DPC | January 26, 2007

Senate Oversight Highlights Week of January 22, 2007

“It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents…” — Woodrow Wilson
 

Congress has the Constitutional responsibility to perform oversight of the Executive Branch and matters of public interest. This report summarizes highlights from each week’s Senate oversight hearings.

 

Tuesday, January 23, 2007: Senate Armed Services Committee

“Nomination of Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, USA, to be General and Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq”

• General Petraeus believes that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated significantly over the last year, that elections actually deepened the sectarian divide, and that the Iraqi government has had difficulty gaining traction.
   
• General Petraeus welcomed the invitation to provide the Senate with periodic updates and vowed to provide an honest assessment of the strategy’s ongoing likelihood for success.
   
• General Petraeus pledged to alert the committee if he believes that civilian leaders are providing inaccurate or misleading information.
   

 

Tuesday, January 23, 2007: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

“Open Hearing: Intelligence Reform”

• Senator Bond noted that none of the agencies in the intelligence community can provide an unqualified, auditable financial statement.
   
• The Office of the Director of National Intelligence promised to provide an assessment of how many contractors were employed by the intelligence community, and whether any of those roles should instead be performed in-house.
   
• Senator Rockefeller made clear that the Intelligence Committee expects full and forthright answers from Executive Branch witnesses.

 

Tuesday, January 23, 2007: Senate Foreign Relations Committee

“Securing America’s Interests in Iraq: The Remaining Options: Alternative Plans (Continued) –Federalism, Side with the Majority, Strategic Redeployment, or Negotiate?”

• A credible threat of withdrawal will prompt the warring factions to reach a political settlement. 
   
• All witnesses agreed that the military surge proposed by the President is the extension of a failed strategy and will only prolong the violence there.
   
• The Maliki government is not a reliable partner in attempting to reach a political settlement in Iraq.

 

Tuesday, January 23, 2007: Senate Foreign Relations Committee

“Securing America’s Interests in Iraq: The Remaining Options: Alternative Plans (Continued)”

• Former Speaker Newt Gingrich contended that the president’s plans in Iraq are breathtakingly inadequate. 
   
• Both Chairman John Murtha and Speaker Gingrich believe that our military forces have been overextended in ways that make America less secure. 
   
• Both witnesses offered concrete ideas about the path forward in Iraq. 
   
• Speaker Gingrich emphasized the need for the White House to adopt a bipartisan approach to foreign policy.

 

Wednesday, January 24: Senate Foreign Relations Committee

“Business Meeting”

• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bipartisan resolution on Iraq.
   
• There is growing bipartisan consensus that the Bush Administration’s escalation plan will not achieve success in improving the security situation in Iraq and may effectively undermine efforts to foster political reconciliation.
   
• Committee Republicans voiced their opposition to the President’s escalation plan.

 

Thursday, January 25, 2007: Senate Armed Services Committee

“The Current Situation in Iraq and the Administration’s Recently Announced Strategy for Continued United States Assistance to the Iraqi Government and for an Increased United States Military Presence in Iraq”

• Witnesses agreed that meaningful change in Iraq will not be achieved unless the Iraqis understand that serious consequences, including withdrawal of U.S. forces, will result from their failure to deliver on promised commitments. 
   
• Former Secretary of Defense William Perry, a member of the Iraq Study Group, warned that the conflict in Iraq is seriously damaging U.S. military readiness.
   
• Retired General Jack Keane testified that the situation in Iraq was “of crisis proportions” and testified that the Administration’s political and military strategies has failed.
   
• All witnesses expressed grave concern that the President’s surge plan failed to provide for unity of command of American and Iraqi troops. 

 

Thursday, January 25, 2007: Senate Foreign Relations Committee

“Securing America’s Interests in Iraq: The Remaining Options:
Reconstruction Strategy”

• De-Baathification reform – an initiative vital for addressing the sectarian conflict and consolidating a viable national government in Iraq – is being led by Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted felon, with highly suspect political and sectarian allegiances.
   
• While the Bush Administration moves to escalate U.S. involvement in Iraq, our coalition partners continue to reduce their role.
   
• The Bush strategy in Iraq continues to be guided by vague, unquantifiable standards.

General Petraeus believes that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated significantly over the last year, that elections actually deepened the sectarian divide, and that the Iraqi government has had difficulty gaining traction.

GEN. PETRAEUS: The situation in Iraq has deteriorated significantly since the bombing this past February of the Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, the third holiest Shia Islamic shrine. The increase in the level of violence since then, fueled by the insurgent and sectarian fighting that spiraled in the wake of the bombing, has made progress in Iraq very difficult and created particularly challenging dynamics in the capital city of Baghdad. 

Indeed, many Iraqis in Baghdad today confront life-or-death stay- or-leave decisions on a daily basis. They take risks incalculable to us just to get to work, to educate their children and to feed their families. 

In this environment, Iraq’s new government, its fourth in 3.5 years, has found it difficult to gain traction. Though disappointing, this should not be a surprise. We should recall that after the liberation of Iraq in 2003 every governmental institution in the country collapsed. 

A society already traumatized by decades of Saddam’s brutal rule was thrown into complete turmoil, and the effects are still evident throughout the country and in Iraqi society. 

Iraq and its new government have been challenged by insurgents, international terrorists, sectarian militias, regional meddling, violent criminals, governmental dysfunction and corruption. 

Iraq’s security forces and new governmental institutions have struggled in this increasingly threatening environment and the elections that gave us such hope actually intensified sectarian divisions in the population at the expense of the sense of Iraqi identity. 

In this exceedingly difficult situation, it has proven very hard for the new government to develop capacity and to address the issues that must be resolved to enable progress. 

The escalation of violence in 2006 undermined the coalition strategy and raised the prospect of a failed Iraqi state, an outcome that would be in no group’s interest, save that of certain extremist organizations and perhaps states in the region that wish Iraq and the United States ill. 

In truth, no one can predict the impact of a failed Iraq on regional stability, the international economy, the global war on terror, America’s standing in the world and the lives of the Iraqi people. 
 

General Petraeus welcomed the invitation to provide the Senate with periodic updates and vowed to provide an honest assessment of the strategy’s ongoing likelihood for success.

GEN. PETRAEUS: …I will provide my bosses and you with forthright, professional military advice with respect to the missions given to Multi-National Force-Iraq and the situation on the ground in Iraq. In that regard, I would welcome opportunities to provide periodic updates to this body. 

Beyond that, I want to assure you that should I determine that the new strategy cannot succeed, I will provide such an assessment. If confirmed, this assignment will be my fourth year-or-longer deployment since the summer of 2001, three of those to Iraq. 

