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OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
VICSNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
JEFF MILLER, Florida
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOHN NEEDHAM, Professional Staff Member
THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member
ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member
SASHA ROGERS, Research Assistant
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(II)


C O N TENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2007
Page
HEARING:
w: July 18, 2007, A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq's Future (Part
2 of 4) ....................................................................................................................
APPENDIX:
Wednesday, July 18, 2007....................................................................................... 31
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2007
A THIRD WAY: ALTERNATIVES FOR IRAQ'S FUTURE (PART 2 OF 4)
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Over-
sight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 2
Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight
and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1
WITNESSES
Byman, Dr. Daniel L., Director, Center for Peace and Security Studies of
the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, '' University,
Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution .. 3
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
Akin, Hon. W. Todd .......................................................................................... 37
Byman, Dr. Daniel L. .. 40
Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 35
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[There were no Questions submitted.]



(III)


2
Dr. Byman has written widely on a range of topics related to ter-
rorism, international security and the Middle East. His latest book
is Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil
War that he co-authored with Ken Pollack investigating the con-
nection with states that sponsor terrorism.
We also had originally scheduled Dr. Philip Zelikow, who had
worked with Secretary Rice I think from 2005–2007. I wanted to
just touch on these details for a minute. Very smart guy. We were
looking forward to him being here. He had finalized his written
statement with the staff on late Monday afternoon. It was distrib-
uted to all our members on Tuesday morning, and sometime in the
mid-morning we received a call from his assistant that he would
have to cancel.
I put in a call to him to try to get him to change his mind. It
turned out that he called back later that day and informed us that
somewhere in that intervening time the Administration approached
him about being a consultant with the Administration to work on
the Iraq war policy, and he didn't think it was appropriate for him
to be testifying publicly.
He ask that his written statement not be made part of the
record. It will not be, but he is also aware that it was already dis-
tributed publicly, and members can feel free to use it as they may.
In fact, I have already asked a question at this morning's full com-
mittee hearing using a statement that I thought was a very
thoughtful statement. But he is involved in this whole issue of
what comes next in Iraq but is now working with the Administra-
tion.
So I will now turn to Mr. Akin for any comments he would like
to make.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Ap-
pendix on page 35.]
STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND IN-
VESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. AKIN. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Dr. Byman, and thank you for joining us here
today. You have a rare opportunity this afternoon. You have the
benefit of offering your testimony with no one on your right and no
one on your left to disagree with you, and so thank you for joining
UlS.
Today's hearing is the second in a series aimed at breaking out
of the false construct of talking about Iraq in terms of precipitous
withdrawal or stay the course. While our first hearing was very
constructive, I want to reiterate the purpose of this exercise. We
are here to discuss alternatives that really offer a different plan to
the current strategy. Simply critiquing the current approach is not
the point of this hearing, and it is helpful only to the degree that
it adds to proposing something different. So Dr. Byman, I look for-
ward to—if you do have something that is really an alternative
plan, we are particularly interested in that.
After looking at your testimony, it is clear that you advocate de-
parting from the strategy in the sense that you want to emphasize
having the U.S. combat forces go door to door, that you want to get


