Transcript: Senate Foreign Relations

Wolfowitz, Armitage Testify Before Senate Panel

The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing Tuesday on the transition of sovereignty in Iraq. Witnesses included Deputy Defense Secertary Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secertary of State Richard Armitage, and Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is a trasncript.

LUGAR: This hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is called to order.

Today the Committee on Foreign Relations meets to continue our ongoing oversight of American policy toward Iraq.

The coalition intends to hand over sovereignty to an Iraqi government six weeks from tomorrow.

We’re pleased to welcome Mr. Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state; Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense; Lieutenant General Walter Sharp, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

We look forward to a wide-ranging discussion that further clarifies the United States plans for the Iraq transition.

This is the 19th hearing on Iraq the Foreign Relations Committee has held since January 2003, and the fifth in this past month. Tomorrow we will hold another hearing on Iraq that will feature several expert witnesses from outside our government.

Within the substantial bounds of Congress’ oversight capacity, we are attempting to illuminate United States plans, actions and options with regard to Iraq, both for the benefit of the American people and to inform our own policy-making role.

I am convinced that the confidence and commitment demonstrated by the pronouncement of a flexible but detailed plan for Iraq is necessary for our success.

With lives being lost, billions of dollars being spent in Iraq, the American people must be confident that we have carefully thought through an Iraq policy that will optimize our prospects for success.

And moreover, a detailed plan is necessary to prove to our allies and to Iraqis that we have a strategy and that we are committed to making it work. If we cannot provide this clarity, we risk the loss of support of the American people, loss of potential contributions from our allies, and the disillusionment of Iraqis.

As the June 30 transfer of sovereignty draws closer, violent attacks on coalition forces have increased and power struggles between Iraqi factions have intensified. The lack of security has hampered political and economic development in key parts of Iraq, and many nongovernmental aid organizations have pulled out of Iraq.

Adding to the difficulties, the appalling revelations about prisoner abuse in Iraq have repulsed Americans and hurt our reputation in the international community.

In dealing with the scandal, we need to establish absolute accountability and stay true to our values without reducing our efforts to overcome terrorism.

At this critical juncture, the committee and the American people need to hear directly from the administration. Are U.S. plans for building Iraq shifting to address the new realities on the ground? And have sufficient resources been identified to carry through with our plan?

The Senate confirmed Ambassador John Negroponte to be ambassador to Iraq on an expedited basis to ensure that he and his team would be in place quickly. We’re interesting in knowing how the State Department plans to staff, house and secure what will be one of the largest embassies in the world.

Undersecretary Marc Grossman has testified that the embassy could cost more than a billion dollars, but these funds were not included in the fiscal year 2005 budget request.

The administration recently requested an additional $25 billion in contingency funds for Iraq and Afghanistan, but this amount does not apparently include any funding for the new embassy.

LUGAR: Our diplomatic forces, as well as our military forces, must have what they need to succeed.

I’m especially interested in details surrounding the use of the $18.4 billion provided for Iraq by the emergency supplemental signed last November 6th, 2003.

In this bill, Congress gave broad authority to the president to control these funds through the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB report submitted last month showed that only $2.3 billion of the $18.4 billion has been obligated by March 24, 2004.

Given the urgency of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and the role that they play in a successful outcome for the United States, it’s perplexing that only about 12 percent of the money has been obligated. Committee inquiries indicate that reconstruction projects have been slowed by a long bureaucratic contracting process overseen by OMB and the Department of Defense.

In addition, OMB reports lack specificity. In many cases, the reports failed to identify the agency responsible for carrying out reconstruction projects.

Our committee needs to be reassured that Congress’ intent is being fulfilled, that there is no unnecessary delay in reconstruction efforts.

Now, in Iraq we are perceived more as an occupation force by some than as a friend in helping to nurture a new nation. Delays in reconstruction undercut United States credibility and increase suspicions among Iraqis who are impatient for improvements. Without tangible progress in reconstruction, Iraqis will perceive little benefit in our presence.

Achieving the transfer of sovereignty on June 30, 2004, was always going to stretch our capabilities, but since we are firmly committed to that date, we should be attempting to accelerate stabilization and reconstruction in every possible way.

We are hopeful that Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi will be successful in his work to construct an interim Iraqi government.

The Iraqis themselves must reach internal political consensus and balance, competing Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions and their thoughts.