… 

SEN. LEVIN: All right. Now, we understand from columnist David Broder and from what you’ve said here this morning that you’re willing to provide a regular report every couple weeks on Iraqi progress on meeting the agreed-upon benchmarks. Is that accurate? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I’d be happy to provide updates to this body on whatever basis. I’d like to make sure it’s long enough so that it’s meaningful and yet certainly short enough so that you can keep track of what’s going on.

 

General Petraeus committed to providing the committee with details of the benchmarks that the President has referenced.

SEN. LEVIN: Well, the president has referred to benchmarks. He has said that the Iraqis have agreed to benchmarks and that we will hold the Iraqis to those benchmarks. Have you seen the benchmarks the president... 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Yes, that’s correct. I know what you’re talking about, sir, in terms of what they have agreed to provide in terms of the military forces in Iraq, money for the reconstruction, money for foreign military sales and so forth. Yes, sir. 

SEN. LEVIN: All right. Will you see to it that we get a copy of those benchmarks? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Yes, sir. 

… 

SEN. LEVIN: Now, I made reference in the letters just to political benchmarks, but we’re going to insist -- and I use the word insist, and I think this will be a bipartisan insistence. This is not a partisan issue. This is information this committee’s entitled to, that Congress is entitled to. And I’m looking at you, but I’m talking to the people at the Defense Department and State Department who are within earshot here. We’re going to insist that we get copies of the benchmarks on the political, economic and military aspects that have been agreed to by the Iraqi government which the president has said he’s going to insist that they comply with.

 

General Petraeus acknowledges that he is not aware of conditions that the Iraqi government must meet for the increase in U.S. troops to continue.

SEN. LEVIN: So as of this time, do you know whether the flow of additional forces is conditional upon the Iraqis keeping their political, economic and military commitments? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I do not believe that there are specific conditions that are established. I know, again, that there is certainly a keen awareness of the Iraqis and what it is that they are supposed to do.
 

General Petraeus admitted concerns over the command-and-control relationship between U.S. and Iraqi forces.

SEN. MCCAIN: Do you understand the command and control relationships between the American and Iraqi forces in this new plan? I’m very concerned about unity of command. 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I share your concern. Again, on the one hand, though, we have pushed Iraqis to do more, to take charge in many cases, and so we have, in fact, almost a good news-bad news story. The good news is that the Iraqis are willing to take command in many cases. The bad news is that that makes us have to achieve unity of effort rather than unity of command. And that’s why we have to have those relationships all the way up and down, with command posts co-located and so forth to assure that. 

SEN. MCCAIN: We need to get that sorted out, General. 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Yes, sir. 

SEN. MCCAIN: I know of no successful military operation where you have dual command.

 

General Petraeus indicated that we should be able to measure whether the President’s strategy is a success by late summer.

SEN. MCCAIN: In your judgment, what is a reasonable estimate of the time needed to demonstrate whether these efforts are having success? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, under the current plan, as I understand it, the final brigade would be operational in Iraq at the end of May. Giving them time to get established, to understand the situation on the ground -- other forces will have already certainly been moving into their areas of operation -- I would think that we would have indicators at the least during the late summer of the ability to clear and hold and then build in the Baghdad area and to secure that population.

 

General Petraeus acknowledged that the increase still provides too few troops for a proper counterinsurgency operation, unless Iraqi security forces and private security contractors are taken into account.

SEN. MCCAIN: And yet your numbers, by any estimate or formula that you use, that you’re receiving are either inadequate or bare minimum. Does that concern you? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: It does, sir. If you look at the counterinsurgency manual, for example, and you have the one to 50 ratio of counterinsurgents to citizens, you’d say that well, for Baghdad’s population, you should have somewhere around 120,000 security forces. If you add all of the U.S. forces that will be on the ground when we have the full increase in forces, including special operations forces, all the Iraqi forces, military and police, you get to about 85,000. Not all of those are as effective as we might want them to be, particularly on the police side, as you know. 

However, there are tens of thousands of contract security forces and ministerial security forces that do, in fact, guard facilities and secure institutions and so forth that our forces or coalition or Iraqi forces would otherwise have to guard and secure, and so that does give me the reason to believe that we can accomplish the mission in Baghdad with the additional forces. 

… 

SEN. REED: Well, General, I was out there. I was shocked -- even Prime Minister Maliki told me that some of these ministerial forces are worse than the insurgents. 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Some indeed... 

SEN. REED: They’re disreputable. They’re involved with the sectarian killings. And I don’t know, but does Blackwater work for you now? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Blackwater does not work for me, although they’re under contract, certainly, to a number of organizations. But as you’ve seen on your trips, for example, the U.S. embassy is guarded by contract guards. My personal security on my last tour was actually contracted out to -- I think it was a British security firm so that we could free up the military police to secure my own officers who did not have security provided for them. So again, that frees up our forces, and it does that in numerous different places. 

SEN. REED: Well, General, that situation has existed before this surge, so these additional forces -- I mean, I find it hard to believe that you would give as your best advice to this committee that the differential -- probably 40,000 troops in terms of doctrine -- is going to be made up by ministerial forces in Iraq that are generally unreliable and by private American contractors or other contractors. 

… 

SEN. REED: …One of the problems in any military operation -- not so often ground combat forces -- it’s translators, civil affairs officers, people with the cultural sensitivities you talked about so eloquently -- do you have adequate enablers to do this new mission? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, that I don’t know. Again, if confirmed, that is high on my list to determine if we have not just those enablers but also all of the combat support and combat service support elements that you’ll recall from your own service are so critical to enabling the soldier who’s on point. 

SEN. REED: But we are presenting this strategy as a new way forward with a new plan, and a key element, as you indicate, you’re not quite sure we have those forces in place or can generate those forces. 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I have talked to General Odierno about this -- again, not to be presumptive, but in fact, when people consulted me during the -- in my previous position during the development of the strategy, he assured me that they have been looking very, very hard at the enablers, and that they think that they’re going to be OK generally in the combat service support arena. 

But again, that’s something I have to confirm for myself, if confirmed, and once I get on the ground.

 

General Petraeus acknowledged that there is no time limit on the increase of U.S. forces in Iraq.

SEN. KENNEDY: You have in your manual long-term success depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs, consenting to the government’s rule. What is the time -- this number of soldiers now that are being sent over there --how long are those soldiers going to be sent over there? We’ve heard words about escalation. We’ve heard words of surge. Is this going to be permanent? Is it temporary? What’s the time limitation that you can tell us about? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I don’t know what the time limitation is at this point. 

