CONTENTS
Page
30
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Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, opening statement ...
Feingold, Hon. Russell D., U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, prepared statement ..
Gompert, Mr. David C., distinguished research professor, Center for Tech-
nology and National Security Policy, National Defense University, Wash-
ington, DC ..........
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening statement .............
Schlicher, Hon. Ronald L., Iraq Coordinator, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs,
U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Responses to additional questions for the record from Senator Biden ........
Cerco re
(III)


ican people that the transition will succeed. The arrival of Ambas-
sador Negroponte in Iraq surely marks a new beginning for United
States-Iraq relations. Secretary Powell briefed members of our com-
mittee before the Independence Day recess on the new embassy op-
erations in Baghdad, and they represent an undeniable commit-
ment to the future of Iraq.
One area of serious concern is the pace of U.S. assistance to the
interim Iraqi Government. As of July 13, reports indicated that of
the $18.4 billion appropriated for Iraq last November by the Con-
gress, only $6 billion has been obligated, and only $458 million has
been expended. The new U.S. Embassy is attempting to accelerate
assistance, but at the same time it intends to initiate a reevalua-
tion of existing assistance programs. Such a study may be nec-
essary, but it must not serve to further delay United States assist-
ance.
Ambassador Negroponte has asserted that the United States
needs to construct a new embassy building in Iraq. I agree with his
assessment. A United States Embassy that occupies the former re-
gime's palace has severe symbolic disadvantages. Beyond sym-
bolism the facility was not constructed to be an embassy. Under
Secretary of State Marc Grossman testified before our committee in
May that a new embassy could cost more than $1 billion. The ad-
ministration did not include these funds in the fiscal year 2005
budget request, but indicated they might be included in a supple-
mental. The sooner we identify the costs, the more quickly funds
can be requested and construction can begin, demonstrating our
good intentions to the Iraqis.
Most Iraqis are optimistic about the future. Even before the
transfer of sovereignty, polls conducted by Oxford Research Inter-
national and the International Republican Institute found that
about three-quarters of the Iraqi people believed that they were ei-
ther about the same or better off than before the war. Oxford found
that 64 percent of Iraqis expect that their lives will be better a
year from now.
In 7 months, Iraqis are scheduled to hold elections for a 275-
member National Assembly. This assembly would then undertake
the weighty duty of writing a constitution for Iraq. The Inde-
pendent Elections Commission of Iraq, selected through a collabo-
rative process with the United Nations, was confirmed in May.
Members of the Commission completed a United Nations-sponsored
training session in Mexico.
The election plans call for setting up as many as 30,000 polling
stations, recruiting and training as many as 150,000 election work-
ers, and ensuring accurate voting results of about 13 million peo-
ple. This is an incredibly daunting prospect. The committee would
be very interested in our witnesses' views on whether the election
plan can be executed effectively. If this is an unrealistic plan, do
other options exist that might advance the formation of a perma-
nent Iraqi Government?
Today we are most fortunate to have a panel that has been deep-
ly engaged in policymaking with respect to Iraq. We welcome Am-
bassador Ron Schlicher, the Iraq Coordinator at the United States
Department of State, and Mr. David Gompert, who worked in Iraq
bassador Bremer's senior adviser for national security and


defense. Gentlemen, we look forward to your insights and a chance
to engage you in questions and answers about United States policy
in Iraq.
I'll ask you to testify in the order that I introduced you, and that
would be first of all Ambassador Schlicher.
STATEMENT OF HON. RONALD L. SCHLICHER, IRAQ COORDI-
NATOR, BUREAU OF NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPART-
MENT OF STATE
Ambassador SCHLICHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good
morning, and thank you for the opportunity to appear today before
the committee to discuss our progress in Iraq and the early
achievements of the Iraqi Interim Government following the transi-
tion of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority.
