[Senate Hearing 114-197]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-197
THE FIGHT AGAINST ISIS: BUILDING THE COALITION AND ENSURING MILITARY
EFFECTIVENESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 25, 2015
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, TENNESSEE, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
MARCO RUBIO, Florida BARBARA BOXER, California
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
CORY GARDNER, Colorado CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
RAND PAUL, Kentucky TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
Lester E. Munson III, Staff Director
Jodi B. Herman, Democratic Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Bob Corker, U.S. Senator From Tennessee..................... 1
Hon. Bob Menendez, U.S. Senator From New Jersey.................. 2
Gen. John R. Allen, USMC (Retired), Special Presidential Envoy
for the Global Coalition To Counter ISIL, U.S. Department of
State, Washington, DC.......................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
Senator Bob Corker......................................... 34
Senator Marco Rubio........................................ 36
(iii)
THE FIGHT AGAINST ISIS: BUILDING THE
COALITION AND ENSURING MILITARY
EFFECTIVENESS
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2015
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:31 p.m., in
room SD-419, Senate Office Building, Hon. Bob Corker (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Corker, Rubio, Johnson, Flake, Gardner,
Perdue, Isakson, Paul, Barrasso, Menendez, Boxer, Cardin,
Shaheen, Murphy, Kaine, and Markey.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB CORKER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE
The Chairman. I call this meeting of the Foreign Relations
Committee to order, and I want to thank General Allen for being
here. I know he has a hard stop today at 3:30, and that he has
meetings with CENTCOM later that he is traveling to. But I want
to thank him for being here, and I will properly introduce him
in just a moment.
The President has sent forward a request for the
authorization for the use of military force. Because of the
nature and the way that this happened in that the conflict has
been ongoing for about 6 months now, I think one of the things
that most people here are concerned about is that there is a
level of confidence in what we are doing, and that it is going
to achieve the stated goals that the President has laid out.
And I do not know of anybody more equipped to come before us
today than General Allen, who has served our country with great
distinction.
I think many people feel decently well about what is
happening in Iraq. I think there are a lot of questions
relative to Syria. My sense is today you will have a number of
questions regarding that. And we hope that what you will do,
General Allen, is give us an honest assessment as to the end
state that we would like to see happen in Iraq and Syria when
we complete the activities that we are involved in, and
understand the political and military strategy that we have
underway, and to give us a little sense of timeframe relative
to the various activities that are necessary.
I was just in Iraq last week in both Baghdad and Erbil with
our Kurdish friends, and then over in Ankara with our Turkish
friends, and I will say that the Shia militias are everywhere
in Iraq, as people know. General Suleimani, who is head of the
Quds Force for Iran, has now become a celebrity in Iraq. And I
have to say it feels very strange to be there knowing that much
of the activity that we have underway, while it is necessary,
is really to Iran's benefit. And I know there are a lot of
concerns that after this activity is completed if we are
successful with ISIS, which I know we will be, in essence, the
next issue is going to be dealing with security of forces there
with the Shia militias.
I was happy to see that Turkey has gone ahead and signed an
agreement, train and equip agreement. I am sure that is
something that you have made happen, and thank you for that. At
the same time, I know there are a lot of concerns right now
about how we deal with Assad's barrel bombs as we train and
equip these individuals. How do we protect them from the barrel
bombs, which cause them to diminish in a greater number than
they can be trained? And I am sure that you are going to talk
about that.
There is a lot of discussion, as you know, on the ground
there about an air exclusion zone--I know you will have some
questions about that--and just no-fly discussions. It may be
taking place to draw Turkey more into what is happening in
Syria itself, which I think most of it--most of us believe is
very important.
So as we--as I close, I just want to say we owe it to our
nation as we consider this to know that the full range of
America's elements of national power, diplomatic, economic, and
military means are aligned in such a way to get to the
administration's stated goals. Because of the nature of this
decision, one, again, this being made after the fact, all of us
need to have confidence that the administration is truly
committed to achieving the stated goals that they have laid
out. And I think your testimony here is going to be very
valuable to us.
And with that, I would like to turn to our distinguished
ranking member, Senator Menendez, who has been a great partner
on all of these issues.
STATEMENT OF HON. BOB MENENDEZ,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY
Senator Menendez. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
for calling the hearing for our work forward on this. And,
General Allen, welcome back to the committee, and thank you for
your distinguished service to our country in so many different
ways, including your present position as a special envoy.
Although this hearing is not focused on the
administration's proposed authorization for the use of military
force against ISIL, it is by nature an opportunity to probe the
dynamics of our current anti-ISIL strategy that will inform our
discussion of an AUMF, and specifically whether a strategy that
relies on U.S. air power and logistics, intelligence, and
training support, but not on U.S. troops on the ground, would
be successful in achieving our ultimate goal to end the
barbaric rampage of ISIL.
There are those who believe that it is up to our local
partners on the ground to ultimately take this war across the
finish line. I have heard from others who believe that ISIL
cannot be defeated without a significant U.S. ground
commitment. So I would like to hear from you, General Allen,
where you come down on what will be required to eradicate ISIL,
given that we hear reports from Secretary Carter's meetings in
Kuwait that while the anti-ISIL strategy does not require
fundamental recalibration, our coalition partners can be doing
more.
My view personally is that the United States must help
combat ISIL and restore stability to the region, and we must
follow through on our commitments to our Arab partners. But
large-scale U.S. ground forces at this time in this complex
political and military atmosphere would at the end of the day
decisively increase the prospect of losing a long war.
Now, I appreciate and want to salute all the men and women
who are waging a campaign against ISIL, particularly from the
air, all of the airstrikes that have, according to your own
testimony, inflicted significant damage. And those are
promising, and we salute the men and women who do that. But our
effectiveness in combating this threat I think cannot be
measured only in the number of sorties flown or bombs dropped.
So today's hearing is a welcome opportunity to step back
and assess the big picture, the state of the coalition, what
will it ultimately take to defeat ISIL, and what we know, I
think, will be a multiyear effort that will take billions of
dollars, significant military assets, and the painstaking
patience of diplomacy matched to all of those efforts.
We look forward to your insights, and we welcome you back
to the committee.
The Chairman. Our distinguished witness today is Gen. John
Allen, the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition
to Counter ISIS. General Allen is a retired U.S. Marine four-
star general, former commander of ISAF and U.S. forces in
Afghanistan. Upon his retirement from the Marine Corps, he was
appointed as the senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense on
Middle East security. He is currently on a leave of absence
from Brookings Institution, where he is codirector of the 21st
Century Security and Intelligence Center.
We thank you for your frankness. We thank you for your
service to our country. We thank you for being here today. I
know you are going to have an unusually long opening comment,
which we appreciate, and then we will turn to questions.
STATEMENT OF GEN. JOHN R. ALLEN, USMC (RETIRED),
SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR THE GLOBAL
COALITION TO COUNTER ISIL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
General Allen. Chairman Corker, thank you, and Ranking
Member Menendez, it is good to be back today. Esteemed members
of the committee, I want to thank you for providing me the
opportunity to update you on the progress of the Global
Coalition to Counter ISIL. And let me just add as well my deep
and sincere thanks for all that this committee has done for our
Department of State, for our diplomats, and for the members of
the Department who are serving with such great courage and
capability at the far-flung locations of American influence.
This committee has done marvelous work to support them, and I
want to thank you very much for that.
I just returned to Washington yesterday afternoon from
Kuwait where, at the request of Secretary of Defense Ashton
Carter, I joined a group of more than 30 senior U.S. diplomats
and military commanders for a wide-ranging discussion on our
counter-ISIL strategy. While my role as senior special
presidential envoy is concerned with the consolidation and the
integration of the coalition contributions, not the
coordination of its military activities, I remain nonetheless
closely synced with my colleagues in the military, and we meet
regularly with other departments and agencies involved to
review the progress of the counter-ISIL activities.
In addition, we are also discussing the coalition's next
step now that we have largely achieved the objectives of the
campaign's first phase, which was to blunt ISIL's strategic
operational and tactical momentum in Iraq. Through over 2,500
coordinated coalition airstrikes in support of our partners on
the ground, we have degraded ISIL's leadership, its logistical
and operational capabilities, and we are denying it essential
sanctuary in Iraq from which it can plan and execute attacks.
With New Zealand's very welcome announcement yesterday that
it will provide military trainers to build the capacity of the
Iraqi Security Forces, a dozen coalition nations now
participating in these efforts are operating from multiple
sites across Iraq. Still the situation in Iraq remains complex,
and the road ahead will be challenging and nonlinear.
Considering where we were only 8 months ago, one can begin to
see how the first phase of the strategy is delivering results.
As I appear before this esteemed committee today, it is
important to recall that in June of last year, ISIL burst into
the international scene as a seemingly irresistible force. It
conquered a city, Mosul, of 1.5 million, then poured south down
the Tigris River Valley toward Baghdad, taking cities, and
town, and villages along the way. Outside Tikrit, it rounded up
and massacred over 1,000 Iraqi army recruits, and to the west
it broke through the border town of Al-Qaim and poured east
toward Baghdad. ISIL's spokesman, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani,
vowed, ``The battle will soon rage in Baghdad and in the holy
city of Karbala.''
Shortly thereafter, ISIL launched a multiple-pronged attack
further into northern Iraq, massacring minority populations,
enslaving hundreds of women and girls, surrounding tens of
thousands of Yazidis on Sinjar Mountain, and opening clear
route to Erbil, the region's capital.
Then the United States acted. Since our first airstrikes in
August, ISIL's advance has been blunted, and they have been
driven back from the approaches to Baghdad and Erbil. ISIL lost
half of its Iraq-based leadership, thousands of hardened
fighters, and is no longer able to amass and maneuver
effectively, and to communicate as an effective force. Iraqis
are also standing on their feet. The Kurdish peshmerga have
recovered nearly all of the ground lost in August, and the
peshmerga have also taken control of the Mosul Dam, the Rabiya
Crossing with Syria, the Sinjar Mountain, Zumar, and the Kisik
Road junction, which eliminated a supply route for ISIL from
Syria to Mosul. These forces also broke the siege of the Bayji
oil refinery and have begun to push north into the Tigris
Valley.
To the west, Sunni tribes are working with Iraq Security
Forces to retake the land in the heart of Al-Anbar, a land I
know well. And just last week under the cover of bad weather,
ISIL launched an attack on the town of al-Baghdadi near the Al-
Asad Airbase in Al-Anbar, where our forces are located with the
Danes and the Australians to help to train Iraqi soldiers and
tribal volunteers.
ISIL, as it has done over and over again, rampaged through
the town, killing civilians and driving hundreds of families
into the safe haven of the airbase. But the Iraqis did not sit
idle. They organized and fought back. Prime Minister Abadi went
to the Joint Operations Center in Baghdad and ordered an
immediate counter attack. The Minister of Defense flew to Al-
Asad to organize available forces, and Iraq army commanders
sent an armored column from Baghdad to road march to al-
Baghdadi to join the attack. And Sunni tribal volunteers
organized to support and, in some cases, led the attack.
Today, much of al-Baghdadi is back in the hands of these
local and tribal forces. And I was at Al-Asad just last month,
and my deputy, Brett McGurk, was there just 3 days ago, I would
tell you that all Americans would be proud to see what our
troops are doing there, helping the Iraqis and the tribes to
join the battle against ISIL. But this is only the start, and
ISIL remains a substantial foe.
But any aura of the invincibility of ISIL has been
shattered. ISIL is not invincible. It is defeatable, and it is
being defeated by Iraqi Forces defending and taking back their
towns, and their cities, and ultimately their country with the
support of the United States and the coalition. And
importantly, very importantly, the aura of the so-called
caliphate is destroyed, and the future of the so-called Caliph
Abu Bakr Baghdadi is very much in doubt.
Because we lack the same kind of partners on the ground in
Syria, the situation there is more challenging and more
complex. Still, we are working closely with regional partners
to establish sites for training and equipping vetted and
moderate Syrian opposition elements to train approximately
5,000 troops per year for the next 3 years. These and other
military aspects of the campaign will inevitably receive the
most attention, but as I have seen in the four previous
coalition efforts in which I have been involved, it will
ultimately be the aggregate pressure of the campaign activity
over multiple, mutually supporting lines of effort that will
determine the campaign's success.
This is why when I visit a coalition capital and when I
meet with a Prime Minister, or a King, or a President, I
describe the coalition's counter-ISIL strategy as being
organized around multiple lines of effort: the military line to
deny safe haven and provide security assistance, disrupting the
flow of foreign fighters, disrupting ISIL's financial
resources, providing humanitarian relief and support to its
victims, and counter messaging or defeating the idea of ISIL.
Since mid-September I have traveled to 21 partner capitals,
several of them multiple times, to meet with national
leadership there. And in that short span we have assembled a
global coalition of 62 nations and international organizations.
Of the many recent visits, leaders have expressed heightened
concern for the immediate and generational challenge presented
by foreign fighters, and rightly so. Through capacity building
in the Balkans, criminal justice efforts in North Africa, and
changes to laws in more than a dozen countries, partners are
working together to make it more difficult for citizens to
fight in Syria and Iraq.
Even with these expanded measures, foreign fighters
continue to make their way to the battlefield. We must continue
to harmonize our border and customs processes and promote
intelligence sharing among our partners. This kind of
information-sharing has allowed the coalition to make
significant gains on synchronizing practices to block ISIL's
access to banks within the region and globally. This includes
stemming the flow of private donations and restricting ISIL's
ability to generate oil revenues. We are now expanding these
efforts to counter ISIL's access to local and informal
financial networks.
The coalition is also supporting the United Nations'
efforts to provide food and aid and supply critical assistance
to protect the vulnerable children, and women, and men from
harsh winter conditions in the region. The ravaged communities
ISIL leaves in its wake bear witness to ISIL's true identity,
one we are actively working with coalition partners to expose
with Arab partners taking a leading role.
ISIL was attractive to many of its recruits because of its
proclamation of the so-called caliphate and the sense of
inevitability that it promoted. The last 6 months have amply
demonstrated that ISIL is really operating as a criminal gang
and a death cult, which is under increasing pressure as it
sends naive and gullible recruits to die by the hundreds.
Coalition partners are working together as never before to
share messages, engage traditional and social media, and
underscore the vision of religious leaders who reject ISIL's
millennialist vision. As the President announced recently, we
are partnering with the United Arab Emirates to create a joint
messaging center that will contest ISIL's vigorous information
offensive and extremist messages for the long term. And we are
seeking to create a network of these centers, a global network
where a regional consortia of nations can dispute and
ultimately dominate the information space filled with ISIL's
messaging.
The President has outlined a framework for the authorities
he believes will be necessary to pursue this long-term campaign
with his formal request to the Congress for the authorization
for the use of military force against ISIL. The AUMF request
foresees using our unique capabilities in support of partners
on the ground instead of through large-scale deployments of
U.S. ground forces. The President has asked for flexibility to
fight an adaptable enemy, one that hopes to expand his reach
beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria.
