[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 110-78]
A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ'S FUTURE (PART 3 OF 4)
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JULY 25, 2007
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OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey JEFF MILLER, Florida
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
JIM COOPER, Tennessee K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania
Greg Marchand, Professional Staff Member
Thomas Hawley, Professional Staff Member
Roger Zakheim, Professional Staff Member
Sasha Rogers, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2007
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, July 25, 2007, A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq's
Future (Part 3 of 4)........................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, July 25, 2007......................................... 47
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2007
A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ'S FUTURE (PART 3 OF 4)
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking
Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.............. 2
Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee...................... 1
WITNESSES
Biddle, Dr. Stephen, Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on
Foreign Relations.............................................. 4
Eaton, Maj. Gen. Paul D., (Ret.), Former Commander, Coalition
Military Assistance Training Team, Iraq, U.S. Army............. 8
Hughes, Col. Paul, (Ret.), Senior Program Officer, Center for
Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations, United States
Institute of Peace, U.S. Army.................................. 6
West, Hon. Francis J. ``Bing'', former Assistant Secretary of
Defense for International Security Affairs..................... 10
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Akin, Hon. W. Todd........................................... 53
Biddle, Dr. Stephen.......................................... 71
Eaton, Maj. Gen. Paul D., (Ret.)............................. 59
Hughes, Col. Paul (Ret.)..................................... 64
Snyder, Hon. Vic............................................. 51
West, Hon. Francis J......................................... 56
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Questions and Answers Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Questions submitted.]
A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ'S FUTURE (PART 3 OF 4)
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 25, 2007.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Dr. Snyder. The hearing will come to order.
Good morning, and welcome to the third in a series of four
hearings we are holding during the month of July, that the
Subcommittee on Oversight Investigations is holding, on
alternative strategies for Iraq.
We are holding these hearings because Mr. Akin and I and
others have been frustrated by the tone of the debate and
discussions about Iraq we have heard for the rest of the past
few months of this year and the polarization that has occurred
in this Congress and in this country.
We wanted to have a series of hearings in which we invited
smart, experienced people--granted, with different
backgrounds--to help us identify and develop what should be the
appropriate approaches for Iraq, looking toward: Are there
approaches other than the ones that we have been hearing in the
debate on the House and Senate floor?
Our intent is less to critique current or past policies,
but more to focus on the future. And we hope through these
hearings to enhance the public debate and inform the full
committee deliberations.
I think we are off to an excellent start. I think the other
committee members do, too.
Over the past two weeks, we have heard from retired senior
military officers, defense policy experts, and academics who
specialize on the Middle East, including General Wesley Clark,
Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Muqtedar Khan
of the University of Delaware and Brookings, and Dr. Daniel
Byman of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
At the same time, the full committee has held hearings on
trends and recent security developments in Iraq, and this
afternoon, will hold a joint session with the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence to receive testimony regarding
implications of the recent NIE with respect to al Qaeda.
We have asked our witnesses to look forward rather than
backward. We are not intent on a rehashing how we got to where
we are. They have been asked to address alternative strategies,
and have been given guidance that should allow the subcommittee
and the public to draw comparisons in key areas.
Each witness today has provided us with a written
statement, and I think it is clear from these statements that
we have a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and ideas. And I
hope that today will bring a vigorous discussion not only
between the subcommittee members and the witnesses, but between
the witnesses themselves. Anyone who was here two weeks ago for
our first hearing will tell you that is the kind of productive
exchange that we had and are looking for.
Today's hearing will begin with a statement from the
Honorable Bing West, an award-winning author, correspondent for
the Atlantic Monthly, former Marine Combat Commander, and
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
Affairs during the Reagan Administration.
Mr. West will be followed by Major General Paul Eaton, who
retired from the Army in 2006 after 33 years of military
service, including command of the initial effort to develop a
new Iraqi army in 2003 and 2004.
Our third witness is Colonel Paul Hughes, whose resume
includes a distinguished military career and also, since
retiring from the Army, work on the Iraq Study Group's military
and security expert working group.
Finally, we have with us Dr. Stephen Biddle, a senior
fellow for defense policy and the top analyst on Iraq at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
We welcome you all.
And Mr. Akin is recognized for any opening comments he
would like to make.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI,
RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Akin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning to the witnesses, and thank you for joining us
here today.
The hearing is the third in the series aimed at breaking
out of the false construct about Iraq, and that is to look at
it either while we have a choice of a precipitous withdrawal or
stay the course. We think there are going to be some better
alternatives.
While these hearings have been constructive, I would like
to emphasize and reiterate the purpose of the exercise: that we
are here to discuss alternatives that truly offer a different
plan to the current strategy. Just critiquing the current
approach is not the point of this hearing, and it is helpful
only as it suggests other possibilities.
So I look forward to hearing the witnesses discuss and
define alternatives plans, if you think that one is
appropriate.
After reviewing our witnesses' testimonials, it is clear
that some advocate departing from the current strategy. General
Eaton, Colonel Hughes do not endorse pursuing a plan that
emphasizes U.S. combat forces going door-to-door, performing a
counter-insurgency mission aimed at securing and holding Iraqi
neighborhoods. Dr. Biddle's testimony acknowledges that the
current plan has a chance of success but believes the likeliest
outcome of the surge is eventual failure. Only Mr. West would
seem to argue in favor of the current strategy.
I have a couple of questions I would like our witnesses to
address over the course of the hearing.
Those who advocate departing from the current strategy
emphasize the need for improving the readiness of the Army and
Marine Corps. While I think all members agree that this is an
important issue and a vital priority, I am curious how your
alternative will allow U.S. troops to carry out the following
military roles and missions: one, training Iraqi security
forces; two, deterring conventional militants from intervening
in Iraq; three, supporting al Qaeda's enemies; and four,
conducting direct strike missions.
Almost all of the experts who have testified before this
subcommittee on this subject agree that continuing these roles
and missions in Iraq is important.
Finally, according to previous witnesses, increased
violence, humanitarian tragedy, a failed state, emboldened
terrorists and regional actors will all result in the wake of
the withdrawal or significant drawdown of American forces. I
would like to know how our witnesses will ensure that their
plan will not make the situation worse.
For those concerned about readiness, how will we ensure
that, subsequent to withdrawal, the U.S. will not find itself
in a situation where U.S. forces will have to return to Iraq in
five or ten years?
I would also appreciate it if you would take some time this
morning to discuss how the U.S. should manage the consequences
of withdrawal.
Thank you again for being here.
Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the
Appendix on page 53.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Akin.
All four of you have submitted written statements, and,
without objection, they will be made a part of the record of
the subcommittee hearing.
We will use the light system. You will see a green light go
on, and at some point, you will see a little flashing yellow
and then the red light. That is the five-minute notice. If you
need more time, then take it, but it is just to give you an
idea of where you are at. And hopefully, we will be fairly
close to that so we can get into our questions.
I also want to give you fair notice of what my first
question will be, which is--Mr. Akin and I put ourselves on the
five-minute clock, which we try to follow pretty strictly, but
I will ask each of you to critique anything you hear from other
members or their written statements in the spirit of a full and
spirited discussion. So you may want to pay attention both to
what you hear and what you say, because you may be critiqued
for it by your colleagues.
So, Dr. Biddle, let us start with you, and I think we will
just go down the line.
We appreciate you all very much for you being here and
appreciate you all having your written statements in in a
timely fashion.
Dr. Biddle.
STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN BIDDLE, SENIOR FELLOW FOR DEFENSE
POLICY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Dr. Biddle. Let me thank the committee for this opportunity
to talk with you about this rather important set of issues.
I think the first observation I would make is that there
aren't any good options for Iraq, either at the extremes or the
middle. There is nothing that looks like an opportunity at this
point with high probability to secure all U.S. interests in the
region.
Four years of mistakes eventually can leave you in a
position where you don't have good alternatives, and I think
that is where we find ourselves now.
Unfortunately, that is true for the extremes of surge and
withdrawal. I think it is also true for most of the in-between
options that people have talked about as alternatives to those
extremes.
I think when you look across the set of possibilities that
have been raised in the public debate to date, I think one can
characterize them as a group as tending, by and large, to
reduce our ability to control the environment militarily in
Iraq but still leaving, more or less by definition, tens of
thousands of Americans in the country to act as targets.
What that creates, I think, is a danger that, over several
years after initiating such a posture, what we are likely to
see is continued U.S. casualties, again, in an environment we
have difficulty controlling militarily and less ability than we
have now to stabilize the country or improve conditions around
the U.S. deployment. And I think what that is likely to do is
create very powerful pressures a couple of years down the road
to go all the way to zero.
And I think if we are going to go all the way to zero
within a couple of years anyway, the case to be made for saving
the lives in between that would be lost and beginning resetting
of the American military a couple of years sooner than we would
otherwise be able to do, to deal with some of the other
challenges and contingencies that are going to face us in the
world with or without success or failure in Iraq.
Now, the formal statement that I provided looks in some
detail at four particular in-between options: a partial
withdrawal of U.S. troops and a reorientation of those that
remain to training and supporting the ISF; a partial withdrawal
of U.S. troops and reorientations of those that remain to
hunting al Qaeda; a retreat of U.S. forces from the center part
of the country into Kurdistan.
And I think when you look--rather than trying to pick up
each of these in detail, perhaps what I will do with the two
minutes that remain is spend a little bit more time talking
about one of them, and then I would be happy, obviously, to
take questions referring to the others, and speak just a little
bit more about the option of partial withdrawing of U.S. forces
and a reorientation of what remains to training and supporting
the ISF.
Right now, the U.S. troop presence in Iraq isn't enough to
control the environment completely or stabilize the country,
but it does cap the level of violence. If you substantially
withdraw the U.S. combat presence, you can reasonably expect
the level of violence to increase.
If we are going to take seriously the prospect of training
and advising the ISF, that means we are not going to have the
trainers sequestered somewhere safely in the rear in a
classroom. They are going to be out with the ISF, advising
them, operating with them, serving as mentors to them. If the
environment they are operating in gets less secure, one can
reasonably expect that the vulnerability of those advisors is
going to go up, and they are going to continue to suffer
casualties as a result.
Second, though, and perhaps just as important, the smaller
our combat presence in the country, the harder we make the
training and advising mission. There are a lot of constraints
facing our ability to train, advise and create a capable asset.
Arguably, the binding constraint among them, however, is
political rather than proficiency. It is sectarianism in the
Iraqi security forces.
As the country around them breaks up into factions, it is
very difficult to hermetically seal a military organization
from the society from which it is drawn. And what is pulling
the country apart into factions is the sectarian violence level
in the country.
If the reduction of the U.S. combat presence causes the
level of sectarian violence to increase, the centrifugal
pressures on the society are going to increase as well. And
that, in turn, is going to make the job of creating a
disinterested nationalist security entity that can defend the
interest of all Iraqis harder, not easier.
Now, what that does is create a risk of self-fulfilling
prophecy where, the smaller our combat effort, the harder we
make the training effort and the more difficult it becomes to
switch from the one to the other.
I think if we judge that the surge is too unlikely to
succeed--and again, I am a pessimist on the prospects for this
surge. I don't think it is impossible it could succeed, but I
think it is a long shot.
If you think the odds of that long-shot are too long, I
think a stronger case can be made for going to the opposite
extreme and totally withdrawing the U.S. presence from Iraq on
a timetable of ten months to two years. People vary on how long
it would take to get out everything that we have deployed to
the country, and beginning the reset sooner and cutting our
losses in the process.
The one other recommendation that I would offer to the
committee is I think it is terribly important that not just the
management of a withdrawal but also the investigation of
various partial withdrawal options be undertaken in the
serious, rigorous way that only properly staffed, military
planning process can do.
And I am afraid that, right now, the perceived politics of
the situation are such that it is very difficult for military
staffs to plan out any of these options in the level of detail
that is necessary, especially given so many of the issues
involved are diplomatic, political, economic and regional in
ways that will inevitably tax the skill set and the
capabilities of any orthodox military planning staff.
In an environment where people are worried that an effort
to plan out something other than Plan A could be viewed as a
sign of disloyalty, it makes that planning effort very, very
difficult for the military to conduct.
One thing that I think would be of particular value for the
U.S. Congress to do is to remove the political Hobson's Choice
associated with the sort of planning by mandating by law and by
requiring that military staffs, whether in theater or in the
Pentagon, develop, with a proper level of rigor and detail, a
set of alternative plans for either partial or complete
withdrawal alternatives to the surge, not mandating that they
be executed, but mandating that they be planned out in a way
that can permit full evaluation of their pros and cons by those
outside the planning process itself.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Biddle can be found in the
Appendix on page 71.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Dr. Biddle.
Colonel Hughes.
STATEMENT OF COL. PAUL HUGHES (RET.), SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER,
CENTER FOR POST-CONFLICT PEACE AND STABILITY OPERATIONS, UNITED
STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE, U.S. ARMY
Colonel Hughes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to
present my thoughts about what I call consolidating gains in
Iraq.
