S. HRG. 108–853 TRANSITION TO SOVEREIGNTY IN IRAQ: U.S. POLICY, ONGOING MILITARY OPERATIONS, AND STATUS OF U.S. ARMED FORCES HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JUNE 25, 2004 Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 23–079 PDF 2005 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 23079.CON SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma PAT ROBERTS, Kansas WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina JOHN CORNYN, Texas JOHN WARNER, Virginia, Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JACK REED, Rhode Island DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii BILL NELSON, Florida E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska MARK DAYTON, Minnesota EVAN BAYH, Indiana HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JUDITH A. ANSLEY, Staff Director RICHARD D. DEBOBES, Democratic Staff Director (II) VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 23079.CON SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 C O N T E N T S CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES TRANSITION TO SOVEREIGNTY IN IRAQ: U.S. POLICY, ONGOING MILITARY OPERATIONS, AND STATUS OF U.S. ARMED FORCES JUNE 25, 2004 Wolfowitz, Hon. Paul D., Deputy Secretary of Defense ........................................ 6 Armitage, Hon. Richard L., Deputy Secretary of State ........................................ Myers, Gen. Richard B., USAF, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff ........................ Page 17 21 (III) VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 23079.CON SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 TRANSITION TO SOVEREIGNTY IN IRAQ: U.S. POLICY, ONGOING MILITARY OPERATIONS, AND STATUS OF U.S. ARMED FORCES FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 2004 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m., in room SD–106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John Warner (chairman) presiding. Committee members present: Senators Warner, McCain, Roberts, Allard, Sessions, Talent, Dole, Levin, Kennedy, Lieberman, Reed, Akaka, E. Benjamin Nelson, Dayton, Bayh, Clinton, and Pryor. Committee staff member present: Judith A. Ansley, staff director. Majority staff members present: Charles W. Alsup, professional staff member; Ambrose R. Hock, professional staff member; Thom- as L. MacKenzie, professional staff member; Elaine A. McCusker, professional staff member; Paula J. Philbin, professional staff member; Lynn F. Rusten, professional staff member; and Scott W. Stucky, general counsel. Minority staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, Democratic staff director; Daniel J. Cox, Jr., professional staff member; Rich- ard W. Fieldhouse, professional staff member; Gerald J. Leeling, minority counsel; Peter K. Levine, minority counsel; and William G.P. Monahan, minority counsel. Staff assistants present: Michael N. Berger, Alison E. Brill, and Nicholas W. West. Committee members’ assistants present: Christopher J. Paul, as- sistant to Senator McCain; Darren M. Dick, assistant to Senator Roberts; Lindsey R. Neas, assistant to Senator Talent; Christine O. Hill, assistant to Senator Dole; Sharon L. Waxman and Mieke Y. Eoyang, assistants to Senator Kennedy; Erik Raven, assistant to Senator Byrd; Frederick M. Downey, assistant to Senator Lieberman; Elizabeth King, assistant to Senator Reed; Davelyn Noelani Kalipi and Richard Kessler, assistants to Senator Akaka; Eric Pierce, assistant to Senator Ben Nelson; Rashid Hallaway, as- sistant to Senator Bayh; Andrew Shapiro, assistant to Senator Clinton; and Terri Glaze, assistant to Senator Pryor. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN WARNER, CHAIRMAN Chairman WARNER. The committee meets today to receive testi- mony on the transition to sovereignty in Iraq, now just days away. (1) VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 2 We welcome our witnesses. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz; Deputy Secretary of State, Paul Armitage; and General Richard Myers are witnesses who are well qualified in their experi- ence to discuss this topic, as they have been intimately involved in it now from the very beginning. Secretary Wolfowitz, in addition, has just returned days ago from his most recent trip to the region. You have made your own assess- ment of this transition. In 5 days the sovereignty of Iraq will pass to an interim Iraq government as Iraq continues its path to elec- tions and a hopeful democratic future. The past few months have been very challenging, how well we all know from the continuing evolving violence against the military forces, against the new Iraqi government, and against innocent civilians, their own people. We are reminded that Iraq remains a very dangerous place. In addition, we have witnessed evidence of abusive misconduct by a very small number of our troops involved in detention facilities. Our committee will continue to look into these incidents and work with the Department to ensure that corrective measures are taken. We cannot allow the misguided actions of the few to tarnish the honorable efforts and achievements of the vast majority of our serv- ice persons in Iraq and around the world. We are ever mindful of the risks our troops face every day and the sacrifices made by their families that support them, and indeed, the communities that sup- port them. The recent brutal murders of innocent civilians, including Ameri- cans and other foreign nationals in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, remind us and remind the world of the cruel, depraved nature of those who oppose us in the global war on terrorism. Those who have been re- moved from power in Iraq and Afghanistan are seeking to delay their inevitable defeat and prevent others from realizing their hopes for freedom and democracy. We mourn every loss of life, every loss of limb, and salute those who serve with courage in the cause of freedom with the support of their families and with our support. The timing and importance of this hearing cannot be overstated. We are at a critical juncture for coalition efforts in Iraq. The pas- sage 2 weeks ago of a new U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 provides the appropriate means to continue our support for efforts to stabilize and democratize Iraq and to encourage increased par- ticipation by the rest of the international community. It is in sup- port of this extremely important endeavor, as part of this resolu- tion, the United Nations (U.N.) and the new interim government of Iraq, have requested the continued presence of a U.S.-led, multi- national force to assist in establishing security and stability in Iraq so that a democratic political process can continue. Progress made by our Armed Forces, together with our coalition partners, presents an opportunity to fully defeat violence and ter- ror in Iraq, as the Nation’s previous ruler perpetrated violence and terror on his population, his neighbors, and was a threat to the world. The cycle of violence that has gripped this part of the world must end if we are to win the global war on terrorism and make America and the world a safer place. Any deviation, any hesitation from our current course will only embolden those who are intent on fomenting instability and anarchy and terrorism. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 3 We have achieved extraordinary successes in a relatively short period of time. Saddam Hussein and the threat he posed are gone. A new Iraqi government will assume power. Infrastructure and in- stitutions are being rebuilt. The future is hopeful for the Iraqi peo- ple. People are encouraged. This morning, the polls show the Iraqi people reposing confidence in this new government. We must con- tinue to send a strong message of resolve to the people of Iraq, to our troops, to our coalition partners, and to the rest of the world that we will stay the course and get the job done. Continued U.S. commitment to Iraq after the June 30 transition is of enormous importance to the Iraqi people and to the region. A free democratic Iraq means defeat for the forces of terrorism and instability in Iraq. Clearly, the recent violence is related to the im- minent transfer of sovereignty. Those who fear democracy are try- ing to delay its arrival. Those who incite terror realize their days are numbered. Opponents of a free democratic Iraq are desperate and will become even more desperate in the days ahead. We will stay the course. The President’s action is a brave and a consistent one. He has determined we will succeed. We will, and we must. I applaud Presi- dent Bush for his consistent efforts, efforts that began in Septem- ber 2002 at the U.N. to build and expand the coalition of nations who have the courage and conviction to fight terror in order to make the region and the world a better place and a safer place. Many countries shared in the effort to liberate Iraq. More are participating in rebuilding Iraq and assisting in building a demo- cratic institution. Currently, 38 nations are involved in this en- deavor. We all hope more will join. This is critically important work that deserves the support of all responsible members of the international community. The entire world will benefit from a suc- cess and freedom in that region. We will suffer in the world if we fail to establish our goals. I welcome the increased participation of the U.N. in the political transition process and the re-establishment of a U.N. assistance mission in Iraq, and we share the President’s desire as he leaves our shores today to go abroad to join those in Turkey at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conference, and to carry with him the message of the Prime Minister of Iraq that he needs help, his people need help. I am encouraged by the initial response of some of the NATO members. We have many questions that lie ahead. How will multinational force operations be coordinated with Iraq’s security forces and the interim Iraqi government after June 30? What will be the status of U.S. and coalition forces in a sovereign Iraq, and how can those forces be protected from unwarranted or unjustified litigation under the forthcoming Iraqi law? What steps remain in the process leading to elections of a permanent Iraqi government? What will be the status of ongoing reconstruction activities? What progress has been made in training, equipping, mentoring, and fielding effective Iraqi security forces? When will they be ready to assume primary responsibility for the internal and external defense of their own na- tion? What role will U.S. forces play in the detention of prisoners after the transfer of sovereignty, most importantly including the VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 4 custody and interrogation of the high interest prisoners, such as Saddam Hussein? Consequently, this hearing today is a full opportunity for this committee with those probably best qualified to give us answers and give the Nation and the world the positions of this country. I hope our witnesses can provide insights into these issues. Lasting peace and security in Iraq will be achieved when we es- tablish the conditions for a democratic, economically viable nation. The first steps to democracy have been taken and a new govern- ment is preparing to assume the responsibilities and challenges of freedom and democracy. This new interim Iraqi government will need the continued support and commitment of the United States Congress, the American people, and the international community. Their success will stand as a beacon of hope to others and a turn- ing point in the war against terrorism and violence. Senator Levin. STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this important hearing. Over the last few weeks, we have seen movement in Iraq on political matters with the formation of the interim Iraqi government and the planned transfer of full sov- ereignty next week. Although late in coming, there is finally a real diplomatic effort on the part of the administration to obtain input and support of the broad international community, as reflected in the unanimous vote for the U.N. Security Council Resolution. Now we need a major administration effort to enlist Muslim countries and to enlist NATO to provide needed troops, police, and security personnel. We have recently seen major setbacks in the security situation in Iraq, including political assassinations of Iraqi government offi- cials and car bombings and other attacks, which have produced casualties among U.S. and coalition soldiers, and killed scores and seriously injured hundreds of ordinary Iraqi civilians and security personnel. The U.S. effort in Iraq is truly a race against time, a race to es- tablish a significant level of security that will allow the political process to go forward with the convening of the national conference in July and the elections of a national assembly in December. It is a race against time because the United States appears to be losing the war for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. According to press reports, a recent poll conducted by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), but not released to the public, indicated that an overwhelming 92 percent of Iraqis view the coalition forces as occu- piers, and only 2 percent as liberators. In fact, 55 percent of the Iraqi people said that would feel safer if U.S. troops left imme- diately. At the same time, it is interesting to note and discouraging to note that 81 percent of the Iraqis polled said that they had an im- proved opinion of Muqtada Sadr and 64 percent said the actions of his militia have made Iraq more unified. While their opinion of Sadr is improving, their opinions of Americans are certainly not. Fifty-four percent of Iraqis believe that all Americans act like those who perpetrated the abuses at Abu Ghraib. We have a problem. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 5 There are still more questions than answers concerning Abu Ghraib, and the larger issue concerning the methods of interroga- tion and the treatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Every day there are more revelations that ap- pear to involve senior U.S. Government officials in decisions to dis- regard tenets of the Geneva Conventions. This has adverse effects on the future well being of our troops and on our ability to estab- lish security and stability in Iraq. It makes it more difficult to at- tract allies to help us wage a comprehensive political, economic, and military campaign against the conditions and forces that breed terrorism throughout the world. There are a large number of unresolved issues surrounding the ending of the occupation and the evolving relationship with a newly sovereign Iraqi government. Chief among those are issues concern- ing the operation of the multinational force and its relationship with Iraqi security forces. The letters from Secretary Powell and Prime Minister Allawi annexed to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 agree that unity of command will be achieved through coordi- nation in the Iraqi Ministerial Committee for National Security and other coordinating bodies at national, regional, and local levels. We need to understand how these coordinating mechanisms will operate in practice. The letter from Secretary Powell states that the, ‘‘Multinational Force must continue to function under a framework that affords the force and its personnel the status that they need to accomplish their mission and in which the contributing states have responsibil- ity for exercising jurisdiction over their personnel.’’ He further states that ‘‘the existing framework governing these matters is suf- ficient for these purposes.’’ Our witnesses today will hopefully de- scribe specifically how U.S. soldiers and contractors will be assured legal protections as they perform their missions in Iraq. We need to reverse the view of Iraqis of the allied forces as occu- piers. That means that the interim Iraqi government must have real decisionmaking power and must also be able to direct recon- struction resources to projects that have immediate effect on the daily lives of Iraqis. The ordinary Iraqi must see the interim gov- ernment as an entity that has a positive impact on his or her life, and as an entity that merits support. Then Iraqis will see the in- surgents as a threat to their own well being rather than as a force against the occupier. Only an Iraqi government which commands popular support can defeat the ongoing insurgents. With support comes intelligence that enables successful action against the insurgents. With successful action comes security and further legitimacy for the government. The challenge for the United States is to support that process in a way that enhances the Iraqi government’s legitimacy and pro- motes that security. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, we are underway. Secretary Wolfowitz. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 6 STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL D. WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Mr. Chairman, I have given you a fairly lengthy written statement, which I would be happy to put in the record. Chairman WARNER. Statements of all witnesses will be placed in the record. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I would just like to make a few, hopefully brief, comments basically about the trip that I just came back from. I went to Iraq with, among other people, our Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, General George Casey, and I want to say I appreciate the very speedy action that you and your committee took in consid- ering to nominate General Casey to be the commander of multi- national force Iraq. He is an outstanding officer and a lot is going to ride on his shoulders going forward. So I thank the committee for its speedy action. The purpose of my trip was twofold, in part, as always, to visit our magnificent troops. I did get to visit all five American divisions as well as a British division and talked with the Polish com- mander. One cannot help but over and over again be impressed by the skill and the resourcefulness and the intelligence, and most of all the courage of our men and women who are in the front lines. I want to express my appreciation and admiration for them and what they have done. I think also this is a good occasion, since the CPA will be out of business in just a few more days, to express appreciation for the sacrifice that so many civilians and military have contributed to that effort, also risking their lives, and unfortunately in a number of cases, sacrificing their lives for an enormously important cause. I would also particularly like to pay tribute to the courage of the journalists who cover this war who 34 of them have given their lives. This is a dangerous theater. It is dangerous just to be there. It is particularly dangerous to be up there on the front lines, but our troops’ morale is fantastic. They believe and know that they are doing an important job and they believe that they are succeed- ing. The second purpose of this visit was to lead a multinational team, including General Casey; the deputy chief of mission of our new embassy that will be stood up in Iraq, Ambassador Jim Jef- frey, my counterpart in the U.K.; and a representative of the Polish government, for extensive discussions with Prime Minister Allawi and his new national security team, the Defense Minister, the Inte- rior Minister, and the National Security Advisor, to discuss his plans for Iraq’s security strategy, how to defeat, what he calls cor- rectly, this evil enemy, and his plans for standing up Iraqi security forces that can win this fight. In the long run, the key to success here is not American troops—it is Iraqi police; it is Iraqi National Guard; it is Iraqi Army; it is Iraqis ready to stand up and fight for their own country. In fact, by our own count I might mention that more than 400 Iraqis have already died in the line of duty along- side our forces fighting that enemy. Our impression overall was very positive. Prime Minister Allawi is a forceful, thoughtful man who clearly conveyed a sense of strength and determination. That I think is what he is conveying VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 7 to the Iraqi people on a daily basis. He understands that the secu- rity problem is the biggest problem facing the Iraqi people and he is determined first and foremost to be able to solve that. That is the key in turn to moving forward to elections, which is the next important step in Iraq’s political process. A recurrent theme in our discussions was the importance of the Iraqi army as a symbol of national strength. The Prime Minister has made no secret of his disagreement with the earlier decision to disband the army. I would not be surprised if, at least in some symbolic way, he reverses that. More importantly, substantively what he wants to do and what his plan envisions is bringing back significant numbers of officers from the old Iraqi army. It is a process that we had started, but I think that will very much accelerate under his plan. The general tenor of our discussions was to explain to him and his national security team the efforts that are already underway on the American side, on the coalition side, an effort that has now been consolidated, as I think you know, under a three-star U.S. Commander, Lieutenant General Dave Petraeus. Our goal is to build Iraqi’s security capacity as rapidly as possible. We were, I will admit, going in a bit concerned that perhaps the Prime Min- ister would have a totally different plan and try to change course 90 degrees or 180 degrees. As General Petraeus himself has said, this is a super tanker, not a speed boat. It cannot turn on a dime. I am happy to report that the Prime Minister’s plans mesh quite well with what is already underway, but take it in a somewhat dif- ferent direction in line with his own ideas about the structure of the Armed Forces, and ultimately it will be more ambitious. In that regard, however, we emphasize that our plan already commits most of the resources under the U.S. supplemental appropriation that were dedicated to security forces, some $3.2 billion of the $18.6 bil- lion, as I think you know, were allocated to security. After an ini- tial slow start, a great deal of equipment is now arriving for all lev- els of Iraqi security forces under that appropriation. Prime Minister Allawi understands very clearly the importance of prioritization, that you do first things first and second things second, and if there are things that you would like to do that you cannot afford, you make sure they are lowest on your priority list. We also agreed that if we need additional resources, there are, for one thing, the possibilities of finding some within the Iraqi budget. It is worth pointing out that Iraq has already committed, and this is a significant figure, $20 billion of its own resources. That is a pretty impressive number—$20 billion of Iraqi resources have al- ready gone into funding the government and funding reconstruc- tion, including 350,000 teachers, 100,000 doctors, more than 2,000 schools, almost 250 hospitals, over $1 billion in improving the elec- tricity infrastructure. This is all from Iraqi funds, and there is more coming in, additional billions, of course, from oil revenues, and of course that is one the major targets of the enemy is to try to reduce oil production. But as substantial as those numbers sound, they have to go a very long way, so I think both of us believe that one of the first places to go for help in training and equipping Iraqi security forces is to the international community, including starting with NATO VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 8 at the summit coming up in Istanbul. Prime Minister Allawi has written to the NATO Secretary General soliciting NATO support in a number of areas, including military contributions to providing ad- ditional forces, particularly for U.N. security, but importantly, for training and equipping Iraqi security forces. In my statement, I outline the priorities he assigns to the various Iraqi forces, the Iraqi intervention force, the Iraqi special oper- ations force, and the Iraqi National Guard, which is based on what we had started to develop as the Iraqi civil defense corps. I do not know whether it is the Arabic translation or whether it is just the words themselves, but the Iraqis explained to us that civil defense corps sounds to people like the fire department. It is really more like a branch of the army. But it is not just a change of name. It will be organized into a brigade and division structure with 18 national guard brigades, which provides 1 for each province, and 6 divisions. They would also like to put a corps structure on top of that, but I think they were persuaded that that is something that can wait. We do not think the resource requirements for these head- quarters will be enormous, because we are not talking about expe- ditionary headquarters of the type that we would deploy, but re- sources have got to be taken into account. From the Prime Min- ster’s point of view, it is an enormously important opportunity to bring back clean officers from the old army. I emphasize that prob- lem that he will face of how to vet out the bad ones from that bar- rel, but he is determined to move ahead, and he has the skill and wisdom to do so. As I indicated and as Senator Levin alluded to in his statement, the Iraqis are eager to get additional international contributions, with the exception that they believe neighboring states should not do so because of the political issues that raises. We and they are focused in particular on getting additional international contribu- tions to support the U.N.’s activities in Iraq. We think that is one mission that more countries can and should be able to contribute to. I would like to close—I started by commenting on the courage of the Americans who were participating in this effort—it is impor- tant to close with a comment about the courage of the Iraqis. The Prime Minister himself is an incredibly brave man. He was at- tacked in 1979, outside his apartment in London, by one of Saddam’s agents. He was alerted just in time to get his head out of the way of the ax, but he was nearly chopped in two. He spent a year in the hospital. His wife was permanently institutionalized from the nervous breakdown she suffered as a result. We met with the President of Iraq, a remarkable man named Ghazi Al-Yawar. Some of you had the opportunity to meet with him when he was in Washington a couple of weeks ago. He is a leading figure in the Shammar tribe, which is one of the largest tribes in Iraq, a tribe by the way that is a mixture of Shia and Sunni, which is apparently a not unknown Iraqi phenomenon. His predecessor was assassinated with a car bomb just a month before, just about 2 months ago when Sheikh Ghazi became the President of the interim Governing Council, because his predecessor was murdered. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 9 We met with the Deputy Prime Minister, a man named Barham Salih, who many of us have known for a long time. He was back in 2002 the target of an assassination attempt by al Qaeda-associ- ated killers who had apparent connections to Iraqi intelligence. We visited the Marines in Fallujah and met a young marine pri- vate first class who had been wounded in action and whose life had been saved by the heroism of five Iraqi civil defense corps members who put their own lives in danger to rescue that marine. I could go on, but most movingly of all, we met this very dy- namic, impressive young Iraqi Kurdish woman who was our inter- preter in Mosul. Her sister was assassinated just a few weeks ago because she was working for the Americans. My military assistant, who knew her from when he was with the 101st Division up north, asked her, ‘‘why do you keep doing this?’’ She said, ‘‘because my fa- ther told me, ‘you must never retreat in the face of evil’.’’ These people are staring evil in the face. They know what their enemies want to do. They are standing up with enormous courage. They are counting on our support and our help, but they are pre- pared to face death in the face because they understand what the stakes are. This enemy has one and only one skill and that is kill- ing and destroying mostly innocent people. That is its strength, but I think it is also its weakness, because the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want peace and security and the opportunity to build a new Iraq that this enemy is trying to frustrate. That, Mr. Chairman, is why I am convinced that they can step up to this job. They will step up to this job. The plan that the President laid out a few weeks ago, moving first to a sovereign gov- ernment on July 1, is a plan that leads to Iraqi self government and Iraqi self defense, which is the key to victory in this incredibly important fight. I thank the committee for the support you continue to give our troops. They are enormously appreciative of the kind of help they get from back here. They deserve every bit of it, and I express my thanks and gratitude. [The prepared statement of Secretary Wolfowitz follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. PAUL D. WOLFOWITZ Mr. Chairman, Senator, members of the committee, I am happy to be here today to testify on the recent progress in the transition to Iraqi sovereignty and my talks last week with Prime Minister Allawi and his national security team. As President Bush noted recently, the selection of the Iraqi interim government ‘‘brings us one step closer to realizing the dream of millions of Iraqis: a fully sov- ereign nation with a representative government that protects their rights and serves their needs.’’ The transition to Iraqi sovereignty represents the culmination of the more than a year-long partnership between the Iraqi people and the coalition forces serving in Iraq, working together to create a secure environment in which freedom and pros- perity can grow. Whether from Australia or El Salvador, Poland or the Philippines, we owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the roughly 23,000 men and women from our 32 coalition partners. Of course, our prayers continue to be with all of our people currently serving in Iraq. I returned last week from a 41⁄2 day trip that took us to northern, central western and southern Iraq, visiting all five American divisions as well as the British and Polish division commanders in Iraq. In temperatures consistently above 100 de- grees, I saw firsthand the tremendous work our brave young Americans are doing, and with every trip I make to Iraq I am consistently amazed at the leaps in progress they are achieving. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 10 They are making America—and the world—more secure by helping the Iraqi peo- ple to plant the seeds of peaceful, representative government in the heart of the Middle East—a potentially watershed moment in the global war on terror. Whether members of active duty, Reserve, or National Guard units, or civilians working with the CPA or one of many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) active in Iraq, these heroes embody the best ideals of our Nation. They serve so that others may be free and Americans can be secure, and we thank them all for the sacrifices they endure. Finally, on behalf of these brave Americans, let me express thanks to Congress and the members of this committee for the bipartisan support you give our Armed Forces. The $25 billion supplemental you approved unanimously will ensure that our forces continue to have the resources necessary to complete their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. You have signaled to the world, both to our allies and to our enemies, America’s commitment to see this new struggle against tyranny and barba- rism through to the end. Additionally, I would like to personally thank the members of this committee for your support of the Commander’s Emergency Response Program and the Train and Equip authorities to help U.S. military forces secure and stabilize Iraq and Afghani- stan, enhance the ability of these countries’ military and security forces to combat terrorism and support U.S. and coalition military operations. Both provisions are ex- tremely vital tools as we work to rebuild Iraq and provide security for our troops. The Department will continue to work with the members to increase the train and equip authority to the President’s requested amount of $500 million in fiscal year 2005. OUR STRATEGY IN IRAQ Speaking at the United States Air Force Academy Graduation Ceremony 3 weeks ago, President Bush outlined the strategy for helping Iraqis achieve a fully constitu- tional government, one that enables Iraq to preserve its territorial integrity, reject weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, and live peacefully with its neighbors. The strategy involves five interdependent phases to build Iraqi capacity and trans- fer responsibilities from the coalition to Iraq rapidly—but not recklessly. Transferring Authority to a Sovereign Iraq The first phase of the President’s plan will become effective on June 30 when the CPA transfers authority to the Interim Iraqi Government—a body that will consist of a president, two deputy presidents, a prime minister, and 26 ministries, and will be responsible for day-to-day governing of Iraqi state affairs and will work as a full partner in providing security to Iraq. On July 1, U.S. Embassy Iraq will open for business as a full partner in helping to bring democracy, prosperity, and security to Iraq. When Iraq becomes sovereign on June 30, our engagement will naturally change. But our commitment will not. During this stage, our focus will rest on shaping and supporting Iraq’s political transition and particularly on setting the stage for na- tional elections. Security Security is the foundation for victory in Iraq—the foundation on which all other successes in Iraq are built. As President Bush noted, we are again at war against philosophies of death and tyranny. In Iraq, the forces presently trying to derail Iraq’s progress towards democracy include the killers who used to work in Saddam’s fascist intelligence services and the Fedayeen Saddam, al Qaeda-inspired foreign terrorists, and the gangs that follow Muqtada al-Sadr. Accordingly, a critical step in the strategy is to help Iraqis fashion the stability and security on which rep- resentative government depends. Since the beginning of our mission in Iraq, a principal goal has been to encourage and enable Iraqis to defend, guard and police Iraq for themselves. It is far better that Iraqis—who have a native knowledge of everything from city neighborhoods and regional accents to religious sensitivities and even local license plates—deal with problems unique to Iraq. Allowing them to take the lead in securing Iraq is a major key to victory over the enemies of a free Iraq. Although there are currently over 200,000 Iraqi security forces on duty or in training, Iraq’s security forces are still a work in progress. They require training, equipment, leadership and team-building to be able to handle continuing threats— internal and external—on their own. We have accelerated our efforts to recruit, train, equip, and, most importantly, mentor Iraqi security forces. However, U.S. and other international forces will remain indispensable to preserving security while VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 11 Iraqi forces build their strength. This is recognized in U.N. Security Council Resolu- tion 1546, which reaffirms the authorization for multinational force-Iraq. U.S. forces in Iraq will remain under U.S. command and will have clear rules of engagement. U.S. commanders, however, will coordinate security efforts closely with their Iraqi counterparts. These troops will be maintained at the level required to do the job, as our commanders in Iraq constantly reassess the numbers of troops they need. As we have often said, and as the President reiterated in his recent ad- dress to the Nation, if our commanders on the ground ask for more troops, they will get more troops. Rebuilding Iraq’s Infrastructure The third step in the President’s plan for victory in Iraq involves rebuilding Iraq’s civil infrastructure-deeply damaged by decades of Saddam’s neglect and the ravages of three wars Saddam brought upon his people. At present, 16 ministries which will address such programs—to include Health, Education and Public Works and Mu- nicipalities—have been handed over to Iraqis who are running these ministries with full authority. We will continue to work with Iraqis to build on what has already been achieved in areas such as healthcare and education. Enlisting International Support Investment in Iraq’s success is not just an American investment, it is one that must be shared by the international community. The fourth step in the President’s plan involves enlisting additional international support for Iraq’s transition to de- mocracy. The U.N. will play a critical role in that process. In the last couple of weeks, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1546, endorsing the transition timetable adopted by Iraqis and encouraging other U.N. members to add their support. The international community at large will continue to play a key role in helping Iraq stand on its own feet through such actions as economic assist- ance, debt relief, and continued military support. Continue Building on Iraq’s Capacity for Self-Government The fifth step in the President’s plan involves nurturing Iraq’s capacity for rep- resentative self-government that will lead to a constitutional government by the end of 2005. The interim government will serve until representatives to a transitional government are elected, no later than the end of January 2005—the first free elec- tions held in Iraqi history. By the end of 2005, Iraqis are scheduled to vote on a new constitution that will protect the rights of all Iraqi citizens regardless of their religion or ethnicity. This is the historic point when Iraq will have the necessary legitimacy for durable self- rule. During this process Iraqis will decide for themselves the exact structure of their permanent government and the provisions of their Iraqi constitution. As important as clarity about these five phases of our strategy is, it is equally important that we maintain the ability to adjust to rapidly evolving conditions in Iraq. For history has demonstrated that even the best laid plans for post-war recon- struction can go awry if not matched to the realities on the ground. For example, in World War II post-war planning for the reconstruction of Germany began 3 years before the end of the war. Before the German surrender, the Joint Chiefs of Staffs blueprint for the occupation of Germany, JSC 1067, specified tough programs to ‘‘prevent Germany from ever again becoming a threat to the peace of the world.’’ No sooner did military and civilian officials arrive in devastated Germany after the war than they began to realize this plan was wholly inadequate. All of the programs specified in JCS 1067, the result of 3 years worth of planning, either failed or were aborted. Eventually, more than 2 years after Victory in Europe (VE) day, JCS 1067 was replaced altogether by JCS 1779, which stressed the goal of a ‘‘stable and pro- ductive Germany.’’ That history demonstrates that the key to post-war reconstruction lies not in im- pressive looking paperwork devised thousands of miles away from the frontline, but flexibility when planning meets reality. In reconstruction, as in war, plans are at best the basis for future changes. Whereas it took the United States more than 2 years to alter its plans after World War II, in less than 15 months this coalition has repeatedly demonstrated that it can be flexible when necessary, and it has done so in the face of an evil enemy that continues to kill and destroy. Examples of this flexibility include: • Creating a new type of indigenous force (the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps) to fill the gap between the Iraqi police service and an army oriented to ex- ternal defense; • Requesting a large supplemental when the requirements for Iraqi recon- struction became clear; VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 12 • Responding to Iraqi demands for a more rapid resumption of sovereignty by developing the idea of a transitional government that could take power before a permanent constitution is ratified; • Dropping the ‘‘caucus plan’’ for selecting the transitional government, when it turned out to be unpopular with Iraqis, and substituting a two-step process involving an interim government that will take power before legis- lative elections; • Revising the mechanisms for implementing the de-Baathification policy to address complaints that the appeals process was not working as intended, and to respond to the Sunni minority’s fears of marginalization. Although the reconstruction plans first envisioned in the summer of 2002, and submitted by the CPA to Congress last July have undergone substantial changes, it has been the coalition’s ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances that has brought us now to the transfer of sovereignty, and the beginning of representa- tive government in Iraq. THE IRAQI INTERIM GOVERNMENT The first phase of the President’s plan takes effect on June 30, when the CPA will cease to exist, transferring all governmental authority to the Iraqi interim gov- ernment. This interim government was formed through a process of wide-ranging consultation with Iraqis, including political leaders, religious and tribal leaders, and civic associations. The process was led by Ambassador Lakhdar Brahirni, Special Adviser on Iraq to the Secretary General of the United Nations, working in con- sultation with the CPA and the Iraqi Governing Council. The Iraqi interim government consists of a President, two Deputy Presidents, and a Prime Minister leading a Council of Ministers. The new government will also in- clude an interim national council and a judicial authority. The interim national council will be chosen by a national conference, to be held in July, involving at least a thousand Iraqis from across Iraq, and representing every province in the country, as well as various political parties, tribal leaders, trade and professional unions, universities, and religious leaders. The composition of the Iraqi interim government is as follows: President of Iraq—Sheikh Ghazi Ajil Al-Yawar Deputy President of Iraq—Dr. Ibrahim Jaafari Deputy President of Iraq—Dr. Rowsch Shaways Prime Minister of Iraq—Dr. Ayad Allawi Deputy Prime Minister—Dr. Barham Salih Minister of Agriculture—Dr. Sawsan Ali Magid Al-Sharifi Minister of Communications—Dr. Mohammad Ali Al-Hakim Minister of Culture—Mr. Mufeed Mohammed Jawad al-Jaza’iri Minister of Defense—Mr. Hazem Sha’alan Minister of Displacement and Migration—Ms. Pascale Isho Warda Minister of Education—Professor Saini Al-Mudhaffar Minister of Electricity—Dr. Aiham Al-Sammarae Minister of Environment—Professor Mishkat Moumin Minister of Finance—Dr. Adel Abdul Mahdi Minister of Foreign Affairs—Mr. Hoshyar Mahmood Mohammed Zebari Minister of Health—Dr. Ala’adin Alwan Minister of Higher Education—Dr. Taher Khalaf Jabur Al-Bakaa Minister of Housing and Construction—Dr. Omar Al-Farouq Salim Al- Damluji Minister of Human Rights—Dr. Bakhtiar Amin Minister of Industry and Minerals—Dr. Hajem Al-Hasssani Minister of Interior—Mr. Falah al-Nakib Minister of Justice—Dr. Malik Dohan Al-Hassan Minister of Labor and Social Affairs—Ms. Leyla Abdul Latif Minister of Public Works—Ms. Nasreen Mustapha Berwari Minister of Oil—Mr. Thamir Abbas Ghadban Minister of Planning—Dr. Mehdi Al-Hafidh Minister of Science and Technology—Dr. Rashad Mandan Omar Minister of State for Provinces—Judge Wa’il Abdul al-Latif Minister of State for Women—Ms. Narmin Othman Minister of State—Dr. Kasim Daoud Minister of State—Dr. Mamu Farham Othman Minister of State—Mr. Adnan al-Janabi Minister of Trade—Mr. Mohammed Mostafa al-Jibouri Minister of Transportation—Mr. Louay Hatem Sultan Al-Erris VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 13 Minister of Water Resources—Dr. Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid Minister of Youth and Sports—Mr. Ali Fa’iq Al-Ghabban This is a remarkable group of individuals. They reflect a wide array of talents and backgrounds, and they are all committed to serving the interests of the Iraqi people and paving away for the first free elections in Iraqi history. They are doing so in full knowledge that they are risking their lives. I hope that the members of this committee will join me in pledging our full support, and our prayers, to the interim government as they prepare to assume ultimate authority in Iraq in less than 3 weeks. The Iraqi interim government will operate under the legal framework established by the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) and the TAL Annex. The President and the two Deputy Presidents will form a presidency of the State that represents the sovereignty of Iraq and oversees the higher affairs of the country. The presi- dency will have ceremonial functions and must unanimously approve orders issued by the Council of Ministers before they can become law. The Prime Minister will have day-to-day responsibility for the management of the government. Iraq’s ministers, who will oversee the ministries, will report to the Prime Minister. The government will be responsible for improving security, promot- ing economic development, and for the important process of preparing for democratic elections in January 2005. The Council of Ministers, with the unanimous approval of the presidency, may issue orders or decrees with the force of law. The interim national council can veto these orders or decrees by a two-thirds majority vote. As noted above, the national conference will choose an interim national council of 100 members. The interim national council will oversee the government and will have other substantive powers specified in the TAL Annex. It will be able to hear the views of citizens, advise and question the government on policy, form commit- tees and veto orders or decrees from the Council of Ministers by a two-thirds major- ity vote. It will also have the authority to appoint replacements to the presidency in the event that a member of the presidency dies or resigns, and it will have the right to approve the 2005 Iraqi national budget. As set out in the Transitional Administrative Law, the judicial authority is inde- pendent of the executive branch of government. The Federal judicial branch will in- clude a Federal Supreme Court, a Court of Cassation, Courts of Appeal and the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. In addition, there will be a Higher Juridical Council that will supervise the Federal judiciary and administer the budget. Some have argued that the Iraqi interim government will be a puppet of the United States, or will have only limited sovereignty. This is, quite simply, false, and ignores the fully sovereign powers of the interim government. For example, the Iraqi interim government that takes power on June 30 will have the power to conclude agreements in the areas of diplomatic relations and economic reconstruction, includ- ing Iraq’s sovereign debt. At the same time, the Iraqi people desire to limit the powers of an unelected gov- ernment. After 30 years of living under Saddam’s tyranny, it is perfectly under- standable that the Iraqi people would seek to limit the power of a government that is not yet fully accountable to the Iraqi electorate. And given our nation’s history of resistance to taxation without representation, Americans should easily under- stand why Iraqis want the interim government’s authority to be limited. Consequently, the Iraqi interim government will not be able to amend the TAL or to form agreements which permanently alter the destiny of Iraq. The Iraqi people have made clear that only an elected government should have such powers. The in- terim government will operate under rules defined in the TAL, which provides a his- toric bill of rights for the Iraqi people and a roadmap to a permanent constitution in 2005. THE IRAQI INTERIM GOVERNMENT AND THE MULTINATIONAL FORCE (MNF) Although this progress on the political track is impressive, the ability of the Iraqi people to achieve their aspirations will be heavily influence by the security situation in Iraq. As recent events have demonstrated, continuing attacks by insurgents, in- cluding members of Saddam’s security services, foreign fighters and terrorists, and illegal militias challenge all those who are working for a better Iraq. This is why both the new Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have publicly re- quested that the U.S.-led multinational forces remain in Iraq to help the Iraqi peo- ple complete their political transition and permit the U.N. and the international community to work to facilitate Iraq’s reconstruction. In a statement this week, Prime Minister Allawi said: VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 14 We are deeply grateful for the sacrifices that the forces of friendly coun- tries have made to help liberate us from one of the most abusive tyrants of modem times. . . . Until our forces are fully capable, we will continue to need support from our friends in the Multi-National Force—Iraq. We appreciate the under- standing and contributions of the international community, and we hope that additional international support will be forthcoming in response to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546. Similarly, addressing the U.N. Security Council earlier this month as that body was considering what became Resolution 1546, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said: [Since April] last year we have been working very hard to re-establish Iraq’s security, military, and police forces. However, we have yet to reach the stage of being able to maintain our own security and therefore the people of Iraq need and request the assist- ance of multinational forces to work closely with Iraqi forces to stabilize the situation. I stress that any premature departure of international troops would lead to chaos and the real possibility of a civil war in Iraq. This would cause a humanitarian crisis and provide a foothold for terrorists to launch their evil campaign in our country and beyond our borders. The con- tinued presence of the multinational force will help preserve Iraq’s unity, prevent regional intervention in our affairs and protect our borders at this critical stage of our reconstruction. The Iraqi Armed Forces will be a principal partner of the multinational force. The Iraqi National Guard—built on the present Civil Defense Corps—will be part of the Iraqi Army, which will be responsible to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. The objec- tives and functions of the multinational force after the transfer of sovereignty will remain as it has been, except that it will now coordinate with the sovereign Iraqi government through agreed consultative mechanisms. We will need to develop an effective and cooperative security partnership between the multinational force and the sovereign government of Iraq. The commander of the multinational force will work in partnership with the sovereign Government of Iraq in helping to provide security while recognizing and respecting its sovereignty. To that end, multinational force commanders will, at the invitation of the Iraqi Prime Minister, participate in discussions of the Ministerial Committee for National Security on the broad framework of security policy. The Iraqi security forces will be responsible to the appropriate Iraqi ministers. The multinational force will coordi- nate with them at all levels—national, regional, and local—in order to maintain unity of command of military operations in which Iraqi forces are engaged with the multinational force. While the Iraqi Government may withhold their forces from specific multinational force operations, units committed to joint operations. with the MNF will act under unified command. Iraqi leaders and the MNF will keep each other informed of their respective activities, consult regularly to ensure the effective allocation and use of personnel, resources and facilities, will share intelligence, and will refer issues up the respective chains of command where necessary. This will be a partnership— where both sides will bring their views to the table and agreements will be reached through mutual consent. We were able to fill in many details of this partnership during our talks last week with Prime Minister Allawi and his national security team. Those talks enabled us to gain insight into the new Iraqi government’s strategy to defeat its enemies as it prepares to assume sovereign authority and as our role changes from that of an occupying power responsible for maintaining security to helping the Iraqis defend themselves. We met with Prime Minister Allawi and his team for about 8 hours over the course of 3 days. The meetings were very cordial and productive. Based on Lieu- tenant General Petraeus’ ongoing work with the Iraqis, as well as on last week’s discussions, we achieved consensus on a way ahead, which was reflected in Prime Minister Allawi’s statement this past Sunday of Iraq’s national security strategy. A key element of these talks was the delineation of several mechanisms for the coordination of operations between Iraqi security forces and the multinational force. The Iraqis proposed the creation of a Joint Operating Center to coordinate oper- ations at the national level. It will fill the gap between the Joint Coordinating Cen- ters, which function at the regional and local levels, and the Ministerial Committee for National Security, which would deal with political-military issues at the strate- gic level. Participants in this body will include representatives of the Prime Min- ister, the Ministers of Defense and the Interior, the multinational force Commander and the Chief of the Office of Security Transition. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 15 The Iraqis also agreed that the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) will continue to operate as part of the multinational force authorized by UNSCRs 1511 and 1546, although they will want increased input and coordination in the ISG’s activities. We also agreed to establish a Joint Committee on Detainees. We agreed that rep- resentation in this committee should include representatives from the Iraqi govern- ment, the multinational force, and ambassadors from contributing countries. The Iraqis also requested help in creating a command center in the Prime Min- ister’s office. We agreed that we could re-allocate resources already committed to creating command centers at the Ministries of Defense and the Interior, and at the joint headquarters and could begin work quickly. General Sanchez noted that once the Iraqis have identified appropriate officers, we can embed them at lower-level multinational force headquarters. These embedded officers could be connected to the Prime Minister’s command center to provide situational awareness before lower- level Iraqi headquarters were up. and running. IRAQI SECURITY FORCES Of course, the long-term key to success in Iraq requires building indigenous Iraqi capacity and transitioning responsibilities from the coalition to Iraq. Nowhere is this more vital than in our efforts to build capable Iraqi security forces to achieve stabil- ity. Our plan was—and is—for Iraqi forces to develop strength, capability, and expe- rience with the help of the multinational force, with the MNF playing a crucial sup- porting role until the Iraqis can stand on their own. Current plans call for: • Iraqi Army: 27 battalions (35,000 soldiers) trained and on duty by Octo- ber. Most of their equipment is planned to be on hand by that time with vehicles continuing to be delivered through March 2005. • Iraqi National Guard: 45 battalions (40,000 soldiers) by September, with possible additional battalions beyond. Equipment is arriving rapidly, and the 45 battalions should be equipped by September. • Iraqi Police Service: 90,000 policemen, which is the current number on duty, fully trained by June 2005. Equipment is flowing in, and they are planned to be fully equipped by September. • Iraqi Border Patrol: 20,000 by July, to be fully equipped by September. • Facility Protection Service: There are currently 74,000 on duty, with the final number to be determined by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. These forces might also be fully equipped by September. During our meetings with Prime Minster Allawi, the Prime Minister conveyed a clear sense of priorities for the different elements of the Iraqi security forces. The first priority will be the Iraqi Intervention Force (previously called the Iraqi Na- tional Task Force). This force’s main mission will be to defeat enemy forces in urban areas, and will have a troop strength of 6,600 troops organized into three brigades. The second priority will be an Iraq Special Operations Force, consisting of a 764- troop Iraqi Counter Terrorist Force, similar to our special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams, and a supporting Commando Battalion, similar to a Ranger Battal- ion, comprised of 828 troops. The third priority will be the creation of an Iraqi National Guard, based on the current Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC), as part of the Iraq Army. While the planned size of the force will remain initially at 45 battalions, a command structure of 6 division headquarters and 18 brigade headquarters would be added. This would create an all-Iraqi chain of command for the ICDC battalions, through brigade and division headquarters, to the Army Chief of Staff and Defense Minister, and finally all the way up to the Prime Minister. The areas of operation of the six divisions could be aligned with the AOs of the multinational force’s six major subordinate commands. This would facilitate coordi- nation between Iraqi and international forces at the regional level. The fourth priority is the continued development of two divisions of the Regular Army. While the current mission statement of the regular army emphasizes defense against external conventional attack, the new government wants to be able to use it against the internal enemy, the real current threat to Iraq’s security. Addition- ally, although the Iraqis had considered adding two more divisions, they agreed that this is a lower priority that can be deferred to a later date. LESSONS LEARNED The spike in combat activity we witnessed in Iraq, and the mixed performance of Iraqi security forces we saw in response, have provided further lessons we can apply to increase the impact of what we are doing to recruit, train, equip and, most importantly, mentor Iraqi security forces. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 16 The first lesson is the need for stronger leaders in the security forces. We will build on the leaders whose units fought, and we will replace those whose units did not. We will integrate Iraqi officers with coalition forces and we will embed coalition officers with the Iraqi security forces. This arrangement provides liaison, which pro- duces mutual confidence, and it also helps us develop Iraqi leadership. Similarly, we need police liaisons and specialized trainers to get down to police stations around the country to provide confidence and set the example. Second, the Iraqi security forces need more and better equipment. We had not planned for them to be fully equipped at this point, and many police and ICDC units were outgunned in recent action. We are reexamining the equipment requirements. We have also incurred some delays in equipping the Iraqi security forces. Part of the delay has been caused by challenges in the contracting process, and those prob- lems finally seem to be fixed. We need to make up for lost time, but any further delay is unacceptable. Third, it is clear that the members of the security forces, most of whom are Iraqi patriots, need an Iraqi rallying point. They need to understand they report to an Iraqi chain of command, and that at the top of that chain of command is a lawfully constituted Iraqi government. The chain of command is being put in place now. A defense minister has been named, along with a commander in chief of the armed forces and a chief of staff. A new interior minister has also taken office. The rest of the chain needs to be filled, but Iraqis in the security forces can see today that there are Iraqis at the top. The greatest factor in the mixed performance of the security forces was an intan- gible: fear. The enemies of a democratic future for Iraq have so terrorized the cities of central Iraq that many members of the security forces doubt that they or their families can be protected from the retribution that may follow their participation in operations alongside the coalition. Until Iraqis are convinced that Saddam’s regime has been permanently and irreversibly removed, and until a long and ghastly part of their history is put to rest and overcome, that fear will remain. Convincing them of this truth—that Saddam and the Saddamists are finished—will continue to re- quire investments of our time and our resources and our precious men and women in uniform, to continue to build trust among the Iraqi people. That is why it is so important in this time of stress to show that our commitment to their freedom is rock-solid. This is also why it is inadvisable to set a hard deadline for the multinational force’s mandate in Iraq. Such a deadline would risk creating the impression amongst the great majority of moderate Iraqis who hope for a new Iraq that we were not committed to the long-term stability of Iraq. It would encourage the terror- ists and murderers from Saddam’s intelligence services to wait us out so that they could unleash a wave of violence in order to regain political power and begin their tyranny over the Iraqi people anew. Creating artificial deadlines for withdrawal will only serve to undermine our current mission in Iraq. It will put at risk the signifi- cant gains already made by the Iraqi people in the rebuilding of their nation, and will endanger the lives of American soldiers. THE ROLE OF NATO AND THE U.N. Contrary to assertions that we are in Iraq with a coalition that is just window dressing for unilateralism, the coalition’s mission to liberate and reconstruct Iraq has been an international effort from the start. This includes heavy NATO partici- pation, as 16 of our NATO allies currently have more than 19,000 troops deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom’s stability operations. Appropriately, British and Polish representatives participated in our meetings with Iraq’s national security leaders. Similarly, this administration has made a significant effort to involve the United Nations in the reconstruction of Iraq. The Coalition’s ongoing efforts in Iraq have repeatedly received the endorsement of the U.N. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483—passed May 22, 2003—supported the formation of the CPA and an Iraqi In- terim Administration. UNSCR 1500—passed August 14, 2003— recognized the es- tablishment of the Governing Council. UNSCR 1511—passed October 16, 2003—au- thorizes a multinational force under unified command. All three of these resolutions were unanimously endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. The administration has worked, closely with the U.N. Secretary General through- out the past year. Before his tragic murder by terrorists, U.N. envoy Sergio Viera de Mello was instrumental in establishing the Iraqi Governing Council. The new U.N. envoy, Lakdar Brahimi, has been invaluable in facilitating the creation of the Iraqi interim government. Since the tragic bombing of the U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad last August—which Zarqawi boasts was his doing and which was clearly VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 17 aimed at driving out the U.N.—security for the U.N. has been a major challenge. However, the U.N. representative for Security Coordination’s Office has been in Baghdad since mid-January, and a U.N. Election Commission headed by Carina Perelli has been in Iraq since April. On May 24, the U.S. and U.K. submitted a draft U.N. Security Council Resolution that defines U.S. and international responsibilities in Iraq. This resolution was passed unanimously on June 8 as UNSCR 1546. We look forward to the U.N. pro- viding election expertise and assistance in preparation for the election of the Iraqi transitional government by January 2005. We have also proposed a specific allot- ment of international forces falling under the unified command of the multinational force whose sole mission would be the protection of U.N. personnel and facilities in Iraq. This would permit the U.N. to expand their presence and activities within Iraq, something this administration has supported since Iraq’s liberation over a year ago. We look forward to the continued participation of these international organiza- tions in Iraq after the transition to Iraqi sovereignty. Many allies support an in- creased role by NATO in Iraq. Several have called for the passing of a new U.N. Security Council Resolution authorizing a NATO force presence, functional tasking, such as election support, ordnance disposal, the protection of U.N. personnel, or as- sisting in the equipping of Iraqi security forces. CONCLUSION My recent travels through Iraq, from my visit to Basra in the far south to Lake Dokan in Northern Iraq, as well our meetings with Prime Minister Allawi and his team, have convinced me that the Iraqi interim government is comprised of leaders who understand the magnitude of the task laid before them, but also recognize the necessity of compromise and sacrifice required to achieve a free and prosperous Iraq. More importantly, accompanying this realization of the hardships to come is an unflinching optimism on the part of the Iraqi people. In his statement Sunday, Dr. Allawi declared: The enemy we are fighting is truly evil. They have nothing to offer the Iraqi people except death and. destruction and the slaughter of innocents. Having suffered under tyranny for so many years, the Iraqi people are determined to establish a democratic government that provides freedom and equal rights for all its citizens. We are prepared to fight and, if necessary, die for that cause. We are confident that we will prevail. One Iraqi, identified only as Omar, reflected recently on the assassination of the President of the Iraqi Governing Council, Izzedine Salim, on his Web site: ‘‘Are we sad?’’ he wrote in his Web log. ‘‘Yes of course, but we’re absolutely not discouraged because we know our enemies and we decided to go in this battle to the end. . . . I’ve tasted freedom, my friends, and I’d rather die fighting to preserve my freedom before I find myself trapped in another nightmare of blood and oppression.’’ Like Omar, brave young Americans in Iraq are committed as well and we are as a Nation. We remain cautiously optimistic, despite the daily death and violence caused by the evil enemy Prime Minister Allawi described. Our own history attests to the fact that democracy can be a hard-won prize. But we also know that the goal is worth the fight. Chairman WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I am pleased to advise you that General Casey, who appeared before this commit- tee in that very seat yesterday was confirmed by the Senate last night. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. That is very nice news. Thank you. Chairman WARNER. I also advised my colleagues that the leader- ship, bipartisan leadership agreed to let this committee go to con- ference immediately. Secretary Armitage. STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD L. ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE Secretary ARMITAGE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Levin, thank you for the opportunity this morning. At one point in my professional life I spent a good deal of time before this committee, so it is nice to be VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 18 home. But having had that experience in the past, I realize that your patience is in inverse proportion to my opening statement, so I am here to try to answer questions that you have. That is my job and I’ll look forward to the opportunity. [The prepared statement of Secretary Armitage follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. RICHARD L. ARMITAGE Mr. Chairman, Senator Levin, members of the committee, it is always an honor to engage with you in a dialogue about the foreign policy challenges and opportuni- ties facing our Nation. The transition to sovereignty and democracy in Iraq is the pivotal opportunity and challenge for our Nation at the moment, so I especially ap- preciate the chance to discuss this subject with you today. In 5 days, the world will witness an historic moment for the Iraqi people emerging from three decades of brutal dictatorship. The Iraqi interim government, led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, will assume full sovereign authority over Iraq and the Coalition Provisional Authority will dissolve. The Department of State will assume the lead in managing and representing U.S. foreign policy interests to a sovereign Iraqi government. Our first Ambassador to the new Iraq, John Negroponte, is emi- nently qualified for this task. We have selected a very capable Deputy Chief of Mis- sion in Jim Jeffrey, who is leading our mission advance team in Baghdad. Nearly all of the 140 State Department 1-year tour positions for the Mission in Baghdad have been filled, and of this number, 35 are already in Iraq, joining 135 other United States Government (USG) personnel who are assisting the U.S. Mis- sion in a temporary capacity. Over 70 others are in process, including many who are enroute to Baghdad. There will also be some 50 personnel on teams in many of the provinces. A number of Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) staff will stay on for a period to ensure continuity of operations. Combined with personnel from other U.S. Government agencies, the U.S. Mission will total approximately 1,600 people under Chief of Mission authority: approximately 1,000 Americans and 600 Iraqis. The Embassy will also have as many as 400 military personnel at the Em- bassy under MNF–I command. Our security upgrades for our temporary chancery are proceeding on schedule and will be ready by July 1. We have also chosen a site for a permanent embassy. Of course, the Department of Defense (DOD) will also continue to support a siz- able force in Iraq after June 30. An Interagency Transition Planning Team, headed by Ambassador Frank Ricciardone and General Mick Kicklighter, have worked tire- lessly to ensure that our two agencies are fully coordinated in achieving U.S. objec- tives and have successfully reached agreement on how our roles, missions, re- sources, responsibilities, and authorities will complement and support each other. Last week, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and I signed two Memoranda of Agreement between our respective agencies on the provision of security and support for the U.S. Mission. We count this as a major step forward in preparation for the opening of the U.S. Mission. Our security preparations continue; we have 51 Diplomatic Secu- rity staff in Iraq implementing measures to protect our staff, plus a Marine Security Guard detachment of 14. A total of 45 Diplomatic Security personnel will perma- nently serve the mission. As for funding the U.S. Mission, we have $477 million to stand up and operate the U.S. mission for the remainder of fiscal year 2004. This funding is available from CPA’s fourth quarter operating budget, the 1 percent transfer of Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Funds (IRRF) available under the law, and the funding directly appropriated to the Department of State from the fiscal year 2003 supplemental ap- propriation. We are working with CPA and DOD to develop fiscal year 2005 require- ments. Our rough estimate of fiscal year 2005 operating costs for the new mission amount to approximately $1 billion, excluding the capital facility costs for a new em- bassy compound and the Program Contracting Office (PCO). The largest cost compo- nents are logistics support and security contracts that are being managed by DOD. DOD will continue to cover these logistics support and security costs in fiscal year 2005 until Ambassador Negroponte and his team have time to assess the actual needs and provide an estimate we can include in a 2005 supplemental request. Until supplemental funds are provided, the Department plans to meet the remaining oper- ating requirements through funds requested by the Department in the fiscal year 2005 budget, as well as any funds carried over from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2004. Ultimately, our success in Iraq will be the most persuasive proof of our good in- tentions. Even in light of shifting events on the ground, our objective remains con- stant and unchanged: we must succeed in helping Iraq to become a stable and suc- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 19 cessful independent state with a democratic, representative government and the seeds for a strong economy. As the press is fond of pointing out, we face huge chal- lenges in achieving that objective. But we have come a long way, and we are com- mitted to continuing, in partnership with the Iraqi government, to make progress on the political, economic, and security fronts. So allow me to turn now to the ‘‘way ahead’’. . . The United States and coalition countries have spent more than a year preparing Iraq for this transition by helping Iraqis build institutions for a functioning, demo- cratic political system not just at the national level, but also at the provincial and local levels and define the political transition process that will lead them a new con- stitution and formation of a new government based on that constitution. First, we have provided the training, advice, equipment, and facilities to help establish and strengthen local, regional, and national governing institutions. Indeed, as of our last count, there are 18 governorate councils, 111 district councils, 296 city and sub-dis- trict councils, and 695 neighborhood councils. Over 13,000 democracy dialogue ac- tivities have taken place nationwide, educating Iraqis about democratic principles and the political transition. At the national level, as CPA has announced, all of Iraq’s ministries have now been turned over to Iraqis. We will continue to offer to Iraq some 160 liaison officers to Iraqi Ministries after the transition. For the three decades before liberation, government institutions existed only to serve the whims and preserve the power of Saddam and his cohorts. Today, Iraqis now have the opportunity to establish responsible public administration nationwide. They are seizing this opportunity. Our commitment to strengthening Iraqi public in- stitutions will not end when we hand power to the new government next week. Iraq has adopted clearly defined principles and targets for the national govern- ment in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which will be the governing framework after June 30 and we would expect it to remain in force until a constitu- tionally-based, elected government takes office. On June 1, the Governing Council, in its last act before dissolving itself, adopted the Annex to the TAL that reflected the results of the extensive consultations by U.N. Special Advisor Lakhdar Brahimi with Iraqis from across Iraq’s diverse society. Based on these documents, the Iraqi interim government, led by Prime Minister (PM) Ayad Allawi and President Ghazi al-Yawar, is in place and has already begun to demonstrate leadership and strength. We believe that the Iraqi interim govern- ment is particularly notable for its competence, experience, and diversity—profes- sional, geographically, and politically. Let me note, for example, that nearly two- thirds of the cabinet ministers have doctorates, and that a preponderance of min- isters have not served previously as ministers or members of the Iraqi Governing Council. All Iraqi Ministries have now been turned over and are being run by their respective Iraqi Ministers. PM Allawi will also be able to draw on the wisdom and advice of a national coun- cil that will be selected at a national conference in Baghdad next month. This coun- cil will serve an important advisory function; will be a forum to promote national dialog and consensus; and, will have the authority of oversee the implementation of laws, as well as the power to veto executive orders by a two-thirds majority. Even though the IIG will not assume full power until next Wednesday, Mr. Allawi, President Yawer and the IIG have already been hard at work, demonstrat- ing their leadership by tackling difficult issues. We consulted closely with him dur- ing the past month, including during negotiations for Security Council Resolution 1546 and on post-transition security arrangements. He has staked out firm positions on security and detainee issues, and at times has been critical of us. This is positive, setting the stage for a constructive partnership between our two countries as Iraq enters the next phase of its transition. President Yawar led Iraq’s delegation to the G–8 Sea Island Summit, meeting foreign leaders, including President Bush, for the first time. We welcome these important developments. The State Department has been working hard to live up to our side of the part- nership. We worked assiduously with PM Allawi and the Iraqi interim government, our Security Council partners and our friends and allies to secure a resolution that supports the newly-formed named government and paves the way to the June 30 transition and beyond. UNSC resolution 1546 endorses the affiliation of the sov- ereign Iraqi interim government and its assumption of full responsibility and au- thority on June 30, endorses the timetable for Iraq’s political transition, recognizes the dissolution of the CPA, establishes a framework for continuing security oper- ations, encourages international support for security and reconstruction, and defines a robust U.N. role in Iraq, particularly by assisting in preparations for elections. The resolution was adopted unanimously, and we think it represents a renewed international consensus on the way forward in Iraq. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 20 Mr. Allawi’s government will face enormous challenges. As he has described, en- suring Iraq’s security by confronting violent elements, preparing for elections, pro- moting Iraq’s reconstruction, and economic development will be his government’s top priorities. None of these tasks will be easy. On elections, the U.N. election team dispatched to Iraq has already done tremen- dous work in laying the groundwork. Based on a nationwide nomination process, an Independent Election Commission of nonpartisan Iraqis was established—on sched- ule. The U.N., Iraqis, and the CPA worked together closely to make the nomination and selection process as inclusive and transparent as possible. Six hundred thou- sand nomination forms were distributed throughout the country. Over a thousand nominations were received. U.N. elections experts reviewed the nominations care- fully and interviewed the most promising candidates. The final slate was approved without change by the Iraqi Governing Council. This commission will soon turn to the task of enacting the regulations governing elections and political parties that are fundamental to these preparations. Among its other duties are developing and maintaining voter rolls, registering candidates and political parties, accrediting observers, and certifying the results. Iraqi elections will be a complex undertaking and the Independent Election Committee will need the strong support of the international community and the expertise of the U.N. to meet the January 2005 deadline. Security will continue to be the seminal challenge for the sovereign Iraqi govern- ment. Without a secure environment in Iraq, progress in other areas, economic de- velopment and elections, will be extremely difficult—as the events of recent months has shown. PM Allawi has taken an aggressive stand on security, committing the Iraqi interim government to develop as quickly as possible the capacity of Iraqi se- curity forces to confront violent extremists. To this end, he has begun to organize command structures of his security services, establish special anti-insurgent force, and form a ministerial committee to guide Iraq’s security policy. He has promised: ‘‘Our capabilities will enable us to take necessary action against forces of evil.’’ Until that is possible, Iraqi authorities have been clear—Iraq needs and welcomes the continued efforts by the multinational force to ensure security in Iraq. PM Allawi has reiterated the Iraqi government’s view in his letter to the U.N. Security Council. The United States is committed to establishing an effective and cooperative partnership with Iraq as well as the coordination mechanisms between the MNF and the Iraqi interim government to reach agreement on the full range of fun- damental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive oper- ations. This will be one of Ambassador Negroponte’s first priorities. We are also working with the Iraqi government on the disposition of detainees currently held by the multinational force. As a matter of principle, we believe the Iraqi government should assume responsibility for Iraqi prisoners held on Iraqi soil and we want them to be able to move forward on their efforts to bring the criminals of the former regime to justice. However, as Iraqi President al-Yawar noted, Iraq must ensure that it has the capacity to assume custody of detainees who continue to present criminal and security threats. We will continue to work with the IIG to address that issue in a way that is consistent with our mutual security concerns and allows Iraqis to pursue justice. To promote the long-term effectiveness of Iraqi security forces, we will continue to recruit and train forces to eventually take responsibility for security. After June 30, support for the organizing, equipping, and training of Iraqi security forces will be under DOD authority, with the policy guidance of the Chief of Mission. I, would like to express our confidence in Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who will be leading the effort to train and equip the Iraqi security forces. He has already dem- onstrated, in his command of the 101st Airborne, a high degree of success and skill in this environment, and we look forward to working with him. As for the economy, CPA has reported progress towards the goal of a healthy, prosperous economy. Wheat production in the fertile central-south region is up by 60 percent. We have a 30-day buffer of food stocks in country. Oil production has begun to recover from the recent attacks. Roughly 1.3 million barrels were produced on June 23. We estimate that oil production in June will average roughly 2 million barrels per day and the new Minister of Oil is aiming to boost production further, to 2.8 million barrels per day, by the end of 2004. More than 5 million children are back in school, many of them vaccinated for the first time. Iraq has a stable, unified currency for the first time since 1991, and an independent Central Bank for the first time in its history. Finally, the new Iraqi government and the U.S. are focused on the key goal of new job creation. As our assistance program continues to grow on the ground and expand, we expect to be able to report the creation of many new jobs created as a direct result of our reconstruction efforts in Iraq. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 21 A major part of the solution to Iraq’s economic problems will come from the pri- vate sector. Iraq has already begun taking steps during CPA’s tenure to create a welcoming environment for business. The Foreign Investment Law and Companies Law provide a progressive, equitable, and streamlined regulatory structure for com- mercial ventures to contribute to rebuilding Iraq. Unleashing the spirit of Iraqi and international entrepreneurship in Iraq will help accelerate reconstruction and pro- vide critically needed jobs and expertise to Iraqis. In February 2004, Iraq was grant- ed observer status to the World Trade Organization. This will facilitate Iraq’s re- integration into the regional and global economies, which the U.S. stands ready to assist on multiple levels, including working closely with the IIG and our global part- ners to address the substantial debt burden left behind by Saddam’s misrule. Next week Ambassador Negroponte will take the reins of a large Embassy, with a highly experienced Deputy Chief of Mission and an eager country team. There will be more than 130,000 U.S. troops in the country, working alongside the forces of at least 32 other nations, including Iraq. When the Ambassador calls on the Iraqi leadership, he will meet with the Prime Minister and President of a sovereign na- tion. There will be much to accomplish, of course. The country will still be immersed in all the uncertainty of a dramatic transition: a large national conference will be convened, elections will be held; a constitution will be drafted; and economic recon- struction will continue. The difficulty of these tasks will be compounded by the som- ber reality we face on the security front: violent extremists, including foreign terror- ists affiliated with the al Qaeda network, will seek to inflict senseless brutality in an effort to derail Iraq’s recovery. Our commitment to a strategy of success will con- tinue unabated, and we will continue to define success as a democratic and pros- perous Iraq, at peace within itself and with its neighbors. I appreciate the support this committee already has given the Department of State in reaching for that suc- cess, and I look forward to discussing our strategy with you today. Senator LEVIN. That is a great witness. Chairman WARNER. Thank you for that very well informed open- ing statement. [Laughter.] All right, General. Pick up the ball. STATEMENT OF GEN. RICHARD B. MYERS, USAF, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF General MYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am going to be kind of in the middle between these two gentlemen over on the right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Levin, and members of the committee for your continuing support of our men and women in uniform, par- ticularly at this critical time, including your efforts leading to the passage of the 2005 Defense Authorization Bill. We thank you very much. In my view, this is an historic moment. Iraq becomes a fully sov- ereign nation next week, an important milestone on a clear path towards democracy and freedom. We are very encouraged by Prime Minister Allawi’s words and his actions. As Secretary Wolfowitz said, he is committed to an effective partnership between Iraqi’s se- curity forces and the multinational forces and has forcefully and publicly expressed his gratitude to the coalition for their sacrifices to help liberate the people of Iraq. Mr. Allawi wants the coalition to stay and help. The Iraqi government wants the coalition to stay and help, and they understand that we are going to be partners in the effort to promote security in Iraq and allow for a freely elected government. The new interim government has been very aggressive in estab- lishing the organizations and the processes required to make that partnership work effectively. Under U.N. Security Council Resolu- tions 1511 and 1546, the coalition has the authority and the protec- tion we need to stay and carry out this important phase of our mis- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 22 sion. This clearly is a pivotal moment for Iraq, and I believe the violent extremists who want Iraq to fail understand that very well. I am sure you all remember the Zarqawi letter that we picked up in January. In it, he said that the insurgents were frustrated, that they were failing in this race against time, and that they would have to resort to even more brutal and destructive measures to stop the march of freedom. The violence of the last few months shows that the insurgents are afraid their time is running out. They know that they have a lot to lose. I expect the increased violence against the coalition and against Iraqi citizens will continue past the June 30 transfer of sov- ereignty. But despite these challenges, I believe that we are on the right path helping Iraqis become fully capable of providing for their own security. With the help of the coalition, Iraqi security forces are becoming better equipped, better trained, and better led. Next week they will have absolutely no doubt they are fighting for their own country. That is an enormous step forward. Our vision for Iraq’s future remains fixed. The dedication and professionalism of our service men and women remains fixed. The resolve of the American people and that of our allies must also re- main fixed. That resolve is key to our success and key to the mo- rale of our fighting men and women. Your steadfast support has been and is also very crucial, so I thank you again for your contin- ued support. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, General. The col- leagues will now proceed to our first round of 6 minutes each, and may I most respectfully ask the colleagues the following. I went back to look at some of the records of our previous hearings and in certain instances where questions are asked by Senators, the witnesses simply have not been given the opportunity to fully re- spond to the question. As such, the record becomes of less value to those who look to these proceedings for answers. So I urge all Sen- ators in propounding their questions to respect the right of the wit- ness to have a reasonable amount of time in which to answer the question. I will start off with you, Secretary Wolfowitz. I thought your opening statement and your trip indicated what I perceive as a ray of optimism. All of us are agreed on one thing, and that is as soon and the sooner the Iraqi government-to-be and the Iraqi people swing behind their own cause to seek freedom, it’s for the better. Now, we focus so much on the violence in the streets as occa- sioned by weapons and fighting. But there is another violence out there, and that is the violence coming largely from beyond the bor- ders of Iraq in the form of the media distorting the actual gains that have been made, distorting the views of the people who seek to have freedom. What are we doing, particularly as this new gov- ernment takes over, to help the government maintain a freedom of the press, but at the same time get their story out such that their new leadership can be better understood by the people and by the world? The gains that are being made by the courage of many, not just the soldiers and the coalition forces, but some of the Iraqi peo- ple, most of the Iraqi people can be recognized? The sooner that comes to play the sooner we can expect to see a downturn in this violence. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 23 Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It is a critically important question, and everyone recognizes that this battle is in no small measure an in- formation battle. The enemy is actually very skilled at shaping the story, getting its story out, and running lies faster than the truth, and that is part of the challenge here. But the very fact of an Iraqi government assuming sovereignty is a huge step forward in this battle, because we will no longer be burdened with the considerable weighty label of being an occupying power. That has hurt us badly. It is one of the factors contributing to some of those statistics that Senator Levin quoted at the begin- ning. Iraqis wanted to be liberated. They did not want to be occu- pied, and that label hurts us. We will also be helped by the fact that Iraqis will be up in the— you can already see it. The fact that the Prime Minister is the spokesman is a huge step forward. The fact that the Prime Min- ister is a man that goes and visits sites where the enemy has sabo- taged oil or goes into the—— Chairman WARNER. I agree on that, but what are we doing to im- plement the delivery of that message in a free and open way to those people? Time and time again in our hearings we have empha- sized the need to help facilitate the distribution, the accurate facts, not just the distortions that come from abroad. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator, we are working on it. We are providing resources to them to enable them to stand up to this TV network, Al-Iraqia, which seems to have a pretty good viewership. I think, again, it is going to be an improvement the more the Iraqis shape the content of it, because they know much better what kind of messages to get out. We have Al-Hura, and Secretary Armitage can talk about that. One last thing before I turn it over to him. Robert Kaplan had a column in the Wall Street Journal recently, I will be happy to put it in the record, where he comments on the fact that we are fight- ing an information-age war with industrial-age information proce- dures. I am struck, and this committee has seen it on any number of issues that you look into. We have a system that moves informa- tion very slowly up to the top, sometimes for good reasons of pro- tecting the rights of people who might be accused, sometimes just because we are very careful, but the enemy is not. Chairman WARNER. All right. Let me proceed. Basically the same question to you, Mr. Secretary. You must recognize the importance, the force multiplier of getting a good, positive message out and in- spiring the Iraqi people into greater measure of courage. Also, Ambassador Bremer, who has done a tough job as well as anyone can do it, stepped down. What will be the differences be- tween the evolution of Bremer going down, retiring, and Negroponte stepping up as the new Ambassador? How will it be different, and how have you designed this new charter and em- bassy to meet this increasing challenge of the insurgency in the streets? Secretary ARMITAGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Paul indi- cated, the first thing and the most important thing we are going to do is be less visible, and that is already started. That less visi- bility, I hate to quote polls, but the dreadful polls that Senator Levin correctly quoted are offset today by the polls that show 68 VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 24 to 73 percent of the Iraqi people have a favorable opinion of this interim government. The word is starting to get out, and I think it is more credible in Iraq because they are words that are coming out of Iraqi mouths. When John Negroponte arrives 1 July in Baghdad, he is not going to be Jerry Bremer 2. He is going to be an Ambassador and will be the first American Ambassador to a free Iraq. He will join 49 other embassies who have Ambassadors. Now, he will be an Ambassador with a lot of money in his pocket, thanks to the U.S. Congress and the generosity of the American people. He will have a very good and close relationship with General George Casey, so he will be an Ambassador that has a lot of swag, but he will be an Ambassador. It is an important concept, and that is the first point we are trying to get out to the Iraqi people. CPA is over; we are in. In our stuffing for the new embassy, sir, we have budgeted for 34 people to be involved with the press, as press training, press ad- vising. Obviously U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will have a rather major role in continuing press training. There will be upgrades necessary for some of the broadcast systems of Iraq. We have our own, as Paul indicated, with Al-Hura, and Al- Iraqia is doing fairly well these days. So that part of that corner has been turned, but it has been turned more because Iraqis are talking and we are not. General MYERS. Chairman, on the security part, what we are doing specifically is we are going to replace Mark Kimmitt, who has been the spokesman along with Dan Senor on the security side and generally on CPA issues. On the security side, we are going to replace General Kimmitt with another General, but his role is not to be out in front of the press. As Secretary Armitage said, we want Iraqis speaking, so his role will be more in mentorship and in mak- ing sure that the message gets out to U.S. troops that needs to get out internally and back here to the States, but not in a very public way. So we are going to keep the same apparatus, but we are going to put a different face on that apparatus. Chairman WARNER. Thank you. While it is not the traditional status of forces agreement that we had hoped for protection of our troops from any prosecution for their action, you mentioned in your opening statement that in your professional judgement the current structure and framework is adequate to fully protect our forces. General MYERS. Mr. Chairman, I do, through a multiplicity of means, if you will. First of all, the U.N. Security Council Resolution recently passed is one of those guarantees. The CPA Order 17, which is being staffed finally and will be in effect, will have effect throughout this interim government, is also one of those means, and so we feel that our forces are protected. Chairman WARNER. That is reassuring. Second, General Casey was here yesterday. Quite appropriately in response to an impor- tant question he said any planner would be looking at the ability to augment our force level if the on-scene commanders were to send back the message ‘‘we need more forces.’’ His message is very clear, but it has nevertheless reverberated out there and been sort of viewed by some as the first call for additional force structure. Can you address what Casey stated, the accuracy of it, and your own VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 25 posture with regard to the adequacy of the current force level in the face of increasing and perhaps better coordinated violence and what the future portends? General MYERS. My understanding of General Casey’s comment is that he was describing a prudent planning process that any of us would go through to make sure that we could respond if the field commanders engaged in a serious effort wanted more forces to prosecute that effort. I must say that goes on continuously. We have to look around corners. If we do not look around corners then we cannot respond to the needs of our combatant commanders. Chairman WARNER. That is accurate and that is prudent. As you and I know from our experiences, that should and always is being done in operations of this nature. But it is now being translated as the first indication of perhaps a call for additional forces. General MYERS. I have not talked to General Casey about this, but in my latest conversations with General Abizaid, there is no in- dication that he needs more forces for the kind of conflict we are seeing right now. Let me try to describe this. This is not traditional warfare where you can count numbers as capability. There is a conventional ele- ment of this. We saw that yesterday as a matter of fact where there were some conventional-like attacks, but small. Predomi- nantly what is the most effective attack for the terrorist are terror- type attacks where individuals attack the infrastructure, where in- dividuals who want to commit suicide take a vehicle-borne impro- vised explosive device next to police stations or governors’ offices or the marketplace and then blow them up. More forces are not necessarily going to help in that case. I think that what we see here is this thought that we are in some sort of conventional war when we are in probably the epitome of what would be asymmetric warfare. So the 141,000 forces that the U.S. has in there, the 22,000 coalition forces, to this point General Abizaid and his commanders think are adequate to this task. The other part of that, of course, is we have a large Iraqi force structure that continues to get better in their training, equipping, and lead- ership. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Mr. Chairman, let me also emphasize what General Myers said about the flexibility to respond, because we know the enemy is really targeting the coming weeks and months. They are targeting the new government as it stands up. Zarqawi has openly, in a typically overheated rhetoric, threatened Allawi personally. We know they would like nothing more than to shape the minds of Iraqis and Americans that this new government is a failure, and we know they are going to try to do everything that they can to destabilize the country leading to elections at the end of this year. So this is not something you can plan precisely against because you are dealing with a thinking, very active, evil enemy; therefore, we do need the flexibility that General Casey and General Myers alluded to be able to apply more forces if we need more forces. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much. Senator Levin. Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Myers, Gen- eral Casey testified that the CPA order, which provides immunity from the Iraqi legal process for our troops, must be amended to ex- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 26 tend beyond June 30. I have two questions. One, do you agree? Two, would any amendment or any order of the CPA be binding on the new sovereign government? General MYERS. Senator Levin, my understanding is that the order is being restaffed and that will be finished either today or to- morrow. Secretary ARMITAGE. The order is finished today. It has gone out to Baghdad, sir. They want to obviously make sure that the new government sees it and is not in opposition to it. There have been discussions continually about it, but they will not sign off on it. That is not what their role will be. Senator LEVIN. Would the new sovereign government have the power to rescind that order? Secretary ARMITAGE. The new sovereign government in effect would, if they are sovereign, they could ask us to leave, and we would have to leave. But the combination of the CPA Order 17 as amended and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 is felt by all to give us sufficient protections. Senator LEVIN. My question though is, would the new sovereign government have the power to rescind that order? General MYERS. My understanding is that—— Senator LEVIN. Let me just get Secretary Armitage’s quick an- swer on that. General MYERS. Okay. Secretary ARMITAGE. I want to think about it. I want to get the right answer rather than the quick answer. Senator LEVIN. Alright. Well, since we have 6 minutes, give us your thoughts perhaps later after you have had a chance to think about it. Chairman WARNER. Excuse me. General Myers did wish to—— General MYERS. I have—my understanding—— Senator LEVIN. Sure. General MYERS. My understanding of this issue is that the CPA orders cannot be repealed or modified until Iraq’s permanent gov- ernment is in place to enact legislation, so they stay effective through that period. Senator LEVIN. So during this 6-month period, or whatever the period is before the elections are held and there is an elected gov- ernment, what you are saying is that we have a legal opinion that the interim government cannot rescind that order. Is that your un- derstanding? General MYERS. Yes, sir. That is my understanding. Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Would you provide that opinion for the record? General MYERS. Yes, sir. [The information referred to follows:] The Iraqi interim government has the authority to amend CPA orders that only relate to appointments, the use of the Iraqi Armed Forces, and approval of certain international agreements. Outside of these three areas, CPA orders cannot be amended until elections are held and the Iraqi Transitional Government is in place. After elections, CPA orders may be amended consistent with Article 26 of the Tran- sitional Administrative Law. Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Secretary Armitage, have we specifi- cally asked Muslim nations to provide troops and police? VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 27 Secretary ARMITAGE. Or police? Senator LEVIN. Troops or police. Secretary ARMITAGE. We have had discussions with Bangladesh and Pakistan about this, as has the interim government of Iraq with at least Pakistan. We have begun discussions with 13 other nations, some of whom are Muslim, about providing security for the U.N. facilities, which was discussed in U.N. Security Council Reso- lution 1546. Prime Minister Allawi said to your colleagues the other day when Senator Daschle’s delegation visited him that he would be working with the neighbors. He thinks it may be about time to try to introduce them. Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Secretary Wolfowitz, or anybody, what is the status of the indictment against Sadr? Also, have the officials of the interim government invited Sadr to participate in the national congress? Does that indictment still stand? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It definitely still stands. I do not know about your second question. Secretary ARMITAGE. I do not either, but even Prime Minister Allawi, I think, in the conversation with Mr. Daschle, said that Sadr had to face jurisprudence. Senator LEVIN. Had not been invited to participate in the—— Secretary ARMITAGE. I do not know the answer to the second part. I was responding to the first part. Senator LEVIN. Okay. Apparently Prime Minister Allawi has in- dicated that the government is considering the imposition of a state of emergency that could include a curfew and a ban on public dem- onstrations. But just talking about the curfew, since we presum- ably would have to enforce it, have we talked to him about that and do we support the imposition of a curfew? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Actually we have the power to impose cur- fews as we see them as necessity in particular places. This is an example of exactly the kind of thing that this consultative mecha- nism is designed to work out common policy on. We have been doing this for 21⁄2 years really in Afghanistan with Karzai. He sometimes wants to do things that we think are imprudent. We tell him frequently; if you do it, you better have the capability to do it yourself, because we are not obligated to enforce things that we do not think are appropriate. Senator LEVIN. Is that true with Allawi too? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. That, I think it is even—let me put it this way. We have better-developed mechanisms already with Allawi than we have after 2 years in Afghanistan. It will work well. We have common purposes. He is not talking about blanket national martial law procedures with extreme measures. He is basically talking about giving Iraqi police and Iraqi forces the authorities that we already have under Resolution 1546. Senator LEVIN. Did we discuss that issue specifically with Allawi as to what—before his statement was made about imposing a cur- few, do you know? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It did not come up in our talks. Senator LEVIN. Secretary Wolfowitz, you have cited both here, and I believe recently at the House Armed Services Committee, as evidence of cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda, evidence in a VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 28 sealed indictment of Osama bin Laden in 1998. Why do you con- tinue to cite that as evidence of a relationship? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It is one of many pieces of evidence that suggest that there was contact of some significance between these two organizations. Senator LEVIN. But you are aware of the fact that that indict- ment has been modified to include that statement? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I am also aware that the cooperating wit- ness who provided the basis for that indictment was reinterviewed as recently as a year ago and reaffirmed the story, and he is a man who is described even by Richard Clarke as one of the keys to our understanding of al Qaeda. Senator LEVIN. To my question though, are you aware that the indictment has been modified to exclude that reference? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. The subsequent open indictment of bin Laden did not include that. That is right, after the 1998 embassy bombings. Senator LEVIN. My question is why do you continue then to cite an indictment which has been modified to exclude the reference that you continue to make? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Because I believe that was a statement made by an important source on al Qaeda that was considered suf- ficiently credible and valid to be included in a very serious Federal proceeding. Senator LEVIN. My time is up. Thank you. Chairman WARNER. Senator McCain. Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the wit- nesses for being here today and I do think we have some good news in this poll that the Iraqi people are now strongly supporting their new leadership. This provides us with an opportunity, a window of opportunity, and I wonder if the witnesses agree that the next few months are absolutely critical in this whole scenario. Would you agree, Secretary Armitage? Secretary ARMITAGE. Of course, Senator. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, we are also in a situation, including the events yesterday, of a degree of sophistication and level of, if you want to call it, terrorist attacks, which are quite re- markable, both in their efficiency and in their number of casual- ties. Would you agree? Secretary ARMITAGE. Yes, I do. Senator MCCAIN. So we are not where we had envisioned we would be after our significant military victory, right? Secretary ARMITAGE. That is correct, Senator. Senator MCCAIN. What went wrong? Secretary ARMITAGE. We have spoken to this. One, we underesti- mated the enemy and we did not destroy him in our initial attack. He melted away, and we are seeing him again. That is number one. Number two, we did not reckon correctly the extent to which Iraq had become a criminal society under the attempts to evade sanc- tions and everything else that had happened, particularly in the last 12 years. Number three, we underestimated the degree to which this enemy had a central nervous system. The attacks the other day show that it does have a central nervous system. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 29 Senator MCCAIN. Do you agree that we did not have sufficient troops? Secretary ARMITAGE. No, I do not, Senator. Senator MCCAIN. You do not agree? I wonder why not. Secretary ARMITAGE. I am in a department who defers to the military judgement on what is ‘‘sufficient troops.’’ Any views of this that we had during the run-up to the war were expressed fully and we felt we got our full say. Senator MCCAIN. Which was? Secretary ARMITAGE. Which was we want to make sure we had sufficient force and sufficient points of entry to defeat this enemy, and we were convinced that we did. Senator MCCAIN. We had a sufficient number of troops, Sec- retary Wolfowitz? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. With respect to the issue that Secretary Armitage correctly identified, which is this enemy did not surren- der on April 9, Saddam continued to fight until he was captured; Zarqawi continues to fight until this day; the killers that supported his regime for 35 years continue to fight. There was no surrender. There has not been yet. Senator MCCAIN. So we did not—it is interesting that—I asked about the troop question to you. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I am trying to answer it. Senator MCCAIN. It is interesting. Things did not turn out as we had anticipated they would, yet we did not do anything wrong. That is very interesting. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator, I—— Senator MCCAIN. Go ahead. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Let me say three points. Number one, I do not believe and our commanders do not believe that more troops would have enabled us to find these people where they were hiding. The problem has been finding them. They are very good at hiding. That has been the problem. Number two, there has been a concern, and part of our problem is this appearance of an occupation force, that a much bigger force would have—— Senator MCCAIN. So, which brings us to—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Third, if I can agree with you for a mo- ment, it probably is the case that if we had had more American troops down in the Najaf Karbala area over the last period of time we are talking about, 6 or 8 months, Mr. Sadr might not have got- ten out of control the way he did. So that is one place where it might have made a difference. Senator MCCAIN. Which brings us to Fallujah. We agreed that somehow after announcing that we would go in and attack and cap- ture those individuals who killed and dismembered the bodies of four American citizens. We then made an agreement with the mili- tias there that they would control Fallujah, and they would turn over the perpetrators of that crime, other terrorists, and significant weapons. Has any of that happened? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Virtually none of that has happened. What we have achieved is a certain degree of calm in Fallujah, which may help in the rest of the country. There is some indication that there are beginning to be some splits within Fallujah, particu- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 30 larly between Iraqis and foreigners, and some degree of Iraqis turning on the foreigners. There is a considerable concern that Fallujah might—this is on the negative side—be a place where the enemy is hiding. We talked about this with the Prime Minister. We are all agreed that the current status quo in Fallujah is not accept- able, and Fallujah is not a model for the rest of the country, so we need to move forward on that. I do not know, General Myers, if you want to—— General MYERS. I absolutely agree with that. We have not made any of the conditions that we initially set that you outlined, Sen- ator McCain. We have had in the last several days to go after for- eign fighters in Falluja with 500-pound bombs; we think in both cases successfully. Senator MCCAIN. If I could just interrupt there, the reason for not going into Fallujah was to prevent civilian casualties. Now we are dropping 500-pound bombs. General MYERS. But these were very precise, and the collateral damage was essentially zero upon site exploitation. We are very careful how we do that. If I can go back to your original question that Secretary Armitage answered, part of the thinking that went into the plan for the original combat in Iraq was that we wanted— we made the decision. You could have gone several different ways, but we made the decision that we wanted this to be as humane as a combat operation as war could be. That was a decision we made. So certain factors are emphasized over others if you are going to do that. One of them was speed and precision and to let regular Iraqi divisions, while destroying equipment and some of their peo- ple, if they melted away, then let them melt away, because they were conscripts after all. So if there is a blame here, it was making some assumptions on how the Iraqi people would react to that. I would submit we were probably too gracious in our victory in hindsight. The philosophy going in was that we were going to liberate Iraq, not conquer Iraq. Clearly things started to change as those former regime elements— and I still maintain a very small segment of the population plus the foreign fighters can have a disproportionate impact because of the methods they use where they do not care about the loss of inno- cent life. So that is where we have evolved to. Senator MCCAIN. Well, I may have to leave some of this to the historians, but it is interesting that very little mistakes were made, and yet we find over 100 people killed and wounded in coordinated attacks all over Iraq. Clearly some of this is being orchestrated out of Fallujah. As Secretary Armitage said, this is a central nervous system, but we did not make any mistakes. My time is expired. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator McCain. Senator Kennedy. Senator KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wolfowitz, I appreciate your comments about the courage of the Iraqi leaders. I am one of those who had the chance to meet Presi- dent Yawar when he was over here, and he is an impressive figure. When we see the determination of those individuals to try and lead the country, it does impress all of us. Let me just go back and review the bidding about where we are and then ask a couple of specific questions. Following up with Sen- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 31 ator McCain, we have had 844 Americans pay the ultimate price; 5,270 soldiers have been wounded; we have lost 25 in my own State of Massachusetts, war costing us about $4,700,000,000 every month. We have the kind of pressures that are put on in a particular unit, Military Police (MPs), a group from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. They were mobilized 5 December 2002, sent to Iraq in April 2003 for 6 months. They were extended once, extended again. Thought they were going for 6 months, going to 18 months. Eventually they hope to come back in August, demobilize in October. The uncertainty of how long these troops, American troops are going to be over there, given not only the American troops them- selves, the regular Army, but the Reserve and the Guard, is a mat- ter of great concern. Given that we have had the U.N. Resolutions, we have the new sovereignty coming up at the end of June, we have elections for the interim government that is going to establish the constitution, ratification nationwide of the constitution, elec- tions following that, American families want to know what the im- pact of all this is going to be on their servicemen and women, on their children. I remember when you were here at the time of your hearing be- fore our committee on confirmation. This is your quote. When you were asked about the guidelines should apply to future military ac- tion, you said, ‘‘I think it has to be something where we have a strategy for success, that we have a way of achieving our goals and completing the mission, and not ending up in something that is an unending commitment with no way out.’’ Now, you are asked this week to the Armed Services Committee about what is going to be the indication at the end. You say there is an end—the end is when the Iraqis are governing their own country. Well, when are we going to know success? Are we going to know success when there are elections? Are we going to know that there is a success when we—reconstruction have construction? How much security is going to be success? How are the American people going to know when there is success? Or are we going to just wait until a President says: We have success now and we are going to start rotating out? How do we know that? How do we know we are not just ending up with an unending commitment with no way out? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I do not think it is an unending commit- ment with no way out, but I do not think you can predict these things any more than you can predict the timetable for success in Germany at the end of World War II or the timetable for success in Korea at the end of that war. Of course, the biggest problem here is that the war has not ended, the enemy has not given up. Part of success is going to be when that enemy is either defeated, or some of them may just decide actually in a formal or semi-for- mal way to come in and join the new Iraq. But I think there is a clear path to success because there are so many Iraqis who do want to stand up for their country. By the tens of thousands they are prepared to risk their lives to defend their country. Senator KENNEDY. I want to give you—— VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 32 Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I think the most important milestone here is going to be, particularly with respect to those families of service men and women, when the Iraqis are in the front line, and Iraqis, if casualties still have to be taken, are taking the bulk of the cas- ualties. That will be a huge milestone. Senator KENNEDY. Well, this is what we want to know. We have 90 percent of the troops and 95 percent of the killed and wounded, what are the benchmarks? You are back there, you have children that are over there, what are the benchmarks? What should the American people want to benchmark this? How do they know that the plan is successful? How do they know it is not deteriorating? We have to have some benchmarks that are out there rather than the general kind of comments. They want some benchmarks to know. They knew in World War II; they knew after D-Day. Sure, they had the Battle of the Bulge, but they were moving ahead on it. They knew certainly in the battle against Japan. They understood that, Korea more complicated and Vietnam so. But people had an understanding of what the benchmarks were. They knew in the Second World War with the progress in North Africa and what happened in Western Europe. The American people want to know, Mr. Secretary, what are the benchmarks? What are the things that they can watch on television, read in the newspaper, and say, look, that is real progress, that is going to mean my son or daughter is going to come on home? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I think the kind of benchmark I men- tioned in the beginning of Iraqis who are courageous enough like these five civil defense corps soldiers to rescue an American who is wounded. More and more they are going to see capable Iraqi se- curity forces taking on more and more demanding missions. But let us also keep some historical perspective. The Marshall Plan, as we all know, was initiated in 1948, a full 3 years after the end of World War II. It was a kind of Hail Mary pass to rescue Eu- rope from what looked like a totally failing, collapsing situation. You can ask for benchmarks. We are working on benchmarks. The President laid out five clear benchmarks a couple of weeks ago, namely one that we are about to achieve, which is the standing up of a sovereign government; the second, standing up of Iraqi secu- rity forces; the third, progress on reconstruction; the fourth, intro- duction of international forces through the U.N. Resolution; and fi- nally, elections at the end of this year and the beginning of next year. Those are pretty important benchmarks. If we can achieve all of them in the next 6 months, we will be doing very well. Senator KENNEDY. My time is up. Some would think that we have already got a Marshall Plan over in Iraq now with the amount of economic aid and reconstruction that we have provided. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. A great deal is happening, Senator. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator Kennedy. Senator Roberts. Senator ROBERTS. Gentlemen, thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for your perseverance and your service. I am going to be repetitive today. I think the most crucial ingredient with regard to our effort in Iraq is our resolve, theirs, and more especially, ours. Over the past several months, that resolve has VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 33 been tested, and we have seen an increase only in the number and severity of such challenges, more especially with the full offensive that we see today. Now, we have the deadline for sovereignty only 5 days away. It is absolutely critical that the administration and especially those of us in Congress make it clear to the American people exactly what the transfer means with regard to our continued presence. I know you all mentioned. Members of this committee are extremely con- cerned about the information and the battle for the proper kind of information in that part of the world, in that part of the region, and more especially, in Iraq. I am concerned about it in this coun- try. This really dates me, but in the 1940s, there was a song that my dad and mom enjoyed. It was called, ‘‘Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative, and Don’t Mess with Mr. In-Between.’’ It seems to me that we have too many in this country who are accen- tuating the negative and eliminating the positive and making sure the U.S. is not in between, and I do not think that is possible at this particular time. So with the challenges to our resolve, no doubt some will point to the transfer of sovereignty, as Senator Kennedy has just indicated, as a justification for an exit from Iraq. What would be the specific implications of such an exit? Explain to the country exactly the down side of an early exit and what could happen in regards to our national security and then also in regard to the region. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I think a precipitous exit like that would be an enormous victory for terrorism and for terrorists. It would turn Iraq into a base and a sanctuary from which they could pro- ceed to attack Saudi Arabia, which is already under attack, and at- tack in Europe and the United States. They understand that this is the fight, they are putting everything they can in trying to defeat us and—— Senator ROBERTS. So this is a global effort? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It is absolutely connected to a global ef- fort, yes, sir. Senator KENNEDY. Would the Senator just yield, since he men- tioned my name? Senator ROBERTS. Yes, I would be happy to the yield to the dis- tinguished Senator. Senator KENNEDY. I did not suggest a cut-and-run policy. I asked about benchmarks, and I do not want to be associated with the re- marks about what would happen if we just pulled out our troops. That was clearly not my statement. That would be a distortion, a misrepresentation of my position. I know the Senator did not mean that, but I want the record to reflect that. Senator ROBERTS. I thank the Senator for his contribution, saved me 30 seconds. Who are these guys? Let’s use the Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid question. Secretary Armitage, you said a central nervous system. I just heard on the news this morning that Muqtada al-Sadr and his army are laying down the arms against the coalition forces and saying we are going to rise up against the Sunni extremists. We have those still loyal to the former regime. We have the for- eign fighters. We have the extremists. What level of coordination VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 34 among these divergent groups are you seeing? Who are these guys now? Secretary ARMITAGE. I do not think anyone in this administra- tion yet can tell you with a great deal of accuracy who they are and how many they are. Senator ROBERTS. Well, I have some concerns about that because as chairman of the Intelligence Committee—— Secretary ARMITAGE. Well, I was raising it with you, sir—— Senator ROBERTS. Okay, I am sorry. I am not giving you an op- portunity. Secretary ARMITAGE. I am not raising it with you because you sit on another committee, and you understand what I am saying. I said one of our mistakes was that we did not understand there was a central nervous system. Well, clearly there is. How many are former regime elements and how many are Zarqawi and his evildoers, I cannot say. I do not think any of my colleagues can say. We do not know. How many are disaffected youth who, either make a little money or just for the pure excitement of it get in on the game, I cannot tell you. Senator ROBERTS. Well, I hope we can. We have 1,000 people now stood up in the Iraqi intelligence operation, 5,000 people with a new Iraqi intervention force. If we do not have the proper intel- ligence—and, yes, I am the chairman of the Intelligence Commit- tee—it worries me that we will not only have the ability to really predict and protect not only our troops but also be successful. We found Saddam by finally getting down to the clans and the fami- lies. My hope is that when we go through the vetting, the training, and the equipment in regards to the Iraqis, they will still have that kind of capability. Do we see any real progress in that area? Secretary ARMITAGE. My view, Senator, and Paul would probably want to make a comment, is that we are making a bet here. The bet is that Iraqis are going to fight more enthusiastically for Iraq than they fight for occupiers. That is a bet we are all buying into, and I buy it. I think they are because they do know how to fight. We are seeing some changes, and others can talk about it, in re- gards to Iraqis helping us, giving us information, things of that na- ture. Hence you have a precision strike in Fallujah, in a particular place in Fallujah. Things in that regard are going to turn out a lit- tle better than we might suspect. Senator ROBERTS. I hope that is the case. There are certain coun- tries—— Secretary ARMITAGE. However, I think—— Senator ROBERTS. I have one more question and very limited time. There are certain countries in the region that would like to see our efforts in Iraq fail, namely Iran. You know these folks. As we transfer the sovereignty to the Iraqis, what are the most signifi- cant concerns you have in this regard? What would happen in the region if in fact we were not successful? I have asked that of the Secretary, but in your travels, more especially in regards to those who would like to see us fail, what are your most significant con- cerns? Secretary ARMITAGE. The biggest concern is that Iranian money will buy mullahs in the south of Iraq and use that money to be able to thwart us. The best news in this regard is that the leading Shia VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 35 cleric in Iraq, Ali Sistani, does not seem to have any affection for Iranian-style theocracy. Senator ROBERTS. My time is up, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panel, and persevere, gentlemen. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator Roberts. Did each of the witnesses feel they had adequate time? Secretary ARMITAGE. I am sure the question will come around again. Chairman WARNER. Senator Lieberman. Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, thanks to the wit- nesses. Thanks for what you have done over the last couple of years to bring us to where we are today. It has been a long, tough slog, to use a familiar word. But I do think today, 25 June, 5 days from the transfer of authority, there is a lot for the American peo- ple to be proud of and a lot for the Iraqis and the Iraqi people to be proud of and optimistic about. The fact is we have lost American lives; we have spent a lot of our own treasure. It is important to remember that it is not for conquest; it is not for imperial, colonial plunder. It is for security and for a principle that has driven Amer- ican history from the beginning, which is freedom and democracy. Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator who possessed weapons of mass destruction, used them, supported terrorism, responded to wrongdoing by his people. I have seen this with my own eyes in the films that many of us have seen, cut off their heads, their tongues, their hands. Saddam Hussein is gone and in jail. In place is an interim Iraqi government not yet elected, but broad enough to, by the latest public opinion polling in Iraq, enjoy the support of two-thirds of the Iraqi people in a very difficult security context. So we have come some way, and they are going to take over on June 30. Then it is going to be a different kind of battle. After Saddam was gone, this did become a different kind of battle. It became the major battleground of the war against terrorism, because the for- eign fighters swarmed in there and joined with the Saddam loyal- ists. Now you have not these jihadists or some Iraqis against Amer- ica, but you have jihadists and Saddam loyalists against an Iraqi government, as you said, Secretary Armitage. That is the choice for the Iraqi people. Do they want to go forward with self government and a better life for themselves, or do they want to yield to these forces? Do we, who will bring back, if you can imagine it, a govern- ment that is going to be part Saddam Hussein and part Taliban, because that is what the enemy fighters are all about here. We have done something difficult. I could be critical of things that were not done, I have been critical of things that were not done or could have been done a lot better. But we are in a tough situation. We have made some extraordinary progress. Those who have given their lives have given them for a noble cause, a cause as critical to American security as most any I can think of that we fought over the centuries. I want to ask about the central nervous system that you referred to. Is it your opinion, Secretary Armitage, that there is a coordina- tion to the best of our knowledge between the Saddam loyalists, the people who fell back, and the foreign fighters? VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 36 Secretary ARMITAGE. I am not sure I am totally competent to give you a complete answer. We have seen some intelligence that indicates that they do hook up. There is a central nervous system to the Zarqawi network. I found rather remarkable yesterday the timing of the car bombs in several different locations, which indi- cates to me a certain degree of command and control. Now, I do not think it is the command and control that we traditionally think about in our own military, but someone is giving general orders and other people are following them. That is fairly clear. As my colleagues have stated up here that as we move forward to June 30, these fellows who attacked yesterday are going to re- load and try again. As we move toward the elections in December and January, they are really going to exercise themselves. Senator LIEBERMAN. I agree. The point I draw from this is that there is clearly a lot of controversy in one of the exchanges between Secretary Wolfowitz and I believe it was Senator Levin about the extent of cooperation between the Saddam Hussein regime and al Qaeda earlier. It seems to me that the foreign fighters, including Zarqawi, who is allied with al Qaeda, and the Saddam remnants are growing increasingly clear. I want to go to another topic, because those poll numbers about the interim Iraqi government are very encouraging. The most im- portant thing we can do to solidify them is not only maintain the security, but also in some ways it is just as important to maintain the civilian reconstruction, making sure that the Iraqis get jobs, that the electricity is on, that the water is flowing. Last year, Congress approved an $18.6 billion reconstruction aid package. According to the CPA, only about $3.7 billion of that pack- age had been spent as of June 1. I know CPA is under the DOD, so I want to ask Secretary Wolfowitz, what slowed the expenditure of those funds and delayed the 2,300 projects the money was planned to support? Then, Secretary Armitage, as the State De- partment now takes over on July 1, what plans do you have to ac- celerate the implementation of that reconstruction money? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Lieberman, I think the basic an- swer comes down to the rather elaborate and necessary procedures that we build into the contracting process to make sure that there is fair and open competition. It produces what the program man- agers call an ‘‘S’’ curve, where you do not get very much done for a while and then suddenly the dam starts to break. My under- standing is the dam is starting to break, and those numbers are going to grow very rapidly. We want to make sure they do not grow so rapidly that Ambassador Negroponte has nothing left to work with when he gets there. That is a consideration. One thing that has been done, it is called the ‘‘Seven Cities Project,’’ is to allocate a certain amount from the supplemental to smaller scale projects that can be implemented by our division com- manders in seven key cities, including Baghdad. That is showing some real results on the ground, even in difficult places like Sadr City. Secretary ARMITAGE. Senator, in preparation for this hearing, I have later numbers. They are not much better, but obligated out of the $18.4 or $18.6 billion is $5.29 billion, which is about 29 per- cent of the 2004 Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 37 money. It is a little better than what you suggested, but your point is dead on. Admiral Nash came back last week, who has been running this at CPA, and I think he came up and saw some of the staff of this committee and others. He did indicate that the ramp is quite a bit steeper now, and he thought we would be moving up rather rap- idly. What we have done to make this change is through consulta- tions with primarily the Appropriations Committee staffs. I have met with Chairman Kolbe in the House about trying to put to- gether something we are calling an Iraqi Reconstruction Manage- ment Office under the Ambassador. We are putting a 10-day time period on any changes that we want from the time the Ambassador wants to reallocate money and put it toward a project. The turn- around for our entire bureaucracy is 10 days. I am the belly button in charge, so you will have somebody to point to. Also, it will push the process along. When John Negroponte gets out there, we figure he will have between $8 billion and $9 billion that is not obligated. We know he is going to have some different opinions from the present CPA opinions. We are working out proce- dures with Appropriations Committee staff to change the way we make revisions to the 2207 report, which is required each quarter. Senator LIEBERMAN. That is very encouraging, particularly to know that you are assuming a personal responsibility. If I can put it this way in response to the metaphor you used, Secretary Armitage, I have always considered you to be one tough, impressive belly button. [Laughter] Secretary ARMITAGE. Well, a big belly button. General MYERS. Mr. Chairman? Chairman WARNER. Yes, General. General MYERS. I would like to talk about the threat for just a minute. My views might be slightly different than others expressed in this room today, if I could just talk about the threat that we are seeing. We have no intelligence that shows the linkage between these various groups. We look for it. We simply do not have it. You can deduce, because you had many attacks yesterday, it all oc- curred almost simultaneous some of them in Mosul, and through- out Iraq, attacks that appear to be coordinated. You can just look at it and say, well, there has to be some coordination. The level of coordination, though, is unknown, and I ask about this all the time, because this is crucial to understanding the threat we are fighting. One of the things you have to keep in mind that while the former regime elements and Zarqawi may have the same near-term goals of ridding Iraq of the coalition, their long- term goals could not be more different. It is hard for me to believe, but this is what we need intelligence to tell us—there is very close cooperation between those two groups because they have two very different visions of the future. One is Sunni extremism, going back to 7th century califate, and the other is the Baathist party, coming back to life in Iraq. I have not seen any evidence other than what we see with our eyes in terms of actions, whether it is a central nervous system or some other method of coordination. It is a critical question, and frankly, the Intelligence Community, as far as I know, will not give you an answer, because they cannot give me an answer. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 38 Senator LIEBERMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I may real briefly—— Chairman WARNER. Yes, please pursue that. Senator LIEBERMAN.—just to respond and say that I appreciate what you have said that there is not clear evidence showing a link- age. I would just raise this question, though these are different groups with different aims, might this not be a case where the enemy of my enemy is my friend? In other words, they have a com- mon purpose, which is to stop the Iraqi self-government from occur- ring, to weaken us to defeat us in some sense, to get us to retreat, and therefore to win a battle in the larger war that both of them are involved in. That might bring them together temporarily until they have to deal with who is going to control Iraq. Chairman WARNER. Secretary Armitage, did you want to com- ment on the General’s statement? Secretary ARMITAGE. I gave you my opinion that it seems to me there was some sophistication in the attacks that led me to be- lieve—I have been around a little bit—that there is more of a cen- tral nervous system. I do not argue with General Myers. You asked for my opinion and I gave it to you, sir. General MYERS. I would say that is how it looks, and I would say that near-term aims could be similar, the enemy of my friend and so forth, but I think long term they are not compatible. We need to know a lot more. I guess that is what I am saying, and I am not comfortable standing here—— Chairman WARNER. This question of coordination or lack thereof is a central issue, and I hope that we do not conclude this hearing on a note—although we may have respectful different perspectives on it. If that is the case, so be it. Senator Allard. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Mr. Chairman, I would just say there may be more than one central nervous system, and there may be a loose coordination between them. Zarqawi clearly coordinates an organi- zation of some size, and clearly the old regime people have been co- ordinating with each other for years. That is why we see some pat- terns in certain things the enemy does. The question that has been raised here is, how much do they co- ordinate with one another. That is hardly something they open up to us very much. The basic point is their immediate aim, which is the overriding one, which is to defeat us, just as we and Stalin had enormously different visions of the future in World War II. It did not prevent us from understanding first things first. I am afraid for this enemy, we are the first thing to get out of there. Chairman WARNER. All right. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Senator Allard. Senator ALLARD. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want to reflect back a little bit. When Saddam Hussein went into the Persian Gulf conflict, we set him back. Things kind of stagnated, and then when we decided to take action. It has been about a year and 3 months or so now, going into Iraq with a full force. A lot of good things have happened. In my view things are better off now than they were before we went into Iraq and that actually things were dete- riorating in Iraq just before we went in. I am wondering if the panel could talk about that a little bit. I had a lot of questions about the insurgency and obviously we have VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 39 pretty well discussed that. I also wondered if the panel would talk a little bit about the demographics. There have been TV shows written about the large number of young males in Saudi Arabia, for example, that are unemployed. Do we have that same demo- graphics in Iraq or not, and what is driving that demographics? I wonder if we could have some discussion on both of those ques- tions, starting first of all with the first question. How are we today compared to what it was when we first went in? Then give us some good facts, and also what has happened. Then the second question would be the demographics question. Secretary ARMITAGE. I will try real quickly. These are rather un- satisfactory to me, this first answer I am going to give you. Those who have are better off, and those who do not have are obviously not. The haves right now, in terms of Iraq: more people have access to water, more people have access to phones, more people have ac- cess to hospitals now than was the case under the Saddam regime, particularly if you are a Shia. So there are all those indicators. There is more electricity going forward. Now I say that is an unsatisfactory answer because power gen- eration, et cetera, are good targets for the enemy. So what is true today could be false temporarily tomorrow. On almost every meas- ure in that regard we are much better off. It is the security, how- ever, which the Iraqi people point to every single day as their over- riding concern and their fear when their sons and their daughters leave their home of whether they will return or not. You can have a lot of measurements with people being better off, but if we cannot get the handle on security, and I think we all agree, we are not going to be able to say to the Iraqi people, you are better off overall. Second, on the demographics, there is a lot of, not controversy, but disagreement or misunderstanding of the unemployment in Iraq. It is quite high. There are a lot of young men, particularly former Army young men, who are out of work right now. The esti- mates are between 28 percent to as high as 60 percent of the work- ing population is unemployed, which I disregard. CPA is telling us 28 to 30 percent are unemployed, which is unacceptable. Senator ALLARD. Secretary Wolfowitz. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I agree. Secretary Armitage stated it quite clearly. It might be saying that that word ‘‘insurgency’’ sort of im- plies this is something that rose up after we got there, whereas we are to an astonishing degree dealing with people who just did not surrender on 9 April and continue to fight. But let me hasten to say, part of their strength comes from the fact that they have a lot of money. They can hire those unemployed young men, and there are unfortunately large numbers. That is why we believe that in addition to going after the several thousand—I would be misleading you to suggest we have an idea of a number, but it is in the thousands, we do not think it is in the tens of thousands. So the real hard core killers are a decided minority of this country, but they have money and they can hire people to take shots at us. That is a significant part of the problem. Senator ALLARD. Do they get paid more—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. The third area, if I might just say in terms of this satisfaction and how it affects security, is that, and VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 40 we see it in towns and cities where we are able to get reconstruc- tion work going, the population gets more faith about what we are there to do and more willingness to share intelligence and informa- tion with us. It is that 40, 50 percent of the population that might be considered fence-sitters who are absolutely critical to win over. Secretary ARMITAGE. Senator Allard, if I could, as you would say, revise and extend my remarks. I just want to add something. Per- haps the most significant indicator of how we are better off in Iraq is the quality and the caliber of the people that are participating in the IIG and the courage that they have. Two former members of the Iraqi governing council (IGC) were killed. No one turned away; no one dropped out of the game. Now the IIG, under tremen- dous and personal attacks, is standing up there. That has to say something about Iraqi courage and resilience. We can point to the fact that there are people of courage like that, men and women in Iraq, as a sign we are better off. Senator ALLARD. General Myers? General MYERS. I would say only that, as has already been dis- cussed in the committee, that June 30 will probably be the best thing we can do for security in Iraq. When Iraqis feel that, and as the polls show, they have a legitimate government that is sov- ereign, and that they can fight for Iraq, and that there is no confu- sion, no cloud, about this being an occupation. I would also say that this all goes hand-in-hand. As the other witnesses have already said, you cannot progress in security alone. You have to have the economic piece, the political piece, which is the June 30 piece, the nearest part that we can look forward to. Then you have to have the security piece, and they all have to march forward together. Senator ALLARD. The other thing I want to drive there on the de- mographics, we have apparently a large population of males that are uneducated, unemployed in Iraq. Is there not a role for some of our allies or even countries like France and Germany, for exam- ple, who have fairly large Muslim populations, to get those men in an educational program so they can get some vocational training or goals? Is there not a role there for that, or is this something ev- erybody is ignoring? Are we trying to address that population? It seems to me like they are the ones of fighting age. They are the ones with spare time. They are the ones that we seem to be competing for as far as this insurgency issue is concerned. Secretary ARMITAGE. I can give you a partially satisfactory an- swer. I have the figures that we would cite as the number of Iraqis we employ in the various projects, and actually they are quite im- pressive. But not having been out myself for about 3 or 4 months, I am not confident that I really have my hands around it, but I will provide those for the record. In terms of our allies, as you recall, about $13 billion was pledged at the donors conference and about $1 billion of that has been disbursed. Some of it is, in fact, the great majority of it is in projects that employ people. I do not, however, know specifically whether they are vocational training programs that any of our for- eign friends have undertaken. I will provide it for the record, Sen- ator Allard. [The information referred to follows:] VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 41 VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 42 Senator ALLARD. Thank you. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator. Senator Reed. Senator REED. Secretary Wolfowitz, in your recent discussions with Prime Minister Allawi, did you discuss his proposal for mar- tial law? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. We did not discuss it specifically. No, Sen- ator. Senator REED. That would be an item of intense interest, since he has announced that his intentions—in fact, the reports today in the press suggest that plans are being undertaken for types of in- creased national security provisions or some other euphemism. You did not discuss that at all with him? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. We did not discuss it specifically unless my memory is failing me here. Let me be clear. We talked a lot about the need for close consultation on a range of sensitive mili- tary issues, including our offensive operations. A declaration of martial law by him would clearly be such a policy consideration that would require consultation with the mechanisms that Ambas- sador Negroponte will be running when he is there. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 43 Let me be clear, because I said this earlier, he was not talking about, as I understand it, declaring martial law on a national level. He talked about special measures in specific areas where there are problems, measures like curfews, which we already have the au- thority to impose. It is giving Iraqi security forces in those areas the kind of authority that coalition forces have already. It is obvi- ously something that will be a subject of the coordination of the Iraqi Government. Senator REED. Do you have a position whether martial law, lim- ited as you described it, would be necessary at this time, based upon your extensive experience and personal travels? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It would depend on the location, and the circumstances in the location, and what is meant by martial law, Senator. Senator REED. Well, I would presume curfews, check points, eliminating free assembly, eliminating political opponents who might be contrary to the—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Well, that is not martial law, and that is out of bounds, the thing you just mentioned. What I believe, and I think I am going on press reports here, was mentioned were cur- fews, limitations on assembly, and searching houses. Those happen to be all things that our troops do as appropriate in specific loca- tions. We are dealing with an extremely dangerous security situa- tion. You realize that. The enemy is taking extreme measures to destabilize civil order. Such measures as curfews, searching houses, and establishing check points are measures that have to be taken in particular areas. We are doing it ourselves already. Senator REED. Well, one of the issues that was raised in this whole discussion of martial law is the capacity of the Iraqi security forces to do it themselves. I notice that they are not ready yet for employment. It would invariably draw in United States forces, ei- ther in a supporting role or even in a primary role. Is that your conclusion too? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. We retain control over our forces. They re- tain control over theirs. The purpose of consulting is where we may undertake actions that affect them or vice versa. We have been doing this for a long time in Afghanistan with President Karzai. He at times wants to do things, which might be perfectly within his prerogative to do. We will tell him: If you can do it with your own forces and your own capability, you are entitled to do that, but we are under no obligation to enforce something that you simply de- cide you want to do. The same thing would happen in Iraq. If Prime Minister Allawi decides that it is appropriate to have martial law in some area and we think not, it is going to be up to him with his own forces to be able to enforce that. Senator REED. Well, Mr. Secretary, I think listening to all of you gentlemen this morning, I am confused about the strategy. The strategy seems to let the Iraqis do it and to put an Iraqi face on this, yet they do not have the capability to do it alone. This sugges- tion that they can carve out a piece of the country, put the security forces in, even if we disapprove, is not reflective of the situation on the ground. What you are describing is also perhaps a potential for VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 44 strategic paralysis, where they want to do something, but we do not want to do something. The poster for that is, of course, Fallujah. Mr. Secretary, you were here several weeks ago reading an impassioned letter for a young marine that said, this is the next Belleau Woods; we are going to finish it today. Of course, a few days later we turned it over to someone who looked remarkably like Saddam Hussein as the General to control it. You have indicated today that is still a situation that is out of control. There just does not seem to be a strategy that is going to work. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Reed, the strategy is clear, which is not to change things overnight. You cannot change situations like this overnight but rather build their capacity over time and as rapidly as possible. The important thing, Secretary Armitage re- ferred to it a few minutes ago, we have incredibly courageous Iraqi leaders who are determined to succeed, who have indicated in all manner of ways that they are committed to a free Iraq, a demo- cratic Iraq, but also understand the nature of the enemy that they are confronting and their own lives are on the line in doing this. It is the nature of coalition warfare. This is a coalition between the multinational force and the Iraqis. You have to come to some compromise about at least some coordination of policy, and we are in agreement that the Fallujah situation needs to be changed. We did not change our approach to Fallujah because the Iraqis vetoed what we might do. We changed our approach to Fallujah because after consulting with Iraqis, it was concluded that the effects of continuing with large-scale military operations in Fallujah would be sufficiently negative in the rest of the country. It was better to go with this compromise to see what results it would produce and then proceed from there. Secretary ARMITAGE. Senator Reed, if I may, the context of the Fallujah decision is important. We were trying to stand up and as- sist the efforts of Lakhdar Brahimi to get an interim government. The Fallujah activity and the heavy military involvement by the United States was very much interfering with our ability to put to- gether what is a pretty impressive interim government of Iraq, sir. Senator REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator Reed. Senator Sessions. Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe we have had a valuable hearing this morning. I would just like to ask one thing about somethings the media, Congress, and commentators say, and what kind of impact that might have on our success, our troops, and the potential success for the people of Iraq. One of the things that has concerned me, we have had a number of hearings with regard to the terrible abuses that occurred in Abu Ghraib prison, but the evidence, the policy directives, the memo- randums, the commands that we have seen that were sent to those guards indicate clearly they were not told to do any of these things. It exceeded any powers they may have had and they were in viola- tion. They are being prosecuted, General Myers, as you have indi- cated earlier, and they are being disciplined for that. Secretary Wolfowitz, is it not true that we need to be careful that when we make criticisms of our military, our government, and the VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 45 policies that we have, we need to found those on true facts? We do not need to exaggerate the problems we have? We had a real prob- lem. We certainly do not need to exaggerate it. How does that im- pact our success potential in Iraq? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Well, as we said earlier, we are in no small measure in an information war, and the enemy is very good at spreading lies. We have to be very careful, especially when we are talking about something like this, to make sure that we have our facts right. It is a great strength of this country, and I felt it was appreciated in Iraq. Unlike not only the previous government in Iraq, but also most governments that they are familiar with, we do not condone abuse. We do not tolerate abuse. We, in fact, expose it when it happens, and we punish it. That they are noticing is a very different way of proceeding. It is also important, without minimizing the abuses or our horror at the abuses, not to loosely characterize things that were done— that were not done. Senator SESSIONS. Well, I know it complicates the lives and the works of our people and could even put them at risk. We had re- cently seven prisoners who had been prisoners under Saddam Hus- sein who did nothing more than deal in currency apparently at some point, American currency, in the course of their business. Many of them were in Abu Ghraib, and they had their hands chopped off. When asked about the abuse by Americans in the pris- on system at the press conference I attended, one of the Iraqis who had lost his hand, said that it is not American policy. They have criticized it. They are conducting investigations, and they are pun- ishing people who did wrong. That is a lot different from Saddam Hussein, who wanted a video, and we saw the video. He wanted a video to make sure that he personally saw these punishments being carried out. So it is a big change that has occurred in Iraq, and I want to make that point. One of the things that strikes me and that we have said here earlier as so important is the courage of the leaders of Iraq. Prime Minister Allawi appeared recently when that horrible bombing at- tack occurred that killed 13 people waiting in line to sign up to be policemen in Iraq to fight terrorism. Within hours, or within an hour, he was on the scene right there and made these comments, which I thought was important. He said, ‘‘it’s a cowardly attack aimed at the stability of Iraq, aimed at the people of Iraq.’’ Allawi said, sweat glistening from his forehead, ‘‘The government of Iraq is determined to go ahead and confront the enemy. Justice will pre- vail.’’ To me, that is the kind of thing we have to have. I believe he also responded to the attack on the oil pipeline. Secretary Armitage, do you have any thoughts about this kind of event, and how important it is? Secretary ARMITAGE. Well it goes hand in glove with what I was suggesting about decreasing our visibility. When our two excellent spokesmen, General Kimmitt, and Mr. Senor, would make that same announcement, it does not carry near the import of a Prime Minister standing out there, as you suggest, with sweat on his brow, saying this is against Iraqis; this is against us. This is not about occupiers; you are killing us. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 46 It also says something by the way that the 13 people who were killed as you mentioned in an explosion were trying to sign up in what is probably the most dangerous occupation in Iraq these days and that is to become a policeman. Why? Clearly because the police ultimately are going to be what provides local and neighborhood se- curity, what then provides security for a whole city, which provides security for a whole district, and the terrorists know that. That is why they are targeting these guys. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Sessions, there is a connection be- tween the two things you commented on. One was the horrors of the old regime and the other is the courage of people in standing up to build a new Iraq. One of the things that inspires their cour- age is the recognition of how horrible the past was and what a hor- rible future the terrorists and their Saddamist allies would like to bring Iraq back to. I said it earlier, the terrorists’ great strength is their ability to kill and destroy in horrible ways, but it is also their great weak- ness. They offer no positive vision for the country. I go back to what that father of that impressive young interpreter I mentioned in my opening comments, whose sister was assassinated by the enemy because she was working with us. When asked, ‘‘why do you still work with us after that?’’ She said, ‘‘my father told me you mustn’t retreat in the face of evil.’’ The Iraqis understand the evil of the past. It causes a lot of problems. It is in some ways a tor- tured country. But it also produces a great deal of courage to stand up in the face of it. Senator SESSIONS. Well, I thank all of you for the work and the commitment you have given to this. I do believe that we are at a point where we have to be there. We have to be strong, where they have to know that they have our support and that we are not going to cut and run. Then I think they will step up and they are going to continue to step up, and I am pleased to see people signing up to be policemen even though they are being targeted. That is also a very good indication. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Senator, we thank you for bringing back some of those historical benchmarks as we look at today’s prob- lems. Senator Ben Nelson. Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for your service, your commitment, and for being here with us today. We appreciate it. For some time now, I have been an advo- cate and a proponent in particular for more NATO involvement, and I know that you all share the interest in internationalizing on a greater basis the effort in Iraq. Last month I sent Secretary Pow- ell a letter stating this and suggested that for the U.S. Govern- ment, for the administration, to be asking for NATO’s support may not be putting the best foot forward, particularly as it related to the President speaking to President Chirac most recently. I have felt and I continue to feel that the best proponent for that NATO involvement, the best petitioner would be Prime Minister Allawi. I understand the President is taking the Prime Minister’s letter to NATO right now to ask for that support. Once again, if we are going to take the training wheels off, we need to talk about sovereignty. In this sense, I am more interested in that they ap- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 47 pear to be the petitioner rather than the puppet. I wonder how we believe we are going to get the right kind of result? How are we going to get a ‘‘yes’’ when we have been getting in some cases polite and in some cases a little less polite ‘‘no’s’’ so far? I would leave it up to either Secretary Armitage or Secretary Wolfowitz to re- spond. Secretary ARMITAGE. Senator Nelson, I will give it a go. The Prime Minister’s letter was to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer which puts him right in the spot that you were sug- gesting to Secretary Powell: go to NATO and let NATO and the Secretary General bring this forward. In my understanding that is the discussion that the Secretary General wants to have. We are obviously going to support it. [The information referred to follows:] VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 48 Senator BEN NELSON. But we are a fairly expensive courier too, are we not? Secretary ARMITAGE. Well, we are couriers, but the President is going to be there anyway, so he will speak up. Both Paul and I have spoken in Brussels to the North Atlantic Council (NAC) about these matters, not putting ourselves in the position of being the— we wanted to just have the discussion about what the equities were in Iraq. If we are successful, and that is a democratic country, you have just changed the Middle East in a way that was unfathomable 4 years ago, and trying to get NATO friends interested in this. I VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 49 believe they are. We have had several discussions with the Sec- retary General. He is going to carry the water at Istanbul, but we are certainly not going to shy away from supporting him fully. We have made our views known on this. Senator BEN NELSON. Mr. Secretary? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It is worth pointing out that 15 of the 33 coalition partners are NATO allies. Some 18,000 NATO troops are serving alongside us in Iraq today, not as NATO but in their na- tional capacities and quite heroically. Some 100 coalition soldiers have lost their lives in this fight already to date. NATO’s capacity has been whittled down enormously over the last 10 years. We are finding that our allies are stretched pretty thin just to support what they are already committed to in Afghan- istan. We are working with them; we are hoping for more; we are hoping particularly that some who have not contributed yet, like the French and the Germans, might be able to contribute to the U.N. protection mission in Iraq. Senator BEN NELSON. We are looking for that in some capacity, training security forces rather than providing operational forces. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. That is exactly what I wanted to say. The Prime Minister later emphasized that our NATO allies have a lot of capacity to train and equip Iraqi forces. That could be a very helpful contribution that does not put additional strain on their own forces. Senator BEN NELSON. But on the basis of perception versus re- ality, it just struck me that you cannot be partially sovereign any more than you are sort of unique. It would have been better for Prime Minister Allawi to go and become the petitioner and make his presence known in that request. Secretary ARMITAGE. My understanding is Foreign Minister Zebari is going to fulfill that role at Istanbul. Senator BEN NELSON. He is not taking the letter apparently. Secretary ARMITAGE. Pardon me? Senator BEN NELSON. But he is not carrying the letter. Secretary ARMITAGE. The letter has been sent. Every NATO member has it. We have it, but he is going to fulfill that role. There is a question about whether the Prime Minister at this crucial time of turnover should be out of the country. I would argue no, saying that is why he is not there. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Nelson, I do not think we are the ones carrying the letter. My understanding is the letter went on Monday by whatever courier system from the Prime Minister di- rectly to the Secretary General. Senator BEN NELSON. All right, thank you. My other question is, as we—and I understand the analogy about a bet, but I hope we are not into gamble du jour as we move forward. We look at Fallujah; we expected a laying down of the arms, that we would be liberators, not occupiers, that the number of troops that we took to accomplish our mission were based on certain assumptions. We may not have secured the ammunition dumps. I know it is a very difficult task, but we did not do that. Now we are facing Impro- vised Explosive Devices (IED). We did not keep the peace in order to win the peace because law and order broke down at certain points. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 50 Do we have a backup just in case the security efforts that we ex- pect to get from the Iraqi people fighting for themselves does not materialize the way we believe and hope and maybe bet that they will? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator, you always have to be prepared to adjust and especially adjust the schedule. We acknowledge that it has been slower, partly because of our own procedures on our side getting some equipment in the hands of Iraqi forces, for exam- ple. We will meet that schedule. If we do not, we just have to be prepared to be a little more patient. The ultimate goal is an Iraq that is governed by Iraqis and defended by Iraqis. That is really the only formula for success. It has worked in many other places over the last 50 years; it can work there. Secretary ARMITAGE. If I may, Senator Nelson, it is interesting to note that even with the horror of the beheadings and the terrible tragedies there, some of our coalition partners have actually ex- tended their mandates with overwhelming votes in their Par- liaments, the Italians, and the Dutch, for instance. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. The Koreans. Secretary ARMITAGE. The Koreans went ahead in the face of this. I apologize for even using the betting terminology. I did not mean to be so frivolous, but we are making the assumption, a good as- sumption, that Iraqis will fight for Iraq with more enthusiasm than they fight for what is seen as an occupying power. Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Senator Dayton. Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with the sentiments that have been expressed by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle here. It is imperative that we succeed in Iraq both in reality and in national and international perception. I am con- cerned. This parallels some of the other questions that have been asked, but I want to go into it again, because our troops have been heroically performing there for over a year. They have won the vic- tories that the President initially said were the primary reasons for this war. They toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime; they eliminated or captured him, his sons, and most of his henchman; they deter- mined conclusively that there are no weapons of mass destruction that threaten our national security. It seems to me that now our mission and therefore the pre- conditions for our success in Iraq have been expanded. The Presi- dent said it in his speech at the War College last month. ‘‘Our agenda is freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people.’’ How long is it realistically going to take before we could imagine that we would see Iraq achieve that level of progress? Either Secretary Wolfowitz or Secretary Armitage. This is more policy than military. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It is important to keep some historical perspective here. First of all, we were absolutely clear from the be- ginning that we had to win the peace as well as win the war. We are still fighting the war. I would not say the majority of Saddam’s henchmen have been defeated. Unfortunately, they are a signifi- cant part of the enemy that we are facing and they are still out there. Saddam himself did not surrender until he was captured, VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 51 and his close associate, Ibrahim al-Duri, has not surrendered yet. He is probably funding terrorism. Senator DAYTON. Top henchmen, I stand corrected. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. No, it is actually some of the more junior ones who are the real professional killers like the members of this muhabarrat unit called the M–14. It is a so-called anti-terrorism unit—excuse me, it is George Orwell at work. They specialize in kidnappings, hijackings, bombings, and assassinations, and they are still doing bombings and associations. The enemy is still out there. It is an evil enemy. The Iraqi people know what an evil enemy it is, and they know what evils it did in the past. The key to winning here is building Iraqi capacity. We hope we can do it faster than in Germany at the end of World War II, but I mentioned earlier it was not until 1948 that we came in with a Marshall Plan because we saw Europe going down the tubes. It has been decades in Korea, and I hope it is not decades in Iraq. Patience is important here particularly because—and it is a kind of paradox—the more patient we are, the less we will have to wait, the more people are convinced that we are not leaving. I welcome Senator Kennedy’s comment earlier; I hope everyone on the enemy side and our side in Iraq understands Americans are not cutting and running. The Iraqis are not cutting and running. The sooner everybody understands that, the sooner at least the less hard core enemy will say, ‘‘okay, I give up,’’ especially if this government can find ways to peel off the less evildoers and bring them back into society. Senator DAYTON. Mr. Secretary, I do not know anybody here who is talking about cutting and running, and I really—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I did not say—— Senator DAYTON.—every time these question are raised, sir, we are put, those of us who ask—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Dayton—— Senator DAYTON. Let me make my comment, please. We are put in this situation, and words are used by either colleagues or the ad- ministration that we lack resolve, that we are cutting and running, that we are going to be defeated. I am saying our forces, our troops, heroically won the victories they were sent for. There are 140,000 of them over there now. Their families are back in Minnesota and other States, and, sir, they are not patient. I do not think it is real- istic to expect them to be patient. I have talked to a lot of the men and women who have served over there back in Minnesota, and they are proud of what they did. No one is complaining about being there really in the bottom of the corps, but they are not patient to come home. They should not have to be, sir. These are matters of policy. That is why I really am of- fended when we ask the challenging questions here and even more by some of our colleagues who were accused of not supporting our troops. I support our troops. I want to bring them home safely as soon as possible with their victory secure. I know you do too, but I want to—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator, I am impatient—— Senator DAYTON. I am not done. We have a responsibility to the American people and especially to the families of those who are VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 52 serving over there and to those who are serving over themselves to be straight with them about what we have put them in there for at this point now and when we expect to have them come home. I will give you a chance to respond, sir—I am sorry. Senator Clinton asked General Casey how long he thought we were going to be keeping this current force level of 140,000 is what he identi- fied. He said, as the chairman pointed out, for planning purposes, they are talking about keeping that force level there through Feb- ruary 2007. That is a long time from now. Is that what we really have gotten ourselves into here, that kind of force strength for that period of time? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Dayton, first of all, I share your impatience to win this thing. We are very impatient when it comes to things like building up Iraqi security forces because that is how we are going to win. I only meant, and believe me, I was welcoming the fact that nobody that I hear in responsible positions is talking about cutting and running. It is very important that that message is clear to all Iraqis. What General Casey talked about is a planning assumption, which is to say, you figure out how you will manage, if that is the way things turn out. It is not a prediction. I think anyone would be kind of foolish to make predictions. I do not think General Casey was. Bosnia, which was a much simpler situation, turned out to be longer than it was predicted initially. We have made steady progress there. It is 8 years later, and we are about to finally end that mission. Korea and Europe, which were really high stakes missions like this one, have lasted a long time. I am most impatient, though, sir, not at the numbers issue but at getting Iraqis in the front lines so that they are the ones that are doing the fighting. If our troops are there, at least they can be there in relative safety in a supporting role. That is really what we are working for. That is General Abizaid’s strategy as we could lay it out for you in a classified session. It has to put us in the support- ing role and Iraqis in the front role. It is working in some places. It is working up in Mosul. It seems to be working down in Basra. We would like to see it working all over the country. Senator DAYTON. My time is up. Let me just clarify one point if I may. I met with some Iraqi citizens in Minnesota last weekend, half of whom are now American citizens and others here illegally. They said that a couple of them had been in Iraq just recently, one of them in particular in Baghdad in the last several weeks. He said that the electricity situation in Baghdad is now typically 8 hours on, 16 hours off, and sometimes it’s worse than that. Is that accu- rate? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I cannot speak to precise numbers. The sabotage levels are very high, and that produces a lot of shortages. Actually the production is up. It is now considerably up over what it was pre-war. Demand is also up. When you fly over Baghdad, you see every roof just covered with satellite dishes, and people are buying air conditioners that never had them before. The supply is growing but the demand is going up. Senator DAYTON. My question, Mr. Secretary, is that an accurate statement, the conditions in Baghdad? VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 53 Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I would have to check. I do not think it is that bad, but there are a lot of blackouts. Chairman WARNER. Perhaps you can provide that response for the record if you do not have it accurately. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. General Myers—— General MYERS. Well, I do not have it accurately, but I think that there has been terrific sabotage against transformers and power lines in recent days. Prior to that, we had produced more electricity than Iraq has ever seen in its history. Now the ability to distribute is impacted by the attacks in the infrastructure. We have mitigation efforts underway right now to mitigate that. Senator DAYTON. We all know, having been there in the summer, if that is close to the situation, whatever the circumstances, I real- ize those sabotages are going on—refrigeration, air conditioning, and running water, and the population—that is one of the reasons they are not happy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator. I want to make sure on the issue of bringing the troops back each of the wit- nesses had adequate opportunity to reply to Senator Dayton’s ques- tion. Secretary ARMITAGE. If I may, bringing the troops back will be a function of security. Let me defer to my colleagues, but this is the Armed Services Committee. It is fair also to commend, in addi- tion to the 140,000 heroic troops who serve, the hundreds of dip- lomats who serve, and by the way, do not carry guns, and have served and will continue to serve these. They are your citizens as well, and they are our sons and daughters as well. I know this is not a committee that normally talks about diplomats, but I rep- resent them now. I appreciate the opportunity to put that in. Chairman WARNER. Thank you, Secretary. Senator DAYTON. We appreciate their courage. Chairman WARNER. Just a minute, Senator Dayton. Let’s just let the panel finish. General MYERS. Mr. Chairman and Senator Dayton, I would just add that we are going to do prudent, worst-case planning, which may have been what General Casey referred to; I did not hear his comments. But we are going to continue to do that so we can con- tinue to source and provide the kind of predictability that some units have not had. We have to do that. Nobody is predicting the force levels right now. General Abizaid has said he needs several months after the interim government stands up, and then he is going to take a look at where we are. Senator DAYTON. I want to be very clear. General Casey said this was planning; he did not make a prediction. General MYERS. Good, and—— Senator DAYTON. Secretary, about the diplomats and others who are performing heroically as well. Thank you. Secretary ARMITAGE. We are going to be there for a lot longer than 2007. Our planning is way out there. Chairman WARNER. All right. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Now we will go to Senator Akaka. Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wolfowitz, this past Tuesday at a House Armed Services Commit- tee hearing, you were asked about mistakes made in Iraq. In your VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 54 answer you mentioned that you believed a mistake was made by not having the funding flexibility to field Iraqi security forces fast- er, and it has taken too long to get equipment, but it is finally ar- riving. You stated, ‘‘If we had been a little less fussy about competi- tive contracting and a little more eager to get guns and radios in the hands of Iraqi police, it could have been done faster.’’ I must tell you that statement troubles me. Congress has appro- priated billions of dollars in support of DOD’s efforts in Iraq. The real problem is inconsistent administrative oversight and a lack of systematic controls on the part of the Department. My question is, can you please explain further what you meant when you stated, if we had been a little less fussy about the competitive contracting? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I do not think I really mean that we should have been less fussy. We have very elaborate procedures for letting contracts. For example, one critical contract that was for equipping Iraqi security forces was awarded. It took some time to award it because of all the procedures that we have to go through to do a request for proposal and all of the things that go with it. Then it was appealed. When it was appealed—fussy is the wrong word—the lawyers told us, ‘‘You cannot now go and use Iraqi funds to purchase the same things because that would be seen as going around the appeals process.’’ So we added another couple of months before that was resolved. When you talk to our commanders, they say the money that we get through commander’s emergency reserve program that comes straight to us is bid competitively. It is bid at a local level; it is bid without all of the large contracting apparatus that seems to grow as you go up the food chain. They get very good value for the money, and it is done competitively. So we should be fussy about how money is spent, particularly American taxpayer money. Some- times procedures are cumbersome and are oriented more toward peacetime economic development programs and do not recognize that in war time these kinds of projects are every bit as important as tank ammunition. We find a way to do those things more expe- ditiously. That is really all I meant, Senator. Senator AKAKA. In my questioning of hearings, I have been al- most exclusively asking about contractors. I am concerned about contracting. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. You are right to be. Senator AKAKA. I also have a follow-up question on contracting practices in Iraq. The recent prison abuse scandal has highlighted that there are many private contractors working in Iraq. Can you tell me, is the Department administering some sort of tracking mechanism of all of these contractor personnel? If so, who in the Department is responsible for maintaining and tracking both American-contracted employees as well as contracted employees from other countries? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. There are many different categories of contractors. Let me try my understanding, and General Myers or Secretary Armitage might have a different view. Contractors that work for the U.S. military we have certain responsibilities for, both for their conduct and for their protection. There are a large number of other contractors that work in Iraq. They are there basically on their own under obligations of Iraqi law. They are largely respon- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 55 sible for their own security. There is, I guess you might say, a mid- dle ground where there are contractors that are in that latter cat- egory, but they are executing important reconstruction projects, many of them in fact funded out of our congressionally appro- priated supplemental. Their security is a matter in the first in- stance of their responsibility, but it is a matter of concern for us. Our military commanders try to establish communications with those contractors so that in emergencies we can hopefully back them up. Obviously the tragedy that happened with the four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah is an example of where we were not able to help them, unfortunately. General Myers, do you want to add to that? General MYERS. No. I think going forward after June 30 that the immunity that will be afforded to the U.S. Armed Forces will also be afforded to contractors that are working for the United States Government, as well as foreign liaison personnel, and so they are going to be protected as long as they are performing the duties they were contracted to perform. They will continue to have the right, the inherent right of self defense, all the contractors that are per- forming in Iraq. It is also true that the multinational force will have the authority post-June 30 to protect contractors. It will be up to the Commander of the multinational force, General Casey, now that he has been confirmed, and the contractors to work out where that will occur. Senator AKAKA. Thank you for your responses. My time has ex- pired, but let me say that I have been particularly concerned about the line of command and the way in which the contractors come under that line. We will be talking about that later. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. We thank you very much, Senator Akaka. Senator Bayh. Senator BAYH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, thank you. These hearings are important, but so are your other respon- sibilities. I am well aware that it takes some time to prepare for these things, so your trial by ordeal is about concluded. I have three questions. First, I would like to touch upon the stakes in the struggle in which we are engaged and the con- sequences to our Nation’s security if we are ultimately not success- ful; second, how we hope to win; and finally, what contributions to- ward our success we can expect from the Iraqis in the near term. First, as you are well aware, there were differences of opinion about embanking upon this course of action, but we are there now. I would like for you in particular, to get your opinions about two things. First, if we were to withdraw precipitously, would those who are adverse to the interests of the United States of America in all likelihood after a period of violence seize control of Iraq. That is number one. Second, have these people articulated any positive agenda for that country? Do they have political demands or are they simply opposed to the democracy and freedom we are attempting to create there? So that is another way of saying is there any alternative to a struggle to try and suppress them. They have no positive agenda that they are pursuing in the political process? So, number one, are adversaries likely to seize control of the country if we do not per- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 56 severe? Second, do they have any positive agendas or any grounds for negotiation, or is this simply a struggle that we must persevere in and ultimately succeed? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. You used the word precipitously, and that is the key. Ultimately and hopefully sooner rather than later, we hope in fact we can significantly reduce our presence and our role. But it has to be keyed not to a particular date, but rather it has to be keyed to the building of Iraqi capacity. It is remarkable the extent to which this enemy offers no positive vision at all. We have a group of death worshippers on the one hand. Mr. Zarqawi and his people believe in blowing themselves up so they can blow up other people. We have the killers from the old regime who have been doing that sort of torture and chopping off of hands and cutting out of tongues that Senator Sessions referred to earlier for several decades. I will say it again. That is why so many Iraqis are prepared to stand up and fight for what they call, very often the phrase seems to be a ‘‘new Iraq.’’ It means a free Iraq. It means things that we Americans will like, but for them it is a new Iraq. It is the newness that is important, and it has to be their country. Our great strate- gic advantage is that the enemy offers nothing. Senator BAYH. It seems to me we are involved here as a test of the perseverance and the staying power of the American public. The reason for my question is—I anticipated your answer—it seems to me that there is no positive agenda on the part of our ad- versaries. In fact they would be hostile to the interests of the United States of America. It is important for the American people to be aware of that, because that will obviously factor into their support for the cause upon which we have embarked. General? General MYERS. If I may, you asked what the stakes are, and the stakes go far beyond Iraq. Iraq is very important, and it has all the potential that Secretary Armitage said. But this goes back to a question that was asked earlier where we showed U.S. resolve in 1983 in Beirut in a certain manner. We did it later on in Somalia. We did it after the U.S.S. Cole attack. We did it after Khobar Tow- ers. This adversary is an extremist movement—their aim is to go back to the 7th century and establish Caliphate for Muslim na- tions. That is a threat that is a very extreme threat that is bigger than Iraq, but Iraq is a crucial battleground for them. What they are counting on is the same sort of reaction they saw in 1983, the same sort of reaction they have seen every time we have been test- ed. It goes to the question that Senator Sessions talked about, which is the test of wills and resolve. This is clearly a test of wills, it is clearly a test of our patience. It is absolutely essential to our na- tional security. As the military advisor to the President and NSC, do not think there has been a greater threat to our national secu- rity than this type of extremism through a few perpetrators. On September 11, 2001, it was 19 individuals that brought down the World Trade Center, killed 3,000 individuals, hit the Pentagon, and killed several hundred more. Senator BAYH. It is important for the American people to know what the stakes are, both on the up side, as Secretary Armitage VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 57 mentioned, spreading democracy, but also on the down side if we are ultimately not successful. General MYERS. Could not be higher in my opinion. Secretary ARMITAGE. If you will allow me. Senator BAYH. Yes, and then I do want to get to my second ques- tion. Please go ahead. Secretary ARMITAGE. What has happened in the last couple of weeks in the Middle East is rather amazing. You have had the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIR) come out and put a forward-looking, very positive view of the new Iraqi Government. Now, why do I underline this? That government is not yet democratic, but the whole aim of that government is to get a democracy in the Middle East by December or January 2005. You put that together with what came out of the G–8 in terms of what is now being called modernization in the greater Middle East, which is another word for reform. You have some real movement that could be thwarted in the Middle East in general if we do not follow through and if we are not successful. Senator BAYH. Thank you. My second and now final question has to do with how do we win. We have established here that our ad- versaries are not engaged in the political process. They reject civil society, they have a view they would like to impose akin to the Dark Ages, and it seems to me unlikely that at least in the foresee- able future we will be able to kill them all. So how do we ulti- mately win this? Here is the point that I would like to get to. Ultimately it is the Iraqi people themselves that need to reject these extreme elements and themselves make the conditions within which they flourish no longer existent in that society. Things are fairly good in the north with some exceptions; they are fairly good in the south. So am I correct in saying what we are really talking about here is the Sunni part of the country? Which gets to my question, what will it take to enlist the Sunnis in the cause of building a democratic, stable Iraq? As mentioned by some of my colleagues, what are the benchmarks that we are seeking to establish? How will we know that we are making progress with the Sunnis and the Sunnis themselves reject these sorts of extremist elements in their own midst? I am assuming without the Sunnis ultimately coming on board it is going to be very difficult to establish the kind of security given the symmetry here that we are going to need for democracy to be successful. Secretary ARMITAGE. You are dead right. They have to have them on board. One of the things that has been accomplished by the Iraqi interim government (IIG) that really helped calm part of the Sunni population down was the number of Sunnis who partici- pate on the IIG. You saw one of them, the President, who happens to be a leading tribal sheikh as well. So the first element of bring- ing them on board is to make sure they understand that they have a future in the new Iraq and they would not be disenfranchised. That is number one. Number two, they have to see that some Sunnis do hold positions of legitimate and real power, which they see. Number three, we have to do a better job, and one of the mistakes that I have testi- fied with Paul about that we made is we did not empower the trib- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 58 al sheikhs to a higher degree earlier on. We have to continue that. Number four, we have to continue to bring down the unemploy- ment in the Sunni areas, which our military commanders, I think, are doing a fantastic job by use of the CERP funds. So all the ele- ments are there, and they are coming together. Now, will they, Senator? I do not know. I think so. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I would add, Saddam practiced almost equal opportunity oppression. He killed enormous numbers of Sunnis as well. Part of our problem throughout the country and particularly in Sunni areas is people do not like to be occupied. Amirasunni, out near Fallujah, who was a Sunni, said to General Matti’s, ‘‘In my heart, I want you to leave tomorrow. In my head I know I need you for a while longer.’’ I met up in Mosul with this very courageous governor who on April 9, when they were under attack from the enemy, stood his ground through the night in the government house. While the po- lice were unreliable, the civil defense corps people and the facilities protection service people stood their ground. They were able to fight off the enemy knowing that we were there to help if needed, but they did not need us. It is a wonderful story, and this man is a Sunni Arab. Having them have their own government, their own country, and getting us out of this situation of making them an occupied country will help particularly—it will help with everyone, but particularly with the Sunni Arabs. Senator BAYH. The last thing I would say, and Mr. Chairman, thank you for your forbearance. General, since I am on, as Senator Roberts, Warner, and others are, the Intelligence and Armed Serv- ices Committees—I would assume that another indicator will be the intelligence flow that we are getting. It will enable us to con- duct some of these pinpoint strikes in Fallujah and places like that and the extent to which Sunnis and others are saying: look, here is where the bad guys are, we do not want them in our midst any- more, help us eradicate them. General MYERS. That is absolutely essential and absolutely has to be part of it, Senator. You are right. That is what General Casey will work on very hard, because we have already started with his predecessor. That is how do we share information. We have to be able to move information around very quickly in this type of threat environment. There are some structural things that need to be done as well. We have to be willing to share, and they have to be willing to share. So far, the Iraqis have been very willing to share information with us, and we need more of that type of help abso- lutely. Senator BAYH. Thank you very much. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator. Particularly that last question goes to the heart of what we are trying to work with. Senator Pryor. Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Wolfowitz, I would like to focus if I could for a minute on Mr. Zarqawi. I would like to ask if he is or is not al Qaeda? The reason I am asking this is because in today’s New York Times it says, ‘‘intelligence officials say it is not clear if Mr. Zarqawi is an associate or a rival of Mr. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 59 bin Laden.’’ Then it goes on to talk about he has shown a propen- sity to target Shiite Muslims, whereas apparently Osama bin Laden is trying to unify the Muslim world. I would like to get your thoughts on is he or is he not al Qaeda. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. The relationship between him and bin Laden is murky. He was running a terrorist training camp in Af- ghanistan under the Taliban when bin Laden was in charge. He seems to have an association that goes back some ways. That is why we talk about him as associated though rather than—he obvi- ously shows a streak of independence. He is not just an anti-Iraqi terrorist. He is done terrorist actions in Jordan. In fact, he was in- volved in the millennium plot in Jordan back in the year 2000. He has been involved, we are pretty certain about this, in plots in Georgia in the former Soviet Union, in London, in Paris. This is a worldwide terrorist with probably his own ambitions. The impor- tant point is he is a killer. Senator PRYOR. He is on the loose in Iraq. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Yes. Senator PRYOR. Now, I understand that we are in an open ses- sion here, and I am sensitive to that. If you cannot comment, I would like to follow up in a different forum, but did we have a chance to take Zarqawi out of the equation in the early days of the campaign in Iraq, maybe even before we started the war phase in Iraq? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. There are some legends maybe if we had a chance we could have gotten him in August 2002. I do not think that is true. There was a major strike on the facility in north- eastern Iraq with which he was associated at the beginning of the war. A considerable number of this Ansar al-Islam group, which again is separated but affiliated, separate from either Zarqawi or al Qaeda. Alot of them were killed and some importance intel- ligence was collected, but we do not think Mr. Zarqawi was there at the time. Senator PRYOR. General Myers, do you agree with that? General MYERS. Yes. I do not think we have enough information to make that judgement. We know he was affiliated to some degree with Ansar al-Islam who had this enclave in northeastern Iraq, but his exact whereabouts when and where, we were never certain of that. Senator PRYOR. That is fair enough. Secretary Armitage, recently you were quoted as saying ‘‘the U.N. Security Council Resolution will make it very clear that this is a fully sovereign Iraqi Govern- ment. We will only be in Iraq under U.N. mandate with the invita- tion of the Government of Iraq. They have invited us in, they can invite us out. That seems to me to be pretty sovereign.’’ I would like to follow up with an answer that you gave to Sen- ator Levin’s question early on in this hearing. Specifically, in re- sponse to Senator Levin’s question, are you saying that the interim government has no authority to ask us to leave Iraq? Secretary ARMITAGE. I said quite the contrary. I said the interim government, as a matter of fact, could ask us to leave Iraq, and we would leave. Senator PRYOR. Okay. Now, I am sorry, General Myers maybe said that the previous—or the current iteration of government VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 60 there kind of binds the interim government. I do not know all the legal issues there, but is there a difference of opinion between State and Defense on this question? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. No, there is no difference of opinion. What General Myers was referring to was the fact that the legislation that is a product of the CPA continues in force under this sovereign government. There are certain procedures under which it can intro- duce its own decrees and change things, particularly with respect to things like negotiating agreements with foreign countries. That comes in when there is an elected government in January. The basic point of sovereignty which Secretary Armitage referred to is it has the fact. Let’s also say very clearly they have said now more times than I can count, we need you, please stay, and it is a fairly theoretical discussion right now. Senator BAYH. But it may be theoretical, but just let me ask the question. If they ask us to leave, will we leave? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. We have made that clear repeatedly. Senator BAYH. That we will leave if asked. Do we have a plan for that? Do we have a plan for withdrawal in the event that they do ask us to leave? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. We do not think they are going to ask us to leave, Senator Pryor. Senator PRYOR. But that is not my question. Do we have a plan? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. If we thought it was a realistic possibility, we would develop a plan. If it were to happen, we would develop a plan. Senator PRYOR. So as we currently sit here, we do not have a plan. I know they have not asked us yet, but I am just asking. Have we done any planning for that eventuality? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. No, I do not think so. Senator PRYOR. Last thing I wanted to ask about, and I know Senator Clinton would like to ask, so I am going to try to make this brief, there has been a lot of discussion in the media at least about Chalabi and what is going on there. I am not sure that we have had a chance in this committee to really hear in the last couple of weeks because we have been so tied up on the floor with Defense Authorization. Mr. Secretary, if you would like to offer any com- ments on Chalabi, I just thought you may want to have a chance to do that right now. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I am not sure what kind of comment you are looking for. Senator PRYOR. Well—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I mean, there are intelligence issues that are frankly the purview of another committee and would require a closed session. He is one of many Iraqi opposition figures with whom we have worked over many years. In fact, Mr. Allawi is an- other. The Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, is yet another. Contrary to what I continue to read in the newspapers, we do not have favorites. We very much believe in the Iraqi people picking their own leaders, and that means you cannot have favorites. Senator BAYH. Secretary Armitage, any comments on Mr. Chalabi? VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 61 Secretary ARMITAGE. The Department of State’s relationship with Mr. Chalabi has been well documented. It was quite rocky. I have no new information on him. Senator BAYH. Thank you. Chairman WARNER. Thank you very much, Senator. Senator Dole. Senator DOLE. Thank you, gentlemen, for your tremendous serv- ice to our country. Secretary Wolfowitz, I find it ludicrous that any- one would suggest that no relationship existed between Saddam Hussein and terrorists. Senator Lieberman stated the case very succinctly by saying that the war in Iraq is the central battle- ground in the war on terror. Yet polls show evidence that Ameri- cans are not making this connection. The media has made an ob- session about denying al Qaeda had any link to Iraq. You have made references to several other terrorist groups in- cluding Abou Ibrahim and his professional killer group that was harbored by Saddam and making bombs today to kill Americans. Iraq was one of the five states on the original patterns of global terrorism list compiled by the State Department, as I understand, in 1979, which cited Saddam as a major sponsor of various terrorist groups, including the PLO, Hamas, and the Abou Nidal organiza- tion. Would you not agree that Iraq was a breeding ground for ter- ror under Saddam Hussein? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I think it was, yes, Senator Dole. Senator DOLE. Do you not agree that the removal of Saddam Hussein and his evil regime was a positive step in the overall war on terror? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I absolutely think it was, and it has a step though that we have to finish winning that fight. We have to finish winning the peace in Iraq. Senator DOLE. A marine officer in a Washington Times article was quoted as follows, ‘‘the problem is that there’s no identification (ID) system, so it is not out of the ordinary for a target to either not have an ID or to have several IDs with different names. Terror- ists could easily be moving from town to town using several dif- ferent names and appearances.’’ Secretary Armitage, do you know if the Iraqi Government has a plan to implement any form of registration or identification pro- gram? General Myers, how are our multinational forces able to identify friend from foe, or identify Iraqi forces from civilians or from insurgents? Secretary ARMITAGE. Senator Dole, there have been discussions with the new government about a national ID that may even have a chip embedded in it. The discussions have not progressed to my knowledge far enough along to be able to talk what the cost would be and how we would go about this. But we have to find some way to register people. Senator DOLE. General Myers? General MYERS. In terms of identifying the enemy from innocent civilians, it is very difficult in Iraq because the enemy hides amongst the civilians and will put civilians in front of their forma- tions very often. So the way they identify them is those who have the guns, those who are firing back, they have the inherent right of self defense, of course. Then when we have very good intelligence VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 62 and precise intelligence, then we can go precisely after them, whether it is U.S. forces or our coalition friends and partners. But it is a difficult job in Iraq just because they are not adhering to any tenet of the Geneva Convention at this point. They are all dressed like everybody else. Senator DOLE. Secretary Wolfowitz, were you about to answer on that question? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Well, I just wanted to say we discussed that subject specifically with Prime Minister Allawi when I was in Iraq. He believes what we are calling biometric IDs of some form would be very helpful in improving the security situation and so do our commanders, by the way. I do not mean to interrupt your questions, but could I say some- thing? It is important in looking at this overall issue of the rela- tionship between the Iraqi regime and terrorists of various kinds. You correctly point out there are various kinds. In fact, Abou Ibrahim, who you mentioned, is a recognized Palestinian explosives expert who has been in Iraq for the better part of the last couple decades. His organization called the 15 May organization is basi- cally just a branch of the Iraqi intelligence. This year, coalition forces conducted a raid in the vicinity of Mosul that disrupted a bomb-making shop that is attributed to his work. It has been a killer regime that works with killers of various kinds. The question I wanted to put in perspective is, what is the standard of proof? We seem at times to be going back to the idea that fighting terrorism is a law enforcement operation. Until you can prove involvement beyond a reasonable doubt, you should not do anything. I would go back to what we heard repeatedly and still hear sometimes from the 9/11 Commission about the need to con- nect the dots here. The fact that there was ambiguous information before September 11 that in hindsight most of us wish we might have done Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan 3 years earlier instead of in 2001. It is a very difficult subject, and there is enormous uncertainty. Intelligence is not legal proof; it presents contradictory facts. You have to assess them, you have to weigh them; and then you have to attach probabilities to them. But for me, and for many other peo- ple, the level of tolerance that we could have for states supporting terrorism in the way that Saddam was supporting terrorism just changed dramatically when we saw what terrorists could do to us on September 11. Senator DOLE. Thank you very much. Let me say too that I re- spect your apology to the media regarding comments made about their coverage. However, your comments were taken out of context, and I can relate to your frustration because press coverage of the war has been skewed. For example, the coverage of the 9/11 Com- mission, in my view, has been outrageous. Now, building on what Senator Sessions mentioned while I was presiding, between May 4 and yesterday, The Washington Post ran 399 stories about Abu Ghraib and the New York Times ran 437 stories during the same period. However, the documentary high- lighting atrocities under Saddam Hussein in that same prison re- ceived little or no coverage by the mainstream media. Can you VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 63 speak to the significance of that documentary, the Don North docu- mentary? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. This is the one that talks about the seven Iraqis who had their hands cut off? Senator DOLE. That is right. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I have not seen it. I have heard about it. I have met the seven Iraqi businessmen who were picked up in the mid-1990s. Saddam wanted to be able to blame the state of his economy on somebody else, and he said it was because these people were engaged in black market currency activities. They had their right arms amputated, all seven of them. Fortunately through some American benefactors, they were taken to Texas and recently had artificial limbs provided. The shocking thing is that kind of cruelty, that kind of brutality was mild in Saddam’s era. Senator Lieberman, Senator Sessions, and Senator Santorum the other day—again, I did not see it; I have read about it; although it is hard to read about it, there has been almost no mention of it anywhere in the press—gave a press conference in which I understand they showed a 4 or 5 minute video that showed the various kinds of things that the Fedayeen Saddam did to their own people if they were suspected of not carry- ing out their missions, one man having his arms broken, somebody having his tongue cut out. You can read about it. It is hideous enough to read it without seeing it. It seems to me that it intro- duces a kind of distortion when there is virtually no coverage of that. This is not to say that we hold ourselves to that standard, ab- solutely not. What took place in Abu Ghraib, as the Secretary of Defense has said, is a body blow. We are investigating it, we are going to discipline people and punish people appropriately. Unless you really understand just how horrible the old Iraq was, the American people are going to have trouble understanding the incredible courage with which so many Iraqis are stepping forward to create and defend a new Iraq. That is what gives me great hope. Senator DOLE. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Thank you, Senator. Senator Clinton. Senator CLINTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize for not being able to get here earlier. I thank each of our witnesses for once again appearing before this committee. Secretary Wolfowitz, on several occasions, I and others have raised predictions and comments you made before the action com- menced in Iraq. Just as an example, on February 19, 2003, on Na- tional Public Radio, you said, ‘‘We’re not talking about the occupa- tion of Iraq, we are talking about the liberation of Iraq. Therefore, when that regime is removed, we will find the Iraqi population ba- sically welcoming us as liberators.’’ In your speech before the Vet- erans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in March 2003, you said, ‘‘The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. They know America will not come as a conqueror.’’ It is not only comments from you, but others in the administra- tion, such as Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press, March 16, 2003, ‘‘The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 64 but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and will welcome us as liberators when we come to do that.’’ Were those statements by you and others in the administration based on intelligence, CIA intelligence, or other intelligence agency analysis? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Clinton, the Iraqi people in over- whelming numbers did welcome us as liberators. Just if you go back and read the headlines from any American newspaper on April 9, April 10, of people cheering us in the streets of Baghdad and all over the country. They were dying for liberation but two things happened. Saddam and his people did not quit on April 9. They continue to fight. We acquired this very burdensome label of being an occupying power. They wanted to be liberated, not occu- pied, and that is why what is going to happen on July 1 is so im- portant. They will be a free country; they will have their own gov- ernment. We will not be the occupiers; we will be supporting that government. You were not here when we talked about it. I was struck during the course of 4 days in Iraq at how many Iraqis we encountered who were ready to risk their lives for this new Iraq. We met a young marine private first class in Fallujah whose life had been saved by five Iraqi civil defense corps members who had put their own lives at risk to rescue him. We met with the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Allawi, who was almost chopped to death with an ax by one of Saddam’s murderers in 1979, who is still the number one target of Mr. Zarqawi, and whose life is in danger of Iraq; and the President in Iraq, Ghazi Al-Yawar, his predecessor was assas- sinated in a car bomb just a couple of months ago. This one particularly moving example, which I will repeat be- cause you were not here, a young Iraqi interpreter was working with our military up in Mosul whose sister was murdered a few weeks ago because she was working with us. When the general who was with me who knew her from before asked her why she continued to put her life in danger this way, she said, ‘‘Because my father told me we mustn’t retreat in the face of evil.’’ We are confronting an evil enemy. The Iraqi people are confront- ing an evil enemy. Those people in overwhelming numbers still want to be liberated from that enemy. It was the mayor of a town near Fallujah that said to General Mattis, in my heart I want you to leave right now, but in my head I know we need you for a while longer. That’s the dilemma of this situation that it is both our vul- nerability and our great strength that we are facing an enemy that is tenacious, that kills very effectively, that has no scruples about killing innocents. That is also our strength because the overwhelm- ing majority of Iraqis do not want that. Senator CLINTON. Well, Mr. Secretary, based on that description, in retrospect, could we have avoided certain of the unfavorable con- sequences that you have just described if we had had more force in the beginning? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Clinton, the notion that we would be better off with 300,000 troops is wrong. More importantly our commanders, General Franks and General Abizaid, emphatically think it is wrong. There were a lot of people, and I happen to have been one of them, who were pushing General Franks. It was in the VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 65 November time frame of 2001, saying, do you not need more troops in Afghanistan? He was pushing back and saying, I do not want to make the same mistake the Soviet Union made, and he was right. The reason we have been as successful as we have in Af- ghanistan is we have kept our military presence. Senator CLINTON. But I am not asking you about Afghanistan, Mr. Secretary. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I am about to say the same thing applies in Iraq. General Abizaid will consistently tell people publicly and privately he does not want to increase the weight of the American footprint on the Iraqi people. It would have been much better if we could have been in there from the beginning in support of an Iraqi government rather than as an occupying power. 300,000 troops, which no commander has ever remotely come close to asking for, would in fact have created more problems than it would have solved. There is no reason to think that we would have had any better luck catching these people where they hide if there was a heavy American presence—a heavier American presence. It was pretty heavy. What we need is better intelligence. One of the keys to bet- ter intelligence is more Iraqis on the front lines fighting with us, and that is what we are moving toward. Senator CLINTON. At some point, Mr. Secretary, will there be any kind of after-action review by the civilian leadership in the Penta- gon with respect to this mission? Certainly, those of us who heard General Shinseki, who at the time was the Army Chief of Staff, testify based on his best knowledge and experience the numbers that were needed have to conclude there was at least a debate within the professional military. Now, how that debate was deter- mined obviously we have a regime of civilian leadership is obvi- ously clear. To dismiss out of hand testimony we heard with our own ears and testimony that was very compelling and led to the public em- barrassment of a distinguished soldier is a little bit difficult for us to accept. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I am sorry, I do not think to disagree with someone should be publicly embarrassing. General Shinseki was in fact disagreeing with all of his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combatant Commander, General Franks. Is that not right, General Myers? General MYERS. Actually, we did not—as we discussed about troop strength with then the Commander General Franks, which we did many times during the planning, during conflict, for post- conflict, and then later on with General Abizaid, the issue of more troops never came before, never was brought up in our delibera- tions. Nobody said you need more. General Franks proposed what he thought was right. We had discussions and talked about it. Then we provided our military advice to the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary, but there was never a push inside the Joint Chiefs of Staff for more forces. Senator CLINTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Thank you, Senator. You raise that question which is continually raised about General Shinseki’s figure. My own independent research on that reveals that I am not question- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 66 ing the integrity of that fine officer, but I cannot find any trace of the Joint Staff ever discussing a figure of the magnitude that he mentioned right from that seat you are in, Secretary Armitage, nor in the Army in its deliberations, a figure of that nature. If I am wrong, let somebody show me the documents that support that anywhere in that building that figure was discussed and carefully thought through. I want to turn to this very important letter that the Prime Min- ister of Iraq sent to the Secretary General of NATO and talk a lit- tle bit about NATO, gentlemen. If I may say with the greatest re- spect, it was some 36 years ago that I walked in the Pentagon, roughly—exactly, as a matter of fact—February 1969 in the Navy Secretariat and got my introduction to that magnificent organiza- tion referred to with the greatest respect, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It has unquestionably been the bulwark against the Cold War and today I have grave concerns. I pick up on your statement. I copied it down, Secretary Wolfowitz. NATO’s capacity has been whittled down over the years, and we all recognize that. Yet here is this Prime Minister looking to NATO as he should, because the image of NATO today is resting on its glorious past, which I cannot find today. I say that—harsh as it may be. For example, in my most recent trip here a couple of weeks ago into Afghanistan and then into Iraq—as a matter of fact, Senator, it was one year ago tomorrow that you and I made the first trip of any Senators into Iraq. My good friend and colleague, we have traveled together many times. But in Afghanistan, I was particu- larly interested in the work being done by NATO, and it has been hailed. I found two points that concern me greatly. I talked to the senior officers, and they were very candid in their responses. Number one, the NATO forces actively working in Afghanistan today, largely on reconstruction, each country impores what they call national cave- ats on their forces. Those caveats read like when we used to send our children to school: ‘‘Dear teachers, we cannot have this for lunch, and Johnny must be home by supper.’’ Forget it. I looked through these caveats, and in large measure they said, the con- tribution of some of the forces, not all, by the member nations, we are not going to get engaged in the heavy lifting over in Afghani- stan if the going gets tough. If anybody wants to dispute me, do so. We cannot constitute a force structure around NATO if we are going to have on the commander’s desk independent sets of orders for the various components that go in to make the overall NATO force. The growth of the drug industry in Afghanistan is exponential. Someone estimated 60 percent, if such a figure can be worked out, of the gross national product of Afghanistan now is derivative of the illegal drug trade, much of it in those areas in which NATO is trying to perform some of its reconstruction. There is a projection for more NATO troops to come in, and each of the quadrants to be part of their area of responsibility (AOR). Yet I cannot find any clear evidence that the member countries of NATO are really in VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 67 that planning stage to put those forces into place to result in the composite picture of NATO’s role in Afghanistan. Now they are called upon to do another mission, and it is inter- esting. If you read it, ‘‘at this critical juncture in our history, we need the urgent help of the international community and especially NATO in the crucial areas of training inside Iraq.’’ That is not training them back in Brussels. That is not training them back in whatever they might have as the areas down in the training areas of Germany. That said inside, to me, that is quite a bit of infra- structure, quite a bit of troop commitment. Now, the combination of the national caveats—and I have watched the financial figures over the years—the United States has kept up its commitment financially, roughly a quarter of the total NATO budget. These other nations have scaled down. Now, take me on, tell me I am wrong, because I see NATO moving down a path to that immortal phrase that I sat in the hearing room of the Armed Services Committee and heard made by Shy Meyer of the United States Army when he said, ‘‘we are a hollow Army.’’ NATO will become a hollow force unless some very strong actions and determination take place by its member nations and take place very quickly. How can we expect NATO to perform this mission, given the cur- rent status of its inability to live up to commitments in Afghani- stan? How can they take on this additional mission in Iraq? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I am afraid I share your concerns. My col- leagues may want to comment also. To give credit where it is due, there are quite a few NATO allies, and maybe it is not surprising that some of the newer ones that are up there on the front lines with us in Afghanistan fighting by all the tough rules of engage- ment that we have ourselves, like the Romanian special forces, who I think have done a great job. There is the problem that you mentioned of rules of engagement. There are terrific deficiencies in capability and a certain lack of po- litical will. I am a great believer in NATO. It is remarkable if you think about how this alliance has stuck together over half a cen- tury when people said an alliance of democratic countries cannot possibly compete with basically an empire run from the center. We not only competed, but we also beat them. There is a lot of strength and viability in the common values that we share together. I worry a little bit though that maybe some in Europe think that they can wall themselves off from the threat that in fact threatens all of us. You mentioned the drug trade out of Afghanistan. That is a much more direct threat to Europe than it is to the United States, although it is a threat to the stability of the new govern- ment in Afghanistan, and therefore, we all have a stake in it. You cannot segment out different aspects of this fight against global terrorism or think that somehow, to use Winston Churchill’s im- mortal phrase, to think that if you feed the crocodile, he will eat you last. Chairman WARNER. I want to come back to this letter. What is the reality and the capability of NATO to move in? Secretary Armitage? Secretary ARMITAGE. I want to take you on, if I may. We all have the concern about the hollowing out of NATO. We have to balance VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 68 by an acknowledgment that 36 years ago when you became the Secretary of the Navy, the thought of NATO working out of area was nowhere. It just was not possible. That was not even on any- body’s mind 15 years ago. They have taken the political step of working out of area. What they have not done is taken the funding step of bulking up their defense vote in such way that will allow them to have the capabilities to continually do that. Having said that, if NATO as an organization at Istanbul or after can take on the general mission, then this will give a lot of political cover to countries that do participate. That is significant. I cannot speak to who is more capable on the technical assistance side, which is not a heavy troop involvement, or who might have equip- ment lying around that would be applicable to the Iraqi forces. That will all be discussed at Istanbul. Chairman WARNER. Alright. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. That is an important correction Secretary Armitage mentioned. There has been some very dramatic changes in NATO’s willingness to take on those responsibilities. What the Prime Minister—— Chairman WARNER. On paper, Mr. Secretary. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Well, right. What the Prime Minister is asking for there is not a huge hurdle to clear, and I hope in Istanbul in fact that they will get a significant positive response. Chairman WARNER. It tends to be words, words, words, panoply sessions, all the trappings, and yet I do not see the hard facts, boots on the ground of trainers to go in there and do it under the NATO flag, not just member nations. Yes, General? General MYERS. Mr. Chairman, the only thing I would add here is on national caveats, very serious business. You could have used the example in Kosovo. It was on our St. Patrick’s Day, when we had some disturbances and certain countries could not respond. The commander thought they could, but at the moment of crisis they could not. Chairman WARNER. Because of national caveats? General MYERS. Absolutely. It put other forces in great danger, and it put the people or sites that they were trying to protect in great danger. The national caveats piece is something NATO is going to have to wrestle with, because when they have a political will to do a mission, they have to follow up with the wherewithal for the commanders to perform this mission. The commander of the multinational brigade in Iraq, the Polish commander, when I vis- ited with him several months ago, most of his force structure comes from NATO countries. He has Ministers of Defense and Chiefs of Defense on the phone with him telling him what he can and cannot do with those forces. That is not the way to be successful in the kind of security situation we find ourselves in in Iraq, in Afghani- stan, or in Kosovo. Chairman WARNER. Well, I want to refer to General Joulwan, who is an extraordinary valued advisor to our President, Secretary of Defense, yourself, and to Congress. Mine do not emanate—in any way reflect his views, but I know he is concerned about these na- tional caveats. I do not think you have to deal with it, you darn well just have to end it. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 69 To another subject, and that is, this committee has indicated it will continue. Mr. Secretary, we are not on any vendetta. We are simply doing our oversight in this question of the prisoner issues, particularly in Iraq. Look, we were told the Fay report would be issued to this committee. The Secretary indicated through his spokesman that this committee would promptly receive the Fay re- port. We now learn that that is going to be delayed while a new layer is brought in. General Kerns becomes the acting overseer of this. He is a very fine man. I have known him, extremely capable individual. Another officer of a higher rank other than Fay is to be brought in to do some work. All of these perturbations and so forth is lost when we stop to think. Day after day these articles come out in the paper, just today, about the problems over there. Congress, in my judgement, must be given the tools, the reports with which to do its proper oversight. We should have had a Chapter 1, Fay part 1, and ac- knowledge more was to come. Why don’t you outline the accuracy of what I said? This intelligence piece of what took place, did not take place, in that prison structure is the road map to tell the ad- ministration and frankly Congress, those of us that are interested in it, where we go next to try and determine what went wrong and how to see it never happens again. Can you describe to me what is the status of the Fay report? It was to have been in the hands of Congress, early projections, by now. Could it not be indicated Fay report part 1, then a sequential report to follow, performed by another three-star, unnamed at the moment, who will come in? Give us some clarification here. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, I share your frus- tration, both because you are frustrated, which frustrates me, but also because we are trying—— Chairman WARNER. We want to do a concrete and a fair and ob- jective job. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. You want to get the facts, and we want to get the facts. This delays the process. Just so we are clear, and I think I am clear about this now. What happened was, the Fay report was commissioned. It is an investigation and it is an inves- tigation with potential criminal consequences that was commis- sioned by Lieutenant General Sanchez to report to him for action as a commander. When the view was General Sanchez’s conduct has to be investigated also, then it is obvious you need somebody else in charge of the investigation. That is why General Kern was appointed. The question that you referred to about whether—and you I talked about this also privately. Fay cannot continue the inves- tigating part of it. Apparently, the Army has decided to appoint Lieutenant General Tony Jones, who is now at Fort Monroe, Vir- ginia, as the new head of the Fay investigation. He is currently the Deputy Commanding General and Chief of Staff of U.S. Army Training and Document Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe. I will get a briefing from the Army, and if it is appropriate get it to answer your question as to whether there is not some way to provide interim conclusions or interim results. What I have been told so far by lawyers is that is virtually impossible in a situation where people are investigating guilt and innocence of individuals. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 70 I share your concern, and I am going to try and see if we can not do better. Chairman WARNER. Well, I will accept that answer I have said steadfastly in the face of criticism as to how the Taguba report was handled. I asked for that report. You gave me what you had, and you had to supplement it. Our procedures are scrutinized, as they should be, but the Department has been very cooperative with this committee as it regards our needs. Now, other documents have come into the committee. We had the start of an important hearing yesterday, which will have to be continued, on the International Red Cross and their documentation as to what took place. We are going to have subsequent hearings on that. There are briefings at the moment. I have made my point. I accept your response, and I take it as continuing the cooperation that we have had so that we can just have the facts, maybe not the conclusions. We are not looking for the final conclusions until this whole picture is looked at, but the interim steps, rather than just read it day after day in the paper as it dribbles out. We do not know the accuracy of those reports. All right, Senator Levin, and then I have a question to follow. Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, relative to the NATO issue, I visited NATO, met with ambassadors to NATO urg- ing that they respond and that they take a role in Iraq. First of all, I sensed that they needed a request from an Iraqi Government. They have that now. Second, though, I also must tell you that I sensed some of the reluctance results from the kind of unilateral approach that the United States has taken to world challenges and minimizing the importance of coalitions. I still sense that feeling in NATO. We have made some progress now with the U.N., but that feeling sure existed at the U.N. because of the approach we took to issues and the rhetoric that was used relative to old Europe, to Germany, and to the United Nations prior to the attack on Iraq. So to some extent, the reluctance here represents chickens coming home to roost in my book. But nonetheless, that is gone, that is past. I must tell you, every- body on this committee totally supports the effort to get NATO in- volved, at least in training inside of Iraq. It is critically important. It will hopefully then lead to some Muslim nations coming in also. In any event, it is important. There is a consensus here that sup- ports this effort to get NATO involved. I hope the President suc- ceeds in getting them involved. It would be very important. I want to just go back to an issue though, Secretary Wolfowitz, that we talked about earlier this morning, because I am troubled by your answer. On the issue of the Iraq/al Qaeda connection, I am not talking here generally about terrorism, which I happen to agree with you there is obviously a lot of countries that have supported terrorism, including Syria, Iran, and Iraq. I am talking about the allegations before the war that there was a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. The focus on that allegation became a big part of the rhetoric prior to the war, and I just want to pursue what you are now saying rather than going back. I want to talk about what you are now saying relative to that connection, because I am trou- bled by it. I want to be direct with you about it. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 71 This is what you said the other day at the House of Representa- tives. ‘‘The issue is Saddam Hussein’s contacts with al Qaeda and support for al Qaeda. If you go and look at the sealed indictment that was issued against Osama bin Laden in February 1998,’’ and then you said, ‘‘this is not me, this is the United States Justice De- partment during the Clinton administration,’’ said—now, you are referring to this indictment—‘‘said that in 1992 and 1993, Saddam and al Qaeda came to an understanding not to attack one another and to provide mutual support.’’ You are relying heavily on a U.S. Justice Department indictment. It has been modified. They have dropped that allegation. It has been superseded by five other indictments on the same subject which left out that statement. Yet you continue to cite the indict- ment itself as evidence. Then when I asked you about that this morning, you went back to a source, which had been previously re- lied on by the U.S. Attorney. That source is no longer relied on by the U.S. Attorney as a source. For you to continue to cite an indictment when that indictment has been superseded and modified to drop this reference to the re- lationship between al Qaeda and Saddam, is disingenuous and is misleading. I would ask you, are you aware of the fact that that indictment that you referred to, that U.S. Government document has been superseded and modified to remove that reference to any understanding between al Qaeda and Saddam? Are you aware of the fact it was superseded? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Levin, the point is that what that cooperating witness said, and which was then sworn to as part of the indictment, is consistent with a whole body of evidence which Director Tenet referred to in his letter, I do not know if it was to you or Senator Bayh on the Intelligence Committee, outlining the various kinds of cooperation we had seen over the previous decade between Iraq and al Qaeda. This is not the only piece of evidence pointing to some agreement in the early 1990s that they would not attack one another anymore. There is other evidence suggesting they talked about mutual cooperation. I happen to cite that because it is—I mean, if we want to go through an intelligence assessment and put out all the pieces of in- formation that are there, I would be happy to do so. The basic point, which I said earlier, to Senator Dole, is I do not think this is something where you can prove things beyond a reasonable doubt. You have fragments of evidence. Some of them point one way, some of them point another way, but ultimately a policy maker, and particularly the President of the United States, has to decide how much risk he is prepared to run based on the different possibilities. This is not a subject on which I think there is perfect clarity ei- ther way. I do not think the bar should be set that until we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Saddam Hussein was in- volved in September 11, that until then we should not worry about the possibility he may have been a source of support for terrorists. Secretary Powell talked about very precisely his connections with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that we saw in 2002. Everything we have seen in Iraq since the liberation of that country has demonstrated VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 72 that there were these connections between Zarqawi and the old re- gime. Unfortunately, they have gotten closer. Senator LEVIN. Mr. Secretary, you can talk about fragments of evidence and talk about other subjects, but I am talking about the specific subject that you rely on again, which is an indictment. Now, you can go through other fragments and argue them if you want to, but that is not the issue. The issue is that you rely again, and you did it in front of this committee, upon a U.S. Government sealed indictment that you—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Which was unsealed, of course. Senator LEVIN. Now unsealed, which no longer makes the state- ment that you say that it made. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. There were subsequent indictments that— I do not know why they—— Senator LEVIN. I am telling you. It superseded the first one. Are you aware of the fact that the subsequent indictments superseded the one that you cite? Are you aware of that fact? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Sir, I am not a lawyer. I do not know what supersede means. Senator LEVIN. Modified, eliminated, reduced, took the place of, got rid of. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I know—— Senator LEVIN. Are you aware of that? It is a very direct ques- tion. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I am aware that the subsequent indict- ment connected to the embassy bombings in East Africa did not mention that. Senator LEVIN. Okay. Then you should not be citing, it seems to me, as recently as a few days ago, as the clear evidence for some relationship which is highly disputed and which the CIA, by the way, had very severe doubts about. Nonetheless, you should not be citing that indictment. Again, you talk about a U.S. Government document to support a conclusion, and that document no longer ex- ists. It has been superseded, and yet you still cite it. What troubles me—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Levin, are you saying—— Senator LEVIN. Let me finish now. What troubles me is that that pattern of exaggeration is what has created part of the problem here. We are all together on succeeding now in Iraq. There is not a difference on that. People can raise straw men about cutting and running. Nobody is talking about cutting and running. No one is talking about Saddam being a monster, he was a monster. We are talking about evidence that existed relative to the relationship which was used as the basis since al Qaeda attacked this country on September 11. That alleged relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda was used as the basis for attacking Iraq. When you still cite as evidence something which is not in existence anymore, be- cause it has been superseded, it troubles me. It is that pattern of exaggeration, which, it seems to me, has been a consistent problem for this administration and was a problem relative to the assess- ment of intelligence. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator Levin, it is not exaggeration. If anything, it is understatement. If we had a closed hearing and we could go through all the—— VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00075 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 73 Senator LEVIN. On that indictment? I just want to focus on—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Can I finish answering? Senator LEVIN. I do not want to go into the whole subject. I want to talk about your reliance on an indictment, and your reference to it and reliance on it. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Senator, can I answer the question? Senator LEVIN. Of course you can, but I wish you would address my question. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. You said this was the whole reason we went to war. It is not—— Senator LEVIN. No, I said it was a focus for our going to war. That was the principal reason for our going to war was the rela- tionship between al Qaeda—— Secretary WOLFOWITZ. That is not true. Our reason for going to war was to enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which had nothing to do with this issue. In fact, we conceded a great deal of our position when we went to the United Nations. The President of the United States went to the United Nations in September. He had three concerns. One was weapons of mass destruction, the sec- ond was terrorism, and the third was the abuse of the Iraqi people. We came down to Resolution 1441, which said if he meets this last and final chance to come clean on his weapons of mass de- struction then we will implicitly work the other issues by other means. The standard of Resolution 1441 was not imminent threat; it was not large stockpiles of weapons. It was come clean and tell— declare everything you have and do not obstruct the inspectors. David Kay has been very clear. Though he says our intelligence was wrong, he also says Saddam Hussein was in clear violation of Resolution 1441. That was the reason we went to war, Senator Levin. Senator LEVIN. Thank you. I have one question for Secretary Armitage and then I am done. There has been a lot in the press recently about the subject which the chairman raised, which had to do with the prison issue. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice (DOJ) in early 2002 said that the Presi- dent had the power to determine that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan. According to the reports, Secretary Armitage, the State Depart- ment legal adviser took issue with this determination, arguing that it was contrary to the official position of the United States, ‘‘the U.N. and all other states that have considered this issue.’’ Sec- retary Powell wrote a memorandum to Judge Gonzalez in which he stated that the OLC’s approach would, ‘‘reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva Conventions and undermine protections of the law of war for our troops, both in the specific conflict and in general.’’ An article in yesterday’s Washington Post indicates the civilian attorneys in the DOD sided with the OLC on this issue, while the military lawyers in the DOD sided with the State Department. The Washington Post also reported that after this dispute, ‘‘senior civil- ians at the Pentagon no longer sought to include the State Depart- ment or the Joint Staff in deliberations about the precise protec- tions afforded to detainees by the Geneva Conventions.’’ VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 74 My question is Secretary Armitage, is it true that the State De- partment objected to the conclusions of the Department of Justice and the White House Counsel’s office about the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to the war in Afghanistan? Secretary ARMITAGE. It is true we had a different opinion, and we expressed it. Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WARNER. Just two quick wrap-up items, gentlemen. You have been most patient, and we have had an excellent hearing. Yesterday my long-time friend and great colleague, Senator McCain, asked a question to General Casey, and it was asked again this morning: What went wrong? General Casey gave his best response. Each of you have given your responses today. A few nights ago I had the distinct privilege of attending a din- ner and speaking on behalf of General Tommy Franks. I remember with great clarity how the DOD, Mr. Secretary, was forthcoming as that whole plan was put into place with regard to military oper- ations, General Myers, and how we were going to go about it. A key part of that operation was the pre-positioning of the Fourth Infantry Division (ID) in the Mediterranean. On jump-off day, they were to come down through Turkey and go into the northern regions so that the enemy was taken on from the north and the south. All of a sudden, Turkey said no. That was the end of it. We had to take those forces and go all the way around down through the Persian Gulf up into where they finally came into country in the south when the fighting had been largely completed in that operation. Had they come down through the north, they would have gone through that area called the Sunni triangle, from which so much of the insurrection against our forces, primarily subsequent to the major operations, has taken place. Had that plan of the military been completed as envisioned and structured, I ask you, General Myers, would not some of this insurrection, if not a great deal of it, been taken out because of the movement of our forces, particu- larly the heavy mechanized forces down through there, so that part of Iraq could have seen the determination of the coalition, its weight and its might and its conviction? Had that not been stopped, might we not have experienced some of this, what hap- pened and why did it happen, and these tough answers that we have to face today? Do you share my view? General MYERS. Well, Mr. Chairman, your description of the issue is exactly right on. What I cannot predict was what would have happened. It is probably, as you say, it would have helped somewhat with the current situation, because that was the plan for the Fourth Infantry Division. It is a very powerful division. But I do not know that we will ever know. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Mr. Chairman, if I could respectfully ei- ther disagree or just say the somewhat is a very small somewhat, because think about Saddam Hussein hiding in his spider hole and what it took to find that man. We did not need a big mechanized division to do it. We needed skilled interrogators pursuing from one place to another—we needed intelligence. Actually what would have made a bigger difference than another American division in there faster would have been a whole division VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 75 of free Iraqi forces, if we would have been able to train them. This is important, because one reason to think that Iraqi security forces can do well once they are trained and equipped properly is they speak the language; they know the terrain; they will get intel- ligence in a way that our forces cannot do. Chairman WARNER. But repeatedly our officers, Casey yesterday, General Myers today, are asking, what happened? Well, somebody ought to mention that they planned this operation very carefully and that was an integral part, that strike from the north. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. You are absolutely right about that. Chairman WARNER. The Fourth ID went on to heroically fight in the subsequent insurrection, so there was not any question about their ability. But had they come down through that area, we might have lessened that problem. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Lessened for sure, but how much I guess is what is the issue. Chairman WARNER. Secretary Armitage, I will wrap up with you, and first a personal thing. I know that you canceled part of your vacation to come and attend this important hearing today, for which I, on behalf of all of the committee and the Senate, thank you. You really carry a tremendous load in supporting the Sec- retary, one of the most extraordinary men to be Secretary of State. We commend you, sir, for your public service. But let us wrap up by your describing again the process that will evolve after June 30, the sequence of the constitution being devel- oped, the elections. In your best judgement, is that going to remain on schedule? Secretary ARMITAGE. Yes. There are several things moving at once. The interim government from July 1 to the end of December or January is responsible for preparing and running the day-to-day government. They are running the ministries, all of them, and pre- paring for elections, which we would like at the end of the year, no later than January. Simultaneously, the U.N. will be helping to prepare the electoral process, the registering process, et cetera. This month of July, there is a preparatory commission being put together that will form a national conference of about 1,000 people, 1,000 notables in Iraq, and out of those 1,000 people will be developed an interim national council of 100 notables. Those people will give advice to the interim government. They have some duties. I have some here. They can monitor the implementation of the laws, they can approve the 2005 Iraqi national budget. They have the authority to veto executive or- ders by a two-thirds majority vote. Should something happen to the Presidency, they can appoint replacements to the Presidency Coun- cil. Assuming elections in December or January 2005, you will have a national assembly of 275 people, which will be responsible for choosing a President and a Prime Minister, who will then put to- gether a government. That government’s major duty is to develop a constitution, which will be placed before the Iraqi people for a referendum to which there will be a fully elected government in Iraq following that new constitution. That is the process. It is am- bitious. The U.N. thinks we can get there. We are going to do our VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 76 best to try to make the security atmosphere one that is conducive to hold in these elections. Chairman WARNER. Do you anticipate the U.N. will increase its presence in country and begin to pick up a heavy part of this re- sponsibility to implement this plan? Secretary ARMITAGE. They will pick up a part of the responsibil- ity. There is a great reluctance—an understandable reluctance on the part of the U.N. after—the loss of Sergio de Mello to have a heavy presence there. One of the elements of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 makes it very clear that the U.N. is encouraged to take this vital role. We are going to be responsible for assisting the U.N. to include convoying and providing fixed point protection. To the extent we are doing that and other forces from other na- tions are not doing it, that will detract from our overall ability to conduct security sweeps, et cetera. But I think the definition of the word, how much heavy lifting they are going to do, is one that I would quarrel with. They will do some lifting, but the security situ- ation is what is going to be determinate for them whether they in- crease the number of people in country. Chairman WARNER. That security situation is going to be largely dependent on the coalition forces in indeterminate numbers re- maining there while the internal Iraqi structure of its army and other security is built up, am I not correct? When you sort of said over here in reply to some question a minute or two ago, it is going to be a long time, we are looking over that entire period that you just outlined now for security forces to be in place. Secretary ARMITAGE. Well, I suspect so. I cannot give any num- bers. I do not think Paul could either. Chairman WARNER. I am not asking for the numbers. I thank you. Secretary ARMITAGE. Thank you. Chairman WARNER. I have raised the question of the Fourth ID because so often, in every hearing someone talks about the force structure and the level of force structure. Just remember that weeks before we started a whole Army division was eliminated for an indeterminate period of time from that operation. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. It was still successful. Chairman WARNER. You have discharged your duties. Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General MYERS. Thank you, sir. [Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:] QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN FALLUJAH AS A SANCTUARY 1. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Wolfowitz, the events in Fallujah are a clear exam- ple of where our actions did not back up our rhetoric. This is a dangerous precedent to be setting in the middle of an insurgency. In my view, turning over Falluja to insurgents and Iraqi forces under the command of ex-Baathists seems to be a mis- take. Is Falluja being used as a base of insurgency? If so, are we planning to follow the Falluja model in other Iraqi cities, should we face similar uprisings? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Falluja is one of the strongholds for Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters. What happened in Falluja is not being used as a model or a tem- plate in other Iraqi cities. The decisions made in Falluja at the time last April were made with the best information available, and predicated on the fact that eventually Iraqis will have to take responsibility for their own security. Clearly with the bene- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 77 fit of hindsight, Falluja was not ready for that. While we have learned the tactical and strategic lessons of Falluja, we are not using what happened in Falluja in April as the model for dealing with other unsettled cities. Each tactical situation is dif- ferent, because the populations, tribes, sects, and ethnic groups vary in size and im- portance throughout the country of Iraq, and each has its own history, culture, and pertinent background to take into account when devising tactical solutions to secu- rity problems. ABU GHRAIB INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (ICRC) REPORTS 2. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Wolfowitz, the Pentagon has consistently said that it cannot share ICRC reports with Congress because that would violate the Red Cross’ longstanding policy of confidentiality. I understand, however, that the ICRC has said that its official position is that it has no problem with the administration sharing any or all of these reports, so long as they are provided in some confidential manner. If the Red Cross has no such objection, why has the Pentagon used this as an excuse? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. First, I note that communications between the ICRC and the United States (or any other party to the Geneva Conventions) are confidential. Neither the ICRC nor the U.S. Government discloses publicly the details or nature of the communications. ICRC is a neutral organization and notes with concern any characterization of its activities in the media or by government officials about ICRC activities that may tend to support or oppose a particular point of view. The Depart- ment of Defense (DOD) is working with the ICRC and Congress to make available ICRC communications within specific constraints agreed upon by the U.S. Govern- ment and the ICRC. TROOP STRENGTH 3. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Wolfowitz, there were some in DOD and Congress that believed that more troops would be required not only to win the war in Iraq, but to win the peace as well. The Pentagon’s view is that the commanders on the ground will let us know if they need more troops. I believe that this is something that the civilian leadership needs to determine, based on events and necessity on the ground. Do you agree? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. I agree. However, based upon events and necessity on the ground, the civilian leadership has determined that more troops are not required at this time. Our commanders in the field have repeatedly said that what they need is more intelligence and more Iraqi forces, not more American forces. Without ac- tionable intelligence, our troops merely become targets, and Iraqi forces are capable of going into places such as mosques and conducting border control more effectively than U.S. forces. More troops and a more intrusive American presence would merely strengthen the perception amongst Iraqis of being occupied and given extremists such as Muqtada al-Sadr more followers. It is for this reason that the commander of the First Marine Division, Major General Jim Mattis, told me that he sent 15,000 of his troops home last summer, because he did not want what he called the ‘‘rever- berations of a heavy foot print.’’ METRIC FOR INSURGENCY 4. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Wolfowitz, as we approach the date for the transi- tion it appears conditions in Iraq are worsening rather than improving. What metrics are you using to determine progress in Iraq with respect to the insurgency? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. There is no simple metric. If we see more attacks from anti-Iraqi forces, this may mean they are stronger, or it may be a spike in violence aimed to coincide with an Iraqi or American political event. If we capture or kill more of the enemy, it may mean that our operations and intelligence are becoming more effective, or it may mean there are more terrorists to capture and kill. Also, a mass casualty terrorist attack is not a good measure, as stable states such as Tur- key or Israel routinely suffer such attacks, and they may in fact mark the terrorists’ desperation akin to that expressed in Zarqawi’s letter that was intercepted last Feb- ruary. Given that the Iraqi people are the key to defeating the anti-Iraqi insurgents, the number of Iraqi forces trained and equipped, as well as Iraqi crime rates, are indi- ces that will suggest progress. Also, our ‘‘goalposts’’ measure progress in the political and economic fields, not just security. Economic growth/activity and improvement in VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 78 essential services will contribute to security by investing Iraqi people with sense of ownership of their nation’s future. POROUS BORDERS 5. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Wolfowitz, I am disturbed that the Iraqi borders are so porous that insurgents are receiving reinforcements and supplies freely. What efforts are you pursuing to strengthen the borders? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. The DOD shares your concern regarding Iraq’s border are working with the Iraqi interim government (IIG) to improve the quantity, training, and equipment of the Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement (DBE). There are 11,350 border police serving in Iraq, of which 10,348 have completed training. The DBE falls under the Ministry of Interior, whose forces also include the Iraqi Police Service and Facilities Protection Service. Together with these forces, the DBE has received the following: • 6,800 vehicles • 14,000 radios • 101,000 weapons • 46,000 pieces of body armor Also, we are supporting the IIG’s efforts to persuade its neighbors to strengthen border control from their sides of the international boundary. However, it should be kept in mind that no effort will be 100 percent effective at sealing Iraq’s borders. Even under Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian police state, Iraq was not able to prevent smugglers from operating with near impunity across Iraq’s mountainous borders. Even a country as wealthy and stable as the United States is unable to prevent widespread illegal border crossings. INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT 6. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Wolfowitz, given that more troops are required on the ground, what expectation do you have that the North American Treaty Organi- zation (NATO), the United Nations (U.N.), or other allies will provide stabilization forces to augment American and Iraqi troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Secretary WOLFOWITZ. Although it is not a given that more non-Iraqi troops are required on the ground, this administration continues to call on all nations to con- tribute forces to the multinational force-Iraq mandated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546. However, most countries that have the logistical capability to de- ploy forces are already overstretched in other missions across the globe, and can not be relied upon to augment our forces in either Iraq or Afghanistan. However, there are potential causes for optimism, such as NATO contributions to Provincial Recon- struction Teams in Afghanistan and the organization’s agreement to help train and equip Iraqi police forces. Also, several Muslim nations have expressed interest in forming an all-Islamic force to help protect the U.N.’s mission in Iraq. IRAQ ELECTORAL SYSTEM 7. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, there is a debate about the form that the Iraqi election system will take. The U.N. apparently advocates a proportional rep- resentation system, which would put the emphasis on centrally-run party politics. I am concerned that, in a system that relies on centrally controlled party lists, re- gional leaders would be excluded, and authentic local leaders would be marginalized. That is why I believe a constituency-based system, in which individ- ual candidates run for elected office on ballots in local districts, makes more sense. What is the administration’s position on this? Secretary ARMITAGE. The basic outline of an electoral system for Iraq’s first free elections, scheduled for no later than January 2005, was established by agreement of U.N. elections experts, the Iraqi Governing Council and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The conduct of the elections is now the responsibility of the Inde- pendent Electoral Commission of Iraq. The single-district electoral system was rec- ommended by electoral experts as the system best suited to provide for genuine, credible and inclusive elections within the time frame prescribed in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). Election experts noted a number of important advantages in the single-district system, including the ability to conduct elections without having first to go through the politically sensitive process of drawing voting districts. Experts also noted that VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 79 the single-district system facilitates voting by Iraqis who were forced into exile by the Saddam regime and simplifies voter registration efforts. To promote a process that ensures that all groups are effectively represented in the election, the Department of State is providing funding through the National En- dowment for Democracy (NED) to the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute. These training programs are aimed at helping mod- erate candidates, parties and regional and local leaders with limited exposure and political experience to compete successfully. The NED has also received funding to support the efforts of civic groups to conduct outreach and mobilize public participa- tion in the elections, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is funding voter education and election monitoring programs to ensure that the process is as inclusive and transparent as possible. IRANIAN SUPPORT 8. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, there are media reports of Iranian sup- port of the insurgency in Iraq. Can you give me your assessment of Iranian influ- ence in Iraq? Secretary ARMITAGE. The Iranian Government has offered positive public support of the Iraqi interim government. However, we are concerned that Iran may be tak- ing action to gain influence in Iraq and undermine Iraqi efforts at self-determina- tion. While sympathetic to the majority Shia community in Iraq, it is very difficult to assess the extent of Iranian contacts and relationships with different groups in Iraq and whether they constitute active support. The U.S. opposes any outside influence that seeks to disrupt the new Iraqi gov- ernment and has repeatedly advised the Iranian Government we will not tolerate the destabilization of Iraq by outside powers. 9. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, do we have evidence that the Iranian government is supporting insurgents in Iraq? Secretary ARMITAGE. It is difficult to assess the extent of Iranian contacts and re- lationships with different groups in Iraq and whether they include active support to Iraqi insurgents or foreign fighters attacking coalition forces or the Iraqi interim government. We are troubled by reports that Iran encouraged and actively sup- ported the upsurge in violence by Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army Forces in Najaf. The United States has repeatedly advised the Iranian government that it will not tolerate the destabilization of Iraq by outside powers. STRAIGHT TALK AND FOLLOW THROUGHS 10. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, I am concerned about a lack of follow- through on our promises in Iraq. We announced that we would arrest Moqtada al- Sadr, and yet he continues to preach openly. We promised to enter Falluja and cap- ture the killers of the American contractors, and then we withdrew from the city and put authority in the hands of ex-Baathists. Do these empty threats not em- bolden the insurgents in Iraq? Secretary ARMITAGE. As part of our overall strategy to defeat the insurgency in Iraq, we have worked closely with the Iraqi Governing Council, other political, reli- gious and civil leaders in Iraq and Iraqi security forces to address threats to Iraq’s security and stability. Following the transfer of governing authority to the IIG, Em- bassy Baghdad and the multinational force will coordinate closely with the IIG in a shared effort to end terrorism in Iraq and provide the stability necessary to move the political process forward. We have been encouraged by the fact that there are continued signs that most Iraqis do not support Sadr and reject his calls for lawlessness. We are committed to bringing to justice those who have blood on their hands in Iraq, including those who killed the four American contractors in Fallujah. We supported the establish- ment of the Fallujah Brigade in May, endorsed by Iraqi leadership, in order to stem the insurgency and locate the perpetrators. Though we have noticed a decrease in insurgents’ offensive activity, the results have been mixed. We will continue to work with the Iraqi leadership and, as necessary, adjust our approach. INSURGENCY VERSUS TERROR CAMPAIGN 11. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, many critics have pointed to a recent CPA-sponsored poll showing that 92 percent of Iraqis see the coalition forces as oc- cupiers, as opposed to 2 percent who now see us as liberators almost 15 months VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00082 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 80 after the fall of Baghdad. Some have pointed to this figure as evidence that we have failed to win the ‘‘hearts and minds’’ of the Iraqi people, and blame the ongoing vio- lence in Iraq on this supposed failure. But last October, Newsweek reported that more and more evidence suggests that the terror attacks in Iraq were planned well before the war even began. On April 29, the New York Times reported that most of the sophisticated guerrilla attacks in Fallujah were being organized and carried out by members of Saddam Hussein’s secret service, ‘‘who planned for the insur- gency even before the fall of Baghdad.’’ In your opinion, do you ascribe the violence in Iraq more to a popular uprising emerging from our reconstruction policies, or as part of a calculated campaign by Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus? Secretary ARMITAGE. The insurgency in Iraq does not represent a single network or movement. Various groups have taken up arms against coalition forces, each with their own motives. Some elements are former regime members fighting to return to the past while others are foreign fighters who have crossed into Iraq. Groups like Sadr’s Jayshal-Mahdi Army are fighting because they believe the CPA and later the Iraqi government can be challenged or cowed by violence. They all share one thing in common—the desire to disrupt Iraq’s democratic progress and reconstruction for their own ends. Regardless of who planned insurgent actions or when, the response is the same: coalition and Iraqi forces must stop the violence and secure the country. ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI, IRAQ, AND THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR 12. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, we are all understandably horrified at the images of the carnage created by the June 24, 2004 bombings in Iraq. News re- ports indicate that the terrorist organization led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for these attacks. We, of course, know Mr. Zarqawi as the murderer who barbarously beheaded American Nicholas Berg in Iraq last month. Now, Zarqawi has threatened to kill the incoming Prime Minister of the Iraqi in- terim government, Ayad Allawi. Some have argued that Iraq was not a part of the war on terror until we invaded and destabilized it; Zarqawi’s network would not have posed a serious threat to us; and this invasion has instead empowered him and enabled him to become as dangerous as Osama Bin Laden was at the time of the September 11 attacks. For example, the French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin claimed that ‘‘Terrorism did not exist in Iraq before [the war]. Today, it is one of the world’s principal source of world terrorism.’’ Has the war in Iraq been a distraction from the global war on terror? Or more specifically, have we created in Mr. Zarqawi precisely the kind of threat we set out to defeat after September 11? Secretary ARMITAGE. Well before the war in Iraq began, Iraq was listed as a state sponsor of terror. Saddam Hussein’s regime pursued, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction. It provided a safe haven for terrorists and material assistance to terrorist groups. President Bush has made clear that the war in Iraq was an inte- gral part of the global war on terror. At his speech in Fort Lewis, Washington on June 18, he said, ‘‘Saddam Hussein’s regime posed a threat to the American people, and peo- ple around the world. Iraq was a country in which millions of people lived in fear, and many thousands disappeared into mass graves. This was a re- gime that tortured children in front of their parents. This was a regime that invaded its neighbors. This is a regime that used chemical weapons before. It had used weapon not only against countries in its neighborhood, but against its own citizens. This is a regime which gave cash rewards to families of suicide bombers. This is a regime that sheltered terrorist groups. This is a regime that hated America.’’ Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was not created by the war in Iraq. Zarqawi’s acts of ter- ror predate Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was convicted in absentia in Jordan for masterminding the assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman in October 2002. Throughout 2002, Zarqawi worked in Iraq in cooperation with Ansar al-Islam in an effort to develop chemical weapons for use in terror operations. He lived in Afghanistan from June 2000 until late 2001 where it is believed he con- ducted terrorist training in affiliation with al Qaeda. Zarqawi’s connection with other extremist and terrorist organizations goes back well into the 1990s. He was imprisoned in Jordan from 1992–1997 for plotting to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with an Islamic state. We and the Iraqi interim government are working to bring Zarqawi to justice for his crimes against Iraqi and American victims. VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 81 WITHDRAWAL DATE VERSUS EXIT STRATEGY 13. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, what conditions do we need to achieve on the ground in Iraq in order for the reconstruction mission to be considered a suc- cess, and for us to be able to withdraw our forces as a result of victory rather than because of a deadline? Secretary ARMITAGE. Our goal is to see the Iraqi people in charge of a free and independent, secure and prosperous Iraq. This will be possible when the Iraqi peo- ple have established themselves as the primary defenders of the stability and secu- rity that democratic governance requires, when their infrastructure has been devel- oped to enable economic independence and a better quality of life, and they have demonstrated the capacity to hold free elections. DEMOCRACY BUILDING 14. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, I think everybody on this committee, even those who opposed the war and currently disagree with administration policy in Iraq, would agree that it is in our long-term interests to promote democracy in the Middle East. Democracies do not seek to develop weapons of mass destruction, they do not breed extremism or overtly support terrorism, and they do not launch genocidal campaigns designed to wipe out their own ethnic minorities. I think that for whatever setbacks we endure on the security front in Iraq, I believe that it is still a noble goal that we are pursuing there, and one that is clearly in our interests. Consequently, one of the key measures of success in Iraq is whether we can actually help them on the path to becoming the Arab world’s first democracy. One goal of our reconstruction mission should be the successful election of a Transitional Na- tional Assembly by this January, and of a permanent Iraqi Government in Decem- ber 2005. This is obviously an enormous undertaking, and in order to get to elec- tions we must help to set the right pre-conditions in Iraqi society, or else their first election may be their last. What indicators can we use to determine whether or not we are being successful in preparing Iraq to become a democracy? Secretary ARMITAGE. The Iraqi people already have shown many indicators of suc- cess. During the CPA period, the creation of the TAL, the emergence of democrat- ically selected local councils, new media outlets and public dialogue, and increasing civil society activities of women and ethnic minorities all indicate progress toward a society that respects pluralism and the role of law. The Bill of Rights included in the TAL is a comprehensive declaration of fundamental rights and freedoms that has no equal in the region. Since the naming of the IIG on June 1, its members have made clear their dedication to the principles laid out in the TAL and the Annex. They have spoken publicly about their commitment to the timelines and the political processes outlined in the TAL, and have backed up their words with ac- tions. Finally, the institutions that support a transition toward democracy have been named and are beginning their work. The members of Independent Election Commission of Iraq (IECI) are setting up the administration for Iraq’s first genu- inely sovereign and representative elections in January 2005. The national con- ference is scheduled to convene on August 15 to begin a process of national dialogue that will help facilitate a unified agenda around which the elections can take place. Activities of the Ministry of Human Rights and preparations under the Iraqi Special Tribunal also indicate Iraqis’ commitments to the democratic rule of law. 15. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, how would you rate the Iraqi’s progress in some of these key sectors? Secretary ARMITAGE. A key element of U.S. democracy assistance is to help Iraqis learn to make decisions at the grassroots level, rather than depend on the central government to make them. The devolution of power from the capital down to the smaller cities, towns, villages and neighborhoods is giving Iraqis a sense of respon- sibility for their own affairs, something they have not had for many decades. New local councils, parent-teacher associations, NGOs, human rights organizations, and environmental societies are giving people a voice in their own affairs and a say in how they are governed. Iraqis have shown they support these projects, participating actively, assuming leadership roles, often matching funds and providing services. According to USAID figures, more than 80 percent of Iraq’s adult population have been engaged—either directly or indirectly—in U.S. funded projects aimed at pro- moting democracy. Local advisory councils have been formed in 16 governorates, 78 districts, 192 city and subdistricts, and 392 neighborhoods. U.S. assistance has also provided the local councils with small budgets to spend on projects such as fixing schools, traffic controls, or public health. Councils also ad- vise the CPA about the area’s needs. Nearly 700 local, city, and State councils have VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 82 been established, and more than 2,000 community projects have been completed or are underway throughout the country. As a result, more than three-quarters of the population, either directly or indirectly, have been engaged in democracy at the local level. Now Iraqis are beginning to devise solutions to problems in their commu- nities, build skills in community decisionmaking, and learn how to resolve or lessen conflicts peacefully—all hallmarks of a democracy. 16. Senator MCCAIN. Secretary Armitage, are you confident that Iraqis will be able to sustain this progress after the transition to Iraqi sovereignty the week of June 27? Secretary ARMITAGE. I have every confidence that the Iraqis are committed to de- mocracy and to making it work in Iraq. Such government institutions as the Min- istry of Human Rights and the Independent Electoral Commission, an independent judicial system and tribunal, and elections scheduled to be held by January to elect a sovereign and representative national assembly suggest that the infrastructure to guide and safeguard a democratic transition is in place. As the evidence indicates, the Iraqi people have already shown their own dedication to and enthusiasm for de- mocracy. QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON ADDITIONAL TROOPS 17. Senator CLINTON. Secretary Wolfowitz and General Myers, in your testimony, you stated that there was no internal debate on the Joint Staff over whether addi- tional troops would be needed for the invasion of Iraq. Was there any debate over the number of troops that would be needed for stabilization operations following the initial invasion? Secretary WOLFOWITZ and General MYERS. Yes, as part of the ‘‘wargaming’’ that occurs when we analyze our force requirements, numerous options and positions are presented to address the combatant commander’s needs. There was a considerable effort dedicated to this subject, and we are confident that the force levels remain consistent with the requirement. 18. Senator CLINTON. Secretary Wolfowitz and General Myers, what staff work was done, if any, by the Office of Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or CENTCOM to determine the required level of troops necessary to stabilize Iraq? Secretary WOLFOWITZ and General MYERS. We will continue our ongoing effort to ‘‘right size’’ the force in Iraq. With Central Command, we continue to assess where, and if, we can we will reduce the number of forces we have in theater. As conditions warrant, we be able to reduce the presence of U.S. and coalition forces, but these reductions will be based on conditions or reduced threat and an increase in the ca- pabilities of the Iraqi security forces. 19. Senator CLINTON. Secretary Wolfowitz and General Myers, was there any in- ternal debate in the DOD over the level of troops that would be needed to stabilize Iraq? Secretary WOLFOWITZ and General MYERS. As part of our assessments, we devel- oped and considered options for troops levels. However, the combatant commander on the ground gets the overriding vote. His assessments on what he needs to secure Iraq were on the mark. We think his assessments to move toward stabilizing Iraq appears are correct, and finally, his process to downsize requirements based on threat and existing conditions in Iraq are prudent. 20. Senator CLINTON. Secretary Wolfowitz and General Myers, did anyone within the DOD, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff, rec- ommend additional troops for stabilization operations before the invasion of Iraq? Secretary WOLFOWITZ and General MYERS. We considered many force-level op- tions on how to source troops in Iraq. However, the final vote, with the heaviest ‘‘weight’’ was given to the combatant commander. 21. Senator CLINTON. Secretary Wolfowitz and General Myers, did other U.S. Gov- ernment agencies recommend to the DOD that additional troops would be necessary for stabilization operations? Secretary WOLFOWITZ and General MYERS. The combatant commander deter- mined the levels of forces required for post combat stabilization operations. He was resourced at the levels requested in a process that involved broad interagency over- VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2 83 sight and involvement. As circumstances on the ground in Iraq have changed force levels have been adjusted accordingly. DOD SUPPORT FOR A LARGER ARMY 22. Senator CLINTON. Secretary Wolfowitz and General Myers, CNN reported on June 24, 2004 that as many as 6,500 members of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) could possibly be activated for service in Iraq. We continue to stretch our Army but the DOD states there’s no need for an increase in end strength. However, the strain on our forces is obvious. Consider the following: • We are making exhaustive use of the Reserve components; • We are deploying 3,600 soldiers from the Republic of Korea to Iraq (some soldiers separated from their families for over 24 months); • We are making use of training units from the National Training Center and the ceremonial Old Guard; • We are activating the IRR soldiers; • We have issued stop-loss orders for over 2 years, extending soldiers be- yond their contractual enlistment or retirement; • The Balkan deployments rotations consist of 100 percent Reserve compo- nent; and • We are seeing reduced personnel in school and headquarters assignments to support the deployments. The Senate Authorization bill includes authorization for 20,000 more troops in the Army. In light of all these factors, will the DOD support a larger army? Secretary WOLFOWITZ and General MYERS. Several initiatives are underway with- in the DOD to relieve stress on the force by making more of our current force avail- able for deployments and high demand activities. These include, but are not limited to, military-to-civilian conversions, rebalancing of the Reserve components, and Army Modularity. The Department is converting 20,070 military positions to civilian or contractor positions in fiscal years 2004 and 2005. These conversions will occur in positions where the work is not deemed inherently military in nature. This will in turn make more military personnel (end strength) available to the Service Chiefs for more criti- cal military tasks. The Department is studying the feasibility of expanding this ini- tiative in fiscal year 2006 and beyond. Rebalancing of the force is an ongoing activity within the department. The De- partment is currently assessing its force structure and rebalancing within the Re- serve components and between the Active and Reserve components with the ex- pressed purpose of moving forces from low demand to high demand specialties and improving readiness and deployability. A total of approximately 100,000 spaces will be rebalanced in fiscal year 2003 to 2009. These rebalancing efforts will shift forces to critical specialties such as Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations, Military Police, Special Forces, and Intelligence while divesting cold war structure to enable the global war on terrorism capability. The Army is shifting from a division based force structure to a modular combat brigade centric organization. In doing so, the Army will increase its operational ca- pability from its current 33 brigade force to a 43 brigade force with the flexibility to add an additional 5–7 brigades if required. This effort begins in fiscal year 2004 and is scheduled for completion in fiscal year 2010. By adding 10 (or more) addi- tional Active brigades, the Army will increase the rotation base of units available for deployment and further reduce the burden on Active and Reserve soldiers. Military-to-Civilian conversions, rebalancing of the force, and Army modularity will have a significant impact on the force and greatly increase warfighting capabili- ties where gaps currently exist. The impact will be 20,000 additional troops for the operational force, an additional 58,000 positions in high demand specialties, and an increase in the rotation base of units available for deployment which will reduce the burden on Active and Reserve soldiers. Until these initiatives have the opportunity to impact the force, it is not prudent to implement the most expensive option to the taxpayer, a permanent end strength increase. [Whereupon, at 12:56 p.m., the committee adjourned.] Æ VerDate 11-SEP-98 10:29 Aug 30, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 5012 23079.069 SARMSER2 PsN: SARMSER2