they have a share of the responsibility,
the accountability, and the direction?
General Myers. Certainly, Chairman Warner. We have looked
at this many different ways. First, let me just say that it
will not be a problem to maintain this unified command. As I
think was said earlier, generally under U.N. operations the
countries with the preponderance of force have the leadership
roles, and that will continue to be the United States, at least
for the foreseeable future.
But in our Combined Joint Task Force 7 in Baghdad that some
of you have seen with General Sanchez, he has a headquarters
now that is populated with people from the U.K. and those
countries that make up the U.K. division, and people from
Poland and those countries that make up the Polish division. If
there were other divisions that came in with the help of this
resolution, the U.N. resolution, those countries would also
have roles on that joint task force, where they participate
then with General Sanchez and General Abizaid, for that matter,
in their support of the Coalition Provisional Authority. This
really should not be an issue.
Chairman Warner. Fine, thank you.
General Mattis, I wonder if I might invite you to come up
for purposes of questioning. We thank you for your service and
your leadership in Iraq. Those of us that visited had the
opportunity to be briefed by you right on the field where your
troops are operating.
It was in that very spot, that very seat, that the former
Chief of Staff of the Army was asked a question by this
committee about troop levels. His response provoked a good deal
of controversy. That controversy is legitimate. It continues to
this day. It is a question that has to be reviewed from time to
time by this committee.
I think you are in a position to give first-hand
impressions and your own personal, professional, and military
opinion about force levels now in Iraq and what you as a former
commander think about the force level and what is needed for
the future?
General Mattis. Mr. Chairman, I speak as a division
commander in the south central area and I would prefer to speak
just in that area because I am not really familiar with some of
the other areas. But it was my decision and my decision alone
to send home 15,000 of my 23,000 troops back at the end of May.
We had come out of Baghdad. I did not think I needed a heavy
footprint down south after sizing up the situation.
I have had 3 months to live with that decision and I think
if at any point I needed more troops I could have asked for
them. But I have not needed them. The enemy over there, once we
get the intelligence on them, and 95 percent of that comes from
the Iraqi people to us, once we get it they are remarkably easy
to destroy. It is mostly a fight for intelligence. They are a
dangerous enemy, but it is nothing that a Marine platoon cannot
handle.
So to bring in more troops and have a more oppressive
footprint, the number of supply convoys it would have added--my
way of thinking was if we needed more people on our side we
could enlist more Iraqis, and we continued to do that all the
way through. With 95 percent of our intelligence coming from
them, sir, it has worked pretty well.
Chairman Warner. Senator Levin.
Senator Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Grossman, you have outlined some of the
advantages of going back to the U.N., getting a key additional
mandate from the U.N., and I surely agree with what you have
indicated. We have known for months that a number of countries,
such as Pakistan, Turkey, and India, would not consider sending
troops unless they had a clear U.N. mandate urging them to do
so.
Why have we delayed for months going to the U.N.? During
this period we have seen a huge amount of violence. We have
seen the jihadists pour into Iraq, responding to an argument
that this is some kind of a western effort to dominate a Muslim
country. The way to give the lie to that propaganda is for the
U.N. to give the mandate which we are now apparently seeking,
very belatedly, tragically belatedly.
But why the delay here? Why not months ago respond to the
statements of those countries, such as Pakistan and Turkey and
India, who could give us large numbers of troops relatively,
that they need that new U.N. mandate?
Secretary Grossman. Senator Levin, I would say a couple of
things. First, I do not think we ought to underestimate the
achievement of 23,000 troops from 29 other countries. Although
I think all of us would have liked to have had more troops
earlier from a Pakistan, from a Turkey, from an India, I think
we have done extremely well in getting the 29 nations and the
23,000 troops that we have.
The second point, as this committee knows, there is always
a disagreement about what constitutes a mandate. If you had
asked me the day after the Security Council passed Resolution
1483, I would have said and I believe that Resolution 1483 is a
sufficient mandate for countries to participate.
Senator Levin. But key countries told us it was not a
sufficient mandate.
Secretary Grossman. I understand, sir. But I am just
giving--you asked me my perspective and that is that 1483 was a
sufficient mandate. It turned out not to be true for a number
of countries and so the President gave the Secretary the
opportunity, with the full support of our colleagues, to go
forward and get another Security Council resolution, and that
is exactly what we are trying to do.
Senator Levin. Thank you.
General Myers, could you tell us about what we now have
read, that the Guard and Reserve units serving in Iraq are
going to have their tours on active duty extended so that they
will serve a full year in Iraq, which is on top of the time
required for mobilization and training and demobilization? This
comes as a real disappointment, I know, to them, their
families, and their employers, who were told that the total
activation would be a year on active duty.
What is going on in this area?
General Myers. Senator, as we have talked about before, in
terms of the United States Army, a lot of their support, a lot
of the combat support, combat service support, well over the
majority of it, is in the Reserve component. As long as we have
the active duty Army engaged as we do around the world and, to
address your question particularly, in Iraq, then the Reserves
are going to have to play a role.
It is a fact of life that we need the combat support,
combat service support that these Reserve components provide.
We are looking for work-arounds to do exactly as you said and I
think as all the Joint Chiefs and the leadership in the
Department believe, and that is we have to put predictability
in the lives of our Reserve component and, for that matter,
active component.
But we also have to realize we are a Nation at war and we
have to do what it takes in this case to win. So that is what
is happening. We need that combat support, combat service
support to be with our Active Forces as long as they are in
Iraq, and they will be extended to meet our policy goal of up
to 12 months in Iraq and, given their mobilization and
demobilization time frames on top of that, they will serve over
1 year.
Senator Levin. Thank you.
Secretary Wolfowitz, we have been asked now for a
significant commitment for reconstruction. What specific
commitments have we asked of other nations for the
reconstruction effort financially?
Secretary Wolfowitz. I believe that so far we have on the
order of--correct me--some $2 billion, I think, that has been
pledged by a variety of countries. That is still the product of
just an initial effort. Secretary Powell is going to be going
to a donors conference in October--where is it, Marc?
Secretary Grossman. Madrid.
Secretary Wolfowitz.--in Madrid, looking for more.
Obviously, in the context of what the President is talking
about asking Congress for, we are going to be making a maximum
effort to get other countries to contribute.
You raised the issue, Senator, about, I think your phrase
was, giving up control or giving up ownership.
Senator Levin. I did not say ``giving up''; I said
``sharing''.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Fine, sharing.
Senator Levin. A significant word.
Secretary Wolfowitz. I think the more other countries are
prepared to contribute, the more they are absolutely entitled
to share in control over how resources are used. At the same
time--we have seen this in Afghanistan, for example--if the
system of sharing control gets too complicated, a lot of things
that need to move quickly take too long. The road construction
project in Afghanistan is an example.
In Iraq today we have been wrestling with how to stand up
the Iraqi Civil Defense Force more quickly. There are very
legitimate concerns on the CPA side. There are obviously huge
military equities on the CENTCOM side. Because of the way we
are organized, we can resolve those differences and those
issues in a quick and efficient manner and, given the stakes on
the security side, that is the kind of sharing of control I
think we would want to be careful about.
But when countries are giving money they are certainly
entitled to a say in how that money is spent.
Senator Levin. Thank you.
General, last week we read a report that there was an
internal joint staff document on Operation Iraqi Freedom,
strategic lessons learned, and it reportedly shows that
President Bush approved the overall war strategy in August of
last year, 8 months before the war was launched, but that
planners were not given enough time to adequately plan phase
four, which is the reconstruction phase.
Will you make that document available to this committee?
General Myers. A couple points there, Senator Levin. One is
that the work is not finished. There were several levels of
lessons learned that we tried to capture for this effort. The
first one, which is scheduled to be briefed to you by Admiral
Giambastiani I think next week, is the operational level
lessons learned, what happened in theater from General Franks'
level down.
We also wanted to capture, if you will, the strategic
lessons learned, what we learned in the Joint Staff, on the
Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) staff, in our inter-
agency coordination. That work, the piece, the classified
briefing that was leaked to one of the newspapers here in town,
reflected work that is not yet complete. We are probably about
halfway through that work. I am sure when we finish that work
it will get to the Secretary of Defense and he will make that
available to the committee.
Senator Levin. Will it be shared with us before it gets to
the Secretary of Defense or will it be shared with us
afterward? Either way, will we get a copy of that document so
that we know what the views are of the Joint Staff unvarnished
by the civilian leadership?
General Myers. It is not a question of unvarnished. It is a
question of having the facts straight, and that is why this
whole effort has been a joint, as you would imagine, inside the
building, Department of Defense effort. It is the OSD civilian
staff, the Joint Staff, and, for that matter, the combatant
commands will add to this as well. For it to be useful, I
think, you need to have everybody's perspective in there.
By the way, and let me just tag on for a second, what a lot
of people probably do not understand and why--and you do, I
know; this committee does. You know why we have the finest
Armed Forces in the world, and there are lots of reasons for
it. One of the reasons is that we criticize ourselves harder
than anybody else. We only have one standard in the U.S.
military and that is perfection. Whether it is a flight
debriefing that I used to participate in or any other
debriefings of any exercises, the only standard we have is how
could we have done this perfectly.
Some of what you see reflected in these reports, of course,
is being very critical of ourself. It does not mean we were not
good or that we could have gotten an A on the paper, but if A-
plus was possible then we did not achieve a good paper. That is
how we critique ourselves.
Senator Levin. Thank you.
Chairman Warner. Thank you very much.
Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to say before the questioning that I believe that we
carried out this operation for good reason, that the United
States of America, the world, and the people of Iraq are better
off for having been liberated, and that history will show that
when the mass graves continue to be uncovered and the
brutalities of the Saddam Hussein regime are more fully
revealed, that it was a wise and humane decision on the part of
the United States.
However, I think it is important for us to remember my
hero, President Reagan's, old adage: Facts are stubborn things.
The facts as I see them, Mr. Chairman, are clearly that we
underestimated the size of the challenge that we would face
after the ``military operations'' were completed, the Baathist
resistance, the former military people melting into the
population, et cetera.
The decay of the infrastructure is truly staggering. You
have to see the second largest city in Iraq, which is a total
and complete slum, to appreciate the depth and expense
involved.
Ambassador Bremer was correct when he said, I believe, it
will require tens of billions of dollars. That was not
anticipated before we went in.
Extending the Guard and reservists, which, quoting The
Washington Post story this morning, ``Some officials have
expressed concern that this could break the Guard and Reserve
system.'' That is another fact that we did not take into
consideration.
No one believed that we would have to go to the United
Nations in the degree that we have today.
Let me point out, Ambassador Grossman, that we like to have
full facts. There are 29 nations that are contributing 23,000
troops. There are 28 nations that are contributing 9,000 and
one nation that is contributing 14,000. That gives a little bit
different perspective of the 29-nation coalition.
We have made great progress in the north and in the south,
but there remain significant problems. The British made a tough
decision in the last few days to increase the size of their
commitment, not to call up Guard and Reserve, but to increase
the size of their commitment in the same area that the General
was talking about.
The Marines have decided to extend their commitment in
Najaf rather than give it to the multinational Polish division,
which has neither the charter nor the capability to do the job
that our marines can do.
By the way, facts: The Pentagon had planned that there
would be some 60,000 troops in Iraq today as a result of the
progress that was foreseen.
So if I may quote The Weekly Standard: ``What we are
witnessing today is neither prudent multilateralism nor the
normal gradual process of turning power over to Iraqis that we
all expected to occur over time. On both the international and
Iraqi fronts, the administration's actions are being driven by
the realization that there are too few American troops in
Iraq.''
I think that that is an accurate statement. When we have to
extend Guard and reservists on active duty, when we have to ask
for international forces, when we have to do the things that we
are doing, it is clear to me that we need additional troops and
we need certain specialties--intelligence, civil affairs,
Special Forces, marines--not just more tanks. That opinion is
shared by a large body of opinion, not just my own.
It has been mentioned a couple of times, Secretary
Wolfowitz, that there may be more casualties if we send in
additional American troops. The General just referred to supply
convoys that would be open to attack. Is that an accurate
depiction of what you said?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Depending on what you send them for, I
think that is right, Senator.
Senator McCain. So we are going to ask for international
troops to come in, in all due respect, General, who will also
need supply convoys, and will tell them they will take the
casualties, Americans will not take the casualties. I do not
get the logic there.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Senator, the kind of thing, if I may--
--
Senator McCain. Go ahead, please.
Secretary Wolfowitz. The thing I meant is, a vivid example,
we had three Americans killed and one very badly wounded when
someone threw a bomb or a hand grenade out of the top floor of
a hospital they were guarding. We are training Iraqis to guard
hospitals. We are not talking about bringing in international
troops to do that, either. I mean, there are a lot of
dangerous----
Senator McCain. What are we asking the international troops
to do?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The truth is on the whole, with I
would say the exceptions of the British in Basra, the
international troops are going into areas that are relatively
stable. The delay in Najaf is not a permanent one, or is it an
expression of lack of confidence in the troops that are coming
in there, which I believe are Spanish in that particular part
of the Polish division, but rather that they are brand new
troops and they came in in the middle of a particularly
delicate situation, so we extended the overlap period.
But General Mattis can speak to it better than I, but there
is a lot of confidence that the Polish division can handle that
region, precisely because it is not as dangerous as other parts
of the country.
Senator McCain. People I talk to say it is extremely
dangerous.
Secretary Grossman, when do you expect these international
troops? When would you expect the first contingent of
international troops to arrive in Iraq?
Secretary Grossman. Senator, it depends on how quickly we
pass this U.N. Security Council resolution, and our objective
is to----
Senator McCain. That is true. One month, 2 months, 6
months, 2 years, 5 years?
Secretary Grossman. Secretary Powell is going on Saturday
to the meeting of the Permanent Five foreign ministers. We hope
that that will make clear what people think about the
resolution we have proposed. I think, as Secretary Powell has
said over the past few days, we want to get this done some time
before the United Nations General Assembly, which is the 23rd
and 24th of September. So if that is done----
Senator McCain. I would repeat: Do you have any idea as to
when we could expect the first international troops to arrive
in Iraq?
Secretary Grossman. No, sir.
Senator McCain. You have no idea. Thank you.
Secretary Grossman. Sir, I only have no idea because it
would depend upon the Security Council resolution. I can only
say to you, sir, we are trying to get it passed----
Senator McCain. So we cannot count on an immediate infusion
of international forces into Iraq; is that correct?
Secretary Grossman. I think what we can--I think I cannot
tell you, of the three or four countries that are waiting for a
Security Council resolution, precisely what day that they will
come.
Senator McCain. Thank you. I am not asking for precisely
what day. I am asking a matter of--could you tell me years?
Secretary Grossman. If the Security Council resolution
passes, sir, in the next few weeks, I cannot imagine that it
would be years.
Senator McCain. That precision is not really satisfying.
General Myers, finally, could I ask you a question.
General Myers. Can I comment on that question?
Senator McCain. You can in the context of the answer to
this question. You personally traveled to Texas to lobby the
President on the need for additional international forces in
Iraq. According to the Post report, you did so after visiting
Iraq and hearing directly from General Abizaid that he urgently
needed additional military forces from other nations.
Is not your support for the deployment of forces an
acknowledgment we need more boots on the ground in Iraq?
General Myers. No, Senator, it is not. I think I will stand
by General Mattis's comments----
Senator McCain. Let me just point out before we rely on the
General too much, I have never heard of a commander in the
field who requested additional help. I do not know of an
occasion. So to put a Marine General who is in charge of a
specific area of Iraq to discuss these issues, which are made
by our civilian policymakers, I think is not helpful to this
hearing.
Go ahead.
General Myers. Some facts. First of all, The Washington
Post article was not factual in tone or content. I did not go
to Crawford, Texas, to lobby the President for anything. I went
as part of the Secretary of Defense's delegation to talk about
a variety of national security issues. Of the 4\1/2\ hours or 4
hours we spent with the President, that might have taken 15
seconds to cover that piece. So the article is not correct.
I do believe we need to internationalize the effort. It is
extremely important to do so. Why? I stated it in my opening
remarks: This is an international problem. International
terrorism is an international problem, and every time an Iraqi
turns around they just cannot see a U.S. service member,
because they do not want foreigners in their country and
particularly there is some allergy from time to time against
the U.S. So we need to internationalize it.
At the same time that we are saying we do not need more
troops, what is happening? We have 55,000 Iraqis under arms. As
Secretary Wolfowitz said, the largest part of this coalition
right now besides us are the Iraqis, and more of those are
going to come on every day. I am not going to swear to this
number, but roughly in the summer of 2005 we will have at least
184,000 Iraqis under arms to do this mission, 184,000.
So that is part of the answer, and this is something the
Iraqis have to take responsibility for themselves. We cannot do
it for them. We could put every sailor, soldier, airman,
marine, and coast guardsman we have in Iraq and it would not
make this problem better. In fact, it could work just to the
opposite. The more Americans in Iraq, the less Iraqis might
feel prompted to come forward and furnish us that intelligence,
which is what we need so badly to deal with the threat.
I talk to General Abizaid daily, several times a day. He
talks to the Secretary daily or more frequently at times. This
is not an issue of Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Wolfowitz, or
any of the leadership in the Department of Defense saying,
General, you cannot have more troops, or any pressure in that
way. If they want more troops, they will get more troops. We
are a Nation at war. We have the capacity, we have the
capability.
I would just finally say, on the Reserve component piece,
if we are a Nation at war, if the stakes are very high, then we
are doing exactly as we want to do, as we are designed. We are
using our Reserves.
By the way, they perform magnificently. We have to worry
about the danger of what harm we might do long-term to our
Reserve structure because it is absolutely essential to the way
we do our work in this country. Having said that----
Senator McCain. Mr. Chairman, I am very interested that the
reason why we need international troops is because it is an
international problem, not because we need more military
assistance there.
General Myers, do you intend to ask, to recommend to the
President, that we increase the size of our military forces in
light of having to extend Guard and Reserve personnel?
General Myers. What we are going to recommend, Senator
McCain, is that we look at this mix, and we are only extending
the Reserve component because that is where the capability
exists today. The question we are asking ourselves is--and some
of this may be reflected in the 2005 budget you will see in
January, do we have the right mix? We have so much of this
capability we need today, so many of our military police, so
many of our civil affairs. I think every battalion except one
is in--I may have it mixed up; it may be brigades--is in the
Reserve component. So those are the things we will take to the
President. I think we are a ways off from saying that we need
more troops.
