Transcript: Senate Foreign Relations

WOLFOWITZ: I think, Senator, most Iraqis don’t want to go back to a tyranny, even the ones that were deeply religious. And if there is a fair degree of local autonomy, it wouldn’t surprise me that in some parts of Iraq you find very conservative governments with respect to issues like what kinds of images you can show on television, for example.

But I don’t think most Iraqis, if they’re free to vote their conscience, would want to see a government that imposes the kind of tyranny we see in Iran. They’ve been through 35 years of a different sort of tyranny.

VOINOVICH: Well, certainly the stuff that’s happened in prison has really been ammunition for those who talk about us as defiling their country.

WOLFOWITZ: Terrible ammunition, but I hope that the way in which we deal with it will be an example that this is a country that doesn’t tolerate abuse and it punishes abuse, and that hopefully Iraqi will be the first Arab country that has the same approach to those things.

VOINOVICH: I’d just like to also say that you say that you need this resolution from the United Nations, but you’re not certain that you’re going to get it. It just seems to me that one of the things -- when we supported the $87 billion for Iraq, one of the conditions was that we would get support from other countries in terms of reconstruction, and we would get support from other countries in terms of reducing their debt to the countries.

Are we getting any -- I mean, we’ve got some help, but it seems to me that it’s not very enthusiastic.

ARMITAGE: Perhaps I misspoke. We are going to get a U.N. Security Council resolution. And the good news from my point of view is the informal consultations, both in New York and more recently Secretary Powell with the G-8, indicate that all of our thinking is within certain acceptable bounds. So it’s a matter of working out and accommodating everyone’s views.

So I’m absolutely positive we’re going to get a U.N. Security Council resolution, without question.

VOINOVICH: Again, could you repeat how much reconstruction money have you got from other countries? And how many countries have reduced their debts or eliminated them since we’ve made the $87 billion commitment?

ARMITAGE: The international donors came up with $13.8 billion, I believe, which about a billion has been disbursed. We are in to it for $20 billion, as you’ve indicated, sir.

All the major debtors except for Russia, I believe, have indicated a willingness to engage in substantial debt reduction. It hasn’t happened yet, but that’s the status as I know it.

VOINOVICH: Mr. Chairman, let me just ask one question.

The question I have is that that -- when we passed that, authorized the $87 billion, there was a requirement in there for a report. Have we ever received a report back from you yet on where we stand in terms of that request?

ARMITAGE: I don’t know and I’ll find out.

VOINOVICH: Well, I’d like to see it, because I’ve asked this question several times and I’d like to see exactly how much money are we getting from our allies and how much are they cooperating with us.

Because, again, you get back the streets of Ohio and people are saying, "We’re Uncle Sugar." You know, we’re over there and we’re taking care of everything and where are the rest of the people who should be just as interested in what happens in Iraq as we are interested in it? Where are they?

ARMITAGE: It’s the neighbors, you bet. I’ll find out where it is, Senator.

ACTING CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Let me announce to all the members that...

WOLFOWITZ: (OFF-MIKE) there’s $12 billion of Iraqi funds that have been applied to running the government and doing reconstruction. Another $8 billion committed for the rest of this year.

ACTING CHAIRMAN: Let me announce, for the benefit of the members here, there’s a vote on -- Chairman Lugar has gone to vote. He will be back. He will continue these hearings.

Senator Dodd?

DODD: Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and maybe someone would call over and see if they’d hold it up a couple of minutes so we can get a line of questioning in here.

BIDEN: Apparently they’ve already said they’d hold it a few more minutes. There’s six minutes left.

DODD: Well, thanks.

And thanks to our witnesses for being here. And let me echo the comments, by the way, of Senator Sarbanes, about you, Senator Biden and Senator Lugar. These have been tremendously helpful -- these hearings. And it’s exactly what the Congress should be doing.

In the absence of legislating, holding oversight hearings on critical issues, both domestic and foreign, are absolutely essential. And these have been worthwhile hearings, and I want the chairman and the ranking member to know how much all of us appreciate it -- very, very much.

Let me begin by just expressing to you what I think is obvious but probably needs to be stated again, and that is: Anybody who ever thought this was going to be easy was deluding themselves. This is a difficult task. And so you all know that as we raise questions about these matters here, at least, I think, for all of us at this side of the dais, there is an appreciation of how complicated and difficult this mission is.

