Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee Subject: GAO's Iraqi Government Assessment

Statement

HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: GAO'S IRAQI GOVERNMENT ASSESSMENT
CHAIRED BY: REP. IKE SKELTON (D-MO)
WITNESS: DAVID WALKER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

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REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Walker, we've talked a lot about the numbers, and I appreciate your analysis there. But to a certain point, you know, I think what Mr. Snyder and Mr. Thornberry and others have talked about in terms of the objectives and where we're going is really the more important point. You know, if there's, you know, 1,000 deaths, whether they're sectarian or civilian one month and then there's 1,200 the next or there's 800 the next, what we really want to know is what's it telling us and where we're going. As you pointed out earlier, the mission of our troops is what's really important. Fighting al Qaeda, no doubt about it, gotta be doing it. Patrolling the streets of Baghdad, a much different question. And the one thing that I would think you would agree with is unquestionably there is still a large amount of sectarian violence in Iraq. You know, we can't say that we've turned any sort of corner. If we're going down at all, it's month-to-month, it's province-to-province, it's not comprehensive, across-the-board success. I would trust you would agree with that regardless of what numbers you use.

MR. WALKER: There's still significant sectarian violence. The data shows that it's declining, but it varies by geographic area, and only time will say whether it's sustainable. Hopefully it is.

REP. SMITH: Right. I guess the question I have -- you mentioned one of the benchmarks. The militia control of local security is something we're trying to prevent. But in one way of looking at Iraq, you know, they're trying to fill a power vacuum after Saddam Hussein went. And there's really -- I mean, it's an overstatement to say there's no central government. But I don't think it's an overstatement to say I doubt you can identify a community or a part of Iraq that the central government really has control of. There's various factions battling in a bunch of different places, and it's different factions in different places. Our success primarily came in a l Anbar from getting the Sunnis to turn on al Qaeda. We picked one local faction. We had the rarest of circumstances in Iraq where we could clearly say okay, this faction is worse than that faction, no doubt about it. So we're going to try to line up with them, and we've had that success.

My concern is that doesn't lead to long-term success in the rest of Iraq. If the whole point of this is secure Iraq so that we can bring our troops home -- and as Mr. Jones has pointed out eloquently, we all know the cost. I don't think there's a single member here who would deny the cost of maintaining our troop presence in Iraq at its levels or anything close to it. We want to stop that. And what I've been frustrated by for three years is no matter all the progress up, down, sideways, whatever we do, we're getting no closer to bringing the troops home that I can see. Because who are we going to turn it over to? And right now, what is happening is local militias in different places are getting control. And frankly, some of the reduction in violence in Baghdad is because the ethnic cleansing has been completed, all right. The Shi'as now totally control a given neighborhood. There's nobody left to kill. That's not exactly success.

So my frustration is that I don't think our troops are moving this forward in most places in a positive direction, you know. It's the sectarian stuff is sorting itself out. And I wonder, getting past the numbers for the moment, six to seven months from now, how does any of what I just described change in a way that we have a reasonable group to turn security over to, either a central government -- which I think is pure fantasy, but if we want to talk about that we can -- or to even some local militia that is nominally a friend of ours? I don't see either of those two scenarios. And if so, isn't it really time to start figuring out how to deescalate? And I'm just curious your comments on that instead of the --

MR. WALKER: Well, several -- I don't think all of these 18 benchmarks are equal. We didn't try to weight them. Congress didn't ask us to weight them. But I think that one of the things that you ought to think about on a going-forward basis is, are these the right benchmarks? Should some be uncoupled? Should some be added? And should you try to weight them in some way? That brings me back to the point that I said before. It's time to reassess what are our goals, what are our objectives, who should be doing what, including what the proper role of our forces should be.

REP. SMITH: And I just took a stab at that reassessment actually, and I'm curious what you think of that reassessment where what I just described is wrong. And you know, I admit, I've still -- as with everybody here, I've got a lot to learn every day on this. It changes rapidly. But that assessment, I think, is pretty -- if it's true the way I just described it, it puts a totally different picture than we're just sticking it out until we can get the security over and turn this over to somebody who we can trust. And I'm just curious in the moments left here what you thought of that.

MR. WALKER: Well, I, you know, I think it's one thing to help the Iraqis help themselves. But ultimately, there are certain roles and functions that the Iraqis have to be able to perform on their own. And there are certain things that only the Iraqis can do -- I mean, path the legislation and try to do that, okay. But I think there are certain things that we're going right now that ideally Iraqi forces ought to be doing versus U.S. forces. I mean, you know, we are a foreign force to the Iraqi people. And most countries, including our own, don't like foreign forces on the ground for too long.

REP. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

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