4.AR 5/2 A: 107-2008/49 [H.A.S.C. No. 110–49] OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSITIONING SECURITY TO THE IRAQI SECURITY FORCES HEARING BEFORE THE OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD MARCH 28, 2007 W enns Pennsylvania State University Libraries MAY 27 2008 Documents Collection U.S. Depository Copy U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 2008 37–323 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) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402-0001 OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts, Chairman JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina W. TODD AKIN, Missouri VIC SNYDER, Arkansas ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland LORETTA SANCHEZ, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California JEFF MILLER, Florida ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey PHIL GINGREY, Georgia SUSAN A. DAVIS, California K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania LORRY FENNER, Professional Staff Member ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member SASHA ROGERS, Staff Assistant OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSITIONING SECURITY TO THE IRAQI SECURITY FORCES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 28, 2007. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:44 p.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Marty Meehan (chair- man of the subcommittee) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTY MEEHAN, A REP- RESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS, CHAIRMAN, OVER- SIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much for your patience. We had a vote over at the House, but we are going to get started. I spoke to Mr. Akin on the floor. He said that he would be ple of minutes late, but I think Mr. Miller will take his place if he is not here. Good morning, and welcome to the first open hearing of the Sub- committee on Oversight and Investigations. Today, we will continue our examination of the most pressing issue facing the country: the war in Iraq. The Iraq Strategy Review unveiled by the president on January 10th identified the continued strengthening of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the acceleration of the transition of security re- sponsibility to the Iraqi government as an objective achievable in the next 12 to 18 months. Key to whether this transition will be successful will be the capability of the ISF, both military and po- lice. In addition to a number of full committee sessions, this is the fourth time that our subcommittee has met to consider the develop- ment of the Iraqi Security Forces. In the closed briefings we held this month, we learned about ISF's logistics systems and issues related to size, composition, training and end strength of the Iraqi Security Forces. Last week, financial aspects of the transition of funding respon- sibilities to the Iraqi government. In today's hearing, we will receive testimony from experts who have been analyzing the development of the ISF. The witnesses' testimony will cover a variety of issues associated with the admin- istration's goal of transitioning security operations by January 2008, including manning, training and equipping the Iraqi Security Forces, the logistical and ministerial support necessary to sustain the ISF and, most importantly, the actual and projected capabili- ties of the ISF. Other issues we would like to address include the critical role that advisers and transition teams play in assessing the perform- ance of Iraqi Security Forces, the degree to which we have relied on contractor support for the development of the ISF, and the tran- sition of primary financial responsibility for the Iraqi Security Forces. We hope to hear our guests' frank appraisals of whether it is re- alistic to expect the Iraqi Security Forces to take the lead in pro- viding security by January 2008. Today, we hope to hear about the Department of Defense's (DOD's) challenges and recommendations for overcoming those challenges. Today, this hearing will begin with testimony from Dr. Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He will be followed by Dr. Frederick Kagan, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise In- stitute; Mr. Robert Perito, who is a senior program officer with the United States Institute of Peace; and Ms. Olga Oliker, who is sen- ior international policy analyst with the RĂND Corporation and served with the coalition provisional authority (CPA). To encourage discussion, I would like to follow the same less for- mal procedures today that we have in our prior briefings. I have talked with our distinguished ranking member, and he has agreed to dispense with the five-minute rule during today's hearing. So, pursuant to Rule 11(b)(2) of the rules of our committee, the subcommittee will dispense with the five-minute rule, allowing questioning to proceed as subcommittee members express interest rather than strictly by seniority. I will endeavor to alternate in rec- ognizing members between the majority and minority. I would like to remind everyone that, while this is an open hear- ing, we have received closed briefings in which classified informa- tion was presented. So, please, be mindful of anything that you might say based on what you heard in earlier briefings. Welcome again to our witnesses. We appreciate you taking the time. We looking forward to your remarks. We will take your whole text for the record, if you wish, but we would like you to present remarks fairly briefly so that we can get to our questions. And now, in lieu of Mr. Akin, I would like to turn to Mr. Miller for any opening remarks that he may have in Mr. Akin's absence. [The prepared statement of Mr. Meehan can be found in the Ap- pendix on page 43.] STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM FLORIDA, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUB- COMMITTEE Mr. MILLER. Yes, I thank the distinguished chair, and I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Akin's remarks be submitted for the record. [The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the Appen- dix on page 45.] Mr. MILLER. To the witnesses, thanks for being here today. Dr. Kagan, it is good to see you again, sir. Before we get to your testimony and the questions that we will have to ask, I think some points need to be made. Certainly, criticism of the ISF and our training efforts is easy to come by these days, you see it everywhere, but as most of us would say, what is the alternative? I, for one, and I think every member of this committee does not believe that we should have American troops in Iraq indefinitely. So, as a reminder, I think we must suc- ceed in this mission. I believe Dr. Kagan has said it very well. From the outset, it would have been wiser to see the ISF as a force that could assist the coalition in suppressing the Sunni Arab insurgents, al Qaeda and related terrorists, and then Shiite militias, but that would, above all, be able to maintain order once it had been established. The President's new strategy has embraced this more realistic view, and events on the ground are beginning to validate this ap- proach. So, in order to ensure success, we as a congress must be wary of requesting too many documents that are at the tactical level and in previous wars would have never been available due to the lack of current available information technology assets. But, on the other hand, our friends at the Office of the Secretary efense must ensure that they meet our requests for relevant documents in a timely manner, and if the department does not want to submit them to Congress, they should say so and not just slow roll us. Last, we must keep the proper perspective on this entire endeav- or. In our instant gratification society, it is easy for someone in Washington, D.C., to say the level of illiteracy amongst Iraqi re- cruits is too high. Throughout history, many armies and navies conquered entire civilizations with thousands of illiterate soldiers. Training coupled with effective leadership and accountability are key, and I hope at some level our subcommittee can address these issues. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much. Mr. Akin, he just read your remarks. He did it quite well. Mr. MILLER. You were very good. Mr. AKIN. Thank you. Mr. MEEHAN. Dr. Cordesman, if you could begin. Again, thank you very much, and I apologize for being late. We had a series of votes. Dr. Cordesman, if you could start? STATEMENT OF DR. ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN, ARLEIGH A. BURKE CHAIR IN STRATEGY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Dr. CORDESMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have prepared a detailed formal statement and analysis of Iraqi Security Forces, and I do request it be included in the record. It describes a whole series of issues in the development of these forces that, I think, show clearly that they are years away from being ready to take over the mission in early 2008. But, in my brief oral remarks, however, I would like to strike a somewhat different theme. Nearly half a century ago, I entered the Office of the Secretary of Defense at a time when it was neoliberals that had thrust us into a war in Vietnam. Over the years that fol- lowed, I saw the same tendency in that war to downplay the risks and threats and the internal divisions in the Nation where we fought that I see in the way this Administration treats the Iraq war today. I also saw a subculture build up within the executive branch that exaggerated our successes in introducing democracy, in using for- eign aid and in bringing security to the people. I saw a shift over time from reliance on to our own forces to what we call Vietnam- ization, and then I saw withdrawal from a nation where we had created a government and military forces that remained dependent on us—for money, for vast amounts of weapons and supplies, and for the threat that Vietnam would be bombed if it invaded. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was never running for independent action. It had made real progress in many areas, and key units did fight well and with great courage, but its overall development and capabilities, however, had been grossly exagger- ated in virtually all of the reporting to the Congress and indeed to the Secretary. It remained dependent on American support, and when the Congress ceased to fund and provide aid and the U.S. ceased to provide a credible threat to North Vietnam, it could not possibly survive. Much of the tragedy that has followed has been eased with time. Vietnam is now a friendly state and making progress in many fact remains, however, that I watched for nearly three decades as many of the ARVN and as Vietnamese intelligence cad- res which had served us remained in camps and were subject to threats and constant political pressure. When I visited Vietnam several years ago, I found their sons and their grandsons were still under that pressure. As I testify today, I cannot forget these experiences. I cannot for- get the problems we created by exaggerating our successes in Viet- nam, in training Lebanese forces in the 1980's and, indeed, as we have done in the first five years in Afghanistan. We have been where we are in Iraq several times before, and we have done great damage to the countries we were supposed to aid in the process. We are now dealing with the legacy of neoconservatives in a badly planned and executed gamble with the lives of 27 million Iraqis. We have again lied and exaggerated our gress in political development, in security efforts, in economic aid and in the development of post-country forces. For the second time in my life, I fear that we are going to see a failed president and a failed administration preside over a failed war. I cannot promise you that we can avoid this. The chances are all too great that we cannot. I cannot believe, for example, that we can ever succeed in Iraqi force development unless we can succeed in persuading the Iraqis to achieve political conciliation between Arab Sunni, Arab Shiite and Kurd. As General Petraeus and many other senior military of- ficers have said, the key to security is not military. It is political. I also cannot deny that much of the official reporting on Iraqi force readiness and progress in Iraqi force development is the same tissue of lies, spin, distortion and omission I saw in Vietnam. There is no integrity in the reporting on manpower and in the number of units in the lead. Very real progress and success has been dis- torted and exaggerated almost to the point of absurdity. The criti- cal linkages between creating effective regular military forces and creating effective police, rule of law and government services have been misrepresented or ignored. As in Vietnam, we have downplayed the present and future de- gree of Iraqi dependence on U.S. equipment and aid. We have downplayed how dependent these forces are and will remain in on U.S. air power, armor, artillery, embeds, partner units and support. I have seen us rush undertrained, underequipped and inexperi- enced units into combats and missions for which they were not ready. I have seen us basically create a force that can sometimes win, but is not ready to hold and is certainly not ready to build. And now when I come before you this committee, this country is in the middle of an ever more bitter partisan debate over with- drawal from Iraq. The irony is, however, that we may collectively be moving toward a bipartisan effort to rush our forces out of Iraq years before Iraqi forces are really ready and with far too little re- gard for the human cost to Iraq and our strategic position in the Gulf. The Congress seemingly wants out in order to end the war. The administration seemingly wants a cosmetic victory in Baghdad to declare victory and to leave. We may have to leave. Open civil war, failure at conciliation, the inability to provide nationwide security and/or a steadily more bitter low-level sectarian and ethnic conflict may leave us no choice. But I urge you in your deliberations to think long and hard about such actions and particularly about abandoning Iraq too soon if there is still hope. I urge you not to confuse the lies and exaggera- tions about ISF readiness with our ability to rush out of Iraq and leave the fighting to them. I urge you not to ignore the real progress these forces have actually made and what a meaningful and honest long-term force development program could do over the next three to five years if Iraq moves toward conciliation. You cannot win by relying on these forces to take over in Janu- ary 2008. They need years of continuous support. We talk about long wars and winning them. It takes patience, resources, persist- ence and time, but there is a core of real competence under the smokescreen of spin and propaganda. As long as there is real hope of broader progress in Iraq, the ISF and the Iraqi people should no more have to pay for the mistakes of American neoconservatives than the ARVN and the Vietnamese people should have had to pay for the mistakes of neoliberals. Thank you. [The document submitted by Dr. Cordesman can be found in the Appendix on page 81.] Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you. Dr. Kagan. STATEMENT OF DR. FREDERICK W. KAGAN, RESIDENT SCHOLAR, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE Dr. KAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the sub- committee. It is a pleasure to be here before you speaking about this extremely important topic. I will try to keep my remarks brief so that we can get to your questions and address your concerns. I would like to pick up on one comment that Dr. Cordesman and many others have made, which is the consistent comparison be- tween Iraq and Vietnam. Apart from the many, many, many obvious differences between Iraq and Vietnam, including the differences between jungle and desert and the fact that there were hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese conventional soldiers in South Vietnam which rather complicated the task at hand, one of the most important dif- ferences, I suspect Dr. Cordesman would agree with me on, is the consequences of leaving the Vietnam were far less than I fear the consequences of leaving Iraq prematurely would be, and that is something that I think we must take into consideration. We can talk as much as we want to about similarities and dif- ferences between these conflicts, but we should not in any way take it for granted that the consequences of making the same decision today will be the same as they were then, which is to say decades of the sort of hardship that Dr. Cordesman so pointedly described followed ultimately by some sort of reconciliation and no great pain. I do not believe and many analysts do not believe that that would be the likely result of a premature withdrawal from Iraq. I would like to start by pointing out that what we have actually accomplished in Iraq with the Iraqi Security Forces in the past four years—really three years is about how long we have been actively working on trying to get the right sort of Iraqi Army going—has really been rather remarkable. We have something like 135,000 soldiers in the Iraqi Army trained to some standard, not as high as we would like necessarily, but not nonexistent, equipped to a basic standard, again not as high as we would like, but still equipped I would like to remind the committee that 135,000 soldiers is larger than the standing armies of France and Britain and that we started from scratch. And we started from scratch doing it all over, building an army of the sort that Iraq has not seen before. Iraq used to have a conscript army on the Soviet model without a mean- ingful non-commissioned officer (NCO) corps. We have built an all-volunteer force that is more similar to our model with an increasingly professional NCO force. We have changed all sorts of things about the way officers are seen, the way NCOs are seen, the way privates are seen and the way they all re- late to one another. We have fundamentally revolutionized the way that the Iraqis think about their Army and what it is. We have done that in four years. That is quite a remarkable ac- complishment, and I think that we should keep that in mind. With the Iraqi police, we have been rather less successful as is well known, and I would like to pause here to make it a general comment, just to step aside from the Iraq debate and make a point that I think is vital for our national security across the board. We actually do not know how to build police forces very well, and b we, I mean not just the United States, but North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) because NATO has had the mission of build- ing the Afghani police and it has had the mission of building the police in the Balkans and it has been heavily involved in the mis- sion in Iraq, and this seems to be a capability that is not actually resident in the alliance. It is objectively difficult. It is objectively difficult for the United States to do because we do not have a national police force or para- military capabilities to draw on. So, as we look at the difficulties that we face in Iraq here, I think we need to recognize broader dif- ficulties that it would well behoove us to address in a larger sche- ma. As I noted in my testimony, I would like to highlight again the expectations that the administration fostered and that many in Congress are now fostering and many people are attempting to fos- ter that we would be able rapidly to turn the task of establishing security in Iraq over to the Iraqi Security Forces were always exag- gerated and unrealistic, and I have never believed that that was an appropriate way to go, as I have noted on numerous occasions in the past. The tasks involved in creating peace when you have a large-scale insurgency morphing into insurgency and sectarian conflict are very likely to be beyond the means of a brand-new force that is only a couple of years into its existence, especially a force that has been formed in that context, and that is why I and others have con- sistently argued that before we can think about transitioning re- sponsibility for security to the Iraqis, we first have to take the lead with them in establishing a basic level of security that they can then maintain, and this has not been our strategy to date. Our strategy to date, prior to the President's change of strategy this year, has been to focus on transitioning and transferring re- sponsibility, and we have been given a lot of metrics, which I agree are fairly meaningless, about how many Iraqi units are in the lead here, hither and yon. That has not been significant because we have not been taking the lead in fulfilling our part of our respon- sibility to help the Iraqis establish security in their country. We have finally started to do that, and I believe that the presi- dent's strategy, which focuses on establishing security with the Iraqis so that the Iraqis, initially with our help and ultimately being weaned off our help, will be able to maintain the security that has been established, is the only reasonable approach and is an approach which I think is already bearing fruit. I would like to just mentioned a number of accomplishments that have been made not in terms of numbers but just in terms of re- ality. The Baghdad security plan, which the Iraqi government par- ticipated in forming and developing and which it has backed, which incidentally also has the formal stated backing of Abdul Aziz al- Hakim and even Muqtada al-Sadr, although he does not like the American participation in it, called for the deployment of nine Iraqi Army battalions and a similar number of Iraqi National Police bat- talions into Baghdad. Many people were skeptical that anyone would be able to accom- plish this feat because looking back at Operations Together For- ward I and II last year, the Iraqis were not able to deploy a smaller number of forces into Baghdad when we requested them to. This time around, we have it right with them, and there are a number of reasons for that, including fairly trivial things, planning for where the Iraqis would arrive when they got toward Baghdad, giving them extra hazardous duty and combat pay, giving them a normal deployment cycle and so forth. tainly a year away from having that problem addressed. I cannot predict when exactly it would be possible to transition lead for maintaining security in Iraq over to the Iraqis. This is a war. You cannot make precise predictions about how long things will take, and I think we make a mistake when we can imagine that we can have a railway timetable for this conflict anymore than you could have had for any previous conflict. What I am sure of is that if we establish security beginning in Baghdad-Anbar is already establishing a much greater degree of security than it has seen before; Ninewah is also working toward establishing a greater degree of security; we will have to work in Salah al-Din and Diyala and other areas in Iraq-if we help the Iraqis to establish security, then we will hasten the day when we can transition responsibility to an Iraqi force which is also growing in strength and capabilities, not only through our embedded teams, not only through our training systems, but by partnering with our outstanding soldiers on a day-to-day basis where they see what ex- cellence in operations looks like and where they see what profes- sionalism looks like. ; is an essential component. It is a component of this plan. and is something that I think will help lead us to the ultimate goal which we all share which is an Iraq that can maintain security, de- fend itself and function independently. [The prepared statement of Dr. Kagan can be found in the Ap- pendix on page 48.] Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Perito. STATEMENT OF ROBERT M. PERITO, SENIOR PROGRAM OFFI- CER, CENTER FOR POST-CONFLICT PEACE AND STABILITY OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE Mr. PERITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you and the other members of the subcommittee for inviting me here this afternoon. I will give a summary of my statement, and I am glad to know that the entire statement will be submitted for the record. I have to say that the views that I express this afternoon are my own and not those of the United States Institute of Peace which does not advocate specific policy positions. The year 2006, which the Defense Department had declared as the year of the police in Iraq, ended with the completion of what was called the force generation phase of the U.S. Police Assistance Program. One hundred eighty-eight thousand police have been trained and equipped; 220 police transition teams were embedded with Iraqi forces; nearly 100 American advisers were working in the interior ministry. Now, these statistics are impressive, but they mask a troubled reality. In truth, U.S. military authorities did not know how many police there were in Iraq or how many police stations. They did not know how many people that had passed through our training pro- grams were actually serving in the police, nor could they account for the weapons or the equipment that had been issued. The Iraqi police were unable or incapable of controlling crime or protecting Iraqi citizens, and the Iraqi border police could not con- trol the country's borders. Some Iraqi police commando units were 11 vilians. This will involve giving the Iraqi police service new author- ity to conduct criminal investigations and strengthen its organized crime unit and task force and authorizing these units to operate nationwide. The commando units that have been brought together under what is called the Iraqi National Police should be vetted, retrained, a process going on now, and then transferred to the Iraqi Defense Ministry along with the Iraqi border police. Transferring these units will bring them under closer U.S. supervision. It will also en- able these units to better perform their counterinsurgency mission. Today, all of the battalions and all of the brigades of the Iraqi National Police, with one exception, are operating in Baghdad alongside U.S. and Iraqi military forces. Now, that DOD has completed the force generation phase of the Police Assistance Program, it is time to transfer responsibility for the U.S. Police Assistance Program to the Department of Justice which should be placed in charge. Congress should give DOJ the authority and the funding to enable American law-enforcement pro- fessionals to work with and assist their Iraqi counterparts. Never before in all of the peace and stability operations in which the United States has engaged has the United States military been placed in charge of police training, and I agree with Dr. Kagan this is not a skill which the United States military nor our NATO mili- tary alliance partners should address. It is time to switch this re- sponsibility to civilian law-enforcement personnel who have done this work in many other countries. And finally, in December 2006, Prime Minister al-Maliki ordered the Interior Ministry to exert control over the 155,000 members of the facilities protection service. Now, this is an undisciplined collec- tion of ministry guard forces that the Interior Minister has publicly accused of engaging in crime and sectarian violence. This is a major step, new responsibility for the Interior Ministry, but it can only take on this responsibility with new and invigorated U.S. sup- port. These recommendations are within the capacity of the United States to undertake even under today's dire circumstances, and I recommend them for your consideration Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Mr. Perito can be found in the A pendix on page 56.] Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much. Ms. Oliker. STATEMENT OF OLGA OLIKER, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYST, RAND CORPORATION Ms. OLIKER. Thank you very much. Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Akin, distinguished mem- bers of the subcommittee, I am very honored to be here today. I was asked to talk about the Iraqi Security Forces, their devel- opment, and what I thought I would also talk about a bit is this question of how can we tell how well they are doing and how much they are improving There is a very useful and very simple formulation that a col- league of mine, Terrance Kelly, who spent a lot of time in Iraq, has 12 put together on how can you tell what is going on with the Iraqi Security Forces, and what he says is it is a matter of quantity, how many of them not just are there total, but are there on the job and available to do the job; quality, what can they do; and loyalty, whom do they owe their allegiance to. The short answers to these three questions are that on quantity, no one knows; on quality, it is very limited; and on loyalty, it is severely fractured amongst sectarian groups, political factions, re- gions and individuals making up Iraq's polity. I am going to touch on each of these in turn. On quantity, Dr. Kagan mentioned a 135,000 number for the Ministry of Defense forces. That is a number that DOD can tell you the Coalition has trained and equipped. As several people have mentioned, Mr. Perito mentioned, in regards to the police, they know how many people they have trained and equipped. have no idea how many of those have left or died. They do not know how many people are gone. About a quarter of police and military personnel are off at any given point in time, a lot of them taking their paychecks home to their families because, in the ab- sence of a banking system, that is the only way the people get their money. There are also thousands of people serving in the Ministry of In- terior the Coalition did not train, and there are thousands of people work for the government but do not work for the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Interior, including the facilities protec- tion service folks that Bob Perito just mentioned and also various agents of Iraq's intelligence services. All these people are armed, and they are variably trained. The Iraqi government also cannot tell you how many security forces they have. They might be able to tell you how many people they are paying possibly, but a large number of the people they are paying do not show up to work, and in regards to the local police, they are turning over bulk sums of money to local governments, and those are the ones who are paying people. So quantity we do not know. Quality: I think you have a sense of who the different forces are, right? There are the Minister of Defense forces, which is the Iraqi Army, 99 percent ground troops. There are the Ministry of Interior (MOI) forces which are, on the one hand, local police, community policing, and the national police built, as Mr. Perito said, of the commando units that preexisted, put them all together, try to put them under some sort of control, with a primarily counterinsurgency mission. And then there are all these other structures. Training varies: different times, different programs, different trainers. People who joined the Ministry of Defense through the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps that became the national guard mostly got on-the-job training. People who joined the Iraqi Army from the start got very formalized training. Most basic training is now being done by Iraqis. Most of the training for everyone has been, as Bob Perito said, military training, and this is a problem. Military training is a prob- lem because when you are fighting an insurgency, policing makes the difference. Why does policing make a difference? Very simply, 13 fighting insurgents is about winning over the populace. Policing is about protecting the public. Military operations are about fighting an enemy. If you want the public on your side, they have to feel protected. Equipment: Equipment varies too. It is not very good. The enemy is usually better armed. Most Iraqi force personnel have an AK- 47 and a pistol. Most of their vehicles are not armored. Mainte- nance and repair have been a problem. There are two very good reasons the Coalition has been reluctant to provide heavier equipment. One is fear that it will disappear, and the other is fear that the government itself will use it to op- press people. These are valid fears. But the end result is that these folks are not very capable. The effort now is on improving coherence and maintenance, but the core problems are still there. They are going to continue to be there for a while. The mentoring program, which has been mentioned, is very im- portant. It is important not just in improving these forces; it is also important in monitoring their capacity and seeing how well they are doing. But, again, most mentors, including for police, are mili- tary which creates problems for instilling policing culture. Military police are not the same thing as civilian police, so put- ting a lot of military police might be better than putting a lot of combat soldiers in, but it is still not the same thing as police forces. So it is not just a matter of getting more mentors out there. If this is really going to be successful, civilian mentors are going to have to somehow be found. A little bit on loyalty: The security forces, like Iraqi society, have been increasingly fragmented, also increasingly Shia. In units that used to be predominantly Sunni, structures like the Iraqi Armed Forces Officer Corps, the Sunnis are leaving. They are being forced out. There is a real effort under way by members of the govern- ment to cement control, and the result is that some people are being forced out, and some people are leaving while they think they can still leave. Infiltration by insurgents we have all heard about, high levels of the militia membership. Also, if people are not personally affiliated, they might be intimidated, threats to their family, into cooperation, or they may not be loyal to militia, but they might still not be loyal to the Iraqi armed forces. They might be loyal to regional, religious or political leaders, which is not a big problem if you are talking about the Iraqi local police forces; they should be loyal to the com- munity. It is a problem if you are talking about forces you are de- ploying outside of their neighborhoods. The problem of sectarianism is a problem of the Iraqi political system, as Dr. Cordesman pointed out. Senior officials reinforce sectarianism because they are hedging against the failure of this experiment. They want to make sure that if a unified Iraq does not happen, their factions have enough fighters and their rivals cannot take control. Of course, in addition to contributing to sectarianism, it contributes to corruption and lack of accountability. I want to put us in a broader context also. Iraqi Security Forces will never work without institutions to support and run them, and they will not work without a justice sector. The best police in the 14 world—you can build democratic, accountable police, but if there are no prisons and courts, you have nothing to do with the crimi- nals, and there are not, of course, judges or prisons in Iraq and ex- isting prison facilities, including ones run by the NLG and the MLI, so under the purview of this subcommittee, have been very credibly accused of abuses, and coalition personnel have had trou- ble getting access to them. If Iraqis are taking their future seriously as a unified state, they have to develop vetting and investigative capacity as well as being helped to develop a judicial system. They need to work to ensure loyalty of the security forces to the state, not to its components. They need to investigate malfeasance at senior levels. In the past when senior personnel have been found complicit in abuses, they were not fired; they were reassigned. So, when we see senior personnel with strong connections to the current political leadership brought to trial for abuses, we will know that something has changed. We have not seen that so far. In the meantime, as we have heard already today, we read about more and more units and regents transitioning to Iraqi control. Now, as you know, if you read between the lines or if you read the small print, when units transition, they are still very dependent on coalition personnel, logistics and capacity for pretty much every- thing they need to do. The fact is that while there are areas where the coalition has been able to reduce forces in operation, there is nowhere in Iraq right now where Iraqi forces can truly stand alone, provide security to the public in a way that is capable, responsible and that we can be confident does not foment conflict and distress rather than eliminating them. My written testimony has a bit of a wish list of the sorts of things we would want to know. I am not going to go through that. I would like to focus on some general issues of oversight in watch- ing this process continue. If it is to be successful, it will have to continue for many, many years, but there are indicators we can look at to see what is going on. DOD has gotten better at providing some reporting, not just telling us about forces trained, but admit- ting to some of the challenges. For example, DOD rates Iraqi units in a number of categories. They will tell you a number of categories, but they will not tell you the results of the evaluations, and I am told by colleagues in Iraq that they will not tell their State Department colleagues in Iraq how they are evaluating them either. Published DOD readiness assessments of Iraqi units combines into a single number the units that can operate fully independently and those that can function in the lead with coalition support. We need to desegregate those numbers. We know they desegregate those numbers, and some of them are material. At its core, it is not about the numbers. I mean, there are num- bers that you want to know. You want to know how the number of people you are paying stacks up to the number of people at work. You want to know to know about recruitment, retention, casualty, desertion rates. But, really, what you want to know is how are things going, and that is not about numbers. That is about asking people on the 16 sectarian and ethnic conflict as the dominant source of problems in Iraq. That cannot be done by the way you restructure the military or the police force. Having said that, as my colleagues have said, there is a deep di- vision between the readiness of the Army and the police force. The truth is that if you really want Army units to work you move them into the partnership and embed phase and you give them the time and practice to learn how to operate, to see who can lead, to shake out the people who will stay and not stay. Training and equipped is not necessarily meaningless, but it comes pretty close when you are creating an entire new force. One way that you do that is you focus on which battalions actually per- form on unit capabilities and unit diaries, not meaningless statis- tics and bar graphs. On the police side, I do not, I think, agree with my colleagues simply because I think the level of ethnic and sectarian division has already reached the point where most regular police in the real world are going to be local, dictated by local authorities and subject to ethnic and sectarian divisions. The problem then is how do you live with that. One way is to provide as competent a national force to supplement them as pos- sible. Another is to have local elections that are meaningful and to really see what you can do to fix this fragmented structure in a way that individual areas, cities and towns can justify. Here, let me just make a final point. For all the reporting that is provided in terms of these statistics, the fact is that there are very detailed maps of Iraq, down to the individual street and neighborhood which are sort of red, yellow and green, showing what the level of security is and when it comes down to police and other posts rating them as to their performance, whether they are a threat, whether they are seen as being part of the problem or part of the solution. We have the data on individual unit histories. The fact is that people simply are not providing it, and instead, they are providing the kind of numbers which I think we all agree are meaningless. Dr. KAGAN. Mr. Chairman, the largest obstacle that we face in turning over responsibility to the Iraqis and leaving is the lack of security in the country, and that is the number one obstacle that is hindering most of the other positive progress that we would like to see made, including the progress, as Dr. Cordesman points out, which is so important in reconciliation. Even though there have been a number of promising steps in that regard, including the change in attitudes of the Al Anbar sheiks, of Prime Minister Maliki's visit to Ramadi and the recent announcement of an initiative from Maliki and President Talabani to reform the Debaathification rules which is an important compo- nent of reconciliation with the Sunnis. We have seen some of those steps begin even before we have actually managed to establish se- curity in Baghdad, let alone throughout the country. the number one priority has to be, in my view, bringing the level of violence in the country down to a point at which it is rea- sonable to start talking about normal policing because when you actually have violence of the sort that we have seen through the end of last year and continuing, even if diminishing, after the 17 president's announced change of strategy, it is not the sort of envi- ronment in which you can hope to have local police policing effec- tively. We have to help the Iraqis bring it down, and that is num- ber one. Number two is, if you ask the question what can we do to accel- erate this hand-over, apart from accelerating efforts to establish se- curity throughout the country, I would say that there is a limit to how much you can accelerate it. Militaries are not like race cars, especially when you are trying to develop them. You cannot just put your foot down on the gas and feed it more something and have- Mr. MEEHAN. So you do not think the president's January 2008 timetable is realistic? Dr. KAGAN. The timetable for what? If you say timetable for turning over responsibility for the security of the country to Iraqi- Mr. MEEHAN. Primary responsibility for security. Dr. KAGAN. As I have argued previously and on my own rec- ommendations, I thought that we were going to have to maintain levels of forces similar to what is being proposed now through the end of 2008, and only then did I think it would be possible to begin drawing down. So I am on record as not thinking that that is a re- alistic approach. But I think we have to understand that the challenges involved in moving the Iraqi Army forward are challenges that are going to take time. It simply does take time to develop military systems, lo- gistics systems, standard operating procedures, to retrain officers, police and Army in how to do all of these things. There is simply a limit to how fast it is going to be possible to accelerate this. Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Perito. Mr. PERITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first thing we need to do is recognize that there is an essen- tial difference between creating armies and training soldiers and creating police departments and training civilian police. The job of training a civilian police force is one of developing people who have an ethos which is different from a military ethos. As one colonel put it, soldiers are trained to kill people and break things. Civilian police are trained to preserve and protect. It is that ethos that we need to accept as the basis for training a civilian police force in Iraq. We then need to start by creating a Ministry of the Interior which functions and supports the police, and then we need to move to train and equip and authorize civilian police to perform civilian police functions. Since the beginning of the U.S. intervention in Iraq, there has been a massive crime wave that has swept that country. Much of the violence in that country is simply criminal ac- tivity. It is not politically motivated. To the extent that the Iraqi police are able to get control of crime and demonstrate to Iraqi civilians that they are there to protect them, then information will flow and the civilian police will be able to engage in a counterterrorism operation. The way to defeat terrorists is the way the British police defeat terrorists. You arrest them in there about at night when they are asleep, not when they are armed and out and ready to press the 18 button on an explosive device. We do not have that in Iraq. We have not had it from the start. There has been a bifurcation in our training, which is focused on trying to create a civilian police, and the utilization of these forces which is used in counterinsurgency mode. We need to bring that to an end. We need to create a civilian police in Iraq that con- centrates on fighting crime and protecting civilians. Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Oliker, the most significant obstacle? Ms. OLIKER. You know,it depends on what you are willing to set- tle for in transferring authority. If you are of the opinion, Mr. Chairman, members, that we cannot do this well, that Iraq is doomed to descend further and further into civil war and that what were doing is not having a real effect in stemming the tide, then, you know, you can leave now and Iraqi Security Forces are going to be part of the conflict. They are going to fight one another as they are doing now. If you think that it is possible to develop some level of stability and security, which, as Doctors Kagan and Cordesman have point- ed out, you know, security is the first thing. If Iraq is to move for- ward, it has to first be made secure. The Iraqi Security Forces can- not do it. They will not be able to do it in a matter of months. They will not. Nobody will be able to do it unless Iraqi political groups have de- cided that violence is not the way out. As long as Iraqi political leaders feel that they want to maintain the capacity to use violence as a political tool, violence is going to continue. So the only way to end that is to make violence not as attractive to them, and the way to do that is to bring peace to Iraq. To be honest, the level of troops and the level of commitment that would require is not something that we have seen to date. So it is a bit of a catch 22, right? On the one hand, you can see ways that you could make it better, and then you could develop this security force that will take years to develop that can function in a steady state of peace, or you can leave and you can hope that eventually they get there on their own, but it is going to be a bloody getting there. Thank you. Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you. Mr. Akin. Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first thing I would do would be to quote a diplomat from Egypt. He said, “I did not support your going into Iraq, and I do not support your rapidly withdrawing from Iraq.” He said, “You might think that is being inconsistent, but,” he said, “I look at it as you started open-heart surgery, and now you have a sore back from leaning over the patient, but you cannot walk away and leave him." So my first question is: Is there anybody here who is advising a quick withdrawal from Iraq? I have heard all of your testimonies. I think I have heard every one of you say that is a problem. Is that correct, that being the case? Mr. PERITO. That is right. Mr. AKIN. Second question, one of the things we did in the sup- plemental that really concerned me a lot was to cut funding for the 19 Iraqi Security Forces. Let me put it in context to be fair. There were a number of provisions that were said. For instance, you have politicians. You have to put an oil deal together in six months, or we are going to cut your funding. That is something that I would have supported. They are talking about a constitutional amend- ment and a whole lot of very difficult things to do in six months. Would you use cutting forces for Iraqi Security Forces as lever- age? Yes or no or make a comment. Dr. CORDESMAN. May I make a comment? I think something that bothers me both in Iraq and Afghanistan is the confusion between funding something and achieving some- thing. What I cannot find is any trace between these requests for money and what they are actually supposed to impact on and the programs that are supposed to be implemented, and one of the things I would have said is I cannot tell you—and nobody can-on the basis of the administration is requests whether that money is needed or not because no one has ever explained what is actually being done with it. Mr. PERITO. I would like to comment as well. As long as there is a disconnect between the people that are passing through our training programs and the people that are ac- tually showing up in the police force, then cutting off the funding or providing funding really has very little impact. If you read the Defense Department's report to Congress in March 2007, it says that there are large numbers of people that have been hired outside the system set up by the United States military to train and equip the police. We do not know who these people are. We do not know also what happened to the people that passed through our training programs, but there is a lot of anec- dotal information that suggests that some people just went in, took the money, got the weapon, got the uniform, went out, sold it on the black market and went on their way. So I agree with Dr. Cordesman. Mr. AKIN. So I think I heard both of you—now I do not want to put words in your mouth-saying there was so little accountability that there is no point in funding it anyway. It is just a waste of money to put any money in it, so do not fund it at all. Dr. CORDESMAN. I think we would all agree if you do not fund it, you are going to end up with this whole structure collapsing. What we are saying is—you asked should you have this at the same amount of money, cut it or increase it-I do not believe that anyone can answer that question because of the way we are looking at this problem. You put money into something to buy capabilities, and what we desperately need is not to reduce the money, but to establish ac- countability. Without accountability, all we can say is that if you reduce the money further or cut it off, of course, it will collapse. Mr. AKIN. I guess that was my point. If you do not fund it, it is going to collapse. Dr. KAGAN. Yes, I would agree with you, Congressman, and I would like to go further and answer the question that you asked, which was: Is it a good idea to use the threat of cutting off funding for the Iraqi Security Forces as a lever to try to force the Maliki government to do certain things within a certain time period? 20 som My answer to that is an unqualified no. That is a very, very bad idea for a number of reasons. First of all, of all of the levers that you might choose, threatening to cut off funding for the only force other than the American and British military in Iraq that might actually be able to maintain order, threatening to cut that off as a way of leverage, makes no sense to me. If you think that we are going to leave and anything other than complete chaos is going to ensue and if you think that we should leave quickly, then you surely have to make an argument that hing other than complete chaos will ensure. Then, obviously, the Iraqi Security Forces are going to have to be a key component of that. So threatening to cut off funding makes no sense. ut I would also like to speak to the larger issue of these specific political benchmarks. As the House of Representatives has found and especially as the Senate has found, meeting particular legisla- tive benchmarks is not always an easy thing to do even when there is not a civil war going on outside, and I would be very reluctant to see specific funding tied to specific passage of specific legislation that we say has to look in a certain way, to tie that kind of legisla- tive action to funding for such an essential organ as the Iraqi Secu- rity Forces. I think that would be extremely unwise. Ms. OLIKER. Let me just comment on the question of leverage. One of the things we can learn from the development world is that you could have smart conditionality and you can have dumb condi- tionality, right? Dumb conditionality is "We are going to cut your AIDS funding if you do not drive your defense budget.” Smart con- ditionality is, “If I cannot tell that you are doing a good thing with us, if I cannot tell that you are doing what you are supposed to do with this assistance, I am going to stop giving you this assistance. So I think the question is not putting conditions on the Iraqis; it is putting conditions on our own people to explain to us exactly how this money is being used, and that does not mean necessarily prove that it is all working, sometimes things do not always work, but it is about tracking and accountability and demonstrating that the money is being used right. Thank you. Mr. AKIN. Yes, I guess my question was not about tracking and accountability. I think most people would agree to that. This set what seemed to me to be a very, very high political bar, not only just getting the oil thing done, which I would have even gone along with, but it also said you have to pass a constitutional amendment on some things, and it seemed in six months to be asking so much, and the only thing we are really hoping on, if there is any hope we have, it seems like it is Iraqi Security Forces and their ability to try to keep the lid on things. So I have a couple of things that are connected questions. I am going to call it an experiment. Maybe that is being pessimistic. I do not know. The Baghdad experiment of increasing troops and as- signing them to neighborhoods and mixing the police and security and the U.S. forces—is that a good method of training question? That is the first part of the question. The second thing is: Is it a good measure of the success of the ISF? Is this a good metric to say that is how good the security 21 forces are? And even the other way, is it something that is going to train the Iraqis, not only the police, but the security forces? So those two kind of go together as questions. Dr. CORDESMAN. I think one key problem we have is it is an ex- periment, and to find out what happens does take time. It is pos- sible that if we do this properly and slowly, we are going to bring a lot of Iraqi elements online with real capability. Many of the units which have deployed down into Baghdad at this point do go along for the ride, but they certainly are not ready. The bulk of the police in Baghdad certainly is not ready. It basically is, to put it politely, not only a garrison force; it sometimes has trouble even getting to the police station. Mr. AKIN. That is sort of the question, though. Is it a good way to train them, one, and two, if it works well, is that some measure of the fact that they are effective? Dr. CORDESMAN. Congressman, you can assert everything you want and anything you want, and the only way to find out, since we are committed to doing it, is to do it. My guess is, with the po- lice, we are going to have to edge around them, avoid being com- mitted to using the police, take a lot of time and find out whether security emerges in a way where then we can deal with the police elements. Experience will train Iraqi Army units if they are not somehow involved in ethnic and sectarian fighting on a broader level. So far, they have avoided that. But to give this, I think, more than experi- mental status, to judge it now, to rush into saying it is good or bad to me is far more a matter of ideology than substance. Mr. AKIN. I guess my point was, you know, we talked to the gen- erals over there. They said, “do not even make any assumptions about whether this is working well or not until this summer.” They said, “We are not going to have everything in place and up and working until June or July.” So I am talking about in the June or July timeframe, one, does it work to help train? Is it a good training mechanism to actually do what you are supposed to be doing? And second, is it a good measure? Let us go right down the panel. I did not really hear an answer to my question. That is why I was trying to get to the point. Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I think that the short answers are yes and yes. It is a good way to train, and we are in the process of helping the Iraqis or we have actually helped the Iraqis to develop a system of rotating the units in their Army through participation in the Baghdad security plan in part as a method of trainin and I have long been of the opinion, something which Dr. Cordesman said, that you can train and train and train in garrison, but the way that you really train a unit, especially in this context is by actually putting it out on the street, having it conduct real operations, but having it conduct them in tandem with outstanding excellent forces so that it can see what excellence is and also so that there will be a check on its behavior. One of the reasons why you are tending not to see Iraqi Army units and Iraqi police units in Baghdad now participating directly in death squad activity is because American forces are present with them, and we have seen this repeatedly. They do not tend to do 23 Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you. Ms. Tauscher. Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since the spring of 2003, when the Coalition Provisional Author- ity took over, the government was decapitated, Saddam Hussein was captured and we began to stabilize Iraq-it is still a failing proposition, by the way—I have been fascinated by everyone's gen- eral acceptance that the metric for success would be the establish- ment of security and the excuse being that the reason why we can- not do anything else is because there is no security in Iraq. I think that generally people have said the antecedent issue to progress any further, whether it is about the sovereignty of the government, the ability for the Iraqis to have representative gov- ernments, moving forward, stability in the region, extrication of American troops, stop spending our money, it has been about secu- rity, security, security, security. Well, I guess the question really is: How are we going to get se- curity? Would you say that that is fair, Dr. Cordesman? Dr. CORDESMAN. I do not, no. I think that, frankly, security is important, but if you cannot get conciliation- Ms. TAUSCHER. There you go. That is what I wanted you to say. Dr. CORDESMAN [continuing). Between factions here and you can- not bring these two things together- Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you. The question then is: Are we going to fight our way to security, which apparently is the Bush Adminis- tration's way of doing it, or are we going to persuade our way to security? My concern is that we have our foot down on the pedal of fighting our way to security, and all we have done is find ways to excuse away for the now permanent Iraqi government for over a year to not deliver on the political reconciliation and negotiations to cut the insurgency in half. Would you agree, Dr. Cordesman, that if the insurgency in the classical sense was cut in half, it would be a lot easier for the Iraqis to take over the security of their country by January of 2008? Dr. CORDESMAN. At this point, no, I do not. I think we have reached a level of factional and ethnic fighting where the insur- gents, important as they are, too serious a problem. That definition says that if you cannot really achieve very tangible progress—and I have to say in fairness to the Administration that they do have an eight-point program for conciliation-if you cannot move in these areas, security does not solve the problem. Ms. TAUSCHER. But in order to get security, one of the opportuni- ties has always been for the Iraqis to do the kinds of political rec- onciliation that would cause significant portions of the insurgent groups that are indigenous to put down their arms and go to work as opposed to fighting. Dr. CORDESMAN. You know, my first trip to Iraq was in 1971. I really have to say that, very quickly, we created an electoral sys- tem that divided them by ethnicity and by sect. We insisted on a written constitution, which forced every possible issue. The way you phrased that, it is somehow incumbent on the Iraqis to solve 24 the problems which in many ways we created and where they were elected to be ethnic and sectarian, and we cannot make those changes between now and the beginning of 2008. Ms. TAUSCHER. So I do not disagree with you, by the way, that almost every problem that we have in Iraq right now is by our own making, and my concern is—and I think why many of us are insist- ing upon benchmarks for the Iraqi government to perform is that we find ourselves with only two choices, fighting our way to secu- rity, which puts two huge American assets, our fighting men and women and money, on the table for an open-ended engagement with a blank check or persuading and having at least some sense that the Iraqis are stepping up and making the political negotia- tions and conciliations necessary to perhaps take some of their own future in their hands and to make the tough decisions necessary. I think that, you know, many of us are just at our wits end. We do not know how to get the Iraqi government, which I consider to be feckless, to step up and do the things that they are meant to do, and if I do not know why they are not doing it, what would cause anybody wearing an Iraqi military uniform to want to fight and die for them? In the end, this military that we are growing with a lot of Amer- ican effort and a lot of American money has to make a decision that they are going to fight and die for this government, and I do not see anything about this governments that would cause Iraqis to make that risk. So, you know, for too long, we have had a situa- tion where it has been about security, we have had to deliver secu- rity, and we are going to fight to get security. Then the excuse was, well, we have to have indigenous Iraqi forces, so now we are going to spend a lot of time and money re- cruiting and training those forces. Then we were promised that we had reached the ultimate num- ber that we needed, and then we were told that the number we needed was the right number, but, as Ms. Oliker has pointed out, they do not stay and fight, they do not stay in the military they have a very high regressive rate, so we do not actually have the quality we need. I do not know what the next series of excuses are going to be, but I promise you somebody is going to think of them, and our challenge is: How do we stop spending our two primary assets, American fighting men and women and our money, on what is clearly a failing preposition? I do not know of anybody, frankly, that is advocating that we leave immediately. We are going into our fifth year. My final question really is: What do you think it is going to take to get the Iraqi government to make the political conciliations and negotiations that you recommended, Dr. Cordesman? Dr. CORDESMAN. I think it is going to take time, patience and constant pressure. I think it is going to take the understanding that even if we can get them to agree to these benchmarks—for ex- ample, Dr. Kagan mentioned the Debaathification law—I do not want to use the phrase "so what,” but it is to present a concept to the parliament without the detailed annexes. If the parliament passes the law, you then have to implement it. You have to hope that Debaathification occurs faster than Sunnis 26 all along, but the bombing that took place at the Samara Mosque was done by al Qaeda. We may not have done everything possible and everything appro- priate—and I said that we did not do everything appropriate to prevent that from happening, but at the end of the day, we must recognize that there is an enemy out there that is trying to make us fail and is trying to kill innocent people, and I really do not think it is appropriate for us to take full responsibility for the en- emy's actions. Mr. MEEHAN. But, sir, even the president has admitted this idea of bring it on, to all the terrorists in the world, bring it on. Even he has admitted that that probably was not a very smart thing. Dr. KAGAN. It was not a smart thing. Mr. MEEHAN. And they brought it on. Dr. KAGAN. They did, but they were the ones who placed the bomb, and all I am asking is that we recognize that there is an enemy that bears responsibility for that. Ms. TAUSCHER. Dr. Kagan, we have to take responsibility for the fact that al Qaeda is in Iraq. You know, maybe al Qaeda ate your homework, but I am telling you right now that you are conflating the enemy to be al Qaeda when 8 out of 10 fighters are Iraqis fight- ing Iraqis and the idea that we now have and consistently for 3– 12 years have had American fighting men and women in the mid- dle of a sectarian war that even the Pentagon now calls a civil war. A small faction of them that may be doing bigger things is al Qaeda that were allowed in the country because we did not close the borders, because we did not have a plan and we had no bloody idea what was going to happen when we decapitated that govern- ment. We were not ready for it, and you are conflating al Qaeda to be the enemy. The enemy is elusive in Iraq right now, and we are in the middle of it. Dr. KAGAN. Congresswoman, I agree with you that there are multiple enemies in Iraq, and it is a very complicated situation. I did not mean to say that al Qaeda is the only enemy that we face, nor do I mean to exculpate the Bush administration from any of the mistakes that it has made in the way that this war was han- dled from the outset. I was criticizing the way people were to about fighting this war before we even went into Iraq. Believe me, I agree with you that we have not handled the situa- tion properly after 2003 or going into 2003. I am in total agreement with you that we have not handled the situation properly. All I was trying to say is that I think it is a little bit strong to say that every bad thing that is going on in Iraq is our fault. Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, it may be a little strong to say, but let me tell you this right now. The next time I do something wrong, I would like to have you be the guy that is criticizing me because you sound a little like an apologist for the Bush administration to me. I yield back my time. Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Davis Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair- man. I think that we all recognize that with proper planning perhaps, we certainly must have anticipated that al Qaeda would move from Afghanistan or wherever it was into Iraq. So we had to be planning 28 Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police—in conflict areas as major areas of threat. You will find the poll reflected in the testimony that I provided. You will see this varies by whether it is Sunni or Shiite and wheth- er it is a conflict area. The Kurds do not see this problem. So blam- ing this on the Arab media or television or people outside Iraq is something which survey after survey—there is an LRB survey which draws the same conclusions, and there are others—simply is not realistic. That is not how Iraqi public opinion is being shaped. Mr. PERITO. I would agree with that. Ms. OLIKER. I would agree with that. I would add to that one measure of Iraqi public opinion which is not polling, and that is the thousands of people fleeing Iraq day after day after day. I mean, these people are not fleeing because they read in the newspaper or see on television that their country is unsafe. They are doing it be- cause they know that they personally are not safe, and they are trying to get out. Mr. PERITO. The subversion of the Iraqi Security Forces, particu- larly the subversion of the Iraqi National Police, is a tremendous problem, and Iraqis know this. The U.S. military tried something in October, just to share a story with you. The accusations had been made that men in uni- form going about carrying out sectarian violence were actually peo- ple who had stolen police uniforms. So the United States intro- duced a new police uniform based on a digital pattern, very dif- ficult to copy. Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Yes, I saw that. Mr. PERITO. I have a friend who is an adviser in Iraq. There was an incident in which armed men in police uniforms went in and seized people out of the ministry of the higher education. I emailed my friend and said, “Well, it is very good that we have these new police uniforms because we will know whether these people are real or not.” The email came back, “They were wearing the new police uniforms.” So, you know, it is not the Iraqi media. The Iraqis know what they see, and this is a terrible problem we have to deal with. Dr. CORDESMAN. If I may, Congressman, just give you a tangible set of statistics, and these are a poll completed in February, and the sample was statistically relevant, and it was direct sampling, not the use of the Internet or phones. If you take out the Kurdish area, which does like us, 47 percent of the Iraqis perceived unnecessary violence by us, 32 percent per- ceived it by the local militias, 22 percent by the Iraqi police and 22 percent by the Iraqi Army. Now, these are not fair. We are seen as occupiers, we are seen as crusaders simply because we are not Iraqis. It is not an objective view, but those kinds of public opinion polls have been, I think, fairly consistent, and we are not at this point going to change it by having better television programs. Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. I appreciate your speaking to that because I think that, you know, there is a lot of effort being put here to change that. I would think as well that Iraqis, like all of us, would be per- suaded by the here and now on what they are perceiving to be their 30 Yes? Dr. Kagan? Dr. KAGAN. I agree with that. If I could do one thing, apart from establish security tomorrow, which is impossible, I would like to see the development of an overarching strategy that has bipartisan support, that he has as its focus establishing security in the coun- try, helping the Iraqis move toward reconciliation, helping them build ministerial capacity, getting American civilian agencies ac- tively involved in all of that process, but have an overarching strat- egy that brings all of these things together with the right focus. Mr. AKIN. Thank you. I could not agree more with that, too. Thank you. Mr. PERITO. Yes, building on what has been said before, I would do those two things, and then the third thing I would do would be to develop a comprehensive strategy toward implementing the rule of law in Iraq. We have been talking a lot about police, but, as has been said before, without a functioning judicial system and an ef- fective corrections facility and capability, we go nowhere and so all of this is essential. Ms. OLIKER. Security first, but also accountability. We need to have a better understanding of what it is we are trying to do and whether or not it is working. I think we have not spent enough time thinking about whether what we are doing works or whether it does not and how we measure that, and I think we need to get better at it. Mr. AKIN. Well, if I were their Harvard B School professor, I would give you all A's. Thank you very much, gentlemen and gentlelady. Mr. MEEHAN. Now, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Lorry Fenner who is our lead subcommittee staff for questions. Dr. FENNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a longer question, but I want to ask you a very short ques- tion first, following on to this question by our ranking member, Mr. Akin, and that is have any of you in your research or intervi of anyone in the government heard anyone talking about a plan other than transferring responsibility for security to the Iraqis in January 2008; in other words, a plan B? You do not have to mention any names, but has anybody heard of a plan not to do that since you uniformly seemed not to believe that that is possible? Mr. PERITO. Yes. Dr. FENNER. Okay. Thank you. Dr. KAGAN. You mean a plan other than the strategy that is cur- rently under way? Dr. FENNER. The strategy to turn over primary security respon- sibility to the Iraqis in January of 2008. Dr. KAGAN. That is not the basis on which I have usually had discussions with people, so I am not quite sure how to answer the question. Dr. FENNER. That is what is stated in the president's message now. Dr. KAGAN. No. Ms. OLIKER. I think that there are different interpretations of transferring primary responsibility. I think that in the sense of ac- tually turning it over to the Iraqis, most people that I talk to do 31 not think that actually going to happen. I think they think we are going to continue working with them, and we might transfer pri- mary responsibility the way that we, you know, call units in the lead. Dr. FENNER. Thank you. My real question is actually—most of us have recognized what most of you have, and that is that the measurement of capability is not really in the number sets that we are usually given-have any of you lately been to Iraq, and whether you have or not, have you either there or here been able to talk to working-level members of the military transition teams, the police transition teams or the border transition teams? Mr. Perito, you mentioned that you had recently talked to a friend of yours who was an adviser. So, any of the others of you, have you recently been to Iraq and talked to that working level, or have you talked to them here and how has that informed your work? Dr. Cordesman, please. Dr. CORDESMAN. Well, I have talked to them. I have not very re- cently been to Iraq. I have been to the Gulf and met with people there, and, certainly, I meet with many people here. I think there is another question you probably need to ask, which is to what extent does the U.S. intelligence community actually monitor the activities of many of these so-called blue forces on the ground—they may not be all that blue and how do they assess them in terms of actual capability and capacity? To what extent have they mapped these issues? The one thing that sometimes gets lost here is the operational groups in the U.S. military have to break down these forces and look at them as both allies and potential threats. So I think the level of sophisticated analysis of actual unit capability goes far be- yond the advisory teams. If you are talking about capability, I think that is a key issue be- cause, for example, I think you would find that there are detailed, almost battalion-level diaries of how individual elements operate, that people do know how the police in each district in broad terms operate, that nobody has a mystery as to who the police really are in places like Basra, the major city in the southeast. But what eople do not like is talking about it because not so much we are failing, but it does have a level of challenging time and resources which people fear we are not prepared to commit. Dr. FENNER. Thank you. Dr. Kagan. Dr. KAGAN. Yes, I have spoken on a number of occasions to var- ious different people. I have not been there recently. I am, in fact, going to depart shortly for a trip that will bring me to Iraq next week. I have been speaking with people who have been involved in the training effort, primarily of the Iraqi Army, at various levels, and it has informed my work. Mr. PERITO. Two years ago, I ran a lessons learned project at the U.S. Institute of Peace (UŠIP) in which we interviewed about 130 people who had served in the Coalition Provisional Authority. We did in-depth two-hour interviews, and the transcript of those inter- 33 And then the detainee policy falls into the ministry of interior as well. The people that we are picking up and detaining, are they the right people? Are we not picking up enough people? I understand that we do not have enough capacity to really have an effective local police unit. So those are kind of the issues I see associated with the Ministry of Interior, and if you could comment on those issues, that would be valuable. Thank you. Dr. CORDESMAN. Let me just begin. I think the Ministry of Inte- rior still is a very serious problem area. It says it in the March quarterly report. My own discussions with people who have been involved with it find that the problems are considerably more seri- ous than that quarterly report presents, and if you read through this section on the ministry, it is not reassuring. I think in terms of the training teams, I would have to issue a caution here. One thing we do not have, as was pointed out by Mr. Perito, is a map of the people in the police who are not the ones we have trained and equipped, who are not national. Those are in most of Iraq the actual police. One of the problems we really have is, if you are going to talk about the this, you have to talk about police versus militias versus police because we really have three different groups here. I think in general, the problem is the police training system is not putting people into the field capable of doing much more than sitting in a police station. Your third issue, transition readiness assessments, I think the problem is, in some areas, it is like a kaleidoscope. We are transfer- ring readiness in areas where there are very good units, with very bad units, with very different levels of threat, with mixes of insur- gency, ethnic, sectarian conflict, and we are acting is that if there was some ordered system for doing that. Yet I think Michael Gordon, to give an unclassified example, published a map in The New York Times. The color version shows that in most of these areas where we claim to have transferred re- sponsibility, there really was nothing approaching any kind of sym- metry or match between what had been claimed and what was oc- curring. On detainees, I think it is become apparent again just in the last week this is a major problem, perhaps the first one to surface in the Baghdad operation. We have not made the transition, we can- not trust the Iraqi MOI to handle it, but we do not have the facili- ties all of a sudden to handle the people we have already taken in Baghdad. So this is not simply them; it is us as well. Dr. KAGAN. I will tell you to begin with that my focus has been more on the Iraqi Army and the MOD, and so I will make just a brief comment. First of all, it is my understanding, certainly going into this plan, there was an understanding that detainee facilities and capabilities were inadequate, and measures are being taken to address the problem. Clearly, it has not been fully addressed yet. In the Ministry of Interior, I would note that there were recently 3,000 people who were let go from that ministry. There clearly is 35 Who were the people who were the civilians in this? They were independent subcontractors of DynCorp Corporation. It is difficult to know the standard of recruitment that was used, but sufficient to say, they probably were police at some point in their careers, but who knows? They certainly were not people who were trained ei- ther police evaluators or police educators and trainers. So we have that. If you look at the Ministry of the Interior, not only, you know, are we aware that Shiite militia had infiltrated the ministry, but we are also aware that the ministry really does not function as a bureaucratic entity. It does not have established rules or proce- dures. It does not have codes of conduct. It does not have a func- tioning budget process. It does not have a personnel process. It does not do any of these things. One of the things that it does not do, for example, is it does not have an effective system of accountability. So it does not know where its people are, where its equipment is, et cetera. So all of that is a huge problem. When you look at the issue of detainees, I think this raises an opportunity to talk about a program that has worked. The U.S. De- partment of Justice has had a small number of people in Iraq since the very beginning working on establishing an Iraqi prison system. The prison system takes people who have been to trial and then convicted. Okay. This is a small number of people, several thousand. These are facilities not too numerous. This is a new force that has been raised. But if you read the Department of Defense report to Con- gress of March 2007 and previous, you will find that it says that the Iraqi prison system and its personnel meet international stand- ards, that the Iraqi prison system conforms to international levels and is working well at this point. It is too small, but it is working well. I think that is the kind of thing with the Department of Justice, where you are dealing with career professionals who have done this all their lives, that can happen. So that is one of the reasons be- hind my recommendation. that we transfer responsibility for the police from the Department of Defense and the United States mili- tary, which does not do police, to the Department of Justice and let the professionals take over. Mr. MEEHAN. Before Ms. Oliker answers, Dr. Kagan, we told you we would get you out of here at 3:30, and I want to give you this opportunity to leave and thank you for your testimony and thank you for your coming before the committee. Dr. KAGAN. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you. Ms. OLIKER. On the police transition teams, I have very little to add to what Mr. Perito said, except to just underline the fact that we do not have enough of them to cover the local police, and the people in them are often the wrong people. You know, this raises the question of getting the right civilian capacity in there, and this question of DOD being in charge of the police and, you know, back in 2004, when that decision was made, the decision was made because it was not working under civilian control. It was not moving quickly enough, and the thought was 36 that DOD was getting the Ministry of Defense moving, you know, and the Army moving—the Army training was under way, the Min- istry of Defense did not actually exist yet, but the Army training was under way—so surely they could deal with the police. There are all sorts of things wrong with that, but the problem is still how do you get civilians out there? Be they Department of Justice civilians or contractors, we just do not have that ready re- serve of people to pull on to do these jobs, and that is going to con- tinue to be the problem. In regards to ministry capacity, the Ministry of Interior, I have heard very little good about the Ministry of Interior since it was first set up from, you know, its very first minister. I have heard people say, “let us dismantle the Ministry of Interior,” you know, people speaking frankly about Iraq, but the thing is if you disman- tle the Ministry of Interior, you have nothing resembling a police force out on the streets and what you do have is all these guys who might be criminals anyway, but they are still there with all their weapons running around. So is it possible to reform it from the inside? That has been the question all along, and, frankly, you know, its not working so far. It is a series of fiefdoms. It is corrupt. It is a very broken system. On detainee policy, the one thing I would say is that I also read the DOD, and I read the conclusion that the justice ministry pris- ons, the post-trial prisons meet international standards by some people in Iraq who were somewhat skeptical. Now, that is just an additional data point. I do not know. I have not seen the prisons, and, you know, I have not seen the detailed report. I think actually getting a real sense of what is going on in the broad range of deten- tion facilities coalition in Iraq would be helpful. Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Oliker, you were with the CPA in Iraq early 2004, I believe. A Washington Post reporter wrote a book, "Impe- rial Life in the Emerald City: Life Inside the Green Zone.” Did you read it by any chance? Ms. OLIKER. Well, I was interviewed for it, so, yes, I read it. Mr. MEEHAN. Did you find it—we are out of time, but I want to ask you—A, accurately capture the culture in Iraq; B, somewhat capture the culture in Iraq; or C, did not capture the culture in Iraq? Ms. OLIKER. Somewhat captured the culture in Iraq. He did not live in the Green Zone. He talked to a lot of people who had been there. It is a long story on what is right and what is wrong in that book, but it is one of the most surreal places I have ever been. Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much. Dr. FENNER. Mr. Chairman, can I just follow up quickly? Mr. MEEHAN. Sure. Dr. FENNER. I read that too, and it is certainly interesting. From all the comments that you have made, though, about the changes or shift with the Department of Justice taking over from the Department of Defense, are those discussions going on? Are people seriously contemplating that kind of a shift? I think part of it is our role here, which part of the discussions we really can focus on to the greatest extent, and whether the discussions are there or they are not 37 Mr. PERITO. I do not believe so. The way the funding works is that funding goes to the State Department, and then the State De- partment make the decision, and then the funding would go to the Justice Department. So it is one reason why I said in my statement that Congress would have to give the Justice Department the au- thority and the funding to take over and run this program. Dr. CORDESMAN. May I just make a quick remark? Dr. FENNER. Yes. Dr. CORDESMAN. There are 135,000 people shown as trained and equipped in the police force. As it says very clearly, we haven the faintest number how many of those people have actually stayed, and, as Mr. Perito has pointed out, it also is not clear what is rel- evance. What bothers me a little about this discussion is I know in about at least 8 of the 12 cities that we monitor, those police are largely irrelevant, and when you do an actual map of who is the real secu- rity structure, not the Army, in most of Iraq, it really is not the police. So one of the things you honestly have to address is what would it take to deal with the mixture of militias, locally recruited police, party factions, FPS and other groups and actually fix this thing as distinguished from who are you going to put in charge, and then remember that you are asking us whether we can get this done b the beginning of 2008. When will anybody actually show up in the field and start any of this because it is not done in the ministry of interior in Baghdad. It is done in all of these police posts, in villages, in individual areas, and I get very concerned about the somewhat surrealistic discussions of putting people in charge in the ministry when the re- ality is who is doing what in the field. Dr. FENNER. Thank you. Was there anything else you would like to say? I really appre- ciate that, but I think it is always an important question, is what have we been missing, and continue to communicate with us. We would appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you very much. Again, I think the witnesses for taking the time. Your testimony was enlightening, very important to this subcommittee, and thank you very much for appearing. The subcommittee is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 3:41 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] a. APPENDIX MARCH 28, 2007 44 with the United States Institute of Peace; and Ms. Olga Oliker, who is a Senior International Policy Analyst with the RAND Corporation and served with the CPA. To encourage discussion, I would like to follow the same less-formal procedures today as we have in our previous briefings. I have talked with our distinguished Ranking Member, and he has agreed to dispense with the 5-minute rule during today's hearing Pursuant to Rule 11(b)(2) of the Rules of our Committee, the Subcommittee will dispense with the five minute rule allow questioning to proceed as subcommittee members express interest rather than strictly by seniority. I will endeavor to alternate in recognizing members between the Majority and Minority. I would like to remind everyone that while this is an open hearing, we have received closed briefings in which classified information was presented, so please be mindful of anything you might say based on what you heard in the earlier briefings. Welcome again to our witnesses. We're looking forward to your remarks. We will take your whole text for the record, if you wish, but I ask that you keep your prepared remarks fairly brief so we can get to our questions. Now, I would like to turn to my colleague, Mr. Akin, our ranking member, for any opening remarks he might have. 45 Statement of Ranking Member Todd Akin Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee Hearing on Iraqi Security Forces, Non-Governmental Perspectives March 28, 2007 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you calling this very important hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today—I look forward to hearing your statements. Today's hearing is this subcommittee's first open meeting, and culminates a month of oversight activities aimed at investigating the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). Over the last few weeks we have focused on the costs of funding and sustaining the ISF, analyzed the plan for transitioning the handling of ISF finances over to the Government of Iraq, reviewed how we train and equip the ISF, and discussed the logistical capability the ISF requires to become a self-sustaining force. After traveling to Iraq and participating in our subcommittee meetings I am convinced that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are the linchpin of our 46 strategy to create a safe and secure Iraq. Anything our investigation can do to advance the effectiveness and success of the ISF is critical. Mr. Chairman, before we roll into the testimony I want to make two points about what I'd like focus on during today's hearing: o First, I'd like our witnesses to discuss how we are using the ISF to accomplish our strategic objectives in Iraq. Spending billions on building a self-sustained force is only worthwhile if the ISF is advancing our goals in Iraq. A key metric that we need to get a handle on is whether we are using the ISF in a strategically sound way, and if the ISF is performing effectively at the tactical level. I suspect that the Baghdad Security Plan-or "Operation Enforcing the Law”—is a model that we should replicate throughout Iraq for how to use the ISF to fight all elements of the insurgency. o The second issue, Mr. Chairman, which I would like to pursue today, is the importance of the U.S. commitment to the ISF. I believe that the U.S. Congress has a responsibility to fund the ISF. As this subcommittee moves forward with our investigation of the ISF, the FY 2007 47 Emergency Supplemental, passed by the House last week, includes language that will withhold 50% of the $3.8 billion dedicated to funding the ISF until political conditions are met—these conditions, I believe, are unreasonable. Everything we have learned in our work on the ISF to date leads to the conclusion that the ISF is the key to creating a stable Iraq, so that political progress can take place. Expecting political progress without giving the ISF money to generate secure conditions for creating political reform seems to me wrongheaded. Again, thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. [Yield Back to Chairman Meehan] Iraqi Security Forces: Status and Prospects Frederick W. Kagan Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, March 28, 2007 The change in American strategy in Iraq announced by President Bush on January 10, 2007 requires a fundamental re-evaluation of every aspect of America's approach to the war. This requirement is nowhere greater than in our view of the Iraqi Security Forces and our evaluation of their progress. For three years, America's civilian and military leaders have seen and presented developing the ISF as a means to an endas a way to hasten the reduction in and ultimate departure of American troops from Iraq. This conception of the purpose of ISF training created a short-term focus that has hindered the development of a self-sufficient Iraqi military and police but that has been successful in putting more than 135,000 trained soldiers and tens of thousands of trained police in the field. The misconception of the purpose of developing the ISF also created unrealistic expectations. It was always unreasonable to imagine that a fledgling force, created from scratch beginning in 2004 in the midst of an insurgency and then a growing sectarian conflict, could take the lead in restoring peace and order in Iraq. From the outset, it would have been wiser to see the ISF as a force that could assist the coalition in suppressing the Sunni Arab insurgents, al Qaeda and related terrorists, and then Shi'ite militias, but that would, above all, be able to maintain order once it had been established. The president's new strategy has embraced this more realistic view, and events on the ground are beginning to validate this approach. Iraqi Army Let there be no doubt, the training of the Iraqi Army between 2004 and the present has been a remarkable achievement. Coalition partners from many countries helped the Iraqis develop an army of 10 divisions and more than 135,000 soldiers. To put this achievement into perspective, let us recall that this force is now larger than the standing armies of France and Great Britain. It is an all-volunteer force, and the system of monthly leaves means that soldiers in the force in effect re-up every month (since. desertion is so easy). The Iraqi Army's battle record is impressive for such a young force. Efforts to rush Iraqi soldiers, barely trained and poorly equipped, into combat in 2004 were largely unsuccessful. By 2005, some Iraqi units were able to operate effectively in areas of mixed ethno-sectarian make-up in partnership with American forces--the clear Afar in September 2005 being a notable example. In 2006, Iraqi Army units continued to operate in partnership with coalition forces across Iraq, although efforts to bring additional Iraqi Army units into Baghdad during Operations Together Forward I and II largely failed through lack of planning and preparation. The planning and execution of the reinforcement of Iraqi Army units in Baghdad in support of Operation Enforcing the Law, the Baghdad Security Plan the president announced in January, has been excellent. 