Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq: The Crocker-Petraeus Report

Interview

HEARING OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: IRAQ: THE CROCKER-PETRAEUS REPORT

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SEN. JOHN SUNUNU (R-NH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for being here. For people that may be just seeing you on television or in the public for the first time, I think it's worth mentioning that you have been taking on incredibly difficult jobs not just for a few months or even a few years, but for a few decades, I think, in both cases, and you really ought to be saluted for that. I will take my question and answer time to ask questions, if it's all right with the committee and the witnesses.

I want to begin with you, Ambassador Crocker. There's been a lot of discussion about areas of improvement -- Anbar, Diyala -- locally driven, and I think that's been fairly well recognized. But there's a simple concern -- there are probably many concerns -- but a simple concern is: What happens when we leave? How do we ensure that local progress on politics, local progress on reconstruction, local progress on recruiting police officers is sustained?

And I'd like you to describe in your mind what you think the specific institutions of resources or additional steps are that will be required if that progress at the local level is going to be sustained once these withdrawals are completed.

AMB. CROCKER: There are several elements to that excellent question.

First, as I've said before, I think that ensuring that local developments relate to the center in ways that both the localities, the provinces and the center, agree are the most beneficial to larger interests; I think that is essential. And that is why we've placed such emphasis in Anbar, for example, on ensuring that police are recruited from the locality but paid for by the central government.

Iraq may, as time goes on and conditions stabilize, evolve into an entity that is different than it is now. But right now, the center is important to the provinces because it controls the finance for example. And it affects development to a large extent, because projects in provinces in many cases are carried out by offices of Baghdad ministries. So that's one part of it -- ensuring that there is an appropriate connection between provincial initiatives and the central government.

In terms of what we can do, as you know, in terms of U.S. assistance efforts, we have moved from major infrastructure projects into a focus on capacity building. We've got additional people coming out for example to assist that effort at the federal level -- advisers to ministries to help them deliver services more efficiently, including services to the provinces. We have also through the expansion of our provincial reconstruction teams carried that effort in very close coordination with the military. And as you know, most of the -- all of the additional reconstruction teams are embedded with military units. We've carried that down to the provinces.

We've increased staffing. And thanks to Congress, we now have what are called Quick Response Funds available to supplement the military CERP funds. And the brigade combat team leaders and provincial reconstruction team leaders coordinate to ensure that they're complimenting each other, not competing, on efforts to develop provincial capacities. Because I think that that is going to be critically important.

Provincial governance is new in Iraq. It did not exist at all in any meaningful way under Saddam, and it really didn't exist even prior to that. So their learning curve has got to be a very steep one, so our effort to help that, I think, is also key.

SEN. SUNUNU: With regard to that reconstruction, in your testimony, you mentioned $10 billion in oil resources. You've also mentioned the very important, critical assistance, U.S. taxpayer funds, for the reconstruction, for the provincial reconstruction teams and for reconstruction efforts. Capacity building's a problem. What other obstacles are there however to spending that $10 billion effectively?

What confidence level do you have in the accountability? What confidence level do you have in the current quality of the investments that are being made? Are you confident that this money is going to be used effectively, not just in the long term but in the next six to nine months?

AMB. CROCKER: We're talking about Iraq's own investments here, the $10 billion in their capital development budget?

SEN. SUNUNU: Yes.

AMB. CROCKER: Yeah. There are a number of mechanisms and measures that the Iraqis have in place to monitor waste, fraud and mismanagement: inspectors general, the commission for public integrity, the board of central audit --

SEN. SUNUNU: Do those really work? Are they working now?

AMB. CROCKER: To a degree. I mean, it's like a lot of other things in Iraq, quite frankly, Senator: works in progress.

Perhaps the most effective check on this is, I think, the healthy watchfulness between center and provinces. The provinces want to be darn sure that they're getting everything that is supposed to be coming to them, and the center, out of whose treasury it comes, has a pronounced interest in seeing that the money is used and not pocketed. And ultimately, of course, in even the very imperfect open society that Iraq is at this point, people are watching too. Provincial councils are watching how this is spent.

SEN. SUNUNU: Thank you.

General Petraeus, you've described withdrawals or reduction in troop levels to begin this month, reduction of 30,000 to be completed by July. But you've also spoken about a mid-March assessment, at which point you'll decide whether to recommend withdrawals beyond that 30,000-troop reduction that's in your testimony. What factors -- what specific factors are you going to look at in assessing whether or not there were further troop reductions recommended in that mid-March assessment? And how might those factors be different than the factors you looked at in making these recommendations for force reductions?

GEN. PETRAEUS: I think, Senator, that the operational and strategic considerations that I laid out in my testimony actually will all still obtain as we work out the pace of the further reductions beyond the situation that we've recommended for mid-July right now.

Highlighted among those, needless to say, would be the local security and political situations. And again, the political piece of that is quite important, because as we saw in Anbar province, that really was -- what changed so dramatically there was, again, sort of a political change, really, of tribes and their leaders choosing to oppose al Qaeda, as opposed to being in league with or at least tacitly accepting their presence.

So again, that's what we will be looking at very, very closely. Similar considerations. Again, it will be informed by the strain on our ground forces. That was a factor in this particular set of recommendations. And we'll continue to do that again next time as well.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much, Senator.

SEN. SUNUNU: Thank you, General. Thank the chairman.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you.

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