Taking the fight to ISIL requires that we be flexible and
patient in our efforts. It also requires close coordination
with this committee and with the Congress so that we are
constantly evaluating our tactics and our strategy, and that we
are resourcing them appropriately.
Chairman and Ranking Member Menendez, I thank you for the
opportunity to be before this committee today and to continue
that process of coordination and consultation with you. And I
look forward to taking your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Allen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gen. John R. Allen
Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Menendez, esteemed members of the
committee, thank you for providing me the opportunity to update you on
the progress of the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.
I just returned to Washington late yesterday from Kuwait, where at
the request of Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, I joined a group of
more than 30 senior U.S. diplomats and military commanders for a wide
ranging discussion of the counter-ISIL strategy and progress to date.
While my role as Special Envoy is concerned with the consolidation
and integration of coalition contributions, not the coordination of its
military activities, I remain closely synced with my colleagues in the
military, and we meet regularly with other departments and agencies
involved to review progress of the coalition's counter-ISIL activities.
In addition, we are discussing the coalition's next steps now that
we have largely achieved the objective for the campaign's first phase:
to blunt ISIL's strategic, operational, and tactical momentum in Iraq.
Through over 2,500 coordinated coalition airstrikes in support of
our partners on the ground, we have degraded ISIL's leadership,
logistical, and operational capability, and are denying it a sanctuary
in Iraq from which it can plan and execute attacks.
With New Zealand's announcement yesterday that it will provide
military trainers to build the capacity of Iraqi Security Forces, a
dozen coalition nations are now participating in these efforts in
multiple sites across Iraq.
Still, the situation in Iraq remains extraordinarily complex, and
the road ahead will be challenging and nonlinear. But considering where
we were only 8 months ago, one begins to see how this first phase of
our strategy is delivering results.
In June of last year, ISIL burst into the international scene as a
genocidal and seemingly unstoppable juggernaut. It conquered a city,
Mosul, of 1.5 million, then poured south toward Baghdad, taking cities,
towns, and villages along the way. Outside Tikrit, it rounded up and
massacred over 1,000 Iraqi Air Force recruits. To the west, it broke
through the border town of Al-Qaim, and poured east toward Baghdad.
ISIL's spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, vowed: ``The battle would
soon rage in Baghdad and [in the holy city of] Karbala.'' Shortly
thereafter, ISIL launched a multiple pronged attack further into
northern Iraq, massacring minority populations, enslaving hundreds of
women and girls, surrounding tens of thousands of Yazidis at Sinjar
mountain, and opening a clear route to Erbil, the region's capital.
Then the United States acted. Since our first airstrikes in August,
ISIL's advance has been largely blunted, and has been driven back away
from the regional capitals of Baghdad and Erbil. It has also lost half
of its Iraq-based leadership and thousands of hardened fighters, and is
no longer able to mass, maneuver, and communicate as an effective
force.
Iraqis are also standing on their feet. The Kurdish peshmerga have
recovered nearly all of the ground lost in August. Peshmerga have taken
control of Mosul Dam, Rabiya border crossing, Sinjar Mountain, Zumar,
and the Kisik road junction, which eliminated a supply route for ISIL
from Syria to Mosul. Iraqi Security Forces with popular volunteers have
secured the routes to Baghdad, and the capital is now seeing the lowest
levels of violence it's seen in years. These forces also broke the
siege of the Bayji oil refinery, and have begun to push north up the
Tigris Valley. To the west, Sunni tribes are working with Iraqi
Security Forces to retake land in the heart of Anbar province, land I
know well.
Just last week, under the cover of bad weather, ISIL launched an
attack the town of Al-Baghdadi, near Al-Asad Airbase, where our forces
are located with the Danes and Australians to help train Iraqi soldiers
and tribal volunteers. ISIL, as it has done over and over again ,
rampaged through the town, killing civilians, and driving hundreds of
families into exile on the airbase. But the Iraqis did not sit idle;
they organized, and fought back.
Prime Minister Abadi went to the Joint Operations Center in Baghdad
and ordered a counterattack. The Minister of Defense flew to Al-Asad to
organize available forces. Iraqi Army commanders sent an armored column
from Baghdad to join the attack. Sunni tribal volunteers organized to
support and in some cases lead the attack. Today, much of Al-Baghdadi
is back in the hands of these local tribes and security forces. I was
at Al-Asad Airbase last month, and my deputy, Brett McGurk, was there 3
days ago. All Americans would be proud to see what our troops are doing
there, helping the Iraqis and the tribes join the battle against ISIL.
This is only a start, and ISIL will remain a formidable foe: but any
aura of invincibility has been shattered. ISIL is not invincible, it is
defeatable, and is being defeated--by Iraqi forces, defending and
taking back their towns, villages, and cities with the support of the
United States and the coalition.
Because we lack the same kind of partners on the ground in Syria,
the situation is more challenging and complex there. Still, we are
working closely with regional partners to establish sites for training
and equipping vetted, moderate Syrian opposition elements, to train
approximately 5,000 troops per year for the next 3 years. On February
19, we formalized a framework on Turkey's support for the Department of
Defense's train and equip activities for the moderate Syrian
opposition.
These and other military aspects of the campaign will inevitably
receive the
most attention. But as I saw in Afghanistan during my command there, in
Iraq in
Al-Anbar in 2007-08, and in recovery efforts for the 2004 South Asian
tsunami, the military effort is essential but not sufficient.
It will ultimately be the aggregate pressure of the coalition's
activity over multiple, mutually supporting lines of effort that will
determine a campaign's success.
That is why when I visit a coalition capital and meet with a prime
minister, a king, or president, I describe the coalition component of
the counter-ISIL strategy as being organized around multiple lines of
effort including the military line to deny safe haven and provide
security assistance, disrupting the flow of foreign fighters,
disrupting ISIL's financial resources, providing humanitarian relief
and support to its victims, and countermessaging . . . or defeating
ISIL as an idea.
Since mid-September, I have traveled to 21 partner capitals,
several of them multiple times, to meet with the national leadership.
In that short span, we have assembled a global coalition of 62 nations
and international organizations.
Among Coalition members, disrupting the flow of foreign fighters is
an urgent concern in all of these conversations . . . and rightly so.
There is no question that the thousands of young men who have traveled
to fight in Syria and Iraq present a truly unprecedented, generational
challenge.
Today, coalition members are coming together to take the
coordinated actions required to meet this growing threat.
More than a dozen nations have changed laws and penalties to make
it more difficult to travel and fight in Syria and Iraq. Through
capacity building in the Balkans, criminal justice efforts in North
Africa, and a 20 million euro investment from the European Union to
engage at-risk communities, governments are taking a series of
concerted actions.
Even with these expanded measures, foreign fighters continue to
stream to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq . . . so we are enhancing
our cooperation with key international partners to confront this
threat. We must continue to improve how we harmonize border and customs
processes, track potential and actual fighters en route to the battle,
and share intelligence with partners.
This kind of information-sharing and creative thinking between
partners is also vital in meeting a related and similarly urgent
challenge: constraining ISIL's access to financial support.
Here, the coalition has made significant gains in synchronizing
practices to block ISIL's access to banks, both in the region and
globally. This includes stemming the flow of private donations and
limiting ISIL's financial options by restricting its ability to
generate oil revenues. We are now expanding these efforts to counter
ISIL's access to local and informal financial networks.
As we come together to curb ISIL's financial support, we are also
providing urgent assistance to ISIL's victims.
The coalition is supporting the United Nations' efforts to provide
food aid and supply critical assistance to protect vulnerable women,
children and men from harsh winter conditions. Saudi Arabia alone has
contributed $500M in aid in support of the U.N. appeal for Iraq, and
has provided more than a dozen medical camps; numerous partners have
made substantial investments in education for refugee children and in
host communities. The United States alone has contributed close to $4
billion in assistance for many of the 13 million displaced Iraqis and
Syrians. But we and our partners must do more.
The communities and refugees left in ISIL's wake bear witness to
ISIL's true identity, one we are actively working with coalition
partners to expose, with Arab partners taking a leading role.
ISIL is attractive to many of its recruits because it proclaimed
the Caliphate, and emerged onto the world stage with self-proclaimed
inevitability and invincibility. But the last 6 months have amply
demonstrated that ISIL is little more than a criminal gang and death
cult, which now finds itself under increasing pressure, sending naive
and gullible recruits to die by the hundreds.
Our coalition partners are working together as never before to
share messages, engage traditional and social media and underscore the
vision of religious leaders and the international community that
rejects ISIL's millennialist vision. As the President announced
recently, we are partnering with the U.A.E. to create a joint messaging
center that will contest ISIL's vigorous offensive in the information
battlespace.
In confronting these enduring challenges, the coalition can take
some confidence from what it has already helped to achieve. We as a
country and as a coalition will inevitably have good days and hard days
on the battlefield and we are still in the early stages of a long-term
campaign.
The President has outlined a framework for the authorities he
believes will be necessary to pursue this long-term campaign with his
formal request to Congress for the authorization of the use of military
force against ISIL. The AUMF request foresees using our unique
capabilities in support of partners on the ground . . . instead of
through the use of large-scale deployment of U.S. ground forces. At the
same time, the President has asked for the flexibility to fight an
adaptable enemy, one that is expanding its reach and capabilities well
beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria. Taking the fight to ISIL requires
that we be flexible and patient in our efforts. It also requires close
coordination with this committee and with Congress, so that we are
constantly evaluating our tactics and strategy, and that we are
resourcing them appropriately.
This hearing presents an opportunity to continue that process of
coordination and consultation. I want to thank you again for the
invitation to speak with you and look forward to taking your questions.
The Chairman. We thank you for the testimony and for your
great service to our country.
Yesterday Senator Kerry testified that he felt like that
today the administration already has, because of the 2001 AUMF
and the 2002 AUMF, the authority to conduct the operations that
are being conducted in Iraq and Syria. Do you agree with that
assessment?
General Allen. I do, Chairman.
The Chairman. Okay. So it is an interesting place that we
find ourselves where 6 months after conflicts have begun, a new
AUMF is being offered. And I know that in order to pursue one
properly through Congress, it is standard process to submit
one, which I appreciate. But it is an interesting place that
those authorities already exist.
The train and equip program that you have been able to
negotiate, many concerns have been raised about the fact that
most of the free Syrian opposition initially was targeting
Assad. That was the reason for their being. Now we are
organizing these against ISIS, and my understanding is we are
going against an entirely different recruitment group to do
that. Are we finding that to be an easy recruitment process?
General Allen. As we began this, Chairman, we were not
sure, frankly, how that recruitment process would unfold. Just
2 days ago I had the opportunity to have a conversation with
the great soldier that the United States has put against this
challenge, General Nagata. And I will not go into the details
of the numbers, but the numbers are much higher than we thought
actually. And it has been a very encouraging--we have had an
encouraging sense that there is an interest in this--in this
outcome.
The Chairman. So my sense is there are, based on my
experiences last week, there are larger groups of people that
are willing to go against ISIS initially in this train and
equip than some initially thought. Is that correct?
General Allen. That is correct, Chairman.
The Chairman. So let me ask you this question. One of the
big moral dilemmas I think is that as we train and equip these
folks, we know that Assad is, in fact, barrel bombing other
members of the Free Syrian Army today. I know that is a loose
description of who it is that is opposing him. But my
understanding is there have been significant discussions with
Turkey over an air exclusion zone in the northwestern Aleppo
area and a no-fly zone along the border. And that has been the
issue that has hindered them actually getting more involved in
the conflict even though they are working with us more fully
than they have in multiple areas, some of which I will not
mention here. That has been the issue that has kept them from
actually getting more involved.
It is also my understanding that that decision, the
decision to do that, is at the President's desk. It is at the
White House, and he has not made a decision yet as to whether
to engage. Can you update us on that or tell us the effect of
that decision not being made on Turkey getting more involved in
the conflict, and helping us with those ground operations you
were talking about earlier?
General Allen. Well, I will start by, you know, reciting
what I have said before with respect to Turkey, and it is we
have an old friendship with Turkey, and they are an ally. And
where we began this conversation just some months and where we
are today, I think there has been significant progress in the
conversation about Turkey's role in the coalition and all that
we want to accomplish together, and, in particular, what we
would like to accomplish in Syria.
That conversation is not over, but there has been much
progress. I just met with a Turkish delegation yesterday, and I
intend to head back to Ankara in the very near future to
continue that conversation. And part of that conversation
obviously is those measures or those measures that can be taken
either collectively or by a larger coalition to provide
protection for the moderate Syrian elements that we support and
ultimately will produce over time.
And I will not get into the specific details of the
negotiation, but that is a very important part of the
conversation, and we are going to continue that conversation in
the future.
The Chairman. But it is fair to say that there are some
significant decisions that our government needs to make
relative to those protections. And if they are made, could
break a little bit of a logjam relative to greater involvement
by Turkey. That would be a fair assessment. Is that correct?
General Allen. It is a fair assessment, Chairman. The
details of what the conversation can be can lead us in several
different directions. There was the initial conversation about
a formal no-fly zone, which was heavily or very specifically
and purposefully laid out on a map. The real issue is not
necessarily a no-fly zone. It is how do we protect our allies.
The Chairman. That is right.
General Allen. And that is the nature of the conversation.
And putting all measures necessary to be able to provide for
that protection is the heart of the conversation that we are
going to continue to have with the Turks.
The Chairman. And one final question, and then I will stop
and turn it over to Senator Menendez. In the event that we
needed to protect those that we are training and equipping and
other members of the Free Syrian Army, in the event we needed
to protect them against Assad barrel bombing them, do you
believe that is something that needs an additional authority
other than what is now being requested?
General Allen. I would have to study that, Chairman. My
hope is that we would be able to provide the kind of protection
that they need and they deserve within the authorization that
we are currently proposing.
The Chairman. You would want to make sure that we knew that
that type of authorization was a part of anything we may do.
General Allen. Oh, I think so, yes, sir. That is going to
be clearly a part of the outcome.
The Chairman. Senator Menendez.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Allen,
you are a retired U.S. Marine, four-star general. You were the
former commander of NATO's International Security Assistance
Force and the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan for about a year and a
half. And then you became the senior advisor to the Secretary
of Defense on Middle East security.
You commanded during that period of time 150,000 U.S. and
NATO Forces in Afghanistan during a critical period of the war.
And I put that out there, one, in recognition of that service,
and, two, in also the framework of my question. What does ``no
enduring combat forces'' mean?
General Allen. I think obviously the nature of the
contingency, or the emergency, or the potential conflict will
give us the indications of what kinds of measures would need to
be taken in the aggregate to deal with that emergency, to give
the President the kinds of options that he needs in order to
protect the lives of American citizens and American interests
in the homeland.