50 services and supplies. The Iraqi Army, in other words, is coming closer and closer every day to being an independent, self-sustaining military organization. The completion of this process will take time. Training soldiers and officers, building administrative structures, developing standard operating procedures both militarily and bureaucratically, creating a military system that links the Prime Minister to the lowest private these are not things that happen overnight. Creating this military instrument in the midst of ethno-sectarian conflict, insurgency, and terrorism is even more difficult. It is highly unlikely that the Iraqi Army will be able to function completely independently for several years, although the level of coalition support required may begin to drop significantly in 2008. A key factor in that equation is the security situation in Iraq. The Bush administration's previous emphasis on building the Iraqi Army rapidly to minimize the use of American forces in a purely counter-insurgent role allowed the security situation in Iraq to deteriorate between 2003 and the beginning of this year. The deterioration of the security situation dramatically increased the difficulty of forming the Iraqi Army. Poor security led to attacks on recruiting stations and the intimidation of recruits, which in turn led to ethno-sectarian imbalances in Iraq Army units (imbalances that are being corrected in some units today). Poor security and inappropriate priorities led to the premature commitment of Iraqi forces to battles they could not win, harming morale in the Iraqi force and tarnishing its image in Iraq and in the U.S. Continuing insurgent attacks on the families of Iraqi soldiers encouraged desertion and refusals to deploy. The worsening security created an environment of growing friction that delayed the development of the Iraqi military. The establishment of security will permit the completion of that development in a more timely manner. Iraqi Police The story of the development of the Iraqi police forces has been less encouraging than that of the Iraqi Army. This fact is not surprising for several reasons. To begin with, neither the U.S. nor its NATO allies have yet figured out a good way to train indigenous police forces. Efforts to do so in the Balkans and in Afghanistan have encountered serious setbacks. American difficulties in this regard are not surprising. The U.S. does not have a federal police force similar to the Iraqi National Police or the Afghan National Police forces it has been trying to help create. Sending senior officers from the NYPD to Iraq (or Afghanistan or anywhere else) does not resolve the problem that an Iraqi policeman has a very different mission from a New York City cop. Iraq needs a strong, centralized national police force capable of conducting paramilitary operations against terrorists and insurgents—but that also has an appropriate ethno-sectarian balance, is loyal and responsible to whoever holds legitimate power in Baghdad, and is not infiltrated by the hostile forces it is intended to control. These are requirements for which there is no American equivalent. There are some European equivalents (many European states have national police forces; some have paramilitary capabilities), but even such European states seem unable to help create and train indigenous forces in other countries-European trainers have been in the lead in these efforts in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and have been heavily involved in Iraq. It is time to recognize that building 51 indigenous police forces is a task that NATO as an alliance is not prepared to undertake readily, and to begin to redress this important gap in alliance capabilities. Beyond these difficulties, the challenges of building an effective national police force in the context of ethno-sectarian conflict, terrorism, and insurgency are daunting. Military forces are often recruited from across an entire country, and can be used as integrating schools of a mixed state. Half of Iraq's Army divisions were recruited in this fashion; the other half were recruited locally. But police are, almost by definition, local forces. An effective police force must reflect and represent the ethno-sectarian make-up of the population it is policing. A national police force must be able to maintain an appropriate balance. The ongoing Sunni Arab insurgency made the recruiting of Sunni Arabs into the police forces almost impossible until recently, and the sectarian imbalance within the police seriously degraded their ability to operate effectively as part of the counter- insurgent and, especially, counter-militia effort. In addition, the inclusion of Moqtada al Sadr in the government and the importance his Mahdi Army gained in the absence of security by posing as the defender of the Shi'ite people permitted Sadr to infiltrate the Interior Ministry (among others) with his followers. As long as the Sunni Arab insurgency appeared to rage unchecked, as long as the Iraqi government and people believed that the U.S. would withdraw without bringing order to the country, Maliki found it impossible to clear out the Mol or the police force even to remove individuals engaging in death-squad activities or actively supporting them. Failure to establish and maintain security seriously harmed an already-problematic effort to create effective national police forces. As a result, although there are more than 180,000 people on the rolls of the various Iraqi police forces (including border guards, national police, local police, and strategic infrastructure brigades), it is impossible to know for sure how many regularly show up for work (or are even still alive), and what role they have been playing in the ongoing violence. The start of Operation Enforcing the Law has coincided with some important positive trends even in this difficult area, however. Iraqi police formations in Baghdad are operating in close conjunction with coalition forces and Iraqi Army units, and are therefore much less prone to engage in sectarian violence and death-squad activity, Maliki has leveraged the influx of American and Iraqi Army forces into the capital to clear Sadrists out of important positions in the Mol, where 3,000 people were recently dismissed (as well as the Health Ministry, another Sadrist stronghold), and to re-vet and retrain a number of Iraqi National Police units. A fortuitous development has changed the equation profoundly in Anbar province. Several unspeakable al Qaeda atrocities have finally alienated prominent Sunni Arab sheiks in that province, who have turned on al Qaeda and reached out to Maliki (who reached back with a recent dramatic visit to Ramadi). The symbol of their disenchantment with al Qaeda has been the enrolling of their sons in local police forces. Thousands of Anbaris have entered police training programs in Jordan and elsewhere, and the police forces of Fallujah and Ramadi are now over-strength with local, Su Arab recruits. They are actively fighting al Qaeda operatives in those cities and helping 52 to drive al Qaeda out of its bases in Anbar. Just a few days ago, 500 Anbari police went door-to-door in Ramadi looking for terrorists and weapons caches—and finding some. It appears that this effect is spilling over into Iraqi Army recruitment as well, and that heavily-Shi’ite IA units based in Anbar are working to correct their sectarian balance with local recruits. In Ninewah province, home to Tall Afar and Mosul, a single American brigade has been maintaining reasonable order in that province with the assistance of 18,000 Iraqi police and 20,000 Iraqi Army soldiers. U.S. forces in Mosul, a mixed city of 1.8 million people, are now down to one battalion-under 1,000 soldiers. This is all good news. The continued operation of Iraqi police with IA and coalition forces in Baghdad will also help improve their capabilities and their professionalism. Continuing to clear out and revamp the Mol and the police ranks will be a significant challenge for the Maliki government, and will require persistence and patience. But the actions of both the government and the Iraqi people suggest that success is possible even in this difficult endeavor. Conclusion Looked at from an objective, historical perspective, the creation from scratch of a 10- division Iraqi Army and a partially effective Iraqi police force in a few years has been an extraordinary accomplishment. It took the American revolutionaries two years, much outside professional assistance, and great luck to win their first battle in 1777. It took nearly as long for the Union to manage a victory at Antietam significant enough for Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. In fact, a book was written in the 1980s (America's First Battles) on the long and inglorious tradition of American forces losing the first battles of every war they fought before the Gulf War. Initial difficulties and even defeats are the normal lot of young, inexperienced forces. They say little about the ultimate outcome of the struggle. The setbacks and difficulties the Iraqi Security Forces have encountered since 2003 should have surprised no one. They have acquired an importance beyond their real significance because of the exaggerated hopes of the Bush administration and many Americans resulting from the mistaken notion that training Iraqis was a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The reversal of American strategy in this regard in January 2007 has already yielded dividends in the improved effectiveness of both the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi National Police. We must continue to support this strategy, both with regard to the effort to establish security and with regard to the completion of the Iraqi Security Forces' training, development, and institutional support. Above all, we must avoid both artificial timelines and unrealistic expectations. Success is possible--it is, indeed, occurring. We must give it the time and the resources required to see this important task all the way through. 53 04/27/2007 15:23 2823323231 PAGE DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES CONCERNING FEDERAL CONTRACT AND GRANT INFORMATION INSTRUCTION TO WITNESSES: Rule 11, clause 2(8X4), of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives for the 110° Congress requires nongovernmental witnesses appearing before House committees to include in their written statements a curriculum vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants (including subcontracts and subgrants) received during the current and two previous fiscal years either by the witness or by an entity represented by the witness. This form is intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House Armed Services Committee in complying with the House rule. Witness name: _Frederick Kagan Capacity in which appearing: (check one) _xxIndividual _Representative If appearing in a representative capacity, name of the company, association or other entity beiog represented: FISCAL YEAR 2007 federal grant(s)/ contracts federal agency dollar value subject(s) of contract or grant FISCAL YEAR 2006 federal agency dollar value federal grant(s)/ contracts Contract OSD subject(s) of contract or grant Scharnhorst and Transformation (multi-year) $19,000 54 04/27/2007 15:23 2023323231 PAGE 02 FISCAL YEAR 2005 dollar value Federal grant(s)/T federal agency contracts Contract TOSD $19,000 subject(s) of contract or graat Scharnhorst and Transformation (multi-year) Federal Contract Information: If you or the entity you represent before the Committee on Armed Services has contracts (including subcontracts) with the federal government, please provide the following information; Number of contracts (including subcontracts) with the federal government: Current fiscal year (2007): 0 Fiscal year 2006 Fiscal year 2005; Federal agencies with which federal contracts are held: na Current fiscal year (2007): __ Fiscal year 2006: OSD Fiscal year 2005: _OSD List of subjects of federal contract(s) (for example, ship construction, aircraft parts manufacturing, software design, force structure consultant, architecture & engineering services, etc.); Current fiscal year (2007): Fiscal year 2006: __Research/writing. Fiscal year 2005: _Research/writing Aggregate dollar value of federal contracts held: Current fiscal year (2007): _na Fiscal year 2006: _ $19,000 (multi-year). Fiscal year 2005: ___$19,000 (multi-year). 56 Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee House Armed Services Committee March 28, 2007 REFORMING THE IRAQI INTERIOR MINISTRY, POLICE AND FACILITIES PROTECTION SERVICE Robert M. Perito Senior Program Officer United States Institute of Peace Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee for inviting me to speak this afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this hearing on the progress and challenges toward transitioning security responsibilities to the government of Iraq. As Senior Program Officer in the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations at the U.S. Institute of Peace, I have analyzed police systems in a number of countries. However, the views I express are my own and not necessarily those of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which does not advocate specific policy positions. Summary In December 2006, the “Year of the Police” ended with the completion of the Multi- National Security Transition Command's (MNSTC-I) program to train and equip 135,000 members of the Iraq Police Service. Training and equipment was also provided to the 24,400 members of the Iraq National Police (constabulary) and 28,400 members of the Border Police. Nearly 180 American Police Transition Teams and 39 National Police Transition Teams were embedded with Iraqi forces, while a 100-member Ministry Transition Team was assigned to the Ministry of Interior to improve its operations. Achievement of these quantitative goals, while impressive, masks a troubled reality in regards to the loyalty and quality of Iraqi security forces. In fact, the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which supervises police forces, is dysfunctional and heavily infiltrated by Shiite militias. The Iraq Police Service (street cops) is unable to protect Iraq citizens. Criminal gangs operate with impunity, cooperate with insurgents for profit, and engage in smuggling of oil and antiquities. The Iraqi National Police, a patchwork organization of commando-style, counter-insurgency units, harbors sectarian death squads. The Border Police is unable to stop infiltration of terrorists, arms and contraband across Iraq's porous borders. Iraqi police often are intimidated by or collude with insurgents, militias and criminals. Iraqi police units normally are at half of their authorized strength due to attrition, chronic absenteeism and the corrupt practice of including "ghosts" on the rolls. Only five of Iraq's eighteen provinces have the necessary complement of PTTs to conduct assessments and provide in service training. 58 Recommendation There is no alternative to the slow and painful work of organizational transformation in : the Interior Ministry. This requires persistent efforts by American advisors starting with the most senior Iraqi officials and moving down. It involves creating a strategic plan and working out standard administrative procedures, codes of conduct and operational measures that are accepted and used by the Iraqis. The practice of Americans drafting plans for Iraqis to sign and then ignore must end. Frequent political interventions by U.S. political authorities will be required to kept the process moving forward. The Interior Ministry must re-exert influence over the provinces (outside the Kurdistan Region) by reversing the decentralization of control of the police that occurred during the Coalition Provisional Authority. Central to this effort is strengthening the Major Crimes Unit and Task Force to control criminal enterprises that operate throughout the country. A means must also be found to pay police salaries directly to police officers in the absence of an effective banking system. Currently, provincial police chiefs receive funds directly from the Finance Ministry for operations and salaries, but Baghdad has no ability to verify the accuracy of provincial budgets or account for expenditures. Direct pay would reduce corruption, limit the power of provincial police officials and help police officers identify with the national government. It would also reduce chronic absenteeism caused by the need for police to travel home each month to bring money to their families. II. Move All Counter-insurgency and Border Forces to the Defense Ministry In March 2004, President Bush signed a presidential directive transferring responsibility for the Iraq police assistance program from State to the Department of Defense and the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq. To confront the growing insurgency, the U.S. military created "heavy police units” composed of former Iraqi soldiers. The original Public Order Battalion, Mechanized Police Unit, and Emergency Response Unit were composed of Sunnis. Under Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, Shiite officials created new, special police commando units composed of fighters from Shiite militia organizations. Their un-vetted personnel were given military weapons and counter-insurgency training. In early 2006, MINSTC-I combined these units into a new organization, the "Iraqi National Police (INP)." By summer 2006, it became clear that many of these INP units were engaged in sectarian violence and death squad activities. On October 5, 2006, U.S. military forces removed the entire 8th Brigade of the 2nd National Police Division from duty and arrested its officers after the Brigade was implicated in the raid on a food factory in Baghdad and the kidnapping of 26 Sunni workers of which seven were executed. This was among the first public manifestations of a CPATT program to remove all the National Police brigades from service for limited vetting and reorientation. Members of these units received three weeks of "police transformational training” to improve their police skills and respect for human rights and the rule of law. This was the first police training that these forces received. National Police units were issued new uniforms with digital patterns that would be difficult to duplicate. Previously Iraqi officials countered allegations of police involvement in 60 Recommendation The Iraq Police Service should be refocused toward controlling crime and protecting Iraqi civilians. It should receive the legal authority, training and equipment to perform this function. In practice this will involve giving the IPS greater responsibility to conduct criminal investigations and expanding its cooperation with the judicial system. This will not be easy. It will require persistent American advisors and political pressure to help the Iraqis assume new responsibilities and work out new ways of interacting. IV. Move and Shrink the Facilities Protection Service Under the Coalition Provisional Authority, the Facilities Protection Service (FPS) was formed in 2003 to provide guards for public buildings and essential infrastructure. Each of the 26 ministries and eight independent directorates, such as the Central Bank, was allowed to recruit its own guard force. There are 150,000 FPS officers and anther 8,700 personal security guards for Iraqi leaders. FPS officers were issued police style uniforms, badges and weapons, but they did not receive police training nor were they given police authority. The ministerial guard forces became the private armies and a source of patronage jobs and funding. Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr controls the Health, Education and Transportation ministries. The FPS provides money and jobs for the Mahdi Army, Interior Minister Bolani has publicly blamed the FPS for sectarian violence. Members of the FPS have been implicated in criminal activity. Recommendation On December 27, Prime Minister al Maliki signed a directive consolidating FPS under control of the Interior Ministry, which will be responsible for registering personnel, standardizing uniforms and equipment, providing training and downsizing the force, This effort has yet to begin, but it will exceed the capability of the Interior Ministry unless U.S. money and muscle is applied. Most observers believe the number of FPS personnel should be reduced to around 45,000. If the INP and Border Police are transferred to Defense Ministry, the Interior Ministry could take over the management of the FPS as compensation. V. Put the U.S. Justice Department In Charge With completion of the U.S. military-led, force generation stage of the Iraq police assistance program, it is appropriate to reassess where responsibility for this program should be assigned. The U.S. military's takeover of responsibility for training indigenous police in Iraq was unprecedented. Beginning with Operation Just Cause in Panama, responsibility for police training in post-conflict interventions was always assigned to the Department of Justice with policy guidance from the Department of State. The Justice Department's international police training program has the expertise and experience and should be given this program. This will be a major task, since more than 30,000 new police will be required annually to maintain current force levels. 62 TESTIMONY Iraqi Security Forces Defining Challenges and Assessing Progress OLGA OUKER CT-277 March 2007 Testimony presented before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on March 28, 2007 This product is part of the RAND Corporation testimony series. RAND testimonies record testimony presented by RAND associates to federal, state, or local legislative committees, government appointed commissions and panels; and private review and oversight bodies. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. RANDO is a registered trademark. RAND 63 Published 2007 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org/ To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: order@rand.org 64 Olga Oliker? Senior International Policy Analyst The RAND Corporation Iraqi Security Forces: Defining Challenges and Assessing Progress Before the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations United States House of Representatives March 28, 2007 Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Akin, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee: 1 appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss this important issue. Today I plan to discuss the Iraqi security forces, their status and development to date, and what we might want to know in the future to better assess progress. Counting Security Forces No one knows how many Iraqi security personnel there are today. The Pentagon can tell us that as of March 21, 2007, 329,800 Iraqi security personnel had been "trained and equipped," however, this number counts only how many Ministry of Defense (MOD) and Ministry of Interior (Mol) personnel have completed Coalition training programs. While it can tell us whether or not the Coalition is meeting its training targets, it doesn't tell us how many Iraqis are in uniform. It does not take into account deaths, desertions, or Iraqi police who are on the job but have not received Coalition-sponsored training. It fails to convey the fact that some quarter of military personnel and unknown number of police aren't at their jobs at any given time (they're on leave, taking their paychecks home, or just not there). Nor does it include thousands of other agents of the government in uniform and with guns. Iraqi officials are also not sure how many security personnel there are today. They may be able to calculate whom they are paying, but the fact is that they're still paying some unknown number of people who aren't actually working. Moreover, the Ministry of Finance pays the bulk of Iraq's The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the author's alone and should not be interpreted as representing those of RAND or any of the sponsors of its research. This product is part of the RAND Corporation testimony series. RAND testimonies record testimony presented by RAND associates to federal, state, or local legislative committees; government-appointed commissions and panels, and private review and oversight bodies. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Significant portions of this testimony are drawn from Olga Oliker, "No Law and No Order," Parliamentary Brief, December 2006. The most recent numbers and data are from the "Iraq Weekly Status Reports," produced by the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs of the United States Department of State and available at http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/iraqstatus/c20699.htm, and U.S. Department of Defense, "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq," March 2007. This testimony is available for free download at http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT277. 65 police by providing a lump sum, based on payroll numbers, to local officials who then disburse it. Aside from being a recipe for corruption, this means that the local officials may know whom they're paying, but the Ministry does not. is it important to know how many Iraqis are serving? Yes, it is. It is crucial for the Iraqis, so that they can make their payroll numbers make sense. It is also important for the United States, as we seek to assess how capable Iraq's security forces are. But knowing how many Iraqis are in uniform is not enough. In order to determine whether the Iraqi Security Forces are up to the task, we must be able to assess their not just their quantity, but also their capacity or quality, and, no less important, their loyalty. Who Are the Iraqi Security Forces? If we don't know the total numbers, what do we know? We know what sorts of forces have been built. The Ministry of Defense has ground, air, and naval forces, and special operations unit under its command. The vast majority of its personnel, however, on the order of 98-99%, are ground troops. The Ministry of Interior forces are the locally recruited and based Iraqi Police Service (IPS), the centrally controlled National Police (NP), the Department of Border Enforcement (DBE), and a small number of dignitary protection personnel. These are not the only Iraqi government security forces in the fight, however. Agents of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service and the Ministry of State for National Security Affairs are armed and have a variety of security force functions. Moreover, nearly 150,000 Facilities Protection Personnel, whose job is to guard ministries and other government facilities, are on the job with little training, but with weapons. While there are plans to place the FPS under the Ministry of Interior, they currently report to the full range of Iraqi government structures which they protect. Originally conceived as an external defense force, the Iraqi Armed Forces have increasingly taken on the counterinsurgency mission. They support Coalition and Iraqi police efforts and carry out operations on their own. They also include some specialized forces including counterterrorism and special operations units, and a tiny Navy and Air Force. The IPS are responsible for community policing-keeping order in Iraq's cities, villages, and neighborhoods. The National Police combines the several specialized forces that were set up within the Mol by Coalition and Iraqi officials in 2003-2005. These included public order brigades, emergency response forces, one mechanized brigade, and commando units. The job of the National Police is counterinsurgency. The concept is of a mobile intervention force that can go where it is needed, but as part of the police rather than the Armed Forces. 66 Training approaches have varied considerably over the last four years. For example, half of the Iraqi National Army's ten divisions were built as Army forces from the start, and those received a standard package of Coalition-developed training. The other half are the descendants of the fragi National Guard, which, in turn, grew out of the Iraqi Civilian Defense Corps. This was initially created during CPA to support coalition forces in their missions. These personnel had minimal initial training, and what they got was predominantly on-the-job. Today, all Iraqi armed forces are centrally recruited. New recruits get thirteen weeks of basic training followed by three to seven weeks of more specialized training. Iraqi trainers are now responsible for most of the basic training. Police training approaches and duration have shifted over time. Now, in princ officer is supposed to undergo a ten week course for new recruits (although some reports suggest this may have shrunk to eight weeks). Police with prior experience can undergo a shortened, three week course. As with the Army, specialized, follow-on courses exist for leadership development and specific skills. However, because many IPS are recruited locally, with no involvement by the United States or other Coalition personnel, they do not attend the initial training at all. After they have served a year personnel are eligible for the three week training, but it is not known how many attend. The National Police undergo six weeks of tactical counterinsurgency training. Emergency response forces and other specialized units get additional training on top of this. Until recently, this training included little in the way of policing tactics and approaches. Although some have proposed shifting the National Police to the Armed Forces, according to DoD reports, an effort is now underway to reorient the national police to policing approaches (i.e. by retraining on a police curriculum) and to grow the size of the force. As with the military, Iraqis have taken over most basic police training at this time. Equipment also varies, as does its quality. Most of the MOD's weapons and vehicles were procured without support packages, and because both spare parts and qualified mechanics are in short supply, operational readiness has been a problem. Iraq's regular police, armed with AK- 475, PKC light machine guns, and Glock pistols, and National Police, which have a light infantry package not dissimilar to MoD forces (crew served machine guns, grenade launchers and personal machine guns, as well as armored vehicles for its mechanized brigade) have had similar problems as well as fuel shortages. While police are in principle equipped once they are trained, those who don't undergo coalition training are equipped locally. 