While I remain very engaged in Iraq through my work at the
United States Institute of Peace, what I present today reflects
my own personal views based on almost 30 years of service in
the United States Army and the time that I have spent in Iraq,
where I served with the Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance, the coalition provisional authority. I
advised General Eaton on the organization of the Iraqi military
and served as my institute's chief of party on two separate
occasions. My comments do not reflect the policies of the
institute, which does not take policy positions.
As you well know, the Nation is seized with the war in
Iraq, one of the most complex wars it has ever fought. This
complexity can be characterized in many ways, but one
fundamental aspect that must be understood for the United
States to successfully interact over the long term with the
Muslim world is that we need to understand this war involves
issues rooted in power redistribution among groups of people
who have never experienced the dynamic processes that the
United States now demands that they implement quickly, namely
those of political reconciliation.
By saying that, I want people to understand that the notion
that this is purely a sectarian war is a false notion. There
are other causes here that are more related to power
redistribution.
Understanding this fundamental nature of the war is crucial
to the development of our war aims and our national interests.
So far, there have been several changes in both, and these
changes have only served to confuse our regional friends and
worldwide allies as to our ultimate goals. Additionally, this
confusion has opened the door for our enemies to exploit.
Today, the interests and the goals of the United States are
usually reduced into soundbytes rather than studied in their
true nature. They are complex and very demanding. As described
in the national strategy document, ``Victory in Iraq,'' they
are outlined into non-specific type periods, such as short-
term, medium-term and long-term, with just as non-specific
components that all parties accept as important to the long-
term well-being of the Republic of Iraq.
In reviewing these goals, it appears less likely that these
can be attained over what America views as the short term. In
fact, many of these suggest they will be generational efforts.
The complex nature of the short-term goals suggest some of its
components are not feasible and should be pushed back on the
strategy's timeline.
The obvious shortfalls in the short term related to
political progress and democratic institution-building has
hindered progress toward the medium- and long-term goals. These
requirements lie outside the vast expertise and capabilities of
the Department of Defense.
Without progress in these two specific areas, political
reconciliation and democratic institution-building, our
military can continue to fight and occupy more of Iraq's cities
and towns but will never fully secure those areas for a
handover to Iraqi security forces. And absent that degree of
security and handover, our military's eventual departure will
simply open the door for the return of chaos.
This assessment implies our military force may need more
time to achieve their operational goals, as some of our
commanders have recently suggested. Yet, their requests have to
be balanced with the political realities of our country and its
long-term national security interests.
We are engaged in what some call a ``long war'' and others
refer to as a ``global war.'' If this is true, then we must
place both Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns in their proper
perspectives. They are campaigns in a long, global war against
extremists of all stripes that threaten our interests.
Perhaps now it is time for us to recognize that we have
achieved change in Iraq and that we should consolidate our
gains and take a strategic pause in order to refocus our
strategic gains, regroup and replenish our forces, repair our
alliances, and regain the support of the American people before
going back on the offense.
I use the term ``consolidate'' from the perspective of a
soldier. When soldiers consolidate on their objective, they
organize and strengthen it so that they can make maximum use of
their new gains position. In the case of Iraq, consolidating
our gains will be messy and uncertain. It will require more
time and resources to help the emerging Iraqi government
organize and strengthen itself.
But we do not need to continue expending the immense amount
of resources used in our ground war in Iraq when we need them
for our efforts elsewhere in the world. The challenge facing
the United States is how it should best manage its involvement
in Iraq while retaining capabilities of meeting its broader
global security responsibilities.
To meet those challenges, the United States should reassess
its strategic goals in light of its regional and global
interests. It should announce a date certain for beginning the
redeployment of forces from Iraq. It should conclude a status-
of-forces agreement with the government of Iraq. It should
resource and invigorate a comprehensive, political
reconciliation program in Iraq.
It should immediately act to restore and increase both the
size of the Army and Marine Corps refit and reset units that
have been in combat, ensure our special operations forces are
being properly resourced, and care for the families of our
military personnel.
The United States should also repair damage done to our
relations with our allies and special partners, and it must
more clearly articulate U.S. policy in order to regain the
confidence and support of the American people.
In conclusion, we must maintain our focus on our primary
challenges: the proliferation of WMD and the threat from
extremists who threaten our homeland. We should not allow
ourselves to expend our military forces, national credibility
and treasure on a ground war that does not deal with our
primary threats.
Thank you for your attention and time.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Hughes can be found in
the Appendix on page 64.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Colonel Hughes.
General Eaton.
STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. PAUL D. EATON (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER,
COALITION MILITARY ASSISTANCE TRAINING TEAM, IRAQ, U.S. ARMY
General Eaton. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the
invitation to speak here.
I can't leave this room without commenting on the state of
the American Army. I am going to talk about the American Army,
the Iraqi army, current operations in Iraq, and the deficient
diplomatic efforts that we have in the region.
First, the American Army: We are under-funded, we are
under-manned, and we are overextended. And we have to correct
all three of those points.
We have to grow the Army and the Marine Corps to meet the
foreign-policy demands of our country. We have to commit the
resources necessary to rebuild, refit our equipment, and to
properly equip our forces both in the theater of operations and
in training right now. We are having to shuffle equipment back
and forth from units to conduct the training for deployment. So
we have to correct that situation.
The Iraqi army: We started the Iraqi army program to
recruit nationally, make the army representative nationally,
ethnically and religious, and to employ locally. The original
plan was that we would recruit these men to defend the Nation
from enemies from without. And that evolved into what we have
to do right now in a counter-insurgency environment.
The Iraqi army is still not properly equipped, and we still
don't have enough men under arms to meet the demands placed
upon the Iraqi army.
And we have departed from a nationally unifying system.
Originally, the army would have been a nationally unifying
force, an instrument to provide for the unification and the
integration of the country. We have departed from that, and I
am not sure that is a good decision.
My last information is that we are talking about
reinstituting what we did with the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps
(ICDC), locally recruited, locally employed, which gives us
basically militias under a national uniform.
Current operations: I think that what General Petraeus is
doing right now is absolutely on the mark. It follows a very
good article by Lieutenant Colonel Doug Ollivant about
inserting forces into the region, into the neighborhoods, into
the communities that need the security operations, and a
departure from these very large forward-operating bases that
heretofore we had been restricted to.
I think what General Petraeus is doing is absolutely on the
mark. The surge was very small, and it was actually a
compromise with the Army because that is all we could do. We
have not grown the Army to meet the requirements in Iraq or
elsewhere. So the surge was a compromise, and the Army cannot
sustain it.
The Army status right now drives us to a reduction in
forces in theater, and we have to lay it out. And I think that
a 24-month period is about right to draw down combat forces in
theater.
If we don't do it and if we don't start it now, we are
going to go back to something that General ``Shy'' Meyer talked
about back in the 1970's, the hollow army. And his comment
recently is, ``You may not know the Army is broken until after
the Army is broken.'' The real issue is we have not surged
diplomatically in order to meet the military surge, the
military increase.
A case study is up in the northern part of Iraq. The three
northern provinces have their own economy, have their own
government, have their own security forces. The Kurdish region
is stable. What is not stable is outside the borders of the
Kurdish region. We have a very large number of Turkish units
massed on the borders, and that is a source of concern.
We have to regionally divide Iraq and identify strong
actors internal and strong actors external, bring them to a
Camp David-type situation and hammer our the requirements to
keep the entities outside and inside from falling apart.
So that would mean you bring Barzani, Talabani, and the
presidents of Iran and Turkey into the room and hash out the
interests that both parties have, repeat that process with the
Sunni region and Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan, repeat
that with the Shia region and Iran.
Regional debate, regional meetings orchestrated by the
United States--that type of diplomatic surge is overdue and is
the only way out.
The best article I have seen lately is, ``The Road Out of
Iraq Goes Through Tehran,'' and this Administration has
heretofore refused to talk to Tehran. We have something going
on right now, but our road out is through Tehran.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Eaton can be found in
the Appendix on page 59.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, General Eaton.
Secretary West.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANCIS J. ``BING'' WEST, FORMER ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS
Secretary West. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't see a way out of this polarization, Mr. Chairman.
There are two views, and you heard them now, of Iraq.
View one is what I call the sectarian camp that says the
essential problem in Iraq is the antagonism and the hatred
between Sunni and Shia, and that is going to persist regardless
of what we do. And therefore, the situation, in essence, is
hopeless and, as Mr. Biddle was saying, if you believe that,
better get out now than later.
The other alternative is the alternative that General
Patraeus and others say, that the root cause of the problem
here is the terror driven by al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). And
because al Qaeda in Iraq kills, slaughters so many of the
Shiites, that they keep the cycle of violence going. And if you
can break AQI, you can break the cycle of violence.
There is no compromise between those two positions. You
believe one or the other.
So, in the end, what we are talking about here is a
military judgment about what is happening in Iraq. And none of
us really are in the position that General Patraeus, General
Odierno and General Gaskin are to give you their straight-from-
the-shoulder, and I think they are going to in the September
evaluation of that essential issue.
And I know that they are going to bring it up as the
essential issue. I can say with full confidence, being back
there in May and coming forward and the e-mails I get from the
field, I never believed I would see Anbar swing the way Anbar
has swung.
I mean, when you are in the middle of a war, the question
is, who is winning and who is losing? And right now, AQI is on
the defense, not on the offense.
I believe that if you would have this hearing in June of
2008 on the current course, you would probably see that we have
a substantial number of combat units out, probably pushed up
the number of advisors we have, and those advisors, as was
pointed out by the other members, would be in combat. They
wouldn't be in the rear. So that we would be in Iraq for
several years, as we are in Afghanistan, but we wouldn't be
pushed out of Iraq.
And I think that is the essential issue that this is going
to come down to. Does one believe it is hopeless and we are
losing, or does one believe that we can prevail and get our
troops out? That, sir, in the end, I believe is a military
judgment.
The word that I have heard--and watching it for myself over
there, I am really surprised by what I saw in Anbar. And Anbar
was the toughest nut. AQI has been pushed back now out of
Anbar. They said they were going to go to Baghdad. They lost
some fights in Baghdad, and now they are up in Diyala.
The nature of this war is the highway system. AQI has a
darn good way of communicating with one another, and no one
controls those highways, and can move 400, 600 kilometers in 1
day, and they do. And we were fighting them in Fallujah in
April of 2004. They moved out and went to Ramadi, 60 miles
away. When we went back in with the Marines in November of
2004, they went to Mosul, 300 miles away, and did it in 3 days
because you can just drive up and down the highways.
So in order to keep after AQI, you have to stay on them and
stay on them and stay on them. And that is what I believe
General Petraeus is doing now.
I don't believe we intend to keep the kinds of troops we
have over there for the long haul, but I am really interested
in what he is going to say in September because I think he can
give us a better military judgment than any of us can.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Secretary West can be found in
the Appendix on page 56.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, gentlemen, for your thoughtfulness
in being here and thoughtfulness of your statements.
Members, what I suggest we do--and in the other hearings,
we have been pretty flexible in our five minutes. We have eight
members here. I know of at least one other member coming. I
would suggest that we are fairly strict about the five minutes
so we can circle around and go through a second or even a third
round if we get to it.
What we will do is, if I start my questions, which is
already apparently on, I have got five minutes. If I ask one
question and you all get to respond to it, if you each take
three minutes, we get to one-and-a-half of you. If you all
could limit your answers to about one minute, given that we
have got some flexibility here, but if can get to the point,
then we will be able to get more of the thoughts out there.
My question is, in the time that we have left, if you all--
I just want to give you a chance to respond in the spirit of
intellectual exchange here on anything you have either read
from the opening statements or have heard today from the folks
at the panel you think need to be fleshed out a little bit more
or that concern you or that you agree with.
Let us start with you, Dr. Biddle, and just go down the
line again.
Dr. Biddle. Okay, well, with a minute I will respond mostly
to Secretary West, with whom I am in a surprising degree of
agreement.
I don't think things are hopeless. I mean, the written
statement, to a greater degree than I was able to do in the
spoken statements, says there are two defensible alternatives,
and they are either/and.
Where I think I probably disagree is over how much better
than hopeless it is. I think it is an extreme long-shot.
AQI is not the totality of the problem. The President
doesn't think that totality is the problem either. It is an
accelerator of sectarian violence and factionalism.
Unfortunately, sectarian violence and factionalism is a bit
like the toothpaste in the tube. Once you have created a
condition of radical fear among groups, it is then very
difficult to overcome that and reverse the process.
I don't think it is hopeless. I think the Anbar tribal
rebellion is actually a model that provides such a glimmer of
hope as we can get in Iraq. I think the way forward, if we are
going to stay, should be oriented around maximizing the chance
that we can replicate that model elsewhere.
But we have to do that a lot. There are a lot of factions
that need bilateral negotiations to settle ceasefires with. To
do that across the whole country is not impossible, but it is a
very tall order.
Given that, what I think we are looking at is a long-shot,
not a zero prospect, but a long-shot.
Dr. Snyder. Colonel Hughes.
Colonel Hughes. The idea that this war is essentially a
military war, if anybody holds that, they are just wrong. This
really does require a political settlement by the Iraqis.