LUGAR: Once the new government is named, the transition to sovereignty should begin immediately.

If possible, in my judgment, we should establish the United States embassy before the June 30 transfer and bring Ambassador Negroponte in earlier. Ambassador Bremer has provided extraordinary service, but at this stage he will begin to take on lame-duck status.

Undersecretary Grossman testified on April 22 about the importance of engaging the interim Iraqi government as soon as it’s selected. We cannot simply turn on the lights in the embassy on June 30 and expect everything to go well. We must be rehearsing with Iraqi authorities and our coalition partners how decision-making and administrative power will be distributed and exercised.

It is critical therefore that Ambassador Negroponte and his team be put in place at the earliest moment.

And we should also be accelerating negotiations to complete a United Nations Security Council resolution to give international legitimacy to the new Iraqi government and to define new security arrangements.

In addition, the United Nations and the new interim government should consider accelerating elections scheduled for January 2005 or December 2004 for the transitional and maybe the permanent Iraqi government.

We are especially appreciative to have our witnesses with us today.

Now, let me just say, as a point of personal privilege and likewise history, that about 19 years ago in 1985, when I was newly anointed chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee on the first occasion, Paul Wolfowitz and Rich Armitage came before the committee on that occasion to talk about the Philippines. Their testimony was far-sighted and courageous.

In a chapter of a book that I wrote about the situation, I have stated that, for whatever it is worth, because it was remarkably prescient with regard to events that occurred throughout 1985 and the elections in February of 1986 and subsequently.

And my admiration for these two gentlemen has remained unabated ever since.

LUGAR: I appreciate especially your coming today at this important time for both our committee and for our colleagues and for the American people who will witness this hearing.

Senator Biden has been delayed by train difficulties, pure and simply. He will be here. And when he arrives, I will call upon him, of course, for his opening statement and comment at that transition.

And at some stage we will have, as the committee knows, a roll call vote; approximately at 11:15. We will try to continue the hearing throughout that time. I will step over to the floor and vote as rapidly as possible and call upon one of my colleagues to chair the meeting so we may continue with our deliberations.

We thank the witnesses for coming, and we look forward to hearing from them, first of all, in the order that they’re listed in our agenda, which would be Secretary Wolfowitz and then Secretary Armitage.

Secretary Wolfowitz, we are delighted that you are here, and would be pleased to hear your testimony.

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Chairman, delighted to have the opportunity to come here to talk about the very important questions that you outlined in your opening statement.

I want to thank you for the kind words that you just spoke about the role that Rich Armitage and I played some 20 years ago -- not quite 20 years ago. But you were unduly modest because you, yourself, played an even more important role and with considerable courage, both in taking on an assignment that nobody else wanted to and then carrying it forward in the face of a great deal of pressure.

WOLFOWITZ: And I think our country and the Philippine people have a lot to thank you for for that great leadership.

Mr. Chairman, I have a somewhat long statement which you can read, and I’d like to put into the record. I’d just like to put it aside and make a few brief comments about the overall situation in Iraq if I may.

LUGAR: Your statement will be put in the record in full, and likewise that of Secretary Armitage.

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the great men and women who wear the uniform of the United States have already accomplished amazing things in Iraq. They have removed a regime that was a threat to the United States and to the entire Middle East, a regime that sponsored terrorism and developed and used weapons of mass destruction.

In the process, they have also liberated a nation of 25 million talented people, most of them Muslims, from the grip of one of the most cruel and sadistic tyrants in modern history.

But their work is not done. The enemy that was defeated in major combat a year ago continues to sow death and destruction in the effort to prevent the emergence of a new Iraq. They and their terrorist allies from inside and outside Iraq understand that real defeat for them will come when Iraqis achieve the ability to govern themselves in freedom and to provide for the security of their own country.

That is why the enemy realizes that the next year or year and a half will be so critical, because that is the time it will take to stand up Iraqi security forces that are fully trained, equipped and organized, and to elect a representative Iraqi government after 40 years of tyranny and abuse.

Already more than 775 American military have died in this noble cause. Many more have suffered grievous wounds. Brave civilians have been killed as well. More than 100 of our coalition partners have given their lives for this cause.

And by our own count, which is probably far from complete, 350 Iraqi policemen, civil defense fighters, and other security forces have given their lives for the cause of a new Iraq in the last year, and that doesn’t count the thousands of Iraqis who have died fighting that evil regime for the last several decades, nor does it count the many brave Iraqi civilians who have stepped up to lead Iraq into a new future and who were gunned down and murdered for that reason alone.