SEN. KENNEDY: At this point, therefore, we should assume that they’ll remain over there until we hear further from you. 

GEN. PETRAEUS: As they’re needed for that particular mission, yes, sir.
 

General Petraeus pledged to alert the committee if he believes that civilian leaders are providing inaccurate or misleading information.

SEN. BILL NELSON: When you come to testify before us again with the civilian leadership at your side, will you be silent if your civilian leaders provide false or misleading information? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: No, sir. 

… 

SEN. PRYOR: And I just had one follow-up question with Senator Bill Nelson. He asked a few moments ago -- I think his question -- I wrote it down. I think I have it right -- will you be silent if your civilian leaders provide false or misleading information. I think that’s what he said. And you said no, you would not remain silent, which is the right answer. But if you find yourself in that situation where you have civilian leadership in this country that is not providing accurate and true information, what will you do? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I will provide accurate and true information. I think the committee ought to know that, you know, I’d be very happy to stay on the banks of the Missouri River at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas instead of going back to the banks of the Euphrates River. And I’m doing this out of a sense of service, again, to those great young men and women who are over there and because this is what the military does. But this is not about being beholden to anyone. This is not about, again, being aligned with any party or anyone else. I will give you my best professional military advice. And if people don’t like it, then they can find someone else to give better professional military advice.

 

General Petraeus pledged to alert the committee if he did not have adequate troops or material to accomplish his mission.

SEN. BILL NELSON: Let me tell you about a conversation I had with our ambassador, Khalilzad, and General Casey. And they both said -- this was back before Christmas -- that they would not support a surge unless there’s a specific plan for success. And the ambassador even said, and I quote, that he didn’t want more American kids wasting their lives unless he had a high degree of confidence in the plan. End of quote. Do you have a high degree of confidence in this plan? 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I believe this plan can succeed if, in fact, all of those enablers and all the rest of the assistance is, in fact, provided. And as I’ve mentioned several times here today, I am determined to make sure that people know that we have that. And again, in my periodic updates to this body I will be happy to report whether that has been forthcoming or not.

 

General Petraeus agreed that the debate in Congress does not undermine our troops’ morale.

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I think I stated earlier how important I think free and open debate, the marketplace of ideas and all the other great qualities that our country has achieved are, in fact, to our country. I think some of the soldiers will be out there saying yeah, go get them. Some will be saying what’s that all about. And some will just keep their head down and go about their mission. 

SEN. BAYH: So what you’re saying, General, is that our men and women who wear the uniform really are a lot like Americans back at home. They’ve got diverse opinions, too. 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, that’s where they come from. 

SEN. BAYH: And they’re probably sophisticated enough to take all this in and accept it for whatever it’s worth. 

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I think that’s an accurate statement. 

Senator Feinstein expressed concerns about the ongoing role of the Director for National Intelligence (DNI) in the intelligence community.

SEN. FEINSTEIN: I have been very disappointed that the DNI has not been really available and present and around. And that’s -- I’m just going to say it -- was certainly not my view of what a DNI should be. I happen to believe it was a mistake to prohibit co-location in the authorization bill, and I will seek to change that. I believe to have a DNI out at Bolling makes no sense. The DNI should be close to the agencies -- able to inter-relate with the agencies. And I think because there’s not a lot of territorial imperative in all this right now, we have a new head of service in terms of General Hayden, General Alexander, General Clapper -- other things that are happening that we have the opportunity now to make some of those changes. But I don’t think we can have a DNI that is essentially isolated from the day-to-day operations of the community.

 

Senator Bond noted that none of the agencies in the intelligence community can provide an unqualified, auditable financial statement.

SEN. BOND: It is 2007, and as best we know, not one, none, zero, of the IC agencies can give us an unqualified financial statement. If I’m wrong, please inform me; I would love to be proven wrong. In other words, they can’t tell us where the money goes after we give it to you. I think the taxpayers want us to fix that. 

… 

SEN. BOND: Just a couple of quick ones. I don’t believe I recall getting a response to my question whether the IC has any auditable statement. Is there any auditable statement in any entity in the IC? 

MR. PATRICK KENNEDY, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR MANAGEMENT: Senator, there is no auditable statement without exception. Two agencies have achieved auditable financial -- have presented auditable financial statements. However, exceptions were taken in the area of plants and equipment -- i.e. inventories. 

SEN. BOND: What were the two that made the hurdle? 

MR. KENNEDY: Can I provide that to you offline, sir? 

SEN. BOND: Yes, provide that to us. And when are you going to get the rest of them controlled? 

MR. KENNEDY: For the last year, we have been working with DOD and with OMB on this. We have a very difficult problem that we’re facing in that the majority of the funding for several of these agencies runs through the Department of Defense and the Defense finance and accounting system. The Defense finance and accounting system does not have an auditable financial statement, which is beyond the control of the intelligence community, and until we are able to achieve changes in that relationship, we are going to have a problem. 

 

The DNI’s office promised to provide an assessment of how many contractors were employed by the intelligence community, and whether any of those roles should instead be performed in-house.

SEN. BURR: Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up. It is my understanding at this time no one in the government can share with us definitely how many contractors are employed by the intel community, or for that fact, how many contractors are employed by DNI. I hope at some early date in the future that, one, if that information is incorrect, ambassador, please share it with me. If it’s not, I hope at the earliest possible time, we would know what the extent of contractor usage is. 

MR. KENNEDY: Mr. Chairman, may I have five seconds? 

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Provided that you answer tomorrow. (Scattered laughter.) 

MR. KENNEDY:We have just completed that exact survey knowing that this is something that the DNI felt very specifically that we needed to have to engage in solid management and prepare our budget submissions. I have lots of raw data, Senator, and as soon as that data is in shape that I can come and make an intelligence -- intelligent presentation, first, to your staff, then to you, we will be getting that information up, because I think it is important to know, and important to see if we are using contractors in the right way. Are there things that should be contracted out that are not now? Or things that are contracted out now, where the taxpayer would be better off if they were brought in-house.

 

The DNI’s office claimed that it has developed strategies to follow the eventual re-deployment of forces.

SEN. FEINGOLD: The next question may seem a little ironic because my whole concern has been that we don’t have the global reach. In fact, our policy has become so Iraq-centric, that we haven’t had the opportunity to put the resources around the world that we need. But I do want to talk about Iraq in this context. It’s highly likely that the U.S. military forces will withdraw from Iraq prior to the establishment of stability and the elimination of terrorism there, so doesn’t it make some sense for the intelligence community to have strategies in hand to deal with the challenges of Iraq as and after we re-deploy our troops from there? 