Secondly, I think without exception all of us want you to succeed, want the administration to succeed, want this policy to succeed. That it’s critically important that the present situation we find ourselves in -- and the exact description I think that Senator Voinovich gave is one that’s not narrowly held.

There are a lot of people across this country who are very, very worried about how this is progressing, what the end game is, whether or not we’re going to achieve even a part of our goals here and the growing fear that we may in fact be, in some ways, in a worse situation if we’re not careful at the end of August. So I raise that point with you.

And to express what Senator Voinovich said, and it’s my view as well, one of the concerns they have is that there’s a lack of candor and transparency about what’s going on.

And let me, if I can, jump to this issue -- of the prison issue, if I may, for a minute.

DODD: I’m very interested in knowing whether or not the State Department was aware of the situation at the prison.

We know now that General Myers had asked CBS to delay using those photographs for several weeks. Was the State Department aware of this, Mr. Armitage?

ARMITAGE: If I may, we were aware that there was some alleged abuses back in the January-February timetable. And Secretary Powell, as he said publicly, made this a subject of discussions with his colleagues, the principals, as well as the president.

DODD: Were you briefed on it, though? Were you actually briefed by the Taguba report?

ARMITAGE: No. Were not briefed on it, to my knowledge. Heard from the press that there were photos about a week or so before they appeared.

DODD: And so were you aware that a request had been made to a major network to delay the release of those photographs?

ARMITAGE: I was aware because the press person who told me worked for that network.

DODD: The reason I raise that, we had Mr. Negroponte here and all of us supported his nomination. And he appeared here on the 27th of April. The reports came out the following day.

And I’m just curious as to why, in the interest in the interest of candor and transparency, that either in direct testimony or a response to questions the designee to be the ambassador in Iraq wouldn’t have laid out to this committee a critical issue that was about to explode onto the public scene within 24 hours.

ARMITAGE: I don’t think he knew anything about it. I don’t think any of us in the Department of State had any idea what were on the pictures. I’ve told you the sum of our knowledge of this is there were some photographs.

DODD: But beyond that...

ARMITAGE: I don’t think he had any inkling.

DODD: Senator Feingold asked John Negroponte a very specific question about the human rights issues, and it would have been a perfect opportunity, if not in direct testimony, to say, "By the way, we’ve got a problem here that you ought to be aware of and we don’t want to give you the details of," but certainly lay out to the committee, it would have been helpful at that point.

ARMITAGE: I say again, I don’t think he knew anything about pictures, Senator Dodd.

DODD: But he knew about the prison abuse?

ARMITAGE: I’ll have to find out.

We at the Department of State knew about it, and I don’t know how much he was read into it as he went through his...

DODD: Well, would he have been briefed about that before coming up here?

ARMITAGE: He wouldn’t have been briefed in New York, sir. I don’t know if he was briefed down here on it.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator...

DODD: Go ahead, I’m sorry.

WOLFOWITZ: I think the whole world knew that there was prison abuse. Central Command announced the investigation I think January 16th, and I believe in March, I don’t know the exact date, they announced that criminal proceedings were being brought against some U.S. military personnel.

The shocking part of it is when you see the pictures and you understand what’s being talked about.

DODD: I understand that, Mr. Secretary. And I’m not going -- I’m not trying to get down to the details. I’m just about the candor and transparency.

Now, I know, on a particularly sensitive issue like the ambassadorship to Iraq that’s coming up, there’s a Q&A period, and you go back and forth. And it goes to the point that Senator Voinovich is raising. This is where we begin to get ourselves in trouble. Sometimes, it’s not the act, it’s the perjury that occurs.

Now, I’m not suggesting perjury was the case here, but it’s usually being candid about what’s going on and how all matters are revealed, how they become -- the public becomes aware of things.

And what I’m trying to get at is whether or not John Negroponte was aware of the abuses, whether or not he’d seen the photographs or not, whether or not during the question-and-answer period of training or preparation for him to come up here, these issues were raised in any way.

ARMITAGE: I’ll ask him.

DODD: But you’re not aware of it?

ARMITAGE: No, I’m not, sir.

DODD: I want to if I can pick up very quickly on a question that Senator Sarbanes raised and the chairman wisely asked you to possibly amend the answers, particularly with regard to contractors dealing with detainees or prisoners.

How would you feel about just a direct prohibition of having contract employees involved in the interrogation of detainees and prisoners in Iraq?

