Senate Armed Services Committee Holds a Hearing on U.S. Military Commitments Worldwide

REED:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Myers, it's your opinion, as a uniformed military officer, in consultation with your commanders, that there's no military requirement for additional troops in Iraq?

MYERS:
Senator Reed, that's correct. And it is in consultation. I mean, I rely on General Abizaid and he relies on General Sanchez and he relies on his division commanders on the ground and their subordinates as they try to come up with the troops they need.

REED:
So the request for international troops is to achieve a very important and laudable political objective exclusively.

MYERS:
I wouldn't say exclusively. They're going to be doing real work, and I don't think we want to denigrate the work that they're going to do at all.

REED:
No, General, I think, if I may -- we get into this, sort of, minuet about, "Well, it's not, it's not just political, they'll do real work."

If that real work has to be done, then that implies to me that there's a requirement for troops to do that work. Now, whether they're international troops or U.S. troops, there's still that requirement.

Now, you've just said there's no requirement; that if we don't get these international troops, then it'll be OK militarily. Politically...

MYERS:
Maybe I misunderstood your question. The troops I thought we were talking about in the first part of that was U.S. troops.

REED:
I said troops, OK.

MYERS:
Then I answered incorrectly.

We are looking for a third multinational division, for the reasons that we've already discussed here at length, and I won't go into those, but to include sharing the burden of the effort in Iraq. And it will help us, in the long term.

REED:
Let me be clear, General, because we've talked around this issue. Your view is there is a military requirement for additional troops. Your hope is that they're international troops, but there is requirement for additional troops.

MYERS:
That's not correct.

The number of troops that we've had -- that we will keep in Iraq is going to stay at approximately about the same level. Today we have around 152,000. If we get a third multinational division -- I mean, this will go up and down. It goes up and down with deployments and so forth. It went up a little bit over the forecast when General Maddox (ph) and folks decided to leave a couple of Marine battalions in there.

But generally speaking, the number of troops is going to stay about level. The composition of the troops will change.

REED:
So that if we don't get international troops, we will still maintain roughly 130,000-plus American forces in...

MYERS:
If the situation in that time frame, when those international troops would come in, if the situation demands it, and -- yes, is the answer.

REED:
Well, I read, as we all do, that we have inadequately guarded ammo dumps. I receive messages from our Rhode Island National Guardsmen about what they perceive as inadequate air cover over their convoys. And we had casualties in a convoy about two weeks ago. You hear about oil pipelines being blown up today. Which would suggest to me that additional forces in country could be used effectively.

MYERS:
And I agree with that point, and some of those forces -- it's a matter of priority for General Sanchez and his folks where he puts his protective forces, the air cover and so forth.

It's also true on infrastructure protection that that is ideally suited for Iraqis themselves. I mean, who better to protect their pipelines and their power lines than the Iraqis themselves? And that...

REED:
That's -- I agree in principle, but it seems that today there was just another -- or yesterday, reported another major pipeline in the north blown up by, presumably, guarded or not guarded by Iraqis or someone else.
Let me ask another question, which is, if we assume that the level of forces is, in your view, adequate, the composition of forces today, is it appropriate to this mission? We have combat brigades in there, very few MP brigades.

MYERS:
That is something that the United States Army is looking very closely at, and I think as you look at the force rotation that has been planned, after next, for instance as the 1st Cavalry Division goes in, one of the things, I think you know, you'll see with it is enhanced separate brigade from the Army National Guard.
And the reason is to give them more infantry, because they don't want to be based in their M1 tanks, because that's not the mission at this point. What they want to have are a lot of infantry that can go out and do the kind of missions that they need to do.
So, the Army's looking very hard at that and trying to structure their divisions. MPs are always going to be in big need.

REED:
Well, General Myers, at the end of the year that you've extended the National Guard troops -- and I have two MP companies and MP headquarters battalion in there -- when they come back to Rhode Island, where are you going to get MPs to replace them?
They're not in the active force structure. And they've already been used in the National Guard (inaudible).

MYERS:
Right, I'm very well aware of that issue because we've had -- at Fort Myer we've had, from time to time, reserve component military police, normally National Guard, that do that mission.

