    [House Hearing, 114 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

       FROM IRAQ AND SYRIA TO LIBYA AND BEYOND: THE EVOLVING ISIL THREAT

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               FEBRUARY 10, 2016

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 114-141

                                   __________

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                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                     EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
    CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         BRAD SHERMAN, California
    DANA ROHRABACHER, California         GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
    STEVE CHABOT, Ohio                   ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas             THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
    TED POE, Texas                       BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    MATT SALMON, Arizona                 KAREN BASS, California
    DARRELL E. ISSA, California          WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
    TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania             DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
    JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina          ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   AMI BERA, California
    PAUL COOK, California                ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
    RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas            GRACE MENG, New York
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania            LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida                TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
    TED S. YOHO, Florida                 ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
    CURT CLAWSON, Florida                BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
    REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
    DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
    LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
    DANIEL DONOVAN, New York

         Amy Porter, Chief of Staff      Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director

                   Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                                    WITNESS

    The Honorable Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the
      Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, U.S. Department of State.....     4

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    The Honorable Brett McGurk: Prepared statement...................     9

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing notice...................................................    54
    Hearing minutes..................................................    55
    The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign
      Affairs: Material submitted for the record.....................    57
    The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
      from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement..........    61
    Written responses from the Honorable Brett McGurk to questions
      submitted for the record by:
      The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Representative in Congress
        from the State of Florida....................................    62
      The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress
        from the State of Texas......................................    68
      The Honorable David A. Trott, a Representative in Congress from
        the State of Michigan........................................    72

       FROM IRAQ AND SYRIA TO LIBYA AND BEYOND: THE EVOLVING ISIL THREAT

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016

                           House of Representatives,

                         Committee on Foreign Affairs,

                                Washington, DC.

        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in
    room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Chairman Royce. All right, this hearing will come to order.
    Today we will hear from the administration's point-man on its
    effort to combat ISIS. He is back before the committee again.
    Now this is an issue that this committee has raised repeatedly
    since ISIS first began its attacks and we began calling for air
    strikes against ISIS.
        It has now been 2 years since President Obama dismissed
    ISIS as the JV team. Today, the administration claims its goal
    is to ``degrade and ultimately destroy'' ISIS, but it still
    doesn't have a strategy to get that job done. The tide has not
    turned in terms of the growing influence of ISIS.
        Instead, these ``fighters on the back of pickup trucks,''
    to use the President's term, have grown into a global force, a
    force capable of striking in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and
    yes, capable of striking here at home in the United States.
    There are now, in terms of groups supporting ISIS, there are 50
    ISIS-linked groups on the ground in 21 separate countries, and
    it is everywhere in cyberspace. And everywhere in cyberspace it
    spews that deadly message to kill.
        Ambassador McGurk--just back from the front lines with
    Syrian Kurds--will note some encouraging developments: Ramadi
    in Iraq was retaken in December, and after some much-needed
    loosening of the rules of engagement, ISIS-controlled oil
    installations in Syria have been finally bombed. This is good.
    But these gains have been too slow to come and too limited.
    Every day that ISIS makes advances, seemingly unchecked, it
    draws recruits to plot new attacks abroad, including the United
    States.
        Meanwhile the Iraqi Government hasn't been able to deliver
    as it should. The Iraqi Kurds, long denied better arms, are
    desperate. Sunni forces, key to any success, do not trust
    Baghdad as the government has failed to include them, in their
    view, in the government and to include them in the armed forces
    in a meaningful way. And across the region, the U.S. is
    perceived--the perception is that we are only willing to back
    non-Sunnis. Now this only empowers ISIS.
        Militarily, the size of the recently announced Special
    Operations Force to target ISIS leadership is a fraction of
    what past efforts have entailed. Our air strikes are still only
    averaging 23 a day--a fraction of what a serious air campaign
    looks like.
        In the failed state of Libya--where militants don't face a
    threat from the air--ISIS has doubled in size. These 6,000
    fighters are several hundred miles from Europe. They have their
    sights on Libya's oil, a tactic that made it the world's
    richest terror group, and despite years of warnings about
    Libya's course the administration's response has been feeble.
        In Afghanistan too, ISIS is spreading. But only recently
    has the President lifted the rules of engagement that were
    preventing our troops from targeting this deadly group. Last
    week, U.S. air strikes finally destroyed an ISIS ``Voice of the
    Caliphate'' radio station there in Afghanistan.
        So what took so long? ISIS propaganda operations are in
    overdrive, they are getting better every day. Yet our
    Government's effort to counter-message--led by the Broadcasting
    Board of Governors--remains in disarray.
        And when it comes to Syria, tragically, the U.S. response
    has been downright shameful. The slaughter goes on. Train and
    equip failed. In December, the U.S. joined Russia to pass a
    U.N. Security Council resolution that required humanitarian aid
    and the end of civilian bombing as part of its plan for ``peace
    talks.'' But rather than stand firm and put pressure on Russia
    to abide by this resolution, Secretary Kerry pushed the
    opposition to the negotiating table even as the Russian and
    Assad regimes intensified their bombings. The result is
    predictable failure.
        As Syria has imploded over the years, rather than tackle
    the problem, the Obama administration has sat on its hands--
    paralyzed by a series of ``what ifs.'' Today Assad and Russian
    forces have Aleppo under siege. They are relentlessly bombing
    U.S.-backed Sunni opposition forces that are critical to the
    fight against ISIS.
        Just yesterday, Lieutenant General Steward, the head of the
    Defense Intelligence Agency, warned that ISIS ``will attempt
    attacks on the U.S. homeland,'' in his words, ``in 2016.'' If
    we are to truly defeat ISIS, and we must, the half measures and
    the indecisiveness must stop. I now yield to the ranking
    member, Mr. Eliot Engel from New York, for any opening comments
    he may have.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to our
    witness, welcome to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Special
    Envoy McGurk. Brett, I have been impressed for many years by
    your record of service to our country and I want to thank you
    for it. You have notched another remarkable achievement by
    working to negotiate the release of five American prisoners who
    were wrongly held by Iran, and I join the families of these men
    and with all Americans in thanking you for your efforts.
        Today, we are glad to hear from you about the fight against
    ISIS and the dynamic threat the group poses, the way the
    organization is adapting to challenges and growing. The United
    States has spearheaded a coalition of 66 partners with the goal
    of destroying ISIS. Different countries play different roles:
    Cutting off ISIS from its finances, stopping the flow of
    foreign fighters, providing humanitarian support, countering
    ISIS propaganda, joining in air strikes, and building capacity
    of fighters on the ground. This shared burden prevents the
    United States from being drawn into another long war. We must
    defeat ISIS, but we cannot and should not do it alone.
        Between 10,000 coalition air strikes and a relentless press
    of local ground forces, we have seen some progress. From Kobani
    to Mount Sinjar to Tikrit to Ramadi, ISIS has lost a quarter of
    the populated territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, and yet
    the reality across the region remains grim. Syrians continue to
    flee the Assad regime in droves. Assad has been given another
    lifeline by Russian's bombardment of civilian areas, attacks
    that continue to kill women and children. And ISIS latches on
    to these deplorable actions to use for recruitment and
    propaganda.
        Iraq has also had to rely on Shia militants, Shia militias
    loyal to Iran. As a result, Iraq remains divided along
    sectarian lines as Iran gains even greater influence in Iraq.
    This could leave the region with the same cleavages that
    allowed ISIS to thrive in the first place. If we do not address
    the political void and sectarian tensions there will be no
    long-term stability.
        The same themes are already playing out in Libya and Yemen.
    Terrorists love a vacuum. In the absence of real stability,
    rule of law and effective government, ISIS will fill the void.
    Focusing on long-running tensions in these countries will go a
    long way toward denying ISIS safe haven.
        So today I hope we can have a good discussion on how the
    United States should continue responding to the threat. How can
    we stem the growth of ISIS? How do we stay one step ahead of
    them? Sometimes, unfortunately, it seems as if we are only
    halfheartedly going after ISIS and halfheartedly helping the
    Free Syrian Army and others on the ground.
        As you know, for many years, 3 or 4 years, I have been
    calling on aiding the Free Syrian Army, and I believe that when
    we didn't aid them, they withered on the vine and ISIS moved
    into the void. I hope that we will be part of a robust
    campaign, not a tentative one or one that seems like we are
    dragging ourselves in, but a robust campaign to destroy ISIS
    and get rid of Assad. I understand that we cannot do it alone
    nor should we. We need our Arab partners and our Middle East
    partners and other partners on the ground, the Kurds and
    others, to help, but I think we have to lead and I think it is
    important that we do that.
        So I look forward to hearing from our witness on these
    questions and others, and I am glad that Congress is staying
    engaged on this issue in various ways. Another step we can take
    is to push for a robust foreign affairs budget. The President
    sent his budget request to Congress yesterday and I hope that
    we on this committee will make all the needed investments to
    meet these challenges and all our challenges abroad. I hope we
    will soon take up an authorization for the use of military
    force, which gives the President what he needs to grapple with
    this threat without running the risk of another full-scale,
    open-ended commitment of American forces in the Middle East. If
    we are asking American service members to risk their lives in
    the fight against ISIS, we should at the very least, I believe,
    do our job as well.
        So thank you again, Mr. McGurk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
    yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel. This morning we are
    pleased to be joined by Special Presidential Envoy Brett
    McGurk. Mr. McGurk was recently promoted from deputy to Special
    Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.
    Prior to these assignments, Special Envoy McGurk served as the
    Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran.
        Mr. McGurk has been a valuable voice in the administration,
    pressing for a more robust U.S. role, and I appreciate that.
    Without objection, the witness' full prepared statement will be
    made part of the record and members will have 5 calendar days
    to submit statements, questions and extraneous materials for
    the record. So we would ask if you could summarize your
    remarks, Ambassador.

     STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BRETT MCGURK, SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL
    ENVOY FOR THE GLOBAL COALITION TO COUNTER ISIL, U.S. DEPARTMENT
                                OF STATE

