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PRESS CONFERENCE: MNF-I Operational Update: Maj. Gen. David Perkins, Feb. 22, 2009

Multi-National Force-Iraq

Maj. Gen. David Perkins, MNF-I Spokesman, discusses the provincial elections and provides an update on progress in Iraq.

MG PERKINS: As Salamu 'Alaykum and good afternoon. 2009 has already begun with a large amount of steady progress here in Iraq. We continue to experience the lowest number of attacks since August of 2003. That represents over a 90 percent decrease since the surge began at the height of the violence and ethnosectarian attacks that we saw here in Iraq. For instance, on Friday we had no civilians killed in Iraq, not the target of attack or any civilian casualties. So a very significant event, and we are seeing more and more days like that throughout Iraq.

This improvement in security has allowed progress in other areas such as economic, political reconciliation. A very large indicator of that were the very successful elections just recently held, the provincial elections here in Iraq where we had over seven million Iraqis able to go to the polls and vote for their candidate of choice. We had over 14,000 candidates registered and running for election, taking part in democracy, wanting to be a part of the solution and wanting to be a part of the future of Iraq. And on election day this year, there were no attacks which resulted in any disruption to any of the voting that went on; this is in comparison to the last national election period in 2005, where we had hundreds of attacks on election day, with 44 deaths.

Another significant aspect of this is, as you know, just the other day the election results were announced; they are being widely accepted by both those who won the election and those who did not win the election. If you take a look at, historically, emerging democracies, it is generally the second election that is sometimes more difficult than the first election. Because the first election, people are interested, there's a lot of energy, but by the time the second election comes, those who may have to lose power or give up power are not necessarily as excited about doing that. So many times there is not a second election. But the fact that we've had this second election and a very large number of people participating, both as candidates and as voters, shows the enthusiasm that Iraqis have for the democratic process here in Iraq.

The security on election day was led and planned by the Iraqi Security Forces. U.S. and Coalition forces were in support, and again, it not only showed the benefit of the strategic partnership, but it showed the increasing capability of Iraqi Security Forces to conduct a very complicated and wide-ranging operation such as these national elections.

We are looking forward now to the smooth transition as the old provincial councils transition to the new provincial councils with their new elected officials and elect their new governors, and again continue the progress of democracy throughout all of Iraq.

Again, a lot of this was facilitated by the increase in capability, capacity and size of the Iraqi Security Forces. Last year, there were 463,000 Iraqi Security Forces; this year we have 618,000—that’s a 25 percent increase. And it's not only an increase in the size and numbers, but the capability such as planning, orchestrating these very complicated operations, and then leading throughout the country of Iraq.

The U.S. continues to support Iraq and its security forces and its people as they move forward; for instance, the Baghdad Police College a couple weeks ago graduated 490 new police officers, the largest class yet with the number of female graduates. The U.S. continues to support this program with assistance, advice and training, and again, a great example of the partnership between the U.S., the Coalition, and the Iraqi people as they go forward.

The NATO training mission here in Iraq recently trained and graduated 533 National Police graduates this month, and there are plans in progress right now to where we will double that number to begin graduating 900 National Police students.

Multi-National Security Transition Command here in Iraq continues to provide additional training from international sources as well, such as aircraft maintenance. Recently 275 students received international training in this, and we will continue to grow that aspect of it as well.

So providing training, providing advice, providing monetary assistance, our major contributions of the U.S. with regards to this strategic partnership as we move forward with the Iraqi people. Just recently, the U.S. completed the transfer of the 4,000th Humvee to the Iraqi Security Forces. These are Humvees which are refurbished here in Iraq and handed off to the Government of Iraq. This refurbishment program is done with Iraqis and employs over 500 Iraqis here in country as we take a Humvee, refurbish it and hand it off to the Government of Iraq so they can use it in their security operations. So again, over 500 employees which have resulted in now over 4,000 Humvees being transferred to the Government of Iraq.