And one of the problems, it seems to me here, is the lack of authority and direct control of some of these people here. I guess there are 20,000 of them in the country. Do you have a quick response as to how you’d feel about such a prohibition against contractors being directly involved in the interrogation of detainees?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator Dodd, there are so many people trying to look into this and fix the problem, I wouldn’t want to speculate.

I do think it is absolutely essential lesson from this is not to have people involved in interrogation who aren’t thoroughly trained and disciplined and know the rules and follow the rules. And if you could have a contractor that meets those qualifications, it might be better than have a less well-trained uniformed person.

But I think it absolutely brings home the importance of having disciplined, trained people doing the work.

ARMITAGE: I don’t know what the military manpower of the situation is, but to have this done without training, without oversight, supervision there is not acceptable.

DODD: Let me ask you about the -- there was apparently in January of 2002 a memo from -- the legal counsel at the White House, Mr. Alberto Gonzalez, wrote a memo to the Department of State -- wrote to the president and the Department of State, I guess -- in which he says, "In my judgment this new paradigm of terrorism renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions of the Geneva Accords." Were you aware of that memo?

ARMITAGE: Yes, I was aware of it as I came here today because I saw our general counsel look at it. I don’t remember seeing it at the time. And I’ve heard -- and I’ll have to check it and I think you’ll want to check -- that that quote was disavowed, that it was in an earlier draft of a memo that was being prepared and was not in the final draft, particularly the comment about obsolete. But you’ve -- now -- or I have exhausted my knowledge of this.

DODD: And do you want to comment on what your own reaction -- I gather that the secretary, the quote was "hit the roof," on all of this. Now, this goes back to January of 2002, more than two years ago.

But it raises concerns on the part of many of us here that in fact prior to actually the commencement of hostilities in Iraq, that there was this preparation and notion that we were going to, sort of, walk away from the rule of law.

And I wonder if you might take an opportunity here, both of you here, to comment on your general observations as to -- whether or not you use the word obsolete or quaint here and I’m not going to -- they say that’s an early draft. What is your view regarding the Geneva Conventions, Geneva Accords, and whether or not the United States ought to be adhering to its principles and its letter?

ARMITAGE: Whether you’re talking Geneva II or Geneva III, it seems to me that what separates us and allows us to listen to a higher standard is where principle is involved, we’re not -- or we’re deaf, rather, to expediency.

And so, my view is we ought to always do the principled thing and we ought to embrace these. They are protections for us, as well as for others.

DODD: Mr. Secretary?

WOLFOWITZ: I agree with that, Senator.

In fact, I think the U.S. military would view us as having a greater practical interest in the Geneva Convention than any other country, because we count on them to try to protect our prisoners when they’re detained.

I would emphasize that if we’re talking about January 2002, we’re in the context of post-September 11th and the issue of how you try to obtain information that could prevent a repetition of the September 11th attacks on the United States. It was not at all in anticipation of a war in Iraq.

DODD: I appreciate that. You can certainly appreciate the fact that this is unsettling. This wasn’t a memo from some freshman law student who may have an ideological point of view; this was the counsel to the president of the United States in the White House.

Were you aware of this memo?

WOLFOWITZ: No, I wasn’t.

DODD: Did the Department of Defense receive a similar memo?

WOLFOWITZ: I can’t tell you. I can find out.

DODD: I’d appreciate it, if you would.

General, do you have any quick comments on this?

SHARP: Sir, we are 100 percent behind the Geneva Convention and the importance of it.

DODD: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Dodd.

On this issue as well as on earlier ones, if you would clarify for the record any further research you have on the counsel’s memo, it is an important point, and we appreciate your underlining it.

Senator Coleman?

COLEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. These are challenging times and we appreciate your efforts.

There has been a lot of discussion about the course we’re on and changing course. General Sharp, I think you described the approach that I’d like to see. It’s not about changing course. We need to stay on course with the transition in June 30th, we need to stay on course with elections at the end of the year, the start of the next year. But we have to continue I think -- these are your words -- continually reassess based on the circumstances on the ground.

COLEMAN: Let me first just raise the issue of security. Obviously you’re aware of the tragic killing of President Salim yesterday. Can you talk to me a little bit about security then for folks on the governing council, American officials? Does that incident cause us to reassess circumstances on the ground and to change our course of conduct?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, Iraq is a dangerous place. I mean, I visited in late October and was staying in Al Rashid Hotel. And we were rocketed. And one American was killed and four Americans and one Brit were seriously wounded. It’s going to keep happening.

