Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee Discussing Iraq's Transition to Sovreignty - Transcript
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)
BODY:
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
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA): The hearing will come to order. Our guests this morning are the Honorable Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of Defense; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the Honorable Marc Grossman, undersecretary of State.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
REP. ED SCHROCK (R-VA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary and General, thank you for enduring a second day of these hearings on a topic that's, I think, very, very important to every single one of us. In the past I've been repeatedly commenting on the disconnect between the Iraq we see every day on television and the newspapers, and the real Iraq. And I've been to Iraq twice and believe there's far more progress that is being made there than we're being led to believe on the nightly news progress.
However, I think we'd be remiss in not considering the implications of the recent events and planning for the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq. And I'm gravely concerned about the poor performance of some of the Iraqi security forces in recent battles with the insurgents. I believe the CPA must carefully consider the root causes of their rather poor performance and what it shows about the resolve of the Iraqi people to be governed by themselves and not by a dictator or by the most powerful zealot at the particular time. And I believe the U.S. military will be responsible for security in Iraq, quite frankly, for the foreseeable future.
I hope we can have that honest debate. You know, we've had a lot of it today and we need to have it in the halls of the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.N. to ensure that the Iraqi government that emerges is one that's truly committed to the sovereignty of the Iraqi people over themselves and the stability and security of our country and the entire Middle East.
Of all the things that were said in the testimony today, I was struck by two words that you said, General Myers. And that is humane treatment. And we do engage in humane treatment, and maybe it's just Ed Schrock's perception, but I perceive because we do that we are probably taking casualties and losing people more so than if we just go in and try to get it over with at one time.
And of course there's this constant drip, drip, drip every night of the news media banging on us. And I'm just wondering, and maybe this is a tough one to ask, but at what point do we just to say enough is enough, give these folks 24, 48 hours to do what we have asked them to do and then we go in and whatever force is needed, go in and get it over with. Are innocent people going to be killed? No doubt.
But is that better than dripping it out over a period of months where they're going to get killed anyhow and putting up with this dissension we not only hear from some of the people overseas but people here at home. I dread getting up every morning, this morning was a particularly rough one when we heard how many folks were killed over there. And maybe that's something you don't want to discuss, but I'm just curious what your feeling is about that?
GEN. MYERS: I think we have to be careful of how far we go, because we'll get into operational matters. But in general-and if you're referring to basically the situation in Fallujah, we have a very serious situation in Iraq that developed over the last couple of weeks. Particularly exemplified in Fallujah. We've got to realize that the Sunni population has a lot of fence sitters, people waiting to see how Iraq develops to see if they're going to be made part of the new Iraq, that some feel disenfranchised, some enflamed by the-and this is going to sound harsh, but it's absolutely true in my mind.
The outright lies that media outlets like al Jazeera make about our actions in Iraq. And we have at least 30 incidences where they have made a statement and it's just exactly wrong, and portraying the U.S. as the ones that are not concerned about humane treatment. So I can guarantee you that General Abizaid, since events in Fallujah started unfolding, when we went in there to find the perpetrators of the killing of the Blackwater contractors and then burning them and then displaying their bodies, as everybody is well aware of, between that and trying to make sure that we don't lose the consent of the Iraqi people and importantly also the Sunni and Shiite populations.
In the end we will do militarily what we have to do. And I'll just assure you of that. I think we'll get support up and down our government for those actions, but in the mean time it's a careful balance and it's a tight rope that's been walked by some great Marines. We don't think we've put them in additional jeopardy by these actions, but the cease-fire, by the way was only obeyed by our Marines, as you would expect.
They still take sniper fire and, for that matter, assaults on them. They have been real successful in repelling those, at the same time we have taken some losses. But you're right, this is combat, it's war, mistakes will be made in terms of our best efforts to protect innocent civilians, there will still be some caught in the crossfire. In most cases, it will be our adversary, who has no regard for their lives anyway.
Look at the mortar rounds that the former Baathist and regime elements put into Abu Gharib prison. They went in there and they killed I think the number is 20 detainees and injured I think 100 and some others. They were Iraqis. I mean, they were attacking their people. The same thing in Basra the day when we heard about the vehicle borne explosives that blew up police stations and, oh, by the way, a van that was going by that had children in it.
These were Iraqis killing Iraqis, we don't know who perpetrated those events in Basra, at least I don't at this point. Quite likely it could be Zarqawi and his folks who want to foment Sunni and Shiite unrest, as a last ditch effort to keep us from being successful in Iraq. But it --
REP. SCHROCK: During the two years I lived in Vietnam as a young naval officer, I was greatly puzzled and bothered by the limited war game we played there, and by-you know, whenever the Vietnamese had a holiday, we always observed that by kind of a cease-fire, so to speak, and that's exactly when they got ready for the next engagement. And I'm just hoping and praying we don't get into that or we don't start doing that, we don't start doing that in Iraq, because I think that's just a blueprint for disaster.