As you all know, beginning 1 January we have begun operating under the provisions of the security agreement, the bilateral security agreement between the United States and the Government of Iraq, and have had a number of major accomplishments so far. The Green Zone has been handed over to the Government of Iraq, and is currently under Iraqi control, and they are the lead for security in the Green Zone. Basra airport was handed over. The Republican Palace has been handed over. We have transferred 30 facilities in areas so far from U.S. control to the Government of Iraq, 13 of them where in the month of January alone, 15 additional ones will be transferred in February as we continue to move forward.

The U.S. transfers about 50 detainees a day, or about one and a half thousand a month to the Government of Iraq, again, as we continue to move on in compliance with the provisions of the security agreement.

USAID is continuing to assist with economic development and training throughout Iraq. Just recently, the Shuwaka (ph) fish market here in Khark has been reopened with assistance from the U.S.; it now has enabled 40 additional smaller businesses in that area to come alive and grow: small restaurants, book shops, other venues to where Iraqis can go enjoy that area as well as provide economic stimulus at the very low level of neighborhoods and families. Recently, we transferred the Basra hospital, turned over to the Iraqis on 9 February. This was a $164 million dollar effort with multi-national funding, a lot of it from the U.S., and this will become a flagship in the Iraqi healthcare system. It has continued to be staffed with equipment and trained medical personnel. But again, a great example where the strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq -- it's not only in the area of security, and economic progress, but in healthcare and also the political progress as we talked about with regards to the election.

So our overall strategic partnership continues to produce results. Like I've discussed here this morning, they'll have results in security, governance, political progress, healthcare, economic investment. And we look forward to each month in 2009 to continue to build on the successes we've seen so far early in this year.

And so now, with that, I'll be happy to take anybody's questions. Sir.

REP1: (Speaks in Arabic.)

INT: According to the Iraqi/U.S. agreement, during June American forces will leave Baghdad and relocate to the outskirts of Baghdad. What are your preparations for that? Did you -- Have you prepared yourself? Have you put preparations to leave Baghdad? And where are you going to be located exactly?

MG PERKINS: Yeah, well, a very good point. That is one of the major tenets of the security agreement is that we are out of, not only Baghdad, but all cities by June. And we are moving forward quite vigorously with that right now. We are working very closely with the Government of Iraq and the Iraqi Security Forces in a couple areas. One, as I talked about already, is the process of the transfer of these areas, facilities, bases. So we're going through one by one, looking at the ones we are in now. And to specifically answer your question in Baghdad, and having discussions with the Government of Iraq with regards to the first point of which one of those bases that we are in, which ones do the Government of Iraq, which ones do they want to take over? And what we are doing is in many cases making them a joint operation right now, where we have Iraqi and U.S., putting the Iraqis in charge of it and then the U.S. as a tenant unit, and then we will just move out. So it makes for a smooth transition, first of all, from a U.S.-only facility to a joint facility with Iraqi control. And then we move out totally. And so it just becomes Iraqi facility. Some of them are being transferred away from the Iraqi Security Forces, and they'll be used for an economic center or something like that. And so, very complicated process, but we are going through area by area to determine the final outcome of that, how do we want to transition it. And then, of course, we are looking in the outlying areas with regards to what areas are available to move some of our forces into. And again, we do this in very close coordination with the Government of Iraq to make sure that we are moving to areas where they can support, where it doesn't interfere with their long range. But there is no doubt that we will be out of the cities by June, and we are working this day by day. And you can see many of these facilities we have already transferred, as well as the upcoming ones, are part of this plan to move out of the cities. Other question? Sir.

REP2: (Inaudible) have or have not been affected by the new arrangement?