WOLFOWITZ:
I talk about their deployment schedules and so forth. That is one of those areas when we talk about reserve-active mix, it's not just the mix. It's do we have enough of things like military police, civil affairs in our armed forces to carry on the missions we think we might have in the future. And I think for some of those career fields, we probably will come to the conclusion we don't.

REED:
Mr. Secretary, my recollection is hostilities began -- active offensive operations -- on or about March 19th. Is that correct in your recollection?

WOLFOWITZ:
My recollection is March 20th.

REED:
March 20th. Those passports you indicated, the first date was March 24th.

WOLFOWITZ:
Right.

REED:
Do you have any evidence of significant terrorist presence in Baghdad before those dates, since the secretary maintained he had bullet-proof evidence of the terrorist link in Baghdad prior to initiation of hostilities?

WOLFOWITZ:
Well, yes, we do. I mean there are some things that are publicly known from before. They are things that Director Tenet described in his unclassified letter to this committee back in October, I believe. There is the well-known fact that for some 10 years the one bomber from the 1993 World Trade Center that was still at large was harbored in Iraq. There is the evidence that Secretary Powell discussed...

REED:
These are Al Qaida elements or...

WOLFOWITZ:
Well, you know, who did the 1993 World Trade Center bombing is a -- using intelligence community's word -- a murky question, but it was masterminded by the nephew of the same man who masterminded 9/11, and we went after the same target.

REED:
But you had -- subsequent to our operations in Iraq, you have no further evidence other than that was revealed?

WOLFOWITZ:
If you let me finish.

Secretary Powell talked in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council at some length about a senior Al Qaida, or some people say he's not quite Al Qaida, he's affiliated -- he's clearly in the same world -- named Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has connections both to the poison lab that was operating in northern Iraq and to some plots that were broken up in London and Paris and in Italy.

I'm not familiar with everything we've learned since we got to Baghdad, but I can say this, that what we have learned only deepens the conclusions that were there on an unclassified basis before.

REED:
So you would disagree with the opinion...

WOLFOWITZ:
And in fact -- one last thing, if I might: The group that Zarqawi is associated with, Ansar al-Islam, was established in Iraq in 2001. And it is, I think, in the judgment of the military and the intelligence people, the single most serious terrorist threat we face today.

REED:
And they were aided and abetted by the Saddam Hussein regime?

WOLFOWITZ:
You know, these people went to very great lengths to bury and hide the links that they had with one another. So you have to recognize, we'll probably see only the tip of the iceberg, but we certainly see links.

REED:
So you would disagree with the statement by Vincent Cannistraro, the former director of counterterrorism operations and analysis, the CIA today, who said, "There was no substantive intelligence information linking Saddam to international terrorism before the war. Now we've created the conditions that have made Iraq the place to come to attack Americans."

WOLFOWITZ:
I think Director Tenet's statement last year disagrees with it. I think Secretary Powell's statement to the U.N. disagree with it. I think the Palestinian terrorists that we've captured in Iraq disagree with it. I think the money that Saddam offered for Palestinian homicide bombers disagree with it. I don't know the statement you're quoting, but it doesn't stand with what I've been told from the intelligence world.

REED:
Mr. Chairman, if I may for a moment, my colleagues had an opportunity to opine, and I'd like to do it too.

This was a war of choice, and we'll debate the wisdom of that choice for generations. But I think it's obvious now that the choice we've made is more expensive than we thought, more time consuming, more dangerous and more difficult. And I think also that we've put ourselves in the position where we have everything to lose and, becoming increasing apparent, very little to gain.

Certainly, this operation has not transformed the Middle East peace process. It hasn't allowed us to effectively suppress and lethally preempt bin Laden and Al Qaida. And I think despite -- General Myers, who I respect immensely -- the notion that these apocalyptic terrorists are going to give up their jihad, whether we prevail in Iraq is, I think, naive.

And I think we've made a questionable strategic choice. We have everything to lose, and I certainly will support all efforts to win; we have no choice. But I think we've put ourselves in a position where we've made a choice where everything is to lose and very little to gain.