Senator McCain. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I do agree with General
Myers that the stakes could not be higher. My question is, if
the stakes are as high as General Myers maintains and I am
totally in agreement of, whether we are doing everything
necessary.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses.
Chairman Warner. Thank you very much.
Secretary Grossman, had you finished your observation on
this very important colloquy?
Secretary Grossman. Concerning the timing of the United
Nations?
Chairman Warner. If you have, we will move on to the next
question.
General Myers. I was going to answer in the context and if
I may have just 30 seconds.
Chairman Warner. All right.
General Myers. In the discussions that we are having--and I
say we; it is everybody at this table, the State Department,
DOD--with our friends and allies, decisions made to commit
troops to Iraq will be made by sovereign nations, so you can
never predict their processes or how quickly. But I would
anticipate that by the end of the year we ought to have more
contributors to this.
Chairman Warner. Thank you.
Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
would hope that General Myers and the others that represent the
Armed Forces would again let our service men and women know how
much we appreciate their courageous work and the skill in which
they are trying to deal with an extremely complex situation.
There is obvious diversity on this committee, as we just
heard from Senator McCain. I believe this was the wrong war at
the wrong time. It was a go-it-alone policy. We had a policy in
order to win the war, but it is quite clear we did not have a
policy to protect our troops after the war is over. All during
this period of time, we have a deterioration of our situation
in Afghanistan, we have North Korea with all of its dangers in
terms of nuclear weapons, we have the development of Iran in
terms of its nuclear power, we have an absolute deterioration
in terms of the Middle East, with violence spiraling out of
control. We are asked now to provide $87 billion more in order
to try to deal with the problems in Iraq and also in
Afghanistan.
Now, General Myers, no one questions whether our troops
possess the patience and the commitment and the will to win. We
all assume that. The only question is whether the
administration has a policy to stabilize Iraq. That is the
issue. Minimizing the burden on our troops and delivering on
the promise of democracy, that is the issue that is before the
committee, not about the will, the patriotism, the
determination of the troops. We know that and you know it, and
the parents in my State know it as well, as more than seven
young men have lost their lives. So we know about that.
Now, in the address to the Nation on Sunday I had hoped to
hear acknowledgment from the President about our failures in
Iraq, the war on terrorism, and the administration's concrete
plans for setting the course right with our allies and through
the United Nations. The administration has made a U-turn in its
policy, but it does not know which direction it is going in, I
do not believe.
The President has asked us for $87 billion next year for
our occupation of Iraq, essentially a blank check. The American
people deserve to know the answers to the following questions:
As Senator McCain has pointed out, what is the number of
additional troops needed to prevent the sabotage impeding the
U.S. reconstruction effort? What is the estimate of the
duration of the U.S. military occupation and the likely levels
of U.S. and foreign troop strength that will be required in the
occupation? What is the estimate of the total cost of the
occupation, the reconstruction, including the likely amount of
international contributions? What is the schedule for restoring
electricity and water and basic services to the Iraqi people?
What is the schedule for the deployment of the Iraqi police and
the Iraqi armed forces, and when will we know we have
succeeded? When will we know we have succeeded and no longer
need to support Iraq financially and militarily? American
families want to know that. American families want to know,
what is the long-term schedule for the withdrawal of foreign
and American forces? They want to know that as well.
I believe we need to have the answers to those questions
before we provide additional funding, at least in the areas of
reconstruction. We are going to support the service men and
women, but when you are asking for the tens of billions of
dollars in reconstruction we are entitled to the answers to
those questions.
Now, Mr. Wolfowitz, it is clear, as I mentioned, that the
Bush administration was not ready for what took place after the
Iraqi regime collapsed. As I said, we won the war, which we
knew we would, but we did not have an adequate plan to win the
peace.
Today we learned that before our war in Iraq even started
intelligence experts had warned the administration to expect
major armed resistance to our occupation. These experts in our
government warned that the post-war period would be more
problematic than the war itself. You and other officials in the
administration responsible for this war were warned. Yet you
put tens of thousands of American troops in harm's way without
adequate planning.
I am going to be interested in how that could have happened
and who is accountable. But is it not unforgivable that we
forgot the most important planning of all, the safety of our
troops? What planning was done to provide for the safety of our
troops, which is so inadequate at the present time?
I am not interested in your answer about how we prepared
for food, how we prepared for massive refugee movements. I have
heard all of that before. But I want to know, given the warning
that the Defense Department was given in terms of the
protection for troops, what was the planning? How do you
possibly explain the inadequacy of that planning, and who is
going to pay the price for the inadequacy of that planning?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Senator, it would take I think some 20
sessions to brief all the plans that exist that are being
executed today, and you are interested, I guess, in plans for
agriculture, plans for health. Plans for security alone----
Senator Kennedy. What about the troops? That is what I am
most interested in.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Let me get to that. The plans for
security alone are absolutely crucial here, and we have gone
from no Iraqis on our side when Baghdad fell to 55,000 out on
the streets today, out guarding facilities, out getting wounded
and killed, and we are growing that number rapidly.
You say we did not plan for when the war was over. The
problem is that the war is not over. The problem is that the
Baathist regime----
Senator Kennedy. You mean in spite of the President's
statement out on that aircraft carrier, when he made his
statement, you are saying now the war is not----
Secretary Wolfowitz. Go back and read the statement,
Senator; you will see----
Senator Kennedy. I listened to it. I heard the statement. I
saw that banner that was there.
Secretary Wolfowitz. He said it was the end of major combat
operations, which indeed it was.
Senator Kennedy. Okay, now you distinguish between the end
of major combat and the end of the war. That is very
interesting for service men and women that are out there, very
interesting.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Senator, they know that they are
fighting. They know that they are fighting terrorists and they
know that they are fighting the Baathist allies of those
terrorists, and they know that victory in this fight is crucial
to winning the war on terrorism.
Senator McCain said, and I absolutely agree with him and
the President agrees with him, that this battle in Iraq today
is the central battle in the war on terror. These people
fight--as General Mattis told me earlier, during the major
combat phase it was those fanatic Baathists and the foreign
terrorists who were our main opposition. They are our main
opposition today.
But they are losing. They are on the losing end of history
here because, unlike other wars in the past where people talk
about resistance, this resistance does not enjoy the support of
the Iraqi people. That is a fundamental point. They are
universally detested in the Shia south, which represents I
believe some 60 percent of the population. They are almost
equally detested in the north, which is a mixture--let me
emphasize this--of not just Turks and Kurds, but Sunni Arabs.
The chief of police that we have found, who has done a
fantastic job in Baghdad, is a Sunni Arab. He hates the
Baathists. He spent a year in prison because he actually
denounced Saddam Hussein. I asked him: Were you crazy to
denounce Saddam Hussein? He said: I only said it to my best
friend.
This is a regime that terrorized everybody, and there are
still some thousands of them, not hundreds of thousands, but
thousands are enough to cause a problem out there, threatening
people, killing people, warning people not to cooperate with
us.
But every time we get intelligence--and we are getting more
and more intelligence--as I believe the general said, every
time we get intelligence, all it takes is a platoon to go out
there and clean them up. We are making real progress in that
regard.
Getting Uday and Qusay was not only in itself a huge step
forward, but it has encouraged a lot of other Iraqis to come
forward with more and better information. We are on the winning
side here. We have--I do not know how to measure the numbers. I
would make a guess--I better not make guesses; you will tell me
later I guessed wrong.
We do know that there are some thousands of Fedayeen
Saddam. Those were the absolute killers. We do know that there
were some thousands of the Special Security Organization. That
is like the old Nazi version of the Gestapo. We know that there
were some tens of thousands of members of the Special
Republican Guards. That is again like the Nazi version of the
SS.
These people are killers, and apparently they have decided
to go on killing. We will capture them and kill them. We have
been doing it in large numbers. At the end of World War II,
when we had had 4 years to plan for the aftermath, we found
that we had to keep going after more and more Nazis, and by the
end of 1945 I read there were some 80,000 under detention.
We are not looking to have 80,000 former Baathists. We
believe the number is smaller, and we can deal with it in a
smaller way. But let us be clear to the American people. The
overwhelming majority of Iraqis in the south are with us. The
overwhelming majority of Iraqis in the north are with us. We
believe that most of the Iraqis in the so-called Sunni
heartland certainly do not want Saddam Hussein back and to some
extent are being terrorized by his elements that are left over.
So we have the winning assets on our side, and the most
important winning assets are the Iraqi people and the
willingness of Iraqis to go out and guard posts where it is
dangerous and fight and die and keep that regime from coming
back and to wipe it out.
Senator Kennedy. Mr. Wolfowitz, my time is up, but it is
apparent to me that we were unprepared, not only unprepared in
Iraq, but in terms of giving the adequate protection for
American troops.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Warner. Thank you.
Secretary Wolfowitz. If I can just say, we were prepared
for many things, some of which did not happen, some of which
did not happen because we were prepared to prevent them. There
was an enormous amount of preparation and there is a stunning
list of successes that our military and their civilian
counterparts have accomplished. Let us not--confidence is part
of winning. We need to project confidence and we have every
reason to project confidence because we have done a fantastic
job. We have liberated a country from a horrible dictator. We
are cleaning up the remnants of that regime. We have the people
with us. We will get the electricity fixed.
General Myers. Senator, Chairman Warner, the safety of the
troops issue, as you might imagine, is something that I think
about and worry about quite a bit. My view is we did plan
adequately for the safety and security of our forces, given
that they had a lot of work to do after major combat operations
were over. One of the biggest things you can do for troops
engaged in this conflict is to ensure they have the proper
rules of engagement. Now, the rules of engagement that we used
on March 19 when we went across the line from Kuwait to Iraq
are the same rules of engagement that they use today.
The other things you can do to ensure their safety are
making sure they are properly led, trained, and equipped. We
have done our best in that area. That does not mean there are
not shortfalls in some equipment. But I can tell you, thanks to
you and our supplemental in 2003 and our budgets these last few
years, there are not many and we are able to fill the holes
very quickly when they occur.
I think we have done the planning, Senator Kennedy, for our
troops. I could not sit here if I did not believe we have done
everything we can do, everything that General Franks wanted us
to do, everything that General Abizaid wanted us to do. We have
a very collaborative system at work where we talk very frankly,
because we are dealing with our most precious treasure, and
that is the blood of our sons and daughters. We do not want to
lose one more than we have to lose.
So I think we have considered safety.
Senator Kennedy. My time is up, Mr. Chairman, but there
have been statements by Secretary Wolfowitz in the past that
said, contrary to our expectations, no Iraqi army units came
over to our side, the Iraqi police turned out to require a
massive overhaul, and that the plans that were based on the
assumptions that Iraqi police and soldiers previously loyal to
Saddam Hussein would be responsible for the safety of our
troops. It just does not make any sense.
Someone ought to be accountable for it. Someone ought to be
accountable.
Chairman Warner. Senator, we will get to that. I urge that
we concentrate as a Nation now on reducing these casualties and
turning this situation over to the Iraqi people. I think we are
making progress.
Senator Inhofe.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me first of all respond to a couple of statements that
have been made by two of the Senators up here. Senator Levin
talked about how the go-it-alone chickens have come home to
roost. The senior Senator from Massachusetts stated similarly
that we were going it alone.
Let me just give another perspective on that, because
during this time I became very impatient because I felt we were
getting beyond the point where something had to be done. I
would suggest to all of those who might entertain the idea that
the President was going it alone, listen to what he had said.
On September 12 he addressed the U.N. He listed the decade of
U.N. resolutions that Iraq had defied. He said, ``All the world
now faces a test in the United Nations, a difficult and
defining moment: Are Security Council resolutions to be honored
and enforced or cast aside without consequences? Will the
United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be
irrelevant?''
When he said: ``The United States President offers to work
with other nations''--he was begging them, begging these other
nations and the United Nations--``to meet our common
challenge.'' He said: ``The purpose of the United States should
not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be
enforced, the just demands of peace and security will be met,
or action will be unavoidable.''
Two months later on November 8, he again approached the
U.N. Security Council, and they by a vote of 15 to 0 adopted a
resolution giving him one more chance. By December 8, you have
to do something. I was one of them who was writing the
President, Mr. Chairman, and saying: ``You have waited too
long; this is going to have to be done. People are being
murdered every day, people are being raped every day, people
are being tortured to death every day.'' Finally he had to do
it. But he did everything within his power to get the United
Nations to go along with him.
First of all, let me just comment on some things that have
not been said. You listen to the media and there are a lot of
people in the media who do not want this to be successful. They
would like to think the President is not doing a good job. They
do not agree with him philosophically. They do not like anybody
sitting at the table before us.
So they talk about the terrorists and the killing and the
things like that that are going on. What they fail to say is
that great strides have been made over there since the major
hostilities stopped. Every hospital and clinic in Baghdad is
now open. Schools are being reopened with textbooks, school
supplies, and eager Iraqi students, eager to learn, never
having had the opportunity. Today there is more electricity in
Iraq than there was before the liberation. The water systems
are operating at 70 percent. The Iraqis are participating in
rebuilding water canals. Baghdad has its first ever city-wide
garbage collection.
Now, you could argue that the condition of the
infrastructure and the treatment of the people in Iraq is
better today than it was before the liberation. Having said
that, I do see some things that I think are significant. First
of all, we need to talk about the troop morale. I say to my
very good friend, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, if you
are really concerned about what you brought up on troop
security or troop protection, I suggest you make a trip to
Iraq, which I understand he has not done and I have. You talk
to the troops and they say the protection is good; they are
doing everything they can.
The troop morale is high. The message that I get from the
troops who come up to me and seek me out is: ``Tell the people
back home that that handful of troops that complained about the
cause and about the President and about the treatment, that
they are wrong, that that is just maybe 5 or 6 people out of
140,000.'' That is the message that I get.
General Myers, you said they have the will to win. Those
kids have the will to win. I have never seen anything like it.
I do have a concern, though, and it is one that I have
voiced many times. I take your word for it if you say--and I
think a good argument can be made, and you have made that
argument--that we do not need more American troops on the
ground, that our footprint is big enough, and it might have a
detrimental effect if we have more of us and not enough of the
other countries involved. That may be true.
But what I want to get to is the question that was brought
up by the Senator from Michigan, and that is the condition of
our Guard and Reserve. I have been talking about this for a
long time. It is true that we can maintain the current level
and maybe not go any higher, but to do this we have to continue
to overwork, in my opinion, the Guard and Reserve.
I have spent a lot of time talking to them. They are
dedicated. They are doing great work. But when this new policy
was announced, I had an occasion to talk to a few people on the
fact that these deployments will be 12 months and I understand
now in addition to that there will be a training period.
So I would like to ask each one of you in the remainder of
the time that I have to, number one, tell me if you disagree
with the fact that we are going to have to do something about
Guard and Reserve in order to keep the force end strength that
we have right now. I thought when I chaired the Readiness
Subcommittee of this committee during the 1990s that we cut
back too far, going from 18 down to 10 divisions, going from 38
fighter wings to 20, going from the ships roughly at 600 to
300. I thought that was too much.
But I think right now we realize in order to meet the
contingencies that might be out there that we have not met yet
and to sustain the force that we have for a period of time,
that we are going to have to do something to increase
participation, to give some relief to Guard and Reserves. Now,
I understand there are three ways of doing this that at least I
am aware of.
I think it was the Senator from West Virginia that ordered
a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study that just came into
my possession this morning, dated September 3. One of the ideas
was to increase the number of our divisions from 10 to 12. They
said the size of a sustainable occupation force could be
increased. In looking at their idea of increasing by two
divisions, they said: ``Recruiting, training, and equipping two
additional divisions would entail up-front costs of as much as
$18 billion to $19 billion and would take 5 years to
accomplish.'' So I am taking that off the table to meet the
current serious problems.
I see three ways that this can be done. I would like to get
comments from you. Maybe there is a fourth way I have not
thought of. First would be, as you pointed out, Secretary
Wolfowitz, to train foreign troops. I understand now the Iraqi
troops are getting up to 55,000. That is a good number and I
appreciate hearing that.
Secretary Wolfowitz. That includes police, just to be
clear.
Senator Inhofe. Yes, I understand that.
Second would be to move some of the military functions to
civilians. I would like to quantify how many openings that
might create in order to allow us to give some relief to the
Guard and Reserve.
Then lastly, in the same CBO report that was ordered by the
Senator from West Virginia, it said: ``CBO also examined
several other policy choices, including ending U.S.
participation in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and
the Sinai Peninsula, and withdrawing marines from Okinawa.''
That being the case, that could open up for about 12,000 to
13,000, approximately one more division.
So from those three sources I would like to hear from
anyone that would like to respond and, if not here, then do so
for the record, what other choices there are and about how many
troops this could release to give relief to our Guard and
Reserve. Let us start with General Myers.
General Myers. Senator Inhofe, the peak Reserve component
mobilized for the operation in Iraq, the total we had mobilized
during the operation in Iraq was 223,000 reservists. Today we
have 173,000 reservists that are mobilized. As I have already
said, the way it is, the facts are that we have a lot of our
combat support, combat service support in the Reserve
component.
As to the CBO study, I would not quarrel with the study. I
think the study that was done--and I am not the expert on the
financial piece of it. But in terms of what the Army could
sustain steady-state anywhere in the world, not necessarily
Iraq, it is probably okay. But what you have to realize about
the CBO study is that it was using basically the peacetime
parameters for operations tempo and personnel tempo. I think we
have to ask the question, given the situation we are in right
now, are those the right parameters to use? I would say no,
they are not, that we are a Nation at war and that we expect
more, at least temporarily, from our Reserve components.
Senator Inhofe. Let me just ask this to shorten this a
little bit: Are you saying that our operations tempo for our
Guard and Reserve is at an acceptable level today?
General Myers. I am not saying that. What I am saying is,
because I understand the sacrifices they are making and it is
something that--I have a Guard and Reserve adviser at the two-
star level that reports directly to me on the Joint Staff and
to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. My main task to them is: Tell us
how we can put predictability in their lives and reduce the
commitment of our Reserve component, because I think that is
very important; and tell me if you see any signs that
recruiting or retention of this very competent force is
slipping in any way.
To date, we have not seen that. But I am not comfortable in
that because there is always tomorrow and we are going to work
them very hard.
Senator Inhofe. I would like to give some others an
opportunity to respond to that. I would only say that this has
sustained for a long period of time. I am prejudiced by the
fact that I have talked to them, the Guard and Reserve members,
the ones who are losing their jobs, the ones who have had more
deployments than they can handle.
Any other comments on this?