MS. MARGARET GRAHAM (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR COLLECTION): Senator, I’ll speak for the collections side of the business, but I think there has been development of those strategies. Again, this is something we would be happy to talk to you about in as much detail as you or your staff would like in a classified session.

 

The DNI’s office says that the Maliki government’s task of achieving security and stability is “very difficult,” but not impossible.

MR. THOMAS FINGAR (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR ANALYSIS): …The very shorthand is, it would be very difficult for the Maliki government to do this, but not impossible. And the logic that we have applied looks at the importance of security. Security as an impediment to reconciliation, as an impediment to good governments, and an impediment to reconstruction. 

We judge that Maliki does not wish to fail in his role. He does not with to preside over the disintegration of Iraq. He has some, but not all, of the obvious requirements for success. The judgement is that gains in stability could open a window for gains in reconciliation among and between sectarian groups and could open possibilities for a moderate coalition in the legislature that could permit better governments. There’s a lot of conditional statements in this analysis. But that it is not impossible, though very difficult.

 

Senator Rockefeller made clear that the Intelligence Committee expects full and forthright answers from Executive Branch witnesses.

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Thank you, Senator Snowe. Ambassador Kennedy, I’m going to pick a bone with you. And I think this is not unimportant, because it gets to the very relationship of the way the congressional branch of government and the executive branch of government talk with each other. We have to be candid and forthright. I asked you about an absence in Michael Hayden’s position when he took over the CIA. You indicated that General Burgess was filling in on that and that everything was okay. I receded into a state of temporary satisfaction until my chief of staff launched at my chair and pointed out some very important things, which I think you need to think about in terms of the way you and I talk in the future. 

Number one is that he had two jobs. He was acting director of intelligence. He was also responsible -- he was the deputy director for requirements. So he was being asked to do two jobs at once. You did not tell me that. No, I’m not finished. 

And then, he ended his one job -- two jobs -- whatever you want --two weeks ago. So my question stands. You cannot tell me in something as important as what we are responsible for from an oversight position that everything was just fine when in fact it wasn’t. 

You can see he was a super-person and therefore could do the two jobs at once. But I’m not inclined to believe that. So now, I want you to correct the record for me and tell me whether there has been a deputy in General Hayden’s position. There certainly has not been for the last two weeks, and there certainly was not -- in my judgment -- for the previous period of time. And those were very, very important times at which Iran and all kinds of things reared their head. 

MR. KENNEDY: Absolutely, Senator. And I apologize for something I didn’t add. During the period of time that General Burgess was acting as the principal deputy director of national intelligence, he stepped out of his job as the deputy director for requirements, and Mr. Mark Ewing stepped into his job as the acting director of requirements. And so, I apologize for failing to add that to the point in my presentation, sir. I apologize for leaving that off. 

But, General Burgess was not occupying and doing the two jobs at the same time. He was filling in. He moved out of his office -- literally, physically moved out of his office as the deputy director for requirements --and moved into the principal deputy’s office -- a different office adjacent to Director Negroponte’s. 

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: I will give you an advantage on facts. I will not give you an advantage on the principle of discourse between the executive branch and the congressional branch. 

MR. KENNEDY: Again, I apologize for any misstatement I may have made, but I thought I was honestly trying to outline that General Burgess had shifted and had taken over as the acting deputy. 

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: But you didn’t. 

MR. KENNEDY: For the president’s designation. 

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: But you didn’t. 

MR. KENNEDY: I apologize. 

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Who is deputy now? 

MR. KENNEDY: The job is vacant because the Vacancies Act time has expired, as I indicated. 

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: And then you referred obliquely to -- not tensions but discussions. And all of that interests me. All I’m saying is that when you and I converse, let it be open; let it be forthright; and let it be accurate. Our business is intelligence. Yours is intelligence. So let’s at least us deal with each other fairly. 

A credible threat of withdrawal will prompt the warring factions to reach a political settlement.

LESLIE GELB (PRESIDENT EMERITUS, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS): Now, the withdrawal process opens up political doors for us that reinforce this decentralization or federal idea. In the first place, it allows us to move toward an alliance with many of the Sunnis in the center of that country with the Baathists, with the sheikhs and with the secular leaders of that society. Because once they see we’re not going to be there and remain their central enemy, they can band with us against the common enemy, the terrorists in their midst: the Jihadis, the Al Qaida people…The same goes with the Shias. Once they see that we’re in the process of leaving, we can develop common interests with them as well. These are, in the last analysis, Iraqi Arab Shias, not Iranian Persian Shiites. And there’s an important historical difference there…So there’s area for us to work with once they see we’re not going to be a permanent military presence. 

SEN. MENENDEZ: Do you believe that we need to have benchmarks with consequences? 

LAWRENCE KORB (SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS): Very definitely, because if we do not, then the Iraqis will avoid making these painful political compromises that we spoke, because they are difficult. They want to remain in power and keep the government together. So without these benchmarks, they’ll continue as they have. Let me make a point, which I think is very important: They had their elections over a year ago. In that time, we have lost a battalion’s worth of soldiers and Marines, killed or wounded while they’ve been dithering. They promised to modify the constitution four months after the election. We’re now 13 months. We have seen for the last five years: Give us six more months, give us three months, and things will change. How many times do we have to do it? So I think, yes, you need to have benchmarks. If you don’t, there’s no way in which you can use whatever leverage we have left to get them to do what they need to do.

 

All witnesses agreed that the military surge proposed by the President is the extension of a failed strategy and will only prolong the violence there.

EDWARD LUTTWAK (SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES): So what are we having? We’re having a civil war in the remaining areas where the populations haven’t been sorted out. Sorting out is what civil wars do. And when they finish, the civil war ends and you have a civil peace. The United States had the Civil War. England had the civil war. Even the Swiss Confederation had the civil war before they reached peace. And I believe that, by interfering with the civil war, we are prolonging it. And by trying to direct it and we decide how they should organize their affairs, we are intruding in matters that we cannot manage successfully. And, therefore, I believe that disengagement is the right way to go. I believe that disengagement is also sustainable. Surge is not sustainable. 

KORB: I think it’s important to keep in mind that what we have to do is select an option that gives us the best chance of protecting overall American security interests. And I would argue, as I do in my prepared statement, that surging militarily for the third time in a year is the wrong way to go. We should surge diplomatically. I support the comments that were made to you last week about a further military surge by Generals Hoar and McCaffrey that it’s too little too late and a fool’s errand, because what it would mean -- in my view -- is merely repeating a failed strategy. We’ve seen that when we surged twice in the last six months, the violence and death of Americans and Iraqis has increased dramatically. An increased surge would only create more targets, put more American lives at risk, increase Iraqi dependence on the United States, further undermine the precarious readiness of our ground forces. 

