WILS GOVU Y4.AR 5/3:S.HRG.112-459 S. HRG. 112–459 ELATING TO IRAQ HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION NOVEMBER 15, 2011 Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 'RSITY OF MNNE # GOVERNMENT £, SEP 07 2012 U.S. DEPOSITORY PROPERTY U.S.G.P.O.D.-295 Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 74-867 PDF WASHINGTON : 2012 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800, DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402-0001 - COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona JACK REED, Rhode Island JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia JIM WEBB, Virginia ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts MARK UDALL, Colorado ROB PORTMAN, Ohio KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire MARK BEGICH, Alaska SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JOHN CORNYN, Texas KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York DAVID VITTER, Louisiana RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut RICHARD D. DEBOBEs, Staff Director DAVID M. MORRISS, Minority Staff Director (II) C O N TENTS CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES SECURITY ISSUES RELATING TO IRAQ NOVEMBER 15, 2011 Panetta, Hon. Leon E., Secretary of Defense ........................................................ Dempsey, GEN Martin E., USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - McGurk, Brett H., Visiting Scholar, Columbia University School of Law .......... Ollivant, Dr. Douglas A., Senior National Security Fellow, National Security Studies Program, The New America Foundation .............................................. Pollack, Dr. Kenneth M., Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, The Brookings Institution ................................................................................... (III) Page 7 11 48 57 SECURITY ISSUES RELATING TO IRAQ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2011 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m. in room SH- 216, Hart Senate Office Building, Senator Carl Levin (chairman) presiding. Committee members present: Senators Levin, Lieberman, Reed, Nelson, Udall, Hagan, Manchin, Shaheen, Gillibrand, Blumenthal, McCain, Inhofe, Sessions, Chambliss, Wicker, Brown, Ayotte, Col- lins, Graham, and Cornyn. Committee staff members present: Richard D. DeBobes, staff di- rector; and Leah C. Brewer, nominations and hearings clerk. Majority staff members present: Jessica L. Kingston, research as- sistant; William G.P. Monahan, counsel; Michael J. Noblet, profes- sional staff member; and William K. Sutey, professional staff mem- ber. Minority staff members present: David M. Morriss, minority staff director; Adam J. Barker, professional staff member; Christian E. Brose, professional staff member; Paul C. Hutton IV, professional staff member; Lucian L. Niemeyer, professional staff member; Mi- chael J. Sistak, research assistant; and Diana G. Tabler, profes- sional staff member. Staff assistants present: Hannah I. Lloyd, Brian F. Sebold, and Bradley S. Watson. Committee members’ assistants present: Vance Serchuk, assist- ant to Senator Lieberman; Carolyn Chuhta, assistant to Senator Reed; Ann Premer, assistant to Senator Nelson; Gordon Peterson, assistant to Senator Webb; Casey Howard, assistant to Senator Udall; Roger Pena, assistant to Senator Hagan; Joanne McLaughlin, assistant to Senator Manchin; Patrick Day and Chad Kreikemeier, assistants to Senator Shaheen; Elana Broitman, as- sistant to Senator Gillibrand; Anthony Lazarski, assistant to Sen- ator Inhofe; Lenwood Landrum, assistant to Senator Sessions; Jo- seph Lai, assistant to Senator Wicker; Charles Prosch, assistant to Senator Brown; Brad Bowman, assistant to Senator Ayotte; Ryan Kaldahl, assistant to Senator Collins; and Sergio Sarkany, assist- ant to Senator Graham. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN Chairman LEVIN. Good morning, everybody. (1) 3 were provided and that they did not support keeping U.S. troops in Iraq without immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Our military withdrawal, as agreed to in the 2008 Security Agreement, sends a clear message to the Iraqi people and the Arab world that the United States keeps its commitments. It puts the lie to propaganda that the United States is an occupation force in Iraq. It is time to complete the transition of responsibility for Iraq's se- curity now to the Iraq Government. The Iraqis are in a position to handle their own internal security. Violence in Iraq has dropped 90 percent from its peak during the surge. At the same time, the Iraqi security forces have made significant progress. According to U.S. Forces-Iraq, Iraqi security forces exceed 650,000 people. In addi- tion, Iraq can assume the costs of its own security, with oil produc- tion in Iraq reaching record highs. Government of Iraq oil revenues during the first 9 months of 2011 were more than 50 percent great- er than during the same period the year before and exceeded Iraqi budget projections for 2011 by more than 20 percent. With the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, one chapter in U.S.-Iraqi relations closes and another chapter opens. This new chapter in U.S.-Iraqi relations after December is not an abandon- ment of Iraq. The United States remains committed to the bilateral Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) which was entered into at the same time as the 2008 Security Agreement. The SFA sets out numerous areas for continued U.S.-Iraqi cooperation, including on defense and security issues. The United States has stood up a ro- bust Office of Security Cooperation (OSC) at the U.S. embassy and sites across Iraq to manage security cooperation efforts in support of the Government of Iraq. By January of next year, this office will be administering nearly 370 military sales to Iraq, totaling nearly $10 billion. Certainly Iraq faces a number of significant security challenges, which the United States can assist Iraq in confronting. Al Qaeda in Iraq and affiliated terrorist organizations seek to exploit ethnic divisions among Iraq's sectarian groups and minorities. In this re- gard, recent arrests of Sunni political and intellectual leaders by the Maliki Government have exacerbated Sunni-Shia tensions, po- tentially creating an opening for al Qaeda to exploit. We would be interested in hearing from our witnesses this morning what steps the administration has taken to try to defuse that situation. In northern Iraq, the internal boundary remains under dispute between the Kurds and the Government of Iraq. The initiative put in place by U.S. Forces Iraq to reduce or avoid conflict, which is called the Combined Security Mechanism, is transitioning from a three-way mechanism involving U.S., Kurd, and Iraqi security forces to one operating bilaterally between Kurd and Iraqi security forces. I hope our witnesses will address how the United States in- tends to play an overwatch role along the disputed internal bound- ary, particularly through the U.S. consulate in Erbil and the OSC site in Kirkuk. We would also be interested in hearing whether there could be a role for a multilateral peacekeeping force to main- tain stability along this boundary while the parties address the outstanding political and security issues. 4 Our concern about the security of the Christian minorities is very strong. We need to work with the Government of Iraq to ensure it has the will and the capability to protect Iraq's religious minority communities from targeted violence and persecution. The status of the residents at Camp Ashraf from the Iranian dis- sident group MEK remains unresolved. As the December 2011 deadline approaches, the administration needs to remain vigilant that the Government of Iraq lives up to its commitments to provide for the safety of Camp Ashraf residents until a resolution of their status can be reached. We need to make it clear to the Government of Iraq that there cannot be a repeat of the deadly confrontation # ast April by Iraqi security forces against Camp Ashraf resi- entS. Another challenge is Iran's efforts to influence the political and security environment in Iraq. Iran continues to fund, train, and equip extremist groups, groups that have targeted U.S. forces in Iraq for deadly attacks. I hope our witnesses this morning will ad- dress the capability of the Iraqi security forces and the willingness of the Maliki Government to respond forcefully to attacks by these Iranian-backed groups after the withdrawal of U.S. military forces. The departure of U.S. military forces from Iraq in the coming weeks, consistent with our legal obligations, can contribute to ad- vancing the normalization of relations between the United States and Iraq based on mutual respect and shared interests as sov- ereign nations. That can strengthen stability not only in Iraq but also throughout the region. Senator McCain. STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for convening this important hearing. Let me thank our distinguished witnesses for joining us today, for their continued service to our Nation, and for their tireless sup- port of our men and women in uniform. The purpose of this hearing, as the chairman said, is to examine the implications of the President's decision of October 21 to end ne- gotiations with the Government of Iraq over whether to retain a small U.S. military presence there beyond this year. As a result, all 's military forces will withdraw from the country by next month. I continue to believe that this decision represents a failure of leadership, both Iraqi and American, that it was a sad case of polit- ical expediency, supplanting military necessity, both in Baghdad and in Washington, and that it will have serious negative con- sequences for the stability of Iraq and the national security inter- ests of the United States. I sincerely hope that I am wrong, but I fear that General Jack Keane, who was one of the main architects of the surge, is correct once again when he said recently “We won the war in Iraq, and we are now losing the peace.” Let me be clear: Like all Americans, I am eager to bring our troops home. I do not want them to remain in Iraq or anywhere else for a day longer than necessary. But I also agree with our mili- tary commanders in Iraq, who were nearly unanimous in their be- lief that a small presence of U.S. forces should remain a while 5 longer to help the Iraqis secure the hard-won gains that we had made together. General Petraeus, General Odierno, General Aus- tin, and other military leaders under their command, all of them believed that we needed to keep some troops in Iraq. This is what £ consistently told me and others during our repeated visits to rag. Our commanders held this view for a very specific reason, which they made clear to this committee on numerous occasions. For all the progress the Iraqi security forces have made in recent years, and it has been substantial, they still have some critical gaps in their capabilities that will endure beyond this year. Those capa- bility gaps include enabling functions for their counterterrorism op- erations, the control of Iraq's airspace and other external security missions, intelligence collections and fusion, and training and sustainment of the force. Indeed, in the latest report of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the chief of staff of the Iraqi military is quoted as saying that Iraq will not be able to fully provide for its own external defense until sometime be- tween 2020 and 2024. Specifically he says, “Iraq will not be able to defend its own air space until 2020, at the earliest.” Unfortu- nately, the President chose to disregard the nearly unanimous ad- vice of our military commanders, not for the first time, as well as the clear long-term needs of Iraq's military. Advocates of withdrawal are quick to point out that the current security agreement, which requires all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by the end of this year, was concluded by the Bush administration. That is true. It is also beside the point. The authors of that agree- ment always intended for it to be renegotiated at a later date to allow some U.S. forces to remain in Iraq. As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose State Department negotiated the se- curity agreement, put it recently, “There was an expectation that we would negotiate something that looked like a residual force for our training with the Iraqis.” She said “Everybody believed it would be better if there was some kind of residual force.” So you can believe testimony and statements we have heard or you can be- lieve what the then-Secretary of State believed would be the case as it regards to a residual force in Iraq. Clearly Iraq is a sovereign country, and we cannot force the Iraqis to do things they do not want to do. But this also misses the main point. All of the leaders of Iraq's major political blocs wanted some U.S. troops to remain in the country. I met, along with Sen- ator Graham and Senator Lieberman, with all of these leaders this year and that is what they told us. The problem had more to do with the administration's unwillingness or inability, or both, on more than one occasion to provide the Iraqis with a clear position on what our government wanted. The administration seemed more concerned with conforming to Iraq's political realities than shaping those realities, focused more on deferring to Iraq's interests than securing the critical interest we had at stake at this process. So what will be the implications of the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq'? My concern is that all of those disturbing and de- stabilizing £ in Iraq are now at much greater risk of becoming even more threatening, and the events of the past month alone offer many reasons to think that this may already be happening. 8 in naval and air defense, and in joint exercises. We will work with the Iraqis to pursue those efforts. Let me briefly walk through some of the major challenges that have already been pointed out that will confront Iraq and mention why I believe that Iraq is at a stage when it is able to deal with them. Certainly with our continuing long-term relationship, I think they can deal with these issues. First is the challenge of extremism. I expect that we will see ex- tremists, including al Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-backed militant groups that will continue to plan and continue to carry out periodic high-profile attacks. While these groups remain capable of con- ducting these types of attacks, they do not enjoy widespread sup- port among the Iraqi population, and more importantly, the Iraqis have developed some of the most capable counterterrorism forces in the region. They have been active against Iranian-backed militants in recent months, and we will be in a position to continue to assist them in building these capabilities through our OSC. The fact is that despite our reduction in forces from well over 150,000 to now approximately 24,000, levels of violence in Iraq remain low. second challenge for Iraq is the conflict between political blocs, Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, and others, as in any democracy. Iraq deals with a range of competing agendas. But the solutions to these chal- lenges lie in the political not the military realm. Our diplomats, in- cluding Ambassador Jeffrey and his team, continue to work with and assist the Iraqis in bridging these remaining divides, in par- ticular, the formation of the government and the appointment of defense and interior ministers, which still has not happened and should, and the cooperation along the Arab-Kurd divide in the north. Resolving all of these issues will take time, but Iraq's polit- ical leadership remains committed to doing so within the political process that has been established. A third key challenge is closing the gaps in Iraq’s external de- fense. The Iraqis will need assistance in this area, including logis- tics and air defense, and that will be an important focus of the OSC. The recent decision by the Iraqis to purchase U.S. F-16s, part of a $7.5 billion Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, dem- onstrates Iraq's commitment to build up its external defense capa- bilities and maintain a lasting military-to-military training rela- tionship with the United States. Finally, one last challenge is the Iranian regime's attempt to in- fluence the future of Iraq and advance its own regional ambitions. Tehran has sought to weaken Iraq by trying to undermine its polit- ical processes and, as I have mentioned, by facilitating violence against innocent Iraqi civilians and against American troops. These destabilizing actions, along with Tehran's growing ballistic missile capability and efforts to advance its nuclear program, constitute a significant threat to Iraq, the broader region, and U.S. interests. Yet, the strong, sovereign, and self-reliant Iraq we see emerging ' has absolutely no desire to be dominated by Iran or by any- One elSe. With our partners in the region, the United States is committed to countering Iran's efforts to extend its destabilizing influence. We have made very clear that we are committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and while we have strengthened **** *… * * * 9 our regional security relationship in recent years, Iran's desta- bilizing activities have only further isolated that regime. So as we mark this new phase in our enduring partnership with Iraq, the Iranian regime is more likely than ever to be marginalized in the region and in its ability to influence the Iraqi political process. Our long-term security partnership with Iraq is part of a broader commitment by the United States to peace and security throughout the region. Our message to our allies, our friends, and our potential adversaries is very clear. We have more than 40,000 American troops that remain in the Gulf region. We are not going anywhere, and we will continue to reassure our partners, deter aggressors, and counter those seeking to create instability. Iraq has come through this difficult period in its history and emerged stronger with a government that is largely representative of and increasingly responsive to the needs of its people. This out- come was never certain, especially during the war's darkest days. It is a testament to the strength and resilience of our troops that we helped the Iraqi people reverse a desperate situation and pro- vided them the time and space to foster the institutions of a rep- resentative government. As was pointed out, more than a million Americans have served in Iraq. More than 32,000 have been wounded, and as we know, nearly 4,500 servicemembers have made the ultimate sacrifice for this mission. Americans will never forget the service and sacrifice of this next greatest generation and will always owe them a heavy debt. In the coming weeks, as our forces leave Iraq, they can be proud of what they have accomplished, and they and all veterans of £ Iraq campaign have earned the Nation's most profound grati- tude. Are there concerns about the future? Of course there are. Con- cerns about what Sadr will do, concerns about Iran, concerns about al Qaeda, concerns about Shia extremism, concerns about the Arab- Kurd tensions, along with disputes in other sectarian areas. There are many of us, many of us that could have designed perhaps a dif- ferent result. There is no question that a lot of pressure was brought on the Iraqis, pressures by the Senators who visited there, pressures by the President of the United States, by the Vice Presi- dent of the United States, by Secretary Clinton, by Secretary Gates, and by myself. But the bottom line is that this is not about us. This is not about us. It is about what the Iraqis want to do and the decisions that they want to make. So we have now an inde- pendent and sovereign country that can govern and secure itself £pefully make the decisions that are in the interests of its people. The United States will maintain a long-term relationship with Iraq. We are committed to that. We will establish a normal rela- tionship as we have with other nations in the region. In talking with our commanders—I asked this question yesterday to General Odierno who has been there for a good £d of time—they basi- cally said the time has come. The time has come for Iraq to take control of its destiny. With our help, they hopefully can be a stable and secure nation in that region of the world. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Secretary Panetta follows:] *-il -- 10 PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. LEON E. PANETTA Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator McCain, distinguished members of the com- £ Thank you for your support for our men and women in uniform and their annllies. I '' the opportunity to describe our strategy in Iraq and to do so along- side Chairman Dempsey, who has—across multiple deployments and positions here in Washington and at 's' Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa-overseen so many critical efforts of the Iraq campaign from its outset in 2003. As we all know, this hearing comes at an important turning point in the history of Iraq and in the evolving nature of the U.S.