Just this week, a second member of the Iraqi Governing Council, Ezzedine Salim, was brutally assassinated. The second member of the Iraqi Governing Council, along with that brave woman Akila Hashimi, gave their lives for the cause of Iraqi freedom.

WOLFOWITZ: We owe it to these noble Americans, to the Iraqi and coalition partners, and indeed to ourselves and to the world to finish the work that they have so nobly advanced.

Today’s hearing, like many other hearings in this distinguished body, will be listened to by the entire world. In recent weeks, we have been sending many messages to the world about our shock and horror at the abuse of Iraqi prisoners: messages of regret and remorse, messages of outrage and horror, messages of American commitment to correct our mistakes, to find the truth and to punish the guilty. It is entirely proper that we should do so.

Most of all, we are sending the message that in democracies abuses are not tolerated or covered up but revealed and punished. That is a very important message for the Iraqi people and a lesson, as well, as they seek to build a government that would be the first of this kind in the Arab world.

But it is even more important that the Iraqi people hear an additional message from this great body and from the American people: the message that we will win in Iraq and that we are determined to win and that we understand that winning means giving their country back to them, but also sticking with them until they have a reasonable chance to establish a government that represents them and creates security forces that can protect them.

Mr. Chairman, the enemies of a free Iraq are tough and determined killers and terrorists but they have nothing positive to offer the Iraqi people, only fear and death and destruction. Our weapon is not fear but hope. But it is a hope that is shared by millions of Iraqis.

In the coming months, they and we will be the targets of the killers who hope to block the progress to Iraqi self-government and Iraqi self-defense. They need to know that we will stand with them as they stand up for a free Iraq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Secretary Wolfowitz.

Secretary Armitage?

ARMITAGE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. I’ll try to respond -- rather than going through my opening statement which you kindly submitted for the record -- to the individual items that you brought up, Mr. Chairman. I’ll do it very briefly.

ARMITAGE: I want to echo Paul’s comments about your kind comments regarding us. It’s been a pleasure to serve with you and in front of you, many times -- through the Philippines and other different foreign policy activities. And we’re proud again to be here today.

You mentioned that you want to see things move to autonomy as rapidly as possible. Eleven of the Iraqi ministries right now are autonomous, and two more this week will become autonomous.

So that means their ministers make all the decisions, prepare the budgets, are responsible for all the programs, et cetera. And the CPA folks who have been in those ministries revert to the position of senior adviser. And we’ll atrit these away when the ministers themselves tell us that they feel that they no longer need senior advisers.

That’s a story, I think, that has been untold: 13 of the 25 ministries this week are autonomous.

You talked about John Negroponte. Thank you very much -- and you other Senate colleagues -- for being so rapid in his -- both the nomination, the hearing and the confirmation.

Now, I understand the desire to have John out in Iraq as soon as possible. But let me explain our reasoning. We want to make sure that there’s a clean break between Ambassador Bremer and Ambassador Negroponte.

Ambassador Negroponte is not Mr. Bremer’s successor. He is the first U.S. ambassador to a sovereign Iraq, and we’re trying to make that point dramatically.

We also want John’s expertise as we move forward to another U.N. Security Council resolution, which I’ll get to.

But we tried to meet you half way, sir. We chose as the DCM an ambassador from Albania who is a decorated Vietnam combat officer. We chose him for that reason as well as his overall leadership skills because we wanted to send him out early; he’s there now. He’s arranging the embassy. He’s putting together the different political shops, governance shops, et cetera, right now.

We thought it was very helpful to have someone who, frankly, spoke the same language as our military colleagues and one who has walked the walk, as well as talking the talk.

Jim Jeffrey is there now. He’s getting the job done for us.

You mentioned funding. We’re going to need about $483 million for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, that is from July through September.

Right now I can lay my hands on $477 million. The $6 million that I don’t quite have I plan to get by charging other agencies for their building, et cetera. With the State Department we have these cross-servicing agreements, so that’s not a particular problem.

We do estimate, as Marc Grossman told you, that it will be about a little over a $1 billion to run an embassy for fiscal year ’05.

ARMITAGE: And this money, I’m pleased to say, will be coming forward -- requesting at the beginning of the year, in a supplemental -- an administration-wide supplemental, or at least in a State and foreign ops supplemental.