MG PERKINS: One of the good things about our execution of the operations under the security agreement is that we were already doing that in many places in Iraq, and that is that the Iraqi Security Forces were in the lead for planning and executing. Now, of course, they are in the lead everywhere in Iraq. So for instance, the operations going on up in Mosul right now, those are being planned by the Iraqi government; they are in the lead, and then we are providing support and enabling functions to them. So we continue to partner with them, as I said, up in Mosul now, there are new operations going on. So the tempo up there is fairly high. The biggest difference is who planned them, who decided what date they would kick off on, what the main goals are; those are Iraqi decisions of which we are supporting. So in most cases, you're not necessarily seeing a dramatic decrease in tempo of operations; what you're seeing is a change with regards to who is planning them, who is giving the authorization, the U.S. does not conduct any unilateral operations without the approval of the Iraqi government. So it's really the process to get to the operation rather than the types of operations. Sir.

REP3: Jonathan Blakely at National Public Radio. I'm wondering if you can speak more specifically about the relationship at JSS's and checkpoints. You've got ISF taking the lead at, you know, several places. You can see it here at the Green Zone. But what's the relationship between the two? Can you talk specifically about successes and, and things you might have to work on with that?

MG PERKINS: Yeah, a good question to sort of what, you know, on the ground what does it mean and how is it being executed. If you, as you all do, move around, for instance, here in the Green Zone, you'll notice that when you come up to a checkpoint that it, there are Iraqis. It is Iraqi face. They're the ones going through the process. For instance, even the badging process which can be fairly complicated in its own right which you are all well aware of, that is now under the control of the Iraqis; however, we have technical expertise that we bring to it. We have some databases with regards to information which is useful to determine criminal past and things like that. But before, where that was purely a U.S. decision, a purely "in the U.S. realm," it really is now the final decision rests with the Iraqis. We provide expertise, we provide information, we provide historical background. If you go to some of the checkpoints, you still may see U.S. personnel, again, sort of in an overwatch area. We provide some quick reaction capability, we provide some surveillance capability and technology that they don't have. But what you are seeing out on the street and at the checkpoint, and even at the places where the decisions are made for who gets a badge and which checkpoint's going to be open and when it's going to close, those are now Iraqi decisions which we enable, versus, you know, in December, we made all those decisions.

REP4: (Inaudible) –Is it a good relationship … is it a good working relationship?

MG PERKINS: Oh, yeah.

REP4: What are you --

MG PERKINS: It's very good; in fact, as we were getting ready for this in November and December knowing we were headed this way, as you can imagine, it's very complicated, all the processes -- and I'm just talking Green Zone, let alone the entire country. So we had a lot of meetings with the Iraqis to say, look, this is everything that we do, the U.S., that in fact maybe not everybody was aware of, because if you've never actually been running an operation, you may not be aware of everything that sort of happens behind the scenes. So we had to sit down with our Iraqi counterparts and say, you know, this is how we do surveillance, this is how we do our badging, this is how we do our security procedures. And then start training a lot of their people, "train the trainer" we call it a lot of times. Some of their senior people, the people that are involved in making decisions -- We have stood up committees, for instance, we have one that just is focusing on the Green Zone at the general officer level, going over -- and it still meets regularly -- on what are the processes, how does this go. So it wasn't -- we just didn't have a clean split where, you know, at the last day of December we did everything, and then the first of January we just handed them the files and they took over. This has been a progressive operation, and we are still partnering and working through this day by day. And as I said, there are a series of formal committees set up under the provisions of the security agreement to work on all of these kinds of things: detentions, security operations, military operations, and then there are subworking groups, of which one of them is just the Green Zone. Sir.

REP5: Mark Santorum from the New York Times. On the detention issue, can you give us a sense of the processing, both on the U.S. side and [coughs] -- excuse me -- and then the Iraqi side in terms of the release of these prisoners?