I am happy to report to you today that the Iraqi Interim Govern-
ment is off to a strong start. Led by President Ghazi al-Yawer and
Prime Minister Allawi, the interim government is looking out for
the best interests of the Iraqi people. Those interests which coin-
cide with the interests of the United States include increasing secu-
rity in Iraq, improving the economy, affirming the place of Iraq as
a peaceful, lawful, democratic, and responsible member of the
international community, and very importantly, as you mentioned,
sir, in your opening remarks, laying the groundwork for national
elections to give all Iraqis a voice in their future.
An important step toward that future is scheduled next week in
Iraq. The Interim Government is sponsoring a national conference
of 1,000 delegates from across Iraq who will meet in Baghdad to
promote national reconciliation and appoint the interim National
Council. Delegates to the conference will include representatives of
political parties, academics and professionals, members of various
civil society groups, tribal leaders, and members of the conference's
preparatory committee, which has already been at work to make
the conference happen.
More than half of the delegates will be selected from the prov-
inces of Iraq in an attempt to ensure that all voices are heard, and
right now in the provinces the work of the provincial councils se-
lecting those members is very much underway.
Members of the conference in turn will appoint 100 Iraqis to
form the interim National Council. This Council will serve through-
out the period of the Interim Government, which will end by next
January when elections are held for a transitional National Assem-
bly. The transitional government that will be formed by this assem-
bly will be charged with the vital task of drafting a permanent con-
stitution for Iraq.
The interim National Council will broaden the base of support of
the Interim Government, it will act in an oversight and advisory
role for the Interim Government, and it will have the authority to
veto decisions of the Interim Government by a two-thirds vote. It
will also, of course, help shape the process of the coming elections.
Through next week's conference, the National Council and the
other institutions of the Interim Government, the Iraqi people are
beginning to assume responsibility for and, of course, the burden
of managing their own affairs in a manner consistent with th
hay.


Sir, you mentioned Ambassador Negroponte and the establish-
ment of the Embassy. We have indeed stood up the Embassy in
Baghdad and we have opened up our four regional offices in Mosul,
in Kirkuk, in Hillha, and in Basra. To ensure that we were right-
sized, we reviewed our goals in Iraq prior to the transfer and we
aligned our mission planning in accordance with those prior stud-
ies.
Now, based on that review, in the near term we will have ap-
proximately 1,000 Americans under the authority of Ambassador
Negroponte. And I can assure you that every one of them is very
busy and will remain very busy. The embassy, of course, has tradi-
tional sections like a political, an economic, a consular, and a man-
agement section. But unlike most embassies, it also contains tem-
porary organizations, such as the liaison officers to various Iraqi
ministries and other government agencies, the IRMO, which I men-
tioned early is another of these temporary organizations. It has the
responsibility of assisting Ambassador Negroponte in setting and
monitoring reconstruction policy. IRMO will also provide consult-
ants to the Iraqi ministries, those ministries which identify their
own needs.
There will also be approximately 50 State Department and IRMO
staff in the regional offices, I mentioned earlier, and in teams em-
bodied in the military commands at the division level. Sir, this is
just one example of the partnership between the Departments of
State and Defense in Iraq. We understand that such cooperation is
vital to our success in Iraq, as indeed it is around the world. The
Departments planned jointly for the organization of U.S. activities
in Iraq following the assumption of sovereignty by the Iraqis, recog-
nizing the fact that our roles, our missions, our resources, and our
responsibilities must be complementary.
The ongoing security situation makes the closest partnership be-
tween the U.S. military commander and Ambassador Negroponte
critical to our success. Ambassador Negroponte and General Casey
are already collaborating very closely, as indeed the President has
charged them to do. Ambassador Negroponte made clear to you
here in the committee his commitment to do so during his con-
firmation hearing. Effective integration of all U.S. civilian and se-
curity operations will remain vital as we move ahead in meeting
our goals in Iraq.
ese efforts, sir, underscore the commitment of the United
States to assist the Iraqi Government as it builds an independent,
secure, democratic, prosperous, and united Iraq. We share the in-
terests of Iraqis in a better future for their country because we
know that a free and democratic Iraq will mean a more secure re-
gion for the United States and more security for the United States.
