Reply #1: We do have a transcript of what was said at the April 8th hearing [View All]

[TayTay]

and the exchange between Gen. Petraeus and Senator Kerry.
SFRC hearing 4/8/08

BIDEN: Thank you.

Senator Kerry?

KERRY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, welcome. We're delighted to have you here and we thank you both for what you are doing on behalf of the country.

General Petraeus, I particularly want to thank you and acknowledge, as I don't think you've heard enough from all sides of the aisle in this country, that we really do respect and understand that you have achieved some measure of a kind of progress. And it's a progress that is within your purview as commander of armed forces and on the military field to be able to achieve. And you've done about as good a job of playing a tough hand as somebody could do.

And so, through you, to all those who've engaged in that, to our troops, we want them to understand the degree to which we respect and recognize that accomplishment.

The problem is for all of us that there's a larger set of balancing here that we have to do, and I think you know that. You've repeatedly said how you're limited to Iraq. We're not. We're looking at how we defend the larger interest of our country and protect it and do a better job of fighting the war on terror.

And so, I look at this larger field and I see a fundamental equation with respect to Iraq that essentially stays the same, notwithstanding the progress that we've made.

There is a fundamental struggle, sectarian power struggle taking place over which we do not have a lot of control. In fact, the Iranians have an increasing amount, partly because of our presence.

There is a dysfunctional government stumbling here and there, occasionally trying to stand up, but fundamentally, most people would agree, unable to deliver a lot of services, great difficulty to be able to reconcile the oil law, the constitutional changes, the real fundamentals that go to the core of the sectarian division.

There is a decreasing ability, as Senator Dodd has pointed to and General Odom last week before our committee, General McCafferty, General Scales, others, have all pointed to the decreasing ability of our military to sustain this over a longest period of time.

KERRY: That is a message that not only we have heard, but, believe me, our opponents have heard it. Everybody in the world has heard it, including our troops who live it with repeated deployments and stop-loss and so forth.

So the issue here is, you know, how do we see our way to conclude this successfully?

Now, in that regard, you know, there's been a lot of misinterpretation and some sloganeering and a lot of exploitation. Because I don't know anybody on our side who is suggesting you create chaos, just pull a plug, avoid responsibility. That is not the suggestion.

The suggestion is that we change the dynamics which require something more of the Iraqis themselves.

Your quote, that Senator Hagel just pointed to, the one where you say, I think on March 14th, "No one feels there has been sufficient progress, by any means, in the area of national reconciliation."

Is that an accurate quote, General?

PETRAEUS: It is, Senator. But thanks for the opportunity to note that I then laid out a number of areas in which there has been progress.

KERRY: I agree. And you've laid them to this committee already...

PETRAEUS: Yes, sir.

KERRY: And I have limited time. So I don't want to go through them all again now. But we acknowledged them. You have laid them out. And I've acknowledged them, too. There is progress in those areas.

PETRAEUS: What I was conveying was the impatience, candidly, that, actually, all of us feel, and including the Iraqis.

KERRY: Well, you said this morning to the Armed Services Committee that war is not a linear phenomenon, that you can't predict certain things.

Now, that is true, if war were, in fact, the determinate of what is going to happen in Iraq. But you, yourself, have said the war is not the determinate. "There is no military solution," to quote you. The solution is the political side of the fence, where you have now also acknowledged there is not sufficient progress.

So my question to you is, do you ask yourself -- I mean, I've had the Sunni chiefs who were part of the Awakening -- you know, we have basically rented their allegiance.

KERRY: You've acknowledged the money we're paying them. There is a time when that allegiance may shift. They are not being integrated into the Shia forces, into the ISF forces. So that lack of integration is viewed by the Shia as perhaps arming, however it comes, whether they arm themselves, they're being paid by us, they're viewed as being an increasing force. And the fundamental struggle of Iraq remains the same.

So the question I ask is, has it struck you, as those chieftains I met with acknowledged to me, they said, "Yes, we don't have to make a decision as long as we know you guys are here," has it struck you, as I know it did perhaps your predecessor a little bit, that this open-endedness, this commitment of large forces without a sense of what the process will be, without specific deadlines and times, actually empowers them to avoid making the decisions and the reconciliation they have to make?

