Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Training of Iraq Security Forces - Transcript

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: TRAINING OF IRAQ SECURITY FORCES

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)

WITNESSES: (VIA VIDEO TELECONFERENCE FROM IRAQ) LIEUTENANT GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, CHIEF, OFFICE OF SECURITY TRANSITION IN IRAQ; AND BRIGADIER GENERAL KEVIN BERGNER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, POLITICAL MILITARY AFFAIRS, IN THE MIDDLE EAST, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

LOCATION: 2118 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

REP. HUNTER: General Petraeus, good morning.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. RICK LARSEN (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, General, for taking some time with us this morning-for us, I guess; later in the day for you.

I was pleased to certainly hear that you're trying-you recognize the problem of connecting the command and control at the top with all the development that has taken place already that's been put forth by U.S. and coalition force to develop security forces for Iraq.

Just going down the list of what we've developed here: a police force, a border force, the ICDC, the Iraqi Army, the Facility Protection Service. Today you mentioned the Iraqi National Task Force, a new civil intervention force. You also let us know that the FPS doesn't include oil security or electricity police; that's separate, that's outside. Certainly have an organizational challenge on your hands, and I have some questions related to that.

First question is, generally, how do you propose to get a handle on all these various elements and make them connect? But more in particular, exactly what is the CIF, the Civil Intervention Force? How does it differ from the police? What is its exact role? What is-I think you said either the prime minister or the president has proposed this-what is the Iraqi vision for the CIF? And also, what's the difference between the ICDC and the Iraqi National Task Force? And where are we recruiting for the Iraqi National Task Force, and why was it created, as opposed to maintaining the current focus with ICDC and the army?

And then you haven't mentioned yet with regards to security the militias, and the prime minister, I think, announced a ban on all militias. How can we expect that ban to be any more successful than the previous announcement that the CPA made about banning all militias? And what role does the peshmerga play in security arrangements in Iraq in the future? Is it considered a militia that would be banned, or is it in fact going to be operating in the north on its-as a part of security forces?

That's a lot of questions, but hopefully I've organized them in an order where you can get them answered. Thank you.

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, that's a good number of questions here. I think I got them. By the way, you left out the air force, the coastal defense force and the (rivering ?) police, Congressman.

By the way, the coastal defense force we actually turned over to them. That was another somewhat-you know, just went on and was not remarked on too much, but we formally turned over to them five patrol boats last week, big ceremony. The first sea lord of the United Kingdom was in for that. And they are down in Basra in a very good base, yet another piece of infrastructure that's been built, and they should be operational fully by the mid-fall. They're doing a good job.

The air force as well. We actually have air force officers in the Iraqi armed forces that are training in Jordan on an early model C-130 and on hueys, helicopters, and I've already mentioned the purchase of the two seeker reconnaissance aircraft.

The (rivering ?) police are being trained down in the Basra area. They also are doing a good job. The U.K. is training them with Royal Marine commandos.

Sir, the truth is that on the Ministry of Interior's side, the connectivity is not too bad. The structures at least exist, although candidly they can't always get a phone call through or get somebody to answer it. And so we're going through a process. We also have a substantial command-and-control program that you all funded that is part of this $3 billion that will enable them to connect from an operations center in Baghdad to the joint coordination centers that are established in each province or are being established, then down-on down to the precincts or the subordinate cities, if you will. That's pretty straightforward on the Ministry of the Interior's side.

The Civil Intervention Force probably will be controlled out of Baghdad. Again, it's a new initiative for which we're just hosting a recruiting conference this Friday to discuss how to recruit. Again, it will be two battalions of a gendarmerie-type force, perhaps lightly armored wheeled vehicles. We believe we can fund this, by the way, sir, again with that $3 billion. And then there will be about three battalions initially, growing to nine battalions that will be trained and equipped in riot control. And again, their purpose is to take over where the police don't have the capacity to retake a police station, for example, if for example the enemy throws the police out or something like that.

Sir, the Iraq Civil Defense Corps was is generally regionally recruited and trained, and performs regional security functions that are not performed by the police. So they often are outside cities; again, guarding infrastructure, conducting convoy security, performing checkpoint duties and the like, and also conducting offensive operations along with coalition forces.

The Iraq National Task Force, on the other hand, was-they've done a lot of-after early April, as an Iraqi initiative, their desire to have an army division that was explicitly recruited, equipped and trained-and the emphasis on recruited-to conduct urban counterinsurgency operations. As you may recall, there was the failure in April when a battalion was to be sent down to Fallujah, and essentially-it's a little bit more complex than has been depicted; they actually did start. They got ambushed. They had a firefight. They had to pull back up to Taji, and then that's where they-the discussion ensued that-where they reminded people that they had been hired-which was correct-with the idea that the army was to do what it used to do, defend the country from external invaders.

The Iraqi leadership said fine; we will explicitly recruit. They generally recruited from existing army units, took good people out of those, signed on the dotted line that they were ready to fight fellow Iraqis, and it is those forces that are now coming on line.

And the recruiting was done by the Iraqi generals. In fact, the commander of the army himself went out and talked to each battalion and to others.

Sir, as to the militias, I do think that this one will be more successful than any other previous endeavors, because, first of all, in general, there is buy-in by the political leadership of these militias. Second, the armed forces, the security services, are in fact able to absorb a reasonable number of them. And in fact we've had recently, for example, Badr Corps Day, Various Peshmerga Day, Iraqi Communist Party Day, Iraqi Islamic Party Day at various recruiting stations throughout the country. And so they are getting their opportunity to sign up for the army and for other security services.

Sir, the peshmerga has for a long time been being incorporated into Iraqi Civil Defense Corps units. We in fact have a number of them in units up in the north. There were some that were in the Iraqi Kurdish areas that were predominantly Kurdish, and then those that were in the Nineveh province, for example, tended to be minorities within units that were typically majority Sunni Arab in that particular area, although they also included Yezidis, Turkoman, Christians and others.

The Transitional Administrative Law allows the Iraqi Kurdish area to retain internal security forces. So in addition to those peshmerga that are absorbed into the army, absorbed into the ICDC, the police and the other security services writ large, Iraqi-wide, they will also be able to retain internal security forces that can absorb a number of these former peshmerga. And they are envisioning, for example, mountain battalions. We have already built border police battalions out there, too, up in our area, while we were there, because we had all three of the Kurdish provinces in the 101st Airborne area.

They will also have some other-they had forestry police and a couple of other varieties of security services. And in fact that is another emergent task that jumped out at us after we started doing the mission analysis, if you will, after that militia agreement was announced; that we may indeed have to assist them in some of the organizing, training and equipping of those internal security forces, just as we are for the-all of Iraq's security forces.

REP. LARSEN: Thank you, General. That's a very complete answer to my long question. I appreciate it, and I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

END