squads continue. Our continued occupation will ensure taxpayer
dollars will be subject to waste, fraud and abuse at the hands of
Halliburton and other defense contractors. And our continued occu-
pation will ensure al Qaeda continues to grow.
Our Bible says, “That which is crooked cannot be made straight.”
I think that those words would characterize our occupation pres-
ence in Iraq, because the administration manipulated intelligence,
deliberately misled the public and Congress, and issued a false
campaign of fear to sell this phony policy.
The war in Iraq has been a grave and tragic mistake. It has cost
us blood and treasure. It has damaged our reputation in the world,
it has squandered the world's goodwill after 9/11, and it has been
a tremendous distraction from our efforts to challenge terrorism
worldwide and to seek justice of those responsible for 9711.
We have lost over 2,671 U.S. soldiers, tens of thousands more
have been injured, many of them severely maimed; 100,000 to
200,000 innocent Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion.
We have squandered over $380 billion of taxpayers' money, all of
it in deficit spending. Over half of this deficit spending is derived
from foreign sources. Think about it: We have to borrow from Bei-
jing to occupy Baghdad.
The consequences of staying are that our troops remain bogged
down in an unwinnable war, with no exit strategy, a rising death
toll, and a country growing bloody and deadly as we create more
terrorists, while politicians in Washington continue to ignore the
advice of generals and pursue ideological and political agendas.
Stay the course? I believe our colleague and my friend Congress-
man Duncan said it best the other day, and I am paraphrasing. He
said, When you are headed down a highway in the wrong direction,
you take the exit ramp. We are headed in the wrong direction in
Iraq.
Over 3 years after the administration's misguided war of choice,
failed occupation, and disastrous reconstruction effort, Iraq is our
quagmire. The consequences of staying are far more dangerous
than the consequence of taking the exit ramp from Iraq.
I believe it is time we end this grave misadventure in Iraq and
bring our troops home with the honor and dignity they deserve
Mr. Chairman, I just handed you a letter requesting the commit-
tee examine the role of our intelligence apparatus in the current
march to armed conflict with Iran. History appears to be repeating
itself. The administration is using the same phony tactics to try to
launch the next war as it did 4 years ago to mislead us into the
current quagmire.
According to the Washington Post of September 14, 2006, article
entitled “U.N. Inspectors Dispute Iran Report by House Panel,” the
Director of National Intelligence, DNI, conducted a pre-publication
review of the House Intelligence Committee staff report on Iran
which has come under scrutiny for making false, misleading, and
unsubstantiated assertions about Iran's nuclear program. In the ar-
ticle a spokesperson for the DNI confirmed the agency did review
the report prior to its publication, yet the final committee staff re-
port, "included at least a dozen claims that were either demon-
strably wrong or impossible to substantiate,” including the gross
exaggeration that the level of uranium enriched by nuclear plants


11
an expeditious manner. Once again, Mr. Chairman, I want to
thank you for holding these series of hearings and I look forward
to hearing from the witnesses.
Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlemen. Let me just comment on the
letter, and I thank him for showing us the letter. What I'm going
to suggest is that we first have a briefing with the Intelligence
Committee, and we'll do that next week, and then you and I can
decide where we go from there.
In reference to the meeting you described where the Defense De-
partment did not show up, the State Department did not show up,
but the DNI did, we had a classified briefing with the DNI. The
State Department provided us classified materials. The Defense
Department said they would give us a letter stating why they did
not come and so on, and why they do not come, and we have yet
to get that letter.
What we'll first do is, this week we'll schedule a meeting to go
over that information, try to do it toward the beginning of the week
so we can decide how to followup.
Mr. KUCINICH. I appreciate your help on this, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]


12
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and
International Relations
Committee on Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
Hearing on Iraq: Democracy or Civil War?
What are the consequences of leaving Iraq?
September 15, 2006
Today's hearing seeks to explore the question, what are the consequences of
leaving Iraq?
I think the better question to ask is: what are the consequences of our
staying.
Despite the rosy assessments of this Administration, the facts on the ground
in Iraq are dismal.
Iraq is mired in an increasingly bloody civil war with US troops, and
innocent Iraqis, caught in the crossfire. The civilian death toll continues to
rise at a staggering and gruesome pace. Attacks on our troops have not
subsided. And, three and one-half years, and $380 billion dollars later, most
Iraqis still suffer daily without the most basic of needs such as electricity,
clean water, sewage or working hospitals.
Everyday, 120 more Iraqis die at the hands of execution-style death squads,
kidnappings, murders, IEDs, and sectarian violence.
Al Qaeda, which prior to the U.S. invasion had no influence, has now grown
in influence and number of recruits. And, Iraq has become a breeding and
training ground for terrorists who want to kill Americans.
Our own military intelligence officials have given up on Anbar Province,
and three years after the invasion, our occupation is not even able to secure
the capital of Baghdad.


17
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Lynch, thank you for being here.
If I could interrupt and say to our witnesses, this is how we do
things in Congress. We make statements before the start of every
hearing. And we hope that it has some value to our witnesses as
well, so that they can in their questions respond to what concerns
us. And I do think there is value in all three of you knowing that
there is very real division in our own country about how we deal
with Iraq, and having your input is helpful.
I want to thank the gentlemen who are here to be able to inter-
act with the Iraqis, who can share their feelings, so I'm really
grateful you're here.
Mr. Lynch, sorry for interrupting you. You can have as much
time as you need.
Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you
for your willingness to hold these hearings and also thank Ranking
Member Kucinich for his work as well. I want to welcome back Mr.
Talabany, Dr. Al-Hasani and Mr. AlMusawi and thank them and
all the panelists here today to help the committee with its work.
Yesterday's media reports detailing the Iraqi police's discovery of
nearly 100 death squad victims in Baghdad over just a 2-day span
evidence the new nature of the conflict in Iraq. What began as a
direct military operation to oust Saddam Hussein from military
power in the interest of national and global security, and then later
became a war against a durable and underestimated terrorist in-
surgency, is now primarily defined by heightened sectarian violence
and the early evidence of a full-blown civil war.
According to the Department of Defense's most recent quarterly
report to Congress on measuring stability and security in Iraq, I'll
quote from it here:
"rising sectarian strife defines the emerging nature of violence in
mid-2006 in Iraq as evidenced by an increasing number of execu-
tion-style killings, kidnappings and attacks on civilians, and a 51
percent increase in Iraqi casualties over the previous reporting pe-
riod.”
Now, as a result, our brave men and women in uniform who are
already shouldering a massive effort against the insurgency are
now being asked—and this has been the topic of our hearings here,
the issue of reconciliation between Sunni and Shia in Iraq. That
has become the defining conflict in Iraq, and yet we have commit-
ted our sons and daughters and enormous resources to that effort.
I don't think that there would have been many people in this
body if, back in 2002, we were asked to commit our sons and
daughters and enormous resources of this country for the purpose
of reconciling the differences between Shia and Sunni. It would
have been overreaching on our part. I don't think there was any
appetite for that purpose. But that is where we are right now in
Iraq.
Even now, U.S. force levels in Baghdad have had to be increased
dramatically because of sectarian violence, with an additional 7,000
troops recently sent to the Iraqi capital.
Mr. Chairman, simply put, given the dramatic change in the na-
ture of the conflict in Iraq, the administration's longstanding “stay
the course” strategy is not working given that our course has sig-
nificantly diverged since March 2003. We have failed to empower


18
the newly elected Iraqi Government and we have now overloaded
our own Armed Forces with primary responsibility over all govern-
ment services, from training Iraqi police officers to repairing public
utilities and to engendering national reconciliation between the
Shia and Sunni sects, the differences between which date back to
632 after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. That is not a realis-
tic goal in my mind for U.S. troops.
I have been to Iraq five times and I have had dozens of meetings
with your colleagues in the Iraqi Parliament, and also with Gen-
eral George Casey as well as President Talabany—your dad, Mr.
Talabany, a good man—and members of the Iraqi Council of Rep-
resentatives and other United States and Iraqi officials. I strongly
believe that our Iraq strategy could be best served by implementing
a transparent and fully accountable mechanism by which to transi-
tion the country's government operations to the elected Iraqi civil-
ian government, thereby facilitating the safe and prompt return of
our military forces and decreasing the detrimental consequences
that our departure could have on Iraq.
To this end, I have actually filed and drafted legislation, the Iraq
Transition Act, to establish a national bipartisan commission to
guide and accomplish Iraq's transition to civilian control and also
to report that progress when it happens to the Congress.
This legislation is rooted in a successful historical precedent;
namely, the 1944 Filipino Rehabilitation Act. At the end of World
War II, the latter part of World War II, this country found itself
in the possession of the Philippine Islands, and by default, because
we had just driven out the Japanese, we found that the military-
the U.S. military was in control of every aspect of the government
in the Philippines. And what we did then I think was instructive.
President Roosevelt established a national commission made up
of representatives of the White House, the House and the Senate
for the sole and singular purpose of transferring the military's con-
trol of that country to its civilian population.
Now, there are obviously great differences between the Phil-
ippines in 1944 and Iraq today, but the job that needs to be done
is the same. The only way we can get our troops out of there in
a deliberate and orderly and safe fashion is to transfer significantly
and substantially the government operations from our military over
to your civilian government. That has to happen. That is a nec-
essary precondition to our withdrawal, and we seek it now.
There has been much talk about the Iraqis stepping up. You're
here now. I want you to take this message back: We need to see
you step up; we need to see you take responsibility.
I spoke with President Talabany back in April in the convention
center during the first session of the Iraqi—the new Iraqi Council.
He said he admitted the overwhelming military presence of the
United States in our country is not good, it's not good for our fu-
ture, not good for the independence of Iraq. He said we need you
to leave, but not just now.
The patience of the American people is growing thin and the na-
ture of the conflict is not something that we can solve. It's a politi-
cal solution that needs to be accomplished by Sunni and Shia. Your
people will lose faith in the elected government that they've chosen.


Mr. Chairman, I am thankful that we have these panelists, not
only this group but the ones to follow. Mr. Chairman, I welcome
our panelists' thoughts on these suggestions and I look forward to
their perspectives on the current political and security environment
in Iraq. And I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you.
Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlemen. I just want to say to our pan-
elists, we are so grateful you're here and we have such respect for
all three of you. So this dialog is so that we have an honest ex-
change with each other. We know that your presence here is very
helpful, and I just want to say how grateful we are that you are
in fact here. You will have the opportunity to tell us what you
think in response to what you're hearing. Thank you.
The gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing. This is the third hearing we've had this week.
The first hearing was on Monday, September 11th, and given the
fact this is the week where we are remembering the attacks that
took place in the United States September 11, 2001, I do think it
is important that we go back and remember that there was abso-
lutely no connection between the attacks that took place on the
United States September 11, 2001 and Iraq. There was no connec-
tion between Saddam Hussein and the attacks that took place on
the United States on September 11, 2001.
So as we passed that solemn occasion last Monday, we need to
take a look at how we're doing with respect to our efforts against
those who perpetrated those attacks and, unfortunately, despite
the fact that the President of the United States in May 2003,
aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lincoln proclaimed behind a ban-
ner that read “Mission Accomplished,” that we had met our objec-
tives, we have not yet begun to meet our objectives with respect to
those who attacked this country on September 11, 2001.
The fact of the matter is Osama bin Laden remains alive and
well somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Al Qaeda is
still active and plotting attacks against the United States and oth-
ers. In fact, what we we've seen is a resurgence of Taliban activity
in Afghanistan, especially in southern Afghanistan, which is the
heartland of the Taliban. They have seen—we have seen increased
attacks. General Maples, the head of the DIA, testified earlier be-
fore the Senate with respect to the increased threat posed by the
Taliban. Despite the increase, the United States has actually re-
duced the number of American forces in southern Afghanistan.
We've also seen recently the Pakistani Government has essen-
tially entered into a nonaggression pact with those in the north-
west frontier area, in the Waziristan area, essentially saying the
Pakistani forces won't come after the Taliban.
We've learned recently that we've seen a record high opium crop,
historical high opium crop in Afghanistan. Things are not going as
well as they should in Afghanistan and the United States has not
kept its eye on the ball and we have not completed the mission in
Afghanistan.
This country was united, absolutely united in taking forceful ac-
tion to get Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The international com-
munity was behind us. NATO, the United Nations, unanimously
passed a resolution condemning the attacks on the United States


23
People talked about we need to transfer here the power to the
Iraqi Government. Absolutely. We want that. But on what condi-
tion do we want that? With the current situation, no. We need to
have some kind of balance in the government which is not there
yet. I said we have a national unity government but a lot of the
institution is not balanced yet.
You are talking about some of these institutions like the army
and the police forces. You don't have real representation of the
Iraqi societies in both these institutions. We need to fix that before
the troops leave Iraq and then, yes, we need the Iraqis to get the
power.
This fight that's going on in Iraq, it's not Iraq's specific fight.
We've got to remember that. All these killings that's happening, it's
happening by the proxies of other countries in Iraq. And I don't
mean any
specific country. There are many countries involved in
Iraq, supporting this group or other group. This is a fight between
the United States and other countries in Iraq. So it isn't just a
fight between Iraqis themselves. It's not Shia and Sunni fights.
I think the fights that you are seeing, it's between the political
parties that claim that they represent this side or the other side.
Iraqi people are normal people, and I say that honestly, and I
swear in this committee, they don't have problems between them-
selves, Shia and Sunni. Í have many friends who are Shia, I have
many friends who are Sunni. I defend the Kurds and Shia more
than I defend the Sunnis if they are oppressed.
Mr. SHAYS. Let me have you end on that nice note.
Mr. AlMusawi.
Mr. ALMUSAWI. I would like to also comment about progress in-
the political progress in Iraq. We have right now Council of
Representatives-
Mr. SHAYS. I'll ask you to speak a little louder.
Mr. ALMUSAWI. We have Council of Representatives today in
Iraq, we have a constitution, we have an elected government, we
have Prime Minister, and we have national unity government.
Regarding to the balance in the government, I believe there is a
balance in the government today. And we took two issues to work
the national unity and also the consequences of the last election
in Iraq.
I would agree with Dr. Al-Hasani about the links between al
Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Besides that we have to talk about
the human rights in Iraq. I think there is an ethical commitment
for the United States to help Iraqis to get rid of this brutal regime.
Also, there is mutual mission today. We have to achieve, we have
to accomplish this mission together. We shouldn't talk about the
past, which was right or wrong. We are right now in a very serious
condition in Iraq. We need some help from our partners, from the
international community, in particular from the United States, be-
cause we believe we have a mutual mission and we have to have
some partners to help us there.
Regarding the security situation, I would also comment that we
have a problem with our neighbors and, unfortunately, this is the
frankness—that transferring Iraq from centralization to decen-
tralization, this is a huge and very serious transfer. Some other
on: the na