-Iraq relationship. It is helpful to recall our objective in Iraq. In February 2009, President Obama laid out a clear and achievable goal shared by the American and Iraqi people: an Iraq that is “sovereign, stable, and self-reliant.” Today, thanks to innumerable sacrifices from all involved, Iraq is governing itself—as a sovereign nation, as an emerging source of stability in a vital part of the world, and as an emerging democracy capable of addressing its own security needs. For our part, the United States is ready to mark the beginning of a new phase in our relationship with Iraq—one that is normal, similar to others in the re- gion, and based on mutual interests and mutual respect. We have built a strong and enduring £ with Iraq, which President Obama and President Maliki will affirm next month when they meet in Washington. This broad strategic partnership forms the basis for cooperation across a wide range of areas, including economic, cultural, educational, and security ties. On the security front, as President Obama announced last month, we are full implementing the 2008 U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement. Under the outstanding lead- ership of General Austin, we are completing the drawdown of our forces by the end of this year. This fulfills the pledge made by President Bush and now by President Obama in his February 2009 strategy for Iraq, which called for an end to our com- bat mission last August, and a removal of all U.S. forces by December 31, 2011. Going forward, we will pursue a long-term training relationship through the Of- fice of Security Cooperation-Iraq (OSC-I), which will include a limited number of U.S. military personnel operating under our Embassy and receiving normal diplo- matic protections. Through the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement, we will also have a platform for future cooperation in counterterrorism, naval and air de- fense, and joint exercises. I believe Iraq is ready to handle security without a significant U.S. military foot- rint. Since this administration came into office, we have removed more than 100,000 U.S. forces from Iraq and the Iraqis long ago assumed primary responsi- bility for internal security. At the same time, violence levels have remained steady at their lowest levels since 2003. In January 2009, there were over 140,000 U.S. forces in Iraq conducting a combat mission. In the summer of 2009, we removed our troops from Iraq's cities. By the summer of 2010, we ended combat operations and drew down to fewer than 50,000 forces; those remaining forces will leave Iraq as planned by the end of the year. Again, as the Iraqis have assumed security control, the level of violence has decreased significantly and stayed at historic lows. The number of weekly security incidents across Iraq has decreased from 1,500 in 2007 to fewer than 100 in recent weeks. To be sure, Iraq faces a host of remaining challenges, but I believe Iraq is equipped to deal with them. First, the challenge of extremism. We will likely continue to see attacks in Iraq during and after we complete our drawdown. I expect that we'll see extremists, in- cluding al Qaeda in Iraq and Iran-backed militant groups, continue to plan and Ca out periodic high-profile attacks. But while these groups remain capable of conducting attacks, they do not enjoy widespread support among the Iraqi popu- lation. The Iraqis have some of the most capable counterterrorism forces in the re- ion, and we will be in a position to continue to assist them in building these capa- £ through the OSC–I. Meanwhile, in recent months, Iraqi forces have also been active in going after Iranian-backed militants, recognizing them as a threat not just to U.S. £ also to the Iraqi people and government. Iraqi leaders have also pressed Tehran to stop supporting these groups. A second challenge for Iraq is conflict between political blocs. As in any democ- racy, Iraq deals with a range of competing agendas, and has the added burden of overcoming years of ethnic and sectarian mistrust. But the solutions to these chal- lenges lie in the political, not military realm. Our diplomats, including Ambassador £ and his team, continue to assist the Iraqis in £ the remaining divides, in particular the formation of the government, appointment of Defense and Interior ministers, and cooperation along the Arab-Kurd divide in the North. The leadership 12 - * - tion of fundamental services for the Iraqi people, and encourage Iraqis to take control of their own destiny was at risk. Although about a third of my division was already redeployed to Germany, our tour of duty was extended in order to suppress an uprising of Shia militia in the southern provinces of Iraq. Over the course of the next few days, I visited nearly every unit in the division to ex- plain to them why it was important that we remain in Iraq for an- other 4 months. To their great and everlasting credit to a man and woman, they recognized the importance of our mission, they em- #" the challenge, and they did what their nation asked them to do. As I look back, I think I will remember most the toughness, the resolve, and the resilience of America's sons and daughters and their families in those early days. Sometimes, often, actually al- ways their character shines through in the toughest of times. I remember in particular one female staff sergeant listening in- tently as I explained why we were being extended. She actually in- terrupted me to say, hey, listen, General, do not worry. We trust you. But, she said, when we get to the point where Iraqis can and should do what they need to do for themselves, I also trust that you will bring us home. Today we are gathered to talk about the future of Iraq. In pre- paring for this session, I have thought a lot about the context of that discussion, that discussion with that young staff sergeant. I thought about what we set out to accomplish, what we have accom- plished, and what we should seek to accomplish. Today we are going to talk about establishing a normal security relationship with Iraq. Now, let me put that in context. In 1991, I left my family to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. In 2003, I left my family to drive Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad. In 2011, we are talking about establishing a normal security relationship with Iraq. If you are a colonel or a master sergeant in the armed forces of the United States or more senior than that, this has been a 20-year journey. We have shed blood and invested America's treasure in Iraq. Our futures are inextricably linked. It is not a question of whether we will continue to invest in Iraq. It is a ques- tion of how. There is no question we must continue to support the development of the Iraqi security forces, and there is no question we must continue to support our diplomatic effort so that we can continue to demonstrate our commitment to Iraq's nascent democ- racy. In anticipation of the question about whether I am concerned about the future of Iraq, the answer is yes. Nevertheless, America's armed forces are proud to have been part of this effort to provide Iraq the opportunities it now has and we are eager to be part of the effort to determine how we can continue to partner with them on issues of common interests for the future. I look forward to your questions. [The prepared statement of General Dempsey follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT BY GEN MARTIN E. DEMPSEY, USA Chairman Levin, Senator McCain, and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the beginning of a new chapter in the United States' re- lationship with Iraq. 16 lem. It is a concern. I think it is going to demand continuing vigi- lance by all of us, continuing pressure by all of us on the Iraqi Gov- ernment that they do everything possible to recognize both human and religious rights. There is a lot of history here, and there are a lot of challenges here. But I am absolutely convinced, when you talk to the political leadership in Iraq, that they do not want to have these kinds of divisions, they do not want to have this kind of discrimination take place within their country. But it is going to require constant vigilance to make sure it does not happen. Chairman LEVIN. General, do you have a comment on that? General DEMPSEY. No. Just a comment, Senator, on the fact that in the pre-surge period, which many of us remember, it was very common for state-sponsored militias out of the security ministries to be conducting these kinds of attacks against those religious groups that did not agree with their particular faith. We have not seen anything like that since the surge, meaning the security min- istries have become responsible agents of government. So not dis- counting the continued pressure on small religious communities, at least there is no evidence that it will be state-sponsored, and that is a significant change. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator McCain. Senator MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You brought up, regrettably, General Dempsey, 2003 and 2004, the fact is that you did not support the surge and said that it would fail. Secretary Panetta was a part of the Iraq Study Group that recommended withdrawals from Iraq and opposed the surge. So we are all responsible for the judgments that we make, and ob- viously, that affects the credibility of the judgments that we make now on Iraq. I regret that you had to bring that up, General Dempsey. The fact is that there are some of us who were over there in those years you talked about, in fact, some maybe even had other members of their family over there, and saw that it was fail- ing and that we needed to have the surge and the surge succeeded. The fact is that we could have been given sovereign immunity, as we have in other countries, to keep our troops there and give them the immunity that they needed. We have other agreements with other countries that guarantee sovereign immunity. The fact is that every military leader recommended that we have residual forces at minimum of 10,000 and usually around 20,000. That was the recommendations made before this committee by General Odierno, recommendations made by General Petraeus, rec- ommendations made by even lower ranking military who had spent, as you mentioned, a great deal of time there and did not want to see that service and sacrifice all wasted away because of our inability and lack of desire to reach an agreement with the Iraqis. As I said in my opening statement, the Iraqis are largely respon- sible as well, but the fact is when Senator Lieberman, Senator Graham, and I were there, the Iraqis were ready to deal. What was the administration's response? They did not have a number and missions last May as to our residual force in Iraq. So as things happen in that country, things fell apart. 18 Secretary PANETTA. Senator McCain, if I could just add for the record. Senator MCCAIN. Sure. Secretary PANETTA. Actually as Director of the CIA, I had talked with Prime Minister Maliki regarding this issue, and then when I became Secretary of Defense, I had a number of conversations with him as well in which I made very clear, along with General Austin and Ambassador Jeffrey, that it was extremely important that we needed to have a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), that we needed to have immunities for our troops, that we needed to have that protection. He believed that there was possibly a way to do this that did not involve having to go to the parliament, to their council for approval. It was very clear, among all the attorneys here, that we absolutely had to have their approval through their parliament if we were going to have a SOFA that provided the kind of immunities we needed. I cannot tell you how many times we made that clear. I believe the Prime Minister understood that, and it was at the point where he basically said I cannot deliver it, I cannot get it through the parliament that we were then left with the decisions that were made. Senator MCCAIN. Again, then we should be having to withdraw our troops from those countries where we have a presence that we do not have it go through the parliament, that it is done through sovereign immunity. The fact is that the President was presented with options, either a declaration of sovereign immunity made by the government as the case with other countries, which the Iraqis may have been willing to do, and the other option of demanding it go through the parliament. So I guess now we should withdraw those troops from countries that we do not have a parliamentary approval from. o, look, the fact is if we had given the Iraqis the number and the mission that we wanted long ago, if we had done what Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, has said, “everybody be- lieved it would be better if there was some kind of residual force. There was an expectation we would negotiate something that looked like a residual force.” We met with Barzani and Maliki and Allawi, and they were ready to move forward. The fact is that they were not given the number and mission that the residual U.S. troops would be there for. As General Dempsey just mentioned, it cascaded down. It cas- caded down over months, Mr. Secretary, from 20,000 to 15,000 to 13,000 to 10,000 to 5,000, and each time there was a different number given for Iraqi consideration. That was what they told us. Now, maybe they were not telling us the truth, Mr. Secretary. But we have a relationship with them that goes back many, many years, and they have always told us the truth. The truth is that this administration was committed to the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and they made it happen. Secretary PANETTA. Senator McCain, that is just simply not true. I guess you can believe that, and I respect your beliefs. Senator MCCAIN. I respect your opinion. Secretary PANETTA. But that is not true. Senator MCCAIN. The outcome has been exactly as predicted. Secretary PANETTA. But that is not how it happened. 19 Senator MCCAIN. It is how it happened. Secretary PANETTA. This is about negotiating with a sovereign country, an independent country. This was about their needs. This is not about us telling them what we are going to do for them or what they are going to have to do for us. Senator MCCAIN. This is about our needs as well, Mr. Secretary. Secretary PANETTA. This is about their country making a deci- sion as to what is necessary here. In addition to that, once they made the decision that they were not going to provide any immuni- ties for any level of force that we would have there—and this is a lot different than other countries, frankly, Senator. This is a coun- try where you could very well be engaging in combat operations. If you are going to engage in those kind of operations, you are going to engage in counterterrorism operations, you absolutely have to have immunities, and those immunities have to be granted by a SOFA. I was not about to have our troops go there in place without those immunities. Senator MCCAIN. They were ready to make that agreement. They were ready to be able to get it through the parliament, and for months we did not give them the numbers and mission that were necessary in order for us to remain there. Again, your version of history and mine are very different, but the way it has turned out is the way, unfortunately, many of us predicted that it would. In the view of every military expert that I know, we are now at great- er risk than we were if we had had a residual force there. By the way, I understand the American people's approval of withdrawing from Iraq. I would imagine they probably would ap- prove if we would withdraw from Korea and that is because we have not made the case as to what is at stake here and what the consequences of our failure are. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator McCain. Senator Lieberman. Senator LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Mr. Sec- retary and General, for being here. So I add my voice as one who also felt during the time that the SOFA existed between the United States and Iraq, based on con- versations that I had with leaders in both countries, that the ex- pectation was that a residual force would remain at the expiration of the SOFA at the end of this year, 2011. The reason was clear. It was clear it would have to be negotiated as two sovereign na- tions. The reason was that from our point of view certainly, that we had invested so much blood and treasure in the success, ex- traordinary, unexpected success, we have achieved in Iraq, that it would not make sense to just pick up and leave unless we felt that the country, that the Iraqis were totally prepared to protect their own security and the progress that they have made, which inciden- tally, in my opinion, has not only been great for them and trans- £tional within their history but also throughout the Middle ast. Personally, I think that the sight of the Iraqis pulling that statue of Saddam Hussein down, showing people throughout the Arab world that those tyrants were not forever, is one of the pre- 23 used. A truck driver driving a cargo truck of foodstuffs from Ku- wait to Baghdad will get paid at a certain rate, a security con- tractor at a different rate. These are not all contractors making $250,000 a year. So I think we ought to peel that back a bit for you to see the real costs. Senator BROWN. I think it is important to let the American pub- lic know because I know when I was in Afghanistan talking to the soldiers who were deeply concerned about those drivers just throughout the post and from post to post getting upwards of $100,000 and you have a soldier that can do it at $20,000–$30,000. When we are trying to squeeze out every last dollar, I think it is important. I would rather be, quite frankly, providing the tools and resources to our military personnel versus contractors. So I would hope that you would look at that. [The information referred to follows:] The assertion that not all Department of Defense contractors in Iraq are making $250,000 per year is correct. The costs for contractor support depends greatly on the type of labor categories used to perform the work; types of contractors range from local national (LN) laborers, to third country nationals (TCN) providing installation support, to highly specialized U.S. citizens with security clearances. In general, TCN and LN labor costs are substantially lower than U.S. citizens. The anticipated con- tractor split # Department of State after 2011 in Iraq is projected at: U.S. - 47 percent, TCN - 43 percent, LN - 10 percent. The following sampling of labor categories from various State Department support contracts provides further valida- tion that not all contractors in Iraq are highly paid: - • Static Guard: $10,000/year. • Security Escort: $30,000/year. • Protective Detail: $110,000/year. • Welder: $131,000/year. • Air Defense Mechanic: $159,000/year. • Senior Mechanic: $185,000/year. Senator BROWN. Mr. Secretary, you have committed to not allow- ing Iran to get nuclear weapons. Do you think we are accom- plishing that? Secretary PANETTA. I think that the United States, working with our allies and implementing the sanctions that have gone against Iran have, combined with other efforts, impeded their effort to move forward in that area. That is correct. Senator BROWN. We have so many sanctions. Yet, I think the big- gest problem we have is actually enforcing them. I cannot remem- ber the last time we actually fined a company for performing work and doing business in Iran. How involved is Russia in actually helping them gain nuclear ca- pabilities? Secretary PANETTA. I really think you probably ought to ask our intelligence officials about the specifics of Russian engagement there. But there is no question that they have provided some help. Senator BROWN. I just bring it up because you brought up that we are not allowing them to gain nuclear capability. Yet, we seem to really not be putting any teeth behind the sanctions and really I think we can do it better I guess is my point. Maybe we can talk offline about that. But I also have heard in speaking to, obviously, members of the committee and others that the Prime Minister has kicked out offi- cials in the intelligence services and the army and replaced them with his own loyalists. Police sources report #: £ 200 peo- 25 through 2015, probably beyond because you have to train the pi- lots. When General Babaker, the Chief of Defense, speaks about not being ready until 2020, it is that kind of capability that he is talking about, not the day-to-day capability on the ground. Senator BROWN. Thank you. Thank you, both. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Brown. Senator Reed. Senator REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Dempsey, was it the uniform recommendation of all the joint chiefs and yourself to the President that without appropriate immunities for American forces, that you could not maintain Amer- ican forces in Iraq'? General DEMPSEY. It was, Senator. Senator REED. From your perspective, the Government of Iraq was not prepared to give appropriate immunities to American forces? General DEMPSEY. Yes. That was the feedback we received back, that based on the legal advice of not only DOD lawyers but lawyers across the interagency, that the protections we required could only be achieved through an agreement that passed through the council of representatives inside of Iraq. When that was not forthcoming, then our advice was we could not leave—and by the way, just to Senator McCain's point. We do have soldiers all over the world deployed in joint combined exercise teams, but these are small groups of soldiers doing training mis- sions, not what we believe would be a large footprint of men and women potentially at checkpoints conducting combat operations that could be very prominent, very visible, and, therefore, very vul- nerable to a very immature judicial system. Senator REED. Meaning that they could be policed up, thrown into a system without any adequate due process, and be subject to essentially the whims of whatever Iraqi justice is at the moment? General DEMPSEY. That was the concern, but the larger concern was that there would be some kind of incident that would put us # odds with the Iraqi security forces trying to arrest one of our sol- erS. Senator REED. We actually could have force-on-force conflict. General DEMPSEY. In the worst case. Senator REED. The necessity for the core, their assembly, their general assembly—this was a result of the SOFA, I presume, that any amendments to the treaty had to be approved by their par- liamentary procedures, including the parliament? General DEMPSEY. That was both their interpretation and our OWn. Senator REED. So this notion of who can bestow immunity rests On : SOFA which the Bush administration negotiated and Signed. - General DEMPSEY. I do not know how far back it goes. This is longstanding legal interpretation that I am sure goes back well be- yond the Bush administration. Senator REED. You are both more familiar with the SOFA than I, but my understanding is that there was very explicit language calling for the withdrawal of all American military personnel but 26 that there was no language or no explicit language calling for fur- ther negotiations as to the continuation of forces. Is that correct? 