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. COURTNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's been sort of a suggestion here that maybe there was a overstatement of some of the negatives and under representation of the positives. But I actually -- when Congressman Spratt and I were over on our trip to Iraq we visited a joint security station and accidentally just sort of stumbled on in the course of a conversation with the colonel who was doing a fabulous job with the policing aspect -- stumbled onto the fact that only two hours of electricity was being supplied to this Sunni neighborhood. And the colonel who, again, was briefing us on the military side just launched into a tirade about the fact that Shi'a neighborhoods were getting lots more hours of electricity, which at the time seemed kind of hard to imagine how that could possibly occur.

But then there was the story that just came out about a week ago or so where the Iraq Electricity Minister Karim Wahid basically said that switching stations now are under the control of militias and who are literally forcing the people operating it to supply different levels of power to different sectarian neighborhoods in Baghdad.

Now, Benchmark 13 on sectarian violence and militia control, again, only use sort of the top line numbers of people being murdered as a measuring stick of the militia control but in fact there are many other ways where it's affecting people's daily lives -- where the militia control is really having a negative impact and, again, that's not even part of the scope of your report because you weren't asked to go into that. But I -- just curious whether that whole situation which, again, was sort of revealed a week or so ago was something that GAO looked at.

MR. WALKER: Well, we do do work with regard to electricity, water, oil production, a variety of other issues, and as I said I think it's appropriate to consider what are the trends there to the effect that it affects the daily lives of Iraqis. And I think you're raising another good point. Don't just look at the totals -- look at the distribution. Is there an equitable distribution? Because that's another, you know, another angle where sectarian differences can result in, you know, material variances.

REP. COURTNEY: And it's also a measuring stick of really the central government's ability to control people's --

MR. WALKER: The market test.

REP. COURTNEY: Right. And obviously they can't control it because it's -- they're in the hands of the militias when the utilities are being -- basically decisions are being made at gunpoint by the militias that are in control. The other question was just on the $10 billion that was allocated -- appropriated by the Iraqi government and according to your report either dribs and drabs at best are being spent, but maybe you just sort of (sic) embellish on that a little bit because it's --

MR. WALKER: Well, they've allocated the money but there's a real question as to whether or not it's actually going to be spent for a variety of reasons. There have been circumstances in the past where the Iraqi government has allocated moneys and where they haven't been spent. And, you know -- and so merely because you've allocated it doesn't mean you're going to spend it, and if you do spend it towards what -- who's going to benefit from it -- what outcome are you going to achieve from it. So those are some of the issues we were addressing there.

REP. COURTNEY: And is the roadblock within the ministries? Is that --

MR. WALKER: Well, first they have a huge human capital crisis -- a huge human capital crisis. They had a brain flight out of Iraq and therefore the capacity to be able to get things done is a real problem. Secondly, they have really antiquated, you know, systems -- information systems. They have totally inadequate control, so it's really a combination. They didn't have the right type of, you know, contracting capability just to be able to get things done. People are concerned that they're going to get prosecuted if they don't do it by the rules, so there's lots of factors that have led to a gap between merely allocating the money and actually getting things done.

REP. COURTNEY: Well, it certainly seems like an issue for us next week to be talking to maybe Ambassador Crocker about it in terms of why --

MR. WALKER: Absolutely.

REP. COURTNEY: -- the State Department is not giving the support in terms of political support to help design effective bureaucracy.

MR. WALKER: Well, that comes back to the capacity-building thing. The international community can and should be doing more with regard to capacity-building, in my view.

REP. COURTNEY: Thank you, Mr. Walker.

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