Transcript: Senate Foreign Relations

Mr. Wolfowitz, you spoke eloquently about your desire to help the good people of Iraq. We were all stunned by those pictures of Abu Ghraib. And one of these pictures -- I mean, I’ll never forget any of them. But one of them that is haunting me is that of a beautiful Iraqi woman who is staring into the camera with dead eyes and then in the next shot she is lifting her blouse and she is exposing her nudity to the camera with the same dead eyes.

Have you seen this photo, Mr. Wolfowitz?

WOLFOWITZ: No, I haven’t, Senator. I’ve seen some of the photos.

Let me explain. Secretary Rumsfeld, when this thing began, put together a considerable task force to dig into the facts to find out what had happened to make sure that we get to the bottom of this. And I would underscore that the Army had already -- the reason we...

BOXER: Sir, if I might...

WOLFOWITZ: Can I just...

BOXER: ... I don’t have time. I only have five minutes left. And I understand that you’re looking into it.

BOXER: But I want to find out what you personally know.

So if I might just continue, please, Mr. Chairman...

WOLFOWITZ: I know enough to be horrified at what has happened. I have not spent the two hours that Secretary Rumsfeld did looking at all of the photos. I will look at the one you mentioned.

BOXER: Thank you.

Given the Islamic rules for modest dress, even the removal of a head scarf is a major violation of faith for many Iraqi women. So the abuse that was inflicted upon these female Iraqi prisoners is not only physical abuse, but it is mental abuse.

According to a recent article written by Tracy Wilkinson, a Polk Award-winning journalist for the Los Angeles Times, quote, "One woman told her attorney she was forced to disrobe in front of male prison guards. After much coaxing, another woman described how she was raped by U.S. soldiers. Then she fainted," unquote.

Secretary Wolfowitz, have you looked into this particular claim, that Iraqi women were actually raped by our soldiers?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator Boxer, we’re looking into all of this, and the behavior you described is absolutely appalling, to treat any woman that way, Muslim or otherwise. And I share your horror at it. I very strongly do. It’s absolutely contrary to everything we’re trying to accomplish in Iraq.

BOXER: OK. I know you don’t have the answers, but I would appreciate in writing if you could let us know how many Iraqi women have been raped in U.S. prisons. And we know that many of them are disowned then by their families.

Secretary Rumsfeld is on the record saying restitution would be provided for the victims. And could you tell us how far along we’re getting in this plan, and if we’re looking particularly at these women who, as I say, are -- many of them disowned by their families?

WOLFOWITZ: I know that we are looking into how to do restitution the best possible way. There are legal issues involved, too, with respect to whether or not it might affect the trials of people that these people may have to testify against.

I consider it very important to make restitution and to do it as quickly as we possibly can and as generously as we possibly can.

BOXER: Secretary Wolfowitz, because I’m the only woman on this committee, sometimes I will do a lot of these issues. And it has come to my attention and the attention of the women senators that there have been reports of 129 credible cases of sexual assault against our women military by our military in Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Bahrain.

And the rules today say that a woman who is the victim of rape in our military, she’s allowed to use the military hospital but she has to pay for an abortion if she chooses to end this pregnancy of violence.

And I am asking you if you would consider supporting Senator Snowe and my bill that would say if a women in our military is sacrificing her life and she is raped, that she is not forced to pay for this abortion; that the military will in fact pay for it.

WOLFOWITZ: I would certainly consider that, Senator.

BOXER: Thank you.

Secretary Wolfowitz, in March ’03, you said the oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 billion and $110 billion over the course of the next couple of years. And you went on to say, "We’re dealing with a country that can really finance it’s own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

Do you still feel that way?

WOLFOWITZ: If I might say, first, Senator, that was in the context of a hearing on the House side some days after the war had already begun. And I introduced those comments by emphasizing that no one can predict what the cost of reconstruction in Iraq will be.

