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BIDEN: Thank you.
Senator Kerry.
KERRY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
There's so much to try to tackle and it's hard to do, obviously, in a short period of time. We appreciate your testimony this morning.
Let me try to cut to the -- there's a short term and a long term set of interests here, but the long-term interests are enormous, and you've just touched on them. I mean, obviously, none of us on either side of the aisle and I don't think anybody in Congress wants to give short rift to the large strategic interests we have in the region. And anybody whose been talking like myself about the need to push the process -- and I recommended an international peace conference three years ago. Nothing's happened. We've been sitting around not engaging in this kind of political resolution, while we've continue down the military side. But none of us have suggested that there isn't a huge interest in the stability of the region and in our neighbors and the whole set of strategic issues. But when you measure those interests against what Iraq is doing to our interests, you come out on a real low side of that ledger. Iran is more powerful, Hezbollah is more powerful, Hamas is more powerful, the Shiite revival, as Vali Nasr refers to it, is more real. And the things that weren't staring us in the face are now staring us in the face at every corner. We're worse off.
So our current policy is, in fact, not protecting our interests, not doing for the forces that we want to support in those countries what's in their interests, and in the end we're setting ourselves backwards.
Against that, you have to sort of ask yourself, okay, so where to you go here to put those interests back on the table and resolve this? Number one issue in front of us is this question of more troops. Now, that speaks, I think, to both short and long term. Let me just come to it very quickly.
General Abizaid said, and now he's leaving, we understand there's a transition. But I don't think you can quickly dismiss his experience as being in the field, General Casey being in the field, and what they've observed and learned in that period of time. And he said point blank, on November 15th of last year, quote, "I've met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the CORE commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together and I said, 'In your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?' And they all said no."
Now, Mr. Said, you just said yourself that adding more troops may, in fact, make it more difficult to get a resolution. So my question to each of you in sum is, if there isn't sufficient evidence of this kind of symmetry and diplomacy, if there isn't a sufficient political process in place, and I want your judgment as to whether or not there is, will more troops have any chance of, in fact, getting what we want or is it going to make matters worse? And if it does, where are we after putting them in in six months if it hasn't worked? Mr. O'Hanlon.
O'HANLON: Senator Kerry, very tough question. I like your idea of a ledger. On the positive side of the troop surge proposal, I would say we all know tactically, there have never been enough troops in Iraq to clear and hold. So that's the tactical argument for this case. It would have been a much more compelling argument three and four years ago than it is today, but I think it remains at some level in the plus column.
On the negative column, of course, we know that there is no political resolution of these very sectarian divides...
KERRY: Well, hold on a minute. I mean, 30,000 troops or 20,000 troops, is there anybody who imagines measured against the task that that's enough to do the job?
O'HANLON: You have to hope that you can get momentum in Baghdad or in parts of Baghdad. And then that will begin to have a spill-over effect. So, narrowly speaking, I would say no, there's no hope you can do it nationwide with 20,000 troops.
KERRY: Go ahead and finish up.
O'HANLON: Well, I think that's the main tactical argument in favor. Most of the other arguments say, either there's a danger to this to our Army and Marines, to the Iraq sense of dependency on us, or it's not going to be enough, getting to Senator Biden's question earlier, are there enough Iraqi security forces to team with us to be dependable? Absolutely not, unless there is a much stronger political consensus in Iraq. So, I would not oppose the surge, but I only support it if it's in the context of a much broader result.
KERRY: And you don't see the political settlement effort or capacity there now?
O'HANLON: Not now.
MARR: I would ask, very carefully, what these troops are going to do? I have some questions as they get involved in this complex sectarian and other issues. Are they going to attack simply Muqtada al-Sadr, or are they going attack simply insurgents? What are the Iraqis going to do? What are others going to do? So, what are these troops going to do and what is the strategy and so on that they're going to be employed?
One other issue about sending the men or not sending the men is the question of how we get Iraqis, I don't want to say to just step up the plate, that's a very simplistic idea. But, indeed, Iraqis themselves are the only ones who can ultimately sort out and move ahead on this strife issue. And whether by sending the troops in and doing the job for them is going to provide an atmosphere in which they can do it or whether it's going to delay the hard choice they face is another issue.
KERRY: Do you see the political process in place to resolve the fundamental differences between an Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and a Muqtada al-Sadr? Between the interests of the militias, the warlorders that Mr. Said just referred to? The Sunni reluctance to participate, the Sunni desire to re-emerge as the people who run the country, the interests of certain individuals with respect to Iran, the Persian- Arab divide. And all of these things are, it seems to me, so huge, so historically and culturally deep in this issue that as it further disintegrates into this morass of individual interests, our troops can't pull that back together, can they Mr. Said?
SAID: No, troops, alone, can never resolve this. Well, there's one caveat to that, of course. If you sent 500,000 troops to Iraq you may be able to steamroll the situation without there being a political consensus. But there's neither the resources nor the will to do that. So, given the lack of the possibility to mobilize the necessary troops, the troops need to come on the back of political consensus, on the back of a political settlement that is internationally mediated, that is supported by Iraq's neighbors as well as the various communities in Iraq.
KERRY: I want to get your answer, too, Mr. Pillar. But as you do, because time runs so fast, could you just touch on the question of to what degree the presence of the American troops delays the willingness of people to resolve those issues and acts as a cover for people's other interests to be able to play out to see who's on top and who's on the bottom?
PILLAR: I think there's a strong sense, both among Iraqis and with the regional players, the subject of Senator Lugar's question, that as long as the United States is doing the heavy lifting, however much in the interest that they have in eventually resolving the situation, they are not the one's in the front having to do it. There is an issue of having to concentrate the lines.
KERRY: Do you want to come back, Mr. Pillar? You said something about the Green Zone state that struck me, "The Green Zone state might fall." Isn't the fact that it is only a Green Zone state kind of fundamental to this question of legitimacy and of resolving these larger political differences?
PILLAR: I think that was your question.
KERRY: And would you, as you touch on that, tell me, if the troops start going after the militia -- and I'm reading that they're talking about an evenhandedness in the application of this, what is the Muqtada al-Sadr response to that, and where do the Badr Brigade and the Jaish al-Mahdi come out in that conflict?
SAID: It's speculative at this point to judge what the troops are going to do. The Iraqi government security plan, although it declares that all the militias will be attacked, but also in the same breath, states that they view Sunni violence is the primary objective. So on the back of this security plan, the surge of U.S. troops can be seen as taking sides in the ongoing sectarian conflict.
The United States may declare that it will go differently, but at this point, the agreement, since the meeting in Amman between the prime minister and the president, seems to have been to go for one last push in support of the elites that have emerged out of this current political process and against their enemies. And this could contribute if mishandled. And especially if no protection is offered to all communities, to all Iraqi communities, this could embroil the United States in a new role in Iraq as being a party in the conflict.
KERRY: My time is up here, but none of you answer the question, maybe you will as you go along here, of what happens if this fails.
SAID: It will make the negotiations even harder. I mean, we have a window of opportunity today and maybe passing for a negotiated settlement including the regions. Further blood, more blood, and if it's seen as one-sided, will make negotiations even harder down the road.
BIDEN: Thank you very much, Senator.
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