[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 110-56]
TRAINING OF IRAQI SECURITY FORCES (ISF) AND EMPLOYMENT OF TRANSITION
TEAMS
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MAY 22, 2007
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OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California JEFF MILLER, Florida
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
JIM COOPER, Tennessee GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania
John Kruse, Professional Staff Member
Thomas Hawley, Professional Staff Member
Roger Zakheim, Professional Staff Member
Sasha Rogers, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2007
Page
Hearing:
Tuesday, May 22, 2007, Training of Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)
and Employment of Transition Teams............................. 1
Appendix:
Tuesday, May 22, 2007............................................ 29
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TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007
TRAINING OF IRAQI SECURITY FORCES (ISF) AND EMPLOYMENT OF TRANSITION
TEAMS
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking
Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommitee............... 3
Meehan, Hon. Marty, a Representative from Massachusetts,
Chairman, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee............ 1
WITNESSES
Jones, Brig. Gen. Michael, Deputy Director for Politico-Military
Affairs (Middle East), Joint Staff............................. 4
Velz, Peter, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs (Middle East), Office of the
Secretary of Defense........................................... 4
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Akin, Hon. W. Todd........................................... 35
Meehan, Hon. Marty........................................... 33
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Questions and Answers Submitted for the Record:
Mr. Andrews.................................................. 43
Mr. Meehan................................................... 41
TRAINING OF IRAQI SECURITY FORCES (ISF) AND EMPLOYMENT OF TRANSITION
TEAMS
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, May 22, 2007.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:07 a.m. in
room 2119, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Marty Meehan
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTY MEEHAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MASSACHUSETTS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Meehan. The Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations will come to order. I want to welcome our
witnesses.
Today we are going to continue our examination of the most
pressing issue facing the country: the war in Iraq. In the past
few weeks the subcommittee has looked into the manning,
training and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces and the
United States military and police transition teams.
In today's hearing we will receive testimony from witnesses
on the command relationships and responsibilities of the Multi-
National Corps-Iraq and the Iraqi Assistance Group.
Specifically we will discuss employment and transition teams
with the Iraqi Security Forces. Additionally, we will hear
about the Multi-National Security Assistance Team in Iraq
called Multi-National Security Transition Command (MNSTC-I) and
its Civilian Police Advisory and Training Team called CPATT.
They are charged with the training and equipping of the Iraqi
Police Service and managing training teams for the Ministries
of Defense and Interior. CPATT also supervises the contractors
who are international police liaison officers and international
police trainers working with the Iraqi local police.
Other issues we want to address include the role that
military and police unit readiness reporting plays in assessing
the performance of Iraqi Security Forces. It is vitally and
critically important to understand how this interaction and
reporting plays in how the assessments are made as to how we
are doing relative to the Iraqi Security Forces.
More importantly, we want to hear about the actions
generated by these assessments and how feedback is provided to
Iraqi leaders. We want to hear our guests' frank appraisals of
how the current structure for transition teams were developed
and how future requirements are being determined and then
communicated to the services as force providers.
Part of the reason for this hearing is the inability of the
subcommittee to get documents and informed answers from
witnesses in past hearings on the Civilian Police Advisory and
Assistant Training Team in particular, and the details of the
command relationships in general. Many of you may be aware that
previous witnesses and briefers have had to take numerous
committee questions for the record. In other words, we seem to
have a string of witnesses that can't answer questions and have
to take questions for the record, at which time we wait for
responses.
You may not be aware that responses to questions on the
record have been very slow at getting back to us, and in many
instances there have been no responses to on-the-record
questions. I hope that we don't have that problem today.
Our members and the public should know, without any
disrespect intended toward the witnesses we have today, that
these were not the witnesses that we had asked the Department
of Defense to hear from today. Because some of our efforts have
been delayed or blocked, we finally requested access to
commanders whose plans, policies, and assessment of progress
are crucial and critical to our understanding of the effort to
transition security responsibilities to the Iraqi Security
Forces. They were not made available, so we asked for their
deputies or any knowledgeable staff officer. None were made
available and no alternatives were suggested.
Then we asked knowledgeable staff officers from Central
Command Headquarters in Tampa. We were told none were capable
of providing testimony. Instead we were offered a possible
CODEL for eight members in June, which we appreciate, but
unfortunately we are on a time deadline here, where we would
like to have a report by the end of June.
I would also remind the committee that a staff delegation
was arranged in mid-April and was then canceled.
I just want to comment that in both the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, military/civilian uniformed leaders have been
asked by Congress to explain the decisions about troop
deployments, economic reconstruction, friendly-fire casualties,
the training of Iraqi and Afghan forces, and in fulfilling
their responsibility to oversee the military. We as Members of
Congress need to assess the views of anyone in uniform, not
just high-level officers. This new idea of limiting Congress'
ability to get testimony from a wide range of service members
and civilian Pentagon employees I think undermines our effort.
We have been offered access to Lieutenant General Dempsey
when he returns in mid-June, which we appreciate, but which
doesn't fulfill our requirements. So for all of our sakes' I
hope that the two witnesses today, I hope that you can help us
with some specific questions about the contents of a critical
document that this subcommittee has not been able to obtain,
the Joint Campaign Plan assigned by the Commander of the Multi-
National Forces-Iraq and the Embassy as it pertains to
developing the Iraqi Security Forces.
MNSTC-I has an unclassified campaign plan for developing
the ISF, and that has been provided--not been provided to us
either.
Today's hearing will begin with testimony from Mr. Peter
Velz who is from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for International Security Affairs for the Middle East.
He will be followed by General Michael Jones from the Joint
Staff. He is Deputy Director for Politico-Military Affairs for
the Middle East.
To encourage discussion, I would like to follow the same
less formal procedures today as we have in our previous
sessions. I have talked to the Ranking Member and he has agreed
again to dispense with the five-minute rule during today's
hearing, and I would ask my colleagues to be sensitive and not
to monopolize witnesses. I would also like to remind members of
the subcommittee that this is an open hearing so no classified
information will be discussed. If necessary, when we are
finished here, we can move to a separate room for a classified
discussion.
Again, I welcome our witnesses. We are looking forward to
your remarks and we will take your whole text for the record.
We would ask you to prepare remarks fairly briefly so we can
get to our questions.
With that, I would like to turn to my colleague Mr. Akin,
our Ranking Member, for any opening remarks that he may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Meehan can be found in the
Appendix on page 33.]
STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI,
RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Akin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your remarks and
your able leadership, and I also want to thank our witnesses
for joining us today as well.
Today we continue to build the public record of our
investigation of the Iraqi Security Forces. The purpose of
today's hearing is to look at the command responsibility of the
Multi-National Corps-Iraq and the Iraq Assistance Group, IAG,
in employing transition teams in the Multi-National Security
Transition Command-Iraq for training and equipping the ISF.
I am particularly interested in how the Civilian Police
Assistance Transition Team train and equip the Iraqi Police
Services. These are organizations that own the ISF mission.
Their day-to-day work executes the mission of building an
indigenous Iraqi force that we expect will stabilize Iraq and
will ensure that Iraq has a chance to overcome its sectarian
and ethnic divisions.
Mr. Chairman, as we complete this investigation of ISF we
need to return to the core issues of this investigation and
answer some fundamental questions. First, are the Iraqi
Security Forces we have trained ready to take the lead? We know
how many soldiers and police we have trained, but we are less
clear on how they are performing. Besides making the ISF
logistically independent and improving ministerial capacity,
what challenges remain for the ISF that the U.S. forces can
help solve?
On the strategic level we need to revisit whether the ISF
are really the linchpin to securing the country. While I am
convinced that having a competent Iraq Security Force is a
necessary condition for stabilizing Iraq, it is certainly not
the only condition. The political dimension is absolutely vital
too.
The Baghdad security plan may be a key metric for
evaluating whether we are using ISF in a strategically sound
way and if the ISF are performing effectively at the tactical
level.
I am interested in our witnesses' views on these critical
questions and thank you again for joining us this morning. I
yield back.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Akin.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the
Appendix on page 35.]
Mr. Meehan. I don't think that we have any testimony that
has been provided, written testimony, to the committee. Is that
correct?
Mr. Velz. That is correct, sir. Yes, sir, that is correct.
But I have a very brief statement.
Mr. Meehan. Okay.
STATEMENT OF PETER VELZ, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS (MIDDLE EAST),
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Mr. Velz. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Akin, members of the committee,
I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. The
most appropriate witness for the hearing today, as you
mentioned, is Lieutenant General Dempsey, Commander of MNSTC-I,
but he is not in Washington. I understand our Office of
Legislative Affairs is working with your subcommittee to ensure
that General Dempsey appears before your subcommittee on June
12th. Brigadier General Jones----
Mr. Meehan. Can I just--I just want to make sure--
Legislative Affairs has been communicating with us, I wouldn't
say that it has been--I wouldn't say it has been a cooperative
effort. I have sent ten official--I have never ever seen such a
lack of responsiveness in terms of working with a committee. We
have subpoena power, and we are going to get there, I suppose,
but I don't want you to think that this has been a cooperative
effort. It has been most unpleasant.
Mr. Velz. Okay, sir. General Jones and I will answer your
questions to the best of our ability and take questions for the
record as appropriate.
Mr. Meehan. Is that your opening statement?
Mr. Velz. That is it, sir.
Mr. Meehan. General Jones.
STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. MICHAEL JONES, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR
POLITICO-MILITARY AFFAIRS (MIDDLE EAST), JOINT STAFF
General Jones. Mr. Chairman and Congressman Akin, it is a
pleasure to be here. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to
you about what I believe is a very, very important issue. I
apologize because of time, I didn't have enough time to submit
a written statement for the record, opening remarks. However, I
would like to thank you for your and the rest of the
subcommittee's continued support of men and women in uniform
and also look forward to your questions and I will do my very
best to answer especially those issues that both of you raised
in your opening remarks. Thanks, sir.