But as I said earlier, we are asking the Iraqis to
undertake something that they have never had to do in three
generations, and that is reconcile with one another. In the
days of Saddam, if you had a difference with somebody, you just
shot the person and you drugged their body through the streets.
Now we are expecting them to figure out how to sit down and
work together in a society where the entire lifestyle has been
zero-sum gains. That is a very difficult proposition to demand
of them.
Now, my institute is working with some of the EPRTs,
embedded provincial reconstruction teams, to help alleviate or
to kick-start some of the local-level negotiations necessary to
bring some fruit to this process. But it is a challenge. It is
a challenge because the EPRTs are not properly resourced or
funded to do this kind of work. Certainly we are not. But you
also have the challenge of security there. And sometimes, if
you let the Iraqis settle the security issue, you let their
local solutions kick in, it is amazing what you can get done.
And I will just hold it there.
Dr. Snyder. General Eaton.
General Eaton. We have to provide a forcing function for
General Petraeus to get the government of Iraq to move forward.
And the only thing that I see is the diplomatic efforts that I
talked about elsewhere, but a timeline for departure, lay it
out so he is able to tell the Iraqis that the end is coming,
and that the patience of the American people are going to drive
this, and that we lay out, as has been discussed previously
this morning, the Plan B that illustrates to Iraq that there is
a draw-down and it is going to be orderly and it is going to be
predictable.
And the message on all that is not to the enemy, it is to
the people of Iraq and its government.
Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Secretary West.
Secretary West. It is absolutely a political local
settlement. It will be settled locally in Haditha and Al Qaim
and Baghdad, et cetera, which causes me to think that that
feckless, poor, ill-performing senior government can be allowed
to be feckless, poor and ill-performing for another ten years
if you get some of the local conditions right and we won't have
all of our troops there.
So I see no contradiction between saying you can still have
a mess but it won't be our mess as much because we won't be
there. It will just be another messy government.
But the key is, in my judgment, fracturing al Qaeda, and we
are well on our way to doing that.
In terms of keeping some sort of peace among the sectarian
groups, I don't see that as being that much of a problem,
because, unfortunately, they have already separated themselves
to a large extent.
The key is our advisory effort, because our advisors in
essence are looking over everyone's shoulder, every single
police chief, every single battalion. So the issue becomes, is
the new agreement we are going to have with Iraq in December
that goes before the United Nations, will there be an agreement
with Iraq that we are going to continue with the current
advisory system as we have it? Because these advisors are the
enforcers of non-sectarianism.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you all.
And you hit exactly five minutes, so we appreciate that.
It turns out, I don't think our clock system is working, so
I will give kind of a gentle tap with the end here, Mr. Akin,
when we get to the five minutes, if it doesn't work.
Mr. Akin, for five minutes.
Mr. Akin. Thank you.
I think we have heard from quite a number of different
witnesses--and I appreciate your comments, Mr. West.
The concern that I have is, first of all, it seems like it
may be a both end. The first issue, you have a military peace,
that has to be taken care of. But you also have sort of a
political peace, and that has to be dealt with as well.
My sense is, is that from the brief we got from General
Petraeus and also Ambassador Crocker was that they had really
analyzed the whole situation and understood the nations around
it really with internal politics going on, and they had a plan,
and they are balancing and putting things together to make that
work.
My concern is not so much being able to break the AQI--
which, I think if we keep denying them territory, there is
going to come a point where there is no safe place for them. My
concern is, though, the political peace that, seems to me, I
wouldn't assume the politics is necessarily going to straighten
out even if we do get the military side. I think it is a both
end situation.
And my question is, have we given so much authority away to
the Iraqis that they get it all messed up, we are kind of
sitting on the sidelines, helpless? Or are we in a position--I
mean, when Douglas MacArthur was in Japan, he let the Japanese
write their constitution. They screwed it up, so he said,
``That is no good. I will write one for you.'' He said, ``Use
this one.''
Are we in a position where--I mean, one of the things that
could work very well on Iraq is federalism, which they don't
understand but could allow a lot of autonomy to these different
areas. We could limit the Federal Government to very specific
functions.
Are we in a position to make those kind of political
changes? Are we kind of off on the side and not really involved
to the degree that we should be politically?
Secretary West. Mr. Congressman, General Eaton began a
system with the advisors on the military side that is now
working terrific. All the way down to every single company,
there is an American advisor but he is also a conscience.
The State Department, as General indicated, lagged badly,
and it has only been under Ambassador Crocker that they have
begun to insert some smart guys at different levels to say, so-
and-so is a bum and you have to get rid of him. But they have
begun that.
I think if you had a classified hearing and brought some of
them in and say, ``Do you know who the bad apples are at the
top that have to go?'', they could say, ``Yes.''
My feeling is that Maliki isn't that strong. But I think
you are going to have a lot of sloppiness at the top if you
don't have this level of violence.
General Eaton is right. We are behind it in terms of the
diplomacy and struggling to catch up. But I think you can
tolerate that if we don't have 135,000 Americans in the
country.
Mr. Akin. Thank you.
Anybody else want to comment on the same question?
Dr. Biddle. Sir, the issue of federalism is something that
is part of their constitution. It focuses on the idea of
federalism. The issue is the mechanics and the implementing
laws that provide for that sort of thing.
And that is being worked out through the constitutional
reform committee's work, which has recently reported back to
the council of representatives and has again been given some
more homework assignments to work. But that is a very active
issue among the Iraqi government right now.
Mr. Akin. Are they starting to get the concept? Because
when I talked to the State Department three years ago on a
couple tours back, they said the whole idea of federalism under
these guys is just like somebody from Mars. They just didn't--
everything was top-down from their point of view.
Dr. Biddle. Correct.
Mr. Akin. But you take a look at the Kurds and the Shia and
Sunni, it seems like it is ready-made for a central
constitution that says, ``All we are going to do is this, this
and this, and everything else is going to be regional.'' I
should think that would help a lot.
Dr. Biddle. The constitution recognizes just one Federal
entity at this time, and that is the Kurdish regional
government. It does provide for the creation of other regional
governments, but the implementing laws have yet to be worked
out.
But the U.S. Institute of Peace has worked at it for many
years now with the national government, and we are as
frustrated as anybody with the results that we are seeing. And
that is why now we are pushing out into the provinces.
And, for example, the work I did in March with the Baghdad
provincial council was astonishing. It taught me an important
lesson that we all need to understand. The Iraqis do not
possess the tools with which to tackle these kinds of issues.
And so they need the training. They need the mentoring in
political reconciliation and the ideas of working through these
various issues.
But the provincial council members soaked this up like a
sponge. It was amazing to me.
Afterwards, I had the district council representatives from
Sadr City and from Adhamiya--the adjoining predominantly Sunni
district--those come to us and say, ``We want more of this
training, and we want to do it together.'' And for the very
first time in their history, Sadr City and Adhamiya sat down at
the same table and started talking about issues.
So at the grassroots level, there is hope, but it just
needs to become a principal focus of what we are doing over
there.
Mr. Akin. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Akin.
Mrs. Davis for five minutes.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here.
I wanted to go back to the Anbar situation a little bit,
because I think one of the important things that was said that,
rather than focusing on top leadership necessarily in Iraq,
that it may be through the grassroots efforts that more change
is going to occur.
But I also have felt a great concern from a few who believe
that our working with the militias there might in the short
term be a good idea but further out, that there is a real down
side to doing that. And that it may work in areas where you
have more homogeneity, but as you move through different areas
of Iraq that that is going to be a problem.
Could you all comment on that and whether you think there
is a significant down side that maybe not necessarily ignored
like now but perhaps not being addressed in the way that it
should?
Secretary West. I would simply say that each tribe in Anbar
knows exactly where its boundaries are, and every one of them
wants to push out, and every time they do now, the other tribes
are pushing back.
Really, one of the reasons for the awakening spreading
among all the tribes was that it only began with about 16 of
the 23 tribes. But the other seven quickly said, ``Wait a
minute, we are going to start losing some of our smuggling. We
are going to start losing some of these goodies that they are
offering if we don't get on the bandwagon.'' So in self-defense
they are going onboard.
The tribes take care of the tribal sectors and are very
jealous of the other tribe coming in. What I don't see out of
the Anbar situation is that these tribes somehow would come
together and be a threat to Baghdad. They are much more
parochial, extremely parochial people. And they are interested
in their tribal areas.
General Eaton. My position is any ally you can find is
worth having, and the original relationship that we had with
them was very positive. They were very helpful and they were
very willing to go to great lengths to expose themselves to
some risk by coming into the Iraqi army.
So the pursuit of alliances with the tribal factions and
with militias, I think, is a very positive move on our part.
Dr. Biddle. What we are presented with in Anbar right now
is both a window of opportunity and a window of vulnerability.
With the tribes banding together to push AQI, they are now
trying to be brought into the recognized Iraqi police and
military forces in the province.
The question remains, how will the central government deal
with these new approaches? Will they accept these new tribesmen
in for training and such, or will they reject them because they
are tribesmen and perceived to be a militia? That is a major
concern right now.
The prime minister, he feels that our activities in
aligning with tribes and local groups is creating more militias
that could potentially become a long-term threat to his rule.
So I don't have a good answer for it right now because I am----
Ms. Davis of California. Any sense to how the Shia
population perceives that at all?
Dr. Biddle. I am sure the Shia population--the political
parties, let us call them that--that the Shia-dominated
political parties do not like this development.
But then again, let us recognize that the supreme Islamic
council for Iraq, whatever they are calling themselves today,
had the organization which was completely folded into the
ministry of interior.
General Eaton. Clearly, there are important risks either in
arming local factions or simply in tolerating the continuance
of local armed factions that they agree to fight people we like
and stop fighting people that we would rather they not.
I think at this point in Iraq, though, we are beyond the
point which we have the option of turning to something that is
low-risk, low-cost, high probability of success. I think if we
decide for whatever reason we are going to continue and that we
are going to give it our best shot, I think, at this point, our
best shot lies through some program of exploiting something
like the Anbar awakening through a series of bilateral cease-
fire negotiations with local actors which we hope will
accumulate around the country.
That the day in which we could hope to prevail in Iraq, by
creating a government monopoly of force, and reducing the
strength of all non-government actors to the point where they
are marginal and unimportant, I don't think that is a realistic
hope at this point.
Ms. Davis of California. Where would you all put this
strategy in terms of priorities and, I guess, hopes for the
future? Is this a strategy that you think has high hopes for
trying to turn the situation around or do you think it has
relatively low? I got a sense from you, Colonel.
Colonel Hughes. Well, in Anbar, it is a de facto, it is
already done and now moving to other areas. I don't know how it
will do in other areas, but I mean, in Anbar, this is
yesterday's news. It is done, settled, they have moved on.
Ms. Davis of California. Go beyond that for me, in terms of
that as a model.
General Eaton. It doesn't always work out. The Fallujah
Brigade, our efforts back in April didn't work out terribly
well. But it was worth a try, and I think that we may not be a
100 percent success, but again, I think that any enemy that we
can turn, whatever organization is effective in providing
security, to bring them into the fold.
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Gingrey for five minutes.
Dr. Gingrey. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
And I thank all the witnesses.
I want to first of all say welcome to the committee to
General Eaton in particular, who was former commander of Fort
Benning, home of the infantry, and I represented that area in
Columbus, Georgia.
I like you better as a general than I do as a civilian.
General Eaton, I have to say that. I wish you were still in the
military. I don't agree with everything that you have said
since you have gotten out.
I want to ask a couple of questions.
And first of all, to General Eaton and to the Colonel and
to Dr. Biddle, it seems that all three of you in your
testimony, your presentations to us here this morning take a
pretty dim view of the current situation and that you are in
favor of getting out ASAP.
I think the comment has been made, General Eaton, you said
the road to withdrawal is through Tehran, through Iran. I would
suggest the road of withdrawal will be through Kuwait, and on
the highway of death. I think you understand that very well,
General Eaton.
And I would like to ask the three of you to comment on that
in regard to the mass casualties that could occur with 160,000
of our troops with all of their equipment going from Baghdad to
Kuwait, trying to get out of that country.
And also, General Eaton, you said very clearly that you
think that we need to lay out the draw-down plan, not to give
it to the enemy but to give it to the Iraqi people. How do you
think the enemy is not going to obtain that plan as well and
make it even more devastating? So comment on that for you, if
you will.
And then to Secretary West, who I am very much in agreement
with, I would ask you what are your thoughts about permanent
basing in Iraq. That bill is going to be probably presented to
the House to vote on later this week in regard to whether or
not we should have permanent basing, particularly in light of
the embassy that we have there now.
General Eaton. Congressman, thank you very much.
And I will tell you the retirement has been liberating. I
have enjoyed myself a lot here. And I have said some things
that are fairly difficult to state, particularly with two sons
in the Army.
First, I do not advocate a precipitous withdrawal. I
advocate a very methodical and very measured withdrawal of
combat forces. The missions providing for the development of
the Iraqi army and security forces and providing for the
security of those men and women, I believe, is a continuing
effort that we need to maintain.