ROBERT MALLEY (DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA PROGRAM, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP): …I think what’s important, given all that, is to cut to the chase and to be blunt and frank. It’s very hard, today, to imagine a positive outcome to this war. What we do know is that mere tinkering is not going to lead to success. And what we do know is that only a clean break -- a dramatic change in our approach to Iraq, to the government and to the region -- present a possible chance of getting out of this in a stable way…If the administration is not prepared to undertake a clean break, or if our Iraqi allies are not prepared to undertake a clean break, we should stop pretending that we’re in Iraq for a useful purpose. We should stop squandering our resources. We should stop losing the lives of young men and women. We should bring this tragic episode to a close. 

Unfortunately, the plan that President Bush put on the table does not meet the test of a clean break. There are some welcome changes, most of them overdue. But in its underlying assumptions, it basically is: Stay the course plus 20,000 -- its underlying assumptions about the Iraqi government, about our role and about the region. 

In other words, it’s an inadequate answer to a disastrous situation that, at best, is going to delay what only a radical course correction could prevent. 

… 

Now, in a broader sense, what we’re doing is interposition. We are trying to interpose ourselves. And yet, we cannot prevent the attacks. Why? Because the attacks are carried out by elusive, unstable, low-contrast targets that we cannot see. We cannot hold them up. They go right through the checkpoints, because they look like anybody else. And then they kill people. Now, in other words, if I believed that the current troop level will prevent mass deaths, I would never recommend its reduction. If I believed a surge could reduce deaths, I would be very hesitant to speak against it -- correctly, on humanitarian grounds. It is our duty. 

However, I’m convinced that because, tactically, there’s no relationship within the troop presence and the casualties and victims, that this is no relationship. And, moreover, I note that the fighting that’s taking place, the terrorism that’s taking place, is over disputed zones. And by interposing ourselves, we are creating those disputed zones, or at least preserving them.

 

The Maliki government is not a reliable partner in attempting to reach a political settlement in Iraq.

GELB: The administration has tried, for over three years now, to build a strong central government. It has not worked. It will not work, because there are not sufficient common interests. And there’s almost total lack of trust. That government is inefficient and corrupt. Most of the ministers -- and I know you’ve all been there -- don’t even leave the Green Zone to go to their ministries to run their departments.

 MALLEY: [T]o end the sectarian fighting, the president’s plan relies on the Iraqi government and our allies in Iraq, who are parties to the sectarian conflict. And that’s been evident -- to us, at least-- for at least the last two years. It hasn’t started only in 2006, as Larry Korb rightly pointed out. 

There is no government of national unity. We may talk about it; there is no such thing. It’s not a partner in our efforts to stabilize Iraq. It hasn’t been a partner in our efforts to stem the violence. It’s one side in a growing and every-day-dirtier civil war. We need to impose real conditionality, real toughness, including on those who we brought to power --in particular on those that we’ve brought to power. And we need to get them to adhere to a real vision for Iraq or, again, we should get out of that business.

 

A diplomatic surge is a much more effective strategy than a military surge.

KORB: Now, the diplomatic surge that we urge would involve appointing an individual with the stature of former Secretary of State Colin Powell or Madeleine Albright as a special envoy. This individual would be charged with getting all six of Iraq’s neighbors -- Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- involved more constructively in stabilizing Iraq. It’s important to note that all of these countries are already involved in a bilateral, self-interested and disorganized way. And in addition, this distinguished envoy should convene a Dayton-style conference to get all of the factions in Iraq as well as all the countries in the region together. 

Now, a lot of people will argue: Why would countries like Iran and Syria, whose interests are not identical to ours, want to get involved in such a conference? 

Remember that, after we leave -- and if we set a date certain -- they do not want Iraq to become a failed state or a humanitarian catastrophe that will involve sending millions of refugees into their country, or a haven for terrorists. Remember that if Iraq should become -- as some people argue, that when we leave -- a haven for groups like Al Qaida, this would not be in the interests of a country like Iran. 

GELB: To me diplomacy is absolutely essential. But you can’t talk about diplomacy as if to do it represents American weakness. And I think that’s a fundamental mistake that the administration is making. Diplomacy is going to give us answers to questions we don’t really have good answers to right now. That’s why you engage. 

We’ve engaged with some of our worst enemies throughout our history. And we prevent some things from getting worse. And we begin to use American power through diplomacy. And we shouldn’t be afraid of doing it.

 

U.S. involvement in Iraq has damaged morale in the Guard and Reserve and their future readiness.

KORB: If, in fact, this surge becomes permanent, you’re going to keep 21,500 more troops in Iraq over the long term, you’re going to have to mobilize Guard and Reserve units who’ve already been mobilized at least once. 

As they say, when I was in the building, our policy was not to mobilize them for more than one year out of every five, because the data showed, if you do that, you’re going to lose a lot of the people. If you take a man or woman who’s in the Guard, and you want to take more than 20 percent of their time away from their civilian career, they’re simply not going to stay. They might as well join the active forces. So you’re going to have to mobilize units again that have already been mobilized at least once for close to two years since September 11th. And I think, if you do that, that will bring about this death spiral. In my testimony, I urge Congress to clarify the law and force the president to come back if he wants to remobilize those units again and present the reasons. 

Let me put it very bluntly. I think we have missed something in this whole war. When we created the volunteer military, the idea was that we would have a small active army and that Guard and Reserve would be a bridge to conscription, to the draft, if we had a long ground war. That was the idea. What has happened is the Guard and Reserve have become an adjunct to the active force, and we haven’t even thought about going back to the draft. It’s important to remember, this is the first extended conflict we’ve ever had where we have not had conscription, and we have actually lowered taxes, not raised taxes. And so I say, you know: As you look at this, you need to understand you misused the Guard and Reserve. This was not what we intended for the Army Guard and Reserve. 

Speaker Gingrich contended that the president’s plans in Iraq are breathtakingly inadequate.

SPEAKER GINGRICH: The current strategy debate once again focuses too much on the military and too little on everything that has not been working…The great failures in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have been in noncombat power --intelligence, diplomacy, economic aid, information operations, support from the civilian elements of national power…The gap between the president’s recent proposals and the required rethinking and transforming of our noncombat instruments of power is simply breathtaking.”

 

Speaker Gingrich said that the problems in Iraq are the result of the administration’s failures.