I do want to be clear, however. The president has very kindly requested, and DOD has acceded, to continue to supply to the U.S. Embassy what we call the LOGCAP, the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program, and security. And this over a year amounts to about $800 million.

So, when I finally come forward to you with a supplemental, then it will be, I think, somewhat less than a billion dollars to operate the embassy.

We’ve got three properties that are in the process of renovation. They will be completed by the 15th of June. One is a residence which will serve as a chancery. It’s inside the Green Zone. The palace which Ambassador Bremer is in now will be an annex. And Ambassador Negroponte will move into the residence, which Ambassador Bremer now occupies.

A little bit about the UNSCR: We desire to move ahead as rapidly as possible. And we’ve had informal consultations in New York and most recently with the G-8 foreign ministers here in Washington on Friday.

There’s not a piece of paper that we’ve put forward. We’ve gleaned and garnered all the ideas of those who are most interested. We do want to await the outcome of the Brahimi consultations. Then we’d have an actual government which we would want to support in the resolution.

But we want to accomplish several other things as well. We want to make it very clear that occupation is over, sovereignty is Iraqis’, the assets gained from the sale of oil belong to Iraqis now; those types of things.

We also want to talk about the security arrangements moving forward. We do feel, under Security Council 1511 and other associated memoranda, we have sufficient basis to continue to operate in Iraq. However, we would want, and many of our partners are desirous, of having a further U.N. Security Council resolution which makes this fact well known.

ARMITAGE: So I’ve tried to respond to several of your items. One, if I may, about funding. I said I’ve got about $477 million. $196 million of that will come from the OMB 4th quarter apportionment, $97 million of it comes from ’03 and ’04 monies which have already been appropriated, and the $184 million remaining would be out of the so-called 1 percent funds which, following the law, the Iraq Reconstruction and Redevelopment Fund, up to 1 percent of the money was allowed to be used for administrative costs. So I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on that and I hope you’ll agree with me by the end of the hearing.

So I’ll stop there, sir, and move forward to the questions.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Secretary Armitage.

We’ll try to have a 10-minute question round. At this point we have good attendance, and I’ll proceed with the questions. I appreciate your response to some that I have raised in the opening statements.

I’m going to ask that you respond, both of you, to questions that will be submitted for the record. We have gotten into a detailed list of questions regarding the $18.4 billion, and these are too voluminous for a 10-minute question-and-answer period. But it is important that you have an opportunity to detail, really, what is being done with the $18.4 billion or what will be done, and what problems have occurred in terms of our bidding, contracting and so forth.

I want to ask, in a more general sense -- Ambassador Brahimi will soon name Iraqi leaders. What is our plan, or what should be our plan, for Mr. Jeffrey, if he is on board in Baghdad, or for General Abizaid, for General Sanchez, to visit with these people?

My thought, as I’ve expressed in other hearings, is that it would be very helpful to have some rehearsal off-stage before the curtain opens on the 1st of July specifically about these issues, of putting an Iraqi face on both governance and security, and what that means.

What I suspect it may mean in terms of many Iraqis is that they will want to take more responsibility. And we may wish that that was the case.

Clearly, in Fallujah we have had a step forward that was very substantial, in both the vetting of the general and the troops. And Mr. Bremer has pointed out this should not serve as a model of how things may go elsewhere, but it certainly is interesting as an instructive, pragmatic example currently in the security area.

In the governance area, it’s never been quite clear what sovereignty meant. And, as you pointed out, Secretary Armitage, 11 of the 25 ministries -- as I understand that there are -- are presently passed over and they’re moving but, Mr. Bremer points out, probably won’t get to the end of the 25 list before June 30.

LUGAR: Can either of you describe in the security area or in the governance area how these new leaders are coming together so that there is, at least, if not a smooth transition, some modus vivendi for people to talk as opposed to a public row as to who does what and push back by the Iraqis?

Would you have a go at this to begin with?

ARMITAGE: Be glad to, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, what Mr. Brahimi or Ambassador Brahimi is doing is finally coming up with a list, and it will be winnowed down to 30 names. And it is his suggestions for a president, two vice presidents, a prime minister and 26 ministries because it’ll include the ministry of defense, as well.

And he is going around the country. He was in Irbil two days ago, with the late Ezzedine Salim, as a matter of fact, talking with Iraqis about various lists of names and winnowing them down.