Each one of these emergencies will be different. Each one
will require a different aggregation of American hard and soft
power ultimately to solve them. And so, I think it would be
difficult to put necessarily a level of precision against the
word ``enduring.'' I think what we will seek to do, and I
believe this Administration and future administrations would be
obviously very interested in consulting with the Congress about
each particular emergency.
Senator Menendez. I appreciate a consultation. The problem
is you referenced your answer in the context of emergencies,
but ``no enduring offensive combat troops'' does not
necessarily only apply to emergencies. If you send 20,000
troops there in there for 4 months, is that enduring?
General Allen. Again, Senator, I think that trying to put a
specific amount of time on the word ``enduring''----
Senator Menendez. So it is neither time nor size.
General Allen. I think we take a full appreciation of what
we are facing.
Senator Menendez. Okay.
General Allen. And I believe that we give the President the
options necessary in order to deal with the emergency. And
``enduring'' might only be 2 weeks, but enduring might be 2
years. I think we need to ensure that we put the right
resources against the contingency and give us the amount of
time necessary, ``us'' being all the American people, the time
necessary to solve the problem.
Senator Menendez. And I think you have honestly stated the
challenge that we have. Two weeks is one thing, 2 years is
another, and this is the problem with the language as it
exists. There is no clear defining element of the authorization
given to the President in which hundreds, but then maybe tens
of thousands of troops could be sent. They could be sent for
long periods of time.
That is a challenge. And so, how do we get our arms around
that, you know. I think I can fairly speak for Democrats. We
want to fight ISIL. We want to give the President the
wherewithal to degrade and deter them. But we cannot provide a
blank check to this and a future President because everything
that is envisioned goes beyond this President. So I wanted to
use your expertise to try to put my arms around it, and I see
the challenge that we have.
Let me ask you this. Following up on the chairman's
questions, is it not basically true that unless we buy into
something that is about getting rid of Assad, Turkey is really
not going to engage here with us in the way we want them to?
General Allen. The Turks have not indicated that to me in
our conversations. I think we share the same goal with respect
to Syria, and that is the solution to Syria is not going to be
determined by military force, that they ultimately desire a
political outcome in Syria that is the will of the Syrian
people, and that that outcome is one that does not include
Bashar al-Assad.
I think we share that goal with Turkey, but I have not had
in my conversations with the Turks the requirement that we take
concerted action against Bashar al-Assad as the precondition
necessarily for the Turks to have any greater role in the
coalition to deal with ISIL.
Senator Menendez. Is it not true that Turkey at this point
still is allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders into
Syria?
General Allen. If foreign fighters get across the border
from Turkey, it is not because the Turks are allowing them.
Again, I had a conversation with them yesterday. I have watched
them grip this problem. It is a greater problem than many of us
had imagined at the beginning. They have attempted to
strengthen their border crossing protocols. We are seeking
greater information-sharing and intelligence-sharing with them
in that regard. We are restructuring some elements of the
coalition specifically to focus the capabilities of nations on
the issue of the movement and the dealing of foreign fighters
through transit states, of which the Turks are going to play an
important role in that process within the coalition.
So do foreign fighters cross Turkey and get into Syria?
Yes, they do. Are the Turks permitting them to do that? I do
not believe so, and I think that the Turks are working hard
ultimately to take the measures necessary to staunch that flow
as much as they can.
Senator Menendez. One final question on Iran. Iran is in
the midst of Iraq. It is in the midst of Syria. Do we share
mutual goals with Iran?
General Allen. Well, I would say that our goals with
respect to Iraq is that we return Iraq to the sovereign control
of the Iraqi people and to the central government in Baghdad.
Senator Menendez. Do you think the Iranians share that
view?
General Allen. Oh, I believe so. I believe the Iranians
would believe that their interests--would consider that their
interests are best served by an Iraq----
Senator Menendez. Because they have very significant
influence in Iraq.
General Allen. Well, they have regional interests, and
those interests are, in fact, in Iraq. That is not something
that should surprise us or necessarily alarm us.
Senator Menendez. I am looking beyond, so if we think an
accommodation to fight ISIL is good, the aftermath of that in
Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, and elsewhere, in my view, is not so
good. And so, sometimes we look at the short game versus the
long one, and I am concerned about what the long one is.
General Allen. Well, Senator, I would not propose that we
are accommodating Iran in Iraq at this particular moment. We
are undertaking the measures that we taking in Iraq with the
Iraqis. We are not cooperating with the Iranians. But as you
have pointed out and as your question presupposes, the Iranians
have an interest in a stable Iraq, just as we in the region
have an interest in a stable Iraq. But that does not mean we
are accommodating the Iranians by virtue of the actions that we
are taking in Iraq.
Senator Menendez. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Allen,
thank you for your service. I did not envy your task. In your
testimony you say that ISIS has lost half of its Iraq-based
leadership. How do we know that?
General Allen. I am sorry. Say again your question again,
sir?
Senator Johnson. You said that ISIS has lost half of its
Iraq-based leadership. How do we know that? Do we have pretty
good intelligence for that?
General Allen. We actually do have pretty good intelligence
on this matter, and in the process of tracking the elements
within the senior echelons of ISIL's leadership, we have been
tracking and systematically, as we are able to find them,
dealing with them.
Senator Johnson. You also said that in the last 6 months we
have amply demonstrated that ISIS is ``little more than a
criminal gang and death cult, which now finds itself under
increasing pressure, sending naive and gullible recruits to die
by the hundreds.'' What is your evaluation of the accretion
versus degradation ratio? How many people are coming into the
battle, actually being drawn and recruited by what they see in
ISIS versus the number of people who really are dying?
General Allen. Well, I think that is a difficult number
to----
Senator Johnson. Is it positive or negative? Are more
people joining the fight versus what we are able to degrade?
General Allen. Well, I would say two things. The numbers
are up, and the numbers are up because we are now tracking the
numbers in ways we have not before. I think the numbers are
also up because of the so-called caliphate, and that has
created in some respects a magnetism for those elements that
want to be part of this, that want to support this emergence
within their own sense of their faith. And so, that has created
a recruiting opportunity for ISIL that they had not had before.
So we are going to continue to track those numbers. It is
not just a matter of dealing with those numbers in the battle
space. We are dealing with those numbers by virtue of taking
other measures. As my testimony indicated, we operate along
five lines of effort. The military line is only one of them.
Another line where I think we will be seeing more traction be
realized as time goes on will be the consortium of nations that
are taking the necessary steps to make it difficult to be
recruited in a country, to transit out of that country, and
ultimately get to the battle space.
Plus as ISIL's so-called caliphate, as it continues to
receive blow after blow and ultimately be proven as not being
inevitable or invincible, using that as an opportunity to truly
message what this organization is to decrease its
attractiveness to those who might otherwise be attracted and
seek to move to the battle space ultimately to support them. It
will take all those measures in concert, sir.
Senator Johnson. So that kind of leads me to my next
question. Defeat sounds good, but can you describe what defeat
looks like?
General Allen. Is that this organization has been rendered
ineffective in its capability of being an existential threat to
Iraq. We are not going to eradicate or annihilate ISIL. Most of
these organizations that we have dealt with before, there will
be some residue of that organization for a long period of time
to come. But we do not want it to have operational capabilities
that create the opportunity for it to threaten the existence of
Iraq or other states in the region.
We want to diminish its capacity to generate funding, which
limits dramatically its operational decision making and
capabilities to affect discretion with respect to its
recruiting and its battlefield capabilities. We want to compete
with it and ultimately overcome or defeat its message in the
information sphere where it has achieved a significant
capability and recruiting prowess.
So across the many different measures of our lines of
effort, we have a sense of what we want to do in the physical
sphere, how we want to deal with them in the financial sphere,
and ultimately how we want to deal with them in the information
sphere. And all of those together will constitute the defeat of
ISIL.
Senator Johnson. You mentioned the establishment of the
caliphate. The article in The Atlantic really kind of laid out
that that is a draw. That is a pull. That establishes certain
benchmarks, a certain motivation for people being recruited. It
relies on territorial gains or a hold onto territory. Is that
part of defeat, to deny them all territory?
General Allen. Absolutely.
Senator Johnson. To destroy them so that the caliphate no
longer exists? So we are talking about pretty much decimation,
correct? That is what Secretary Kerry--that was the word he
used, ``decimate.'' You know, a few people scattered maybe
around the world--kind of like after Nazi Germany--but pretty
well decimated. That is not exactly what I am hearing out of
you.
General Allen. Well, we can apply whatever term you would
like to. ``Decimation'' is clearly one of the terms that we
might apply to it. We want them to have no operational
capability in the end, and that means breaking them into small
organizations that do not have the capacity as it begins to
attempt to mass to be a threat.
Senator Johnson. Define a ``small organization.'' Again, I
am just trying to get some sense of what we mean by defeat. It
sounds great, to deny them operational capabilities. Are we
talking about taking 30,000 down to 500? Are we taking 30,000
down to 10,000 broken up into 10 different groups?
General Allen. It will take time. It will take time that
will ultimately be realized in a number of ways. It will be by
breaking up the organization through kinetic and military
surface terrestrial means. It will take time to reduce the
message and the attractiveness that gives it the capacity to
regenerate its forces. It will take time ultimately to deny it
access to the international financial system that gives it the
capabilities of restoring itself or generating capabilities.
All of those things together, if we deny them that access,
if we can defeat their messaging in the information sphere, and
we can break them up into small groups that cannot mass to be
operationally significant, then that is defeat.
Senator Johnson. And I am out of time. Thank you, General.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, General
Allen, thank you very much for your continued service to our
country. We appreciate that very much. These are extremely
challenging times, and we are very proud of your leadership.
General Allen. Thank you, sir.
Senator Cardin. You are urging us to be patient, that this
is going to take some time in order to achieve our mission of
not only degrading, but destroying and defeating ISIL. You
believe, as I understand, that the authorizations previously
passed by Congress give the administration the authorization
necessary for use of force. But I also understand you support
the President's request to Congress?
General Allen. I do. I do, sir.
Senator Cardin. And, of course, the President's request to
Congress is pretty specific on ISIL and expires in 3 years. It
is clear that there may well be a need for a continued military
U.S. presence beyond that 3 years.
General Allen. I would say probably a need for military
activity, U.S. activity in some form or another, yes, sir.
Senator Cardin. And I think that is an honest assessment.
General Allen. Sure.
Senator Cardin. And if I understand the reasoning behind
their request is that the current administration recognizes it
will be up to the next administration to come back to Congress
to get the next Congress and the administration together on the
continued commitment to fight terrorists and what use of force
will be necessary.
General Allen. I cannot answer that precisely, but it would
seem that is a logical reason for that.
Senator Cardin. So my point is, why does that not also
apply to 2001 authorization of force? Here we are talking about
a threat that was identified last year that we are currently
combating, recognizing that the campaign or use of force may
well go beyond 3 years. But it is the prerogative of the next
Congress and administration to define the authorizations that
are needed.
The 2001 authorization, which was passed against a known
threat against the United States in Afghanistan, now is still
being used to a threat such as ISIL. Would the same logic not
apply that Congress should define the 2001 authorization
contemporary with the current needs to go after al-Qaeda?
General Allen. I have traveled to many of the capitals of
this coalition, and one of the things that has been clear to me
as I have traveled to these capitals has been the really
substantial gratitude of the coalition for American leadership
and the willingness for America to act. And in so many ways,
these nations of the coalition see ISIL in a very different way
than they ever saw al-Qaeda.
So they are grateful for our leadership. They are grateful
for our willingness to act. And I believe that this AUMF, which
is specifically tailored to ISIL, with the very strong support
of the Congress, gives not just the President the options that
are necessarily ultimately to deal with this new and unique
threat, but it also reinforces the image of American leadership
that is, I think, so deeply wanted by our partners, and so
deeply needed by this country and ultimately by the coalition
to deal with ISIL the way we want to.
Senator Cardin. And I understand that, and it is limited to
3 years.
General Allen. That is right.
Senator Cardin. Would you agree that our success in Iraq in
dealing with ISIL very much depends upon the Sunni tribes
taking a leadership role in stopping the advancement of ISIL,
that it is difficult for the Shiites, it is difficult for
Western forces to be able to get the type of confidence in the
community to withstand the recruitments of ISIL?
General Allen. I would put it slightly differently. I would
absolutely agree with you, but I think it takes decisive Sunni
leadership as well within Iraq, and that leadership is coming
together. But the tribes will be essential to the outcome, and
your question is correct, sir.
Senator Cardin. And what is your confidence in the
Government of Iraq and Baghdad and its ability to work with the
Sunni tribal leaders to give them that type confidence that
their centralized government represents their interests and
protects their interests?
General Allen. Sure. It is a hard sell, Senator, because
previously we asked the Sunni tribes to trust the central
government in Baghdad under Malaki. It did not work out too
well for them frankly. But I have met with many of the Sheikhs
of the tribes of Al-Anbar and some other of the areas of Iraq.
And I have been please, frankly, very pleased at their
willingness to accept the leadership of Prime Minister Abadi,
and their willingness to accept the leadership of the Minister
of Defense and the Minister of Interior in helping them
ultimately to be one of the principal mechanisms by which we
will defeat Daesh in that country.
And that has been a very encouraging sign for me, frankly,
to see them not just as a group of tribes, but also as leaders
of the tribes, be public and forthcoming in their willingness
to support the central government in Iraq and, in particular,
Prime Minister Abadi.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, General. I really do appreciate
all your service.
General Allen. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you, sir.
Senator Paul.
Senator Paul. General Allen, thanks for your testimony.
What percentage would you say is an estimate of how many of the
officials in Iraqi are Sunni versus Shia?
General Allen. I will have to take the question, sir, and
get back to you. Right now, the standing army, the
preponderance is the majority is Shia, but I cannot give you
the numbers. I will take the question----
Senator Paul. The reason I ask is because it is sort of on
the heels of what Senator Cardin is asking. Global Security
reports basically somewhere between 80 to 90 percent of the
official Iraqi Army being Shia. I think to have an enduring
victory, there is some question from some of us whether or not
you can have an enduring victory and occupy Mosul and be seen
as a legitimate government if you have got an 80- to 90-percent
Shia force. So I think that still is a significant political
problem and a significant military problem as well.
Of the chieftains that fought in the surge, just an
estimate, what percentage are engaged on our side now fighting
against ISIS, and what percentage are on the sidelines, and
what percentage indifferent?
General Allen. Again, those are numbers that are difficult
to give you with any precision. The ones that I fought
alongside in 2007 and 2008, the ones that I have spoken to,
without exception have indicated their desire to fight Daesh to
recover their lands, to ultimately return, in this case, Al-
Anbar, to the tribes and ultimately to Iraq. And so, they have
been very forthcoming in their desire to do that, every one
that I have spoken to.
Senator Paul. And the chieftains are no longer in the area?