3 "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq.” 67 Iraqi forces are not equipped at anywhere near the level of Coalition forces They have limited armored vehicles and most Iraqi personnel get by with only an AK-47 and a pistol. Not only are foreign forces better equipped, the enemy is often better equipped. In years past, Coalition forces have avoided providing more and better weapons to Iraqis, in part because they're not confident that the weapons will be put to appropriate use. This is a valid concern given the large amount of equipment that has gone missing and the increasing sectarian divides amongst troops (to which I will return). It is also very appropriate to worry about the potential for heavier weapons to exacerbate Iraqi government abuses of power, now and in the future. But the fact is that these approaches have limited Iraqi capacity. The DoD is working now to improve this situation, both by providing more armored vehicles and heavier weaponry and by developing Iraqi maintenance capacity, but this is a matter of APCs and HMMWWS, not a wholesale change in approach. Efforts are also underway to better track equipment issued to the police through the introduction of accountability practices. However, the fact remains that as currently armed by the coalition, Iraqi forces will be able to take control of security in Iraq only when the country becomes relatively peaceful. While basic training is now predominantly carried out by Iraqis, Coalition forces are involved in mentoring and monitoring Iraqi units. Advisory teams assigned to the Iraqi Armed Forces, IPS, National Police, and DBE, ideally eat, drink, sleep and patrol with Iraqis. It is hoped that the relationships they build will instill professionalism and loyalty to the state. The presence of advisors also improves head counts of forces and makes it easier for the Coalition to assess readiness and capacity. Mentors also work with personnel at the Defense Ministry and Ministry of Interior in efforts to build capacity. Most mentors, for both police and military Iraqi units, are military personnel. There are not sufficient international police advisors to work with IPS and National Police units, so Military Police and other military personnel are used instead (and even then there aren't enough mentors to cover all units). This is unfortunate. Past counterinsurgencies have shown that local police are the crucial element of success. By focusing on police actions, the illegality of the insurgency is emphasized. Military operations, in contrast, perpetuate a perception of armed conflict underway. Moreover, and even more important, the focus of police efforts is protection of the civilian population, crucial for winning popular support for the local government. Civilians will see military personnel as fighters, not protectors, and they will often be right. Military tactics and training make different assumptions about threat, and have different priorities regarding relations with civilians than do police approaches. While police may not be able to handle the situation alone when violence is extremely high, their involvement alongside the military (and foreign forces), and alone once violence is brought down, makes the key difference. Thus, the effort to reorient the 68 National Police towards a stronger policing approach will in the long run serve Iraq better than would a greater domestic role for the military. Mentoring should also reflect this priority. What Are They Fighting For? Over the last four years, Iraqi units have grown increasingly monoethnic. The regular police reflect the ethnic mix where they live. The National Police, once with a large Sunni component, are now overwhelmingly Shi'a, In the Iraqi Armed Forces, Iraqis report that senior officials are seeking to solidify Shi'a control of all the security forces, including the MOD. The rank and file of the Army has long been disproportionately Shi'a. But while officers have been disproportionately Sunni in the past, this is changing, and Sunni ranks overall are thinning as more and more personnel leave. Aside from the serious matter of infiltration by insurgents, which has clearly occurred throughout the Iraqi security forces, there is also no question that some Iraqi police, border, and military personnel (and some entire units) are also members of sectarian and ethnic militias. Primarily, this means that they are affiliated with the Kurdish peshmerga, the Shi'a Badr Corps, and the Shi'a Mahdi Army. Other personnel, who are not affiliated with militias personally, are nonetheless intimidated into cooperating with militias through threats to them and their families. Still others are not members of militias or working with them directly, but they are more loyal to regional, religious, or political leaders than they are to Iraq as a whole. Now, there is nothing wrong (and, in fact, everything right) with community loyalty in a local police officer. However, as I wrote in "No Law and No Order," "when the overwhelmingly Shi'a National Police carry out searches in Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad, or Kurdish military units are sent into Shi'a towns, Iraqi security forces are seen by their fellow Iraqis as part of the growing sectarian conflict. This is further exacerbated by the fact that some Iraqi security force personnel have, indeed, been complicit in death squad activity. These reports are most often traced to the National Police, particularly the commandos, but IPS and Iraqi Armed Forces personnel have also been accused.m4 Vetting forces to eliminate inappropriate loyalties is an effort long underway, and long ineffective. Personnel are required to pledge that they do not belong to militia groups, but this is obviously an imperfect approach. In recent months, an effort was undertaken to eliminate from the Iraqi police personnel with Saddam-era criminal records. The National Police have implemented a short training program, required for all personnel, to focus on professionalism and ethics. Coalition personnel are less hopeful that this program will instill patriotism than that it will provide another * Oliker, "No Law and No Order." 70 equipment to go missing. If Iraqis are taking the building of national security forces seriously, they must develop vetting and investigative capacity-and use them to ensure loyalty to the state, not its components. They must take investigations of malfeasance to senior levels, and publicize no tolerance for such activities. In past cases of abuses, senior personnel were, for the most part, not fired, but reassigned. Although DoD, the U.S. Embassy, and MNF-I have worked and are working to improve this situation, there is little evidence that there has been sufficient progress to date. When we start to see senior personnel with strong connections to the current political leadership brought to trial for malfeasance, we will know the tide has truly turned. Transitioning to Iraqi Control Yet, with all of these problems, we are continually hearing that the United States is turning over security to Iraqi forces. Three entire provinces in the South have transitioned to Iraqi control, according to DoD, and three more in the North are about to we are told. To quote from the Pentagon's Quarterly Report to Congress, "As of February 13, 2007, 8 Division Headquarters, 31 Brigade Headquarters, and 93 Iraqi Army battalions had assumed the lead for counter-insurgency operations within their assigned areas of operations, and Iraqi Ground Forces Command (IGFC) had assumed command and control of 6 of 10 Iraqi Army divisions (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 8th, and 10th)." The decision to "transition" control is based on an aggregate scoring of a number of measures. In the case of provinces, these include Threat Assessment, ISF Readiness, Local Governance Capability, and MNF- Ability to Respond Quickly to Major Threats (if needed). For units, the standard is their capacity to plan and execute combat operations, an assessment that then feeds into the ISF Readiness score for the province. But as the Pentagon report clarifies, even after units have transitioned, “Although these units lead security in their respective areas of operations, most still require substantial logistics and sustainment support from Coalition forces. "5 Thus, while provinces where control has transitioned are under Iraqi authority, with foreign forces operating only with Iraqi permission, many of the units, which are formally in control, still need considerable assistance. This has implications for how we understand Iraqi capacity to operate independently. Although there are areas where the Coalition has been able to reduce forces and operations, there is at this time nowhere in Iraq where Iraqi forces can truly stand alone and provide security to the public in a way that is capable, responsible, and that we can be fully confident does not foment conflict and distrust rather than eliminating them. When Coalition forces start to truly turn over 5 "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq." 72 How many Iraqi security force personnel, by rank and specialty, are on what payrolls, by force type and by locality? How many Iraqi security force personnel, by rank and specialty, are on the job at any given time, again, by force type and locality? How do Coalition and Iraqi forces on the ground assess whether and how the ethnic/religious makeup of various forces is changing, and what implications and effects do they see in the communities where these forces are operating? What are absentee rates in various units, structures, and regions and what are the reasons for absence? How is this changing over time? Is there any real or perceived variation by ethnicity and religion? Because data may not be available for issues of ethnicity and religion, it is important to ask how Coalition forces working with Iraqi units assess this issue. What are desertion, death, and injury rates in various units, structures, and regions? How are these changing over time? Is there any known or perceived variation by ethnicity and religion in any of these figures? How do Coalition forces working with Iraqi units assess this issue? What are recruitment rates in various units, structures, and regions over time? What are retention rates? How do these vary by ethnicity and religion? How do Coalition forces working with Iraqi units assess this issue? What are Iraqi and coalition assessments on the deployability of various Iraqi units? What causes any delays in deployment? How are Iraqi units scoring on DoD readiness assessments? How is this changing over time? How have units in regions that are ready to transition or have transitioned to Iraqi control scoring? How do Coalition and Iraqi personnel think these assessment mechanisms might be improved? What proportion of various units and structures, by region, have received what training (including how long the training was and when they were trained)? How appropriate do they and the Coalition forces who work with them think that training was? What vetting procedures are in place, and how are they being implemented? When abuses are discovered, how are they investigated and what happens to the perpetrators? How, if at all, do violence rates correlate with the training local units receive? How, if at all, do violence rates correlate with the sorts of forces deployed in localities? 73 What are the levels of citizen reporting of tips to various Iraqi forces? What sorts of forces receive what tips, and are the tips correlated with increases or decreases in violence? How do forces on the ground assess Ministry capacity and its development? What access have Coalition forces sought, and what access have they received, to various detention facilities? What is their assessment of those facilities and what progress is being made to build new facilities and improve old ones? What oversight structures is the Iraqi government putting into place and how do Coalition personnel and Iraqis assess their prospects for effectiveness? How does Iraqi public opinion of security force capacity, government capacity, local safety, and prospects for the future correlate (or not) with all of these developments? Some of this information is being collected by the Iraqi government. Some is tracked by Coalition units working with Iraqis, but this varies by unit. Some data may not be possible to collect. For example, the Iraqis do not formally track the ethnicity or religion of their forces, and there is concern that if they did, such statistics would only aid in sectarian cleansing. However, both Iraqi and Coalition forces will have their own perceptions of these issues, and those can be collected. In fact, often qualitative assessments will be more important than quantitative ones. Personnel working with and within the Iraqi security forces will have a much better idea of who is really coming to work, what the levels of sectarian tension are in a unit, and how well that unit is doing than can ever be reflected by numbers alone. Moreover, while outside audits are very important, and should be implemented where feasible and appropriate, in the end, a great deal of any assessment will depend on what the people on the ground report. It is crucial that they be asked the right questions. In addition, it is critical to ensure quality reporting by the Executive Branch on progress in mentoring Iraqi security forces, the effort to shift the National Police to a more policing-oriented approach, access to and progress in the prisons and courts system, and institutional development. Finally, although this may not be the role of this Committee, the development of Iraqi intelligence structures, and coalition involvement in those structures, will undoubtedly prove very important to future developments. This area also demands consistent oversight. Broadening and improving the data available will improve the ability to judge progress. If security concerns preclude public dissemination of some of this information, then at least Congressional oversight bodies and other executive branch organs of the U.S. Government need to be well- informed and up-to-date. It is also important to determine what information can and cannot be provided, and why. The inability to collect certain data is indicative in and of itself. 10 74 The development of Iraqi security structures, and Iraq's security sector as a whole, is crucial to any hope of stabilizing the country. Therefore, having a better understanding of what is and is not working will assist the U.S. in supporting programs that work and ending ones that do not. However, effective assessments demand updated and accurate information and good policy requires proper and adequate oversight. If we don't know what works and what doesn't, we are almost certainly doomed to fail. 75 DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES CONCERNING FEDERAL CONTRACT AND GRANT INFORMATION INSTRUCTION TO WITNESSES: Rule 11, clause 2(g)(4), of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives for the 110th Congress requires nongovernmental witnesses appearing before House committees to include in their written statements a curriculum vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants (including subcontracts and subgrants) received during the current and two previous fiscal years either by the witness or by an entity represented by the witness. This form is intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House Armed Services Committee in complying with the House rule. Witness name: Olga Oliker Capacity in which appearing: (check one) _Individual X_Representative If appearing in a representative capacity, name of the company, association or other entity being represented: RAND Corporation FISCAL YEAR 2007 federal agency dollar value federal grant(s)/ contracts Contract Contract Contract Contract US Army OSD Intelligence Agency US Air Force 42,498,730 53,574,114 181,462 47,250,588 subject(s) of contract or grant FFRDC: Research FFRDC: Research Research FFRDC: Research FISCAL YEAR 2006 federal agency dollar value federal grant(s)/ contracts Contract Contract Contract Contract US ARMY US Army OSD DoE/Batelle Labs 3,980,000 42,498,730 140,031,030 181,462 subject(s) of contract or grant FFRDC: Research FFRDC: Research FFRDC: Research Research Research (same contract as FY 2007) Research FFRDC: Research Contract 181,462 Contract Contract FISCAL YEAR 2005 Intelligence Agency Intelligence Agency US Air Force 164,738 46,886,588 DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD MARCH 28, 2007 Center for Strategic and International Studies Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy 1800 K Street, N.W.. Suite 400 • Washington, DC 20006 Phone: 1 (202) 775-3270 · Fax: 1 (202) 457-8746 Web: http://www.csis.org/burke Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War The Critical Problems and Failures the US Must Address if Iraqi Forces Are to Do the Job Anthony H. Cordesman Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy March 28, 2007 (81) 82 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 2 .. .... . . .. .... . .. .. .. . ... .. . . . 1 W O . .. . . . . . .. . ................. 15 Anticipate, Leam and Change versus Persist, React and Be Defeated. The Need for Comprehensive Action and Strategy......... The Pace of Iraqi Force Development and the Impact of Civil War ...... Reacting to American Failures and Self-Inflicted Wounds................. Honestly Addressing the Present State of Iraqi Security Forces .................... A Crucial Lack of Proper Equipment ...... Sectarian and Ethnic Problems in the Regular Forces: A Force Never Designed to Fight Civil Conflicts and Civil War............ Figure One.. .................... Ethnic and Sectarian Confidence in the Iraqi Army among Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds .................. Figure Two Ethnic and Sectarian Confidence in the Iraqi Police among Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds .............. Popular Perceptions of Iraqi Force Development ....... Figure Three. .... 17 Kinds of Violence Iraqis Reported as Occurring Nearby and the Civil-Military Reaction in Earty 200717 Real and False Progress in Assuming Leadership in Field Operations... Figure Four ............... MOD Forces' Assessed Capabilities ... Figure 5. Iragi Army and National Police with Lead Responsibility for Counter Insurgency Operations in their Areas · ISF Motivation Problems. ................................................. Success and Failure by Force Element .... Rushing Force Development In Ways That Can Do As Much Harm as Good...., Prime Minister Maliki's New Force Initiative........... The “Surge” and Plans to Increase Iraqi Forces... Pushing Iraqi Force Development at an Unrealistic Pace The Challenge of Force Transformation. .............. Iraqi Force Development if Things Go Well. ............ Iraqi Force Development if Things Go Badly...... .............. Looking Ahead... APPENDIX ONE: IRAQI FORCE DEVELOPMENT - A GRAPHIC SUMMARY ...... .............. 33 Trained and Equipped Manpower for Major Branches of MOD and MOI Forces: July 2005 to March ................ 33 Iraqi Army Battalions in Combat: August 2004-February 2007.. .............. Iraqi Ammy Battalions "leading” Counterinsurgency Operations: January 2006-February 2007 ......... MOI Manning Levels: August 2005 to February 2007* MOI National Police Forces' Assessed Capabilities...... ......... Funding Dedicated to the Training and Equipping of the ISF .............. Iragi Security Forces Appropriations* ...... ................. Iraqi Security Forces Appropriations Through FY 2008* ....... 19. ............ N. ........ SEO. .. . ... .......... ............. 2007... ............4 83 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 : Page 3 Iraq is already in a state of limited civil war, and may well be escalating to the level of a major civil conflict. What began as a small resistance movement centered on loyalists to the Ba'ath and Saddam Hussein has expanded to include neo-Salafi Sunni terrorism, become a broadly based Sunni insurgency, and now a series of broader sectarian and ethnic conflict. The current combination of Sunni Neo-Salafi extremist insurgency, Sunni Arab versus Shi'ite Arab sectarian conflict, Shi'ite versus Shi'ite power struggles, and Arab versus Kurdish ethnic conflict could easily cause the collapse of the current political structure. In the best case, it could lead to a Shi'ite or Shi'ite-Kurdish dominated government, with strong local centers of power, and an ongoing fight with Iraq's Sunnis. In the worst case, it could escalate to the break up of the country, far more serious ethnic and sectarian conflict, or violent paralysis. It has already led to widespread ethnic cleansing in urban areas by militias and death squads of all three major ethnic and religious groups. If Iraq is to avoid a split and full-blown civil war, it must do far more than create effective Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). No such effort can succeed without an integrated strategy to forge a lasting political compromise between its key factions: Arab-Shi'ite, Arab Sunni, and Kurd - while protecting other minorities. Political conciliation must also address such critical issues as federalism and the relative powers of the central and regional governments, the role of religion in politics and law, control over petroleum resources and export revenues, the definition of human rights, and a host of other issues. Anticipate, Learn and Change versus Persist, React and Be Defeated From the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the present, the US has failed to implement a realistic or self-critical approach to policies and actions in Iraq. It is unclear that it could have succeeded under the best of circumstance, and one of its most critical failures has been to consistently deny the fact it was pursuing a high-risk effort in nation building and stability operations that could easily fail.' In practice, the US has neither anticipated the problems it had to solve or rapidly learned and adapted to the emerging realities in Iraq. Its national security leadership became a self-inflicted wound, and the US lurched from delayed response to response, always reacting too slowly and in a state of quasi-denial. The strategy to stabilize Iraq that the US announced in the fall of 2005 was deeply flawed in timing and resources. It was based on a grossly exaggerated estimate of political success, an almost deliberately false exaggeration of the success of the economic aid effort and progress in developing the ISF, inadequate efforts to develop effective governance, and a rule of law, and has not succeeded. The US plan that began to be implemented in the spring of 2006 to concentrate security efforts on Baghdad, to build up Iraqi security forces, and to "clear, hold and build” did not led to a decrease in violence. Insurgents and militias were able to step up attacks during Ramadan, and the number of attacks and of casualties in Baghdad rose. The Need for Comprehensive Action and Strategy It is far from clear whether the new approach to the “Battle of Baghdad” announced by President Bush in January, 2007 marks a realistic change or a half-measure that will not stave off failure. 84 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 4 What is clear is that the US cannot secure either Baghdad or Iraq without effective Iraqi security forces. No strategy that hinges solely on the successful development of the ISF can succeed. Iraq must establish both effective govemance and a rule of law; not simply deploy effective military, security, and police forces. Legitimacy does not consist of determining how governments are chosen, but in how well they serve the day-to-day needs of their peoples. Security cannot come through force alone. It must have the checks and balances that can only come when governments and courts are active in the field. . Iraq must also address its economic and demographic challenges if its people are to support its government and reject sectarian and ethnic violence. Iraq cannot achieve stability, however, unless its people have a reasonable degree of both physical and economic security. A nation cannot convert from a corrupt, state-controlled "command kleptocracy” in mid-war. It cannot achieve lasting peace unless it makes such a conversion over time and puts an end to a hopelessly skewed and unfair distribution of income, ends full and partial unemployment levels of 30-60%, and becomes competitive on a regional and global level. The present reality is that progress in Iraq is still slow or faltering in each of the other areas necessary to make Iraqi force development successful; Politics: The election in late 2005 effectively divided Iraqis by sect and ethnic group, with only a small minority voting for truly national parties. No clear national party structure has emerged since that time. The Shi'ite parties increasingly demonstrate the rivalry between the three main Shi'ite parties, while seeking to dominate the nation at the expense of the Sunnis. The Kurds reflect more unity but conflicts exist over "independence," dealing with the PKK, and past tensions between the PUK and KDP. Sunnis are just beginning to acquire a true political identity and the two main Sunni parties are divided and divisive, The Role of the Constitution: The creation of a new constitution has done nothing to establish consensus and has done much to divide the nation. It leaves more than 50 areas to be clarified, all of which involve potentially divisive debates between sectarian and ethnic groups, and most of which could lead to added tensions over the role of religion in the state. Political conciliation: Iraq's leaders still seek national unity and compromise, but talk has not been followed by substance. Prime Minister Maliki's conciliation plans have not taken hold, and the new government has not shown it can implement such plans or bring Arab Sunnis back into an effective political structure. While Muqtada Sadr has not reacted to the new US strategy by encouraging armed resistance, he appears to be losing control over the more radical parts of the Mahdi Army. Progress in key areas like the revision of the constitution and implementation of an "oil law” has been grindingly slow, ReBa'athification and local elections have not occurred. The status of Kurdish autonomy, and federalism remain unresolved. Governance: The national government cannot even spend its development budget; much less demonstrate that it now has an effective ministerial structure or the ability to actually govern in many areas. Actual governance continues to default to regional and local authorities and factions, and cannot follow up effectively on Coalition and ISF victories even in Baghdad. Security. Most Iraqis either lack day-t-day security or depend on local militias and security forces. The Iraqi Army continues to have real-world priority over the development of the Iraqi police, and the much- heralded “year of the police" in 2006 produced little progress at the local level. Legal system and rule of law: There is no real nation-wide consensus on what legal system to use, courts do not exist in many areas and are corrupt and ineffective in many others. Legal authority, like governance, is devolving down to the local level. 