I think this enemy that we’re up against believes that if Iraq gets its own government, its own security forces, they’re finished. And so they’re going to be doing everything they can in the coming months, not just until July 1st, but at least up until elections, to try to destabilize the country sufficiently to prevent that progress from happening.

There’s enormous heroism on the Iraqi side. These governing council members knew that they were targeted. One of their number, Akila Hashimi, was brutally murdered last fall, or late last summer. So they’re real heroes.

And, as I mentioned in my statement, some 350, by our count, Iraqi security forces, police, civil defense corps, have been killed fighting for a new Iraq. And my guess is the numbers are actually a lot higher. We keep very careful count, obviously, of our own numbers. I don’t think we have the ability to do the same on the Iraqi side.

ARMITAGE: If I may, something new will be introduced on 1 July, and that is that these Iraqi forces who have forces who have fought, in many cases, valiantly, will no longer be fighting for the occupiers, they’re going to be fighting for Iraq.

And I think many who are expert in the Middle East, and in Iraq particularly, have noted that this is a new situation. And it’s not as if the Iraqis don’t know how to fight, but they’ll have a little something different to fight for.

Second, on security, this is not generally what a State Department official would be talking about, but as we prepare for 140 State officers out there, we’ve got about 130 armored vehicles either there or on the way, we’ve got body armor ordered, it will be there before 1 July; not normally things that State offices are having to do, but because the security situation is as it is, we have to take these precautions.

COLEMAN: One of the enemy who’s, obviously, still active is Al Zarqawi. Help me understand: Do we know where his dollars are coming from?

COLEMAN: Do we know where his support is coming from? Do we -- kind of, multiple question here -- have a sense of how he is perceived by Iraqis?

WOLFOWITZ: I think all we can say is, there is money available, both inside Iraq and some coming from outside. It goes to Zarqawi, among others. It comes from some of the same sources that fund Al Qaida.

Zarqawi himself is called, I think, an Al Qaida affiliate. I’m really not quite sure why we make these distinctions.

He ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan under bin Laden’s direction, and then after Operation Enduring Freedom he fled Afghanistan, went to Iraq, has a number of ties to Iraqi intelligence, which seem to have grown thicker.

Although I should emphasize, we know a lot less about these people than we would like to. They operate in great secrecy. It was a huge breakthrough when we captured Mr. Hasan Ghul, who was one of Zarqawi’s senior lieutenants, who was carrying a message from Zarqawi to one of his associates in Afghanistan. That’s this remarkable letter that I think you’ve heard about and that I quote in my testimony.

We’re pretty certain that Zarqawi has been working with former Iraqi intelligence officers and others in this fight in Fallujah, that he was probably there at least some of the time.

And, unfortunately, the fact is that it doesn’t take large numbers of people, especially if some of them are willing to commit suicide, to do enormous damage.

COLEMAN: Yes. About a month ago we read the papers that Iraq was in the middle of a civil uprising, al-Sadr on one side, Shiites on the other. I don’t see much of that. I mean, my sense is that we’re killing al-Sadr’s folks and he’s not replenishing.

Give me a sense of the situation in Iraq vis-a-vis civil uprising. You’ve got a sense of that.

WOLFOWITZ: Let me make three points.

Number one, in Zarqawi’s infamous letter, where he expresses a sense of desperation that if they can’t destabilize the country before it gets its own government they will suffer what he calls suffocation, he identifies his principal target as being attacks on the Shia in an effort to create a Shia-Sunni civil war. And that would explain a number of the attacks we’ve seen, including the horrendous bombings in southern Iraq on the Ashura holiday. And they’ve been totally unsuccessful in creating a Sunni-Shia civil war.

Number two, with respect to Sadr, we think it’s a very different situation; that in fact, as the Shia majority have come to understand that there will be resolute action taken against him and his forces, not only are we reducing his forces in number but, equally importantly, we’re getting more and more of the population coming out and speaking against him.

On the worrisome side, I guess I would have to put on the table that up north, particularly in Kirkuk, which is a mixed Kurdish-Arab city, we’ve had remarkable good luck over the last year in preventing what we’ve always feared could be a source of real ethnic violence. It’s a little troubled right now, and it’s one of the situations we’re looking at closely.