They have been driven out of the area, the ones that you have
spoken----
General Allen. Well, many of them are. Some have, at great
risk, traveled out of the area ultimately to speak with us. But
they are, and many of them are in Amman and they are in other
places.
Senator Paul. With regard to arming the Kurds, there were
reports a month or two ago that Germany wanted to send arms
directly to them, but there were objections by our government
saying everything had to go through Baghdad. Are arms from our
allies forced to go through Baghdad to get to the Kurds?
General Allen. I will take the question, but let me offer
this. Baghdad has not disapproved requests that the Kurds have
made for weapons. We have attempted to work with Baghdad to
streamline to the maximum extent possible to reduce any delays
that may inhibit or impair the expeditious delivery of arms and
equipment to the Kurds.
Senator Paul. Do you think this includes sufficient
technology and long-range weaponry to meet their needs and
their requests?
General Allen. Well, all of that is coming. As you know,
sir, and, again through the support of the Congress, we are
training and equipping 12 Iraqi brigades, three of which are
peshmerga brigades, and those peshmerga brigades will be armed
and equipped with exactly the same sophisticated weapons that
the other nine Iraqi brigades will receive.
Senator Paul. We are destroying or abandoning equipment in
Afghanistan. Is there any possibility that any of that could be
transported to the Kurds?
General Allen. That is a question we should pose to the
Department of Defense, but I will take the question.
Senator Paul. Thank you. With regard to ultimate victory
with regard to trying to get Turkey involved, do you think
there is any possibility of an agreement between the Turks and
the Kurds, particularly the Turkish Kurds, to accept an
agreement where there would be a Kurdish homeland not in
Turkish territory that would encourage Turkey then to
participate more heavily? And is anybody in the State
Department trying to come to an accommodation between the Turks
and the Kurds?
General Allen. Not to my knowledge.
Senator Paul. Take that message to them, too, please. Thank
you.
General Allen. Senator, if I may, on the one comment you
made with respect to the Shia and the Shia composition of the
Iraqi Security Forces. The actions that will be taken in these
towns are going to be more than simply those of the clearing
force. What is going to be very important to recognize as well
is there will be follow-on echelons behind the clearing force,
which will be important as well. And we are working closely
with the Iraqis for the hold force, which will be hopefully the
Sunni police, which will actually secure and provide support to
the Iraqi population that will have just been liberated.
The governance element, which will be familiar to those
Sunni elements that will have been liberated, and, very
importantly, to have the Sunnis involved in what may be the
most important aspect of the clearance of Daesh out of those
areas, which is the immediate humanitarian assistance necessary
to provide for the relief and the recovery of the populations.
So it is more complex than simply the clearing force. And
while we may have to accept that there is a large presence of
the Shia elements within the Iraqi military, I know that there
is a very strong effort underway to ensure that the Sunnis are
deeply engaged elsewhere in all the other aspects of the
recovery of the population.
Senator Paul. And one just quick followup to that. I think
you might get more indigenous support from the Sunni people if
you are leafleting the place as you are invading saying it is
an invading Sunni force led by Sunni generals, and that were
announced. I think our problem really was Mosul was being
occupied by a Shiite force, and they did not stay long. Once
push came to shove, they were pretty much gone. Thanks.
The Chairman. Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. Thank
you, General, so much for your service.
In the authorization for the use of military force text
that the administration provided to this committee, it said
that it would prohibit enduring ground forces. And this was
meant to convey that large numbers of troops would not be on
the ground for a long time, whatever that means. I voted for
the 2001 resolution, and I am reminded that the U.S. combat
operations in Afghanistan were dubbed ``Operation Enduring
Freedom.''
We are now past 13 years in that enduring fight, and that
resolution, of course, was also the basis for the justification
of our actions in Somalia, in Yemen. And the administration is
saying quite clearly that they oppose the repeal of that, and
that the operations that are going on right now, in fact, are
consistent with that 2001 resolution.
Now, that causes great problems to me and, I think, to many
members of the committee because even in the absence of the
passage of a new AUMF, the administration is maintaining that
they have the authority to continue as they have for 13 years
under Operation Enduring Freedom. And so, that obviously is a
problem for us because that sits there as an underlying
authority for the next President, Democrat or Republican, who
is sworn in on January 20, 2017. And most of us will be sitting
here then as your successor is sitting here, and perhaps not
with the same interpretation of the word ``enduring.''
So my questions then go to, is this going to open up a
potential foreign open-ended war in the Middle East? Will it
allow for unfettered deployment of ground troops? And
ultimately, whether or not we are opening up Pandora's Box,
especially in Syria. So my first question to you goes to
President Assad and what the goal will be underneath this
authorization in terms of the removal of President Assad, which
has been historically an objective that the United States has
said is important.
So could you tell us what President Assad and his removal
represents as one of the goals that exists in training 5,000
troops in Syria for the next 3 years in a row as the long-term
objective after the defeat of al-Nusra and ISIS?
General Allen. Well, our political goal, our policy goal
ultimately is that the process of change, of Assad's departure
should occur through a political process, and that ultimately
he should depart and should not be part of the future political
landscape in Syria. The role of the T&E program is to, first
and foremost, to give those elements of the moderate Syrian
opposition that we are supporting the capacity to defend
themselves, to build battlefield credibility, and ultimately to
use those elements, those forces, to deal with Daesh in the
context of our strategy to deal with Daesh.
At the same time that we are building that capacity in the
moderate Syrian opposition, our hope would be building within
the political echelon of the moderate Syrian opposition a level
of coherence and sophistication that the two together--the
moderate Syrian political echelon and the military echelon--are
the credible force that will have a place at the table during
that political process, which will ultimately see the
replacement of Assad.
Senator Markey. I appreciate that, but it just seems to me
that that is a 10-year proposition, and if that is the case we
should be talking about a 10-year period. We can finish Iraq
perhaps over the next 3 years, but then in Syria it is a much
longer process. And we should just understand what the long-
term goal requires from us inside of Syria. And just saying
Assad's name over and over again I think will just help us to
focus on the ultimate objective that the Free Syrian Army is
going to have in that country, and then what we are signing up
for in terms of the long-term military effort inside of that
country.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to ask
this one final question, which is, the basic tension that King
Abdullah was talking about, which is that of the Americans
providing help to fight the war, but not claiming credit so it
does not look like a crusade inside of that region. Can you
talk about that so that the people in the region do not view
this as a U.S.-led coalition against ISIL, because ultimately
that then comes back to haunt us. And that was the message that
we are receiving from all the Middle East.
General Allen. Well, I think, Senator, as your question
presupposes, King Abdullah of Jordan has been very clear
throughout the period of this coalition that in the end the
solution to the problems of the region must not only look like,
but must be a function of those states within the region to
take concerted action supported by the United States and
supported by a broader global coalition for those concerted
actions to be successful.
It is very important obviously that the solution have an
Arab face and a Muslim voice with respect to dealing with the
so-called caliphate and all that it has brought to the region.
And the king and other Muslim and Arab leaders in the region
have been very clear on the desire that they not just appear,
but really are exercising leadership frontally in this process.
Senator Markey. I do not think people in that region view
it that way right now. I think that has to be our goal, though.
We just have to switch it so that it is not us, and I think
Senator Paul is referring to that, that it has to be an
indigenous Muslim-led effort, and I do not think that is the
internal view.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Isakson.
Senator Isakson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Allen,
thank you for your service to the country. I have followed you
on TV closely the last couple of months, and I think you have
done a great job.
General Allen. Thank you, sir.
Senator Isakson. Am I correct, we are operating currently
in the Middle East under the 2001 AUMF? Is that correct?
General Allen. Yes, sir. That is correct.
Senator Isakson. Would it be a fair statement to say the
one the President has sent to us to consider is actually a
limiting AUMF compared to the 2001 authorization?
General Allen. It is specifically intended to deal with the
threat of ISIL. That is correct.
Senator Isakson. But it is limiting in the authority the
President would have primarily by the interpretation of the
``enduring'' phrase. Is that correct?
General Allen. ``Enduring'' and the expectation, as he has
described it in the proposed legislation, on the size and the
kinds of forces that might be applied, measures that be
applied. That is correct.
Senator Isakson. Like Senator Markey, I voted for the 2001
authorization when I was here. It came on the heels of 9/11/
2001. It was passed at a time when Americans had American flags
on their windshields and their front doors, and American
businesses had flags raised. And the patriotism in our country,
because of the terrible attack against our country, was at an
all-time high, at least in my lifetime, in my memory. Are we
going to have to wait for that type of event again to happen to
us before we use whatever it takes to destroy this evil,
meaning ISIL and those like them?
General Allen. I think we are taking those measures now to
get after the evil that is ISIL, and it is an evil we have not
seen before in a very long time. Just today the FBI rolled up
three individuals in this country that were intent of either
joining or doing--joining ISIL in the battle space or doing ill
to the American people. And as long as we are the front edge of
this and taking those kinds of measures, I think we have the
possibility of keeping it from becoming something that could
like a 9/11.
Senator Isakson. In your printed statement, and I assume it
is part of your remarks that you said verbally, you said, ``It
will ultimately be the aggregate pressure of the coalition's
activity over multiple mutual supporting lines of effort that
will determine the campaign's success.''
General Allen. That is correct, sir.
Senator Isakson. What are those mutually supporting lines
that you are referring to?
General Allen. First, working very closely within the
coalition and more broadly in the community of nations to limit
the flow of foreign fighters; to deal with the measures--to
take the measures necessary to deal with the ability to limit
ISIL's capacity to generate revenue, ultimately to support its
operations, and to give it discretion to take action against us
or potentially our allies; to provide support to those elements
of the population in the region that have been displaced by
virtue of the activities of ISIL or have been directly
suppressed by the boot of ISIL's conquests and subjugation; and
then, very importantly, to work together in the information
space ultimately to defeat the idea of Daesh.
And the coalition is working very hard in those areas. I
have just come back from Southeast Asia where I met with the
leadership of several countries there. They are watching with
great interest and concern those things that are--that are
occurring in the Middle East which could spread into their
region. And they are interested in joining us in ways that can
limit the ability of those organizations there to travel to the
battle space or to limit their ability to directly challenge
the authorities of those countries. So it is not just the
countries of the Middle East. It is not just the countries of
Europe. It is the countries of Southeast Asia.
And very importantly within the context of the multiple
lines of effort, working very closely to outreach to the
indigenous populations of these countries in ways that can
dispel the image of this so-called caliphate in ways that we
can work with religious leaders and tribal leaders in those
countries with populations that may be at risk. Work with
teachers, and clerics, and families to reduce the
attractiveness of Daesh and this kind of an extremist message.
And the combination of all those activities together we
think will pressure and ultimately put the kinds of pressure
necessary on Daesh, first, to defend ourselves, and ultimately
to defeat the organization.
Senator Isakson. On that point and very briefly because my
time will be up in about 45 seconds.
General Allen. Yes, sir.
Senator Isakson. Are we doing enough to counteract the use
of social media and technology to communicate exactly what you
are talking about that they are doing, because what you heard
about in Southeast Asia and what I have heard from on some
trips I have taken is the fear they will use social media and
the modern communication mechanisms that we have today to
spread their ideology and their fear around the world. Are we
attacking that as much as we should?
General Allen. They are doing it now, and it is, in fact,
an explicit objective within our efforts within the counter
messaging line of effort among the many nations involved to do
just that. Obviously in nations where free speech is an issue,
we have to accommodate that aspect of our relationship with
industry that own these platforms to ensure that we are either
able to interdict that message or with industry to remove that
message within its own content. So we are working very closely
actually with industry and with our partners to counter that
message across all the social media.
Senator Isakson. Thank you for your time and your service.
General Allen. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Menendez. General, thank you so much for your dedication
to this nation. I want to thank the President for the wisdom he
showed in appointing you as the special envoy. I find your
presentation to be very direct, no frills, just
straightforward, and I appreciate it.
Under Article 1, Section 8, Congress has the power to
declare war. I know you agree with that, yes?
General Allen. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Boxer. All right. So I hope you could then
understand why we want to be very precise when we do that
because we are sent here by a lot of people who have a lot of
kids who serve in the military, and they are the fabric of our
community, so we want to be careful. And I just want to say--I
am not even going to ask you to expand on this ``enduring''
word because you have said it very clearly. Your definition of
no enduring presence could mean a 2-week presence of combat
boots on the ground, American boots on the ground, or a 2-year
presence of American combat boots on the ground.
And that answers the question the Democrats on this
committee have been searching for--this definition--and I think
what you have proven with your honesty here is there is no
definition because it is in the eye of the beholder. When you
say to me that if I vote for this there will be no enduring
combat presence, and I am sending kids in my State there for 2
years, I would argue you have misinterpreted it. The
Congressional Research Service says there is really no
definition. And if I wanted to take an administration to court
because as a Member of Congress, I said no enduring presence,
CRS says I would not have a legal leg to stand on because there
is no definition.
So I just think it is very important the administration
hear this once again. I mean, I know poor Secretary Kerry had
to hear it over and over again from our side yesterday, but we
are very uncomfortable with this language. And when Senator
Menendez was chairman, he cobbled together a really good AUMF
that united all of us on our side because he essentially said
no combat troops with these exceptions, and he put in the kind
of exceptions I think you would agree with: special forces
operations, search and rescue, protecting personnel. And we
would urge you to please go back and take a look at it. I just
feel very strongly.
Now, I want to ask you questions that have nothing to do
with that because I think you and I would probably disagree on
that subject. There is no point in going over it again. But I
am very concerned about U.S. military support for the Kurds,
and you answered the question in a very sure way, which is
wonderful. You said, oh, no problem. However, the Kurds are not
saying that.
So I want to call to your attention a recent interview with
Bloomberg View just 3 weeks ago. The head of the Kurdistan
Regional Security Council expressed concerns about our
commitment to the Kurds, and these are our boots on the ground.
These are our boots on the ground. He said, ``We are starting
to have doubts that there might be a political decision on what
sort of equipment should be given to the Kurds . . . We are
fighting on behalf of the rest of the world against this
terrorist organization. We are putting our lives on the line.
All we ask for is the sufficient equipment to protect these
lives.''
So I need you to respond to that. Is that off base? What do
you think about that? Do you take that comment seriously? Does
it concern you?
General Allen. Well, I listen very carefully to what the
Kurds have to say, and they have, in so many ways, demonstrated
battlefield excellence and courage that should elicit all of
our respect. But we have worked very carefully and very closely
with the Kurds, and your question presupposes, and is correct,
that American support to the Kurds has given them the capacity,
and more broadly and more recently, coalition support to the
Kurds has given them the ability to do much of what they have
been able to accomplish: the recovery of Mosul Dam, the seizure
of Kisik Junction, the successful defense of Guerra. The many
things that they have done is because the coalition has been in
close support with them.
At the same time, in several different rounds we have
worked very hard with coalition members to respond to Kurdish
requests for equipment, and that equipment has been flowing in.