24
2
rsity o
countries, unfortunately, are fueling the violence and they don't ac-
cept the serious participation of the Shia in the government.
This is my advice to all Iraqis—and I think we are working on
this—that we have to get along with each other, we have to accept
each other, we have to accept the new reality in Iraq, w
understand that democracy is the only solution. We have to under-
stand that the diversi
he Iraqis will not be content
only by federalism.
These issues are the most crucial issues, debatable issues in Iraq
right now. We have to accept them and then we will for sure make
some good progress in Iraq.
The problem actually also about the death squads, we have to
understand there is some problems between Iraq and other coun-
tries with our neighbors, and from that we need as Iraqis the help
of the international community to talk or to see some commitments
through the United Nations or through other institutions that
could help Iraqis to protect borders.
I think there is serious interference from all our neighbors, there
is no exception. And actually the visit of the Prime Minister
Maliki-one of these signals that he's talking to the Iranians and
other countries—they are also fueling the violence.
The death squads, we do not have any evidence so far about
those death squads. Some of our—some Iraqis whom accusing, un-
fortunately, without any evidence. I would be very frank with you,
that organization since 2003 dismantled from military brigade to a
civilian organization, civil organization, and right now it's concern
about reconstruction and development.
We have to stop accusing each other as Iraqis, if we don't give
up, from this kind of accusation and we have to get along with each
other and to accept each other, or we will not reach an agreement
in Iraq. I think we still need the help of our partners, Americans.
We believe they are doing a great job there and we believe together
we will achieve our mission in Iraq.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.
Mr. Talabany.
Mr. TALABANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for allow-
ing us to come back and continue this very important discussion.
I agree with most of what my esteemed colleagues said, so I won't
repeat them. But I would like to repeat one thing that Speaker
Hasani said regarding the role of Ambassador Khalilzad: I think
your Ambassador in Iraq has played a remarkable role in most of
the discussions that have been going on and have served your
country and people very well and we would like to thank him for
his efforts and his role.
I think what's happening in Iraq today is a mixed bag where we
cannot just continue to focus on the negative. We cannot belittle
the negative, we cannot belittle the challenges that we face. We
face serious and grave challenges in this country. But I think my
two colleagues have highlighted some of the successes and some of
the progresses that Iraq has had since liberation.
Iraq is a large country with a large population, and not the en-
tirety of this country is in turmoil. There are large portions of this
country that are stable and secure, where people can go about their


25
daily lives. The Kurdistan region is an example. Many parts of the
south are calm and quiet. Even certain areas of Baghdad are even
today calm and quiet.
Unfortunately, there is violence and it is important to note the
violence and it's important to address the violence, but this vio-
lence is happening in targeted areas of the country, and this is the
violence that is making the airwaves, this is the violence that is
making the news and is dominating the debate on Iraq.
Sectarian violence is hurting this country called Iraq, and the
hurt is painful. And we cannot ignore it and we cannot think that
it is not existing. It does exist and we must tackle it. But we
mustn't take our eye off the real challenge and the real danger Iraq
faces and that is al Qaeda, that is the threat of extremism on all
sides, all forms of extremism. It is al Qaeda and the remnants of
Saddam's former regime that are fueling what has now become the
sectarian violence in the country, and we are too quick to change
focus and focus our efforts on the sectarian violence while some-
times forgetting the real, real danger to the United States, to the
Middle East at large, and to Iraq in particular, and that is al
Qaeda and the former Ba'athists of Saddam Hussein.
I think in my opinion it may be more useful for me to end my
talk here and engage in a dialog.
Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. The Peace Corps volunteer in me is just
so grateful that the three of you are here and I am so grateful that
my colleagues are here as well.
Mr. Kucinich, you have 10 minutes. If you need a little more,
that's fine too.
Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, again, Mr. Chairman, for
holding these hearings and providing this opportunity to hear from
representatives of the people of Iraq. I want to welcome the wit-
nesses and say that whatever our views are on the politics of the
United States, I think that all of us have a great deal of compas-
sion for the struggle of the people of Iraq, for the losses which the
people of Iraq have incurred, for the suffering and the pain of the
people of Iraq over many generations, for the difficulties you find
yourself in right now trying to figure out how you can achieve sta-
bility under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
The people of Iraq did not choose this war. This war was chosen
by the Government of the United States. Therefore, I think that
there is a tremendous amount of compassion which flows to you
from people everywhere. We recognize the difficulty you find your-
self in and we join you in longing for a reconciliation.
a process we have to go through in our own country be-
cause of the divisions which this war has created in our own soci-
ety. In South Africa the process of reconciliation, which was so im-
portant to ending the tradition of apartheid, was preceded by an
insistence on truth, so that truth and reconciliation was presented
simultaneously as the imperative for rebuilding the society.
This is something that we're faced with in the United States as
we try to once again unite our country. And I'm sure it's the same
kind of difficulties that you will find. For example, we grapple with
the concerns that you expressed about the connection between Sad-
dam Hussein and al Qaeda. However, just recently a report of the
Select Committee on Intelligence, which I have a copy of here, was
This is a pr


28
ing in Anbar—you know, it's much bigger than what people are
thinking about it. That's why I'm surprised someone from the Ma-
rine writes a report like this one; and I say that, you know, hon-
estly; and I'm ready to testify in other forms to tell you more infor-
mation about what's going on in Anbar.
Mr. KUCINICH. Again, in response to Dr. Al-Hasani, I take what
you're saying in this light, that you have much courage and a pas-
sion that is informed by optimism; and I respect that. At the same
time, I'm confronted with a report that says that the influence of
al Qaeda is actually being increased in Anbar, that now we're going
to—I know, Mr. Chairman, you have indicated an interest in kind
of going into that a little bit deeper, and I don't in any way intend
to, you know, want to denigrate your assertions. I'm just saying
this is the information we're getting.
Now, I wanted to, if I may, Mr. Chairman, ask Mr. AlMusawi:
We've been getting some—actually, numerous reports, and there's
published reports now of death squads that occupied Iraq. I'm par-
ticularly concerned about the role of the Ministry of Interior. Are
you familiar with a brigade called the “Wolf Brigade”? Have you
ever heard of that?
Mr. ALMUSAWI. Yes.
Mr. KUCINICH. And have concerns been expressed inside Iraq
about the activities of the Wolf Brigade with respect to whether or
not they truly represent the aspirations of the people of Iraq?
Mr. ALMUSAWI. There is no—as I mentioned before, there is no
certain evidences that—whom those death squads are, belong to
which party or to which sect. So, again, I would say that the death
squads is unknown people right now, but what I could assure you
that, after the explosion of Samawa, there is some Shia extremists
take that initiative and try to reaction against the Sunnis, and this
is—again, this is the law and again is the religious leaders' state-
ments and degrees—degrees.
The death squads, again, this is unknown people, and we have
to focus on moving the interior and defense secure ministries to
take the initiative all over Iraq. There is some problem there and
some Governorates, and I think the government should be should
have full power in all the Governorates, and this is belong to how
to equip the Iraqi troops, how to recruit them and then how to let
them control the city. We propose that maybe the people's commu-
nity could help—communities—could help and decide to let the
Iraqis, themselves, help themselves to protect their cities and
towns.
One of the issue I would like to comment also about, how to
make progress in Iraq and security on other sites, also. I think it's
very important in this case to work on setting—or set priorities in
Iraq. For example, some cities, we have to work on the security
side, but the security isn't priority in some southern cities, but the
security is very crucial, important and, for example, in Anbar or in
Diyala or in Baghdad. Setting the priorities is very important to
help some progress here.
Mr. KUCINICH. I thank you.
I just want to ask a followup question to Mr. Talabany; and that
is that we get various reports here of, on one hand, a number of
killings have been attributed to Shia militias. On the other hand,


30
I was also up on the border with Syria in Alheim, and there's a
checkpoint there, a port of entry between Syria and Iraq, and I was
surprised to find that most of the laborers there building that
checkpoint were actually Indian. They had been hired by the con-
tractors there, so there were Indian laborers. Here we are with 60-
percent unemployment in Iraq, and we have Indian laborers build-
ing the checkpoint on the border with Iraq, between Syria and
Iraq.
Just a point on democracy, and it's sort of a sidelight. There is
nothing that makes my constituents happier or more content than
when I can put them to work. If you can give them jobs, that will
go a long way. So we need to figure out a way during this recon-
struction process.
If we're spending money there, for God sakes, we should be put-
ting Iraqis to work and not-you know, not otherwise. I think that
would be a simple but constructive way to reduce some of the ten-
sion there. With such high unemployment, it just creates a ripe sit-
uation for insurgency and for unrest, I guess.
I just want to ask the three of you in no particular order, would
it not be helpful—let me just back up a little bit.
I've been to see General Casey—I think I've seen him five or six
times when I've been over there, and his job is—his No. 1 job-he
has many jobs, and he's performing them all very well, and he's
very courageous, but his No. 1 job is dealing with the military situ-
ation in Iraq. That's his prime responsibility. He is also respon-
sible—he's been given the responsibility of transitioning the power
from the military to the Iraqi civilian government.
However, every time we have a renewed insurgency—and most
recently in Baghdad but there have been other examples as well.
When I was there, it was Rhamadi. Fallujah was very quiet, but
Rhamadi was exhibiting very high unrest, a lot of violence.
Would it not be to your benefit to have a body, to have a commis-
sion established whose primary and specific responsibility would be
to move government operations, the responsibility for government
operations, from the U.S. military to the Iraqi civilian government
in areas like electricity production, transmission, generation, water
systems, schools, hospitals, those things that we're doing right now
with tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel? Would it not
help you in terms of credibility and, I think, a maturing
government-
I know the framework is there. The framework is there. We've
established the framework of government there through the elec-
tive process. But would it not be helpful—and I've sponsored legis-
lation to make this happen from our end, that we create a panel
to see this transition of power. Wouldn't it help if, you know, the
Iraqi Council of Representatives and the local government there
had a corresponding body to accept the transfer of power?
I'll leave it to you to answer.
Dr. AL-HASANI. It would be very good, you know, to transfer this
thing to the Iraqi side provided there is an accountability system.
The problem we have in Iraq—and I think you have the same
problem with the American projects over there. There is no ac-
countability system there. That's why corruption continues. We


31
need to have a system where we can hold people responsible if they
misuse the money.
The projects that you are talking about are not Iraqi projects be-
cause, Iraqi projects, we do it. The Iraqi Government carries the
Iraqi projects. You are talking about the money donated by the
United States or other countries; and, long ago, I thought it would
be better to give that money to the Iraqis provided you have ac-
countability system and let them do that job.
You also have to followup where the money's going. It's your
money. When I donate money, I want to know where that money
is spent. You don't have that system. We don't have that system.
We are trying to put a system that will make people accountable
for what they are doing with the money invested in electricity
projects or health projects or building road projects or other, you
know, economic projects in Iraq, but, until now, I don't think we
have done a good
Three-and-a-half years of different governments, Iraq's electricity
system is deteriorating. We have less electricity than we used to
have before. Water is a problem, but it's not as big problem as elec-
tricity. Health system, we have problem with that. We don't have
hospitals enough that can treat many illnesses, including cancer,
which is spreading like rain in Iraq because of different reasons.
We don't have enough hospitals to treat, you know, cancer patients
and other illnesses that we never experienced before.
So, yes, I think it will be good for the Iraqis to take that respon-
sibility, provided that you and us, Iraqis, have an accountability
system that can followup on this one.
Thank you.
Mr. LYNCH. Mr. AlMusawi.
· Mr. ALMUSAWI. I had a meeting yesterday with one of al Maliki's
advisors-he's here in the States—and he informed me that al
Maliki is willing to make some changes in his cabinet to get some
more competent ministers, and I think he is willing to do so, and
this is one of his projects to make some progress in his time as
prime minister.
I will give you an example about the corruption and about the
accountability that Dr. Al-Hasani mentioned.
The last—the former electricity minister imported big genera-
tions-generators-sorry—for electricity. Those generators working
with special oil should be imported also from Turkey. This kind of
corruption in Iraq could have—I don't know how many oil in Iraq
we have, what this is, and so the corruption is right now, we do
not have a qualified anti-corruption community. We do not have a
powerful authority, judicial authority, so I think all these should
go—should work together. Otherwise, I don't think we can make
transfer just overnight.
Al Maliki is willing to do some changes. Al Maliki cabinet and
Maliki, himself, should find some support, and we should enable
him to work together with him. I mean, the United States should
give al Maliki chance to improve his government practicing.
Al Maliki also mentioned that one of his problem, actually, is
that some political parties that didn't supported him or enabling
him to get rid of some obstacles, and one of these obstacles he
couldn't do the changes in the government.


