Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - Iraq After the Surge: What Next?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ambassador, General, thank you very much for being with us. I appreciate you taking the time to spend it with me on Thanksgiving Day when I was visiting Wyoming troops throughout Iraq. And I want to thank both of you for your service to our nation. There were a group of veterans here today, the Veterans for Freedom, many from Wyoming, many who have served in Iraq, and they want to have me personally extend to you their thanks as well.

In my short time here in the Senate, I do understand that the politics of Iraq is divisive, but I clearly understand that we must make our judgments based on facts, not on politics.

But whichever way you wish to look at this issue, Iraq is a matter of national security and, as you've said, Ambassador Crocker, earlier today, hard does not mean hopeless.

After we visited on Thanksgiving, I also went and had a chance to visit with Prime Minister Maliki, and I told him about being from Wyoming, a western state, and our western way and our western culture. And in Wyoming we like to get things done. We are a generous people, but our patience is not unlimited.

Which gets me to the question of the discussions we had last week where we heard in testimony that we need to instill the will to win with the Iraqi security forces. What's the best way to do that?

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, what we need to do, Senator, is what has been done successfully in a number of areas, actually, and that is, of course, to train them, equip them, and then guide them in the early stages of their operations; get them some confidence.

One of the challenges in Basra, frankly, was that a very brand- new brigade right out of a unit set fielding and basic training unfortunately ended up getting thrust into some pretty tough combat, and the results of that are, frankly, predictable.

So we've got to figure out how to enable them to get their feet on the ground, to get some experience, to get combat under their belt, and then gradually ease back and slowly but surely take your hand off the bicycle seat and let them pedal for themselves.

Now, that has worked in a number of areas, and is working. Fallujah is a tremendous example. Of course, as the ambassador mentioned, one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq in the past and a city where albeit there are challenges, but has done extremely well.

They have 10 police precincts, I believe it is now. There are no Iraqi army forces required in the streets of Fallujah at this point in time. We have -- I believe the latest is a Marine squad with each of those 10 precincts, but gradually going down to where we have one for every other precinct, and slowly but surely, again, taking our hands off the bicycle seat, even in Fallujah. Ramadi, similar results there.

So some of the very tough areas this has indeed worked -- number of the southern provinces as well -- but then others where there clearly are challenges, because of the security efforts that are required.

SEN. BARRASSO: General, earlier today you testified that the Sunni communities have rejected al Qaeda in terms of their extremist ideology. How important is that in the things that you're trying to accomplish?

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, it's very important. It's not complete across the board, Senator. I don't want to give that impression. But the fact that numerous Sunni communities, and probably the majority of Sunni communities across Iraq, have rejected al Qaeda and, more importantly, its extremist ideology, have been repelled by its indiscriminate violence, and abhor the practices that they brought to their communities -- that al Qaeda did, as they let them into their communities for a whole variety of reasons in the early years after liberation.

This is very, very significant -- again, not just for Iraq, but for the broader Arab world. And in fact over time, the answer to al Qaeda Iraq of course is not going to be to kill or capture every single one of them. It is going to be painstaking changes in education systems in Arab countries.

It's going to be changes, in some cases, in the imams. There is a country in the Middle East that in fact is working through determining who is preaching in its mosques. It's going to be, of course, employment and other opportunities. But it is -- it has to be, again, a comprehensive effort to combat extremism and the conditions that lead young men in particular in the Arab world to embrace it, particularly, again, in the Sunni Arab world.

So the rejection in Iraq is very, very important and the chain reaction that it set off from there in Ramadi, again, has huge significance, not just for Iraq, but for the region.

SEN. BARRASSO: If I could go on to another area, Senator Dodd earlier talked about the mental health of the troops. Senator Isakson talked about the physical health of the troops and what's being done now with physical medicine, rehabilitation.

My training as an orthopedic surgeon and -- was basically practicing medicine until last year. I'd just gotten back from Afghanistan, where I had a chance to go to Bagra and visit at the hospital there, watch the transport, how they do it with patients, what they can do with the lifesaving techniques.

I thought they had absolutely the best equipment that you could imagine -- CAT scan with -- I went into the operating room watched a reconstruction of a leg that had been severely injured. The equipment, the plates, the screws, the rods, everything they had is what you would expect to find at any major trauma center in the United States, and I thought that the level of care was absolutely outstanding in terms of limb- and lifesaving abilities.

GEN. PETRAEUS: It is phenomenal, Senator. And it is present in a variety of different locations so that it's within the golden hour, if you will, from point of injury to trying to get the soldier to the location where that level of care is available, if needed.

SEN. BARRASSO: And in Afghanistan, what I saw was actually -- the transport system was better than what you would find at pretty much any major trauma center in the United States, in terms of quick access in the golden hour of trauma, and I just want to make sure that in Iraq our soldiers are receiving that same high level of care.

GEN. PETRAEUS: It is. In fact, Senator, that's one of the elements of this battlefield geometry that I've talked about. That even as we draw down, we have to make sure that we have a sufficient footprint out there so that adviser teams and other small elements, special operations teams and so forth, still have the access to that transportation system so that, again, we can make use of that golden hour in the best way possible to get our soldiers to the care they need.

SEN. BARRASSO: Mr. Chairman, I think my time has expired. Thank you very much.

SEN. BIDEN:

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source