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. RICK LARSEN (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Walker, thanks for --

MR. WALKER: There you are.

REP. LARSEN: Sorry about that. Over here.

Thanks for coming and helping us out. And I want to -- I said it deliberately because I think you are helping us out. I don't think that -- well, if your report -- the GAO's report is potentially undermining General Petraeus' report Monday, then so -- what -- so did the unclassified version of the NIE that came out a few weeks ago and so is General Jones' report tomorrow that is calling for the total disbandment of the National Iraqi Police, and so will probably the outside perspectives that we're going to get from defense experts and so on. You would be in good company, in other words, if your report was in fact undermining General Petraeus. But I think -- what -- we're missing the boat here is that your report, along with all of these other reports, aren't there to undermine anybody or to support anybody.

MR. WALKER: That's right.

REP. LARSEN: These reports are there to help us understand the situation as fully as possible short of all of us spending a year-plus in Iraq side by side with the privates and corporals and the sergeants in our own military. So don't walk away from here -- at least from my perspective -- thinking that your report is undermining anyone or anything on this. This is one piece of information for us to consider as we're trying to make some very hard and very difficult decisions about Iraq. And I'm certainly with my colleague Susan Davis and my colleague Ellen Tauscher and many others in their remarks about sort of us focusing so much on the surge -- focusing so much on street corners in Iraq that we're ignoring what going on in the region.

And what is our strategic vision in the region? What is Iraq getting us in the end for U.S. national security interests in the region? And we need to be beginning that transition of thinking because right now, Iraq is sort of the -- is the tail wagging the foreign policy dog for us when it ought to be in reverse. We need to be placing Iraq in some context in the -- in that region for us. Now having said that, you've mentioned al-Anbar several times in response to questions about -- is it -- is the success there -- which I think there is some relative success there -- is it transferable, is it sustainable? You've asked those questions, but I want to ask you -- do you have an opinion on that? Do you think it's transferable, do you think it's sustainable and if not, do you have questions that we should consider? It seems to be General Petraeus may in fact discuss this with us next Monday, if not Ambassador Crocker. And how should we formulate -- or what questions should we formulate about the al- Anbar experience and how it might be transferable to a much larger city -- Baghdad -- with a much more complex set of sectarian issues? Do you have opinions on that?

MR. WALKER: Based upon non-classified information, first I think it's important to note that there was a disproportionate amount of foreign fighter activity in Al Anbar province -- al Qaeda, as well -- al Qaeda in Iraq as well as foreign fighter activity.

What has changed -- what changed dramatically was the tribal leaders and others decided that al Qaeda had gone too far -- allegedly --

REP. LARSEN: Right.

MR. WALKER: -- and therefore they are trying to fight al Qaeda.

Now, one has to understand that, and one would argue -- and I've heard broad-based screaming here -- that we ought to be doing whatever we can to eliminate al Qaeda. All right? So that's relevant, and we have to determine how we can transfer that.

Secondly, Al Anbar is about 15 percent, I understand, of the total Iraqi population. It's not part of Baghdad. it's predominantly a Sunni community. So when you talk about sectarian violence like, you know, Sunni versus Shi'a or whatever, that's not really that relevant there, okay? Now, not to say that there aren't differences within the Sunni community or the Shi'a community -- there are. All right? But that is another example of where the al Qaeda experience might be able to be transferable but the sectarian experience may be different than what we're experiencing elsewhere, including in Baghdad, because of the demographic makeup of that province.

Those would be a couple of examples.

REP. LARSEN: So it seems that those would be some questions to explore.

MR. WALKER: Right. And by the way, I would agree with your characterization: I think you ought to seriously consider what Admiral Crocker and General Petraeus say. And you ought to consider ours along with theirs and General Jones's and you ought to triangulate.

REP. LARSEN: Thank you.

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