        Mr. McGurk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Engel,
    Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and members of the committee. It is a real
    honor to be here. I first appeared before you in this committee
    in November 2013 to talk about then what we knew as al-Qaeda in
    Iraq, and the emerging threats which we now know as ISIL. I
    have been back a number of times since then including shortly
    after the fall of Mosul. I deeply value the partnership with
    this committee, and I thank you for your leadership on this
    most pressing national security issue.
        I was in Iraq when Mosul fell in the summer of 2014, and
    the situation then could not have been more serious and dire.
    Baghdad was under threat, thousands were being massacred,
    collapse of the Iraqi security forces--seven entire divisions--
    the situation seemed almost hopeless. We had to build a
    foundation and fight back. And that required a new Iraqi
    Government, a better intelligence picture, a military strategy
    to strike ISIL and train local forces, and a political strategy
    to reflect the realities on the ground.
        We also had to build an international coalition from around
    the world, recognizing that this is a global challenge like
    none we have seen before, at one point with more than 30,000
    foreign fighters from 120 countries all around the world. So we
    acted, we acted aggressively, and we are now beginning to see
    some results. However, while the progress is clear, which I
    will discuss, the challenges and threats to our national
    security interests remain acute. As Director of National
    Intelligence Clapper stated yesterday before the Senate Armed
    Services Committee, ISIL remains, quote, deg. ``our
    preeminent terrorist threat.''
        So how do we analyze ISIL? How do we make sense of it?
    Because only by making sense of it with data, analysis, and
    empirical underpinning can we effectively defeat it. We analyze
    ISIL in three main categories. First, its core in Iraq and
    Syria; second, its networks around the world, foreign fighters,
    finance and propaganda; and third, its affiliates, now of which
    there are eight.
        I want to focus in this introductory statement on the core,
    and the core is really key. It is the phony, self-proclaimed
    caliphate that ISIL proclaims to have established, and it is
    one of the main magnets that is attracting people from all
    around the world. So let me start with some facts of what we
    are doing in the core.
        ISIL has now lost 40 percent of its territory in Iraq, more
    than 10 percent of its territory in Syria, it has not won a
    single battle since May, and as you can see in the map that I
    have projected here, the green areas are areas in which since
    the summer of 2014 we have now taken from ISIL. But the
    figures, for example, 40 percent of territory, really does not
    matter. What is important is that this is strategic ground.
        In Iraq, the iconic Sunni cities of Tikrit and Ramadi, in
    Tikrit, 95 percent of the population is now back in their homes
    in the city according to U.N. estimates. In Ramadi, it was the
    first test of Iraqi security forces really acting on their own
    to liberate that iconic city. In Syria, it is not just the
    data, it is what is on the map. The green, taking away the
    entire border area which used to be controlled by Daesh east of
    the Euphrates River, and that border is now green because of
    what happened in the city of Kobani.
        I traveled to Kobani last week in northern Syria, and I was
    brought to the site of where we dropped supplies, where
    President Obama ordered an air drop of military equipment and
    supplies at a key moment in November 2014 when that battle was
    about to be lost.
        I spoke with one of the commanders. He said without that
    air drop they would have been overrun. And it was from that air
    drop and working with the forces on the ground that they were
    able to defeat ISIL--6,000 ISIL fighters lost their lives in
    Kobani--and then expand their presence outward and take away
    that entire border from ISIL. It is a testament to the courage
    of some of the partners we have on the ground and also the many
    challenges ahead.
        I was able to travel to Syria because we now have a
    presence on the ground in Syria and there is no substitute for
    this. By having a presence on the ground we have gained better
    insights every day, and with better insights we can act with
    more devastating effect. Our better intelligence picture is
    allowing us to eliminate ISIL leaders, including 90 senior to
    mid-level leaders over the second half of last year alone,
    including Baghdadi's key deputies, Haji Mutazz, who was his
    number one leader in Iraq, and Abu Sayyaf, who was his number
    one financier.
        Our heroic special operators did a raid in northern Syria
    not long ago in which they killed Abu Sayyaf, and in that raid
    they collected more information than any operation in their
    history, and we learned more than we ever could have imagined
    about ISIL's financial networks. From there, we pooled
    intelligence from across the coalition from our Department of
    Treasury, from the State Department and the intelligence
    community to relentlessly uproot their financial apparatus, and
    that is what we have been doing.
        ISIL is now cutting their salaries for their fighters by
    about 50 percent, and we are seeing the effect that they are
    having by our strikes on their trucks moving oil, on their oil
    platforms and on their cash storage sites.
        Let me go around the map very briefly, if I could, Mr.
    Chairman, just to bring you into the overall campaign and how
    we are approaching the core. I will start at number one. Number
    one is a 98 kilometer stretch of border. It is the only stretch
    of border now that ISIL controls with Turkey. It is its
    remaining sole outlet to the world.
        We have worked very closely with our Turkish partners,
    including a number of meetings with President Erdogan and Prime
    Minister Davutoglu just in the past few months, and they are
    doing quite a lot. They are building berms, they are increasing
    patrols, they are sharing intelligence, they are setting up
    risk analyses, and they are conducting cross-border artillery
    strikes.
        This is having an impact. It is much harder for ISIL
    fighters to get into Syria now than it was even 6 months ago,
    and once they are in it is much harder for them to get out. And
    that is our objective. They can't get in, and when they get in
    they will never get out because they will die in Iraq and
    Syria.
        The impact is in the numbers from our intelligence
    assessments. From the summer of 2014 when the high end estimate
    of about 31,500 foreign fighters in ISIL, but now it is down to
    about 25,000. So the tide of that number is starting to turn.
    We know from their own publications they are now telling their
    fighters, don't come into Syria, go elsewhere. Go into Libya.
    And that is because it is much harder for them to get into
    Syria.
        Moving to number two, Raqqa. Raqqa remains their
    headquarters. It remains their hub. It remains where most of
    their leaders are. It remains where their external plotting
    networks are established. That is why we are going to work with
    our local partners in Syria, a collection of Arabs and Kurds,
    to push on Raqqa and isolate them in Raqqa. And that will be
    ongoing over the coming months.
        I will move quickly in the interest of time over to Iraq
    and I will skip right to number five in Mosul. Mosul will
    remain a tremendous challenge. There are about 1 million people
    in Mosul. It is a politically diverse city and to get it right
    we have to work politically and militarily hand in glove.
        When I was in Iraq last week we met with Iraqi leaders in
    Baghdad and with the Kurdish leadership, including Prime
    Minister Nechirvan Barzani and others, and we have now
    established a joint operational headquarters in Makhmur, which
    is on the map here. And that is where we are going to pool
    Sunni fighters, Kurdish Peshmerga, Iraqi security forces with
    our advisors, with Peshmerga commanders, with Iraqi commanders
    to plan the liberation of Mosul.
        This will be an integrated campaign across multiple lines
    of effort. It will not be a D-Day like campaign. It is not
    going to start on a certain date because it is already
    starting. We are already cutting off the road access to Mosul.
    We are already doing air strikes in Mosul every single day. We
    are already learning more about what Daesh is doing in Mosul.
    That is why we are striking their cash warehouse sites, for
    example. So the Mosul liberation campaign has already begun.
    However, it will be an extremely difficult endeavor and we are
    not going to put a timeline on when Mosul will be liberated,
    but it will.
        Moving south, I will go to number seven which is Tikrit.
    Tikrit, again, an iconic Sunni city in the heart of Saladin
    Province, was totally depopulated by ISIL. Not only that, they
    killed thousands of people in a massacre known as the Camp
    Speicher massacre in the summer of 2014. Iraqi security forces
    with our help were able to liberate the city.
        And most importantly, we are not just focused on defeating
    ISIL but what comes after ISIL and working with the coalition
    and an international stabilization fund that we established
    together with the Government of Iraq. And I give Prime Minister
    Abadi great credit in devolving powers, delegating powers to
    local leaders. We have been able to return the population to
    Tikrit. The U.N. reported in Rome last week at a coalition
    meeting that 95 percent of the citizens of Tikrit are now back.
        We are building on those lessons now. I will go right to
    number eight on the map which is Ramadi. Ramadi was the first
    significant test for the Iraqi security forces since their
    collapse in the summer of 2014. This was an operation which was
    done entirely by the Iraqi security forces and local Sunni
    tribal fighters. And the Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar
    continue to grow in number and capacity. We have about 10,000
    of them now, and I can discuss that in some detail, Mr.
    Chairman.
        We have liberated Ramadi, but the city remains quite
    devastated from the fighting. Nearly every other home is booby
    trapped or has IEDs. And I met with the governor of Anbar
    Province and he told us very specifically what he needs.
    Without getting the counter-IED teams back in there to de-wire
    all these homes which have been booby trapped it will delay the
    return of the population and it is something that we are
    working on now quite aggressively.
        I will move finally, Mr. Chairman, I can go through this
    map in some detail in my testimony, but I want to point out
    number 11. Number 11 is where you see dark red; because as we
    push ISIL and we squeeze them they will try to fill spaces in
    the soft underbelly of Syria. Palmyra they took some time ago.
    That has been in the news. But the little small, dark red
    blotches heading toward Jordan are something that we are very
    focused on. And Jordan, of course, is one of our closest
    partners in the region. We are very focused on Jordan's
    security.
        In October, the President authorized enhanced military
    assistance to Jordan as part of our strategy to intensify the
    counter-ISIL campaign that includes almost $200 million for
    border security to detect and deter threats. I will be in
    Jordan next week with a broad interagency delegation including
    our overall commander of the counter-ISIL campaign, Lieutenant
    General Sean MacFarland, to see His Majesty King Abdullah and
    talk about the threats to Jordan and how we are going to make
    sure that they protect their border.
        That is a very, very brief and very quick summary of the
    most complicated situation imaginable, but I look forward over
    the next 2 hours to answering all of your questions. And I just
    want to close where I began in really thanking this committee
    for the leadership that you have shown, Mr. Chairman and the
    entire committee, on this issue. I value this partnership, and
    now that we look to accelerate the campaign over the next year
    I look forward to the close partnership that I have had with
    you going forward. So with that I look forward to your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. McGurk follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. Briefly here, you
    argue, as has the administration, about the importance for
    local partners in ISIS-held territory. I certainly agree with
    that. Sunni partners are very important. So if Aleppo, which
    has been encircled, if that falls as the Russians pummel it and
    as Hezbollah and as Assad attempt to collapse Aleppo, will we
    have any Free Syrian Army partners left?
        And then the other concern I have in terms of the Sunni
    population is I understand that the Shia-led government in Iraq
    is working to use the justice system to further push out the
    Sunnis. And so if the central government in Iraq is unwilling
    to make the reforms needed in order to create a more inclusive
    government and inclusive security forces, what will be left of
    Iraq? And what will be left of this effort to include Sunnis in
    our effort to put down ISIS?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a critical
    question and it is something that we work on every day. Not
    only at the local level where the fight against ISIS is going
    on, but also at the national level. I will start in Iraq with
    the Government of Iraq.
        Iraq just passed a budget through its Council of
    Representatives with a very important provision. It is Article
    40 of its budget. And it allocates 30 percent, of what he
    called the Popular Mobilization Forces, that 30 percent have to
    come from provinces that are actively fighting ISIL. And that
    authorizes almost 30,000 Sunni fighters enrolled in the state
    security services to fight ISIL. We have almost 15,000 now. And
    they are being paid, and they are being paid about $680 to $750
    a month. And that might not sound like much to us, but the
    rural labor earning for an average Iraqi worker is about $36
    per month.
        So Prime Minister Abadi has put his money where his mouth
    is. It is reflected in the budget. He tells us every single day
    he wants to get the local Sunnis in the fight and we are
    helping them. When Ramadi fell, President Obama made the
    decision to deploy U.S. Special Forces to Taqaddum Airbase,
    which is on the map which I showed earlier, just east of Ramadi
    right in the heart between Ramadi and Fallujah. And we deployed
    out there immediately to work with the Iraqi security forces to
    get them back on their feet and to integrate Sunni tribal
    fighters into the fight. And that has been a success.
        In Haditha, our special forces are there working with three
    local tribes who are now mobilized actively fighting ISIL. So
    we are gaining some real capacity in Iraq on the Sunni tribal
    fighter side.
        In Syria, Mr. Chairman, you hit something on the head.
    Because what is happening with the Russian air strikes is that
    they are primarily focused on the opposition and that is
    happening with opposition forces we were working with to fight
    ISIL. And if you look on this map, just north of Aleppo you can
    see the extent of ISIL's western advance. We were working with
    local opposition forces to move east to fight ISIL and that was
    a very sophisticated endeavor.
        But as the Russian air strike campaign has begun,
    particularly north of Aleppo, those fighters now peeled off
    that line to go fight the regime advance and this is causing
    real problems for the counter-ISIL campaign. And, frankly, we
    tell the Russians this very clearly. You say you are fighting
    ISIL, but what you are doing is actually having a detrimental
    effect to the fight against ISIL. And this remains a very
    serious concern.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. I was going to ask the
    Ambassador also, in addition to this job as Mr. Engel pointed
    out, you helped negotiate the release of the Americans being
    held by Iran. And last year the families of these Americans sat
    at this table. And three of these families are overjoyed by
    your work, and of course we all want answers to Mr. Levinson's
    whereabouts.
        But I am concerned that on the same day these Americans
    were released, the Department sent Iran a check for another
    $1.7 billion on top of the $100 billion that was released at
    that time, and I was going to ask you what you knew about that
    payment. I found that in politics there are rarely
    coincidences, and a State Department spokesman said that Iran
    raised this payment with you as part of the talks on the
    Americans and Iranian Basij commander called this $1.7 billion
    ``ransom,'' in his words. And as you know, I have submitted
    detailed questions to the Secretary which we are anxious to
    receive.
        Mr. McGurk. Well, first, we look forward to answering all
    of your detailed questions. This is a very complex negotiation
    that went on for 14 months focused on the issue of prisoners.
    The issue of a Hague settlement was a parallel process. We have
    really had three areas of negotiations with Iranians, really,
    over the last 30 years. There has been The Hague tribunal
    process, and in that process over 30 years almost 4,700 private
    U.S. claims. Every single private U.S. claim has been
    adjudicated by The Hague. Those have all been settled. All that
    really is left is a few of these government to government
    claims.
        And that Hague negotiation with our lawyers at the State
    Department who have been doing this, many of them for decades
    and they would be happy to come up and discuss it with you in
    some detail, they were negotiating with the Iranians over a
    number of issues at The Hague over the fall and they came to
    some important settlement agreements, some important agreements
    on fossils, on artwork, and also an opportunity opened to
    settle this very important issue having to do with a $400
    million FMS claim. And the lawyers who negotiate this were able
    to close that out, which was very important, and they would be
    happy to talk to you about why this was in the interest of U.S.
    taxpayers and the United States.
        We were facing substantial, substantial liability on this
    claim. As I understand it from the lawyers who negotiated this
    we were at the courthouse steps. There was going to be a
    judgment and it would have been potentially in the multiple
    billion dollars more than that we settled on.
        So I think we have your questions, Mr. Chairman. I know we
    will be looking forward to answering those, and our attorneys,
    et al., who really work in this every day, will give you the
    details.
        Chairman Royce. I think some of the details should have
    probably been shared with us during negotiations, but let me
    raise this last point. I have raised Libya with you. The new
    visa waiver law that we passed, you now have a situation of
    foreign fighters traveling to Libya for training.
        It would be possible under that law to categorize foreign
    nationals who travel to Libya as not being qualified for visa-
    free entry into the United States, and I was wondering if you
    were involved in discussions with Homeland Security, or if the
    administration was, on that problem. Otherwise we may find some
    of the same challenges we found when out of Syria through
    Turkey to Europe we had ISIS fighters who could have taken
    advantage of the visa waiver program.
        Mr. McGurk. Mr. Chairman, I have not been involved in those
    precise discussions. I am very concerned about the situation in
    Libya, so I am sure that we can have the right follow-up.
        Chairman Royce. I would like to have Libya added to that
    list.
        Mr. McGurk. Thank you.
        Chairman Royce. But thank you. I will go to Mr. Engel.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In a recent
    op-ed in the Washington Post, former State Department
    officials, Nicholas Burns whom we know well and Jim Jeffrey
    concluded that relying on diplomacy alone will not be effective
    in Syria, and said that--and I quote them:

            ``The Obama team would have to reconsider what it has
            rejected in the past, the creation of a safe zone in
            northern Syria to protect civilians along with a no-fly
            zone to enforce it.''