32
So, from that, I would say just there is—we have, again, to acti-
vate the political community of the National Security Council.
Those are the leaders of Iraqi—the leaders—the political leadership
of Iraq, and they have to enable Maliki to do some progress. It is
not only al Maliki's duty. It is all Iraqis' duty and also the Iraqi
political parties as well.
That's it. Thank you.
Mr. LYNCH. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Talabany.
Mr. TALABANY. Congressman, there has been gross mismanage-
ment of Iraq's reconstruction, since Operation Iraqi Freedom, on
both sides. I think we haven't proven to be capable to administer
the kinds of funds that we have received, and I think there has
been too little oversight into the funds that U.S. contractors have
been implementing in the country. This has led to a worsening of
the security situation in the country.
The economic development goes hand in hand with political and
security development, and I think we have focused too much of our
efforts on building up the political process and building up our se-
curity forces without really looking into the impact of economic de-
velopment in Iraq. It's important that we build solid, transparent
and accountable institutions in the country.
We have focused on finding the right ministers to run that min-
istry, but we haven't looked into building up the institution of the
ministry. A good Minister of Interior alone cannot turn that min-
istry into a functioning, effective and professional military. It's
going to require a cadre of offices, mid-level and low-level offices,
that aren't there at the moment.
Whether we're not looking hard enough, whether they've left the
country, whether there's too much political interference from dif-
ferent political parties, there are a variety of reasons why the situ-
ation is as it is, but I think we need to—in order to effectively gov-
ern and effectively spend our resources—which there are plenty of
resources in the country. Iraq does not lack money, but it lacks an
ability to effectively spend that money, and that is, I think, some-
thing that we still need assistance from the United States on, we
still need a partnership on in training and building up our capacity
to be able to administer our resources.
Mr. LYNCH. OK. In closing, I just want to say, as Mr. Kucinich
talked about earlier, we had—at the end of the Coalition Provi-
sional Authority before the Iraqi interim government came into ef-
fect and actually received power from the Coalitional Authority, we
had between $9 and $10 billion, most of that in cash. We're doing
additional hearings in this committee on the mismanagement on
the U.S. side, the largest single cash shipment in the his
Federal Reserve Bank out of New York. We've tracked it, because
we have very good records, when it left New York, planeloads of
cash, and we can track it when it arrives in Iraq. We have the tes-
timony of individuals on the ground who received the shipment,
and then we have stories of Humvees and vehicles with duffel bag
full of cash bouncing through the desert, and then we have about
$9 billion not accounted for. So, you know, those


34
learns is that we need to make our foreign policy and national se-
curity decisions based on facts and not on speculation.
I can say is we've now had two exhaustive bipartisan looks
at this very question, and both of them have concluded that there
was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda; and,
in fact, to the extent that al Qaeda was active in Iraq, they were
doing so in opposition to Saddam Hussein.
Just a comment, Mr. AlMusawi. You mentioned the issue of
human rights, and I couldn't agree with you more on the issue
Mr. ALMUSAWI. Say again, sir.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. You mentioned the sort of moral imperative
with respect to the human rights situation in Iraq, and there's ab-
solutely no doubt about it, that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dic-
tator. I would just recall—and I don't want to go into this in great
detail-back in the 1980's, when Saddam Hussein was using chem-
ical weapons against the Kurds at the end of the Iran-Iraq War,
my former colleague on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations
here, Peter Galbraith and I, traveled to the Turkish-Iraq border
and interviewed thousands of the Kurdish refugees who were cross-
ing that border because they'd been gassed by Saddam Hussein.
We documented that. We came back to Washington. We urged
Members of the Senate to introduce legislation to impose economic
sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein to punish
him for his use of chemical weapons—this is in 1988—and the Sen-
ate did that on a bipartisan basis, but the Reagan administration
that was in power at the time actually opposed that legislation.
They opposed legislation to impose economic sanctions against Sad-
dam Hussein for his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds.
So I've always found it quite hypocritical for Members of this ad-
ministration, some of whom were there during the Reagan adminis-
tration, to say today that the reason we went into Iraq with our
military forces this time was, in fact, for human rights reasons and
pointing to the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds when
they weren't willing to impose even economic sanctions at the time.
And let me also say this. At the end of the Persian Gulf War in
1991, it was an absolute tragedy that the United States did not do
more to protect the Shia in the south at the end of that war. I
couldn't agree with you more. We did create a no fly zone in the
north; and, in fact, the north was fairly stable, as you know, from
that time on.
So I couldn't agree with you more that there have been human
rights tragedies in Iraq, and it's a very important part of this con-
versation. But for this administration to claim that as a justifica-
tion for military action does not hold water given their past con-
duct and the conduct of others in the administration in that regard.
Now if I could just ask all of you. We're going to hear from a
later panel here. Two of them have recently written books with re-
gard to Iraq. We have Dr. Fouad Ajami, who is here, and Ambas-
sador Peter Galbraith; and I just want to read a little piece out of
å review that jointly reviewed those two books. In The New York
Times, it was a review written by Noah Feldman, and he titled it
“Out of One, Many,” and the first paragraph of that review reads
as follows:


36
when this thing started to appear, but I think America contributed
to that one. Ask me how. I will tell you how.
When Ambassador Bremer came to Iraq and formed the govern-
ing council, it was formed based on this division-Shia, Sunni,
Kurd—and you can go and look at 25 members of the governing
council. You will see how it was formed. So that was—and since
then, all the governments after that were formed based on that
one. I don't want to talk about the majority issue.
As I said, I don't care whether Shia are majority or Sunni are
majority in Iraq because, in my eyes, these are all citizens of Iraq.
I don't look at them, you know, whether they are majority or mi-
nority.
But, again, when you talk in majority sense, there is political
consequences of that one as if you are trying to say this country,
at the end, has to be ruled by this sect or other sect. This is not
the right way to build the new state of Iraq. Citizenry is much
more important than pointing finger to someone, saying he's a Shia
or he is a Sunni. That's what I don't want in Iraq.
Who is the majority? We don't know. I don't think anyone can
point and say that Shia are majority or the Sunni are majority be-
cause, when you exclude Kurds from the Sunni Arab, of course Shi-
ite becomes majority in Iraq, but Kurds are Sunni. We don't have
census that says who is majority; and, again, I end up by saying
I really don't care who is majority in Iraq as long as they are loyal
to Iraqi state, they are loyal to Iraqi people, and they care as much
about their sect, the other sects, you know, as much as they care
for their sect.
Thank you.
Mr. ALMUSAWI. I would say that, during the Saddam Hussein
time, there was sectarian elimination, but under Saddam Hussein
and his ownership to the Shia and the Kurds, that was unclear for
some people in Iraq. But the reality is there was sectarian and eth-
nic discrimination, and the Shia, at least, they were not first-class
people in there at that time, and this is the truth.
I could say that the saying of Dr. Ajami is the crucial part of the
reality. I would give you an example about this case and how the
Arab countries, some sectarian countries, who are fueling this kind
of sectarian, still is fueling, one of high-level official from our
neighbors telling one of senior official-senior, senior official from
my party—was not good for you guys, Saddam Hussein and some-
body like that, to fuel this kind of situation.
This is the mentality of these countries. They are really sectarian
mentalities. They would not like to see a Shia in the power.
I disagree 100 percent with my brother, Dr. Hajim Al-Hasani,
that he doesn't care who is the majority in Iraq. We don't need
who's the majority, but the majority is the Shia. There is no ques-
tion about it. But this is a privilege for the Shia? I would say this
is not a privilege for the Shia to be majority or minority. We should
accept each other again. We should work together to rebuild our
country, and we should rebuild the democracy. The democracy is
the only option, the only answer for all our questions.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.


37
Mr. TALABANY. Congressman, I'd like to take this opportunity to
thank you and Ambassador Galbraith for caring about the Kurds
back in the days when very few people cared about the Kurds and
few joined efforts to bring to the attention of the international com-
munity the crimes that were committed against my people. So, on
behalf of the people of Kurdistan, I thank you both for your efforts.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Talabány.
Mr. TALABANY. We cannot ignore the Sunni-Shia divide, not in
Iraq, not in the Middle East. This is an historic divide that has ex-
isted, and tensions have existed and will continue to exist, and if
we continue to ignore that these things exist in Iraq, we'll fail in
our mission.
It is not for me as a Kurd to tell you what my Shia brother
thinks or feels or what his or his insecurities are. We each have
insecurities, and all of our insecurities are valid. The Sunnis, they
have insecurities. The Kurds have many insecurities.
to over--the way we overcome these insecurities is by
building a political process that can begin to address the main con-
cerns of each community, and we haven't done that yet. We do
have a national unity government where everybody is participating
in the political process, but we're still coming to deal with the
major issues that will ultimately bring these people together or po-
larize them even more.
We couldn't have formed the governing council under the CPA
days without addressing the quota system. Had we had a predomi-
nantly Sunni governing council, the Shia and the Kurds would
have felt out. Had it been the other way, the Sunnis would have
been left out and would have felt left out. And Saddam and succes-
sive Iraqi governments, not just Saddam's government, alienated
Shia and Kurds from participating in the top level of government,
did not make Kurds and Shia feel like Iraqis.
The Iraqi army is a perfect example of this. Look at the officer
corps of the Iraqi army, and let's find out what the percentages
were, and you cannot tell our Shia brothers that this is insignifi-
cant. This is significant, and this is the core of the problems that
we see today. It is that Iraq was founded on faulty logic 80 years
ago, on the logic that everybody was Iraqi without anyone asking
those people “do you want to be Iraqi?” we have an historic oppor-
tunity to address a mistake that was made 80 years ago today; and
we should not let this opportunity pass by, ignoring realities on the
ground.
Thank you.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Talabany. Thank
you for your remarks, and thank you for your assessment.
Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I have another question,
but I think, in the interest of time, I can save it for the next panel.
I want to thank all of you gentlemen for your testimony. Thank
you.
Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, gentlemen, very much.
I'm going to ask—and I'm going to do something that I'm not
comfortable doing. I'm going to be asking you to give some very
short answers so we don't hold our next panel up, but I have a lot
to cover, and if we don't have you respond to this, we will have
failed to achieve one of our objectives.


39
Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough. OK, and, you know, I don't know
Mr. ALMUSAWI. So it is no big deal for us to change the flag.
Mr. SHAYS. OK, but we shouldn't misinterpret what has hap-
pened in the Kurdish area of Iraq by not wanting to fly that flag
based on—it seems to me I understand a little better. Thank you.
Let me ask you to tell me what is the hardest area of reconcili-
ation. Is it the oil revenue sharing? Is it dealing with electricity?
Is it debaatification? Is it federalism? Is it-you know, maybe,
frankly, having more contractors be Iraqis as opposed to outsiders.
Is it the militia control? Is it amnesty? Is it corruption?
Tell me the hardest thing that you have to deal with internally
with each other and the easiest. I want the hardest and the easiest.
And I'm not looking for long answers again. And if you don't
know—Mr. Speaker, just because I think we give Mr. Talabany a
good opportunity to perfect his answer while the rest of you speak,
I'm going to go in reverse order and start and end with our sitting
member of the parliament. Mr. Talabany.
Mr. TALABANY. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
It really is difficult to highlight one of these issues —
Mr. SHAYS. Give me two of them.
Mr. TALABANY. -as more important. I think they're all impor-
tant. You cannot have reconciliation without having a viable oil
policy, without getting the citizens of the country to understand the
importance and the significance of federalism, without having a
reconstruction
Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough. Which will be the most difficult to re-
solve then? I'll take that one.
Mr. TALABANY. I think the militia issue will be one of the most
difficult to resolve because this is dealing with armed units, where
sometimes it's not as easy to sit down at a table with and come up
with a diplomatic and peaceful solution to, and I think it is ad-
dressing the militia issue that is ultimately going to lead to more
bloodshed before we ultimately come up with a soli
problem.
Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. AlMusawi.
Mr. ALMUSAWI. Federalism could be-
Mr. SHAYS. Which is? I'm sorry.
Mr. ALMUSAWI. Federalism. Federalism. Federalism. Yeah. It's
one of the crucial issues that maybe make some troubles, maybe,
in the coming days. Maybe next week we will see some also talks
ouncil of Representatives. About the 21st of this month
should be the second reading of the proposal, of the federalism pro-
posal.
Mr. SHAYS. Let me just go quickly back to you, Mr. Talabany.
You didn't tell me the easiest thing to resolve.
Mr. TALABANY. Unfortunately, sir, in Iraq, nothing is easy.
Mr. SHAYS. Tell me, Mr. AlMusawi.
Mr. ALMUSAWI. Maybe I could say that the oil revenues is the
easiest one. because all the Iraqis agree to distribute the Iraqi
wealth fairly among them.
Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Mr. Speaker.
Dr. AL-HASANI. I think it's a package deal. It's very difficult to
say which one is more difficult and which one is much easier. Al-
though I probably think the federalism is going to be one of the top


45
and look what we have been able to do in this region in the last
several years. Hezbollah notwithstanding, Lebanon has found its
way out of the Syrian captivity. I know that now because of the
troubles of the Cedar revolution it has become fashionable to say
we should invite the Syrians back into Lebanon but we should do
nothing of the sort because at that time Lebanon freedom is worth-
while Egyptians had come to question the Pharaonic system, be-
cause if Congress would like to take up a very serious debate, we
should take up the debate of what we get out of the investment we
make in the Egyptian autocracy of Mubarak. The Saudis now own
up to the deeds of the prophets and the sermons of their preachers,
not as much as we like them to but more now than some years ago.
Kadhafi struck a plea bargain, turned in his deadly technology and
material in the aftermath of Saddam's fall. And anyone who thinks
that Kadhafi would have made that concession without watching
Saddam being flushed out of the spider hole and without watching
the soldiers of David Petraeus kill the two sons and one grandson
of Saddam Hussein, I think really would have to think again about
that.
We have not deterred every rogue in the region. We paid a high
price in Iraq. We pay by the day and I know all of us are concerned
about this. With our mission in Iraq, notice has been served that
the Pax Americana are not free, that there are consequences for re-
gimes that play with fire.
I have summarized, Mr. Chairman, the statement that I have
with me which I very much seek your permission to be included in
the record, and I look forward to the exchange. I thought I would
lead with these brief set of remarks.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ajami follows:]


46
U.S. House of Representative
Committee on Government Reform
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations
Chairman: Congressman Christopher Shays
Iraq in its Neighborhood
September 15, 2006
Fouad Ajami
The Majid Khadduri Professor and
Director Middle East Studies Department
The Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies


49
by the Sunni Arabs. We had, whether we intended it or not, emancipated the Shia
stepchildren of the Arab world, and the Kurds as well. We had sinned against the order
of the universe. Our innocence was astounding. We were over-turning the order of a
m, but calling on the region to celebrate, and to bless, our work. We had
protected the Kurds, but we wanted them to stay within Iraq, we were eager not to offend
our erstwhile allies in Turkey even as they sandbagged our effort in Iraq, even after they
had succumbed to new, incoherent levels of anti-Americanism. More to the point, we
had set the Shia on their own course. We had done for them what they would never have
been able to do on their own. We had rid them of a regime that had subjected them to
more than three decades of terror. For our part, we were ambivalent about the coming of
age of the Shia. We had battled radical Shi'ism in Iran and in Lebanon in the 1980s. The
symbols of Shi'ism, we associated with political violence - radical mullahs, martyrology,
suicide bombers. True, in the interim, we had had a war - undeclared but a war
nonetheless - with Sunni jihadists. The furies that had targeted us in the 1990s, that had
trailed us at home and abroad, taking its toll on our embassies and battleships and
housing compounds, finally shattering the tranquility of our country on 9/11, were Sunni
furies. These furies had emerged out of the deep structure of Egypt and the Arabian
Peninsula. But there had lingered in us an aversion to radical Shi'ism, an understandable
residue of the campaign of virtue and terror that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had
waged against American power in the 1980s.
We were susceptible as well to the representations made to us by Arab rulers in the
Sunni-ruled states about the dangers of radical Shi'ism. It was in that vein that the
Jordanian monarch, Abdullah II, warned of the dangers of a "Shia crescent" stretching
from Iran to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. And it was out of the same urge to simplify and
distort the truth of the Arab world that the ruler in Cairo observed that the loyalty of the
Shia Arabs was to Iran and not to their own goverments. When the Jordanian monarch
warned of that crescent, one of his subjects, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was on the loose in
Iraq hunting down American “crusaders" and Shia heretics alike. As for
Cairo, it was in his prisons that men like Ayman al-Zawahiri, a son of a great Cairene
family, and countless others like him, had picked up the deadly hatred for the Pax
Americana that sustains Mubarak's military autocracy. America had been caught in the
crossfire: Zawahiri had targeted us because he had been unable to take on the reign of
official terror in his own country. And still the ruler in Cairo would insist on the dangers
of radical Shi’ism.
The Shia had come into the political life of Iraq, but strictly speaking there is no Shia
government in that country. The Shia have the weight of their numbers, but the power in
the land is divided. To balance a Shia prime minister and minister of interior, the Kurds
claim the presidency, the ministry of foreign affairs, a deputy prime minister, and a chief
of staff of the armed forces. For their part, the Sunni Arabs have sent the most
representative of their community, some uncompromising hardliners into this
government: for all the talk of their disinheritance, the Sunni Arabs claim the portfolios
of a vice president, a deputy prime minister, a minister of defense, and the speakership of
a Parliament. There is obvious “sectarianism” in the division of spoils, but it is better
than the monopoly of power which is the rule of the day in neighboring lands.