'eral DEMPSEY. Are you referring to the 2008 Security Agree- ment? Senator REED. I am. General DEMPSEY. That is my understanding. Senator REED. But then there are suggestions today that every- one understood that this was just a placeholder, that this major policy decision calling for all forces to withdraw from Iraq, which was approved by their parliament, was simply a placeholder be- cause everyone knew that going down the road, we would renego- tiate both sides in good faith and come up with another combina- tion. Do you think that is realistic? General DEMPSEY. I will not comment on its realism, but I will say that I expected that there would be some negotiation prior to the end of 2011, and by the way, there was. That negotiation termi- nated when the Iraqi Prime Minister determined that he did not need the missions we were willing and capable to perform and would not provide the protections. Senator REED. It goes back essentially to the point that the Sec- retary has made, that that was a determination of a sovereign leader about what he felt was in the best interest of Iraq and that without his cooperation and, indeed, without the approval of his parliament, we have no standing essentially other than to follow what was agreed to in 2008 by the Bush administration. Is that correct? General DEMPSEY. To my understanding, yes, Senator. Senator REED. But as you suggested, going forward we still have a relationship in terms of FMS, in terms of not only our diplomatic presence, but there is always the possibility, because that is not precluded by the 2008 SOFA, of amendments which in the future could allow for some participation of American military personnel with Iraqi personnel. That is true also. General DEMPSEY. It is, Senator. There is the opportunity for them as part of routine theater security cooperation. General Jim Mattis will travel there in January. There is a committee called the High Coordination Committee for each of the six lines of operation in the SFA, some of which are economic, educational, commerce, but there is a security line of effort. There is a High Coordinating Council that meets. General Mattis will go and convene one of those meetings in January to discuss future security cooperation. Senator REED. Mr. Secretary, I presume for the record that we are prepared to entertain any of these serious discussions at any time with Prime Minister Maliki and his cabinet. Secretary PANETTA. Absolutely. Senator REED. It seems to me the key point at this juncture is the point at which Prime Minister Maliki and his government be- gins to reevaluate their position and their perception of the need for additional American military support, and without that, then the 2008 agreement which they negotiated, they agreed to, and they seem to accept stands as the law. General DEMPSEY. That is correct. Senator REED. Thank you. I have no further questions. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Reed. d 28 would still withdraw altogether. That made me concerned, and that is why I raised it. I wanted to ask you about the recent findings of -the Wartime Commission on Contracting found that from waste, fraud, corrup- tion, and money going into the hands of our enemies, we have lost between $31 billion and $60 billion of taxpayers' dollars that were obviously wasted, and the worst part is some of it went to our en- enleS. Before the Senate Armed Services Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee recently, we had a hearing on the Wartime Contracting Commission report, and Deputy Secretary Frank Ken- dall testified before that subcommittee. I actually asked him about what was happening in Iraq with respect to—you have stated today—roughly 16,000 contractors that will be left there, many of them performing security functions with our troops withdrawing by the end of the year. When I asked him about that, how will the State Department handle that, he told me that there is a lot of risk in this transition and that the State Department has never done anything this big. Would you agree with me on that, Mr. Secretary? Secretary PANETTA. That is right. Senator AYOTTE. Also that day before the subcommittee, we had the actual commissioners that did the analysis in Iraq and Afghan- istan of the fraud, waste, and abuse and money that went to our enemies. Mr. Zakheim who testified before our subcommittee that day—I also asked him about what is happening in Iraq and what the implications would be for the State Department putting 16,000 contractors there, many of them asked to handle security. What he said to me really made me very concerned. He said: “I do have tre- mendous concerns. I have more concerns, unfortunately, than I have answers. Clearly if the State Department, until now, has had trouble managing its contracts—and it is no question that they £ had some—I do not know how they are going to manage all this.” He went on to say, now, clearly if you have a whole bunch of con- tractors there with guns who will be doing all sorts of things, to me, to my simple mind, this is something that involves security that is inherently governmental. It is a high-risk project so that you are going to have a bunch of contractors either being shot at or shooting Iraqis, and this is a disaster waiting to happen is how he described it to me. Can you assure this committee that—I guess I would ask you first. Essentially my concern is that we are putting a civilian army there of contractors at an unprecedented level when we have al- ready had some significant issues with contracting. We are going to ask these contractors to protect our diplomatic personnel that are there, our civilian personnel who will still be serving in Iraq. Will they be secure? Will these contractors be able to perform the function that they are needed to perform? Can you assure this com- mittee that the State Department will be able to perform this un- precedented task? Secretary PANETTA. There is no question that there are risks in- volved here. What we are facing is an issue of continuing an impor- tant State Department role that relates to economic issues, that re- lates to development issues, that relates to education issues, that 29 relates to the other pieces that we have been assisting the Iraqis with. The State Department is taking the lead in trying to build those relationships. So they have a presence. They have bases £ughout Iraq or locations where State Department officials will e. In the absence of not having the military presence, then obvi- ously in order for them to do their job, they have to have security. They have to have support. They have to have food. They have to have transportation. That is, obviously, brought about through a contracting approach. Are there going to be risks associated with the contractors? Yes, I think that is the case. Do we have any other alternatives? No. General DEMPSEY. Senator, could I comment on that question? Do we have time? - Senator AYOTTE. If it is okay with the chairman. Chairman LEVIN. In response to the question, sure. Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. General DEMPSEY. This is not entirely new. Even from the very beginning when it was the Coalition Provisional Authority and then it became the U.S. Mission in Iraq, the State Department has always contracted for personal security. So it is not as though they have no experience in doing it. But this is orders of magnitude, and I think that is what people are reacting to. But in order to help mitigate that, we have had a joint com- mittee, the Department of State-DOD Joint Staff, in place since August 2010 to talk about transitioning activities in Iraq, 437 ac- tivities. We have transitioned 437 of them. We would be happy to brief you on that. We are going to retain the contract management. DOD will maintain, through directing contracting management au- thority, oversight or control of the contracts because we have the expertise. The contracting office representatives will be Depart- ment of State personnel on the ground. So we have recognized it, and we are working to mitigate it. Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, General Dempsey. Thank you, Sec- retary Panetta. I would just add this, though, back in August 2010, we were all talking about having some military support there, and when I hear from the Wartime Commission on Contracting commissioner that this is a disaster, I have real concerns about this in terms of pro- tecting our personnel and also a waste of taxpayers' dollars. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. Senator Nelson. Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey, for your service and for being here today. I am going to try to bring things a little closer to home for the moment. The 935th aviation detachment from the Nebraska Army National Guard is scheduled to deploy in Iraq in May, but given our pending departure from Iraq in December this year, I under- stand that this deployment might be able to be moved, shifted to a new location, or canceled altogether. I am sure maybe the deci- sion has not been made, but if it has, it would be interesting to know what it is. 31 General DEMPSEY. It is exactly the same. Senator NELSON. I understand. - General Dempsey, you might recall that some time ago, a few years ago, I visited Iraq and met with you, I think, when you were in charge of the training and acquisition mission. You outlined at that time how the Iraqi Government engaged with our military by contract for acquisition of military equipment because we were able to do it more efficiently and cost-effectively than they were because they did not have the acquisition structure in place in order to be able to do it. Do you remember why we engaged them at that time in that bi- lateral agreement to acquire, through the use of their money, the equipment that they needed? General DEMPSEY. Even then, Senator, it was clear to me that at some point we would have something that we would describe as a normal relationship with Iraq. One of the ways we solidify that relationship not just in Iraq, but around the world, is through our FMS program. So in those early days, we were able to convince the Ministry of Defense to invest. At that time, I think it was about $600,000, and today they have invested about $7.5 billion. It is a point of managing the relationship but also helping them grow their own capability to be responsible stewards of their own re- SourceS. Senator NELSON. We have had a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of hiring outside contractors, and discussion will be ongo- ing. The proof will be how it works out as to whether or not it is as advisable as it seems to be upfront. Now, in connection with that, in the cost differentials that may be there, is it possible to enter into an agreement with the Iraqi Government for cost-sharing on continuing to provide security, training of their troops, and every other mission that we might ac- cept to help them secure, stabilize, and self-govern? General DEMPSEY. Yes, sure it is, Senator. When we do multilat- eral and bilateral exercises around the world, there is always a ne- gotiation on the cost, and who will bear it. But I also have to mention, in terms of the contractor-supplied security, in any nation in which we are present diplomatically, the first responsibility for security is the host nation and then it is the close-in security that we are talking about that tends to reside with the contracted support. Senator NELSON. I think it is debatable perhaps about the costs given the fact that the contractors will be paid by contract. The military requires more than just the soldier providing the security, all the backup, the back room, the supply, the support that the military gets. That is a factor that is not necessarily included in the contractor's agreement. Is that accurate, Mr. Secretary? Secretary PANETTA. That is correct. Senator NELSON. So it may not be as out of whack. I am not an advocate for contracting, but it may not be as disproportionate as it sounds up front with high numbers for contractors when you add in the cost of the back support for the military providing the secu- rity. Secretary PANETTA. I believe that is correct. 34 worried that this region of Iraq will become a destabilizing flashpoint? General DEMPSEY. I worry about a lot of things, Senator, and I will include this among the list of things I worry about. We put in £ several years ago joint checkpoints where there was a mem- er of the Kurdish Peshmerga. There was a member of the Iraqi security forces and a U.S. service man or woman and a coordi- nating center. Part of our OSC footprint will include our participa- tion in the coordination center. We will not be on the checkpoints anymore. That is true. So we will have to rely upon the continuing negotiations between the Kurdish political leaders and the Govern- ment of Iraq. But this is not, again, a place where we are com- pletely removing ourselves, but your point is accurate. We will not be on the checkpoints. We have been there as a buffer. The risk goes up, but our presence in the coordination center provides a sta- bilizing influence to get them to find negotiated answers not violent anSWerS. Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Finally, Secretary Panetta, we have military relationships with countries all over the world, and we have SOFAs with those coun- tries. Are there other countries where we have a military presence that goes beyond protecting our embassies where we do not have the Jegal protections that a SOFA provides, or will Iraq be the only One ! Secretary PANETTA. There are obviously different—in different areas, there are going to be different approaches here. There are some areas where we have SOFAs. There are some areas where we basically put them under diplomatic protection of one kind or an- other if they work out of the embassy. So it does vary depending on the area that we are talking about in terms of protections. I guess what I want to assure you is that in each area we do try to seek protections for the troops that are there because of the con- £ that they be treated correctly if any kind of incident takes place. Senator COLLINS. That is absolutely critical. What I am concerned about is while diplomatic immunity is pret- ty easily extended to troops that are guarding an embassy, for ex- ample, it sounds like our mission of our remaining troops in Iraq would be broader than that. So I am worried about whether the legal protections will be there for them. Secretary PANETTA. That is a concern that we all have. If there is to be in the future a larger presence there, we have to ensure that they are given the proper legal protections. Depending on the size, £at would determine whether or not a SOFA would be re- quired. Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Collins. Senator Hagan. Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey, thank you for your service. We all certainly do appreciate what you all are doing. In light of Senator Collins' question concerning the wounded war- rior that she met yesterday, about 2 weeks ago, my office hosted 35 a wounded warriors' luncheon for a number of soldiers from North Carolina, and they brought with them their family member that was helping them recuperate. We have done this before, and it was certainly a welcomed luncheon for me to get to attend and also I think all of these soldiers that were here at the Capitol appreciated the outreach from the office and they also got a Capitol tour. But what was really intriguing too was one young man had lost his leg to an IED about 2 months before. He had been recuperating for about 2 months. He said he was most anxious to get back to the battle and that his job was to detect IEDs. I, too, just really highlight the morale, what these young men and women go through each and every day. So we do need to have as many phys- ical therapists as possible to be sure that they do get the treatment that they have certainly paid for and deserve. I want to talk about our Special Operations Forces (SOF). Our SOFs have engaged with their Iraqi counterparts in counter- terrorism and training and advising activities. What will things look like in Iraq from a SOF standpoint going forward, and what type of engagement would our SOF have in Iraq'? General DEMPSEY. Yes, Senator. The size of the Iraqi special op- erating forces is about 4,500. They are organized into a counter- terrorism section commanded by an Iraqi lieutenant general by the name of Kanani. We are partnered with him at the headquarters level and will remain so. We are in discussions with Iraq about training trainers that would stay inside the wire of the places where this counterterror force is located, not go with them on mis- sions, but rather continue to train them to go on missions. As I mentioned earlier, the gap is actually in their ability to identify the network and target it. We call it the “find, fix, finish, exploit, and assess cycle.” They are very capable of fixing and fin- ishing, not so capable as yet in finding, exploiting, and assessing, so that you continue to keep pressure on a network. But I will tell you they are extraordinarily competent individual soldiers. What we have to do is keep raising the bar with them on their ability to do the things at echelons above tactics. Senator HAGAN. With the drawdown taking place in less than 2 months, what is your outlook for the ability to continue this train- ing process to enable them to be able to do this on their own? General DEMPSEY. They will be limited. They do not have the airlift to deliver them to the target that we might have been able to provide. They do not have the ISR platform to keep persistent surveillance over top of the target. So they will be limited to ground movement and they will be limited to HUMINT, but part of the OSC provides the trainers to keep developing those other ca- pabilities. But we are some time off in reaching that point. Senator HAGAN. As we continue this drawdown of our U.S. mili- tary personnel from Iraq, I really remain concerned about their force protection, the individuals that are remaining in Iraq. So what are these remaining challenges for our military personnel in Iraq in terms of managing their vulnerabilities, managing their ex- posures during the drawdown? General DEMPSEY. Senator, you are talking about getting from 24,000 down—the existing force now and having it retrograde back through Kuwait? -" 36 Senator HAGAN. The ones that are going to remain over there. General DEMPSEY. The ones that will remain will be— Senator HAGAN. Their protection. General DEMPSEY. Yes, Senator. First and foremost, we have 10 OSC in Iraq bases, and their activities will largely be conducted on these bases because their activities are fundamentally oriented on delivering the FMS program. So F-16s get delivered. There is a team there to help new equipment training and helping Iraq un- derstand how to use them to establish air sovereignty. Or there are 141 M-1 tanks right now generally located at a tank gunnery range in Besmaya, east of Baghdad. The teams supporting that training stays on Besmaya. So this is not about us moving around the country very much at all. This is about our exposure being lim- ited to those 10 enduring, if you will, OSC base camps and doing £ business of training and educating and equipping on those 10 aSeS. The host nation is always responsible for the outer perimeter. We will have contracted security on the inner perimeter, and these young men and women will, of course, always have responsibility for their own self-defense. Senator HAGAN. So we will have contracted security on the inner perimeter. General DEMPSEY. That is right. Senator HAGAN. Iraqi counterterrorism forces in partnership with the U.S. special operations personnel have significantly de- graded al Qaeda in Iraq's ability to conduct these spectacular at- tacks by repeatedly removing the group's mid- and senior-level leadership, which I compliment you on. These operations were en- abled by U.S. capabilities including our unmanned intelligence platforms. What do you assess are the capabilities of Iraqi counterterrorism forces to continue these similar operations, some of what you were just describing, General Dempsey, against al Qaeda in Iraq, once again, in the absence of our forces, and how will our counter- terrorism activities change following the drawdown of the U.S. military? You have just identified some, but it seems with the lack of all the other personnel, that this is going to be a very hard task. Secretary PANETTA. If I could, Senator, in my past capacity, we were helping to provide a lot of intelligence and assistance, and I think some of those efforts will continue to provide intelligence, try to provide assistance in these areas. Having said that, the one thing that I have been impressed by is the fact that their counterterrorism operations have been very ef- fective, and despite the fact that we have drawn down 150,000 to 24,000 now, they have been very good at going after al Qaeda and being able to go after the threats that they have been able to per- CelVe. There is a need—and I think General Dempsey has pointed this out—with regards to some of the capabilities, helicoptering in, being able to have the ISR above. Those are the areas where we are going to have to provide assistance to them so that they can develop that capability. But they are still very good at going after those targets. Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 37 Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Hagan. Senator Graham. Senator GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for testifying. This is a very important issue for the country, and I think we have had a good discussion. Number one, I completely concur with the idea that American troops should not be left behind in Iraq without legal protections. It is not fair to them. To say that the Iraqi legal system is mature is being gracious. If an American soldier were accused of rape any- where in Iraq, I do not think they would get a fair trial. So at the end of the day, Iraq has a long way to go on the legal side and I think a long way to go on other sides. My concern is that I have never bought into the idea that the im- passe was getting the parliament to approve an immunity agree- ment. I will just give you one vignette. I went over with Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman in May to talk to the Prime Min- ister about a follow-on force, and I was discussing with him that no American politician, Republican or Democrat, would accept a follow-on force without legal protections. As we were talking about it, he says, “well, how many people are you talking about? What is your number?” I turned to Ambassador Jeffrey and General Aus- tin and said you have not given them numbers. He says, “no, we are still working on that.” That was in May. So let us get into this, General Dempsey. 16,000, 10,000, 5,000, cascading. Is it your testimony that we were proposing 16,000 to the Iraqis and they said no? Then we came back with 10,000 and they said no. Then we came back 5,000 and they said no. Then it got to be 0. General DEMPSEY. No, that is not what I testified to. Senator GRAHAM. What caused the cascading effect? General Austin told me—and I will just tell you now because it is so impor- tant—he thought we needed 19,000, and I said, “Lloyd, that is probably going to be more than the market can bear.” I said that because I am concerned about American politics too. Then the numbers were around 15,000 to 16,000. Then we start- ed about 10,000. It came to 10,000, and nobody got below 10,000. So I know what General Austin had on his mind. At the end of the day, General Dempsey, you are right. It is about the missions you want that determines the numbers. We have gone through it pretty well. Iraq does not have the intel- ligence capacity we do. We need to make sure they have better in- telligence. They do not have an air force. We need embedders. We need trainers. We need counterterrorism. We need to referee the Kurd-Arab dispute. I think 10,000 or 12,000 is what you need. At the end of the day, we are down to 0. I guess my question is, is Iran comfortable with a democracy on their border in Iraq, Secretary Panetta? Secretary PANETTA. I think they are very nervous about having a democracy on their border. Senator GRAHAM. Let me tell you what the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, a Sunni, Mr. Najaf, said. Iraq now suffers from points of weakness. If neighboring countries see that Iraq is weak and in- capable of protecting its border and internal security, then defi- nitely there will be interference. This interference does not exist 40 done because they just do not see a need for U.S. forces. Is that the Iraqi position that they have come to the point in their political military life that they just do not need us at all? Secretary PANETTA. I think the problem was that it was very dif- ficult to try to find out exactly—when you say the Iraqi position, what exactly the Iraqi position was at that point. Senator GRAHAM. What is the Kurdish position in Iraq about U.S. forces? Secretary PANETTA. I do not think there is any question they would like to— Senator GRAHAM. So what is the Sunni speaker of the par- liament's position about U.S. forces? Secretary PANETTA. I think the same. Senator GRAHAM. When I was with Prime Minister Maliki in May, the next day he announced that he would accept a follow-on force if other parties would agree. So how did this fall apart? Secretary PANETTA. I heard the same statements and read the same statements. But the problem is in the negotiations that in- volved the Ambassador, that involved General Austin, in those dis- cussions they never came to the point where they said we want this many troops here. - Senator GRAHAM. I can tell you—and I have taken my time. I ca tell you in May they had no number given to them by us. They were in the dark as late as May about what we were willing to commit to Iraq. So this is a curious outcome when you have Sunnis and Kurds on the record and the Prime Minister of Iraq saying he would accept a follow-on force if the others agreed. I do not know who does the negotiation for the United States, but if I had three people saying those things, I thought I could get it over the finish line. But we are where we are. Thank you for your service. Chairman LEVIN. I am just going to have a second round for those of us who are here, just maybe a couple questions each so we can get to our second panel. Mr. Secretary, did Iraq ever request U.S. trainers or other troops remain in Iraq after December 31, and if so, what number did they request and were they willing to grant legal protection, immunity to our troops? Secretary PANETTA. There was no such request. Chairman LEVIN. Senator McCain. Senator MCCAIN. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman. I do not see how you could have expected the Iraqis to agree when we could not give them a number, and that was not just the case in May. We came back. We kept asking the President's Na- tional Security Advisor and others what is our proposal, and we never had one until it got down to, I guess, 5,000 or 3,000. History will show, Secretary Panetta, that they were ready to negotiate in May and we would not give them a hard number both as far as numbers are concerned and missions are concerned. So it is hard to understand how anyone would believe that they were reluctant to negotiate when we would not give them a number to negotiate from. But history will provide that, and I am sure we will have fur- ther spirited exchanges on this issue in the future. 43 Senator LIEBERMAN. Some of those would be combat troops? General DEMPSEY. Absolutely. Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you. Chairman LEVIN. Now, Senator Shaheen has not had a first # but if you would limit it to a couple of questions this second round. Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Panetta, General Dempsey, it is very nice to have you both here. You mentioned, General Dempsey, the more assertive Iran and clearly Iran's attempting to assert influence throughout Iraq. Can you discuss how we are working with some of our partners in the region to try and thwart that influence? Specifically, if you could start with Turkey, because we have cooperated in the past with Turkey on the Kurds in northern Iraq, and we are seeing that vio- lence between Turkey and the Kurd rebels has escalated since the summer. We saw a major Turkish operation into Iraq, and yester- day there were reports that U.S. drones have deployed into Turkey from Iraq for surveillance flights. So can you just give us an update on that situation? General DEMPSEY. I can. Thank you, Senator. Each combatant commander has a theater security cooperation plan that supports both building the capability of our partners, al- lows us to make ourselves better, and deters potential adversaries. So in Turkey, for example, we have recently, as you have described, taken the ISR platform that was currently flying out of Balad in Iraq and it is now flying out of Incirlik in Turkey to support the Turks in their fight against terrorism. The Turks recently agreed to put a Tippy 2 radar as part of the European phase adaptive ap- proach, integrated air defense, against the possibility of a rogue missile strike from Iran if they develop that capability. Then if you walk down the Gulf, the Gulf Cooperative Council, we have bilateral agreements with each of them, some of which are multilateral, for example, air defense, some of which are exclu- sively bilateral. Then the other thing we do is exercises as well as this FMS pro- gram, which becomes a significant cornerstone of our relationship with these countries. Senator SHAHEEN. Relative to the U.S.-Turkey cooperation on the Kurds, how is Iraq responding to that? General DEMPSEY. Iraq has consistently denounced the presence of the PKK on Iraq soil, and so too, by the way, has the Kurdistan regional government. So there has not been any friction as long as there has been transparency about intent. Senator SHAHEEN. So we are cooperating with them as we are doing these kinds of actions. General DEMPSEY. We are, Senator. Senator SHAHEEN. You talked about some of the other neighbors in the region. Obviously, again, back to Iran and their effort to in- fluence Iraq and the region, does Iraq view its potential to be a proxy for Iranian influence and for some of the other influences in the region to play out in Iraq? Do they see that as a possibility and are they concerned about it? 44 Secretary PANETTA. I think they are aware that that is a possi- bility, and I think more importantly they clearly resist that effort. They have made very clear that Iran should have no influence as to the government in Iraq. Senator SHAHEEN. Again, to stay on Iran, I know that the hear- ing is about Iraq, but given the recent reports this week from the IAEA about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons capability, obviously that threatens not only us, the region, but Iraq, I would assume, is very concerned about that prospect. So are we working with Iraq to try and isolate Iran in response to this report, or have we been doing other actions around Iran's potential to get nuclear weapons? Secretary PANETTA. We have worked very closely with Iraq in trying to make it very clear to Iran that they ought not to provide any kind of military weaponry particularly to the extremists in Iraq, and they have cooperated # in that effort. In addition, I think they share the concern about any kind of nuclear develop- ment in Iran. Senator SHAHEEN. Are they also working with other nations in the Middle East to share that concern? So do you see, in terms of their relationship with other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Ara- bia, Qatar, some of the other countries you mentioned—do you see that as a cooperative effort that everybody is concerned about? Secretary PANETTA. I do not know the extent of the cooperative effort there, but I think they have made their position clear. From my own experience, the other countries in the region basically share that same viewpoint. Senator SHAHEEN. You talked, I believe, in your opening state- ments about our continuing strategic relationship with Iraq. As we look into the future, the next 10, 15, 20 years, what is the shared interest that we expect to continue to have with Iraq'? Obviously, in the short-term we have spent a lot of resources and certainly human lives to help defend Iraq and support their ability to have a free democratic country. But long-term, I think, we are in a dif- ferent situation than post-World War II, for example, where Eu- rope and Japan had the threat of communism to help us have a £, strategic interest. But what do we see that interest being In Iraq: Secretary PANETTA. Senator, I think the President has made this clear and the Prime Minister has made it clear that we are going to continue a long-term relationship with Iraq. Obviously, it is going to be multi-tiered. My hope is that we can develop that nor- mal relationship that we have with other countries in the region so that we can assist on training, can assist on counterterrorism operations, can assist with regards to intelligence in other areas. I think if we can develop that kind of relationship with Iraq, that we can actually strengthen their ability to deal with the threats that we are concerned about. General DEMPSEY. If I could add, Senator, because I lived there for 3 years and studied it quite extensively. I think when you talk about the future of our relationship with Iraq, Iraq sits on three prominent fault lines, Arab-Kurd, Arab-Persian, Sunni-Shia. So I think Iraq has the potential to be a stabilizing influence. It also has the potential to be a destabilizing influence. It has been for 20 years. We would expect and aspire to help them to be a stabilizing 46 spective, creates great concern that as a result of an artificial dead- line, we are placing at risk a goal that we have spent many years now working toward, expended great amounts of money and lives and blood to achieve. So to accelerate too fast in the last days for some artificial reason, not a core military reason, is very worrisome to me. Now, that is just my perspective, and I am really worried about it. Second, Mr. Secretary, you have been in the White House. You know how the world works. There has been a belief somehow that the State Department can fill the role of the military. We are going to have a big embassy there. We are going to have 16,000 State De- partment—does that include the security personnel also—there that is going to replace the military. Forgive me, but I just am not confident that they are capable of fulfilling that role. State Depart- ment people cannot be asked to go down a dangerous road. General Dempsey says we are going down the road. They salute and they go. They put on their helmets. They put on their bullet-proof vests. They get in their military vehicles and they go do the job. They go meet some tribal leader, some regional official, some mayor. They do that. So now we are going to have a series of State Department compounds apparently with some private security. But would you not agree, Secretary Panetta, that a determined adversary could place the State Department personnel at risk if they move away from those compounds and actually get out and travel the countryside and attempt to build a stronger, healthier nation? Secretary PANETTA. Obviously that is the purpose of having that security detail with them. But I would also say, Senator, that our hope would be that this is not just a State Department presence, but that ultimately we will be negotiating a further presence for the military as well. Senator SESSIONS. Thank you for saying that. I just would say sometimes in the White House elbows fly. You have been there, they do. So would you bring to bear your experience and best judg- ment? Would you be sure that it is well-discussed, the dangers of a total removal of the military and totally turning this over to the State Department? Secretary PANETTA. I think everyone understands the risks in- volved here, and that is the reason we are in negotiations with them about trying to maintain a military presence that can assist them to help provide the right security. Senator SESSIONS. I remember Secretary Condoleezza Rice say- ing to me that—maybe in testimony—that she was prepared to call any member of the State Department that they needed in the the- ater and ask them personally to go. The Secretary of State person- ally would ask them to go. So that indicates—that just reveals the fact that State Department personnel are not required and don’t have the same duty that the military does to go into dangerous areas. First of all, thank you, General Dempsey, for your service in Iraq and the war on terror. All the men and women who have gone into harm’s way, gone wherever they have been asked to go even though it was dangerous. State Department personnel are not as- signed to do that in the same way and I just believe we will lose 47 something if you are not successful in maintaining a military pres- ence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know the vote has started. So you guys can relax from my perspective. Chairman LEVIN. We thank you very much for your testimony. We just appreciate all you do for our troops and their families. We will move to our second panel even though a vote has begun. [Pause.] We are going to begin with this panel, and I am going to try to catch the end of the first vote '' vote the second vote. Here is what we are going to do. We are going to begin with the testimony of the second panel. Some of my colleagues are going to be voting the first vote, I hope come back, and then go and vote at the end of the second vote. That is what Senator McCain is going to try to do. What I am going to do is open up the second panel, listen, I hope, to all of the testimony and then run and vote, stay for the beginning of the second vote. The bottom line is this is going to be a little bit scattered, but I think the witnesses are probably all fa- miliar with the way that works around here. So let us continue today's hearing on security issues relating to Iraq with the second panel comprised of three outside witnesses. First, Brett £ He served as a senior policy advisor on Iraq issues for both President Bush and President Obama. On President Bush's National Security Council, Mr. McGurk served first as the director for Iraq and then as special assistant to the President and senior director for Iraq and Afghanistan. He remained on the Na- tional Security Council into the Obama administration serving as a special advisor. Mr. McGurk also served from 2007 to 2008 as the lead U.S. negotiator on the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement and the £ SFA. He is currently a visiting scholar at Columbia School OI LaW. Second is Dr. Douglas Ollivant. Dr. Ollivant is a senior national security fellow with the New American Foundation and a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. Earlier this year, Dr. Ollivant returned from a 1-year tour as a counterinsurgency advisor to the commander of Regional Command East in Afghanistan. He served also at the National Security Council as director for Iraq in both the Bush and Obama administrations. From 2006 to 2007, he served in Iraq as the chief of plans for Multinational Division Baghdad. Finally, we have Dr. Kenneth Pollack, senior fellow and director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Insti- tution. He has twice served on the National Security Council from 1995 to 1996 as the director for Near East and South Asian Affairs and from 1999 to 2001 as the director for Persian Gulf Affairs. Dr. Pollack has also served as a military analyst at the Central Intel- ligence Agency. He has written extensively on Iraq and Middle Eastern affairs, including several books. We welcome our witnesses. We thank our witnesses, and we look forward to your testimony. Senator McCain will be back to give his opening statement as soon as he has had the opportunity to vote. I want to make sure I am calling in the order indicated. So, Mr. McGurk, I will call on you first. * - 49 £d U.S. text leaked over the summer, our talks reached a dead end. The process of restarting those talks began at the third phase of the war, transition. This is not what we originally intended, but it was fortunate because it provided a clear road map that has lasted to this day with broad U.S. and Iraqi support. On November 26, 2008, Iraq's parliament ratified two agree- ments, the first called the Security Agreement, set the terms for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and from Iraq by the end of 2011. The second, called the SFA, set a foundation for permanent relations in the areas of diplo- macy, culture, commerce, and defense. These agreements passed only in the last possible hour before a year-end recess in the Iraqi parliament, and on the morning of the final vote, I sat with Ambas- : Ryan Crocker in Baghdad believing the vote might not suc- Ceed. Under the Security Agreement, the first transition milestone was the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities in June 2009. I was in Baghdad at that time. There was great unease at the embassy and within MNF-I that withdrawing from Baghdad would abandon hard-fought gains. I shared that unease. But the tactical risk of withdrawing was outweighed by the strategic gain of allowing Iraqi forces to control their streets for the first time. Security incidents, # approaching record lows, continued to fall after our with- raWal. The next transition milestone was August 31, 2010. Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama set that date for withdrawing U.S. forces to 50,000 from nearly 130,000 when he took office and shifting our mission from combat to advising Iraqi forces. I had left Baghdad in late 2009 and the following spring wrote two articles for the Council of Foreign Relations urging reconsideration of that milestone. Iraq had just held national elections. Less than 1 per- cent separated the two major lists. Government formation had yet to begin. So withdraw to 50,000? When I returned to Baghdad that summer, however, I saw first- hand that Iraq had already crossed the bridge. Outside the special- ized area of high-end counterterrorism, which by 2010 did not re- quire a large number of troops, our security role was increasingly indirect. The drawdown to 50,000 passed without incident and se- curity trends remained stable, even during a period of great polit- ical uncertainty, which lasted into December of last year. The next stage of transition was the drawdown of all U.S. forces by the end of this year. Chairman LEVIN. Mr. McGurk, I am going to interrupt you—for- give me—because I am going to have to run and vote now. We are going to recess for about 10 or 15 minutes. Can you all stay here for that period of time? I am sorry for the chaos. If any- one else comes back during this period, they can restart it. So it will be about 10 minutes. [Recess.] Senator MCCAIN [presiding]. I would like to apologize to the wit- nesses for the machinations of the U.S. Senate which require us to be on the floor which, obviously, has affected the lunches that are coming in. We would like to go ahead with your testimony, but I would like to recommend to the chairman that we bring you back - 51 Iraqis will push back. In the end, the question of whether U.S. troops would remain in Iraq had little to do with Iran and every- thing to do with Iraq. This is now the hard reality of Iraq's constitutional system, a system assertive of its sovereignty, responsive to public opinion, and impervious to direct U.S. pressure. A similar dynamic may arise in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and other states where political sys- tems are opening for the first time with new leaders accountable to their people. It would be a mistake, however, to see this new reality as mili- tating against long-term U.S. interests and partnerships. Iraq may be an example. Over the course of the summer, even as Iraqi lead- ers warned against taking a security agreement to parliament, they took actions in concert with us and sought to deepen a diplomatic and defense partnership. After a series of rocket attacks on U.S. bases by Iranian-backed militants in Maysan Province, the Iraqi army moved quietly but in force and arrested hundreds of militia fighters. The Iraqi Govern- ment replaced ineffective police commanders and directed special operations against leadership targets. Iraqi officials sent messages to Tehran declaring that attacks on U.S. facilities or troops would be considered an attack against the Iraqi state. By the end of the summer, security incidents in Maysan and then nationwide dropped to their lowest levels of the entire war. - In addition, in September, Iraq completed the purchase of 18 F-16s, transferring more than $3 billion into its FMS account, which is now the fourth largest in the region and ninth largest in the world. Iraq, in its next budget cycle, plans to purchase 18 more F-16s, topping $10 billion in its FMS program, which already in- cludes 140 M1A1 main battle tanks, naval patrol boats, reconnais- sance aircraft, and over 1,000 up-armored Humvees. A number of countries have sought to sell weapons systems to Iraq. It is, thus, significant that they chose the United States as their primary sup- plier with long-term training and maintenance contracts. Against this backdrop, the best available policy for the United . States was to fulfill the commitment under the Security Agreement and elevate the SFA as the pillar of our long-term relationship. Having just returned from Baghdad, I am confident that this pol- icy, if handled right, can open a new window of opportunity for re- lations with Iraq, including close security and defense relations. The next 12 to 18 months should mark the final stage of transi- tion to normalized relations. In practice, that means moving swiftly to anchor U.S. engagement under the SFA. Article X of the SFA envisions an organized partnership through high-level and mid- level joint committees including in the areas of defense, education, economics, and diplomacy. Standing up and empowering these com- mittees will institutionalize regular patterns of interaction, which in turn can lend coherence to a complex relationship, help identify and address emerging problems, and reinforce opportunities as they arise. Importantly, the Iraqis do not see the SFA as a framework for U.S. aid or assistance, and nor should we. It is instead a structure for building a broad strategic partnership. It carries wide popular support in Iraq and has the status under Iraqi law of a treaty. Its 53 universities across the United States. The SFA offers a platform for knitting these and other programs into a more permanent fabric. In the diplomatic area, Iraq sits in a turbulent neighborhood and its leaders see potential problems at every border. They also view themselves as the vanguard of the Arab Spring, yet they act with increasing hesitation as events unfold. One senior Iraqi leader pro- posed a permanent structure for strategic dialogue under the SFA to discuss fast-moving events and avoid misunderstandings with Washington. Such a structure would replace the dormant U.N.- sponsored neighbors process that met three times with varying re- sults between 2006 and 2008. It will not align Iraq's foreignbv pol- icy with ours, but it could help bolster Iraq's confidence and help its leaders better pursue regional policies that both expand demo- cratic rights and promote Iraq's stability. Serious risks remain. The largest is renewed sectarian or ethnic conflict. Levels of violence remain low, however, and the costs of any group leaving the political process have increased together with Iraq's increasing resources. But we must remain vigilant. Establishing regular and formalized patterns of engagement under the SFA can mitigate risk and spot early indicators of con- flict. According to historical models, there are five primary indica- tors of conflict recurrence: serious government repression; whole- sale withdrawal of forces supporting the government; serious dec- larations of secession; new and significant foreign support to mili- tants; and new signs of coordination between militant groups. This framework can help U.S. diplomats and analysts make sense of what will remain a fast-moving kaleidoscope of events. Ultimately, however, experience in Iraq helps diplomats develop a feel for what is a problem and what is truly a crisis, and today there are far more of the former than the latter. There is no ques- tion that al Qaeda will seek to spark ethnic and sectarian conflict. The governing coalition will remain fractious and dysfunctional. Sadr will be a wild card, unpredictable to us, to Iran, and to his own followers. Maliki will seek to enhance his own powers. Speaker Nujayfi and President Barzani may do the same. The test is wheth- er Iraq’s constitutional arrangements allow inevitable conflicts to be managed peacefully through the parliament and accepted legal meanS. There have been some encouraging signs over the past year. Par- liament is becoming an assertive and independent institution. Iraqis on their own managed potential flashpoints, such as the massacre this summer of Shia pilgrims in Anbar Province. Ten- sions among Arabs and Kurds eased with improved relations be- tween prominent leaders, some of whom used to never speak to each other. The withdrawal of U.S. forces may change the calculus of some actors. But successful management of political disputes has turned more on established relationships between U.S. and Iraqi officials and between the Iraqis themselves than the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at any given time. At bottom, Iraq faces serious challenges over the next year. The U.S. military withdrawal may increase some risks in the short- term. But similar to our withdrawal from Iraqi cities, it also pro- vides a strategic window to reset relations with Iraq and establish permanent diplomatic structures that mitigate risks over the long- 54 term. That is now the central challenge and opportunity before the United States. Thank you. - [The prepared statement of Mr. McGurk follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT BY BRETT H. MCGURK1 Thank you Chairman Levin, Senator McCain, distinguished members of the com- mittee. It is an honor to appear before you at such a critical juncture in Iraq. I have been involved in Ira licy for nearly 8 years, spending more than 3 years in Bagh- dad and four in the ite House. My testimony this morning will review where we have been and then look forward over the next 12–18 months. This will be a transi- tional period of risk and opportunity for the United States. Given the stakes in Iraq and the greater Middle East region, it is critical that we get it right. I believe we Can. I divide the past 8 years into three phases: descent, turnaround, and transition. The period of descent, from 2003 to 2007, was characterized by a policy that failed to reflect circumstances on the ground, with over-reliance on political progress to de- liver security gains and failure to grapple with Iraq as we found it: a nation and population wrecked by decades of war and dictatorship that left nearly 1 million people dead. e turnaround began in 2007, enabled by a new policy that focused on security first and began to stem what was becoming a self-sustaining civil war. That policy is now known as the surge. But in the White House, during its planning stages, we called it a # a boost in resources to bridge #" in Iraqi capacity and set condi- tions for U.S. forces to move into the background. As President Bush said at the time: “If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.” Contemporaneous with this new policy, we began negotiating a £ security and diplomatic relationship with Iraq. Talks began in the summer of 2007 and re- sulted in a preliminary text—called the Declaration of Principles—that envisioned a relationship across many fields, including education, economics, diplomacy, and security. Security came last for two reasons. First, it was essential for our own interests that security was but one part of a broader relationship. Second, a security agree- ment alone—even at that time with nearly 160,000 U.S. troops deployed was un- likely to survive the crucible of Iraq's political process. Iraq's historical memory focuses on a few singular events, one of which is a secu- rity agreement negotiated with the United Kingdom in 1948. That agreement was meant to affirm Iraqi sovereignty by mandating the withdrawal of British ground forces. But it permitted ongoing British access to Iraqi airbases and sparked mas- sive riots that left £ dead, a toppled government, and an abolished agree- ment. Mindful of this experience, our negotiations over the course of 2008 focused on a broader set of issues, but they became fraught—particularly as Iraqis, beginnin with the battle of Basra in the spring, pressed demands for sovereignty and contro over their own affairs. In addition, our own positions on the most sensitive issues— including immunity for U.S. military personnel and contractors—were, at first, un- realistic. Thus, when a proposed U.S. text leaked over the summer, the talks reached a dead end. The process of restarting those talks began the third phase of the war—transition. This was not what we originally intended, but it was fortunate because it provided a clear roadmap that has lasted to this day with broad U.S. and Iraqi support. On November 26, 2008, Iraq's parliament ratified two agreements. The first, called the Security Agreement, set the terms for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops—from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009; and from Iraq by the end of 2011. The second, called the Strategic Framework Agreement, set a foundation for permanent relations in the areas of diplomacy, culture, commerce, and defense. These agree- ments passed only in the last possible hour before a year-end recess, and on the morning of the final vote, I sat with Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Baghdad believ- ing the vote might not succeed. Under the Security Agreement, the first transition milestone was the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities in June 2009. There was great unease at the Em- "Visiting Scholar at Columbia University School of Law. Former Special Assistant to Presi- dent Bush and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan; Special Advisor to the National Secu- rity Council; and Senior Advisor to three U.S. ambassadors in Baghdad. 55 bassy and within MNF-I that withdrawing from Baghdad would abandon hard foug '#' I shared that unease. But the tactical risk of withdrawing was out- weighed by the strategic gain of allowing Iraqi forces to control their streets for the first time. Security incidents, already approaching record lows, continued to fall after our withdrawal. The next transition milestone was August 31, 2010. Shortly after his ina a- tion, President Obama set that date for withdrawing U.S. forces to 50,000 (from nearly 130,000 when he took office) and shifting our mission from combat to advis- ing and training Iraqi forces. I had left £ in late 2009 and the following # wrote two articles for the Council offoreign Relations urging reconsideration of the August 31 milestone. Iraq had just held national elections. Less than one per- cent separated the two major lists. Government formation had yet to begin. So why withdraw? When I returned to Baghdad that summer, however, I saw first-hand that Iraq had already crossed the bridge. Outside the specialized area of high-end counter-ter- rorism, which by 2010 did not require large numbers of troops, our security role was increasingly indirect. The drawdown to 50,000 passed without incident and securit trends remained stable, even during a period of great political uncertainty, whi lasted into December. The next stage of transition was the drawdown of all U.S. forces by the end of this year. This past July, I returned to Iraq to assist Ambassador Jeffrey and Gen- eral Austin who were in discussions with Iraqi leaders on whether and how to ex- tend that deadline. Ultimately, the decision was made not to do so. There was one £ reason for that decision. Iraqi and U.S. legal experts had determined that egal immunities for U.S. troops could only be granted by the Iraqi parliament. The parliament would not do so—a view c'. unanimous decision. This outcome reflected a volatile mix of pride, history, nationalism, and (as in an open political system) public opinion. A recent poll by an Embassy funded £ institution is consistent with what I saw and heard across Baghdad over the sum- mer and fall. Nearly 90 percent of Iraqis in Baghdad and more than 80 percent na- tionwide supported the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Had the issue been framed in terms of granting legal immunity for U.S. personnel—the numbers would surely be higher. Then there was the question of Iran. The Iranians have tremendous influence in £ Its embassy rarely rotates personnel—resulting in longstanding relations with Iraqi leaders. Its trading relationship with Iraq is approaching $10 billion, in- cluding $5 billion with the Kurdish region alone. But this influence is rarely decisive on bilateral U.S. matters, and it was not decisive on the issue of a residual U.S. force. In the end, even the most anti-Iranian leaders in Baghdad refused to publicly support us. When a Sunni nationalist—and vehemently anti-Iranian—bloc in par- liament began a petition to ban U.S. military trainers, it rapidly collected 120 signa- tures. This nationalist sentiment is our best weapon against Iranian designs on Iraq. The poll cited above found only 14 percent of Iraqis hold a favorable view of Iran. Even Sadr supporters hold an unfavorable view of Iran by a margin of 3 to 1. To be sure, the issue of Iran's role in Iraq exceedingly complex, multifaceted, and trou- bling. But it is also self-limiting—by £, £ and religious orthodoxy. Iran will continue to push, but the Iraqis will pushback. In the end, the question of whether U.S. troops would remain in Iraq had little to do with Iran, and everything to do with Iraq. This is now the hard reality of Iraq's constitutional system: a system assertive of its sovereignty, responsive to public opinion, and impervious to direct U.S. pressure. A similar dynamic may arise in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and other states where polit- ical #tems are opening for the first time with new leaders accountable to their ople. It would be a mistake, however, to see this new reality as militating against long- term U.S. interests and partnerships. Iraq is an example. Over the course of the summer, even as Iraqi leaders warned against taking a security agreement to par- liament, they took actions in concert with us—and sought to deepen a diplomatic and defense partnership. After a series of rocket attacks on U.S. bases by Iranian-backed militants in Maysan province, the Iraqi Army moved quietly but in force and arrested hundreds of militia £ The Iraqi Government replaced ineffective police commanders and directed special operations against leadership targets. Iraqi officials sent mes- sages to Tehran, declaring that attacks on U.S. facilities or troops would be consid- ered an attack against the Iraqi state. By the end of the summer, security incidents in Maysan and then nationwide dropped to their lowest levels of the entire war. by Iraqi leaders on October 4 in a w"- 58 I began working on Iraq policy over 7 years ago. I first went to Iraq in June 2004 as a uniformed Army officer. During this tour, I fought in the battles of Najaf Cemetery and Second Fallujah, con- ducted nascent counterinsurgency operations in the Kadhamiya district of Baghdad, and was in southern Baghdad for the January 2005 elections, and witnessed the first outburst of Iraqi nation- alism through a democratic process. I also lost several friends. I returned to Baghdad in late 2006 as the chief of plans and chief strategist for Multinational Division Baghdad. In this capacity, I led the team that wrote the coalition portion of the Baghdad secu- rity plan, the core implementing document for the 2007 surge. After 14 months in Iraq on this second tour, I came to Wash- ington to serve on the National Security staff as the director for Iraq, where I worked on, among other issues, the dissolving of the Iraq coalition in late 2008, the first transition moment, the secur- ing of the SOFA for our few remaining coalition partner nations after the signing of our SOFA, and initiated the planning for the transition of police training from DOD to the State Department. I was last in Iraq in the summer of 2009 in a private capacity but have retained my contacts on the issue, despite spending a year in Afghanistan as a civilian counterinsurgency advisor in the interim. My bottom line on our position with Iraq is this: the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is the right policy at this time. Our forces are no longer welcome, as the mood in the Iraqi par- liament demonstrates, and serve as a major distraction in Iraqi pol- itics. Further, while Iraq does face numerous challenges, the pres- ence of U.S. forces would do little to ameliorate them. I do have two concerns. First, Iranian influence in Iraq, though not to the extent that I find common in Washington, is a very real concern that we need to watch closely. Second, and more impor- tantly, I am concerned that once U.S. military forces are with- drawn, Iraq may suffer from neglect by the Washington policy com- munity. Iraq has been a deeply divisive issue in our domestic poli- tics for some time, and it may be tempting to just put the entire subject behind us. This would be a mistake, and the United States should actively engage Iraq as an emerging partner, engage in edu- cational and cultural exchanges, and most importantly, do every- thing in its power to assist the engagement of the U.S. business community in this emerging market. Our forces should withdraw from Iraq, and the President has made the right call in abiding by the agreement signed by his pred- ecessor despite the open courting over the past year by some agen- cies of the U.S. Government to remain indefinitely. First, and most importantly, we should leave because we said we would. There are significant portions of the Arab street that are convinced that the United States invaded Iraq to gain access to its oil resources. While we can never hope to disarm all conspiracy theorists, the departure of all military forces from Iraq will signal to any open minds that this is simply not the case. Our departure, after removing the previous regime and eventually, if belatedly, bringing some semblance of stability to the country, signals that the United States may hope for friendship but is not looking for neo-colonial territories. If and when the United States has to inter- 61 As an aside, it would also be helpful were the Iraqi defense es- tablishment to request that firms provide not only trainers, but also technical solutions that could help with the very real vulnerabilities of explosive detection (as opposed to the modified di- vining rods they now use) and to the security of their borders. Finally, speaking of firms, the departure of military force from Iraq should mark the transition not so much to just the State De- partment, but also to America's real strength, the private sector. I would suggest that the best way to ensure that America's war in Iraq was not in vain is to promote investment by American firms throughout Iraq alongside the already burgeoning Chinese, Turk- ish, and French presence. This is not to minimize some real chal- lenges to doing business in Iraq, but this is where America should focus its diplomatic effort. It is when Americans and Iraqis interact with each other not as adversaries, but as business partners that we can let the peaceful bonds of commerce work to the advantage of both sides. Iraq should not be afraid of this engagement. Iraq is blessed with abundant oil reserves, perhaps more than we can now identify, but it is a truly diversified economy that is in the interests of the Iraqi people. We can help the Iraqis generate wealth and participate in that wealth generation. As the Iraqis begin to participate in the great transformation that a market economy can bring, we can be- come more confident of the long-term health of the democratic in- stitutions that we planted, however tenuously, there. In summary, I am not trying to pain an overly rosy picture of Iraq. There are real challenges and for many of its people, it re- mains an unpleasant place to live. But the problems that remain do not lend themselves to military solutions. I believe the most likely outcome of the removal of the U.S. troop presence will be a slow normalization of Iraqi politics as they realize that we are no longer present to either assist or take the blame. Iranian