Secretary Wolfowitz. I guess I would just say two things.
One, and I would be happy to submit more detail for the record,
but I think that it is the broader version of the examination
of the global footprint that you mentioned. I think there is
some great relief for the overall strain on personnel that can
be achieved in that regard.
Specifically with respect to your question about
conversion, there are some 300,000-plus positions that have
been talked about as potentially being done by civilians. The
Services have very specifically identified 47,000. So far it
has been approached with a peacetime mentality. I do not mean
that critically, but just as electricity in Iraq has to be
approached on a wartime basis, I think we need to look at the
issue you are raising on a wartime basis.
Senator Inhofe. I appreciate that. I know I have gone over
my time. But if I can get responses for the record, assuming we
keep the same footprint in Iraq, and I think you have given a
very persuasive argument to do that, the rest of the world is
not standing still. There are other contingencies out there
that we would have to respond to.
So I have always been a stickler that end strength--we may
have enough for that particular contingency, but we need to
expand our end strength. I would like to have your comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The information referred to follows:]
While some Services could have temporary gaps in certain
active component capabilities, such as force protection, civil
affairs, and intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance,
additional legislated end strength increases are not needed.
The law provides the Secretary of Defense with the authority to
approve active end strength above the authorized levels to meet
those requirements during a declared national emergency.
This empowerment, however, is the least palatable of our
alternatives. For example, we are redistributing our skill mix
to optimize force capabilities within existing end strength.
Over 320,000 military manpower spaces have been identified as
performing duties in specialties or situations that can
potentially be performed by other kinds of personnel. The
Department expects thousands of military positions to be made
available through these military to civilian conversions. Those
converted positions would then be reinvested to relieve
burdened units and specialties.
We are also working to rebalance the active and Reserve
components. We are taking skills that are now found almost
exclusively in the Reserve component and moving them into the
Active Force, so that we are not completely reliant on the
Guard and Reserve for those needed skills. And in both the
active and Reserve components, we are moving forces out of low
demand specialties into high-demand capabilities.
Further, we are transforming our global force posture,
increasing our worldwide capabilities while significantly
reducing the number of forces permanently assigned in foreign
countries. This will reduce the stress on the force by reducing
the number of troops and dependents that are constantly being
rotated in and out of foreign bases and facilities.
Given the flexibilities the law accords to the Secretary,
currently authorized end strengths do not need to be increased.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Byrd.
Senator Byrd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary, General Myers, Secretary Grossman.
I did not believe that we should be an invader of a country
that could not lift a plane in the war. I did not believe that
Iraq or Saddam Hussein constituted an imminent threat to the
security of this country. This is a war we should not have
fought. It is a war to carry out the preemptive strike
doctrine. That is what it really began with.
So now we are in Iraq, we are having real problems that we
did not foresee, and we are trying to wrap the Iraq problems
around the September 11 disaster that hit this country. We are
trying to view everything now in the context of the war on
terrorism which began under the preemptive strike doctrine.
That is why we are in Iraq.
I was opposed to it. I thought we could achieve everything
we were seeking to achieve just by using a little more
patience, a word, General, that you have used. Hans Blix said
that it would take months, but that the job could be done. I
think with a little more patience we would have achieved much
of what we have since achieved with tremendous costs in blood
and in treasure.
The U.N. inspectors were doing their job. They were finding
weapons. They were destroying weapons. I think if we had
exercised that patience for a while longer we would have
achieved our objective of disarming Hussein.
No weapons of mass destruction have been found as of this
date. There may be at some point. There is no question that
Saddam once had weapons of mass destruction. But I say it was a
war we should not have fought, and I say again that it was a
part of the preemptive strike doctrine.
I have not forgotten January 19, 2001, when Karl Rove
before the members of the National Republican Committee stated
that: ``We could make this war on terrorism or homeland
security, in essence, we could make that the strategic center
of our election effort.'' I still see that statement that was
made and I see much of what has been done in leading us into
this war was in the context of that statement.
Mr. Chairman, Congress is willing to do what is needed to
protect our troops from the dangers of post-war Iraq. I will
support whatever funds are needed for the safety of our troops.
That does not mean that we should be willing to accept every
spending proposal that can be wrapped in the United States
flag.
I am increasingly uncomfortable with this administration's
posturing and pontificating on its promises in Iraq. The
administration has adopted a strategy that to date has
alienated many of our allies and called into question America's
motivation for its drive to war. Now the President plans to ask
Congress to provide $87 billion for Iraq. This funding will be
in addition to the $104.3 billion that Congress has already
provided to the Pentagon for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the
response to September 11, and I for one will not simply rubber-
stamp this request.
Congress has serious questions, the American people have
serious questions, and we ought to have answers. I have
questions about how these funds will be used. I have very
serious questions about deploying our National Guard to Iraq
for 12 months at a stretch, keeping those troops from
performing important homeland security missions. In addition,
the policy of reconstruction has never been debated, it has
never been thoroughly considered, and yet the administration
wants Congress once again to hand over billions of dollars with
little oversight or discussion. Congress is not an ATM.
We have to be able to explain this new, enormous bill to
the American people. The first responsible step for dealing
with this request is to hold hearings on this huge Iraq
spending bill.
When the President spoke on May 1, he said: ``Our coalition
will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave and we
will leave behind a free Iraq.'' Mr. Secretary, many Americans,
no doubt many Iraqis, took this to mean that our troops would
not have an endless mission in the region. But in recent days
some of the President's senior advisers have begun to talk
about a ``generational commitment'' to transform the Middle
East into a region of peace and democracy. One cannot help but
wonder if this means that generations of soldiers will serve in
this volatile part of the world or if generations of Americans
will be paying untold billions of dollars in new foreign aid.
So what does it mean to say that the administration wants
to make a ``generational commitment'' to democratizing the
Middle East? Does this mean a permanent military presence of
tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East, just as we
maintained in Western Europe during the Cold War? Does this
generational commitment bind us to seeking regime change in
more Middle Eastern countries?
The President also spoke about Iraq being the ``central
front'' of fighting terrorism. If we really want to solve the
problem, should not our central front be ending the violence
between Israel and the Palestinians? How did Iraq suddenly
become more important than peace in the Middle East? Is this
not putting the cart before the horse?
Specifically, General Myers, you stated that there will be
184,000 Iraqis under arms by the summer of 2005. My question:
How much will it cost the American taxpayer to build a new
Iraqi army, a new Iraqi police force, a new Iraqi border guard
agency, and all of those other types of institutions?
I might give a follow-on question: If you can foresee
184,000 Iraqis under arms 2 years from now, how many American
troops will be there in Iraq at that time? If you can answer
those two questions, General Myers.
General Myers. On the last part first, how many American
troops, I think whatever happens in Iraq is going to be event-
driven and so we are going to have to see how we come along in
a security way, how we come along politically with Iraqi
governance, and how the economy comes along, and that will
dictate to a large extent how many U.S. forces are in Iraq.
As General Abizaid looks forward, as I think he told
members of this committee when he was over here briefing the
full Senate up in Senate Room 407, he is willing to look out
until March of next year, but beyond that, given the number of
variables involved, he is not willing to estimate the number of
troops. I think you can draw the conclusion, though, that if
the estimated--and it is an estimate--of 184,000 Iraqi police
and infrastructure protection services and civil defense corps
and new Iraqi army, if it comes, if the planning comes true and
we have 184,000 on board, that there would be, obviously, a
lesser need for U.S. troops.
But for the exact numbers, General Abizaid is the one I
would rely on to give us those numbers, and he says: ``I am
going to go to next March and that is as far as I want to
predict right now.''
In terms of the cost of building this force, clearly there
have been a lot of U.S. resources that have been used in the
formation of the over 55,000 Iraqis that we have in some kind
of uniform, armed and trained to support freedom and democracy
in Iraq. I would have to get for you for the record the exact
amount of how much we figure this is going to be a U.S. burden
and how much is going to be shared by the rest of the
international community.
I think Secretary Grossman has talked to that to some
degree, that we expect to have donor conferences and so forth
that are hopefully going to help with this financial burden.
This is an international situation, an international crisis of
terrorism, and I would expect the international community to
step forward and help with funding this.
[The information referred to follows:]
[Deleted.]
Senator Byrd. That does not answer my question, of course.
Surely there must be some estimates in the Defense Department,
in the State Department, of how much it will cost the American
taxpayer to build this new Iraqi army. How much are we spending
now? How much are we paying now to the Iraqis? How much will it
cost to build this new Iraqi police force? How much will it
cost to formulate the new Iraqi border guard agency?
We must have some estimates floating around downtown. Do
you not have any of those estimates with you, Secretary
Wolfowitz?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Senator, we have estimates and I can
get you more detail for the record. My basic recollection is
the total estimate of Iraqi reconstruction--and
``reconstruction'' is a loose usage of the English language
since in most cases we are talking about a country that was
fundamentally neglected, rather than just reconstructing
something that was destroyed in a war. Roughly $5 billion goes
to the combination of security institutions. When we are
talking about what is basically an internal security problem,
you need not only police and security forces, you need courts
and you need prisons. That complex of things I believe runs on
the order of an estimate of $5 billion over some period of
time, not necessarily 1 year.
We can give you the detail on which that estimate is based,
and it is only an estimate at the end of the day.
But if I could also refer to your question about a
generational commitment, the fact is--and this is the statement
from General Abizaid that I quoted from some length in my
testimony--that we are engaged in a global war on terrorism. As
he said, it is a phenomenon without borders, and the heart of
the problem is in the Middle East and we have to deal with the
heart of the problem in the Middle East.
You are absolutely right that dealing with the Arab-Israeli
conflict is a major part of dealing with it. But you cannot, as
General Abizaid would say, look at it through a soda straw.
That is part of the problem. Iraq has now become part of the
solution in my view.
It is striking to me that the grandson of the Ayatollah
Khomeini, that tyrant who took Iran back to the dark ages, his
grandson is now in Najaf in American-liberated Iraq talking
about the liberation of Iraq as an inspiration for the Iranian
people.
[The information referred to follows:]
The Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2004 Emergency Supplemental
Request for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Enduring Freedom
(OEF), and Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) was submitted September 17. The
security portion of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Fiscal
Year 2004 Supplemental Request to Rehabilitate and Reconstruct Iraq
dated September 17, 2003, provides the detailed estimate of the cost of
Iraqi security forces requested by the committee (TAB).
Senator Byrd. Mr. Chairman, this is eating up my little bit
of time.
Secretary Wolfowitz. I am sorry, Senator.
Senator Byrd. Let me ask you a question that perhaps you
can answer. With $20 billion being requested for the
reconstruction costs in Iraq, how much of that money will be
awarded to companies such as Halliburton with ties to the
administration that do not have to compete for government
contracts? Who will be in charge of approving these
reconstruction contracts?
Secretary Wolfowitz. This is obviously--let me make a
point. I think this is the first time I know of when we have
talked about a supplemental before we came to Congress with a
specific proposal. We want to consult with you, Senator, and
with your colleagues about details. But I am quite certain the
basic principle has to be competitive bidding and, as I think
Senator Levin raised the issue earlier, if we want foreigners
involved in this process, then we also have to consider how
those processes are open fairly to everybody.
We did some things before the war that had to be done in
secret and on a classified basis. We are obviously out of that
era and the most open, transparent bidding process is
presumably the goal. At the same time, in particular areas like
electricity we also have to make sure that we do things
rapidly, because getting electricity up and fixed quickly is
part of creating the conditions in which our troops can draw
down and our troops can be safer.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator Byrd, very much.
Senator Byrd. Thank you. Obviously there are going to be a
lot of questions. This is the first time that we have had an
opportunity to have a hearing on a supplemental. This is the
Armed Services Committee. We have always had this rush, rush,
rush when these appropriations requests come to Congress. I
hope we will have hearings in this case. The American people
are entitled to it.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator Byrd. I think this
hearing will be a foundation for the follow-on work by the
Appropriations Committee, where you are the senior member of
the Democrats.
Yes, General, you wish to make a comment?
General Myers. Chairman Warner, I would like to make just
one response to Senator Byrd. Of the $87 billion, $66 billion
is essentially for U.S. forces. We spend today in Iraq about $4
billion a month. We spend in Afghanistan and the rest of the
war on terrorism about a billion dollars a month. So the
majority of the supplemental goes to U.S. forces.
As Secretary Wolfowitz said, of the $21 billion that has
been characterized for Iraq reconstruction, Afghan
reconstruction, and so forth, about $5.5 billion is for the
security forces that you asked me about earlier. I would only
end by saying that we think you get great payoff for those
dollars. I think it is going to turn out in the end a lot
cheaper to have the Iraqis defending their country and
providing security in their country than it is for us to have
our forces deployed there to do it.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, General Myers.
Senator Roberts.
Senator Roberts. Mr. Chairman, I do not mean to be
obstreperous, but my colleague to my left has a watch and has
timed people as we have gone through this, which means he will
probably kick me at 7\1/2\ minutes. But I note that those on
the other side of the aisle have averaged about 12, 13, 14, in
this particular case 20 minutes. I thought this was 7\1/2\
minutes apiece. I am not trying to find fault with the
chairman, but I think that we all ought to try to do a little
better in regards to the timing and the witnesses.
I want to start off by saying this: ``Sir Winston Churchill
said upon hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor, `Silly
people,' that was the description many gave in discounting the
force of the United States. Some said how they were soft,
others they would never be united, that they would never come
to grips, they would never stand bloodletting, that their
system of government and democracy would paralyze the war
effort.'' Let me repeat that: ``that their system of government
and democracy would paralyze the war effort.''
Sir Winston said: ``Some said that now we will see the
weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy and talkative
people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to
the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I
thought of a remark made to me years before: The United States
is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire of freedom is lighted
under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate. It is
a matter of resolve.''
Mr. Chairman, I think we have a leaky boiler.
My question is, to the Secretary or to any of the panel: Do
you have the sense that the Iraqis, be they former regime
members or ordinary citizens, are watching closely what we do
and say here today in Washington in regard to their future, not
to mention some rather harsh criticism, and the future of our
efforts there? Could the Baathists and the foreign jihadists
and the Fedayeen and the common criminals and the Sunni
extremists gain currency with Arab nations and their leadership
from the idea that we have a lack of resolve and a reduced
commitment to us or our allies? What are the stakes?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The stakes are enormous, and they do
have a lot of access to what goes on here. I think it is very
important that we be able to--we are a democracy. That is our
strength as well as produces this lively debate.
I do think it is important, as I said earlier, that we be
able to project confidence, and there is an enormous amount of
success to project confidence about. We succeeded in the major
combat phase of this war with a speed that astonished everyone,
I would say including ourselves, with casualties that were
miraculously low. We avoided the catastrophe of an oil well
disaster that would have had an environmental impact for
decades. We avoided a humanitarian crisis and the hundreds of
thousands of people that we planned on feeding and providing
tents for, did not need it. We avoided a huge refugee crisis.
We avoided Turkey and Iran intervening in Iraq. We avoided the
kind of thing the intelligence community warned us about at
great length, of a possible major city fight in Baghdad or some
other city.
The list goes on of the things that we have succeeded in
doing, and the young men and women out there today doing this
job are just magnificent and they bring American ingenuity and
American courage----
Senator Roberts. Mr. Secretary----
Secretary Wolfowitz. We should be confident.
Senator Roberts.--I appreciate that, and I apologize for
interrupting you. But I want to know what the government
leaders of Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and
others, who time and time again when I have met with them as
member of a congressional delegation, as has the chairman, as
with others, they question our resolve. They question our
resolve, and that is the thing I am trying to get at.
I want to also announce as the Chairman of the Intelligence
Committee that staff is now carefully scrutinizing past
testimony regarding post-combat predictions and also analysis,
not so much to affix any 20-20 hindsight blame, but to assess
how the intelligence community can achieve the analytical
product and the warnings that will enable us to meet the
necessity of conducting and winning what I consider to be an
anti-guerrilla warfare operation.
Now, we can involve the U.N., that paragon of virtue in
regards to action from a military standpoint. They do fine
things from a humanitarian standpoint, I understand that. We
can get more international troops. I know that we have 1,400
marines in Karbala who are doing everything from repairing
bridges to fixing schools to providing security, and they will
be replaced by 450 Bulgarians. I am not trying to perjure the
effort of Bulgarians, but it seems to me that you have to have
troops that can actually do the job rather than just saying we
need international troops.
We can certainly recruit and train more Iraqi police and
military and defense corps. But we have to have better
intelligence to enable us to detect and deter and, yes,
preempt--yes, preempt--all these growing hostilities.
Could you tell me whether the $5.6 billion that is going to
be allotted to the intelligence community, and we intend to
find out in the intelligence community, is this a matter of
policy, is it a matter of resources, or is it a matter of
ability? How can we do this better? Because all this relies on
better intelligence.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Senator, I could not agree more on the
importance of intelligence. General Abizaid would say--I do not
know if he would rank them exactly, but his two top priorities
are intelligence and more Iraqis, and to some extent more
Iraqis means more intelligence. We need better intelligence on
the terrorists and the Baathists who are fighting us. We are
looking at how we can improve our methods today. I think we
have made great strides in the last couple of months, but we
need to go further and faster.
I would encourage you to look at that. I must say our
experience since the beginning of the Afghan war is that
General Franks and now General Abizaid are stitched together
very tightly with their intelligence counterparts. There is
terrific communication there. They have had terrific support
and in my experience they have put enormous planning effort
into everything the intelligence people have warned them about.
Senator Roberts. Let me just say in terms of the warning
that it was alleged earlier in terms of the policymakers by the
intelligence community that we knew that this was going to be a
lot tougher. That story starts out and says, ``Although general
in nature,'' and we are quoting one congressional aide, one
congressional source, a senior administration official, one
administration official. There is a paragraph here, ``There is
not universal agreement about the clarity of prewar
intelligence that was forwarded by the CIA and its counterpart
agencies at the Pentagon and the State Department. Some
administration official said the intelligence was murkier than
others now depict it.''
You cannot get the whole jigsaw puzzle. You cannot connect
all the dots. Different things happen. It seems to me--my time
has expired.
Chairman Warner. Thank you very much. I think it is
important, colleague--I respect your views, but Senator Byrd
does have a key role with regard to this $87 billion, and I had
visited with him prior to the hearing. All of us do, but he has
a heavy responsibility and his support will be needed.
Senator Roberts. If I might, Mr. Chairman, it is not that
so much as the average of 12 minutes on the other side and
about 7\1/2\ on this side, why I raised the issue. I am not
trying to perjure or point fingers at anybody else.