MG PERKINS: Yeah. That's another one that is a fairly complicated process, but we started putting it in place early on. There's now a detainee committee, which is, you know, half U.S., half Iraqi. And what is -- what we have done is we've taken the detainees that are under U.S. custody, beginning 1 January, the Iraqi government has legal custody of all the detainees. So they are legal authority for detaining them. They have given us physical custody of a number of the detainees that we still have, but they have the legal jurisdiction, and then we are executing the physical jurisdiction at their request, under their authority. So we have taken our detainees, sort of laid them out in various bands, the ones that we think are possibly the least dangerous, to those who are the most dangerous. We have gone through then, and put the files together. And we sit down in a detainee release committee and go through literally name by name, here's the detainee, here are the files that we have on them. Here's the evidence. Lawyers look at it to see is the evidence prosecutable, would it hold up in Iraqi court? The Iraqis then decide what the disposition is they want to do with them. And then we go through this process, as I said, at about 50 a day are released. Some of those are released back to the leaders in their communities; some are released back to the Iraqi legal system for further legal processing. So again, it is one -- a one-by-one case and a very deliberate decision looking at the case of each detainee, what is the evidence with them, and then again, the final decision is with the Government of Iraq, what is it they want to do with that detainee. Sir.

REP6: (Speaks in Arabic.)

INT: You talked about the security progress in Iraq. How do you assess the neighboring countries, especially Iran, recent -- and especially now, and have they stopped resourcing or funding those groups or terrorist groups?

MG PERKINS: Well, you know, the Prime Minister himself, as well as other senior Iraqi leaders, have said multiple times that what they want is a normal bilateral relationship with Iran, a relationship built on mutual trade, commerce, tourism -- as you know, there's a very large pilgrim and tourist trade between Iran and Iraq which is mutually beneficial. And those are things that all nations want with their neighbors, are normal peaceful, bilateral relationships built on common goals. But again, what the Iraqis have said multiple times is what they don't want are any of their neighbors facilitating foreign-trained terrorists into Iraq, facilitating the movement of explosive material, accelerants, things that can be used to cause violence and perpetuate terror here in Iraq. So the Prime Minister's been very clear on that. We, unfortunately, still continue to find weapons caches that have weapons manufactured in Iran on them. We continue to work very closely with the Iraqi Security Forces to interdict this material coming across the border. The border enforcement police have a very strong partnership with the U.S. in training. A number of their border posts have been recently equipped with some modern surveillance capability out there, and continue to focus on that; at the same time, while at the political level, the Prime Minister and others, I think, have been very active in engaging with their Iranian neighbors to say, “Look, we need to pick out these things of common interest. We need to focus on those and we need to both work together to prevent this malign influence coming across any of the Iraqi borders.” Sir.

REP7: Hello Major General. Arthur MacMillan from AFP. The whole tone of your press conference today and recent ones from your colleagues is very much the transfer of power, the Iraqi Security Forces being in the lead while the Americans keep a guiding hand there, helping out, etc., etc., quick reaction force and that sort of thing. Given that's the case, and given Secretary of Defense Gates and his recent comments about troop numbers, troop movements to Afghanistan, what is the latest on that in terms of your operational capability here, especially as you are moving out of the cities soon, and out of the country by end of 2011. What's the latest on the marines who are out in al Assad and other units going to Afghanistan?