At that moment, we fully -- anticipate is too strong a word -- we were very fearful that, among other things, the oil fields of Iraq might be completely destroyed. So the bill could have been much, much greater even than it’s turned out to be. And that caveat is frequently omitted.

Let me note that the end of the last year alone, Iraq has contributed some $21 billion in Iraqi assets to the running of the country and to the reconstruction of the country. Oil revenues are currently above target partly because the production has come back faster, also because of higher oil prices.

I would get you the exact numbers for the record, but I don’t think in the end those numbers will turn out to be too far off the mark.

BOXER: OK. So you don’t think we need to put any more American dollars into Iraqi reconstruction?

WOLFOWITZ: No. In fact, I think when we came up with the request for the supplemental -- and I’m working from memory here and I hope this doesn’t -- if my memory is wrong, we don’t go back again and say I got it wrong. But it was -- the estimate of Iraqi needs for reconstruction was something like $75 billion based on the World Bank needs assessment and other requirements that the World Bank didn’t take account of, and that we said in testimony that we consider the American contribution would be on the order of the $20 billion that we requested and that it would apply...

BOXER: So just yes or no: Will we have to put more American dollars into reconstruction in Iraq, in your opinion?

WOLFOWITZ: We don’t think that there will be any need for a supplemental of the enormous kind that we had last year. I would assume that there will probably be some kind of American economic assistance program in the future.

WOLFOWITZ: But Iraqi revenue...

BOXER: So you’re asking us for $25 billion for the military, for the troops, nothing for reconstruction. And that will be it until we won’t we need any more; is that correct? You won’t have to come back?

WOLFOWITZ: First of all, the $25 billion for the troops -- it’s more complicated. That’s not the amount for this year. It’s the amount to get us into early next year when we’ll be able to request a supplemental.

We have, thanks to the approval of Congress, some $18.6 billion, as you know, in appropriated funds available for Iraqi reconstruction. In addition, as I just mentioned, there’s $20 billion just in the last 12 months from Iraqi funds: some of it for operating the government, some of it for reconstruction.

There’s some $15 billion or so from international sources that Secretary Powell raised at the Madrid conference. And we anticipate, I think -- I’m going to be careful with my numbers -- very substantial Iraqi contributions in coming years to their reconstruction.

BOXER: OK.

Well, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, maybe you followed all this. I don’t know exactly what they’re going to ask us for. Thanks.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Boxer.

Senator Brownback?

BROWNBACK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, glad to have you here.

Secretary Wolfowitz or Armitage, just in following that line, is there a chance we’re going to get some money back from the U.N. oil- for-food program? There’s been a huge controversy about the number of dollars.

And we were tracking that, the subcommittee I was on during the time period that that was operating for those years, the billions of dollars of oil revenues that were flowing out of Iraq then, that were supposed to go into food, that appears as if now there were billions that were skimmed off of that either by Saddam or people on the other end of this.

Do we know where that is in its investigation? And is there a chance there’s going to be some substantial resources that should come back to Iraq for its reconstruction from that program?

ARMITAGE: Mr. Volcker, of course, is running the investigation for the U.N. We, just as a sidebar, have provided to members of committee, in an appropriate fashion, those documents which we had that might in any way refer to this.

I think there will be at the end of the day -- my view is, you will find wrongdoing and you will find monies. And I hope the people who are involved, as I said in the House side the other day, are hung.

But having said that, I don’t think the monies will be substantial in terms of billions of billions of dollars. I don’t think it runs that high. But if, you know -- follow the trail and follow the money.

BROWNBACK: Let me ask you on this sarin gas and mustard gas issue that’s come up.

BROWNBACK: I’m looking off of two news stories. I just want to quote to you some individuals. This is the Reuters story yesterday, where David Kay is asked about this sarin gas weapon and he says it appears to be, this is just his direct quote: "It was probably just scavenged from one of the 125 plus ammunition storage points that still remain," Kay said.

And then the article goes on to say, "more forensic testing should determine with some confidence when it was produced."

