Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - The Situation in Iraq and Progress by the Government of Iraq in Meeting Benchmarks and Achieving Reconciliation

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SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, Ambassador, thank you very much for your extraordinary service to our country, and thank you for your very candid assessment of how things are going. As always, you've been very forthright in your testimony, and we appreciate that because I think it's important that we have a good understanding of conditions as you understand them to be on the ground. And we make decisions on funding both on the military level and the other benchmarks that we're trying to achieve with regard to economic and political progress in the region.

I'm wondering if you might be able to elaborate a little bit on the whole issue of the Shi'a militias and the Iranian influence there. It seems to me, at least, that a lot of our success these past several months has been the cease-fire that the Mahdi Army has observed. And my question, I guess, gets at the point of whether or not Sadr really is in control or whether the Iranians are pulling the strings there. And if we're going to continue to see reduction in violence and a lessening of American casualties and civilian casualties there, that's going to be a big factor.

And I guess I'd be interested in knowing, General, what your impressions are about who really is in charge of the Shi'a militias and the Mahdi Army; is it Sadr or is it the Iranians.

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, Senator, let's go back to when the original cease-fire was put in place, in August, and that was directed by Muqtada al-Sadr.

And it was because of violence that was precipitated in the holy city of Karbala by militia elements that refused to surrender their weapons before going into the shrine area. That was -- did a great deal of damage to the reputation of the overall Sadr movement, which again is first and foremost a political movement, and then also has the associated militia.

Added to that over time were connections between the militia and/or the special groups, which are again these elements that are affiliated with or associated with the Sadr militia but have been selected carefully and then typically are paid for, trained by and armed by Iran, by the Qods Force in particular, and which do take direction from the Qods Force.

The hand of Iran was very clear in recent weeks. And again, there was a recognition, we think, in Iran, based on people who talk to some of the leaders there, that in fact what was transpiring was very damaging to -- not just to Iraq, not just in the violence to the Iraqi people, but -- and not just to the reputation of the militia, but also had -- was backfiring on Iran itself. And in fact, I think, it's -- arguably it did generate a unification in concern among Iraqi political leaders about Iranian activity in Iraq that was nowhere near as great, I would argue, just a month or so ago.

As we mentioned earlier, both of us have said that it sort brought out in higher relief the activities of Iran, of the Qods Force in particular, and its involvement with these special groups and with the weapons and training that they provided to them.

SEN. THUNE: Let me ask you, General -- there have been some who have talked about putting restrictions on or limiting funding for the Commanders Emergency Response Program. Could you describe that program and its value to commanders in the field?

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, Senator, as you know, a number of us at different times have stated that there's a point in operations where money becomes your most important ammunition. And typically it's small amounts of money at local levels where, when you have all of a sudden the opportunity because of security improvements, you can very rapidly commit it, again in small amounts.

We have also used it to fund the so-called Sons of Iraq. And as I had on the -- one of the charts, I think it's about 16 million a month is the payroll for those individuals, on average. And I tell you that the savings that we have had in vehicles not lost in areas where they used to be lost. There's an area south of Baghdad, southwest, that used to be called the Triangle of Death. That area has actually been very, very quiet over the course of the last six months since our forces and Iraqi forces cleared it of al Qaeda and then Sons of Iraq stood up to help secure local communities. It's a big reason why we have the enormous numbers of caches being found. Most of them are being identified by, again, these local individuals or by local citizens who have benefited from various projects done by the CERP program, have seen therefore the benefits of improved security and started to see some economic growth.

And oftentimes the pump is primed with small amounts of CERP very early in that process, before the Iraqi government can reconnect to these communities, get the different ministry activities out there helping them.

By the way, I might add, again this is the reason that Iraq has committed some of its money, 300 million, as is initial amount to fund something called Iraqi CERP, which will help enormously and can greatly expand the impact of the overall program.

Again we have a capacity out there in a lot of these communities, particularly ones that over the course of the last year were recently cleared of al Qaeda or other extremists, we have an ability to spend that money that they do not. And again they are now very much our partners in that and very much doing a cost-sharing approach and beyond over time.

SEN. THUNE: Last week, the Readiness and Management Subcommittee received testimony from the service vice chiefs on the current readiness of the forces. And they all testified that military units that are deploying to you in theater are currently adequately trained, equipped and ready to carry out the missions that you've assigned.

As the combatant commander, is that your perception as well?

GEN. PETRAEUS: Senator, I would say that this is the best army that I've ever seen in 34 years of service.

Now, it is an army that is capable of what we might call full- spectrum, in fact, what our doctrine does call full-spectrum operations. Counterinsurgency operations include not just the stability and support ops but also offense and defense.

We have in the last year, for example, done major operations, in places like Ramadi, Baqubah, South Baghdad and a variety of other locations, that have involved all of our different capabilities, in the military, not just the soft side again of stability and support operations.

I've said on a number of occasions that there were two enormous changes that I found when I came back to Iraq, got back to Iraq in January 2007. The first was -- February 2007 -- the first was the damage done by sectarian violence, which tore the fabric of society. The second was how much our leaders get it about what it is that we're trying to do over there as a result of all the changes made by the services in terms of doctrine education, preparation of units and so forth.

So the units are exceedingly well trained. They are the best equipped. When I look back at the fact that as a division commander, when we crossed the berm and went into Iraq, we had one unmanned aerial vehicle that we were all fighting over within the entire corps.

And now look at the enormous proliferation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, at the enormous tools that the different intelligence agencies have now provided to us, the fusion of intelligence and the way that special forces, special mission elements and conventional forces all work together and literally have fusion cells, the proliferation of real-time situational awareness tools, just on and on and on, satellite tracking and communications.

We are vastly better than where we were in 2003 when we went through the berm, and again, especially in terms of so-called full-spectrum operations, which is what most of us think we'll be involved in in the future; that there are not too many peer competitors, as they say, out there that want to take us on toe to toe out in the desert somewhere in open tank warfare.

SEN. THUNE: Thank you all again very much for your service to our country. And please convey to those who serve under your command our deep appreciation for their service and sacrifice as well.

GEN. PETRAEUS: I will, Senator. If I could just thank the committee for one thing in particular, and that is the MRAP vehicles, the mine-resistant ambush-protected. These have been life savers. And countless soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines have been saved by these vehicles and by the additional protection that they provide to the occupants.

SEN. THUNE: Thanks.

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