Y 4.AR 5/2 A: 2005-2006/31 [H.A.S.C. No. 109-31] CURRENT OPERATIONS AND THE POLITICAL TRANSITION IN IRAQ COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD MARCH 17, 2005 Pennsylvania State University Libraries JAN 1 1 2007 Documents Collection U.S. Depository Copy U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 26-142 WASHINGTON : 2006 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES One Hundred Ninth Congress DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado JIM SAXTON, New Jersey JOHN M. McHUGH, New York TERRY EVERETT, Alabama ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland HOWARD P. "BUCK" McKEON, California MAC THORNBERRY, Texas JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina JIM RYUN, Kansas JIM GIBBONS, Nevada ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina KEN CALVERT, California ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia W. TODD AKIN, Missouri J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia JEFF MILLER, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio JOHN KLINE, Minnesota CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MIKE ROGERS, Alabama TRENT FRANKS, Arizona BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania THELMA DRAKE, Virginia JOE SCHWARZ, Michigan CATHY McMORRIS, Washington MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky Robert S. Rangel, Staff Director Eric R. Sterner, Professional Staff Member Jeffery A. Green, Counsel Erin C. Conaton, Professional Staff Member Heather Messera, Staff Assistant Jordan Redmond, Intern IKE SKELTON, Missouri JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas LANE EVANS, Illinois GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts SILVESTRE REYES, Texas VIC SNYDER, Arkansas ADAM SMITH, Washington LORETTA SANCHEZ, California MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey SUSAN A. DAVIS, California JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island STEVE ISRAEL, New York RICK LARSEN, Washington JIM COOPER, Tennessee JIM MARSHALL, Georgia KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam TIM RYAN, Ohio MARK UDALL, Colorado G.K BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina CYNTHIA McKINNEY, Georgia DAN BOREN, Oklahoma (II) CURRENT OPERATIONS AND THE POLITICAL TRANSITION IN IRAQ House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 17, 2005. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:05 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of the committee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY Mr. SAXTON. Good morning. This morning the committee will continue its oversight of oper- ations in Iraq by receiving testimony from three outstanding ex- perts regarding both military operations and the ongoing political transition. Our witnesses today are the Honorable Walter B. Slocombe, former Secretary of Defense for Policy, and former Senior Adviser for Defense and Security Sector Affairs to the Coalition Provisional Authority for Iraq; Dr. Steven Metz, Chairman of Regional Strat- egy and Planning, Research Professor of National Security Affairs; Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, Executive Director, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Welcome to the committee, gentlemen. We appreciate very much that you have agreed to be with us this morning. As we enter the fourth year of the continuing Global War on Ter- rorism, it is appropriate to reflect on valuable lessons as well as to address current challenges. Our witnesses can add to our understanding of these lessons and challenges by discussing in some depth the major issues identified by the military and its operations in Iraq, in particular multi- national forces. Iraq has identified five pillars for not only completing our mis- sion in Iraq but for winning the overall campaign against extre- mism. Generally stated, these pillars include: combat operations as an effective counterinsurgency campaign, the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, restoration and improvement of essential services, promotion of governance and the establishment of the le- gitimate national government. Finally, the strategy seeks to promote economic pluralism. The panel we have before us today has a wide variety of profes- sional academic and political experience. We hope that their experi- ence helps us better understand the challenges we face and how the Department of Defense (DOD), five-pillared approach is or is (l) 2 not effective in rebuilding a country devastated by 30 years of tyr- anny. We have seen some recent improvements in Iraq, including yes- terday's inaugural meeting of the Transitional National Assembly, as well as steady improvement from the Iraq security forces. Today over 2,000 reconstruction projects are under way with nearly 1,000 more in the final stages of planning. Today's infrastructure in Iraq is improving, but we still have a long way to go. The progress is being made despite a persistent in- surgency and is evidence of our military efforts having a major im- pact. I hope that your testimony today, gentlemen, helps us better un- derstand what things we have done right in Iraq, and what we can more effectively address as the challenges go forward. Gentlemen, we are pleased that you have chosen to join us here today on such short notice and look forward to your testimony. Now let me recognize Mr. Ortiz for whatever opening statement he may wish to make. STATEMENT OF HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS Mr. ORtIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My dear leader is not here with me this morning, but I am going to read the statement that he worked on last night. "I want to thank you for holding this hearing. I want to say a few words about why today's hearing is important and how we got to where we are today. "The ongoing conflict in Iraq is the most consuming national se- curity issue we currently face as a Nation. Regardless of whether we agree with the decision to invade Iraq or not, our national pres- tige is now on the line and we must win. "The outcome of the effort to rebuild Iraq into a viable national but pluralistic government has implications beyond Iraq itself. What happens in Iraq also affects our relations with our allies, re- gional stability, the broader war against terrorism and the future of democracy in the Middle East. "On a different scale, the conflict in Iraq has profound implica- tions for the future well-being and capability of our military forces. "It is incumbent upon us, as a committee, to explore the various facets of this situation, not only because our success or failure in Iraq affects our national standing, but also because we, on this committee, have a constitutional duty to provide our military—and we need to understand how things in Iraq stand today. Can we win in Iraq? "We need to know what our strategy for success is. We have been asking this of our senior defense officials and military officers for several weeks. We have yet to get an answer that satisfies me. "We should understand how to measure our own progress in Iraq as well as that of the Iraqi security forces. We need to have a real- istic sense of whether integrating the Shiite, Sunni and Kurd eth- nic factions into Iraq's security forces and into the government has some reasonable prospect of success. 3 "We need to understand the nature of the insurgency and its ca- pabilities, strengths and weaknesses. We need to understand the progress in rebuilding Iraq's economy and infrastructure. "While it is not the subject of today's hearing, we must also fully understand how the pace of operations in Iraq is affecting our own force. How is the continued high pace of operations going to affect our ability to train, equip and man the force? "How significant an issue is detainee abuse, both within our own forces and creating ill will among the Iraqi people toward Ameri- cans? "What does the prospect of an extended military presence in Iraq mean for our future defense budgets? What steps should we be tak- ing now in order to avoid breaking the force and in order to ensure that our military remains prepared to meet contingencies in other regions of the world? "To do our job right, we need answers to these questions from ex- perts within the Administration and without. "Mr. Chairman, fortunately, we have a distinguished panel of outside experts before us today, who I know we are going to be able to shed some light on these important matters. "Mr. Chairman, I do now want to note that the original scope of this hearing has been to explore just the progress in training Iraqi security forces. This is a critical issue in achieving success in Iraq and eventually drawing down the American presence there. "It is even more important in light of the testimony given earlier this week by the Government Accountability Office. This testimony highlighted problems with the reporting of the numbers of Iraqi se- curity forces on the rolls and problems in measuring their readi- ness. "I had hoped that we would be able to hear two experts, Generals Luck and Petraeus. In my opinion, the Administration should want to have these witnesses appear before us, because I believe much of what they would like would be good news. Sadly, this is not the case. "I again want to thank our three witnesses for being here today on a short time notice." And now I turn to my chairman, who just walked in, and to my dear leader, Mr. Skelton. Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, Mr. Ortiz. And welcome, Mr. Skelton, this morning. And we are glad you are here with us and I think you might want to say a few STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES Mr. SKELtoN. I just want to thank the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ortiz, for the opening statement, and I am sorry I am a few moments late. I was unavoidably detained and I look forward to the very distinguished witnesses today. And again, Mr. Ortiz, thank you. Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much, Mr. Skelton. Gentlemen, the floor is yours. Proceed as you see fit. 4 Secretary Slocombe. Mr. Chairman, do you have a preference as to the order, or we sort of thought we would start at this side and go along, if that is okay. Mr. Saxton. We will start with you, Mr. Secretary. STATEMENT OF HON. WALTER B. SLOCOMBE, FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY, FORMER SENIOR AD- VISOR FOR DEFENSE AND SECURITY SECTOR AFFAIRS TO THE COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY FOR IRAQ Secretary Slocombe. Mr. Chairman and members of the commit- tee, it is an honor to be here. I regret that the short notice made it impossible to prepare a written statement, but I have a few notes to talk about the issues that you have asked us to address. And I should make clear that I am speaking as an individual and certainly not for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), or Am- bassador Bremer. I was in Iraq for six months in 2003 working for Ambassador Bremer on the CPA staff, with a principal responsibility for the Iraq military, including things ranging as far as from paying the old military to the much more important task of setting up the training and equipment program for the new army and starting working with the Iraqis on the new Ministry of Defense and na- tional security system. I want to begin by saying what a privilege it was to work with the dedicated and brave team of civilians and military, Americans and coalition countries and Iraqis, and especially the Iraqis who bear the principal risk in this whole effort. Since then I have tried to follow events and talk to people and read carefully and critically, but obviously I have no special access to internal information. And I recognize, in part, because of my ex- perience out there, the limits of what you can know in detail about a process that is as complicated and as far away as the efforts in Iraq. As Mr. Ortiz said in his opening statement, the war will remain controversial for a long time. But the issue is not its Tightness or its wrongness or even the correctness of the decisions that were made in the aftermath of the major combat operations. The issue is the future and the stakes are huge. They are huge for Iraqis, but they are also huge for the Americans. As was said in the opening statements by both you, Mr. Chair- man, and Mr. Ortiz, the United States, not just our prestige but our security interests are vitally at stake. And moreover, the possibility of real change in the Middle East is in some sense a function of our success or failure in Iraq. Much has gone more difficult, much has gone badly. And the losses both in terms of killed and wounded are a terrible loss for the people involved and they are a tribute. We owe it to their sac- rifice to follow through and make this a success. And that also in- cludes being clear-eyed about what has gone right and what has gone wrong. There has been good news in the election and in the political process that is starting. But it is far from clear that the trend line 5 is yet steadily and irrevocably off. And there is certainly no magic fix and there is absolutely no quick fix. The goal is still the right one. In Iraq, it is decent for its own people, governmentally, economically and in security terms, and it is a constructive force in the region. Now, you outlined, Mr. Chairman, the five pillars. For some rea- son they have grown—like, I guess, all government programs—they have grown from four to five, since I was there. We combined secu- rity into both the efforts of the multinational force and the Iraqi security forces. But those are the basic elements of a successful strategy. And I want to make the point that they are interrelated. Serv- ices, economic recovery and a representative and legitimate govern- ment are important in themselves but they also contribute to secu- rity, and security is necessary for them to be successful. I want to focus on two points: One is, what is the nature of the problem we face in the insurrection? And second, what is a work- able approach to the security situation? I think the election has made it obvious that insurrection—which is a term that I have never liked particularly—is not simply or even primarily a fight against the U.S.-led occupation. No, it is probably true that most Iraqis, like most people, do not like having a foreign army around. The core of the problem is it is a fight about the future of Iraq. The great majority of the Iraqi people want to seize the opportunity of the ouster of Saddam to build a new country. This is certainly the view of almost all Kurds and Shia and other minorities. And many Sunnis as well want to see success and want a new system. The real issue is that this effort is being resisted by people who do not want a success. Certainly the core of the insurrection re- mains the old Baathist thuggery, and they are supported by much of the old Sunni elite. The Sunnis are in an interesting and difficult position. They have two sets of concerns, one legitimate and one illegitimate. The illegitimate sets of concerns are that the old system was dominated by Sunnis, dominated by a relatively small group of Sunni elite who did very well out of the old regime. At the core of it was the Baath Party, which I think is better thought of as like the Mafia than like a political party. But it also included a whole structure dependent on Saddam's handouts and his power. That is the illegitimate part, with which there can be fundamentally no compromise. The legitimate part of their concerns is that they realize that they are now a minority in a country, in which for both good and bad reasons the majority may be tempted to oppress them, in some sense to treat them more or less the way they treated the majority when they were in power. And that is a concern that it is essential that the Iraqi political system address. So far, the political leadership in both the Shia and Kurdish com- munities has recognized that obligation and is trying to reach out to the Sunni leadership. But that is essentially what the fight is about. 7 We learned very early on in the training efforts that the ordinary Iraqi GI, if you will, the enlisted person—and they are all men, the enlisted man—is pretty good. Iraq is the permanent refutation of the National Rifle Association (NRA) argument that no country with widespread private owner- ship of firearms was ever a dictatorship, because as far as I can see, every Iraqi family has several AK-47s. When we tried to limit them to one, it was regarded as extremely unreasonable. And then the prohibition on machine guns was also regarded as an interference with their cultural practices. The troops are pretty good. The problem is leadership, which is the problem in any military or police organization. It is very hard to change a whole culture of leadership in a short time, and yet, in a sense, it absolutely has to be done. Let me just identity a few of what I think are some of the lessons that we have learned in trying to train the Iraqi security forces. The first is that effectiveness is key. I really do not like this numbers game. It would be much better—quite literally—it will be much better to have 2,000 competently trained police and 2,000 competently trained sort of special forces, counterintelligence peo- ple, in units than to have 10 times that many who are incapable of doing much more than guarding buildings. And it is also important to remember that we and the Iraqis are building an Iraqi security force for the long haul. So it is essential that the Iraqi security forces be respectful of civil authority. Iraq is, after all, the country that invented the Middle Eastern military coup in the 1930's. Arid it is important and part of the effort to build up a civilian Ministry of Defense, to build up a structure of oversight of national security and coordination of national security that really works. The second lesson I draw is, you cannot rely on the old struc- tures. Every effort to try to pull together the old structures has been a failure. And it is harsh to say it, but the system has got to be built up from the ground up and build it new. The third is that quality counts. If you want it bad, you get it bad. As I said, I think the biggest success in training the security forces has been the relatively small elite units and that things should be accelerated as much as they can be without losing qual- ity, but you have to be very conscious of the fact that if you acceler- ate very much, you will lose quality. It is also important that national unity be reflected in the com- position of the security forces. The security forces cannot be the preserve of any political party or any ethnic group. And that re- quires real effort. One of the principles that we tried to establish was that the army, at least the actual regular army, would be integrated, in eth- nic terms. So there would be Kurds, Shia and Sunni in every unit, literally in every squad. That is very hard to do, but it is very important if the national army is to be perceived as a national army and not a political in- strument. 8 As I said, the process has real enemies. There are efforts to infil- trate the units. This is a real danger. On the other hand, national reconciliation is also very important. It is important that people understand that the exclusion of so- called Baathists never applied to most people who were in the Baath Party. It only applied to about 40,000 out of a party mem- bership of well over a million. In officer corps, the commissioned officer corps, more than 80,000 officers—we have the personnel records so we know—only about 8,000 were at senior levels in the Baath Party, and that included a lot of people who were actually in the intelligence services. Corruption is a major problem. It is endemic in the region and it is endemic in Iraq, and it makes it very difficult if you do not get good people. Basically, this is up to the Iraqis. There are many difficulties. It has turned out to be harder than people expected. There were plen- ty of mistakes. But there are some reasons to hope. There are a lot of resources. The fact that the United States, with the support of Congress, is prepared to continue to put money into the effort is extremely im- portant. It is also important to have some sense of perspective. It is still true that Iraq is not a country that is in total chaos. No part of the country is entirely safe. The insurgents can and do put off bombs in Erbil, which in other respects is as safe as Baltimore, but most of the incidents are con- centrated in the relatively small part of the country. And there are a lot of Iraqis who want this process to work. The general public does not like the occupation, but they remain remarkably hopeful about the future of Iraq. Paradoxically enough, at least if you believe the polls, more Iraqis think Iraq is on the right track than Americans think the United States is on the right track. I do not believe that is true, but that is what the polls say. So there is a real prospect of this working. Iraq is a country that has gone through hell for really the last 50 years, and they see an opportunity. And the question is: Can we work with them to build up their security forces and on the other fronts so that it is a success? It is important for America as well as for Iraq that that succeeds. Thank you very much. Mr. Saxton. Dr. Slocombe, thank you very much, sir. Dr. Metz. STATEMENT OF DR. STEVEN METZ, CHAIRMAN: REGIONAL STRATEGY AND PLANNING, RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF NA- TIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS, U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE STRA- TEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE Dr. Metz. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is an honor and a privilege to be able to speak today on what I really believe is the preeminent security issue of our time. I do need to note that I am here as an analyst and a scholar who has spent a lifetime trying to understand insurgency—the past two years, the Iraq conflict. But all of my comments today are strictly my own and do not reflect official Army or DOD positions. 11 Again, what I will do here is just give a very broad strategic overview and explore this in any way you would like later on. To some extent, I am a biased observer here. But based on my background of examining insurgencies around the world for a num- ber of years, I am convinced that in general the reaction of the De- partment of Defense and the military and their adaptation has gone fairly well in this conflict, considering that counterinsurgency preparation was not a top priority of DOD and the military for a number of years, and considering that this may be the most com- plex insurgency in all of history. As we know it is almost as if there are multiple insurgencies, multiple conflicts with different strategies, different tactics, dif- ferent organizations taking place in the same time and space. Insurgencies, in general, are often what might be called adapta- tion contests between insurgents and counterinsurgents. Each tries to learn, adapt, change what they are doing more quickly than the other. And this has certainly characterized the Iraq insurgency. It has been a constant learning contest. And, in fact, our military has done extraordinarily well, I believe, at this learning. If you track the adaptations that have taken place, from the broad strategic level to the squad level, you look at all of the com- munications between sergeants and captains and lieutenants, the things that worked that were immediately communicated through blogs and chat rooms and things like that to other units, we have really done a very, very good job of adapting and learning on the fly. What has not gone well in this particular conflict are those vital and even decisive components of the conflict that should not have been the responsibility of the military: some types of intelligence, economic and political development, strategic and political shaping of the environment and so forth. You know, I think what has happened in Iraq is the military has undertaken a number of the tasks like this for which it was not perfectly suited simply because there was no other organization in the U.S. Government that was suited to do it, was effective and was there to do it. The military took on a lot of jobs because no other agency existed which could. To again kind of explain this point by a metaphor, what hap- pened in Iraq is as if we entered a large-scale conventional war with a tremendously adept Air Force but no Army or Navy at all. I mean, any student of military history would say, "That is no way to fight a war." What we did in Iraq is, we entered a counterinsurgency with an effective, talented military but without the other components of this unified governmental team that could do the other tasks. As a nation, to phrase it differently, we were not organized and prepared for counterinsurgency across the government. And this leads directly to the final question that I would like to address: What is the way ahead? And let me suggest two broad issues that I think are very important for us to consider under this topic. 12 First, we need to decide, through rigorous study, through open debate, through hearings like this, whether we believe the conflict in Iraq is a model for the future or a unique case that will not be repeated. And I mean, I will tell you this literally keeps me awake at night thinking about this. Because we all know the old saying that mili- taries often prepare to fight the last war. And, you know, it is often said that the military, to some extent, spent a lot of the 1990's preparing to fight Desert Storm over. And there have been hundreds, thousands of cases throughout history of militaries that did a lot of changing, reorganization, training, but they were preparing to fight the last war. There is a chance that we might repeat that with Iraq. We might transform the military to be more effective at Iraq-style conflicts. We might even reorganize other parts of the government only to find that we will not do another Iraq in the future. But if you think of what Iraq was like, the idea that we were forced to transform a restive nation with limited United Nations (U.N.) and international support, the question we need to ask our- selves is: Is that going to be the normal pattern for the future uses of American force, or what is a unique, a sui generis case that will not be repeated again? If the later is right, then we would probably be best not trans- forming the military and the government to deal with this type of situation. Second and finally, if we do decide that Iraq-style operations are the way of the future, that this is what the future conflict environ- ment will bring us and we need to transform to reorganize to deal with them, I am absolutely convinced that the key to success is de- veloping capability outside the military for those other decisive tasks that are best suited for other agencies. And I do not believe this is simply a matter of assigning a great- er role to the State Department. I know there is been movement in that direction saying, "Well, you know, it should be the State Department in charge of counterinsurgency rather than the De- partment of Defense." I think that the State Department is as ill-equipped to focus on counterinsurgency as the Department of Defense and the military are. I mean, both have absolutely vital roles, but neither is pri- marily focused on this type of task. Today, the military is undertaking a number of steps to be more effective at stability and counterinsurgency operations, to confront irregular challenges. And the State Department has moved in this direction as well. But if Iraq is a model of the future, what we need is a serious and fundamental reorganization of the government so that we have some sort of agency, some organization that really focuses on not only responding to these type of situations when we face them in the future, but more importantly, deterring and preventing them. If we do not create an organization like this, I am afraid that what we might do is simply rearrange the existing deck chairs rather than create a really effective mechanism. Clearly, what I am proposing here would be an immense task. And that is why I think it is a very important force to decide if Iraq 13 conflicts are the model of the future, are we going to be serious about it. Thank you very much. Mr. SAXtON. Thank you, Dr. Metz. Dr. Krepinevich. STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, EXECUTIVE DI- RECTOR, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY AS- SESSMENTS Dr. Krepinevich. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to appear before this committee today and to offer my views on this important issue. I come at the issue from a bit of a different perspective than ei- ther of my colleagues. The focus of my testimony is how can we tell whether or not we are winning this war. And to do that, I will speak briefly on what kind of a war is this; what is this war's center of gravity; what is our strategy for securing that center of gravity; and then how do we measure or determine or assess whether or not we are making progress and executing our strategy. My colleagues have spoken to the issue of what kind of war is this. Obviously, we are fighting an insurgent movement. And fighting insurgencies, as we have seen and heard, is a dif- ficult business. It is a business we got out of, right after Vietnam, and you can see, in particular, our Army struggling to get back into that business. Insurgencies do not play to our strong suits. They devalue technological and logistical advantages, advantages that are among the strongest of our military, while they emphasize what some people would call the social or perhaps, Dr. Metz, the psychological element of warfare which is arguably a weakness of ours, especially given the lack of cultural expertise we have on the area. Now, in an insurgency what would be the center of gravity? Well, I would define the center of gravity as that asset or set of assets the loss of which will an enemy's ability or his will to con- tinue resisting. In a conventional war we often think of the opposing army. De- stroy the opposing military, they can no longer resist, or key indus- trial infrastructure, or key geographic locations—how close are we to Baghdad, in the second Gulf War. But insurgents have no field army. They have no infrastructure to defend. They occupy no territory that we can seize that will as- sure us a victory. It turns out that, in my estimation, there are three centers of gravity in this war. And they all reside, in a sense, in the social dimension. The first is the Iraqi people, the second is the American people and the third is the American soldier. Do these three groups want us to win this war? Do they want to see us achieve our objectives? Do they think this is a worthy cause? In other words, do we have their hearts, to use the phrase? And second, do they think we can win? Do they think we are going to win? Is the sacrifice that we are talking about actually going to end in victory as opposed a noble sacrifice that ends in de- feat? 14 We have to have all three centers of gravity to win this war, which is a critical asymmetric disadvantage on our part. For us to win we need to maintain or secure all three centers of gravity. For the enemy to win they just need to pry loose one. If American soldiers, young American men and women, stop en- listing in our Army in sufficient numbers, or if they stop reenlist- ing, we cannot sustain this war. If the American people decide that this war is not a worthy cause, or that our military is being poorly led and we are not on the path to victory, but this is just sort of a protracted war with no light at the end of the tunnel, they may decide to cut our losses. If the Iraqi people do not share their government's vision of the future, the government that we are cooperating with, or if they think that they like the vision, but, you know, you cannot trust those Americans, they may not stay the course, they may conclude that we will not win this war. So we need to capture, we need to secure all three centers of gravity. And as I said, the insurgents only need to secure one. Further complicating the issue for us is that there are dis- continuities between the various centers of gravity. The American people would like to hear, for example, that the troops are going to come home on this date or that date, but a date that is fairly soon. The Iraqi people probably, at least the Iraqi government, may need to hear "The American troops will be here as long as it takes to win this war." There is an inconsistency there. Whatever strategy we develop has got to account for those inconsistencies, has got to balance among them. What is our strategy for securing these centers of gravity? Tradi- tionally, there is a real menu of strategies for dealing with insurgencies and insurrections. The oil spot strategy: clear and hold, enclaves, search and destroy. Imperial strategies like divide and conquer, and going all the way back to the Romans, their strategy was to create a desert and call it peace. We would refer to it as perhaps scorched earth. That does not seem to be an option for us, thankfully, in this war. It is not clear to me that we are, at this point, based on my study of the conflict, pursuing any one of the strategies in particular. Per- haps that is a measure of the complexity of the war, as Dr. Metz was saying, but at some point you do need to agree on a strategy and pursue it. And that is a concern I have, because if you do not have a clear strategy, then what is the linkage between what you are trying to do and the centers of gravity, and how do you measure whether or not you are making progress in the war? This brings me to my central point which is: How do we measure progress? In the October 2003 memo written by Secretary Rumsfeld that was leaked to the press, the Secretary said, "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the Global War on Ter- rorism." And as Iraq has been described as the central front of that war, one would suspect that the Secretary was concerned that we lacked metrics for knowing how well we were doing in Iraq. 16 We would expect to see over time, if this Iraqification initiative is a success, that not only will Iraqi forces have progressively more contact with the enemy proportionately than we will, but if they are winning the cooperation of the Iraqi people, those contacts will be increasingly initiated by them and not by the enemy. Another metric that was suggested by Major General Pete Chiarelli, who commanded the 1st Cav Division over in Baghdad until recently: What is the percentage of IEDs, improvised explo- sive devices, that we are either intercepting or destroying versus those that are detonated against our troops? Again, it gets back to: Are you winning the information war? Be- cause if we are locating them before they go off, if we find out about them before the enemy initiates an attack, again, we are winning that information war, that intelligence war, and we are winning the support of the people. Another metric: Can we trace the market for IED emplacements? Let me give you an example. If we could identify, for example, that last November, the going rate for getting someone to put an IED in place was $200 and now it is $600, well, that is good news for us, because it means, all other things being equal, there are fewer and fewer people who are willing to do that sort of thing. And so the supply of would-be recruits, would-be insurgents for that particular person is drying up. To get people to do these things, you are going to have to pay them a higher premium to do it—again, an indication of how the trends are in this conflict. What are the trends in terms of assassinations and police casual- ties? If I am an Iraqi citizen and I see judges being assassinated, I see members of the new legislature being assassinated, even police, my thinking is, "If you cannot protect your own, how are you going to protect me? And in the end, how are you going to win that intel- ligence war, because I am not going to risk my life, if you cannot protect yourself, to give you information against the insurgents?" Similarly, what are trends in terms of the defections among in- surgents, particularly in the leadership? Think about it. Just as we are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, we are also trying to convince the insur- gents, as many of them that we can, that their cause is a hallow one, their hearts, but also that they cannot win, that their cause is hopeless. And especially if leadership starts coming over, what does that tell insurgents down in the ranks? If we start eliminating these people, not having them defect, but eliminating them, what does that tell the people in the lower ranks in terms of the insurgents' ability to shield their own? Again, I think that would be an interesting metric to measure. Another metric—and this is the final one I will mention—has to do with reconstruction. It has been in the press recently that the premium, the security premium for reconstruction projects, which was down around 5 per- cent, I guess, when we began, in some cases, it is up around 20 or 25 percent. 17 So we are digging a well, and we have 3 guys there digging a well and 30 guys there making sure that they do not get shot while they are digging it. Over time, you would like to know what that premium is. If we are winning, that premium should be going down because more and more areas of the country should be secure. Those people that were supposedly training by the tens of thou- sands should be providing security. After all, it is not the numbers that we train, as Mr. Slocombe has said; it is what they are capable of doing, what they are capable of providing. So again, I think there are ways to measure progress in this war. It would be interesting to know what the data are. I do not think a lot of the traditional metrics that are associated with conven- tional war really apply here. And as I said, I think we need to get about this business and to make sure that whatever metrics we choose, there is a clear link- age to strategy and there is a clear linkage to the three centers of gravity. To sum up then, we are engaged in a protracted conflict against irregular forces. There are three centers of gravity. The enemy only needs to secure one. We need to secure all three. From my perspective, at least, it is difficult to discern, at present, a clear strategy that links the winning of the intelligence war with the centers of gravity. I think that assuming an effective strategy exists or can be insti- tuted, it will have to focus on these centers and in particular on winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which I think, again, is key to winning that intelligence war to defeat the insur- gents. As Mr. Slocomobe said, "You cannot get good, fast and cheap all a once." This will take time and persistence, if you want good re- sults. I do not think we will see them fast. And I certainly do not think we will see them cheap. Mr. Chairman, this completes my remarks. And I would be happy to respond to any questions. [The prepared statement of Dr. Krepinevich can be found in the Appendis on page 65.] Mr. SAXtoN. Thank you very much, Dr. Krepinevich. I am going to yield my time to Mr. Conaway, for starters here. Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, you guys have certainly given us plenty to think about this morning. One of the things that occurs to me, in terms of are we winning or not, where does the economy, the quality of life—all we hear about are the things being blown up and our young men being killed and their young men and women being killed. And what role do we see in terms of, is the economy getting bet- ter; are people having jobs; is there commerce going on, separate and apart from this, that might also factor into some indication that if life is getting better, then you would think that the normal citizen would look on that very favorably with respect to the insur- gency. Any sense on the economy? Dr. Krepinevich. I would say that that is a key aspect. If you are talking about the Iraqi people being the center of gravity, an 19 Investment would be important, and as Dr. Krepinevich says, in order to get investment, you are going to have to have security. You are also going to have to have infrastructure. One of the real disappointments is that it has been so slow get- ting—we are about back to where the pre-war was in terms of elec- tricity and local production of fuel products and so on, but it is been very hard to get above that. Partly, it is because of security. It is a lot harder to build a better electrical system if people bomb the pylons, but part of it is not just security. Dr. Krepinevich. Can I add a comment, sir? I think there is a lot of good news going on in terms of the eco- nomic reconstruction. But I would just have to warn you that when we try to understand this conflict, we need to be very careful to un- derstand that the phrase, "quality-of-life" is to some degree cultural in its definition. I mean, Americans tend to define it by cars, houses, kind of phys- ical things. And what we are dealing with here is a culture where quality of life is probably defined as much by concepts like justice and pride, defined by family as it is by how much stuff you own. So when we look at whether the quality-of-life is improving, it is not just schools, electricity, cars and things like that, but there are these other elements that are a lot harder to get your arms around. I have had this debate with people for the past couple of years, and they go, "You know, but we have built X number of schools and the roads and things like that." And I say, "Let's just kind of play a mind game. Let's imagine in some nightmare future, al Qaeda has taken over the United States. And they are implementing Sharia and they are reorganiz- ing the government the way they want it. But at the same time they are fixing the roads and building schools and making the esca- lators and the Metro work and stuff like that. Would that be okay with you?" And of course any American says, "No, absolutely not." So we need to understand that to some degree that is the way a lot of Iraqis see the world as well. They like the schools, they like the roads, but I do not think that is really the essence of what this is all about. Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. SAXtON. Thank you. Mr. Skelton. Mr. Skelton. I am going yield to Mr. Udall. But first I must say, Mr. Chairman, that this is an excellent group of witnesses. We really appreciate this. I will ask questions later. Mr. Udall. Mr. UDALL. I want to thank my Ranking Member for yielding and acknowledge this is one of the best panels that we have had since I joined this committee. Thank you for helping shed some light on what is unfolding. I wanted to direct a question to Dr. Krepinevich. We traveled to Munich together recently for the security con- ference there. In the conversations there was a lot of talk about our European allies, how we bring them to our side in Iraq. Do you think that is an approach that would bear any fruit? And given what you have had to say today, what would we say to our European allies about the insurgency, about how they might be helpful to us? 21 Dr. KRepINEVICH. I think right now the American forces probably serve two very useful purposes. It used to be said that American forces in Europe kept the Sovi- ets out and the Germans down, meaning keeping the Germans and the French from going back at one another. I think, right now, if you look at where Iraq is, our forces serve to keep some of the wolves at bay. I think, certainly, if our forces were pulled out, you would see even greater efforts by the Iranians, the Syrians, the Turks to jigger and arrive at a more proper out- come. I think our forces are a moderating influence that keeps the var- ious major groups within Iraq from going at one another. Remember, the path to power in Iraq has traditionally been a scrum, in which force determines who comes out on top, and then the other groups are repressed. For the time being, I think that has been moderated by the pres- ence of U.S. forces. But I also think one indication of the fact that they are con- cerned about a precipitous U.S. withdrawal is the fact that they are maintaining their own militias. They all have their own private ar- mies. They have a hedge against our pulling out too quickly. So the final thing I will say is, I think over time, we may be more concerned about the American soldier or the American people, in terms of those centers of gravity with respect to long-term U.S. presence in Iraq. And here I mean it will be interesting to give you a metric. Over time, are Iraqi forces, for example, suffering a higher percentage of casualties relative to American forces? Because at some point, if they are not, either the American peo- ple or American soldiers will say, "Well, wait a minute. Why are we fighting this fight? It has been three years since we have start- ed training up these forces. When are they going to start taking some of the risks for their own security?" And I think what you can see over time perhaps is a bit of a backlash that sees the Iraqi security forces as free riders in this conflict. And so that, I think, is something that would concern me just as much as our pulling out precipitously. Mr. Udall. I see my time is expired. I would just note that the British drew the lines of modern-day Iraq in 1922, and I think I have my facts right, the last British sol- dier left Iraq in 1955. We should be mindful of that. Dr. Krepinevich. Well, it has been 60 years since the end of World War II. We are still there. Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much. Mr. Joe Schwarz. Dr. Schwarz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find your testimony so compelling and so interesting. My ques- tions are going to be brief, because I want you to use as much of my time as you possibly can. Do the insurgents, in your opinion, actually believe that they can win and that they can supplant the Iraqi government being estab- lished right now and that they can drive the Americans and the British and the other coalition forces out? 23 multiparty insurgency, and because unlike most historic insurgenices, they do not have a political wing that says what they want. You know, I do think Secretary Slocombe was right in that I sus- pect that those of the insurgents that think strategically, what they want is to, at some point in time in the future, be taken seriously, to be integrated into a government of national unity. So maybe these guys are like the insurgents in South Africa that never thought they were going to march victoriously into the cap- ital the way Castro did or the Vietnamese did, but simply to be in- tegrated. But I also think that there is a large what might be called astrategic component of this insurgency: people fighting for their manhood, for their pride. And they have not really, I do not think, kind of worked out a linear logic where they say, "If we do this, it is ultimately going to have that political effect." And that is what makes this so hard, is this is not a purely ra- tional, political, strategic insurgency the way a lot of them in the past have been. Mr. Saxton. Thank you. Mr. Ortiz. Mr. ORtIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Slocombe, I think you mentioned the three centers of gravity. And recently I have been reading the news media about what the new Iraqi government wants to do, and that is to remove the mili- tary personnel that were under Saddam Hussein. And I think if they were to do that, 50 percent of the troops would be taken out of the military, and about 75 percent of the officers would be re- moved. At one time, the American government—or our troops brought them in. Now the Iraqi government is going to push them out. What kind of impact is this going to have on the three centers of gravity that you mentioned, you know, the Iraqi people, the American people and the military? What kind of impact if they were to follow with what they want to do—what kind of impact is that going to have? Secretary SLOCOMBE. I am not an expert on the ethnic composi- tion of the force and what they are calling for specifically. But it seems to me, of course, the key issue here is how it affects the ability of Iraqi security forces to begin to, in a sense, win over the hearts and minds and provide for the security of the Iraqi peo- ple; their capacity to begin to deal with the insurgency. And so I think within the first center of gravity, the Iraqi people, it is: Does this delay reconstruction because security cannot be pro- vided? Does this delay local elections because security cannot be provided? Does this limit my freedom? Do I incur personal risk be- cause security is not provided? With respect to the American population—again, the longer it takes for the Iraqis to begin to assume a greater burden for their security, one question is, of course, is this war being well-directed and well-managed, because we have been at this process now since at least 2003. And, of course, the second is the issue of why should young—at what point—why are young American women still risking their lives on behalf of the Iraqis when the Iraqis—and this would, per- 25 We will have to see whether that strategy works. Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much. Mr. Ortiz. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Saxton. Mr. Hefley. Mr. Hefley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We talked about the Iraq people and we talked somewhat about the factions, but would you speak to that? You know, my impression is that this is a tribal society. It is kind of an artificial country in some ways. You have the Sunnis and the Shiites and the Kurds and so forth. How difficult is it going to be to ever get them to really work to- gether as they a melting pot nation, so to speak? Would you speak to that? Secretary SlOCOMBE. It is going to be difficult, there is no ques- tion. It is a little less artificial than some of the particulars of the bor- der. There is one place you will notice where the border with Jor- dan way out in the desert makes a funny twist, a sort of dog leg, because the British did not want a particular road junction to be inside Iraq. But I think you have to distinguish between the Kurds who defi- nitely want independence. If the Kurds had their way, they would be an independent country straddling four existing countries. I think most of the Kurdish leadership understands that is not going to happen, and their objective is to cut a deal with a very high degree of autonomy within the country. But they also recognize there are some advantages to being in a stable political situation from which they have to stay in the coun- try to get it. The fundamental political issue in Iraq is the relative power of the central government in the regions. The only way this is going to work is if there is sufficient devolu- tion of power to the regions, to the provinces, which essentially means to ethnic areas, for people to accept it. Although, one of the things that it is important to understand— you look at these maps in the newspapers or even the ones that the intelligence people produce, and it is neatly divided. These are the Kurds in the North and the Shia in the South and the Sunnis in the middle. Then there certainly are heavily homogeneous areas, but a lot of them are very mixed up. There are a million people in Baghdad who can speak Kurdish. Basra has a big Sunni population. Samarra, which is a city whose population is almost entirely Sunni, has one of the major Shia reli- gious shrines, and you see lines of buses of Shia who have come to worship at the shrine. So there are some things which hold the country together as well, and I think there is a certain sense of Iraqi nationalism. It is not Afghanistan. It is not by any means as divided and so on. It certainly is a tribal society, it is a clan society, it is a provin- cial society and so on. It is not hopeless, but it is very hard. 27 the front lines and those people who are behind the barricades in Iraq. And I just wondered if you could just explain or give me your thoughts on, is there a disconnect? And are we not hearing a lot of the things that maybe we should be hearing, or is that just sol- diers who are in the battle for a while and just frustrated? Dr. KRepINEVICH. Well, again, from my perspective, that gets back to this issue of what is your strategy. And my argument has been a key element of your strategy has got to be to win that intelligence war. To do that you have to win the hearts and minds. If you are thinking about metrics, for example, you just pointed out, Congressman, what good does it do us to build a town hall and see it blown up a week later? That does not improve the lives of the Iraqi people. In that respect, the amount of projects that we have ongoing or the amount of money we have spent is not really a good metric. It is the amount of projects that, actually, over the long term improve the lives of Iraqi citizens. To do that, you have to provide security. It has got to be an en- during security. It cannot be episodic, just while the construction is taking place and then everyone is on their own. And I do not see, again, that kind of strategy. A traditional counterinsurgency strategy would say you have to start out where you are strong, you would have to provide security, you would have to train local indigenous forces. When they were sufficiently well trained, you could move on and expand your ef- forts. There is an old military axiom, "He who seeks to be strong every- where ends up being strong nowhere." And I do not think we have set those kinds of priorities and I do not think we have pursued a strategy that enables that and re- inforces it. And so my fear is that, in terms of reconstruction, we could be stuck in sort of a "Groundhog Day." You know, you go in, you build it, they blow it up; you come back, you have to build it again. We have to find a way of doing a better job of integrating recon- struction security and the military operation. Secretary Slocombe. If I may, I think first of all, the sense of frustration that a lot of the soldiers feel is very genuine. If I can make a small movie recommendation, I think everybody on this committee, and in fact all Americans, should see this movie "Gunner Palace," which is a magnificent portrayal of what it is like to be a soldier in Iraq. And I am sure that at the squad level, going out on raids, it is extremely frustrating to see projects that you worked on or people you have worked with get killed. One of the things that makes insurgencies hard—and Dr. Metz talked about it—it takes very few people. Probably the Irish Republican Army (IRA) never had more than 300 or 400 fighters. They had a lot of supporters and a lot of hang- ers-on and so on. But of the people that who were actually going out and putting bombs and shooting people, only a few hundred. And so it is an extremely difficult target. 32 I think the reason it worked so well for the election was you were able to surge. You had a large but defined number of places you had to protect. Dr. Krepinevich. It turned out that the Iraqi population, or at least most of it, really wanted to vote. You have to remember that in the areas where there is a big insurgency problem, the turnout was terrible, almost nobody voted. I think another infantry division would certainly have a positive effect, but I am not sure it would have a positive effect equivalent to the cost in terms of impact on the force and so on. I think we need to focus much more on intelligence, on special- ized capability, on getting the Iraqis into the fight. I think it is important for other reasons to increase the size of the Army modestly for reasons which are in some ways independ- ent of the absolute troop level in Iraq. It is really very hard for us to sustain anything like 100,000 troops in Iraq for a long time. It is doable, but it is going to take a bigger base to do it. Dr. Metz. To reinforce my point that the psychological is what really matters, I think more American troops there might be mili- tarily good, but it would be psychologically very bad in terms of sending the message of, "This is your country. We are turning it over to you," or whatever. So I think it would be a matter of the adverse psychological, and political costs would probably outweigh the military utility. Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much. We are going to Mr. Geoff Davis, the gentleman from Kentucky. Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with your assessment that more troops would probably be counter- productive from both the political and cultural message that would be sent. Based on my experience in the Middle East, these are not an insurgency in the classic sense at all. Certainly from a soldier complaint standpoint, everything that I have heard at the front lines is more the typical frustration of sol- diers, who were in the combat situation—no different, quite frank- ly, than police in some difficult areas dealing with difficult situa- tion—in that when you are overcoming a threat, certainly on a vastly more destructive scale in the Middle East, that work will be undone, in light of the fact that we are in the midst of a war right now that has revolutionary impact in the region. One thing that strikes me, that makes me very hopeful, is the Iraqi people keep coming back. They keep coming back to these places that are destroyed. Recruits keep coming back to participate in the process. I tend to read Osama bin Laden's message to Zarqawi in perhaps a different context than much of the press, that is, simply to attack the United States, but maybe in a clear cultural context to back off, that his efforts in Iraq are counterproductive. I almost wonder, as enforcement continues, we draw more of the Iraqis into the process, if it is not going to be a very positive out- come. The hearts-and-minds argument, to me, is something I remember certainly growing up, and also in the post-Vietnam time frame, when I was at the military academy. People wanted to draw the 33 conclusion immediately about Vietnam, which I believe this is not in parallel. And what I would like your comments on, partly for public con- sumption as well: Do you think that this actually—the situation that we are facing in the Philippines, not in precise parallel but in many ways—tracks more closely with the Philippine insurgency of the beginning of the last century in terms of fragmented rebel- lion—I would not even call it classic insurgents, thugs, in many cases tribal-based—and that over the long run, there is going to be a hopeful outcome to this based on the strategy that is in place right now? Secretary Slocombe. I am afraid I am not enough of an expert on the Philippines insurrection. Maybe on St. Patrick's Day, I think it is in some ways more like Northern Ireland, that is, you have a very serious ethnic conflict. Some people on one side, who have genuine grievances, other peo- ple who are prepared to use force. And the problem is both to sup- press the violence and to seek a political solution. But I am sorry I do not know enough about the Philippinian in- surrection to really make the comparison. Dr. METZ. Just a couple of points on your comments: My own be- lief is that outsiders can never win hearts and minds. I mean, hearts and minds are the key, but it is got to be the Iraq security forces winning the hearts and minds. And I think to the largest extent possible, we need to get out of the hearts and minds business because outsiders cannot do that. I spent a lot of time thinking about what is the apt historical analogy for this one, and I am not sure that I found a good one. One thing that concerns me, though, is that it not become like the conflict in Colombia where the insurgents kind of become an industry. They develop a vested economic stake in continuing this thing on. They get involved in, you know, drug running, trafficking, organized. You know, if you have this marriage of the insurgents and orga- nized crime, then I think that is where you have something that could easily percolate on for decades. So that is just kind of the analogy that I hoped that it does not become. Mr. Davis of Kentucky. There are some very tenuous parallels between the Philippine insurrection and what we are seeing in Iraq. There was some concern that we had not properly planned for phase four operations after the Spanish-American War. It was an issue in the 1900 election about how many forces we were going to keep there, how soon are we going to bring them home. Arthur MacArthur, Douglas MacArthur's father, ended up com- manding the U.S. forces. They were trying to suppress the insur- gency. Three things seemed to work in our favor. One, as I recall, was the development of the Philippine scouts, the use of indigenous forces, training them up to help. 35 I am not sure that it is—I do not have any reason—let me put it this way: I do not have any reason, from the public record, to think that the intelligence has improved anywhere near as much as it is going to need to. Mr. Andrews. So what is our letter grade, A to F? Secretary Slocombe. C-plus. Mr. Andrews. What was it a year ago? Secretary Slocombe. C. Mr. Andrews. What do we need to do to make it an A, A-plus? Secretary SlOCOMBE. It is a terrible chicken-and-an-egg problem. I think it is central. But it is not just the hearts and minds. I will not say it, but you all know the version about if you grab a hold of something, the hearts and minds will follow. Mr. Andrews. In New Jersey, we do know that saying. Secretary Slocombe. Right. Whether people think we are going to win makes a huge dif- ference in how much cooperation you get out of people. And I think in some ways that is the reason why it is rational to focus our efforts on the Sunni areas, to try to reach out to local leaders, but they have to be local leaders who are with the pro- gram. I am a bit of a hardliner on this. I have never been sympathetic to the idea that it is just a question of finding local Sunni chief- tains who have power in the region. Yes, you have to find them and try to work with them and persuade them you are going win, persuade Mr. Andrews. I saw some evidence just the other day of a dra- matic example of the chicken-and-egg problem that really each of the three of you is talking about. An officer who had been responsible for one of the most troubled areas came home and gave a speech, which I read, and he said that the number of attacks that they were experiencing had dropped from hundreds per week to the single digits, two or three per week, and it was directly proportional to their success in infrastructure— water, sewer, power, quality of life. Now, understandably, they achieved a better quality of life be- cause they reduced the number of attacks, in part, and then they reduced the number of attacks because they achieved the better quality of life. And at some point we are going to get ahead of that curve. I hope it is very, very soon. Secretary SLOCOMBE. It is absolutely the case that the sort of— the do-good stuff, like services and the economy and education, health, that kind of stuff, is important for security reasons as well, precisely because it is what convinces people that, A, we and, more to the point, the government is right; and, B, competent and going to win. Mr. Andrews. Thank you very much to all the panel. Mr. Saxton. If I may just take the prerogative of the chair to pursue this point a little bit further, I guess I would just pose a question to the three of you. 36 Can we be accurate here in this room—2118, I guess it is—based on the information that we have available to us, really grading our intelligence effort? What makes me say this is that my last trip to the theater, I vis- ited with some folks who were doing some fairly astonishing things in terms of being able to accomplish missions that we will not talk about here. And that had to be based on some pretty good intel- ligence. Secretary Slocombe. A lot of the intelligence is very good. One of the things I have learned in a lot of years testifying to the Con- gress is that if people ask you to give a letter grade, do not explain why you cannot give a letter grade and hope that people will be- lieve it. The reason is, you have to look not just at the individual suc- cesses, which are very real and very important. Part of the reason that I wrote that in February was the capture of Saddam was an intelligence triumph, built exactly on this kind of painstaking look at lots of data gathered from local people. My sense is that you have to have it generally so that the num- ber of incidents go down and you stop more—we stop a lot—but you have to be able to stop most of them. It is a sort of analogy to the point about the centers of gravity. We can stop 95 percent of the attacks, and we still have a problem. And that is part of the difficulty with the intelligence challenge. But I do not in any way disagree that the intelligence people do remarkable things. It is just they have got to do a lot of remarkable things and do it consistently for you to actually get to the point where you can defeat the enemy decisively. Mr. Saxton. I think we would all agree that whether we have good intelligence that is gathered by our soldiers and the people who are associated with our soldiers, from the agency, et cetera, the real key to success going long-term, as Mr. Andrews, I think, alluded to, is the Iraqi—and as you alluded to—is the Iraqi people coming on board and cooperating and providing intelligence freely to us and to their own forces. Dr. Metz. And I was going to suggest, sir, that an A or an A- plus may even be impossible in this realm, for two reasons. One is, at the lower level at least, so many of these insurgents bands are family organized. It does not matter how hard you try, you are not going to get somebody to turn in their cousin, even if they do not like what their cousin is doing. They are going to deal with it some other way. And the second problem is, you know, back to the big issue, ulti- mately what we need is not for the U.S. to be really, really good at human intelligence in Iraq, but for the new Iraqi security forces to be really, really good at it. And the problem there is, as we know, they are badly penetrated, and they have got a really, really big counterintelligence problem themselves. So we have a lot of problems with sharing and things like that because we cannot, at this point, fully trust them. Mr. Saxton. Thank you very much. Ms. Davis. 37 Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of you for being here. I agree, it has been especially com- pelling in terms of your testimony. Can you follow up? I think, Dr. Metz, you said that the State De- partment was no more better equipped to deal with this than the DOD. And I know my first visit to Iraq with the coalition provisional government, I was concerned that all directions seemed to be com- ing from the Department of Defense, and expected a little bit more from the State Department. Can you speak to that? Maybe can all of you speak to that? How should that be coordinated differently? Is it a different ani- mal, as you suggest, in terms of building the peace? And I would like you to comment briefly on the fact that, in the discussions and talking about the information war, you have not really mentioned the role of women. And particularly on my last trip—and I think that Ambassador Negroponte confirmed this as well—a lot of the information, a lot of the intelligence is coming from women. And yet there seems to be little coordination with U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) efforts and how they are building a civil society, and the impact that that may be having on women coming forward and providing some of that information. Dr. Metz. What I meant with State is that just as counterinsurgency is not seen by DOD as its primary focus, it be- comes kind of a lesser included, we are never going to get the State Department totally focused on it because their primary job is going to continue to be diplomacy. But I think you are exactly right, that what the solution may be is something like a permanent standing Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), CPA that can do both pre- conflict analysis, deterrence, and then be kind of the core of the ef- fort if we get involved in one of these things as well. So I think that there is a lot of thinking that needs to be done there. There is a tendency to sort of brush CPA and ORHA aside because they had some problems, but I think that as a model of integrating the different agencies, that might be fruitful to look at. And ultimately, it might not matter whether this permanent CPA reports to DOD, State or the National Security Council (NSC). On the role of women, as a political scientist I am certainly aware that women play a crucial role in conflict resolution around the world. I mean, kind of standard Conflict Resolution 101 is to politically mobilize and energize the women in the society. That tends to help for conflict resolution. Of course, in Iraq the problem that we continue to butt up against is the fact that you have such a vehemently male-domi- nated society. I do not know if that takes that option off the table, but it certainly makes it more complex than it would in a society that is organized a different way. Secretary Slocombe. On the issue of women, I believe one of the maxims we ought to apply is reinforce strength and not weakness, and that part of the base that is actually interested in this working is the women in Iraq, both because they want security for their 40 But I am sure that the guard people will have very concrete and specific things they are concerned about. Dr. Metz. Yes, in terms of the specific question, it is really hard to speculate because it depends on so much where they were and what they were doing and things like that. At least from the guard and reserve people that I talked to, the preeminent issue was always just the pace of utilization—how can we continue to have our careers and things like that if we are going to be mobilized for long periods of time on a recurring basis? So ultimately once the dust has settled on this, what the Con- gress and the Department of Defense and the President may need to do is to sit down and take a really broad look at how we use reserves in our military in general. Might we want to consider some new model where when someone signs up you tell them, "Okay, at one point in your career, you might be mobilized for three years, but you can only be mobi- lized"—I do not know, pick a date—"once every six years," or some- thing, "during the course of your career," rather than as needed. So I think that we may have to relook that. There is a lot of relooks going on, of course, concerning the concentrating high-de- mand specialties in the guard and reserve, you know, the civil af- fairs and psychological operations (PSYOPS) and stuff like that. And I know the Army and the other services as well are recogniz- ing that if we are going to have this continual pace of involvement in protracted conflicts, we probably need to relook that. So I think that is an issue that is going to be, if not totally fixed, a at least partially fixed in the coming years. Dr. Krepinevich. Very quickly, two points: One is, stomachs and wallets are about hearts and minds. They are about convincing people that they have got a better life ahead of them. If I were a troop coming back from Iraq, what I would like to know is: Is the sacrifice I made over there these last however many months, is that going to be sustained or is it going to be in vain? And to me, that requires a coherent strategy if you are talking about—for example, General Chiarelli in Sadr City: Is the funding going to be there to sustain those projects that we started that started giving those people a better life? Is the security going to be provided so that they can enjoy those and they will sustain their growing support for the government? That is what I think I would be worried about because I do not want to have sort of "Groundhog Day" in my life every year or two and keep going back to the same place and starting up all over again. Mr. Saxton. We are down to an official five minutes left in this vote. And we have two 5-minute votes after this one, so we should be back in 15 or 20 minutes. And Dr. Metz, I understand that you have another obligation, sir. You will just have to use your best judgment as to how you want to proceed. [Recess.] 41 STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES The Chairman [presiding]. Okay, we have Mr. Taylor and then Mr. Cooper. The gentleman from Mississippi—and, gentlemen, let me apolo- gize for not being here for most of your presentation, but I have heard great things about it. In fact, most members have liked it a lot better since I was not in the chair. So it was really, really good. Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank both you gentle- men for being here today. I pose this question to both of you: Do you see a coherent United States policy in Iraq? Secretary SLOCOMBE. I think I see a policy that has a good pros- pect of winning. And I think it is coherent in the sense that it does recognize the need to link what our military does, what we do to get the Iraqi security forces able to take over, and the political and economic as- pects. I think there are a lot of moving parts that do not work together nearly as well as they should. One of those is within the control—it is frustrating because it is entirely within our control—and that is, the difficulty of getting funding out quickly to the right places to the people who are able to use it on the ground. As I say, you know, the fact the people are shooting at you, that is a real world problem and there is a limit to what you can do about it. The fact that you have bureaucratic and accounting hang- ups in the United States that keep you from doing the job, I find very hard to deal with. On the intelligence side I think that is the biggest operational or practical problem. I think you were here when I said, I honestly, at this point, I do not have any special access so I cannot say what is being done. I would think that is one of the other critical factors. But it is very much a part of a coherent policy that the non-mili- tary aspects be properly funded and properly executed with enough people out there, and enough willingness to make things happen quickly. I hate to say this: We did not fight this war to save money, and that some of the accounting is not absolutely perfect is regrettable and should be fixed and it is right and so on, but it is not the big- gest problem. Mr. Taylor. Sir. Dr. Krepinevich. I would say there is an overall policy. It seems to me that the goal here is to help lay the foundations for a democratic Iraq. We could argue about whether it is overly ambitious or whether it is realistic or not, but I think that is the policy. We could put it down perhaps as a big bet, but perhaps a necessary bet, given some of the trends we saw in the Middle East or have seen in the Middle East. 43 Two things: One is I would agree with Mr. Slocombe. If I were in Iraq I would want to be in the parts of Iraq that he is talking about. But second, in terms of violence, I think people can tolerate ran- dom violence much better than targeted violence. The random vio- lence of the car bombing that happens to kill innocent bystanders as opposed to the knowledge that if I cooperate with the govern- ment, someone is going to visit me tonight and I am not going to be around tomorrow. We can tolerate random violence. What we cannot tolerate is that targeted violence that separates the people from their own govern- ment, their own police. Second, in terms of the popular opinion, I was struck how quickly public opinion in Indonesia has shifted since the relief operations conducted by American forces were undertaken, a radical shift in terms of their views of Americans, even their views of America's role in the Global War on Terrorism. So one thing I would like to know is: How deep are these views held by the Iraqis? And related to that, in the final analysis, it is not their views about us, it is not whether they like us; it is whether they like where their government is taking them. Because at the end of the day we are going home. They have to live with that government. I think that is where we really need to focus our efforts. And as I mentioned before, you can even see some Shia politi- cians now saying, "Well, we cannot tolerate the Americans as occu- piers. We might be able to tolerate them as guests." So I think there is some room for maneuver there. The Chairman. Thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Ten- nessee, Mr. Cooper. Mr. COOpER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses for sticking around during the votes. Bob Andrews said earlier, "The quality of the hearing is inversely proportional to the press gallery." You could also add: inversely proportional to the number of Republicans who are attending. Perhaps they already know the answers. Maybe we should call this a classified hearing, then for sure there would be more people to show up. I am curious about several things. One, I read in the paper a couple of months ago that Al Jazeera was for sale. I have not heard anything more about it. Second, can we really trust the Iraqi troops that we are training, or will it be like the mujahedeen, where we gave them Stingers and eventually many of those Stingers were used against us. Third, I am increasingly worried that our military is not really being allowed to be the military and give their unvarnished mili- tary advice. We have the continuing spectacle of our top military leaders com- ing before us to say things that they could not possibly agree with—for example, Army generals testifying that we need to cut the Army's budget this year during a war. I am sure they make up some money in the supplemental. But yesterday, the top Air Force general, General Jumper, was here saying his chief worry was, "aging of the fleet, aircraft." 46 Secretary SLOCOMBE. To a limited degree, with my limited knowledge, the Army has a program whereby, as I understand it, officers—I think at about the rank of major, but it is people who have been in the service for some significant period of time—are able to elect to into this foreign area office or program. They learn the relevant language—it might be Spanish, it might be Arabic, it might be Chinese, it might be Swahili, it might be Kurdish. They essentially get special training in the regional area. A lot of them, obviously, end up as attaches. But they also end up, sometimes, as civil affairs officers, as kind of advisers for com- manders who are in the area. And it has produced a cadre of Army officers who really—I can- not imagine it is more than maybe a few thousand. I doubt if it is that many. But you have a handful of people who really under- stand these countries. I think one of the requirements is you have to learn the lan- guage. It is a terrific asset. Mr. Skelton. Mr. Chairman, may I comment on that? The Chairman. Certainly, and then we will go back and let Mr. Cooper finish his questions. Mr. Skelton. Excuse me for interrupting, but there are a couple of problems with the FAO, foreign area officers. Number one is, I think they go into that specialty too late in their career. I think you ought to grow them from at least first lieutenant on up and gradually increase their responsibilities. Second, promotions are a kiss of death. They just do not get pro- moted. And I have seen some very, very able FAOs, and they know full well that they are more capable than the rank that they hold, and yet, they enjoy what they do. And you have to admire them, because to become fluent in a lan- guage, to understand a culture of a country in which they work, that is above and beyond. And I do not know what we can do about it legislatively, but it concerns me that you do not have more people flocking to those areas that are able. Excuse my comments, but I just got involved in this recently, and those are my quick thoughts on it. Secretary Slocombe. Could I be indulged to peddle one of my ideas that I have tried to sell for a long time? A lot of these people, as I say, rightly end up as attaches, with I think three exceptions: Moscow, Beijing and Paris, all of our at- taches are 0-6s. I think it would help the United States a lot if at least some at- taches, who are actually 0-6s for retirement purposes and so on, were breveted as one-stars. It would make them much more effec- tive as attaches in the country. I also think it is notorious that being an attache is a dead-end job. To a limited extent, then, you get dead-end people in some of the attaches, which is regrettable. But more, you get a system which lets people know that if they are on this track, they are not going to make general. I think General Eikenberry must be one of the very, very few at- taches who has ever gone on in the Army after being an attache. 47 And if the Army or the other services picked just one or two peo- ple every year or so out of this cadre, it would have a huge impact on the system. Dr. Krepinevich. It is my understanding that the directive signed by Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz will require officers who achieve flag rank to have a second language. And there are a num- ber of other things in that directive that will attempt to really en- hance those sorts of things I think that you are talking about. One interesting development that is ongoing in Iraq right now that I think the Army is struggling with is, in going back to the Vietnam era, they are looking at providing advisers to these Iraqi units. And again, we will not have the luxury of drawing upon a cadre of officers that have those language skills, have those cul- tural skills. And at the same time, in terms of sending some of our best offi- cers to do that, there is probably going to be reluctance, because just as in Vietnam, it will be better to serve as a battalion com- mander, as lieutenant colonel of a U.S. unit in Iraq, than advising the battalion commander, say, of an Iraqi unit, even though that latter mission may be a lot more important in the big scheme of things. The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Cooper, do you have any follow up? Why do not you go ahead if you have a follow-up. Then we will go to Mr. Abercrombie. Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You gave me enough time and Mr. Skelton asked my question for me about the career- limiting nature of the FAO position. The Chairman. Okay. Mr. Abercrombie. Mr. Abercrombie. Thanks, Duncan. Mr. Slocombe, I have the advantage on you here a little bit today. I have a transcript of both your presentation and the question and answer session from your February 9th presentation last year, a year ago, Iraq's national se- curity strategy. Although, I do not know where you gave that particular presen- tation but if you [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 140.] Secretary Slocombe. I cannot remember either. Mr. Abercrombie. If it is okay with you I would like to—not quote anything, but make reference to a couple of things in the course of that event because I think, from all of the discussion here this morning, it leads me to where I want to go, the question that I want to ask or the perspective I would like both of you to address. I have already had the opportunity to speak personally with Andy, so I think you both could speak to it. Along about page 13 of your presentation, one of the points that you are addressing, in your formal remarks, about the task—I am going to quote here, "Moreover, the task of creating a national se- curity system has to go beyond simply creating competent forces, phasing out the militias, coping with immediate security threats or even dealing with long-term external requirements." And you go on to talk in some detail about the critical part of the transfer of full authority to a sovereign government and what that means in terms of civilian leadership, significant civilian staff- 49 And the reason I am asking this question is so I do not give you any false construct here. Because I am one that thinks that we have to remove people sooner rather than later, because I think going on the idea simply that, well, we have to work this out over a period of time, is not an answer; it is a way to avoid coming to grips with the import of the question or the proposition I have put before you. Secretary SLOCOMBE. Well, those are certainly real concerns. I certainly cannot speak—one of the luxuries of not being in the gov- ernment is I do not have to defend why they have not produced things like the National Military Strategy on time. Mr. Abercrombie. I merely cite that in the context of what you had to deal with Secretary SLOCOMBE. No, I understand what you are saying. Mr. ABERCROMBIE [continuing]. In the provisional authority. Secretary Slocombe. First of all, a good deal of progress was made before June 30th to build a base for a civilian Ministry of De- fense. Iraq has the only civilian Ministry of Defense in the Arab world. And it has its problems and so on, but that is actually an area where my successor, David Gompert, with very good support both from the American military and from Ambassador Bremer, made a lot of progress, and Negroponte has carried on that. And that is something the Iraqis want to have work. But you are right. This whole business of building a civil society is an absolutely core part of success. In terms of the time, I cannot give an estimate as to how long we are going to need to stay there for internal security reasons. My own personal view is that if we put the resources into it over the next couple of years, I would be very surprised if we are not able to, by that time, to substantially pull down American forces so that most of the internal security mission is handled by Iraqis. And that certainly would be the target and I think it is not an unrealistic one. But whether that will happen depends obviously on events on the ground. And then there is the longer-term problem of whether the Iraqis will want us to leave. If the Iraqis tell us to leave tomorrow we should live. I think we have no interest—as important as our interests are, we have no interest in staying in this country if a freely elected government says we should leave. There is no sign that they will do that. In terms of leaving when we have gotten the job done, I think a time frame of a couple of years is probably realistic. I agree with you that we are straining the guard and the reserve beyond, I do not know, the breaking point, but very, very badly. And we cannot, in the future, depend as heavily on the guard and reserve for certain critical skills, like civil affairs and military po- licemen (MPs) and so on as we have. And that is going to require some restructuring of the forces. Dr. KRepINEVICH. I think, for us to achieve our objectives—which have to involve at least, aside from sustaining democracy in Iraq, also preventing a civil war that would undermine it—we are going 50 to have to have what one might call a security blanket military force there, more than likely, over the long haul. And this, in fact, may be what is happening in Afghanistan right now with what is going on with the government there—which is to say, a small U.S. military presence that gives the indigenous fac- tions confidence that they can proceed with developing their coun- try, developing their democracy, developing their economy, without having to worry about things disintegrating into a civil war and sort of the traditional experience of power grabbing that we have seen in that part of the world. But that is going to take time. And I think it would be a mistake to withdraw our forces before we have that kind of understanding, and certainly should work hard to develop it, but also before Iraqi forces are really trained, organized, equipped and capable of pro- viding for the security of their own country. Parenthetically, in terms of the national military strategy, this year I think, from what I have seen in the Pentagon, there is the prospect of perhaps the most fundamental defense review in my memory, given the parameters that have been set forth by Sec- retary Rumsfeld, in terms of moving beyond the focus on tradi- tional kinds of challenges to our security to look at a range of these irregular challenges—catastrophic attacks on our homeland—and also those challenges that are on the horizon. In a sense, since the last major defense review, we have seen our country attacked, we have fought two major military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are fighting two insurgencies, we are fighting a Global War on Terrorism. There is an enormous opportunity. And one would expect, as I guess you do, Congressman, that there would be an enormous shift in terms of our military strategy as a consequence. But I suspect those things take time. And as Mr. Slocombe said, fortunately I am not in the position of having to defend how much time they are taking to do it. Secretary Slocombe. Could I just add one thing on the timing issue? I think that success in Iraq, whatever you think about the war, success in Iraq is so important that the pace at which we pull down our military presence should be driven by the results, not by a schedule, for a whole lot of reasons. I mean, I suppose there will be political pressures to do sort of what the Italians are going to do, to announce a token withdrawal as a sign of success. And you probably could do it without too much harm. But that is the wrong way to think about the problem, I think. It is that we ought to set ourselves the kind of metrics that Andrew Krepinevich talks about. And then as those metrics are met, we can pull down our presence. And I think it is probably right, assuming it is acceptable for the Iraqis, that it may well be that a very small U.S. presence in the long run may make sense from everybody's point of view. But that is a complicated question, and we are, unfortunately, way, way down the road from having to answer that question. But my point is that the pace of the pulldown ought to be geared to results, not a timetable. 