Joint Hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees Subject: The Status of the War and Political Developments in Iraq

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JOINT HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES
SUBJECT: THE STATUS OF THE WAR AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ

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REP. CHRISTOPHER SMITH (R-NJ): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I too want to add my accolades to the two distinguished witnesses, and thank you for your extraordinary service.

I would like to ask two brief questions. First of all, and really piggybacking on Mr. Saxton, genocide and crimes against humanity over the last century and the beginning of this one had been unprecedented in human history. In recent years, Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan, and Iraq itself with its genocide against the Kurds among others have witnessed massive numbers of ethnically based murders, rape and cruelty. And I know in your testimony, General Petraeus, you said it would have devastating impact and consequences if we left prematurely, and you said, Ambassador Crocker, massive human suffering.

I don't think that fact is fully appreciated by many of us in the Congress as to what would happen. Are we talking about a potential genocide if we leave prematurely?

Secondly, I noted that General Batiste last week said -- and I ask this to you, Ambassador Crocker -- that the government of Iraq is incapable of stepping up to its responsibilities.

I questioned that while he was here, pointing out that they are, like any other government, struggling with a number of issues before them. We don't meet our own deadlines here in the Congress, and we're obviously a mature democracy.

Finally, on the benchmarks themselves, Ambassador Crocker, you talked about tactical flexibility. Even the GAO last week -- Comptroller General Walker pointed out that he was just responding to a set of benchmarks that he had to respond to. Had he had the opportunity, he, working in a bipartisan way, would have come up with what I think are much better ones.

The amnesty benchmark, number six -- certainly that would be premature, to move ahead before reconciliation with an amnesty, a general grant of amnesty.

And militia disarmament -- we know that the Irish Republican Army only recently joined in full disarmament and decommissioning of weapons, and look how long that has gone on.

So if you could address some of those issues, are there benchmarks that would better serve as a more accurate barometer as to what's going on?

GEN. PETRAEUS: If I could start, Congressman, first of all, again, as Ambassador Crocker mentioned, the centrifugal forces in Iraq are very, very strong. And if they are unleashed, again, it is hard to tell what could happen. Certainly humanitarian -- a further humanitarian disaster among those -- is among the possible outcomes. Certainly Iran filling the void, al Qaeda regaining the momentum that has been taken away from it, potentially disintegration of certain elements of the Iraqi security forces, a re-hijacking of some of those forces that were candidly hijacked by sectarian influences in 2006, in which the Iraqi government has worked very hard to clean up and still has a long way to go.

But the fact in the national police, as an example, is that the Minister of Interior has replaced the overall commander of the national police, two of two division commanders, nine of nine brigade commanders and 17 of 27 battalion commanders, and still has some work to do.

If I could just add very quickly, on the amnesty issue, because it's something that the force is involved with, together with the embassy, we have an engagement -- a strategic engagement cell, which helps our units engage these different local groups that want to oppose extremists. We link that cell with the Iraqi government's national reconciliation cell to try to speed the process of recognizing these organizations and then figuring out how to assimilate them into a legitimate governmental institution, keeping in mind that every institution of the security forces in Iraq is national. There are no local police. We may call them local police, but they are paid by the national Ministry of Interior, which does give them a considerable amount of leverage over them. They provide all the equipment, the training and the funding.

But in this initiative, what has emerged de facto, tacitly, is what you might call conditional immunity. And in fact now there is actually a draft policy that the Iraqi government has developed that will address this. There's no other way to describe it. When you take someone who we know was part of the Jaish al Islami, an insurgent resistance group in Abu Ghraib, right on the outskirts of Baghdad now -- and that's near a Sunni-Shi'a fault line, so this is very important -- when you -- when the government of Iraq takes them and puts them on hiring orders for the Ministry of Interior and takes them to their national police academy, they have given them conditional immunity. And Ambassador -- Prime Minister Maliki recognizes that. He has actually discussed that concept with the ambassador and myself. And we see that as sort of a halfway house, if you will, to true general amnesty, for which the conditions are not present right now.

AMB. CROCKER: Just very, very quickly if I might, Mr. Chairman, because it is important. There is nothing inherently wrong with the benchmarks, as I noted in my testimony. In fact, they are important. It's just that, as you noted very perceptively, conditions are not yet in place for achievement of some of these more complex benchmarks, so I think we've got to be creative and the Iraqis have to be creative, and we've got to encourage them, just as we've seen with amnesty and the question of disbandment of militias. That in this case, you really have both of those things happening on a local level, Jaish al- Islami (sp) giving up its guns and the government of Iraq then extending a conditional immunity. So, really progress on both; it's just going to take longer and it's going to come in ways that probably are not top down.

REP. SKELTON: The gentleman from Texas is recognized. Mr. Ortiz.

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