We’ve seen some of them. We haven’t seen them all. I don’t think it does any good to talk about them publicly because what matters is not so much what I think or Paul thinks, it’s what Iraqis think about those names.

Once they are named -- and we hope to have that done by the end of the month of May, perhaps the first week of June. And then the TAL annex, which we have spoken about in the past, will be the -- the pen is held by Mr. Pachachi, and he and his colleagues will write the TAL annex, which will document the responsibilities of the Iraqi interim government.

I don’t expect that document to be extraordinarily voluminous because as this is not an elected government, Mr. Brahimi and Ayatollah Sistani and others have spoken about the need to run the day-to-day business of government and not to be involved in a long- term negotiations between the long-term agreements internationally or et cetera.

So I would see that we have a month or so roughly to work with the Iraqi interim government to make it very clear what sovereignty means. And it’s not limited. They are sovereign. And this will be encompassed or spoken to in the U.N. Security Council resolution.

LUGAR: Secretary Wolfowitz?

WOLFOWITZ: I don’t have a lot to add to that; agree with all of it.

We view moving forward in security area as definitely something that’s going to be a partnership. So as soon as we know who our counterparts are, I think the kind of dialogue that you describe is something that should take place, and hopefully before the actual date that the government takes over.

You correctly said Iraqis look forward to taking more responsibility. I think you suggested we look forward to them taking more responsibility. That’s part of this whole process.

One of the limitations, of course, is that this will not be an elected government. There will be an elected government at the end of this year. And I think Iraqis probably want this government to take more responsibility, but not too much.

To be helpful, Mr. Chairman, we have an easel chart that lists some of the specific powers and responsibilities that would flow to this interim government, according, at least, to the Transitional Administrative Law, and I think it bears out what Rich Armitage said: They are very extensive administrative responsibilities, but the most important task they have is to help organize and run elections for an elected transitional government at the end of this year.

LUGAR: On the point of elections, and this may once again have to be a pragmatic set of decisions, but there would be some virtue, I would think, in having elections for somebody even prior to December. By that I mean, it might be persons that are going to a constitutional assembly, it might be persons with some regional powers.

But it appears to me at this point the legitimizing of Iraqis through people voting for them, have some votes on the board here, may be very important, despite the formality that we’ve been talking about of December and January and then the following December and what have you, so that, in fact, there is the sense of sharing. If there are insurgents, if there are terrorists who don’t like the situation, they’re going to be shooting at Iraqis, as well as Americans. There are going to be some Iraqi people up front, with a supporting cast of Americans, in the security and in the governance situations, as opposed to the other way around.

LUGAR: And it seems to me without knowing precisely who the new leaders are going to be, what kind of responsibilities they have it be. We contemplated how we could have such a thing, whether you use the U.N. food rolls or whatever happens to be there -- maybe more rough and ready than the fastidious work that we would like to see later on. But have either of you thought about that? And what comment do you have?

ARMITAGE: Mr. Chairman, U.N. representative for electoral process Karina Pirelli has been in Iraq since April. And she has been trying to set the atmosphere for these elections. And the first task that she has undertaken is, again, garnering nominations from Iraqis themselves for the post of what we call federal election commission or they call Iraqi election commission -- seven of them. And there will eventually be seven.

She’s winnowing down those names. They will be chosen by an international group of experts in electoral law. There will also be three director generals for a total of 10 people.

This is a first step in getting to where you want to be and where we all want to be late December-early January ’04-’05. She has noted, as you have noted, that there’s something contradictory about the ballot and the bullet.

But she’s also noted that the spirit that she sees among the Iraqi people -- that when they see that they actually are going to have a buy-in, and if that means a vote, a say that their desire for this becomes much greater than the ability of enemies to defeat them. And she’s noted past U.N. experiences in Timor and other places where elections took place in an atmosphere of some violence.

There are many municipal elections and neighborhood council elections which are being held with stunning regularity. And I’ve got the number in this book and I can’t memorize the whole book. I think it’s about 60,000 Iraqis hold some sort of elected position, some sort of position or another, not just in the Kurdish area where you’d expect it but throughout Iraq.

And it’s not a position that comes without some danger. I mean, some of them have been assassinated because they look like they might be leaders who could stand on a larger stage.

So some of what you suggest is ongoing.