Chairman Warner. I do intend to run a fair hearing. I
believe Senator McCain had an extra minute or 2. But anyway, we
shall move on.
Senator Roberts. I understand that. I think we all have
heavy burdens. I am Chairman of the Emerging Threats and
Capabilities Subcommittee and the Chairman of the Intelligence
Committee and I would like to wax on for about another 10 or 15
minutes. I have a lot on my mind. But I have yielded back my
time like the chairman has indicated. Thank you.
Chairman Warner. I note that I am the freshman member of
your Intelligence Committee and you lash at me very fairly.
Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Myers, it is your opinion as a uniformed military
officer in consultation with your commanders that there is no
military requirement for additional troops in Iraq?
General Myers. Senator Reed, that is correct, and it is in
consultation. I rely on General Abizaid and he relies on
General Sanchez and he relies on his division commanders on the
ground and their subordinates as they try to come up with the
troops they need.
Senator Reed. So the request for international troops is to
achieve a very important and laudable political objective
exclusively?
General Myers. I would not say exclusively. They are going
to be doing real work, and I do not think we want to denigrate
the work that they are going to do.
Senator Reed. General, if I may, we get into this minuet
about, well, it is not just political; they will do real work.
If that real work has to be done, then that implies to me that
there is a requirement for troops to do that work. Now, whether
they are international troops or U.S. troops, there is still
that requirement.
Now you just said there is no requirement, that if we do
not get these international troops then it will be okay
militarily.
General Myers. Maybe I misunderstood your question. The
troops I thought we were talking about in the first part of
that were U.S. troops.
Senator Reed. I said troops.
General Myers. Okay, then I answered incorrectly. We are
looking for a third multinational division, for the reasons
that we have already discussed earlier at length, and I will
not go into those, but to include sharing the burden of the
effort in Iraq. It will help us in the long term.
Senator Reed. But let me be clear, General, because we have
talked around this issue. Your view is there is a military
requirement for additional troops. Your hope is that they are
international troops, but there is a requirement for additional
troops?
General Myers. That is not correct. The number of troops
that we have had, that we will keep in Iraq, is going to stay
at approximately about the same level. Today we have around
152,000. If we get a third multinational division--this will go
up and down. It goes up and down with deployments and so forth.
It went up a little bit over the forecast when General Mattis
and folks decided to leave a couple of Marine battalions there.
But generally speaking, the number of troops is going to stay
about level. The composition of the troops will change.
Senator Reed. So that if we do not get international troops
we will still maintain roughly 130,000-plus American forces?
General Myers. If the situation in that time frame when
those international troops would come in, if the situation
demands it, yes, is the answer.
Senator Reed. I read, as we all do, that we have
inadequately guarded ammo dumps. I receive messages from our
Rhode Island National Guardsmen about what they perceive as
inadequate air cover over their convoys, and we had casualties
on convoy about 2 weeks ago. You hear about oil pipelines being
blown up today which would suggest to me that additional forces
in country could be used effectively.
General Myers. I agree with that point, and some of those
forces--it is a matter of priority for General Sanchez and his
folks where he puts his protective forces and the air cover and
so forth. It is also true on infrastructure protection that
that is ideally suited for Iraqis themselves. Who better to
protect their pipelines and their power lines than the Iraqis
themselves?
Senator Reed. I agree in principle, but it seems that
yesterday, reported today, there was just another major
pipeline in the north blown up, presumably guarded or not
guarded by Iraqis or someone else.
Let me ask another question, which is, if we assume that
the level of forces is in your view adequate, the composition
of forces today, is it appropriate to this mission? We have
combat brigades in there, but very few Military Police (MP)
brigades.
General Myers. That is something that the United States
Army is looking very closely at and I think as you look at the
force rotation that has been planned, for instance, the First
Cavalry Division goes in. One of the things that I think you
know you will see with it is an enhanced separate brigade from
the Army National Guard. The reason is to give them more
infantry, because they do not want to be based in their M-1
tanks because that is not the mission at this point. What they
want to have are a lot of infantry that can go out and do the
missions that they need to do.
So the Army is looking very hard at that and trying to
structure their divisions. MPs are always going to be in big
need.
Senator Reed. General Myers, at the end of the year that
you have extended the National Guard troops--and I have two MP
companies and an MP headquarters battalion in there--when they
come back to Rhode Island, where are you going to get MPs to
replace them? They are not in the Active Force structure and
they have already been used in the National Guard.
General Myers. Right. I am very well aware of that issue
because, at Fort Meyer, we have had from time to time Reserve
component military police, normally National Guard, that do
that mission. I talk about their deployment schedules and so
forth. That is one of those areas, when we talk about Reserve-
active mix, it is not just the mix; it is do we have enough of
things like military police, civil affairs, in our Armed Forces
to carry on the missions that we think we might have in the
future. I think for some of those career fields we probably
will come to the conclusion we do not.
Senator Reed. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, my recollection is hostilities began, actual
offensive operations, on or about March 19; is that correct to
your recollection?
Secretary Wolfowitz. My recollection is March 20.
Senator Reed. March 20. Those passports you have indicated,
the first date was March 24.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Right.
Senator Reed. Do you have any evidence of significant
terrorist presence in Baghdad before those dates, since the
Secretary maintained he had bulletproof evidence of a terrorist
link in Baghdad prior to initiation of hostilities?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Yes, we do. There are some things that
are publicly known from before. There are the things that
Director Tenet described in his unclassified letter to this
committee back in October, I believe. There is the well-known
fact that for some 10 years the one bomber from the 1993 World
Trade Center that was still at large was harbored in Iraq.
There is the evidence that Secretary Powell discussed----
Senator Reed. These are al Qaeda elements?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Who did the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing is, to use the intelligence community's word, a murky
question. But it was masterminded by the nephew of the same man
who masterminded September 11, and they went after the same
target.
Senator Reed. But you have, subsequent to our operations in
Iraq, no further evidence other than that which was revealed?
Secretary Wolfowitz. If you let me finish, Secretary Powell
talked in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council at some
length about a senior al Qaeda--or some people say he is not
quite al Qaeda; he is affiliated; he is clearly in the same
world--named Abu Musaba Zarkawi, with connections both to the
poison lab that was operating in northern Iraq and to some
plots that were broken up in London and Paris and in Italy.
I am not familiar with everything we have learned since we
got to Baghdad, but I can say this, that what we have learned
only deepens the conclusions that were there on an unclassified
basis before.
Senator Reed. So you would disagree with the opinion of----
Secretary Wolfowitz. In fact, one last thing if I might.
The group that Zarkawi is associated with, Ansar al-Islam, was
established in Iraq in 2001 and it is I think in the judgment
of the military and the intelligence people the single most
serious terrorist threat we face today.
Senator Reed. They were aided and abetted by the Saddam
Hussein regime?
Secretary Wolfowitz. These people went to very great
lengths to bury and hide the links that they had with one
another. So you have to recognize we probably see only the tip
of the iceberg. But we certainly see links.
Senator Reed. So you would disagree with the statement by
Vincent Canastrato, the former Director of Counterterrorism
Operations and Analysis of the CIA, who said: ``There was no
substantive intelligence information linking Saddam to
international terrorism before the war. Now we have created the
conditions that have made Iraq the place to come to attack
Americans.''
Secretary Wolfowitz. I think Director Tenet's statement
last year disagrees with it. I think Secretary Powell's
statement to the U.N. disagrees with it. I think the
Palestinian terrorists that we have captured in Iraq disagrees
with it. I think the money that Saddam offered for Palestinian
homicide bombers disagrees with it.
I do not know the statement you are quoting, but it does
not stand with what I have been told from the intelligence
world.
Senator Reed. Mr. Chairman, if I may for a moment. My
colleagues had an opportunity to opine and I would like to do
it, too.
This was a war of choice and we will debate the wisdom of
that choice for generations. But I think it is obvious now that
the choice we made is more expensive than we thought, more
time-consuming, more dangerous, and more difficult. I think
also that we have put ourselves in the position where we have
everything to lose and, it becomes increasingly apparent, very
little to gain.
Certainly this operation has not transformed the Middle
East peace process. It has not allowed us to effectively
suppress and lethally preempt Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. I
think, despite General Myers, who I respect immensely, the
notion that these apocalyptic terrorists are going to give up
their jihad whether we prevail in Iraq is I think naive. I
think we have made a questionable strategic choice. We have
everything to lose, and I certainly will support all efforts to
win. We have no choice. But I think we have put ourselves in a
position where we have made a choice where we have everything
to lose and very little to gain.
Thank you.
Chairman Warner. Senator Allard.
Senator Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I have a
statement I would like to have submitted for the record if I
might.
Chairman Warner. Without objection. I wonder if you would
indulge the chair. Senator Levin and I are of the view that
this hearing will continue until such time as each Senator has
had an opportunity to address questions to our witnesses, and
at the conclusion of that we do not intend to have a second
round. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Senator Allard follows:]
Prepared Statement by Senator Wayne Allard
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. I also
thank our witnesses today for coming to testify before the Senate.
Certainly, the eyes of our constituents are focused on Capitol Hill
after the President's address to the Nation this weekend.
At the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, there were those who
believed our military would not score a decisive victory against the
Iraqis. The focus at the start of hostilities was on preventing and
defending our soldiers, sailors, and airmen against any threat of
biological or chemical munitions that Saddam and his ilk might use. Our
well-equipped armed services proved in Operation Iraqi Freedom to be
second to none, and victory was assured not only through our
technological advantage, but also through the excellence of the men and
women that compose the United States military.
Now we have a new challenge, and once again we are faced with
detractors who would call President Bush's Sunday night address a
capitulation to the United Nations the same body that chose to shirk
its responsibility and not enforce its own resolutions. Reconstruction
is not a simple task. It would be short-sighted for anyone to conclude
that cooperation with other nations was not needed or wanted by the
United States. Rebuilding and stability operations have indeed come
with a large price tag in human and financial capital; but it will be
much easier with more cooperation from our allies and the U.N. The
administration is in the process of making such cooperation a reality.
It is unfortunate that some who unfairly accuse the administration of
just now recognizing the value of international cooperation, when in
fact, it was evident from the beginning that such cooperation was one
of this administration's top goals.
I look forward to hearing your testimony on the situation in Iraq,
and also welcome any new information on the war on terror.
Senator Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have heard members on this committee refer to September
11 as a disaster, and September 11 was an attack on the
mainland of America. It has been my view that if we had ignored
what happened on September 11, terrorists would have become
even--we would have been facing even greater attacks, larger
attacks, and they would have been more brazen and on a daily
basis.
I thank God that we have had a strong leader in the
presidency. I want to compliment many of you for your support
in working to resolve this problem. It is not easy. I agree
with General Myers that this is a problem that the American
people have to show patience for, they have to remain
committed, and they have to show a will to win.
It is something we simply cannot back away from. I think
that our fighting men and women are doing a tremendous job and
I think that we need to pause and reflect on the good decisions
of the people that have gone before us in getting them prepared
to face the unforeseen issues and problems that we are facing
today. I am just thankful that we are in a position to be able
to face them.
I just want to talk a little bit about the budget. I know
it has been brought up by my colleagues, too, and since I serve
on the Budget Committee I think there is a point or two that
needs to be made, because I think there are statements that are
being made that are misleading. The assumption that this is an
unforeseen expense is wrong. If you look at the budget that we
passed in this body for 2004, we assumed that there would be a
supplemental that would be requested along the lines of the $87
billion the President just requested this past weekend.
We put $79 billion in there for a supplemental, including a
factor for inflation. So we are somewhere around an $80.5
billion supplemental in that request for the budget. So this
argument that all of a sudden we are adding $87 billion to the
deficit is simply not right.
Now, there is $5 billion that we will probably have to make
up. We have $1.8 trillion and it seems to me that we can find
$5 billion in there to make that up in a $1.8 trillion budget.
So the Budget Committee, particularly the chairman of the
Budget Committee--and I can say we passed our budget this year,
which is more than we can say for last year. We did not pass a
budget last year. We passed a budget for this year in this
Congress for 2004, and the figures that we were looking at for
the budget were based on some plans that we were looking at,
and we were trying to figure out what those unforeseen
contingencies were.
So there has been a lot of planning. There has been a lot
of thought. But the fact is that we are dealing with
terrorists, and the factor that they count on is surprise and
doing what is unexpected.
When I look at what has been presented to this Congress and
where we are in the budget, I am amazed that we are as close to
the figures as we are, and we are still pretty much on a
deficit estimate of $480 billion for fiscal year 2004 because
we have already factored that in in the budget.
While I am talking about the request and what-not and
money, I do have a question on the armored Humvees and body
armor for our troops. The question is, and it was in the
President's new supplemental request, how long will it take to
get these much-needed vehicles and protective devices to the
soldiers in the theater? Maybe, General Myers, that is a
question for you.
General Myers. Senator Allard, I am going to look through
here. I have that information. I know we have a little over 600
that are on their way to theater today and exactly when the
first ones get there, if you will just give me a second I may
have it in all these papers here, because it is something that
we are absolutely looking for.
They will all get over this year, and 301 of the 654 that
are being shipped right now have arrived in Kuwait and are
being processed for distribution. The remaining 353 of the 654
that are going to get there this year are being prepared for
shipment to Kuwait. In addition, the Army is looking at the
other armored Humvees that it has to see if they can be taken
from other deployments and other events, including extended
maintenance, and if we can push them toward Iraq as well.
Senator Allard. I thank you for that response.
In August I just finished some town meetings in Colorado. I
had 20 or so of them. One of the issues that had been brought
up was about the protective devices for soldiers in the
theater. I am glad to hear that you have heard that call, heard
the need, that there is a need there and are responding.
General Myers. Absolutely.
Senator Allard. So I appreciate that. The Washington Post
today had an article outlining the fact that our intelligence
agencies had provided a fairly accurate description of post-war
resistance in Iraq. What more can you tell us about the
intelligence reports, Mr. Secretary, in this open session?
Secretary Wolfowitz. It is hard to do much in open session,
but I would say one of the quotes I saw was intelligence
reports told at some length about possibilities for
unpleasantness. That is certainly true. In fact, you can make a
very long list of things that we were concerned about that did
not happen or things that we were concerned about that we
prevented, and there were some things that were not predicted
or that certainly were not predicted loudly.
But what I can say--I said it earlier--every single thing
that the intelligence community raised as a serious problem was
addressed seriously by General Franks and by the Secretary and
by the President himself. I was a little puzzled a few minutes
ago when it was said that these are expenses that were
unforeseen and an extent of deployment that was unforeseen. No
one tried to predict the future. No one said we would know
anything other than this could be very bloody, it could be very
long, by implication it could be very expensive.
Even a much simpler thing like Bosnia was predicted to be
only a year and here it is 8 years later and we are still
there. But we are there in much smaller numbers and we are
dealing with that. Bosnia does not go to the heart of our
interests. As you said, this is about the war on terrorism. The
attack on the World Trade Center was certainly unforeseen and
the expenses are staggering.
I believe the fact that foreign terrorists are coming to
fight us in Iraq during the war and today, the fact that there
are al Qaeda groups that are Iraqi and have been working
against us now and were working against us before, and the fact
that they have at least tacit and maybe explicit allies in the
criminal gangs that ran the old regime--they know what is at
stake here and I think we need to understand what is at stake
here. The troops certainly do, and we need to project
confidence--because it is absolutely warranted--that we are
going to win. We have much more on our side, much more going
for us. But what we have at stake is enormous.
Senator Allard. Mr. Secretary, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired here. But, I have
received a number of plans on my desk and I have been attending
briefings about your plans for Iraq and Afghanistan and dealing
with terrorism since September 11. I do not understand why
anybody can complain that somehow this administration and each
of you have not done your best to try to plan for unforeseen
circumstances from the terrorists that we are facing.
I wish, like everybody else, that this would go away, but
the fact is it is not going to go away, and I think terrorism
is going to be with us for a while and we need to be prepared
for that. We have been preparing for it in the budget. The
dollars are there as best we possibly can, and in many cases we
have already swallowed the poison pill in the fact that we have
already accounted for that in the budget we passed for 2004.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Akaka.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
General Myers, in a recent interview you mentioned an
analysis DOD has been conducting into worldwide force
commitments and stated that in some areas, such as the Balkans,
the Europeans should be assuming a greater share of the burden.
However, some of our allies have been reducing their
commitments in order to provide additional troops to ongoing
operations in Iraq.
I have three questions on this. What is your assessment of
how likely it is that other forces will take on additional
global responsibilities outside of Iraq when we are also
pressing them to increase commitments in that theater as well?
I would like to ask Mr. Grossman; if you have any thoughts on
this, for they would be welcome as well.
General Myers, in your best military judgment what are the
risks associated with declining international presence in
Bosnia and how does the United States plan to address these
risks? General Myers, did you examine the level of forces
committed to Operation Noble Eagle and can you give your
assessment of the military value and effectiveness of that
mission?
General Myers. You bet, Senator Akaka. I can take all three
of those questions and try to run down them here quickly.
We have gotten what I think is very good response in terms
of support in other parts of the world besides Iraq. We talked
a little bit about this earlier, but in Afghanistan in
particular. The fact that NATO is leading the International
Security Assistance Force around Kabul is truly an amazing and
astonishing fact. That they are enthusiastic about that
mission, that they plan for it long-term, that they are looking
to taking the mission, examining taking that mission outside of
Kabul to some of the provinces, is also amazing.
In our recent operation over there where we successfully
engaged Taliban fighters, relatively large numbers of Taliban
fighters, with the help of the governor of Kandahar Pushtun and
his militia that is under him, with the Afghan National Army,
with U.S. forces, it is interesting to note that some of the
blocking positions were by special forces from Lithuania,
Romania, and France.
I think the understanding of what needs to happen in
Afghanistan and in other parts of the world is going to get
good international cooperation. So that is the answer, at least
to the first part of that question.
Regarding the Balkans, clearly in Bosnia and for that
matter for the most part in Kosovo, the military mission is
essentially complete, if you will, and what we are waiting for
is the civil implementation to take hold--the right number of
police force, the judicial system to be fully stood up, prisons
manned, and so forth, and the local governance to be stood up,
and the political accommodations particularly--in both places
the political accommodations on the various factions, so they
agree to get along.
So I think there is a security risk there. Nobody wants to
go back to the Bosnia or the Balkans that we had 8 years ago,
or more recently in Kosovo during Operation Allied Force and
before that, where we interrupted the genocide that was going
on by the Serbian forces. But a lot of that world has changed.