SPEAKER GINGRICH: [Y]ou had to do one of two things immediately after you occupied Baghdad. You either had to hire the Iraqi army, which is what I favored, and immediately -- because I didn’t want an occupation -- or you had to do what Central Command had always planned, which was put about 400,000 people in so you had physical presence everywhere. They adopted the worst of both worlds. They had the right size army to not be an occupation, and then sent in Ambassador Bremer to be an occupied leader, giving speeches on television. I mean, if you’re going to do that, you’d better be so overwhelmingly dominant that nobody becomes an insurgent because it’s physically impossible. So we literally created a mess that was unnecessary.

Both Chairman Murtha and Speaker Gingrich believe that our military forces have been overextended in ways that make America less secure.

CHAIRMAN MURTHA: Our strategic reserve is in desperate shape. While we are fighting an asymmetric threat in the short term, we have weakened our ability to respond to what I believe is a grave long term conventional and nuclear threat. At the beginning of the Iraq war, 80 percent of ALL Army units and almost 100 percent of active combat units were rated at the highest state of readiness. Today, virtually all of our active-duty combat units at home and ALL of our guard units are at the lowest state of readiness, primarily due to equipment shortages resulting from repeated and extended deployments to Iraq. We must make it a national priority to re-strengthen our military and to repair readiness. 

SPEAKER GINGRICH: While I disagree with Chairman Murtha on some things, I could not agree with him more strongly on the need to develop and strengthen a larger military, and particularly a larger Army and Marine Corps. And there, I think those who have advocated a larger system have proven to be entirely right, and those who are trying to defend getting along with an inadequate system have been proven, I think, decisively wrong.

 

Both Chairman Murtha and Speaker Gingrich argued that there is no purely military solution in Iraq.

CHAIRMAN MURTHA: There are limits to military power, and I’ve said this over and over again. There is no military solution to Iraq’s civil war. It’s up to the Iraqis. 

SPEAKER GINGRICH: The key to this is not simply military power. It’s an entire range of things, many of which have to be driven from the White House if they’re going to be effective….I don’t think combat forces are the key to this.

 

Both witnesses offered concrete ideas about the path forward in Iraq.

CHAIRMAN MURTHA: If we’re going to achieve stability in Iraq and in the region, I believe the first step is to redeploy American forces, the execution of a robust diplomatic effort and a restoration of our international credibility, the repairing of our military readiness and the rebuilding of our strategic reserve to face future threats….How do we restore international credibility? I believe that it’s necessary for the U.S. to completely denounce any aspirations of building permanent U.S. bases -- military bases in Iraq. I believe we should shut down Guantanamo detention facility. We must bulldoze Abu Ghraib just because of the symbolism of it. We must clearly articulate and demonstrate a policy of, “no torture, no exceptions,” and directly engage countries in the region with dialogue instead of directives. This includes allies as well as our perceived enemies. 

SPEAKER GINGRICH: I think that there are two large-scale strategies that people up here should be exploring. Neither one’s easy. One is, what will it take us to succeed? And here we disagree on whether it’s even possible. But what would it take? But the other is, if we are determined, if we decide, for whatever reason, that we truly cannot succeed, then how do you manage the consequences? …Because we’ve got to be prepared I think, almost like an option play in football, we’ve got to be prepared either to drive to victory or to manage the cost of defeat and understand that this is just the nature of the world we’re caught in.

 

Speaker Gingrich emphasized the need for the White House to adopt a bipartisan approach to foreign policy.

SPEAKER GINGRICH: The president should ask the bipartisan leaders of Congress to cooperate in establishing a joint legislative executive working group on winning the war, and should openly brief the legislative branch in the problems which are weakening the American system abroad. Only by educating and informing the Congress can we achieve the level of mutual effort and mutual support that will be needed for a generation if we are to save this country from the threats that exist….Having the kind of effort to reach out and develop a bipartisan national strategy in the way that Democratic President Truman and Republican Senator Vandenberg laid the base for a 44-year containment strategy I think is probably the most important national security challenge this country faces.

 

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee continued its extensive efforts to consider alternative paths forward in Iraq.

SEN. BIDEN: We have heard specific recommendations from 18 witnesses in the past two weeks, and we’ll hear specific recommendations over the next two weeks. So much for Vice President Cheney’s assertion that members of the Congress, quote,“have absolutely nothing to offer,” in place of the current policy. For a White House that has grown accustomed to policy debates in an echo chamber, dismissing competing ideas has become a matter of routine, but it’s a dangerous way to govern and conduct this war….Make no mistake: There are a number of very serious people with very specific alternatives that have been offered. 

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bipartisan resolution on Iraq.

By a vote of 12-9, the Foreign Relations committee approves S Con Res 2, A Resolution Expressing the Bipartisan Resolution on Iraq, opposing an increase of U.S. military presence in Iraq and calling for a new way forward, focusing on political reconciliation, increased diplomacy and greater regional and international support.

 

There is growing bipartisan consensus that the Bush Administration’s escalation plan will not achieve success in improving the security situation in Iraq and may effectively undermine efforts to foster political reconciliation.

SEN. BIDEN: [T]his amendment is designed to let the president know that there are many in both parties, Democrats and Republicans, who believe that change in our mission to go into Baghdad in the midst of a civil war, as well as surging troops to lay the groundwork for a new Iraqi political solution, is the wrong way to go, and in fact I believe will have the opposite -- emphasize “the opposite” -- effect that the president intends.

 

The Bush Administration still lacks a comprehensive strategy for success in Iraq. 

SEN. HAGEL: I don’t know how many United States senators believe we have a coherent strategy in Iraq. I don’t think we’ve ever had a coherent strategy. In fact, I would even challenge the administration today to show us the plan that the president talked about the other night. There is no plan. I happen to know Pentagon planners were on their way to the Central Com over the weekend. They haven’t even team B’ed this plan. And my dear friend Dick Lugar talks about coherence of strategy. There is no strategy. This is a ping-pong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans. They’re real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder. We better be as sure as you can be. And I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don’t hide anymore; none of us. That is the essence of our responsibility. And if we’re not willing to do it, we’re not worthy to be seated right here. We fail our country. If we don’t debate this, if we don’t debate this, we are not worthy of our country. We fail our country.

 

Senate Democrats and Republicans want real leadership and a smart strategy in Iraq.

SEN. HAGEL: America needs American -- the world needs American leadership. And this is not about isolationism. This is not about pulling American troops out of the Middle East. None of that. This is about a smart way to project our military using the comprehensive framework of diplomacy as part of that. That’s exactly what the Baker-Hamilton commission was about. The 79 recommendations-- and I would recommend that those of you who’ve not read those 79 recommendations, should read them. These were from 10 very eminent Republicans and Democrats that came up with these recommendations. There’s where we should go back to. There’s where the bipartisan consensus is to go forward.