LUGAR: Let me intrude before my time is up. To what extent will the law that has been promulgated by the governing council now -- the one that suggests 25 percent participation by Iraqi women as a minimum -- or the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion clauses, other things that are very important, we hope, to Iraqis, very important to us -- what’s going to happen to that?

LUGAR: Is this the law as we proceed?

ARMITAGE: The so-called TAL, the Transitional Administrative Law, will be the law of the land, and it embodies a stunning array of rights never before held by the Iraqis, and it will last and cannot be amended except by a transitional government, which would be in place with the election of a 275-person national assembly in January. They have the ability to amend laws.

I’m not going to say that it’s perfect and I can guarantee you that women’s rights and religious rights will be respected as we’d want them, but we faced this in Afghanistan, we faced it earlier this year and we prevailed. And I believe we prevailed, not because of the wisdom and the strength of our arguments, but because Iraqis hold their religion very dear, but they also hold the idea of secular government to be something very worthy.

So I have some optimism we’ll prevail.

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Chairman, if I might emphasize a point you made at the end of your question, that this is a key part of winning the military battle as well. And, in fact, page seven of my statement, I’ve got this quote from that notorious letter from that notorious terrorist Mr. Zarqawi where he says, "The problem is you end up having an army and police connected to the people. How can we kill their cousins and sons after the Americans start withdrawing? This is the democracy we will have no pretext in."

And also he refers to that as suffocation. It’s winning for us; it’s losing for them.

And if I might add, too, the points Secretary Armitage made about elections, there was a very interesting report recently in the Guardian of London that in some, I believe, it was 15 local elections in southern Iraq, in most of those the Islamists lost the election, and I think that tells you something also about what Rich said; that these are very religious people, but that doesn’t mean they want a religious tyranny imposed on them.

LUGAR: Good point.

Senator Feingold?

FEINGOLD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

FEINGOLD: Let me first thank all of you and especially Secretary Armitage and Secretary Wolfowitz for being before us today.

It has always been important for you to appear before this committee as often as possible, but let me suggest that -- I hope this is the beginning of a pattern.

The American people, as you know, are extremely worried and concerned about what is happening in Iraq. And I think I can honestly say it goes all the way across the political spectrum.

There has never been a time when we need your answers and your guidance more, and I’m hoping this is the beginning of a very regular opportunity to have contact with you and ask these kinds of questions.

Secretary Wolfowitz, I want to ask you again how long we can reasonably anticipate needing a substantial troop presence in Iraq. I know that you can’t give me an exact time frame; we’ve been through this before. But since our forces on the ground, training Iraqi security forces, and therefore we are in an excellent position to judge their capacities and to estimate how long it will be before they can provide for their own security, I would think you would be able to give me at least a reasonable estimate.

We’ve seen that slap-dash efforts to train and deploy Iraqi security forces can lead to dangerous failures and instability. So I guess what I want to know is, how long will it take to properly train Iraqis, such that they’ll be able to provide for their own country’s security, and for how long will security be primarily the responsibility of U.S. forces?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, you know, because you said in your question, the course of war is simply not something one can determine. We can say, I think, with reasonable confidence that we have a plan to train and equip and organize very substantial Iraqi security forces by the end of this year.

We finally have the various obstacles to funding, I think, unblocked. I hope that’s true. There have been some critical delays that have done harm.

We have unity of command for doing this. All the five Iraqi security forces will be -- the training and equipping and organizing of them will be the responsibility of a single lieutenant general, who happens to be the general who commanded for a year up in Mosul in northern Iraq, where the Iraqi security forces in fact have performed impressively in the fighting in the last month.

So I think we’re on a course to substantial Iraqi security forces by the end of this year. But I can’t tell you how strong the enemy will be. I can’t predict exactly how things will go. But our goal is to put responsibility in their hands as quickly as we can and not too rapidly, to create problems.

FEINGOLD: So if I were to look at a memo where you’re planning your goals and the goal was stated as a reasonable goal that by the end of this year that the United States will no longer be primarily responsible for the security, is that a realistic goal?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, that’s more than what I just said. What I said is there will be substantial capable Iraqi security forces by the end of this year, we believe. That’s our plan.

How much they will still need help from the United States, I can’t predict. We want it to be as little as possible.

I’ll give you, sort of, real examples. In some of the fighting in recent weeks, Iraqi security forces have performed well, have been able to do things like going into mosques to seize weapons supplies. That’s something that we would always prefer be done by Iraqis and not by Americans.