Mr. Meehan. I assume, General, you probably weren't
notified that you would be testifying until probably recently,
my guess would be, right?
General Jones. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Meehan. I am shocked.
I would like to start with one question, then reserve time
for later--for both witnesses. How do you tell progress is
being made on the development of the Iraqi Security Forces?
It seems that we measure trained and equipped, but that
really doesn't tell us whether they are on duty or whether they
are capable, or if there are really insurgents or terrorists or
sectarian militia. It also seems that we measure in the lead or
operating independently, which apparently doesn't mean what we
think it does, but it doesn't seem to me that any U.S. troops
can be redeployed or refocused or that the overall violence in
Iraq is going down.
So we are really interested in are you responsible in any
way for keeping track of how this effort is going? How do we
measure this? What is the process? If so, how do you do that
and to whom are you responsible? How do you make adjustments
based on your assessments of how things are going, the progress
that is being made, and how do you keep track of it, and why?
General Jones. Mr. Chairman, you have highlighted a couple
of the ways that we track and we monitor. The first, of course,
is the basic information about trained and equipped, and that
is forces as they go through the fundamental training or the
basic training graduate from either academies or basic training
units and then are provided as individually equipped soldiers
or policemen to their units. That is kind of the manufacture,
the building blocks, so to speak, of effectiveness.
The second element is, as you mentioned, the Transition
Readiness Assessment (TRA) information that actually assesses
unit capacity to perform. These ratings in terms of what the
capacity of the unit is vary from when the unit is being formed
until the time when they are independent. I will mention the
definition may be unclear for some folks; the judgment as to
whether a unit is independent, able to be in the lead, or
requires coalition support is in terms of what that unit is
designed to do. If it is an infantry battalion, an infantry
battalion is designed to operate to do certain critical tasks
and it has internal capacity to do certain things. If that unit
is not capable of doing all those internal things, then we
assess it as a unit that needs coalition support in order to
function.
If, in fact, they can do most of those internal things but
there are parts inside that unit that are missing--for
instance, they might not have internal medical capacity or some
other aspect--then they can be in the lead but not independent.
Finally, an independent unit is one that for everything it
is designed to do, it is capable of doing without coalition
support. So we track that, and that is done primarily based on
the assessment of these embedded teams, either mid-teams,
police transition teams, special police transition teams,
military transition teams that are embedded. That is what
generates that TRA data. In addition to that----
Mr. Meehan. These embedded teams, do they report to you?
Who do they specifically report to?
General Jones. Their information goes up to the C3 of
Multi-National Corps, which is where that information is
collated into the overall TRA assessment information. So their
operational chain of command runs from the more senior teams,
which are located in brigade or the division level, that goes
up to Multi-National Corps and is collated there by the C3,
which is the operations section of Multi-National Corps.
In addition to that, each of these Iraqi units has a
partner unit, and that is a coalition unit that partners with
them, so that you have a parallel organization that provides
mentoring and coaching in support to that unit. So in terms of
their operation they are also informally being looked at just
by virtue of operating together, and that also is a topic of
discussion.
There is a lot of communication that goes on, obviously,
between the transition teams and the commanders of the
partnered units. And so that exchange of information is also
helpful in terms of the analysis of the effectiveness.
Besides that raw data, what I would add is that there is
operational information, and that is as you either work with a
unit or you observe them in the fight, you do some analysis to
determine what is their level of effectiveness based on their
assigned missions, and you can see them out operating. Because
these embedded teams are out operating with the unit, watching
an operation, that is partially recorded in the TRA
information. But also the Corps commander and his subordinate
division commanders that are working with these Iraqi units
also see the effects of their operations, and that can be
anything from how they perform in a fight, to the number of
intelligence-based operations they are conducting successfully
and other kinds of indicators that tell you that that unit is
either being more or less effective.
Mr. Meehan. What specific adjustments have been made over a
period of years as we have gotten data or information? What
types of changes have we implemented as a result of--obviously
training the Iraqi Security Forces hasn't gone as well as
anyone anticipated that it would in the beginning.
I find it very difficult to, number one--other than going
to Iraq and talking to people who are there, we have had a
difficult time getting people before this committee, Oversight
and Investigations, to talk to us about how this process really
works and what adjustments are made as a result.
I appreciate, General, your testimony or your answer to the
question. Those answers are in most of the books that we get
here, most of the briefings. But I am wondering what
adjustments are actually made in terms of real life?
General Jones. I can start quite a while back. When I
arrived in March of 2004 one of the first big adjustments that
we made was the concept of embedded teams. We started off with
the Iraqi Army Forces having what I would call part-time
advisors, and that is people who would go through as mobile
training teams, which is a very effective way to train U.S.
forces.
However, what we discovered, beginning with the April 2004
operations that went on where we saw the Iraqi forces weren't
progressing like we thought they would, what we saw was that
was not a very effective method of training Iraqis.
So that is when we began to make the transition to embedded
teams that work with the same unit, they live with the unit,
they eat with the unit, they stay with them all the time and go
out on operations with them; that was the first fundamental
change.
Some other changes that have been made along the way
include we discovered that there was with the transition teams
some difficulty in having the transition teams working for
MNSTC-I but operating with the unit that was in the operational
area of the Corps. That is one of the reasons why the Iraq
Assistance Group was formed, is so that inside the Corps you
have an organization who are the owners of the transition
teams, and that way the operational chain of command has
responsibility for the transition teams and they work inside
the operational context that is going on, not MNSTC-I, which is
a separate command.
Mr. Meehan. General, is anyone at the Pentagon accountable
for the oversight of this effort?
General Jones. In terms of the training and equipping
effort?
Mr. Meehan. In terms of just oversight of the entire
effort. Is there someone at the Pentagon who is accountable?
General Jones. Obviously, the Secretary is accountable for
everything. And then in terms of the specific elements, there
are certain aspects accountable by different people. In terms
of the spending of money, obviously, the comptroller is
responsible for monitoring that.
Mr. Meehan. What I am trying to get at is we presumably
have this process that we are using over a long period of time.
I am just wondering if there is someone at the Pentagon
responsible for the oversight of the entire operation. I
understand the Secretary of Defense is.
General Jones. Sir, it is essentially, like most other
things, the staff obviously provides information to the
leadership in the Pentagon, but the chain of command runs from
the Secretary to the combatant commander to General Petraeus.
And so clearly the chain of command is responsible for it. It
is monitored by a variety of people based on the function that
you are looking at, whether it is money, whether it is the
manning of the units in order to provide the support, whether
it is the operational effectiveness of the units.
Mr. Meehan. Okay. If the TRA's go to MNC, why is General
Dempsey, for example--why would he be the best witness that
they think would be the best person to come before the
committee? Wouldn't General Odierno?
General Jones. General Odierno is the Corps commander. I
will have to defer to the Office of the Secretary of Defense
colleague but----
Mr. Meehan. I am just curious why General Dempsey would be
the witness that the Pentagon would think would be the best.
Mr. Velz. Mr. Chairman, Lieutenant General Dempsey is also
responsible for the development of the Ministry of Defense and
Interior, which has command and control over the Iraqi forces.
So he would have the best overall perspective on what the
overall requirements would be for any adjustments that needed
to be made.
Certainly General Ordieno as the operational commander
would have the best visibility over the operational situation.
But it is just like in the U.S. military, when you are trying
to figure out what to do about the force, you generally look to
the higher headquarters, the services, if you will, or the
Joint Staff to make the recommendations on that.
Mr. Meehan. As Members of Congress, one of the reasons why
we go to Iraq on a regular basis is to actually talk to the men
and women who are on the front lines, because often times we
get a better perspective. Sometimes we hear that they are not
getting equipment that they need; or we are hearing that there
are problems with communication that result in not having up-
armored Kevlar vests, for example; not getting water, those
types of things.
That is why the committee likes to try to get, in addition
to able, articulate people like yourselves, to get some people
who are really more operational.
Mr. Akin.
Mr. Akin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If you were to change
hats with us and be Congressmen--I know that might seem like a
nightmare to some degree--but when we go to Iraq, depending who
you talk to, you get valuable information depending on what
level you are. Sometimes if you are talking to a sergeant you
get some very specific information on a point topic.
I think my favorite people to talk to were lieutenant
colonels, just because it seemed like they had responsibility
for something and they would say, look, I don't know anything
else about what is going on but this area; this is my deal and
I can tell you about it.
We got some very valuable help. We calibrate what we are
asking questions about and sometimes we get the top commanders
talking to us. Everything was generalities but nothing to flesh
the picture out. And I think that is what the Chairman was
making reference to.
General Jones, you started to develop a little bit of the
transition of how we are working with the training. You said
initially we run a team of people through the way we treat the
U.S. troops, and it seems to work okay for the U.S. troops but
it wasn't working in Iraq. So, instead, the concept was to take
the team and just literally leave them with the unit for a
period of time.
Is that partly because they didn't have the same
assumptions that our troops do, and so you have to--it takes
longer to build that? And what were the transitions, if you
would just kind of speed up your answer, from when you were
there in April of 2004, what were those changes and how did we
learn and develop how we were doing the training?
General Jones. If I can answer the second part first. We
transitioned to this embedding concept. Another adjustment that
we made was, in fact, beginning to collect readiness
information because the Iraqis had no system for doing that.
The next major shift was the establishment of partnering units.
That was an item that was done a little bit more than a year
ago.
So it has been a series of adjustments made, based on what
we thought was best as the situation developed. In terms----
Mr. Akin. Were some of those things, with 20-20 hindsight,
things you would have done five years ago, or were some of
those things also because the Iraq situation was moving as
well?
General Jones. Congressman, I think both. I think many of
those things, had you known more about the Iraqis, some of
their limitations, their culture, a lot of factors about them,
you might have done some of them earlier. In some cases the
situation has obviously changed. Since when we first began
doing this level of violence, a lot of other factor have
changed.