Now he speculated it was probably left over from the 1980s, produced either during the Iraq-Iran War or before the 1991 Gulf War. That’s David Kay’s comments on this sarin gas that they found.

And this is General Mark Kimmitt. This is in a Fox news story on Monday. "Iraq Survey Group confirmed today that a 155 millimeter artillery round" -- which, as I understand, is a pretty good size shell -- "contained sarin nerve agent had been found."

This is another quote from him: "The round had been rigged as an IED which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy. The round detonated before it would be rendered inoperable, which caused a very small dispersal of the agent."

Then I’ve got -- in this same story they’re citing a senior Bush administration official which they do not give the name of, said, "Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraq Survey Group, a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction, has concluded the mustard gas was, quote, ’Stored improperly,’ which made the gas, quote, ’ineffective.’"

And now we know that Iraq used sarin gas during the Iraq-Iran War. However now, "Kimmitt" -- I’m going back to him -- "said the shell belonged to a class of ordinance that Saddam’s government said was destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War. Experts believe both the sarin and mustard gas weapons date back to that time."

Here’s again Kimmitt: "It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED, and basically from the detonation of that, when it exploded, it indicated it actually had some sarin in it.

"It was a binary type of shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin gas."

And then they quote later a former Iraqi nuclear scientist, Ghazi George (ph), as saying that Saddam stored these around the country.

Can you react? You had this question a little bit earlier, but it appears as if -- I mean, there are people that are commenting on this to some extent, and I would appreciate if you could comment on either the sarin gas or the mustard gas to what we know has actually taken place or what’s happened with those to date.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator Brownback, with your permission, I’d really like to reply for the record. It’s just very important that we be precise about what we know and what we don’t know. And there’s some things we’re still trying to find out about exactly the origin of those shells, whether it was a failure of the Iraqis to account for them or whether they were simply stray shells and so forth.

They’re very key issues here, which I think it would be important to give you a careful answer on.

BROWNBACK: Can you answer whether or not we know if sarin gas or mustard gas has been used in the Iraqi theater within the last two weeks?

WOLFOWITZ: Sir, the tests that came back were field tests done by two different independent type of tests in the field. They have a good degree of reliability, but not near 100 percent.

WOLFOWITZ: So right now, the shells and the substance are being sent back to the United States for a conclusive test back here.

BROWNBACK: And what did the field tests reveal?

WOLFOWITZ: That they were sarin, sir. But again, that’s not 100 percent guaranteed.

BROWNBACK: Apparently, in this one article, that two soldiers are showing signs of reaction to a chemical weapon -- that they’re showing symptoms similar to a mild chemical weapons exposure. Is that correct, as well?

WOLFOWITZ: Yes, sir, that’s correct. While they were transporting it back, they showed nausea and had some orientation problems. But they are well now, they have been treated, and they’re back to duty.

BROWNBACK: OK, now, what about this mustard gas, two weeks ago, reported by the Iraqi Survey Group?

WOLFOWITZ: Sir, the information I have is as you had laid out, that they had found it and that it’s also being tested. I don’t have any further information on that round.

BROWNBACK: OK. Was there a field test as to whether this was mustard gas?

WOLFOWITZ: I do not know, sir.

BROWNBACK: OK, now, that’s why the Iraqi Survey Group that was reporting that. But you don’t know anything further about the mustard gas one?

WOLFOWITZ: No, sir, not the earlier one.

BROWNBACK: Do we -- and Secretary Wolfowitz, I’m presuming you’re going to say the same answer, but I do want to ask this -- do we know any of the sources of these shells, not necessarily the gas, but the sources of these shells? Do we know anything about that yet?

WOLFOWITZ: Not that I’m aware of, and that’s one of the important questions to be answered.

BROWNBACK: There’s a speculation in this article from the Iraqi nuclear scientist, Ghazi George (ph), was saying that lots of them have gone west to Syria and have been brought back with the insurgencies. And he was speculating this was a stepping up of the insurgency against the United States and against the coalition forces. Have any reaction to that thought or any that you can put forward?

