Hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs - Iraqi Benchmarks: An Objective Assessment

Statement

HEARING OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
SUBJECT: IRAQI BENCHMARKS: AN OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT
CHAIRED BY: REP. TOM LANTOS (D-CA)
WITNESS: DAVID WALKER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

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REP. MICHAEL T. MCCAUL (R-TX): I thank the chairman.

And Mr. Walker, thank you for being here today. I also want to say at the beginning that I agree with you that this is ultimately -- this struggle is up to the Iraqi people at the end of the day.

I want to -- I'm all for benchmarks and accountability, but there is a little bit of -- it's subjective on a lot of counts.

I'm looking at a lot of shades of half-circles and full ones and squares; partially met, satisfactory, mixed, sufficient progress. There are a lot of shades of gray in between all this. Wouldn't you agree that it's a subjective process?

MR. WALKER: Well, what we did do, Mr. McCaul, is we were originally asked to do met, not met, and we used our independent professional judgment to say -- in some cases we used partially met. And by the way, when we said not met, that doesn't mean no progress, because we weren't asked to assess progress although we did try to provide some context on that, you know, in the narrative that we have in the report and the commentary section.

REP. MCCAUL: That's a good point. So in some of the categories where it was not met, there could be some progress.

MR. WALKER: Oh, yes. We're not saying there's no progress; in some cases there's little, in some cases there's a modest amount but not enough to say partially met, and in some cases there's some of the questions that don't even lend themselves to partially met.

Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces, units capable of operating independently -- you either increase it or you don't increase it, okay?

REP. MCCAUL: I'm going to be limited in my time; I just wanted to hit a few key points.

MR. WALKER: Yeah, sure.

REP. MCCAUL: I mean, these are legitimate questions I just want to know the answer to and that is number 13 -- and I think this is where you seem to break from the administration in terms of your finding -- reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security.

Yeah, we are hearing -- and I want to know objectively what your view is on this -- we have heard a lot of reports of Baghdad as more secure, the Anbar province is more secure, that al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities -- it will no longer attack the U.S. and coalition troops. We're hearing that local involvement with the sheikhs is much more significant than it was even six months ago and that the Shi'a, Sunni and Kurdish political leaders have signed a statement aimed at fostering reconciliation among the ethnic and religious factions.

Did your findings in any way take into account what we're getting reports on in reduction of violence?

MR. WALKER: Well, first, there's a difference between overall violence and the lethality of those attacks and whether or not those attacks are sectarian or nonsectarian in nature. On number 13, which was your specific question, we don't have a disagreement with the administration on eliminating militia control of the local security. We both agree it has not been eliminated.

Where we do have a difference of opinion with the military is General Petraeus -- and I'm sure he'll articulate it next week -- does have a methodology that he uses to calculate sectarian violence. We haven't got comfortable with this methodology.

His methodology does show a reduction in sectarian violence, but we have not gotten comfortable with this methodology. We're not saying that his numbers don't show that, we're just saying we're not comfortable with the methodology and we think it's also something that Congress needs to think about is, is it more important to focus on sectarian violence or total violence? And how do you know if it's sectarian or not?

REP. MCCAUL: Maybe you can educate -- what is it that you questioned about General Petraeus's methodology?

MR. WALKER: His ability to determine with certainty that violence relates to sectarian interests versus nonsectarian interest, for example. And I would commend to you, Mr. McCaul, our classified briefing document. We have more information in that with regard to our concerns and other information that I would commend to you that might be helpful.

REP. MCCAUL: But you agree that the level of violence has gone down. The question that you have is whether it's non versus sectarian violence.

MR. WALKER: Well, the question is, as of what point in time? Violence in July went down. We've yet to hear the formal reporting for August. Violence from May to July -- pardon me, from February to July went up such that violence at the end of July was about the same as February.

My understanding is it's gone down further in August, but then again Ramadan starts this month. You know, two months does not make a sustainable trend, even for a recession. For example, for recession you have to have a quarter -- you know, you have to have more than one quarter of consecutive negative growth.

So I think, you know, it's important to see what the trend is, but it's also important to have enough time to get a sense that it truly is a trend and it's --

REP. MCCAUL: But wouldn't you agree that since the time that the surge has been fully operational since the summer --

MR. WALKER: June.

REP. MCCAUL: Right.

MR. WALKER: June.

REP. MCCAUL: That there's a direct correlation there between the time that the surge was in full force and effect --

MR. WALKER: I don't debate that.

REP. MCCAUL: -- and reduction in the level of violence?

MR. WALKER: I don't debate that.

REP. MCCAUL: Okay. I appreciate the chairman's indulgence.

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