In the fighting I referred to up on Mosul, where the enemy attacked the government house, the governor, who by the way is a Sunni Arab, stayed there through the night through the fighting. The police initially left because they were out-gunned. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps stayed and fought -- fought off the enemy. The police came back. Through all of it, they were in touch with General Ham, who had command of the American forces there. And I’m quite sure that the knowledge that General Ham was there to back them up if needed probably emboldened them and gave them courage. And that’s the kind of arrangement we need to have.

We’re in this to win, as I think you agree, and winning means having the Iraqis take as much responsibility as they possibly can but also not putting them so far out in front that they fail.

FEINGOLD: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Let me ask you a question about the transition. Let me start with Secretary Armitage.

When the CPA ceases to exist, what authority will take over the implementation of the $20 billion reconstruction program that has been financed by the U.S. taxpayers? Who’s going to be in charge of that?

And I’d like to also here Secretary Wolfowitz’s feelings on this.

ARMITAGE: Appropriated U.S. money, sir, the chief of mission, John Negroponte, will have the responsibility for it. For Iraqi money, which will be theirs and they’ll have responsibility and they can contract with whomever they like.

FEINGOLD: So the ambassador will be in charge of the entire $20 billion?

ARMITAGE: Correct.

FEINGOLD: Secretary Wolfowitz, do you concur with that?

WOLFOWITZ: I do.

I’d point out that Iraqi funds are very substantial.

FEINGOLD: So the State Department will now have authority over the reconstruction funds? That’s correct, isn’t it?

ARMITAGE: That’s correct.

FEINGOLD: Mr. Armitage, when do we expect to see a new Security Council resolution on Iraq and what will be, in your view, the substance of the resolution?

ARMITAGE: We and our friends on the Security Council are desirous of moving forward shortly after we find the shape and the names of the new Iraqi government. We think it would be very important to have as one of the elements of the U.N. Security Council resolution a support for that IIG.

ARMITAGE: Other elements which may very well find themselves in this will be, as I’ve said before: end of occupation, make a declaration of sovereignty for Iraq, make it clear that Iraqi assets -- particularly oil assets -- belong to Iraqis and would be managed by them, discuss security -- though we don’t feel we need more, if you’ll allow be to use the term, "international cover," we think it’s a good thing and it would be very helpful for many of the other Security Council members to have a specific reference to security arrangements in Iraq during the time of interim Iraqi government.

Those are some of the things. There might be other elements. Everyone’s got different ideas, but I’m pleased to say, in the consultations informally in New York, and more recently Secretary Powell had with the G-8, it was a pretty good comity of views. So I find everybody’s within a certain box. And I think we’ll be able to do this pretty well.

FEINGOLD: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Follow up to Secretary Wolfowitz: There are reports that our troop strength in Iraq will remain at about 135,000 troops until the end of 2005. Is that report inaccurate?

WOLFOWITZ: We don’t know what it’ll be. We’ve had changes, as you know, month by month. We have several different plans to be able to deal with the different levels that might be required. Our current level is higher than we had planned for this time this year. I have no idea what it’ll -- I mean, I clearly don’t know...

FEINGOLD: So it could well be accurate, then?

WOLFOWITZ: It could be. It could be more, it could be less, Senator.

FEINGOLD: Thank you.

Secretary Armitage, I’ve served on the, as you know, on this committee and on the Subcommittee on African Affairs for almost 12 years. One name that keeps coming up and is very familiar is the name of Victor Bout, because he appears at the center of an illicit arms trafficking network that has fuelled devastating conflicts in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and elsewhere.

Is Victor Bout or any firm associated with Victor Bout providing air freight services for coalition forces in Iraq, as the Financial Times alleged in an article published yesterday?

Has the United States opposed including Bout on an asset-freeze list being compiled by the U.N., which targets individuals who are involved with the criminal regime of former Liberian President Charles Taylor? And if so, why?

ARMITAGE: As you, I have seen the name Victor Bout. I believe he’s a Ukrainian arms merchant, or merchant of death. I certainly hope what you suggest is not true. And as far as I’m concerned, he ought to be on any asset-freeze list and anything else you can do to him.

FEINGOLD: So would you follow up with me on any awareness of that that might be available to the State Department?

ARMITAGE: Of course.