WOLFOWITZ: I’d say, at the moment that’s a speculation. It’s a hypothesis. It’s certainly is something we’re looking at very hard because it would be a -- if it’s a systematic pattern and it’s something that will cause us very great concern, obviously.

BROWNBACK: And when you have a chance, I’m sure you will be issuing statements publicly about the full nature, whether this is sarin gas or mustard gas, in this last instance.

If I could ask Secretary Armitage, when do you anticipate that Saddam will be going on trial -- Saddam Hussein?

ARMITAGE: I saw a speculation in the press from the Iraqis that it would happen before a turnover. I think that’s very unlikely. This is an Iraqi determination. They are having a small debate among themselves as to whether they ought to try Saddam Hussein first or whether they should try some lesser lights first.

We are -- the U.S. government, the Department of Justice, is in an advisory role to them to help them get their house in order so this will stand up to international scrutiny. Beyond that, there’s no time set.

BROWNBACK: This year?

ARMITAGE: There’s no time set.

BROWNBACK: Secretary Armitage, if I could, you mention that you’ve made the trip in the region recently. And I know Secretary Powell has been over at the World Economic Forum, and I applaud all of those connections and move into the region. I made that trip before, as well.

I’m wondering how much of OPEC is putting pressure back on us through gas prices because we’re pushing democracy and open societies in the region. And these are generally monarchies and dictatorships that are in the region and we are clearly standing for democracy and open societies. There’s clearly a rub in the region of what’s taking place. Are they pushing pressure back on us through oil production?

ARMITAGE: First of all, in OPEC, sir, it’s a mixed bag. The Kuwaitis, for instance, did not go along with the idea of cutting back on production. And as far as I know, the Saudis a month and a half or so ago said they were going to cut back and then didn’t.

Further, they are now saying that they may increase -- they’ve got excess capacity and they may increase it.

I think -- this is a personal opinion I ought to refer to those on the Energy Committee, but this is as much psychological as anything else. The spike in prices to $41-plus a barrel, I think there is some argument can be made for the need for more refining capacity here in the United States. But beyond that, I’m out of my league.

The question of democracy and openness in the region is one that’s moving within every country in the region at varying speeds and in various ways.

Paul mentioned that even the Saudis and the Egyptians had had some rather far-reaching statements. And it’s true. Other states have gone a lot farther with women’s rights, transparency, et cetera. And this is why the upcoming G-8 summit at Sea Island, and its promise of some discussion of the Greater Middle East Initiative and putting some wind in the sails of those reformers in the various countries, is so important.

BROWNBACK: I think it’s one of the most dramatic moves towards democracy I’ve seen in that region at any time. And I certainly applaud that.

Mr. Chairman?

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Mr. Brownback.

Senator Sarbanes?

SARBANES: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, first of all I want to commend you and Senator Biden for these series of hearings you’re been holding with respect to Iraq. I think they have really focused on important, substantive questions. And I think that’s obviously a very important responsibility of this committee. And I just want to underscore my appreciation to you and the ranking member, Senator Biden, for undertaking that responsibility.

Secretary Wolfowitz -- and I’m going to direct this as well to the other members of the panel, but let me start with you -- as we look ahead and make our calculations about the path that lies ahead, it seems to me we have to have some sense of what the miscalculations were that have resulted in us confronting the situation we now have in Iraq.

So the question I want to put to you -- and then I’ll do it to the others as well -- is -- because you’ve been a central player in all of this -- what were the miscalculations?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, when people start listing the miscalculations they rarely bother listing all the things that we calculated on that didn’t happen, and I think in part didn’t happen because of the way in which the military campaign was conducted, which is to say with enormous speed; faster than I believe Saddam or his people believed we could advance.

I think that may be the reason why we didn’t face the enormous destruction of Iraqi oil fields, for example.

WOLFOWITZ: It may be a reason that we didn’t face extensive urban fighting as we had anticipated. Indeed, in anticipation of it we decided on a plan that would emphasize speed over mass.

