Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Report on the Findings of the Iraqi Security Force Independent Assessment Commission

Statement

Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Report on the Findings of the Iraqi Security Force Independent Assessment Commission

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SEN. JIM WEBB (D-VA): Oh, I'm -- unfortunately, when I indulged you, Senator Lieberman, I not only lost my place, but we have a 10- minute vote, and it appears that I'm going to have to go vote. If I may just make a quick statement.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yeah, I apologize to you. I accept -- I owe you one.

SEN. WEBB: I wanted to be here to give my appreciation to the people who did this work, and unfortunately, you know, to process all of you -- and this is an amendment that I'm actually a co-sponsor of; I'm going to have to run down and vote on.

I -- as quickly as I can in the time that we have, I want to make sure, from my understanding, that I am getting the data right on your report.

In the executive summary, the ISF is defined as the military, the Iraqi police and the Department of Border Enforcement, the last two, I assume, administered by the Ministry of Interior. Is that correct?

GEN. JONES: That's correct.

SEN. WEBB: And the numbers that have been thrown around are 152,000 military, 194,000 for the Department of Border Enforcement, and then Chief Ramsey, you mentioned, I believe it was, 230,000 police. Is that correct?

MR. RAMSEY: As far as the police go, Senator, the 230,000 refers to the Iraqi Police Service. There's another 25,000 national police in addition to that.

SEN. WEBB: Okay. But those are additive. Those three are additive, right? So if we put them together, that's a minimum of 576,000 individuals counted in the ISF.

GEN. JONES: That's correct. In the opening remarks, I said 324,000 make up the totality of the police forces, the (coast guard ?) and --

SEN. WEBB: Right. Okay. So if -- just because I've got to run.

GEN. JONES: -- (inaudible).

SEN. WEBB: When you're talking about the casualties in your report and the percentage of those casualties as measured against the Americans, what you basically are having, if you take that number and put it against even the top number in the surge, 3.6 times the American forces. So what you're seeing still is probably -- and also depending on where these casualties are taking place, because so many of them, as Chief Ramsey pointed out, have been police being knocked off in their local environments -- that I would just submit that in and of themselves, the casualty numbers do not indicate that the Iraqis are out in the same places and doing the kinds of things that the Americans are. (Pause.) For the record, since I have to leave.

GEN. JONES: Yes. If you play the percentages and you accept that we're dealing with -- we're rolling the -- we're comparing the army of Iraq against the coalition, which is probably a fairer metric simply because we don't have policemen over there, you could come up with different conclusions. But --

SEN. WEBB: Well, I would say -- you know, there are ways --

GEN. JONES: There are different ways to -- (off mike).

SEN. WEBB: This has been used by your group.

GEN. JONES: Right.

SEN. WEBB: That's why I think it needs to at least be put into some perspective, because even the Americans, they're a deployed force, but a huge percentage of the American force is in the logistical tail on this. So just, you know, for the record, I think the Iraqis still have a long way to go in terms of the types of things you're talking about.

I regret I don't have a full amount of time here to have a further discussion. But thank you.

GEN. JONES: Thank you.

SEN. WEBB: Thank you.

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