50
Iran cannot run away with Iraq, and the talk of an ascendant Iran in Iraqi affairs is
overblown. We belittle the Shia of Iraq - their sense of home, and of a tradition so
thoroughly Iraqi and Arab - when we write them off as willing instruments of Iran's
ambitions. Inevitably, there is Iranian money in Iraq, and Iranian agents, but this is the
logic of a 900-mile Iranian-Iraqi border. True, in the long years of Tikriti/Saddamist
dominion, Shia political men persecuted by the regime sought sanctuary in Iran; a
political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and its military
arm, the Badr Brigade, had risen in those years with Iranian patronage. But the Iraqi
exiles are not uniform in their attitudes toward Iran. Those years in exile had been hard,
the Iranian hosts had been given to arrogance and paternalism. The Iraqi exiles and their
needs had been subordinated to the strategic necessities of the Iranian regime. Much is
made, and appropriately so, of the way the Americans who prosecuted the first Gulf War
of 1990-1991 had called for rebellions by the Shia (and the Kurds) only to walk away in
indifference as the Saddam regime struck back with vengeance. But the Iranians, too,
had looked after their own interests and had averted their gaze from the slaughter. No
Iranians had crossed to Iraq to help their Shia brethren, nor had Iraqis themselves been
permitted to cross into Iraq to aid that doomed rebellion. States are merciless, the Persian
state no exception to that rule. Iraqis who waited out the Saddam tyranny in Iranian exile
have brought back with them memories of Iranian indifference. Men like former prime
minister Ibrahim Jaafari and his successor Nuri al-Maliki, leaders of the Daawa Party, are
described by their detractors as allies of Iran. In a dispatch of days ago, (September 13),
the visit of Nuri al-Maliki to Iran was described in The New York Times as something of
a "homecoming." But Maliki's exile was in the main spent in Damascus; he had begun
his exile in Iran only to quit that country for a long, extended stay of 17 years in Syria.
Jaafari, too, had made a statement of his own on that Arab-Persian divide. He had quit
Iran for London.
We should not try to impose more order and more consensus on the world of Shia Iraq
than is warranted by the facts. In recent days a great fault-line within the Shia could be
seen: the leader of the Supreme Council for the Revolution in Iraq, Sayyid Abdulaziz al-
Hakim, has launched a big campaign for an autonomous Shia federated unit that would
take in the overwhelmingly Shia provinces in the south and the middle Euphrates, but this
project has triggered the furious opposition of Hakim's nemesis, the young cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr. In the way of such distinctions, while Hakim seems deferential to Iran,
Sadr, the descendent of another high clerical family long at odds with the Hakims, openly
appeals to Iraqi and Arab sensibilities. Hakim's bid was transparent. He sought to be the
uncrowned king of a Shia polity, in all but name. He had fought for that project, but he
was rebuffed. Sadr was joined in opposition to that scheme by the Daawa Party of
Maliki, by the Virtue Party, and by those secular Shiites who had come into the national
assembly with former prime minister Iyad Allawi. A bitter struggle now plays out in the
Shia provinces between the operatives of the Badr Brigade and Sadr's Mahdi Army. The
fight is draped in religious colors – but it is about the spoils of power, control over oil and
turf and the patronage of cabinet appointments. Nor have we heard the last of Shia
secularism: trounced in the last round of elections, it survives. It is driven by the
familiar desire of ordinary men and women aware of the dangers of mixing the sacred


52
(Saudi Arabia, the smaller states of the Gulf) will loosen the purse strings, and scurry
away, if only temporarily, from the Pax Americana. They will insist that they had never
signed up for this war, that they had warned us against Iraq's dangers, that they had tried
to tell us that Iraq was, in their eyes, prone to sedition and violence, that it was never the
proper soil for democratic aspirations. They will feel relieved, these rulers of the region,
of the siren song of democracy, they will feel vindicated that the franji call for democratic
reform can now be set aside in favor of autocratic stability. They will have waited out the
American campaign for reform. They will begin to say, in louder decibel, what they had
been whispering amid themselves: that the Bush diplomacy of freedom died in the
anarchy of the Anbar province, and in the dangerous streets of Baghdad, that in Araby the
choice is stark; tyranny or anarchy, and they will remind one and all of the maxim of
their world: Better sixty years of tyranny than one day of anarchy.
For their part, the Iranians will press on: The spectacle of power they display is illusory.
It is a broken society over which the mullahs rule. A society that throws on the scene a
leader of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's derangement is not an orderly land; foreigners may
not be able to overthrow that regime, but countries can atrophy as their leaders - in this
case armed by an oil windfall of uncertain duration - strut on the world stage. The
prospect of Iraq changing Iran, shaming it by the success of a liberal example next door,
was unrealistic to begin with. Iran's is a deeper culture than Iraq's, proud to its place in
the world, possessed of a keen sense of Persia's excellence and primacy in the region
around it. What Iranians make of their own history will not wait on the kind of society
that will emerge in Iraq. On the margins, a scholarly tradition in Najaf given to
moderation and restraint could be a boon to the seminarians and clerics of Iran. But the
Iranians will not know deliverance from the sterility and mediocrity of their world if Iraq
were to fail. Their schadenfreude over an American debacle in Iraq will have to be
exceedingly brief. A raging fire next door to them would not be pretty. And crafty
players, the Iranians know what so many in America who guess at such matters do not:
that Iraq is an unwieldy land, that the Arab-Persian divide in culture, language, and
temperament is not easy to bridge.
No great commitments can be abandoned without commensurate costs, it has to be
understood. History works its will in unpredictable ways. The American debacle in
Vietnam, some three decades ago, issued in the most unexpected of outcomes. That
domino in Vietnam fell, there was horror in Cambodia. But as Peter Kann explained it in
the pages of The Wall Street Journal a year ago, the peace and prosperity of Asia held,
and from “Korea and Taiwan down the whole arc of southeast Asia, the political and
economic systems we advocated have triumphed.” The battle for Vietnam had been lost
but the wider war for the future of Asia had been won. The war in Vietnam had bought
time for Vietnam's neighbors; they had been anxious to keep the peace, and they needed
American protection. They saw the promise of economic salvation; the horrors and
failures of communism had engendered in them a greater desire to be spared history's
furies and ruin.
It is unlikely that a failure in Iraq would be as forgiving as the failure in Vietnam; this
region differs from east Asia. The doctrines of radicalism are stronger in Iraq's


53
neighborhood, there is no Japan-like power that would anchor peaceful change, provide
hope that success can stick on Muslim lands in the manner that Japan did in its own
Asian world. We needn't give credence to the assertion of President Bush that the
jihadists would turn up in our cities if we pulled up stakes from Baghdad to recognize
that a terrible price would be paid were we to opt for a hasty and unseemly withdrawal
from Iraq.. This is a region with a keen and unmerciful eye for the weakness of strangers.
Iraq may have tested our patience, and been a disappointment to many who had signed up
for an easier campaign. We did not possess the skills of imperial rule, nor did we have an
eye for the cunning - and ambiguities - of Arab and Iranian ways. But the heated debate
about the origins of our drive into Iraq would surely pale by comparison to the debate that
would erupt were we to give in to pessimism and despair and to cast the Iraqis adrift.
Nowadays, we are warned that the campaign for freedom in Arab lands ought to be
abandoned, that in Iraq (as in Lebanon and Palestine) the cause of freedom ought to yield,
that we best return to the stability offered by the autocrats. We have shaken up that :
world, it is said, only to reap a whirlwind. On the face of it, this argument is not without
a measure of sobriety and appeal: the autocrats in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia keep
the peace, while the lands that flirted with elections and new ways (the Palestinian
territories, Lebanon, Iraq) seem overwhelmed and close to the abyss. But we have
already been given a deeper truth about the wages of autocracy in Arab lands. It was the
children of the autocracies who flew into our towers on a clear September moming five
years ago, who set us on the road to Kabul and Baghdad, who gave us this overwhelming
task of trying to repair an Islamic world that insists on our culpability in the sad story of
its demise and retrogression.


54
Mr. SHAYS. No. You woke me up. This is a continuation of a
hearing. So we already have our unanimous consent in terms of
opening up and making sure that we make that clear. And your
statement will be in the record, any statement of the Members as
well.
Dr. Fearon. Thank you so much, Dr. Ajami.
STATEMENT OF DR. JIM FEARON
Dr. FEARON. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity
to speak with you today about this important and quite intractable
problem. I have been doing research and publishing articles on civil
wars since the early 1990's. I can't claim specific expertise on Iraq
although I have tried to follow this case closely over the last sev-
eral years. What I think I can do that might be useful for the com-
mittee is to put the conflict in Iraq into some context provided by
research on civil wars in general.
Since my time is very short, I'll boil my written testimony down
into three main points. First, by standards used by political sci-
entists and others who study civil war and in my opinion by any
reasonable definition, there is a civil war going on now in Iraq. The
scale and extent of the civil war is somewhat limited by the U.S.
military presence. I would be happy to get into the definitional
issues with you in the question period if you wish, but to save time
for more substantive stuff, I am going to skip over these now. Suf-
fice to say, if we are willing to call conflicts in Algeria, Colombia,
Guatemala, or Sri Lanka or Lebanon after 1975 civil wars, then we
really ought to call this a civil war as well.
The second set of points I want to make concerns how civil wars
evolve, how they typically end and why. Civil wars usually last a
long time. The median duration for civil wars that began since
1945 is about 7 years and the average duration has been a little
more than 10 years. When they do end, civil wars typically end
with decisive military victories. In at least three-quarters of the
cases since 1945 either the government crushes the rebels or the
rebels take over the government. By contrast, successful power
sharing agreements to end civil wars have occurred far less often,
and at best I would say 17 percent of the cases or at about one in
six and I would say that is actually kind of a generous coding of
what a power sharing agreement is.
Mr. ŠHAYS. Could you make that statement again? You are
speaking so quickly.
Dr. FEARON. So when civil wars end they usually end with deci-
sive military victories and that would be about three-quarters of
the civil wars that started since 1945. So either in those cases the
government crushes the rebels or the rebels take over the govern-
ment. On the other hand, successful power sharing agreements to
end civil wars are much more rare and have occurred by my reck-
oning in at best 17 percent of the cases since 1945 or about one
in 6, and I would say that is actually a somewhat generous reading
of what a power sharing agreement is.
In other words, in some of those cases it really looked like one
side basically won and offered some concessions to, you know minor
concessions.


56
Rapid withdrawal could also lead to an intra-Shiite war between
militias loosely affiliated with Muqtada al-Sadr, the Badr Brigades
and possibly some other Shiite militia grouping. Rapid withdrawal
would also allow the organization that's known in English as al-
Qaeda in Iraq to take fuller control in Anbar and the other Sunni
majority provinces than it already has, which is fairly extensive, it
seems. If mishandled, this can become a zone for exporting terror-
ist attacks within the region, possibly the world...
I think these considerations all point to gradual redeployment
and repositioning of our forces within the regime as a better option
by gradual—I mean roughly say 18 months to 3 years depending
on how the conflict evolves. It would be very much needed to be
keyed to events as they develop. Gradual redeployment would
allow more gradual and less explosively violent sorting of Sunnis
and Shias out of mixed neighborhoods and would lessen the risks
of an intra-Shiite war resulting from an all out power grab by one
or another Shiite faction. Intelligently pursued, gradual redeploy-
ment could allow us to influence the evolution of what I imagine
will be a Lebanon-like conflict in Iraq in a way that minimizes the
risk from al-Qaeda in Iraq and prevent any wholesale takeover of
the country by Iran which I think at any rate is extremely unlikely.
In sum, we should not completely give up on the prospect that
Iraqi political leaders will manage to make deals and provide serv-
ice in such a way as to gain peace and security for the country as
a whole, but we should make it clear at least privately that their
time to do so is limited. In the interim, we need to plan for the pos-
sibility that a democratic Iraq that can stand on its own is not
going to take root while we are there. This means planning to put
ourselves in the best position to influence for the good the evolution
of a civil conflict that only the Iraqis have an ability to end at this
point.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Fearon follows:]


57
Testimony to U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform,
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations on
"Iraq: Democracy or Civil War?”
James D. Fearon
Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Science and
Professor of Political Science
Stanford University
September 15, 2006
1. Introduction
Let me begin by thanking Chairman Shays and the subcommittee for inviting me to
testify. I am honored to have the opportunity to speak with you.
I am not a specialist on the politics of the Middle East, but I have spent a lot of time
studying the politics of civil wars. In what follows, I begin with an executive summary.
I then discuss some common patterns in how civil wars evolve and how they end, trying
to assess where Iraq fits relative to the general pattern. The last four sections consider
what this implies for US policy in Iraq looking forward.
2. Executive summary
.
By any reasonable definition, Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, the scale and
extent of which is limited somewhat by the US military presence.
Civil wars typically last a long time, with the average duration of post-1945 civil
wars being over a decade.
• When they end, they usually end with decisive military victories (at least 75%).
Successful power-sharing agreements to end civil wars are rare, occurring in one
in six cases, at best.
When they have occurred, stable power-sharing agreements have usually required
years of fighting to reach, and combatants who were not internally factionalized.
The current US strategy in Iraq aims to help put in a place a national government
that shares power and oil revenues among parties closely linked to the combatants
in the civil war. The hope is that our presence will allow the power-sharing
agreement to solidify and us to exit, leaving a stable, democratic government and
a peaceful country.
Fearon testimony on civil war in Iraq -- Page 1 of 12