One can go back and look at many things that maybe we needed to do differently, and we are doing that. And I agree with the spirit of you question, that if we want to set the course going forward, then it’s important to figure out if we made some misjudgments in the past.

And I would say one that we believe was done a bit too severely was the policy of de-Baathification, and that’s in fact why Ambassador Bremer announced just a couple of weeks ago that we were going to look at modifying it.

I must say that as soon as we talked about modifying it, we heard very, very strong expressions, particularly from the Kurds and the Shia, that we might be abandoning it, we might be opening the door to bringing the Baathists back to power. So there’s always a balance to be struck.

I would say of all the things that were underestimated, the one that almost no one that I know of predicted, with the exception of a retired Marine colonel named Gary Anderson who wrote this in a op-ed piece in The Post I believe it was April 2nd of last year, was to properly estimate the resilience of the regime that had abused this country for 35 years; to properly estimate that Saddam Hussein would still be out there funding attacks on Americans until he was captured; that one of his principal deputies, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, would still be out there funding operations against us; that they would have hundreds of millions of dollars in bank accounts in neighboring countries to support those operations; that the old Iraqi intelligence service, which had so much blood on its hands, which I believe is not reconcilable, we’re not talking about an ordinary person who joined the Baath Party in order to get a promotion as a teacher: Those are the people we’re trying to bring back in.

But the real killers who number in the thousands were much tougher people I think than anyone imagined, and they are out there killing and they are working with Mr. Zarqawi, who seems to have been associated with him from before the war. They’re bringing in foreign fighters, as they did in the early stages of the war. And they may not be good in large-scale open battle, but they seem to have a dangerous capability for urban guerrilla tactics, and that’s what we’re up against.

I think the great strength we have against them remains the fact that the Iraqi people don’t want these people back, and if they have confidence that they can stand up against those people, they do so. In fact, they do so even when they know they may be murdered for it, as the member of the governing council was just yesterday, and his police chiefs are, and his security officers are.

The number of Iraqis that actually will stand up and fight for their country is considerable, and I think that is where success is going to lie for us, is empowering those people more rapidly. If anything, I would say we were slow in doing it, maybe in part because we thought we’d have something like peacekeeping operations instead of a continuing war.

SARBANES: Secretary Armitage?

ARMITAGE: I look at this question, or to answer it, Senator Sarbanes, by saying what I would do differently? And the single thing I would have done differently after the splendid military victory was to more rapidly to brought in the tribal sheiks.

I think that -- I’ll speak for myself -- that the Shia and Sunni and Kurd and Turkmen and a couple of others, and we could deal with them in that way. It was wrong I think. I think they’re a tribal society in a way that I didn’t fully appreciate, and I wish that I had been involved much more in bringing the tribal sheiks into things earlier on. I think we’d be a lot farther down the pike now.

SARBANES: General Sharp?

SHARP: As you know, as the military looks at the situation on the ground, we continuously assess as to what changes need to be made based upon the circumstances that we’re under.

As you know, we’re working very hard now to train the Iraqi security forces. As a result of their performance in the recent days, we’re looking at leadership training and specialized training in order to be able to get the leaders and the people in the security forces to be able to stand up.

On the military side, we continue to assess the capabilities of both the Iraqi security forces and our coalition partners and us, and to determine how to best defeat the threat that’s out there.

So you see us adjusting boundaries, you see us integrating some of the Iraqi security forces and military into our military forces and vice versa.

We’re standing up a new headquarters in order to be able to best work in the new environment with a strategic situation with Ambassador Negroponte going in.

SHARP: So we’re standing up a headquarters there, with General Sanchez to work on the military and political level and then General Metz working on the tactical and operational level.

And we’re sending, for example, General Petraeus back to again take all of the Iraqi security forces and make sure that we are focusing the efforts on those to get the Iraqis enabled to be able to take over responsibility for their own security.