        A safe zone would allow the refugees to have a place to go
    where they would not be under constant bombardment by Assad or
    Russia. And since Assad remains a magnet for extremists, I
    believe that the longer Assad remains in power, the longer the
    coalition will be fighting ISIS in Syria. Assad's reign only
    exacerbates the refugee crisis, making a safe zone, I believe,
    even more necessary. However, Assistant Secretary Anne
    Patterson said at a committee hearing late last year, and I
    quote her:

            ``There is no option on the table, nor recommended by
            the Defense Department that does not require a massive,
            massive amount of air support that would then detract
            from the effort against ISIL.''

        So let me ask you this, Ambassador. Under what
    circumstances would the administration consider supporting a
    no-fly zone, what are the challenges in establishing a no-fly
    zone or a safe zone, and how has Russian military involvement
    impacted the prospects for a safe zone or no-fly zone? Because
    absent a safe zone, I don't know how innocent Syrians protect
    themselves.
        Mr. McGurk. Congressman, it is something we look at all the
    time. We have actually had a number of internal discussions
    about the possibility of establishing some sort of no-fly zone.
    And you should speak with some of my DoD colleagues about the
    details and difficulties of actually establishing it. It has
    been fully looked at. But everybody would agree with you that
    the situation right now is totally unacceptable.
        I am leaving tonight for Munich where we will have a
    meeting tomorrow with everybody in this international support
    group for Syria which includes Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar,
    also Iran and Russia, us, everybody around the table, and there
    is a recognition that this situation is completely, totally
    unacceptable. We were very close in Vienna not long ago, as
    Secretary Kerry has discussed, to a ceasefire, and we are going
    to work very hard over the coming days to try to put in place a
    ceasefire. Because so long as this conflict is going on it
    makes my job against ISIL all the more difficult, and the
    humanitarian consequences of what is happening is just truly
    atrocious and terrible.
        So we have to get to a way to de-escalate this underlying
    conflict. To de-escalate the underlying conflict there has to
    be a political process that can ultimately lead to a transition
    in Damascus. The struggle we face from time to time is that the
    collapse of the regime in Damascus would open up a vacuum which
    terrorist groups are able to fill and so we want to have a
    political process that can lead to a transition. That is
    something that Secretary Kerry in particular has been working
    very assiduously on, but nobody can underestimate the
    difficulties.
        We are hopeful that in Munich over the coming days we can
    make some progress on a ceasefire, and most importantly on a
    humanitarian corridor. The Russians claim that they are cutting
    off weapons supply corridors, but they are actually cutting off
    humanitarian corridors. So at the very least they need to put
    their money where their mouth is and open up the humanitarian
    corridors immediately to all of these besieged areas that the
    U.N. has identified.
        Mr. Engel. Not long ago we were saying that Assad has got
    to go. Then we were saying that Assad has got to go before we
    can have these discussions. And now we are sort of hedging our
    bets and saying, well, Assad can sort of go at the end of them
    or as long as Assad understands he cannot be part of a new
    Syrian coalition. Doesn't it seem like we just keep
    backtracking and backtracking?
        Mr. McGurk. I think everybody looking at the Syria
    situation recognizes that so long as Assad is in power there
    will never be a stable Syria. Too much has happened. The crimes
    against humanity, everything that he is responsible for, he
    will never be able to govern. His writ will never extend to the
    rest of the country. It is completely impossible.
        And in these conversations we have in Vienna, the Russians
    understand that. The Iranians don't seem to understand that.
    But it is a complete fantasy to think the Assad regime is ever
    going to be able to establish its writ over Syria. And so we
    have to have a way to have a political transition, but we do
    want to do it in a managed way through a political process that
    doesn't open up further vacuums.
        But I agree with you entirely, Congressman. Assad cannot
    remain in power if we are ever going to get out of this
    incredibly difficult situation.
        And as I mentioned, discussed with the chairman, it is a
    question what is going on north of Aleppo. In my job on ISIL,
    in fighting ISIL, we had some real progress to push across what
    we call the Mari line, and the Russian air strikes have pulled
    those forces to fight the regime when they are ready to fight
    ISIL. So what Russia is doing is directly enabling ISIL. So
    that is one of the reasons we are getting together in Munich
    tomorrow, but this will be a very difficult 3 days coming up.
        But we are going to be very firm. The situation is totally
    unacceptable. It is causing humanitarian catastrophe. It is
    strengthening the regime of Assad, and all that does is fuel
    extremists on both sides of the sectarian divide. It fuels the
    Hezbollahs. It fuels the ISILs. It fuels the Nusras. So we have
    to come together as great powers, all of us, Turkey, U.S.,
    Saudi Arabia, Russia, and figure out a way to settle this
    conflict down, otherwise it is going to come to haunt all of
    us.
        Mr. Engel. I have one final question. I have been having
    discussions, and in fact, the chairman and I have been having
    discussions with some of our Sunni Arab friends, and they
    express to us frustration at the United States for not being
    more of a player that is deeply involved; that we seem to be
    reluctant to be involved. And they paint a picture of the fact
    that they are ready to come forward if we come forward. If we
    lead, they are ready to do it.
        But they describe a reluctance on the part of the United
    States to get involved, and they say that they believe that
    Russia moved into Syria because they knew that the U.S. wasn't
    moving and wouldn't really be able to do anything or wouldn't
    be willing to do anything against the Russians. How do you
    answer that? They paint a picture of just reluctance on our
    part, of us not really leading. Of us, they would be willing to
    be with us, but we are recalcitrant. How do you answer that?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, in terms of the ISIL campaign, we have
    done over 10,000 air strikes now. We have U.S. forces on the
    ground in Syria. We have U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq. We
    welcome our partners to join us in that endeavor. And we have
    done some real damage to ISIL and we are looking for others to
    join us, to tell you the truth.
        So that is something where I think we have led, and in fact
    Secretary Carter is meeting in Brussels today with the defense
    ministers of the coalition. And one of the things he is putting
    on members of our coalition, including a number of the Arab
    partners, is that ISIL is a threat to you. Saudi Arabia, one of
    our closest friends in the world, ISIL is in Saudi Arabia. And
    the Saudis are doing a lot against ISIL, but of course we want
    them to do more. We want all of our partners to do more.
        So this is a constant discussion we have. Our interests
    don't always align directly with many of our partners'
    interests. This is something that is natural in foreign policy
    with our friends. But this is something that we are discussing
    constantly. I know Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir was here
    yesterday. He saw the secretary. We will see him in--I know he
    saw a number of you, and we will see him in Munich tomorrow to
    try to align our approaches.
        But as a leader of the coalition, Congressman, it is
    something I deal with all around the world to try to get a
    focus on this core threat of ISIL and try to align our
    resources accordingly. But when it comes to the Assad regime we
    have to get a political process on track otherwise it is going
    to continue to go on, and that is why we are hopeful over the
    coming days in Munich we can make some progress.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you.
        Chairman Royce. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Chairman Royce. Thank
    you, Ranking Member Engel. And welcome back, Special Envoy
    McGurk. It is an honor to be with you. I continue to be stunned
    that the State Department believes still that Russia and
    Iranian engagement in Syria could be a positive development.
    With the help of Iranian forces and Russian air power, we are
    seeing Assad's forces creep closer to Aleppo, as has been
    pointed out a strong base for the opposition, and the regime is
    on the brink of encircling the city in order to starve the
    population with Russia indiscriminately bombing residential
    areas.
        Assistant Secretary Patterson testified to a question I
    asked her in November in a hearing that Assad's atrocities are
    a recruiting tool for ISIS and that it is not possible for us
    to defeat ISIS while Assad's massacres continue with Iran and
    Russia's help. So what steps is the administration taking to
    prevent a massacre of Syria's remaining moderate opposition?
    When will we air drop humanitarian supplies to the people of
    Aleppo? Is that still something that we are going to do?
        And you have said to the chairman and the ranking member
    that Russia is a problem, but does the administration intend to
    take any measure to stop Russia from bombing Syria's civilians,
    and how can we justify asking the Syrian opposition to drop its
    condition that the Assad regime, Russia and Iran cease
    committing these crimes against humanity as a condition to
    continue to the Geneva talks? So I look forward to that answer.
        But let me just bring up two quick points, Mr. Ambassador.
    I wanted to ask you about the future plans for the Iraqi Jewish
    Archives. Can they stay in the United States? I raise it now as
    I have in the past. We have worked together with you and I
    thank you because you have been very engaged on this with the
    Iraqi Government. I don't want the State Department to return
    these precious artifacts, the Iraqi Jewish Archives, and what
    is the fate of the Archives after the exhibit ends its run at
    my alma mater, Florida International University?
        And lastly, now that Iran has been legitimized through the
    JCPOA, received billions of dollars in sanctions relief through
    which it can continue its reign of terror, what guarantees have
    you received from the Iraqis, and have you brought it up to
    protect the residents of Camp Liberty from this newly
    strengthened and well-funded regime in Tehran? You can give me
    a written response on that.
        Will we be providing aerial protection, which is what the
    residents want now, to the Camp Liberty residents, and are we
    going to continue to put T-walls in place or not? But if you
    could answer the question about what we are doing to prevent a
    massacre and air drop humanitarian supplies and the role of
    Russia, thank you, sir.
        Mr. McGurk. Thank you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. I want to thank
    you in particular for your cooperation on the very difficult
    issue of the Iraqi Jewish Archives and we are very honored that
    they are on display in your district. And when I was the Iraq
    DAS I worked on this issue quite a bit. I am no longer in that
    role, but I still care very much about it. I understand they
    are scheduled to run through the end of the year. And let me
    take that back to the State Department and get you a very
    detailed answer on that question. And also on the MEK, that is
    something I also continue to follow quite closely. We have made
    some progress in getting those folks out of Iraq, many of them
    going to Albania, but I will also get you a written answer on
    that.
        On the question of the humanitarian situation in Syria, I
    will just repeat what I said. It is completely unacceptable.
    The failure to provide humanitarian assistance to besieged
    communities in Syria is not only an international law
    obligation; it is now anchored by a brand-new U.N. Security
    Council resolution. This is something that we have to open up
    these corridors, period.
        And so first and foremost on the agenda when we get to
    Munich is the humanitarian corridor issue. There are besieged
    communities across Syria, millions of people. Some of them are
    besieged by ISIL. Some of them are besieged by--most of them
    are besieged by the regime. Some of them are besieged by more
    extreme elements of the opposition. All of them should have
    humanitarian access. That is a principle of international law.
    It is bounded by a U.N. Security Council resolution that we all
    agreed to as part of the Syria support group process, and it is
    first and foremost on the agenda in Munich. And again without
    underestimating the difficulty, I am hoping we can come out of
    Munich with some agreements on that.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you,
    Chairman Royce.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go now to Mr. David Cicilline
    of Rhode Island.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
    hearing, and thank you, Mr. McGurk, for being here. I want to
    just focus for a moment on the effort to address the issue of
    the terrorist financing of ISIL. And I know you indicated in
    your written testimony that ISIL controls 80 percent of Syria's
    energy supply and it accounts for 50 percent of their revenues,
    about $500 million a year since 2014.
        And so my first question is who is purchasing this oil
    generating the $500 million of revenue? And you also indicated
    that there are 100 members of a centralized management team as
    well as 1,600 energy related personnel. What are we doing to
    get to those individuals who are facilitating the financing of
    this terrorist organization?
        Mr. McGurk. Thank you, Congressman. So I will elaborate
    what is in my written testimony. You are right. We believe
    ISIL's overall revenue is about $1 billion a year. It is less
    than that now. That is $500 million from energy products. It is
    purchased by a lot of middlemen and it is hard to tell exactly
    where it is going. The Russians claim Turkey is buying most of
    it; that actually is not true. The regime is buying a lot of
    ISIL oil, but what is happening is it is sold to middlemen and
    then it goes to a third party and so it is hard to trace from
    ISIL to the actual end user.
        But it is a significant revenue stream that we are now
    significantly degrading. They are not able to do what they were
    able to do in the past. We had a big debate amongst ourselves
    about when to target the trucks because the truck drivers, most
    of them are ordinary Iraqis and ordinary Syrians. So what we
    did, a very sophisticated campaign in which we--I won't say
    exactly how, but we warned them that if you are driving trucks
    here your days are going to be numbered. And we were able to
    destroy about 400 trucks in one shot with very limited
    collateral damage or civilian deaths, and it has had a
    tremendous impact on their ability to move oil around.
        So we will continue to do that but it is a fundamental
    priority of the overall campaign, not just taking back
    territory but denying their revenue sources. And in Mosul,
    because of our intelligence picture, we were able to target
    where they had cash warehouse sites. I mean, hundreds of
    millions of dollars that is how they pay their fighters in
    Mosul no longer exists.
        Mr. Cicilline. Second, I want to ask you about we have seen