85 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 : Page 5 . . Economic Development. Increases in macroeconomic figures like the total GDP disguise massive problems with corruption, the distribution of income, and employment, particularly in troubled Sunni areas and the poorer parts of Iraq's major towns and cities. Young men are often forced to choose between the ISF, insurgency, and militias for purely economic reasons. The real-world economy of Sunni areas continues to deteriorate, and investment in even secure Shi'ite areas is limited by the fear of crime and insurgency. Only the Kurdish area is making real progress towards development. Aid: Irag has largely spent the flood of US and other aid provided after the fall of Saddam as well as its oil food money, Large portions of this aid have been spent on corruption, outside contractors and imports, security, and projects with poor planning and execution, which now are unsustainable, Iraq will, however, desperately need major future aid to construct and develop if it can achieve political conciliation and security. The US committed $20.8 billion of $20.9 billion in aid funds as of February 13, 2007. It had obligated $20.2 billion, and spent $17.1 billion. The US continues to be unable to properly staff its PRTs or any aspect of its aid effort with adequate numbers of civilian experts, and security and transport are lacking for effective aid operations in many areas. Energy and Oil: Iraq continued to produce less than 2.5 million barrels of oil per day and exported well under 2 million barrels a day.' It was dependent on imported fuel and gasoline for more than 50% of its : total needs. No major rehabilitation of Iraq's oil fields and facilities has taken place. Waterflooding and heavy oil injection continued to be major problems, and the ability to recover oil from producing fields average less than two-thirds of the world average. Many Iraqis still have hope for the future in spite of these problems, and still have a strong sense of national identity. The pressures that divide Iraqis, however, continue to increase and civil strife and tension continue to grow. The Pace of Iraqi Force Development and the Impact of Civil War Progress in the development of Iraqi security forces is difficult to gauge because so much US reporting simply cannot be trusted. Rather than provide realistic plans to win a "long war,” US reporting grossly exaggerates progress, ignores or understates real-world problems, and promises unrealistic timelines. The US Defense Department has stopped releasing detailed unclassified material about Iragi Army, Police, and Border Enforcement readiness and manning levels, only giving information about how many units are “ready and equipped” and “in the lead.” These are vague, if not meaningless categories – “in the lead” does not indicate the level of independence from US: support, and we do not how many “ready and equipped” soldiers quit or deserted the force, There are very real success, and positive trends in the regular Iraqi Army. Even here, however, US military personnel who train or operate with Iraqi units give mixed anecdotal assessments of their quality. There are numerous stories of abuse, corruption, and mixed loyalties, just as well as of individual courage, commitment, and success. Some individual units said to be “in the lead” are described as highly capable and politically neutral, while others were blatantly partisan, ineffective, bumt out, tied to local mission and loyalties, or had high desertion rates that effectively disbanded the unit. There seemed to be a consensus among trainers that several years of a continued US security force training effort was vital in order to achieve some semblance of stability in Iraq, but also that it would still take years to succeed with a meaningful political compromise between sects and factions. Some Iraqis are truly motivated. Most are not, but are asked to fight as if they were truly motivated to support the national government rather than signed up to earn a living and survive. As was the case with the ARVN in Vietnam, their advisors often are not trained and lack the 89 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 9 In an effort to better tailor the ISF to fight the insurgency, on October 10, 2006, the Prime Minister approved the implementation of the national counter-terrorism capability concept: This concept is scheduled to reach “Full Operational Capability" by December 2007. According to the DOD, “Full Operational Capability consists of: • Development of a national Bureau of Counter-Terrorism, separate from the ministries, that serves as the principal advisor to the prime minister on counterterrorism matters Establishment of a coherent, nonsectarian, counter-terrorism “tiering" strategy that determines the level of the terrorist threat, assigns appropriate responsibility for action, and defines approval authority for execution; this strategy was established as part of the overall counter-terrorism concept Establishment of a separate major command, equivalent to the ground, air, and naval forces commands, that provides support to the Bureau of Counter-Terrorism in intelligence and targeting areas." There is a broad recognition that progress in creating effective National Police, regular police, and facilities protection forces falls far short of the required minimum. For all of the variations on “win,” “hold, “and "build," it is brutally clear that a combination of US, allied, and Iraq Army troops can still "win,” but the various police and security forces are too weak, corrupt, and factional to “hold” and cannot provide the continuing security in even moderate risk areas to allow Iraqi government officials and aid workers to "build." The Iraqi government and US still have only one-third of the security capabilities they need to implement an effective strategy and these problems are compounded by crime, corruption, a lack of effective courts and the instruments that create a rule of law. Even the Iraq Army, however, is a weak tool being put under far too much pressure. In all too many cases, the US has rushed Iraqi battalions and force elements into being and then into combat before they are ready, effectively undercutting the Iraqi force development process and sometimes gravely weakening fledgling Iraqi units that are not ready to perform such missions. It often has used US advisors and embedded training teams that also are not ready for them missions they are supposed to perform, compounding the problems inherent in creating new · units. Other problems come from trying to use force elements built for local defense missions on a national level and in far more demanding forms of counterinsurgency warfare and civil conflict missions than they were recruited for and designed to fight. There are additional problems with corruption, nepotism, creating sufficient junior officers and NCOs, and providing the levels of firepower, mobility, and communications Iraqi forces really need. Hollow units do not learn by being thrust prematurely into combat; they are crippled or wasted. At the level of officers and NCOs, the options are ultimately political conciliation and compromise, division by sect or ethnicity with a strong risk of creating separate Shi'ite or Sunni force, or a coup or strong man. The same is true of other ranks in both the regular forces and police. All desperately need an effective pay system and enough income to resist corruption and infiltration? All need family support and adequate means of getting pay to their families. Medical services are critical; so are real-world death and disability benefits. No effort that is not founded on pay and benefits, rather than leadership and motivation, can possibly succeed. Similarly, it is impossible to treat all Iraqi forces as if they are or can be truly national and could be deployed on a national level. Some units do behave in this manner, and many more can be created over time. The fact is, however, that most Iraqi regulars were recruited for local defense and far less demanding missions. Most police are local, and will be driven by local interest and 90 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 10 political conditions. The local role of militias and various non-national” security forces cannot be ignored, and must somehow be integrated into the ISF structure or given incentives to disband. No ISF effort can succeed that does not explicitly recognized these realities. A Crucial Lack of Proper Equipment The MOD has begun to increase its armored forces, but its efforts fall far behind need - a fact made all too clear by the constant increases in the US army and Marine Corps effort to the uparmor US forces. These problems have been made worse by mismanagement and corruption. In June 2005, for example, the MOD ordered 98 BTR-80UP armored personnel carriers (APC) from Poland. The deal was delayed a year, and the first of the vehicles began to arrive in September 2006. Most of the BTR-80UP's will be delivered in a basic APC configuration. Iraq will also receive some specially modified BTR-80UP's, including: command vehicles for battalion commander (BTR-80UP-KB), command vehicles for company commander (BTR- SOUP-KR), staff vehicles (BTR-80UP-S), armored ambulances (BTR-80UP-A), reconnaissance vehicles (BTR-80UP_R), cargo vehicles (BTR-80UP-T), and armored maintenance/recovery vehicles (BTR-80UP-BREM)."0 Compounding this problem is the extensive corruption endemic in Iraqi government, which has forced Iraq, to expand the use of “total package” military procurements. A large $400 million deal to procure Russian helicopters from a Polish contractor in 2004 and 2005 turned out to be corrupt. Many of the helicopters that did arrive were more than 25 years old and not air-worthy. The Iraqi government then renegotiated the deal, to bring in 28 new MI-17 Russian helicopters. The Four MI-17's that had arrived by February 2007, however, were missing key onboard systems that allowed the helicopters to perform combat missions. They were restricted to training missions in friendly airspace only. : Reports of under-equipped Iraqi soldiers are common. One reporter noted in February 2007, that Iraqi soldiers manning checkpoints in Baghdad wore plastic shower sandals instead of army boots. Iraqi officers have even been accused of selling the very uniforms their men were supposed to be issued. What may be even more serious -- as the US considers efforts to accelerate Iraqi force development - is the lack of any clear plan to provide heavier forces, and the honest recognition that the US will almost certainly have to fund this effort initially and for some years to come. If the US wants out of Iraq in a way that produces lasting regional stability, then armor, artillery, mobility, IS&R, close air support, and a large range of support assets must come in. Despite assurances from General Casey that Iraq's security forces will be equipped by the end of 2007, the Iraqi government is not yet ready to manage such efforts, and Iraq cannot fund them. A long- range strategy, plan, and aid funds are critical. If they exist, they exist in remarkable silence. Sectarian and Ethnic Problems in the Regular Forces: A Force Never Designed to i Fighi Civil Conflicts and Civil War Sectarian issues are less serious in the regular military forces under MoD control than in the MOI forces, but still presented a broad set of problems. According to the Director of National Intelligence's February 2006 report, many elements of the Iraqi security forces remain loyal to sectarian and party interests.' Sectarian divisions within the armed forces reflect the fact many units were created along geographic lines. Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds mostly served in geographic areas familiar to their 91 : Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 11 : groups. These divisions were even more notable at the battalion level, where battalion commanders tended to command only soldiers of their own sectarian or regional backgrounds. According to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index, Sunnis made up less than 10 percent of the existing forces in 2006. Ed O'Connell, a senior analyst with the Rand Corp., said that the Iraqi military was chiefly built along sectarian lines. He added: "There have been recent efforts to recruit the Sunni, but no one wants to die, so that has been largely unsuccessful.". Due to greater military experience among Sunnis and Kurds, these groups are over-represented in senior leadership positions. Shi'ites were adequately represented at the battalion level, but less - so at higher echelons. The reason was primarily the military experience required for higher levels of command, which a greater number of Sunnis and Kurds had earned in the old regime's army and the Peshmerga, respectively. . While the nationally recruited divisions are more representative of Iraq's ethno-religious composition, the even-numbered divisions were originally formed as National Guard units, to be deployed in their respective local regions. These units continued to be more ethnically and religiously representative of their region, not of Iraq as a whole." More broadly, the Army has shown little overall willingness to become actively involved halting Íraq's civil fighting through early 2007, although a few force elements performed well in such missions in Baghdad during the summer and fall of 2006. Like all Iraqi forces, the Army was never recruited, trained, or equipped to fight sectarian and ethnic forces in civil conflict, or intervene in civil war and local civil clashes. If a major civil war does occur, or the country divides along sectarian and ethnic lines, Iraqi regular forces could divide as well. They could fragment even further if the Shi'ite coalition divides, or the Shi'ites and Kurds divide. A battalion commander with the 1st brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, Maj. Hussein al-Qaisi, said government officials often called him when he tried to arrest suspected high-ranking militia leaders, Sunni as well as Shi'ite. Al-Qaisi, stationed in Baghdad, said: "Sometimes they'll back them up no matter what. We have to let them go." 10. Iraqis are not alone in detecting mixed loyalties in Shi'ite Iraqi army units. Lt. Col Edward Taylor, embedded with the Iraqi Army's 6th Division in Baghdad, reported that: "I have to operate under the assumption that within this unit there are people loyal to Jaish al-Mahdi [known in the US as the Mahdi Army). I have to make that assumption so I have the proper security measures in place to protect my soldiers." "! During January 2007 operations in Turki, east of Baghdad, US commanders, fearful of leaks, kept operational details from Iraqi army units until the last minute. Although this measure may have increased operational security, it didn't allow Iraqi units much time to prepare: “I didn't have time to organize supplies, vehicles or ammunition for the soldiers" reported one Iraqi company commander." There were reports of US soldiers complaining about their Iraqi counterparts as being “among the worst they've ever seen" during combined US and Iraqi army operations in Baghdad in the summer and fall of 2006. Their loyalties appeared unclear as they let militiamen pass checkpoints unhindered during raids and allowed barriers and concertina wire meant to bolster defensive positions to be dragged away. Even the notification of the senior officer at the checkpoint by US troops did not help. US military advisor Lt. Col. Greg Watt attributed this behavior to sectarian loyalties: 93 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 13 Figure One Ethnic and Sectarian Confidence in the Iraqi Army among Shi’ites, Sunnis, and Kurds 0.6 1 . Sunni 0.09 Shiite 0.31 Kurd 0.33 • Total 0.24 0.16 A great deal of confidence in the Army A lot of confidence in the Army E Not very much conficdence in the Army No confidence in the Army 0.49 0.2 0.47 0.19 0.37 0.25 0.35 I 0.02 0.4 0.14 94 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 14 Figure Two Ethnic and Sectarian Confidence in the Iraqi Police among Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds 1 Sunni 1 Shrite 1 Kurd. Total 0.47 043 04 | 0.32 DA great deal of .1 0.08 confidence in the Police DA lot of confidence in 0.16 the Police Not very much 1:0.24 conficdence in the 0.1 0.15 0.16 Police . A No confidence in the Palice Source: “Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss Marks a National Survey of Iraq” ABC News/USA Today/BBC/ARD Poll. March 19, 2007. Pg. 24 95 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 15 napaghdad, but by no mease friend or relative has been harmed. Pight their Popular Perceptions of Iraqi Force Development These sectarian and ethnic divisions also provide an important perspective on Iraqi force development. The US and MNF-I are seeking to develop effective forces. The battle in Iraq, however, is as much one to end civil conflict as it is to defeat the insurgency, and Iraq popular attitudes towards both Iraq and US forces become very different when they are related to the violence that shapes day-to-day life in Iraq. The MNF-I, US and Iraqi government statistics on violence in Iraq fail to make a serious effort to estimate threats, kidnappings, woundings, intimidation, or sectarian and ethnic crimes. These 'lower forms of violence have become far more common in Iraq than killings, and represent the bulk of the real-world challenge to the ISF. An ABC News poll conducted in February and March 2007 found that," : Widespread violence, tom lives, displaced families, emotional damage, collapsing services, an ever-starker sectarian chasm - and a draining away of the underlying optimism that once prevailed. Violence is the cause, its reach vast. Eighty percent of Iraqis report attacks nearby - car bombs, snipers, kidnappings, and armed forces fighting each other or abusing civilians. It's worst by far in the capital, Baghdad, but by no means confined there. The personal toll is enormous. More than half of Iraqis, 53 percent, have a close friend or relative who's been hurt or killed in the current violence. One in six says someone in their own household has been harmed. Eighty-six percent worry about a loved one being hurt; two-thirds worry deeply. Huge numbers limit their daily activities to minimize risk. Seven in 10 report multiple signs of traumatic stress. The poll found that while In 2005, 63 percent of Iraqis said they felt very safe in their neighborhoods in 2005, only 26 percent had said this in early 2007. One in three did not feel safe at all. In Baghdad, home to a fifth of the country's population, eighty-four percent feel entirely unsafe. Even outside of Baghdad, just 32 percent of Iraqis felt “very safe" where they lived, compared with 60 percent a year and a half ago." . . Nationally, 12 percent of all Iraqis surveyed reported that ethnic cleansing - the forced separation of Sunnis. and Shiites – has occurred in their neighborhoods. In mixed- population Baghdad, it's 31 percent. This is not desired: In rare agreement, 97 percent of Sunni Arabs and Shiites alike oppose the separation of Iraqis on sectarian lines. Nonetheless, one in seven Iraqis overall - rising to a quarter of Sunni Arabs, and more than a third of Baghdad residents - said they themselves have moved homes in the last year to avoid violence or religious persecution. As security conditions have worsened, so have expectations for future improvement in the conditions of life - an especially troubling result, since hopes for a better future can be the glue that holds a struggling society together. In 2004 and 2005 alike, for example, three-quarters of Iraqis expected improvements in the coming year in their security, schools, availability of jobs, medical care, crime protection, clean water and power supply. Today only about 30 to 45 percent still expect any of these to get any better. The ABC poll asked about nine kinds of violence that broke the security problems Iraqis and ISF forces faced into far more detail than the Coalition and US have ever publicly reported (car bombs, snipers or crossfire, kidnappings, fighting among opposing groups or abuse of civilians by various armed forces). These results are reflected in Figure Three. Most Iraqis in Baghdad said at least one of these had.occurred nearby; half reported four or more of them. Some 53 percent of Iraqis said a close friend or immediate family member had been hurt in the current violence. That ranged from three in 10 in the 96 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 16 Kurdish provinces to nearly eight in 10 in Baghdad. Even outside Baghdad, 74 percent reported at least one form of violence, and 25 percent reported four or more (34 percent excluding the Kurdish area, which was far more peaceful than the country overall.) What is equally striking, however, is what Figure Three reveals about Iraqi perceptions of US, Iraqi Army, and police forces. It is clear that with the exception of the people in the Kurdish zone many Iraqis see all of the forces deployed as guilty of unnecessary violence, and this is especially true in Baghdad. The source data for the poll also show a strong correlation between force activity and the perception of unnecessary violence. These same trends emerge when Iraqis are asked what they try to avoid to improve their security. While the US and Iraqi government may focus on force development to defeat the insurgency and control civil violence, Iraqis seem such forces as a major civil- military problem and a serious threat to their daily security. 101 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 21 : Little progress has been made in providing more objective reports. Gen. George Casey reported in mid-October 2006 that six of the 10 Iraqi divisions – 30 of the 36 brigades and almost 90 of the 112 battalions were "in the lead.” He still described the task as training and equipping units, then “putting them in the lead,” to finally make them independent. 2 Roughly the same claims were made in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in mid-November.. . Virtually all independent media reporting by major media, however, has presented a very · different picture of readiness as have many officers returning from Iraq. For example, an LA Times article in early December 2006 described an operation in Baghdad with Iraqi units supposedly "in the lead," that showed some of the difficulties Iraqi Army units had under the stress of combat. While this evidence is at best anecdotal, it is still significant because the unit in question was Iraq's 9th Mechanized Division; one of Iraq's best trained and equipped divisions (mentioned earlier as the unit trained by Lt. Col. Carl D. Grunow). US Army Col. Douglass S. Heckman, recalls how "In August, when we started Operation Together Forward to secure Baghdad, we called on a bunch of units to assist. This division was the only one that moved into the operation. The others balked.” The problems even this unit had in performing against insurgents in Baghdad did not bode well for the state of Iraqi security forces and suggested that Iraqi force development would take patience. The operation's objective in Baghdad's Fadhil neighborhood was to capture 70 high- value targets. In the end, 43 insurgents, including three foreign nationals, were captured, and an estimated 100 killed, with only one Iraqi soldier killed and six wounded, albeit with significant collateral damage. The course of the 11-hour operation revealed several weaknesses of the 9th mechanized division, After the unit had walked into an ambush and were stopped by a coordinated rocket, grenade, and mortar attack, “fear took over” among the Iraqis, according to Staff Sgt. Michael Baxter, "They refused to move. We were yelling at them to move." While the Iraqis were supposed to take the lead in the operation, “it started out that way," Baxter said. “But five minutes into it, we had to take over.” ... The LA Times article recounted how : (..) confusion swiftly reigned as insurgents in Fadhil pummeled dismounted Iraqi troops and their American advisors. U.S. radio jammers seeking to hinder communications between insurgents ended up blocking the Iraqi soldiers' walkie-talkies, forcing them to use unreliable cell phone signals to stay in . contact. Voice commands were lost [...] The US advisers witnessed the same lack of weapons discipline Grunow described in his Military Review article: At times, the overwhelmed Iraqi soldiers fired wildly, sweeping their machine-gun barrels across friendly and insurgent targets alike, witnesses said. "I had to throw bullet casings at them to get their attention,” said Sgt. 1st Class Agustin Mendoza, another U.S. trainer who manned a Humvee gut turret during the battle. “They had no weapons discipline." Other reporting casts serious doubt on the value of the kind of reporting provided in the March 2007 Department of Defense Quarterly report. This report provided a map showing that Iraqi Army units were in the lead in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq in every area in Iraq except Al Anbar, roughly half of Baghdad, a Kurdish area, and the Basra area in the far southeast. This 102 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 : Page 22 same map also claimed that the Iraqi Army had experienced the following development from May 2006 to February 2007: Figure 5 Iraqi Army and National Police with Lead Responsibility for Counter Insurgency Operations in Their Areas Division HQs May 06 Feb 07 : Iraqi Army National Police Total Brigade HQs May 06 Feb 07. 8: 14 31 2 0 16 31 Battalions May 06 Feb 07 .. 57, 93 . 6 0. 6 3 93 . . . The data in Figure 5 also show the high level of dependence still placed on the uncertain capabilities of the National Police. The Department of Defense DoD reported that all 27 National Police battalions conducted counter-insurgency operations, and six battalions had the security lead in their areas of responsibility. 203 National Police Transition Teams (10 provincial, 44 District, and 149 Station) support the training of these units.24 Additionally, 10 Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) were transferred to the Government of Iraq during May through August, bringing the total to 52 of a total 110 FOBs under Iraqi control. Three more FOBs were scheduled to be transferred to Iraq by January 2007.45 ISF Motivation Problems Both the force development problems and perceptual problems are further compounded by the ISF's problems in leadership and unit cohesion, Human beings do not live in the dawn of tomorrow; they live in the noon of today. Most Iraqi officers and NCOs are inevitably caught up in the pressures of Iraq's sectarian and ethnic differences. Most Iraqi enlisted men volunteer because they need the money, because their dependents are desperately in need of their support. At the level of officers and NCOs, the options are ultimately political conciliation and compromise, division by sect or ethnicity with a strong risk of creating separate Shi'ite or Sunni force, or a coup or strong man. The same is true of other ranks in both the regular forces and police. All desperately need an effective pay system and enough income to resist corruption and infiltration? All need family support and adequate means of getting pay to their families. Medical services are critical; so are real-world death and disability benefits. No effort that is not founded on pay and benefits, rather than leadership and motivation, can possibly succeed. Similarly, it is impossible to treat all Iraqi forces as if they were truly national and could be deployed on a national level. Some units do behave in this manner, and many more can be created over time. The fact is, however, that most Iraqi regulars were recruited for local defense and far less demanding missions. Most police are local, and will be driven by local interest and political conditions. The local role of militias and various non-national” security forces cannot be ignored, and must somehow be integrated into the ISF structure or given incentives to disband. No ISF effort can succeed that does not explicitly recognized these realities. 105 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 25 The only way to avoid this continuing dependence on the US and other outside power without greatly increasing the risk of a major civil war, and collapse of the Iraqi force development effort, is still to reach a level of political conciliation so great as to fundamentally undermine the insurgency and end the drift towards civil war. Rushing Force Development In Ways That Can Do As Much Harm as Good In all too many cases, the US and Iraqi governments have already rushed Iraqi battalions and force elements into being and then into combat before they are ready, effectively undercutting the Iraqi force development process and sometimes gravely weakening fledgling Iraqi units that are not ready to perform such missions. It often has used US advisors and embedded training teams that also are not ready for them missions they are supposed to perform, compounding the problems inherent in creating new units... Other problems have resulted from trying to use force elements built for local defense missions on a national level and in far more demanding forms of counterinsurgency warfare and civil conflict missions than they were recruited for and designed to fight. There are additional problems with corruption, nepotism, creating sufficient junior officers and NCOs, and providing the levels of firepower, mobility, and communications Iraqi forces really need. Hollow units do not learn by being thrust prematurely into combat; they are crippled or wasted. One case study of the precipitous effect of premature handover to less-than-able forces was shown in Haditha in the fall of 2004, when US troops withdrew from the city to retake Fallujah. Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent of the New York Times, also notes the important psychological effects of such premature responsibility shifts on future ISF recruiting: What followed was a devastating setback for the American effort to carry out counter-insurgency operations in the violent al-Anbar province. While the Americans were securing Fallujah the Iraqi police in Haditha were accosted by insurgents and executed. The episode left the town without a police force that could check the operations of the insurgents and taught the Iraqis there that the Americans could not be counted on to protect their nascent institutions, whatever their good intentions. It also made the task of recruiting a new police force all but impossible. When follow-on marine units were deployed to Haditha their efforts to mount a police recruitment drive failed, forcing the marines to think about seeking police recruits from other parts of the country." Prime Minister Maliki's New Force Initiative These problems can only grow worse under current force expansion plans which continue to try to do too much, too soon to meet the different political priorities of the US and Iraqi governments. The Iraqi government is already committed to expanding the Iraqi Army at what may well be an impractical rate. The 2004 campaign plan, which had elaborated and refined the original strategy for transferring security responsibilities, was revised in April 2006 by MNF.I. In conjunction with the US embassy in Baghdad, a new Joint Campaign Plan was issued with the goal of transferring security responsibility to Iraqi security forces Both the Iraqi government and MNF-I developed a consensus towards the end of the summer of 2006, however, that the total number of Iraqi Security Forces would have to be increased in order for Iraqis to assume more serious security responsibilities. The ISF numbered some 298,000 as of late August, and was expected to grow to 325,000 by year's end. However, the Maliki government became committed to raising this number." 106 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 26 In late August 2006, the MNF-I reported that the Iraqi government was developing a long-term plan to shape the type of armed forces needed 5 to 10 years in the future. Further details of the plan remained classified as of October 2006. On October 31st, Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir announced at a Baghdad news conference that Iraq would expand the army beyond previously planned limits. He said that this was done in consultation with Gen.'s Dempsey and Casey, but reporters on the scene felt that the effort was really an initiative undertaken by the PM to increase the size of the Iraqi Military....". Abdul-Qadir stated on October 31st that that the Prime Minister's Initiative for the growth of new Iraqi Army units had been approved by the Prime Minister in September. This would expand the Army by eight brigade-equivalents (approximately 18,700 soldiers). Major General Caldwell supplemented this briefing on November 2nd, and the two briefings provide the following description of the Prime Minister's "long war” plan for transforming Iraqi forces: ... Add additional combat power in the most heavily contested areas of Iraq (Baghdad, Basrah, Diyala, Al Anbar). .:. Provide additional units to allow tactical commanders to establish a tactical reserve that can be deployed around the country. • Provide an additional brigade to the 9th Iraqi Ammy Division to establish an operational reserve that can be moved around the country. This would be the first unit specifically recruited to act as a mobile force, rather than one designed targely for static local defense. It would begin the transformation of the Iraqi forces to act as a mobile, rather than static force. No details, however, were provided on the pay incentives, changes in equipment, changes in training, and changes in facilities necessary to begin what amounts to a "transformation" of Iraq forces. : : Recruit and train 18,000 men -- in addition to the 18,700 men to create new Iraqi units to provide individual replacements for Iraqi units. The first 10,000 men for this force element were recruited in early October and will be ready in November. Provide sufficient redundancy within the Iraqi Army Divisions to allow them to remove units from the battlespace periodically for reanin, refit, and retrain as part of a "long war strategy.” This is essential to allowing units to recover, go back to their home areas, and be retrained and reequipped. The goal is a 10% "overage” in manning. This means' recruiting 12,000 more men to act as a pool of recruits to fill in existing Iraqi units by "overmanning” their authorized strength to keep a suitable number of soldiers actually in place in such units. Iraqi force building continued to have high priority during the summer and fall of 2006. The total cost US financial assistance for Iraqi security grew from $3.24 billion in January 2004 to about $13.7 billion in June 2006.52 Most of these funds for rebuilding the military and security forces came from US sources although plans called for the new Iraqi government was expected to begin playing a greater role in the budgeting and equipment procurement process." The Prime Minister's Initiative called for the following new Iraqi forces and force elements, only some of which had specific unit designations and missions: • Three (3) Division Headquarters: Add 11th Division headquarters, which will split the span of control for battalions in Baghdad between :: Karkh and Rusafa Add two (2) Strategic Infrastructure Division headquarters to improve command and control of the SIBs Five (5) Brigade Headquarters and 20 more Battalions : 107 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 27 :. 