SARBANES: The difficulty I’m having here is obviously I would assume none of you at the table calculated that we would be confronting the situation we are confronting there now.

So the question becomes what miscalculations -- let me ask a couple of specifics. Secretary Wolfowitz, you said that they were drawing money from the surrounding countries. They had deposits in the surrounding countries, and were now calling on those resources to carry out this insurgency that’s taking place, if I understood you correctly. Is that right?

WOLFOWITZ: Saying that Saddam and his gang have access to enormous resources. And they are using those resources to pay for hired killings.

SARBANES: Now, those are coming from the surrounding countries?

WOLFOWITZ: I’m not sure where they’re coming from, Senator.

SARBANES: Well, what cooperation are we getting from the surrounding countries? I see the king of Jordan said just yesterday that he thought Iraq needed a strongman as I understand it, and that that was what was now needed in the situation in the current situation, which, of course, is very much at odds, as I understand it, with what you’re projecting to do.

WOLFOWITZ: Well, I would say we’re getting very excellent cooperation from Jordan. It’s the kind of ally with whom you can differences of view that lead you to better policies.

I think we need a lot more cooperation from Syria.

ARMITAGE: The question of Iran is a more interesting one in a way, because during the time of the Arbayeen, where Zarqawi was threatening to bring about civil war -- publicly he threatened it -- the Iranians were actually quite helpful because they kept many of their pilgrims home. And they made fewer targets and a much more manageable situation.

At the same time, however, we find them in the south particularly trying to buy clerics with their money. So it’s a mixed view.

Kuwait has been extraordinarily helpful, as well.

SARBANES: What is the legal status of the U.S. contractors operating in Iraq, the nonmilitary people that are in there, some of them apparently doing military-type activities?

WOLFOWITZ: I’m not aware that it’s different from their status as contractors for us in Kosovo or Bosnia. And we make extensive use of contractors everywhere. And we’re doing so in Iraq. And they operate under -- if they’re working for the U.S. military, they operate according to U.S. military regulations. And, of course, the status of everything in Iraq is under the overall authority of the CPA.

SARBANES: So the U.S. military, in effect, has the responsibility for the conduct of the private contractors, is that correct?

WOLFOWITZ: No. Those contractors that are working for us, but there are many contractors that are working for CPA, or working on their own or working for the Iraqi Governing Council. There are contractors all over the country.

SARBANES: Now, is it your view that the -- you don’t need another status of forces agreements after June 30th, when you transfer sovereignty, in order to ensure the legal status of American forces?

ARMITAGE: Senator Sarbanes, as a legal matter that would be the case. As a political matter it might be something else again.

Security Council Resolution 1511, combined with CPA Order 17, gives us the sufficient legal cover, if you will, for status of forces agreements.

However, it clearly -- if we do move forward, as we’re planning to, with a new U.N. Security Council resolution, we’d also want to put this in that resolution as well. An extra bit of protection.

SARBANES: What would the status be...

ARMITAGE: Our view of 1511 is not universally shared by our allies, sir.

SARBANES: What would be the status of the private contractors after June 30th when sovereignty is transferred?

ARMITAGE: I’ve got to take it for the record, Senator Sarbanes; I don’t know.

SARBANES: That could be quite a problem, could it not? Would they still be under the rules of the U.S. military?

WOLFOWITZ: I repeat, they were under the rules of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and since that authority will transfer to the interim government, I assume they will be under the authority of the interim government.

And if there are issues about how they conduct themselves -- for example, I think obviously one of your concerns is: What are they allowed to carry in the way of weapons? -- I assume those will be laws and regulations written by the interim government.

I think, Senator, that the policies and regulations of the Coalition Provisional Authority which govern them now...

SARBANES: Are these issues going to be -- I know I’m running over my time. One final -- are these issues going to be worked out before the transition date? I mean, are these people just going to be left, I don’t want to use the expression "high and dry," but left with a potential serious problem on their hands? I mean...

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, I believe...

SARBANES: What’s going to happen?