 

Committee Republicans voiced their opposition to the President’s escalation plan.

SEN. LUGAR: I am not confident that President Bush’s plan will succeed. Militarily, the plan may achieve initial successes, but the premise that clearing and building high-risk areas of Baghdad will create enough space for an effective political reconciliation -- I fear that idea is dubious. The plan is likely to be encumbered by the unwillingness of the Iraqi government to confront Shia militias; the questionable loyalty of many Iraqi army and police units; the resilience of the Sunni insurgency; the meddling of Iran; the ineffectual history of our economic aid; and the political and military limits of our abilities to hold indefinitely large swathes of urban landscape in hostile circumstances. 

SEN. SUNUNU: I don’t think that we should make a commitment to deploy additional troops until Iraqis have delivered on their promises. I don’t think that U.S. troops are best suited to take the lead in dealing with sectarian violence. 

SEN. COLEMAN: For some of us, and at least for me, the bad idea, the thing that I’m deeply concerned about is putting American troops in the middle of this -- the cross-hairs of this sectarian battle before the Iraqis have produced. Have the Iraqis show me their commitment to reconciliation. Pass a national oil law. Start getting money into Anbar province. I was in Anbar, and then the Marines there are saying, “We can’t get money into Anbar for reconstruction because it’s a Sunni province.” Show me a commitment to take on Muqtada al-Sadr, and equally the insurgents and the Shia. Show me that. Show me a commitment to changing rules of engagement. We’ve had surges before, and our folks go in there and about to capture them; all of a sudden they get cut off. We’re told that will all change. Show me. 

SEN. ISAAKSON: I think we need to be clear that, while we may have our differences as members of the Senate, members of this Congress, we do not have any difference in our support, funding-wise, for our men and women in harm’s way, nor do we want to micro-manage what are the calls of the commander in chief, as Chairman Biden so eloquently described, and whether you may surge or raise or lower your troop levels because of back-filling and coming and coming out. 

SEN. CORKER: I will say that personally after listening to the testimony, I’m not persuaded -- I’m not persuaded that adding 21,000 troops in Baghdad or in Iraq is necessarily the best course of action, with all due respect. I’m not necessarily persuaded that that is the right thing to do. 

SEN. MURKOWSKI: I think the motivation of each and every one of us is to figure out a way forward, a way forward for us in Iraq, a way forward for the people of Iraq to have the security. Nobody wants to see a failure. And to use the president’s words from last night, he said, nobody voted for a failure in Iraq. Nobody has anything to gain, politically or otherwise, to see this thing fail.…I happen to disagree with the president on the surge. I don’t believe that that is the most effective way for us to move forward at this point in time. 

Witnesses agree that there must be a “stark set of consequences” for the Iraqis, including withdrawal of American forces, if they fail to follow through on their commitments. These commitments include providing sufficient security forces to partner with our troops, equal protection of Sunni and Shia neighborhoods, a new law on de-Baathification, and reconstruction funds.

“So one option is can you forge a new national compact. Will it come if there isn’t a set of consequences? I don’t think it will come if there isn’t an unmistakable set of consequences. Maybe if the president has privately warned Maliki about the consequences, maybe he’ll change, maybe others will. If he hasn’t made that warning, then I would suggest that the Congress should focus on how it can identify what would be key consequences…the ones I would focus on are the provision of forces, not just the law on the sharing of oil revenue, but the actual implementation of it, the de-Baathification, the equal protection. Those strike me as being the most important…Now, if that’s not done by this government, then, it seems to me, you can be a in position to say the consequences, from the Congressional standpoint, would be putting a cap on the forces, reducing security assistance, because, in a sense, that was the crux of what the Iraqi Study Group was suggesting -- fulfill your political responsibilities and we support you. Don’t fulfill those political responsibilities, and, in a sense, we begin to reduce our support for you.” (Prepared testimony of Ambassador Dennis Ross) 

“I think they haven’t reached a political settlement because the political group in power, the Shia, do not want to give up that power. They’re not interested in political sharing and I understand why they are not. So I believe that in order for them to be willing to share power, there has to be substantial incentives for them to do it. And I thought it was very important for our government to put both the negative and the positive incentives to the Iraqi government, to make them face up, to take the actions to do this very difficult task.” (Prepared testimony of former Secretary of Defense William Perry) 

 

Former Secretary of Defense William Perry, a member of the Iraq Study Group, warned that the conflict in Iraq has seriously damaged U.S. military readiness; specifically, Perry said the military’s “compact” with the “citizen soldiers” of the National Guard has been “shattered by the extended deployments.” 

“The Army, all of whose brigades with high readiness levels at the beginning of the war, is dangerously close to broken and, today, less than a third of these forces are at readiness levels needed to meet military contingencies, and low readiness levels invite such contingencies. Indeed, our security has already suffered because of the perception of Iran and North Korea that our forces are tied down in Iraq. The Defense Department also needs to reconsider the role of the National Guard, since the compact with these citizen soldiers has been shattered by the extended deployments, that have caused many of them to lose their jobs and some of them to lose their families.”(Prepared testimony of former Secretary of Defense William Perry)

 

Retired General Jack Keane testified that the situation in Iraq is “of crisis proportions” and that the Administration’s military and political strategies in that country has failed.

“We all agree the situation in Iraq is grave, it’s of crisis proportions, and time is running out for the Maliki government and, also, for our own and our allies…The political strategy that we had, as ambitious as it was, has failed to stem this violence…while everybody understands the historical differences between Shia and Sunnis, the application of those differences in everyday life in Iraq, I think, is something we underestimated, as well. So in terms of not only understanding the political structure, political culture, we rushed to a representative government and we clearly do not have one and they have been incapable, because the Sunnis are truly not participating to stop this violence… 

The military strategy has also failed and it failed in the sense that it did not stem the violence…We never had it as a mission, ever, for the United States military to defeat the insurgency…The military made a conscious decision to give that mission to the Iraqi security forces and train them up to a level so that they could, in fact, defeat that insurgency, and we have continued with that mission up until today. What is wrong with that is that each succeeding year, the enemy exploited the fact that we were never protecting the people. The only way you can reasonably defeat an insurgency is by protecting the people and we made a conscious decision not to do that and they exploited that conscious decision.” (Prepared testimony of Retired General Jack Keane)

 

Iraqi Security Forces are not ready to shoulder the load of securing Baghdad.