    a lot of the success of ISIL using the Internet and social
    media both to promote their propaganda as well as recruit. And
    I would like to hear a little bit about what we are doing and
    how we are helping to counter that narrative. This is obviously
    a religious based, false argument but an effective one, and not
    a response or narrative that we can necessarily respond to
    effectively as the United States. But are there efforts
    underway so that somebody is responding to this very
    aggressively in the same medium to help stem the flow of
    additional recruits?
        And final question I will ask so you will have time to
    answer both of them is, at the donor conference I know there
    was a commitment by Germany of $1.2 billion, I think, the
    United States over $600 million, but we still aren't seeing the
    same kind of level of support from Saudi Arabia, UAE and
    Kuwait. This is a huge humanitarian crisis of really
    unprecedented magnitude, and what can we do to encourage these
    other countries to play a more generous role in dealing with
    the humanitarian crisis?
        Mr. McGurk. Let me address the messaging issue because it
    is really critical. ISIL, we have looked at this in some
    detail, they have three main messaging campaigns. One is the
    glory of the caliphate. These sun-drenched scenes of children
    eating ice cream cones and come-bring-your-family is a total
    lie, but it is actually the majority of their content. Second
    is a religiously based message primarily focused in the Gulf
    and other Muslim communities, and then third is what gets a lot
    of attention which is the gore and the kind of the executions
    and beheadings. That is actually the smallest number of their
    content.
        But we are combating it at every single level, so we have a
    24/7 hub now in the UAE. The UAE has been a really critical
    partner here. It is called the Sawab Center. I went to see
    them. These are young Emiratis, actually people from all around
    the region working 24/7 to combat the messages. They have had
    really a pretty good effect particularly with the campaign
    which highlighted defectors from ISIL that in their own
    narratives and their own testimony told the world what it was
    really like to be under this organization.
        So I think we are actually making some progress now in the
    messaging campaign. We are working closely with Twitter, with
    YouTube, with Facebook. Twitter just took down about 125,000
    ISIL affiliated, ISIL related sites. And the messaging gets a
    lot easier when we are making progress. If you are doing a
    messaging campaign for the Washington Redskins, it is easier
    when the team is winning than when the team is losing.
        So in 2014 when it looked like ISIL was on the march and
    they would put out these videos of their flag going from Iraq
    to Syria all the way to Italy and Rome, they really can't say
    that with any credibility anymore. Their messages now, their
    spokesman, as I quoted in my written testimony, most of his
    statements now are defending the fact, explaining why they are
    losing so much territory.
        So it has changed quite a bit, but we have to remain at it
    24/7; the UAE has been key. We want to set up a similar hub,
    24/7, in Malaysia because there is a very different messaging
    propaganda component going out to East Asia, and also Europe
    because it is a different campaign there. So we have to check
    that 24/7.
        In terms of the air contributions, I have to say the Saudis
    put in $500 million into Iraqi humanitarian at a critical,
    critical moment in Iraq. I will actually never forget that
    being in Iraq. It was a really critical need and that money
    went to good use and saved an awful lot of lives. I will have
    to get for you, Congressman, the donations from those states at
    the recent London donor's conference. I think there were some
    pretty good contributions, but I will have to come back to you
    with the details.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go to Mr. Chris Smith of New
    Jersey.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
    calling this very important hearing. And Mr. McGurk, welcome,
    again, to the committee and thank you for your good work. Let
    me just ask you a couple of questions. While the
    administration's focus is on ISIS, how is this impacting the
    growth of al-Nusra? Does the focus on ISIS risk allowing other
    groups like al-Nusra to grow in strength, and what is the plan
    to defeat it and other like-minded groups?
        Let me also ask, you point out that fighters, foreign
    fighters, are coming from about 100 countries. And I am
    wondering, the flow back and forth, how many are from the U.S.,
    years to date, if you have that number. When you talk about
    groups like Boko Haram, are terrorists from Boko Haram making
    their way to ISIS and back again, or is there no flow there?
        You do talk, and I am glad you do, about degrading the
    global affiliates. Are we, for example, with regards to Boko
    Haram truly training particularly the Nigerians, of course with
    Leahy vetted troops, how to do counterinsurgency on an order
    and scale that will help make them more effective, because
    obviously Boko Haram is on a tear in its terrorism. So if you
    could speak to those I would appreciate it.
        Mr. McGurk. Thank you, Congressman. I want to go briefly
    through your very good questions. Nusra is a real problem and
    as we focus on ISIL we can't take our sights off Nusra. Nusra
    is core al-Qaeda. Its leader Julani reports directly to Ayman
    al-Zawahiri. And while the estimates vary, there are about
    10,000 Nusra affiliated fighters in Syria. We think most of
    them are Syrians who are kind of under the banner of Nusra
    because that is just where they are going to survive.
        But we have to unravel Nusra. When we see a threat
    emanating from Nusra, we target it. The Khorasan group is
    something that we have talked about before. That was a core al-
    Qaeda type external plotting cell which we completely
    eliminated. So we are very focused on Nusra. And it is very
    important for you to remind all of us that it is not just ISIL,
    but Nusra is an acute threat to the United States.
        Let me just jump to Boko Haram and the affiliates. A lot of
    the affiliates who are now raising the banner of ISIL, they are
    pre-existing terrorist groups. Boko Haram is a good example. It
    is not like suddenly they became an ISIL affiliate and became a
    fundamentally different problem. It is a problem that is unique
    to that part of the world, to Nigeria, and we have to work with
    our local partners to combat it.
        I think you have asked some good questions about the
    vetting standards, making sure we have a credible force that is
    able to effectively combat it, and I know that we are very
    focused on that. But the affiliates with ISIL that we are most
    concerned about in Libya, for example, and Libya is where it
    wasn't a preexisting movement, they rose the flag of ISIL and
    it drew a lot of recruits like a magnet. We have seen the
    direct flow of resources, of command and control, of propaganda
    from ISIL core into Libya. Right now in Libya, again if we see
    a threat emerging we will not hesitate to act.
        The President ordered a strike on Abu Nabil, the number one
    leader of ISIL in Libya, and he was eliminated. He was an ISIL
    guy, former al-Qaeda in Iraq guy from Iraq, so that just shows
    the connections between ISIL core and Libya, which is very
    concerning. The number of foreign fighters in the United
    States, I think we have those specific numbers. I don't want to
    give it to you just off the top of my head, but I believe it is
    in the low hundreds.
        But our FBI is all over this problem and they are doing a
    great job to protect the country against these threats and they
    will continue to do so, but I will follow up with you on the
    precise figures.
        Mr. Smith. I appreciate it. Just before my time runs out,
    the Boko Haram fighters, is there any exchange between
    fighters? Do any of those go to Syria to fight? And is al-
    Shabaab a part of this as well?
        Mr. McGurk. So al-Shabaab is not a formal affiliate, but we
    have found Somalis on the battlefield in Iraq. So these
    jihadist networks, they all, there is a symbiotic relationship.
    The good thing about Iraq and Syria is if they come into Iraq
    and Syria, as I mentioned in my statement, they are unlikely to
    get out. We are going to make sure we kill them in Iraq and
    Syria. But Libya is an emerging threat from Africa because a
    lot of the guys are pooling up to Libya.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go to Mr. Gregory Meeks of
    New York.
        Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start with this
    and I want to kind of follow up with what Mr. Cicilline said.
    He talked about Saudi Arabia's activities or asked there about
    their contributions on a humanitarian level. In fighting
    against ISIS or ISIL in Syria, et cetera, I am concerned,
    because a lot of this is Sunni, Shia also, and what the Arab
    states and what the Sunnis, and in particular Saudi Arabia, may
    be doing on a military level on the ground.
        Are they doing--I know initially they sent out some jets,
    et cetera, whether they are still fighting, whether they--what
    are they doing or what contributions are they making on a
    military level in regards to this fight and how does that play
    into our equation?
        Mr. McGurk. So it is something that Secretary Carter has
    discussed quite a bit publicly, and he is discussing in
    Brussels today with our partners. Most of the GCC states were
    with us in the early stages of the air campaign. Right now
    Jordan has renewed their air strikes in Syria which we are
    grateful for. The Emirates, I think, are about to do that.
    Saudi Arabia has been very focused on the conflict in Yemen, of
    course. This is something we discuss with them quite a bit, so
    we are constantly engaged with them about what the particular
    role can be. And I don't want to get ahead of the process, but
    that is something that Secretary Carter is discussing in some
    detail with the defense ministers in Brussels today, including
    Mohammad bin Salman from Saudi Arabia.
        But we need the region to be fully invested in this fight,
    but it is not just military as was mentioned earlier. It is
    also the humanitarian and the stabilization side. In Iraq now,
    as I mentioned, these are iconic Sunni cities that have now
    been cleared of ISIL and now we want to return the population
    to get back on their feet. The internally displaced in Iraq,
    most of them are Sunnis, 70 percent of them are women and girls
    and they need help.
        And so on the humanitarian, on the stabilization side, that
    is something where the region, we are very hopeful can step up
    in a fairly aggressive way. Because we have the programs in
    place, we have the support of the Iraqi Government in place, we
    have U.N. programs in place to help people, but it is an issue
    of the resources.
        And one thing that has really hampered this quite a bit is
    just the collapsing price of oil, which I can go into some
    detail. I mean, Iraq is now facing a monthly, about a $5
    billion financing gap. They are producing more oil than they
    have in some time, over 4 million barrels a day. When I was
    working on Iraq, full time, 5 years ago that would have been
    unimaginable, 4 million barrels a day. That is because of
    decisions the Iraqi Government has made and decisions that we
    have made with them, and that is a real testament to their
    progress.
        But the falling price of oil has just greatly impacted
    their budget situation. It has depleted the resources we had
    hoped we would have to deal with some of these stabilization
    and humanitarian problems. So that is something, Congressman,
    where the region we are very hopeful can contribute.
        Mr. Meeks. Well, I just, because I was just surprised at a
    recent statement that Saudi Arabia made saying that if the
    United States put troops on the ground that they would be right
    behind us militarily. And I was just wondering why, that it has
    to be as you said something where if anybody is going to be on
    the ground so it doesn't look like we are occupying anyone
    again or coming in in that regard, the Sunni especially in
    Sunni territory that they and those from the Arab League be the
    ones that are out in front and not the United States of
    America.
        So when I heard that statement I was just wondering whether
    or not they have been further engaged militarily or not, and
    whether they have shown--and I know about Yemen--but have they
    shown because ISIL is still a threat to them also, and so
    whether they are willing to really step up.
        Same thing to some regards with Turkey and what they may or
    may not be doing. And let me ask you that question then, what
    they may not be doing militarily also in regards to the fight
    with ISIL. What about Turkey?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, Turkey as a part of this process, a very
    intense negotiation and an agreement with them to base our
    planes at Incirlik Airbase which has dramatically decreased the
    flying time to be able to strike ISIL targets. And we are very
    grateful for the agreements we have reached with Turkey in that
    regard.
        Turkey has also, as I mentioned, really worked to seal its
    border, that 98 kilometer strip of border. It is much harder
    for these foreign fighters to get into Syria than it was until
    then. Turkey is also caring for 2.1 million refugees from
    Syria, spending almost $8 billion, something people forget
    about. So Turkey is doing an awful lot here.
        Militarily, they are doing some very important air strikes
    in the north of the country. Right now we are working with them
    to get them back into the campaign, but we are doing that very
    carefully because the conflict with, not conflict but the
    tension between Turkey and Russia after Turkey shot down a
    Russian plane after the Russian plane violated Turkey's
    airspace kind of complicated the picture. So that is something
    we are working very closely with Turkey on. But we are very
    comfortable with Turkey's contributions. They are a critical
    NATO ally of ours and so we will continue to work closely with
    them.
        Mr. Meeks. Great. Thank you. I am out of time.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. Mr. Dana Rohrabacher of
    California.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. Thank
    you for your service. And when you mentioned in the beginning
    of your testimony that Abu Sayyaf had left this world with our
    help, was that the same Abu Sayyaf that was the power in
    Afghanistan 20 years ago, or is this another Abu Sayyaf?
        Mr. McGurk. No. This is an individual that was a legacy al-
    Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi acolyte, very much from the Iraq-Syria
    theater. He was their head financier.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So he is not the same guy who was
    the financier back in----
        Mr. McGurk. Not that I am aware of.
        Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. Mujahideen days. How many
    fighters do we have? How many people are fighting Assad, the
    number of fighters that are there, and I guess Aleppo and that
    region?
        Mr. McGurk. I can't put a number on Aleppo. The uppermost
    estimate of our moderate opposition fighter, the uppermost
    estimate I have heard is about 70,000 fighters. That is all the
    way from the south to the north.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
        Mr. McGurk. But those are split into hundreds of different
    groups.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
        Mr. McGurk. So to bring coherence to that is very
    difficult.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. And are there any of those anti-Assad