WOLFOWITZ: The laws and regulations of the CPA will remain the laws and regulations of the interim government unless further amended. And, in the case of contractors, there may be some need for changes -- which might be taken while the CPA is still in authority or might be taken by the interim government.

SHARP: And, sir, if I may add...

WOLFOWITZ: There’s not going to be a vacuum of law.

SHARP: ... CPA-17, which, according to the Transitional Administrative Law, will continue after 1 July, includes the rights and the authorities and the obligations of contractors, not just military SOFA-type of requirements.

So those authorities are in CPA-17 also. So that would continue on.

LUGAR: Thank you very much.

SARBANES: Well, it’s not -- I mean I, my concern has not been alleviated here. And I think it’s a matter that needs to be looked into very carefully, otherwise you’re going to have things occurring. Everyone’s going to say: "Well, we never calculated for that to happen. That wasn’t part of our calculation." You have to do some tough-minded calculations here.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Sarbanes.

Just for summarize for the record, would you research -- witnesses research the answer to Senator Sarbanes’ question?

LUGAR: I think you’ve given an answer, but could well be that you might want to make additional comments.

ARMITAGE: Absolutely.

WOLFOWITZ: Absolutely. You deserve an answer, and we’ll get you one, Senator.

SARBANES: Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you very much.

Senator Voinovich?

VOINOVICH: I’d like to thank you for convening this meeting. And we’ve been doing this now for over a year. And at the time we started we wanted to know: Do we have a plan? Do we know what we’re doing? And the American people want to know that we’re not like a leaf meandering down a stream.

And I’m comforted by the testimony that we’ve had this morning. But my concern is that are we really leveling with the American people?

For example, we know we’re talking about troop commitments. And if we look at what we’ve done in Bosnia, if you look at what we’ve done in Kosovo, we’ve been there for quite some time. It seems to me that we ought to talk about what’s the future going to be; some rough estimates about the commitment that we’re going to be making in terms of troops and the cost of it.

I was somewhat comforted by the fact that you indicate that we might not be asking for more money for reconstruction. But my constituents are interested: Are we going to put more money into reconstruction in Iraq?

The other issue that I’m very concerned about is the issue of the involvement of religious leaders in Iraq, including Ayatollah Sistani, in terms of developing a transition plan.

I think one of the things that we may have miscalculated -- and you’re talking about errors that you made, I think that one of the errors that we made is the militancy of Muslim fundamentalism. Several people said that -- I think it was Senator Biden said 82 percent of the Iraq people would like to see us out of there like that was a change.

Do we really know how many of them wanted us in there? I mean they wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein; there’s no question about that. But do they like us any more than -- and, you know, do they want a secular, Western democracy in that country?

And what about Muqtada al-Sadr? Thirty-one years old. He seems to have a great deal of support from some people. Where’s he getting his support? Is this an effort on his part to work with -- I don’t know, is he working with people up in Iran to have a Muslim type of regime where they control things?

It just seems to me that there’s a lot more going on over there than what we anticipated. The American people thought and we were led to believe we’ll be looked upon as liberators and that they’ll be glad to have us there. But it appears to me that the sooner we get out, the happier they’re going to be.

And I’m just real concerned that -- you know, people ask me, "What’s going to happen, you know, come July 1st?" And I just tell them that it’s going to be jump ball.

VOINOVICH: We’re not really sure what’s going to happen. We hope there are some things that are going to happen.

And I just wonder if we’re not being as candid as we should be with the American people about what we’re into over there. And I think they would feel probably more comforted if we leveled with them a little more than maybe what we’re doing right now. And I’d like you to react to that.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, I think we are being candid. We try to be candid, and things change. We had a plan that anticipated I think that we could proceed with an occupation regime for much longer than it turned out the Iraqis would have patience for. We had a plan that assumed we’d have basically more stable security conditions than we’ve encountered.