Sir, in answer to the second question, why some things
don't work, the Iraqi culture is just different. I call it the
Inshallah Factor; and that is, in the U.S. we understand there
is a very clear cause-and-effect relationship between what you
do and the results that you get. For instance, at the lowest
level, firing a weapon. I know if I train somebody, that if I
teach them the seven steady hold factors, how to aim the weapon
properly and so forth, that they will hit the target with the
bullet. But because of the religious and cultural background of
most Iraqis, they are very fatalistic and they believe that
things are all based on the will of God; if God wants the
bullet to hit the target, it will hit the target and what I do
does not affect the outcome.
And so you have to establish a level of trust in a
relationship with Iraqis in order to then persuade them to
change their behavior in a way that then allows them to start
performing at a higher trained level.
So those are things that, flat out, I didn't know when I
first went to Iraq; that it took me a while to learn about
Iraqis.
Mr. Akin. What I hear you say is you take an American
soldier and say, look, if you hold the weapon this way and you
make sure that you are using this particular eye when you are
lining up the site picture, you are going to hit the target
more. And they go, oh, thanks for the tip. And they may shoot a
little bit better.
You are saying with the Iraqi, you have got to develop that
personal relationship and it is a longer sort of process to try
to effect a change.
General Jones. That is correct.
Mr. Akin. It is just a method of thinking and all.
Mr. Velz. Sir, can I add a point?
Mr. Akin. I was going to let you finish, because the
transition was we sent some people through, and that wasn't
working too well, and then we embedded some people. Is that
where we are, embedding units?
General Jones. We have increased the number of embedded
teams markedly. We are embedding not just in the military units
but also police units. We then established a partnership,
because our embeds are generally junior to the unit that they
are advising. That is pretty normal in terms of how we do
advisory duties, whether it is Special Operations forces or
conventional forces.
So while you might have a major who is the advisor for a
battalion normally commanded by a lieutenant colonel, by
partnering a unit you have a peer who is able to coach and
mentor that battalion commander at things that it takes a
little bit more experience at that command level to do. So you
have that kind of parallel partnership activity going on.
But those are some of the adjustments that we have made in
order to try to adapt. We are now doing things like the re-
bluing of the national police. One of the problems trying to
build a force in the middle of conflict is that these units are
engaged every day in security operations. And so, for instance,
the national police re-bluing, we are actually taking units out
of the line, we are going through a revetting procedure to get
rid of some of the folks that we don't want to have in those
organizations, or doing some retraining where they are not
engaged in operations but they are separated out in a training
environment before they go back in and conduct operations
again.
So there are a lot of other adjustments that I could spend
a lot of time talking about, but things that have evolved over
time based on how we have learned.
Mr. Akin. Mr. Velz.
Mr. Velz. Yes, I was just going to add, three years ago at
this time in the spring of 2004, there were basically four
battalions of the Iraqi Army and they were basically in
collapse after the first battle of Fallujah. General Jones had
maybe a few battalions of what was called the Iraqi Civil
Defense Corps, which were just local militia that had minimal
training. There weren't any units to advise at that point.
Very quickly, though, over the next six to nine months,
large numbers of battalions got stood up by MNSTC-I. And so by
the end of 2004, beginning of 2005, we were seriously looking
at how to do an advisory mission with embeds. And that is
basically because the quantity of units that was being stood up
was growing so rapidly. At the same time, of course, as General
Jones mentioned, the conditions on the insurgency also required
a more intense focus on this as well.
But it was largely as a result of the very quick buildup of
the Iraqi Army units beginning at the second half of 2004, that
is when we really started to look seriously as how to do the
embed mission in Iraq.
Mr. Akin. I just wanted to conclude because I don't want to
hog the microphone here, but I wanted to thank you, General
Jones, for working with us and getting the TRAs to us. I know
you put a lot of work into that, trying to speed that paperwork
flow so we have a chance to see some of that data. Thank you
for your work on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Meehan. Before we go to Dr. Snyder, General, you
mentioned re-bluing efforts. The Washington Post reported that
the plan to reform the National Police by re-bluing and firing
corrupt leaders is in trouble. General Pittard apparently was
angry, saying that the Maliki government was actually firing
the good leaders.
Are you familiar with any of this, and what is your
explanation or response to that?
General Jones. I am familiar with the article and I did
not--I did not take from the article that General Pittard was
talking about the re-bluing effort. The re-bluing effort, to
the best of my knowledge, those leaders that have been replaced
in the re-bluing effort have not been replaced as a result of
any influence out of the national government, it is inside the
Ministry of Interior. And I believe that all of the leaders I
have talked to in Iraq have been very pleased with the way they
went about eliminating bad leaders inside those forces.
Mr. Meehan. So no one at the Pentagon or, General Pittard,
or the military hasn't been concerned that the Maliki
government was actually firing some of the good leaders.
General Jones. That is incorrect. I think that what you are
talking about is the re-bluing effort. I think that has
actually gone on well. Of course, we are all concerned about
any time----
Mr. Meehan. How about the effort to fire corrupt leaders?
General Jones. The effort to fire corrupt leaders inside
the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense, we have seen
a large improvement in that. I wouldn't tell you it is
completely successful. It is an ongoing process. We are in fact
concerned that there are leaders that may be being fired or
replaced because of sectarian differences, and we are watching
that very closely.
There have been cases where that has been done, that we
have gone back to the government and said this is wrong and it
should not happen. So it is not an area that we are satisfied
with. We are continuing to watch it closely. We have seen a
significant improvement, but it is not where it needs to be.
Mr. Meehan. So there has been a problem inside the two
ministries that you have mentioned, but they are having
problems outside those two ministries.
General Jones. I believe that in general the nature of how
the Iraqi Government works is they have a long tradition of--
not merit-based promotion or selection, but what I guess we
would call either cronyism or some other method, but not being
merit-based. We have been encouraging them to become merit-
based. We have seen a significant amount of progress. But in
the two security ministries I think they are reflective of some
of the problems they probably have in other ministries as well.
Mr. Meehan. Dr. Snyder.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen,
for being here. I hope you took the spirit of Chairman Meehan's
comments at the beginning; we really do appreciate you being
here. I, in fact, probably doubly appreciate you being here. I
figure you come over here having drawn the short straw. I don't
know what is going on in the Pentagon these days in regard to
this committee, but I think it is symptomatic of bigger
problems within the Administration and within the Pentagon.
General Jones, your bio says you are accompanied by your
wife Pat. Is she here today with you?
General Jones. She is not here today.
Dr. Snyder. I figured that was a more generic sense. I was
going to recognize her if she was. I will recognize that she is
not here. I know you appreciate the support that she has given
you.
One of the frustrating things about what has happened in
the last few months is it has taken a long time to establish
this subcommittee, and this subcommittee has a record of
working in a bipartisan manner. In the past on the House side,
and you are on the joint command, the Joint Staff, the
Goldwater-Nichols work that we talked about came out of the old
ONI Subcommittee on the House side. Chairman Skelton was a
member of that subcommittee at the time.
There are a lot of good things that can come out of this
committee in the spirit of us all getting on the same page and
working together, and that is where we really are not sure what
is happening with regard to the timeliness and appropriateness
of getting the information to the people over here to this
subcommittee.
So my question for you, General Jones, is--Mr. Meehan is
leaving, he is going to be effectively out of here July 1. He
has got a new life as president at the University of
Massachusetts at Lowell. So what has he done wrong? Has he been
too polite, has he been too thoughtful, too bipartisan? What
has he done wrong that your seniors in the Pentagon do not want
to provide him the kind of witnesses and information that he
and Mr. Akin, pulling hardest together in a very bipartisan
way, that they don't seem to be forthcoming with that
information? What advice do you have for whoever the future
chairman of the subcommittee is going to be?
General Jones. Sir, I would just--I can't speak for some of
the folks you may be talking about, frankly, because I have
never had that discussion with them. I certainly think--I do
not think it would be a fault to be too polite or too
bipartisan or too courteous. I wouldn't view those as faults; I
think those are good traits.
I am a professional military officer and I do the best I
can to provide the information that I am asked to provide in a
way that is meaningful.
Dr. Snyder. I have read your resume, you have a good
reputation; it is just we are trying to figure out where to go
from here. It is getting frustrating. A lot of what this kind
of subcommittee is about is ultimately looking at things we
have done wrong or can do better. There is a lot of splash that
comes from hearings that have dramatic witnesses and lots of
cameras and all that kind of stuff. A lot of times those kinds
of hearings don't lead to any change in legislation.
I think a lot of Mr. Meehan. One of the questions he was
asking before he agreed to take his chairmanship is, what can
we do constructively? For example, ultimately if you have a
shortage of equipment for your Iraqi troops or for our troops,
it is our problem. We haven't bought enough, haven't given you
enough money in a timely way. If you don't have enough foreign
language speakers, whether it is Farsi or Arabic or whatever it
is, it is ultimately our problem. We are not allocating enough
resources and giving you the kind of people and incentives to
get people in the kind of skills that you need. If we have a
problem with contractors not performing, ultimately it is our
problem because we haven't given enough tools to do the
oversight.
So we have been struggling with this. I can remember
sitting down there when Mr. Bremer was sitting where you are,
General Jones--I think it was a closed session, I don't think
it was classified--sitting right in the front row, and I asked
him what do you need from Congress, and the answer was
patience. That was his only answer, patience.
You see where that has got us. We were assured for, I don't
know, a year or two or three, everything was going just great
with the training of these Iraqi troops.
So that is the frustration, whether you are talking about
the Iraq Study Group or the President's plan or Secretary
Rumsfeld, Secretary Gates' plan, ultimately this is going to
depend on can Iraqi troops and the police stand on their own.
