Iraq's Transition to Sovereignty

Federal News Service April 26, 2004 Monday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE US HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, DISCUSSING IRAQ'S TRANSITION TO SOVEREIGNTY (2118 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C., 10:00, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2004)

SUBJECT:IRAQ'S TRANSITION TO SOVEREIGNTY

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)

WITNESSES:

PAUL D. WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE;

GENERAL RICHARD B. MYERS, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF;

MARC I. GROSSMAN, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. RICK LARSEN (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you both for being here. I have a set of questions that I'll put in for the record. Perhaps it may be more appropriate for General Myers to answer, but on security and specific steps that we plan to take to train Iraqi security forces in ICDC and Facility Protection, Army and police and border patrol. But the specific steps that we're going to plan to take, and I'll put those questions in writing for General Myers.

But a point I want to make about that is discussion about-obviously, what we saw happen in Fallujah is not what we wanted to see happen in Fallujah with the Iraqi security. There was some success there, but obviously there was not some success. That is a big problem. And my-the main point I want to make about that is that I hope that we-if we have to choose between quickly standing up security forces or making sure that we have capable Iraqi security forces, that we are on the side of capability first. And that takes a little more time than we want. I think we're better off in the long run making sure they're capable first, rather than trying to find ways to quicken the training process. If those ways result in a capable security force, that we can check all the boxes and at the bottom say they're ready to go, then that's fine. But let's be sure they're capable first.

MR. : We agree.

REP. LARSEN: Thanks. Mr. Grossman, a question for you. Even in the bottom row you're going to get all the questions down here, I don't know. But the language you were using with regard to Mr. Brahimi's plan is missing one word I was waiting to hear, and that's endorse. And I haven't heard it. You're certainly encouraging the plan, encouraging it to go forward, you like the elements in it. You've mentioned in your testimony there is some criteria you'd like to see, but there hasn't been any formal endorsement from the administration yet. My question is will there be? Should there be? And is it possible that the administration wouldn't endorse this plan? There's nothing else on the table.

MR. GROSSMAN: No, sir, I'm afraid I'm going to start giving you sort of a diplomatic technicality here. Secretary Powell has been clear that Mr. Brahimi's first requirement is to report to the secretary general, and he hasn't done that yet. And until he does it's not really the United Nations' plan, it's not the secretary general's plan. And so the way I see this is Ambassador Brahimi will report to the secretary general, the secretary general I'm sure will adopt this plan. He will then make it and then we'll be able to formally endorse it. But as I have said in my testimony, if you read what President Bush and Prime Minister Blair said last week about this plan, you know, we're for it and if we're missing the word "endorsement" it's purely because it hasn't yet come from Kofi Annan.

REP. LARSEN: Okay. Yeah, sure. All the language is there. I see it but I don't-obviously it's going to take the --

MR. GROSSMAN: That's right.

MR. WOLFOWITZ (?): Broken the State Department code.

REP. LARSEN: What's that?

MR. WOLFOWITZ: I said you've broken the State Department code.

REP. LARSEN: Well, that was easy. I'm still working on the Department of Defense code.

MR. WOLFOWITZ: (Laughs.) We're tougher.

MR. GROSSMAN: Me too.

REP. LARSEN: I also would like, certainly from the staff, I'll just get a copy of the TAL. I've read a synopsis of it and one issue that isn't as well described in the synopsis is the SOFA-like provisions. In your testimony-somebody's testimony as well as in the synopsis it talks about SOFA like provisions but doesn't lay those out, and I was wondering if you could describe for us how the interim constitution does lay out, envisions, status of forces within the context of the interim constitution. And then, second, how that might differ from where we might end up going on an actual status of forces agreement?

MR. WOLFOWITZ: Well, we'll give you the documents. There are really three. There is the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1511, which may be supplemented by an additional resolution. But it provides for the security of Iraq, up through the permanent government under a constitution, to be provided by a multinational force.

REP. LARSEN: Which would be the December '05/January '06 timeline?

MR. WOLFOWITZ: Right. Timeframe, correct. There is the Transitional Administrative Law, which has provisions that specifically commit Iraqi security forces to be part of that multinational force during that interim period. And then there is provisional authority order number 17, I believe it's called, which spells out in SOFA-like detail the privileges and immunities, although I don't think it uses those words, of foreign forces in Iraq. And it's those three things taken together that provide the basic position of our forces and other forces going forward.

The interim government actually doesn't have authority to negotiate anything pro or con. After the transitional government is elected early next year, it is authorized to negotiate with foreign countries about longer term security arrangements. It's worth recalling, by the way, in Korea I don't think we even had a SOFA until 1967. I'm not saying we should go that long without a formal SOFA, but --

REP. LARSEN: I agree with you on that. If I could follow up on that, having to do-yeah, having to do with the interim government. You say you don't want them to have that negotiating authority. We saw in April, earlier this month, where some members of the IGC were critical-if not critical, at least expressed their individual views about the U.S. actions there in Iraq. How would that be handled in the interim post-June 30, because it sort of gets to Mr. Langevin's question as who is it we're handing it over to and what authorities do they have?

And the reason I'm asking these questions is because it's still our women and men who really will have the primary responsibility for security. It's clear Iraqi security forces won't be stood up. We're having some problems with coalition members obviously that have been in the news. It's still our women and men who will be responsible largely for security, so who-how are we going to respond to this new interim government with regards to the safety of our women and men in Iraq?

MR. WOLFOWITZ: Well, it will be this tri-presidency, which at least is a much more-and with a prime minister, which is the focus of executive decision making we don't have now. I mean, we have this situation in Afghanistan where President Karzai sometimes wants us to do things with our forces that we're not willing to do because we don't want to-we say, that's an Afghan problem, we're not going to get in the middle of it. We sometimes do things with our forces that cause him political problems.

The answer is you work it out and you negotiate and one of the things that we believe is valuable about this step forward is you begin to have Iraqis who have to have some responsibility for their actions and for what they say, and it's not a free ride any more. And that will become even more so when you actually have elected representatives next year. But, you know, democracy is a messy business. It's just better, as Churchill said, than the alternative.

REP. LARSEN: Than anything else. Did you have a comment?

MR. GROSSMAN: Just simply to say, Congressman, that I think part of it will be seen here as-it seems to me anyway that Iraqis have a vision of their society and that they know that they can't achieve that vision without security and they can't achieve that security without the help of us and the multinational force, and that's why I think the Transitional Administrative Law, as the deputy secretary said, is clear about responsibilities here. And we want to be absolutely clear that the responsibility for our forces remains with us, and in that way also we're trying to help the Iraqis make this transition to democracy.

REP. LARSEN: Well, I appreciate it. And those are probably the three things from here on out I'll be looking at: Iraqi security and the standing up the SOFA provisions and how that's being implemented, and then finally exactly when the endorsement comes there's something to move forward on-forward to. I appreciate it very much.