10 bar :. Add 4th Bde to the 9th IA Div to provide the division to serve as the Operational Reserve for the IA with four total brigades. Add 4th Bde to the 5th IA Div, which will allow a brigade for Diyala. Add 6th Bde to the 6th IA Div, which will provide three brigades to each IA division in Baghdad. Add 4th Bde to the 7th 1A Div, which will add a brigade to westem Al Anbar province. Add 5th Bde to 10th IA Div. • Add one battalion to the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Bde of the 8th IA Div, which will add a brigade-equivalent to Diwaniya. Add one battalion to the 2nd and 3rd Bde of the 10th IA Div, which will add nearly two brigade equivalents to Basrash (with the additional 5th Brigade addition noted above) * Add one (1) Special Forces Battalion to ISOF The total estimated cost was $800 million, all to be funded by the Iraqi government. It was not explained where this money would come from, how this requirement was shaped, and where the figure of 18,700 individual replacements came from or whether it would come close to dealing with even the existing manpower shortfalls in the regular army. The "Surge" and Plans to Increase Iraqi Forces The fact that the fighting has intensified while the US has lost domestic political support for the war is increasing the pressure to rush the development of ISF forces. The US wants out, and Iraq's Shi'ite-led government wants the largest possible force as soon as possible. Then Defense Secretary Rumsfeld endorsed a proposal on October 31, 2006 to spend at least $1 billion as part of an add-on to the 2007 budget to expand the size of Iraqi security forces beyond the goal of 325,000 and accelerate their training and equipment process. * The US had already spent about $10 billion on developing Iraqi forces. Gen. George Casey also recommended expanding Iraqi forces In March, 2007, the DoD announced that More than 60,000 ISF personnel were being added in 2007.39 This expansion includes: . . . Replenishment of 30,000. MNSTC-1 is funding the training and equipping of 30,000 soldiers to replace personnel losses and to increase the manning of combat units to 110% to improve present-for-duty strength. This expansion was 44% complete as of February 2007. res • Prime Minister's Army Expansion Initiative. In consultation with the U.S. Government, the GOI decided to increase the size of the Army by approximately 24,000 soldiers. The additional forces will increase the MOD's ability to command and control its forces, enhance its operational and tactical flexibility, and allow battle-weary units to be pulled off-line to retrain and refit. This GOI initiative also came with fiscal resources from the MOD budget, • Replenishment of National Police Brigades. The Civilian Police Assistance Transition Team (CPATT) is working to replenish all National Police units with personnel and key pacing items of equipment in support of the Baghdad Security Plan and Phase II training at Numaniyah, • Expansion of National Police to 10 Brigades. The CPATT is supporting the prime minister's initiative to build a multicomponent (Iraqi Army and National Police) division-sized force to protect the Samarra Shrine reconstruction project. The team is generating a 10th National Police Brigade in support of this effort. 36 108 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 28 The Prime Minister's Army Expansion Initiative will add 2 divisions to the Iraqi Army. It will also add 2 division Headquarters, 6 brigade Headquarters, and 24 battalions." Pushing Iraqi Force Development at an Unrealistic Pace It is far from clear that such a rate of progress can successfully be rushed forward without doing at least as much harm as good. It is extremely difficult to judge the quality of the Iraqi forces development effort at any level of detail using unclassified data. The Pentagon has reported that it was now using three sets of factors to measure progress in developing Iraqi security forces capabilities and responsibilities: • The number of trained and equipped forces. The number of Iraqi army units and provincial governments that had assumed responsibility for security in specific geographic areas. In August 2006, 115 Iraqi army units had assumed the lead for counterinsurgency operations in specific areas, and one province had assumed security control... The capabilities of operational units, as reported in unit-level and aggregate Transition Readiness Assessments (TRA). In August 2006, the General Accounting Office had still not obtained the unit-level TRA reports. 18 The resulting assessments remain classified, however, and the Department of Defense no longer reports on even overall force building in terms of Level I-IV readiness. It is hard to avoid the conclusion, however, that the pace of Iraqi force development is partly being dictated by political necessity without due regard to what can really be accomplished and the inevitable loss of life to Iraqi forces that are pushed too hard, too soon. : At best, currently planned efforts will take several more years to be effective. They are also taking place at a time the political demands on Iraqi force development are becoming steadily less realistic, and Iraqi forces continue to be pushed into service before they are ready and with US embedded training teams that often have readiness and qualification problems of their own The Challenge of Force Transformation Executing a real-world handover and expansion of Iraqi forces requires a major force transformation from a static, local defense force. It means creating largely numbers of nationally deployable forces with different training, pay, equipment, mobility and support, and facilities. This makes it highly questionable as to whether Iraqi force development can be effective in replacing US and allied forces 12 to 18 months, and that Iraqi forces can credibly expand some 36,000 to 48,000 actual men in place beyond their current size, without Iraqi success in reaching a political compromise that sharply reduces the demands for Iraqi effectiveness and the unity of the Iraqi security forces (ISF) in dealing with insurgents, militias, and death squads. The challenge is also made more difficult by the fact that threat levels have continued to rise. It is meaningless to keep claiming that the security problems are limited to small areas, and ignore intra-Shi'ite fighting and Arab-Kurdish tensions. For example, General Casey stated in a press conference on October 26th that, “...we are in a tough fight here in the center of the country and in Anbar province. But I think it's important to remind people that 90 percent of the sectarian violence in Iraq takes place in about a 30-mile radius from the center of Baghdad; and that secondly, 90 percent of all violence takes place in five provinces. This is not a country that is awash in sectarian violence. The situation is hard, but it's not a country that's awash in sectarian violence.” 109 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 29 This statement is more than self contradictory, it clashes with previous claims in the Department of Defense quarterly status report in August that 81% of the violence took place in these provinces, and that statement ignored all of the softer forms of sectarian and ethnic "cleansing" and intra-Shi'ite fighting and Arab-Kurdish tensions. This does not mean that real progress is not being made in ISF force development, and there are many reports of individual Iraqi units carrying out local missions, taking risks, and taking casualties. The fact remains, however, that far too many Iraqi army units are being credited with taking the lead or being effective in the field. Effective units are also being lumped together with units that will not perform their missions, which are tied to sects and factions, and which often have only 50-60% of their manning. Iraqi Force Development if Things Go Well Time and resources have been wasted that the US and Iraq did not have. The odds of success are less than even, and may be less than one in four. At best, the development of effective Iraq forces is only one of the steps necessary to bring stability and security, and rollback the forces that can lead Iraqi towards more violent forms of civil war. It is, however, one of the critical elements of success. There is no way to predict Iraq's future or the exact role Iraqi forces will play over the coming months and years. All that can be predicated is that the US and Iraq must honestly and systematically address each of the current failures in Iraqi force development identified in this report, and do so at a pace that can produce an effective and meaningful result. At a minimum, this means reconfiguring the Iraqi Ministry of Defense (MOD) and Ministry of the Interior (Mol), creating Iraqi regular forces designed to fight serious counterinsurgency battles and end civil fighting on a national level, and giving the Iraqi police the aid and advisory resources necessary to make them effective and far less divided and corrupt.. This will take major new amounts of money and more capable US advisors and embeds. It will take 3-5 years, not 18-24 months – although this does not mean enough success to allow major US and allied troop withdrawals cannot come far earlier, In any case, the rate of the ISF's process or failure will depend at least a much on Iraqi political compromise and conciliation. If that succeeds, much of the pressure on ISF development will ease; if it fails, ISF development will fail regardless. If things go well, Iraqi forces will steadily improve with time and play a critical role in bring the level of security Iraq needs to make political compromise and conciliation work. Iraqi forces will largely replace Coalition and other foreign forces, at most seeking aid and limited assistance. Iraq's military will shift its mission from counterinsurgency to defense of the nation against foreign enemies, Iraq's National Police will defend the nation's internal security interests and not those of given ethnic and sectarian groups, deal with counterterrorism rather than counterinsurgency, and focus on crime and corruption. Iraq's other police and security forces will act like the police and security forces of other nations, focusing on crime, local security issues, and providing border security against smuggling and low-level infiltration.. Things can only go well, however, if Iraq can create a working compromise between its sects and ethnic groups, and if US and other outside powers will have the patience and will to support Iraq as it develops into such a state for at least two to three more years of active fighting. Iraq will 110 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 30 also need massive additional economic aid to help Iraq unify and develop. Major assistance and advisory programs will be in place until at least 2010, and probably 2015. Iraqi Force Development if Things Go Badly The present odds of such success are less than even. In fact, Iraq is more likely to have one of three far less positive futures: Years of turmoil: No side truly wins. The nation does not devolve into all out civil war or open forms of division or separation. The result will be an agonizing extension of the status quo in which real political conciliation fail and every new compromise will be the source of new tensions and fighting. Warring sectarian and ethnic groups struggle for local control and dominance, dividing the country internally by city and governorate. The Iraqi people lose faith and hope, struggling only to survive. The military, National Police, regular police and other instruments of government become an awkward mix of sectarian and ethnic enclaves and struggles for power and control. The economy will splinter, with a few secure ethnic and sectarian enclaves, but largely dominated by internal tension, insecurity and crime. The US and other outside powers keep some form of presence in Iraq and seek to maintain a partial state of order, but every effort to produce lasting solutions and true national unity will collapse. Internal separation, ethnic cleansing, and the facade of unity: Civil conflict lead to the de facto separation of the nation into Arab Shi'ite, Arab Sunni, and Kurdish enclaves on either a regional or local basis. The nation maintains the appearance of unity, but the reality is a level of soft and hard ethnic cleansing that divides most governorates on sectarian and ethnic lines, and most cities into sectarian and ethnic neighborhoods. Most governorates and major cities are dominated by Shi'ite or Kurdish control. An impoverished Sunni enclave will exist in the West, continuing to present at least low-level security challenges. Every "national" decision will be an awkward and unstable compromise. Compromises over key issues like development and modernizing Iraq's energy industry and infrastructure are sectarian and ethnic nightmares with Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurd all seeking their own advantage and that of their respective enclaves. · The Iraqi people are forced into clear sectarian and ethnic divisions, each tending to aid the extremist elements in each group. The military, National Police, regular police and other instruments of government are divided into clearly defined sectarian and ethnic enclaves. The US and other outside powers withdraw all or virtually all forces, and reduce aid to token levels. Iraq becomes the scene of constant outside struggles for influence between Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Sunni states. Outrighi division with at least continuing sectarian and ethnic fighting: The central government diminishes to total impotence and/or collapses under the pressure of civil conflict. The softer forms of sectarian and ethnic cleansing that take place in the previous scenario are replaced by vicious fighting for control of given 'governorates and cities, mass killings, mass forced relocations and migrations, and the ruthless control of remaining minorities. Iraq has openly split into three parts, dominated by Shi'ite and Kurdish control in most areas, Shi'ite domination of the central government and most of the country, or a Shi'ite-Kurdish federation of convenience whose reality are the same. An impoverished Sunni enclave exist in the West, struggling to survive, continuing to present at least low-level security challenges and dependent on outside aid from Sunni states. Economic development and efforts to modernize Iraq's energy industry and infrastructure are divided on sectarian and ethnic lines, with the possible exception of pipelines and some limited infrastructure that crosses Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurdish zones. Export capabilities, ports, and water will all be continuing sources of contention. The Iraqi people will be forced into clear sectarian and ethnic divisions, each tending to aid the extremist elements in each group. The military, National Police, regular police and other instruments of government will divide along clearly defined and possibly warring sectarian and ethnic lines. The economy steadily declines if it does not implode. The US and other outside powers withdraw all or virtually all forces, and 112 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 : Page 32 reservation, that a rapid withdrawal of US forces in the next 12-18 months "almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq.939 Every element of ISF development still requires years of effort and support, and any successful policy towards Iraq that offers serious hope of avoiding massive increases in sectarian and ethnic violence, and continued insurgency, requires an honest recognition of this fact. The US can only do more harm to Iraqi force development if it continues to exaggerate Iraqi capability, attempts to expand Iraqi forces even more quickly, and transfers responsibility before Iraqi forces can do the job. As in Afghanistan, the US can only win in Iraq if it is willing to fight a "long war." Rushing Iraqi forces in, and American forces out, is a strategy where "exit" is given far higher priority than success. It may provide a cosmetic rationale to disguise failure and defeat, but not prevent it. To put it bluntly, this means that US government and Department of Defense must stop exaggerating about the true nature of Iraqi readiness and the Iraqi force development. As this report describes in detail, there are many very real successes in ISF development. The nearly meaningless metrics of success the US has adopted, however, can easily lead the US to choose the wrong options in Iraq, continue to fail to provide adequate resources, and encourage US and allied withdrawals because of political decisions made sons. Like all elements of strategy, Iragi force development needs to be based on honesty and realism, not "spin," false claims, and political expediency,:::. 113 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 33 APPENDIX ONE: IRAQI FORCE DEVELOPMENT - GRAPHIC SUMMARY Trained and Equipped Manpower for Major Branches of MOD and MOI Forces: July 2005 to March 2007 350000 300000+ 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 July 05 Jan 06 July 06 Dec 06 March 07 D Minstry of Defense Army 78200 104400 113200 132700 132856 O Navy 700 800 1100 1100 1135 Ja Air Force 28 500 700 900 939 Total MOD 79199* 105700 115000 134700* 134920 ID Ministry of Interior O National Police 24300 24400 24400 641010 77500 Regular Police/Highway Regular Police Other Forees 135006 135000 135000 39700 40500 23480 28990 28850 Total MOI 948000 118009 160160* 188300* 188269 GRAND TOTAL 173980 223700 275100* 323800 323100* Note: These figures only show the number of men trained and equipped and have nothing to do with the manpower and equipment actually in active service in the unit. - Unauthorized absence personnel are said not to be included in MOI figures, and to be included in MOD figures, but the reality is that the MOD figures do not reflect actual manning and are all shown as approximate. --Army numbers include Special Operations Forces and Support Forces. --Does not include various Facilities Protection Forces, which had an authorized strength of some 144,000 men working in 27 ministries on March 5, 2007. Source: US State Department 114 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 34 Iraqi Army Battalions in Combat: August 2004-February 2007 SIBs 1 Army Battalions Aug-'04 Feb-'05 Sep-'05 Jan-'06 Aug-'06 Noy-'06 7-Feb SIBs In Army Battalions 5 69 1. 88 1 98 1 106 106 1 : 105 NOTE: Amy Battalions includes special operations battalions but does not include combat support and combat service support units. Data as of November 13, 2006 Source: Adapted from: US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, p.25; Note: +/-5% margin of error 115 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 35 Iraqi Army and National Police with Lead Responsibility for Counter-Insurgency Operations in Their Areas Baghdad Area May 06 Feb 07 NUM cret JY HREBE 43 B Cobonent DY SUCHOS www . F431 Nm fragt my 22 Folice Iraqi Army Lead National Police Lead Nationa Police Toks 672 TOOS 13 Laurss: MC, 09** of May 7, 2008 Provincial Security Transition Assessment As of February 2007 Provincial tragi Control Ready For Transition Partially Ready For Transition Not Ready For Transition : Source: AMFI 116 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 36 80%- 70% 60%- 50%- 40% 30%+H 20% 10%- 0%- Dec -'06 Jan - 07 Jui-'06 0.58 0.31 Aug-'06 0.61 0.27 Sep-06 0.71 Oct-'06 0.72 0.2 Nov-'06 0.71 Combined DISF Coalition 0.78 0.59 : 0.18 0.2 0.04 0.07 0.34 0.1 0.12 0.11 0.08 0.08 0.17 * Includes MOD and National Police units; data includes only those ISF independent operations that are reported to the Coalition Data as of March 2, 2007.." Source: US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in frog, March 2007 Report to Congress, p.38. 118 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 38 MOI Manning Levels: August 2005 to February 2007* 190,000- 180,000 170,000- 160,000 150,000- 140,000+ 130,000+ 120,000 110,000 100,000- 90,000- 80,000 - 70,000- 60,000- 50,000- 40,000- 30,000 20,000 10,000+ 6 Aug. 051 Nov. 05 64,100 74,800 31,300 36,000 Feb. 06 82,400 38,000 -May : 97,300 41,400 Police Other MOI Forces** National Police Total MOI Forces Aug. 06 112,400 23,400 24,300 160,100 Nov. 06 128,008 28,428 24,400 180,836 Feb. 07 135,000 28.900 24,400 188,300 - 110,800 1 120,400 138,700 Note: * Does not include Facilities Protection Service ** "Other MOI Forces” includes Border Protection forces, Dignitary Protection Forces. The National Police were · taken from these forces to form a separate force. Source: Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State Weekly Status Reports, August 2005-February 2007. . 119 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 · Page 39 MOI National Police Forces' Assessed Capabilities Units Not Ready Units Fighting Side by Side with Coalition Forces Units in the Lead with Coalition Enablers or Fully Independent Jun-'05. Feb - '07 Jun-05 Feb - '07 Jun-'05 Feb - '07 National Police Combat Battalions National Police Brigade Headquarters National Police Division Headquarters Data as of November 13, 2006 Source: Adapted from US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, p. 26. Note: +/- 5% margin of error. 120 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 40 Funding Dedicated to the Training and Equipping of the ISF - 10 mm - FÝ 2003 FY 2004* FY2005 FY 2006** FY 2007 FY 2008 5.7 5.5 & Funds Dedicated to the Equipping and Training of Iraqi Security Forces. - *Funding through FY2004 was allocated to the State Department. Afterwards, all funding was allocated through the Defense Department. **Includes both FY2006 Title IX bridge funds and the FY2006 Supplemental request. . Source: Belasco, Amy. The cast of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11. CRS Report for Congress and Department of Defense, “FY 2008 Global War on Terror Budget Request." February, 2007. pg. 35 123 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 43 Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress,, p. 11 ? Department of Defense, FY 2007 Emergency Supplemental Request. February, 2007. Pg. 6. i 3 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, p. -41 * Holdanowicz, Grzegorz. "Poland Delivers BTR-80UP to Iraq" Jane's Defense Weekly, 01/03/2007. Pg. 15. SUS Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, November 2006 Report to Congress, p.31 Lasseter, Tom. Iraqi Troops Pfien Unfit, Corrupt. Miami Herald, 02/10/2007. Pg. 1. General Accounting Office, “Stabilizing Iraq: An Assessment of the Security Situation,” September 11, 2006, p.7 8 Behn, Sharon. Washington Times, Sectarian Loyalties seen in fledgling Military. 12/01/2006. pg. 13 : 9 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, p.41. 10 Rick Jervis and Jim Michaels, “U.S. Forces Caught In Crossfire On Streets Of 'Capital of Death"," USA Toda, October 23, p. 1 " Santora, Marc. New York Times. U.S. and Iraqis Hit Insurgents in All-day Fight. 01/10/2007. pg. 1. 12 Zavis, Alexandra. “Iraqi Soldiers Still Rely Heavily on U.S.” Los Angeles Times, 01/28/2007. 113 Antonio Castaneda, “U.S. Soldiers See Inept Output By Iraqi Troops,” Washington Times, September · 25, 2006, p.1.... . 14 Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Kirk Semple, “42 Iraqis Die As Insurgents Attack Police Near Baquba,” New York Times, October 27, 2006, p.10 1s Santora, Marc. New York Times. U.S. and Iraqis Hit Insurgents in All-day Fight. 01/10/2007. pg. 1. 16 ABC News/USA Today/BBC/ARD poll, released March 19, 2007, pp. 2-3. !? ABC News/USA Today/BBC/ARD poll, released March 19, 2007, pp. 2-3. 18 Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks, “Civil War in Iraq Near, Annan Says,” Washington Post, November 28, 2006, pp. Al and A15. " US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, p. 26. 20 General Accounting Office, “Stabilizing Iraq: An Assessment of the Security Situation,” September 11, 2006, p.18-19 21 General Accounting Office, “Stabilizing Iraq: An Assessment of the Security Situation,” September 11, 2006, p.18-19 22 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, August 2006 Report to Congress, p. 43. 23 US Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), "DoD News Briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Casey," October 11, 2006. 24 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, pg. 33 124 Cordesman: Testimony on Iraqi Force Development 3/26/07 Page 44 2SUS Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, November 2006 Report to Congress, pg. 29 26 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress,,p .25 27 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress,, p .25 28 Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks, “Civil War in Iraq Near, Annan Says," Washington Post, November 28, 2006, pp. Al and A15, 29 Michael R. Gordon, "Break Point? Iraq and America's Military Forces," Survival, Vol. 48, No.4, Winter 2006-07, p.78 30 Linda Robinson, "The Battle for Baghdad,” US News & World Report, August 27, 2006. 31 General Accounting Office, "Stabilizing Iraq: An Assessment of the Security Situation,” September 11, 2006, p.4.5 32 General Accounting Office, “Stabilizing Iraq: An Assessment of the Security Situation," Soptember 11, 2006, p.1 33 Ripley, Tim, “Country Briefing Iraq,” Jane's Defence Weekly, July 5, 2006, p.25 34 Robert Burns, “Rumsfeld OKs Increase In Iraqi Forces," Washingtonpost.com, October 31, 2006 3$ US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, pg. 27 36 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007. Report to Congress, pg. 37 37 US Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, March 2007 Report to Congress, pg. 41 38 General Accounting Office, “Stabilizing Iraq: An Assessment of the Security Situation," September 11, 2006, summary page 39 Office Of The Director of National Intelligence. “Prospects for Iraq's Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead” National Intelligence Estimate, January, 2007. P. 7. 