influence will be a reality. They share a border and thousands of years of history. But Iraq will move decisively to limit this influence. Iraq will work hard in the coming months and years to ramp up their oil production. I want to see a continuing American influence in Iraq. But I want this influence to come via our training of hundreds of Iraqi military and police officers in the United States, letting them see how a democratic army behaves within its own borders and what a real rule of law system looks like. I want this influence to come through American educational institutions, which should open their doors to Iraqi students, aided by liberal, if carefully screened, stu- dent visas. I want this influence to come via American business both large and small, which helps the Iraqi economy diversify first into agriculture, small manufacturing, and then into a future which I cannot predict. All these efforts would fit neatly within the boundaries of our existing SFA with Iraq referenced to in depth by Mr. McGurk. In short, now that the Saddam regime is gone and the civil war put to rest, the environment is ripe for America's cultural and eco- nomic institutions to welcome Iraq into the family of nations. Again, the SFA signed in 2008 between the United States and Iraq 63 in yet another country, it will be immensely helpful to be able to point to the utter absence of U.S. military forces in Iraq to demonstrate that we do leave, when asked. Second, U.S. troops should leave £ the Iraqis want us to leave. Yes, the Sadrists and their Iranian-influenced leadership are the most vocal advocates, but Iraqi nationalists of all stripes find the continuing presence of U.S. forces to be deeply humiliating, even when their presence appeals to their rational interests. If we stay, our presence will continue to be a galvanizing, even defining, political issue in Iraq. Conversely, our departure may allow the Iraqis to spend precious political bandwidth elsewhere. Third, U.S. troops should leave because they are the wrong instrument for the po- litical problems that the Iraqis now face. I am the first to admit that Iraq's politics are immature and that numerous political issues—Kurd vs. Arab, Sunni vs. Shia, relationships with neighbors, executive vs. legislative power, distribution of hydro- carbon revenue and authorities—remain unresolved. M: forces are at best ir- relevant to these issues and at their worst, complicate these issues by ham-handed attempts to intervene in them. Soldiers tend to make poor diplomats, and the bulk of Iraq's remaining challenges are diplomatic in nature. Let's get the soldiers out of the way and let the diplomats solve them. Finally, while my position on the withdrawal of U.S. military forces is not driven by domestic politics, it is nonetheless good domestic politics. President Obama is now abiding # and overseeing the agreement signed # his predecessor to put an orderly end to our military presence in Iraq. We should all welcome this lamentably rare bipartisan moment. This does not mean there are not continuing challenges in Iraq and it is still pos- sible that Iraq could go badly wrong. It is simply that a U.S. military presence no longer reduces the possibility of things going wrong. Let me briefly review some of the challenges facing Iraq. The most urgent, from our perspective, is continuing Iranian influence in that country. This is a real threat, and the intentions of the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps “Qods Force” units are most assuredly not benign. But the threat is overstated. Iran shares a border and a religion with Iraq, but here the commonalities end. Iran is a majority Persian country, while Iraq is majority Arab. The Iraqis have no desire to be a client state of their Persian neighbor. £ have not forgotten that they fought a long and bloody war against them not so long ago. Yes, the politics in Iraq are gridlocked, with Prime Minister Maliki taking advan- tage of this gridlock to expand executive power at the expense of the legislature. Many have accused Maliki of becoming the “next Saddam,” settling himself in as a Shiite dictator, with his Dawa party becoming the new Baath. Recent purges of Sunni officers in the security forces do add fuel to this fire. However, these accusations are also overstated. Maliki is consolidating executive power—as those in executive officers tend to do—but the appropriate comparison is probably less Saddam and more Erdogan. This is something to be concerned about, perhaps, but hardly a cause for panic. Finally, relations between the various factions in Iraq—Shiite, Arab Sunni, and Kurds—continue to experience friction points. This s'd not be surprising to us, as these groups have differences that caused civil war to break out in 2005–2008. But while a return to civil war is always possible, I consider it strongly unlikely. All of the factions know that a return to civil war will be counterproductive for their interests. The Sunni have learned, the hard way, that to attempt violence against the government will spur reprisals from Shiite militias. The Kurds have carefully watched the re-professionalization of the Iraqi Army, and have no desire to trade their newfound quasi-autonomous status and exponential economic development for the pain and dubious payoffs of armed conflict. In fact, what we see today is exactly what we would hope for—but would have not dared hoped for in 2006. These three groups have very real differences. Yet de- spite a relatively gridlocked politics, these groups have not returned to widespread violence, but instead continue to work through a political system, however frus- trating it must be. That said, we should continue to encourage Iraq to integrate all sectarian groups into positions of power in order to promote societal harmony. Iraq does continue to have a terrorism problem. The most prominent of these groups—Al Qaeda is Iraq (AQI)—is a mere shadow of its former self, but this does not mean it is toothless. We should expect AQI to continue its nihilist £ of violence against Shiite Iraqis, and it is possible that they may try to attack Western targets outside Iraq. However, we have a committed partner in the '' Security Forces, and we can expect them to continue to aggressively target AQI forces throughout Iraq. The various Shiite extremist militias, backed by Iran, will be interesting to watch. I believe that nationalist forces in Iraq have largely turned a blind eye to these 65 of a democratic Iraq, that is an ally in the fight against terrorism, and that respects the rights of its citizens. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Dr. Ollivant. Dr. Pollack? STATEMENT OF DR. KENNETH M. POLLACK, DIRECTOR, SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, THE BROOKINGS INSTI- TUTION Dr. POLLACK. Thank you, Chairman Levin. It is an honor to be before this distinguished body. I have prepared written testimony, # Chairman, that I would ask to be entered into the record in Chairman LEVIN. It will be made a part of the record. Dr. POLLACK. I would prefer to give only a summary of my re- marks for now. Thank you. Although I am glad to discuss the totality of U.S. policy toward Iraq since the 2003 invasion and even before, I would like to focus my remarks on U.S. policy to Iraq looking forward beyond the de- parture of all American troops at the end of this year. While I cer- tainly have opinions about American policy in the past and even at the present time, I fear that to try to begin cataloguing all of the mistakes that the United States made both under the Bush and Obama administrations would take much longer than the time allocated for the hearings. I will say that I believe that the departure of all American troops scheduled for the end of this year is premature and a mistake, but it is also a reality. I think the most constructive thing that we can do is focus on the U.S. relationship with Iraq moving forward and how best to secure our interests during that timeframe. I would really like to make three principle points. First, the state of Iraq today is one that is not headed in the right direction and therefore could benefit from considerably great- er American assistance in the future. Iraq today is wracked by eco- nomic and political problems, and these are, unfortunately, begin- ning to unravel the security gains of 2007 to 2010. Iraq's political system is deadlocked. What is, in effect, a national unity govern- ment worked out in late 2010 has simply brought all of Iraq's polit- ical differences into the £ and, in effect, paralyzed it. There are growing signs of potential political fragmentation in Iraq. Graft, which had been contracting, has now begun to expand again and is even exploding by some accounts. Were it not for the graft, I would argue, in fact, that the Iraqi Government might not be doing anything at all. Iraq's military and civilian bureaucracy has been increasingly po- liticized by the Prime Minister and his staff who is replacing any- one not deemed 100 percent loyal to him with others who are and often with members of his own family, his own party, his own sect. Shia death squads have reemerged. They are killing both Sunnis and Shia and are enjoying considerable immunity from the rule of law. For their part, alienated Sunnis are talking again of banding together to resist the government, as they did before the Sunni Awakening, and support for Sunni terrorist groups is slowly in- creasing and many Sunnis are even asking if they will need to re- arm to protect themselves since the government simply will not. ~ 66 The second point I would like to make is that it is hard to postu- late a very optimistic scenario for Iraq's development over the course of the next 5 to 10 years, but some of these scenarios on offer are dramatically worse than others. The most dangerous sce- nario and the place that it is worth starting with is, of course, the possibility of a return to civil war. Unfortunately, this may actually be the most likely of Iraq's potential scenarios. There is extensive academic work on civil wars, and these have found that between one-third and one-half of all states that experience a major inter- communal civil war experience a resumption of that civil war with- in 5 years of a ceasefire. Iraq was a quintessential example of such a civil war between 2005 and 2007, the ceasefire occurring in late 2008. There is also ample evidence that Iraq may be sliding back into civil war in textbook fashion. The group in control of the govern- ment is using it to advance a narrow agenda at the expense of its rivals. It is not reaching out to them, making hard compromises and demonstrating a desire to put the common good above its own self-interests. The group controlling the government is purging per- sonnel not members of their own group. The group controlling the government is using the powers of the government to hurt other groups, to crush their military power and is ignoring the violence perpetrated by groups allied to it against its rivals. All of this is : breeding mistrust, fear, anger, and resentment against the group in power, and the rivals of the group in power are supporting their own violent extremists, discussing secession and whether to re-arm their own militias. These are all classic indicators of the resumption of civil war. They do not mean that Iraq is bound to return to civil war. They simply illustrate that Iraq is prone to the same problems that have caused other states to return to civil war and that we should be very nervous that Iraq will do so in the future. In fact, it is easy to imagine dozens of scenarios whereby Iraq slides back into civil war. I am struck by the fact that when I was last in Iraq over the summer, numerous Iraqis were remarking and numerous Ameri- cans as well were remarking that it felt like 2005 all over again to them. It is also worth pointing out, Mr. Chairman, that typically civil wars start and resume after a period of time when the problems reemerge but seem relatively minor, easily controllable, easily ad- dressed. But then in these cases, typically something happens that is unexpected but that suddenly crystallizes all of the fears, all of the desires for revenge and a gradual descent suddenly turns into an uncontrollable plummet. Of course, this is exactly what hap- pened to Iraq in 2006. Again, what we are seeing now is consistent with the same pattern repeating in the future. Now, there are a variety of other circumstances, not all of which I am going to touch on in detail. Certainly Iraq could move back toward a dictatorship. As Dr. Ollivant pointed out, this is some- thing that many Iraqis are concerned about. I think we can set that one aside for the moment. It is not to dismiss it. It is simply to say that I think that it is better for us to focus on other issues. In addition, I think that there is real potential for Iraq to become a failed state in the future. If the government does not get its act 72 *** * * *… * Of greater importance still, rising Shiite violence, mistreatment of the remaining Sons of Iraq, and the growing sense that the Shiite “stole” the election and are now using their control of the government to deprive the Sunni community of its fair share of power and economic benefits, appear to be pushing many Sunnis back in the direction of fear and violent opposition. The recent arrest of nearly 600 Sunnis by the government on outlandish claims that they are all Ba'thists seeking to over- throw Iraq's current government and return it to a Ba'thist dictatorship, coupled with numerous smaller, but similar actions, has many Sunnis convinced that Shi'i Islamists intend to use their control of the government's security forces to kill and oppress Sunnis exactly as they had been doing in 2005–2006 before the U.S. surge put an end to ethnic cleansing. Slowly growing support for nationalistic Sunni ter- rorist groups like Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqa al-Naqshbandia (JRTN, or The Men of the Army of the Naqshbandia Order) is a particularly important canary in the coal mine because they represent a more nationalist opposition compared to al Qaeda in Iraq, which remains largely discredited by its foreign influence and extreme religious be- liefs. Worse still, many Sunni tribal leaders and mid-level officials talk openly about having to take up arms to defend their communities from the Shiite terrorists, since the government won't and the Americans are leaving. SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE OF IRAQ It is not hard to discern that Iraq today is not headed in a positive direction. The government remains utterly paralyzed by the country's divisions, and by leaders ab- solutely unwilling to make compromises of any kind to break the logjam. Efforts to fight corruption, nepotism, and politicization of the military and bureaucracy have been discarded and all of these problems are running rampant. Indeed, corruption currently appears to be the only engine of government activity. Were there no cor- ruption, the government might not be doing anything at all. Violence has re- emerged as a tool of various groups—including the governing coalition—seeking to advance their political agendas. This in turn is pushing other groups in the direction of taking up arms again if only to defend themselves against other groups using vio- lence since the government is unwilling to apolitically enforce the rule # law. Looking forward from this state of affairs, it is possible to imagine four broad, plausible directions in which Iraq might move. None would be worth celebrating, al- though some would be much worse than others. Evaluating these scenarios is impor- tant £ as a sobering reminder of what is truly plausible as opposed to some rosy fantasies we might like to believe, and that might have been possible several years £ but in today's context can only be seen as long-term aspirations at best. They also provide a sense of what the United States ought to be striving to achieve in Iraq, and what is most important to try to prevent. A New Dictatorship Many Iraqis and many observers of Iraq, believe that the most likely future for Iraq is a new dictatorship, this time by the Shiite. Although Prime Minister Maliki almost certainly is not consciously seeking such a position, his approach to Iraq's problems is nonetheless taking him that way all the same. Maliki evinces consider- able paranoia, something entirely understandable from someone who was a member of a small, revolutionary party relentlessly chased by Saddam's security services for almost 30 years. This makes him prone to see conspiracies, especially among Sunnis. He is often impatient with Iraq's democratic politics, and he just as fre- quently acts arbitrarily, extra-constitutionally, even unconstitutionally to root out a suspected conspiracy or overcome political opposition. He is consolidating power within Iraq, and even within the Iraqi Government, in a tight circle of people around himself. He is purging large numbers of people from other parties, groups, : and ethnicities and rapidly politicizing Iraq's relatively professional armed orces. From an American perspective, a stable new dictatorship might be perfectly ac- ceptable, at least from the perspective of short-term American material interests in Iraq. The problem is that any new dictatorship is unlikely to be stable and is far more likely to lead to civil war. It is worth keeping in mind that Saddam was the only dictator Iraq new who could rival a Mubarak or a Hafez al-Asad in terms of relative stability (and that is a very relative statement). It required near-genocidal levels of violence to do so. Even Saddam had to fight frequent revolts by the Kurds and, in 1991, by elements of the Shi'i community. In Iraq's present circumstances, however, any bid for a new dictatorship, whether consciously or absent-mindedly, would be more likely to produce civil war than a return to centralized autocracy. Whether it is Maliki or another would-be strong man, any effort by someone (prob- ably a Shi'ah) to make himself dictator of Iraq would £ £ various po- litical and ethno-sectarian rivals to take up arms to prevent his consolidation of 73 power. The government and military would most likely fragment (a la Lebanon) and the result would be far more likely to be a civil war, not a stable tyranny. In addition, if Maliki, or £ Shiite were to emerge as a new dictator, he would inevitably be pushed into Iran's arms. A Shiite dictator of Iraq would axio- matically be rejected and ostracized by the majority Sunni states of the Arab world. The only ally he would have would be Iran—and perhaps Syria, if the Asads can hold power (and indeed, Maliki's Government has come out publicly in support of the Asad regime in Syria's own civil war). Moreover, a Shi'i dictator would face tre- mendous opposition from Iraq's Sunni community, particularly the tribes of Anbar, Salah ad-Din and Ninevah, all of whom would be supported by the Sunni regimes. Again, an Iraqi Shiite dictator's only source of succor would be Iran. Renewed Civil War Historically, this may actually be Iraq's most likely future. Although academic studies of intercommunal civil war show some variance, a considerable body of work—including the best and most recent studies—indicate that states that have undergone one such round of conflict (as Iraq did in 2005–2007) have anywhere from a 1-in-3 to a 1-in-2 likelihood of sliding back into civil war within about 5 years of a ceasefire (which in Iraq came in 2008). Since the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iraq has followed the quintessential pattern for how states descend into civil war, how they emerge from it, and now how they fall back into it. Everything that is going on in Iraq today as American peacekeepers prepare to leave—the resumption of vio- lence, the rapid deterioration of trust, the expectation that things are going to get more violent and corrupt, the unwillingness of leaders to compromise, the deter- mination of actors across the spectrum to take short-sighted actions to protect them- selves at the expense of others' trust and security—shows that Iraq continues to hew closely to these awful patterns. Civil war in Iraq would be disastrous for the United States for a variety of rea- sons. It could affect Iraq's own oil production, and spillover from an Iraqi civil war could produce civil war in any '" Iraq's neighbors—including, most importantly, Saudi Arabia—or a regional war over the carcass of Iraq that might also affect oil rices or even oil production itself. Moreover in the short term, Iran would likely nd itself able to dominate significant areas of Iraq by backing Shiite militias in the fighting—militias that would have no one to turn to except Iran, as was the case in 2005–2007. A Failing State Another plausible outcome of Iraq's current state of affairs would be a weak, frag- mented, or even a failed state. The central government has a certain amount of power, but it is not efficient and Iraq's provinces have a certain ability to resist. Moreover, as Maliki attempts to centralize power, so other groups are pushing in the opposite direction. Thus, while one set of scenarios would have to envision Maliki (or some other Shiite leader) prevailing in this contest and establishing a new dictatorship, so another set of scenarios would have to imagine him failin - cause the provinces/regions/ethno-sectarian communities were successfully able to resist and to pull away from the central government. Indeed, Salah ad-Din province recently declared its autonomy, and there is widespread talk of Anbar and Nineveh joining it in a Sunni region akin to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Likewise, numerous groups and influential figures in oil-rich Basra are talking about doing the same. If they were to succeed, they would cripple the Iraqi central government. Because Iraq actually requires a fair degree of integration for economic reasons, such a centrifugal trend would likely result in an across the board breakdown in public services, economic affairs and security. Local groups (militias, but likely oper- # in the name of provincial governments) would fill the vacuums as best they could, but their efforts would be uneven at best, and at worst—and probably far more likely—would be corrupt, incompetent and prone to violence. Iraq might not * On the proclivity of civil wars to recur, see Paul Collier, Lani Elliott, Havard Hegre, Anke Hoeffler, Marta Reynal-Querol, and Nicholas Sambanis, Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy, The World Bank and Oxford University Press, £ DC, 2003, available at http://homepage.mac.com/stazon/apartheid/files/BreakingConflict.pdf, p. 83, James D. Fearon, “Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So £ Longer than Others?” Journal of Peace Re- search, vol. 41, no. 3 (May 2004); Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot # Univer- sity of California Press, 2001); Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); T. David Mason, “Sustaining the Peace After Civil War,” The Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA, December 2007; Barbara Walter and Jack Snyder, eds., Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (New York: Co- lumbia University Press, 1999); Barbara Walter, “Does Conflict Beget Conflict? Explaining Re- curring Civil War,” Journal of Peace Research 41, no. 3 (May 2004): 371-388. 