Second, I advocate that we lay this out for the Iraqi
people, and the message is really to the Iraqi government to
get their house in order, to fulfill the benchmarks that they
said they would fill, and to get this thing moving forward. And
the message is not to the enemy that we are leaving
precipitously; the message is to the Iraqi people, we have to
discipline the process. If we don't, we will be dragging
through this for years and years, and we have got to have a
force in function.
As far as the withdrawal of troops, if you don't plan your
way out of something, it will look a lot like Dunkirk, and any
time you go in, you have to plan for your extraction. And the
extraction while you are under pressure, while you are in
contact, is very difficult indeed. And we are very exposed
right now.
If the Iranians thought that it would be in their interest
to attack in great numbers, we would have a very, very
difficult situation. I am confident that we have plans on the
shelf right now to avoid that.
Dr. Gingrey. General Eaton, thank you.
With apologies to the other two witnesses, I am going to
shift to Secretary West because I want the answer--and my time
is running out--I want the answer in regards to your opinion on
the basing.
Secretary West. Sir, I think it would be so incendiary I
would see no reason to even discuss permanent bases. By
definition, our embassy is a permanent base, the way we are
putting that thing up.
But beyond that, I cannot imagine us not being in Iraq for
about as long as we are going to be in Afghanistan. But we
don't have to wave a huge flag about it. It is just going to be
a fact of life.
Dr. Gingrey. And we can go to the other two witnesses
regarding the other question.
Dr. Biddle. Sir, one of the things I said in my statement
is that any withdrawal, any redeployment discussion of U.S.
forces from Iraq must be done in close consultations with the
Iraqis and regional partners, and that we would have a
remaining element there, as Secretary West just indicated.
Because we still need to do the training and the equipping of
the Iraqi military.
Just as important, we need to be able to conduct counter-
terrorism operations. And the Iraqi military is not going to be
set to actually provide surveillance or security along their
borders for many years if they are going to be tied down
fighting internal insurgency.
So I am not in favor of a precipitous withdrawal. This does
have to be methodically based.
In fact, as the withdrawal is planned or as the
redeployment is planned, I would even suspect that there would
need to be an increase of U.S. force structure to provide
security along that particular avenue you just described.
Colonel Hughes. Two very quick points. The first is, I
think either of the two extremes are defensible. I mean, I
don't think there is a clear case for withdrawal precipitous or
otherwise. I think you can also make a case that a one-in-ten
long-shot--and I think that is kind of the ballpark of the odds
here--is worth taking if you think the costs of failure are
high enough. It is the middle-ground options that I think are
the weakest on the analytics.
As far as the withdrawal itself goes, I don't think anyone
would support a precipitous withdrawal, but if one is going to
argue for withdrawal--and, again, I think it is a defensible
case, I think we have to expect that we are going to have to
fight our way out. And that withdrawal for it to be other than
a rout is going to be a slow process.
Again, I have heard estimates ranging from ten months to
two years. I think the case of withdrawal, if one is going to
make it, is you are going to face that sooner or later anyway.
I mean, if the surge is, let us say, a one-in-ten long-shot,
that means you have got a nine-in-ten chance that whether you
like it or not, this is where you are going to end up in a few
years.
The issue, in all likelihood, is you want to do it later or
do you want to do it sooner, and what does it cost you to defer
it?
Dr. Gingrey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Our last person for questions who was here at
the time the gavel went down is Mr. Bartlett for five minutes.
And then we will go to Mr. Sestak, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Jones, and
Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Colonel Hughes, you mentioned that this was not a war that
we are involved in, it is a couple of campaigns in a war. It
seems to me that the enemy that we now fight in Iraq is very
different than the enemy we went there to fight.
As I remember, the reasons for going to Iraq, which I had
some concerns with and was called to the White House because I
had those concerns, was there were weapons of mass destruction
there. I saw no way they could get them to us. They could walk
to Germany and France. And I made the argument if our allies
weren't concerned about the threats, I had trouble
understanding why we should be concerned about the threats.
And Saddam Hussein was there. There were no weapons of mass
destruction and Saddam Hussein has been deposed. And so the
enemy there now is violence and al Qaeda.
And in the second round, I want to come to the violence
part of it. But as far as I know and judged from all of the
testimony that we have had, that there was little or no al
Qaeda before we went there. And so now the big fight is with al
Qaeda.
Did they arise de novo, or did they come in from another
country? How did they get there in these large numbers?
Colonel Hughes. When we entered Iraq in 2003, there were
two organizations that we saw with General Garner that you
could say were terrorist organizations. One was the mujanedin-e
Knalq (NEK), which was the passively sponsored or supported or
at least recognized force of Iranians that were based in Iraq
that would conduct operations into Iran. And that force has
been policed up. The other one was based in the Kurdish north
on a mountain top that was very difficult to get to that could
have been taken out without us having to invade Iraq.
But without getting into history, what we see in Iraq with
AQI now, al Qaeda in Iraq, is an Iraqi organization that has
grown up--this is predominantly Iraqi now. It did begin with
foreign leaders and foreign support, but today it is
predominantly Iraqi. Today it is under a great deal of stress
because of Iraqis, because Iraqi tribes are attacking them,
because Iraqi citizens are reporting on their activities, and
because the multi-national force is pursuing them.
The question is, what is the threat to the United States?
Is AQI a threat to the United States? Or is al Qaeda currently
residing in Pakistan the threat? And I would submit that al
Qaeda in Iraq is not the threat to our homeland. It is al Qaeda
in Pakistan right now that is the threat to our homeland. And
that is the issue we need to be taking care of.
I mentioned that this is a campaign, just as we had World
War II with many campaigns and Vietnam with many campaigns. And
even in Desert Storm, we had three separate campaigns. You
know, you can have varying levels of success in a campaign and
still win the war, as long as you have strategic thought and
guidance and vision about what you ultimately want to achieve.
If we are going to focus on fighting a ground war in Iraq,
I have to ask, what does this contribute to our ability to
dissuade Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons or from getting
after AQI in Pakistan?
If the al Qaeda like any that we are fighting in Iraq is
not a threat to our homeland, their goal is simply to get us
out of Iraq. Their goal is to force us out. There were 33
insurgency groups that have been identified in Iraq, and the
one common identifier among all of them is get the foreign
occupation out of Iraq.
Once the Americans leave, there could be a lot of gun-play
between these guys, and I suspect there will be. But
principally, they and all the other groups, want us out of Iraq
because we are a foreign occupation force. And that has been a
traditional earmark of Iraqi nationalism for many, many
decades. I mean, just ask the British.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back and wait until
the second round for my next question. Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Sestak for five minutes.
Mr. Sestak. Thank you.
Let me tell you what I heard that fell upon me.
First, Dr. Biddle, you said, as well as the general, our
leaving is going to be challenging if not done deliberately.
You remember, General, it took us to get out of Somalia, 6
months after Blackhawk Down, 6,300 troops, and we inserted
another 19,000 personnel. The 160,000 troops in Iraq and over
100,000 contractors, anyone who thinks we are going to turn
around tomorrow and not do it an a deliberate way without a
turkey shoot on that one road, that is what fell upon me here,
is a timetable withdrawal can't be precipitous.
Then you spoke about training, and so did you, Dr. West. We
have about 48,000 combat troops out of the 160,000 that is over
there. That is all. We have got 8,000 advisors over there. Do
we really think we are going to come down to 60,000 troops and
build up the 20,000 advisors and have how many combat troops to
prevent another Blackhawk Down?
And that is what I heard from you. The head of the National
Intelligence Council told us the other day that it is an art,
not a skill, to determine which of those Iraqi forces would be
loyal or motivated to protect our troops once embedded there.
So those who want to leave behind a touch back, sort of
like immigration touch back, you know, you kind of give it--
okay, we will leave some training troops behind. Well, I tell
you, that really worries me after watching Somalia.
And then, I step back and I hear, sir, about Al Anbar
province and been there. That started before this surge
started. They were coming over to us, those tribal chiefs after
watching their 15-year-old sons being run over 15 times as they
stood the families there, and they said, enough is enough.
But when they look to the East, nobody in Baghdad, despite
the more stable, security situation, militarily, saying come on
in and be all you can be in our government.
So I step back and come back to you, General, for my real
question because I think the key is from you.
The key, the road out of Iraq is through Tehran. And the
National Intelligence council tells us that is we precipitously
withdraw in 18 months a year ago, there would be instability in
that country and chaos. But when asked, if Iran were to be
involved in the negotiations, would it be a different outcome?
They said tough question to answer but yeah, probably.
So tell me, how do we get a safe redeployment with the,
what I believe is my major concern, the strategic readiness of
our military, improperly engaged throughout this world already
here at home to have a better security for America via Iran,
Syria, and Saudi Arabia. So from a military man who is saying
it is diplomatic diplomacy I gather, how?
General Eaton. Seventy percent of the Iranian population is
supportive of normalization of relations between Iran and the
united States. Iran occupies a terrific amount of boarder with
Iraq. They are, in fact, astride our line of communication to
Kuwait. Were they to embark upon an ambitious dismounted light
infantry attack, they would have a terrific opportunity to
cause us great harm.
We are beginning to negotiate from a position of weakness
and that is never a great position to be in when you are
negotiating with somebody who is locally strong.
Putting in a couple of aircraft carriers off the Iranian
shores is a pretty good start. And the commitment to sit down
and hash out what their interests are, what our interests are,
and getting after a negotiated agreement or a best alternative
to a negotiated agreement----
Mr. Sestak. If I could, General.
Yesterday in a meeting at the White House, Stephen Hadley
said, private meeting--not private, it was private to be talked
about but it was a small group--said, well, it is hard to
negotiate with Iran because, A, we are in position of weakness;
B, like Crocker said yesterday, they are involved
destructively. They are fighting our people. It is almost as a
going-in position.
Do you agree with that part of it, that we have to have
them seize their destruction before we negotiate this?
General Eaton. We have allowed ourselves to be in a
position of weakness. There are a great number of ways to get
after Iran to improve the odds of success negotiations, and
without violence. The international community, I believe, would
be very helpful. And we are about out of my expertise right
now, but very capable people can figure out incentives and
disincentives to bring to the table with this President.
Mr. Sestak. Thank you. I am out of time. But I honestly
believe that doubling down a bad military bet isn't the answer
and diplomacy as we redeploy is the key with those nations who
have influence. Why don't we use it?
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Andrews, five minutes.
Mr. Andrews. I thank the witnesses for your excellent
testimony this morning.
Secretary West, I think you have exactly captured the
dichotomy of public opinion between those who believe that the
Islamist terrorists are the principal problem in Iraq versus
those who believe sectarian violence is the principal problem.
I think that is exactly right.
I want to explore your analysis and your conclusion. With
did AQI come into existence?
Secretary West. I would probably say it was the battle of
Fallujah was what really made AQI. When we backed out of
Fallujah, that is when Zarqawi gathered so much strength that
we had these weirdos and coyotes and wolves coming from all
over the place for the next battle. And that was the turning
point.
Mr. Andrews. When would you date the emergence of AQI as a
viable force to create disruption in Iraq, what date would you
put on that?
Secretary West. Oh, August of 2003.
Mr. Andrews. When would you say----
Secretary West. From then on they were a force to be
reckoned with.
Mr. Andrews. Well, when would you say they reached a point
where their strength increased considerably?
Secretary West. They became, in my judgment, the dominant
force among all the different elements after they were able to
regroup in Mosul in November of 2004 after they had been----
Mr. Andrews. Okay.
Secretary West [continuing]. Kicked out of Fallujah.
Mr. Andrews. And prior to November of 2004, the average
attacks per month in Iraq were just shy of, I won't say
average, the height were around 3,000, the lowest were 1,800 so
the average is going to be 2,300 or 2,400 attacks a month, who
was engaging in those attacks, if AQI was not yet a significant
force.
Secretary West. The psychology of beginning to perceive you
don't have anything to lose by striking at somebody and you
have a high degree of testosterone, you are out there with
different kids, would cause practically anyone to pick up a
weapon, go out and start shooting.
Mr. Andrews. I appreciate that.
Secretary West. So the number of incidents----
Mr. Andrews. My time is limited. I wanted to ask you to
answer my question, though, which was that prior to November of
2004, who was propagating these 1,800 attacks per month? AQI
wasn't much of a force----
Secretary West. Correct. AQI was not the dominant force.
You had many different insurgent groups who were hostile to the
Americans.
Mr. Andrews. Do these insurgent groups still exist. Have
they gone away? Have they evaporated?
Secretary West. That is the interesting thing, sir, that if
you look at Anbar where most of the attacks took place, over 50
percent of them, the attacks now from last year in July at 400
have dropped to 100. So it is the same tribes that were on the
other side shooting that now are no longer shooting but they
haven't come over as individual insurgent groups.
Mr. Andrews. I wanted to ask General Eaton and Colonel
Hughes, if I read your testimony correctly, I think that you
think that the prospects for political settlement are enhanced
with some kind of orderly withdrawal by the United States. Did
I correctly state that in both of your cases?
Okay.
General Eaton. Correct here.
Mr. Andrews. General Eaton, what do you think that
political settlement might look like?
General Eaton. Political settlement. Are you talking about
the government of Iraq?