    fighters who are fighting ISIL at this point?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, yes. And before the Russian air strike
    campaign, we felt pretty good about some--the word, I guess, is
    coherence and capacity that we were gaining along that Mari
    line which is on the map which I projected. But since then, a
    lot of those guys have peeled off from the ISIL fight to fight
    the regime, which has not been helpful to the ISIL campaign.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, let us just note that this
    administration has told us before that there will be no
    civility unless we get rid of so-and-so or so-and-so, and in
    fact the opposite has been true. In Libya in particular, which
    you outlined today as being a catastrophe, we were told in
    almost the same words that you have used today there is never
    going to be any peace there until we get rid of Gaddafi and in
    fact that is why we have to help the non-Gaddafi forces, and
    now we have testimony of course that ISIL is on the verge of
    taking over Libya. Let me note that I didn't see Assad as ever
    a threat. Was Assad ever a threat to the United States?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, Assad has given sustenance to Hezbollah
    and then terrorist groups for a number of years. He is a threat
    to some of our closest partners in the region.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Assad was never a threat to the United
    States. Frankly, we Republicans made a mistake when we backed
    our President when he said we have to get rid of Saddam
    Hussein. And frankly, it looks like to me that all of this
    chaos and confusion that you are describing today that
    unfortunately is in your lap to try to correct started when we
    made a mistake that we have to get rid of Saddam Hussein
    because he is a bad guy and he is committing atrocities against
    his own people. And that has destabilized the whole region and
    led to many thousands more people being killed.
        I would think, frankly, from a distance it looks like Assad
    is in that same type of, fighting Assad is the same type of
    situation. Let me ask how many of the ISIL fighters are
    foreigners, meaning from other areas rather than Syria and
    Iraq?
        Mr. McGurk. The total number of foreign fighters that have
    come into the theater are above 30,000, but many of them as I
    mentioned in my opening it has decreased quite a bit. So
    foreign fighters fighting with ISIL now, I probably would put
    in the number of, and according to our most recent estimates,
    of 15,000 or so are left.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. 15,000. And how many of those come from
    places like Chechnya?
        Mr. McGurk. Oh, a lot. And in fact, one example, when I was
    in Iraq recently with the Baiji campaign there was a major
    battle for the Baiji refinery. A very heroic battle that went
    on for almost a year, and we were picking up mostly the
    fighters that our guys were dealing with--speaking Russian.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. So we have all of these thousands of
    radical Islamic terrorist fighters and who come from Russia and
    Chechnya, and so the Russians maybe have something, maybe even
    more important, for them to be involved than us to be involved,
    because they have had exact fighters from their country. I
    don't believe there are any Americans over there with that
    terrorist group.
        Let me just say the idea that the Turkish--that you don't
    know that we don't know where those trucks are going and who is
    purchasing that fuel is unacceptable. Let me just say that
    before the Russians started bombing those trucks, which then
    ignited this outrage from Turkey, that before they did this
    body, this committee, saw evidence day after day after day of
    trucks loaded with fuel, thus meaning supplies and money and
    wealth that would go into ISIL were just not touched. How much
    evidence, Mr. Chairman, did we have, overwhelming evidence that
    this administration wasn't doing a thing about it and once the
    Russians started then we did.
        I think that this idea that----
        Mr. McGurk. Well, if I could just correct the record just
    to raise a point. I think once the French, it was the French,
    after the attack in Paris attributable to ISIS forces the
    French made the decision to hit those targets on the open
    highway.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me also note that the Russians were
    doing that. However, you never know who the Russians are
    hitting because that is their business. They haven't been able
    to outline it for us.
        I would just say this. That people who are a threat to the
    United States of America, to our people, the terrorist network
    from around the world, we should be working closely with anyone
    like that who is not a threat to us. And whether or not they
    oppress their own people, I am sorry. We didn't like Saddam
    Hussein, and look what we did to the world by getting rid of
    him. We didn't like Gaddafi. There is a number of cases like
    this. And the idea, our question shouldn't be how do we get rid
    of Assad, and spending lots of attention and resources on that.
    Our vision should be how do we get rid of ISIL and these
    radical Islamists who will terrorize the western world and
    murder us if they get a chance? Thank you very much, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. We now go to
    Mr. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.
        Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I certainly want
    to concur with my friend from California in his critique of the
    mistake by Republicans in supporting the reckless foreign
    policy of George W. Bush. I certainly want to associate myself
    with those remarks.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Absolutely.
        Mr. Connolly. I will point out though that some of the
    current critique like Libya, it would be fun to replay video of
    my colleagues who criticized President Obama for not being more
    involved in Libya at the time, for being too reluctant, for not
    taking the lead and being at the forefront of the revolution
    against Gaddafi, and now we are bemoaning the fact that the
    stability was a victim as well as the Gaddafi regime.
        So that was then, this is now. Welcome, Ambassador McGurk.
    Let me start with Russia, one of the favorite topics of my
    friend from California. How concerned are we that Russia's air
    strikes in Syria are non-ISIL focused and, in fact, they have
    targeted either deliberately or just coincidentally non-ISIL
    insurgent groups that we were hoping to use as part of the
    coalition against Assad?
        Mr. McGurk. It is a huge problem, and----
        Mr. Connolly. Could you say that louder? I couldn't hear
    you.
        Mr. McGurk. Yes, it is a huge problem. They say they want
    to fight ISIL and Nusra, but they are hitting groups that were
    ready, as I mentioned, ready to fight ISIL. So this is where we
    just have to be honest. They are hitting, 70 percent of their
    air strikes are against the opposition. Many of those
    opposition groups are ready to fight ISIL.
        Mr. Connolly. So we now have a situation where the Russian
    activity in Syria is directly in conflict with western goals.
    Is that correct? Would that be fair?
        Mr. McGurk. You can't put it in total black and white terms
    because there are some overlapping interests. They are hitting
    ISIL around Palmyra, so I want to acknowledge that.
        Mr. Connolly. Yes, but given the fact you said 70 percent
    we don't want to equivocate.
        Mr. McGurk. But at very strategic locations like the Mari
    line north of Aleppo their air strikes have helped ISIL.
        Mr. Connolly. Is the United States prepared to do something
    about that besides a diplomatic protest?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, as I think the Secretary said yesterday,
    I think we have to focus on the diplomatic process and that is
    why we are going to get together tomorrow in Munich. But we
    also have to be thinking ahead in the event that that doesn't
    work.
        Mr. Connolly. Yes. Well, all right. I think it was
    Frederick the Great who said, ``L'audace, l'audace, toujours
    l'audace.'' One needs to be bold. I hope diplomatic protests
    work, but we cannot afford to have Russia countermanding our
    activities which have been difficult and hard to piece together
    on the field in Syria. And it just seems to me we will need to
    maybe follow Frederick the Great's advice.
        Tell me a little bit about the complications of working
    with the Kurds. From my point of view, and I think a lot of my
    colleagues' on this committee, the Kurds are pro-American. They
    are willing to fight on the ground. They have had territorial
    gains. They have actually beaten ISIL on the battlefield more
    than once. They are critical in looking at the looming fight
    with respect to Aleppo, but they have problems with the central
    government and they have had other problems with some of our
    allies in the region like Turkey. How complicated is that
    relationship, and what ought to be the U.S. posture with
    respect to training, equipping, and financing the Peshmerga?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, Congressman, I will start in Iraq. There
    are vestiges of what used to happen under the government of
    former Prime Minister Maliki in which the relationship was very
    difficult. With Abadi it has been very different. And I just
    want to be clear. Every single shipment of weapons or supplies
    that we wanted to send to the Kurds has gone. Nothing has been
    held up by the central government under Prime Minister Abadi, I
    mean zero. Under the ITEF that was approved for this----
        Mr. Connolly. But they are not paying the soldiers.
        Mr. McGurk. Well, a lot of people in Iraq are not getting
    paid. I mean, what is happening now in Iraq in terms of the oil
    allocation, the Kurds are exporting their oil on their own and
    keeping those revenues and they are not therefore getting the
    revenues from the south, which is actually an equitable
    exchange.
        But as I mentioned, Iraq, writ large, has focused every
    single month now a $5 billion funding deficit. That is a
    problem writ large. For the Kurdish Peshmerga there is about a
    $400 million monthly gap. Peshmerga salaries are about $50
    million a month. So we want to focus on this in a holistic way
    in working with the World Bank, the IMF, with the international
    financial institutions. I think our budget requests will have
    some recommendations for how we might help the Iraqis here, but
    we want to focus on it holistically.
        But the Kurds will have what they need to fight ISIL. They
    will have what they need to be successful in the Mosul
    campaign, no question about it. I will see President Barzani. I
    believe he is going to be in Munich so I will look forward to
    seeing him. Prime Minister Abadi will also be in Munich.
        When I was in Iraq last week, a very senior delegation from
    the Kurdistan Regional Government was in Baghdad to meet with
    Prime Minister Abadi. That relationship is very good right now
    and we want to keep it that way. The Kurds in the north in Iraq
    also have a lot of political divisions that I encourage them as
    a close friend of theirs to try to find a way to resolve.
    Because when the ISIL wolf was at the door all the Kurds were
    united.
        Syrian Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, everybody was united,
    particularly in that moment at Kobani when the Iraqi Kurdish
    Peshmerga went through Turkey to fight in Kobani, and a
    historical moment that I was a part of. Now that the ISIL
    threat has receded a little bit all of these divisions have
    opened up.
        So there are three Kurdish parties in the north; there are
    great political divisions there. There are divisions between
    the Syrian Kurds and the Kurds in northern Iraq. Our message to
    them is that this fight is not over. The entire southern
    border, the Iraqi Kurdistan region, is controlled by ISIL. So
    long as that is the case there is not going to be a stable
    situation there, so our advice is to unite against the threat
    against ISIL despite all the difference. There are a lot of
    differences. Meanwhile, we have to help them with the financial
    difficulties and it is something I look forward to working with
    this committee to do.
        Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, I am glad to hear that. I think
    that is essential, and I think we need to be providing that
    financial support because they are willing to fight. Thank you,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Gerry. Okay, Ted Poe of Texas.
        Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ISIS is deliberately
    targeting religious minorities, specifically Christians.
    Christians have been executed by the thousands. Clergy has been
    assassinated. Jihadists in Mosul stamped the homes of
    Christians with an ``N'' for Nazarene, enforces ``convert or
    die,'' convert to their way of thinking or you die. Christian
    females were sold in slave markets. Three of them were featured
    by the New York Times magazine last summer. ISIS' magazine,
    Dabiq, approves the enslavement of Christian girls in Nigeria
    and posts the prices for selling them on the marketplace.
        The Pope has said that this is genocide. I mention these
    things to get your opinion on this issue specifically of
    genocide. The Omnibus bill that was passed, the President
    signed, requires that the administration determine whether or
    not religious minorities like Christians, Shia Muslims, Yazidis
    suffer genocide, specific term, by the hands of ISIS, by March
    the 18th. Can you give us some insight on whether or not the
    United States will take the position that what ISIS does
    against religious minorities is genocide or not?
        Mr. McGurk. Thank you, Congressman. And we are focused on
    answering that legislative request, and our lawyers are
    deeply--as you said, genocide is a very specific term so it is
    a legal determination, and we are looking at it, I believe,
    across the board.
        And there is no question everything that you said is true
    and more. What ISIL has done to the Christian community and to
    minority communities throughout particularly Iraq and Syria is
    unbelievable, and then on top of it destroying our common
    heritage, our common culture, our ancient history. This is why
    we have to destroy this terrorist organization, period. And
    what we want to do particularly in liberating some of these
    areas near Mosul is return Christians to their ancestral
    homeland and that is something we are very focused on.
        I meet regularly in Erbil with Archbishop Warda, when I am
    in Baghdad I try to see the patriarch Archbishop Sako to try to
    return the Christian communities to their homes, and one thing
    that drives us all in fact, particularly for this campaign in
    northern Nineveh Province near Mosul, is to help us do that.
    Because they have been driven out of their homes in the most
    atrocious manner possible and we have to work to get them back.
        In Sinjar, I again have to praise our friends in the
    Peshmerga. They liberated Sinjar from ISIL about 3 or 4 months
    ago, a very successful operation. Sinjar is aware of course.
    ISIL came in and enslaved thousands of Yazidis killing many of
    the young men and taking off the women, thousands of them, to
    enslave the women. This is why we have to destroy this barbaric
    terrorist organization and, but in response to this specific
    request about the genocide determination that is something that
    I know our lawyers are working on right now.
        Mr. Poe. Do you see any reason why the administration won't
    be able to comply on March 18th and we will get a verdict one
    way or another?
        Mr. McGurk. No, I think we will meet that deadline.
        Mr. Poe. Okay, another question dealing with the Omnibus.
    There was an amendment that I put in, or I had put in, to the