4
would require a far greater military and civilian commitment than
we currently have and, even then, I think the chances of success
are far from certain.
I will also add that domestic political support appears to be wan-
ing, which makes increasing the burden quite difficult at this time.
Because I am skeptical of our chances for success and because I
recognize the exceptionally heavy costs we are paying as a nation
for remaining in Iraq, I reluctantly advocate reducing our troop
presence substantially and moving away from our current policy.
However, I do not take this stance lightly, because I believe a
U.S. drawdown would have severe consequences for Iraq and also
for the region. Just as I believe Administration officials “best-
cased” planning for the war going in, I do believe critics of the war
are making a similar mistake today, which is that they are assum-
ing that the situation could not get worse when it easily can; and
my testimony today focuses on the problem of the Iraq war spilling
out into neighboring states and beyond. I argue that it is impera-
tive for us to have a plan for containing the spillover from the Iraqi
civil war.
Because my testimony is focused as this hearing is on new ap-
proaches I am not going to belabor various Administration policies
or various legislative alternatives, so I am happy to answer ques-
tions on them; and, instead, I am going to focus on the idea of a
strategy of containment, which is really trying to prevent the Iraq
problem from metastasizing beyond Iraq.
It is worth pointing out that the civil War in Iraq could easily
grow much worse and I believe will grow much worse if U.S. forces
draw down substantially. We can expect tens of thousands, prob-
ably hundreds of thousands of people to die or be injured in the
war and millions more refugees up from the over two million today;
and I will point out that the United States has in other cases inter-
vened to stop humanitarian tragedies of this scope.
That said, there are four strategic problems I think we should
focus on.
One problem is going to be terrorism. Iraq is already a haven for
terrorists. They have used Iraq for doing attacks in Jordan and
elsewhere. We are going to see this sort of thing increased if the
U.S. presence is reduced.
Another problem which is happening in the region is Iraqis
radicalizing the politics of several states in the region, in particu-
lar, those states that have Sunni-Shia divides. This issue, which
has gone up and down historically, is becoming more salient than
it has in the last hundred years in terms of political divisions. Ref-
ugees are going to be a huge problem. As I mention, there are al-
ready two million. Increasingly, the refugees will be poor, and
many will bring the war with them. They are going to overstrain
the countries they are in.
In Jordan, perhaps one out of every six people in Jordan today
is a refugee from Iraq; and many of these people are ripe for
radicalization. We have seen this in conflict after conflict where
young men in particular arrive with nothing to do, and year after
year life goes on with very little hope and, over time, they join the
fight.


8
in my opinion is focus on one or two particular factors and say it
£rwing slightly, it could be worse, rather than look at the
WI1016.
Let me give you some very big-picture, negative observations
that are behind my conclusions. One is that political unity is get-
ting worse, not better, that the ability of the United States to engi-
neer deals among Iraqi factions was stronger several years ago
than it is today.
A second is that sectarian violence is much worse, that this was
a dynamic that initially we could talk primarily about a war be-
tween Iraqis who liked or did not like the U.S. presence. Now, for
many Iraqi fighters, the U.S. presence is actually not terribly im-
portant. They are much more focused on killing each other.
A third factor is that the training mission is not working. Every
benchmark, every report we receive suggests that problems remain,
and in particular let me single out two.
One that you don’t hear much about but is tremendously impor-
tant is the performance of the Iraqi police. If you talk to most
Iraqis, they will mention crime, not civil violence as their number
one problem, that people simply cannot leave their homes because
they are afraid they will be kidnapped. They are afraid they will
be robbed. And the police in Iraq are a disaster, and the basic func-
' of government thus are in jeopardy when the police do not
WOrk.
A second problem is that, because the government is increasingly
seen by many Iraqis as really just a sectarian militia, that when
we train the government we are training one side in this war and
even one faction within a faction.
So I do believe we should support some elements over another,
but we shouldn’t think that most Iraqis embrace the idea of a very,
very strong police under the—or, excuse me, very, very strong
armed forces under the Maliki government.
We see reports again and again of different Sunni groups in par-
ticular being very concerned about a strong army led by people
they see as their enemies. And since these trends largely are get-
ting worse, we see no change in the neighboring states' willingness
to intervene, at some point I have to be able to look people in the
eye and say, the sacrifice, yeah, has a chance of succeeding—and
three years ago I was willing to say that—but, increasingly, I am
not willing to say that, and several years ago I reached the point
of believing this is not going to succeed.
The only way it would be possible in my judgment would be for
literally several hundred thousand more troops in Iraq, western
uality troops—and I am basing this on U.S. Army
£rin' Manual which was offered by General Petraeus,
so I don’t feel my estimate is that far out—and I believe we as a
country don’t want to provide that level of support.
Another point which is a very painful one to me, obligation. Yes,
we have a moral obligation to Iraq. At some point, though, I think
we have to say that we are not going to fulfill it because the cost
of the sacrifice is too great for the American people. If there is still
a problem 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, that obligation would still
be there. But at some point you have to say it is not working and
nOVe On.