If you look at Macedonia, as I mentioned earlier, there is
a country that was almost in chaos and now is trying very hard
to make itself ready for NATO membership. Albania and Serbia
have made overtures that they too would like to be part of the
process that eventually gets them the NATO membership. So that
whole region it seems to me is becoming more stable and more
secure and we ought to really look at what contribution forces
make there.
In relation to Operation Noble Eagle, yes, we reviewed
that. We have talked about this in terms of the Department of
Defense, in terms of the military contribution to the war on
terrorism as it being both offense and defense. Part of the
defense is Operation Noble Eagle. That is the operation here at
home and for that matter in Hawaii and Alaska, which is part of
the homeland and not to be forgotten even though it is quite a
ways offshore in your case, Senator, to protect our people.
It is not only Operation Noble Eagle, but it is the
standing up of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the way
they work with the Federal, State, and local governments to
bring the resources of the Department of Defense to bear when
it is appropriate that we do so. We have a substantial part of
our Reserve Forces that are called up that I mentioned earlier,
173,000. They are not all in Iraq, they are not all in
Afghanistan. A large number of them are here for Operation
Noble Eagle. So that is a big part of our commitment as well.
But that is essential to our country's defense.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Grossman, would you offer any thoughts
on that first question on additional global responsibilities
outside of Iraq?
Secretary Grossman. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Let me
first of all associate myself completely with what General
Myers said, especially about the area of the Balkans.
No one would want to return to the Balkans that we had 8 or
10 years ago, and I think in fact that the commitment of the
United States and our allies has been a great success there.
I generally do not travel anywhere now without a chart that
shows the declining U.S. strength, both in Bosnia and Kosovo,
and with the chairman's permission, I think we ought to include
this as part of the record.
Chairman Warner. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
Secretary Grossman. It shows that we went there with a
plan, we have reduced our forces over time, but we have still
created something very important, I believe.
Finally, I also believe that, with General Myers, we ought
to take a look at what more people can do outside of the U.S.
forces, especially in the Balkans, Bosnia, and Kosovo. One very
important point, and that is as we move forward there, there
are still some jobs to do in the Balkans. I want to make sure
that on the record is our continuing commitment to apprehending
some of the war criminals out there, especially Mr. Mladic and
Mr. Karadic.
Senator Akaka. On March 20 of this year, Secretary Rumsfeld
issued a memo outlining his plan for the development of an
overseas basing strategy to support current and future U.S.
defense requirements. According to the memo, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff in conjunction with the Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy would develop a comprehensive and integrated presence
and basing strategy looking out 10 years based on input
received from the combatant commanders in cooperation with the
military departments.
The report was due to Secretary Rumsfeld by July 1, 2003.
General Myers, what is the current status of the overseas
basing strategy and have you submitted your overall
recommendations to the Secretary as stated in the March 20
memo?
General Myers. This was a process in which we also involved
the combatant commanders in Europe, in the Pacific, in SOUTCOM,
in CENTCOM, to look at how we are postured, as you said,
Senator Akaka, around the world. The reason we think this is
important is that in many respects our posture around the world
has been through the Cold War--Korea is a terrific example.
Many of the camps, posts, and stations are exactly where they
were when the armistice was signed. They were not designed to
be that way. It just happened to be where they are.
Where we stand is that that work is ongoing. The combatant
commanders have brought in recommendations. We have been
working with the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and
folks on the Joint Staff have been working with the Secretary
of Defense to go through each of those to try to put our best
thinking on that problem, to say what are we going to need for
the future.
There have been no decisions or conclusions drawn. It is a
work in progress, if you will. Clearly it is going to involve
more than just the Department of Defense. This is going to have
to be a U.S. Government effort in the end because there are
going to be a lot of political-military questions that will be
raised and have to be answered.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for your responses.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.
Chairman Warner. Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would first just like to reiterate comments made by
Senator Allard. I too serve on the Budget Committee and the
memorandum for the chief budget staff person says that: ``Our
CBO budget deficit estimate already assumes that we will have a
significant supplemental for this year and assumes a $79
billion supplemental.'' So this idea that it is driving up our
budget deficit unexpectedly is really, to the extent that it
really is about $80, with interest $87, $5 or $7 billion more
than we assumed, but fundamentally this Budget Committee and
our Congress assumed that we would have this challenge to meet,
and I think everybody is going to be ready to meet it. I am
convinced of that.
I just want to note that I believe most Americans
understand that we are at war. We have not forgotten September
11, and we are committed. Over three-fourths of the members of
this body and the House voted to support the effort in Iraq. We
are not going to waffle now. We are not going to quit.
At this hearing, Mr. Chairman, I think it is wonderful, and
we need to focus on what we can do to help us be more
successful. But this is not a hearing to talk about abandoning
a policy that we overwhelmingly adopted in the Congress of the
United States, the President took to the American people, and
the President and the Defense Department have so brilliantly
led.
I would just note that I think the war has gone in many
ways exceedingly well. We had all these concerns, and I did not
dismiss them out of hand, that we would have house to house
fighting, thousands and thousands of American casualties. I did
not dismiss humanitarian disasters out of hand that did not
occur. I did not dismiss all kinds of humanitarian problems
that could have occurred. We did not have ethnic bloodbaths, as
some suggested.
So I think in terms of the hostilities themselves it went
brilliantly. I think the civilian Defense Department
leadership, Secretaries Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, worked with
General Tommy Franks to develop a brilliant, innovative plan
for decisive and swift victory in this war. Not only did they
allow him to be bold and innovative and courageous, they
encouraged it, and as a partnership together we had great
success.
I think we need to remember that the greatest heroes are
our soldiers who fought this battle. It was tough duty and it
was risky. Many of them are alive today because of bulletproof
vests and the kind of armor that we had, and we need more and
better of it. It was a tough battle, but they moved with
courage and decisiveness in the finest traditions of the
American military.
They are not prepared to cut and run either, because I have
been there and I have talked to them, with Alabama units that,
apart from any bias from any high officials, they told me that
they thought we were making progress.
I know that we have some challenges and I just want to get
to those and ask about them and provide some suggestions. First
I would like to share a few things about what is happening
there. I met with an engineering unit from Alabama in the north
in Mosul. They restored four schools that were devastated. The
article by Tom Gordon of The Birmingham News, who was embedded
with them, or September 6 talks about it.
One of the things Tom Gordon wrote about was Riban Abdul
Wab, a 15 year old. He spoke English. He was their chief
interpreter as they rebuilt the school and went out and helped
them buy supplies at better prices. It said this in his
article: ``Alpha Company is working to get the youth to America
to finish high school and college. If their efforts succeed,
his home for part of his stay will be with Sergeant Virgil
Simpson in Booneville, Mississippi, a member of that unit.''
That is the kind of thing that is occurring.
It goes on to note: ``In the aftermath of the ceremony,
groups of beret-wearing girls held hands with soldiers, while
more boisterous boys high-fived the soldiers.''
I saw one American soldier on the streets of Baghdad
talking to half a dozen Iraqi citizens on more than one
occasion. I met with the Alabama MPs and had dinner with them.
We talked about what was really going on. They go to the police
precinct with Iraqi policemen that have been brought on board,
and they patrol the streets of Baghdad together. One said: ``We
have bonded together.'' Intelligence is increasing, they told
me. No high-ranking officials were there. It was their
statement to me about what they perceived to be occurring.
I asked: Do you think you could leave today and the Iraqi
police could succeed? They said they did not think so. They
thought that we needed to stay there for some longer period of
time.
General Myers and Secretary Wolfowitz, I think you are
exactly correct, that we need to strengthen the local police
forces. As a former prosecutor myself, I know a society cannot
function where there is disorder. A lot of this disorder is
pure criminal theft, pure robbers, burglars, and thieves.
So I guess I was very encouraged to see, General Myers,
that you have a goal of 184,000, because to me we do not need
more troops there; we need more intelligence, we need a
stronger local police, a stronger local army, and we need to
start getting our troops out, not putting more in.
You have a goal of 184,000. Does this supplemental give you
enough money to do that? I think you need every dollar you are
entitled to for that project.
General Myers. Senator Sessions, my understanding is the
supplemental does do that through fiscal year 2004. It has, as
I said, I think about $5.5 billion that goes specifically to
training those forces.
Senator Sessions. I would just say, I visited their
training camp and met with their trainers and met with the
chief of the Baghdad police force, who I saw later had been the
subject of an assassination attempt. But he was personally
leading police officers on nightly raids, had been wounded,
shot in the leg, the week before I got there, and was back to
work before he should have been according to the doctors,
leading this unit. If we have that kind of support, we will be
successful.
A patrolling soldier who cannot speak the language, Mr.
Chairman, is just not going to be as effective as an Iraqi
police officer in getting the intelligence and leading raids.
Secretary Wolfowitz, I also have a strong belief that
electricity is a big problem. I understand that because of
neglect by Saddam Hussein's government the demand is 30 percent
greater than generating capacity. Will this supplemental allow
you to spend such sums as you need to immediately take steps to
restore electricity? I think, with an increased police
department and an increased electricity and continuous supply
of electricity, I believe that will help us be able to reduce
our forces.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Yes, it does. Actually, electricity is
the largest single item in that part of the supplemental, and
we are approaching the whole electricity issue with the sense
of urgency that it requires. We had a very good plan, the
Agency for International Development (AID) did as part of the
CPA, to build up electricity in a sensible, methodical way. But
when you realize how it affects the overall security
environment, that you are spending $4 billion a month on forces
to deal with that security environment and Americans are
getting killed and wounded in that environment, electricity has
to be approached with an urgency that you would not normally do
if you were just looking at efficiency.
We are doing that already with the resources that are
available, but this money that is in the supplemental will
allow us to finish the job and I believe do it rapidly.
Senator Sessions. I would just note in conclusion, Mr.
Chairman, that the cost of an Iraqi police officer is about
$100 a month. We can probably have 30 just on a salary basis,
perhaps 30 Iraqis hired. Each one of them therefore would have
a stake in the new government and would also be able to feed
their family. So the goal of transforming this to Iraqi
leadership is just the right thing, and I am glad to see
Secretary Rumsfeld speaking out on that, and you too, General
Myers. This is the right direction to go.
General Myers. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator. Our staff, Senator,
has just handed me a memorandum with a breakdown of the $20.3
billion. You asked about the electricity or energy. Energy
infrastructure, $8.1 billion, is the largest piece. You
mentioned public security; $5.1 billion. At 100 bucks that will
buy a lot of policemen.
Thank you.
Senator Dayton.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Myers, I respect enormously what you outlined in
terms of the requirements for victory. I want to assure you
that the will to win does not differ from one side of this
aisle to the other. To my recollection, all my colleagues have
accepted the President and Ambassador Bremer and others'
description of what constitutes the elements of victory so that
we can get our troops out after winning that lasting victory
that will endure and make it worth the enormous sacrifices that
have been made.
In terms of commitment, I think everything the President,
the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs have requested
has been approved by the Senate and by Congress, with
overwhelming bipartisan support. If there is any message to
come out of today's events, it ought to be that, as the news
media reported I think accurately earlier today, this latest
request will be approved with overwhelming support. I will
certainly support whatever the President demonstrates is
necessary to achieve this victory.
But with regard to patience, sir, the sense of urgency that
I bring toward my assessment of the situation actually came
from my time in Iraq about 6 weeks ago now. General Sanchez
briefed us there, as did Ambassador Bremer and others, and they
all basically said the same thing, that the next 60 to 90 days
would be crucial to show progress toward achieving the
conditions necessary for bringing this to a successful
conclusion as quickly as possible.
They said, furthermore, ``Time is not on our side and the
failure to show progress sufficiently would be likely to have
very serious consequences.''
So what were those elements of victory as they outlined?
One is getting Saddam Hussein and his two sons permanently
eliminated from the country and preferably the planet, which
you have achieved two-thirds of, and that is just one short of
perfection and hopefully it will be realized very soon.
The second was to install a successor Iraqi government as
soon as possible. Now, when we met with Ambassador Bremer 6
weeks ago my recollection was that he said the goal was to have
that government established and elected by the Iraqi people
within 6 months, by the end of the year. Now it is being said
that it will be practically a year from now. So in terms of
patience, again, if that is the precursor to our being able to
extract our troops successfully, then we are talking about an
extension there for reasons that I must say I do not
understand.
The third was domestic law and order, and I cannot assess
the overall circumstances in the country. What I do know is
that U.S. casualties were evidently up 35 percent in August
compared to the month before. That was information gleaned by
going into a Top Secret briefing last week and looking at a
sheet marked ``Top Secret'' and seeing the information that had
been reported the day before in The Washington Post, which I
guess means I am better off reading the newspapers than I am
going to those briefings.
But if that information is not made available or intended
to be made available, it is very hard for someone like myself,
much less the American people, to make a realistic evaluation.
I would urge that the facts be allowed to speak for
themselves, whether they are good facts or not. No one expects
this to go easily, but I think we have a right in Congress and,
more importantly, the American people have a right to know what
the real situation is.
The fourth condition for victory was social and economic
rehabilitation, which is still under way. That is again an area
where I guess there are differing reports. One of my colleagues
said earlier that they are talking about improvements in basic
services, but that is contrary to what I have been told in
other settings. The Wall Street Journal says today continued
sabotage against oil pipelines and power stations has plagued
Iraq. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently did a
helicopter survey of Iraq's high voltage distribution wires.
Over about 700 miles they found 623 destroyed towers, up from
fewer than 20 just after the war. Obviously, that is due to
acts of sabotage and retaliation. But it is still of concern
when it means that American troops have to be stationed there
longer, and I believe their figure now of 140,000 or 138,000
contrasts to what was expected at one point in the planning
process of it being only about 60,000 U.S. troops needed at
this stage.
So those, and I know you feel more responsibility for them
than anyone else--are the lives of our constituents' sons and
daughters, and they are over there with their lives on the line
and we want to figure out how to get them back as quickly as
possible after achieving that success.
So I hope there is no misunderstanding about the shared
resolve. I think we would be derelict in our responsibilities
if we did not try to explore what needs to happen and how it is
going and what, if anything, needs to be done to make it more
successful as soon as possible.
Along those lines, I would just say that ``The Today Show''
this morning--I try to watch the television and read the
papers--they reported that the intent of the administration is
to provide combat pay for soldiers in Iraq, but not in other
places such as Afghanistan or other, I would call them, combat
areas. Is that information correct or not?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The supplemental assumes both Iraq and
Afghanistan, Senator.
Senator Dayton. Those two, combat in those two areas?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Yes.
Senator Dayton. Thank you.
Maybe this goes better to you, Mr. Secretary. Regarding the
President's assertion the other night that it was a terrorist
attack against the U.N. headquarters, has that been
definitively established?
Secretary Wolfowitz. It is obviously terrorism and suicide
terrorism. It is deliberately killing innocent civilians. I do
not think the President meant to say that we know where it came
from precisely. There is some belief that it was Baathists,
some belief it could be terrorists. They could be working
together.
I know more evidence actually in the case of Najaf than in
the case of the U.N. bombing, but the Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) is working on both of these.
Senator Dayton. So when the President said the other night,
``Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the
civilized world and opposing them must be the cause of the
civilized world,`` he is referring to terrorists who could be
foreign terrorists or who could be Iraqi remnants of Saddam
Hussein's army or whatever else.
Just one last question because my time is up here. With
regard to Afghanistan, I note the reconstruction budget for
Iraq is expected to cost $20 to $30 billion of expenditures
next year. The supplemental request for Afghanistan, however,
is $1.2 billion, I think, combined, $800 million additional and
a quarter million from unspent funds previously. That is a
fraction, 5 percent, less than that, of what is being
undertaken for Iraq, and Afghanistan by many accounts is in far
worse, more backward condition, and we are 2 years into that
after winning that military victory and we do not even have a
road completed from Kabul to Kandahar.
It seems that we have underfunded that effort, and the
international community bears that responsibility, but is it
your assessment, sir, that we are going to approach sufficient
effort there to show some positive results?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Actually you put your finger on
something that is a problem and is a concern, and it is
operations. The road network in Afghanistan is not in our view
being stood up fast enough, and it is an international
community responsibility, which means it tends to get diffused
and there is a lack of what the military would call unity of
command, to put it charitably.
We are in this proposal putting some money into it so that
we can push that effort along faster. It is a bit like the
electricity in Iraq. When you think of it as a purely economic
development project, time is not that critical. But your point
does not contradict the Chairman's point about patience. We
need a sense of urgency about those things that can be fixed
that will relieve the strain on our troops and make them safer,
and roads in Afghanistan are one of those things, electricity
in Iraq is another.
The disparity you point out is an interesting one and I
think a lot of it stems from the fact that the one country is
just much more advanced than the other, so the requirements
become bigger.
Senator Dayton. If it is lack of capacity it is one thing.
If it is lack of putting full force behind this basic
reconnecting of the country, I think we are missing a terribly
important opportunity.
Secretary Wolfowitz. I would agree with you on that. In
fact, looking at the two numbers side by side the other night,
we said let us take another look at whether we have the balance
right.
Senator Dayton. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Myers. Chairman Warner, can I, just 30 seconds?
Chairman Warner. 30 seconds.
General Myers. If you do not mind. On the point of the
bipartisan support, clearly it is the reason we have been
successful to date and we appreciate that, and I have made that
I think very clear in my opening remarks. It is really apparent
at the troop level and they know that, and I think that is why
we are successful.
On patience, I was referring not specifically to Iraq, but
the broader war on terrorism. There are some things, as
Secretary Wolfowitz said, we ought to have a terrible sense of
urgency about because it does help our security. I do not
disagree with what Ambassador Bremer and others have said about
the urgency of getting the infrastructure stood up and in
governance and so forth. That is exactly right on track.
The last point: If there is ever anything in a briefing
that--if you do not think we are being forthcoming, then we
have failed, because we have made a very large effort to try to
bring everything we have. Just like the embedded reporters; we
knew there would be the good, the bad, and the ugly, but that
is what the American people expect, that is what you deserve on
this committee.
I do not have the specifics on that case. If you can show
it to me I would be happy to track it down.
Senator Dayton. I will, thank you. I also would point out
again, reading in the paper this morning about extending the
tour of duty for reservists and guardsmen and women. Those are
folks back home we hear from. We appreciate also, being a
member of this committee, getting that information directly.
General Myers. You bet.
Senator Dayton. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator.