Mr. Andrews. Yes.
General Eaton. We have heard discussion today and pretty
articulately laid out that a relatively weak federalist
approach to governing Iraq is probably the way out with strong
local governments.
Mr. Andrews. What do you do about the problem of mass
internal migration of Shia Iraqis from central Iraq which is
predominantly Sunni area, what do you do about the people who
are living in integrated neighborhoods and towns?
General Eaton. Facilitate that.
Mr. Andrews. Facilitate the migration----
General Eaton. It is happening right now in a brutal way.
I believe our efforts to facilitate the migration or re-
migration as we are watching right now with the northern part
of Iraq near the Kurdish boarders----
Mr. Andrews. In my remaining time I would ask Colonel
Hughes or Dr. Biddle how they think the government of Saudi
Arabia would react to such a plan where there was the existence
of a large Shiite republic or large Shiite quasi-state on its
borders?
Dr. Biddle. In my contacts with the Saudis, they would not
view that as favorable to their security interests. But I would
like to revisit this issue to what some have referred to as
``soft partitioning of Iraq.'' I think that would be a very,
very dangerous path for the United States to engage in.
The fact, the history, remains that soft partitions don't
happen. All we have to do is look at Africa. We can look at
India. We can look at Pakistan. We can look at the Balkans. And
let me remind you that the level of violence and destruction in
Iraq today doesn't even come close in a per capita sense what
occurred in Bosnia. Not even close.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you very much for your testimony. I
appreciate it.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Jones for five minutes.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
And General Eaton, I want to say that I appreciate your
service when you were in the military. But I appreciate you
even more now because of your honesty and integrity.
I wish my friend from Georgia was still here to hear me say
that but I mean that most sincerely.
I want to thank you, General Batiste, General Zinni,
General McCaffrey, and anyone else I have left out by name for
being willing to stand up and try to inform the Congress and
the American people about the truth.
If you will give me a yes or not to this, and I have got
one other question.
General Batiste in an ad in April this year--I have always
said--this is General Batiste--I have always said--excuse me--
Mr. President, I have always said that I will listen to the
request from my commanders on the ground. General John Batiste.
Mr. President, you did not listen.
Is he listening now in your opinion?
General Eaton. No, sir, he is not.
Mr. Jones. Okay, thank you.
The second part and because of your comment and maybe
others if you want to add, please feel free to do so without me
calling you by name, I have Camp Lejeune Marine Base in my
district. I have great love and respect for those in uniform no
matter which branch. In April of this year, there was in a
North Carolina paper the heading, ``Deployed, Depleted,
Desperate.'' There is a question for those would will support
President Bush's strategy to stretch out the Iraq war until
after he has left office and for those who think we should be
prepared to continue our bloody operations of Iraq for five to
ten years.
Are you ready to support--this is the article, not be
speaking, this is the article--are you ready to support
reinstating selective service, the draft, even if that means
your sons and daughters or your grandchildren will have to put
on the uniform and go hold these cities and towns of a nation
in the middle of a civil war?
A couple other points and then I am going to stop.
The President's strategy of adding 30,000 or more troops in
Iraq may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. They were
not 30,000 extra troops sitting around doing nothing when the
call came.
Last point. The demands of the war on our troops and their
aging, worn-out equipment already has pushed the annual cost of
enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses above $1 billion and
advertising to about $120 million annually.
Do we have five years before the Marines and the Army are
broken?
I will go to you first, General Eaton, and then anybody who
would like to speak.
General Eaton. No, sir, we do not. And one of the appeals
that we have that Generals Batiste and others is we have got to
grow the armed forces to meet the foreign policy demands. We
are funding cold war systems to an extravagant degree.
Now, the theory of control of the commons with large navies
and air forces, all that we have to manage. But we are
shortchanging the Army, shortchanging the Marine Corps, and our
numbers of personnel whoa recommitted to doing the hard work of
today, and we are not funding these services properly in order
to re-arm and refit.
The outcome of that is that--my firstborn son is now in his
sixth month of a 15-month deployment. We are using a backdoor
draft. I don't yet endorse the draft. I have to state because
this came up, my wife endorses the draft because she told me to
say that.
But I will tell you the draft, you get into the tyranny of
large numbers and you will compromise the very technologically
and training-proficient force that we have.
Mr. Jones. Real quickly, I would like to go to each one.
Do you support Senator Webb and Senator Hagel's positions
that these men and women in uniform need more time to rest and
be home before they are sent back over. And if I could start
with you, Secretary West and go right down, yes or no?
Secretary West. No, sir, I do not.
The big difference on this panel is starts with General
Gaskin whom I admire tremendously. I am sure you do from Camp
Lejeune. He said we turned the corner in Anbar. I do not
believe I agree entirely with pushing more infantry, agree
entirely that the Army and marine Corps need more.
But I do not believe that we are going to be seeing this
surge indefinitely at this level.
I think the big difference here is that Mr. Biddle said he
gave it a one in ten chance. When I came back in April, I said
it was a 50/50 bet. From what I have heard from my e-mails from
the marines, I now put that as a six in ten chance that we can
pull this off.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Secretary, I need to get an answer to the
question about Senator Webb and Hagel. Yes or no would do it
for me since my time is up.
General Eaton. I support the Senator Webb, Senator Hagel
approach.
Dr. Biddle. I do, too, sir.
Colonel Hughes. I do not.
Mr. Jones. Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you.
Mr. Cooper for five minutes.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
holding this extraordinary series of hearings. If only we had
had a similar level of scrutiny years ago, Members of Congress
would understand a lot more about the problem.
I would like to ask which ever panelist would like to
respond, for those who point to progress in recent news in
Iraq, how can we be sure that progress will be lasting given
what seems like an inevitable troop reduction?
For example, if you look at things like the progress that
apparently has been made in Anbar, if you withdraw those
troops, how do we know the tribes will not switch allegiance
again or change their behavior? Sadr is dealing with the Maliki
government, how do we know those won't change substantially
once we reduce our presence? Enforcement of things like, you
know, the remarkably tenuous oil law that seem almost too much
to hope for. The sectarian or terrorist violence, however you
want to characterize it. You move a lot of the checkpoints and
oversight, what happens then?
I wonder, and we trained, what, hundreds of thousands of
Iraqi troops. They leave one week a month to go back home,
deposit their pay. We don't really know where they go and what
they do. We don't know if they are part of the reason for the
spike in violence.
So it is a remarkably confusing situation for any policy
maker but if you could help enlighten me on that issue, I would
appreciate it.
Dr. Biddle. I think it is very hard to make progress
lasting after a complete departure of U.S. troops. Historical
analogies are always problematic but I think the best analogy
to the situation we have in Iraq are civil wars back in the
Balkans where the route to civil war termination is negotiate
some sort of settlement among the parties but because the
parties don't trust each other with guns, a third party to act
as peacekeeper is required for those deals one reached to be
stable so the spoilers don't blow them up within a week of the
ink drying.
And I think unless, if one takes seriously the idea that we
are going to stay, do our best to produce stability, the route
to it is going to be through bi-lateral deals through something
like the Anbar Awakening. I think the implication of all that
is to make it stable is going to require a third party presence
over a generational duration as it has in other situations
where we have seen similar ethnic, sectarian, and other civil
conflicts.
Mr. Cooper. The reducing our forces might make it more
sustainable because there would be less op tempo stress or----
Dr. Biddle. Reducing our forces enables us to reset our
forces faster. Reducing our forces removes one of the primary
caps on the violence levels in Iraq if we do it prior to
negotiated settlements through some significant fraction of the
country. Reducing our forces to the point where they cannot act
as effective peacekeepers following a negotiated settlement to
the conflict makes that very negotiated settlement of the
conflict unstable and unlikely to persist.
Colonel Hughes. Sir, the notion that the United States can
be a peacekeeper in Iraq is weak because we are a belligerent
and Iraqi people see us as belligerent. The notion that the
United States can assist, for example, in the demobilization,
disarmament, and reintegration of insurgence back in the civil
society is faulty on the same basis. We need a third party. I
agree with Dr. Biddle, but it cannot be the United State
because we have as much blood on our hands as any of the
insurgent groups have over there.
Mr. Cooper. I just have a moment remaining. I am not sure
if anyone has asked the warfare and information age question
yet. But I worry that we have made the al Qaeda brand
unintentionally and that encourages their almost automatic
network franchising that is something that perhaps our military
is not as adept at dealing with as they should be. Am I
mistaken in the view?
Dr. Biddle. I am not sure we understand your question, sir.
Mr. Cooper. By focusing on a few people in Pakistan, that
we apparently did not succeed in routing out in Tora Bora and
the massive worldwide publicity, gave a certain celebrity
status----
Dr. Biddle. Yes.
Mr. Cooper [continuing]. To those folks. And then, even
European countries claim some association or affinity through
the Internet with these folks, claim training techniques and
others. Then all of a sudden we have metastasized the problem.
So in today's information-age world, brand is important and a
lot of people get self-fulfillment and identity in that.
And then, you add the free franchising capability----
Dr. Biddle. Right.
Mr. Cooper [continuing]. No payment is due. All they have
to do is claim affinity then somehow there own self-esteem is
bolstered by this.
Is this a different way of dealing with the enemy?
Dr. Biddle. You are correct in your understanding of that,
sir. They are very savvy in their ability to handle the media.
Mr. Cooper. But are there any effective U.S.
countermeasures to that? We recognize what they are doing but
how do we oppose that? It almost seems like beyond the
comprehension of----
Dr. Biddle. Well, one possible approach to this at the
level of national foreign policy and strategy is with the enemy
we have declared war on in this conflict is very ill-defined.
Al Qaeda is the best-known brand, if you like, within this
vaguely-defined group.
But we have thrown the net very broadly over a large
collection of terrorist organizations that might or might not
have thought beforehand that they are allies of al Qaeda.
Arguably what we have done to make this problem, you know,
worse than it might be, is by creating a very recognizable
brand and then encouraging lots of others who weren't--I don't
know how far I want to force this marketing metaphor--who
weren't necessarily part of the company before to think about
becoming affiliates because what we have told them essentially
is the only difference we see between you, Hamas, Hezbollah,
whomever else in al Qaeda is the ordering which we mean to
destroy you.
That makes that brand of al Qaeda substantially more
appealing to organizations that normally have a great deal of
difficulty collaborating with one another.
If we were clearer on the definition of the enemy in the
war, perhaps we could affect not necessarily the salience of
the brand per se but the attractiveness of the brand in
bringing in marginal and infra-marginal actors that might
otherwise be disinclined to cooperate with them.
Mr. Cooper. My time has long since expired.
Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Ms. Sanchez for five minutes.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I am sorry I arrived late. I had a Homeland Security
Committee at the same time. And so excuse me, gentlemen, if I
ask a question maybe you answered earlier.
I did read your testimonies and, you know, I personally I
believe we are getting out of Iraq. We just don't have the
resources to stay there much longer and it is just a matter of
time so I think these hearings are incredibly important.
And I say that, you know, having, you know, looking at the
leadership that we have out there that we keep touting,
Petraeus, Odierno, and all of these others and I just have to
say, you know, I was there the day after we caught Saddam in
Iraq and I asked General Odierno, how many insurgents are left
and he said, oh, we have turned the corner. We are done. We
have just got a few left, Congresswoman. So how many would just
a few be? We went back and forth and finally he told me 357. So
Odierno is the general out there running some of this stuff and
Petraeus. Petraeus was there when I was there and he was
training up the Iraqi and doing the Iraqification of the army.
It hasn't gone anywhere. And recently, I was out there and
saw General Petraeus's operating engineer in Baghdad and the
four provinces there, and I said, ``Well, how many policemen
and Iraqi army do you have in your provinces?'' And he told me,
``About 36,000.'' I said, ``I think you are completely wrong.''
And an hour later, I saw Petraeus, and Patraeus said, ``He is
completely wrong. It is double that.''
I mean, I, quite frankly, don't think even the people on
the ground know what is really up out there. It is just a
matter of time.
So here is my question--because we are going to get out--
what are we going to leave? How are we going to leave? I think
that is what much of this we are all grappling with, what is
the best plan?
And we go back to this whole intent, I look at, Dr. Biddle,
your testimony said each of Iraq's neighbors have vital
interests in Iraq. Syria and Iran. How do we get them into
talks to make them understand we need to leave to leave this
place without it going to hell? Or do you just think that they
want to see that happen?
And maybe we can start with Dr. Biddle and go down the
list?
Dr. Biddle. Well, with respect to Syria and Iran, but also
the neighbors generally, each of them, obviously has vital
interest in Iraq. They also have some degree of shared interest
with us and some degree of conflicting interest with us.
The ideal outcome for Syria, Iran, and Iraq is not the same
as our ideal outcome. But at the same token, none of us wants
chaos and ongoing condition of anarchy in the country.
But the challenge in diplomacy with respect to the Syrians
and Iranians is to take the bit of this where our interests and
their interests converge--nobody wants anarchy--and somehow or
another deal with the parts where our interests are in
conflict. Iran wants a safe proxy with a Shiite-dominated
government in Iraq for example, and we would prefer not to have
an Iranian proxy in the form of the Iraqi government.
