Hearing of the Senate Committee on Appropriations - The President's FY 2008 Supplemental Request for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Statement

Hearing of the Senate Committee on Appropriations - The President's FY 2008 Supplemental Request for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

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SEN. MURRAY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you to all of you for coming here today. And I especially want to take a moment, General Pace, to thank you for your service to our country. I have always appreciated your frankness when you testified before Congress. And I just want to tell you again how impressed I was when you came out to my state and talked to students at Vancouver, Washington -- a much tougher audience than even here today. And I appreciated how well you handled those questions. And I wanted to tell you that.

And I also wanted to thank you for all your work with me and others to make sure that those men and women who do serve our country are taken care of when they come home. And I wanted to take this opportunity today as you retire to thank you for that.

GEN. PACE: Thank you, Senator.

SEN. MURRAY: Secretary Gates, you as well for your honesty and frankness in working with us. I appreciate it.

Secretary Gates, let me begin with you. When you appeared before us in May, you told me that you had made it clear to members of the Iraqi Parliament that, quote, "We are buying them time for political reconciliation and that every day we buy them, we buy with American blood."

I want to thank you for raising awareness of the urgency for national political reconciliation. Now, as you know, a number of reports over the past month have actually shed light on the best estimates for Iraq's future. The NIE estimate of August said the Iraqi government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months.

The report on the Iraqi security forces that was compiled by the independent team of retired military officials, led by General James Jones, said Iraqi security forces will be unable to fulfill their essential security responses independently over the next 12 to 18 months. And, of course, the GAO reported that the Iraqi government has met only three of their 18 political benchmarks.

So, knowing all that, and with these nonpolitical assessments, I wanted to ask you how much time are you truly willing to give the Iraqi government itself, as we are paying for it with our own soldiers and our own dollars here at home?

SEC. GATES: Senator, I think the message has been sent to the Iraqi government that our military presence is going to -- has begun to shrink in Iraq. And the expectation of the commander in the field is that it will continue to shrink.

I would say, I was briefed twice by General Jones on his report before he came up here. I think that the panel did a great job. I think it's important to note that they were actually quite positive about the development of the Iraqi army, and particularly the training and recruiting and the capability, the combat capabilities of them, and their willingness to fight once they're in the field.

His biggest concerns about their being able to operate independently were focused more on their logistics shortcomings and communications and things like that, which are areas where we would presumably continue to help them, even if we had a smaller footprint.

SEN. MURRAY: As far as the military. But what all the reports had in common was a concern about when and how and if Iraq was going to be able to stand up on its own politically. And the question is, how long should our country be willing to stay there -- indefinitely, years, decades -- until they can have the political will to stand up on their own?

SEC. GATES: Well, there clearly is, I think, no will in this country to stay there certainly for decades while they're still trying to get their act together. My view is that the situation in Iraq is -- I think we make a mistake in looking at Iraq as a single entity in terms of how we think we're doing, because the reality is that there are some provinces where there are no coalition forces right now, and we have already gone to an over-the-horizon role with the Iraqis and have really virtually no troops in those areas.

There are some areas where the Iraqis are fighting hard, and we are beside them. And that's that middle area of partnering that General Petraeus talked about where we are beginning to draw back and the Iraqis are beginning to take more of a lead. And then there are the areas around Baghdad where we're carrying most of the load and most of the fighting.

So events are developing in different parts of Iraq at a different stage. And it is, I think, General Petraeus's belief and Ambassador Crocker's that as they see these different areas turn over, the provinces turned over to Iraqi control, which is likely to happen in Basra in the south later this fall, that those are the areas where they will first begin withdrawing U.S. troops.

So the idea is that things are getting better or changing province by province, and that's what will allow the continued drawdown.

SEN. MURRAY: And I'm sure you understand our dilemma, that we are being asked to come up with an additional some $200 billion for next year's budget request off-budget. And the expected $42.3 billion amendment is twice what we are being asked to cut our domestic spending as we try to make sure that we have roads and bridges and highways and education and research and economic development here in this country. It's disconcerting to many of us. I know you understand that.

But in my remaining one minute, I did want to ask you about a subject I know you care about as much as I do. After the Walter Reed scandal, we saw the need to have better care management for our troops to get them through their initial injury, through their recovery. And I understand that the Army has developed a new organizational structure called the Warrior Transition Unit to look at these case management problems. And I really want to commend the Army for taking on that initiative.

But as you also may know, the GAO released a report today on overall efforts to improve health care and disability evaluations for service members, and they found that over half of the Army's Warrior Transition Units have severe staffing shortages.

Can you share with us why, so long after case management has been identified as a problem -- we all saw what happened at Walter Reed -- why are we still facing staffing in those critical positions?

SEC. GATES: I don't know the answer. I have not seen the GAO report. But I will certainly look into it and get you an answer.

SEN. MURRAY: Do you have the funding you need for that?

SEC. GATES: As far as I know, ma'am.

SEN. MURRAY: Well, I would like an answer back for this committee, because it is disheartening to hear, eight months into this, that staffing shortages are critically hurting our ability to make sure that our soldiers do get the care and support as they try to get through these complex --

SEC. GATES: Let me just ask Ms. Jonas if she has anything on that.

MS. JONAS: Senator, one thing that we do have in the request that is forthcoming to you in this amendment would be, as the secretary mentioned, the $500 million to improve care. In addition, the Army has asked for about $800 million for families, in support of families. So that would be an important effort for us, sir.

SEC. GATES: We'll get back to you on the wounded warrior units.

SEN. MURRAY: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

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