Joint Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee and Hose Foreign Affairs Committee. The September Report: What's Next for Iraq?

JOINT HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE AND HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: THE SEPTEMBER REPORT: WHAT'S NEXT FOR IRAQ?

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REP. JOE WILSON (R-SC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And General Keane, I share your concern about losing in Iraq. To me, it's crucial for the American families that we are successful. I take very seriously that Osama bin Laden has identified the Tigris and Euphrates Baghdad as World War III. I take very seriously Zawahiri declaring that Iraq and Afghanistan are the central front in the global war on terrorism. And I believe that your concerns and mine are indeed shared by The Washington Post, a newspaper identified with the Democratic Party. But they have editorialized that we must be successful or there would be a catastrophic loss of life in Iraq, that there would be the creation of safe havens that you've identified where al Qaeda, its allies, could conduct operations against America, against our allies. And finally, they pointed out in their editorial that there would be the potential for a regional conflict, again, of catastrophic consequences to the people of the United States.

And so from the beginning, I have been -- in my seven visits to Iraq, been trying to monitor the training of the Iraqi security forces. And you've identified today the successes with the army. I am concerned, obviously, with your estimation, with the leaks of other reports about the police, but it -- it's always been my hope that the training of the security forces of Iraq -- that is, the exit strategy -- can you review again -- and I particularly appreciated your comments about the Iraqis being in the lead in various parts of the country -- but if you could be specific about that. Indeed, I had a son serve in southern Iraq. He went on convoys cross-country. But he's proud of his service. I'm proud of it and I'm proud of our military.

GEN. KEANE: Thank you. Going back to the comment that you made about the overall strategy in Iraq and its criticality and not losing, regardless of, I think, what our views are as to whether we should have gone to war in Iraq and what the reasons were at the time, we're very much past all of that. But from the enemy's perspective, the fact that we are in Iraq and attempting to establish a fledgling democracy that has some representation of its people, that reality is a dagger to the heart of radical Islam and the al Qaeda, being one of those instruments. Why is that? Because it is capitalism and democracy that they fear the most. Those big ideas are the ideas that can defeat them, and they know that. And that is why they have declared this being priority one in Iraq, because of what the threat is to their big idea and their ideology and the caliphate that they want to establish in the region. To plant that flag of a representative democracy right there in an Arab nation is a huge threat to them, and so they're coming after this with everything they can. The good news is we've made some real progress against these guys, and they -- they've lost their major sanctuaries and are on the defensive and they're on the run. So that's the good news.

The other thing is in reference to the Iraqis' performance; again, we have pulled out our forces, by and large, out of Mosul, which was a major area. There's still some al Qaeda presence in that area and there's been some other Sunni insurgent activity in that area as well. And the Iraqis are in the lead in that entire region in that area, and we are in a support role. They run the operations day in and day out. The British in the south are turning over to the 10th Iraqi Division operations in the south. They have trained them; they have prepared them for it and they believe they're ready to deal with it. The British, as you know, are pulling back to the airport. There are problems in the south, nonetheless, and some of those problems are serious because the Shi'a gangs are fighting one another. But it still is an example of the Iraqis taking over. And they have to be reinforced because that 10th Division cannot handle it, particularly with the Brits pulling back the way -- the way they are.

I do foresee it happening in Anbar province here in the near future, probably pretty soon, where we'll pull back and the Iraqis will be given much more responsibility and probably be in the lead. There are places right now in the central region where we're most concerned about, in Baghdad and in the suburbs around Baghdad. I don't want to say it publicly because of the classification nature of it, but there -- there are units there that we could transition to right now because of their capabilities. We're not doing that because we want to cement the gains that we already have. We sense that the Iraqis could take some of this over, but the commanders want to wait a little bit longer, err on the side of caution here, and make certain that they see it right, that they're going to be able to do it. But you'll see that happening in the central region as well, in certain neighborhoods in Baghdad and in -- and in the suburbs around it. So we're already into transitioning to Iraqis taking the lead. It is happening before our eyes.

REP. LANTOS: General Batiste, do you have any comment?

GEN. BATISTE: Yes, thank you. A previous answer to the question in the last round was it's going to take too long, based on the current strategy and the means that we have to achieve what we're after. And it is all about the strategy.

Yes, the Iraqi army is getting much better, no question about it. But as I said before, they're -- they're largely dependent upon the U.S. force for communications, for logistics, for fire support, all of the means that are required to fight the insurgent on a level playing field. On top of that, most of these Iraqi formations do not have the heavy equipment, the heavy weapons, the tools that they need to replace us. That's a long ways off, based on where we are right now.

And I would also say that Americans don't read history, and there is a lot of it that -- the library is replete with history in this region. Tactical gains today evaporate tomorrow. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Beware that we don't draw the wrong conclusions; rather, let's focus on our national strategy that we need now to be successful in the global war against Islamic extremism. It goes well beyond the confines of Iraq and Afghanistan. We're not organized to accomplish that, and we sure haven't mobilized our nation to get behind it. What I hear from many of my former comrades, we're at war but the country's not with us.

REP. LANTOS: Secretary Perry, do you have any comment?

MR. PERRY: No -- (off mike).

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