74 - quite look like Somalia, but it could end up bearing more than a passing resem- blance to it, with all of the terrible implications for terrorism and instability in the wider region that implies. Muddling Through, Perhaps Ultimately Upward The only plausible, positive (in a purely relative sense) scenarios that one can imagine for Iraq given its current state of affairs are ones that envision long, painful processes during which Iraq does not fall apart or fall into dictatorship, but not much positive happens either for some period of time. Then, at some point in the future, either because Iraqi voters are somehow able to bend Iraq's politicians to their will in a way that they could not in 2010, or because a charismatic and altru- istic leader emerges who galvanizes the Iraqi polity, things begin to move in the right direction. Leaders begin to make compromises, small at first, but growing as they build trust in one another and reap the benefits of cooperation. Outside powers and businesses see progress in Iraq and begin to invest again, creating an economic stake for everyone in continued cooperation and progress. Violence is discredited. Eventually, this could produce a strong, self-confident, truly democratic Iraq that would have the £ and confidence to limit Iranian influence to what is cus- tomary among neighboring states. Such scenarios are not impossible, but at present they also seem quite unlikely. There simply is no evidence in contemporary Iraq that would suggest that this is happening or could happen soon. The macro trends in politics, security and the economy are all negative, and while there are certainly some positive trends at a more micro level, these are all almost certain to be swamped if those macro trends continue to move in the wrong direction. When one looks at what is happening in Iraq today, it is very hard to find evidence to make a compelling case that Iraq is likely to muddle through its current problems, find a way to unlock its paralyzed political process, and begin to replace its vicious cycle with a benevolent one. AMERICAN PRIORITIES AND IRAQI DOMESTIC POLITICS The most likely scenarios for Iraq are dark ones, but some are much blacker than others, and the United States must make every effort to help Iraq avoid the worst and achieve the best, even if that best is a far cry from what might once have been imaginable. As those scenarios also make clear, Iraqi domestic politics has become the center of gravity of the American effort toward Iraq. The future of Iraq, and American in- terests there, will be principally determined by the course of its domestic politics, and that in turn will determine whether America's vital interests there are safe- arded. Security in Iraq has improved significantly, but it will only hold over the ong term if Iraqi politics sorts itself out and is able to provide for the people, govern the country, £ resolve its internal antagonisms. If Iraq's domestic political frame- work collapses, so too will the country's security. Iraq's economy continues to sputter along and it will only improve when there is a government in Baghdad able to gov- ern effectively, harness Iraq’s oil wealth, and use the proceeds to redevelop the en- tire country. Moreover, if there is £ to be an economic collapse in Iraq, it will almost certainly come from some failure of Iraq's domestic politics (like misman- aging the oil sector). In other words, while a civil war might technically be the re- sult of a deterioration in the security situation or an economic meltdown, in actu- ality the many things that could give rise to such situations now lie largely, if not entirely, in the realm of politics. Because Iraq's domestic politics is the key to the future stability or instability of the country, and because it remains so fraught, it must be the principal American focus moving forward. Consequently, the absolute highest priority for the United States for the next several years must be to see Iraq's domestic politics work out right. That means ensuring some degree of respect for democracy, transparency, and the rule of law; some development of bureaucratic capacity; no coups d'état; no dic- tators; some movement toward reconciliation among the various ethno-sectarian groupings, as well as within them; a reasonable delineation of center-periphery rela- tions including a workable agreement over the nature of federalism; and an equi- table management and distribution of Iraq’s oil wealth. The £ is that domestic politics may well prove to be the area where Iraq's olitical leadership are least desirous of an American role. Iraq's political leaders £ a less than stellar record of playing by the rules of democracy and enforcing the rule of law. Especially when they are in positions of authority, there has been a dangerous tendency to skirt, avoid, or flat-out ignore the Constitution in both let- ter and spirit. Iraq's political leadership tends to be dominated by former warlords, clerics, tribal shaykhs, and expatriates, few of whom have experience with demo- cratic processes and even fewer of whom seem to understand that respect for the 77 There are, fortunately, a number of areas of the Iraqi economy both inside and outside the SFA where the United States can deliver tangible added value at a rel- atively low financial cost. These include: • International engagement and mediation on issues such as Iraq's Chapter VII UN obligations, including annual reparations to Kuwait and disputes over the Iraq-Kuwait maritime boundary (which have the potential to ham- r Iraq's primary oil export route through the Persian Gulf), dialogue with raq's northern neighbors, especially Turkey, on regional water-sharing agreements, and the protection of Iraq's oil revenues from legal claims re- # to actions of the former regime, something that if left unaddressed could hamper long-term investment in the oil and gas sector; • Formation of a joint economic commission under the SFA, which, when requested by Iraqis, could serve as a central oversight body to coordinate, monitor, and provide technical expertise for reconstruction and capital in- vestment projects initiated with Iraqi funds; • Technical advice, knowledge sharing, and technology transfer to vital areas of the Iraqi economy and society such as improved domestic water ef- ficiency and management and agricultural development and productivity; • Finding ways to continue to assist Iraq's provincial governments, even after the shutting down of U.S.-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), in obtaining the release of their annual investment budget alloca- tions from national authorities; and • Legislative actions to create a business environment that encourages Western business investments. The United States should make it clear that assistance of this type is contingent upon Iraqi authorities at both the national and provincial level taking specific steps to put in place transparency, oversight, and accountability mechanisms aimed at mitigating the corrupting and insulating effects of Iraq's oil economy. Fortunately, and not by coincidence, these actions are all fully consistent with the goals of the Iraqi National Development Plan to halve unemployment, promote rural develop- ment, increase environmental protection, reform administrative systems, and sup- £ decentralization. They would also be of substantial financial and even political nefit to Iraq's new government and generally should not be provided until it dem- onstrates the willingness to take the hard steps to enable a greater portion of Iraq's oil wealth is turned into investments that fuel service delivery, economic growth, and broader political legitimacy. This must ultimately be the overriding objective of all U.S. economic and governance assistance to Iraq. SECURITY ASSISTANCE The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq by the end of this year should not be the end of U.S. security assistance to Iraq. The Iraqis still need help in this area, making it another critical area of potential American leverage. Moreover, American security assistance to Iraq can also play an outsized role in helping to safeguard a number of key American interests in £ and the wider Persian Gulf region. Protecting Iraq from Regional Threats On January 1, 2012, when all American troops have departed, Iraq's military forces will be unable to defend the country's land or maritime borders or control and protect Iraq's airspace. That fact poses two dangers to America's interests in pre- venting the emergence of an aggressive Iraq and desiring Iraq to retain a pro-Amer- ican alignment. First, it may encourage Iraq's neighbors to take advantage of Iraq's weakness and second, it may encourage Iraqi leaders to try to build their own mili- tary forces to a level that is itself destabilizing. Both Iraq and its neighbors have historical reason to be concerned. Iraq has been at war with its neighbors, the international community, and itself for over 50 years. Even before Saddam Husayn's congenitally aggressive approach to foreign policy, Iraq had been an enthusiastic participant in several of the Arab- Israeli wars, threatened Kuwait with invasion, nearly come to blows with Turkey and Syria over water and the Kurds, and generally been a net liability for regional security. Of course, Iraq's neighbors have not been passive either and their actions con- tinue to anger and frighten Iraqis. Turkey has regularly sent military forces into Iraq to hunt Turkish Kurds or punish Iraqi Kurds. Syria, Turkey, and Iran manipu- late the flow of water to Iraq in ways that imperil Iraqi agriculture, energy produc- tion, and even oil exports. Saudi Arabia and Syria have looked the other way when Salafi terrorists have crossed their territory to get to Iraq. In addition to the dec- 78 ades of past strife (including the horrific Iran-Iraq war), even while American mili- tary forces have been present in great force in Iraq, the Iranian military has vio- lated Iraqi sovereignty on a number of occasions, shelling Iraqi Kurdistan, seizing an oil well on Iraqi territory, and overflying Iraqi airspace. In all of these post-Saddam cases, £ £ response so far has been moderate and muted. The presence of American troops and aircraft in Iraq undoubtedly con- tributed greatly to this moderation—Iraqi leaders preoccupied with internal prob- lems were confident that U.S. forces W' not permit any 'e or protracted foreign adventurism in their territory and so didn't feel a need to respond aggres- sively. In the absence of such a de facto American guarantee of Iraqi state sov- ereignty, these trespasses could well have triggered exaggerated responses either in the form of conflict on the ground or of attempts to develop conventional military forces capable of repelling the attacks and punishing the perpetrators. In concrete terms, in the absence of American forces, a fragile Iraqi Government might well feel the need to respond forcefully to similar incursions. This has been the tradition in the Middle East, even though it has led to several of the region's most disastrous wars. Many Iraqi military leaders already harbor a disturbing at- tachment to the Iraqi military of the late 1980s—the Iraqi military that smashed Iran's ground forces and won the Iran-Iraq war. That is the same Iraqi military that threatened Syria and Israel and eventually overran Kuwait. Without an American military presence to reassure them, Iraq's political leaders might feel pressure to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that they can defend themselves. Any attempt to develop armored forces, missile forces, or attack aviation that looked like an effort to rebuild Saddam's army would set off alarm bells throughout the region, possibly stoking a regional arms race. Consequently, maintaining American military forces nearby Iraq and developing a program of regular military exercises that brought American combat formations to Iraq frequently, would both be of considerable utility. Indeed, the United States should eagerly accept any Iraqi overture that signaled an interest in something like the “Intrinsic Action” exercise program that the United States devised with Kuwait in the 1990s. Under that program, a U.S. battalion task force was continuously present in Kuwait, although no unit was permanently based there. Conducting Counterterrorism Operations Assistance with Iraqi counterterrorism operations falls into a similar category. The Iraqis may want American assistance, and if so, that creates leverage. Likewise, it may be useful for the United States to continue to assist Iraq’s own CT efforts both as a means of keeping AQI and other Salafist terrorist groups in check and as a way of maintaining some £ of how the Iraqi Government employs its elite counterterror formations. Iraq's highly-trained CT units would be perfect for the Iraqi leadership to employ either as part of a coup, or merely to round up rivals (and brand them terrorists, of course). Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) no longer poses an existential threat to Iraq's political sta- bility, but it could serve as a dangerous catalyst that could help push Iraq in the direction of some of the worst scenarios, including renewed civil war. It does not cur- rently pose a significant threat to American interests outside Iraq, but it is still in- tegrated into the regional al Qaeda network whose affiliates have attacked or have declared their intention to attack the United States (including al Qaeda in the Ara- bian Peninsula and in Yemen, and al-Shabaab in Somalia). AQI is severely weak- ened, and it is attempting to regain its footing, but whether it is able to do so will be determined as much if not more so by the course of Iraqi politics than by the successes or failures of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). American Arms Sales to Iraq It is critical that the United States be willing to provide Iraq with major arms purchases. Ideally, the United States should furnish every aspect of Iraqi military equipment, from mess kits to main battle tanks and £ in between. As long as Iraq desires them (which it currently does) and can afford them (which it eventu- ally will), such arms sales, when provided by the United States, could be inherently stabilizing if managed effectively and in tandem with political reform in Baghdad; it could also help stabilize the region by preventing the emergence of an aggressive Iraq that would pose a threat to its neighbors. In addition, arms sales represent yet another source of influence with the Iraqi leadership since they are items Baghdad greatly desires. Consequently, these sales should be considered from a strategic per- spective, not a commercial one and from that perspective, they are not just desirable but critical. Indeed, one of the most important lessons of the Arab Spring and Mubarak's fall has been the tremendous utility American arms sales can have in the Middle East. -- -- *- || *-– 80 curity and, in fact, its belief in Iraq's fundamental unimportance to American secu- rity interests. e one important caveat to this overarching point is cost. Iraq may someday be a very rich country thanks to its oil reserves, which only seem to grow by the day. Today, however, Iraq is a very poor country, with a gross domestic product per cap- ita of only $3,800 (ranking it 159th in the world) and massive budgetary needs com- pared to the revenues available. Even politically, Iraq's people seem far more inter- ested in investing in their economy than in fancy new weapons. Consequently, the U.S. interest in preventing domestic political problems means keeping Iraqi military spending from bankrupting the country. It is worth £ that this is yet another reason for the United States to a ssively seek to Iraq's primary arms supplier. Simply put, no other country is likely to care about Iraq's finances the way that the £ States does. Iraq's leadership is determined to buy these big-ticket weapons systems, and they have re- peatedly stated that they would buy them from Europe, Russia or China if they can- not get them from the {# States. Certainly Russia and China would not care whether Iraq is spending too much on their arms, and European nations may only to the extent that the United States pressures them. Only Washington will urge Iraq to spend less, work with Iraq to spread out its arms purchases over longer stretches of time, and otherwise ensure £ defense spending does not come at the cost of financial stability. UNCHARTED WATERS If, as seems likely, Iraq gets worse before it gets better, there will be an inevitable American tendency to want to forget it altogether. Already, the American people are turning away from it as quickly as they can, as if to put a bad memory behind them. But Iraq is not the modern equivalent of Vietnam, where we could decide that we had made a mistake to ever be involved and simply end our engagement with no real harm to our interests. Until the global economy kicks its dangerous addiction to oil, Iraq will matter a great deal to us and to our trading partners. It is for this reason that the future seems so fretful to Americans who dare to buck the tide and remember our vital national interests in Iraq. Iraq is about to undergo a major transition and there is little to suggest it is ready for it—or at least, ready to handle it well. But that transition will take place now whether we want it to or not. If we are willing to make some investment of time, of energy and even some resources, there is still reason to believe that we can continue to provide some much needed support for Iraq in finding the right path. For that reason, it is worth ending on the topic of resources. Facing record debt, painful unemployment, and the need to address structural problems in our economy, there is no question that the United States must make a major effort to get its own house in £ At a time when the American public—and the long-term welfare of the Nation—cry out for massive cuts in ..' spending it is hard to justify spending on aid to foreign lands, especially lands like Iraq, that have come to be associated with painful memory. However, this would be the worst thing that we could do. No one could suggest spending tens of billions, let alone hundreds of bil- lions, of dollars on Iraq '' more. But a few billions of dollars could have a dra- matic impact on a country ike Iraq (or Egypt, for that matter) and would have no impact at all on America's financial circumstances. Saving a few billion dollars on Iraq is meaningless when the national debt has reached $12 trillion. It is a way that we are often penny wise and pound foolish. Dealing with our fiscal problems is going to mean tackling the core financial prob- lems facing the United States: entitlements, revenues, taxes and welfare. Foreign aid is a few pebbles at the foot of a mountain. Eliminating it will do nothing to sig- nificantly £ the problems, except to create new problems for America over- seas. Then, inevitably, those problems will fester and expand and at some later date they will come to plague. Then, it will require vast expenditures to beat back the problem and we will wish that we had not nickel and dimed the problem back when it was manageable. Such is the case with Iraq. There is still reason to believe that the country can be salvaged, and real reason to believe that American assistance could be crucial to its course. Now is not the time to shave slivers off the deficit heedless of the prob- lems we could be creating for ourselves in the years ahead. Chairman LEVIN. Thank you very much, Dr. Pollack. This is where we are at because of these two votes that inter- vened here. We never know when those votes happen, as I think our witnesses know. What we are going to do to try to make avail- * - I 81 able more information to colleagues—number one, we obviously all have your statements and they will be made part of the record. But more importantly perhaps, since that is already accomplished, we will keep the record open for a reasonable period of time so that the questions which would have been asked of you will be asked of you. Then, if you can accommodate us with the written answers, that would be helpful. With that, we will keep the record open, let us say, for 3 days for questions, and then as promptly as you can after that, if you could provide us answers, we would appreciate it. The testimony was extremely thoughtful and very, very helpful. We will with that—and again, with our thanks—some of you traveled some distance and rearranged your schedules. We are ap- preciative. We will stand adjourned. [Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:] QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR CARL LEVIN TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ 1. Senator LEVIN. Mr. McGurk, the President announced on October 21 that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq as of the end of December 2011, as re- quired under the 2008 Bush-Maliki Security Agreement. You were involved in the negotiation of that 2008 security agreement. You said you helped manage the nego- tiations on whether and how to extend the December 2011 deadline for the with- drawal of U.S. troops. In negotiating the 2008 Bush-Maliki Agreement, did the United States seek to retain U.S. military forces in Iraq after December 2011? Mr. MCGURK. During the 2008 negotiation, I was involved from the beginning of the planning process in early 2007 through the final ratification of the Security and Strategic Framework Agreements (SFA) in November 2008, ultimately serving as a lead negotiator of both accords. The United States initially sought to negotiate a long-term agreement that would retain flexibility for future presidential administra- tions but would not specify the number of # troops in Iraq at any given time. It was later determined at the most senior levels of the U.S. Government that a multi-year security agreement would not £ adequate Iraqi political support or survive a vote in the Iraqi parliament without a discussion of withdrawal timelines. 