As President Bush said recently, democratic governments do not
shelter terrorist camps or attack their neighbors. When justice and
democracy advance, so does the hope of lasting peace.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you again for
the opportunity to testify about our progress to date in Iraq and
I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Schlicher follows:]


13
et
cerning-addressing the security difficulties. One has to do with
the Iraqi security forces and the other has to do with intelligence.
With regard to the Iraqi security forces, during my tenure we
were in a constant tug-of-war between two different concepts. One
was to get as many Iraqi security forces, both police and military,
what was then called the ICDC, it is now the National Guard,
as many as possible into the country, into the cities, in support of
our troops and providing security on the streets of Iraq. That con-
cept on the one hand, and on the other hand a belief that we had
to take the time and make the investment to produce well-led,
well-trained high performance specialized forces that were capable
of standing up to the kinds of threats that we saw.
Had we resolved that contest between those two concepts, I think
we would have had much better Iraqi security forces by the time
of the April crisis than we did. By April, we had far too few prop-
erly led, specialized, high performance, trained security forces to
make a difference, and of the forces that we had many of, namely
the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the police, they were definitely
not up to the task.
I believe that this tension between numbers and quality is being
resolved and it's being resolved at a minimum by the decisiveness
of the current Iraqi Prime Minister by showing a preference for
high performance, quick reaction intervention forces and counter-
terrorism forces, which I think are indicated by the threat.
The second problem that we experienced and our forces experi-
enced and Iraqi forces experienced was poor intelligence. At the
risk of appearing to pile on the intelligence community these days,
I have to say that in Iraq not only did we have the failure at the
strategic level, to understand prior to the war just how seriously
deteriorated Iraq had become, but also in the piece that followed
or in the security situation that followed, I believe we were poor,
we have been poor at getting actionable intelligence quickly from
those in a position to acquire it into the hands of people who can
do something about it. This is to a large degree because we haven't
had adequate support from the Iraqi people. That's where the intel-
ligence has to originate.
But second, because we were operating in islands of different in-
telligence communities, both within the coalition and on the Iraqi
side, we weren't really able to get actionable intelligence, as I indi-
cated, into the hands of Iraqi police, Iraqi security forces, or our
own coalition forces in time to act on these very sophisticated, em-
bedded, and always moving threats. That too I believ
proved with the Prime Minister's decision to create an internal in-
telligence service, which is, of course, sensitive given the abuses of
the past. But, this will bring the intelligence capabilities much clos-
er to the police and the security forces that require the intelligence.
Now, it may surprise you that my outlook for the future is actu-
ally upbeat, guardedly upbeat. And that's not because the threat is
going to disappear or be defeated soon. As I said, this is a threat
that can't be defeated by military means alone. The violence will
continue because the threat now is using more sophisticated, dead-
lier weapons and methods. So we have to expect that the threat is
going to persist, both the international professional terrorists and


17
because we want to be as well prepared as we can to meet these
huge challenges.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gompert pointed out that the Iraqi people
were unhappy with the occupying power. Likewise they are un-
happy with unemployment, with the lack of promise that came
there. It appears to me that the delivery of the services and the
contracts and what have you we have involved is still tediously
slow. The explanations are that, after all, we have laws in our
country, we have contracts, we have procedures. I think we all un-
derstand that. Congress has provided a lot of the hurdles there.
But at the same time, the impelling need for jobs, for orientation
of this money in these same localities that are now sending these
representatives to Baghdad, is just of the essence. think that's ap-
parent to you. The question is, physically, how are we going to
move it along so that we have some benefit? The Congress had the
debate. We passed the $18.4 billion. But the fact is, not a whole
lot has happened. Disappointingly little. Despite the obligations,
the performance is very, very minimal.