SEN. WARNER: Why couldn’t this mission, call it the third Baghdad surge, been composed almost entirely of Iraqi forces, some embedding on our areas, some support continuing, and then our forces, if we bring new ones in country, to go into those geographic areas where their Iraqi forces have been moved to Baghdad? Was that ever a consideration? 

KEANE: Well, I think, yes, the answer to that is, yes, it has been. And we relied on Iraqi security forces twice before in Baghdad in those previous operations. Both of those operations failed. They failed primarily because we relied too heavily on Iraqi security forces and we did not have enough U.S. forces to be able to deal with it. So that’s number one. Look, Senator, we’ve made some real progress with the Iraqis in terms of the training programs that we have for their noncommissioned officers, their officers, and their young soldiers and we put them in units together, give them operational experience with advisers to do that. And I think the initiatives to strengthen our advisory program and increase it make a lot of sense to me. But the fact is, the overwhelming reality is those Iraqi security forces cannot take on the lion’s share of this mission by themselves to be able to deal with the level of violence that’s there. They still do not have the organizational depth and breadth to deal with that. They don’t have the skill sets to deal with all of that.

 

All witnesses agreed that the failure of the President’s plan to provide for unity of command over American and Iraqi troops was unwise and dangerous.

SEN. LEVIN: Finally, General Keane, you’ve said that it is unfortunate that there will not be unity of command of American forces in Baghdad. You said it would be frustrating, those are the two words that you have used, because General Petraeus is going to Baghdad with this dual command structure. In addition to being unfortunate and frustrating, is it also dangerous for our troops, unless there is unity of command? 

KEANE: Yes, it is more dangerous. What will happen is our commanders will mitigate that danger by establishing joint command posts with the Iraqis and the maximum amount of liaison teams. You can work around it, but usually, when we do an autopsy on why operations don’t succeed, many times, this unity of command issue is one of the reasons why they do not succeed. So it’s a fundamental precept and it’s unfortunate we have to deal with it.

 

Prime Minister Maliki has not demonstrated the political will necessary to reconcile the warring parties and end the sectarian violence.

“I think the number of brigades, at this point, are basically less relevant in some ways. I understand what General Keane was saying about you need security first, but I’m looking for some manifestations that there’s a political will to change behavior on the side of the Iraqis. The fact is we are three and three quarters years into this war and, at this juncture, I’m afraid what’s happened is that the sectarian divide has deepened. And I look at what happened with the execution of Saddam Hussein. 

Here was a moment for Mr. Maliki to send a signal to the Sunnis that, “We are Iraqis now. We all suffered. We were all brutalized. That was the past. We’re going to write a new chapter.” He could have sought to reach out. He didn’t seek to reach out. So for me, the most important measures at this point are what are the signs that there is a genuine decision being made to act, with all the limitations. And I don’t doubt, by the way, that Maliki has real limitations, but the fact is we need to see some unmistakable manifestation that there’s a new political will to match what is the will that we are now offering. If that’s the case, then I think then the surge can work only in the context that you see some change in political behavior.” (Prepared testimony of Ambassador Dennis Ross) 

De-Baathification reform– an initiative vital for addressing the sectarian conflict and consolidating a viable national government in Iraq – is being led by Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted felon, with highly suspect political and sectarian allegiances.

DAVID SATTERFIELD (STATE DEPARTMENT COORDINATOR FOR IRAQ): The parliament is responsible -- the Council of Representatives -- for de-Baathification. Ahmed Chalabi is, indeed, in charge of the committee responsible for this program. 

The initial outlinings of the reforms proposed, frankly, are not adequate to meet the needs of meaningful national reconciliation. They need to be changed. We have had very direct conversations with Mr. Chalabi and others on this issue. The prime minister has articulated publicly a very expansive intent with respect to de-Baathification reform. But that expansive intent needs to be translated from rhetoric into reality, and it needs to happen soon.

 

While the Bush Administration moves to escalate U.S. involvement in Iraq, our coalition partners continue to reduce their role. 

SATTERFIELD: On the coalition side, the coalition remains intact. Our critical partners: the U.K., which has indicated a desire over the course of the next several months, to reduce force levels to, I believe, 4,500, but to keep forces in Iraq at least through the end of this year; Poland, which is similarly committed to retaining its forces; El Salvador; the South Koreans -- our key partners are not moving. But they are not engaged... 

SEN. HAGEL: They are moving. They’re reducing their forces. 

SATTERFIELD: But they’re not leaving.

 

The Administration refuses to outline a contingency plan for securing Iraq. 

SEN. FEINGOLD: [D]oes the administration have a contingency plan if security and economic and military efforts don’t work in this president’s new way forward? 

SATTERFIELD: Senator, I’ll answer that in two different parts. First, with respect to the specific funding that we will be requesting, the projects -- the kinds of its purposes were applying those monies to very much reflect the reality, the stark reality of the security situation on the ground. 

We’re not engaging in projects we don’t believe can be completed and be completed by Iraqis under the conditions that prevail today. We’re trying to change those conditions, but we’re not blue-skying this. This is a very reality-based set of programs. 

The second answer to your question, which is really, if I can take, you know --what’s the plan B? We’re focused on making plan A a success. We believe it can succeed, and we’re not going to discuss the alternatives -- that is the plan for a less than successful option -- while we are trying now to initiate the steps necessary to make our primary strategy succeed.

 

The Bush strategy in Iraq continues to be guided by vague, unquantifiable standards.

SEN. WEBB: you say that you will target -- or you will channel targeted assistance to Iraqi leaders regardless of party or sectarian affiliation who reject violence and pursue their agendas through peaceful democratic means. How are you going to measure this? How are you going to quantify that? 

SATTERFIELD: There’s a very simple test: Are individuals engaged in violence as a pursuit of their political or individual ambitions, or are they working through a political process at a... 

SEN. WEBB: Who makes that determination? Who’s going to make that determination? 

SATTERFIELD: It is the U.S. officials on the ground, civilian and military -- in their direct contacts on the ground -- who make that determination. 

SEN. WEBB: That’s a fairly vague standard, wouldn’t you agree? 

SATTERFIELD: No. I think it’s a very crisp standard. I think it is very clear who is engaged in violence and who is engaged in the political process. 

SEN. WEBB: It’s only clear if you have adequate intelligence. 

SATTERFIELD: That’s correct, Senator. And we do have intelligence. 

SEN. WEBB: I think we’ve pretty well demonstrated throughout this war that, on the ground, there is frequently inadequate intelligence. 

SATTERFIELD: Senator, the purpose of the expansion of the provincial reconstruction teams, the additional pairing with our brigade commanders, is to enhance our ability at a finer and finer level... 

DPC