    Omnibus bill that requires a strategy to defeat ISIS, and it
    was passed into law that there would be a strategy by the
    administration to what we are going to do to defeat ISIS by
    June the 18th. As far as I think there is no real concrete
    strategy to defeat ISIS. Not contain, but to defeat ISIS. June
    18th is the deadline. Do you see any reason based on your
    expertise why we won't be able to get that strategy by June the
    18th?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, in terms of strategy we are going to
    suffocate this network every single which way. It is like an
    Anaconda strategy, constant pressure, the financial network,
    the foreign fighter network, the propaganda network, its
    ability to control territory. That is exactly what we are doing
    across the board. So in Iraq and Syria, as I explained in some
    detail, we are working to take away their territory. The global
    networks, we are working to cut off and slice off their foreign
    fighter networks.
        Mr. Poe. So we will have a strategy to defeat ISIS that is
    concrete. I mean, the train and equip that was a disaster and
    the President has even said that that was a disaster. So, and I
    am not going to be argumentative, but will we have a concrete
    strategy so the American public, so Bubba down there in Texas,
    knows what the United States is going to do to defeat ISIS? Do
    you see any reason why we won't have that in writing for us and
    the American public by June the 18th? That is really the
    question.
        Mr. McGurk. No, we have a strategy now, so I----
        Mr. Poe. Well, part of it is not working. So are we just
    going to get the same strategy? That is really my question. Is
    it going to be the same thing or is it going to be a concrete
    strategy? This is something that we can understand that we will
    defeat. We go after the oil fields, but we go after the trucks
    but we don't bomb the oil fields. Things like that in tactics.
        Mr. McGurk. I understand. The things that haven't worked we
    have already adjusted. So I will follow up with you with more
    specific details so you can have that very clear narrative laid
    down.
        Mr. Poe. So we will see that strategy by June 18th. I yield
    back.
        Chairman Royce. We go to Karen Bass of California.
        Ms. Bass. Thank you again for your testimony and your time
    here in our hearing. I wanted to ask you a few questions.
    Congressman Smith was asking you about Boko Haram and Africa,
    and I would like to focus some of my questions there as well.
    One of the things that has been just a little frustrating is
    when we think of Boko Haram and ISIS and knowing that Boko
    Haram actually has, their reign of terror has actually
    continued every day and at the end of last year actually killed
    more people than ISIS did.
        And so I am concerned, especially with what is happening in
    Libya, the deterioration in Libya, and knowing when Libya first
    fell it essentially led to a coup in Mali. And so I am
    wondering what you are seeing now, especially with ISIS
    increasing its involvement and occupation in Libya. What do you
    think or what do you see the fallout being in other countries?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, as I mentioned, Libya remains an acute
    focus because Libya is where, unlike in Boko Haram which is a
    preexisting problem----
        Ms. Bass. Right.
        Mr. McGurk [continuing]. Terrorist problem for ISIL, the
    fact that they have now raised an ISIL flag doesn't
    fundamentally change the nature of the problem. ISIL in Libya
    is different. So in Libya what we are working very hard to do--
    one of my colleagues, the Special Envoy for Libya Jonathan
    Winer, we were just in Rome together for the coalition meeting
    on ISIL working to form the Government of National Accord, a
    national unity government in Libya, and hoping to get that done
    very soon. And the U.N. Special Envoy Martin Kobler is also a
    close friend of mine. I worked with him for years in Iraq. I
    know he has been working day and night to get this done.
        And we have to have that because you need a foundational
    partner. I mentioned in the summer of 2014 it was very
    important to get the new Iraqi Government formed. Iraq had just
    had an election; it was going through the government formation
    process. Had we come into Iraq in a very major way militarily
    before we had a government and a foundational partner, it would
    have been hard to, I think, build the coherence that we needed
    to really push back effectively and aggressively.
        So the sequencing in Libya is to try to get this national
    government formed and then to work with it to come up with a
    strategy to begin to combat Libya. But I will say, if that
    takes some time and we see threats emerging to our own national
    security interests, the President has shown he will take
    military action in Libya. And that is why we killed the overall
    ISIL leader in Libya, Abu Nabil. So those sorts of things will
    continue to be ongoing. But the political and the military here
    is quite intertwined, and so we are hoping to get that
    government formed very soon.
        Ms. Bass. And so while we are doing that--and I absolutely
    understand and recognize the significance and importance of
    that--are you seeing though any involvement in terms of either
    ISIL folks moving south or moving weapons, which is what was
    the situation was in Mali, while we are working to stabilize
    the government--and I absolutely understand that.
        Mr. McGurk. What I have seen, Congresswoman, is the flow
    north to Libya, primarily. They seem to be in Libya doing what
    they did in Syria, establish state-like structures. So in
    Sirte, right in the central coast, and then they are trying to
    establish, you can see training camps popping up elsewhere. But
    they are trying to establish that state-like structure. So in
    their own Dabiq magazine, their own open source magazine, says
    come to Libya. They are trying to flow resources to Libya. If
    they can establish themselves there in a very rooted way and
    get rooted, then the risk will be it flows outward.
        Ms. Bass. I see.
        Mr. McGurk. So we are going to try to make sure that they
    can't do that.
        Ms. Bass. So back to Boko Haram, and I understand Boko
    Haram was preexisting and all and the significance of them
    raising the flag, if it was more symbolic, are they getting any
    resources, any of the financial resources from ISIL or really
    was it just symbolic?
        Mr. McGurk. We have seen some media coordination, so some
    of the Boko Haram media products have been a little more
    sophisticated which shows some connections with ISIL. But again
    not the type of direct weapons flow, finance, just because Boko
    Haram was already a self-contained entity. But we have to work
    with the Nigerians to get at the Boko Haram problem, period.
    Whether it calls itself ISIL or Boko Haram doesn't really
    matter. It is a fundamental problem.
        Ms. Bass. And so the attack that took place in Mali
    recently, took place right after France, what do you know of
    that in terms of its relationship to ISIL? I believe it was al-
    Qaeda.
        Mr. McGurk. Yes. So this is where things, we don't want to
    paint with too sharp of a brush because al-Qaeda often has the
    same goals. That was an al-Qaeda attack. That was not an ISIL
    attack. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if ISIL is
    attacking your hotel or al-Qaeda is attacking the hotel, these
    are huge problems. So Mali, the French have really taken a
    major lead on the Mali side. Have degraded that network, but
    obviously it is still able to launch attacks like that.
        Ms. Bass. Thank you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Bass. Mr. Cook
    of California.
        Mr. Cook. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador
    for being here. I don't envy your job. Very, very difficult. I
    don't have your sense of optimism about Syria. With the
    Russians supporting him, I think he is, it is going to be very,
    very tough to dislodge him.
        Picking up on that question of the Turks and the Kurds,
    point blank, is there any hope for a separate homeland for the
    Kurdistan? I don't think geography favors it, but we have
    disappointed the Kurds so many times, and after all the
    fighting and everything else and particularly with the pressure
    with the Kurds, I just don't, I think we are going to betray
    them again. Can you comment on that?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, the Kurds, and I have dealt with my
    friends the Kurds and the Kurdistan region of Iraq for almost a
    decade now, and you are right. There is a historical memory of
    what happened to the Kurds after World War I, which is
    something I think we have to all recognize and be quite
    sympathetic to.
        The Kurds in northern Syria we have developed a
    relationship with over the last 18 months or so in the counter-
    ISIL campaign. I was able to go into northern Syria last week
    and meet a number of them, and they had the same, it is a very
    similar, historical narrative. However, at this moment in time
    creating new independent states is not something I think that
    would be particularly stabilizing.
        So when it comes to the northern Iraq and the Kurds, as I
    mentioned, I think before something like that can be discussed
    in a serious way, first, you have to get ISIL off the southern
    border. It is all Jihadistan on the entire southern border of
    northern Iraq in the Kurdistan region. Second, the economic
    situation has to stabilize, and third, the political situation
    has to stabilize.
        So right now I think the Kurds of northern Iraq recognize
    this. Nobody is trying to do the impossible and create a
    unified Iraq that is a glowing democracy, but a Federal Iraq
    which is defined in their constitution which empowers local
    leaders, empowers the Sunnis in the provinces, empowers the
    Kurds in northern Iraq, empowers the Shia in southern Iraq, is
    something that is realistic. It is interwoven in Iraq's
    constitution and something we very much support.
        Mr. Cook. Okay. Thank you very much. The other question I
    had was I just got back from the Middle East, and a couple of
    things. Incirlik. Our sorties from Incirlik really, really help
    our pilots from the Gulf States. Eight hours flying down there,
    I don't know how they do it. I really don't.
        The problem is, in the past is the Turks have been, well,
    we will control all the air operations about Incirlik. And I
    just hope that that doesn't go back to the way it was, say, a
    year or 2 years ago where they had almost complete control over
    air ops and what was going in. I know that is kind of a
    military/foreign affairs question, but I am very, very nervous
    about Erdogan and the politics and how that affects that
    particular base. I am not really sure sometimes why we even
    have it there other than it is very, very close in the Middle
    East.
        Mr. McGurk. So that is a question for my military
    colleagues, but I have been to Incirlik, met our pilots there.
    The agreement when it comes to the anti-ISIL campaign is that
    those planes fly within the air coalition of the counter-ISIL
    campaign which is coordinated out of Qatar. And so we do, every
    day there is an air tasking order which goes out and so those
    planes out of Incirlik are integrated with that. So it is part
    of the overall cohesive campaign.
        Mr. Cook. No, and I just got back from Qatar and I--but I
    am just very, very nervous about the politics of Turkey.
        The last question I had was about Saudi, the Gulf States
    and everything else. Sometimes I think we are led to believe
    that their number one focus is ISIS. No, the impression I have
    is it is all about the war in Yemen. And their forces and
    everything else--yeah, yeah, we are committed to that--but the
    States that I talk to, it is all about what is going on with
    Yemen and particularly the influence of the Saudis in leading
    that coalition there. Could you comment on that?
        Mr. McGurk. You are right. Yemen is a primary focus in a
    lot of those capitals. But you can have a different
    conversation from Riyadh to Cairo to Abu Dhabi to Doha
    depending on where you are. I mean, this is not necessarily
    homogenous.
        Mr. Cook. I am just looking at resources that are going
    into Yemen right now.
        Mr. McGurk. Yes. Yemen has definitely been a major focus of
    the Saudis and for good reason. It is right on their border. So
    one reason we are working very hard to try to de-escalate that
    conflict is so we can focus minds and attentions on ISIL, which
    we do consider the most fundamental threat.
        Mr. Cook. Thank you very much for your answers. I yield
    back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you. Mr. Higgins of New York.
        Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Madam Chair. ISIS has proven to be
    particularly effective at fundraising. Estimates in 2014 was
    that they were raising about $3 million a day, originally
    through oil revenues and the sale of oil through the black
    market, and then through territorial gains where they would tax
    the people, provide services but tax and provide protection and
    basically operating a corrupt society whereby they would gain a
    lot of revenue.
        How much is known about ISIS funding from Sunni Arab
    countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, who I think views the
    existential threat to them as Iranian territorial gains, and
    Iraq, clearly with the direct involvement of Qasem Soleimani,
    and in Syria under an Alawite government which is a variant of
    Shia? So I suppose my question is Saudi Arabian influence in
    helping to finance ISIS terrorist activity.
        Mr. McGurk. We certainly don't see any indications of that
    and the Saudis have been very close partners on the
    counterterrorism side for some time. What makes ISIL different
    than al-Qaeda or some of these other jihadist groups is that
    they don't really rely on outside financing and funding. When
    there was some evidence of that we have worked with Kuwait and
    others to really shut that down. My colleagues in the Treasury
    Department, Adam Szubin and others, have done a great job on
    that, and Danny Glaser.
        But what makes ISIL different, because as you said,
    Congressman, it controls vast swaths of territory, has millions
    of people under its control, it acts through taxes and
    extortion to have a revenue base. So to cut at its finance
    streams--very early on a couple years ago we might have said,
    oh, there must be a lot of outside funding coming in, but in
    fact it is locally generated. So that is why we are--and it is
    true. The French led in this. After Paris, we of course helped
    them. But cutting off their ability to move oil, cutting off
    their ability to move energy supplies, cutting off their
    ability to store cash, which is something we have done in
    Mosul, so to cut off the finances you have to focus on that
    core in Iraq and Syria where it is controlling territory and
    resources.
        Mr. Higgins. How many U.S.-led air strikes in Iraq and
    Syria in the past year?
        Mr. McGurk. I mean, total air strikes, Congressman, it is
    about 10,000 now. I can get you the breakdown. I mean, total
    air strikes as of yesterday, 9,901 to be specific. There are
    about 6,615 in Iraq, 3,286 in Syria. The U.S. has conducted
    more than 7,000 of those and the rest of the coalition about
    2,300.
        Mr. Higgins. And in the past year, ISIS has lost 40 percent
    of its territorial gains in Iraq and 10 percent of its
    territorial gains in Syria?
        Mr. McGurk. Yes.
        Mr. Higgins. Okay. ISIS, the one thing that is constant,
    reading Michael Weiss' book, ``ISIS: Inside the Army of
    Terror,'' Joby Warrick's book, ``Black Flags,'' the one thing
    that seems constant about ISIS is change. And ISIS has evolved