We come up here, we try to emphasize some of the positive things that are happening. We’re not trying to suggest by any means that this is a rosy scenario, but we do think that Iraq is moving forward toward self-government and self-defense, and that’s the key to winning.

COLEMAN: Do I have time for one more question, Mr. Chairman?

LUGAR: Yes, you do.

COLEMAN: There was a statement by Ayatollah Sistani recently talking about permissible -- and this is the statement -- "It’s permissible to demand the withdrawal of all military vestiges from the two cities and allow the tribal forces to perform their role in preserving security and order."

What do you make of that statement?

ARMITAGE: We see a lot of statements attributed to Ayatollah al- Sistani, and if he made that one, I’m not sure. But what we’ve looked at it is a not very veiled reference that Muqtada al-Sadr ought to get out of Najaf and Karbala himself and particularly stop using holy places to store weapons and to foment violence.

COLEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Coleman.

Senator Biden?

BIDEN: Thank you very much. Say to my friend, I didn’t -- the reason he’s going to me -- I didn’t ask any questions yet. I apologize.

General, let me ask you, if I may, to begin with -- and this is a serious question, and I’ll put it into context, because if I just asked it, it will sound strange.

BIDEN: I remember when General Joulan was -- in the Clinton administration -- was put in charge of our effort in the Balkans. And I remember meeting him and asking about -- I don’t remember if he was physically there, I remember literally the exact context, but I remember exactly what the question was.

And he was asked, "Do you have enough troops?"

And he -- his response was, "That depends on my mission, Mr. President. So what is my mission?"

President Clinton said, in effect, "Your mission is -- what do you think the mission should be?"

He said, "Well, the mission is obviously force protection, number one -- we have a mission to protect our own forces there. Number two, do you want me, Mr. President, to go and capture the war criminals who have been indicted? Do you want me to guarantee the security of several hundred thousand people who’ve come down from the hills? Do you want me to disarm the populace? Do you want me" -- and he went down the list.

And he said, "For all of those I’ll need X."

And the president said, "No, not all those. So it’s X minus."

So what is the mission? Is the mission of our force in Iraq -- does it include civilian policing of Iraqi neighborhoods? Does it include fighting street crime, preventing kidnapping, catching thieves, as well as fighting insurgents?

I mean, what is our mission? What’s the mission statement you all have?

SHARP: Sir, the mission is to provide a secure and stable environment for Iraq. That encompasses several things right now. Clearly, killing terrorists and capturing terrorists.

Secondly, is working with Iraqi security forces to provide a safe environment for the people of Iraq in and among the cities.

So, as you know, right now we patrol with Iraqi security forces. We train Iraqi security forces. And we are moving, in some cities, to be able to hand off a lot of that to the Iraqi security forces.

BIDEN: Do you have enough forces for the mission?

SHARP: Sir, General Abizaid, General Sanchez, all the commanders on the ground -- and I was there as recently as three weeks ago -- General Myers asked this same question to all the division commanders there.

And their consistent answer across the board is, yes, they have enough forces in order to be able to accomplish that mission and are working hard to be able to get the security responsibilities handed off to the Iraqi security forces. And that’s why you see...

BIDEN: Well, who are you going to hand them over to, General?

There’s no seriously trained Iraqi force now. I mean, this malarkey you guys came up with is you got 200,000 trained Iraqis. I mean, every single solitary expert, including your guys that we met with in Iraq, said it’s going to take three years to train 40,000 Iraqi military; three to five years to get up to the 79,000 Iraqi police needed.

And you point out you’re doing a good job now. You’re going out and trying to identify leaders to lead. You don’t -- you haven’t had those folks.

So you really don’t have -- I mean, some places it’s spotty. Some places you have folks who are -- you can rely on. And that’s why, as has been pointed out to me by our military, the insurgents are smart enough to go blow up the police stations and blow up the policemen and blow up people who are in line signing up to become police officers and/or join the military.

I mean, these guys aren’t stupid. That’s their target.

And I’m not suggesting there are not plenty of Iraqis who want to do this. But right now the military I speak with, and I -- you know, that old thing, I know I’m going to be asked names and off the record I’m happy to give you the names -- tell me that -- and what I hear from Iraqis who, people -- there’s a number of Iraqi-Americans with families in Iraq who keep in touch with us. All you got to do is go to Detroit.