CROCKER: It's an important question, Senator, and it's something I have thought about. Are there alternatives that give you as good or better outcomes? And I'm familiar with the argumentation on that one.

What I have seen during my little more than a year in Iraq now is that when we do see movement forward, when we do see a spirit of compromise, something other than a zero sum mentality, it's when leaders and the communities behind them are feeling relatively secure -- secure enough to make tradeoffs...

KERRY: We gave them security with 160,000 troops and we didn't achieve the political progress we needed. How do you achieve it with less troops facing the drawdown realities of sustainability of our force?

PETRAEUS: Senator, what we are doing, in fact, is helping achieve local bottom-up reconciliation. And, in fact, by the way, they are being integrated into the ISF. And fact is a number of the Sons of Iraq in Anbar province, others in Baghdad have been integrated into the police. Some of those fighting in Basra actually are from the 1st Iraqi Army Division, which has a substantial Sunni complement in it.

I do weigh this issue all the time. What we are seeing at local level, actually, in Anbar...

KERRY: But it's a Sunni complement that operates as a Sunni complement?

PETRAEUS: No, no, sir. It's part of an integrated Iraqi army, yes, sir. In fact, the first commander of the 1st Division I think was Shia, and the second commander is actually Sunni.

KERRY: How many are there?

PETRAEUS: There are 13 divisions now, sir.

KERRY: That are integrated?

PETRAEUS: Well, they're varying levels and, again, depending on where they were raised. But the Iraqi army is an integrated force. Again, some of it is less integrated other than others, again, depending on where it was recruited and trained. But, certainly those in the midsection and that's where the Iraqi first division, as an example is from.

In Anbar province, what we are doing is precisely this. There's a substantial reduction going on there from 14 battalions down to about six. And it is because there's not just paying off the Sons of Iraq. They're actually being integrated into the provincial structure.

There's all kinds of political to'ing and fro'ing. Some of that isn't pretty at times. It hasn't been overly violent, though. And gradually, they're also engaging with Prime Minister Maliki. Sheik Ahmed, the head of the Awakening in Anbar province, has gotten more money out of Prime Minister Maliki than the provincial governor.

KERRY: But isn't there a contradiction in a sense in your overall statement of the strategic imperative because you've kept mentioning Al Qaida here today? Al Qaida, AQI as we know it, didn't exist in Iraq until we got there.

The Shia have not been deeply interrupted by AQI.

PETRAEUS: Oh, sir, they were.

KERRY: The Kurds...

PETRAEUS: They were blown up right and left by AQI. That was the height of the sectarian violence.

KERRY: I understand that. I absolutely understand that. But it is not a fundamental pervasive --- I mean, most people that I've talked to Shia, and most of the evidence of what's happened in the Anbar province with the Sunni is, that once they decided to turn on Al Qaida and not give them a welcome, they have been able to turn around their own security.

PETRAEUS: And we helped them, sir. And we cleared Ramadi. We cleared Fallujah. We cleared the belts of Baghdad.

KERRY: And every plan I see...

PETRAEUS: Baqoubah and everything else...

KERRY: Every plan I've seen here in Congress that contemplates a drawdown, contemplates leaving enough American forces there to aid in the prosecution of Al Qaida and continue to that kind of effort.

PETRAEUS: That's exactly right, yes, sir.

KERRY: Then why doesn't that change the political dynamics that demand more reconciliation, more compromise accommodation so we resolve the political stalemate, which is at the core of the dilemma.

PETRAEUS: Sure. Sir, it's a great question.

One of the key aspects is that they are not represented right now. And that's why provincial elections scheduled for no later than October are so important.

The Anbar sheiks, for example, will tell you, "We want these elections," Senator -- as they, I'm sure did, because they didn't vote in January 2005.

A huge mistake. And they know it. They'll do much better this time than they did before.

More important, even, in Nineveh province, where, because they didn't vote you have a different ethnic group actually that largely is the head of the provincial council.

So, again, all of those.

Yes, sir, thank you.