52 solid about meeting our obligations in this context that you have established, but what we are really doing is letting a few people make all of the sacrifices, including getting killed and wounded, and the rest of us stand around, budget after budget, year after year, as this drifts into a kind of subdued chaos. Now, I am kind of revealing what is in my soul here. Believe me, I am not unusual on this committee. Everybody takes their job se- riously on this committee, and we want to do the right thing. And it is not so much I am pleading with you guys, "Give us an answer to our problem," but what I am saying is, we have to have more than a phrase like, "if we put in all the right resources," or, "if we are able to do this." We got to figure out how exactly are we supposed to do this. Should we have a draft? Should we draft people who can speak languages? Should we make a concerted effort? I mean, those are the kinds of things we have to figure out. Secretary Slocombe. You might start by not firing because they are gay. Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, something as stupid as that. You know, we are still dealing with dumb stuff like that. Secretary SlOCOMBE. I mean, I have tried to outline some of the things that I think need doing—and I know we are way over time. I think one of the Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Excuse me, I know we are over time. But be- lieve me, the chairman has to come to grips with this and provide the leadership on this, along with Mr. Skelton, and you do not see him getting up and leaving. Because I think this is in his mind. He wants to do the right thing. Secretary Slocombe. I think the issue of how a democratic soci- ety shares sacrifice for a whole lot of things, but security being one of them, is one of the toughest issues. I happen to think a draft is not even part of the answer. But I think the problem we are going to have in getting enough people to want to serve in the military and also getting enough people, enough civilians, to want to go out and do the parts of these jobs that ought to be done by civilians, is a major problem. I mean one of the things that I was struck by, when I was out there, was how many civilians had volunteered to go out and did not have, in hardly any case, most of the benefits that the military had. And it is all very well to say the military should be stuck with these responsibilities. But if we do not organize the government so that the civilian agencies—whether it is in state or whether it is someplace else, including in the intelligence community—we do not organize the system so we can get some of those burdens off the military, we are not going to achieve the job, and we are certainly not going to have shared sacrifice. Dr. Krepinevich. My only addition to what was just said is, as a American citizen I think I want an answer to the question that Congressman Taylor posed, which is: What are our goals, what is our policy? I think we have gotten that so far. What I also would like to have is a clear understanding of what is it going to take in terms of resources. How many lives are we 53 going to have to put at risk? How many dollars are we going to have to spend? And then some understanding of how they are going to be ap- plied, you know, how are these means going to be applied to achieve the ends that we seek, which is strategy. What is the strat- egy for how we are going to archive these ends? And how does it integrate the kinds of things that Mr. Slocombe was talking about, the political, the economic, the social, the secu- rity? And then finally give me some metrics. Give me some way that I can judge whether or not progress is being made. And I think that those are basic questions when you undertake any enterprise like war and those are the ones that, I think, when you get down to the strategy and the metrics, that a number of us are struggling with, and I think that is the basis for a good ex- change between the committee and the Administration. Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You have been very kind, Mr. Chairman. And both of you have been more than kind in indulging me, and my ruminations on this. But in the end then, what I am concluding from all of this is that we are in great danger of doing something that I think that your book made clear to me, as I reviewed it. We are in great danger of substituting military activity for politi- cal policy, or the military activity becomes the political policy, and that we begin to set up a series of metrics in which our political decisions are based on, and made on the basis of what our military activity is. And if that happens, I think it will have the reverse effect of what you are suggesting we need to do. I wish I had a pat answer on all of that, but that is what I want to avoid. I do not want to have military activity itself become its own rationale for, and in fact, the basis of political decision-mak- ing. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate your in- dulgence. The CHAIRMAN. I think it is important to have these extended discussions. I think it is good. You know, the gentleman brought up the idea of disparate sac- rifice. But that is always been the case. I think from my reading of Teddy Roosevelt's life, one reason he wanted to become a Rough Rider and go out and lean forward in a military role was, as I recall, his dad, in the Civil War, I think, hired a surrogate to take his place in the Army. And that was something you could do if you had enough bucks in those days. So we have always had this disparate burden-bear- ing, if you will. But I am reminded also when were in—and I was over in Iraq with my friend Mr. Abercrombie. We had a great trip over there. This trip after that, when we were over in Fallujah, General Kelly—who now heads up liaison here on the Hill, but a great guy who was a deputy commander of the 1st Marine Division in Fallujah—while he was deputy commander, his son, Robert, was a rifleman, I believe a PFC, in ground operations in the city. 54 So you had in the same family the deputy division commander and arguably one of the lowest ranking rifleman going door-to-door in these very difficult, very dangerous operations. In fact, General Kelly, Christmas day, was at Bethesda Hospital talking to the wounded Marines. And he asked one of them where he got the bullet holes in his leg. And the guy replied, "Well, as a matter of fact, General, I was with your son." And words to the effect of, "He made it in the building and I did not." And that set the general back a little. But I give that illustration because there is a—even though the burden sharing is not an even thing across the board—and that is one thing the draft does. If you do not have 150 waivers and excep- tions, a draft can do that. The fact that you have the American people produce these folks that go out and go to very and very inconvenient places, and live very inconvenient lives, and put themselves in dangerous positions to serve this country is the strength of the country. And interestingly, I would say to my colleague, they do it, even though they look next door and they see the neighbor who is not bearing the burden. And they understand that. They accept that and they go anyway. And I do not know if there is a way that we can—we certainly cannot legislate the American spirit or the incentive or the initia- tive that moves people to join the military. And that takes me to a question that you touch on, which is a question that you say—in one of your statements you say that ulti- mately, the American service men could vote with their feet, that is, could refuse to sign up, because this is a voluntary military we have here. You have looked at the latest statistics, the last couple of months, for recruitment. There has been a little downswing, I think, in the Army recruitment, in the national guard, and a slight failure to meet goals, I believe, in the Marine Corps in the last cou- ple of months. What do you think? Could you comment on that? Do you think that is the fact that we have settled into this long, very violent and very difficult operation, and people are taking a look at that every day on their TV screens and deciding that there is other things they want to do? Dr. Krepinevich. I do think, Mr. Chairman, as I have said in my testimony, the American soldier in this war, unlike the Vietnam War, is a center of gravity. In the Vietnam War, if we needed more troops, we just increased the draft call. We cannot do that this time around. So consequently, the American soldier does get a vote, and the vote is with his or her feet. It is about the hearts and minds, I think, to a certain extent, of the American soldier. The heart in the sense of: Is this sacrifice I am making for my country a worthy sacrifice? And is that sacrifice honored by the American people? And I think right now we are very fortunate that, not only do enough young men and women feel that sacrifice is a worthy one, but that they are honored by their countrymen for having made that. 57 And it is not just the guard and reserve. I was down in U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Mr. Chairman, the other day, and they had a briefing on a number of issues, including the recruitment and retention. And it is interesting to hear their recruiting general tell me that the real reason that African-American recruitment has gone way down and the Hispanic recruitment has gone way down is because of mama. The mother is saying, "Son, daughter, not a good idea." And those have plummeted in the last several months, which places additional strain upon other young folks, and the pool is shrinking. I had a conversation with Mr. Slocombe a few minutes ago. You are less worried, I understand, about the active duty. Because they know that is part of the job. When they sign up, they know they are going to be deployed, whether it is aboard a ship or an airplane or on the ground. That is not necessarily so with the guard and reserve. And at some point there is going to be a breaking point. And this just wor- ries me to death, come a serious confrontation, whether it be in the Taiwan Strait and all of the problems that would arise or some unforsaken place that we just cannot dream of this moment, and we do not have the forces to do it. And what forces we have are stretched and broken. I am terribly worried about this. And I do not know where we go. I do not see a light at the end of the tunnel on this at all. Am I wrong, gentlemen? Secretary SlOCOMBE. I think the problem is that it is a long-term problem. And we need a military that is deployable and flexible and effective and big and all of that. And the questions is: How are we going to do it? And as you know, I think all of these deployments have been jus- tified. And you cannot operate on the principle where we cannot use the military to do things that are important for the country, because it will make retention hard. That is going to get the cart before the horse. But I think it is a serious problem. And one of the things that I think we have, as a country, to think about is how we—I mean, some of it is technical. You can reduce the burden on the guard and reserve by having more of the active force cover some of the func- tions that we thought we could rely on the reserves for. That is more or less mechanical. But in gross terms, I think it is a serious long-term problem. And one of the real questions is: Are there not ways to expand the range of kinds of people who will find a military career attractive? The cohort is going to get smaller, just the demographics. The number of people is going to get smaller. Presumably more people are going to go to college. God willing, the economy will continue to improve. That is one of the reasons recruitment gets hard. And as long as we have to recruit from such a narrow range of the country, A, we do not have the shared sacrifice and, B, the numbers just begin to get very, very difficult. That is somewhat different from the retention problem. 58 And by the way, I worry about the retention problem in the ac- tive force, as people have to make a decision. Are they going to stay in and make it a career, as opposed to something they do in their 20's, when they get married and they begin to have kids, and they want a more stable life. I think it is an issue there as well. Mr. Skelton. It is anecdotal, but based upon the statistics that we have had in the past, only 37 percent of West Pointers stick it out for 20 years. And it is anecdotal that a disproportionate num- ber of them now, today, are getting out after their mandatory five years. Of course, I do not have any figures on that, but that comes swirling in. Andrew, do you have any comments? Dr. Krepinevich. Yes, I think the glass may be partially full. Obviously, we did not structure our Army to fight this kind of war. We structured our Army after Vietnam for short wars. You had the Weinberger and Powell doctrine, exit strategies, and I think it is showing up here. We have an enemy that is forcing us to run a marathon, not a 100-yard dash. The Army is tackling that. It is going to be very interesting to see if this modularity initiative gives us more in the way of deploy able combat power, re-rolling the force, standing down some artillery units, creating units that are more relevant for this kind of warfare. There is a very interesting Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study that is coming out on that shortly, a very comprehensive look at the problem. There may be, as Mr. Slocombe says, a better way to structure the mix between and the roles and missions of the guard and reserve. You can call the reserve up, a guard unit, for 12 months, but you do not get 12 months of service in Iraq. They have to spend a cou- ple months training up, a couple months demobilizing at the end, so you only get a fraction of the time that you really have them called up for, in terms of their deployment. Another thing that is going to be very interesting to see, with re- spect to this Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) defense review, is whether or not we begin to use Iraq as a planning template. And I do not think we can. I do not think we can scale this force up to a much larger level, absent a national emergency, than we already have. And yet, you look at Iran, which is not the most stable govern- ment, that has three times the population of Iraq; Pakistan, far less stable, eight times the population of Iraq. We are not going to have a military that is eight times the size of the one we have now. We are going to have to think about dif- ferent solutions, if not for those reasons, for the fact that the per- sonnel budget is eating the procurement budget from the inside out, and we are at the point where we need to recapitalize the force. In my mind, we are going to have to look more to rely on allies than we have in the past, but perhaps a different set of allies than we have in the past, because the problems are different and the lo- cation of the threat is different. But also—and this is something that seems to be a major initia- tive within the Army and within the Administration—is to train in- 60 briefed. There would be a chart that would show a number of inci- dents, number that were initiated by coalition forces Mr. Taylor. Where do you think that metric is now? Do you think we initiate most of the shooting? Or do you think the insur- gents do? Secretary Slocombe. I have no idea. Dr. Krepinevich. I do not have access to the data. Of course, what you would be interested in, Congressman, is the trend. In other words, if it is 60 percent today, was it 20 percent 4 months ago or was it 90 percent? And that is what you would be looking at is the trend. Secretary Slocombe. All metrics also have problems. You do not want to reward—once you begin keeping track of that, people will make sure that when they go out on a patrol they shoot at some- body, and then it is an initiated contact. But the basic point is right. And my recollection is it was tracked. They may have stopped doing it because they decided it was not a meaningful—although it was in principle meaningful, actually getting the numbers in a meaningful way was not getting anywhere. Mr. Taylor. Again, thank both of you, gentlemen, for sticking around for so long. The Chairman. Well, gentlemen, thank you and thanks for hav- ing some good endurance today. And I think our conversation was very enlightening, very instruc- tive, and we really appreciate you folks devoting as much time as you have to this very critical national issue. Thanks a lot. [Whereupon, at 12:59 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] APPENDIX March 17, 2005 PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD March 17, 2005 67 insurgents—typically referred to as terrorists—constitute yet a third group, although they themselves appear to be an agglomeration of independent radical Islamist elements.2 In Phase II operations, the insurgents expand their base of support through attacks on government facilities and leaders. Hit-and-run guerrilla assaults against vulnerable regime forces (e.g., convoys) become common. Efforts are made to gain control over certain elements of the population, such as in remote areas where the regime's power is weak or in areas where the regime's forces find it difficult to operate (e.g., urban areas). Guerrilla units are drawn from this expanding base of support. The link between the population and the insurgents is critical. Unless they maintain their access to the population, the insurgents cannot extend their control. Success in Phases I and II enables Phase III operations. In Phase III the regime finds itself confronting main-force insurgent formations that are willing and able to take on the government's forces in open warfare. However, activities consistent with Phase I and II operations continue as well. The insurgent's goal at this point is to create the impression of irresistible momentum that will eviscerate the morale of the regime's forces and trigger a massive popular uprising, leading to regime collapse. In Iraq, US and other coalition forces, along with indigenous Iraqi forces, are fighting against insurgent movements whose operations are characteristic of Phase 1 and Phase II operations. IL The Centers of Gravity The Population: The War's Center of Gravity In war, the center (or centers) of gravity can be defined as that asset, or set of assets, the loss of which will destroy an enemy's ability or willingness to continue its resistance.3 In conventional warfare, the enemy's military forces are often seen as its center of gravity. At other times the enemy's center of gravity has been depicted as its seat of power, its capital city, its alliance structure, or its economic infrastructure. This is not the case in insurgency warfare, where the population is the center of gravity. In the current war in Iraq, however, there are three centers of gravity, which are described below. 1 The Iraqi Kurds form a fourth group. At present, however, they have not taken up arms in any significant numbers against the occupying coalition forces. One radical Islamic insurgent movement with origins in the Kurdish region of Iraq, Ansar al-hlam fi Kurdistan (Supporters of Islam in Kurdistan), has a membership whose composition is believed to be dominated by Kurds. 3 Clausewitz described the center of gravity as "the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends." Antulio Echevarria II notes that a literal translation of Clausewitz's views reveals the author focuses his discussion on tracing "the full weight of the enemy's force to as few centers of gravity as possible, when feasible, to one; and, at the same time, to reduce the blow against these centers to as few majoT actions as possible, when feasible, to one . . . . Reducing the enemy's force to once center of gravity depends, first, upon the [enemy's] political connectivity [or unity] itself. . . and, second, upon the situation in the theater of war itself, and which of the various enemy armies appears there." Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 485-486, 595-596; Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege. \9A ed. (Regensbcrg, Germany: Pustet, 1991), pp. 1009-10. Cited in Antulio Echevarria II, "Center of Gravity: Recommendations for Joint Doctrine," Joint Forces Quarterly, Issue 35, pp. 13-14. 3 71 counterinsurgent forces have won the people's "hearts," by offering them the prospect of a better way of life if the insurgents are defeated, in addition to having won their "minds" by convincing the people that the insurgents will be defeated and that the government can provide the personal security necessary to convince individuals to provide the intelligence needed to identify who the insurgents are, and where they are located. Should counterinsurgent forces instead focus their principal efforts on destroying insurgent forces, as is more typical of conventional warfare, and accord population security a low priority, they will play into the insurgents' hands. Insurgent casualties suffered under these circumstances will rarely prove decisive. So long as the insurgents maintain access to the population, they can rarely be compelled to fight. Thus they can meter their casualties to keep them at tolerable levels, and replenish their losses by recruiting from the population. It is only when the insurgents become truly isolated from the population that the real attrition of their forces can take place. In establishing security for the population, priority in intelligence efforts should focus first and foremost on the insurgent infrastructure, not insurgent forces. By rooting out the insurgent cadres that live among the people, insurgent forces lose their eyes and ears, and coercing the population becomes much more difficult. Moreover, the local inhabitants are likely to feel more secure if the principal threat to their security lies outside their .town than if it exists within. At present, the Iraqi insurgents are principally operating inside urban areas. Getting them out and keeping them out will require a protracted investment in providing security and enabling reconstruction. In this respect, the arrangements reached with insurgents in Fallujah and Najaf, respectively, that allowed insurgent forces to operate in those cities, as opposed to government security forces, was a significant setback for the United States' counterinsurgency campaign. It bears repeating that security for the people is the sine qua non for winning their hearts and minds. Once a sufficient level of security is established, civic action, public works and other forms of reconstruction can proceed within acceptable levels of risk.8 Local elections can be held, and those who assume office need not fear for their lives. Local security forces can be established to protect their community's stake in a future that promises economic gain and access to the political power.9 Indeed, the political, economic and social elements of the counterinsurgency campaign must be well integrated with the military dimension. There must be a unity of effort and a unity of command. For example, civic action, or reconstruction, in the * Actions of this type are designed to pre-empt the insurgents* cause by demonstrating to the people that their lives will be better if the counterinsurgents prevail, and that the people will ultimately decide their own fate, first through local elections, and then, as more areas of the country become secure, regional and national elections. This takes considerable time to bring about, and are one reason why defeating an insurgent movement tend to be a protracted enterprise. 9 These paramilitary forces should be drawn from the inhabitants of the area, and trained in counterinsurgency operations such as small-unit patrolling, night operations, and ambush. As with progress in various forms of civic action, this training process takes considerable time, far more than the time allotted for by coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the United States has understandably tried to replace US troops with Iraqi security forces, the fact is that training indigenous security forces takes time. Hence Washington's dilemma: it needs to reduce its troop strength to reduce the strain on its forces and to provide security with an Iraqi Face; yet that security can only be provided by well-trained forces, which will take considerable time to accomplish. 7 72 absence of security merely increases the potential resources available to insurgent forces, or provides easy targets for insurgent acts of sabotage. Developing a secure environment in which reconstruction can take place takes time. The reason for this is that the population's support is conditional on the government's ability to demonstrate convincingly that it has both the means and the will to persevere. This critical factor has been lacking in the United States' strategy for dealing with the insurgents. Despite professions that America will "stay the course" in Iraq, the population has, in fact, been subjected to a series of course changes by the US Government that provide a very weak foundation upon which to win the hearts and minds of the people. Measuring Success What metrics does one use in measuring whether or not we are making progress in defeating the insurgency? How ought we to think about metrics we choose? First, metrics must focus on trends in the war, not snapshots at a particular moment. Insurgencies are by nature protracted affairs, and success can be gauged only over time. Second, in selecting metrics, one must consider their possible second-order or "hidden" effects. Consider, for example, a metric that sees enemy casualties as a way of whittling down insurgent strength. This metric, if pursued indiscriminately, may increase noncombatant casualties, and alienate the population. Ultimately, this could find the insurgents more than offsetting their losses as a consequence of enhanced recruiting opportunities with the disenchanted population. Third, metrics should be reviewed on a frequent basis to insure they have proven (or remain) valid. Finally, metrics should not be viewed in isolation. They must always be linked back to the war's centers of gravity. The Iraqi people are likely the principal center of gravity. If progress is being made in winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, it is likely—though not assured—that the support of the American People and American Soldier will be sustained, at least over the near- to mid-term future." This leads to three key questions: • "Hearts"—Do the Iraqi people share the same objectives as their government and the coalition forces? • "Minds"—Do the Iraqi people believe that these objectives are likely to be achieved—i.e., that the insurgent groups will, in the end, be defeated? 