9
It troubles me greatly, frankly, and part of why I wanted to take
in so many Iraqi refugees is a very small way of fulfilling our obli-
gation to some Iraqis. I recognize that doesn’t right the scales. But
it is one way of paying obligation. But at some point more obliga-
tion is not enough, and I think we have reached that point.
Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Akin for five minutes. And, Dr. Byman, that
was the call for votes. I think what we had better do is let Mr.
Akin ask his questions, and then we will go for votes, and that is
the way it will be.
Mr. AKIN. Dr. Byman, it seems like you are pretty straight-
forward here, but I don’t know if you really spell it out. What I am
really hearing you say is, if we pull a £ lot of troops out, there
is going to be a huge civil war going on. And you are saying pull
a whole lot of troops out. So what you are saying is we basically
have to accept the fact that a whole lot—some number, a million
Iraqis are going to kill each other in the near future. And that is
what you are advocating. That is what it sounds like what I am
hearing you say. Maybe that is kind of stating it in a cold-blooded
way. But is that partly what you are saying?
Dr. BYMAN. Right now, sir, I believe that U.S. troops in Iraq are
slowing the fall of Iraq into chaos and that if we withdraw there
will be no net to slow this fall. But, that said, the fall is happening
anyway. So it is not that I feel the situation is getting slowly bet-
ter, I think it is getting slowly worse. Iraq is going to have this
civil war.
The question to me is, where are U.S. forces going to be? What
role are we going to play?
And several years ago I was willing to say we should try to stop
this. But we have reached the point I think of no return, unfortu-
nately; and that does mean Iraq will suffer.
I would like to tell you again to wave a magic wand and say it
will be all right if we leave. It will not be all right. It will be quite
dangerous, and I am very concerned that the danger will go from
beyond Iraq to the region, and that is why I believe we need plan-
ning for this now.
Mr. AKIN. So I think that is fair to say, you know, we are all
looking at a whole series of alternatives. You know, none of them
look wonderful. Wonderful would be if it just wasn’t going on.
But, on the other hand, I haven’t heard anybody say—although
I had some constituents come and say, well, what we think we
should do is just put the troops around the border and let them all
fight it out all internally. It is not too different than what I am
hearing you say.
Dr. BYMAN. The implication of some people is that the Iraqis de-
serves the disaster that they are going to create. My personal view
is we are not going to stop it, and there is a limit to how much
I am going to ask young men and women in particular to put their
lives on the line to try to limit this when I believe it is going to
happen over time anyway. And my hope is that we can stop it from
going beyond Iraq, and even that may be difficult.
Mr. AKIN. Right. Your comments, also, you talked about the
training and the training that we have done, that was a commit-
tee—that was the subject of this committee's study for a six-month
period of time. I don’t think that our result of what we studied was


12
*** *** **-a - -
water? Does that count in a death toll from the war or is that a
death toll from bad water? There are tons of ways you can play
with these numbers, some honest, some dishonest.
A big question on the death toll is, can people become refugees?
If people can’t flee—people often flee because they are afraid of
being killed. If they cannot flee, then they are more likely to die,
and they are also more likely to fight. And that option needs to be
there to keep the death tolls low.
I am hopeful that the death tolls won’t go into the millions, but
I think it would be irresponsible to say at this point, when we
know so little about what this war would be like, to say that will
not happen.
My moral view, my view of morality is that there is a question
of can we stop this, and the answer is I think we can as a nation,
but it would require a tremendous level of sacrifice. And not the
level we are talking now, not sustaining the surge for five years
out, but really doubling or perhaps even tripling the number of
U.S. troops. -
Standard troop estimates for an Iraq sort of conflict are about
500,000 troops. We are not remotely near that. And even when you
count trained Iraqis, which is a relatively small number, we are not
remotely near that. So the question to me is not can we allow this
to happen, but are we willing to pay the cost to do so? And my
judgment is that we are simply not going to do that.
So I don’t see the value in keeping the current levels of troops
there if it's not going to solve this problem. I think we will get to
that level of suffering and strife several years out. Regardless of
whether we are there or not, the United States will simply delay
this, rather than stop it.
Dr. SNYDER. I think one of the factors, when you think about the
tremendous sacrifices that military families are making and our
men and women in uniform, is if it was phrased “are you willing
to risk life and limb to prevent hundreds of thousands or even mil-
lions of children from being killed”, I think substantial numbers of
American families would see this thing differently. But it depends
on, you know, the reliability of your estimate. I recognize how dif-
ficult that is.
Mr. Akin, shall we resume first round and come back with sec-
ond round and then we will go first with you?
Mr. AKIN. I think that is a good way.
Dr. SNYDER. So Mrs. Davis for five minutes.
Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I
think the discussion that you just had certainly, I mean, raises all
the areas in which you touched.
I was wondering really what the response to your paper, done at
the beginning of this year, has been and how you have been able
to, I guess, counter some of the challenges to that? How have you
been able to do that?
Dr. BYMAN. Well, what is slightly amusing from my point of view
is, when I initially did this work, I was attacked quite a bit from
people on the right side of the political spectrum for being very crit-
ical of the prospects for success in Iraq; and today I am being at-
tacked considerably from people on the other side for saying that,
if we leave, things are going to be quite bad. So I am kind of proud


