Sen. Chris Dodd's Opening Remarks

Second Day of Testimony of Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker on Iraq Before U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee

DODD (D-Conn.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding our longer statements will have to be included in the record.

BIDEN: Yes. Any opening statement that anyone would want to make will be placed in the record before the question.

DODD: I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll ask that be done.

Let me join with the chairman and you, General Petraeus, in, of course, expressing our deep appreciation for the men and women under your command. I don't -- whatever disagreements we have here about policy, I don't think you'll find any member of this committee or any member of this Congress, in fact, the constituents we represent, while there disagreements and serious ones over policy issues, there is a deep and profound respect for the men and women who are serving in a very, very difficult set of circumstances.

I wouldn't want to begin any comments here without expressing that view. It's important I think they understand that, that while we debate about policy questions, there's no debate about the admiration that we have for the courage their showing in these circumstances.

There's a lot of debate, obviously there have been reports about the data and methods used for securing the number of statistics we're going to deal with here -- dealing with here regarding the level of violence in the area. I noted on the chart, General, that you showed -- I think it was one of the first page; I want to ask you to put it back up -- but it shows the chart of the violence.

I'm just curious. It shows here, actually, the surge begins, really, about February 1st of '07, on the chart. And the numbers seem to come down -- are already down from the high mark earlier. Am I misreading that?

PETRAEUS: No, that is absolutely correct. In fact, there was actually quite a substantial drop in the month of February just with the announcement of the Baghdad security plan.

In fact, a number of, we think, Shia militia elements took a knee for a while to, sort of, sort out. I think, they did not realize that we did not have more than just the initial brigade on the ground.

But there's no question that the ethno-sectarian violence had crested really in December and was headed down at that time, although still at very, very high levels.

DODD: OK, well, again, I don't want to -- because we can go around and debate the statistics hear back and forth. The GAO, obviously, has a different set of conclusions, and others who argue about how well the surge is working, in terms of the level of violence.

DODD: But the whole purpose of it, of course, as you have been stating, and the ambassador has, is creating that space for the political process to move forward.

Now, we've lost some 700 troops, another 4,400, I think, have been injured in the time frame we've been there, in this past eight or nine -- eight months or so.

I was at Walter Reed recently, talking to a young man from Connecticut who lost his eye in Iraq. Would go back, by the way, this afternoon; not an uncommon reaction from people serving.

And he said the following to me. And I'm almost quoting him for you, General.

I asked him about the surge and how it was working. He said to me -- he said, "Senator, we'll spend a month, month and a half to clean out an area." He said, "An hour and a half" -- and I'm quoting him exactly here -- "An hour and a half after we leave" -- it may be an exaggeration, obviously -- "after we leave, things are right back where they were before."

He went on to say, "Look, the civilian population" -- and, again, I'm quoting him. He said, "They know where the IEDs are. They know where the ammo dumps are. They won't share that information with us here."

I'm looking at statistics this morning here, when asking, "Do you think the increase in U.S. forces in Baghdad and surrounding provinces in the past months has made security better?" 70 percent say, worse in the deployment areas; 68 percent elsewhere in Iraq draw the same conclusions.

Another recent poll had 68 percent of Iraqis believed that the surge has hampered conditions for political reconciliation. Seventy percent believe the security has deteriorated as a result of this. Ninety-three percent of all Iraqi Sunnis think it's justifiable to kill Americans.

How do we justify this continuation?

And what makes us believe, given the failure over the past number of months on a number of key issues -- which Senator Lugar raised, Senator has Biden has raised -- the benchmarks that they set for themselves, completing a constitutional review, implementing laws to roll back the de- Baathification, enacting legislation related to oil revenue-sharing, amnesty, and outlawing and disarming militias; all of those benchmarks, they've set for themselves, and yet we're seeing nothing getting better here at all.

And as General Jones recently pointed out in his own testimony, talking here, he said that, "Long-term security advances in Iraq are impossible without political reconciliation," again, something both of you recognize here.

DODD: And yet, I don't seem to get any indication, don't get a feeling here that there's any real opportunity or optimism that this is going to get better.

All of the effort that's been made over the years, before the surge, how many conversations did President Bush have with the leadership in Iraq, Vice President Cheney, congressional leaders going over there?

We have been begging that leadership for the past 4.5 years to get their act together, begging them to do it, understanding that only they can do it.

And yet, you come here again this morning, four and a half years later, even after the surge -- we can argue about statistics, but no real indication that we're getting any closer to that.

What makes you possibly believe that anything further like this is going to produce the results that everyone else has failed to produce over the previous four and a half years?

PETRAEUS: What I draw some encouragement from, Senator, is, again, the activity that is ongoing, actually in the absence of legislation. There is, for example, no oil revenue sharing law that has been agreed. It's been proposed, but certainly not passed by the Council of Representatives.

But Iraq is actually sharing oil revenue, in fact, very similar to what is likely to happen if that -- the bill that's currently envisioned is passed.

In fact, as, when the ambassador was out in Anbar province, they increase the budget of Anbar province, a Sunni Arab province, a Shia government, Shia-majority government did that.

There is no general amnesty law. There is, actually, though, conditional immunity. That's the only description of what happens when former insurgents from a place like Abu Ghraib -- Sunni Arab, but right next to a Sunni-Shia faultline -- are allowed to attend the Iraqi police academy where they will graduate, some number of them, on the 10th of this month -- and others from another location.

PETRAEUS: That's a very significant step. And, candidly, that is what gives some encouragement. There are a number of examples of this where the big law, the national reconciliation has not taken place, but there are steps just happening. There are actions being taken that give you hope that they can indeed reconcile with one another, accommodate one another, and so forth.

We have worked very hard with the local piece. That is now supported by the Iraqis. We have a senior diplomat, a two-start British general, on the force reconciliation -- or the engagement cell, and Prime Minister Maliki has formed a national reconciliation committee that works with that cell to try to connect the national level actions, to move, for example, local volunteers onto the roles of the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense forces.

So they're paid nationally then. As you know, there's no local funding for police. And that has happened. That's what happened in Anbar province. And that's what gives some confidence that these tribes -- you know, certainly we applauded when they turned their weapons instead of on us on Al Qaida.

We have not armed them, by the way. We have not -- we don't have weapons to give to tribes or something like that. We have funded some of them for periods and then they've been moved onto the roles of these national ministries. That means that they're in a chain of command that extends to the top. It means that the budget is paid by the center. And in this case, a Sunni Arab minister of defense, but a Shia minister of interior has hired now, again, over some 20,000 or so police in Anbar province alone.

That's the type of activity that gives me some encouragement, even though, as the chairman correctly quoted from my letter to the troops, they have not met -- it is not worked out the way we had hoped with respect to the national legislation. But there have been these other activities that have given us some cause for hope.

DODD: Can I just quickly ask you, that young soldier at Walter Reed, is his views commonly held about the cooperation from the Iraqi population?

PETRAEUS: Sir, it -- I mean, there's 165,000 different views on the ground.

PETRAEUS: And if you go to Anbar province right now, they feel as if, you know, they're in the loving arms or their Sunni Arab citizens who shot at them, you know, six, eight months ago.

And it does change; there's no question about it. And you can walk around the map and you could say, looking at it, literally: This is where they'll help you; this is where they won't.

The fact is that we are getting a lot more help. I mean, that's the only explanation for the fact that we now have 4,400 weapons caches. We may have actually doubled the number that we got all of last year. And they're pretty substantial ones. And quite a few of them, in fact, are materials that would have been put into car bombs and so forth.

Thank you, sir.