10 Note that this does not imply perfect security. A town or village can weather an occasional insurgent attack, even if some loss of life is involved, far better than they can endure a string of assassinations that demonstrate the insurgents are living among them. The former implies a relatively high degree of security, while in the latter case security is effectively non-existent. "It must be noted that some conflict exists among the centers of gravity—the three centers are not identical in terms of what animates their perceptions of the war. Thus, for example, aggressive US military operations undertaken to enhance the Iraqi peoples' security may help secure that center of gravity, while at the same time—if substantial US casualties are incurred—risk undermining the centers of gravity comprising the American People and American Soldier. 8 73 • Security—If provided with a secure environment, are the Iraqi people willing to take an active role in defeating the insurgency? In short, if we win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, and provide them with security against retribution by the insurgents, they will provide much of the critical human intelligence regarding who the insurgents are, and where they are located. With that knowledge, the counterinsurgent forces will have a decisive advantage in the war. Strategic Metrics Given the Bush Administration's objectives, it appears there are two metrics at the strategic level of the conflict, which address overall war aims. One is whether our operations in Iraq are enabling a shift toward more democratic regimes in the Arab/Islamic world. The second is whether we will experience, as a consequence of this war, a shift away from the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Campaign Metrics What metrics might be useful in gauging progress in the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq? Here I will present and briefly comment upon several popular (and somewhat problematic) metrics, as well as several other metrics that appear promising. Insurgent Force Levels Enemy troop strength is often used to gauge the military balance in both conventional and insurgency warfare. In the case of Iraq, it does not appear that attempting to count the enemy would be a particularly useful measure of his strength or our progress in the war. Historically, it has often been exceedingly difficult to obtain an accurate assessment of insurgent force levels.12 Unlike the counterinsurgent forces, many insurgents are not "full-time" participants in the conflict. Some "insurgents" engage in hostile activities not because they are "true believers" (e.g., are devoted to the Ba'athist, radical Islamist, etc. cause), but because they are coerced into participating, or co-opted (e.g., those Iraqis who will plant an IED for a fee.) Number of Assassinations (e.g., religious leaders, senior government officials) The fewer the number of assassinations, the better the government is seen as able to protect its own officials. From the population's perspective, if the government cannot protect its own, it is difficult to see how it can protect individual citizens from insurgent coercion and retribution.13 One also must be careful that this metric does not lead to a "body-count" approach to the war, as occurred in Vietnam. Traditionally, the surest way to reduce insurgent strength is to win the hearts and minds of the population, and deny the insurgents access to them by providing security. Once access is denied, the insurgents' recruiting source dries up—his forces are attrited indirectly, and in a manner much more likely to be sustained than the direct approach that puts primary emphasis on killing insurgents. 13 Of course, as with many metrics, one must be careful in interpreting them. If, for example, the government were so thoroughly infiltrated by insurgents, it may no longer be necessary to target government officials. Or, if the insurgents believe US popular support for the war is weakening, they may intentionally shift their focus to the centers of gravity that are the American people and the American soldier. 9 74 Insurgent Leader Casualties and Defections Similarly, if the insurgents cannot protect their own leadership from being killed or captured, they are likely both losing the intelligence war, which is key to defeating an insurgency, and demonstrating their inability to protect their infrastructure from government penetration. This will likely discourage recruitment, as prospective recruits will infer that an insurgent movement that cannot shield the identity and location of its leaders can hardly be expected to do so for those lower in the chain of command. Correspondingly, if insurgents are defecting in increasing numbers, or (better still) as a growing percentage of the overall insurgent force, this would indicate that we are winning the hearts and minds of the "true believers;" i.e., they are coming to believe that their cause is no longer worth fighting for, or that it is a hopeless cause. Success in this area is a clear indication that the counterinsurgent forces are winning the intelligence battle. Since winning that battle will very likely mean that individual citizens are stepping forward to provide information, it also means that the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people are being won over—and that a critical center of gravity is being secured. Combat Intensity It is tempting to measure the number of combat incidents as a sign of insurgent strength, and the lack thereof as a sign of their weakness. This must be done with care, however, as a lack of insurgent activity does not necessarily mean success for the counterinsurgent forces. One suspects the combat incidents around Fallujah in the summer of 2004 were quite low. Yet this was hardly a measure of the counterinsurgent forces' success. Rather, it was a clear signal of their impotence. Conversely, a large number of insurgent attacks may reflect their weakness, and not their strength. Such a rash of attacks could be stimulated by insurgent fears that they are losing the war and must do something dramatic to reverse the unfavorable (from their point of view) trends. Nevertheless, it is worth tracking insurgent activity, not so much to get a sense of whether progress is being made in defeating them, but rather to get a sense of their priorities and trends in their behavior. For example, combat incidents could provide insights on trends in the scale of enemy attacks (e.g., small group, sizeable force, large-scale units), their targeting priorities (What are they targeting: civilians? US forces? convoys? infrastructure?), and their level of success (Were casualties produced? Facilities destroyed?). These data may also tell us how effective counterinsurgent forces are in certain elements of their strategy, or signal a shift in their strategy. For example, if the data show that the insurgents are moving away from attacks on government officials, or if these attacks are experiencing a far lower success rate, then counterinsurgent efforts to protect key government officials may be paying off. US Casualties To the extent that US casualties are linked to a decline in support for the war among American soldiers in particular and the US public in general, they are an important metric. However, it is not clear that this is the case, at least not given the current casualty rate, which is far below that to 75 suffered during the Vietnam War. Furthermore, unlike in the Vietnam era, no US citizen risks becoming a casualty in Iraq unless they volunteer for military service. To be sure, the American public might, at some point, become horrified by the level of US casualties. Still, this might just as easily lead to a redoubling of the American people's determination to see the war through to a victorious conclusion, as to stimulate demands for a US troop withdrawal. As noted above, a more important issue for the two American centers of gravity may be the "free rider problem." If it is perceived that the Iraqis do not want to fight for their own freedom against undemocratic insurgent movements, US soldiers (and the American people) may become increasingly reluctant to make sacrifices on behalf of what is perceived to be indifferent beneficiaries. Winning the Intelligence War: The Link to the "Hearts and Minds" It bears repeating that winning the intelligence war is critical to defeating an insurgency. Coalition forces have overwhelming combat capability. If they know who the insurgents are, and where they are, victory is assured. It is crucial that ways are identified to measure progress in this area. Consider, then, the following metrics: Percentage of Contacts with the Enemy initiated by US and Coalition Forces. The focus is not on the number of offensive operations that coalition forces launch relative to the insurgents; rather, it is the number of contacts that are initiated by coalition forces relative to the enemy. The metric is used to find out how we are progressing in the intelligence war, which is a surrogate for getting a handle on the population's disposition. The thinking here is that a positive trend in this metric is an indication not only that the initiative is passing from the insurgents to the counterinsurgent forces, but also that a key link in this effort is the willingness of the population to provide "actionable" intelligence. When the Iraqi people support US war aims, believe the US will prevail, and believe they are secure from retribution by the insurgents, they are much more likely to provide information as to where IEDs might be planted, or when an insurgent ambush is planned, or who among them might be cooperating with the insurgents. Along these lines, among the most useful metrics would be the following: Percentage of IEDs Intercepted/Destroyed vs. those Detonated. Again, this may be a useful surrogate for measuring whether or not the government and its coalition allies are making progress in winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. To capture this trend, IED intercept figures would have to be broken down by type. For example, IEDs might be intercepted due to government/military surveillance or by tips from the civilian population, or by shoddy emplacement by the insurgents, or other factors. The key here is to track the level and effectiveness of civilian involvement in dealing with this form of insurgent attack. Percentage of Contacts with the Enemy Initiated by Coalition Forces relative to Contacts Initiated by Iraqi units. Since ultimately this war must be won by the Iraqi people themselves, and since the United States should avoid creating a "free rider" problem with respect to indigenous Iraqi forces, measuring the percentage of contacts with the enemy initiated by coalition forces relative to contacts initiated by indigenous Iraqi units (e.g., National Guard units; police forces) might be useful. Simply put: What percentage of contacts with the enemy involve 11 76 indigenous Iraqi forces? Of these contacts, what percentage are initiated by Iraqis, and what percentage by the insurgents? "Actionable " Intelligence Provided by the Local Population. Correspondingly, it might be useful to measure the percentage of contacts with the enemy that stem from "actionable" intelligence provided by the local population. The higher the percentage, the greater the likelihood that the locals both share our objectives and feel secure enough to volunteer information. The goal here, of course, is to determine whether two key objectives are being met. First, are the Iraqi forces taking on an increasing share of the burden in the war against the insurgents? Second, what kind of cooperation are they receiving from the people in the form of actionable intelligence? If the trends are positive, it offers considerable encouragement. "Market Metrics" There is some evidence that the insurgent movement comprises not only those that are unremittingly hostile to the idea of a free and democratic Iraq and to the United States, but also those who are unemployed or part of the criminal element released from Iraqi jails shortly before the beginning of the Second Gulf War. "True believers" in the insurgent cause should not need any special incentive to undertake violent action against the Iraqi Government or coalition forces. However, there are clear indications that the insurgents are offering payments to Iraqis to plant IEDs, and declaring bounties for the killing of certain categories of individuals (e.g., Iraqi governmental officials, US soldiers, etc.). To the degree this is occurring, it indicates that the insurgency is struggling to expand its ranks, and must buy support. Given this, it would be helpful to keep track of the "market" in this aspect of the struggle. What are the insurgents offering to those who will plant an IED? Detonate one? Commit suicide in a car bomb attack? What kind of bounty are they placing on the lives of their enemies, and how does that price change over time? The assumption behind these "market" metrics is that the higher the price the insurgents are paying people to engage in these actions, the fewer people there are who are willing to do them. Reduced supply is driving up the cost. The lower supply may be indicators of US success in meeting other objectives, such as economic growth (which, by reducing unemployment, may reduce the number of individuals willing to "work" for the insurgents), a greater sense of security (making it more difficult for insurgents to gain access to people for the purpose of "employing" them to attack the counterinsurgent forces), or a stronger sense of popular commitment to the new Iraq regime (leaving fewer people vulnerable to being co-opted by the insurgents to perform these tasks). Of course, the price could drop at the same time there is a dramatic increase in attacks. This would be far more worrisome. Here it seems likely the price would drop because Iraqis are attracted to the insurgent movement in ever-increasing numbers. Should that become the case, the increased supply of "true believers"—those who act out of conviction—would reduce the need to hire individuals to conduct these attacks for money. In economic terms, the demand 12 82 STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is part of the U.S. Army War College and is the strategic level study agent for issues related to national security and military strategy with emphasis on geostrategic analysis. The mission of SSI is to use independent analysis to conduct strategic studies that develop policy recommendations on: • Strategy, planning and policy for joint and combined employment of military forces; • Regional strategic appraisals; • The nature of land warfare; • Matters affecting the Army's future; • The concepts, philosophy, and theory of strategy; and • Other issues of importance to the leadership of the Army. Studies produced by civilian and military analysts concern topics having strategic implications for the Army, the Department of Defense, and the larger national security community. In addition to its studies, SSI publishes special reports on topics of special or immediate interest. These include edited proceedings of conferences and topically-orientated roundtables, expanded trip reports, and quick reaction responses to senior Army leaders. The Institute provides a valuable analytical capability within the Army to address strategic and other issues in support of Army participation in national security policy formulation. 83 INSURGENCY AND COUNTERINSURGENCY IN THE 21st CENTURY: RECONCEPTUALIZING THREAT AND RESPONSE Steven Metz Raymond Millen November 2004 85 FOREWORD Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has developed a national security strategy designed to eliminate the conditions that spawn asymmetric threats. An important part of that is helping build stable, legitimate governments in nations which allowed or supported terrorism and other forms of asymmetric aggression. This has led the United States to renewed involvement in counterinsurgency. The United States, particularly the Army, has a long history of counterinsurgency support. During the past decade, though, this has not been an area of focus for the American military. To renew its capability at counterinsurgency, the military is assessing 21st century insurgency, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and revising its strategy, operational concepts, organization, and doctrine. This monograph is designed to contribute to this process. In it, Dr. Steven Metz and Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen argue that 20th century strategy, operational concepts, organization, and doctrine should not be applied to 21st century insurgency without further refinement. They contend that there are two major variants of insurgency which they label "national" and "liberation." Most existing strategy, operational concepts, organization, and doctrine are derived from American experience with national insurgencies, but these need to be adapted when confronting liberation insurgencies. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this special report as part of the ongoing refinement of the Army's understanding of the threat posed by insurgency in the 21st century security environment. DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR. Director Strategic Studies Institute 87 Millen is a Foreign Area Officer for Western Europe. He has published articles in a number of scholarly and professional journals to include Comparative Strategy Journal, Infantry Magazine and the Swiss Military Journal. His book, Command Legacy, was published by Brasseys in April 2002. Lieutenant Colonel Millen is a graduate of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, and holds an M.A. degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in World Politics at Catholic University of America. v 88 SUMMARY Insurgency has existed throughout history but ebbed and flowed in strategic significance. Today the world has entered another period when insurgency is common and strategically significant. This is likely to continue for at least a decade, perhaps longer. As the United States confronts this threat, extrapolating old ideas, strategies, doctrine, and operational concepts is a recipe for ineffectiveness. Reconceptualization is needed. The strategic salience of insurgency for the United States is higher than it has been since the height of the Cold War. But insurgency remains challenging for the United States because two of its dominant characteristics—protractedness and ambiguity- mitigate the effectiveness of the American military. Furthermore, the broader U.S. national security organization is not optimized for counterinsurgency support. Ultimately, a nation is only as good at counterinsurgency support as its weakest link, not its strongest. Existing American strategy and doctrine focus on national insurgencies rather than liberation ones. As a result, the strategy stresses selective engagement; formation of a support coalition if possible; keeping the American presence to a minimum level to attain strategic objectives; augmenting the regime's military, intelligence, political, informational, and economic capabilities; and, encouraging and shaping reform by the regime designed to address shortcomings and the root causes of the insurgency. The key to success is not for the U.S. military to become better at counterinsurgency, but for the U.S. military (and other elements of the government) to be skilled at helping local security and intelligence forces become effective at it. A strategy for countering a liberation insurgency must be different in some important ways. Specifically, it should include the rapid stabilization of the state or area using the appropriately sized force (but larger is usually better); a shift to minimum U.S. military presence as rapidly as possible; rapid creation of effective local security and intelligence forces; shifting the perception of the insurgency from a liberation one to a national one; encouraging sustained reform by the partner regime; and cauterization-the strengthening of states surrounding the state facing an insurgency. vi 89 Sustained capability enhancement is crucial, even when the United States is not actively engaged in counterinsurgency. This includes leader development, wargaming, concept development, research and analysis, professional education, and focused training. Capability enhancement should include increasing the ability and willingness of regional states and other regional security organizations to provide counterinsurgency support, improved homeland security, and methods for early warning of insurgency, preventative actions, and the creation of early-stage support packages. The United States must make clear whether its approach to counterinsurgency is a strategy of victory or a strategy of containment, tailoring the response and method to the threat. A strategy of victory which seeks a definitive end makes sense when facing a national insurgency in which the partner government has some basis of legitimacy and popular support. In liberation insurgencies, though, a strategy of victory is a very long shot, hence a strategy of containment is the more logical one. Because insurgents attempt to preven t the mil i ta ry ba ttlespacef rom becoming decisive and concentrate in the political and psychological, operational design must be different than for conventional combat. Specifically, the U.S. military and other government agencies should develop an effects-based approach designed to fracture, delegitimize, delink, demoralize, and deresource insurgents. To make this work requires an independent strategic assessment organization composed of experienced government officials, military officers, policemen, intelligence officers, strategists, and regional experts to assess a counterinsurgency operation and allow senior leaders to make adjustments. When involved in backing an existing government, the U.S. force package would be designed primarily for training, advice, and support. It should be interagency from the inception. In most cases, the only combat forces would be those needed for force and facility protection, more rarely for strike missions in particularly challenging environments. Modularity should increasingly allow the Army to tailor, deploy, and sustain such packages. Sustaining the commitment is an important part of force packaging. Successful counterinsurgency takes many years, often a decade or more. Consideration must be given to rotation procedures for deployed forces. To some extent, contractors can relieve this vii 90 pressure, particularly since many of the training, advice, and support functions in counterinsurgency do not have to be performed bv uniformed military. But as Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, the use of contractors brings a range of other problems associated with training, control, discipline, and protection. Given the likelihood of continued involvement in counter- insurgency support, the Army will need to consider increasing the number of units that have particular utility in this environment, such as Intelligence and Engineers. Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations, both of which also have high utility in counterinsurgency support, need refocusing and restructuring. As a minimum, a larger proportion of these units should be in the active component. And, both need greater autonomy to be effective in a counterinsurgencv environment rather than being assigned to the commander of a maneuver unit. In general, though, the Army should not develop specialized units to "fight" counterinsurgency. Leader development and training for counterinsurgency must emphasize ethical considerations and force discipline, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to communicate across cultural boundaries. Most importantly, leader development must focus on inculcating the Army with the ability to innovate and adapt. Organizationally, the U.S. military should develop matrix and networked organizations. Professional education and training must be increasingly interagency and multinational. viii 92 DEFINITION AND CONCEPTUAL CONTEXT Insurgency is a strategy adopted by groups which cannot attain their political objectives through conventional means or by a quick seizure of power. It is used by those too weak to do otherwise. Insurgency is characterized by protracted, asymmetric violence, ambiguity, the use of complex terrain (jungles, mountains, urban areas), psychological warfare, and political mobilization —all designed to protect the insurgents and eventually alter the balance of power in their favor. Insurgents may attempt to seize power and replace the existing government (revolutionary insurgency) or they may have more limited aims such as separation, autonomy, or alteration of a particular policy. They avoid battlespaces where they are weakest—often the conventional military sphere—and focus on those where they can operate on more equal footing, particularly the psychological and the political. Insurgents try to postpone decisive action, avoid defeat, sustain themselves, expand their support, and hope that, over time, the power balance changes in their favor. In a broad sense, insurgencies take two forms -1 In what can be cal led "national" insurgencies, the primary antagonists are the insurgents and a national government which has at least some degree of legitimacy and support. The distinctions between the insurgents and the regime are based on economic class, ideology, identity (ethnicity, race, religion), or some other political factor. The government may have external supporters, but the conflict is clearly between the insurgents and an endogenous regime. National insurgencies are triangular in that they involve not only the two antagonists—the insurgents and counterinsurgents—but also a range of other actors who can shift the relationship between the antagonists by supporting one or the other. The most important of these other actors are the populace of the country but may also include external states, organizations, and groups. The insurgents and counterinsurgents pursue strategies which, in a sense, mirror image the other as they attempt to weaken the other party and simultaneously win over neutrals or those who are not committed to one side or the other. The second important form are "liberation" insurgencies. These pit insurgents against a ruling group that is seen as outside occupiers (even though they might not actually be) by virtue of race, ethnicity, or culture. The goal of the insurgents is to "liberate" their nation 2 93 from alien occupation. Examples include the insurgency in Rhodesia, the one against the white minority government in South Africa, the Palestinian insurgency/ Vietnam after 1965, the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet occupation, Chechnya, the current Taleban/al Qaeda insurgency in Afghanistan, and the Iraq insurgency. The distinction between a national and a liberation insurgency is not always rigid and clear. A single insurgency can contain elements of both, and shift emphasis during its lifespan. The Chinese communist insurgency, for instance, began as a national insurgency, shifted to a combination of liberation and national during the Japanese occupation, and then shifted back to a national one. The Viet Cong/North Vietnamese insurgency in South Vietnam grew out of a liberation one, became more national in focus before extensive American involvement in the conflict, again emphasized the liberation element from 1965 to the early 1970s, and then shifted back again. Liberation insurgencies are difficult to counter. The approach that usually works against national insurgents—demonstrating that the government can address the root causes of the conflict through reform—does not work nearly as well since the occupiers are inherently and insurmountably distinct from the insurgents and their supporters. Their outsider status cannot be overcome by even the most skilled information campaign. What motivates the insurgents is not the lack of jobs, schools, or the right to vote, but resentment at occupation, interference, and rule by outsiders or those perceived as outsiders. Reform is not the key to a solution as it normally is in national insurgencies.2 For this reason, skilled insurgents prefer to have their movement seen as a liberation one rather than a national one, thus making the mobilization of support and internal unity within the insurgency easier. Insurgencies vary across time and regions but most follow a common life cycle. During the period of organization and coalescence, insurgent movements tend to be weak, disorganized, and often inchoate. Survival is the overwhelming priority. In the earliest stage, there may be diverse, competing insurgent movements within a nation. If so, establishing a reputation—"brand identity"—is important, leading some of the proto-insurgencies to undertake bold, even foolhardy actions.3 Other insurgents may opt for the underground approach and remain hidden as long as possible 3 94 while organizing, recruiting, training, learning their craft, and accumulating resources. Each method of mobilization—by publicity- generating action or by building an underground organization—has proven successful, particularly if the regime fails to recognize the seriousness