And all kidding aside, they say, the stuff they get from home, quote/unquote, is that, you know, you still don’t let your daughter out of the house. You’re still not able to go -- send her -- down to the corner store to get milk.

You know, there is rampant crime. And so -- and all the evidence is none of the Iraqis think that they have security.

And it’s not just insurgents. I mean, there -- everybody, like in Israel, is worried a bus is going to blow up because somebody’s going to, you know, some -- either in country or out of country person.

So I don’t, I really don’t -- I mean, is -- for example, is disarming the militias part of the mission? All militias?

SHARP: Sir, let me talk to a couple of things. First off, to be clear, we are not going to hand off security on 1 July writ large across the country to the Iraqi security forces.

As you point out, those security forces will not be nearly trained by 1 July. In fact, by 1 July we’ll have approximately 10 percent of the total required Iraqi police, academy trained, and another 20 percent trained by the shorter three-week program that our military does throughout the country.

We will continue, and are continuing to accelerate, the training both in Jordan and in Baghdad and in Irbil and then at the different academies across the country.

There’s been a recent change where we have really started focusing on training mid-level leadership, specialized training, so that Iraqis who want to take the security responsibilities have the capability to be able to do that.

There is a CPA regulation out that says that you are not allowed to carry weapons without a card -- you know, a weapons card that has to be issued by the CPA or the correct authority. And as soldiers come and see people doing this, they are being arrested and doing it.

We are searching very...

BIDEN: If I could interrupt in the interest of time, General, and I -- by the way, I think you’re on the right track. I’m not being critical of what you’re trying to do. What I’m trying to get at is: seeing someone with a weapon and arresting them is very different than aggressively going and disarming the population.

What about the militias?

SHARP: Sir...

BIDEN: I don’t mean just Sadr’s militia. What about the other militias that exist within the country? Is it part of the mission -- I’m not saying if it should or shouldn’t; I want to know though, is it part of the mission? Is the commander in the various regions in Iraq have as a mission to disarm the militias? Is that part of it?

SHARP: Sir, the militias, if they are active -- let me start with: We actively go out to try to find weapons caches and work on every tip that we get from the Iraqis to be able to get at, not just if we see weapons on the street, but the number of cordons-and- searches, the number of raids that we do consistently brings in a lot of different weapons across the board.

We are actively trying to get at all of those different weapons out there. The question...

BIDEN: Do you have enough forces for that, General? I mean, we didn’t have -- we had 850,000 tons of open ammunition dumps that we didn’t have enough soldiers to guard. So we obviously didn’t have enough for the mission.

It’s one thing to disarm them. It’s one thing to destroy. And now that’s not my number -- I think that’s right, 850,000 tons. It may have been 900,000, I don’t remember the number issued by the CPA that what was there.

We had helicopters, guys with night-vision goggles watching people going in and out, but we didn’t have enough forces.

Do we have enough forces now to be certain that if there’s any ammunition dumps that are still there that we can either control them or destroy them?

SHARP: Sir, we -- every time we find an ammunition dump out there, we assess, number one, how quickly can somebody take things out of that ammunition dump.

If it looks like it’s the type ammunition and weapons that could go against coalition forces, we immediately secure them. Is that to say that they are all completely secured across the country? No. There are some that have been covered up so that they could not be stolen.

But we find ammunition caches every day and are using our forces to be able to try to destroy those and guard those.

BIDEN: Well, there are at least five major militias. The Dawa Party, the Badr Brigade, the two Kurdish parties’ militias -- is it a -- I’m not saying that some of this should or shouldn’t. Is it our policy, as part of the mission of Abizaid in Iraq, to disarm the militias?

BIDEN: That’s my specific question for anyone to answer, including you, General. Is that part of the mission statement?

SHARP: Sir, the mission is to not allow any of the militia forces in order to be able to go against the rule of law in Iraq.

BIDEN: With all due respect, General, that’s not an answer. The question is: Are the militias -- are we specifically have as a mission statement to disarm the Dawa Party’s militia, roughly about 10,000 people, the Badr Brigade, roughly 10,000 militia by your numbers? Now. I’m not making them; I mean. these are numbers I get from you guys.

Is that part of the mission? I’m not suggesting it has to be. Is that part of the mission?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, I think the correct interpretation of the mission statement that General Sharp just gave you is that is not part of the mission unless it is necessary to bring them under control.

