Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee Subject: GAO's Iraqi Government Assessment

Statement

HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: GAO'S IRAQI GOVERNMENT ASSESSMENT
CHAIRED BY: REP. IKE SKELTON (D-MO)
WITNESS: DAVID WALKER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

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REP. SKELTON: Mr. Turner.

REP. MICHAEL TURNER (R-OH): Thank you.

Mr. Walker, I too want to echo what others have said about GAO and interpretation and the great work that you do. So many times in all of our committees it's been important to get an assessment that tells us what an agency is doing, what a policy is doing, or what the consequences are of action or inaction. So I want to commend you and the work that certainly everyone in your agency does.

The -- you have emphasized several times the issue of independent and professional. And maybe a little too much to my opinion your emphasis of independence, because you -- you know, everyone comes with their own biases, their own funding and resources that they have to respond to and the like.

But nonetheless the -- your statement of independent and professional, and I want to ask you this question because of what we're going to be doing next, in looking at your assessment, I don't think overall there is a whole lot of disagreement on this committee about your -- the conclusions that you've reached. But you are preceding General Petraeus and the Ambassador when they come in and tell us what their -- their views are.

And with your emphasis of independent and professional, I know that you don't mean to diminish what they have to say for us. General Petraeus has said that he would -- that he will be honest and straightforward. He will tell us if our policies are not working, if we need to be doing something different, or if we're making progress.

I know the people on this committee have a great deal of respect for General Petraeus. So perhaps you could give us what -- some guidance as to how you see us proceeding. We have your independent professional report, which I don't think you've heard too many people take specific items that they had significant difference of opinions as to what you've said factually.

How would you recommend that we review and critically undertake an analysis of what General Petraeus and the ambassador will say to us?

MR. WALKER: Well, first, I have tremendous respect for General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. I have no doubt in my mind that they are extremely capable professionals; that you ought to seriously consider whatever they have to say.

I think they will give you their views. My view is, when you're dealing with independence, there's two issues on independence. There's individual independence, and there's institutional independence.

From an individual standpoint they may be giving you their independent views, but they are not institutionally independent from the executive branch, all right, that's a fact. All right?

Secondly, they clearly are in a better position to attempt certain things than we may be because they're on the ground. On the other hand you know I think it's important for you to be able to consider what they have to say, what General Jones and his group have to say, what we have to say. Then you need to try to triangulate that, you need to triangulate that information and try to be able to, you know, assess what you're comfortable with.

I come back to what I said before. I think we need to figure out where we are and where we go from here irrespective of what they have to say.

REP. TURNER: Right. I absolutely agree with you on that. But to focus on they're not institutionally independent almost sounds as if it's diminishing the professionalism and what they're going to say. And I know you don't mean that.

MR. WALKER: Not at all. I think they're extremely capable professionals, and I think you ought to seriously consider whatever they have to say.

REP. TURNER: Excellent. I appreciate that.

MR. WALKER: That's all I'm saying.

REP. TURNER: On the issue of benchmarks, you've said that if you had a blank piece of paper that you would start with other benchmarks. Can you give us some examples of things that when you were going through this analysis that you thought these really ought to be here. I wish they had been. There's information that I provide on it.

MR. WALKER: I'll give you a couple of examples. One, you know, with regard to the overall strategic interests of what are we trying to accomplish in the region, you know, that's not in here, okay.

Secondly, with regard to whether or not what's being done is changing the daily lives of Iraqis, you know, which obviously could help. That's really not in here, okay.

There is no attempt to really weight these. Some are more important than others with regard to us being able to withdraw troops. I mean some are more critical than others with us being able to do that.

So those would be several examples. We did what we were asked to do. But we're willing to work with the Congress to try to continuously improve this if you're so desirous.

REP. TURNER: Thank you, Mr. Walker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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