That is a very challenging diplomatic problem in part
because of all the other problems in our relationships with
these two countries and the natural temptation on the part of
both Syria and Iran to use our interests in Iraq to extort from
us things that they want in other areas. And given that our
leverage over them is weak, we have already been trying to
apply leverage to Syria and Iran to change their policies on
all sorts of things for a generation. We have shot most of our
ammunition in that sense.
Given that we don't have a lot of easy alternatives to turn
to, economic sanctions, for example, I think what we are
probably going to face is a situation where if we really want
them to come a long way in our direction in this negotiation,
it is probably going to require quid pro quos on other issues
that we are likely to find very expensive. I think some of the
more important dimensions of quid pro quo are, for example, the
nuclear program for Iran, and for the Syrians, for example,
influence in Lebanon.
I think it is terribly important that we engage them
diplomatically as a way of exploring just how big is the common
interest zone, if you like, in this bargaining space as opposed
to the conflicting interest zone. Maybe we can find some more
shared interests in there that we can exploit by talking with
them.
At the end of the day, it is far from clear to me how much
of the two really important quid pro quos this Administration
is willing to yield in order to get their assistance in Iraq.
And even if they did, how much their assistance in Iraq is
worth.
Clearly, Iran, for example, has been tremendously unhelpful
in Iraq. But at the same token Iran's proxies in Iraq don't
share Iran's interests completely either whether they can get
them to do what we want them to do isn't clear either. So we
should talk but it is an expensive and fraught process.
Ms. Sanchez. Anybody else on the panel?
General Eaton. Egypt did not recognize Israel out of the
goodness of Anwar Sadat's heart. He didn't wake up one day and
fall in love with the Jewish state. It became a very expensive
endeavor on the part of the United Stated to bring him along.
That kind of negotiation is simply hard work among
diplomats to work out what Dr. Biddle alluded to.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez.
Gentlemen, we are going to start a second round. It will be
the same format.
And I will begin for five minutes.
I wanted to ask the question with regard to what could come
if things don't go well with regard to the United States troops
present. What can go wrong with regard to the Iraqis. I think
that, Dr. Biddle, you referred to that we are capping the
violence.
There have been a variety of different predictions about
what could happen if we did a precipitous withdrawal or just
left in the current situation. Last week, we heard from Dr.
Daniel Byman, and in his written statement, and he followed up
with it when we asked him about it. And he said that if--he
reluctantly has concluded that we need to leave. But his
conclusion is the result will be hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of deaths. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of
deaths.
And I pursued it with him and said, you know, substantial
numbers of that are going to be kids. Are you saying that when
we leave, that there will be hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of deaths of children? And he acknowledged that is his
prediction based on studying of civil wars and everything like
that.
My question is, where do you all foresee or see from your
different perspectives our responsibility as a nation as the
group that took out Saddam Hussein, took out a police state.
They had their own kind of violence but it was a different kind
of violence that didn't result in the kind of numbers in recent
years as Mr. Byman predicted.
What is our responsibility or morality? We used to talk
about Secretary Powell's statement, if you break it you own it.
And we, I think, we and our military, General Eaton, and the
Congress, and the American people, if we saw million of people,
including millions of civilians die in a fairly short period of
time, that may do something to our psyche as a nations.
So my question is, where is our responsibility or morality
regardless of what you think about the different options out
there? Secretary West.
Secretary West. Again, I am the odd one out here because I
don't see the degree of the pessimism but if you start with
your quitting, if you start with we are leaving because we
consider a civil war inevitable and therefore, we are just
packing up and going. Once you have quit, you have no control
over what happens after you quit.
And I think we would, in this country, look at ourselves
the way we did after Vietnam and it would be a bad time for us
for about five years, both in our own self-esteem, how others
look at it, and some of us would argue that we had a moral
responsibility that we let down on unnecessarily and other
would argue, no, we had done all we could and we have a bitter
debate but we wouldn't have a national consensus about our
moral responsibility.
Dr. Snyder. General Eaton.
General Eaton. Nations have interest that don't have
friends. If it is a vital interest, nations will act. The
argument based on moral grounds didn't with respect to Vietnam.
We basically allowed South Vietnam to go down in flames because
we withdrew support for the South Vietnamese army.
It is different in Iraq. I think the outcome can be very
detrimental to this nation's vital interests and certainly to a
lot of other nations dependent upon the oil coming out of that
region. Because I think the whole place will collapse if we
have a disaster in Iraq.
Dr. Snyder. Go ahead, Colonel Hughes.
Colonel Hughes. Sir, the American people bear a moral
responsibility to the people of Iraq for what has gone on over
there. And it transcends the scientific, almost theological
discussion about vital security interests.
One thing that we can do to help mitigate whatever occurs
is to fix the refugee admission issue here with the United
States. There are many Iraqis who are fleeing the country,
predominantly are Damascus and Amon but now it is growing in
Cairo. And all of my contacts throughout the Middle East tell
me this is viewed with great concern that this could become
another destabilizing factor in the Middle East just as the
Palestinian refugee issue destabilized so many places in the
Middle East.
We need to fix the refugee situation and make it easier for
the United States to fulfill its obligation to those Iraqis who
have worked with us and bring them into the country.
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Biddle.
Dr. Biddle. I think we have a terribly important moral
responsibility to Iraqis that as moral philosophers would put
it, aught implies can. You only have a moral responsibility to
do things that are possible.
The question of whether or not it is possible for us to
stabilize the country is debatable at this point. I think it is
possible but improbable. How improbable it has to be before you
decide you can no longer effect this in trying only magnifies
the moral problem by increasing the death toll associated with
the effort is a judgment call, which again, is partly why, I
think, either of the two extremes is a defensible position.
One place where ought----
Dr. Snyder. Let me interrupt and we will go to Mr. Akin.
You have been very clear that you feel U.S. troops are
currently capping the violence.
Dr. Biddle. Yes.
Dr. Snyder. Currently.
Dr. Biddle. Yes. And we could----
Dr. Snyder. And do that for a sustained period of time.
Dr. Biddle. Well, the challenge is how long can we continue
to that before you get what perhaps is the inevitable.
Dr. Snyder. Right.
Dr. Biddle. And the act of continuing postpones the deaths
of some Iraqis in exchange for accelerating the deaths of some
Americans. So the moral calculus isn't obvious either way.
Once place where ought and can come together, though, as
Colonel Hughes is pointing out with respect to the refugee
problem. There is an areas where our responsibility can be
addressed by things that we can control. And I would agree with
him forcefully that I think that is an area where we need to
take action.
Dr. Snyder. Although we should not think that amending our
immigration laws to deal with probably tens of thousands of
Iraqis is somehow going to take care of any responsibility we
may feel as a nations toward a civil war in a country of 25
million people.
Mr. Akin for five minutes.
Mr. Akin. I appreciate all of your perspectives in helping
us on these interesting questions.
I would ask you now to--let us stand way back away from the
whole situation. Some of us have sat on the Armed Services
Committee here for a number of years. And I guess what I am
interested in is what is the take-away? What have we learned?
Let us assume this problem was either fixed or we ran away from
it and was a disaster, either which way, but what are the
things that we should learn?
Now, my impression, I guess, sometimes we get to ask
questions or we can also give answers. You know, my impression
is, is that some--I guess it was almost 20 years ago this
committee met with three different militaries that represented
the United States. One was called the Air Force. One was called
the Navy. One was called Army. And we said we want you guys to
be one. We called it Goldwater Nichols. We talked about
jointness.
That has been, by most people's assessment, highly
successful.
My sense is the take-away here is we need to carry
jointness beyond just the military but perhaps to state and
commerce and the other groups or at least have these different,
what do you call them, Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams
(EPRTs) or whatever they are, but the group that can go in and
deal the banking question or oil question or hospital or
whatever it is and beyond just specifically military things.
That is my take-away. We need to have jointness but I am
open-minded. Everybody gets a minute shot here. What is the
number one take-away?
Secretary West. Sir, I will start at this end of the table
and just go down it.
To me it is in the society at this particular point in
time, wars, regardless of the tiny level of casualties compared
to others or compared to anything like drunk drivers killing
people, or something, is still so horrendous how we view things
that I would say it is the notion that we must a belief in
ourselves that causes a joint sacrifice by the entire nation
before we ask our sons and daughters to go to war. And we did
not have this time.
Mr. Akin. Joint consensus?
Secretary West. Joint, sir, in that it is the Nation as a
whole that says, we are in this as a nation and we will
sacrifice as a nation because this interest is vital. Ann if a
President can, say you can't do it on the cheap and if the
President says, I don't think I have to bother about that, then
I don't think we should go to war.
So my great lesson would be, if you can't get the country
to unite for a sacrifice, don't do it.
Mr. Akin. Thank you.
General Eaton. That was pretty eloquent.
I would also offer that our state department is not
properly organized nor is it properly resourced nor are its
personnel policies appropriate for the world we live in today.
Regional commands are working very well in the Department
of Defense. I would go after a regional command approach for
the State Department. They need a bigger budget and they need
different personnel policies so that we can direct their people
to do the things that we are asking them to do today they are
not doing in the EPRTs.
Mr. Akin. Thank you.
Colonel Hughes. Sir, as you know, I worked on the Iraq
study group and in doing the work, the big lesson that came out
is exactly what Secretary West just raised. You have to have a
national discussion about why the Nation wants to go to war
before the first deployment occurs connected to those
operations.
We did not have that. it should have occurred in 2002. The
Iraq study group was almost retroactive in restarting that
debate. And that is the lesson all of Americans need to hear
and take to heart.
Mr. Akin. Thank you.
Dr. Biddle. And one lesson we should learn and one that we
probably will but shouldn't, the one that we should--although,
again, as Colonel Hughes said, the importance of dissent in an
open marketplace of ideas. It is not clear that the Defense
Department in 2003 was sufficiently opened to a diversity views
to allow them to make good decisions in extremely complex
environments.
The lesson I am afraid we will learn that I don't think we
should is that we went from a single-minded focus on major
combat as the only primary mission for the U.S. military. And
it ill-served us in Iraq, so we should now go to a single-
minded focus on counter-insurgency and conflict as the only
mission we should organize the U.S. military around.
The future, I suspect, is more diverse than that. The sheer
difficulty of simultaneously doing two or three things very
well should not be underestimated. The danger that is
enormously great that that will become a recipe for mediocrity
at many things altogether as once. The business of avoiding
single-minded focus on any single military challenge is
organizationally and culturally much harder than it looks and I
am concerned that the single-minded focus that we had before
could be replaced by one that will serve the United States no
better.
Mr. Akin. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. We have been joined by Mr. Saxton, and without
judgment, he will be allowed to participate in the questions at
the end of this round.
Mrs. Davis for five minutes.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen, again, for being here.
And I appreciate the fact that you brought up, you know,
are we a military at war are we a nation at war? The veterans
in my community ask me that question and I think that it is
something we need to address and we somehow kind of pushed that
aside and had we approached it differently, perhaps we would be
in a different spot today. I don't know if any of us know that.
I wonder if you could continue perhaps a little of the
comments you just made because I think the lessons learned is
something certainly in the services that we know is applied.
And what do you feel that the Congress has really missed in all
this?
Is there some opportunity here to address issues whether it
is the leaving, the part of leaving and I think Secretary West,
I think you mentioned that the Congress plays a role in this
obviously, in the way that we talk about it.
At the same time, we have an issue of whether any way that
we talk about it is a sign of weakness. I think, Dr. Biddle,
you mentioned Congress should mandate it.
What is it that we need to do that perhaps different from
the conversation, the discussion today?
Dr. Biddle. Maybe I will start at this end this time.
I think the perception that discussion and debate is
weakness is much more sustainable when there is not much
discussion and debate going on. If it is an ongoing every-day
feature, the national dialogue about national security, then it
doesn't get represented as because it is something that only
happens when failure is apparently looming, it is therefore a
signal of failure.
I think a healthy debate at all times in which people's
patriotism is not called into question by their willingness to
question the very complex subject matter at take here, is
terribly, terribly important.
But again, both within the Congress, but within the
executive branch. One of the difficulties we have now is
because this debate has been muted until fairly recently, there
is now a great deal of concern within the executive branch that
thinking through all the alternatives in the rigorous, well-
supported, carefully staffed out diverse ideas represented way
we would like it to be done, will be read as a sign of lack of
confidence in their own policy.
We have gotten ourselves into this fix because we have not
heretofore been examining all possibilities with the degree of
rigor and intensity that they deserve. At the moment, again, I
think the way to get us out of this fix is for the Congress to
legislate something so that it no longer becomes an apparent
sign of lack of confidence.
I think more broadly, we just need a healthier debate at
moments prior to looming potential catastrophe. And there are
two points in time I thing where we made mistakes as a nation,
as a people, and the Administration made a mistake.
The first one was, in 2002, when Congress issued the
blanket authorization for the use of force. Rather than
demanding that consideration be given for a formal declaration
of war or the invoking of the War Powers Act. The War Powers
Act, I am not a constitutional expert, but it sure seems to me
that it is a fig leaf for people to hide behind rather than to
try and actually make something useful come from it.