And so we are here trying to figure out what we need to be
doing to help with that effort that has been struggling for the
last several years, and so it is very frustrating with regard
to lack of the spirit of cooperation. Maybe I will put it that
way.
General Jones, do you know Congressman Shimkus, one of our
Republican colleagues from Illinois, West Point graduate? John
puts together every year this training program for the young
officers, and Ms. Tauscher and I participate. I don't know if
Ms. Davis has. It is a videotape thing, and we pretend we are
Members of Congress--which we are pretty good at pretending
at--and they pretend, these young officers, that they are
testifying before a congressional committee, and I think they
are majors or lieutenant colonels, folks who are identified
they are going to go on up.
So we have scenarios, and there are bad things going on in
the world. But it is wonderful experience for me because I
learned where you all are trained how to answer the questions.
One of my favorite phrases is ``Well, Congressman, that is a
great question.'' I am thinking I heard that, I think--how many
times have we heard that? You were trained to say that. You are
trained to say that.
That is all okay; my concern is that somehow there is this
ethic within the Pentagon that part of that training is
obfuscation. If you can go into the committee room and get out
in an hour and a half and haven't done much to tip the boat
either way, it has been a great day; rather than in the spirit
of coming in and saying here is where are our problems are,
here is where we have screwed up, here is where we think you
have screwed up and here are things we don't have any idea what
is going on.
Maybe that is expecting too much, but it is in the spirit
of trying to make things better so that you all can do the kind
of job that you want to. I hope that you and whoever you all
have these discussions with about how you got up this morning,
I understand how deep the concern is with the House Armed
Services Committee, about the Pentagon attitude toward this
subcommittee. We don't understand it. It is probably more than
any other subcommittee in the Congress working in a bipartisan
manner. And it is not going to go away. Mr. Meehan may be going
away, but this subcommittee isn't going to go away.
Mr. Meehan. Congressman Snyder, those are great comments.
Congressman Jones.
Mr. Jones of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I am
not going to beat up or pontificate, but I must say I sit here
in total dismay, not with you two gentlemen, but we are talking
about over 3,000 dead men and women. We are talking about
20,000-plus wounded, paralyzed, IEDs, hit in the head. And my
frustration is not with you gentlemen, the frustration in my
opinion is the arrogance of this Administration.
They have wanted to stay the course for five years. We
stayed the course. And I sat here for five years and have heard
how well the training is going. The newspapers say no, it is
not going well. Again, not you two gentlemen, but those who
have been at the table, things are getting better.
But tell the American people why this country is going
broke and spending $9.2 billion a month in Iraq, and Senator
McCain is on Meet the Press and Tim Russert says: Senator, it
has been reported that we only have--and I don't know if it is
6,000 or 8,000, but it is not many, let's say 6,000--Iraqi
military that can go out on patrol on their own, without having
somebody from the military of America or the coalition walking
with them.
And I think it is disgusting, I will be honest with you. I
couldn't quite figure out when General Jack Sheehan turned down
the position as war czar, and his comment in the Washington
Post was, ``They don't know where in the hell they are going.''
And I sit here, Mr. Chairman, and I am frustrated as a
Republican that those in the Pentagon, and not these two
gentlemen, have turned their nose up to the Congress; not just
the Oversight Committee, but to the Congress.
The American people changed the majority in November of
this year because my party would not do what we are trying to
do today. The American people have a right, whether they agree
with the policy in Iraq or do not agree with the policy in
Iraq, to know what is happening. And I think it is so
discouraging for the American people, not for us, not for us,
but discouraging for the American people that a Congress, a
subcommittee under Armed Services, cannot get the straight
answer. Again, not from you two gentlemen; you are here because
you were chosen, or, as Mr. Snyder said, or Mr. Meehan, you got
the short straw.
But I will tell you that the American people are fed up and
I am frustrated and fed up, and I hear General Jones, and we do
claim kin if you want to, maybe not when I finish, but this is
not toward you personally, there is a cultural difference.
Well, I would like to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that maybe we
give Paul Wolfowitz a new job and send him over there as mayor
of Iraq since the neocons got us in over there, and maybe Mr.
Perle can be co-mayor or co-chairman.
Trust. You cannot--people who have hated each other for
1,400 years--and it is so unfair to put our military there to
be policemen, to be negotiators, to try to make these people
work together, the Shi'ias and the Sunnis.
I, with a couple of Democrats and two other Republicans two
weeks ago, met with a gentleman from the Parliament in Iraq in
Wayne Gilchrest's office. The man says, I am a Shiite, I am
married to a Sunni. He talked about how corrupt the Maliki
government is. This is one man's opinion. He had an
interpreter. I don't know.
But the issue is that what we are trying to do is to get to
the facts of where are we going. Is there a possibility for a
victory, is there a possibility for an end point to the
strategy, or does it just go on and on and on? And I heard
General Jones and the Secretary--I mean you are right, it is
adjustments, adjustments. It is trust, it is their culture.
God knows, when you go to Walter Reed, and all of us do,
and you go to Bethesda--and I never will forget two years ago I
went with Gene Taylor to Walter Reed and we go in the room and
there is a mom and a dad, and the mom has got tears coming down
her eyes, and we speak to her, then we go to the bed and there
is an army sergeant, he has got his attractive fiance down at
the foot of the bed.
We speak to him, and before we get ready to leave, and by
that time we know that he has lost both legs. Been amputated.
He had been to Iraq twice. He said, Congressman, I know my
opinion does not matter because I am just a sergeant, but we
assured him his opinion did matter, I want to make that clear
to the committee. He said, You cannot make these people love or
like each other.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to say this committee does have
subpoena power, and I hope--I hate to see you leave, but if not
used before, then the new chairman, whomever he or she might
be, I think should say that we are going to bring in the people
who are going to make these decisions. I know you are decision
makers, don't get me wrong, you are decision makers, and I
respect you both. I don't know you, but I respect you both, but
I want somebody to answer to the American people. And if they
have got to be sworn in in a closed hearing, get the press out,
fine. But this Congress has been sold a bill of goods for five
years. And it is not the Congress, it is the dead, it is their
families, it is the wounded and their families that have a
right to know the answers; it is not us.
And I will close on this, Mr. Chairman. I will never forget
a kid five months ago down at Johnson Elementary School, Camp
LeJeune, which is in my district, and I was asked to read a
book, Doctor Seuss, to the kids, ten kids, Hispanic, black and
white, six years of age. And before I finished one kid, I am
sitting in a rocking chair--where I probably belong at this
stage of life--sitting in a rocking chair and the last kid I
called on to ask me a question said--I want to say it very
slowly and clearly--my daddy is not dead yet.
We have a right to get the answers, the honest answers
about training of the Iraqis. We have a right and an obligation
to the Constitution of the United States of America. And if we
cannot get the answers, then democracy is in trouble because it
will crumble and it will fall.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
And Mr. Jones, I want to assure you, in fulfilling our
responsibility to oversee the military, we will get the access
to anyone in uniform, not just high-level officers. These new
guidelines that limit Congress's freedom to get testimony from
a wide range of service members and civilian Pentagon
employees--I have a meeting with Mr. Skelton later on today. We
are going to meet with the Secretary of the Defense Gates--but
as far as I am concerned, we will subpoena people. The
Department of Defense does not have the right to bar enlisted
personnel or career bureaucrats or any officers from testifying
before this committee. So we are moving forward with a meeting
with the Secretary Gates.
Mrs. Davis.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to all of you. I am sure you didn't expect the
morning to be quite like this, but we welcome you here and
thank you for being here. I wonder if you could perhaps respond
a little bit, what questions do you think we should be asking
that would give us the greatest insight? One of my concerns is
we are talking a lot about numbers, how many people are
trained; how many people are capable of performing
independently? But I am also impressed that what has been
called the kind of open source decentralization of the
insurgency, of the warlords, militias, that we should be
talking more about what we are learning from what they are
doing, and how we are responding, and how we are in fact
training the Iraqis, along with ourselves, to adapt better. Is
that something that we ought to be focusing on more than on
numbers? Because if we don't get what is going on out there, if
we don't know our enemy, then how in the heck are we going to
be able to be successful at what we are doing? And so I am
just, you know, is that appropriate from your points of view?
Is it only numbers? What are we missing?
General Jones. Ma'am, I would say in fact it is a whole lot
more than numbers. You know, it is nice to have quantifiable
things to analyze. And quantifiable things are very important,
but there are some things that aren't as easily quantifiable
that are also very important as well. In terms of adaptation
for the security forces in Iraq, I think that is probably not a
well understood, but very important, aspect of all of this. And
the more you understand about the adaptations we are trying to
have, I think the more you recognize the level of difficulty of
the task.
Ms. Davis of California. Can you identify what is the
greatest frustration in trying to do that and trying to
ascertain that then? And again, what is it? Do we need more
resources? What would make a difference?
General Jones. Part of it is time. You know, we have
institutions in Iraq that have at least 35 years, but probably
more than that, of institutional culture that we are trying to
change. Under the Saddam era, the security forces were focused
pretty much on a single thing, and that is keeping an
individual in power. The idea of having an institution whose
job it was to serve the Nation or the people of the Nation is a
marked change in the institutional culture that, you know, that
we are working with. And we have made considerable progress in
doing that, but it is an extremely difficult task. We are
trying to create security forces that can deal with an
insurgent environment. The traditional Iraqi Army forces were
trained to deal with conventional threats, other armies. They
had no doctrine, no concept of how to do intelligence-based
operations to deal with an insurgency. So we have started to
work that basically from the ground up to include the training
of all Iraqi leaders who, none of them had really any
experience or any background that would make it easy for them
to make that transition as well. So, I mean, there are a lot of
things like that that are not quantifiable things but that are
part of this whole rubric.