Secretary Grossman. I just wanted to, if I could, just get
one sentence in, Senator. That is, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz
is exactly right about the challenges to building a whole road
network. But I think it would be fair to say on behalf of all
of us that the people who are involved in the sector that we
have from Kabul to Kandahar have done a magnificent job. It
will be done by the 31st of December. They have been attacked
here the last few days and they have really kept at this.
So while I completely agree with what Paul says, the people
who are out there on our side doing what we promised to do, I
think they deserve a lot of credit, sir.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Thank you for the amendment.
Chairman Warner. Senator Talent, thank you for being
patient. I think it is important that witnesses be given the
opportunity to fully respond to these important questions, and
that has run us over occasionally. But I appreciate your
patience.
Senator Talent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
hearing.
We have all been called on--I guess I was a little
surprised by this--to give our opinion of the strategic
imperative according to which we went to war. I will do it
briefly, speaking for myself. Two years ago this Thursday we
were attacked, and I do not think you win wars by staying on
the defensive. You take the fight to the enemy and the enemy's
friends. You use your power and the power of your allies
decisively to remove your enemies and to create more friends,
and you do that diplomatically as well, as we have tried to do
it in the Mideast peace process.
That is the context in which I see this engagement in Iraq.
I think it is not only fully justified, it is necessary. We are
going to win. We are winning. The only thing that concerns me
is that you do not win wars if quitting becomes an option every
time things get tough. Things are tough. I do not know if they
are tougher than everybody expected.
There are uncertainties in war. There is a spectrum of
potential responses and difficulties. Some things in this war
have been easier than I thought they were going to be and some
things have been probably on the far side of the bell curve of
difficulty. But you just keep going, and I have full confidence
in this country, and I know what is going to happen if we
persevere and I think the world is going to be a better place
when we are done.
Now, I have two comments. Actually, one is a comment that I
would like you all to comment on and then one is a question. As
I understand it, the tactical goal or the immediate goal in
Iraq was to remove Saddam because he was a threat to us and to
the peace, and then also create in Iraq, with the cooperation
of the Iraqi people, a stable ally in the war against
terrorism. Number one, is that a proper way or a thumbnail way
of summing up the goal?
The second part of this is I am going to give you my sense
of where we are and then you tell me the extent to which I may
be wrong. This again is a layperson's way of describing this.
But if that is the goal, in the north and the southern part of
the country we have made substantial progress towards achieving
that goal, stabilizing it, standing up local governments, the
whole thing. In the central part of the country what we need to
do is get the lights turned on and continue creating an
indigenous police force so that they can do the day to day
guard the banks kind of thing, so that our guys can go and beat
the tar out of the terrorists like they are doing in
Afghanistan. That is a difficult thing and we are persevering
in it, and that is in the central part of the country.
Is that overall an accurate description--I grant you, it is
not detailed--of what our goal is and how far we are in
progress towards achieving it?
Secretary Wolfowitz. I think it is an excellent, succinct
description: to remove Saddam, to create a stable ally. Of
course, the terrorists and the Saddamists want to keep us from
having a stable ally. Most of the Iraqi people I think are
ready to be a stable ally. I think it is correct what you
described as the main problems that we face are in the center
of the country.
But a slight qualifier: We want to get the lights on in the
whole country.
Senator Talent. Right.
Secretary Wolfowitz. We do not want to presume to take for
granted the success we have had in the north and the south,
because we cannot afford to lose there and we need to keep the
goodwill of the people. But the people who are really out there
killing Americans are located principally in what they call the
Baathist triangle, between Baghdad and Tikrit and Bakuba. We
are making real progress. We have a lot of Iraqis in that Sunni
area who are on our side. It is not a Sunni versus Shia issue.
It is the old regime and their terrorist allies against the
whole country.
Senator Talent. I would certainly not expect, if this is as
important a goal to us in winning the war as I think it is, the
enemy to just sit there and let us accomplish it. In fact, it
is in a sense an affirmation of how important it is that they
are pushing the chips on the table, if you will, and going in.
Secretary Wolfowitz. If you read the al Qaeda Web sites,
they very clearly get it. They view democracy as a real threat
and democracy in Iraq as a particularly big threat.
Senator Talent. I thought--this is a digression, but we
have all digressed today. Prime Minister Blair said that about
as well as it could be said in his speech to Congress, that for
them, and for us therefore, it has to be a battle on a larger
plane about what the world should look like, what this emerging
post-Cold War international order should look like.
The enemy does not want it to look like what it will be if
we and our allies are able to exercise influence over it. That
is just what it comes down to.
Now, to switch gears, and then this is my last question and
comment. For you, Mr. Secretary, and you, General Myers. This
is an issue I have shared with you all in other hearings and
shared privately with you. It does not deal with whether we
ought to put more troops in now in Iraq or in the future or
not. It is whether our overall end strength, particularly for
the Army, is adequate for this war and our other military
responsibilities.
We have 485,000 troops in the active Army, 350,000 National
Guard, a little over 200 in the Reserves. We now have about
133,000 in Iraq and several tens of thousands in theater, and
they are going to be there for a while, and we hope to be able
to get them down, but we still have to make this commitment.
Then we have the rest of the war to fight.
I would like the two of you to share with me how the
developments of the last 6 months or so have affected your view
on whether the end number for the Army is adequate or whether
it should be greater, if not necessarily structurally in more
divisions, but just maybe rounding out some of the forces we
now have, maybe more MPs, more civil affairs people.
Have you had time to stop and think about what the
configuration and the size of the Army ought to be in light of
what we are experiencing in theater now as well as our other
responsibilities?
Secretary Wolfowitz. I will do that, but if I could also
just pick up on something you said early on. We were attacked 2
years ago by people who have made it clear that they will go
anywhere in the world where they can to defeat us and fight us,
and that fight is now in Iraq, though the people we are
fighting are part of a worldwide problem. It is a worldwide
problem that is centered in the Middle East.
If people say this was not the right war, that we should
have left Saddam Hussein in power, we should have left his
killing machines running, we should have left his weapons of
mass destruction programs running, we should have left him free
to finance terrorism, then I think they need to say, what was
the other course? I am not clear what it is at all. To simply
have waited many more months, with our troops sweltering in
Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia buckling possibly under the
strain of supporting politically that kind of American
presence, I dread to think what that would have been like.
On the simpler questions, but very important ones: The size
of the Armed Forces, I think it is just way too early to make a
very expensive decision to increase the size of the Armed
Forces to deal with what we expect is not going to be a long-
term issue. Do I know that? I do not know that. In 6 months, a
year from now, depending on the situation in Iraq, we may have
to come to different conclusions. But we think, as I said, that
the problem there is finite and we are making progress against
it.
If that is the case, then you actually think about a
situation later where many of our requirements are reduced. We
have spent billions of dollars and enormous numbers of people
deployed to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries and Turkey over
the last 12 years to contain Saddam. We do not need to do that
any more. Those air forces have gone home. The bases--we just
took the last person out of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi
Arabia. That is not only a cost saving and a reduced personnel
saving, it is a huge reduced strain on the Saudis, who are much
freer now to go after terrorists.
So things change and I would say in that respect, if we are
going to build up our forces and bring in a new capability 3 to
5 years from now that by then we will not need at all, it would
be a mistake.
But on the specific strains you mentioned, I think it is
absolutely clear that we have to re-look at the mix and that we
cannot put all of certain elements in the Reserves, and
particularly in limited numbers, so that people keep getting
called back over and over again. We are looking at that set of
issues. We are looking at it with some real urgency. Those I
think there are near-term fixes for, I am hopeful.
Senator Talent. But you view this as a practical question
on which your mind is open.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Absolutely.
Senator Talent. I do not want the Department to think of
the issue of end strength as linked to the transformation
issue, so that if you increase end strength it is a confession
transformation has failed. You can be transforming with end
strength going up or down depending on what the missions are
and the rest of it. You are assuring me that that is----
Secretary Wolfowitz. Absolutely right, absolutely. You have
to look at things from the point of view of the strategic
context we are in and we are a Nation at war, as has been said
over and over again. But it is not a war like World War II.
Let me also say, because it is worth saying, that there is
no doctrinal view of how many troops we should have in Iraq. If
the commanders want more, I cannot say that they will get
whatever they ask for, but I am pretty sure they will get what
they ask for. I recall in fact when we were in Afghanistan and
I was one of those people who wondered whether General Franks
was asking for enough troops and we had, General Myers will
remember, a fairly heated discussion among the three of us, and
he convinced me that maybe he would need more later, but he
sure did not want to ask for them now because he did not want
to go down the road that the Soviets went down. He was right,
and General Abizaid is adamant for much the same reasons, that
he does not want to flood Iraq with American troops, and I
think he is right.
But we have an enormous sense of urgency about getting
Iraqis out on the front lines.
Senator Talent. I am done, Mr. Chairman. Maybe General
Myers wants to comment, or not.
General Myers. Just a couple of comments. Just to piggyback
on what Secretary Wolfowitz said, in terms of the mix, it is a
mix between Guard and active. It is also, as we have talked
about, total numbers. For our new security environment, do we
have enough civil affairs for what we foresee in the future,
enough MPs, or do we have the wrong kind of forces perhaps in
the Guard and Reserve, that we could change the kind of forces
we need.
That is something that is being evaluated right now, and
you may see some of those results possibly in the fiscal year
2005 budget, because we need to make those changes, I think, if
we are going to make some and agree to that, we need to make
them fairly quickly.
The second part is that we continually run war games, for
lack of a better term, to determine--and this is not just the
Joint Staff; we bring in the combatant commanders, the folks
from the Secretary's staff as well--to decide if we can fulfill
our military commitments around the world. We have consistently
found that, yes, we can. Where it means there is more risk, how
long is that risk, what kind of risk is it? We try to capture
that.
We are in the process of doing that right now. This heavy
commitment that we have in Iraq--Iraq is in our new defense
strategy, is a ``win decisively.'' We are involved in a win-
decisive campaign and we have to have enough forces left for us
to fully defeat the efforts of any resistance, and in other
lesser contingencies and so forth, and homeland defense and so
forth. We look at that regularly to make sure we can fulfill
our commitments.
Secretary Wolfowitz. By the way, the Services estimate we
could get some 10,000 uniformed people into military jobs if we
had, just in this coming fiscal year alone, the authority we
are asking for from Congress.
Chairman Warner. Thank you very much, Senator.
I recognize that our time has not been firm, but I want
very much to give each of these witnesses a full opportunity to
respond, Senator Talent. The responses to your question did run
over, but I think those responses are very important for the
record.
Senator Bill Nelson.
Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. I come to you as a
friend, as we have discussed many times, not only in front of
this committee but in front of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, these matters. I bring to you items for your
consideration from 17 million Floridians, of which as we were
home, with 25 town hall meetings, I have had an opportunity to
hear from, and I want you to hear from them.
I believe that our Florida National Guard is the most
professional in the country. They are well-equipped, they are
well-trained. They are now stretched to the breaking point.
Over half of our Florida National Guard have been activated. We
are now in the middle of something known as hurricane season.
You can recall the time, 1992, Hurricane Andrew. Not only did
it call out the Florida Guard, but we had to bring Guard from
all over the country into Florida.
Now, the flip side of this is that we should not be handing
a commander unacceptable or avoidable risk with a rotation plan
that leaves gaps in his required mission areas. So as you
devise this rotation policy and the plan, it should appear
fair. That is what I want to talk about, because Florida's
National Guard stepped up and we stepped up immediately. It was
back in December that so many of our units were activated, and
I directly participated in those. I would go to them and speak
to them as they were activated and sent off, mostly for their
initial staging at Fort Stewart.
The families of those that are now still fighting have
waited patiently, but that patience is beginning to break, and
of course I am hearing a good bit about it. The Guard
leadership is now being overwhelmed by the calls from the
families for the soldiers to come home.
The Army's rotation policy announcement yesterday
establishes a 12-month boots-on-the-ground rotation policy for
Iraq unless the combatant commander determines that the unit is
no longer needed. Now, it was, interestingly, and this is one
of the little quirks that I wanted to bring to your attention,
reported to me and has been confirmed this morning that the
Army has withdrawn its alert notification to the brigades in
the Arkansas National Guard. It was reported to me this morning
and I have not confirmed, the same thing, that it has withdrawn
its alert notification to the brigade in North Carolina. They
had been alerted on the 25th of July. Had they been quickly
mobilized, as were the Florida battalions last December, they
would probably be very nearly ready to relieve the units in
Iraq now.
Florida's 9 infantry companies have been attached,
detached, and re-attached no more than 40 times to different
units in the theater, some of which have already been
redeployed. Soldiers of Company C, the Second Battalion, 124th
Infantry, may be eligible to wear up to five different combat
patches, given what units they fought with over the months.
Although the 12 months in theater may be the right policy for
you all to determine for units on their way to Iraq, I believe
that it is a stretch for the units that are there now and that
have already been through major combat.
I do not have to tell you--but I am going to because I am
reflecting my folks--livelihoods and civilian careers are
inherently at risk for deployed Guard and Reserve. Despite the
protections that we have put into the law for them, the
conditions are never exactly the same when they get home after
extended deployments. The longer they are gone, the higher the
risk for them back home.
But at the same time, I know that the Florida National
Guard is as patriotic, as equipped, as trained, and as ready to
serve as anyone, and they stepped up instantly, with only a 5-
day notice on deployment activation. Normally the policy is 30
days. I am reflecting some of their frustration.
So, Mr. Secretary, can you paint for us a picture of the
decision process to review and approve the recommendations of
the Services relative to rotation policies and plans, and how
you also will ensure the near- and longer-term rotation plans
will meet the military requirements, not only in Iraq and
Afghanistan?
General, then if you would comment on the challenges of an
Iraq-Afghanistan rotation policy, begging a broader question of
the adequacy of the Armed Forces as currently sized and
structured.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Senator, you have asked a lot of
questions, which need some work. I have been digging--I ran
into a Tennessee Air National Guard unit that had a history not
unlike what you describe about the Florida Army National Guard.
Senator Bill Nelson. I flew into Baghdad with Texas and
Tennessee Guard units on the C-130s, and of course they were
considerably concerned about when they were going to get home,
too. They were concerned, by the way, that sometimes they were
flying those C-130s absolutely empty.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Well, and they are concerned I think
about--they are incredibly willing to serve. I did not
encounter an attitude of complaining at all, remarkably. But
there is a question of fairness which I think is underlying
your question. There is a burden, but is it distributed fairly,
is it shared equally. I will try to get back to you with
answers on the decisionmaking process. I will also try to get
back to you with answers on whether--the specific question you
raised, the 12-month policy should apply across the board or
whether for those already there it should be different.
[The information referred to follows:]
In order to support United States Central Command (CENTCOM)
requirements, the Army recommended that units deployed to Iraq remain
in theater for up to 12 months before returning to their home base.
This includes the majority of Operation Iraqi Freedom Rotation #1 (OIF
1) units that deployed in 2003 and fought in major combat operations
and also applies to units currently deploying to Iraq for OIF 2. If a
unit's capability is no longer required, CENTCOM may release them to
redeploy before they reach 12 months in theater.
Secretary Wolfowitz. To get to the larger question, and I
will ask General Myers to help me on this, I think what you
describe may be extreme in the case of the Florida National
Guard, but it is unfortunately reflective of the stresses
throughout the Reserve and National Guard system. That is why
we are on an urgent basis addressing this question of active-
Reserve mix. It is also why--I guess I will say it for the
third or fourth time now, and I am sorry to do it, but--we
really believe that a lot of these things that guardsmen are
doing could be done today by active duty personnel who are tied
up doing administrative and information technology and other
kinds of tasks that are just very obviously good candidates for
civilians.
As we look at how to reduce the dependence on the Guard and
Reserve for some of these functions and moving them into the
Active Force, the only way we are going to be able to do it is
if we can shift some of that, those functions, from the Active
Force into the civilian workforce. It can be done. The numbers
start at 10,000 up to 50,000 as possibly in the first fiscal
year, and at some point you could get into, I think, six
figures. So again, I appeal for help on that.
General Myers, do you want to add anything?
General Myers. The only thing I would add, Senator Nelson,
is that I personally host a Guard and Reserve conference every
year just so we can talk about issues like that. I am not sure
if those issues emerged from this conference just concluded in
the last month or so. But they are important points, because
predictability in the lives of all our Armed Forces is very
important. If it is more important to any component, it is
probably in the Reserve component because they have in many
cases employers that they have to make arrangements with as
well.
So we understand that. The Secretary understands that.
Secretary Rumsfeld understands that. We need to look into this
issue of fairness, and we will look at all the units and we
will see how they are being done. We have taken a look--and why
we established the rotation policy we did was to find some, if
you will, goals for rotation that will enable us to not just do
Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the other things that we are
committed to do around the world.
Part of that and part of the rotation policy is based on
the fact that in Iraq we want to bring on as quickly as
possible Iraqis taking care of their own security, and we have
talked a little bit about that. So that is a piece of it, of
course.
We would like to make this as multinational around the
world as we can. In Afghanistan we have already talked about
the numbers there, but there is huge international
participation in Afghanistan, which is extremely important to
us; Iraq as well, other places around the world where we need
support.
Part of it is wrapped up in the global force presence
policy and where we have forces stationed in the world today.
Perhaps you could free some of those up to do other things. We
have talked about that in terms of Korea. So those are the kind
of deliberations--and it is not just Korea, but other places as
well.
So those are the kind of deliberations that we are in the
middle of to try to do I think exactly what you want to do, is
make sure that we are postured for the long term, for the long
run, because, going back, Senator Dayton, this overall war on
terrorism is going to require patience and probably a
substantial commitment for some time to come.
Chairman Warner. Thank you very much, Senator.
Senator Cornyn.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you to
the witnesses for hanging in there with us during this very
important hearing.
I remember 42 years ago when I was very young, President
Kennedy said something that I heard President Bush echo last
Sunday night. President Kennedy said: ``Let every nation know,
whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price,
bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose
any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.''
I was pleased to hear Senator Dayton mention the broad
bipartisan support that your efforts enjoy in this body as our
troops bear the burden that they volunteered for and which they
are currently bearing now in Iraq so that liberty may succeed
for the Iraqi people and also for the American people.
But of course, the decision in Congress to go to war in
Iraq was not universally shared, that commitment, and there are
those who in my view seek some vindication of their lack of
agreement for the Nation's policy for regime change in the
subsequent hardships that our military forces have endured, and
that is unfortunate.