FEINGOLD: Secretary Wolfowitz, do you know anything about the question I just asked with regard to Mr. Bout? Has he been involved with providing air freight services for coalition forces in Iraq?

WOLFOWITZ: I don’t know more than what you and Secretary Armitage know, but I share your concern about it and I will work with Secretary Armitage to look into it to try to fix the problem if there is one.

FEINGOLD: Thank you.

Secretary Wolfowitz, in the lead up to the war on Iraq, I repeatedly raised questions which I felt were never satisfactorily answered about what exactly the plan was for dealing with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And given the number of troops we had on the ground, when Baghdad fell and the wide-scale looting that ensued, I remained uncertain that a viable plan for securing this material ever existed.

Mainly, concerns about WMD in Iraq have fallen out of favor in the administration’s remarks about Iraq because at least as far as we can tell we’ve not found what was advertised. But yesterday, as you know, we learned that an artillery round containing sarin gas was employed as an IED near Baghdad International Airport.

I’m wondering what this means to you in terms of what we did and what plans we had for securing any weapons of mass destruction as we entered Iraq and entered Baghdad.

WOLFOWITZ: Well in fact, as I think I know we briefed the Armed Services Committee in detail, and we had very extensive plans that transformed into what was called the Iraq Survey Group to find the weapons of mass destruction, to locate them, to make sure to the best of our ability they didn’t leak out elsewhere.

And when David Kay stepped down, one of the reasons why we felt it was very important to continue the work of the Iraq Survey Group is not only to find out what may have happened to those things but also to secure them if they’re around.

And I would note also, according to Stewart Cohen, at least, who was the national intelligence officer who prepared the NIE, that some 2,000 Iraqi officers were deliberately looting files and hard drives and so forth during the fall of Baghdad. So there was some pretty active work on their side apparently at trying to destroy at least records.

I don’t know any more than what you’ve read in the newspapers about this device that has been discovered. It is obviously something that we’re very concerned about. We’re going to try to find out about it as much as we can.

FEINGOLD: Mr. Chairman, I’m sure my time’s up. Let me just conclude by saying, a number of us started in late July and early August of 2002 to raise these very questions, to ask what was the plan with regard to a possible negative reaction from the Iraqi people, and also specifically what was the plan with regard to securing any weapons of mass destruction.

I, frankly, feel we were never given real answers to that, and I have a feeling that it’s because there wasn’t a serious plan, and I think at this point we’re paying a serious price for it.

But I do thank the witnesses for their answers.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, there was a serious plan. I’d be happy to give you for the record the full table of organization, the number of people that were planned to do it. A lot of thought went into it. It may not have been perfect, but there was a lot of work done on it.

FEINGOLD: I wish that we had been told about these plans, because whenever we made an effort to ask about it, we were just told to trust you, and we didn’t get the assurance that we needed. But I would like to receive those materials.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Feingold.

Senator Hagel?

HAGEL: Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Gentlemen, welcome.

Secretary Armitage, going back to the question Senator Feingold asked regarding a new U.N. resolution, how necessary is a new U.N. resolution as we move toward June 30th?

ARMITAGE: It’s very desirable; it’s not exactly necessary, except in political terms. I think politically this will find great favor with our major Security Council partners, both the P-5 and the elected 10, and I think it makes a rather dramatic point to the Iraqi people, sir.

HAGEL: Well, politically speaking, as we all know, that’s the essence of the effort here. If we lose the Iraqi people, we’ve lost.

ARMITAGE: Exactly.

HAGEL: So I would hope that there is serious work being done now on working with our allies on getting a new U.N. resolution. You can assure this committee that’s being done?

ARMITAGE: I assure the committee. I assure you personally. It is being done, and it is being done almost on a daily basis.

HAGEL: Thank you.

What additional resources could we expect from our partners, those not now participating in the effort in Iraq, if in fact we were able to get a new U.N. resolution? Resources meaning troops, meaning money, meaning training. Are we anticipating that?

ARMITAGE: Let me parse it if I may, Senator.

We would be desirous of getting greater NATO involvement, although 17 of the 26 NATO countries are on the ground with us in NATO. There aren’t large numbers of ground forces in NATO: Only the French have large ground forces, and I think it’s very unlikely that they may be involved.

One possible involvement for them on the ground might be if the U.N., or in the U.N. Security Council resolution, there’s a call to provide forces to protect the U.N. as they go about their business of elections, et cetera. And that might be something that might find some favor.