In the case of Sadr, it’s proving to be necessary. In the case of the Kurdish militias, for example, it would give us -- frankly, it would be a source of instability if we were to try to go out and forcibly disarm them. In fact, they have been a source of stability in many parts of the country; not one you want to rely on long term.

The approach to those militias is to try over time to integrate them into new Iraqi security forces. And the real answer to disarming militias is to create an alternative security institution. And then the militias can go away.

BIDEN: Just a real quick adjunct to that, are we using the Badr Brigade or the Dawa militia -- allowing them to independently engage Sadr in Najaf?

It’s one thing to integrate the militias into a U.S. command structure so that there is some cooperation. And it’s another thing -- and I’m not saying one’s right or wrong, just it’s a different thing to essentially give a green light to one of the militias to take on another militia in Iraq.

With regard to Najaf and Sadr, are any existing Iraqi militia engaged, given the green light, to take on Sadr?

WOLFOWITZ: You say engage or given a green light. Engaged they may do on their own. Green light means, I think, under our direction or command.

BIDEN: No, not command, just saying, "Go to it, guys, any way you want." Not our command.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, that is precisely what we’re trying to avoid is...

BIDEN: That’s why I’m asking the question.

WOLFOWITZ: We are trying to avoid it. I can’t say that someone -- I mean, we’re making a lot of, as Secretary Armitage called them, audibles. And tactical commanders have to decide what is the best way to bring law and order. And I wouldn’t want to rule if at some point, in order to deal with what you understand is one of our fundamental dilemmas in Najaf, which is coalition...

BIDEN: I’m truly agnostic in this. I’m just trying to get at what the deal is.

WOLFOWITZ: Understand. And I’m trying to say we’re agnostic.

The principle is to establish law and order in a disciplined way and to do it without putting coalition forces into the areas of the holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala.

And that’s why we’re proceeding very carefully. We want Iraqis to do it as much as possible. We want regular Iraqi security forces to do it as much as possible. If some commander came and said, "There’s a militia force here that I would like to use," I’m sure it would be scrutinized pretty carefully but I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility.

LUGAR: Mr. Secretary, it looks like you’ve got your uniform back on. What’s...

ARMITAGE: No, I don’t dare. But just there have been some reports, that the Badr Corps, as far as I know independently, have conducted some what I’d call low-level operations against the Mahdi Army.

BIDEN: Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Biden.

Senator Nelson?

NELSON: Senator Biden, I’m not nearly as agnostic. I think we’re going to have to have more troops.

BIDEN: Oh, I’m not agnostic on the troops. I meant on the issue of whether or not -- I just wanted to find out if and how we are engaging, using and/or dealing with the militias of consequence in Iraq. That’s what I meant. I wasn’t making a statement.

BIDEN: I said for purposes of the question, I’m agnostic on that issue. I’m not agnostic on the fact, if you may recall, I am literally the very first person here to call for significant increase in the number of American troops, a year and two months ago.

NELSON: Well, as you have been a mentor to so many of us, I agree with you on that issue. And that is a predicate to ask this question: Given the fact that we have seen, for example, when we were ready to take on Fallujah, parts of the Iraq civil defense force melted away -- I know we are going through the training. I’ve been to one of the training camps for the police in Jordan.

But when it came time for the ICDC to perform, they suddenly vanished. That’s one of the reasons that I think we’re going to have to have more troops, not less troops. And I was somewhat concerned when I saw in the London Times of yesterday that the shift of focus seems to be from talking about forces staying in Iraq as long as it takes to now that there’s much more of a focus of our forces leaving.

And specifically, the London Times is talking about that Blair and Bush are drawing up plans to speed the pull-out.

Mr. Secretary Wolfowitz, you want to talk about that?

WOLFOWITZ: I wouldn’t believe everything I read in the London Times, certainly not that one.

We are looking at sustaining pretty high levels of U.S. forces, and certainly higher than we anticipated earlier, for some time. And I would add, you know, we knew there were problems with the ICDC in Fallujah, the locally recruited one. The 36th battalion of the ICDC by the way, which was not a local battalion, did come to Fallujah, did do some pretty serious fighting.

If you go up to Mosul where General Petraeus’ 101st Airborne Division trained ICDC, I think more effectively than anywhere else in the country, they stood their ground and fought successfully and defended the government house in Mosul.