125 CHOOSING VICTORY A PLAN FOR SUCCESS IN IRAQ PHASE II SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS FREDERICK W. KAGAN sens A REPORT OF THE IRAQ PLANNING GROUP AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 127 Success requires committing the necessary military and nonmilitary resources to this well-thought-our strategy, and appointing individuals in Washington and Baghdad with the responsibility and authority to coordinate and execute the military and nonmili- tary aspects of that strategy. It requires developing metrics not for inputs into the project or the effi- ciency of their expenditure, but for their effects on the situation in Iraq. It requires recognizing that the goals are training Iraqis and giving them respon- sibility for security and government operations, but these goals should not be seen primarily as means for accelerating American withdrawal. And success requires increasing the opportunities for the Ameri- can people to become involved in the war effort, to assist the outstanding soldiers and civilians engaged in this vital struggle, and to understand the conse- quences of both success and failure in Iraq. Fighting Terrorism and Controlling Violence V ictory in Iraq remains both possible and neces- sary. Since President George W. Bushs announce ment in January 2007 of a change in U.S. strategy and the deployment of additional military and civilian resources to support that new strategy, the situation in Iraq has begun to improve in many imponant ways. U.S. and Iraqi forces together have attacked both Sunni and Shiite terrorists and militia groups, includ- ing conducting sweeps of Sadr City and other Shiite areas in Baghdad that the Iraqi government had pre- viously declared off-limits. Militia killings dropped during the first months of increased security opera- tions as U.S. and Iraqi forces established Joint Security Stations and Combat Outposts throughout Baghdad. Iraqi prime minister Nuri Kamal al Maliki has sup- ported the arrest of a number of senior Shiite political figures tied to Moqtada al Sadr and the Jaysh al Mahdi. Sunni sheiks in Anbar province have turned against al Qaeda in Iraq, filled the police forces of Fallujah and Ramadi with their sons, and reached out to the Shiite- dominated government in Baghdad. In a dramatic gesture, Maliki visited Ramadi and met with some of the sheiks in March. All of these developments pre- ceded the deployment of most of the additional U.S. forces the president promised in January, and came before the major clear-and-hold operations that are to be the centerpiece of the new approach. The continu- ation of positive developments in Iraq depends upon an ongoing U.S. and Iraqi commitment lo establish- ing and maintaining security, a commitment that has made possible most of the progress to date. Success in Iraqstill defined as helping to estab- lish an Iraqi state that is at peace with itself and its neighbors, has a democratic government seen as legitimate by the overwhelming proportion of its people, and is a reliable ally in the War on Terror requires more than the mere establishment of secu- rity. It also requires a well-developed program of economic, political, social, and governance assisi- ance guided by a clear strategy that supports, com- plements, and benefits from efforts to establish and maintain security. This strategy should be aimed pri- marily at helping to establish security and building the capacity of the Iraqi government to maintain security and to provide other essential services. stablishing security in Iraq is an overriding L. American national interest. It is by far the most important objective the United States must pursue in the Middle East and is rivaled by few other American security objectives around the world. Bringing peace to lands torn by civil strife in vital regions has been a consistent part of American grand strategy for the past quarter of a century for good reason. America benefits more than any other state from a peaceful world, and suffers more than any other from chaos in pivotal regions. Over the past twenty-five years, the United States has been successful in reestablishing and maintaining peace between warring peoples and states when it has been determined to do so, and has failed only when it has chosen to fail. Every failure, whether the abandonment of Beirut in the 1980s or of Afghanistan and Somalia in the 1990s, has carried a high price for the United States and its allies. Suc- cesses, such as Bosnia and Kosovo, have also been costly, controversial, and criticized, but they averted disasters that for years seemed inevitable. The sectar- ian violence in Iraq that grew steadily after February 2006 does not mean that success in Iraq is no longer 129 PHASE II SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS report summarizes the results and recommendations of that phase. Il study: • The focus in 2008, situation permitting, should be on transitioning responsibility for governance, economic development, and over time the maintenance of security and law and order to the Iraqis. Timeline and Overview • Preparations for the Baghdad Security Plan began in January 2007 Economic Assistance to Security Programs • The initial shaping operations (operations designed to set the stage for decisive opera- tions that will begin later or occur else- where) of the plan began in February 2007. The economic assistance program should be redesigned so that it supports the effort to establish and maintain security and has components that par- allel the following “clear, hold, and build" phases of the security plan. • U.S. forces will continue to flow into Bagh- dad and its environs through June 2007. • Major clear-and-hold operations will prob- ably not begin until May or June 2007, and will likely continue for several months. Immediate Assistance in the Reestablishment of Security. The aim of this effort is to help military and police forces clear areas of insurgents, militias, vigilante groups, and criminal violence through non-kinetic means including, but not restricted to, economic assistance. This program focuses on: • Security in most of Baghdad and some of Anbar should be established by the end of 2007. • Restoring essential services to cleared neigh- borhoods, including balancing services fairly between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods • Subsequent operations will have to clear the rest of Baghdad and Anbar, and also Babil, Diyala, Salah ad Din, Ninewah, and Tamim provinces, continuing well into 2008. • Reducing unemployment primarily through direct hiring • Increasing the size of the Iraqi Army, both to enable it to maintain peace over the long run and to provide immediate employment in cleared areas • “Reconstruction" activities will have to focus on supporting the clear-and-hold portion of operations through the summer of 2007 at least, and will likely refocus on longer-term programs and transition activities toward the end of 2007 and into 2008. • Establishing military and police positions necessary for the next phases of the operation • The focus of 2007 should be on building the capacity of the Iraqi government to function, restoring economic activity in cleared areas, continuing to train and build the Iraqi Army, vetting and retraining the Iraqi National Police, and mobilizing the American people and government in sup- port of the war effort. These efforts should in principle belong to the next phase of operations--the hold phase of the security plan--but they are and must be ongoing even during the clearing phase of this plan in areas where security already permits. 1. The new command in Iraq has replaced "clear-hold-build" with "clear-control-relain," terns that have technical meanings within military doctrine. This summary will continue to refer to "clear-hold-build" for the convenience of non-technical readers more familiar with those terins. 131 PHASE II SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS • Sadr and Hakim both have publicly backed the Baghdad Security Plan, ordered their militias not to resist it, and tacitly permitted the removal of key Sadrist allies from criti- cal positions in service ministries. including the oil, gas, and electrical infra- structure, could be redesigned to support either federalism or regionalism. It is very much in the interests of the United States and Iraq that these programs strengthen the unity of the Iraqi state rather than further the interests of regional power blocs. • The Council of Ministers has passed the hydrocarbons law for consideration to the COR; it has already passed laws establishing the basis of a military judicial system and laying the groundwork for provincial and local elections. Recommendations Economic Assistance • Sunni sheiks in Anbar have turned against al Qaeda and toward the Iraqi government, beginning a vital process of reconciliation and also reintegration of Sunni Arab lands into the Iraqi government and political system. • Develop an overarching strategy for eco- nomic assistance that complements and supports ongoing efforts to establish and maintain durable security throughout Iraq. Continued progress requires: • Improving the effectiveness of the Iraqi government. This is essential to establishing and maintaining the legitimacy of that gov- ernmeni, a key goal in any counterinsur- gency operation and any effort to end ethno-sectarian violence. Eliminate the Iraq Reconstruction Manage- ment Office (IRMO) and assign its duties to responsible and accountable individuals and agencies. IRMO is an ad hoc body that does not have statutory authority or respon- sibility. Confusion about its role and powers and overlap between IRMO and other bod- ies involved in reconstruction has hindered the effort since IRMO's inception. IRMO is no longer needed, moreover, as other coor- dinating bodies already exist to ensure the coherence of coalition military and eco- nomic assistance programs. • Changing the Iraqi political landscape. Success in Iraq will require weakening the force and appeal of politics based on ethno- sectarian identity and creating political groups focused on broader issues and interests. The ELTG program focuses on countrywide sys- tems that can serve as economic catalysts for the creation of issues-based political groups. • Appoint a senior retired military officer or former high government official in Washing- ton to coordinate interagency support for the effort in Iraq. This official should have sufficient experience and stature to be able to call upon all U.S. government agencies to support the war effort, and should have the full backing of the president in this endeavor. • Creating a self-sustaining, self-defending Iraqi state. This is clearly one of the primary objectives of American operations in Iraq, and ELTG programs are essential to achiev- ing this aim. • Developing and maintaining Iraqi unity. Major focus areas of the ELTG program, • Create eleven District Support Teams (DSTs) (tailored mini-Provincial Reconstruction Teams, also called PRTS) for Baghdad, align their areas of operation with the military 137 PHASE II SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Police forces that have already been identified but that required continued and even increased emphasis in the face of challenges. These include: • Vetting the Iraqi National Police and the Ministry of Interior to eliminate indi- viduals and groups tied too closely to mili- tias and death squads (this process is underway) assets. In truth, this situation is not unique to Iraq. The enormous advantages the United States has in these areas.---particularly transportation, communi- cations, and logistics has led many American allies in Europe and around the world to rely on American resources for their combat forces' logisti- cal and communications infrastructure. Traq is not differenl in this regard from many American allies. The creation of an independent and self-sustaining Iraqi state nevertheless requires a much higher degree of indigenous support capability than Iraq now has. Although proposals have abounded for increas- ing the number of American soldiers embedded as trainers with the Iraqi forces—usually tied to the fal- lacious argument that embedding more trainers would permit the more rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from combal--there is relatively little that can be done at this point to accelerate the training of Iraqi Army soldiers beyond what is already planned and underway. This includes: • Developing the bureaucratic efficiency, impartiality, and effectiveness of the Iraqi ministries of defense and interior (see rec- ommendations above for improving the capacity of the Iraqi central government in general) • Helping the Iraqis equip their security forces with modern communications, trans- portation, and especially armored assets nec- essary for conducting counterinsurgency and high-end peacekeeping operations. The United States can assist this process in several ways: • Maintaining the embedded trainers with Iraqi Army units, but not increasing their numbers dramatically Partnering Iraqi Army and National Police units with American combat units down to the company level wherever possible • Planning and conducting combined opera- tions in which U.S. forces work with Iraqi Army and National Police units • Through the ministerial capacity- building programs described above • Facilitating Gol purchases through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, particularly if the U.S. government can provide waivers of various "buy Ameri- can” provisions in the FMS program (this process is underway) » Helping train Iraqi mechanics and tech- nicians so they can maintain equipment they receive or purchase • Providing access to spare parts and essen- tial depot equipment • Rotating Iraqi Army units through Baghdad from all parts of the country to provide them with combat experience, demonstrate the nonsectarian nature of the Baghdad Security Plan, and prevent individual units from forming inappropriate bonds with local inhabitants by operating for too long in a single neighborhood • Helping the Iraqis develop a functioning general staff, corps and division headquar- ters and staffs, an effective independent training base, and the other institutional bases required to sustain any modern armed force There are a number of requirements for improv- ing the performance of the Iraqi Army and National 138 CHOOSING VICTORY: A PLAN FOR SUCCESS IN IRAQ • Continuing to serve as a guarantor of the professionalism and impartiality of the Iraqi Army and, when possible, the Iraqi National Police, through partnership and presence in order to reassure Sunni Arabs that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) will not become a genocide force and the Shiites that the ISF will not become a coup d'état force in the hands of Sunni revanchists their families and friends a very small percentage of the population-are engaged in the struggle. Hopes for American success in this war or future wars rest with the quality of the all-volunieer force, and although it is clear that the ground forces must be expanded, the voluntary nature of military seri- ice must also be retained. The United States should not return to conscription to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Probably because of the voluntary nature of mili- tary service, the American people have demon- strated tremendous support for U.S. servicemen in Traq, despite the wars growing unpopularity. The Bush administration has, nonetheless, been slow and timid in identifying ways in which the American public could support its soldiers and connect with the Iraqi people they are risking their lives to save. There are a number of easy ways to increase the involvement of the American people in this war, encouraging and supporting the troops and increas- ing the likelihood of success: Although the United States is engaged today in every one of these activities and is pursuing every one of these goals, it has been unwilling to commit the resources to succeed in every area at once. The emphasis on getting Iraqi soldiers into the fight has led to delays in building the institutional, com- mand-and-control, and logistics capabilities of the Iraqi Army and lo unacceptable levels of militia infil- tration into the police and interior ministry. In the short term, the requirements of the Baghdad Secu- rity Plan will probably drive a continued emphasis on sustaining the fighting capacity of the ISF, but as that operation moves toward success, it will be important to transition resources to complete the process of establishing a self-sustaining ISF Efforts already underway in Baghdad and beyond will likely result in a significant improvement in the Iraqi police, but it is important to note that the efforts to create an effective police force both in Iraq and in Afghanistan have been the weakest of all coalition efforts to establish indigenous forces. Nei- ther the United States nor NATO appears to have the capacity to train indigenous police forces rapidly and effectively, and this shortfall will be a serious problem in many future operations. It should be addressed within the framework of the alliance as a matter of priority. • Creating a military Craigslist-style site on which units or PRTs could identify equip- ment and supplies that would help the local Iraqi people • Allowing American families to "sponsor a soldier," sending letters and care packages to soldiers and Marines in Iraq, and encour- aging sponsored soldiers to maintain public or private blogs as a way of communicating with their sponsoring families • Allowing communities to sponsor deployed units in a similar fashion on a larger scale, particularly communities that are not near military bases Mobilizing American Support. Of the many differ- ences between the current conflict and Vietnam, one of the most noticeable is that very few Americans are directly involved in the conflict or feel connected to it, either positively or negatively. The fact that the U.S. military is an all-volunteer force has meant that only those who have chosen to join the colors and • As security permits, encouraging the involve- ment of business leaders in the effort, offer- ing CEOs and other corporate leaders more chances to visit the Green Zone and other secured areas and meet and interact with American forces in the theater 12 144 tary. Transition teams typically operate far from secure forward operating bases and may have poor communication with other coalition units, limited sanitation and un- certain force protection. The Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report raised the issue of whether the military is putting the most qualified soldiers and leaders on transition teams and whether the career incentives that the military has in place to attract and retain qualified advisors are sufficient. The ISG recommended that “the most highly qualified U.S. officers and military personnel should be assigned to the imbedded teams, and American teams should be present with Iraqi units down to the company level. The U.S. should establish suitable career-enhancing incentives for these officers and personnel.” Based on your research and experience, what steps do you believe the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve these unconventional forces in terms of their: qualifications, leadership, selection, and training? Dr. KAGAN. Based on my recent trips to Iraq (in early April and early May 2007), I believe that many of these concerns have already been addressed or are in the process of being addressed. The command in Iraq, particularly MNSTC-I, which has responsibility for these issues, is acutely aware of the importance of fielding teams of excellent officers with combat experience. The major problem is that officers at the ranks required, especially 0–5 and 0–6, with the desired expertise and skill sets are a scarce commodity in the Army, and they are needed as badly in the combat forces engaged in providing security to the population as in the MITT teams. I be- lieve that the Army as an institution and the commands in Iraq are balancing the requirement between fielding good MiTT teams and maintaining qualified personnel in the fighting BCTs appropriately. Given the importance of establishing security and the rapidly improving quality of the Iraqi Army, I would not recommend taking steps to improve or expand MiTT teams that would harm the Army's ability to field the necessary number of capable BCTs. I would take issue with the notion that MiTT teams are the only or even the best way to improve the capacity of the Iraqi Army at this point, moreover. MiTTs are extremely important, but the partnership between American Army and Marine units and Iraqi Army and Police units is at least as important. This partnership is growing in importance, moreover, as the Iraqi Army units are advancing in capacity and capability, and as our focus shifts appropriately to identifying and weeding out sectarian actors within the security forces, something that MiTTs are ill-equipped to do, but that partnered units do on a regular basis. This discussion does argue strongly for an expansion of the ground forces as rapidly as possible, and for the desirability of maintaining a reserve of offi- cers at all ranks who can be used to fill out unexpected requirements like MiTT teams, rather than attempting to maintain a lean force with just enough personnel to man it. Mr. MEEHAN. According to the 2006 CALL study, advisor teams operate under multiple chains of command simultaneously causing confusion of roles and author- ity, when they should have a clear unambiguous chain of command. Advisor teams are administratively controlled by the Iraq Assistance Group. They have a command relationship from their next higher level team. They support their Iraqi counterpart which is operationally controlled by the next higher level Iraqi formation or by the local coalition unit. The advisor team is operationally controlled by the coalition force in whose battle space they reside. Based on your research and experience, what steps do you believe either the Congress or the military could take to strength- en and improve these unconventional forces in terms of these command and control issues? Dr. KAGAN. Based on my recent visits and research, I believe that the problems identified in this. question have been resolved as much as they can be. Iraq is a sov- ereign state with a chain of command of its own, a fact that is both inevitable and desirable. The MiTT teams, as I understand it, have now been placed under the au- thority of the BCT commanders in whose AORs they operate, thus greatly reducing the administrative confusion the committee rightly addresses here. This changed re- lationship has helped to ensure much greater coordination between the MiTT teams, the Iraqi units they advise, and the U.S. forces with which they are partnered. Í observed a great deal of close coordination and solid partnership in all of the units I visited. I do not believe that further intervention is warranted in this area. Mr. MEEHAN. In a December 2006 HASC Hearing on Military Transition Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of how effectiveness of transition teams is measured was raised; DOD's witnesses were not able to fully answer the question. While they agreed that the proficiency of the Iraqi Army unit a transition team is partnered with should be an indicator, they were not able to offer any definitive set of effectiveness measures. A MiTT leader who returned from Iraq in March 2007 said that the measure of success for an advisor team is proportional to the chal- lenges of the unit they partner with and how that unit develops during the tenure 145 of that team. He said that the Transition Readiness Assessment (TRA) are not a useful tool for measuring success. He stated that TRAs really reflect a shortsighted view that is useful only in gauging dependency on coalition forces. Dr. KAGAN. Measuring the effectiveness of transition teams is extraordinarily dif- ficult. Metrics that focus on the number of “trained and ready" units or the number of units “operating independently" are nearly meaningless. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police are actively fighting the insurgents, both Sunni and Shi'a, across Iraq today. They are in various states of readiness and capability and would no doubt produce an intriguing mosaic of metrics. What matters is that they are fighting and dying against our common enemy, and that is, at the end of the day, one of two key immeasurable "metrics” that matter. The other is at least as impor- tant but can be even more difficult to measure numerically—the degree of sectarian infiltration of the Iraqi units. Anecdotally (and I observed a number of units in many parts of the country during my two trips there), Iraqi Army units are func- tioning professionally, competently, and in a reasonably non-sectarian fashion. Cer- tain Iraqi National Police units are also functioning in this way, but others have been infiltrated by sectarian actors. These units can be harmful when they are placed in positions that allow them to pursue their sectarian agendas. There is, therefore, an important tension in our efforts to improve the capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces across the board. Simply improving the capacity of sec- tarian units will hinder, not help, our efforts to stabilize Iraq and create a state that can survive our withdrawal over the long term. Some MITI and NPTT teams that I observed are focused too heavily on simply building capacity. They must focus heavily as well on observing, identifying, and stopping sectarian behavior, reporting (with detailed evidence packets) sectarian behavior to their commanders and to the Iraqi commands, and pressing for units pursuing sectarian agendas to cease such activities or be removed and even disbanded if they persist. I have observed a num- ber of U.S. units doing precisely these things to very good effect. They can restrain sectarian behavior, however, only by operating alongside the Iraqi units. MiTT and NPTT teams have a much harder time even recognizing sectarian behavior because they have much less opportunity to develop their own understanding of the neigh- borhood and the situation independent of the information they receive from Iraqi units. Improving the quality of the ISF overall will not come from an intensive focus on MiTT and NPTT teams. It requires the close integration of their efforts with those of coalition forces partnered with Iraqi units and operating together with them against insurgents, terrorists, and militias. Only in this way, finally, will we be able to gain an understanding of the real effects that ISF units are having on the ground—the ultimate measure of their effectiveness. Mr. MEEHAN. According to DOD, improving the proficiency of all Iraqi military and police units is accomplished primarily through the efforts of Military Transition Teams. These MiTTs, composed of 6,000 advisors in more than 480 teams, are em- bedded at all levels of Iraqi units in all major subordinate commands. A wide vari- ety of transition teams are advising the ISF in a variety of venues. In its first as- sessment of transition teams done in 2006, the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) said that advising the Iraqi Forces is one of the toughest jobs in the mili- tary. Transition teams typically operate far from secure forward operating bases and may have poor communication with other coalition units, limited sanitation and un- certain force protection. The Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report raised the issue of whether the military is putting the most qualified soldiers and leaders on transition teams and whether the career incentives that the military has in place to attract and retain qualified advisors are sufficient. The ISG recommended that "the most highly qualified U.S. officers and military personnel should be assigned to the imbedded teams, and American teams should be present with Iraqi units down to the company level. The U.S. should establish suitable career-enhancing incentives for these officers and personnel.” Based on your research and experience, what steps do you believe the Congress or the military could take to strengthen and improve these unconventional forces in terms of their: qualifications, leadership, selection, and training? Ms. OLIKER. There is, indeed significant concern regarding the training and qual- ity of personnel chosen to embed with Iraqi security forces. I would divide the prob- lem into two categories. First is the question of embedding military personnel with civilian police units. As I noted in my testimony, because of the differences between military and civilian goals and methods, this creates fundamental problems in the development of Iraq's police capacity—which is crucial to both today's ongoing con- flict and, in the event of eventual stabilization, to the institutions that a future peaceful Iraq inherits. In regard to the military personnel who are embedded, my understanding is that the U.S. armed forces have improved training and sought to improve incentives for U.S. personnel being prepared for the embedding mission, 146 but more could certainly be done. The integration of personnel who have served as embedded advisors into the development of the training program is a key compo- nent. The focus on stability operations and policing type tactics and approaches is also crucial—the Iraqi forces that U.S. forces are advising must work among the Iraqi population and gain their trust, the U.S. forces should be in a position to help them do that. For that they need to understand the mechanisms of operating under circumstances in which the population may be hostile, but must be protected none- theless. Selection is another issue. Identifying the best people is far easier than con- vincing them to take part in a job that is dangerous, lengthy, and may not be re- warded with promotion. Ensuring that the opportunities for promotion are there can be helpful, but the experience of Vietnam, where many former advisors found that they were not given the opportunities they had been promised, is telling. The U.S. military will have to follow through. Of course, insofar as future missions are likely to have as a component the building of security forces in post-conflict and conflict countries may indicate that this is a new area of specialization for the armed forces. It is worth considering whether it should be treated as such. Mr. MEEHAN. According to the 2006 CALL study, advisor teams operate under multiple chains of command simultaneously causing confusion of roles and author- ity, when they should have a clear unambiguous chain of command. Advisor teams are administratively controlled by the Iraq Assistance Group. They have a command relationship from their next higher level team. They support their Iraqi counterpart which is operationally controlled by the next higher level Iraqi formation or by the local coalition unit. The advisor team is operationally controlled by the coalition force in whose battle space they reside. Based on your research and experience, what steps do you believe either the Congress or the military could take to strength- en and improve these unconventional forces in terms of these command and control issues? Ms. OLIKER. I think that the Command and Control component is important, and should be streamlined to the extent possible. That said, ensuring appropriate ac- countability and transparency is no less important. A thorough review of C2 systems and accountability requirements might be called for to rationalize the process. Mr. MEEHAN. In a December 2006 HASC Hearing on Military Transition Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question of how effectiveness of transition teams is measured was raised; DOD's witnesses were not able to fully answer the question. While they agreed that the proficiency of the Iraqi Army unit a transition team is partnered with should be an indicator, they were not able to offer any definitive set of effectiveness measures. A MiTT leader who returned from Iraq in March 2007 said that the measure of success for an advisor team is proportional to the chal- lenges of the unit they partner with and how that unit develops during the tenure of that team. He said that the Transition Readiness Assessment (TRĂ) are not a useful tool for measuring success. He stated that TRAs really reflect a shortsighted view that is useful only in gauging dependency on coalition forces. What do you be- lieve would be good measures of effectiveness for both the ISF and the U.S. advisor teams supporting them? Ms. OLIKER. The measures of success depend on what goals are to be attained. If the goal is simply to improve Iraqi security forces, then the measure of success is the difference in their capability, in any given area, from the time training begins to the time it ends. That, however, does not bring us closer to the goal of having Iraqi forces that are capable of carrying out specific tasks, such as ensuring the se- curity of a community or a region, being able to apprehend and interrogate pris- oners without violating human rights, be trusted by the public sufficiently that they are provided with tips and other intelligence, and be able to carry out operations of various sorts independently (to name just a handful). Their dependence, or lack thereof, on coalition forces is also a very important indicator, and should not be dis- missed. It is true that overall assessments like the TRAs seek to condense scores and capabilities in a number of areas such as these into a single assessment. This is, indeed, not as informative as it could be and it is important to be able to under- stand the components that go into that score, so as to assess whether or not the right things are being measured, and whether the weights assigned to them in pre- paring the overall score are appropriate. The true measures will be a variety of qualitative and quantitative indicators that measure the Iraqi forces' capacity to carry out the key tasks called for by their job description (which will vary based on whether they are local police, national police, or various units of the Iraqi mili- tary), their capacity to gain the trust of the community, their loyalty, their absentee rates, their desertion rates, their death rates, their recruitment rates and vetting procedures, their deployability (if relevant), the numbers of tips that they receive, the rates and forms of violence in the areas they are responsible for, and what hap- pens when abuses are reported. Evaluations of U.S. trainers are somewhat trickier,