Now, I would just say simply that this is a part of our task in
support of this situation. It seems to me that the Prime Minister
has a security problem. He's trying to hire people to combat the vi-
cious killers that you both have described accurately. They're still
out there. Although the war may be going well for them, it isn't
over and won't be. All the way through this refined democratic
process, we have people being killed, shot all the time.
In the meanwhile, if there is not some delivery by Allawi or
President Yawer or what-have-you in terms of more economic pros-
perity, they have the same problem we have as political people in
our country. It's a jobs issues, it's an economy issue, quite apart
from the esoterica of democracy.
I simply make these points in passing because I appreciate your
outlining very specifically what the blueprint is. I appreciate Mr.
ompert's realism as to what our experience was through failure,
failure on our part, on our intelligence community's part, the ad-
ministration's part, to have very little understanding of what Iraq
was really like at that point. We all know a whole lot more now,
and so we better get it right this time through.
It appears to me that there's a good blueprint. We've been sur-
prisingly lucky, I think, with the leadership, arising as it did with
Allawi and Yawer and others. They have miraculously stayed alive,
and I say that advisedly, in a very tough business, which both of
you have been involved in day by day. We very much appreciate
this chance to review things at this point, for our benefit and our
colleagues, and likewise for the American people.
I recognize my colleague now, Senator Hagel.
Senator HAGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you, gentlemen, thank you
for appearing before us this morning. I'd like to move along the
same lin
nes that the chairman has just addressed. I noted in your
testimony, Ambassador Schlicher, you use the numbers of $8.3 bil-
lion has been obligated, $21 billion, 2003, 2004, that was appro-
priated. I want to address that in a moment, but part of
tion I'm going to ask is to reconcile your numbers with a sheet I
have here from the Defense Department update on how much
money has been spent and obligated. And according to this, as of
HIL


23
government himself, which of course we and the international com-
munity are supporting, to integrate the new government more com-
pletely in the region. This was helped greatly, of course, by the
assage of 1546. But also
Iso, the Allawi government has moved
smartly and set as its first diplomatic priority establishing the best
possible relations with the other countries.
The Arab League has been very helpful in this regard. The Egyp-
tians have been very helpful in this regard. The Organization of
the Islamic Conference had a summit in Istanbul shortly after the
Interim Government took over, and they welcomed the new govern-
ment, they helped establish its acceptance and legitimacy in the Is-
lamic world. And there have been a series of six meetings of the
neighboring countries of Iraq, most recently one this week in Cairo
attended by Foreign Minister Zebari, so that's been a high priority
of theirs.
Diplomatically, we, of course, have had an intense series of con-
sultations with all different countries in the region about particular
ways that they could help in the process of getting the Interim
Government off to the right start. And I think that Allawi is
pleased with his progress so far, we're pleased generally speaking
with the diplomatic reactions of the neighboring states.
There are, of course, neighboring states there that present par-
ticular challenges and difficulties, especially with regard to border
security. I would note that the Iraqis have been actively pursuing
diplomatic means of addressing that as well. Recently, Deputy
Prime Minister Barham Saleh made a visit to Damascus to discuss
this issue, Minister of State Adnan al-Janabi was in Damascus last
weekend. This subject and frozen Iraqi assets were on the agenda
And Prime Minister Allawi is in the process of doing a regional
tour right now, and he will be in Damascus on Friday. So we hope
and we expect that with continued pressure we are going to solve
a lot of the problems that still exist on border security. Briefly, sir,
I hope that helps.
Senator CHAFEE. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Chafee.
Senator Biden.
Senator BIDEN. Thank you. Gentlemen, I wasn't absent for lack
of interest. The Judiciary Committee has a very important bill on
DNA testing that I'm an author of and I had to be in that com-
mittee, and I apologize.
Mr. Gompert, you succeeded in Iraq-I know you're no longer in
the government-one of the most competent guys t
government, Walt Slocombe. And I want to lay out for you, and we
only have a few minutes, I know, we're going to vote shortly, but
in my 10 minutes, I'm going to lay out a thesis and I'd like you
to respond to it, tell me where you think it's right, wrong. And
Ron?