MG PERKINS: Well, what is going on right now is really the same model that we've been following for even this last year. And that is an adjustment is made to forces here on the ground, and then we go through a period of assessment, and then the commander, whether -- previously was General Petraeus, and now General Odierno, makes recommendations to CENTCOM, to the Joint Staff, to the President and the Secretary of Defense, upon what his recommendations are for the future. These security improvements that I discussed, over a 90 percent reduction in violent attacks, understand that this occurred during a period of reduction of U.S. forces. This occurred during a period of where we returned the five surge brigades, we returned the marines, an additional 8,000 soldier reduction in boots on the ground just in January alone. And in each case, what happened was a decision was made with regards to a troop withdrawal; that withdrawal was executed. And then the commanders talked amongst themselves, we worked very closely with the Iraqi Security Forces, very closely with the Government of Iraq, and said, “What happened now after we did this? Did al Qaida change any of their techniques or tactics? Is there anything going on with regards to criminal activity?” And each time, we would adjust our forces on the ground; as we would have less, we would adjust boundaries, we would adjust headquarters, we would move people around. And so that is -- and then we would see what would happen, and then a further recommendation would be made. The President, Secretary of Defense would make a decision. We would execute that decision. We would then readjust our boundaries, readjust our headquarters, etc., and that is where we are right now. We have just finished a fairly large reduction; like I said, even additional 8,000 troop strength reduction at the end of January. So we are in the process of readjusting our forces on the ground, readjusting our boundaries, and we know that some additional forces will be leaving shortly, well aware of the British contingent. So as we go through this process, General Odierno is sitting down with his commanders and saying, “Okay, we made an adjustment. What happened? What do things look like?” We look at things such as the elections. That was an unknown and, of course, we just had the final announcement just the other day. And so there's also an unknown when the announcement is made, is it accepted peacefully, or does it -- do people respond violently? And so we have to go through some of these major events that could precipitate violence, see where the country is with regards to it, see how that event occurs. And then if it goes a certain way, that gives insight into what is now possible with regards to additional force structure. Again, looking at major events, what is the capability of the Iraqi Security Forces? I talked about already a significant increase on their part. So we take a look at what is the size of the Iraqi Security Forces, what are their capabilities? If we pull back and they move forward, are they able to do that? So this is an ongoing process that -- this is not new to us. We've been doing it for awhile. And that's where we are right now. And General Odierno is in the middle of very deliberate discussions with the Secretary of Defense, with General Petraeus, with the President on what he thinks is going on here on the ground. We have gone through a series of significant events. Our security agreement was implemented 1 January; the elections were at the end of January. Here we are in the middle of February. So a relatively short time, in the last 45 days we have had a number of major changes to the way we operate. And we just want to make sure that we have a good feel for that so that when General Odierno makes a recommendation, he can do it based on really solid evidence. And so that's where we are right now, sort of the analysis and recommendation phase, and I would imagine shortly the President will eventually make a decision, and once that decision is made, we will execute it and we will go through the same process; we will execute it. If it is a change in the number of forces, we will adjust; we will then reassess and then go forward. Sir.

REP8: (Speaks in Arabic.)

INT: After delivering or giving the responsibility of security to Iraqi Security Forces, do you know that those security forces are not going to take advantage or they're not infiltrated and they will not take advantage after you leave?

MG PERKINS: Well, I think one thing has been pretty clear, as I said, as we have given more and more of the responsibility over to the Iraqi Security Forces, the level of violence continues to go down. The elections were really the first big test of the Iraqi Security Forces conducting a nationwide operation. And so it really was their way to sort of prove their capability to plan, and then once the plan is done, to coordinate and execute it throughout the entire country. And I think the results speak for themselves on that.

So we, we don't take anything for granted; we're continuing to partner very heavily with them. I've told you many of the things we have done already with regards to police training, the NATO training mission. You can see the things I've discussed are things to help train, equip, make them more professional, make them responsive to the civilian leaders of their country. And so again, this is a model that we will continue. But so far, as we have handed a major portion of the security responsibility off to the Iraqi Security Forces, they have handled it exceptionally well. Additional question? Sir.

REP9: Clinton Daniel, McClatchy newspapers. As the Iraqis take the lead on establishing security here, I'm wondering if there may have been any violations of -- if the U.S. troops have -- may have made any, committed any violations in regards to --

MG PERKINS: In the security agreement?

REP: Correct.

MG PERKINS: Yeah. We work very closely with the Government of Iraq, as I said, to get approval of every mission that's done, coordination. And so far there have been no violations of the security agreement with regards to U.S. forces or our policy or our timelines. We are on timeline or in many cases, ahead of the time line that the security agreement mandates for things to occur. All of the operations that have been conducted, have been conducted with Government of Iraq approval in accordance with the security agreement. And all of the operations have been executed in accordance with all of the agreements that both countries signed up to. Another question?

Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate all your time here today.

[END]