Also, in the context of the $1.6 billion that was appropriated
for the train and equip program for the 12 Iraqi army brigades,
three of which are peshmerga, they are getting exactly the same
sophisticated equipment that the Kurds or the Iraqis are
getting.
Senator Boxer. My question was not about how good they are.
We agree. They are saying they do not feel they have enough
equipment. And I am just saying that while you are saying
everything is rosy, they are complaining about it. And I just
want to say--as one Senator, I cannot speak for anyone else--
they are our boots on the ground, and we need to get them what
they need. I know there is pressure from certain factions, but
if they are going to be our boots on the ground, we have got to
give them what they need. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio. Thank you. First of all, General, thank you
for your service to our country and for your willingness to
come back in and help with this new endeavor of great
difficulty.
I want to start out by just--I know we are not debating the
authorization for use of force, but I do want to ask you
because of your experience in these affairs in the past, it is
my understanding from our review of the process that only two
times in our history has Congress authorized the use of force
with limitations, and both were United Nations peacekeeping
missions. And so, the question that I would have now is, if our
objective here is the defeat of ISIS, would it not be more
prudent to authorize the Commander in Chief to move forward in
that regard and allow him as Commander in Chief and any future
Commander in Chief, whoever they may be, to decide what the
appropriate strategy is moving forward to ultimately defeat
them if that is the ultimate goal? What would be wrong with
simply authorizing the President to defeat them?
General Allen. Well, the strategy that the President has
approved, in fact, does envision the defeat of Daesh.
Senator Rubio. No, I understand the strategy does. Just for
purposes of an authorization from Congress, and I understand
you have endorsed here today what the President wants to do,
and I understand that perhaps that is what the President thinks
he can get passed. But from a military point of view, would it
not be more appropriate to simply authorize the President to do
whatever it takes to defeat them?
General Allen. The President needs the options that he--
that should be available to him ultimately to defeat Daesh.
Senator Rubio. Okay. My second question is, is it possible
to defeat ISIS without them ultimately being defeated by
someone on the ground? Someone is going to have to confront
them eventually on the ground and defeat them there. If you can
update us on efforts, and I have seen in the past some
conversation among some of the regional countries, about the
potential for a coalition of armed forces brought together--the
Egyptians, the Turks, the Saudis, perhaps some of the kingdoms,
Jordan, et cetera--who could provide a coalition of local
forces who could play that role with significant U.S.
assistance from the air, logistics, intelligence, et cetera.
Has there been any progress made in that? Is that something
that is actively being discussed with those nations?
General Allen. Senator Rubio, I would really prefer to have
this particular part of the conversation in a closed session.
Senator Rubio. Okay, I understand. So let me move on then
to a separate topic, and that is the nature of this conflict.
ISIS has already proven that they are going to move into--for a
group to take root, and take hold, and actually be able to
grow, they need ungoverned vacuum spaces that they can operate
from. That is what perhaps has attracted them, for example, to
Libya, not just the access to a port town, but the ability to
operate uncontested in terms of another government, et cetera.
It is important to understand that as this conflict
continues, the possibility continues to grow that ISIS, in
addition to being based in Syria and Iraq, will also look to
other places where they can set up nodes operation. Libya is an
example, but potentially training camps in Afghanistan. Any
place where a vacuum opens up is an attractive and appealing
place for them to move operations.
And, therefore, as we put forth our strategy and as the
Congress deliberates the authority it gives the President, that
reality needs to be taken into account, correct?
General Allen. I agree, yes, sir.
Senator Rubio. Okay. My last question is about the nature
of this conflict. You know, it has been talked about in the
past that ISIS is some sort of, and they certainly are, a group
of monsters that take on these acts of extreme violence, but
these are not just random acts of extreme violence. This is a
group who has a--their barbarism has a purpose. At the end of
the day it is to purify, in their mind, that region to their
form of Islam at the exclusion not just of non-Sunni Islam, but
especially of non-Islamic populations.
And in that realm, it is clear that the Christians and
Yazidis, but recently we have seen Christians in particular,
are in increased danger in this region, and they specifically
target Christian populations for barbarity, both as a way to
shock the world, but also as an effort to carry out their
ultimate goal of, in their mind, ``purifying the region for
Islam.'' Is there a not deep religious component to ISIS'
strategy here? They are clearly as part of their effort trying
to, again, using a term they would use, not one that I
necessarily enjoy using, but ``cleanse the region'' of infidels
and non-believers. And in that realm they have specifically
targeted Christians for these sorts of atrocities that they are
committing on now an ongoing basis as we saw yesterday again.
General Allen. I would say yes to that. The interpretation
that they apply to all of those segments of the population that
live within the area that they control has permitted them to do
the things that they have done to certain elements of the
population. So I absolutely agree with you. Their
interpretation of their responsibility under this so-called
caliphate is to take action against certain elements of the
population and treat them one way, and certain elements of the
population and treat them another way. It is based on their
historic interpretation.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
General Allen, for your service. I also want to thank you. You
did very significant and important work with respect to trying
to provide a security roadmap for the West Bank in the event of
a peace deal between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Whether
the leaders will do what their citizens want them to do and
find such a deal is up to them. But it should not go unnoticed
that you worked very, very hard on that, and you have put in
place a template for security on the West Bank that is a very
good thing in your work then, and in this context, really in
the best traditions of American diplomacy. And I want to thank
you for that.
General Allen. Thank you, sir.
Senator Kaine. I want to make a comment about ends in the
next two questions about means. I will pick up--Senator Johnson
was quizzing you about what is defeat of ISIL. They are not a
state. They say they are a state. They are not. They are not
Islamic. They say they are. They are not. They are a mutation
of Islam. And you even talk about defeating the idea of ISIL. I
agree with you. They are just sort of an ideologically driven
death cult.
And so, as we grapple with the authorization, we really
have to kind of grapple with this question of what does defeat
look like. I am very practical about this. I want to protect
Americans from ISIL. That is what I want to do. I want to
protect Americans from ISIL, and I want to protect our allies
who ask for our help. The defeat of the ideology, the death
cult, you know, fantasy that they had, we could be chasing
after a phantom by trying to do that. But I want to protect
Americans, and I want to defend our allies who ask us for that.
On the means side, a question about the ground troops
issues. In the last three weeks, we have had meetings with two
leaders from the region, King Abdullah and today the emir of
Qatar. King Abdullah said this is our fight, not yours, and
basically suggested that U.S. ground troops would not be a good
idea. The emir of Qatar was actually even more straightforward
about that today. He said I do not want American ground troops
in. He actually--we did not suggest this to him. He brought up
the notion that American ground troops may be a recruiting
bonanza for ISIL, may change the notion of what the fight is.
It is against the West, now we can really recruit people.
General Allen. I think that is accurate.
Senator Kaine. And so, this is--you know, the ground troop
thing is a wordsmithing issue, but the wordsmithing is
subsidiary to the bigger issue, which is, you know, do we
become an occupier? Do we become a recruiting tool for ISIL?
King Abdullah's notion, you know. This terrorism is born and
bred in the region. The United States did not create it. The
region has got to stand up against it. If the region is not
willing to stand up against it, there is virtually nothing that
the United States can do, no matter how many resources we put
into it, that will ultimately lead to a success. We cannot
police the region that will not police itself.
So I am kind of interested--forget about the wordsmithing.
But when the leaders from the region say American ground troops
are a bad idea, that is pretty--that is a powerful thought to
those of us who are going to be voting on the authorization.
How would you respond to that notion that the presence of any
significant American ground troops changes the character of
this and makes it the West against ISIL rather than a region
needing to police its own extremism?
General Allen. Well, I do agree with both the emir and the
king. The presence, the infusion of a large--and I think this
where they would be a little more precise if given the
opportunity. The presence of a large conventional maneuver
force would change the nature of the conversation. But it is
really important to understand that during Iraq, and during
Afghanistan, and in the way we have responded to other similar
challenges around the world, the United States brings to bear a
variety of really important capabilities.
The first is the capacity of our strategic leadership. Just
our leadership alone has brought to bear 62 nations against
this challenge. Our leadership brought to bear the first night
of our strike operations five Arab air forces flying along on
the wing of the United States Air Force in strikes against ISIL
targets in Syria. That is not anything that any of us could
have imagined a year ago. So our strategic leadership counts as
really an enabler to this process.
Other ways and means, and your question is really
important. Other ways and means that we can bring success to
the Arab solution to this is providing technical support,
intelligence support; focused special operations strike
capabilities; the training and equipping that we are doing
today, some of which can be done in country, some of which can
be done offshore in partner nations; the aggregation of those
activities undertaken with partners in the region ultimately to
achieve the ends that we seek.
The United States really has and our coalition partners
really have many means at our disposal from leadership all the
way through to potential for special operations strike to give
our Arab partners exactly what they want, which is the capacity
for them to be the defeat mechanism in the end of Daesh.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Flake [presiding]. Senator Gardner.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
General Allen, for your service, and your time, and your
testimony today. And, again, we have to recognize that ISIS is
a real threat to this country, and it requires a comprehensive
strategy. And the commitment to their total destruction, I
think, is the only thing that we can accept.
I am glad the President has made the effort to forward the
AUMF to Congress. Obviously I look forward to working with the
President on the AUMF and this committee. In the letter that
the President transmitted along with his language in the AUMF,
he stated ``I have directed a comprehensive and sustained
strategy to degrade and defeat ISIL. As part of this strategy,
U.S. military forces are conducting a systematic campaign of
airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.''
It is my understanding from the testimony that you have
provided to us today that the United States has conducted about
2,500 airstrikes. Is that correct?
General Allen. That is correct, sir.
Senator Gardner. And that is since Operation Inherent
Resolve began on August 8. That is the timeframe of the 2,500?
General Allen. Yes, sir.
Senator Gardner. Okay. And that is an average of 10
airstrikes a day. And so, the question I have is, is the pace
of the operation sufficient to eradicate ISIL at this point?
General Allen. Well, eradication is not the end state that
we are seeking at this particular moment. Our hope--``hope'' is
not the term I want to use. What our expectation is given the
strategy is that the combination of U.S. and coalition air
power in conjunction with the training and equipping of Iraqi
Forces and ultimately Syrian forces will over time give us the
strategic outcomes that we desire. That is not going to happen
tomorrow. It is going to happen over a period of time. But the
combination of all those things together is what we anticipate
will permit us to achieve the objectives of the strategy.
Senator Gardner. And so, what besides the airstrikes then
does the President's comprehensive and sustained strategy
envision?
General Allen. Several things. The first is to provide
support to the stability of the Iraqi Government, which is
essential, and we are doing that. We are working closely with
the Iraqi Government with respect to reforms in partnership
with the Abadi government, which is inclined to see it that
way. Working closely with the Iraqi Security Forces to prepare
ultimately for a long-term counter offensive, which will remove
Daesh from the population centers and ultimately eject it from
the country.
We are working as an international coalition on behalf of
Iraq to pressure Daesh's capacities to generate funds and
resources necessary for its long-term survival. We are working
as an international coalition to staunch the flow of foreign
fighters to the battlefield so that Daesh has difficulty in
replacing its combat losses. We are going to work very closely
as partners to share intelligence so that we are working with
the Iraqis to give them a clear picture of what we understand
Daesh to be, but also between and among the members of the
coalition that we can defend ourselves and our homelands from
the potential for Daesh activities within the United States.
And then, of course, we are working very closely with our
partners to provide humanitarian assistance to those elements
of the population that will need to be recovered and relieved
as we liberate them from the presence of Daesh in their
population centers. And then finally, to work together with
Iraq and our partners to deal what I think is the decisive blow
here beyond the physical defeat of Daesh, which is the defeat
of its idea and the idea of its attractiveness over the long
term.
Senator Gardner. And the pace of operations which we
discussed, with the passage of the AUMF, does that change at
all?
General Allen. Well, I think the pace of the operation will
be judged as time goes. You know, commanders take stock of the
operational environment, and ultimately resource the operations
that either--takes advantage of opportunities that are availed
to them by the changes in the operational environment. We could
well find that based on our current estimates that the
activities that we will undertake in the counter offensive will
follow along the pace and the timeline that we anticipate. But
we could easily find that as the counter offensive unfolds,
that Daesh is unwilling to receive defeat after defeat at the
hands of the Iraqi Security Forces, which is exactly what we
want to see. And they may decide that it is time to pull out.
So we may see that the operational environment could
change, and it is the responsibility of our very capable
commanders, in this case, Lloyd Austin and James Terry, to
constantly be monitoring the success of the unfolding operation
to ensure we are getting the most out of the resources that we
have, and if we need more resources, that we ask for them.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Flake. Senator Murphy.
Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. General
Allen, thank you for your service. Thank you for your answers
to the questions. I agree with Senator Boxer, they are
straightforward and very helpful.
I want to build on some questions from Senator Menendez and
Senator Boxer on the authorizing language that we have before
us. A lot of attention has been given to this phrase
``enduring,'' not as much attention given to the juxtaposition
that has now been created between what are offensive forces and
what are defensive forces. Just so I understand this, you have
talked about what the potential limitation is on size of force
or duration of force under the enduring limitation. But so long
as the presence of troops is considered defensive, there is no
limitation in this authorization of military as to the number
of troops or the duration of their time in the conflict area so
long as they are considered defensive forces.
General Allen. Again, I am not sponsoring the legislation,
but I think your point is correct in that regard. It is about
offensive maneuver forces.
Senator Murphy. I thought your answer to Senator Kaine's
question was definitive in that you worry, as I know the
President does, that a large-scale deployment of troops could
become recruiting fodder for extremists as our presence in Iraq
did over the 10 years. Do you think that that changes if our
categorization of the forces are offensive or defensive, if we
have 100,000 defensive troops? I do not think this President is
going to authorize this, but this is a 3-year authorization, so
the next President will get the chance to decide differently.
Would it matter in terms of the ability for extremists to
recruit as to whether our troops there were categorized as
defensive versus offensive?
General Allen. Again, these are all individual measures. It
depends on how the crisis has unfolded. It depends on the
region in which those forces may be involved. It would depend
on the activities that may have occurred prior to the
introduction of forces that we might call defensive. It is just
not possible to give a specific answer to that question. You
know, I would have a difficult time understanding how we would
have 100,000 forces in a defensive environment if we had not
had substantial offensive operations to begin with. And that
would, of course, change the regional view and the perspective
on our forces and the outcome.
So I think that there will be occasions where we may find
that locations or facilities or concentrations of friends and
allies need to be defended. The rationale that we would use
with our regional partners for the insertion of our allied
troops to defend those locations or those populations would be
very, very important. And so, I think each region or each of
those circumstances would have to be judged independently.