Ambassador SCHLICHER. Yes, sir?
Senator BIDEN. You can call me Joe if you want to. You jump in
on this one. But it relates to the security situation, the prospects
of it getting better. I think, Mr. Gompert, you made it real clear,
and I think you're dead right, that ultimately what is needed here
for there to be anything beginning to approach success is the active
and courageous cooperation of the Iraqi people.


28
out. You got to have the same firepower. You got to have the same
capability.
[The opening statement of Senator Biden follows:]
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.
Mr. Chairman, today marks the first hearing of this committee since two impor-
tant transfers occurred. The first was the transfer of sovereignty on June 28. The
second was the transfer of the lead role within our own government from the De-
fense Department to the State Department. I hope this fresh start will increase the
prospects for success in Iraq.
While the State Department is now in the lead, the Defense Department still
plays a critical role in managing the 140,000 American troops in Iraq and in train-
ing Iraq's security services.
Thus, I am disappointed that the Defense Department did not respond to your in-
vitation to provide a witness. The American people don't expect the different
branches of government to march in lockstep, but they do expect us to work together
on the challenges of the day..
Mr. Chairman, the administration must start leveling with the American people
about what is happening in Iraq.
This committee has heard its fill of rosy scenarios. Today, I hope we will hear a
dose of reality. We expect to hear the hard truth, not just the good news—and I
am glad there is some good news—but the whole picture.
You have an obligation to tell it to us straight and the American people have a
right to hear it.
If the American people believe they have been misled, then their support for what
will be an enormous, dangerous, costly, and lengthy American presence in Iraq will
continue to erode.
Let's be clear about what is happening in Iraq. We have handed over sovereignty.
But we have not handed over capacity—that is, the ability for the Iraqi Government
to do the things that people everywhere expect of a government—to provide law and
order, to supply electricity and clean water, and to set the foundation for an econ-
omy that creates jobs.
The Iraqi people desperately want their Interim Government to succeed. But if
it cannot deliver, their patience will disappear, and U.S. troops will bear the brunt
of their anger. I know that Prime Minister Allawi is aware of the urgency of the
situation.
The central question is this: what can we do to help Iraq stand on its own?
This must not be solely a U.S. responsibility. The international community,
through a unanimous vote of the U.N. Security Council, made clear that Iraq is the
world's problem, not just our own, and called on member states to act.
We must demand that the world's major powers, Iraq's neighbors and leading
international organizations like NATO answer the call.
Based upon my recent trip to Iraq with Senators Daschle and Lindsey Graham,
I believe we need to focus on six key tasks:
First, we must radically overhaul the program to train and equip Iraqi security
services, including the police and the army. General Petreaus is the right man for
the job. But we must support his efforts by providing more personnel and resources,
and by recruiting more countries to do training, especially for Iraqi police.
The last year could and should have been spent developing effective training pro-
grams. Instead, the administration chose to focus on quantity, not quality. They
skimped on the training, and put as many people in uniform as quickly as they
could. As a result, the so-called Iraqi security services—police, army, and national
guard—are hollow forces.
Second, we must commit to defeat the insurgency and provide security for Iraq's
elections, which will require a surge in troops before the elections, more MPs and
civil affairs experts from our allies, and more special forces and intelligence assets
from the United States.
Our commanders told us that they plan to overlap outgoing and incoming forces
around election time to help provide additional security. But elections will be a mas-
sive undertaking, with up to 30,000 polling places, and will require additional forces
from other nations.
Third, we need to provide—as called for in Resolution 1546—a special brigade to
protect the U.N. mission in Iraq. I understand there has not been much success in
raising this force.
Fourth, we must do a better job of spending the $18.4 billion that Congress appro-
priated last Fall.
cus on sixhaul the phy. General more perragi pol