of the threat at an early stage. At some point every insurgency must open direct operations against the regime in order to succeed. This can take the form of guerrilla warfare, terrorism, assassination of officials, sabotage, and other types of irregular or asymmetric violence. At the same time, the insurgents must continue to improve their skills, learn their craft, accumulate resources, and mobilize support. They may do this by cultivating external alliances, smuggling, robbery, narcotrafficking, kidnapping, black marketing, money laundering, counterfeiting, merchandise pirating, illegal use of charities, racketeering, and extortion. They may buy arms, obtaining them from ideological allies, or capture them from government forces. Most—but not all- insurgents also seek to augment their legitimacy, mobilize greater public support and, in some cases, expand their international acceptance. Insurgents have a variety of methods to do this, including propaganda, information warfare designed to popularize the perception that they are seekers of justice forced into violence by the unwillingness of the regime to give them a voice in the political system, actions which demonstrate that they offer a better alternative than the regime, and simple boldness and courage— "armed propaganda"—designed to demonstrate the incompetence and brutality of the regime. In any case, insurgents inspire resistance and recruitment by defiance, particularly among young males with the volatile combination of boredom, anger, and lack of purpose. Insurgency can provide a sense of adventure, excitement, and meaning that transcends its political objectives. Thus the greater the pool of bored, angry, unoccupied young men in a society, the more fruitful ground for insurgent organizers to work. The job of mobilizing support and acquiring resources is even easier for insurgents in a liberation conflict since they can draw on the inherent dislike people have of domination by "outsiders." As Khair al-Din Hasib, the "father" of pan-Arab nationalism, stated, "Whenever, wherever there is occupation, there will be resistance."4 4 96 regime, insurgents can overcome the absence of one or even several of the conditions. Preconditions. The most basic precondition for insurgency is frustration and the belief that this cannot be ameliorated through the existing political system. This may be widespread among a population or limited to a radical elite which then has to convince the more passive population of the need for violent change. A conspiratorial history and culture are also important. In such societies, insurgents can utilize or take over existing patterns of underground activity, webs of secret societies, or widespread criminal activity. A society already accustomed to conspiratorial activity is a naturally fertile ground for insurgency. Effective Strategy. The strategy of an insurgent movement is built on three simultaneous and interlinked components: 1) force protection (via dispersion, sanctuary, the use complex terrain, effective counterintelligence, etc.); 2) actions to erode the will, strength and legitimacy of the regime (via violence and political-psychological programs); and, 3) augmentation of resources and support. There are, though, multiple ways to undertake these actions; insurgent strategies vary over time and across regions. Often insurgents have been able to seize and hold the strategic initiative due to inherently greater flexibility and absence of ethical or legal constraints. They are also unburdened with the need to run a government and maintain security and exercise authority throughout the country, and less constrained by law and normal ethical considerations. Every successful insurgency is dominated by a feeling that the end justifies the means. Effective Ideology. National insurgencies in particular depend on ideology to unify, inspire, explain why the existing system is unjust or illegitimate, and rationalize the use of violence to alter or overthrow the existing system. (Because liberation insurgencies have the "organic" mobilizing factor 6 98 the counterinsurgents (e.g., the government may provide sanctuary by being unaware of the presence of the insurgents). Funding, equipment and supplies are the resources most often seized, but in some insurgencies, particularly those in Africa, manpower is seized through violence as insurgents undertake forcible recruitment (impressment). Just as in nature an organism seeks to obtain food with the minimum energy expenditure, most insurgencies would prefer to be provided resources, but will seize or create them if none are provided or, in some cases, if provided resources come with too many strings attached. 20th-CENTURY INSURGENCY 21st-century insurgency is clearly a descendent of a similar phenomenon that blossomed in the "golden age of insurgency" in the second half of the 20th century. At that time, many states in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and even on the periphery of Europe were ruled by weak, corrupt regimes; unpopular dictators; new, fragile governments; or colonial occupiers. Socialist radicalism and nationalism inspired revolutionaries around the world and provided an ethical justification for political violence. Increases in literacy and improvements in communication helped to mobilize the disenfranchised and the repressed. The Soviet Union, unable to undertake direct expansion, adopted an indirect strategy in which it supported insurgency to weaken the West. Later China and Cuba followed suit. Toward the end of the 20th century, indirect aggression via state support to insurgency was used in Mozambique, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, Western Sahara, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kashmir, and elsewhere. Most importantly, insurgency flowered in the 20th century because of the invention of a powerful and effective insurgent- based strategy: Maoist "People's War." People's War began when a highly motivated cadre mobilized a support base among the rural peasantry using nationalism and local grievances (often including corruption, repression, excessive taxation, and issues associated with land ownership). This was particularly powerful when it could take the form of a liberation insurgency. The Chinese insurgents, for instance, gained strength when they painted their movement as an anti-Japanese one (even though they did little actual fighting with 8 100 Often outside supporters played an important role in People's War, providing sanctuary, training, equipment, funding, and supplies. In fact, 20th-century insurgency was a form of proxy conflict caused by the nuclear stalemate between the superpowers. Because direct confrontation between the West and East risked escalation to the thermonuclear level, proxy conflict was considered a safe option.11 By the 1980s, the United States—recognizing that insurgency often required "fighting fire with fire"—began promoting insurgency against pro-Soviet regimes in places such as Nicaragua and Angola. Despite its long history with insurgency and other forms of irregular war, the United States was organizationally, doctrinally, conceptually, and psychologically unprepared for People's War when it first confronted it in Vietnam. The Army, at least at the senior level, placed little stress on the mundane but vital aspects of counterinsurgency, such as training the South Vietnamese security forces, village pacification, local self-defense, and rooting out insurgent political cadres, at least at the higher level. Perhaps more importantly, even though a number of experts in the United States developed an astute understanding of the Vietnamese communist strategy and organization, Washington never forced the South Vietnamese regime to undergo fundamental reform and thus it never solidified its legitimacy.7 Army Chief of Staff General Earle G. Wheeler reflected the thinking of President Lyndon johnson and his top advisors when he said, "The essence of the problem in Vietnam is military."8 By the time the United States did develop an organization to synchronize the military, political, and psychological dimensions of the struggle—the Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program—it was too late.9 The United States never supported CORDS to a degree comparable to the major military operations, the North Vietnamese military was thoroughly entrenched in the south, the South Vietnamese regime was widely perceived as corrupt and illegitimate, and the American public alienated. Even though the Viet Cong were militarily crushed in the 1968 Tet Offensive and saw their political underground decimated by the Phoenix Program (which came later), the shift of power away from the regime was irreversible and carried on by the other element of the insurgent alliance—the North Vietnamese Army.10 10 109 and in economically important areas than those of little economic value); • The traditional relationship of the threatened state with the United States (it is important for the United States to remain a steadfast security partner); • The human cost of the insurgency (the United States is somewhat more likely to intervene in a conflict that involves humanitarian disasters or genocide than ones that do not). Historically, the decision to intervene usually was made when a pro-American regime faced an active insurgency that it could not handle on its own. In the post-September 11, 2001, strategic environment, a second mechanism for American involvement in counterinsurgency has emerged: an insurgency that arises out of a stabilization and transformation operation such as ENDURING FREEDOM or IRAQI FREEDOM. Since such stabilization and transformation operations are likely to remain an important element of American national security strategy for the duration of the global war on terrorism, the U.S. military is likely to be used in counterinsurgency support into the foreseeable future. When the United States supports a beleaguered partner, there are existing political and security structures but America's leverage may be limited. A regime that faces a serious insurgency threat often has major political, economic, and social shortcomings. Because an insurgency was able to coalesce and develop indicates that the regime is unable or unwilling to recognize this fully. The problem for the United States is finding an effective way to encourage or, if necessary, force the partner to undertake needed reforms at the same time that its security capabilities are improved. All too often a partner will conclude that, if they are important enough to attract Washington's commitment to help them, American policymakers will not let them fall and thus will overlook continued repression, corruption, or other shortcomings. In addition, American assistance makes partner regimes feel more secure which can, in their eyes, diminish the urgency of change. This complicates counterinsurgency support and makes it difficult to retain the backing of the American people and other nations. For instance, El Salvador undertook serious reform in the 1980s only when the U.S. Congress threatened to cut off support if significant 19 110 improvements were not made in the protection of human rights, civil-military relations, good governance, and military effectiveness. Ironically, the greater the U.S. interest in protecting a partner regime, the less leverage Washington has. The second mode of counterinsurgency support—one associated with intervention in a failed state or as a follow-on to a stabilization and transformation operation—can be even more challenging because existing security and political structures are weak or nonexistent, and because it is much easier for the insurgents to cast their struggle as one of liberation. This is not news: American strategists fully recognize that a national insurgency is easier to counter than a liberation one. The problem is that the United States sometimes must assume a dominant role when there is no effective local partner (as in Vietnam in 1966, Afghanistan, and Iraq). The dilemma is that this allows the insurgency to become seen as liberation. It is difficult to shift back to a national conflict. Even when the United States helps establish a local government and securitv forces (as in Vietnam by the early 1970s and Iraq at the present time), the new regime may be perceived as an American proxy. It can be difficult to mobilize backing for counterinsurgency under these conditions, even when the future offered by the United States and its local partners is, in objective terms, significant! v more attractive than that proposed by the insurgents. The natural human tendency is to rally to fellow citizens, even those with whom the public is not inherently comfortable such as the former Ba'athists in Iraq, against outsiders. Existing American strategy and doctrine focus on national insurgencies rather than liberation ones. As a result, the strategy stresses selective engagement; formation of a support coalition if possible; keeping the American presence to a minimum level necessary to attain strategic objectives; augmenting the regime's military, intelligence, political, informational, and economic capabilities; and encouraging and shaping reform by the regime designed to address shortcomings and the root causes of the insurgency. In most cases, this will include a coordinated reform program across the military, intelligence, political, informational, and economic spheres. The key to success is not for the U.S. military to become better at counterinsurgency, but for the U.S. military (and other elements of the government) to be skilled at helping local security and intelligence forces become effective at it. 20 Ill While this makes perfect sense for a national insurgency, one size does not fit all. A strategy for countering a liberation insurgency must be different in some important ways. This includes: • Rapid stabilization of the state or area using the force required. Normally, larger is better since perception and presence are integral components of stabilization. Preferably, the stabilization force should be a multinational and integrated interagency organization operating with a United Nations mandate. The U.S. contingent should not be the largest if other effective multinational partners are available. • A shift to a minimum U.S. military presence as rapidly as possible. • Rapid creation of effective local security and intelligence forces. • Shifting the perception of the insu rgency from one of liberation to a national one. This will include augmenting the legitimacy of the local government and security forces by distancing them from the United States. The more the local government and security forces are seen as proxies or subordinates of the United States, the more difficult it will be for them to establish legitimacy. This process will entail having the local government and military forces take the lead in projects and operations whenever possible (even if they might approach them differently than the United States). • Over the long term, adjusting the actions of the local regime by encouraging sustained reform. • Cauterization—the strengthening of states surrounding the state facing an insurgency. In this way, the strategic damage can be contained should the insurgency escalate or become uncontrollable. Some elements of U.S. strategy will be relevant to both national and liberation insurgencies. For instance, sustained capability enhancement is crucial even during those times when the United States is not actively engaged in counter insurgency. This includes leader development, wargaming, concept development, research and analysis, professional education, and focused training. This will be particularly difficult to sustain in the interregnums between 21 113 and means of governance have been flawed—but it nonetheless means that the insurgents are given a head start. The insurgents, in other words, always begin a conflict with the strategic initiative. The threat will be difficult to remedy until challenged regimes stop denying their problems. Moreover, the United States would have to commit resources before a conflict explodes. This will be difficult but the payoff would be immense—preventing an insurgency or nipping one in the bud is always easier than turning the tide on one that has taken root. Third, the issue of when and how to engage in counterinsurgency support will remain an open one in U.S. strategy. Specifically, the question of whether this should be an "all or nothing" proposition is vital. Should there be a counterinsurgency corollary to the "Powell Doctrine" which states that the United States will only engage in counterinsurgency support when the interests at stake are high enough that we are willing to sustain the effort to the end and to use decisive force, even if that requires a decade or more and a significant commitment of money and personnel? Or is a modest amount of counterinsurgency support to a beleaguered friend better than none at all? In reality, this is probably not an either/or choice. The United States has and will continue to become involved in both "major" counterinsurgencies where the stakes are high and sustained, high level engagement is justified as well as "minor" ones where it is not. The key is to understand the distinction and not let what should be a minor case segue into a major commitment. The United States must make clear whether its approach to counterinsurgency is a strategy of victory or a strategy of containment, tailoring the response and method to the threat. Traditional thinking is that victory, defined as the eradication of the insurgency as a political and military force and the amelioration of the factors that allowed it to emerge in the first place, is the appropriate goal. This is captured in Joint and Army doctrine. But given the extent of America's global commitment and the time and resources it takes to attain ultimate victory in counterinsurgency, a strategy of containment merits consideration. This would be similar to the contemporary Israeli approach. The Israelis know they cannot win the "hearts and minds" of the Palestinians. They know they cannot ameliorate the root cause of the insurgency since that is the existence of Israel itself. They therefore have built a strategy designed to keep the insurgents ineffecti ve for as long as it takes. 23 114 A strategy of containment might distinguish between different types of insurgents and only commit the United States to countering an insurgency likely to support international terrorism or aggression, or one attempting to overthrow a truly democratic regime. Such a strategy would return to a minimum U.S. presence once an acceptable level of stability was attained. Americans might initially protest that such a strategy of containment is antithetical to the current broader tenets of U.S. national security strategy, but it is certainly within our tradition. We have, for instance, chosen to manage the problem of Haiti for the past century, preferring to reintervene as required rather than engineer the sort of wide scale social, political, and economic transformation that it would take to prevent instability from reemerging. It is conceivable that in far away places like Iraq and Afghanistan, we could adopt a strategy of intervention and stabilization when necessary without an attempt to transform the societies or a commitment to protracted counterinsurgency. Which strategy makes more sense? As Clausewitz reminds us, "The first, the supreme, and the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make" is to understand "the kind of war on which they are embarking, neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.'' A strategy of victory which seeks a definitive end makes sense when facing a national insurgency in which the partner government has some basis of legitimacy and popular support. In liberation insurgencies, though, a strategy of victory is a very long shot. No matter how much effort, money, and blood the United States pours in, it will be unable to change the image of an outsider imposing a solution. Even if the United States focuses on creating a friendly regime, that regime will be unlikely to attain legitimacy and support (except by turning on the United States). In such insurgencies, a strategy of containment is the more logical one. One additional strategic factor merits consideration: some strategic thinkers contend that the United States is now facing the first insurgency of a global scale—created by the interlinkage of multiple national insurgencies—led by a network motivated by radical Islam.30 The Global War on Terrorism has all of the characteristics of an insurgency: protracted, asymmetric violence, ambiguity, dispersal, the use of complex terrain, psychological warfare, and political mobilization designed to protect the insurgents and eventually 24 117 experts. The organization should be nonpartisan, interagency and, if possible, multinational. Another way of thinking about structuring an operation (and one that is compatible with the effects-based approach) is to use preemption/ prevention as a guideline. Certain adverse things can happen during the course of an insurgency: 1) the emergence of a serious insurgency in the first place; 2) the development of military capabilities by the insurgents which pose a threat to the regime; 3) the expansion of public support for the insurgents to the point that the legitimacy of the regime is challenged; 4) the creation of linkages between the insurgency and organized crime, or the entry into organized crime by the insurgency itself; 5) development of the ability to sustain a level of chronic instability by the insurgents; 6) a widespread perception that ultimately the insurgents will prevail; and, 7) the coalescence of a coherent insurgent political organization. An effective counterinsurgency plan would be one explicitly designed to preempt and prevent these adverse trends. Each activity would blend both defensive and offensive actions. Each would require a range of resources and actions; each could be evaluated by separate metrics (again measured and evaluated by a small, responsible strategic assessment organization which focuses on actionable information rather than bureaucratic procedures.) Counterinsurgent planners should always remember that timing matters. As with health care, a small effort early is more effective than a major one later on. While it is difficult to discern, insurgencies do have a point of "critical mass" where they become much more formidable opponents. If the United States is able to help a threatened partner augment its military, psychological, and political capability rapidly and early, it may be able to prevent the insurgents from attaining critical mass. In general, U.S. intervention for counterinsurgency support is most likely to succeed at an acceptable cost before an insurgency reaches critical mass (however hard that may be to identify). U.S. involvement after an insurgency as reached the "point of no return" where it cannot be defeated at a reasonable cost is likely to be ineffective. If an insurgency reaches this point, the United States should pursue disengagement even given the strategic and political costs. The military component of a counterinsurgency campaign must seize the initiative as quickly as possible. There are multiple ways of doing this. When an insurgent movement elects to make 27 118 a major stand in the military battlespace and depends on internal sanctuary, conventional sweeps and offensives play an important role. But history suggests that "fighting fire with fire"—emulating insurgent tactics—is also important. The counterinsurgents, for instance, can develop combined guerrilla forces comprised of U.S. or other outside Special Forces and host nation personnel. Creating a second front for the insurgents severely weakens their ability to wage an effective insurgency since the allied guerrillas launch raids on their logistical bases and headquarters as well as interdicting lines of communication. The French and British used allied guerrillas to great effect in Indochina and Malaya respectively. Even though the program began late in the Indochina war (1953), French guerrillas tied down a number of Vietminh battalions by raiding bases, striking at headquarters units, and interdicting lines of communication.33 They even operated in China, much to the consternation of the Chinese. The British in Malaya also raised guerrilla forces operating in the same manner. Moreover, the British raised guerrilla units comprised of former insurgents to bolster the counterinsurgent effort. Similarly, American Special Forces also formed guerrilla units during Vietnam. Logically, allied guerrilla operations force the insurgents to devote critical resources and manpower to defensive measures. Given that insurgent capabilities are weak to begin with, such an allied capability can quash an insurgency early on. In a national insurgency with its triangular configuration, the war of ideas plays a critical role. Hence information operations cannot be conducted in an ad hoc manner. The insurgents always have an initial advantage in this regard, and only a sophisticated information operations campaign will wrest the initiative from them. The host nation government must control this process fully; the United States will never have a sophisticated enough understanding of key cultural and historical elements to run a program on its own. The American role is to provide support. In a liberation insurgency, the United States is at a distinct disadvantage in the information campaign. Almost no U.S. actions or information themes are likely to change the core dynamic of the conflict: that Americans are seen as outsiders and the insurgents as insiders. This does not mean that the United States should abandon the information campaign, but American strategists and leaders must be aware of its limitations and not expect to "win" the "war of ideas" on their own. 28 119 ORGANIZATIONAL AND FORCE STRUCTURE CONSIDERATIONS The history of counterinsurgency shows that the full integration of all government agencies under unified control (and preferably unified command) is the only way to synchronize the elements of national power effectively. This is considered one of the reasons for British success in Malaya and for the lack of French and American success in Indochina.34 History also suggests that intelligence and, equally important, counterintelligence, is central to success in counterinsurgency. Insurgencies pose particular intelligence challenges, so intelligence must be all-source, focused, and disseminated to the various organizations involved in the counterinsurgency effort. The seamless integration of law enforcement and military action is equally important. Police capability has always been vital to destroy insurgent political undergrounds but is becoming even more so as insurgency mutates. Today effective, preferably multinational law enforcement support is vital to limit insurgent access to resources whether through direct criminal activity or ties to global organized crime. One of the most important elements in counterinsurgency support is selecting the right person to lead it. In most cases, insurgency warfare necessitates a law enforcement response, so a security czar, preferably a former police commissioner, should exercise unified command. This appointment accomplishes two objectives. First, it signifies the primacy of a political solution vice a parochial military solution. Second, it appoints a credentialed official with experience in domestic security issues and able to integrate rapidly all agencies towards a unified counterinsurgency campaign. Equally important, the leader of counterinsurgency support must be a skilled strategist, able to integrate elements of power and take a long-term perspective. His staff must be more than military, including police, experts on economic and political development, psychologists, cultural anthropologists, and mass communications specialists. Because insurgency is an "armed theater" where the antagonists are playing to an audience at the same time they interact with each other, it is sometimes suggested that a specific organization is needed to control information activities. This many not be the most effective solution. A better idea is to create an organizational culture 29 120 where every component of the government is aware of the centrality of information, the need to tailor images and messages, and the importance of developing strategies, operations, and tactical plans based on desired psychological and political effects. The package for counterinsurgency support provided by the United States will depend on whether the operation entails supporting a threatened partner state or is a component of post- intervention stabilization and transformation. When involved in backing an existing government, the U.S. force package would be predominately designed for training, advice, and support. In most cases, the only combat forces would be those needed for force and facility protection, more rarely for strike missions in particularly challenging environments. Modularity should increasingly allow the Army to tailor, deploy, and sustain such packages. It would be a mistake, though, to think strictly in terms of Army or even military force packages. When the United States undertakes counterinsurgency support, it should build an interagency force package from the beginning. The relationship of the U .S. force and the supported government is always a major consideration. Intelligence sharing particularly' is complicated since the United States will often have no way of assessing whether the supported government counterintelligence procedures are adequate. For actionable intelligence, it is more effective to rely on police forces to gather intelligence through investigations, interviews, and interrogations with the inhabitants than to rely solely on technical means. In a counterinsurgency, human intelligence is often more timely and accurate, yet the military, particularly an outside military offering counterinsurgency support, faces tremendous obstacles in building and sustaining the personal relationships which fuel human intelligence. Sustaining the commitment is an important part of force packaging. Successful counterinsurgency takes many years, often a decade or more. Consideration must be given to rotation procedures for deployed forces. This strikes directly against one of the primary conundrums in counterinsurgencv: history has shown over and over that short-term deployments are ineffective in counterinsurgency since units and individuals are not able to develop adequate situational awareness and local knowledge, yet in the contemporary U.S. military, it is difficult to sustain long-term deployments in 30 121 hardship locations. To some extent, contractors can relieve this pressure, particularly since many of the training, advice, and support functions in counterinsurgency do not have to be performed by uniformed military. As Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, the use of contractors brings a range of other problems associated with training, control, discipline, and protection. In a politically charged environment, missteps by contractors can be just as damaging as mistakes by uniformed military. While a large U.S. military presence may be needed during the early part of a counterinsurgency campaign following intervention and or the stabilization of a failed state, over the long term, a small military footprint, supporting a larger law enforcement effort is an effective solution that crushes the insurgency without giving the insurgency a nationalist rally cry against an occupying power. In general, the smallest effective U.S. military presence is the best. Given the likelihood of continued involvement in counter- insurgency support, the Army will need to increase the number of units such as Intelligence and Engineers that have particular utility in this environment. As the Army continues transformation, it is likely that other types of units can be redesigned into these. Special Forces also have immense utility in counterinsurgency but should focus less on training of partner militaries. This is a vital task but can be done more efficiently by other, more numerous units, perhaps Reserve Component or contractors. Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations, both of which also have high utility in counterinsurgency support, need refocusing and restructuring. At a minimum, a larger proportion of these units should be in the Active Component. And both need greater autonomy to be effective in a counterinsurgency environment rather than being assigned to the commander of a maneuver unit. Counterinsurgency related to stabilization and transformation operations can pose even greater force development challenges than support to a functioning government. A stabilization operation can require the significant deployment of forces for extended periods. One idea under consideration within the Department of Defense (DoD), for instance, is that the United States should have the capacity to deploy a force of up to 200,000 for up to 5 years and train a local military of up to 100,000 within 6 months.35 This U.S. force 31 124 THE WAY AHEAD Little time has passed between the end of the last insurgency era and the beginning of the current one. That is both a blessing and a curse. Many senior Army leaders and retired officers working as DoD civilians or contractors have counterinsurgency expertise and experience. The problem is that the type of insurgency that these experts best understand—Maoist People's War—is not the same as the 21st century insurgency we have seen so far. Many ideas and concepts central to their understanding of counterinsurgency such as, for instance, the notion that victory comes from winning the "hearts and minds" of "the people" is actually specific to one particular variant of insurgency and counterinsurgency. How should the strategy and operational methods used for national insurgency differ from those applied in liberation insurgency? One of the key challenges today, then, is distinguishing the universal themes and concepts from the context specific ones, and jettisoning those which no longer apply. This process has only begun. In the realm of strategy, the United States must build regional structures to identify incipient insurgencies, deter or prevent them, and develop regional support systems when they do break out. The idea that the United States will be responsible for counterinsurgency support around the world is not sustainable. Other nations have experience, capability, and the incentive to prevent insurgency from destabilizing their regions. The United States should inspire them to act on this. The notion of a grand strategy modeled on counterinsurgency to confront the global insurgency also needs further development. As the Service most experienced in the analysis of insurgency, the Army should play a leading role in this. But the U.S. military, and particularly the Army, were so disillusioned by Vietnam that it has since kept insurgency and counterinsurgency at arm's length. When it could not be avoided, it was folded into, even hidden, in other concepts such as low intensity conflict, Foreign Internal Defense, and now stability operations and support operations. Given the centrality of insurgency and counterinsurgency in the contemporary strategic environment, the Army must transcend this hesitancy and accord these forms of conflict the priority they merit in strategy, operational thinking, doctrine, concept development, and force development. 34 125 Given the importance of the psychological and political battlespaces in insurgency and counterinsurgency, the Army must integrate psychological concepts and analysis in its strategic and operational planning. This kind of integration will require adding trained psychologists and cultural experts at many planning levels (as well as in the professional military education and wargaming systems). The Army also needs better concepts and, eventually, doctrine to understand the linkage of insurgency and organized crime. This would certainly need to be Joint doctrine and may need to be interagency. To instigate such changes, the Army can be an advocate and locomotive in the Joint and interagency arenas. The interagency dimension is crucial: the U.S. Army may become the most proficient army in the world at counterinsurgency, but if the rest of the government does not develop equal capabilities, the United States will not be effective. And the Army can use its powerful educational, wargaming, and concept development capabilities to generate needed changes within the Army. It will require both of these devices to meet (and transcend) the challenges of the new insurgency era. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE ARMY • Revise the understanding of insurgency which serves as a basis for U.S. strategy and doctrine to include the distinction between national and liberation movements. • Develop, refine, and wargame appropriate strategy and doctrine for each type. • Institutionalize methods for unified interagency approaches to counterinsurgency support. • Act as the advocate for holistic capability enhancement across the government. • Develop and exercise interagency techniques to build effective security and intelligence forces rapidly in a failed or occupied state. • Develop an effects-based method of counterinsurgency planning; test this through robust experimentation, analysis, and wargaming. 35 126 • Develop a small, independent strategic assessment agency to evaluate U.S. involvement in counterinsurgency support. • Continue refining and implementing plans to increase Armv units with particular utility in counterinsurgency such as Intelligence and Engineers, and to reconfigure and, if necessary, augment Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations units. • Undertake strategic capacity-building by coordination with regional security organizations and states. • Integrate the Department of Homeland Security into strategic planning for counterinsurgency support. • Refine leader development and training to include emphasis on understanding and responding to 21st century insurgency. ENDNOTES 1. These are not mutually exclusive, and an insurgency can take on dimensions of both, or shift from one to the other over its course. 2. The British success at quelling the Malayan insurgency of the 1950s and 1960s sometimes is held to offer a model of successful counterinsurgency in a liberation framework, but its applicability is limited. The Malayan insurgency was limited to the Chinese minority of that territory and never spread to the Malay majority. If it had, the British strategy, which was based on precise, limited uses of military force and a stress on police actions and political and economic reforms, would have had less utility. In addition, one of the major factors which made the counterinsurgency campaign successful and prevented the insurgency from spreading to the ethnic Malay population was a promise by Britain that it would withdraw once the situation was stabilized. In other words, the British had to surrender their role as occupier to defeat the insurgents. For discussions of this conflict, see Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966; Robert W. Komer, The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect: Organization of a Successful Counterinsurgency Effort, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1972; Noel Barber, The War of the Running Dog: Malaya 1948-1960, London: Fontana, 1973; Richard L. Clutterbuck, The Long, Long War: The Emergency in Malaya 1948-1960, London: Cassell, 1966; and john A. Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. 3. The foco strategy developed by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro placed great stress on this. See Ernesto Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. 4. Quoted in Ahmed Janabi, "Of Homeland, Identity and Occupation," Aljazeera. net, September 9, 2004, published at http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/excres/239DF360- 3640-457C-BA99-5FD497547598.htm. 36 129 REFERENCES Doctrine and Official Publications Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations and Support Operations, February 2003. Field Manual 90-8, Counterguerrilla Operations, August 1986. Field Manual (Interim) 3-07.22, Counterinsurgency Operations, October 2004 Joint Publication 3-07, Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War, June 1995. Joint Publication 3-07.1, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Foreign Internal Defense (FID), April 2004. National Military Strategy of the United States, 2004. National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2002 Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations Joint Operating Concept, Version 1.06, draft working paper pending approval, June 8, 2004. Serving a Nation at War: A Campaign Quality Army with a Joint and Expeditionary Mindset (Draft Army White Paper), Draft 9.2, March 21, 2004. Small Wars: 21st Century (draft). Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, 2004. Analyses and Histories A Study of Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam. McLean, VA: BDM Corporation, 1981. Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt, eds. Netioorks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001. Asprey, Robert B. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. New York: William Morrow, 1994. Bacevich, A. J., et. al. American Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brasseys, 1988. Beckett, Ian F. W. Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and Their Opponents Since 1750. London: Routledge, 2001. Beckett, Ian F. W. and John Pimlott, eds. Armed Forces and Modern Counter- Insurgency. New York: St. Martin's, 1985. Blaufarb, Douglas S. Tlie Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance 1950 to the Present. New York: Free Press, 1977. 39 130 Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Byman, Daniel L., et. ai Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001. Cable, Larry. Conflict of Myths: The Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Vietnam. New York: New York University Press, 1986. . Unholy Grail: The U.S. and the Wars in Vietnam, 1965-8. London: Routledge, 1991. Cassidy, Robert M. "Why Great Powers Fight Small Wars Badly," Military Reviexo, Vol.82, No. 5 (2002): 41-53. . 'Back to the Street without Joy: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam and Other Small Wars," Parameters, Vol. 34, No. 2 (2004): 73-83. Chaliand, Gerard, ed. Guerrilla Strategies: An Historical Anthology From the Long March to Afghanistan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Collins, John M. America's Small Wars: Lessons for the Future. Washington: Brassey's, 1991. Donnelly, Thomas and Vance Serchuk. Fighting a Global Counterinsurgency. American Enterprise Institute National Security Outlook, December 1, 2003. Downie, Richard Duncan. Learning From Conflict: The U.S. Military in Vietnam, El Salvador, and the Drug War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. Fall, Bernard. Street Without Joy. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Giap, Vo Nguyen. People's War, People's Army. Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961. <• Guevara, Ernesto. Guerrilla Warfare, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Hashim, Ahmed S. 'The Insurgency in Iraq," Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (2004): 1-22. Highland, Grant R. "New Century, Old Problems: The Global Insurgency Within Islam and the Nature of the War on Terrorism," in Essays 2003: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Essay Competition. Washington, DC: National Defense University, 2003. Hoffman, Bruce. Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2004. Home, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York: Viking, 1978. 40 131 Hosmer, Stephen T. The Army's Role in Counterinsurgency and Insurgency. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1990. Jenkins, Brian. T) Five Stages of Urban Guerrilla Warfare. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 1975. Joes, Anthony James. Modern Guerrilla Insurgency. New York: Praeger, 1992. . America and Guerrilla Warfare. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. . Resisting Rebellion: The History And Politics Of Counterinsurgency. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Komer, Robert W. Bureaucracy at War: U.S. Performance in the Vietnam Conflict. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986. Krepinevich, Andrew F. Jr. The Army and Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Lacquer, Walter. Guerrilla: A Historical and Cultural Study. New York: Little Brown, 1976. Mao Tse-tung. On Guerrilla Warfare. Translation by Samuel B. Griffith. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Manwaring, Max G. Internal Wars: Rethinking Problem and Response. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2002. . Nonstatc Actors in Colombia: Threat and Response. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2003. Manwaring, Max G., ed. Colombia's Ambiguous Wars in Global and Regional Context: Insurgency, Transnational Crime, and Terror. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2002. Manwaring, Max G. and Court Prisk. A Strategic View of Insurgencies: Insights From El Salvador. Washington, DC: National Defense University Institute For National Strategic Studies, 1990. Marighella, Carlos. Minimanualofthe Urban Guerilla. Chapel Hill, NC: Documentary Publications, 1985. Marks, Thomas A. Insurgency in Nrpal. Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2003. . "Urban Insurgency." Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (2004): 100-157. . "Ideology of Insurgency: New Ethnic Focus or Old Cold War Distortions?" Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2004): 107-128. 41 135 IG: DoD's Last-Minute Spending Broke Rules Page 1 of 3 Federal Times August 15,2005 Pg. 1 IG: DoD's Last-Minute Spending Broke Rules Pentagon says fixes are on the way By Chris Gosier A new Defense Department audit reports that hundreds of millions of dollars worth of procurements made in the rush of last year's fourth quarter were rife with problems, including lack of planning and improper use of funds. The July 29 audit report by the inspector general's office shows that 74 out of 75 selected purchases through the General Services Administration schedules at the end of fiscal 2004 "were either hastily planned or improperly funded." It also found that the department rendered as much as $2 billion of procurement money unavailable by improperly "parking" it in a General Services Administration fund intended for information technology purchases. Until recently, the illegal practice was widespread — agencies would put unobligated money into the GSA IT Fund as a way to preserve the life of the money beyond the year for which it was appropriated. But GSA and other agencies have been trying to crack down on this practice. The report, signed by Deputy IG for Auditing Francis Reardon, is the latest to criticize the way agencies use each other's contracts and procurement services. These interagency deals add up to tens of billions of dollars annually — agencies spent more than $32 billion in 2004 just on GSA's federal supply schedule contracts. The Government Accountability Office in January added interagency contracting to its list of government programs that it says are at a high risk of mismanagement, fraud and abuse. In its report, the IG's office called upon Defense Department managers to provide more oversight to these procurements and to better clarify the roles and responsibilities of Defense and other agencies it does business with, among other steps. Congress is also chiming in on the matter. The Senate's versiofl of the pending 2006 Defense authorization bill calls for the Defense IG to team up with inspectors general at other agencies that Defense does business with. This has already occurred between DoD and GSA. "These contracts have created a chaotic marketplace in which federal agencies are being offered similar products under a wide array of contracts, without any easy way of comparing between the products," the legislation says. "At the same time, the Department of Defense does not have an adequate system to track such basic information as who is using these contracts, what they are buying, and how much they are paying. "In too many cases, when one agency uses a contract entered by another agency, it appears that neither agency takes responsibility for making sure that procurement rules are followed and good management sense is applied," it says. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20050816385666.html 8/16/2005 137 IG: DoD's Last-Minute Spending Broke Rules Page 3 of 3 the Oct. 29 memorandum hasn't been given enough time to show results. "Since the new policy has been in effect for only six months and there is insufficient experience with its implementation across the department, a change to the policy is not warranted at this time," she wrote. What the IG found The audit found that in 68 cases, the department failed to examine all alternatives before deciding to make its buys through GSA. Nearly all of the procurements, 74, were made without adequate interagency agreements spelling out the terms and conditions of the purchases. Thirty-eight of the acquisitions were funded improperly. The IG found that Pentagon purchasers violated the Constitution, as well as statutes and regulations, by using funds for different purposes and in different years than those intended by Congress when it appropriated the money. For instance, the Air National Guard paid $327,000 into GSA's information technology fund to pay for combat banner targets that are used by fighter pilots in aerial gunnery practice. "Aside from GSA having very little, if any, experience in acquiring combat banner targets, the whole idea was inappropriate for using the IT Fund," the audit says. Of 50 purchases through the IT fund, eight were for non-IT items, including building construction, furniture or the development of marketing tools. The report also cited the misuse of funds to pay for vehicle barriers and thermal imaging equipment. The Defense IG this month started a second audit of the department's dealings with GSA's client support centers, in accordance with the 2005 Defense Authorization Act. Any disciplinary action resulting from the report would be taken by the Defense units that were audited, an IG spokesman said. "Generally, many of the abuses are the result of employees who either misunderstood procurement regulations and guidelines or choose to disregard them," the Defense IG said in a statement. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20050816385666.html 8/16/2005 140 WALTER B. SLOCOMBE Iraq's National Security Strategy February 9. 2004 Mr. Hamre: I'm delighted that so many of you are here. I said to Walt, the last time we had a crowd like this was Bill Gates, and they share nothing in common, outside of maybe height. But other than that, I can't think there's much that unifies them. But a great turnout, and I knew there would be. Such an important opportunity. First of all, Ambassador [Surtrutsky}-, thank you for coming. We're delighted you're here. Ambassador Chan, thank you. We're delighted you could join us today. We're very pleased you could be with us. We welcome back to CSIS Walt Slocombe, a friend and a very familiar figure. His training for the dangerous and difficult assignment in Iraq was actually started here by negotiating the divorce agreement between CSIS and Georgetown University about 20 years ago. We knew he was a great divorce lawyer. The question was was he any good as a marriage lawyer? Since that was his assignment in Iraq, to create something new. I remember when I first heard that Walt was going to go to Baghdad to help form up the security side of the new government I was both terribly surprised and completely flabbergasted, and then grateful, to think that a man of this talent was willing to interrupt his personal life — which he has a right to recover after having served eight long years in the previous Administration. He had a right to get back to his true love which is tax law. It's true. Walt is the strangest person I've ever met. [Laughter] He's got, in his law office he's got the models of the ICBMs. Remember those famous ICBMs in the Cold War we all had where it showed all the big Russians ones and all the little American ones? Well Walt had a set of those in his law office, right next to his law tax books. And at his Pentagon office he had his Tax Code. I thought this is really quite fascinating. He really did have the right to take time off after having served so well in DoD the last eight years, and yet when the country called he stood up and went to Iraq. I was very pleased and grateful to have had a number of opportunities to meet with him when I was there in June and early July, a long with Sheba Crocker and Rick Martin. He really was enormously helpful in shaping our thinking. We're just grateful for everything he's done. Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 143 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 streets and stores are full of people; basic services are improving; schools, universities and hospitals are open; crime is down; employment is up; currency is stable, actually it's appreciating against the dollar like most currencies. That may be a comment on the quality of the economic leadership in the two countries, but that's a different issue. A civil society is beginning to function; the statistical risks to ordinary Iraqis for political violence are almost certainly far less than from traffic accidents. For most Iraqis, most ordinary Iraqis who are not involved in politics or the security services, the security issue is that of ordinary crime, not politically motivated violence. All that said, the security situation is "obviously far from what it needs to be for success and much remains to be done. Casualties to American and coalition military forces and civilian workers understandably generate the greatest concern outside Iraq, but from the point of view of the prospects for success, the critical vulnerability is not attacks on foreigners but on Iraqis who cooperate with the coalition and are working to build Iraq. One of the things which is most remarkable and most heartening is the number of Iraqis who at very considerable personal risk are prepared to work in the security services, to work in the government, to work in the political process. Meeting the security challenge is compounded by the multiple threats. Broadly, all the threat groups share the common goal of making the place too dangerous for outsiders and too fearful for Iraqis and too costly for the coalition to stay, and all take advantage of porous borders and foreign financial and physical havens. In all, if they succeed, would certainly establish regimes that would not respect basic human rights, individual or collective, or pursue a peaceful foreign policy. Moreover, and this is underlined by the interesting story in the New York. Times today, these disparate groups are often prepared to cooperate tactically and sometimes to masquerade as one another. One can make a logical judgmental about who's responsible for something. It's a little bit like the joke about this is the Middle East. You can never be sure that because something obviously looks like it was done by one group, it was in fact done by that group as opposed to another group in an effort to discredit or to foment trouble. But for all these similarities, the threat groups differ in composition, motivation and tactics, and therefore in the responses that will be effective against them. Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 144 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 The most numerous and militarily significant group is the surviving, unreconciled core of Saddam's support. This is extended families, almost all Sunni, who did very well under the old regime and who dream of somehow regaining power by mounting attacks that they hope will intimidate Iraqis and exhaust coalition and American resolve. The military calls them by the clumsy name former regime loyalists. And sometimes when we were talking about American politics I would describe myself as a former regime loyalist. I prefer, and in fact it's not bad in another one, these groups are best characterized by the names that they've chosen for one of their front organizations, that is the Party of the Return. The capture of Saddam has further damaged the reputation and cohesiveness of the old Ba'ath party leadership but there remain elements that imagine they could somehow regain influence and even full control. This group, which is likely to number no more than a few thousand out of a population of something like 28 million, and a former Ba'ath party membership of well over a million is responsible for most of the military-style attacks. The actual operations sponsored by these elements, however, are often conducted not by the hard core Ba'athist bitter enders themselves who need to survive personally to succeed, but by hired thugs and dukes. The Returnists have no overarching value but power, but they are quite prepared to espouse in name at least the causes of Iraqi nationalism, Islamic fundamentalism, or Sunni sectionalism and to work with other groups with whom they have essentially no ideological affinity. The second element are the various Iraq-based Islamic terrorist groups, notably Ansar al Islaam which has renamed itself Ansar al Suna, mostly, as the name suggests, with some element of a radical Sunni Islamic agenda. Their support base is potentially broader than the Returnists because they have more appeal to the general Sunni community which is understandably apprehensive about its future. But they certainly do not represent the bulk of Iraqi people or even of Sunni communities. These Sunni elites and their clients have no great loyalty to Saddam and his Ba'athist clique, but they do suffer the loss of past privilege and the prospect of an Iraq in which the minorities and indeed the Shia majority have real power. With their strong Islamic radical foundation, these groups are in a better position to recruit suicide bombers but they lack Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801) 942-7044 - 5 - 145 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 the organizational base of the Ba'ath party or its vast hidden resources of funds and weaponry. Then there are external terrorist groups, al Qaida being the leading one, that potentially find Iraq a congenial environment. Even more than the indigenous Sunni radicals, these groups are able to organize spectacular suicide bombings and are also particularly inclined to strike at Shia targets. Finally, and as I say, far more important than most outsiders realize, is Iraq faces an acute problem of ordinary greed-based criminality. And moreover, some of the disorder is the result of various elements of score settling after generations of problems or discontent at "practical "difficulties - - riots over electricity, blackouts, or low incomes. Exacerbated by a culture of dependence and an over-developed sense of entitlement that is quick to blame the current authorities for any practical problems. In the longer run there's also a threat to a just Iraqi state from hyper-nationalists or hyper-religious groups possibly with significant outside support who reject the basic notion of a state that accommodates the diversity of ethnic, religious and cultural groups that constitute the population of Iraq. Corresponding to the complexity of the challenge there are many mutually supporting elements to the response. Central to all is better intelligence which will rely less on technical measures, though those have potential, than on improved human intelligence and painstaking professional regional expert analysis. Especially since the capture of Saddam there's been important progress particularly in securing information from ordinary Iraqis who understand both that their interests lie with the coalition and the Iraqis who work with it and that ours is more likely to be the winning side. U.S. and other coalition intelligence efforts have been adjusted and refined to increase our ability to understand the threats, both strategically and tactically, and the development of indigenous Iraqi capabilities for intelligence will become increasingly important. However the enemy groups remain extremely difficult intelligence targets with extraordinarily effective counter-intelligence systems. Second, once adequate intelligence is at hand robust coalition military operations can strike effectively to preempt and disrupt the opposition forces. The responsibility for security operations will increasingly devolve on the Iraqis, but effective coalition military Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 6 - 146 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 operations will remain critical. Coalition military forces were never as passive as sometimes portrayed but backed by better intelligence and increasing experience they have in recent months undertaken even more aggressive and better focused operations. The ongoing rotation will involve significant realignment of the forces to emphasize mobility and precision and to take advantage of lessons learned since April, even as the total force level declines modestly. The risk of aggressive military action is of course that such action is not informed by precise intelligence and results in unnecessary civilian casualties, it's both militarily ineffective and politically and psychologically very counter- productive . Central to the security effort and indeed to much else in the transition is Iraqis assuming an increasing share of the burden of providing for their own security. To that end a range of security forces are being developed. A key element in this is the creative initiative of the American military leadership to establish an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, the ICDC, to work closely with coalition military forces. These people are locally recruited and live and work in their communities. They receive a few weeks of initial training and then operate as an integral part of U.S. and other coalition military units bringing special skills of familiarity with the country and the communities in which they operate. There are now about 20,000 on the ICDC roles and the goal is to roughly double that. They will be in operations with coalition forces within the next few months. I should note that these target numbers, like those that follow, are obviously subject to some adjustment as conditions and experience dictate. I also should note that although I was honored to have had the privilege — I should have said this at the beginning. I was honored to have the privilege to serve as part of CPA, I have now left government service, and although I'm an unpaid consultant to CPA and OSD, my remarks are very definitely — especially the cracks about the economy -- are very much unofficial and my personal views. Because of their close links to coalition units these ICDC units are not full scale, independent military forces for they depend for most of their support on the associated coalition units. In the long, run they or at least selected elements will receive more equipment and be strengthened by the training of Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 149 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/OA old regime or operated at very high levels in it or were involved personally in abuses, but moving to a transformed ethos of discipline, integrity and leadership. Replacing the old habits in the security sector institutions which were characterized by a mixture of brutality, passivity, politicization and corruption will not be easy, but it's essential. Fortunately there are a large number of Iraqis -- some from the old institutions, some new to the field -- who accept the need for these changes. And indeed as I said, one of the most hopeful signs is the willingness of many Iraqis to run really great risks to be part of the new security institutions and to commit to operating security institutions in a whole new way. The schedule for the creation of the"Se forces "is rapid to an unprecedented degree. For example, the police training program envisages training in about 18 months a cadre of new police officers. That is something like three or four times as many as New York City trains in an equivalent period, and New York City has the largest police training operation in the United States. In any event, even if the schedules continue to be met the buildup efforts will still be very much underway on July 1st when sovereignty is scheduled to be transferred to a provisional government. There will be pressures both from some Iraqis and some Americans to cut corners to meet the schedule by compromising on standards and to imagine that Iraqi units can take over difficult missions before they are really ready or indeed missions which no one ever thought they would be ready. The immediate challenges require quick action and the overall program includes some necessary short term measurers. Hoover, the long run goal of transferring the great bulk of security tasks to the Iraqis requires paying the costs and taking the time to do the job right. That is to create fully independent, properly trained, equipped and based units, particularly in the military and the police. There are serious challenges and Iraq will need outside help for many months to come on security, but the Iraqi security forces are steadily growing in capability and responsibility. Ordinary crime rates are down as the police conduct regular patrols and develop the capability to investigate crimes and apprehend offenders. Virtually all routine guard duty is now being performed by Iraqis. The ICDC is serving as a critical supplement to American and other coalition military forces and the initial high end professional trained battalions of the new army are coming on line. Specifically three battalions of newly trained army troops Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 10 - 150 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 are now being deployed in newly rehabilitated bases in different regions of the country. From the point of view of the long term, however, the task is not just overcoming the current violent opposition. Success requires not just dealing with the immediate crisis but establishing an effective governmental order that's both strong enough to manage the nation's security and limited enough to respect the rights of its people. And Iraq, unlike many other nations that over the past couple of decades have faced ths task of security sector reform and building a new constitutional order, will almost certainly face a continuing internal and external threat of a serious nature. I'm particularly pleased that some of our Polish friends are here "today". Poland and the other countries in Central and Eastern Europe at least has the luxury of doing its transformation without people shooting at it, which is not a luxury that the Iraqis will have. Coalition forces are likely to remain in Iraq for some years to come, but Iraq needs to move steadily to a situation where it takes care of its own security, at least its internal security, with only limited direct participation by outside forces. That's a political goal of Iraqis every bit as much as it is of the coalition. Therefore Iraq's new security institutions must be most effective and just, which is not an easy combination anywhere. To start with, the legitimate political authority must have full control of the security organs. That was certainly not the case in the past. In Iraq the task of ensuring that the government has a monopoly of armed force is made the more difficult by demography. The Shia majority has a justifiable sense of having been mistreated and deprived of its rights not just by Saddam, but arguably ever since the Turkish conquest centuries ago. Similarly, the Kurdish communities have a strong desire to protect the de facto autonomy they've enjoyed since 1991. At the same time the Sunnis not only regret the loss of their former privileges, but they f-ear retribution and oppression by other groups. And the smaller but numerically not insignificant Turkamen, Yasidi, Asyrian, Shaldian and other minorities also have their fears and claims. Partition is simply not an option. A constitutional order must be found that will accommodate these conflicting interests, and fortunately despite all the conflicts within Iraq there is no strong tradition of popularly based largescale ethnic or sectarian violence and there's a considerable group of moderates, both formally secular and religions who are willing to tolerate other faiths and other branches of Islam and to recognize the necessity of finding mechanisms whereby Iraq's diverse population Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 11 - 151 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 can live peacefully together. An issue that will assume greater and greater importance as time goes by is the handling of the various regional and party- based militia. Of these, the largest and best known are of course the Kurdish Peshmurga, but there are also the Shia-based organizations such as the Baader Corps, the Madi Army, and some of the other tribal and political groups have smaller armed forces rationalized either as for the personal security of the leadership or as ad hoc community protection. In a state based on the rule of law there can be no permanent place for armed units that are not clearly and effectively under the control of legitimate political authority. Moreover, obviously, if some groups have such militias, others will want them and there will be a danger of the country descending into warlordism. Accordingly, one of the key tasks in the next few months will be to find mechanisms to deal with this problem that recognize both the long term goal and the near term reality for many of these groups that continue to exist in some form or another of some kind of armed capability as an assurance against unfavorable political developments as the structure evolves. The solution is going to require a range of measures — pensions for bonafide retirees, absorption of parts of these militias into the regular security forces, retraining and job programs for former militia members, and stern actions against any groups that use their forces improperly during the transition period. Again, the difficulties are real but not hopeless. I know from my own conversations with them that both Kurdish and Shia leaders realize that there needs to be real changes in the current system and accept in principle that militias, a term which they resolutely reject as failing to acknowledge the historic role of these armed forces, have to be reduced and the residue transformed into elements of the established security system, although they also want to be sure that that security system reflects their local interests and avoids past over- centralization. The transformation will likely produce some significant regionally based security organizations and provided they can be brought within the overall control of legitimate political authority it's not necessarily a bad thing in a nation characterized previously by tremendous over-centralization of security responsibility, but there are some potential counterweights to the abuse of central authority. Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 12 - 153 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 free from political involvement, defensively oriented, reasonably representative of the population as a whole, financially affordable, and subject to clear standards both substantive and procedural in the use of extraordinary measures such as the use of military forces for internal security. Moreover, in addition to dealing with the issues of respect for human rights and subordination to legal authority a reformed security system will have to end the pervasive corruption and abuses of power for personal gains that have characterized the Iraqi security institutions and much of the rest of the government in the past. And as I said, all of this is compounded by the fact that the security organs of the new state must be effective. If the system is incapable of providing security the fact that it's a model of democracy won't do much good. But the experience of decades of oppression has I think made all groups, and many in the perspective security organizations themselves fully conscious of the need for a whole new approach. For all the problems, there's reason for hope. Despite all their profound differences, the overwhelming bulk of Iraqis is measured by polling data as well as by the comments of most leaders recognizing that for all their arguments over the political structure they have an opportunity which may prove fleeting to create a decent government for their nation. They also recognize with very few exceptions that continued coalition efforts will be needed to maintain and improve security well after the formal restoration of sovereignty. Iraq has many resources -- not just oil -- a reasonably well educated professional class including the legal field. There are many things about my experience in Iraq that made me proud to be a lawyer. Including, the professional class understands the rewards that will come for a country if a decent security and legal system is in place. My impression from my work in Iraq and my more peripheral involvement since I returned, remains that the prospect is essentially a favorable one. Much is accomplished and the essential context exists for success. The fall of Saddam has been deeply welcomed, even by most Sunnis and by virtually all the other groups, and there is genuine gratitude to the United States for liberation and widespread if grudging recognition that winning the security battle will require continued coalition effort. The capture of Saddam alive has further discredited him and his movement and reduced though hardly eliminated the fears that as in 1991 and earlier in the late '70s, the Ba'athist Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 14 - 154 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 regime still somehow phoenix-like return to power. At the same time we have to acknowledge there's also deep resentment of the occupation and impatience for Iraqis to take over full authority. The progress on all fronts is real. It's not yet irreversible and there is much more to do in the face of serious challenge. Overall, however, this is a struggle that can and must be won. The enemy's goals are not military but political -- to intimidate Iraqis who seek change, to destroy the public's confidence in the competence of a new authorities, and the prospects of reform, and to exhaust the patience of American and other external supporters of the process.- Accordingly the key requirement is resolve, to bear the costs in money, political and military effort, and the most painful in human life necessary to overcome the forces that seek to prevent success. One of the great privileges in my life was the opportunity to work with the American military, coalition militaries and the many brave and Iraqis who are working on this cause. The Iraqis will have to bear the main burden, but the international community has a critical contribution to make. Thanks for your attention, and I will be glad to try to answer questions. [Applause] QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS TO FOLLOW Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 15 - 155 HALTER B. SLOCOMBE Iraq's National Security Strategy February 9. 2004 Q&A SESSION Ms. Flournoy: Thank you very much for laying out the complexity of the tasks, giving us an idea of what's been accomplished so far and also the substantial challenges ahead. At this point I'd like to open it up to the floor for questions. When I call on you please state your name, your professional affiliation, and keep your question short. Question: Mark Dobarese with Van Swick Associates. Do you see a practical role for the United Nations in Iraq at all? Mr. Slocombe: There's certainly a practical role. Whether the security situation is such as to make it practical for the UN to come back is a different issue and one the UN will have to resolve. There are many things that the UN could make a contribution to do. I think there are many ways in which the UN may actually be helpful not just on this particular technical election of can you hold an election, but on some of the political negotiations and working out arrangements. But I think the central issue is the problem is not how to distribute authority and responsibility as among different outside forces, it's how to provide legitimacy and authority and effectiveness for Iraqi units. The problem is not to convince the Americans or the French or the UN Secretariat or the Japanese or somebody that this is a great operation, it's to convince the Iraqis. So I don't think the issue of the UN role is central to moving forward, although I think there are some practical things. Obviously the technical and the humanitarian and health and that kind of thing. There are a lot of things the UN could do. Understandably, they have been very badly shaken by the attack that killed [Surjodomello] and so many other UN personnel. Question: Michael Hanlon from Brookings. Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 160 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 which isn't going to happen in the relevant time, or a sort of total disaster which is almost equally inconceivable. It's hard to believe there will be any clear-cut result before November. I must say I think the reason for the desire to move more rapidly to turn over sovereignty to the Iraqis had everything to do with Iraqi impatience and very little to do with American impatience. Question: Dan Benjamin, CSIS. Walt, welcome back. Mr. Slocombe: Thank you all for coming. I feel like most of my friends in Washington are here, including, I really have to acknowledge Jim Matlock who I think I probably have' known longer. We may differ about some views politically but we've been good friends for a long time. Question: Let me add my voice to those saluting you for your patriotism in taking on this task. Let me ask you, you discussed the security issue largely in dealing with external threats and with the tension with the occupation, but I wanted to ask you to look at the dynamic internally. There's an interesting article in today's Times suggesting that there will be efforts by Jihadists to incite sectarian strife. My own reading is that this has already been going on for quite a while, if you look at the bombing in Najaf. There is also anecdotal reporting that there is a religious radicalization going on within the Sunni community suggesting that the form of resentment is taking a more religious hue than a purely Ba'athist one. What are the prospects for containing this and getting a durable constitutional arrangement set up before something goes badly wrong? Mr. Slocombe: That certainly is a danger. First of all, it's not surprising that in a society which is a profoundly Islamic society — I mean Saddam got religion late in life but that was about it — that one of the consequences of the collapse of the old regime is a revival of religious feeling and religious fervor. That's not unknown in other countries. The question though is whether that's going to get translated into sectarian violence, and I agree with you that a lot of the incidents, particularly the suicide bombing attacks on Shia leaders, are almost certainly part of some extraordinarily complicated game — the piece in the Times this morning about a deliberate plan, which incidentally one can -- One of the things that always interests me is it would be nice if the newspapers would release this document so we can read the whole thing instead of just the bits that they -- Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 6 - 164 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 Mr. Slocombe: There are somewhat similar programs underway in Iraq to try to assure that there is employment, there are opportunities. A Ministry of Science and Technology has been set up. You've got to kind of be a little careful that people don't come in and say I designed anthrax, give me a job at $10,000 a year in a country where $200 a month is a nice salary. But you're right, it is a real concern and one that people are working on. You've got to be somewhat realistic. The people, we've learned a lot about what the international black market in these skills and materials is. You're not going~to beat that entirely by giving people an opportunity to do peaceful research at a reasonable academic salary, but people are certainly working on the problem and trying to identify — The ISG effort is not simply kind of chase the rabbit of what happened to the WMD, it's what was the structure, who worked on it, who was involved. We consciously, for example, kept some of the -- The whole thing was organized on a Soviet style and there was a military industrial commission that ran the military industries. We consciously kept all those people on the payroll simply to try to minimize this problem, but it's a serious one as it is in any of these countries. Question: Are we making transition to turn over the government too quickly? Mr. Slocombe: We have to make sure that when the transition comes it is accepted in Iraq as a legitimate transition to a provisional government. It doesn't have to solve all the problems. That's an issue. I don't know whether we will in fact be able to do it on July 1st. On the other hand, to some degree if you don't set a deadline you tend not to — It's not that we have to decide. It's that the Iraqis have to decide among themselves on a process. But no, that is the' key issue. The transition, unless it is accepted by Iraqis, or by most Iraqis — by enough Iraqis to make it work as legitimate is not worth, could be counterproductive. But I also think it's useful to have a target date. I go back to the point it was Iraqi pressure, not American, that said it should be accelerated. Question: Thank you, I've come from Monterey, the Naval Post Graduate School. I'm Karen Gutierre. Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 165 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 I'd like to know if you think we're learning from experiences as recently as Afghanistan in which the warlord strategy has given us great headaches. In Iraq it would seem we had the luxury of a coherent national army which no longer is our luxury. Now you're talking about militias and so on, and the security reform in Iraq is involving this massive transformation including fundamentally integrating the ICDC into the command structure of the U.S. military, as I see it, and likewise telling the Iraqi army this is going to be your Ministry of Defense, here's how you're going to fit into it. How long is that going to take us to achieve to the point where the Iraqi security is in the hands of the Iraqi forces? Mr. Slocombe: Polls are always dangeTous,"' but "it's interesting. There was a recent poll about how much confidence Iraqis have in the police and the new army and they were at very high levels. I don't think the problem of creating a -- There will be lots of problems about getting civilians who having an argument about — Government is wonderful. We're having an argument about who is going to pay for the cost of rehabilitating the building, but we've resolved that. I don't think the problem of creating a Ministry of Defense is going to be a huge one. Iraq and Afghanistan are very very different countries. Iraq is not a country of warlords. It is a country with a diverse population and the militias are a problem, but they're nothing like the problem in Afghanistan. Iraq is, my favorite story is we early on said if we're going to, with all these power outages we want to make sure that the hospitals can continue to do operations and you don't get, when the operation is in process you've got generators so the operation can continue. And the Iraqis came to us and said that's fine. Here's a list of the key hospitals. But if you're going to do this you've also got to keep the liquid oxygen plant running because if the liquid oxygen plant don't run there won't be oxygen for the operational procedures. That's probably not a problem you have very much in Afghanistan. The countries are very very different. I think the problem of Afghanistan is that all the power has rested with these warlords or regional leaders or whatever you want to call them for centuries. For whatever else Iraq's problems are, that isn't the problem. I think there is — One of the things that I was most and General Eaton were most strongly committed to was the idea that the Iraqi army has to be a national army. It's not easy. Not the least because very few Kurds, very few young Kurds speak Arabic. It's been effectively an autonomous place for a dozen years, so you take a 20-25 year old, they've never been in a situation where they were required to use Arabic. So the Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 11 - 166 IRAQ'S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - 2/9/04 instruction has to be in both languages, we've got to force the officers to learn some Kurdish, we've got to make sure the Kurds learn some Arabic if they're going to stay in the Army and so forth. But there was also a broadscale recognition that a national army's a good thing. I agree, there is a serious problem about the ICDC as to how you're going to have, there are a lot of problems but one of them is how you avoid turning it into a situation where it becomes the base for a regional military force. I guess we have time for two more quick ones.— Question: Walt Kreischer, Coffee News Service. About the hard core old regiraists are the most numerous of the opposition, what will it take to get them to stand down? Do we have to kill or arrest them all or is there some remedy short of that? Mr. Slocombe: I don't think, unfortunately the United States is not free of terrorism. I don't think we're going to get to a stage where there are no terrorist incidents in Iraq for a very long time. But you can break up these organizations. I think one of the most important things, and it goes to this issue of convincing ordinary Iraqis that the future is on the side or, our side if you will, the side of change. You tend to dry up their local support. Increasingly we get information people turn in, people come u to a soldier and say you ought to look under that box and you'll find something interesting. Breaking the link. It's a classic counter-terrorist operation. I think it's a mistake to call it an insurgency. And this goes to the psychologist's question. It is not so far, it is not so far and I don't think there's reason to believe it ever will be, a situation where you've got a vast discontented, deeply estranged population and a relatively small resistance organization that lives on that support. Much of the support is coerced, and as you begin to give people confidence as to who's going to win, give people confidence as to why they should want us to win and not the enemy, you'll begin to work away at the support. You've got to kill a lot of them. Kill them or arrest them. Ms. Flournoy: We could be here all morning because you have succeeded in provoking so many questions. I'm sorry to those of you who didn't get a chance to ask questions, I'd encourage you to find another way to contact our speaker. I'm not sure he'll want to do that. But please join me in thanking Walt Slocombe for Professional Word Processing & Transcribing (801)942-7044 - 12 -