16
had. They have a much weaker military, they have much less
money, and many Iraqis, including many Iraqi Shia, are intensely
prickly about Iranian involvement.
There is a Persian-Arab rivalry, of course; and Iraqi Shia were
the bulk of the troops who fought against the Iranians in a very
bitter war in the 1980's. And there is a general sense that all peo-
ple have, which is that they don’t want an outsider meddling in
their country.
So I do think Iran's influence would grow. I don’t want to pre-
tend it wouldn’t. But I judge that to be manageable. And I believe
Iran would start to have a number of problems, that Iran would
find many of its proxies are not terribly loyal, that many of the
people it wants to empower it is not succeeding with. But, that
said, Iran in the short term at least will have an increase in influ-
ence.
Mr. JONES. I think today at the hearing Dr. Mathews was saying
that in her opinion that it is difficult to say how much worse the
situation would be if we pull out. Would the civil war become wide-
spread? She said it is just impossible to say yes or no. You have
'' feelings that you feel—not you, but any professor like your-
Sel1.
But, again, I go back to Iran for this reason. If this civil war, if
we pulled out, would expand to all parts the Iraq, which would bor-
der on Iran, would you think that they would feel compelled, even
though their army is small or not as strong as ours, that they
would have to do something in a formal way with their military?
Dr. BYMAN. I think that is quite plausible. And that is how I
think of Iraqi futures, is I try to think of not what is likely, because
there are so many factors in play it is so hard to predict, but what
passes the smell test? And that scenario you just outlined certainly
does, where Iran feels that, whether the Shia as a whole are suffer-
ing depredations or its particular proxies are having problems, that
it feels the need to intervene more forcefully and decisively. And
in part Iran might do that because it believes they are easy pick-
ings, the Iraqis are too weak or disorganized.
The United States should make a very strong effort to stop ex-
actly that, to make sure Iranian involvement is limited to its
present level; and that will be hard to do. And there U.S. capabili-
ties actually work tremendously in our favor. We do have a lot of
capabilities to interdict Iranian forces, and the key is to make sure
that Iran knows that now, so they know that option is off the table
for them.
In particular, I fear a scenario where Iran steps up involvement
so its rivals such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or Jordan start back-
ing their proxies more and there is a tit for tat that leads to almost
inadvertent escalation. That is something that is part of a contain-
ment strategy we should aggressively try to stop, both through
military deterrence but also through very aggressive diplomacy.
Mr. JONES. Let me very quickly, because my time is about up,
but this Administration from a foreign policy standpoint seems to
get a D or D-minus, maybe even an F. Because it has been a fail-
ure. There is no question about it. Do you think having a new
look—and I am not talking about a presidential election. But do
you think that it makes any sense at some point in time—it is not


25
write on, could you write down four brief things for me: Hate each
other, hate al Qaeda, hate us, and something else. Now, if you
would put opposite each of those four the percentage of the present
violence we see in Iraq, which is attributable to each of those four?
Dr. BYMAN. Okay.
Mr. BARTLETT. Now, can you read me those numbers? What per-
cent of the violence is because they hate each other?
Dr. BYMAN. Twenty percent.
Mr. BARTLETT. Twenty percent. And how much is because they
hate al Qaeda?
Dr. BYMAN. Five.
Mr. BARTLETT. Five percent. How much is because they hate us?
Dr. BYMAN. Ten.
Mr. BARTLETT. Ten percent. Wow. The something else is really
big then.
Dr. BYMAN. Something else is very big, yes
Mr. BARTLETT. What is it?
Dr. BYMAN. Something else is a variety of factors relating to a
security vacuum, which is crime, personal insecurity, tribal rival-
ries, opportunism, ambition. That when you have a situation where
there are no police and no state, violence tends to break out; and
it tends to break out among people who, before, they were friends
and neighbors.
So when you have the situation of a failed state, over time things
like they hate each other, I would have put that—even a year ago,
I would put that much lower. But over time the violence begets vio-
lence, and the hate each other begets hating each other. Most
Iraqis didn't hate each other six or seven years ago. They hated
their government. They hated some outsiders, and—but the vio-
lence itself has caused many of these problems. The collapse of the
state has caused many of these problems.
Again, I keep going back to things like the police. That is in part
because, when you talk to Iraqis, a lot of what they focus on are
crime and personal security. Yes, they are concerned about death
squads, but they are also concerned that they can’t send their
daughter to school because the local gang leader is going to kidnap
her and hold her for ransom.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, this is very interesting. In the
brief poll that I have run, there is pretty much consistency that the
hate each other is not very large; and I was surprised and continue
to be surprised at the very low percentage that is attributed to hate
al Qaeda, because I was led to believe that the only entity in Iraq
that was hated more than us was al Qaeda, and apparently that
is not true. I found huge differences in the percentages of violence
that is attributed to hate us, and that is very interesting.
I will continue my little poll. Thank you very much.
It is my understanding that your considered judgment is that the
sequela in Iraq will be little affected by when we leave?
Dr. BYMAN. I am sorry, the what will be little affected?
Mr. BARTLETT. The sequela, what happens in Iraq will be little
£d by when we leave, whether it is now or a year or five
years:
Dr. BYMAN. I think that it will be hastened when we leave. But
whether it is now, in a year or five years, I think it will be has-