Ms. Davis of California. How are we going to use that then
to try and move forward, understanding it is not all
quantifiable, but I guess what I am looking for is something
that I am not just reading in the papers, that we could be
doing that is specific. And maybe, you know, getting moving
away from this little bit, if you could talk about, we are
obviously involved in a surge. Has that taken folks away from
the embedding and the training to your knowledge?
General Jones. The answer is no. This plus-up of forces is
in addition to the forces that were there and the transition
teams that are embedded. So in fact it hasn't taken away from
the transition teams. What has happened is the number of forces
that are partnered with Iraqi forces have increased, especially
in Baghdad and to some degree in al-Anbar. So it hasn't had a
negative effect. I would argue that it is having a positive
effect early on here.
Ms. Davis of California. Are there--is the revenues that
are being provided, the money that is being provided to train
and to work to develop an infrastructure in the service, in the
Iraqi service, is that something--do you have that? Are you
relying on supplementals for that? Can you talk about what
percentage of those dollars come from that? Have the estimates
changed for what is needed?
General Jones. In terms of infrastructure for the security
forces, that has been part of the program that has been
partially coalition funded, partially Iraqi funded. Initially,
it was predominantly U.S. funds. Iraqis are funding larger and
larger portions of this over time. Currently, right now, the--
obviously, there is a supplemental that is being worked on here
that has funds in it to continue to do the training, equip the
mission. There is funding in next year's budget as well to
continue to do that.
Ms. Davis of California. Do you have an estimate for that?
General Jones. I apologize, I didn't bring budget numbers
with me. Maybe----
Mr. Velz. Congresswoman, are you referring to just the
surge-related costs or the 2000----
Ms. Davis of California. The training----
Mr. Velz [continuing]. For 2007 and 2008?
Ms. Davis of California. The training costs and how that
develops.
Mr. Velz. Okay.
Ms. Davis of California. Yes, for U.S. versus Iraqi.
Mr. Velz. The way we look at this, we look at this as a
total cost of security that we are funding and the Iraqis are
funding, and then we have different programs under that that
are implemented. Some of it may be training. Some is buying
equipment. Some is building infrastructure. But a lot of it is
just keeping the Iraqi forces operational, buying fuel, buying
ammunition, bullets, food, life support and so forth. So we
basically, for 2007, the Iraqi government has budgeted about
$7.3 billion for this for both the Ministries of Defense and
Interior. And from our supplementals and from our main budget,
we are spending about $5.5 billion. So they are paying the
majority of the total cost. Total cost is about $13 billion. It
is about a 7 to 5 split. For 2008, we have requested $2 billion
so far for the 2008 request. And we expect the Iraqi government
to pay somewhat in excess of what they are paying this year. So
they are paying this year over $7 billion. They will pay more
than that next year. And that is where we are at the moment.
Most of this is--most of the U.S. funding is to build the
capacity of the Ministries of Defense and Interior to keep
their forces in the fight, to sustain their forces, building
logistics capacity, building warehousing and supply chains and
so forth, which right now is one of their critical
shortcomings. So it is admittedly a fair amount of money, but
it is--to basically address a, what we have identified as a
significant requirement to, if you will, take the Iraqi
capabilities to the next level.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I would certainly have other questions in how
that is going in terms of logistics training, because we know
that, even culturally, as you mentioned, some of the ideas that
we take for granted aren't necessarily part of the way in which
the Iraqis would approach the task of logistics. And so how--
can you give us a rough estimate? I mean, do you feel that that
is moving or so slow that you anticipate that we would be two
years behind in the training that you would have anticipated?
Where is that?
Mr. Velz. Well, a lot of the operational and tactical level
units have been built and are functioning at various levels.
What really needs to be focused on the most, and that is what
we are focusing on, is the ministerial level, if you will, the
equivalent of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD),
Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) type of function.
The equivalent of the OSD personnel and readiness function.
Those are the things that we are focusing on in terms of
capacity development.
Ms. Davis of California. Could you give it a grade today?
Mr. Velz. Well, MNSTC-I gives them grades. I would have to
defer to General Jones on what his assessment is of that. I
will say that from the standpoint of the Ministry of Defense
(MOD)--let's just take the Ministry of Defense logistics
system, you mentioned the Iraqis perhaps have a different
concept. I think we are at the point now where there is a fair
degree of consensus between the coalition and the Iraqis on
what the concept is. And we have been basically building it for
the last year-and-a-half or so. There was a lot of discussion
in 2004, early 2005 about what it should look like, but I think
that has largely been resolved now. And you know, the flow
chart, if you will, for the system is agreed on. And if you
look at the supplemental request, you can see in there the
building blocks that we are funding in that.
Ms. Davis of California. General Jones, did you want to
give an assessment, a quick grade, if you will?
General Jones. I would say that it is a work in progress.
If you look at, we have had some significant success I think in
the Taji National Depot, where they are doing fairly high-level
maintenance procedures for equipment. As you go through the
motor transport regiments and the logistics support units, you
have some that are stood up that are operating with our
support. You have some that are still being formed. So that is
occurring this year. But it will still take a while to get them
to where they are really operating at capacity; into next year
at a minimum, I think.
You have alluded to the fact that it is--there are some
issues in this region as a general rule on the logistics side
in terms of having the level of logistics effort and
sophistication that we have. So there is a considerable amount
of work to be done. Finally, in the ministries, we have seen
some progress, but they still have major challenges in terms of
budget execution. To that end, we are helping with budget
execution on an interim basis by working with them on foreign
military sales. We have got $1.9 billion of Iraqi funds that
have been deposited into an account for foreign military sales,
where we can assist them in spending that money to buy
equipment for their forces. So we are helping them in those
places that are most critical, but at the ministerial level,
there is a significant amount of work to be done to get all of
those systems in place that would really give them a fully
functioning system.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Meehan. Mr. Velz, you mentioned a logistics concept. We
asked for a copy of the logistics concept on March 20th. On
March 20th. We can't get a copy of it. We would love to have a
discussion about the logistics concept. I can't imagine why the
Pentagon would want to keep the logistics concept secret from
the subcommittee, but they haven't responded to us. And there
are so many things that we could have a dialogue about and
really try to find consensus. But you mentioned logistics
concept. March 20th we asked for it, still haven't been given
it.
Mr. Andrews.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the witnesses for their service to the country. I
appreciate them being here today. As of May the 9th, the
research indicates that we have trained 337,200 Iraqi security
and Iraqi police. And I know that that is a much higher number
than was originally anticipated. Ambassador Bremer's initial
plan I think called for a new Iraqi Army of 40,000 people.
There was some other kind of corps that was going to be maybe
15,000 people. The numbers have just grown and grown and grown.
Something else that has grown with it, though, is the number of
attacks being waged in Iraq. The Government Accountability
Office (GAO) has done an analysis of this. And approximately
500 attacks in the month of June of 2003; 1,800 attacks in the
month of June of 2004. In the month of June of 2005, 2,000
attacks. In the month of June of 2006, 3,500 attacks. So the
number of attacks, as defined by the GAO, has gone up
significantly at the same time that the number of trained Iraqi
security and police have gone up. By December of 2006, the GAO
analysis indicates that we had 5,000 attacks.
I assume it would be Mr. Velz who would answer this
question. For the last month for which you have available data,
how many attacks were launched by the resistance or
counterinsurgency in Iraq?
Mr. Velz. Sir, I don't have that data with me, but we can
provide it for you.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
beginning on page 43.]
Mr. Andrews. It is correct you will provide it? Because I
will tell you when I asked for this information through the
Department, I was told I would have to file a Freedom of
Information Act request. Is that correct?
Mr. Velz. We, in our quarterly report, we report attack
trends.
Mr. Andrews. When you say attack trends, the GAO again
produced what was previously classified--it was unclassified a
few months ago, from which I am reading--an actual month by
month account of attacks launched, breaking it down by the
target of the attacks, whether it is coalition forces, Iraqi
forces or Iraqi civilians. Is that information publicly
available now?
General Jones. Sir, that information is classified in terms
of the breakout of specifically what is being attacked, you
know, by numbers. I think that what we have done is
declassified attack trend information that shows you overall
numbers of attacks. But it is the assessment of commanders in
the theater that providing detailed information about what is
being attacked by whom would not be appropriate in terms of
protecting their forces.
Mr. Andrews. The first point that I would like to make,
just to reiterate, Mr. Velz, I think, told me that attack
trends information is publicly available. I hope that will be
provided to members of the committee without filing a Freedom
of Information Act request. Can I count on that?
Mr. Velz. In the March 2007 quarterly report, we have a
chart on average weekly attacks from April 2004 to February
2007.
Mr. Andrews. You have data older than February of 2007?
Mr. Velz. This is in the March 2007 quarterly report.
Mr. Andrews. So the next quarterly report will be due at
the end of June?
Mr. Velz. That is correct. At the beginning of June.
Mr. Andrews. Now let me explore, obviously if in your
judgment the target of the attacks should be classified, I
wouldn't expect you to answer the question. On what basis are
we classifying that information? My understanding is the
purpose of classifying information would be to protect the
lives of the people that are defending our country, to subject
them to no undue risk or to avoid giving the enemy any sort of
tactical advantage.
You need to understand, though, that there is a political
discussion going on in the country about whether or not Iraq is
in a civil war. It is a very important question. It is not just
a semantic one. And as the number of attacks against Iraqi
civilians rise, so does the evidence that Iraq is in a civil
war. What is the basis for classifying that number? Why can't
the American people know that number?
General Jones. Again, Congressman, I think that in terms of
summarizing overall trend information in terms of the attacks,
that that information is in a variety of open sources, to
include the 9010 report that gets issued once a quarter or sent
over to the Congress. The specifics of either the numbers of
attacks against specific types of targets, the effects of those
attacks, the casualties that are suffered because of those
attacks we think provide the types of enemies that we have,
that do not have complete information about what is going on,
an advantage that puts our troops at risk.