58
The historical record on civil war suggests that this strategy is highly unlikely to
succeed, whether the US stays in Iraq for six more months or six more years (or
more). Foreign troops and advisors can enforce power-sharing and limit violence
ile they are present, but it appears to be extremely difficult to change local
beliefs that the national government can survive on its own while the foreigners
are there in force. In a context of many factions and locally strong militias,
mutual fears and temptations are likely to spiral into political disintegration and
escalation of militia and insurgent-based conflict if and when we leave
je
Thus, ramping up or "staying the course" amount to delay tactics, not plausible
recipes for success as the administration has defined it.
Given that staying the course or ramping up are not likely to yield peace and a
government that can stand on its own, I argue for gradual redeployment and
repositioning of our forces in preference to an extremely costly permanent
occupation that ties our hands and damages our strategic position in both the
region and the world.
Redeployment and repositioning need to be gradual primarily so that Sunni and
Shiite civilians have more time to sort themselves out by neighborhood in the
major cities, making for less killing in the medium run. Depending on how the
conflict evolves, redeployment might take anywhere from 18 months to 3 years.
The difficult questions for US policy concern the pace and manner of
redeployment: how to manage it so as to maximize the leverage it will give us
with various groups in Iraq; and how to manage it so as to minimize the odds of
terrorists with regional and global objectives gaining a secure base in the Sunni
areas.
2. What is a civil war?
A civil war is a violent conflict within a country, fought by organized groups that aim to
take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies,
How much violence is enough to qualify a conflict as a civil war as opposed to terrorism
or low-level political violence is partly a matter of convention. By any reasonable
standard, however, the conflict in Iraq has killed enough people to put it in the civil war
category. For example, political scientists often use a threshold of at least 1,000 killed
over the whole course of the conflict to mark off civil wars. One might consider this too
low to capture our everyday understanding. But the rate of killing in Iraq - easily more
than 30,000 in three years - puts it in the company of many recent conflicts that few
hesitate to call "civil wars" (e.g., Sri Lanka, Algeria, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia).
An insurgency is best understood as a type of civil war (assuming it kills enough people).
In Iraq, the civil war began with a disorganized insurgency of Baathists, Sunni
Fearon testimony on civil war in Iraq -- Page 2 of 12


59
nationalists, and foreign jihadis using violence in hopes of expelling the US and
destroying or replacing the Iraqi government set up after US invasion. In the last six
months, insurgent attacks against Shiites have led to a widening of the civil war, as Shiite
militias have responded by attacking Sunnis in the major cities. Sunni-Shiite militia and
communal conflict has worsened in part as a direct result of the US strategy of “Iraq-
ization” of the war effort.
Following our own example of the US Civil War, many Americans think of a civil war as
a conflict that involves virtually everyone in a country and that sees fighting by regular
forces along clear frontlines. If one uses this definition, then it might still be possible to
maintain that Iraq is "not yet in civil war.” But the argument between the administration
and its critics over the definition of civil war is really a domestic political dispute that
does not help us understand what is going on there. The violence in Iraq bears a strong
resemblance to many internal conflicts around the world that are commonly described as
civil wars, and it is instructive to compare them.
Moreover, the US Civil War was atypical - civil wars rarely involve regular armies
fighting along clear-cut frontlines. Instead, insurgency and militia-based conflicts like
what we see today in Iraq today have been far more common.
3. How civil wars end
Civil wars typically last much longer than international wars. For civil wars beginning
since 1945, the average duration has been greater than 10 years, with fully half ending in
more than seven years (the median). The numbers are fairly similar whether we are
talking about wars for control of a central government, or wars of ethnic separatism.
When they finally do end, civil wars since 1945 have typically concluded with a decisive
military victory for one side or the other. In contests for control of the central state, either
the government crushes the rebels (at least 40% of 54 cases), or the rebels win control of
the center (at least 35% of 54 cases). Thus, fully three quarters of civil wars fought for
control of the state end with a decisive military victory.
Quite often, in perhaps 50% of these cases, what makes decisive victory possible is the
provision or withdrawal of support from a foreign power to the government or rebel side.
For example, the long civil war in Lebanon ended in 1991 after the US and Israel
essentially changed their positions and became willing to see the Syrian-backed factions
win control if this would lead to peace. International intervention in civil wars is
extremely common and often determines the outcome,
Power-sharing agreements that divide up control of the central government among the
combatants are far less common than decisive victories. I code at most 9 of 54 cases, or
17%, this way. Examples include El Salvador in 1992, South Africa in 1994 and
Tajikistan in 1998.
Fearon testimony on civil war in Iraq -- Page 3 of 12


60
In civil wars between a government and rebels who are fighting for secession or greater
autonomy, negotiated settlements that confer some local autonomy have occurred in
about one third of the 41 such wars that began after 1945 and have since ended. This
leaves two thirds as cases where the government crushed the regional rebels, or the rebels
won military victories that established a de facto autonomous state.
In the rare cases where they have occurred, successful power-sharing agreements have
usually been reached after an intense or long-running civil war reaches a stalemate. One
of the main obstacles to power-sharing agreements seems to be political and military
divisions within the main parties to the larger conflict.
4. Why is successful power-sharing to end civil wars so rare?
If successful power-sharing agreements rarely end civil wars, this is not for lack of trying.
Negotiations on power-sharing are common in the midst of civil war, as are failed
attempts to implement such agreements, often with the help of outside intervention by
states or international institutions. For example, the point of departure for the Rwandan
genocide and the rebel attack that ended it was the failure of an extensive power-sharing
agreement between the Rwandan government, Hutu opposition parties, and the RPF
insurgents.
The main reason power-sharing agreements rarely work is that civil war causes the
combatants to be organized in a way that makes them fear that the other side will try to
use force to grab power, and at the same time be tempted to use force to grab power
themselves. These fears and temptations are mutually reinforcing. If one militia fears
that another will try to use force to grab control of the army, or a city, then it has a strong
incentive to use force to prevent this. The other militia understands this incentive, which
gives it a good reason to act exactly as the first militia feared.
In the face of these mutual fears and temptations, agreements on paper about dividing up
or sharing control of political offices or tax revenues are often just that - paper.
For example: Current US policy seeks to induce Shiite leaders to bring Sunni leaders
into the national government and provide them with some spoils of office. The hope is
that this will get Sunni leaders to work against the insurgency. There is some evidence
that the strategy has been partly effective, at least in terms of bringing significant Sunni
leaders in. But why, in the longer run, should Sunni leaders believe that once the US
leaves, the Shiites who control the army/militias would continue to pay them off? The
same question applies to proposals to change the constitution to “ensure" (on paper) that
the Sunni regions gain an equitable part of Iraq's oil revenues.
Given the vicious fighting that has occurred and the deep factionalization among the
Shiites, Sunni leaders would have to be crazy to count on the good will or good faith of
Shiite and Kurdish leaders to ensure that a political deal would be respected after the US
Fearon testimony on civil war in Iraq -- Page 4 of 12


65
groups to credibly commit to any particular power- and oil-sharing agreement, ramping
up or staying the course amount to delay tactics, not plausible recipes for success.
Note that more than ten years after NATO intervention, Bosnia is still at risk of political
disintegration and possibly a return to some violence if the international guarantor closes
up shop. And in that case the main combatants were not highly factionalized and had
already fought to a stalemate by the summer of 1995, before the NATO bombing
campaign and the Dayton agreement on power-sharing. Likewise, no one can imagine
that Afghanistan would not return to chaos and full-blown civil war if NATO and US
troops were to leave.
A long-term US military presence in Iraq is probably less likely to produce a regime that
can survive by itself than the international intervention in Bosnia has been, and no more
likely than in Afghanistan. Moreover, a permanent US military presence in Iraq will be
vastly more costly in terms of lives, money, and America's larger strategic position and
moral standing than the international commitment to Bosnia or Afghanistan has been.
Congress has to ask whether spending more than 60 billion dollars per year in Iraq for a
mission that is unlikely to produce a decent government that can stand on its own is the
best use of this money for protecting the US from terrorism.
8. Costs of redeployment and repositioning
Even if ramping up or staying the course are not“strategies for victory" as the
administration has defined it, this does not imply that immediate withdrawal is the best
course of action.
Indeed, in principle it could be that the costs of withdrawal are so high at this point that
the best option is to continue the status quo as long as possible. I seriously doubt this is
the case. But I would agree that there are potential risks and costs to US national security
from reducing our troop presence in Iraq, and that the question of "how to do it" to
minimize these risks and costs is extremely complicated.
There are three major areas where reduction of US troop presence in Iraq could have
costs and risks that need to be considered in thinking through the best feasible pace and
manner of redeployment:
(a) Iraqi civilian deaths;
(b) the threat of “Al Qaeda in Iraq" gaining secure base areas and using them to
organize terror attacks against countries in the region and the US; and
(c) dangers that might arise from increased Iranian influence in Iraq and the region as
a whole.
Fearon testimony on civil war in Iraq -- Page 9 of 12


67
or regional scale (if it even has the inclination) and making it easier to acquire
information about who is doing what.
On (c), Iranian influence: This seems to me the least persuasive argument about the costs
of reducing the US military presence in Iraq.
In the first place, it should be stressed that if the US were to succeed in helping to set up a
peaceful, democratic Iraqi government that can stand on it own, there is no question but
that Iran would have much more influence with this government and in the Middle East
in general than it had under the Saddam Hussein regime. The demographic fact is that
democracy in Iraq means, to some large extent, rule by Iraqi Shiites, who have close
religious and political ties to Iran. The example of a Shiite-dominated Arab (and possibly
Kurdish) state would inevitably have major ramifications to the west of Iraq.
Compared to this scenario (which is the implausible object of current US policy), the
scenario of a Lebanon-like civil war in Iraq that follows US redeployment probably
implies less Iranian influence in the Middle East as a whole, and more costly Iranian
influence in Iraq for Iran itself. Iran would be draw in, much more than at present, to
funding and arming Shiite factions against each other and against Sunni insurgents. Even
if they manage to establish a Shiite faction in a relatively dominant position in Baghdad,
their clients will be highly ungrateful if Iran subsequently tries to steal oil revenues, and
they will probably have to face the costs of an unremitting Sunni insurgency. The
unlikely event of a military invasion by Iranian forces to grab oil fields in the south could
be made even more unlikely by appropriate repositioning of US forces in the region.
Various Iranian leaders have said that they much prefer the US continue to “stay the
course” in Iraq, and that they are quite worried about the prospect of an escalated civil
war on their doorstep. With respect to Iranian influence and overall strategic position,
redeployment of US forces would most likely increase the US's leverage and would not
advantage Iran more than the current policy does.
9. Conclusion
"Staying the course" or "ramping up” in Iraq may put off political disintegration and
major escalation of the civil war in progress, but are unlikely to produce a democratic
government that can stand on its own and maintain peace after US troops are gone. The
most likely scenario following reduction of US troop presence is the escalation of a
Lebanon-like civil war. Unfortunately, the odds that this will occur are probably not
much better if US troops stay for five (or even more) years as opposed to one.
The evidence supporting this assessment is drawn from the experience of other civil wars.
Historically, civil wars tend to last a long time and usually end with decisive military
victories. Successful power-sharing agreements to end civil wars are rare. When they
have occurred, they have typically required that the combatants not be highly
factionalized and that the balance of military power and prospects for victory be well
established by years of fighting.
Fearon testimony on civil war in Iraq -- Page 11 of 12


The US has tried to help into being a democratic Iraqi government that depends on
power- and oil-revenue sharing among the major religious and ethnic groups. Probably
the most common piece of advice these days from US experts and pundits on the question
of “how to save the Iraq mission” is that a new political or constitutional bargain must be
struck that gives the Sunnis clear assurance of a fair share of the oil revenues. But even if
the terms of the constitution are altered - which seems unlikely given Shiite and Kurdish
opposition to what is an excellent deal for them - it is not clear why Sunnis would have a
good reason to believe that the terms would be respected, especially after the US departs.
In addition, many Sunnis, especially those in the insurgency, seem to believe that they
would have a good military chance against the Shiite-dominated government if the US
were gone. This belief is hard to change while the US is backing or back-stopping the
Iraqi army.
In addition to being logistically problematic, rapid US troop withdrawal from Iraq would
yield rapid escalation of militia violence and empowerment of the extremely brutal
Sadrist faction on the Shiite side. Redeployment and repositioning of US troops therefore
needs to be gradual and tuned to circumstances as they develop, undertaken always with
an eye to the deals that can be struck with the various players. The US needs to develop
a surge capacity and rapid response forces in Iraq or in the region in order to take on
armed groups that get especially ambitious and so threaten to cause quicker escalation of
the civil war.
We should not give up on the prospect that Iraqi political leaders will manage to make
deals and provide services in such a way as to gain peace and security for the country as a
whole. But we should make it clear, at least privately, that their time to do so is limited.
In the interim, we need to plan for the possibility that a democratic Iraq that can stand on
its own is not going to take root while we are there. This means planning to put ourselves
in the best position to influence for the good the evolution of a civil conflict that only
Iraqis have the power to end at this point.
Fearon testimony on civil war in Iraq -- Page 12 of 12


69
Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Dr. Fearon.
Ambassador, you have the floor. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR PETER GALBRAITH
Ambassador GALBRAITH. Mr. Chairman, members of the sub-
committee, thank you for the opportunity of testifying before you
this afternoon.
Mr. Chairman, the dire consequences of withdrawal that you de-
scribed earlier today have in fact already taken place without there
being a withdrawal. That is to say, there is a civil war. Iran is the
dominant power and terrorists already have a base from which
they operate and in fact have gained strength.
Further, the solution that has been discussed at great length
today, which is the will of the Iraqi government, is in my view
largely irrelevant.
Iraq's government of national unity does not represent a single
nation. It is not unified but, most importantly, it doesn't govern
anything. Iraq's south is governed by Shiite religious parties, not
the government in Baghdad, who run the region as theocratic
fiefdoms with elements borrowed from the Iranian model.
In Iraq, however, the Shiite militias enforce a form of Islamic
rule that is more severe than that which exists in neighboring Iran.
The Sunni center is a battleground and we have already discussed
today the report about the largest and most Sunni province, Anbar.
Baghdad is the front line of a brutal civil war between the Sunnis
and the Shiites that is on average taking 100 lives a day. The city
is divided between a Shia east which is controlled by the most radi-
cal of the Shiite militias, Mahdi Army, and the Sunni west which
is under the control of al-Qaeda, its offshoots and former Baathists.
Government ministers rarely risk going to their ministries outside
the Green Zone and most of them spend their time visiting each
other designing policies that in fact never leave the paper on which
they are written.
Kurdistan in the north is for all practical purposes an independ-
ent country. It has its own democratically elected parliament,
president, prime minister and cabinet. The Kurdistan regional gov-
ernment has its army, the peshmerga, the exclusive power of tax-
ation within Kurdistan and full control over all natural resources
in the territory of Kurdistan, including oil and water, and as we
speak the Kurdistan parliament is considering a Kurdistan law on
the exportation of petroleum in Kurdistan.
The Iraqi army is banned from Kurdistan except with the ap-
proval of the Kurdistan National Assembly and, as has already
been discussed, the Iraq flag does not fly in Kurdistan. Further in
January 2005, 98 percent of the Kurds participating in a formal
referendum, which was virtually everybody participating in the
regular elections, voted for an independent Kurdistan, 2 percent
voted to remain in Iraq. Kurdistan's powers, as I described them,
are recognized in the Iraqi Constitution, which makes Kurdistan
law superior to Iraqi law except for the very few matters that are
wholly within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government as de-
fined in Article 110 of the Constitution. These exclusive powers do
not include human rights, natural resources, religion or taxation.