And I think that there ought to be some healthy debate
within the halls of Congress about its responsibilities as the
body that is supposed to, you know, authorize the use of
military force and take the Nation and the people it represents
to war.
General Eaton. The executive branch has gotten too strong.
The commander-in-chief notion that the President is commander-
in-chief was seen by the founding fathers as the number one
general, not the man who would decide that the entire nation
would go to war.
We have a concentration of power, had a concentration of
power in the hands of the President and Vice-President and the
Secretary of Defense. Congress went mute and allowed it to
happen. And the generals stayed silent as well.
Ms. Davis of California. Secretary West, did you want to
comment?
Secretary West. I think Steve is really on to something. It
is just a question of how it would be done. We know it is
inevitable that General Odierno and the others in the next
couple of months are going to be talking about a Plan B.
Having a discussion that is fairly open, Steve may be onto
something. I just don't know how to work it out. I will say
this much. I do know the House Armed Services Committee is
trusted more than any other committee in either branch down at
this end. So if anybody could do it, it would be the House
Armed Services Committee. But I am not sure exactly how it
would be done.
But he is right. If there could be a more open discussion
of these things before it was decided, it would make a vast
difference.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Bartlett for five minutes.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
Secretary West, relevant to your observations that there
are different reactions to a death depending upon how it
occurred, it takes cigarettes just about three days, in fact a
bit less than three days, to kill more people than all the
people that we have lost in the multi-year war. And there is no
outrage to that.
I would like for you, if you will, to help me in a little
poll survey that I am doing. You each have something to write
with and a piece of paper?
If you will write down four things for me on that piece of
paper. The first one is, they hate each other hate al Qaeda,
they hate us, and something else.
So four lines, hate each other, hate al Qaeda, hate us, and
something else.
Now, if you will put down--there is a lot of violence in
Iraq--if you will put down the percent of the violence in Iraq
that you think is engendered by each of those.
Now, in a prior hearing, one of our witnesses thought this
was an essay test. This is just some numbers.
Okay.
Hopefully, they will add up to a hundred.
We will trust you that you will read what you have written
on your paper, not be influenced by what the others have
written down.
Secretary West, what are your number? Hate each other? How
much? what percent?
Secretary West. Thirty percent, sir.
Mr. Bartlett. Thirty percent because they hate each other.
All right.
They hate al Qaeda?
Secretary West. One percent, sir.
Mr. Bartlett. One percent. Wow.
Secretary West. This is the violence. When you say hate al
Qaeda, how many kill al Qaeda because they hate al Qaeda?
Mr. Bartlett. No, I mean how much of the violence is Iraq
is engendered because----
Secretary West. Oh, because of al Qaeda.
Mr. Bartlett. Yes, sir.
Secretary West. Oh, oh, I am sorry. Then, basically, 40
percent is al Qaeda driven.
Mr. Bartlett. And 30 percent is----
Secretary West. Hate us.
Mr. Bartlett [continuing]. Rethink the 30?
Secretary West. Are opposed to us.
Mr. Bartlett. Okay.
Secretary West. Thirty percent against us, 30 percent
against each other, and al Qaeda is 40.
Mr. Bartlett. How much they hate us is how much?
Secretary West. I am sorry, sir, 30 percent.
Mr. Bartlett. Thirty percent.
Okay, they may mean something else in your world, okay,
good. Thirty, 40, 30.
General Eaton.
General Eaton. Fifty, 10, 40.
Mr. Bartlett. Fifty?
General Eaton. Hate each other.
Mr. Bartlett. Ten, forty.
General Eaton [continuing]. Al Qaeda 40 percent hate us.
Mr. Bartlett. Colonel Hughes.
Colonel Hughes. I guess I am the odd man out, sir. Five
percent hate each other.
Mr. Bartlett. All right.
Colonel Hughes. Forty percent hate al Qaeda. Forty percent
hate us. And 15 percent is due to something else and that
something else is crime.
Mr. Bartlett. Crime? Okay.
Secretary West. Good point.
General Eaton. Very good point.
Mr. Bartlett. Okay, Dr. Biddle.
Dr. Biddle. I would say 55 percent on hate each other, 25
percent on al Qaeda, 20 percent on hate us. And I would also
add at least 10 percent on something else, chiefly crime.
Mr. Bartlett. Crime.
Dr. Biddle. And add personal vendettas and other things in
that category.
Mr. Bartlett. Okay.
So roughly, a third of the violence would go away if we
leave if I average out your numbers.
Dr. Biddle. Well, provided they don't try to kill somebody
else.
Mr. Bartlett. Yes. Okay.
But at least for three of you, the hate each other was a
pretty big number. And our leaving is not going to change that,
is it?
Dr. Biddle. No. The percentage may change if we leave.
Mr. Bartlett. Oh, they will because we are not there any
more so those who hate us will be hating somebody else.
Dr. Biddle. Yes. I would be careful about the inference
that they hate us percentage of the violence will disappear and
be replaced by peace and tranquility----
Mr. Bartlett. Right.
Dr. Biddle [continuing]. If we left.
Mr. Bartlett. I thank you very much. I am just trying to
get some feel as to what the experts think the climate is over
there and this little survey helps me get some feel for that.
I am adding that to my growing list. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Ms. Sanchez for five minutes.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to go back and ask Major General Eaton, you
said that the State Department was not structured correctly for
the types of challenges that we have like Iraq, maybe Bosnia
and Kosovo, I don't know, going back to your experience, or for
the future. Can you, having been a general, and having seen
this transition that we do, what do you think we need to do to
restructure that State Department so that they can do more of
this transition, some call it nation building, I mean, I don't
know what to call it, I just know, you know, once the military
has done its job, we really should get them out. We shouldn't
ask the Army to build the nation, if you will.
From your standpoint, having watched now, much of this
happen in different areas, what do we need to do to change this
State Department to better adapt for the future?
General Eaton. First, the Department of Defense does not
manage language foreign area specialists particularly well. We
have a tendency to train and then grind them off. The State
Department sees that----
Ms. Sanchez. Go back to that. So the Department of Defense,
are you talking about local people that we are using or people
in the military that we are using for language or State
Department type of people that we are using for language
purposes?
General Eaton. The Department of Defense does not see
language proficiency for an area officer proficiency as
important enough to do what we need to do within the military
to----
Ms. Sanchez. To have that type of capability within the
military.
Are you suggesting that our military should have some of
thee capabilities so that they, in fact, do some of that nation
building?
General Eaton. The military justifiably does not see that
as its main responsibility. The responsibility of the military
is to fight and win the nation's wars. The State Department
sees that as a primary requirement, as a primary effort.
Ms. Sanchez. For the Department of Defense or the State
Department primary?
General Eaton. State Department.
Ms. Sanchez. Okay.
General Eaton. That is, diplomats learn languages----
Ms. Sanchez. Right.
General Eaton. Diplomats learn how to swim in the
environments where they are.
The organizational issue for the State Department is we
have the Department of Defense organized in regional commands.
Every square inch of this planet now belongs to a four-star
admiral and general.
I believe that a similar approach, perhaps overlaid on
existing boundaries, needs to happen within the State
Department.
Two, they are not resourced to meet the expectations that
we have, that the military has of the State Department.
And their personnel policies allow members of the State
Department to say no to an assignment.
Ms. Sanchez. So somebody that we think is the best-
qualified to go into Iraq can actually turn down that
assignment.
General Eaton. Secretary Rice cannot direct people within
State Department to go fill the EPRTs who we have right now.
Hence, those are being filled by military.
Ms. Sanchez. As opposed to your experience where you can
send wherever the service tells you to go or you get out.
General Eaton. That is right.
Well, you don't even have that. I mean, you go to jail.
Ms. Sanchez. Some cases you get out. You just said you
retired.
So would you advocate then that the Department of Defense
bleed over into some of the skill set or are you advocating
more that we really put the line in between what the Department
of Defense does what Department of State does and that we
actually resource and change the way it is structured and the
requirements of the State Department?
General Eaton. I would not change the main effort of the
Department of the Defense to fight and win the nation's wars. I
would increase the capability of the State Department to be
aggressive actors in the theaters of operations where they are
not aggressive actors today.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, General.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Saxton for five minutes and then we will go
to Mr. Sestak.
Mr. Saxton. First, Mr. Chairman, let me thank you for
making it possible for me to be here today. I happen to, as all
of you do, I am sure think that this is one of the most
important periods of time that our country has faced in a long
time so I appreciate being able to be part of this discussion.
Gentlemen, each of you have expressed yourselves in the
last few minutes since I have been here--I apologize for not
being able to make it earlier but I was interested in something
Dr. Biddle said in that before we enter into a situation like
this again, conflict or whatever, that we ought to have a
national discussion and ``examine all the possibilities.'' I
think that is great advice.
And a few minutes later, Secretary West talked about our
military leaders and all of us here in the Administration and
in Congress considering a Plan B.
And I guess by question would be this. In terms of
examining all possibilities as we move forward from the point
we are in, which we obviously can't do anything about now. We
are where we are. It would seem to me that we ought to have a
discussion and I suggested this to my colleagues previously
about where we go from here in examining all the possibilities
including the recognition that Iraq does not exist in a vacuum,
including the recognition that the country to its east, Iran,
has demonstrated that it has aspirations to do some things that
involve Syria and that involve Hezbolla, that involve perhaps
the Shia majority in Iraq, that perhaps involve the state of
Israel, and their support of terrorism may by a subject that
even involves the United States.
So I guess my questions is, in examining all the
possibilities for decisions that we are about potentially about
to make and recognizing the Iraq government doesn't exist in a
vacuum, and recognizing that the other factors are, in fact,
factors that we ought to be talking about, give us a quick one
minute or two or whatever it is, each of you if you would, be
kind enough to, on your assessment of what are our decisions we
make, what are the ramifications of the decision we may make?
Secretary West. Excuse me, sir, you mean relative to the
Iranian dimension of the whole problem?
Mr. Saxton. Relative to the what decisions we have to make
about Iraq and the other factors that I mentioned?
Secretary West. I will just touch on two and quickly move.
You did mention, sir, that I think you should keep an eye
on. And that is that the United States and Iraq together have
to come to terms before December and go to the United Nations
with the United Nations Security Council will then issue in
December a statement about the role of the occupying power.
That is going to be very interesting to see how we in Iraq work
out our differences to go before the U.N.
Separate statement about Iran, I think we have been
tiptoeing around the tulips too long. If they are killing
Americans, there should be a punishment for killing Americans.
That may be easy for me to say versus the President, but if
anything, I think, sure, I am perfectly willing to talk to
them, smile genially like President Reagan did and at the same
time say, gee, I am sorry, but you just lost the place where
those bombs were coming from.
General Eaton. We need a powerful diplomatic engagement.
Essentially, Iraq is a protectorate right now and we are its
protector. We need to distribute that to other nations of
interest.
And with respect to Iran, we suffered significant
casualties during the Vietnam war at the hands of Soviet
weapons and Soviet Proxy forces. Yet we maintained aggressive
diplomatic action with the Soviet Union.
I would endorse aggressive diplomatic action with Iran. And
it is not necessarily all done by diplomats.
Colonel Hughes. There are two vital interests that the
United States has to deal with today and that is the
proliferation of WMD and the issue of terrorism. You know, when
it comes to WMD, we have accepted North Korea holding onto a
stockpile of plutonium even though they are now shutting down a
reactor they no longer need.
We have allowed the Russians to continue to support for the
Iranian nuclear reactor.
We are allowing the Iranians to move on producing plutonium
for their uses. And we are not doing much about it except with
some feeble diplomatic initiatives.
We are not bringing all of our national power to bear on
this. And that needs to be fixed. It is difficult for the
United States to fix it, though, when it is mired in a ground
war that doesn't have any relationship to this particular
problem. And the United States needs to resolve its presence in
Iraq one way or another. In doing so, that will allow us to
repair the alliances that have been fractured by this war and
our partnerships with special friends.
It will also allow us time to fix our military so that it
is capable of doing the job when it is called to, again, do
whatever the Congress wants it to do.
Dr. Biddle. I think we have a number of profound interests
at stake in Iraq, some humanitarian, some of them security.
Among the security interests, I would highlight one that we
have created for ourselves through the war in Iraq, which is
the danger, not a certainty, but the anger of a possible
regional conflict spanning the major energy producing countries
of the Mideast if our policy in Iraq fails.
The challenge is sufficiently grave as a threat to American
national interest but I think it warrants the most intensive
analytic effort we can provide to figure out how to mitigate
it, particularly because migrating will require an unusually
close marriage of diplomatic, political, economic, and military
tools in ways that we have historically not done all that well
all that consistently.
And I think when I talk about the need for healthy U.S.
debate on this kind of question, an essential piece of that
debate is bringing together very, very different kinds of
expertise that will almost never reside in single individuals.
And somehow or another, getting the people who know regional
politics in the Mideast, diplomatic instruments and tools and
potentialities, the economic implications at stake here, and
the detailed military problems, not just strategic but
logistical, tactical, operational, and all the rest, in a way
that allows them to hammer out some sort of integrated strategy
for dealing with this conundrum.