Mr. Andrews. I would never want in any way to suggest that
we should do that. And I respect your judgment very, very much.
But I think the committee needs to take into account the
context in which these questions are being asked. The President
said in January that we should give his surge idea a chance to
work. And I believe there were comments from the President and
the White House that, by July or August, we would know if the
surge was working. The term ``working'' has to be attached to
some quantitative and qualitative benchmark, to use a word that
is going around here a lot. And although I would by no means
say that the number of attacks should be the exclusive
benchmark or that it tells the entire story, for those of us
who frankly have come to the conclusion that we are now
refereeing a civil war, knowing the number of attacks that are
being launched against Iraqi civilians is a very significant
number.
And Mr. Chairman, I would just suggest that, in your
discussion with the Secretary of Defense, that you raise this
issue as to the what I view as an overclassification of
information. Again, I deeply respect the judgment of the
uniform personnel, in particular that if there is a need to
protect information, protect our troops, I am for it. But if
this is a political decision that is being made to cloud the
discussion in the country as to whether the surge is working or
not, that is indefensible. And I would hope that, in your
discussions with the Secretary, you would make some of our
views--I think it is yours as well--known. That is my strong
sense here, is that we are overclassifying this information on
political grounds rather than strategic ones. Thank you.
General Jones. Mr. Chairman, if I could just elaborate.
Mr. Meehan. General.
General Jones. First of all, clearly, you know, we want to
inform the committee and the members of what the information
is. There is a classified annex to that 9010 report that does
in fact have more detailed and classified information. However,
in the unclassified portion there is some information about
some of the subjects that you discussed. The numbers of attacks
are in fact in the unclassified portion. I believe the attacks
against civilians is also cumulatively a number that is in that
unclassified portion of the report. So I think that most of the
things that you mentioned in the aggregate, you know, by month
are in the report. What I was talking about needing to stay
classified is within a category of total number of attacks,
Iraqi security force attacks versus coalition versus police
versus other small sub-elements of that numbers of attacks.
Mr. Andrews. How many attacks were there in April of 2007?
General Jones. I don't have that number off the top of my
head, but I----
Mr. Andrews. Would you supply it for the record?
General Jones [continuing]. I can supply it for the record.
I can get that for you.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
beginning on page 43.]
Mr. Andrews. And could you give the committee a classified
document that breaks the attacks down by the target of the
attacks?
General Jones. And I believe it will actually be in the
report, but I will gladly provide that separately.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you very much.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Andrews. And I can assure you
and the Chairman, in my meeting with the Secretary of Defense,
we will bring these matters to attention. Oftentimes what
happens to Members of Congress is we end up relying on what the
New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are writing about
numbers, because let's face it, these numbers leak out to media
sources. And we get the information through the media rather
than from the Pentagon. But I do want to distinguish between
what is classified and what isn't classified to what has
happened before this committee. The Department of Defense is
reserving the right here to bar enlisted personnel, career
bureaucrats and any officers below the rank of colonel from
testifying to this oversight committee or to having their
statements transcribed. And according to the guidelines from
the Department of Defense, junior officers, non-commissioned
officers deemed appropriate by the Department of Defense may
only provide some briefings, but shall not be asked to have
their names entered into the record or have it be part of the
record. These are all rules, in my view, that are designed to
keep from the committee doing its work. And it is plain, and it
is simple. Whether that is political, whether that is
embarrassment of how poorly things are going in Iraq, whether
it is because they don't want to have to defend the years--we
have spent $1.2 trillion. We will spend in defense spending
this year, if you count the regular defense budget, the
supplementals, approximately $1.2 trillion; 9.2 billion per
month. So whatever the reasons are, we will get to the bottom.
And hopefully, we won't have to resort to subpoenas. But we
will if we have to.
Mr. Spratt.
Mr. Spratt. Thank you for your testimony. I am right here.
Good morning, sir. What I ask you may be a bit redundant, but I
want to kind of wrap it up as the cleanup hitter. And it
particularly relates to the size of the Iraqi Defense Forces.
As I understand it, we have set out to train 135 battalions. Is
that the objective number? Infantry battalions?
General Jones. I believe that is a cumulative number, sir.
Mr. Spratt. How is that, sir?
General Jones. That is not just infantry battalions. That
includes national police battalions. It includes all police
battalions.
Mr. Spratt. Oh, it does. Okay. So 114 are now trained,
deemed to be capable of planning an attack, coordinating an
attack with other units and executing the attack?
General Jones. Sir, if I could defer to--I can give you
precise numbers in terms of what level they are in a closed
session.
Mr. Spratt. Okay.
General Jones. The exact readiness rating is classified.
But we can either provide that classified----
Mr. Spratt. I was reading the memo for this hearing, and it
had some of that information in it. Is the number 337,200 a
classified number?
General Jones. No, sir. What we have done, in order to
provide information that is unclassified, what we have done is
grouped some categories together. In the unclassified mode, we
can say that there are 119 battalions between Iraqi National
Police battalions and Iraqi Army battalions that are either
operating as in the lead or independent categories of
readiness.
Mr. Spratt. I have got a page here, attachment number two.
Do you have access to that? It has got a DOD seal on it and
also says unclassified.
General Jones. I don't have a copy of that, sir.
Mr. Spratt. We will get you a copy.
General Jones. Okay.
Mr. Spratt. I thought he was handing him a copy. Looking at
this chart, if you would--would you also hand him attachment
number three, please, sir? Looking at this chart, it indicates
that the objective Ministry of Defense forces are 143,000?
Including the Air Force and Navy?
General Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Spratt. As I take it, you can't tell us how close we
are to that number yet?
General Jones. That is approximately right within
somewhere----
Mr. Spratt. About where we are?
General Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Spratt. And on the side of Ministry of Interior (MOI)
forces is 194,200. And one category listed as other MOI forces.
What are they?
General Jones. Those are everything from the forensics
units, major crime units, highway patrol. The way the Ministry
of Interior is organized, you have station police, which are
what is out in precincts and normal what we would think of as
police stations. You have national police, which is a kind of
gendarme-like organization, kind of a paramilitary, high-end
security set of organizations. And those are organized in
battalions. And so they have a quasi-military sort of
organization. The other MOI forces are all the other kinds of
things that you need in the police establishment. A lot of
those in the United States would be decentralized to local,
more local areas like State highway patrols, traffic police,
you know, other kinds of police functions, and also the
headquarters, everything from provincial headquarters to
district headquarters and those kinds of forces.
Mr. Spratt. Now, looking at we have 337,200 troops between
the MOI and MOD, and 150,000 to 160,000 coalition troops. Do we
have an estimate of what it is going to take to subdue the
country and placate the country and bring it to some reasonable
level of stability? What size force, indigenous force will it
require and what augmentation is required of us?
General Jones. The current plan for the force--I have to
kind of caveat this with, to kind of reemphasize a point that
we make; and that is, while the security forces are an
essential element, forces in and of themselves are necessary,
but not completely adequate for bringing the country to a state
of peace.
Mr. Spratt. I understand that. That is a point I am glad
you made. But to the extent we need security forces, police and
armed forces to back them up and to establish a rule of order,
is 337,000 sufficient?
General Jones. No, sir. The current plan is to bring that
force level by the end of the year, up to something in excess
of about 350,000. I will tell you that that force structure is
under review by the Iraqi government, with us in an advisory
mode to talk to them about their force needs and whether or not
that number is the right number and if they need to make any
other adjustments. So I would tell you that right now the prime
minister and his government are looking at their force
structure. But right now in order to get to what they think
they need, it is a little bit in excess of 350. I believe the
number is 365,000 total.
Mr. Spratt. If you look at attachment number three, I infer
from that that more than about two-thirds of the country has
now been assigned to these trained battalions as their
respective areas of operation.
General Jones. Right.
Mr. Spratt. So except for a little piece down in Basra and
what looks like most of al-Anbar province, the country has
designated indigenous forces assigned to areas of operation
that cover most of the country today.
General Jones. Right. This chart represents Iraqi forces
that have been given sector control. And that is they are
responsible for an area of operations. Again, this goes back to
kind of the history when we started off and with Iraqi forces
that are not very capable. Typically, coalition forces have
been responsible for sector control, and they generally had
operational control of Iraqi forces that operated under the
tactical guidance of that coalition commander. What the green
areas represent on this chart is where we have transitioned
where an Iraqi unit has been designated as being responsible
for an actual sector. Now, in order to do that, typically they
are at one of the two highest levels of readiness.
TRA level one is where they are independent, and that is,
they don't need additional support to be able to do their
mission. Level two is where, although they may be responsible
for sector control and be in the lead of operations, they still
need coalition support in order to be effective. So although we
have been very successful in turning over sector control to
Iraqi forces, in a lot of this green area, it does represent
units that still are at level two, and that is, they still need
coalition support in order to be effective.
Mr. Spratt. It looks like the city of Baghdad is about half
covered by areas of operation. As I recall, five brigades were
to be part of the surge. How many have actually been deployed?
General Jones. Sir, four of those have been deployed. The
fourth one just arrived and started doing operations a couple
days ago. And the fifth one is designated to deploy in June.
Mr. Spratt. I am talking indigenous.
General Jones. You are talking about Iraqi brigades, sir?
Mr. Spratt. Yes.
General Jones. The Iraqi brigades to be deployed, they came
down in January and February. By the end of February, those
additional three brigades were deployed. Two of those brigades,
they originally were going to go for a 90-day period. Two of
those brigades have been extended. The third brigade, there is
a force that has been designated to replace them. The exact
time of that replacement hasn't been determined yet to the best
of my knowledge. But what we expect is one of those brigades
will change out; the other two will remain in place.
Mr. Spratt. Now, are these brigades Kurdish, or is there a
way to characterize their composition, where they come from?
General Jones. I would characterize two of them as being
predominantly Kurdish.