The important point here is that the Constitution permits other
parts of Iraq to form regions with the same powers as Kurdistan
and, as you know, SCIRI is pushing to do precisely that to create
a nine-government Shiite region that would have its own army and
substantial control over the petroleum.
Iraq's constitutional design with virtually independent regions
and a powerless central government is no accident. It reflects the
deep divisions within Iraq and resembles much more a peace treaty
among at least two sovereignties that were the parties, the Kurds
and the Shiites, and not a blueprint for a common state that is not
desired by the Kurds and about which the Shiites are at best am-
bivalent. The Iraqi police and army who are key to our strategy for
exit are also a reflection of a divided country. The army is divided
into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite battalions which are basically loyal
to their own communities.
According to Iraq's top defense ministry officials, a third of the
army consists of ghost soldiers, names that are used to collect sala-
ries and only about 10 percent actually show up for combat on
given occasions. Iraq's police are participants in the civil war re-
sponsible for many of the abductions and killings. In my judgment,
it is virtually impossible to build national institutions such as an
army and a police when there is no nation.
Let's face up to the reality. Iraq has broken up and is in the
midst of a civil war. Recognizing this clarifies our policy options.
To achieve President Bush's goal of a unified democratic Iraq, the
United States would have to put Iraq back together again. This
would require two military missions that we are not now undertak-
ing. First, we would have to use force to disarm Shiite militias and
dismantle the southern theocracies. Second, we would have to end
the Sunni-Shiite civil war being fought in Baghdad and other
mixed areas. The first task would involve taking on an enemy more
numerous and better armed than the Sunni insurgents, an enemy
with a powerful ally nextdoor, Iran. Ending the civil war would re-
quire U.S. troops to become the police in Baghdad and other mixed
areas. It is not a task that the Iraqi security forces can undertake
because they are either Shiite or Sunni and therefore partisans in
the civil war.
Either mission would mean many more troops than we have now
and many more casualties.
In fact, the United States is not committed to the unity of Iraq
except in a rhetorical way. During the occupation, it was we who
allowed the Shiite militias to grow from a few thousand to the
number that exists now. And it was Ambassador Khalilzad last
summer who brokered the provisions of the Iraqi Constitution that
basically created powerful regions and a powerless central govern-
ment. That then comes to our choice. If the United States is not
prepared to build a unified Iraq and personally I see no reason to
expand American lives and treasures to put back together a coun-
try that is not desired by a large part of its inhabitants, then the
alternative is to work with the reality of a divided land.
If we are not going to disarm the Shiite militias and dismantle
the theocracies, what purpose is served by our presence in the
south? It is true that if we withdraw, the south would be pro-Ira-
nian and theocratic, but that is equally the case with our current


72
Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith
Testimony before
Committee on Government Reform
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations
House of Representatives
September 15, 2006
Mr. Chairman, Members of the subcommittee
Current US strategy in Iraq rests on two pillars: a political process that leads to the
formation of an effective and inclusive Iraqi national government and a security process
that builds up an ever larger and more capable Iraqi Army and police. The Bush
Administration has emphasized the steps that have already been accomplished: the
holding of Iraq-wide democratic elections, the writing of a constitution and its
overwhelming adoption in a referendum, and the formation of a Government of National
Unity. On the security front, we have been told about the size of the Iraqi armed forces,
about their increasing capability (albeit assessments of combat readiness seem to
fluctuate), how the Iraqi Government is now beginning to assume command over the
armed force and how the Iraqis are now responsible for security in one province.
I do not diminish the remarkable events that have taken place in Iraq since 2003. I was in
Iraq during the January 2005 elections-moving about freely with Iraqis and not limited
by the security measures that apply to official visitors--and I was very moved by the
large turnout of people determined to have their say. I sat with Iraq's leaders in August
2005 as they wrote the country's constitution. It was a process of tough bargaining by
elected political leaders-behind closed doors-that one might expect when the most
important issues are at stake. I was in Baghdad this February with the Iraqi leaders as
they tried to from a government of national unity
ca
But, where are we three months after the completion of the Government of National
Unity?
Iraq's south is governed by Shiite religious parties who run the region as theocratic
fiefdoms with elements borrowed from the Iranian model. In Iraq, however, Shiite
militias generally enforce an Islamic law that is more severe than that which applies in
neighboring Iran, a country that exercises enormous political, military and economic
influence on the Shiite parts of Iraq. The much advertised human rights provisions of the
Iraqi constitution do not apply in the south and to the extent that the central government
has any influence in the south, it is because the same Shiite religious parties that
dominate the federal government also control different parts of the south.
The Sunni center is a battleground. Most recently, a classified report from the marines on
the ground in Anbar Province asserts that the coalition has lost control of Iraq's largest
province.


74
Iraq has, in fact, broken up and is in the midst of a civil war. Recognizing this rea
clarifies our policy options. To achieve President Bush's goal of a unified and democratic
Iraq, the United States would have to put Iraq back together. This means two military
missions that we are not now undertaking. First, we would have to use force to disarm the
Shiite militias and dismantle the southern theocracies. Second, we would have to end the
Sunni-Shiite civil war being fought in Baghdad and other mixed areas. The first task
would involve taking on an enemy more numerous and better armed than the Sunni
insurgents, an enemy with a powerful ally in next door Iran. Ending the civil war would
require US troops to become the police in Baghdad and other mixed areas. This is not a
task that Iraqi security forces can undertake as they are either Shiite or Sunni, and
therefore partisans in the civil war. Either mission would require many more troops and
lead to many more casualties.
In truth, however, the Bush Administration's commitment to the unity of Iraq is mostly
rhetorical. During the occupation, it permitted the Shiite militias to grow from a few
thousand Badr Corps members to the large number today. And, Ambassador Khalilzad
brokered the constitution that creates strong regions (with armies) and a powerless central
government.
If the United States is not prepared to build a unified Iraq and I see no reason to expend
American lives and treasure in putting back together a country not desired by a large part
of its inhabitants--then the alternative is to work with the reality of a divided land.
Recognizing reality also provides a way out.
If we are not going to disarm the Shiite militias and dismantle theocracies, what purpose
is served by our presence in the south? It is true that if we withdraw, the South will be
pro-Iranian and theocratic, but that is equally the case if we stay under the current
mission.
If we are not going to help end the civil war, what purpose is served by a continued
military presence in Iraq's capital? It is true that if we withdraw there will be horrific
sectarian killing and widespread “sectarian cleansing" but that is going on right now.
The current strategy for combating the insurgency has clearly failed. It involves handing
off combat duties to the Iraqi Army. Mostly, it is Shiite battalions that fight in the Sunni
Arab areas, as the Sunni units are not reliable. What the Bush Administration portrays as
Iraqi, the local population sees as a hostile force loyal to a Shiite dominated government
in Baghdad installed by the Americans invader and closely aligned with the traditional
enemy, Iran. The more we “Iraqize” the fight in the Sunni heartland, the more we
strengthen the insurgency.
The alternative is to encourage the formation of a Sunni Arab Region with its own army,
as allowed by Iraq's constitution. Upon its formation, the US military should promptly
withdraw from Sunni territory so as to allow the new leaders to establish their authority
without being seen as collaborators.


79
And then finally there is the issue of separating Kurdistan from
its region and protecting it with American forces and wrapping it,
if you will, with an American flag. I tell you civilization, Mr. Chair-
man, culturally for the Kurds, nothing could be worse. We are not
going to do it. We will never do it. We will never choose Kurdistan
and ditch the Arabs. Let's be realistic about it. It is a large Arab
world. We will never ditch the Arab world and adopt a Kurdish
state and we will never ditch the Turks.
Now personally, I would rather ditch the Turks in favor of the
Kurds. That is my own politics based on my own sense of how the
Turks treated us in the prelude to the war. So I don't think we
should wish for the Kurds what they themselves don't want and
what they can't handle. Indeed, the Kurds have a place in Iraq.
Iraq has become a binational state. It is a gift to the Kurds. It is
a gift to the Iraqis. It is really also an example to the other Arabs,
a message to the other Arabs to handle pluralism and to handle
diversity. And finally we turn to the Shia, and it is a world I know
with great dependence. I have written-you know, for the record I
grew up in a Shia family in Lebanon, very secular. I have written
a book about a man named Musa Sadr before the name al-Sadr
and Muqtada became such a legendary name, and I am very inter-
ested in the place of the Shia Arab. If you take a look at the Shia,
while Peter brushes them with the argument that they are all
seeking theocracy, the nemesis is not theocracy. It's disorder. It's
drift. It really is drift. And healthy debate has just broken out
within the Shia community about the bid of Sayyid Abdulaziz al-
Hakim for a big Shia federated region. And guess what happened.
He was rejected and he was frustrated and fought by Muqtada al-
Sadr, by the virtual party, by the Daawa Party and the Shia
secularists. So oddly and as we are saying that the Iraqi Shia want
out of Iraq and want to drift toward Iran. Indeed the Iraqi Shia
being the majority population of the country are reconciled to being
in Iraq and want Iraq to stay whole and intact and indeed Hakim's
bid for this big superior region in which he would be the un-
crowned king of that region did not work.
My final point is that there is this kind of argument making the
rounds. The Jordanians make it under the Shia crescent. The
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says that the Shia Arabs are
loyal to Iran, not to their government. This is really quite in my
opinion a very pernicious doctrine. Wherever they are, the Shia are
loyal to the land and where they live. The idea that this big Shia
community of Iraq will somehow be drifting toward Iran, that Iran
will be able to erase the Arab Persian divide, the linguistic divide,
the philosophical divide between the Arabs and the Iranians is
really quite in my opinion really a smear on the Shia Arabs.
We are falling for the representations made to us by the Sunni
rulers who are falling for these representations. I had the great
honor of meeting Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani and he is of Iranian
birth and if you go to Najaf and meet with the seminarians and
the clerics in Najaf, what you hear from them behind closed doors
and when you talk to many of them, they have no use for Iran's
mullah factions. They have no use for the clerical state of the Ira-
nians. So we should understand the Shias of Iraq are Arabs
through and through. There is nothing that separates them, by the


80
way, ethnically or linguistically, from the Sunni Arabs in Iraq. It
just happened that they went to the market towns of Najaf and
Karbala and they were converted to Shiism rather than to the
Sunni doctrine. They are Arabs. They are Iraqis. There are deep
philosophical and linguistic differences between the Iraqis and the
Iranis, and many, many, many of the Iraqi exiles who spent time
in Iran who have returned with a deep animus toward the Iranians
with memories of the persecution by the Iranians with tales of Ira-
nian puerilism toward them. And we talk a lot about how the
Americans betrayed and abandoned the Shia and Kurdish rebel-
lions in 1991. That was a disgraceful thing that we did, but guess
who else did not come to the rescue of the Shia of the southern
Iraq? The Iranians, nor did they allow Iraqis who were living in
Iran to cross the border to fight with their kinsmen. So we should
just be done with this idea that you know that Iran is going to run
away with 25 million Iraqis, carry them and just put them in this
big Persian imperium and make them clones of the Iranians. It
isn't-it's ahistorical. It is not deep. It is not deep. This linguistic
divide between Arab and Persian, this temperamental divide, this
ethnic divide is very important and I think we should describe Iraq
as the Kurds want to stay in Iraq not because they love Iraq. There
is no other choice. The Shia want to stay in Iraq because they are
the majority.
The Sunnis, we can talk about them. They are supremacists,
many of them. They ruled Iraq and for them Iraq is now a stolen
country. We came and took it away from them and you know, I
think they're coming to the recognition that their supremacy can-
not be maintained and I think perhaps they are coming to their
senses.
Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I am going to go to you, Mr. Galbraith,
Ambassador Galbraith, because I do want to make sure that there
is some response. But I want to ask you, Dr. Fearon, and it will
probably be for my second questioning because I am going to try
to stay 10 minutes and we can go back and forth with my col-
league, Mr. Van Hollen. I am going to ask you where you found the
most successful resolutions of civil war. I am going to ask you to
tell me what I would have seen and say like South Africa and is
there any—are there any areas where we can find some hope that
while you are using the percentages, you know, where have we
seen some successes and can we draw parallels or not. Because I
happen to see some extraordinarily good faith efforts on the part
of Iranians, or excuse me, Iraqis to sort out their differences.
I just want to ask you, Dr. Ajami, to speak before I go to the Am-
bassador. Is the-does Iraq break up, so you have these three
units, because I look at Baghdad and I look at other areas and I
don't see it so clean and neat where you can just have these dif-
ferent, you know, a Shia, a Sunni and a Kurdish area.
Dr. AJAMI. Mr. Chairman, there is no clean breakup in Iraq, as
you know. And I think the prospects would be the Iraqis will live
unhappily together for quite some time. And again as a child of
Lebanon and a student of Lebanon, there is something stubborn of
our nation states: They persevere. They continue to exist because
they are almost-usually they are just kind of a convenience. Peo-
ple can't find another form of life. And I think Iraq will continue