    in its reach and organizational ability. The ISIS presence in
    Libya, I think, is particularly disturbing. It is a pivotal
    stronghold in North Africa.
        Africa is, there is a lot of instability to exploit in
    Africa. You have 55 countries in that continent, many of which
    are very, very unstable from South Sudan to just, there is a
    lot of countries to exploit. So my concern is that while we may
    be influencing a loss of territorial control in both Iraq and
    Syria, what about the ISIS threat in expanding into other
    countries in the continent of Africa?
        Mr. McGurk. Again it is a great question. And as we analyze
    it and as we discuss this with intelligence services and the
    governments in all of these different capitals all around the
    world, the common theme we hear, I mean, I have heard this from
    Malaysia to Brussels to the Gulf, is that this false notion of
    this caliphate is what is drawing so many young people to this
    dangerous movement. And that is why we are focused on the core
    and shrinking that overall territory.
        And its narrative, in those books that you mention its
    narrative is one of expansion and conquest. So we had to show
    that actually you are not expanding, you are actually
    shrinking, and if you go to join this phony caliphate you are
    not going to live a glorious life with ice cream cones like
    which is in their propaganda, you are actually going to die a
    pretty miserable death there.
        Now some of these people want to go die a miserable death
    and we are happy to oblige them, but we have to shrink the
    caliphate, their phony notion of a caliphate, in order to also
    dry up the global networks. That does not mean as we defeat
    ISIL that there won't be a global jihadist terrorism problem
    under different banners. That is something that is going to be
    with us for some time.
        Mr. Higgins. Thank you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Higgins. My Florida
    colleague, Mr. DeSantis.
        Mr. DeSantis. Mr. McGurk, you just said that there will
    still be a global jihadist problem and I agree with that. And I
    notice in your written testimony that there was not any
    reference explicitly to either Iran or Hezbollah particularly
    with respect to the destabilizing role that they both play in
    Iraq and in Syria. They have murdered Sunni civilians, and
    Assad obviously drives people, Sunni Arabs who if the choice is
    between a militant Shiite force or a government backed by Iran
    and ISIS, which is at least Sunni, many of them unfortunately
    are driven to ISIS. So was the exclusion of Iran's contribution
    to the problem deliberate, or was that just something that you
    omitted?
        Mr. McGurk. No, certainly not. Let me take it on directly.
    When Mosul fell in the summer of 2014, Grand Ayatollah Sistani
    in Najaf issued a fatwa saying everybody rise up and protect
    the country. And it was a really critical moment, and had he
    not done that I think it would have been actually very hard to
    check what ISIL was doing because they were just on a rampage
    and he would cause a massive panic in the country.
        You had about 80,000 volunteers kind of rise up and join
    the ranks to defend Iraq. Most of them in those early days are
    Shia from the south and most of them are nationalists, they
    answer to the government. But there is a segment of them, maybe
    10,000 to 15,000 who are actually answerable to militias or
    that are controlled by Iran. And this is a huge concern for us,
    it is a huge concern for the Government of Iraq, and it is a
    huge concern for Prime Minister Abadi. Prime Minister Abadi,
    when he was here in Washington, said publicly that if Iran is
    operating a militia on Iraqi soil outside the command of the
    Iraqi Government that would be a hostile act against Iraq. So
    he has been very clear about this.
        When we see abuses and violations of human rights the
    Government of Iraq has acted. Just recently there were some
    reports of Shia militia violence in Diyala Province, which has
    always been a hotbed of extremism on both sides of the
    sectarian divide. Prime Minister Abadi went to the site twice,
    and just last week they have arrested nine individuals from
    some of these militias as part of that investigation.
        So this is a serious problem. It is something that we are
    focused on all the time. But we don't want to paint all of
    these volunteers, many of whom are Shia, within the same brush
    because that simply wouldn't be true.
        Mr. DeSantis. But what about something like in Al Anbar
    Province? I mean, the administration has touted some of the
    advances in places like Ramadi, but my understanding is that is
    powered a lot by Shia forces, including some of the Iranian
    backed forces. And so what are you doing to empower the Sunni
    tribal forces and the Sunni tribal elders? Because it seems to
    me that driving ISIS out of places like Ramadi is obviously
    something that is desirable, but the notion that those Sunni
    Arabs are going to be happy living under forces or a government
    that they see as being dominated by Iran and Shia, that is
    probably going to be a tough sell.
        Mr. McGurk. So very much agree with you. So when it came to
    Ramadi it was the Government of Iraq's decision to ensure that
    that operation was conducted by the Iraqi security forces, the
    Iraqi counterterrorism forces, and local Sunni tribal fighters.
        Mr. DeSantis. So they were integrated with the security
    forces?
        Mr. McGurk. They were integrated in the campaign, and the
    Popular Mobilization Forces from the Shia side of the street
    were not a part of that Ramadi campaign. And that was very
    important, because we wanted to show that the Iraqi security
    forces can do this, and, because what is so important, whether
    Sunni or Shias, is locals who know their territory and know
    their neighborhood, who know what it is like, who know the
    alleys and the back streets. That you get locals invested in
    the fight.
        So in Anbar now we have about 10,000 of these tribal
    fighters. They are invested in the fight. They are getting
    paid. I gave the figures earlier in my testimony. But it is a
    constant effort. But we have full support from the new
    government in Iraq and Prime Minister Abadi. We have full
    support from the governor of Anbar Province, Governor al-Rawi,
    and they are working closely with us.
        We have two platforms in Anbar Province, one at Al Asad
    Airbase and one at Taqaddum Airbase. We are working every day
    with the Iraqi security forces and these tribal fighters to get
    them in the fight and they are making real gains. They were
    just on defense, now they are moving on offense, they are doing
    operations so it is moving the right way.
        Mr. DeSantis. Just a final question will be with respect to
    the Kurds, and I think a lot of my colleagues share this view.
    I think that they are pro-American forces that we should be
    supporting. But Turkey does not accept the actions of a lot of
    the Kurds, so there are problems there--you have one of our
    NATO partners essentially opposing some of our battlefield
    allies. And so can you address the conflict there between
    Turkey and some of the Kurdish fighters?
        Mr. McGurk. Let me first say Turkey faces a real threat
    from the PKK. So we have to recognize that this conflict
    between Turkey and the PKK, which flared up again over the
    summer, began if you run the timeline when the PKK killed a
    number of Turkish police officers. And I have been very clear
    about that. Turkey has a right to respond in its own self
    defense.
        At the same time, this conflict has now escalated to the
    point where we want to work very hard to try to de-escalate it,
    and Vice President Biden discussed this with President Erdogan
    last week, because the more this is going on the more it drives
    people to the ranks of really extreme militarism which is very
    dangerous. So we want to protect Turkey against the PKK and
    that is something we are going to help them do, we are going to
    continue to help them do.
        But we also want to strengthen the Kurds in northern Syria.
    The Kurds in northern Syria have joined a conglomeration; have
    built a coalition force with Arabs and Christians and Syrian--I
    met a number of them--under the banner of the Syrian Democratic
    Forces. They have just put out a political platform. It makes
    clear that they want to be part of Syria. It makes clear that
    they want to have positive relations with their neighbors,
    which means Turkey. They don't want to interfere in those
    relations, which means distancing from any relation with the
    PKK.
        This will remain a work in progress, but something that we
    are going to work on every day. But most importantly we will
    continue to work with Turkey to protect itself against the PKK
    militarism, which is extremely dangerous and which is killing
    Turkish soldiers and police officers every day.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And now we
    move to Mr. Sherman of California.
        Mr. Sherman. First, I know the visa waiver program was
    mentioned earlier about the idea that those who visit Libya, I
    want to point out the visa waiver program is not a right that
    we extend to all Europeans and reducing it doesn't show that we
    would hate Europeans. We don't provide visa waivers to people
    from Brazil, and we love Brazilians, et cetera, and many of
    other--and I believe we don't have a visa waiver relationship
    with any of the Latin American countries that are our allies.
        But I would also point out that those we want to focus on
    who have visited Syria and Iraq to work with ISIS; they don't
    have a stamp on their passport from Syria. They don't have a
    stamp on their passport from Iraq. They have a stamp on their
    passport for Turkey. And we ought to be looking at whether we
    should provide visa waiver to those who have visited Turkey. At
    the same time, we have to look at our European friends and make
    sure that they don't just give a new passport to somebody who
    doesn't like the stamps on their old passport without telling
    us that it did have a stamp from Libya or from Iraq or from
    Turkey.
        And so I do think we are going to have to look at this visa
    waiver idea, but as long as any European can just get a new
    passport and then have visa waiver without letting us know that
    they visited Turkey, Syria or Iraq or Libya, we are going to
    have a problem.
        But now I want to focus on questions. We were serious in
    World War II. We had a strategic bombing program designed to
    destroy the economic capacity of occupied Europe. I believe we
    killed 90,000 French civilians and then we were welcomed by the
    French people as liberators. We were serious in that war. We
    won that war. De Gaulle never paid French civil servants in
    occupied France. De Gaulle did not arrange to provide food and
    fuel to those living in a Nazi-exploited occupied France.
        The Iraqi Government has told us that they finally stopped
    paying the civil servants in ISIS-occupied areas. Is that true?
    Are civil servants who live in ISIS, ISIL or ISIS-occupied
    territory able to leave, get their money and then go drive back
    to Mosul, or have they finally stopped paying people who are
    taxed by ISIS? Or don't you know?
        Mr. McGurk. No, thank you, Congressman. I have actually
    worked on this quite a bit. So the Iraqi Government made a
    decision, passed through their cabinet last summer that all----
        Mr. Sherman. I have got very limited time. Are they still
    paying the civil servants or not?
        Mr. McGurk. No, they are not.
        Mr. Sherman. And even if the civil servant leaves they
    can't get their money?
        Mr. McGurk. The salaries paid to people living under ISIL
    control are held in escrow. So when those areas are liberated
    they will get----
        Mr. Sherman. Wait a minute. If somebody just drives from
    Mosul, goes down to Kirkuk, can they pick up the money that is
    being held in escrow for them?
        Mr. McGurk. If they are living in Mosul they should not be
    able to do that.
        Mr. Sherman. Okay. Well, you should check on that because I
    am told they can get their money and then go back.
        But we also have a bombing--in World War II we bombed
    electric generation facilities. In Iraq, the Iraqi Government
    provides free electricity to ISIS. Are we willing to bomb the
    transmission lines through which that free electricity flows to
    Mosul?
        Mr. McGurk. The problem in Mosul is that a lot of the
    electricity in Mosul comes from the Mosul Dam, and we have to
    keep the Mosul Dam running to----
        Mr. Sherman. Well, we keep it running, but why use it to
    supply electricity to ISIS?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, it is a sophisticated engineering issue,
    because we don't want electricity going into Mosul. So----
        Mr. Sherman. It is not a sophisticated--it is a
    sophisticated political question. You don't have to send
    electricity to Mosul. Don't tell me that the dam breaks if you
    don't send electricity to the enemy.
        Mr. McGurk. By keeping the dam running, as I understand----
        Mr. Sherman. The dam should be kept running. That doesn't
    mean you have to send the electricity to ISIS.
        Mr. McGurk. We don't want electricity going into----
        Mr. Sherman. So bomb the transmission lines inside or
    outside of ISIS controlled territory.
        Mr. McGurk. Something we have looked at and we will look at
    it again. I will get the answer----
        Mr. Sherman. You have looked at it but you won't tell us
    why you are not doing it, will you?
        Mr. McGurk. We will get----
        Mr. Sherman. And why does the Iraqi Government provide
    electricity to Mosul for free and is that consistent with the
    approach we took in World War II when we were serious?
        Mr. McGurk. Probably different than the approach in World
    War II, but nobody is more anti-ISIL than the guys I know in
    the Iraqi Government. There is a debate between local leaders
    and the government about we don't want to drive the population
    into the hands of the ISIL in some of these areas, but the
    issue of electricity to Mosul is something I can get you a very
    detailed, specific answer on and I will do that.
        [The information referred to follows:]
     Written Response Received from the Honorable Brett McGurk to Question
             Asked During the Hearing by the Honorable Brad Sherman
        The reason the Government of Iraq provides electricity to Mosul is
    not because it wants to, but because it has to. As the dam is in a
    progressive state of failure, reservoir levels need to be carefully
    controlled to avoid creating undue pressure on the dam either by
    draining it or by maintaining water levels above the emergency spillway
    threshold. The appropriate reservoir level is between 300 to 319 meters
    above sea level, according to a December 2006 U.S. Army Corps of
    Engineers study. There are two ways to release water: either through
    the two bottom outlets or through the hydroelectric turbines. One of
    the bottom outlets does not work and the other only partially works,
    leaving the hydroelectric turbines as the most reliable way to release
    water and control the reservoir level. There is no way to run water
    through the turbines without producing electricity and the transmission
    lines only go to Mosul. Thus, in order to effectively control the
    reservoir level, electricity must be sent to Mosul.
        The Government of Iraq put out a tender late last year for an
    international engineering firm to restore credible grouting at the dam
    to stabilize the foundation and also to repair the bottom outlets.
    Until that work has begun and the bottom outlets have been repaired,
    electricity will continue to be produced and go to Mosul in order to
    maintain an appropriate reservoir level and protect the integrity of
    the dam.