Mr. Spratt. Is this because it was difficult to get Iraqi
units from the other parts of the country to come to Baghdad
and participate?
General Jones. No, sir. I believe the judgment was made
based upon where forces could be moved from that would have the
lowest risk in terms of the current security environment that
they were responsible for. So, in this case, because of the
relatively low level of violence, it was seen that you could
take some of the forces and move them to Baghdad in a
reinforcing mode and have the least amount of risk of security
situation changing where they came from.
Mr. Spratt. Now, is our plan to eventually clear up those
beige areas and have them turned green, with areas of operation
assigned to Iraqi units so that we can withdraw and leave the
Iraqi units we have trained and work with in charge of that
area of operation around Baghdad?
General Jones. Clearly over time what we would like to do
is continue to turn over more responsibility to the Iraqi units
to where they are responsible for all the sectors in Baghdad,
to then continue to reduce the amount of assistance that they
need from coalition forces, understanding they will still need
their embedded training teams with them for connectivity to
those things that are outside the normal structure of those
kinds of units, for instance, air support or other things that
they may not have yet.
Mr. Spratt. Did I understand you to say that the Iraqi
units are staying about 90 days, rotating in and out on 90-day
intervals?
General Jones. The initial deployment order for the three
Iraqi brigades was to deploy for a period of 90 days. Then the
decision was made to extend two of the three brigades and just
keep them beyond their 90-day rotation. The third brigade, they
have identified another force to be able to replace it, to
allow it to rotate back to its originating area. But all--but
they will sustain the force levels that the Iraqis have
committed to in order to have one of the Iraqi army brigades in
each of the districts in Baghdad.
Mr. Spratt. In order for us eventually to stand down our
troops as they stand up their troops, doesn't it appear they
are going to need more troops?
General Jones. That is under consideration right now. It is
one of the reasons they are re-looking at their force
structure. I don't think there is a decision been reached--I
know, as of a couple days ago, there had not been a decision
reached or even a recommendation made to the prime minister yet
for him to make a decision. But they are re-looking at their
structure and whether or not the current program force is going
to be adequate for their needs in order to allow us to
withdraw. There are a couple factors in terms of what their
needs are. One is the level of violence, which is a little hard
to predict. But there are a number of factors that can change
that. As we mentioned before, obviously political
reconciliation is an essential factor that can change the
dynamic pretty dramatically in terms of the security
requirements. So, I mean, that is one example of other factors
that could change that would cause them to either need less or
more forces. But I think that, right now, they are doing this
review based on their best estimates of what they think the
security environment will need and how fast they can produce
capability to replace the requirement for coalition forces.
Mr. Spratt. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Spratt. We would like to ask the
staff if they have some questions and would like to, or if any
of the members have follow-ups. But I would like to ask to Dr.
Lorry Fenner, our subcommittee staff lead, if she has
questions.
Dr. Fenner. Just briefly. General, Mr. Velz, thank you for
being here today. We have several iterations of the strategy,
the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq and the New Way
Forward. Can you tell us what is the priority of the
development of the Iraqi security forces among those
strategies?
General Jones. I am sorry, could you restate the question
again?
Dr. Fenner. Sure. The development of the Iraqi security
forces is a key, I think you would agree, in the versions of
the strategy that have been made public. What priority is that
at now? The reason I am asking the question is that, again, the
Members are learning some things from the press, but we would
like to get the Department's view rather than the view from the
press to make sure we have the accurate one. There have been
articles over time that this priority of development of the
Iraqi security forces has shifted. At one point, we thought it
was the number one priority. Then it seemed that that changed
to be a subsidiary priority to establishing security. And now,
in the paper again today, it looks like it may raise in
priority again. And if there are documents that reflect this
change in the priority of the ISF development, the subcommittee
would probably value having that.
General Jones. Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Sorry I didn't
understand it first. I want to approach in terms of the overall
strategy, just approach it in terms of military tasks. There
was a signal change in terms of how we approach the military
tasks prior to the strategy review that occurred last fall and
winter. The main military tasks were to defeat the terrorists,
to neutralize the insurgency, and to transition to Iraqi
security self-reliance. We introduced a fourth military task as
a result of the strategic review, and that is to assist the
Iraqis in establishing population control. That military task
is one of the reasons why the additional forces were required,
to be able to do this additional task.
So in terms of priority, right now, I believe in terms of
General Petraeus's priority, assisting the Iraqis in
establishing population control, especially in Baghdad, was the
number one priority. And the reason for that is because the
level of sectarian violence in our judgment had gotten to the
point where it made the political and economic accommodation
that needed to be reached to get toward national reconciliation
impossible. So, militarily, we needed to assist the Iraqis in
stopping this cycle of sectarian violence, which had in our
view become self-sustaining. As that level of sectarian
violence comes down and allows political accommodation to
occur, we can then see a change in the security situation.
To say, in terms of priority, although we made population
security a priority, it did not diminish the training effort.
And the reason it didn't is because the additional forces that
were requested and provided to the multinational force allowed
them to take on this military task, but at the same time
continued to man the transition teams, continued to do the
training and equip mission that MNSTC-I is responsible for.
Dr. Fenner. Thank you.
Mr. Meehan. And now, Roger Zakheim.
Roger, did you have any questions?
Mr. Zakheim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just if you would clarify how the Baghdad security plan, if
at all, has demonstrated the importance of the Iraq police
services and what we have learned about them through the new
operation and new strategy. To what extent are we capitalizing
the on the Iraqi police services and the transition teams to
effect security in Baghdad? And do we anticipate replicating
that in other places? There has been little to no mention of
the IPS today. Thank you.
General Jones. The Iraqi police are an important part of
the Baghdad security plan. And in fact, I believe the execution
of the Baghdad plan is having a positive effect on the police.
This is an Iraqi plan that is a little bit unique in that it is
a joint MOI-MOD plan. The Prime Minister appointed a single
person to be in charge of the Baghdad--this Baghdad operational
command, that has inside it both Minister of Interior and
Minister of Defense Forces. And that is commanded by Lieutenant
General Abud. He designated commanders, one on the east side of
the Tigris, one on the west side, one of which is an MOI major
general, the other one is an MOD, a defense major general. Each
of those has a deputy of the opposite ministry. They
established joint security stations, where the Iraqi Army units
and the police forces are co-located with their headquarters,
where they plan and prepare to conduct operations in that
Baghdad district that have caused a level of cooperation and
working together between the police and the army that, at least
in my experience, we have not seen before. It is kind of
unprecedented, and probably not just since we have been there,
but probably in the history of the country.
So we have seen this cooperative effort between the two
types of forces. And I think that what has happened, we know
that the Iraqi army forces are more advanced in terms of their
maturity than the police forces as a whole. And I think the
joint operations of these two have actually caused an
improvement in the conduct of the police out on the streets of
Baghdad. So I think it has been beneficial, and I think we are
seeing some positive results.
The last thing is the rebluing effort of these national
police units that are deployed into Baghdad, is we have taken
those units out, done some retraining with them, and then,
replacing the leadership and putting them back into the fight.
For those units that have been through that process, the
feedback that we have gotten is very positive. Their conduct,
their reliability is much improved.
Mr. Zakheim. Thank you.
Mr. Meehan. Do any members have any other follow-up
questions?
Ms. Davis of California. Mr. Chairman? Could you just give
us a general, maybe this is a ballpark number, but if our
mission were solely to train the Iraqis and to provide backup
support, what would that number be? Generally speaking?
General Jones. Ma'am, I am sorry that I don't know. I have
never broken it out that way because of the difficulty of
trying to. You know, partnering units are also doing several
things simultaneously. So all the units that are deployed doing
security operations are also partnered with Iraqi units. And if
you were going to have the same approach and you took out their
other tactical requirements, maybe you could increase the
number of units that a U.S. unit was partnered with or
something that would change the numbers. But frankly, I haven't
ever analyzed it from that perspective.
Ms. Davis of California. Have you all done that in any way?
General Jones. I am not aware that anybody has done that,
mostly because I don't think that, given the security
environment, anybody has looked at that as being a viable
course of action. That for right now, in order for the Iraqi
units to continue to develop to where they can become self-
reliant, we have to help them with forces doing operations to
have a secure enough environment that they can continue to
mature.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. I want to thank both Mr.
Velz and General Jones for your testimony and cooperation here
today. I guess you got a little bit caught in crossfire between
disagreements that we have between the Department of Defense,
but I really appreciate both of you being here. General Jones,
in particular, I want to thank you and congratulate you for
your outstanding service to our country and very much
appreciate you being here.
In answer to Dr. Snyder's question of whether I have been
too courteous, too kind or too cooperative, my mother would
agree that one could never be too courteous, too kind or too
cooperative, but I appreciate you both being here. We said we
would get you out, General, by 12. You are going to have an
extra hour on your hands.
But I want to remind committee members, we are going to
have another subcommittee meeting on Thursday. The hearing will
be in room 2212. We will hear from the Department of Defense
and members of the police transition teams. So again, thank
you, both of you.
Mr. Akin. Mr. Chairman, just to mention Col. Reeves, we
understand you have been also very helpful in providing us with
some information. We want to thank you and General Jones for
helping us with some of these different reports. It makes a
difference. Thank you.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 10:52 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
May 22, 2007
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
May 22, 2007
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MEEHAN
Mr. Meehan. Please provide the classified casualty data collected
by MNF-I.
General Jones and Mr. Velz. [The information referred to is
classified and retained in the committee files.]
Mr. Meehan. Please provide the names, ranks, titles, and contact
information for any person within CENTCOM and the Pentagon who is
directly responsible for establishing policy, planning for,
coordinating, monitoring, and reporting to the Chairman or Secretary on
the following activities that fall within the purview of MNF-I (to
include all subordinate organizations): a. Transition teams (all kinds,
i.e. MiTTs, PTTs, NPTTs, BTTs, etc.) b. ISF development c. MOI and MOD
progress.