Senator Murphy. And do you have a sense, and I know you are
not the sponsor of this legislation, but you were there, as to
what the limits of that word ``defensive'' are? If our forces
were there taking fire from an ISIL position and needed to
advance on that position to eliminate it in order to defend our
troops, I assume that that action in that time and space
looking like an offensive action would still be considered
defensive in the sense that it was necessary in order to defend
our troops or coalition troops?
General Allen. Well, yes. In that particular example, yes.
Again, we would probably prior to the deployment of those
forces have come forward with as clear an explanation as we
could as to what defensive would look in the context of
accomplishing that mission and accomplishing those tasks
associated with defense.
Senator Murphy. You are going to get stuck with a lot of
hypothetical questions on these two phrases ``enduring'' and
``defensive and offensive'' simply because we are stuck with
them trying to figure them out.
Just one last question if I could. Part of the success of
the awakening was not just persuasion, but also the transfer of
substantial resources to tribes. We, you know, effectively paid
tribes in various ways in order to compensate them for their
moving away from insurgencies and towards coalition forces.
What did we learn from that experience, and how does it educate
us as we try to move forward a strategy, once again, of trying
to win over these forces?
General Allen. That is a really important question. I was
eye deep in that process.
Senator Murphy. Yes.
General Allen. And we did, in fact, provide direct support.
And we gave that direct support to the tribes in so many ways
because a central government was incapable of doing it. And
when we provided that support and ultimately the tribes made
the strategic decision to side with us against al-Qaeda, as you
well recall, fundamentally the operation al environment changed
very quickly in 2007 and 2008.
I think what we learned from that was not the fundamental
change in the battle space that favored us. It was the long-
term outcome of the Sons of Iraq, which was the handover of the
responsibility to resource the Sons of Iraq to the central
government in Iraq. And that did not work out frankly because
it was never clear to us, I think, whether Malaki intended to
support them or not.
So in this case, and the lesson is being applied today. In
this case, we seek in every possible way both to encourage and
to support the central government to build those bridges now
with the tribal elements by providing support to them, by being
present in the training process, and ultimately ensuring the
linkage between the Sheikhs and the Iraqi civilian Sunni
leaders, that linkage now is effective with the central
government, not in a handoff later. And that one of the
important messages or lessons that have come out of this.
Senator Murphy. And so, does that include financial
resources being transferred from the Iraqi Government to these
tribes? Is that one of our recommendations to them?
General Allen. Yes, in the context, for example, of the
2015 budget that was just passed by the Iraqis. There was a
wedge in there for the recruitment of tribal elements and
indigenous populations from each province into the national
guard organizations. And those national guard organizations
will belong to the governor. They will support the police
locally in the event that there is a crisis, or will be
nationalized, federalized to support the army in the event of a
national emergency.
That entity will belong to the ministry of defense. They
will recruited into the Ministry of Defense. They will be part
of the national guard brigade, but they will be paid by
national funds. So the mechanisms underway right now where we
are training tribal elements in Al-Anbar, for example, they are
actually being paid now by the Iraqi Government and armed by
the Iraqi Government. We are providing the training.
Senator Murphy. Thank you.
General Allen. Yes, sir.
The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you.
Senator Flake.
Senator Flake. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. We
have got a vote on, so I need to go quickly, so I will ask just
a couple of questions quickly.
How important do you think, and I apologize if you answered
this before I came. How important do you think it is to have
the AUMF?
General Allen. It is very important.
Senator Flake. How important--go ahead.
General Allen. I think it is extraordinarily important
actually. The United States has exerted great leadership in
bringing together these countries ultimately to support the
restoration of the situation in Iraq, its territorial integrity
and sovereignty, and ultimately to help to deal with the--to be
able to defeat that Daesh necessary in Syria. So it is very
important.
ISIL is a threat that is unique in our time. It is
certainly unique in the time that I have been in the service.
And while the elements of the AUMF will be properly debated
between this body and the administration, and many of the
members here today have brought up important points for clarity
or for continued discussion, I think that it is extraordinarily
important, the message that it sends that the administration is
in a conversation and dialogue with this committee and the
Congress on the issue.
But most importantly, in support of the U.S. leadership
globally on this issue, a strong bipartisan vote to support the
AUMF complements the leadership that the United States has
exerted in this crisis.
Senator Flake. Well, thank you. That is certainly the case
I have made that both our adversaries and our allies need to
know that we speak with one voice here.
General Allen. That is exactly right.
Senator Flake. Is there one that is more important than the
other in that regard, or is it equally important for both of
them to hear this message?
General Allen. Our friends who are in the coalition in the
21 capitals I have traveled to have been extraordinarily
grateful for the American leadership on this issue. What I want
is for our adversaries to not be able to sleep at night because
we have the unqualified support of the Congress in our actions
necessary to defeat this enemy.
Senator Flake. At what point is the impact of this AUMF
diminished if we have language that is just--I mean, if we try
to include every point of view and every nuance as opposed to
something straightforward that we are in this to win. At what
point does it become less important?
General Allen. It would be difficult for me to answer,
Senator, but I would just hope that the consultation between
the administration and this committee puts the language in
there that the President needs to defend the American people,
defend our country, but also to deal the defeat to Daesh that
it desperately needs.
Senator Flake. In other examples of AUMF, there has not
been much change. We have basically done what the
administration has asked for. And there have been some
amendments in recent AUMFs, but by and large it has been rather
straightforward language, rather short. I frankly think the
language the administration put forward is a good start, and
maybe amended some. But I would caution the committee and the
Congress in general, the Senate and the House, from going too
far to make it all things to everyone, and probably diminish
the importance of it.
But anyway, thank you for your service, and thank you for
your testimony here.
General Allen. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator. Senator Kaine I know had
a followup.
Senator Kaine. General, I wanted to ask about one of the
lines of effort that we are working on in a fairly significant
way, and that is the humanitarian relief line. The United
States is the most generous nation in the world in terms of
humanitarian relief to refugees from Syria. But the problem is
getting worse in some ways because of the closing of borders
with Lebanon. There were too many refugees there. Jordan,
probably the same thing. Turkey with border issues is probably
less willing to just see waves and waves of Syrians coming
over. And so, what are we doing in tandem with the London
Eleven and other nations to try to deal with the humanitarian
crisis of all of these displaced folks in Syria, whether they
are being displaced because of Bashar al-Assad, ISIL, cholera
outbreaks, weather, desperate poverty that they are being
displaced? And I wonder about or humanitarian efforts in tandem
with other nations.
General Allen. I will give you a partial answer, sir, and I
will take the question and give you the ability of the
Department to come back. We obviously take that very seriously.
We have the relief efforts that, as you properly point out,
have been very generously supported by the United States and
others directly to the populations of Syria and Iraq. We have
the U.N. appeals, which need a lot more assistance to bring
those appeals up to 100 percent. We are in the depth of a
winter right now which has made this more urgent and more
timely.
We have the frontline states that are struggling with the
influx of Syrian refugees--Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan--so we
need to work closely with them to give them the kinds of
support necessary to ensure that these demographic changes that
they are experiencing in their countries are not in the end
destabilizing to their stability and their security.
And then, very importantly, is humanitarian assistance that
will follow in trace of the counter offensive when that
ultimately kicks off. It can be argued that the clearing
operation will be important to remove Daesh out of the
population centers and the police will secure the population.
But we are going to find that these people have lived under
indescribable conditions, and so our ability to marshal and
quickly apply the humanitarian assistance necessary to the
female populations, to, more broadly, the liberated
populations, to the internally displaced persons that will come
home as we begin to clear these population centers of Daesh,
supporting their return to their homes, the necessary
humanitarian assistance to the restoration of the central
services, electricity, water, and then ultimately
reconstruction.
As your question presupposes, this is a huge bill, and it
is a huge regional undertaking. And so, I think it should be to
everyone's satisfaction, or at least optimism, many of the
members of the coalition have been very clear in their
willingness to support the broader U.N. effort for the region
and the frontline states. And a number of the other coalition
members have put their hands in the air to be leaders of and
supporters to that very important humanitarian effort that will
follow right closely on the heels of the clearing operation
that will move Daesh out of Iraq.
So it is a multifaceted, multilayer, complex issue, but in
the end the humanitarian piece, I think, is one of the death
blows that Daesh will experience.
Senator Kaine. I know in response to a question from the
chairman, you indicated the complexities of no-fly zones. I
just would commend the idea of a humanitarian zone inside Syria
probably on the border with Turkey or the border with Jordan,
or maybe both, that would be justified by a U.N. Security
Council resolutions already in place promoting cross-border
delivery of humanitarian aid. That would be humanitarian zones
for people who, whether they are fleeing Bashar al-Assad, ISIL,
cholera, hunger, winter, whatever is, once the borders have
been closed and they cannot transit across the borders, I hope
we would contemplate some form of safe haven for the citizens
who are suffering so badly in what I think most have testified
is the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
General Allen. That is correct, sir.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. And that would be in the form of some type of
no-fly zone----
Senator Kaine. Because no-fly has the military, you know,
label right up front, I would call it a humanitarian safe haven
zone. But definitely I would want such a zone to be protected
from whoever might try to mess around with people who are
refugees who are just seeking safety, yes.
The Chairman. Very good. Well, General, I know you have got
a hard stop in 20 minutes, and I think we have--you have
certainly helped us in the way that we wanted you to help us.
We appreciate your testimony.
I would have one question, and that is you, in response to
Senator Flake, talked about the need for Congress to be behind
the effort that is taking place with ISIL. There have been
differing discussions about the length of time from an AUMF
standpoint. And is there anything about the timeframe--I know
the President has asked for three--whether it is longer,
shorter? Is there anything about that that you think matters at
all relative to those that you are talking about appealing to
our enemies and allies together?
General Allen. Well, our intent with respect to Daesh is to
end its abilities, to deal that defeat to them as quickly as we
can. If it takes longer than three years, my suspicion would be
that we would come back to this committee and request an
extension.
The Chairman. And if it was shorter than that, it would
trouble you either.
General Allen. If it was shorter than that, it would not
trouble me at all if Daesh were defeated in less than 3 years.
The Chairman. No, no, no, it would not trouble us either.
Thank you. Does the length of time really particularly matter
to you from the standpoint of the allies and those that we are
defeating, or is it just more Congress getting behind the
effort in a bipartisan way?
General Allen. Well, I think it is the latter.
The Chairman. Yes. Well, listen, I called you over the
weekend when I knew you were on your way to Kuwait. I know you
are your way to CENTCOM now. I think you can tell by the
respect that everyone has shown you today we all view you as
someone who is an outstanding public servant. We appreciate the
way you have gone about your work.
I know it is difficult. I know that decisions do not always
get made in the manner or in the timeframe that someone like
you that wants to seek this--get this done in the appropriate
way. But I think your demeanor, the way you talk with all of us
is certainly very, very well received. We wish you well in what
you are doing, and hope you will be before us again soon to
update us.
General Allen. Honored to be with you today, Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
General Allen. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you.
General Allen. Have a good day, sir.
The Chairman. And with that, the record will be open until
Friday for any questions.
The Chairman. We would ask that you and your staff respond
to those in a fairly timely fashion.
And the meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:13 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
Responses of Gen. John R. Allen to Questions
Submitted by Senator Bob Corker
Question. Can you please explain the command structure for the
fight against ISIS? Do you believe there is a coherent chain of command
aligning all elements of American and coalition power against the
threat?
Answer. Because the answer to this question is outside the
Department of State's purview, we must respectfully defer to the
Department of Defense for a response.
Question. Do you believe an authorization for the use of force
should include authority to strike the Syrian regime?
Answer. The President has been clear that he wants to work with
Congress on a bipartisan, ISIL-specific AUMF. That is the immediate
focus. Consistent with that focus, the administration's proposed AUMF
would provide authority for the military mission we are currently
undertaking in Iraq and Syria against ISIL.
We believe that Assad has lost the legitimacy to govern, but we are
not asking for authority to use force against the Assad regime.
The nature and extent of the support the United States is prepared
to provide to the Syrian forces we train is critically important and
under active consideration. We plan to provide a level of support that
is sufficient to support the objectives of the T&E program.
Question. Do you believe an authorization for the use of force
should be limited by time?
Answer. The President's goal is to secure the passage of a
bipartisan, limited, ISIL-specific AUMF that will provide a clear
signal to the American people, to our allies, and to our enemies that
the United States stands united behind the effort to degrade and
ultimately defeat ISIL. The President has developed and transmitted to
the Congress an AUMF that reflects bipartisan input and contains
reasonable limitations and that provides the flexibility he needs to
successfully pursue the armed conflict against ISIL.
Although the confrontation with ISIL will not be over quickly, the
President believes that 3 years is an appropriate period of time in
order to allow the next President, the Congress, and the American
people to assess the progress we have made against ISIL and review the
authorities we have in place.
Question. Do you believe Shia militias in Iraq are, or will be, a
threat to Americans in Iraq?
Answer. The protection of our people is paramount. That is why the
Department of State and the Department of Defense have taken
precautions to mitigate a wide range of risks in Iraq to the level
where our personnel can operate safely and effectively. Our Embassy and
consulates in Iraq maintain a strong and robust security posture in
Iraq and we work closely with the Department of Defense on contingency
planning. Security at the missions in Iraq include Diplomatic Security
Special Agents, Security Protective Specialists, Marine Security
Guards, Marine Security Augmentation Unit personnel, Worldwide
Protective Service armed movement security and static personnel, local
guards, and host nation security forces. We refer you to Department of
Defense for details about their specific security previsions at
coalition military sites in Iraq.
Shia volunteers are an important element of the fighting force
against ISIL inside Iraq. Although some of these groups predate the
current crisis, many of these militia forces formed last summer as a
result of Grand Ayatollah Sistani's call for volunteers when Baghdad
and other major cities were under imminent threat. They have since
continued to play a key role in the Government of Iraq's efforts to
retake its sovereign territory from ISIL.
However, given the history of some of these groups targeting U.S.
personnel and facilities in Iraq prior to 2012, as well as recent
allegations of abuses against Iraqi civilians, we do have concerns
about some of these militias. We have a continuing dialogue with the
Iraqi Government about these concerns and the necessity for all
militias to be brought under the command and control of the Iraqi
security forces.
Prime Minister Abadi has stated that he has a zero tolerance policy
of human rights abuses and all armed groups and militias should be
incorporated under state security structures. The draft National Guard
law approved by the Council of Ministers on February 3 is a step toward
this objective, and, once implemented, an Iraqi National Guard
structure will ensure greater oversight and regulation of these armed
elements.
Question. How does the administration define success in Iraq and
Syria? Can you explain the terms defeat, destroy, disable and contain
as they relate to an end state in Iraq and Syria? Which terms align
best with the administration's goals in Iraq and Syria?
Answer. Our Counter-ISIL strategy aims to degrade ISIL in Iraq and
Syria over the course of a multiyear timeframe, leading to its eventual
defeat.