        Mr. Sherman. I look forward--and finally, we had a zero
    civilian casualty approach to our strategic bombing so we
    weren't hitting the tanker trucks. Now again if we had had a
    zero civilian casualty approach----
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Mr. Sherman, we are over your time, so
    finish your question and maybe he could give a final answer.
        Mr. Sherman. Okay. Obviously in World War II we hit trains
    and trucks and factories. Are we hitting ISIS' economic targets
    even knowing that that will cause civilian casualties, for
    example, oil tanker trucks?
        Mr. McGurk. I addressed the issue of trucks earlier,
    Congressman. Yes, we are hitting the trucks. We are trying to
    do it in a way that limits the possibility of killing the truck
    drivers, but we have actually figured out a way to do that. But
    the trucks are not----
        Mr. Sherman. But are we willing to hit the trucks while
    they are being driven?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, we have figured out a way to hit the
    trucks and the trucks are not being driven.
        Mr. Sherman. In other words, you are only willing to hit
    the trucks when they are parked and if they are being driven
    you won't hit them.
        Mr. McGurk. Well, we don't want to needlessly, and I would
    really defer to my military colleagues here who work at this
    very closely. We don't want to needlessly----
        Mr. Sherman. I yield back.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you, Mr.
    Sherman. Dr. Yoho of Florida.
        Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Sherman, I feel your
    anxiety and your pain. I feel the same way. Is the
    administration planning on dropping humanitarian aid to Aleppo?
    I think--a yes or no.
        Mr. McGurk. Well, I think we are looking at all options on
    the humanitarian side right now.
        Mr. Yoho. That is not really answering. That is just saying
    you are looking at them. And that kind of reminds me of the
    President's budget that says national security and global
    leadership in President's budget, and it says that is why the
    United States is leading the global coalition that will destroy
    the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant, and the budget
    provides for over $11 billion for the DoD.
        That is like wanting to learn to play the piano and you buy
    the piano and you put in the money for lessons but you don't
    practice it you are not going to play the piano. I hear a lot
    like we are looking at it. We are looking at the safe zones in
    Syria by Jordan and by Turkey, we are looking at that. We have
    been studying that 4 years. At some point it has to be acted
    upon.
        And I want to follow up with Mr. Sherman's comment. The
    reasoning to continually not bomb these transport vehicles with
    oil when the no-fly zone that was initiated by this
    administration along with Hillary Clinton to create a no-fly
    zone that led to a failed state, the fall of Gaddifi, and now
    Libya is an ISIS recruiting and training center and they have
    one of their biggest camps 12 miles from Libya's largest oil
    production facility, why are we not just bombing them? Like Mr.
    Sherman said, in World War II we had a strategy. Yes, that is
    one of the fallouts of war, but it brought that war to an end.
        We have been studying things and we are looking at options
    for 4 years, or 5 years now, close to 300,000 people have died.
    The Assad barrel bombs, we have been looking at maybe putting
    pressure on that and we are still studying it, but yet nothing
    happens. And we have the largest migration of refugees around
    the world because of the failed policies of this
    administration. What are we doing? I mean, when are we going to
    stop looking and start acting stronger and leading?
        Mr. McGurk. Well, Congressman, I was just in Kobani. I
    stood in the streets of Kobani where we killed 6,000 ISIL
    fighters with air strikes there; in fact still pulling bodies
    out of the rubble near where I was standing of ISIL fighters,
    killed 6,000 in that battle alone. We have destroyed 400 tanker
    trucks. So the idea that we are just watching this is not----
        Mr. Yoho. When were the 400 tanker trucks destroyed? What
    time period? In the last 6 months?
        Mr. McGurk. Probably the last 4 to 5 months.
        Mr. Yoho. Okay. But we have known about this for over 3
    years. I mean, we hear constituents saying, why is ISIS having
    oil production facilities? Why are they even allowed to produce
    anything? They should have been destroyed back then had we had
    a clear cut strategy.
        This is a real pointed question. What is this
    administration's reasoning to continually press for refugees
    from Syria and other areas in the Middle East, to relax the
    entry requirements into the U.S. especially when France,
    Germany and Belgium have documented that over 70 to 80 ISIS
    members entered the EU through Syria with fake passports, and
    those were the people that did the shootings in Paris. Why is
    this administration hellbent on relaxing these restrictions?
    What is the reasoning for that?
        Mr. McGurk. I think we have the most stringent entry
    standards on the refugee program in the world and that is
    something that is going to continue.
        Mr. Yoho. Yes, but yet FBI Director Comey and Jeh Johnson
    of DHS says there is no way to vet these people. So why not put
    a pause on this until we know for sure that they are not fake
    passports, they are not this? You are saying that but yet
    France and Germany and those other countries are kind of
    saying, hey, wait a minute, we are not doing this anymore. Why
    are we not heeding the warning that we know is going to happen?
        Mr. McGurk. Again, I think I defer to my colleagues who
    work this issue every day and I can get you a more detailed
    answer. But we have one of the most stringent refugee
    admissions processes in the entire world and that is why I am
    not aware of any terrorists who have entered through the
    refugee program.
        Mr. Yoho. Again going back to the ISIS transport. We talked
    about the administration's failure to go after this early. Four
    to six months ago they did this. And we are at a war at
    terrorism, right, and ISIS is the terrorist organization that
    we are in conflict with. And I don't know what poll you have,
    but I sure wish you guys would crank down on this
    administration and say that. Because what I see is a reckless
    endangerment and a dereliction of duty on our national security
    by this administration. And I hope you would help them
    straighten that out. I yield back. Thank you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Dr. Yoho. Now my other
    Florida colleague, Mr. Deutch of Florida.
        Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Just on the subject
    of reckless endangerment as long as we are talking about some
    of these issues, I am not going to ask you, Mr. McGurk, to
    comment on this. But it is really hard for me to comprehend how
    we have this entire hearing with all kinds of accusations made
    about the administration's policies, the request that the
    administration actually take certain actions only to have you
    explain that we are taking them and then the criticism be,
    well, why didn't we take them sooner, when the concern that we
    have about fighting terrorism at least in one small respect can
    be addressed if we simply acknowledge that individuals who
    can't fly into this country because they are on a terrorism
    watch list can still, if they are in this country, go to any
    gun store and purchase a gun.
        I don't understand it, and if we are going to talk about
    reckless endangerment that is something that this Congress
    ought to be doing that the Speaker ought to allow us to have a
    debate on. And it is impossible for me to understand how after
    this entire hearing that single step that is logical that has
    the overwhelming support of the American people has yet to be
    done.
        Now Mr. McGurk, I want to circle back to a comment, an
    exchange you had earlier on Iran that focuses really on Iraq.
    But I want to talk about Iran's activities in Syria and the
    question I have is really straightforward. After the Iran
    nuclear deal and implementation day which has now passed, has
    that had any impact in the way that we interact with the
    Iranians with respect to their activities on the ground in
    Syria both supporting Hezbollah, propping up Assad, but at the
    same time fighting ISIL?
        Mr. McGurk. Congressman, thanks for your question. Iran,
    since the nuclear deal they are a part of the Vienna process.
    They are at the table with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey;
    everyone else. So that is significant. But certainly I think
    their tactic strategies in Syria, if anything, have made the
    conflict worse. I think we have been very clear on that. Iran
    is focused on, they have an election upcoming later this month
    which will decide some things about the direction the country
    is headed, but certainly we have not seen a significant change
    in terms of what they are doing in Syria.
        Mr. Deutch. And just the only other thing I would observe
    that I am not sure how many things will be decided when the
    number of reformers who are allowed to run is mere tens out of
    the thousands who had sought that, but I appreciate that. And I
    want to just ask a follow-up.
        But the fact is that Iran and its proxies are responsible
    for so much of Assad's, propping up Assad and Assad's ability
    to massacre his own people. In the earlier stages of these
    debates there was talk about individuals who would like to go
    after Assad because of the butchery, the brutality against
    their family members and their community members, and if they
    didn't have that opportunity sometimes they turn to whoever
    would give them the chance to fight no matter how awful that
    group might be.
        What are we doing now to ensure that the battle they wage
    is one that is against ISIL and yet also acknowledges that the
    Assad, the brutal Assad regime ultimately is responsible for so
    much of the problem that exists?
        Mr. McGurk. This is real problem, because so long as the
    conflict between the regime and the opposition is running at
    full bore, which it is right now enabled by the Russian air
    campaign, the pool of fighters particularly in those parts of
    the country to fight ISIL are reduced. So I discussed in some
    detail north of Aleppo, the Mari line, groups we were working
    with to fight ISIL have now peeled off to fight the regime,
    again which is why the Russian air campaign in this respect has
    made the fight against ISIL more difficult.
        Mr. Deutch. And finally, I know the chairman joins me in
    telling you that while--first, I want to commend you personally
    for your efforts in helping to secure the release of American
    citizens who had been held in Iran. As you know, my
    constituent, Bob Levinson, was not among them. I was with the
    family this morning over on the Senate side at a markup of a
    resolution that we are going to be taking up here. They deserve
    to have that same feeling of joy and relief that the other
    families are now feeling, and I just can't emphasize strongly
    enough how important it is for us, for the American people, and
    for you specifically to be unrelenting in your efforts to bring
    Bob home.
        Mr. McGurk. Congressman, I assure you the issue with the
    prisoners was one of the most difficult things I have ever
    done. I have gotten to know the families quite well. I have met
    the Levinsons a number of times. I saw them in the West Wing
    yesterday before they saw the President. And we certainly will
    not cease in our efforts.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much. Thank you for that Mr.
    Deutch. Mr. Keating of Massachusetts.
        Mr. Keating. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you for
    having this hearing. I would like to thank Mr. McGurk for your
    service and the work you have done. It is important and you
    have done a great job and I appreciate that personally, and I
    am speaking as a Member of Congress as well.
        Mr. McGurk. Thank you.
        Mr. Keating. I would like to, at first, associate myself
    with some remarks my colleague Mr. Deutch made about even when
    putting things in perspective in terms of threats here at home,
    even with the language and to scrub the Terrorist Watch List, I
    think it is just important that we get a vote on that. The idea
    that people on that Terrorist Watch List that can legally
    procure explosives and weapons and do that legally in this
    country is something that we have to address as part of our own
    homeland security.
        A question I have along those lines, earlier this last year
    I went with a group of my colleagues from the Homeland Security
    Committee. We were looking at tracking the issues surrounding
    foreign terrorist fighters and those issues. Could you give an
    update on the Security Council resolution in that regard, 2178?
    And also more specifically, my concern is too with some of the
    progress we have made, you mentioned with Turkey that we will
    see how that turns out. I am hopeful but somewhat skeptical
    about their ability to secure that border area.
        But two issues that stand out, the passenger name record
    issue with EU countries and even the kind of security that is
    done on the exterior border of the Schengen countries. Can you
    tell me any progress that you are aware of that we have made
    with our European allies so that they can tighten that up? That
    has a direct effect with our security here at home, their
    ability to do that.
        Mr. McGurk. So great questions, Congressman. I addressed
    this somewhat in my written statement. Since Paris we have
    certainly seen a lot of movement in this regard. The first step
    was to focus international attention on this problem and then
    to get something concrete out of it which was Resolution 2178
    which came out of the U.N. General Assembly in 2014. Since
    then, I think as my testimony mentioned, about 45 countries
    have updated their laws to track down foreign terrorist
    fighters.
        What we are trying to do now as we learn more about the
    networks and through the coalitions--it is why our global
    coalition is so important. It is not just the military which
    gets a lot of the focus, it is sharing information across these
    multiple lines of effort, and in the foreign fighter side we
    have a cell which shares information across borders.
        So we have had arrests now in Belgium, Egypt, France,
    Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines,
    Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, Qatar, here in the United States, and
    now what we are doing is sharing information to try to really
    collapse these foreign fighter networks.
        And it is a very difficult endeavor. It is law enforcement,
    it is intelligence, but it is constantly sharing information.
    We have found that many of the countries we work with, they
    have a difficult time sharing information amongst themselves in
    their capital. It is a problem we had before 9/11.
        Mr. Keating. Yes, there are different laws, privacy laws.
        Mr. McGurk. So we have broken down a lot of those
    stovepipes here in the U.S. post 9/11, and we are finding out
    post Paris, particularly in the EU they are also working to do
    the same thing.
        Passenger name recognition is a critical thing. That was
    getting in the way, getting hung up on privacy laws in the EU.
    Now the EU Parliament has passed, finally, the passenger name
    recognition, so we know everybody who is on--they know
    everybody who is on those airplanes. We of course know
    everybody coming into the U.S. So something we are diligent
    about, something we raise all the time, and within the
    coalition we now have a permanent structure set up on the
    foreign terrorist fighter side, so--and it is a permanent
    platform now, constantly sharing information and figuring out,
    connecting dots. It has led, as I mentioned in my testimony, to
    a number of FBI investigations. This came right out of our
    coalition activities, and it is something that we are going to
    continue.
        Mr. Keating. Quickly, one other question before my time
    expires. There have been written reports out there that the
    terrorist fighters that their salaries and the money they are
    getting has been cut by as much as 50 percent. What do you know
    about those reports, how real are they, and obviously what kind
    of impact would that have on their recruitment when this begins
    to break down? Because we are trying to hone in and really
    damage their ability to finance these terrorist activities.
        Mr. McGurk. Again a very good question. And one reason we
    decided to go after these cash, bulk cash storage sites
    particularly in Mosul, look, they are right in downtown Mosul.
    To answer some of the questions from your colleagues earlier is
    there a risk that some civilians might lose their lives in an
    air strike like that? The answer is yes. However, the judgment
    was that it is important to strike those sites because this is
    how they are paying and recruiting their fighters. And we
    eliminated those sites.
        But I just want to go back. We are very careful about
    civilian casualties for a reason. We are not going to be like
    the Russians or some others who are just using dummy bombs on
    civilian areas and trying to kill people they consider
    extremists. This has been the most precise air campaign in
    history and we are very proud of that. It is also, I think
    history will show, it has been one of the most effective air
    campaigns in history.
        And what we have done to ISIL's finances by a careful
    infusion of intelligence, sharing information across the
    coalition and within the U.S. Government to identify the
    targets and then to action those targets is something that
    takes time to piece together. Sometimes it takes longer than we
    might want, but we have pieced it together. We have now done
    those air strikes, they have been very effective, and as you
    said they have led to very credible information we have now
    that ISIL has cut its pay to foreign fighters by nearly 50
    percent.
        Mr. Keating. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McGurk. And I wish
    we could say the same thing about the Russians and the way they
    are conducting their bombing exercises as we can about our own
    exercises. I yield back, Madam.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Keating. And Mr.
    McGurk, we appreciate the time that you took with us this
    morning. I know that you are headed to the airport to continue
    your work, but ISIS is an incredibly dangerous threat that is
    global and continues to grow and the committee looks forward to
    continuing to work with you on this important issue. With that
    the hearing is adjourned.
        Mr. McGurk. Thank you so much.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Safe journey.
        [Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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