General Jones. The Commander of US Central Command, Admiral William
J. Fallon, is responsible for establishing policy, planning for,
coordinating, monitoring, and reporting to the Secretary of Defense on
the issues listed above.
Mr. Meehan. Please provide the names, ranks, titles, and contact
information for any person within CENTCOM and the Pentagon who is
directly responsible for establishing policy, planning for,
coordinating, monitoring, and reporting to the Chairman or Secretary on
the following activities that fall within the purview of MNF-I (to
include all subordinate organizations): a. Transition teams (all kinds,
i.e. MiTTs, PTTs, NPTTs, BTTs, etc.) b. ISF development c. MOI and MOD
progress.
Mr. Velz.
There are a considerable number of responsible parties
that deal with the activities mentioned in the question. Many of these
individuals change on a regular basis within the organizations listed
below.
The Department of Defense is always pleased to respond
to direct specific question to the appropriate office in response to a
Congressional inquiry.
The Government of Iraq (GOI), through the Ministries of
Defense (MOD) and Interior (MOI) and in consultation with the
Commander, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) through the Commanding
General, Multi-National Forces, Iraq (MNF-I) and the Commanding
General, Multi-National Security Transition Command, Iraq (MNSTC-I),
establishes policy and planning for the requirements for manpower and
equipping the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).
The Secretary of Defense evaluates the GOI established
requirements and is responsible for development of policy, in
consultation with the Department of State, to determine which GOI
requirements the USG will support. Recommendations are solicited from
MNSTC-I through MNF-I and CENTCOM. Within DoD, policy development is
accomplished by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, International Security Affairs, Middle East.
The Department of Defense, through the Commander, U.S.
Central Command is tasked under National Security Presidential
Directive (NSPD) 36 with the responsibility to assist the GOI to man,
train, and equip the Iraqi Security Forces in both the MOD and MOI.
Responsibility for determining equipment and manpower requirements for
execution of these tasks, including the size, composition and location
of assignment, falls to the Commanding General, Multi-National Corps,
Iraq (MNC-I), through MNF-I and CENTCOM, and is then adjudicated by the
Joint Staff and the force providers. Once in the field, MNC-I
coordinates transition team employment, and monitors and reports on the
effectiveness of transition teams.
ISF development is the responsibility of the GOI in
consultation with MNSTC-I through MNF-I. MNC-I transition teams conduct
monthly Training and Readiness Assessments (TRA) for individual ISF
units. MNSTC-I provides a collective monthly ISF assessment to the
Department of Defense through MNF-I and CENTCOM. MNC-I feedback
provides a resource to MNSTC-I to assist the GOI in identifying
weakness in ISF training and equipping that can be considered as part
of the future resourcing process.
Development of capacity of the MOD and MOI to sustain
forces in the field falls to MNSTC-I. Capacity assessment is provided
as part of the MNSTC-I monthly collective assessment.
Mr. Meehan. Please outline what the planning process was for the
development of the ISF, identifying specific planning documents, and
indicate if this plan is still in effect.
General Jones. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
Mr. Meehan. Please outline what the planning process was for the
development of the ISF, identifying specific planning documents, and
indicate if this plan is still in effect.
Mr. Velz. The ``plan'' for the development of the Iraqi Security
Forces (ISF)--comprised of the Iraqi military and police forces--has
undergone several evolutions. The main factors that have driven these
revisions include changes in the threat conditions in Iraq, changes in
assigned responsibilities for developing the ISF, and the ability and
desire of the Iraqi government to determine end-state force structures.
The current force structure plans, particularly for the Iraqi Army,
reflect a substantial increase from the original plan.
In 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was responsible
for funding the development of the police and military forces and for
acting as the de facto command authority over these forces. It
promulgated CPA Order 22, ``Creation of the New Iraqi Army'' to
establish a new army for the defense of a free Iraq.
Combined Joint Task Force-Seven (CJTF-7) units established a
separate force, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC), pursuant to CPA
Order 28 in September 2003, as a temporary institution to counter the
continued attacks and acts of sabotage by Ba'athist remnants and
terrorists intent on undermining security in Iraq. The end state number
of ICDC battalions grew as CJTF-7 units' requirement for local security
forces to assist with basic local security tasks grew.
In early 2004, an assessment team recommended to the Secretary of
Defense that the responsibility for training and equipping be unified
under USCENTCOM. By June 2004, Multi-National Security Transition
Command--Iraq (MNSTC-I) was established to unify these activities, a
function it maintains today.
After the dissolution of the CPA, National Security Presidential
Directive (NSPD)-36, May 2004, delineated responsibility for training
and equipping Iraqi forces. NSPD-36 assigns continued responsibility
for Iraqi military and police forces to USCENTCOM and specifies that
the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State shall determine when to
transition to traditional arrangements. MNSTC-I assumed this mission
under USCENTCOM. Mergers of some forces and emergence of other forces
have occurred since 2003, and the end state force structures have grown
substantially.
Police Forces
Initial plans for the numbers of Iraqi police were based on a CPA
assessment done in 2003. Based on input from Major Subordinate Commands
under CJTF-7, force levels required to help maintain local control were
developed. At the end of 2003, the target number of Iraqi police
increased from about 25,000 to about 60,000. In early 2004, the CPA
estimated that 90,000 police would be necessary (based upon 27 million
Iraqi citizens). It was subsequently determined that more police were
necessary; MNSTC-I and Iraqi leaders agreed on a nationwide target of 1
police for every 200 citizens, resulting in an Objective Civil Security
Force that included 135,000 police.
In late 2004, the MoI established the Police Commandos under the
command and control of the Minister of Interior to conduct paramilitary
counterinsurgency operations as the threat environment intensified.
Initially, there was no MNSTC-I involvement with this force. However,
once there were indications that the Police Commandos were having some
early success in fighting insurgents, MNSTC-I became involved in
training and equipping them and in working with the MoI on force
planning.
In 2006, the Commandos were re-designated as the National Police,
and a program of re-training and re-vetting was undertaken in late 2006
to reform them due to their growing reputation for human rights
violations. This program is ongoing, and some top commanders have been
replaced.
Military Forces
In May 2003, CPA Order 2, ``Dissolution of Entities,'' abolished
the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, all related national security ministries
and offices, and all military formations, including the Republican
Guard, Special Republican Guard, Ba'ath Party Militia, and the Fedayeen
Saddam. CPA advisors then began to plan the new Ministry of Defense and
the New Iraqi Army. Consultations with tribal leaders were held to
begin to recruit new volunteers, and surveys of destroyed Iraqi Army
bases were undertaken to identify basing locations. The New Iraqi Army
force structure was envisioned as a three-division Army focused on
territorial defense with its logistics support coming from other
ministries in the Iraqi government.
At the same time, CJTF-7 determined it required one battalion of
local forces per province to help deal with internal security threats,
resulting in establishment of the ICDC. Over the next year, a series of
adjustments resulted in the ICDC end-strength culminating in a
strategic review undertaken in mid-2004 by the CG, MNSTC-I and U.S.
Chief of Mission that expanded the end-strength to 62 battalions. The
Ministry of Defense redesignated the ICDC as the Iraqi National Guard
(ING). The strategic review resulted in shifting $1.8 billion in Iraq
Reconstruction and Relief Funds from water and sanitation and other
reconstruction projects into the security sector to fund this force
structure growth. Additionally, several brigades were added to the Army
force structure as a result of Iraqi government initiatives.
In early 2005, the Iraqi government decided to merge the ING into
the Iraqi Army and changed the Army end state to nine light infantry
divisions and one mechanized division. Upon completion of training of
the basic combat force structure in December 2006, MNSTC-I transitioned
basic recruit training to the Iraqis and shifted focus to development
of enablers required to sustain the Iraqi force.
In 2006, Prime Minister Maliki decided to increase the size of the
Army from ten to twelve divisions, mainly by cross-leveling among
divisions and implementating of a replenishment program to replace
forces no longer in the force due to combat losses or other departures
from the service. The plan also included increasing manning
authorizations 10 percent for all ten divisions, to boost present-for-
duty unit strength.
In 2007, Prime Minister Maliki decided to increase the authorized
strength of divisions so that authorized strength is now 120 percent of
what it was at the beginning of 2006.
Currently, a rapid expansion of the Iraqi Army training capacity is
in progress to meet future growth required to build a more robust
national armed force from 2008 through 2010. The training base will
expand rapidly at three locations to increase capacity. Divisions will
grow quantitatively, and additional force structure is being added to
support them.
The Iraq Navy (IqN) has a current force structure of 212 officers
and 1,050 enlisted sailors including a small naval infantry unit. The
current force structure is derived from naval base reconstruction
limitations at Umm Qasr, embryonic fleet development, and the small
operational requirements. ``Right sizing'' the force is dependent on
new ship procurement, infrastructure improvements, increasing
operational capability, and threat analysis. IqN is projected to grow
to roughly 2,400 personnel by 2011. Larger recruitment increases are
expected when new ship deliveries and barracks construction at Umm Qasr
are complete.
The Iraqi Air Force consists of small reconnaissance aircraft and
retired C-130 aircraft transferred from the U.S. Air Force.
Additionally, helicopters have been donated by Jordan, and the United
States is considering the transfer of additional helicopters. A long-
range plan has been developed by the GOI, assisted by MNSTC-I.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ANDREWS
Mr. Andrews. For the last month for which you have available data,
how many attacks were launched by the resistance or counterinsurgency
in Iraq?
Mr. Velz. [The information referred to is classified and retained
in the committee files.]
Mr. Andrews. How many attacks were there in April of 2007?
General Jones. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]
Mr. Andrews. Could you give the committee a classified document
that breaks the attacks down by the target of the attacks?
General Jones. [The information referred to is classified and
retained in the committee files.]