Degrading ISIL involves suppressing its ability to conduct large-
scale operations. In the immediate to medium term, conducting military
operations to halt and reverse ISIL's territorial expansion; reducing
its capability to resource, plan and execute offensive and/or terrorist
attacks; diminishing its capacity to generate funding; and restoring
legitimate governance and security in Iraq will all have the effect of
degrading ISIL's capacity.
In the longer term, the defeat of ISIL will come when it no longer
has a safe haven from which to operate, when it no longer poses an
existential threat to Iraq and other states in the region, and when the
coalition effectively counters its global reach in spreading its
message and ideology of hate, thus preventing it from regenerating over
time. With regard to fully eradicating, annihilating or destroying all
remnants of ISIL, like other terrorist groups before it, there will
likely be some residue of the organization for a long time to come. We
do not refer to disabling or containing ISIL.
______
Responses of Gen. John R. Allen to Questions
Submitted by Senator Marco Rubio
Question. How many countries is ISIL currently present in? Would
you agree that we need an AUMF that is not specific to just Iraq and
Syria?
Answer. ISIL's strongholds are in Iraq and Syria; however, ISIL
seeks to extend its reach, and that is something we are monitoring
closely.
The administration's proposed AUMF does not include a geographic
limitation, as we believe it would be a mistake to advertise to ISIL
that there are safe havens for them outside of Iraq and Syria by
limiting the proposed AUMF to specific countries.
Question. Will ISIL be defeated by 2018?
Answer. Our Counter-ISIL strategy aims to degrade ISIL in Iraq and
Syria over the course of a multiyear timeframe, leading to its eventual
defeat. This will be a long-term effort, and it would be premature at
this point to assign a completion date to it.
Degrading ISIL involves suppressing its ability to conduct large-
scale operations. In the immediate to medium term, conducting military
operations to halt and reverse ISIL territorial expansion; reducing its
capability to resource, plan and execute offensive and/or terrorist
attacks; diminishing its capacity to generate funding; and restoring
legitimate governance and security in Iraq will all have the effect of
degrading ISIL's capacity.
The defeat of ISIL will come in the longer term, when it no longer
has a safe haven from which to operate, when it no longer poses an
existential threat to Iraq and other states in the region, and when the
coalition effectively counters its global reach in spreading its
message and ideology of hate, thus preventing it from regenerating over
time. Like the process of degrading ISIL, defeating ISIL must also take
place over a multiyear timeframe.
Question. What is your understanding of the definition of
``enduring offensive ground combat operations'' in the White House's
proposed AUMF?
Answer. As the President noted in his letter transmitting the
proposed AUMF to the Congress, the proposal would not authorize long-
term, large-scale ground combat operations like those our Nation
conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan. As I testified before this committee
in December, such operations will be the responsibility of local forces
because that is what our local partners and allies want, that is what
is best for preserving our international coalition, and most
importantly, that is in the best interest of the United States.
The President has been clear, however, that there always may be
exigent or unforeseen circumstances in which small numbers of U.S.
forces may need to engage in limited or short duration ground combat
operations, for example, to protect and defend U.S. personnel or
citizens. The proposed AUMF would therefore provide the flexibility to
conduct ground combat operations in other, more limited circumstances,
such as rescue operations involving U.S. or coalition personnel or the
use of special operations forces to take military action against ISIL
leadership. The proposal would also authorize the use of U.S. forces in
situations where ground combat operations are not expected or intended,
such as intelligence collection and sharing, missions to enable kinetic
strikes, or the provision of operational planning and other forms of
advice and assistance to partner forces.
As the ground combat limitation is focused on major operations--
long-term, large-scale--the proposal would provide the authority and
the flexibility required to perform the mission.
Question. Why would we not authorize the President to simply
achieve a mission rather than telling him to do so in a certain time
period and only using certain means?
Answer. The President's goal is to secure the passage of a
bipartisan, limited, ISIL-specific AUMF that will provide a clear
signal to the American people, to our allies, and to our enemies that
the United States stands united behind the effort to degrade and
ultimately defeat ISIL. The President has developed and transmitted to
the Congress an AUMF that reflects bipartisan input and contains
reasonable limitations and that provides the flexibility he needs to
successfully pursue the armed conflict against ISIL.
Although the proposed AUMF would not authorize long-term, large-
scale ground combat operations like those our Nation conducted in Iraq
and Afghanistan, it would provide the flexibility to conduct ground
combat operations in other, more limited circumstances, such as rescue
operations involving U.S. or coalition personnel or special operations
forces to take military action against ISIL leadership. The proposal
would also authorize the use of U.S. forces in situations where ground
combat operations are not expected or intended, such as intelligence
collection and sharing, missions to enable kinetic strikes, or the
provision of operational planning and other forms of advice and
assistance to partner forces.
In addition, although the confrontation with ISIL will not be over
quickly, the President believes that 3 years is an appropriate period
of time in order to allow the next President, the Congress, and the
American people to assess the progress we have made against ISIL and
review these authorities again.
We therefore believe that the proposed AUMF provides the authority
and the flexibility required to perform the mission.
Question. You commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Put
yourself in your former positions as a commander. Do you believe that
it makes sense for politicians to prematurely tell our military how
they need to win a military conflict?
Answer. Civilian control over the military is a bedrock principle
of the Constitution. We are strongest as a nation when the
administration and Congress work together on issues as serious as the
use of military force.
The President proposed AUMF contains reasonable limitations and
that would provide him with the flexibility to direct our military in
successfully pursuing the armed conflict against ISIL.
Over the past several weeks, we have engaged in substantial
consultations with Congress regarding the AUMF. We look forward to
continuing to work with the Congress on this issue.
Question. How many countries was ISIL present in last August when
coalition operations began?
Answer. From the evidence we have seen, ISIL had an operational
presence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon in August 2014. The international
community and the Global Coalition continue to diminish ISIL's capacity
to generate revenues and fund its operations, cut off the flow of
foreign terrorist fighters transiting to Iraq and Syria, and expose its
empty and destructive ideology.
In fact, since September 2014, coalition efforts have forced ISIL
to change its tactics and it is suffering significant losses, reducing
its morale and challenging its ongoing propaganda campaigns.
Question. Why has ISIL continued to expand its reach despite our
military operations?
Answer. While military operations against ISIL have succeeded in
significantly reducing the area of ISIL-held territory in Iraq, a
number of terrorist groups in other part of Muslim-majority countries
have chosen to affiliate themselves with ISIL. These new ISIL
affiliates do not appear to be established by an influx of ISIL
militants, but rather, by a rebranding of already existing violent
extremist organizations as ISIL franchises. We are monitoring the
situation carefully to ascertain the extent to which these new
affiliates benefit materially and doctrinally from their association
with ISIL.
The strategy to combat these ISIL-related groups outside of Iraq
and Syria leverages the broad capabilities of the United States,
coalition members, and international partners across the globe. The
strategy rests on the foundation of degrading and then destroying the
self-proclaimed ``Islamic State.'' Coalition efforts in Iraq and
Syria--such as helping Iraqi security forces reclaim territory held by
ISIL, suppressing ISIL's ability to conduct large-scale operations,
degrading its command, control and logistics capabilities, and building
the political foundations for long-term security--will inhibit the
group's capability to operate globally and expand.
Beyond Iraq and Syria, the international community and the global
coalition continue to diminish ISIL's capacity to generate revenues and
fund its operations, cut off the flow of foreign terrorist fighters
transiting to, and from, Iraq and Syria, and expose its empty and
destructive ideology. Starving any new ISIL-related groups of funds and
manpower reduces any of the groups' opportunity to expand or conduct
attacks against our international partners. Following meetings with
coalition members which Secretary Kerry chaired in December and January
, coalition working groups are now coordinating combined efforts to
address ISIL's finances, foreign fighter draw, and messaging and
thereby diminish ISIL's global potential.
As these ISIL-related groups have emerged, the United States has
also been working closely with our partners to reduce the safe havens
that many of these groups exploit, build effective governance and
security, strengthen the capacity of our partners to deal with these
threats internally, enhance economic opportunity, and disrupt any
plots.
Question. What is the strategy and timetable for an Iraqi security
forces offensive to recapture Mosul and other areas still held by ISIL?
Answer. Any offensive will not begin until the Iraqis have
determined they are ready. We are focused on getting the Iraqi security
forces (ISF) adequately trained and equipped and the plan synchronized.
This training is a critical component to our ultimate success because
it is what will help generate durable security that exists beyond our
direct military engagements.
Any action on Mosul or other areas needs to be methodical,
coordinated, and planned properly. We are working with the Government
of Iraq on isolating Mosul by cutting ISIL's lines of communication,
eroding its forces through the air campaign, building combat power
through the Building Partner Capacity sites, and helping with planning
and synchronizing all of these elements to set the conditions for an
offensive.
I would refer you to the Department of Defense and the Government
of Iraq for any future operational planning, but as we have said, any
operation on Mosul would be Iraqi-led and we are committed to working
with the Iraqi security forces to degrade and defeat ISIL.
The timing of a campaign to liberate Mosul in relation to other
important population centers and infrastructure in Iraq will depend on
the political and military conditions on the ground and require
strategic flexibility. Regardless of timing, our shared goal is clear:
the defeat of ISIL and ensuring that ISIL can no longer pose a threat
to the people of Iraq and to other countries in the region.
Question. What is the U.S. strategy to combat the rise of ISIS in
other countries outside of Iraq and Syria?
Answer. The strategy to combat ISIL and related groups outside of
Iraq and Syria rests on the coalition efforts within Iraq and Syria. In
Iraq, the coalition is helping Iraqi security forces reclaim territory
held by ISIL, suppressing ISIL's ability to conduct large-scale
operations, degrading its command, control, and logistics capabilities,
and building the political foundations for long-term security. In
Syria, more than 1,200 coalition airstrikes against ISIL targets have
destroyed ISIL vehicles and buildings, have degraded its economic
infrastructure, and have defended local forces contesting ISIL
advances, such as in Kobani. Our efforts in Syria will deny ISIL safe
haven while creating the conditions for a stable inclusive Syria that
fulfills Syrian's aspirations for freedom and dignity. Our counter-ISIL
strategy in both countries will inhibit the group's capability to
operate globally and expand. In fact, since September 2014, coalition
efforts have forced ISIL to change its tactics and it is suffering
significant losses, reducing its morale, and challenging its ongoing
propaganda campaigns.
Beyond Iraq and Syria, the international community and the global
coalition continue to diminish ISIL's capacity to generate revenues and
fund its operations, cut off the flow of foreign terrorist fighters
transiting to, and from, Iraq and Syria, and expose its empty and
destructive ideology.
Starving any new ISIL-related groups of funds and manpower
mitigates the risk of attacks against our international partners. Over
the past 6 months, the international community has been increasing its
efforts to expose the true nature of ISIL to reduce its draw to foreign
fighters and other extremist groups. Similarly, international
organizations and local communities across the globe are also
increasingly working to minimize the influence of this hateful rhetoric
and insulate potentially vulnerable sectors of populations. Following
meetings with coalition members which Secretary Kerry chaired in
December and January, coalition working groups are now coordinating
combined efforts to address ISIL's finances, foreign fighter draw, and
messaging and thereby diminish ISIL's global potential.
As these ISIL-related groups have emerged, the United State has
also been working closely with our partners to reduce the safe havens
that many of these groups exploit, build effective governance and
security, strengthen the capacity of our partners to deal with these
threats internally, enhance economic opportunity, and disrupt any
plots. The United States continues to emphasize the importance of a
multifaceted, multinational approach to addressing ISIL and other
extremist groups.
Question. The administration has built its strategy against ISIL
around the notion that local partners will be trained and equipped to
do much of the fighting, yet many key partners continue to complain
about the level of support and communication they receive from the U.S.
Government. The Kurds continue to request additional weapons, Sunni
tribes in Iraq and Syria complain that their communities have endured
massacres at the hands of ISIL, yet their requests for assistance have
not been responded to. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition has faced
significant setbacks on the battlefield and they have raised
fundamental concerns about U.S. strategy in Syria.
How do you address these criticisms?
Answer. Our military support to our local partners in Iraq remains
steadfast and suggestions to the contrary do not reflect what we have
witnessed so far. As the President has stressed, the campaign to
degrade and defeat ISIL will take time, however, we have been able to
reverse ISIL's momentum and the Iraqis continue to retake territory.
Through more than 2,700 coordinated coalition airstrikes in support
of our partners on the ground, we have degraded ISIL's leadership,
logistical, and operational capabilities, and are denying sanctuary in
Iraq from which it can plan and execute attacks. Over 1,800 American
and international troops, from a dozen countries, are training Iraqi
and Kurdish security forces at Building Partner Capacity (BPC) sites
around the country. Prime Minister Abadi has stated his appreciation
for U.S. and coalition assistance on a number of occasions.
Regarding U.S. assistance to the Kurds in Iraq, U.S. military
personnel are providing support for ISF and peshmerga on planning
ground operations, intelligence-sharing, integrating air support into
their operations, logistics planning, command and control, and
communications. We established a Joint Operations Center in Erbil that
has facilitated unprecedented cooperation between the KRG, Iraqi
Government, and U.S. forces, and sent U.S. advise-and-assist teams to
partner with peshmerga for operational planning. The Iraq Train and
Equip Fund (ITEF) will provide an estimated $350 million to train and
equip Kurdish brigades. To date, the coalition has provided the Kurds
nearly 50 million rounds of light and heavy ammunition; 24,000 hand
grenades; 47,000 mortar rounds; 50,000 RPG cartridges; and 18,000
rifles. This is in addition to the more than 300 tons of arms and
ammunition that the Government of Iraq itself provided and delivered to
the Kurds. We have also provided 25 MRAPs to our Kurdish partners.
Hundreds of air strikes have supported the Kurds, striking ISIL
elements in Mosul, near Sinjar Mountain, and other areas of northern
Iraq providing relief to Kurdish forces and strategic opportunities to
fight back against ISIL.
ITEF also allocates funding for the equipping of GOI-approved Sunni
tribal fighters. On Sunni communities specifically, through our
airstrikes and advise-and-assist teams, we have helped to protect key
terrain and regain ground at Mosul Dam and around Haditha Dam in Anbar
province. We also helped break the siege of Dhuluyia with airstrikes in
support of Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribes when ISIL had that
town surrounded. While we recognize that a variety of logistical
challenges remain, we are working with the Government of Iraq to
overcome these.
Question. Given the central focus of our strategy on empowering
local allies to combat ISIL, why have we been so slow to provide the
Jordanians, Kurds, and others with requested assistance?
Answer. Jordan has been a critical partner to the United States for
many years. In support of our renewed Memorandum of Understanding
signed by Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Judeh on February 3, we
recently released $300 million in FY15 Foreign Military Financing
several months earlier than it is generally released for other FMF
recipient countries. We expect to provide additional FY15 FMF to Jordan
once the post-appropriation allocations are finalized. And we are
expediting delivery of a wide variety of military equipment.