42
-
farther. Thus, all-out civil war, even if it could be contained in Iraq, would put upward
pressure on oil prices.
Possible Forms of Spillover
The collapse of Iraq into all-out civil war means more than just a humanitarian
tragedy. Such a conflict is unlikely to contain itself. In other, similar cases of all-out civil
war that also involve a failed state, the resulting spillover has fostered terrorism, created
refugee flows that can destabilize the entire neighborhood, radicalized the populations of
surrounding states and even sparked civil wars in other, neighboring states or transformed
domestic strife into regional war.
Terrorists frequently find a home in states in civil war, as al-Qaeda did in
Afghanistan. However, civil wars just as often breed new terrorist groups—Hizballah, the
Palestine Liberation Organization, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat of
Algeria and the Tamil Tigers were all born of civil wars. Many such groups start by
focusing on local targets but then shift to international attacks—starting with those they
believe are aiding their enemies in the civil war.
This process is already underway in Iraq; the 2005 hotel bombings in Amman,
Jordan, were organized from Iraqi territory, which enabled the terrorists to better evade
Jordan’s skilled security services. Iraq-based groups are also inspiring others to emulate
their targets and tactics. As they regularly do in Iraq, jihadist terrorists have tried to
strike Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, a switch from the jihadists' past avoidance of oil
targets. Moreover, their Improved Explosive Device technologies are showing up in
Afghanistan. Suicide bombing, heretofore largely unknown in Afghanistan, is also now
a regular occurrence, with the Iraq struggle providing a model to jihadists in al-Qaeda's
former home. Fatah al-Islam, the jihadist organization behind much of the latest violence
in Lebanon, has many members who trained in or were inspired by the conflict in Iraq.”
In turn, an ongoing civil war can contribute to the radicalization of populations in
neighboring countries. Already, the war has heightened Shi'a-Sunni tension throughout
the Middle East. In March 2006, after Sunni jihadists bombed the Shi'i Askariya Shrine
in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra, over 100,000 Bahraini Shi’ah took to the streets in
anger. Bahraini Shi’ah are simultaneously horrified at the suffering of their co-
religionists in Iraq and emboldened by their political successes. As one Bahraini Shi’i
politician noted, “Whenever things in Iraq go haywire, it reflects here.” Similar
problems may occur in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other countries that have sizable Shi'a
minorities.
And as Iraq descends into further violence, the numbers of refugees will grow.
Iraq has already generated roughly two million refugees with another one million
internally displaced. These represent large groupings of embittered people who serve as a
ready recruiting pool for armed groups still waging the civil war. And as the wars in
* Clay Wilson, “Improved Explosive Devices (IED) Technology in Iraq and Afghanistan. Effects and
Countermeasures,” Congressional Research Service, September 25, 2006, p. 2.
http://research fit.edu/fip/documents/SecNewsl.pdf
* “Fatah Islam: Obscure Group Emerges as Lebanon's Newest Security Threat,” Associated Press, May
20, 2007.
* As quoted in Hassan M. Fattah, “An Island Kingdom Feels the Ripples from Iraq and Iran.” New York
Times, April 16, 2006.