I apologize for not having been here at the very beginning
of this hearing, but I was chairing another hearing, which I
think is indicative of where we are in the post-September 11
environment, and that was a hearing on the continuity of
Congress in the event of a catastrophic event, perhaps a
terrorist attack on this very Capitol, which indeed was
narrowly averted on September 11 due in large part to the
heroic efforts of civilians on a plane that were able to divert
it to a Pennsylvania field. The very fact we are having a
hearing about the continuity of government is a solemn
additional reminder of the serious threats that we face.
I just want to come out and say that I commend President
Bush and the administration for the resolute leadership that
has been demonstrated in the war on terror, both in Iraq and
around the globe. I believe that everyone who is engaged in
fighting this war, from the most junior recruit to the
Commander in Chief, is doing a remarkable job under
extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
Of course, the American people understand that we are
engaged already in a presidential election and that there are
those who criticize the President's handling of the war in Iraq
in order to gain political advantage. The American people, as I
say, understand that. But again speaking only for myself, I
find something unsavory about the comments of those who seek
political advantage in questioning our commitment to our troops
and our commitment to winning the war on terror.
I believe that there is a lot to be very proud of in terms
of what we have been able to accomplish in making sure that the
Iraqi people will enjoy the blessings of liberty that we enjoy
in this country. For me the fundamental question is: Are Iraqis
better off today than they were during Saddam's regime? The
answer is unequivocally yes. Is America a safer place today
than it was before Saddam was toppled? I think the answer to
that is likewise unequivocally yes.
I had the privilege of traveling to Iraq with the chairman
and the ranking member and other members of this committee at
the end of June and the beginning of July. I was shocked, as
they were, to see samples of mass graves of some 300,000
individuals who Saddam had simply killed during his reign of
terror. I have been shocked as well to learn of some 1.5
million people that were simply missing and we do not really
know where they are, whether they are dead or alive, in Iraq,
out of Iraq, or elsewhere.
Of course, we know today that there are those who enjoy
religious freedom that did not enjoy religious freedom under
Saddam's regime. Women now have basic rights. The Iraqi people
have hope for the future that they did not have just a few
short months ago.
But I would like to ask, Secretary Wolfowitz, for you to
comment on this issue. I know it has been because of the
sabotage that we have seen on the electrical grid, the
transmission lines in Iraq, it has been very difficult for us
to get the message of all of our accomplishments out to the
Iraqi people. Indeed, that was one of the things that I came
away with on our trip, that the American people are seeing the
drip, drip, drip of criticism of the armchair generals and the
pundits who want to criticize everything that happens that does
not happen in a perfect or desirable way.
I really worry that we are not doing everything we might do
to get the positive message out to the Iraqi people. I wonder
if you would just speak to that issue and the challenges you
have and perhaps some of the successes that you have seen.
Secretary Wolfowitz. I would like to do that, but if I
could also comment on what you said earlier, because I agree
with you very strongly. We have an awful lot to be proud of in
terms of what we have done for the Iraqi people, in terms of
what we have done to make the whole Middle East safer, although
it is a long way from safe, and what we have done to make our
own children and grandchildren safer, although they are still a
long way from safe.
I think it is very important, as I said earlier, that we be
open to criticism, that we learn the lessons we need to learn,
but not to send out a message to our enemies that we are weak
or that we are lacking in resolve or that we do not recognize
what we have accomplished and how strong we are, because,
believe me, they do know we are strong. We need to show that we
believe it.
It was said earlier, I think by Senator Reed, that the
costs of this conflict were underestimated. I do not know which
estimates he is referring to, but it seems to me that in fact,
if you look at the various things that we feared could happen
and quite legitimately feared--in fact, I have a list here that
Secretary Rumsfeld drew up--it was secret at the time; I do not
know if it is still secret--of 29 different terrible things
that could happen with the war in Iraq. He started this list,
he kept adding to it and adding to it and asking us to think
about what kind of things needed to be done to prevent it.
But there is a note at the bottom that says: ``It is
possible, of course, to prepare a similar illustrative list of
all the potential problems that need to be considered if there
is no regime change in Iraq.''
I think it was the right decision. I do think it is
important to note that there are people who opposed the war but
who now understand the importance of winning it, and I
appreciate that support very much. I think that has to be said.
But let me say that none of us who believed it was the
right thing to do thought it would be easy. Anyone who knows
anything about war should not ever think that war would be
easy. But we did not start this war. We were attacked on
September 11. We are defending ourselves, not simply by sitting
behind walls and barriers, but by going after the enemy where
they are.
I will say it over again. Senator McCain has said it, the
President has said it, General Abizaid has said it. Today the
central battle in the war on terrorism is the struggle to build
a secure and free Iraq, and the terrorists know it. I think
most of our people know it. Certainly our men and women who are
out there fighting know it. We have to win it.
Part of winning it now, to get to your specific question,
is indeed the information campaign. General Abizaid has five
I's: better intelligence, more Iraqis, more
internationalization, better infrastructure, and better
information, meaning in the sense of media and getting the
message out.
We are at a number of disadvantages. One is there is a lot
of very sophisticated poison out there, from the local media in
that part of the world. It is pretty hard to fight that. We
have to fight it. We had some severe physical infrastructure
problems, which I think are largely corrected. We now cover
most of the country.
The big challenge now is getting the right programming, and
it is a bigger challenge there because we are dealing with
people, if you do surveys--I do not know the percentages
exactly--but most Iraqis rely on rumor for their information
because in their history rumor has been much more reliable than
anything you heard on state television. We have to get
programming in Arabic. We may be good at media here, but we are
not naturally skilled in Arabic media.
But Ambassador Bremer has brought a new man out there, Gary
Thatcher, to do for the media what Bernie Kerik has done for
the police, if I could put it that way, somebody I think of
real star quality, who has a very ambitious strategy put
together. Just as we are looking at how we can accelerate
fixing the electricity by putting money against a good program,
I think we have a good program now on the media side that
deserves money against it, and that is indeed part of what we
are asking for out of the supplemental. The importance of it
cannot be exaggerated.
But let me make one last comment on this subject, because I
saw it in connection with the Najaf bombing. We are at a
fundamental disadvantage. It is what they call asymmetric
warfare, because we do not believe in putting out untruth. Our
enemies will put out untruths the minute something happens. We
have people alleging that Americans bombed a mosque in Falujah.
We know it was wrong. It took us 3 days just to find out the
facts, though. Until we had the facts, the best media network
in the world could not counter the lies.
One of the things we are talking about is just within our
system, among the intelligence people and the military people
who know facts, is to appreciate the importance of getting that
information, not just to a tactical level, but to a level where
it can be used in an effective media campaign also.
Senator Cornyn. Thank you. Let me just say in wrapping up
that I was very pleased to see that the Arab League recognized
the delegate, the foreign minister from the Iraqi Governing
Council, as the legitimate representative of the Iraqi
government, and see that as an important milestone.
Secretary Wolfowitz. It is a huge breakthrough and it is
the result of real teamwork between Ambassador Bremer and our
State Department colleagues.
Senator Cornyn. It was very good news.
In conclusion let me just say, Mr. Chairman, that I think
we all know that there are obstacles to overcome and there will
be setbacks along the way, but I hope that the politics of the
moment do not drive criticism that will only serve to undermine
the war on terror and tend to undermine American resolve.
I wonder what people must be thinking at this point.
Certainly not that we should cut and run or that we should
leave the Iraqi people with only half of our promise fulfilled,
the promise that we made to them that they would enjoy the
blessings of liberty. Certainly I know that we will all agree
that we owe our men and women in uniform our unequivocal
support.
Our troops, I am convinced, have the will to win. I hope
our politicians have that will to win as well.
Thank you very much.
Secretary Wolfowitz. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Warner. Senator, thank you. That is an excellent
statement on which to end this very important session of the
Armed Services Committee.
I am pleased to note, together with my ranking member, that
22 Senators participated in this hearing today. We had
extensive colloquies between the Senators and our distinguished
panel of witnesses. I wish to commend each of you. You
presented a strong message and you responded, I think, very
thoroughly to the questions of the Senate.
General, I particularly want to thank you. I had an
opportunity to visit at length with you yesterday and we talked
about your experience, which goes back to Vietnam, which was
another troubled era in the history of our country. But I think
today was an example of how responsible the executive branch is
informing the legislative branch and hopefully, and I think I
am optimistic, the legislative branch is going to respond to
the request of our President with regard to the support that we
need to fulfill the missions and to do everything we can to
protect the men and the women of the Armed Forces as they
undergo the continuing burdens, together with their families,
of these conflicts. That includes Liberia, where again there
are 2,300 marines under the command of an Army two-star
general, so a wonderful example of jointness, General Myers.
General Myers. Yes, sir.
Chairman Warner. These are very significant moments in the
history of this country and I think our government
collectively, the two branches, are working in a responsible
way to bring about fulfillment. As was said several times by
many, what we do in these two conflicts will establish the
direction of the world in terms of its ability to deal with
terrorism, not just for years but for generations to come.
So I thank you.
Senator Dayton. Mr. Chairman, if I may just thank you for
your excellent conduct of this hearing, and say I would prefer
your wisdom and discretion over any stopwatch any day of the
week. Thank you.
Chairman Warner. I think in some instances I recognized my
good friends on the right. Do not worry about that. But time
and time again, at the conclusion of a Senator's period there
were important responses in which our witnesses brought
information which was essential to complete the colloquy.
Particularly, General Myers, if I ran over, by golly, it was
your fault. But I will take the heat.
General Myers. You bet, it is my fault.
Chairman Warner. I will take the heat.
General Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator Dayton, and thank you,
Senator Levin.
Senator Levin. Just one quick comment. Let me thank our
witnesses. I think what you heard, I surely feel, is that there
are differences as to how best we can succeed in defeating
terrorism around the world and here at home. There are healthy
differences as to how best to succeed. There are no differences
as to whether we must succeed. That goal is shared by all that
I know of in the Senate and I think by all Americans.
The constructive criticism, which has been forthcoming, I
hope is viewed as exactly that, as a healthy earmark in a
democracy of what we are all about. I hope that everyone who
watches this around the world will say, halleluja, these folks
here are trying to succeed in the war on terrorism, but they
are more than willing to speak out as to how best to achieve
that. That is what this body has always been about, I hope
always will be about, and I think that you have expressed your
understanding of that, all of you, this morning, that that is
how you have taken comments from this panel this morning.
Finally, on the information side let me just quickly say,
and I think the rest of us who took that one trip together
remember very vividly that getting information to the people of
Iraq about what is going on on the positive side is absolutely
critical. We made that point on the ground in Iraq 2 months
ago.
We made that point when we got back here. We actually have
asked for those tapes to see what is going forward to the
people of Iraq on the television channel that we control. We
cannot control Al-Jazeera. We can control our own television
channel. We have urged the administration to put Iraqi people
speaking in Arabic who have positive things to say about our
trying to get water systems back, our trying to get the
electricity system back, our getting schools back and going
again, and how it is the enemies, their enemies, who are
attacking those progressive efforts on our part.
We have urged the administration to get those messages out,
not from our people speaking, not talking heads of Americans on
our channel, but Iraqis talking to Iraqis about what we are
trying to do, what our soldiers and our marines and everyone
else are trying to do in Iraq.
Secretary Wolfowitz. I think it can also stimulate us to
get our people to perform better, too. So I am glad to work
with you on that.
Senator Levin. Thank you.
Chairman Warner. You mentioned the other day when General
Abizaid was here--and it is a follow-on because Senator Cornyn
on that trip to Iraq brought up this subject, as you did today.
You indicated in our discussions here a week ago that you
needed to do more in that area, and you have agreed today to do
just that.
Senator Talent. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Warner. Yes?
Senator Talent. I did not want the hearing to close leaving
uncontested on the record Senator Nelson's comment that the
Florida National Guard was the best in the country. I saw a few
eyebrows raised around the table and, as good as the Florida
National Guard is, I do not want to leave the record showing
that I agree with that comment. [Laughter.]
Senator Levin. As a matter of fact, I am glad Senator
Talent mentioned that, because in that one regard I think there
is total disagreement on this panel. [Laughter.]
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Senator.
Thank you very much. We are adjourned.
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator James M. Inhofe
OPERATIONS TEMPO
1. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Wolfowitz, I understood during the
hearing that the Department of Defense does not want any additional
troops in Iraq. I understand the desire to limit the size of the
footprint currently in country. However, I don't think my concern was
fully understood. I am concerned about the current strain on the Guard
and Reserve component. What can be done to reduce the strain on the
Guard and Reserve?
Secretary Wolfowitz. On September 26, 2003, we had about 166,039
Reserve component personnel mobilized in support of Operations Noble
Eagle/Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom. This number represents about 14
percent of the RC force down from a maximum of 218,000 or 18 percent at
the peak of operations on April 29, 2003. The Department is reducing
the number of Guard and Reserve in theater as operational requirements
allow and reducing the pressure on the Guard and Reserves in several
ways. Efforts are currently underway to find the right balance to meet
the challenges of our country while preserving this valuable resource--
our people. To alleviate the strain on the Reserves, Active/Reserve
Force mix issues are being addressed in the fiscal year 2004 budget and
more will be done in the fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 budgets.
Some examples include:
1. Moving active and Reserve capabilities within and between
warplans to reduce involuntary mobilization during the early
days of a rapid response operation.
2. Implementing various innovative management techniques to
enhance volunteerism.
3. Expanding the use of reachback to reduce the footprint in
theater through virtual connectivity to CONUS locations.
4. Streamlining the mobilization process to provide adequate
notification and reduced mobilization timelines.
5. Using alternative manpower resources, such as contractors,
civilians, or coalition forces, or mitigating shortfalls
through technology when appropriate.
Additionally, the Department has in place a survey program that
continuously reviews family and employer issues and concerns to
determine whether adjustments to policies are needed.
2. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Wolfowitz, do you think the current
size of the Army should be increased from 10 to 12 divisions, not only
to relieve the strain on the Guard and Reserve, but also on the
rotation of troops from Iraq and to address other worldwide
commitments?
Secretary Wolfowitz. First, let me emphasize that increasing end
strength is not a near-term solution for relieving strain on our Guard
and Reserve units. It takes several months to recruit, train, and
adequately equip newly formed units. The Army leadership is thoroughly
examining ways to relieve current stress on our units and better align
its active and Reserve capabilities to support current operations in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global war on terrorism.
We are not sure if the current pace of military operations will
continue for the near future. Adding more end strength is a costly
endeavor for our taxpayers, especially if the use of our military
declines in the coming months. It is imperative that we continue
pursuing ongoing initiatives. At the completion of these efforts, if it
is determined that additional end strength or divisions are needed, it
will be DOD's responsibility to recommend such adjustments to the
President.
3. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Wolfowitz, what can be done
immediately, within the next 6 months, to relieve the strain on the
active, Guard, and Reserve?
Secretary Wolfowitz.
The Department has taken several measures to reduce
the stress on troops deployed in support of Operations Enduring
Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. To that end, rotation policies,
rest/recuperation programs, redistribution of specialties, and
extended childcare operations are among tools the Department
intends to use to alleviate the impact of deployments.
The Operation Iraqi Freedom rotation policy will
provide greater certainty and stability for our deploying
service members.
The Department has recently announced a rest and
recuperation (R&R) program that would provide 15 days leave for
those expected to serve at least 1 year in contingency
locations in direct support of Operations Enduring Freedom and
Iraqi Freedom. At steady state, as many as 800 service members
at a time will depart to Frankfurt or one of four locations
within the U.S. from which they can further travel to a
destination of their choice. In a March 2003 Defense Manpower
Data Center survey, respondents indicated that some of the best
stress reducers included time with family and friends.
Our low density/high demand (LD/HD) troops have been
under a very challenging deployment schedule. They provide
intelligence, command and control, special operations, search
and rescue, and air defense support to our combatant
commanders. The Services have developed a stress list to
identify the LD/HD specialties and realign 3,704 authorizations
from the 42 least stressed to the 15 most stressed career
fields. Even more important, the Department is conducting an
overall review of military billets to determine which could be
affected by non-military sources. This would allow even more
people to flow to the LD/HD career fields. Our goal is to
eliminate today's LD/HD issues.
On the home front, the Department has expanded
childcare operations and subsidies to meet the increased needs
of troops maintaining stateside bases. We are also standing up
family assistance centers to provide 2,417 telecommunications
access to deployed family members.
Other steps to relieve the strain on the Active,
Guard, and Reserve Forces include: use of coalition forces,
host-nation support, use of trained Iraqi Nationals, civilian
contracted labor, and items that provide technical solutions
for security both at CONUS and OCONUS locations.
4. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Wolfowitz, how many troops could we
dedicate to Korea if required with the current number of troops in
Iraq?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Commander, U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) and
Commander, U.S. Forces Korea are confident they have the forces in
theater and readily available to deter or, if necessary, defeat any
foreseeable North Korean belligerence. However, operations in the U.S.
Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR) have put a
higher premium on certain low-density, high-demand assets, and made the
task of decisively defeating North Korean aggression somewhat more
difficult. Military planners, currently scheduling force rotations for
Iraq and Afghanistan, are working hard to ensure the United States has
sufficient forces available to address any PACOM contingencies. Due to
existing operational requirements, any major contingency in the PACOM
AOR could require some forces to be deployed with less than ideal
recovery time following CENTCOM's AOR duty.
5. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Wolfowitz, how many deployable troops
would be available if the operations in Kosovo, Bosnia, the Sinai
Peninsula, and Okinawa were reduced?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The United States currently has slightly over
2,000 military personnel deployed in support of the NATO mission in
Kosovo and approximately 1,600 deployed to Bosnia in support of the
NATO mission, 800 in the Sinai, and 11,000 in Okinawa.
Since last October the Department of Defense has reduced the force
presence in Kosovo by over 2,000 soldiers and in Bosnia by nearly 500
soldiers. The forces in Okinawa are forward-based to be able to rapidly
respond to crises in that part of the world. DOD worldwide force
presence is constantly evaluated to balance U.S. global commitments and
the risk to U.S. interests against the need to support current
operations. The Department of Defense is considering all options
regarding its worldwide force structure as part of the current force
rotation deliberations.
6. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Wolfowitz, how many deployable troops
would be available by converting military to civilian positions?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The number depends on the results of reviews
now ongoing. The Department plans to convert military in functions such
as law enforcement, personnel support, installation management,
administrative support for recruiters, and training development. The
converted military will be used to, among other things, provide light
infantry and additional high demand capabilities such as military
police. The Department is reviewing the potential use of supplemental
funds for this purpose. The number of military conversions possible and
options for how to best utilize these resources is under review.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Edward M. Kennedy
TROOP SUPPORT
7. Senator Kennedy. Secretary Wolfowitz, what is the administration
including within the supplemental request for our deployed troops that
will assist them to overcome some of the financial difficulties
associated with protracted deployments?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The supplemental requests funding for enhanced
special pays, including Imminent Danger Pay (IDP), Family Separation
Allowance (FSA), and Hardship Duty Pay (HDP) for Operation Iraqi
Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) deployed personnel
in theater or in direct operational support. The fiscal year 2003
Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act (P.L. 108-11)
increased IDP temporarily by $75 per person per month (from $150 to
$225 per month) and FSA by $150 per month (from $100 to $250 per
month), effective from October 1, 2002 through September 30, 2003. The
Department intends to continue paying IDP and FSA at these increased
rates through December 31, 2003.
Beginning on January 1, 2004, the Department's plan is to begin
paying an additional $225 per month in HDP to military personnel
serving in OIF/OEF in a combat zone. This would maintain the same level
of special pay as IDP and FSA, via increased rates HDP. Further, it
would increase the special pay amount for members without dependents,
who are serving in those same combat zone locations, by $150 (these
latter members received a $75 increase in special pay only via IDP) as
a result of Public Law 108-11, whereby married members serving
alongside them had received a total increase of $225 (an additional $75
in IDP and an additional $150 in FSA).
Moreover, by funding incremental costs associated with the global
war on terrorism, the supplemental will obviate the need to divert
funds from the regular annual Department of Defense budget. This will
help us sustain good quality of life and support for deployed troops
and their families.
The Department needs greater flexibility in executing appropriated
funds so that it can address its most pressing requirements, some of
which would be ways to relieve the strain on deployed forces. To that
end, the Department urges congressional approval of the supplemental's
request for authority to transfer up to $5 billion between
appropriations.
8. Senator Kennedy. Secretary Wolfowitz, are there any funds set
aside for supporting families of deployed members, such as fully
funding the Marine Corps' highly successful One Source program and
expanding it across DOD, and if so, how much is included? If there are
additional funds for expanding the One Source program, how far will
this go toward making the program available to all military families?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Yes, we have $20 million to support family
members of deployed service members in the fiscal year 2004
supplemental request.
We have funding in the fiscal year 2004 President's budget request
to expand military One Source across all Services.
9. Senator Kennedy. Secretary Wolfowitz, are any funds identified
to support expanded demands on the Defense Health Program that result
from the growth in eligible beneficiary population precipitated by
Reserve personnel being activated?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Yes. The funds identified for the Services
listed in the DHP section of the supplemental request represent funds
to support the health care requirements of activated Guard and Reserve
personnel and their family members. The projected requirements are the
product of the projected number of full time equivalent National Guard
and Reserve personnel activated for the global war on terrorism during
fiscal year 2004 multiplied by the per capita rate for health care
costs, which is $2,689 in fiscal year 2004. These funds will support
the cost of health care provided to activated National Guard and
Reserve personnel and their family whether the care is provided by
military treatment facilities or purchased from the private sector. The
Service-specific distribution is provided below.
Army............................................... $400,100,000
Navy............................................... 5,700,000
Marine Corps....................................... 18,000,000
Air Force.......................................... 101,400,000
------------------
Total............................................ $525,200,000
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Daniel K. Akaka
OVERSEAS BASING STRATEGY
10. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, when will this committee
receive the results of the overseas basing strategy that is being
developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in conjunction with the Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy to support current and future U.S.
defense requirements?
Secretary Wolfowitz. As the President recently noted in a
statement, we are intensifying our consultations with Congress and with
our friends, allies, and partners on our overseas defense posture
review. We have shared detailed outlines of proposed changes with this
committee staff and others, and we will continue that process. No
decisions have been made.
11. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, have there been any interim
decisions made or steps taken toward any change in our overseas forces
either by the commands or the military departments while the overall
basing strategy is being developed?
Secretary Wolfowitz. There have been no decisions to change our
overseas posture. We will consult with Congress and our allies and
friends to ensure that our decisions support our transformational and
operational needs with comprehensive and affordable actions.
12. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, when will we see basing
decisions reflected in the budget? In further fiscal year 2004
revisions, or in the fiscal year 2005 request?
Secretary Wolfowitz. We anticipate decisions on overseas defense
posture to be made during 2004, with initial budgetary implications
included in the fiscal year 2006 budget proposal. We will, of course,
stay in close consultations with you throughout this process.
13. Senator Akaka. Secretary Grossman, the Department of Defense is
in the process of developing a comprehensive overseas basing strategy
to support current and future U.S. defense needs. To what degree have
you been consulted by either the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
the individual military departments, or the combatant commands in their
process of developing this strategy?
Secretary Grossman. We are in the early stages of a senior
interagency review, in which we are working closely with the Department
of Defense in particular to develop the best possible strategy for U.S.
force posture overseas.
14. Senator Akaka. Secretary Grossman, how would the State
Department typically be consulted or involved in this decision process?
Secretary Grossman. The State Department's role in the process will
be to provide our expertise and to assess options and their foreign
policy implications of changes to our posture. We will also be deeply
involved in consulting with allies, partners, friends, and other key
countries on our plans as part of the process. Together with the
Department of Defense, we will also consult with Congress. Finally, we
will play a key role in obtaining, negotiating, and implementing any
new or modified agreements central to the transformation.
INTERNATIONAL PEACEKEEPING TROOPS
15. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, the Liberian operation is
an example of an international peacekeeping operation that relies
mainly on troops from developing countries to ensure stability. We are
relying on many of these developing country troops for the current
operation in Iraq and may end up relying on many more. These troops
often lack the resources, training, and motivation of our own troops.
They are underpaid and ill-equipped. Corruption and poor command and
control often affect their capability. Have any of these problems
affected the current troop deployment by West African states in
Liberia?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The limitations of developing countries to
contribute to international peacekeeping operations (PKO) in general
are well known, but our past and present programs of support seek to
address these limitations. The U.S. pre-positioned equipment in
Freetown, Sierra Leone, and U.N. pre-positioned equipment in Brindisi,
Italy, address many of the vehicle, communications, and basic equipment
shortfalls existing in developing countries for effective participation
in PKO. In Liberia, U.S. PKO and Foreign Military Financing funding
were used to procure additional necessary equipment for deploying West
African militaries. Past training efforts, such as the U.S. Africa
Crisis Response Initiative, Operation Focus Relief, and International
Military Education and Training programs have helped to leaven West
African forces with better-trained personnel. Regarding leadership and
motivation, these forces are motivated, generally experienced in
peacekeeping, and have good leaders. West Africans do not lack in
motivation or peacekeeping experience, only resources. Their readiness
for international PKO was confirmed by the U.N. assessment that all
Economic Community of West African States Mission in Liberia (ECOMIL)
troop contributors would be accepted for the U.N. Mission in Liberia.
A review of ECOMIL results suggests this operation was highly
successful, albeit with significant U.S. logistics assistance and staff
mentoring. With continued security assistance and training focused on
enhancing peacekeeping capacity, the militaries of developing countries
do make an important contribution to international PKO.
CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ
16. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, General Mahan recently
claimed that Army forces were unable to get necessary support in some
areas in Iraq because contractors refused to go into some of the most
dangerous areas. This is of great concern, particularly if DOD intends,
as is reported, to increase its reliance on non-governmental
contractors. How is DOD valuing the operational risks involved with
increasing contractors on the battlefield in its analyses of whether
additional military positions should be outsourced?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The DOD (and Army specifically) has several
policy documents that describe how to design long-term contractual
support vehicles that consider operational risks of outsourcing, plan
for specific contingencies, and execute contingencies in which
contractors play an active role. They do a good job of addressing the
risks associated with using contractors on the battlefield. Theater
planning by combatant commanders also addresses risk and many of the
issues that arise when using civilian contractors to better prepare the
Joint Task Force commander and mitigate the risks in advance. Although
risk assessment approaches vary among DOD components, all approaches
call for effective risk assessment on the use of contractors on the
battlefield and none do anything that jeopardize our warfighting
capability.
In light of the increasing use of contractors on the battlefield,
the DOD has been working with the RAND Arroyo Center to further examine
our decisionmaking and risk assessment processes affecting use of
contractors and to recommend improvements. Interim findings from the
RAND effort indicate that recent Army doctrine has effectively captured
the conceptual risks relevant to using contractors and choosing between
contract and organic sources and that Army doctrine on risk assessment
provides a reliable framework for improving Army sourcing decisions.
RAND further adds that the challenge now is to transform this doctrine
into practice by training our personnel in the subtleties of risk
analysis relevant to sourcing decisions.
The challenge for commanders at the operational level is how to
make the most effective use of contractors and to balance the increased
capabilities brought by contractors with the added challenges.
Commanders evaluate each function, define the acceptable level of risk,
and balance the mix of military and contractor support accordingly.
When using civilian contractors, commanders don't necessarily face more
risks, but they do face different risks. These benefits and risks must
be placed in perspective, properly assessed, and dealt with. For
example, use of contractors may actually reduce operational risk
because the contractors represent capabilities, or increments thereof,
that otherwise may not be available to commanders. However, in
accepting that contractor's increased capability, the commander must
assess the increased force protection associated with the contractor's
presence.
HEZBOLLAH
17. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, in testimony before this
committee earlier this year, the Director of Central Intelligence,
George Tenet, said that the Hezbollah is a ``more capable
organization'' than al Qaeda ``with a potential for lethality that's
quite great.'' General Sanchez was quoted over the weekend as stating
that Hezbollah fighters are now coming into Iraq to attack Americans.
If true, this would be, I believe, the first time that this State-
sponsored terrorist organization has threatened the United States
directly. Are these reports true and could you comment on the danger
this organization poses, not only to our troops in Iraq but also to the
American homeland?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Director Tenet's sentiments were echoed last
year by Deputy Secretary of State Armitage, who described Hezbollah as
the terrorist ``A Team.'' We agree with both the DCI and the Assistant
Secretary. Hezbollah--an organization supported and nutured by Iran--
remains the most capable terrorist organization in the world. It is
well funded, highly motivated, and professional. Although its stated
raison d'etre is Lebanon and the ``liberation'' of Israel-occupied
lands, Hizbollah is a terrorist organization of global reach--a reach
that includes the United States. In 2000, for example, law enforcement
authorities interdicted a Hezbollah fundraising operation based out of
North Carolina. Anti-U.S. operations sponsored or assisted by
Hezbollah, should they happen in Iraq, would not be unprecedented.
Hizbollah was responsible for and/or implicated in: the destruction of
the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983 which killed 17 Americans; the
killing of Navy Diver Robert Stethem aboard TWA Flight #847 in 1985;
the destruction of the U.S. Marine barracks in 1984, in which 241
Americans were killed; and the blast at Khobar Towers then in 1996
which killed 19 Americans. General Sanchez' comments on Hezbollah
presence in Iraq also are true. Hezbollah constitutes a clear and
present danger to U.S. and Coalition Forces in Iraq, and elsewhere.
INTELLIGENCE
18. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, so far we have not
discovered the weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent
threat to the United States. Indeed, it appears now that our
intelligence was less than definitive about the existence of these
weapons and that this assessment was perhaps not clearly understood.
The Washington Times in a September 3 article states that ``Senior U.S.
officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage, conceded in recent weeks that the
Bush administration failed to predict the guerrilla war against
American troops in Iraq.'' The question I would like to ask you, and
you may have to answer this question in a classified response, did our
intelligence fail to predict a guerrilla war or the post-war problems
that have surfaced in Iraq?
Secretary Wolfowitz. The administration did not claim that Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction posed an ``imminent threat to the United
States.'' The President called it a ``grave and growing danger.''
Nothing in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) interim report detracts from
that statement. Rather the ISG report confirms that Saddam was
deceiving the U.N., violating 12 years worth of U.N. Security Council
Resolutions, hiding a network of biological weapons laboratories, and
developing prohibited longer-range missiles.
Intelligence is hardly ever ``definitive.'' As chief U.S. arms
inspector David Kay has said, ``[W]hatever we find will probably differ
from pre-war intelligence. Empirical reality on the ground is, and has
always been, different from intelligence judgments that must be made
under serious constraints of time, distance, and information.''
Governments make decisions based upon the best information
available at the time. The ISG interim report has not undermined the
credibility of the intelligence on which we, the Coalition, and the
United Nations based our judgments. The ISG report is not final and we
look forward to the conclusion of the teams work.
With respect to anticipating post-war developments in Iraq much of
our planning effort was directed at dealing with potential disasters
that were averted or did not occur. There was no refugee crisis, no
mass starvation, no epidemics, very little destruction of the oil
infrastructure, and no use of weapons of mass destruction--in part
because of the speed and unexpectedness with which our military
operations unfolded.
Events that we did not fully anticipate did pose challenges during
the post-war phase:
The extent to which the Iraqi government would simply
collapse in the absence of Saddam's terror to sustain it.
When the Saddam regime collapsed, 17 of the 21
Iraqi ministries simply evaporated, leaving nothing and
no one to work with.
The extent to which Saddam had allowed the
infrastructure to decay, while he devoted resources to armed
forces and palaces.
That said, intelligence assessments of the post-war situation did
include a broad range of possibilities. Among them were reports of the
distribution of arms to regime loyalists.
19. Senator Akaka. Secretary Wolfowitz, did you see intelligence
assessments of post-war problems?
Secretary Wolfowitz. Yes, I did see such assessments of possible
post-war problems. In part we based the planning referred to in our
previous answer (question #18) on information provided in these
assessments.
ELABORATE CROSSBOW
20. Senator Akaka. General Myers, it is my understanding that the
Joint Staff has been coordinating an exercise or planning effort called
Elaborate Crossbow. I have heard various references to the results of
these deliberations, but the scope and purpose of this effort is not
clear to me. Can you describe exactly what Elaborate Crossbow is, what
issues it covers, and what happens with the results of the analyses?
General Myers. Elaborate Crossbow is one of a number of seminar war
games the Joint Staff conducted to address different issues concerning
our global commitments. The results of these seminars and other efforts
help to shape our operational thinking and planning as we work with the
combatant commanders and Services to prepare for the future.
INTERNATIONAL UNITS IN IRAQ
21. Senator Akaka. General Myers, does the United States intend to
provide any long-term support to the multinational divisions in Iraq?
General Myers. Currently the United States has contracted,
established, and is funding a Logistical Civil Augmentation Plan
(LOGCAP) in Iraq that provides basic logistic support to coalition
forces. The LOGCAP is being used to provide logistic support for the
Multinational Division-Central South, (MND-CS) in support of operations
in Iraq. Some of the areas covered by this contract are: leased
vehicles, maintenance of leased vehicles, feeding, lodging, fuel, power
generation, and morale welfare and recreation for the forces assigned
to the MND-CS.
22. Senator Akaka. General Myers, do we expect U.S. forces to be
attached to or associated with international units to provide them with
logistics, training, or other support on a routine or regular basis? If
so, how many United States forces are projected to be involved?
General Myers. Currently, there are U.S. units working alongside
coalition partners. In the Polish sector (Central South), we support
their efforts with two military police battalions [deleted], a signal
battalion providing communications support [deleted], one Special
Forces company [deleted], and four civil affairs battalions conducting
civil-military operations [deleted]. In the U.K. sector (southeast),
the United States currently has two civil affairs brigades [deleted].
23. Senator Akaka. General Myers, how much in-kind support do we
plan to provide to multinational forces? It is my understanding that we
are providing some forces with vehicles, night vision goggles, and
other equipment. I would like to know how we intend to ensure the
continued readiness of U.S. units that are giving up current or planned
equipment to foreign units.
General Myers. Utilizing Department of State Peacekeeping Operation
funds, we have procured approximately $43 million of personal equipment
such as night vision goggles, desert uniforms, body armor, and tactical
radios for coalition forces in the Polish-led MND-CS. Vehicles required
by this division are being leased commercially through the Logistical
Civil Augmentation Plan with costs paid through the $1.4 billion DOD
supplemental for Iraqi operations. The equipment being provided to the
MND-CS is not being diverted from operational stocks intended for U.S.
soldiers supporting operations in Iraq. Some equipment with long
procurement lead-times, such as night vision goggles and radios, have
been loaned temporarily to the MND-CS until the procured equipment
arrives in theater by mid-November 2003. Similarly, certain vehicles
are being temporarily loaned until vehicles leased from commercial
sources are delivered in the same timeframe.
The U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq have not indicated that
these temporary loans or procurement of these items have caused any
operational impact to U.S. forces in Iraq. When all procured equipment
and leased vehicles are distributed to the MND-CS, all loaned U.S.-
owned equipment and vehicles will be returned to U.S. units. With
vehicles and other equipment required by the MND-CS being in place by
mid-November, we anticipate very little loaning of U.S.-owned equipment
to multinational forces in the future.
ATTACKS IN IRAQ
24. Senator Akaka. General Myers, with casualties increasing in
Iraq, could you speak to the level of sophistication and the number of
attacks?
General Myers. [Deleted.] These are conventional weapons being used
in conventional ways, and do not reflect an increase in sophistication.
[Deleted.]
[Deleted.]
25. Senator Akaka. General Myers, are the bombs being used in these
attacks now more sophisticated and has the number of these attacks
increased?
General Myers. [Deleted.]
STATE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL IN IRAQ
26. Senator Akaka. Secretary Grossman, there have been press
reports suggesting that Ambassador Bremer is understaffed in Iraq and
that because of security concerns, even these personnel are restricted
in their access to what is happening on the ground. Could you provide
us with an estimate of how many State Department personnel are assigned
in Iraq and comment, if you can, on their ability to get out in the
field and be Ambassador Bremer's eyes and ears?
Secretary Grossman. As of October 24, there are 59 State Department
personnel on the ground in Iraq with another 65 in the pipeline. The
Department was asked by the Coalition Provisional Authority to fill 110
positions total, and we are working to do so. It is a very fluid
situation on the ground in Iraq. State Department officers assigned to
Iraq, and all personnel at the Coalition Provisional Authority, are
doing admirable work under tough circumstances. Security measures have
not kept CPA personnel from doing their job. Throughout the country,
they are working closely with Iraqis to lay the foundations for
participatory democracy by establishing local governing institutions.
These neighborhood and municipal councils have provided a transparent
forum for local leaders to address local needs. Even in less secure
areas like Tikrit, CPA representatives have been able to meet regularly
with tribal leaders and religious leaders to gain insight into local
views and sensitivities.
[Whereupon, at 2:15 p.m., the committee adjourned.]