That is not an easy thing to organize. And I think unless
we have very self-aware by organizing it, we run the risk of
confronting this risk with the kin of tunnel-vision approach
that is easy and natural but would be very unfortunate as a
response to this problem.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Sestak for five minutes.
Mr. Sestak. Thank you, sir.
One quick comment and then I have two questions. I least I
will get one in.
If I could, General, in your comment, I always remembered
General Shalikashvili saying, I can't just hang out a sign in
front of the Pentagon saying we only do the big ones.
And I think the key point I think in the debate between you
and Ms. Sanchez was that in the military, there is U.S. force.
And there are U.S. forces. The force is really meant for why
you all exist, to fight and win our nation's war, hopefully,
because of that ability to deter them.
But there are forces that at times can be helpful to the
nation-building process from logistics to civil affairs units
and all. And we never want the second to overtake the first I
think is your overarching point. And that is what I took it.
My second one though is, if I can build off of what you
just said, Doctor, and what I think Mr. Saxton said well. I am
a date certain guy for my own reasons. But set that aside and
enough time because if anybody thinks they can get out tomorrow
they just don't understand the military situation or
diplomatic, I think.
My take on it, though, is, while ending this war is
necessary, it is insufficient. How we end it in the means by
which we do so is actually more important because it has to do
with the safety of our troops and for our overall security.
The aftermath, we will own. We will own because by first of
all, the dog may catch the car soon, and something maybe
implemented.
I honestly think Democrats have to turn, if they are, away
from pure opposition to this war into trying to address in a
bi-partisan way a war that is not Bush's war. It is America's
war because the consequences of the aftermath are so great.
With that as background, I understand what you said, each
of individually what we should do. What should Congress do in
the months to come because we need the Republicans and they
need us in a sense end this tragic misadventure in the right
way.
What and how? As I watch Senator Lugar, as I watch what
happened on the Senate side, I didn't see them go to the next
step for probably good reasons over there. But this is our war.
And I am so worried about the Army with not one active unit
Reserve, Guard, that can state of readiness to help those
30,000 troops sitting in South Korea if they were attacked
tomorrow because they are not in condition and everywhere
around.
What should Congress do? I mean like now.
Dr. Biddle. Well, there are a couple of different ways to
think about what congress can do.
One thing Congress can do is mandate troop withdrawals
through control of the purse, for example. So there is a great
deal of interest in the Congress at trying to find a middle
ground, troop presence in Iraq figure that perhaps would allow
for bi-partisan compromise, or perhaps would be a slow way to
ease into a total withdrawal.
I actually think the most useful role that Congress can
play at this point is causing ideas to be discussed that
otherwise won't be. And again, I don't want to return to the
same idea too often but in an extremely complex subject matter
problem like how in the world do we mitigate the costs of
either total or partial withdrawal from Iraq, the natural
tendency of the government, especially in a situation as
polarized as this, is not going to be to examine an all
possibilities with the kind of rigorous, multi-disciplinary
approach that we would all like.
The political catch-22 in doing that kind of planning can
be overcome by law and that notion of creating ideas and
information around which policy can be made, not just for
lawmakers but also, for officers and strategic planners and
people in the executive branch. I think that is a way that
Congress can at this point in time, help us move forward in
addition to just thinking about should we get out, should we
not, what should the force level be.
Colonel Hughes. Sir, that is an excellent question and I am
glad you asked that.
The biggest issue that confronts General Petraeus and
Ambassador Crocker today is how do you wrap your arms around
the political reconciliation issues of Iraq? And this nation
lacks that ability because you don't have an Office of
Political Reconciliation in the Department of State Foreign
USAID. There are certain entities in the town and maybe this is
a shameless advancement for my own institute but that is what
we do.
You need to empower entities like the Institute of Peace
that do political reconciliation work so we can get out there
and, you know, have a broader net to cast over Iraq and its
provinces. We are seeing progress there but it is slow and it
is very, very consuming in terms of resources for us.
General Eaton. The issue before Congress is the President
of the United States and his stubbornness and unwillingness to
deviate from stay the course.
That is the drama. I hear too much about the commanding
general in Iraq and less about the Combatant Commander Fallon.
Admiral Fallon has the entire region. He has all the countries
that have a factor on the problem.
The President of the United States will not shift off his
definition of victory. His definition of victory is not going
to happen. It is going to be something else crafted with the
countries of interest around Iraq. You have got to reach out to
the Republican Party to help the President shift off of his
notion of victory.
Mr. Sestak. I agree.
Secretary West. I believe, sir, that the House Armed
Services Committee, as I said earlier, is probably the only
committee that really has the credibility inside the military.
That if you were to say why don't we have some fulsome
discussion about Plan B that you could get it.
Mr. Sestak. You are saying we should be saying that.
Secretary West. I believe you could do that, sir.
Mr. Sestak. That is----
Secretary West. I think this committee is probably the only
committee that could do that.
Dr. Snyder. We have some votes coming up but we will give
members, if anybody has any other questions.
Mr. Bartlett. Okay.
Ms. Davis, any follow-up questions?
Ms. Davis of California. Yes. Just----
Dr. Snyder. You have the microphone for five minutes.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
I think going back a little ways to our discussion about al
Qaeda, I think it has been clear that I know several of you at
least feel that that is central to what is happening today and
yet, we really need to involve the neighbors.
What impact do they then have on what al Qaeda continues,
how they continue to grow or how they continue to create the
situation there and even as we project here in the states? What
influence do they really have?
What are the costs then of trying to work with them as
well? I think, Colonel Hughes, you addressed this or Dr.
Biddle, the cost invoked and whether it is a nuclear or
whatever it is, vis-a-vis Iran, how do you asses that?
If al Qaeda is so central, and we need to work with Iraq's
neighbors, what impact do they rally have on all of that?
Colonel Hughes. If I could say something. Let us be
specific. Al Qaeda in Iraq is al Qaeda in Iraq. They don't have
allegiance with any of the neighbors. The foreign fighters who
come in do not come predominantly except in one case from one
particular neighbor. Saudi Arabia has a lot of people that have
come in. We are seeing a growing number of foreign fighters
coming from North Africa. We also have Chechnyans coming in but
you don't have Iranians coming in. You do have some of the
bleed over from some of the other neighbors as I said.
Ms. Davis of California. Would you say just al Qaeda rather
than al Qaeda in Iraq then. Is there something that we are
trying to a way of working with the neighbors that would impact
al Qaeda?
Colonel Hughes. If we could forge a common stand among the
neighbors and Iraq against al Qaeda, I think everybody would
benefit from that. Nobody in that region likes Osama bin Laden
and what he stands for because he is a threat to every one of
them. You know, so nobody has an interest in supporting al
Qaeda in Pakistan or al Qaeda in Iraq. It is not in their best
interests.
General Eaton. I believe there are two al Qaedas. There is
the al Qaeda of the private soldier, the foot soldier, the guy
who can do basic infantry work. And then, there is the al Qaeda
that was able to do the low-tech, high-concept attack on the
United States on 9/11.
Those are very different----
Ms. Davis of California. Right.
General Eaton [continuing]. Entities. And our problem is
the silent majority, the silent majority of Muslim nations
unwilling, as we are discussing here, to step forward and say
enough and to eliminate that issue in their countries.
Ms. Davis of California. I guess just to follow up on that
though. Do we have a strategy for doing that whether it is in
the hyperspace----
General Eaton. I would go back to the diplomacy issue and
convincing Saudi Arabia that it is not in their interest to
continue a blind eye of developing this al Qaeda fighters and
sending them into Iraq.
Secretary West. Technically, Syria is allowing about 70
foreign fighters, 85 percent of them being suicide bombers to
come through per month through the airport at Damascus.
Iraq is averaging one suicide bomber a day, which is
equivalent to one thinking cruise missile murderous bastard a
day just killing hundred and hundreds of people. This is what
causes many people to believe that if al Qaeda in Iraq that is
doing this could be stopped from doing it, you could stop the
cycle of violence.
But our influence over Syria to cause them--and they could
shut down the Damascus airport any time they want--but we don't
have the leverage with them to persuade them to do it. One a
day are coming in and just massively killing in Iraq.
Dr. Biddle. Again, I think the central problem is leverage
and again there are mixed motives on all parts. But the
Syrians, just like everyone else, are threatened by global al
Qaeda. I mean, global al Qaeda's primary target are secular
authoritarian regimes in the Mideast. Well, Syria would be
fairly high on that list if you were just to look at they are
most opposed to and the kinds of governments are available.
The trouble is, on the one hand, they don't show interest
with al Qaeda. On the other had, they don't show interest with
us either. And at the moment, in some ways, our policy in the
region is more threatening to them than Osama bin Laden's.
The challenge in dealing with all these countries in
diplomatic interchange is to try and expand the current range
of common interests and deal with the areas where what the want
in Iraq is different from what we want.
My concern is the areas where what they want and we want
are different for both large and very, very important to these
states, who after all, are neighbors of Iraq, who have
absolutely viral national security interests and what that
country looks like in five to ten years.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Sestak, we are going to give you the last
word but it better be a reasonably quick word since we have a
vote underway.
Mr. Sestak. Yes, sir.
I have one question that gets back to Iran. Traveling
through Iran with Iraq with Senator Hagel for three days. Being
with that senator was the best three days I have had in
Congress.
I was taken where everyone said the influence of Iran is
undo. It is there. It is pervasive. And they talked about
Syria, too. Saudi. And having always believed that, though not
as well stated as the road out to Iran--I am going to use that
from now on.
General Eaton. As a footnote, Congressman, I didn't invent
that.
Mr. Sestak. I got it.
I am taken with incentives, incentives that change
behavior. You reduce taxes and it changes your behavior. I am
also taken with that saying in the Middle East, having been
there lots of times, imshala, God willing tomorrow. It seems to
me there needs to be incentive that change the behavior of Iran
from destructive to trying to get influence to be constructive.
General Eikenberry and his departure from Afghanistan said
to us in a hearing when asked, does an end work toward our
interest in Afghanistan? The answer was yes, not because he
wants the same interest, he would want Taliban, he would want
al Qaeda there, put half-a-million dollars in roads. There are
some common interests.
I am trying to find those Venn diagrams where things
overlap, what are those incentives? Because I do believe
engagement should be with consequences. Diplomacy can be tough,
sanctions, whatever. What are those incentives--even
withdrawing troops could be an incentive. What are some
incentives, positive and negative, very quickly, that you think
could bring about parties to the table to help facilitate an
aftermath that is more accommodating toward stability,
particularly with Iran?
Dr. Biddle. I think with Iran, the critical common interest
is nobody wants anarchy. The problem is the kind of non-anarchy
they want and we want is very, very different and getting them
to accept something that looks like more like our version of
non-anarchy, something other than a Shiite dictatorship that
will follow the wishes of Iran, is going to be something that
is going to require us to sweeten the deal with the Iranians
because I think at the end of the day, they think they are in
the ascendancy here. We are in decline. They have the arrows in
the quiver. We don't.
Their willingness to compromise with us simply is a way of
avoiding chaos is going down not up because they think they can
avoid that without our help. In an environment in which at the
moment, they think they are holding the cards and it is just a
matter of waiting it out until the United States leaves so they
get the version of non-anarchy they prefer, rather than the
version we prefer, we are probably going to have to give them
something else that is in our power to give that they actually
care about, which is primarily, I suspect, their nuclear
program. Secondarily and somewhat more broadly, the sense of
respect from the Untied States.
Those are the two things they want from us that we haven't
given them and we don't particularly want to give them either
of those, especially ground on their nuclear program. But I
have a feeling we will have to if we are going to make any
headway.
Colonel Hughes. You need to look at Iran in its total
complexity. If we keep think about Iran merely as a supportive
factor to an insurgency and growing civil was in Iraq, we are
missing the boat. The Iranian government is stressed. They are
severely over-stretched in a number of things. There are riots
all the time in the north. There are reports of public
shootings of Kurds all the time. They have got gas and fuel
crisis. They claim they need the nuclear energy because their
oil infrastructure is collapsing.
You know, so there are a lot of different things we need to
look at and understand about what makes Iran tick today and
then see how we can turn those into leverage points that would
help us influence their behavior in Iraq.
Mr. Sestak. General.
General Eaton. I would only add that, excellently stated,
we have a military problem right now with Iran. We are at a
conventional military disadvantage right now because of their
geography and our poor structure tie down. Diplomatically,
politically, economically, we can generate the upper hand,
particularly in the international community very quickly to
leverage them.
Mr. Sestak. Sir.
Secretary West. Cause them pain. We are the greatest
country in the world and the most powerful country in the world
and they are in a position where they are training, equipping,
and planning the deaths of Americans. I would figure out a way
of putting a stop to that and put the fear of god in them.
Mr. Sestak. Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Secretary West, General Eaton, Colonel Hughes,
and Dr. Biddle, we appreciate you being here. I think it is the
kind of discussion that this committee likes to have and needs
to have and will be an ongoing discussion for months and years
to come.
Thank you so much for being here.
The committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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