In response to both of those changes, we have considerably speeded up the transition to sovereignty. And I share Senator Biden’s comments that I think we should put a lot of focus on successful elections. I think that’s going to be one of the keys to changing the way Iraqis view us.

With respect to the security problem, we have enormously speeded up both the speed and the level of effort in equipping Iraqi security forces.

I think -- I don’t remember the exact numbers; I’ll get them for you for the record -- some of those early polls were very striking, because they had overwhelming percentages of the Iraqis polled -- I think in the neighborhood of 70-plus percent -- saying they wanted the Americans to leave. And equally large numbers wanted us to stay for at least two years.

That’s not a contradiction. It’s people who genuinely welcomed us as liberators, but did not want us owning their country or occupying their country. I think this label of "occupying power" is a very unfortunate one. It will be good, July 1st, to be rid of it.

VOINOVICH: Actually, some people have exploited that, and that’s why this transition to turn it over to them is very, very important.

Do you believe that, because we’re doing that, that that’s going to lessen some of the ability of people like al-Sadr to ignite folks to be against us?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, you’re absolutely right. Although, it’s not going to be transformational on July 1st. That’s why Senator Biden is so correct when he says the key thing, I think, is not when they have a sovereign appointed government but when they have a sovereign elected government.

The issue of Mr. Sadr -- everything I see suggests this is a man who is very young, exploited a very distinguished family name -- both his father and I think his great-uncle were distinguished religious clerics and martyrs. But he’s basically intimidated a large part of the country by putting together gangs of young people with heavy weapons and an ability intimidate people.

And as our operations have begun to shut down those operations, what we’re also seeing is a lot of Iraqis in the south, who I think were intimidated by him previously, coming out and saying, "We’ve had enough of this lawlessness."

And I’m told that AP has reported that Ayatollah Sistani has actually come out publicly and said Sadr’s forces should get out Najaf and Karbala. That’s an early report. I’d be careful with it. But certainly we’re hearing many reports that, as Iraqis see law and order being restored, they’re coming out much more openly against Sadr.

So I think in that case, we’re dealing with a fairly thuggish individual who, with the power of the gun, was intimidating people.

I think it’s by no means as serious a problem as the much more ruthless former elements of the old regime and terrorists that we’re dealing with up north.

VOINOVICH: Is he getting any encouragement from Muslims in Iran?

WOLFOWITZ: My impression is that the Iranians are finding him an embarrassment.

I don’t know, Rich, if you want to comment...

ARMITAGE: If I may, you used a sports analogy about a jump ball. And I know this is not a game, it’s very serious business. But if you’ll allow me, we’ve got a game plan, but we are going to have to audible from time to time.

Muqtada al-Sadr is a case of an audible. This is a thug, just as Paul described. He’s been unable to garner popular support, Shia support in the south. They are turning on him. And as I said earlier, Senator Voinovich, when our forces come in with wisdom and determination, carefully, in the area, they’ve been welcomed by people.

The situation is very complex; it’s not good. But there are some signs that we ought to look at, and that’s one of them.

ARMITAGE: The Iranians actually came to Baghdad and they met with the British and they met with us to talk about Muqtada al-Sadr because, as Paul suggested, they find him an embarrassment and he’s getting in their way.

VOINOVICH: Well, has the -- has any thought been given to some type of effort to -- instead of having a kind of a democracy that we’re hoping for that we’ll end up with something like we have in Iran?

ARMITAGE: We’ve been very leery of it and very watchful of it, and we’re, thus far, quite satisfied that the most important cleric, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, has stated that he does not want a theocracy.

If there’s another surprise in this area, it was the more secular nature of Iraqi society than I had initially understood, though that is in no way a suggestion they’re not faithful to their beliefs.

WOLFOWITZ: And in fact, I think, Senator, before you came in I mentioned that there was a report recently of some 17 local elections in southern Iraq where the Islamists were defeated in most of those elections.

VOINOVICH: I heard that and I was, quite frankly, surprised at that.

So you believe that there is enough support for some type of secular Western type of democracy there?