81
in this fashion. And I think Baghdad itself, I mean, the great ques-
tion would be what becomes of that city. And who would have it
and would it be partitioned along sectarian and ethnic lines. It
could be a catastrophe for the Iraqis. If that is the future they end
up with then indeed this war would have been a terrible, terrible
war. We've rolled history's dice and it would be that we lost, and
the Iraqis lost.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Galbraith, I am going to go to Mr. Van Hollen,
but when I start my second round, this is the question that I'll ask:
I would like you to speak to what you heard with Dr. Ajami. But
also I would like you to speak to what I heard when I visited other
nations in the region and I was lectured by other Arabs that Iran
would not tolerate three separate states for more than one reason.
The Kurdish area, obviously the Turks would have a challenge.
The Syrians, I am told, and I would like your—I am told that Iran
would have huge problems with the Kurdish state. But I am also
told that the Iranians would have a hard time with a Shia Arab
community given they also have a fairly large Arab Shia commu-
nity in Iran, that they fear not just a Kurdish state but a Shia
Arab state. And so I'll be coming to ask you to comment on that
and anything else you would like to but, Mr. Van Hollen, you have
the floor.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank all
of you for your excellent testimony and just pick up, Mr. Ajami,
where you left off, which is that if you see the outcome that you
painted with a partition essentially that Iraq is lost, and of course
the title of Mr. Galbraith's book is the End of Iraq. And I don't
think he says it with any satisfaction. I think it's more a portrait
of how he portrays the reality in the ground. In your statement,
you say Iraq seems ungovernable. I think clearly the facts on the
ground show that the situation is getting worse, not better. You
quote the outgoing British Ambassador and said, just quote from
your testimony, “the prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de
facti division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a
successful transition to a stable democracy,” according to his gov-
ernment. So I mean, the issue we are all grappling with I guess
is what really do the Iraqi people want because I think we would
all agree that it is not what we all wish really for Iraq at this
point. It is really a decision for the Iraqi people. And we heard the
testimony of Mr. Talabany, and I agree with you that those who
are part of the current government, that they do want a united
rag. I think that is absolutely true. Mr. Talabany, Karim
AlMusawi, others you mentioned, both Kurds, Sunni and Shia. The
question really Mr. Galbraith has raised, are they really governing.
What do they govern? Are really, are these other groups more in
control of the future of Iraq than those who are in the government
today? And if in fact Mr. Galbraith is right and Mr. Fearon is right,
who I understood his testimony also we have a civil war, and the
question as I understand his testimony is really quite how do you
manage that to a position where you can reduce as much as pos-
sible the violence. But maybe at the end of the day I think you
would agree that the result may also be some kind of de facto par-
tition.


So I guess the question for all of us, and, Mr. Ajami, I ask you,
how do we know when we have reached the point where Iraq has
fallen apart? Mr. Galbraith's testimony, as I say, he said well, we
are now already at the point where we are fighting to put it back
together, not holding it together. I understand from your testimony
you think that we are still holding it together but it increasingly
is falling apart. How do we know when we have reached that
point?
Dr. AJAMI. I wish I knew the answer, Congressman Van Hollen.
I think it's a very good question, and I think we understand that
Iraq has been full of surprises and full of disappointment and full
of heartbreak. I mean, we—and there is a question had we known
then, if you will, what we now know, would we still have pulled
the trigger in 2003. I really don't know the answer. I have written
a book. I have spent these last 3 years in and out of Iraq. I have
and even Congressman Shays have forgotten, but we hung around
on one trip with the incomparable General Petraeus when the
chairman was there.
We just—we are—all we roll history's dice and I have this very
philosophical attitude about this war in Iraq, the Arabs have a
word, which I like very much called Maktoob, “written.” I think
this war was written, was fated. Once 9/11 happened, I can tell you
it really, it is not an attempt to kind of claim now what I didn't
think then. Immediately I knew that we would end up, we would
go and I even had an expression, there was a highway that would
lead from Kabul to Baghdad because I just understood that Kabul
would not give us satisfaction for what happened to us on 9/11,
that subliminally nations sometimes do things subliminally.
We concluded that it was Arabs who attacked us and we were
going to shoot Arab targets, and Saddam. He drew the short straw,
and we wanted to take on Arab radicalism and we went from
Kabul, which the Arabs had rented out for $20 million a year as
we know. We went from Kabul to Baghdad to take a swipe as this
Arab radicalism, to try to reform the Arab world.
Was that the right place to make a stand against Arab radical-
ism? I don't know. Has it been frustrating in the extreme? Abso-
lutely. Were there some real stakes in Iraq? I think so. I really
think so. And one day, I very much would like to spend some time
trying to explain at least my—not now because the time here is
limited—my sense of how Iraq emerged out of 9/11. Th
port, which I read very, very carefully, tries to establish and tries
to question whether there is this link, if you will, between Saddam
and 9/11 in kind of a Anglo Saxon way of inquiry, rules of evidence.
That, I think, is doomed. You know, we don't need to spend time
thinking. Did Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker, meet with Iraqi
intelligence? It is idle. I didn't really dwell on that.
My concern was different. My concern was Arabs attacked us on
abs who came right from the mainstream of Arab so-
ciety, Saudis, Lebanese, Egyptians and that we tried, in some way,
to go at this phenomenon, and Iraq was the place, this return ad-
dress, if you will, that we chose. It might not have been perfect,
but it gave us a place and gave us a kind of a battleground to ta
on the furies of the Arab world. It is not perfect.
9/11, young


84
things going badly, their theory—and this may be surprising to
you, us here—and their theory, a very common theory is that the
United States is an incredibly powerful country.
If things are going badly, it has to be because they want it to go
badly. And why do they want it to go badly? Because they want to
keep the Arabs down, they want to break us up, they are serving
the interests of their Israeli masters. Now, that is crazy from our
perspective, and especially the last part is just kind of nuts. But
that is an extremely common perspective.
If we go in and start pushing for partition, what will it do? It
will just leave people to say, there, absolutely confirms what our
theory was.
et me say, a tiny bit more about long run outcomes. I think the
model here really shouldn't be—it is not Yugoslavia. It is much
more. Lebanon, I think, is a much more appropriate historical anal-
ogy. And what we are likely to see pretty much, whether we stay
or go, is a gradual or depending on how fast we go rapid transition
to a Lebanon-like situation where you have basically a political au-
thority insofar as its exists, devolves down to region, city, even
neighborhood levels, there are lots of militias, there is at lot of
fighting between militias off and on, a great deal of the fighting is
not across sectarian lines but within it.
It is important to remember about the Lebanese conflict there
was a huge amount of fighting among the Christian militias and
among the Muslim militias. There's going to be a ton of foreign
intervention just like there was in Lebanon, that will periodically
escalate they a lot, will help things de-escalate but I think we are
looking at a long run conflict that will be quite messy. Hopefully,
it will settle down to a fairly—not high intensity conflict for a long
period of time.
In the long run, is there a possibility of a stable Iraq? Yes, I
think so. I think there is actually a basis there which is based on
economic efficiency. There is common interests of all these people
there in efficiently producing, controlling, and distributing and sell-
ing oil.
I don't understand. Maybe Ambassador Galbraith can explain
what is the Kurdish theory, if they were independent, what is the
theory about how they are going to be able to profit from the oil
if they have to export it across countries that can basically tax
away their profits? It seems to me there is a very good interest in
having an Iraqi central government to manage kind of efficient ex-
ploitation of the oil resources there.
But how do you get there? What is the—the only kind of long-
run stable basis for Iraq that I can see is that the Sunnis, and to
some extent, the Kurds, recognize that there is—they need to make
significant concessions on oil share, on revenue sharing, and in gov-
ernment to the Sunnis on the implicit recognition that if they don
they are going to face a disabling long run insurgency that will
make it hard for them to have peace and economic prosperity.
But I just don't think we can get there quickly because there are
all these Sunnis who believe, that have guns and believe they can
take power if the United States leaves, and there are Shia leaders
who think like Muktada al-Sadr, I believe, that they can grab


85
power and the dictators, if the United States leaves, and it is very
hard to disabuse them of those beliefs while we are there.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I think we got to the heart of the issue here,
and I would welcome Ambassador Galbraith's response to that, be-
cause the fault lines in this hearing.
Ambassador GALBRAITH. Thank you very much, and I think I will
note that actually I, in addition to knowing something about Iraq,
I actually also know something about Yugoslavia. And perhaps the
best way to describe Iraq is the combination of Yugoslavia and Leb-
anon. Clearly, Kurdistan is a Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia kind of situation.
And I have great respect for Dr. Ajami. I reviewed his book,
and—very favorably in the New York review of books.
But I don't think it is—I don't think that one can justly dismiss
a vote of 2 million Kurds, 98 percent voting for independence is
meaningless sentimentality. Why are the Kurds given less credit
than Croatians or Slovenians who voted on independence? I think
they are serious about it.
And the truth is, in more than a quarter century of visiting
Kurdistan and knowing the Kurds, I have not met one who has
told me that he would prefer to be-he or she would prefer to be
part of Iraq if he had the option of an independent Kurdistan.
And it is in my judgment—and I suppose this is my experience
in Yugoslavia—that it is very hard to get people to commit to a
state that they actually don't believe in. And it is not just that the
Kurds don't want to be independent. It is that they positively hate
Iraq.
Now, Barham Salih, Jalal Talabani, Hoshir Sofali, wonderful
close friends of mine of long standing. They are sincere. They are
doing everything in their power to end the violence. At a level
below that in Kurdistan, there is a lot of ambivalence because ev-
erything bad that happens in Iraq, is something that brings them
closer to what they want, which is independence.
And at a level below that, people don't even disguise their feel-
ings. And it is very understandable. What has Iraq meant to
Kurdistan? It has meant-not just Saddam Hussein, but 80 years
of repression culminating in the genocide that you and I docu-
mented in the 1980's. That doesn't escape from peoples' memories,
plus of course, you have had the 15 years of independence, and
there is this growing confidence.
Now, you can seek speak of Kurdistan of the Kurds are well rep-
resented in Baghdad. That is absolutely true.
What are they doing in Baghdad? One of the things they are
doing, it is not the only thing they are doing, but one of them is
defending Kurdistan. And one of the things that they are defending
is that the government in Baghdad should have absolutely no pres-
ence, no authority, in Kurdistan.
So they are defending what they are doing—and it is a shrewd
strategy—they are defending the current de facto independence of
Kurdistan.
That is not a reflection of a commitment to a unified Iraq. That
is a reflection of a shrewd strategy. And what you also see from
these leaders, is a shrewd strategy in the fact sense that they are
not going to declare independence tomorrow and they have a public


86
that understands that precisely for the reasons that Dr. Ajami has
described.
But we have to, when we look at the Kurdish situation, hasn't
received a lot of attention because there have been fewer problems.
There are all sorts of things that can change if this if you want to
look ahead. Of course, there is a referendum on Kirkuk that is in
the constitution. If that referendum somehow isn't held, you are
going to see a different situation. There is the Saddam trial.
Mr. SHAYS. Can you just explain, when you say different situa-
tion, I don't know what that means. You said if there isn't the elec-
tion referendum, you said, different things, can you be for more
specific?
* Ambassador GALBRAITH. Sure, I understand right now while
there is this popular desire for independence, which I believe is
every bit as strong as in Croatia, Slovenia, or any of these other
countries that became independent, the leaders are not pushing for
independence right now.
But I am suggesting there are events that could trigger
Kurdistan's independence.
And I was just citing a couple of them, one of which would be
if, for some reason, the referendum was not held in accordance to
the constitution.
Mr. SHAYS. So then your point was that then there would be a
movement toward independence?
Ambassador GALBRAITH. It could be. I am just giving an example.
There was another example in today's paper which. I think is bril-
liant. You have the judge in the Saddam trial saying—the judge in
the trial of Saddam Hussein for the Kurdish genocide saying that
Saddam Hussein was not a dictator.
Now imagine a situation in which Saddam Hussein is a acquitted
of the crimes against the Kurds and convicted of the crimes against
the Shiites.
These are the kinds of events that can take the next step, which
is, I think, a question you have, had that can take it the next step,
in a country where there is no shared identity as between Arabs
and Kurds. Now I will readily agree that the situation in the, be-
tween the Sunni Arabs and the Shiites is different. There are ele-
ments of nationalism among the Shiites. But it is by no means the
notion that is a parallel situation.
Just a point about the oil because this is a-oh, 2 more points
I want to make. First, I want to be clear. I do not believe the
United States should push for the partition of Iraq.
I am not an advocate of the partition of Iraq.
I believe that Iraq has already broken up. And I am an opponent
of putting it back together, of using, of sending American troops,
American treasure, to try to do something that is in any event not
desired by a significant part of the population. And I think that is
a critical distinction. I could not agree with Dr. Fearon more that
the United States should not be in the business of breaking up
Iraq. But the fact is, this has happened. Kurdistan I have already
described.
You have this terrible civil war in Baghdad. If there were some
feasible way to prevent it, I would urge—I would do it just as a
humanitarian matter. But there isn't. And we are not doing it. And