But I guess I don't want to seem like a horrible hawk, but I mean, we've got to get this-our kids' lives are really important, and we've just got get this --
GEN. MYERS: I agree with you, absolutely. And I remember those days, too. And as you remember, they would do it on the ground in Vietnam, and they do it in the air. The pauses, the so-called bombing pauses allowed the enemy to restock anti-aircraft ammunition.
REP. SCHROCK: The Ho Chi Minh Trail was full of that stuff.
GEN. MYERS: And that is not the intention or the direction we're under right now.
REP. SCHROCK: Great.
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Chairman, if I could just take a minute to answer the first part of Mr. Schrock's question, that was also yours at the beginning, and it's crucial, about the performance of Iraqi security forces. And I've got to emphasize, it's too early to make an assessment. We've got too many things on our hands right now, even to know what happened in the last couple of weeks. It'll take some time to collect the facts.
But again, it is a complicated picture. I want to mention just two anecdotes that came to us from former Army Colonel Jim Steele (ph), whom I mentioned earlier, who's been in Iraq for most of the last year doing really heroic duty with the police. He's made a big difference. He's been extremely candid over the course of 12 months about problems that he's identified, but he sent this with some good news for a change.
He said, "In Sadr City, which is a big Shia slum in Baghdad, we made a surprise visit to the main police station. To our surprise, despite the late hour, 10:00 at night, the chief was at the station. He explained that he had stayed full time at the station during the recent crisis. He provided a detailed account of what had occurred. He described how the five stations had been taken over by Sauder's army, but subsequently recaptured within four hours.
"He was proud of the performance of his policemen and grateful of the coalition forces who responded decisively. He has one policeman missing at this time, only one. Of the 140 AK-47s that were seized from his people, all but 62 have been recovered. He correctly pointed out, and this is part of our problem, that his 500 policemen are not only outnumbered but outgunned. He has only one BKC, actually a PKM medium machine gun, while his enemy has mortars, RPGs, BKCs and grenades.
"He has a point. He also reported that he has only 32 vests." Then he goes on to say-then this, Mr. Skelton, is your comments about hearts and minds. He said, "In addition to his request for additional police and equipment, he asked that we expedite the reconstruction effort, particularly regarding sewer and water. We had to drive through raw sewage before arriving at the station."
Those are problems we can fix. I mean, we put a man on the moon, we can get weapons and vests and we can fix the sewage, we need to do it faster. In Azamiyah, another-this is an upper class neighborhood of Baghdad, and actually one that has a lot of former regime people in it. He said, "Again, we were surprised to see the chief at work, despite the late hour. He explained that either he or his deputy was usually always present.
"This police station was a disaster three months ago. I visited the station immediately after 40 prisoners had escaped. A new commander-" and Colonel Steele emphasizes the importance of leadership in the police force. "A new commander was subsequently assigned and within two weeks it was a different place. We went back tonight to see if the positive changes were still in place. The station was even better than during the previous visit."
I don't want to suggest that that's representative, that's what we need to aim at. There's a mixture of some-and I guess I don't even want to guess the percentage because it would be a guess. I think the majority have performed reasonably, unless faced with really overwhelming force. Some significant fraction just took off and didn't turn up. And the worst part, and I think it's down in the-I hope it's in the 5 percent or lower range, actually helped the enemy.
That part is important also, I think, to emphasize in the context of thinking that somehow it was a failure of planning that led-with respect to the Army, that led to our problems. The fact is our plan was to use the Iraqi army. We overestimated the Iraqi army before the war, we thought it would be there in disciplined units that could help to provide security. As Ambassador Bremer and Walt Slocum, who was the defense advisor in Baghdad have said repeatedly, the army disbanded itself.
It was mostly a conscript force, conscripts who were basically military slaves. They were barely paid. Many of them-I remember during the scenes of some of them walking home from northern Iraq to southern Iraq with their soles falling off their shoes. What you were left with was an officer corps that was deeply penetrated by all of Saddam's security services. And if you think we have 5 percent that are helping the enemy with the forces that we've reconstructed, I think in the old army it would be worse.
So nobody is being doctrinaire here. We are bringing back officers from the old army, they are key to success. But it's also important to bring back the right officers from the old army.
REP. SCHROCK: And, Mr. Secretary and Mr. Chairman, that is the good news. But sadly good news appears to be no news here at home, and that's a very sad commentary on what our people are fed every night on the news, and it's very sad.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. WOLFOWITZ: Well, I appreciate the chance to at least say it here, thank you.
REP. SCHROCK: Thank you.
END