2. Senator LEVIN. Mr. McGurk, at the time of the negotiations, didn't the Govern- ment of Iraq refuse to agree to permit U.S. military forces in Iraq past the Decem- ber 2011 deadline? Mr. MCGURK. The Security Agreement that was ratified by the Iraqi Council of Representatives on November 27, 2008, stated that all U.S. forces had to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011. There was some debate at the time whether an imple- menting arrangement under the SFA—a permanent accord ratified in parallel with the Security Agreement—might allow for a limited number of U.S. military forces to remain in Iraq beyond the 2011 withdrawal date, primarily for the purposes of training and advising the Iraqi £ Forces. Iraqi and #. legal experts later determined, however, that £r Iraqi law, U.S. troops carrying out a £ train- ing mission could retain adequate legal protections only via a new accord ratified by the Iraqi parliament. 3. Senator LEVIN. Dr. Ollivant, you argued in a recent article against negotiating a residual U.S. force presence in Iraq, saying that abiding by the terms of the 2008 security agreement is critical to the £ States because “leaving Iraq on the terms dictated by its sovereign government will put to bed the very real perception that the United States £f the country to transform it into its 51st state.” Would you agree that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, as promised by the 2008 agreement signed by President Bush, enhances U.S. credibility and influence among Arab nations that America keeps its promises and is not an occupying force? Dr. OLLIVANT. Yes. I absolutely believe that our abiding by the terms of the 2008 sovereign agreement absolutely enhances U.S. credibility and influence in the re- gion. 4. Senator LEVIN. Dr. Pollack, £ wrote that even prior to the President's an- nouncement on the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq, that the Government 82 | * : of Iraq was already “deeply ambivalent, if not downright hostile” to the idea of a U.S. force presence in Iraq past the December deadline. Would you agree that the consent of the Government of Iraq in a formal agreement is a prerequisite for any U.S. military forces to remain in Iraq after December? Dr. POLLACK. Absolutely. Indeed, as I also stated in my testimony, the Bush ad- ministration left the Obama administration a weak hand in Iraq. Part of that weak- ness lay in the fact that the Bush administration handed back sovereignty pre- maturely, at a point when Iraq's political institutions remained weak, and may prove inadequate to preserve a democratic system of government without significant external assistance. However, having foolishly handed back sovereignty pre- maturely, the United States was required to respect it. 5. Senator LEVIN. Dr. Pollack, should we leave troops in Iraq without immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts? Dr. POLLACK. The specific question is a legal issue as much as a political one. American military personnel certainly travel to and spend considerable amounts of time in countries where they are not immune from prosecution by local courts. How- ever, the political realities of Iraq made it seem highly risky to leave American troops in Iraq without such immunities. All that said, I believe that the United States could have handled the entire question of retaining a military presence in Iraq past 2011 better than it did. Although it was still likely that the Iraqis would not have £ to a new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)—thereby making it ssible to keep American troop in Iraq—it was not impossible, and it would have en better for all concerned if we had been able to do so. 6. Senator LEVIN. Dr. Pollack, should President Bush have refused in 2008 to re- move troops by December 2011? Dr. POLLACK. No. Once again, having made so many wrong-headed decisions in- cluding the creation of a weak government £ by problematic elements of Iraqi society and the return of sovereignty to that government, the Bush adminis- tration could not refuse to remove troops in December 2011. But that does not cover the full spectrum of possibilities. The Bush administration could have insisted on returning to the U.S. Security Council for another extension of the U.S. occupation mandate. It also could have handled the negotiations over the Security £ better so that the United States did not make so many concessions which limited our ability to ensure that Iraq's political leaders would abide by the rules of their own political system. IRANIAN INFLUENCE IN IRAQ 7. Senator LEVIN. Dr. Ollivant, you have written that, “Ironically, it is by leaving Iraq that the United States can best let Iraq stand up to its Iranian neighbor.” You added that it is largely because of the U.S. presence that Iran has made inroads in Iraq and that once the perceived U.S. occupation of Iraq ends, Iraqi nationalists like al Sadr are likely to recognize that they do not want Iraq to be an Iranian client state. Is it your view that the U.S. military £ from Iraq will actually reduce the dependence of Arab nationalist groups, including al Sadr, on Iran because these £would no longer need Iran's assistance to resist a perceived U.S. occupation of Iraq: Dr. OLLIVANT. A clarification. I do not believe that the U.S. presence has helped Iran make inroads into Iraq. Iran did that all on their own. However, I do believe that the U.S. presence is the most visible offense to Iraqi nationalists, pushing the Iranian presence down their priority list. I would distinguish between the senior levels of groups and their constituents. I believe the senior Sadrist leaders have no desire to give up Iranian funding, through which they gain power and influence. However, in the absence of a U.S. “occupier,” it will be very difficult for them to justify to their anti-Persian constituents why they are still taking Iranian money. 8. Senator LEVIN. Mr. McGurk, in your view, what impact has the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq had on the ability of Iranian-backed extremist groups to recruit new members? Mr. MCGURK. The U.S. military presence in Iraq was a source of recruitment for Iranian-backed extremist groups in Iraq. These groups, often at Iranian behest, raised the false mantle of occupation to recruit young Iraqis to their cause and carry out attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces. The Iraqi Government believes it can fur- ther demilitarize Iranian-backed militias after U.S. forces withdraw. Iraqi Security 85 the Iraqi constitution, an absolute parliamen majority can remove confidence from a prime minister or call for new elections. Thus far, Iraq has not seen a move- ment coalesce with the strength of an absolute majority (163 seats) to force such a change. Absent such a majority coalition, the next opportunity to constitutionally change the government may be national elections in 2014. It will be vitally impor- tant that the United States work with the Iraqi political leadership and the United Nations to ensure: (1) that those elections happen on time; and (2) that they are free, fair, and meet international standards. Dr. OLLIVANT. The Maliki Government is clearly not as stable as we would like. The most recent national election produced a gridlock that is not conducive to nor- mal politics. However, despite the recent conflict between the various parties in the coalition government, I fully expect politics to muddle through to the next electoral cycle. This is not to say that the interim result will be optimal. 17. Senator LEVIN. Mr. McGurk and Dr. Ollivant, in your assessment, how resil- ient has the democratic process been in Iraq? Mr. MCGURK. Since January 2005, Iraq has held three national elections, two sets of provincial elections, and a national referendum. The democratic process has thus shown great resiliency even in the midst of a sectarian war between 2006 and 2008. A £ democratic process also requires strong and independent institutions—in- cluding an independent parliament and judiciary—and broadly accepted rules for the division and separation of power. It is in the latter category that Iraq continues to face challenges and will require active and continuing U.S. engagement. Dr. OLLIVANT. I believe that, for the region, Iraqi politics have been reasonably resilient. It is easy now to forget the 2009 provincial elections, which may be the only election in the region in which religious parties were disempowered by demo- cratic means in favor of more secular nationalist parties. While the 2010 national elections were not as clearly successful, they have had the virtue of keeping tension and issues in the political process (some assassinations perhaps excepted). We have yet to see any party in Iraq revert to violence or militias. I see no reason to believe that will change in the near future. But we must remember that states with mul- tiple ethno-sectarian groups are hard to govern. 18. Senator LEVIN. Mr. McGurk and Dr. Ollivant, do you believe that the major factions in Iraq remain committed to resolving their differences within the political process rather than through violence? Mr. MCGURK. The parties that are now inside the political process—including the three largest blocs: Iraqiyya, the National Alliance, and the Kurdish Alliance—seem willing to resolve even the most contentious disputes through a constitutional and democratic process. The primary driver of violence in Iraq remains al Qaeda, which sits far outside the political process. Working with the Iraqis to enforce the accepted divisions of authority and power-sharing formulas as defined in the Iraqi Constitu- tion and the Irbil Agreements of 2010 can help ensure that this consensus towards political solutions remains intact. Dr. OLLIVANT. Yes. U.S. TROOP IMMUNITY 19. Senator LEVIN. Mr. McGurk, U.S. and Iraqi negotiations on a possible residual U.S. force presence in Iraq after December of this year stalled over Iraq's unwilling- ness to grant U.S. troops immunity from Iraqi courts. When the United States and Iraq negotiated the 2008 Security Agreement, was it the U.S. position that U.S. troops receiving legal immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts was an absolute re- quirement without which there could £ no agreement? Mr. MCGURK. Article 12 of the Security Agreement (Jurisdiction) was painstak- ingly negotiated over the course of a year. U.S. troops would not have remained in Iraq without a provision on jurisdiction approved £ the Department of Defense (DOD). Article 12 was approved by DOD, but it expires on December 31, 2011, to- gether with the expiry of the Security Agreement. QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR CLAIRE MCCASKILL LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ 20. Senator MCCASKILL. Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey, on November 17, 2008, the administration of President George W. Bush signed an agreement with the Government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that provided for the con- 87 ment with the United States providing legal protections to U.S. servicemembers similar to those found in the 2008 U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement, which did receive CoR approval. This approval is required for such an agreement to be binding under international law. General DEMPSEY. Iraq's President Talabani convened a meeting of political bloc leaders on October 4, 2011. After the meeting, bloc leaders declared that any troops remaining after December 31, 2011, should not be granted immunity from Iraqi law. Without political bloc leader support, it is unlikely that members of Iraq's CoR would have voted to approve a new security agreement with the United States pro- viding similar legal protections to U.S. servicemembers as the 2008 U.S.-Iraq Secu- rity Agreement. CoR approval is required for a new security agreement to be bind- ing under international law. 22. Senator MCCASKILL. Secretary Panetta, can you discuss what efforts the ad- ministration took to secure legal immunity for U.S. forces, if a decision to extend some forces in Iraq had been achieved? Secretary PANETTA. The appropriate number of forces after 2011 always depended both on the mutually-agreed mission set and adequate legal protections. This was never something that could decide unilaterally—it was always going to be the prod- uct of ongoing discussions with the Iraqi Government. Throughout these discussions, DOD remained committed to its obligation to draw down remaining forces under the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement. DOD consistently stated that it was open to leaving additional training forces, but only at the request of the Iraqis and with adequate protections. Iraq's President Talabani convened a meeting of political bloc leaders on October 4, 2011. After the meeting, bloc leaders declared that any U.S. forces remaining after December 31, 2011, should not be granted immunity from Iraqi law. In the end, our governments agreed to a robust military-to-military relationship in keeping with those the United States enjoys with other countries, where inter- actions depend less on footprint and more on frequent engagement. The OSC-I will be the cornerstone of America's military-to-military relationship with Iraq. Because the OSC-I is part of the embassy staff, just as security cooperation offices are else- where around the globe, DOD personnel will have legal protections under normal diplomatic status (the Vienna Convention). 23. Senator MCCASKILL. Secretary Panetta, what obstacles did the administration face in attempting to secure such immunity? Secretary PANETTA. Iraq's President Talabani convened a meeting of political bloc leaders on October 4, 2011. After the meeting, bloc leaders declared that any U.S. forces remaining after December 31, 2011, £ not be granted immunity from Iraqi law. Without political bloc leader support, it is unlikely that members of Iraq's CoR would have voted to approve a new security agreement with the United States providing legal protections to U.S. servicemembers similar to those found in the 2008 U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement, which did receive CoR approval. This approval is required for such an agreement to be binding under international law. 24. Senator MCCASKILL Secretary Panetta, do you believe that anything could have been done differently that would have £din a different outcome? Secretary PANETTA. Discussions with the Iraqis were about trying to figure out what the military-to-military relationship with Iraq was going to look like moving forward, and a big part of that was always going to be Iraq's decision not only about what sort of help it believed it needed, but also what it would accept. The question of the legal status of remaining forces was part of this discussion, because DOD re- quires appropriate legal protections for its personnel wherever they are deployed. The £ outcome of the discussions ensures a continuing security relation- ship with Iraq and adequate protections for DOD personnel. Iraqi leaders have made clear that they desire a continuing training relationship with the United States, and DOD '' deliver that training through the OSC–I. Because the OSC– I is part of the U.S. embassy staff, just as security cooperation offices are elsewhere around the globe, defense £! will be accredited under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. IRANIAN INFLUENCE IN IRAQ 25. Senator MCCASKILL. Secretary Panetta, many are concerned that Iraq will be vulnerable to Iranian influence once U.S. forces depart Iraq. What is being done to sustain a check on the dangerous Iranian regime? 88 Secretary PANETTA. The Iraqi Government made clear that it desires a strong re- lationship with the United States under the SFA, including robust security coopera- tion. That represents a victory for the U.S.-Iraq partnership, not Iran's government. In general, my sense is that Iraqi nationalism remains a powerful influence among Iraq's various political factions, including the Shia. e United States' commitment to the future of the region is enduring. That in- volves a military footprint in the Persian Gulf that can help protect our interests, while also ensuring the stability of our partners and the region. 26. Senator MCCASKILL. Secretary Panetta, where will U.S. forces be in the region once they are no longer in Iraq and how will their presence serve to check Iranian activities? Secre PANETTA. The United States' commitment to the future of the region is enduring. That involves a military footprint in the Persian Gulf that can help pro- tect our interests, while also ensuring the stability of our partners and the region. America's long-term security partnership with Iraq is part of a broader commit- ment by the United States to peace and security £ the region. Our mes- sage to our allies, friends, and potential adversaries is very clear: there are more than 40,000 U.S. forces that remain in the Gulf region. DOD will continue to reas- sure partners, deter aggressors, and counter those seeking to create instability. QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR JOHN CORNYN IRANIAN INFLUENCE IN IRAQ 27. Senator CORNYN. General Dempsey, this summer, the top U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad (Major General Jeffery Buchanan) stated that “We're seeing a sharp increase in the amount of munitions coming across the border, some manu- factured as recently as 2010,” and “These are highly lethal weapons, and their sheer volume is a major concern.” What is your current assessment of the volume of muni- tions flowing from Iran into Iraq’ General DEMPSEY. From May-July 2011, there was an increase in attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq. These attacks were largely attributed to Iranian-backed Shia militant and extremist groups. Intelligence indicated that some of the munitions used by the Shia groups flowed from Iran. Since July, Iraqi Security Forces in- creased their operational focus on interdicting the flow of munitions within Iraq and preventing attacks by Shia groups. Combined with the Government of Iraq's polit- ical efforts, the frequency £ of these attacks has diminished si £ Consequently, the security situation in Iraq continues to be much better than histor- ical trends. The Iraqi Security Forces have the capacity to counter potential in- creases in security incidents and interdict the flow of munitions. 28. Senator CORNYN. General Dempsey, in June, 14 U.S. servicemembers were killed in Iraq, making it the deadliest month in Iraq for U.S. troops since 2008. Ac- cording to senior U.S. commanders, Iranian-backed militias (Kataib Hezbollah, the Promise Day Brigade and Asaib al # were behind 12 of those deaths. U.S. offi- cials also believe that the explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), rockets, and im- rovised rocket-assisted mortars (IRAMs) used in those attacks all originated in ran. It is my understanding that although the number of daily attacks is a fraction of what it was in years past, the amount of weaponry used in each attack is on the rise. One report indicated that in one attack, as many as 14 EFPs were used against U.S. forces. Can you comment on the assessment that the amount of munitions used in each attack is on the rise? General DEMPSEY. June 2011 represented a surge in the peak period of attacks by Iranian-backed militants and terrorists against U.S. forces in Iraq. Intelligence indicated that the munitions used in these attacks may have originated in Iran. The perceived increase in volume of munitions used in each attack is largely attributable to the concurrent drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq. As U.S. bases closed, Iranian- backed Shia groups were able to concentrate their attempted attacks to a few loca- tions. This resulted in a corresponding increase in the amount of munitions used in each attack which temporarily helped the groups ' their technical inexpe- rience and the relative inaccuracy £e munitions employed. In tandem with the Government of '' political efforts, the Iraqi Security Forces reacted quickly and effectively stemmed the flow of weapons and concentrations of attacks against U.S. bases. Since July, the level of attacks returned to significantly lower levels than his- toric trends and the security situation remains stable as the United States com- pletes the withdrawal.