87
we can have—we can send a few more troops to Baghdad and it
makes a temporary difference, especially if you turn out not to
count the car bombings in the casualty tolls. But the fact is that
if this sectarian violence comes back, we are not going to use our
troops as policemen. It would require the kind of major foreign
intervention such as Syria and Lebanon or NATO in Bosnia to
bring this to an end. And it is not going to happen.
So this division, including the division in Baghdad, between a
Shiite east and a Sunni west and the ending of mixed areas that
even the breakup of mixed marriages, is already happening. And
nobody can be advocating that. But in the end, it is my judgment
that a Shiite-governed region and a Sunni-governed region perhaps
in some kind of federation, is a better result than an endless power
struggle between these two groups for domination.
Oil is the other point worth commenting on.
First, there are pipelines that go out of Iraq, and there are set
tariffs so I don't think as a practical matter an independent, a
land-locked independent Kurdistan would be able to export its oil.
This is fairly standard. It is also likely that if Kurdistan were to
become independent, it would be through a process of negotiation
with the Arabs, many of whom, including one of the Arab panelists
today, say bluntly, yes, I can understand why the Kurds want to
be independent, and I think we should let them if that is what they
want. So it is likely if there were an independent Kurdistan its
best relationship would be with Arab Iraq.
The issue of, as you know, the Iraqi constitution has a com-
plicated formula on oil.
Actually, technically, oil is not an exclusive power of the central
Government, meaning that regional law applies and regional power
both producing fields and new fields.
But new fields are clearly under the control of the region. And
this is why I can say that Kurdistan—all of Kurdistan's oil is con-
trolled by Kurdistan because there are no existing fields if you ex-
clude Kirkuk.
But then there is the separate issue of revenue sharing to which
the Iraqis have reached an agreement on revenue sharing with
each of these—not a constitutional deal, which is not a good idea,
but a law in which each region will get revenues from oil according
to their population, if it, in fact, is implemented. It is very com-
plicated.
One of the complications is how much to the central government.
After all, the Kurds would say nothing of our share because the
central Government doesn't do anything in Kurdistan.
But this is a complicated issue.
But the second issue is, does the revenue sharing formula fix the
problem for the Sunni Arabs? And there are people who believe, oh,
yes if only they get their 20 percent the problem will be fixed. If
fact is that in 2003, before the invasion and for years before, they
were getting 70 percent of the oil-or more.
And so the notion that from their point of view they will be
happy with a mere 20 percent, however just that might be, it still
represents a major cut in income for them.
Mr. SHAYS. It is a good segue for me to claim time since 24 min-
utes have gone by. I, basically, when I met with Sunni representa-


88
tives, they will say to me, we are willing to compromise. We only
want 50 percent. And you know, since they had 100 percent, seems
like a compromise.
But it is very clear as well that the whole issue of what their
population is, they would not concede, even if it were true it seems
to me that they are 20 percent of the population. Therefore, getting
20 percent of the oil, it strikes me as a challenge for them.
Ambassador Galbraith, I mean nothing other than the observa-
tion here, and take it for what it is, I was absolutely riveted by the
book, Trading Places by Mr. Prestowitz. And it was that Japan-
we had traded places with Japan, or Japan basically had traded
places with us, and now they were the dominant power, and it
would happen in a certain period of time. And that book is on a
book shelf and he may have written another book of why he was
wrong, but he was dead wrong.
And yet I gave that book to everybody I could find. And I am
frankly riveted as well by your comments. I find them very compel-
ling.
And then, Dr. Fearon, I thought you were like over there in
terms of your analysis and you are-I just smile thinking about it,
you enacted a mission in the highest sense and you go where those
facts take you. And I thought my gosh, we are going to fail in Iraq,
and we better just kind of give up and walk away and so on, but
your facts didn't lead you to that, but I made that assumption that
is where you are going. And you didn't volunteer it because we
didn't ask you. And I have to tell you, this is the most fascinating
panel I have had before us in a long time, and we have had great
panels.
I want to ask you, Dr. Galbraith, to comment on whether you
heard the same concern that Iran is not-I am going to give
you a few things to answer—is not concerned about even a Shia
Arab state, as much as we know Iran is concerned about a Kurdish
state.
And so that is one of the issues that I would like you to address.
Ambassador GALBRAITH. I think to be honest, I cannot speak to
the degree of Iranian concern about the impact of a Iraqi specific
to your question of a Shiite state in Iraq, that it would have on
“Arabstan” across the—and on their Arab population.
Mr. SHAYS. Maybe you could expand it to tell me how Turkey
would react to a Kurdish state and how Syria would react? I would
be interested to know that.
Ambassador GALBRAITH. Yes this is a critical question but-
Mr. SHAYS. I am going to add one more part to it just so you can
integrate it—and what the impact is of a Kurdish region that is
completely land-locked?
Ambassador GALBRAITH. Of course, Syria, Turkey and Iran do
not wish to see an independent Kurdistan, because they all have
Kurdish populations. Frankly, Syria is not an important-doesn't
have a lot of say on it. Iran is opposed. It has some tools—notably
sabotage, assassinations, terrorism, exploiting divisions among the
Iraqi Kurds, but the Iranians, interestingly, basically took a deci-
sion that what they wanted was—what they wanted was the suc-
cess of the Shiites in the south, that they saw in this constitution,
which, in my view, is a road map for partition, and, so initially


90
there has never been a democratic state who has rid itself of the
greatest power in the world, and so on, would that have been a de-
flating message to Americans who were trying to be free? And does
it prove a point that there may be other elements to this picture
that are unique and different? And I would ask you to tell me if
there are some unique and different issues. Because it was a mir-
acle in 1776. And when we talk about all the things that could go
wrong, the list was longer than we could list of what could have
gone wrong when we became a Nation.
If you could have gotten Virginia and Massachusetts to agree on
anything, you know, I mean, but you had then, you had extraor-
dinary leaders who were able to break through that. You know,
Washington deciding to go north just as a Virginian to be north.
But we also had the help of the French, who landed in Rhode Is-
land, took troops to New York, and convinced Washington not to
attack the Brits in New York even though he wanted to redeem
himself, convinced him to have a month-long March to Yorktown,
and then we fought in Yorktown and the French lost more—had
greater deaths than Americans had.
I just look at this and say, you know, so I am going to ask you
to tell me, do you see any leaders in Iraq or anyone that can break
this mold that you see, and so then I can say there is hope and
promise. And Dr. Ajami, I would like you to comment to the things
you have heard today.
Dr. Ajami I am going to go to you and then come back to Dr.
Fearon. I am giving him a chance to think about that.
Dr. AJAMI. Which part would you like?
Mr. SHAYS. Any comments, Ambassador Galbraith said, I found
as he was saying some points, I saw you nodding your head. And
then I would just like to know where you might disagree, relations
with Iran and Turkey and all those things.
Dr. AJAMI. Yes, I would be quite thrilled to see Kurdish inde-
pendence. I think Iraq was a travesty. I think the way the Kurds
were brought into Iraq in 1920 and beyond, they were simply
brought in for one reason, to balance the demographic power of the
Shia. That was it. The Brits were bringing the HASHMATs, to look
at the country and they said, oh, too many Shia. What do we do?
Force the Kurds into Iraq. It was a debacle. I think the Kurds are
a proud and good people. Peter is absolutely right. And Congress-
man Van Hollen, these people are—they have endured so much
suffering and there remains in them such decency.
The problem in Iraq, I think—and I don't want to pile on the
Sunni Arabs here. The Sunni Arabs simply were unreconciled to
this new Iraq. And though they are a minority in Iraq, they have
a more sectarian mindset, because they look at the region and say,
oh, we live in a region of Sunni Arabs, the neighborhood around
us. But actually, if you really think about it, and this is one of the
great ironies of Iraq, the possible borders, the borders which have
human habitation for Iraq, not across the
Mr. SHAYS. Bring the mic a little closer.
Dr. AJAMI. There is a great irony which I savor about Iraa and
about its Arab legend, insisting on the very and Arabness of Iraq,
the Iraq shares possible borders across human habitations with


92
successful power sharing agreements, and it is a short list and a
number of them are kind of dubious, so one side really won the
war, pretty much all of them occur after quite long conflicts.
South Africa is, in many ways, the most promising, or I don't
know, optii
stic example, and there you had a long, costly fight
that wore both sides down. You had remarkable leadership from-
and very not the kind of leadership you could just count on appear-
ing somewhere else, in Nelson Mandela, who used that leadership
in part to put together a very dominant ANC which, you know
there was some factionalization, but it really helped a great deal
that he had, that there was this dominant organization on the Afri-
can side.
And then another thing which was really important and for the
success in South Africa was, I think, that basically the main par-
ties, the white regime and the whites and the Africans needed each
other economically.
And that provided a real glue in the end and a reason for the
outgoing regime to have some trust that they wouldn't just be ex-
propriated out of hand.
But you know leadership was also very important and it is im-
portant that this took time for the regime to come to the belief that
it really had to settle.
Now if you look at Iraq, I am just worried that we just don't see
those kind of conditions. I am worried that there is, you know great
factionalization on the Shiite and Sunni sides, and that on each of
those sides you have parties who I think really believe very much
that they can take power if the United States were gone by using
force.
And the problem is that is a very hard belief to change while we
are there because their theory is, well, when the United States
goes we will be able to take over..
Mr. SHAYS. I am going to just react to one point and then Mr.
Van Hollen, I am going to go to you here and this will be our last
round. We will go one more time here, but if I ask the Iraqis, what
is their biggest fear, almost to a person they say that you will
leave, that you will leave us. And some say that you will leave us
before we can grab hold of democracy. That is what they tell me.
ey may say it differently but that you will leave us too soon. And
then I think, well, no wonder they think that because we have a
debate where we are talking about leaving now or prematurely or
some time, and then some of them even make reference, and a lot
of them are educated over elsewhere, they make the analogy just
like you did in Vietnam.
And you know when I hear people say, Vietnam didn't cause
what we thought, it still had impact over us over a long period of
time. Saddam never would have gone into Kuwait if we he really
believed we would get him out. He just thought that because of
Vietnam we never would go. In fact, he never thought we would
get him out and remove him from power in part because the
French and others convinced him we wouldn't.
And so what we are trying to deal with is the consequence of
leaving and when we leave. And so I still want to kind of get a
sense of that. I am going to ask you, Dr. Fearon, tell me in spite
of the fact that you say it takes a long time, and then I don't hear


94
thing. I saw them talking. And I knew I was going to have to come
back in not my usual 342 months or 3 months.
When I came back, I just saw a continuation. So I came to the
conclusion that we needed to light a fire under the Iraqi politicians.
My way of doing it was to say, we know there is a certain point
where when the Iraqis step up, we can step down.
We should be able to know that.
Now the president said that we have enough troops but now we
have 264,000—294,000 Iraqi security and they haven't resulted in
any stepdown.
So whenever we get to that point where we have enough, because
when you combine the 264, I think we are up to then, and the
American 150,000 plus the 20,000 contractors, we are up to about
494,000 security.
The administration, it seems to me, has to tell us when we are
at that point that in a worst-case scenario, the Iraqis we can deal
with, with the challenge of they will still be fighting but we can
respond to it, and that we then tell the Iraqis that we are going
to, when we reach that number, every Iraqi who has had a year's
worth of training on the line, on the firing line, we bring down an
American troop.
And my point and my logic is to say, we need to let them know
there is a point where they are going to have to take over. And we
don't want to leave a day before they are capable, but we don't
want to leave, stay a day later than we have to. That still, I have
to say, suggests to me, Mr. Galbraith, that it is not going to be
troops in Kurdistan–I mean, you didn't say Kurdistan, you said,
you were going to locate the troops where?
Ambassador GALBRAITH. In Kurdistan, as an over-the-horizon
force that could move back into the Sunni Arab areas.
Mr. SHAYS. And I was going to ask you why not Kuwait? But I
am struck by the fact that we need troops there, however small,
they need to be an operational troop for us. We also will have to
provide air, fixed and helicopter support, medics and so on. That
is kind of how I am wrestling with this issue. And it is because I
do think there has to be this point.
And the interesting thing—and I am sorry to go on—but the in-
teresting thing is by my suggesting it, it somehow wrapped me in
with the group that wants to leave now or arbitrarily, and I don't
want to do that. And it is almost like we don't have any room to
have a discussion between those who want, you know, to leave
right now or arbitrarily, and those who say stay the course and just
keep plugging away. It seems to me there has to be something else.
And my last point is, I realize that I am preaching to Sunni,
hias and Kurds why can't they work together, but Mr. Van Hollen
and I and everyone else aren't working together—I don't mean that
as a criticism to him or me, but bottom line with this election it
is just not happening. It will have to wait until after the election.
But there is going to have to be a point where Republicans and
Democrats can say is there a way we, in this country, can find the
common ground and give a common message to the Iraqis so they
know what they are in for, whatever that is?
c is kind of the wrestling I have been doing now after 14 trips
and the 3 days of hearings that I have heard. And what I will want
Shias and I


98
temporarily, I think we want to move in steps or gradually and see
how things evolve.
It is an extremely complicated situation with lots of players, lots
of interests involved. We will not be just disappearing. We are still
going to be an incredibly important player there with a lot of
means of leverage, economic, military, diplomatic.
One of the advantages, Mr. Chairman, you were talking about
the government not really moving fast, it is possible that taking
these kind of steps would help to bring a greater sense of urgency.
It could also cause things to get worse. It is hard to say. But it
could, you know, it could very well light a fire under the politi
as it were, and make them make some hopefully not a last ditch,
but maybe last ditch efforts to make the current situation work.
I think we ought to get more economic resources flowing where
we ought to get economic resources flowing, because I think in the
longer run, or the medium run, for us to continue to play a, you
know, a constructive role we are going to be wanting to say, we
want you guys to come to an agreement, and we are going to sup-
port the people who we think are working in a positive way for that
and punish or not help the people who aren't.
And I think we will find people of those predilections on all sides
of the conflict and it is going to be a very complicated situation.
Dr. AJAMI. Mr. Chairman, first a personal note, and then a policy
conclusion. The personal note, I think some members of my family
are among your constituents, I believe, if I am not, you can correct
me, that, Norwalk and Groton are your constituency, and two of
them are twins who went into West Point and into the military and
one of them is on his way to Kuwait and most likely Iraq.
Both of them, one of them is in Korea, and one of them is on his
way to, we believe, Iraq, trust me, they will be casting absentee
ballots for Congressman Shays. So at least that front is secure.
Now on the balance, the good news, if you will from Iraq, some-
thing has happened in Iraq. And it will give us our deliverance in
the medium run, a balance of terror has been arrived at in Iraq.
A lot of this war in Iraq was motivated and triggered by the Sunni
Arab belief that they are a martial race, and that Shia are not.
They even had an expression. They would say for us, "hukm” which
means ruling for you, self flagellation. They had disdain for them.
And now the Mahdi army and the Badr brigade, the Sunnis are
looking into the abyss. And they now understand if war were to
come, if they persist, they may not win.
This is the first time in the history of Iraq that this conclusion
has been arrived at by the Sunni Arabs, that two can kill, and that
actually there is a rough balance of terror in the country, that they
can't go north because they will meet the Peshmergas and they
can't come south because eventually they will want to fight it out
with Muktada al Sadr and the Badr brigade maybe the outcome is
not so good.
So we are on the road to deliverance. It has never been—it is a
scourge to our souls, and I know, for you, Mr. Chairman and I
know Congressman Van Hollen, this has been a very, very serious
engagement because you both have much invested in this question
and it is really a great honor to be here with you.
Thank you.