The U.S. military is also directly enabling Jordanian counter-ISIL
air strikes by providing targets, intelligence, fuel and training on
refueling operations, dropping precision guided munitions, and night
operations. This supplements long-standing military-to-military support
and cooperation, such as U.S. Special Operations Forces training of
their Jordanian counterparts and U.S. Army and Marine individual,
collective, and unit training focused on border security techniques,
tactics, and procedures for five Jordanian brigade- and battalion-sized
formations.
Jordan's contributions to the global coalition against ISIL
underline the continued importance of our bilateral partnership; the
Departments of State and Defense have mobilized to support these
Jordanian operations. Jordan has increased its anti-ISIL military
operations following the appalling murder of its pilot, Captain Moaz
al-Kasasbeh, and we have increased our efforts to coordinate with the
JAF to further specify and prioritize its requirements. We have taken
the following steps to support Jordan:
To ensure Jordan can continue its airstrikes, we have
expedited delivery of more than 200 bombs for its F-16s months
early, with hundreds more on the way.
To help Jordan prepare for ground combat contingencies, on
February 7, the United States delivered to Jordan 20,000
rifles, 6,746 machine guns, and over 1 million rounds of small
arms ammunition. One-thousand night vision devices are being
drawn from U.S. military stocks and will be delivered to Jordan
soon.
We have notified Congress of our intent to provide eight
Blackhawk helicopters to Jordan though a 2-year, no-cost lease
as we pursue options to provide a larger, permanent capability
in the long-term.
kurdish assistance
We have enormous respect for the courage the Kurds have shown and
the fight they have taken to ISIL in Iraq and Syria. In coordination
with the Government of Iraq, the United States and the coalition have
been very supportive of Iraqi Kurdish forces, and coalition airstrikes
were key to defeating an ISIL attempt to take the predominantly Kurdish
city of Kobane in Syria.
In Iraq, we have organized a coalition effort that to date
has provided nearly 50 million rounds of light and heavy
ammunition; 24,000 hand grenades; 47,000 mortar rounds; 50,000
RPG cartridges; and 18,000 rifles. Thousands more rounds of
ammunition and weapons have been identified for donation and
are being prepared for delivery. This is in addition to the
more than 300 tons of arms and ammunition that the Government
of Iraq itself provided and delivered to the Kurds. We have
also provided 25 MRAPs to our Kurdish partners.
Additionally, we will provide an estimated $350 million of
ITEF to train and equip Kurdish brigades. While no equipment
has yet been delivered under ITEF, these units will receive the
same weapons, vehicles, and equipment as the Iraq Army forces:
small arms, mortars, HMMWVs, cargo trucks, trailers, radios.
Training began in Erbil in December.
Hundreds of air strikes have supported peshmerga forces,
striking ISIL elements in Mosul, near Sinjar Mountain, and
other areas of northern Iraq providing relief to Kurdish forces
and strategic opportunities to fight back against ISIL.
We established a Joint Operations Center in Erbil that has
facilitated unprecedented cooperation between the KRG, Iraqi
Government, and U.S. forces, and sent U.S. and coalition
advise-and-assist special forces teams to partner with
peshmerga forces for operational planning.
We will continue to evaluate the needs of all of Iraq's
security forces, including the Kurdish security forces, to
ensure that they have the necessary weapons to defeat ISIL.
In Syria, we provided critical assistance to the Kurdish and
Free Syrian Army forces defending the city of Kobane from ISIL
advances. We launched more than 700 airstrikes to target ISIL
positions and equipment, enabling the Kurdish ground forces to
enhance the town's defenses, to prevent ISIL from attacking,
and to extend security in the areas around Kobane. In addition,
the United States bolstered Kobane's defenders by air with
supplies provided by Kurdistan Regional Government authorities
in Iraq, in addition to facilitating the entry of Iraqi
peshmerga forces into northern Syria to assist those defending
Kobane.
Following ISIL's defeat in Kobane, military airstrikes in
the vicinity of Kobane continue to support the efforts of
Kurdish and Free Syrian Army forces to push ISIL from the
surrounding areas.
Question. A key component of our strategy is the train-and-equip
effort related to Syria. What pledges is the administration making to
those Syrian rebel forces that agree to participate in coalition
training programs regarding air support and ultimate plans to fight the
Assad regime?
Answer. Our effort to equip appropriately vetted Syrian opposition
elements has specific objectives: to defend the Syrian people from
attacks by ISIL and secure territory controlled by the Syrian
opposition; to protect the United States, its friends and allies, and
the Syrian people from the threats posed by terrorists in Syria; and to
promote the conditions for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict
in Syria. We are committed to the success of the personnel we will
train. The nature and extent of the support the United States is
prepared to provide to those forces are critically important and under
active consideration.
Question. Does the AUMF, as currently drafted, allow U.S. forces to
provide defensive assistance to trained Syrian opposition forces from
all of the threats they face, including from the Assad regime?
Answer. The President has been clear that he wants to work with
Congress on a bipartisan, ISIL-specific AUMF. That is the immediate
focus. Consistent with that focus, the administration's proposed AUMF
would provide authority for the military mission we are currently
undertaking in Iraq and Syria against ISIL.
We believe that Assad has lost the legitimacy to govern, but we are
not asking for authority to use force against the Assad regime.
The nature and extent of the support the United States is prepared
to provide to the Syrian forces we train is critically important and
under active consideration. We plan to provide a level of support that
is sufficient to support the objectives of the T&E program.
Question. What is Iran's level of control over the Shiite militias
that have been mobilized to defend Baghdad and other areas in southern
Iraq?
Answer. The threat of ISIL in Iraq has provided Iran with the
opportunity for unprecedented cooperation with the Government of Iraq.
However, Iranian influence in Iraq is not new. Iran has been a major
player there since 2003.
Shia volunteers are an element of the fighting force against ISIL
inside Iraq. Many are militia forces that formed last summer as a
result of Grand Ayatollah Sistani's call for volunteers when Baghdad
and other major cities were under imminent threat. Iran wields varying
degrees of influence over these many different Iraqi Shiite militias,
from high to negligible.
Where influence exists, it may not extend throughout the entire
command structure of a militia making some members nonresponsive to
Iranian direction.
Question. How would you characterize the role that Iran is
currently playing in the fight against ISIL in Iraq? What level of
coordination is there between coalition forces and Iran?
Answer. Iran is providing significant military support to the Iraqi
security forces, Iraqi Shia volunteers and militias, and Kurdish forces
in the form of weapons, combat advisors, training, intelligence,
artillery support, and a handful of airstrikes. Iran is seeking to
leverage and publicly highlight its military support in the counter-
ISIL campaign for additional influence in Iraq.
Iran has channeled most of its support to Iraqi Shia groups under
the Popular Mobilization Committee (PMC), upon which the Iraqi
Government has relied heavily in recent counter-ISIL operations. The
PMC is comprised of many untrained Iraqi volunteers, to include some
Sunni tribes, as well as more hard-line sectarian militias heavily
influenced by Iran. The Government of Iraq is seeking to differentiate
between Iranian proxy groups and Iraqi volunteers in an effort to limit
Iran's influence and gain better control over the security forces.
We recognize that Iraq and Iran share a long physical border, and
that Iraq and Iran will have a relationship. And it is also clear that
ISIL is a threat to the entire region, including Iran, and we
understand that Iran is pursuing its own actions against ISIL in Iraq.
But to adequately address the threat posed by ISIL and ensure long-term
stability in Iraq, ISIL can only be defeated by an integrated and
capable Iraqi security force backed by a unified Iraq.
Question. What is Iran's current relationship toward the Assad
regime in Syria and to ISIL forces in Syria?
Answer. Iran has been a critical support line to the Assad regime,
providing not only funds and weapons, but also strategic guidance,
technical assistance, and training. This support has enabled the regime
to continue its repression and slaughter of tens of thousands of
Syrians, which has also fostered the emergence and expansion of
extremist groups such as ISIL. Many analysts assess that Iran's
assistance has been crucial to helping the Assad regime survive to
date.
We know that Iran is supplying arms to the Syrian regime in
violation of the U.N. Security Council prohibition against Iran selling
or transferring arms and related materials, including through flights
over Iraqi territory.
This issue has been raised with Iraqi officials by Secretary Kerry
and other senior U.S. officials, emphasizing the connection between the
flow of weapons and the escalation of extremist violence in the region,
particularly in Syria. We have urged that Iraq either deny overflight
requests for Iranian aircraft going to Syria, or require such flight to
land in Iraq for credible inspections, consistent with its
international legal obligations.
Question. ISIS is now a threat to all Syrians and Iraqis regardless
of their religious faith, but the smallest religious communities,
including Catholics, Syriac Christians, Protestants, Yazidis, and
Sabean Mandaeans, face an existential threat. ISIS has committed
countless acts of crimes against humanity, including murder through
beheadings, enslavement of women and children, and torture.
How can the United States and its coalition partners
protect the smallest communities from complete eradication in
Syria, Iraq, or anywhere else ISIS is a threat? How can the
United States best work with our partners to help ensure the
region's religious diversity and the protection of freedom of
religion or belief?
Answer. The United States has long been concerned about the safety
and rights of members of Iraq's and Syria's vulnerable populations,
including members of religious and ethnic minorities. Protecting these
communities and others in the face of the existential threat from ISIL
is one of the priorities of our counter-ISIL strategy and of the 62-
nation international counter-ISIL coalition, as well a part of our
regular diplomatic engagement.
The United States and certain coalition partners have conducted a
campaign of coordinated airstrikes against ISIL, and the coalition also
has undertaken military assistance, diplomatic engagement, and
intelligence and messaging coordination to defeat, degrade, and
delegitimize ISIL. Through these actions, we have dealt ISIL strategic
blows, halting its advances and preventing atrocities, beginning with
the airstrikes President Obama announced August 7, 2014, to help the
Yezidis stranded on Mt. Sinjar, and followed by airstrikes and the
delivery of relief supplies to the Shia Turkmen in Amerli.
The United States has regular and ongoing contact with leaders of
minority religious groups in the United States and throughout the
Middle East region to discuss their well-being and needs. The Office of
International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human
Rights and Labor has been especially helpful in this outreach. Our
contacts include Christian leaders, Yezidi activists, civil society and
clergy members, minority diaspora, and advocacy groups. In Iraq, the
U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and consulate general in Erbil are in daily
contact with the Iraqi Government, the Kurdistan Regional Government,
the U.N., and other humanitarian aid organizations in Iraq to ensure
they do their utmost to reach and assist displaced Iraqis--including
minorities.
It is very difficult to reach areas of Syria and Iraq that are
under the control of ISIL. Despite these challenges, the United States
continues to work closely with humanitarian organizations to find ways
to try to provide life-saving aid to those who need it. The U.N., which
is overseeing the massive international effort to aid those fleeing
areas in, or at risk of, conflict, is also in regular contact with
minority groups and their leaders. Representatives of these communities
have expressed the importance of not only food, shelter, and clean
water, but of educational opportunities for children, job opportunities
for young people, and medical services for displaced communities to
avoid the need to relocate to a third country while ISIL is being
defeated. The United States remains the single largest donor to the
humanitarian response for Syria, contributing more than $3 billion in
life-saving humanitarian aid to Syrian IDPs and refugees in the region
since the crisis began. The United States also continues to be a
primary donor to displaced Iraqis, contributing over $219 million since
fiscal year 2014.
In Iraq, we are working with the Government of Iraq, the U.N., and
our coalition partners to create the conditions for the displaced to
return to their homes as soon as possible, and we will continue to
press the Government of Iraq and support its efforts to ensure that
minority communities are able to return to their homes in peace. This
includes support for Prime Minister Abadi's efforts to devolve power
from the federal government to provincial and local authorities as an
important mechanism for protecting the rights of all Iraqis and to
preserve the unity and long-term stability of Iraq. We are also
encouraging the establishment of an Iraqi National Guard, which would
provide a stable mechanism for local communities, including minority
communities, to take more responsibility for their own protection while
receiving the resources and training needed to do so. In Syria, the
United States will continue to work toward a negotiated political
solution that produces a stable, inclusive Syria for people of all
ethnic and religious identities, a Syria free from the tyranny of the
Assad regime and the terror of ISIL.
Question. ISIL's extremist ideology disallows any religious
diversity or religious freedom. Increasingly, minority communities,
especially in Iraq, report they will not attempt to return after years
of targeting because they simply do not trust the government or their
neighbors.
How are issues of religious freedom, human rights,
interfaith dialogue, or respect for diversity and pluralism
being made part of the strategy to fight against ISIS?
Answer. We will not degrade and defeat ISIL through military effort
alone. An important component of our work requires promotion of an open
and inclusive society, which can win out against its repressive and
divisive ideology. This demands a society that respects the rights to
all citizens regardless of religious identity or other distinction, and
that also respects diversity, including members of religious and ethnic
minorities, women, and those voicing different political views.
In Iraq, Prime Minister Abadi has made important strides to reduce
sectarian tensions and promote inclusivity including, for example, the
proposed National Guard law, his statements regarding a ``zero
tolerance'' policy for human rights violations, and his efforts to
incorporate militias into existing security structures, as well as his
Executive order to adhere to Iraqi law regarding the time detainees may
be held in custody--a key concern of the Sunnis. We will support him in
these efforts and urge him to implement them.
We are working to promote and establish an inclusive, rights-
respecting governance system in Iraq, especially in regards to the
security forces, to prevent marginalization and minimize sectarian
hostilities. We seek the same thing in Syria through a negotiated
political solution that fulfills Syrians' aspirations for freedom and
dignity. These efforts include focusing on respect for human rights in
our engagements with military and civilian leaders and incorporating
law of armed conflict training in our plans to train and equip both
Iraqi security forces and vetted elements of the Syrian opposition.
We are supporting the Iraqi Government and civil society to
reconstitute those areas that have been liberated from ISIL control
with those communities who were forced to flee, rebuilding toward
tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Our projects engage and support
members of religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq, aiming to increase
community representation and participation by minorities, bolster
advocacy on their behalf, and promote the peaceful rebuilding of Iraqi
communities. In Syria we are supporting interim governance structures,
as well as local and provincial councils, civil society organizations,
and local security actors, setting a course toward a peaceful,
democratic, inclusive future and helping establish the conditions for a
political solution to this conflict. We also support programs to
empower religious and ethnic minorities and promote tolerance and
reconciliation to counter rising sectarian tensions, among others; for
instance, we have hosted multiple Syrian interfaith conferences and
activities both in the United States and in the region that featured
prominent Syrian clergy of all backgrounds with large followings.
Additionally, the Department of State played a key role in the White
House-hosted summit on Countering Violent Extremism in February 2015,
which Syrian and Iraqi civil society and clergy representatives
attended and which has resulted in renewed attention to role of
governance and human rights in the fight against violent extremism.
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