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31 July 2003

Wolfowitz Says Iraq Rehabilitation Depends On Improved Security

He says fear of the old regime is still pervasive

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says Iraq needs rehabilitation from 35 years of deliberate misuse of Iraqi resources.

Saddam Hussein and his regime invested in palaces, tanks, artillery pieces, weapons of mass destruction, prisons and torture chambers, but not in the needs of the Iraqi people, Wolfowitz said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing July 29. The committee is conducting hearings concerning Iraqi reconstruction and how sufficient resources can be provided to ensure that the United States and its allies achieve their goals, said Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar, a Republican of Indiana.

Wolfowitz said the rehabilitation effort cannot proceed without security, and security cannot progress without rehabilitation. The deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons figure heavily in helping the Iraqi people believe that they will be more secure, he said.

"One of my strongest impressions is that fear of the old regime is still pervasive throughout Iraq," he said. "A smothering blanket of apprehension and dread woven by 35 years of repression where even the smallest mistake, the smallest whisper to a friend could bring imprisonment or torture or death: that won't be cast off in a week's time.

"Iraqis are understandably cautious. And until they are convinced that every remnant of Saddam's old regime is being removed and until a long and ghastly part of their history is put to rest, that fear will remain."

Wolfowitz said the history of atrocities "and the punishment of those responsible" are directly linked to the success of the United States and the coalition in helping the Iraqi people build "a free, secure and democratic future."

Following is the transcript of Wolfowitz's remarks:

(begin transcript)

MR. WOLFOWITZ: I think there's unanimous agreement that these issues are of such importance that we need to put those kinds of differences behind us.

And I -- sitting here and talking to you, I recall -- I think we really first got to know each other very well 20 years ago -- in fact, almost literally 20 years ago -- when we began the process of a political transition in the Philippines that led that country from a dictatorship to a democracy. The conditions were very different. We didn't need American troops. You, Mr. Chairman, played an extraordinary role in making that happen.

I think it's the kind of thing we've seen unfold in Asia over the last 20 years since then, gives me a certain cautious hope that maybe we can begin a process like that in the Middle East.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on behalf of the men and women who proudly wear the uniform of our country and who serve our country so faithfully and so well, I want to say that we are grateful to you and your colleagues, in the Senate and in the House, for your continuing and unfailing support.

I just came back from a four and a half day visit to northern, central and southern Iraq. We had incredible support from the U.S. military, and as a result, I think, in that four and a half days, we were able to cover what would probably normally take about two weeks.

We did it in 120-degree temperature, which I don't expect any sympathy for, but it certainly gave me an understanding of what our troops are living with day after day after day. And they didn't get to sleep in the places we slept in at night. Actually, I think would have preferred to be out in a tent than to be in one of Saddam's palaces, but that is the way the cookie crumbles, as they say.

We had some remarkable members of the fourth estate with us, and they've written some interesting pieces, including, I think, quite a few that sort of summarize our trip, certainly more eloquently than I can and perhaps more objectively. So if I might, I'd like to submit those for the record -- an article by Jim Hoagland, an article by Eric Schmitt, an article by Paul Gigot and an article by Stephen Hayes. And just to try to compete a little, I'd add my op-ed piece from yesterday's Post, if I may do so, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR LUGAR: It will all be included in the record in full.

MR. WOLFOWITZ: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your offering me the opportunity to speak at some length here, because I think we learned a lot, and I think it's important to share it not only with the committee but with the American people. So I will summarize parts of my written statement, but I'll be delivering quite a bit of it.

I'd like to start with the police academy, which, Senator Biden mentioned, you visited when you were there, I visited. Between the time that you visited and the time we arrived, a rather appalling discovery had been made. Behind that police academy stands the forked trunk of a dead tree. It is unusual for the fact that on each fork of that trunk, the bark is permanently marked by two sets of ropes, one high enough to tie a man, and the other a woman.

Near the tree is a row of small cells where special prisoners were held.

Our guide on the tour of the academy was the newly appointed superintendent; I guess he's called the dean. I think you met him also. He himself had spent a year in jail for having denounced Saddam Hussein. I expressed some surprise that he seemed like a sensible man, how could have been so foolish as to denounce Saddam Hussein? He said, "Well, I just said it to my best friend." That was enough to get him in jail for a year. He told us of unspeakable things that once happened to men and women tied to that tree and held in those cells right behind the police academy, unknown to visitors, unknown to the police who were training there.

Beyond that torture tree and the cells, a small gate leads to the Olympic Committee headquarters, run by Uday Hussein, who apparently would often slip through the back gate at night to torture and abuse prisoners personally.

That is the same tree behind the police academy that was described in such gruesome detail in the Washington Post on July 23rd. That article focused on the sad story of one Assyrian Christian woman who was tied to that tree and made to endure unspeakable torture. Her husband was executed at the academy, and his body was passed through the steel gate to her, as the article described it, "like a piece of butcher's meat" -- all because the couple had not received state approval for their marriage.

There is a positive aspect in the distressing story of Jumana Michael Hanna, that is her courage in coming forward to offer U.S. officials what is very likely credible information, information that is helping us to root out Ba'athist policemen who routinely tortured and killed prisoners.

Mr. Chairman, as I said, that is the same police academy that you and Senator Biden and Senator Hagel visited. But as I said, our understanding of the academy's former role in the regime has evolved since your trip. That is due to Mrs. Hanna's brave testimony about crimes committed against her. And that one step in the evolution of our understanding of what went on in the old regime is
-- points to one of the most formidable challenges facing us today. The people of Iraq have much valuable information that can help us root out Ba'athists and help them find justice, but their willingness to tell us what they know will continue to take significant investments on our part; investments of time, of resources, of efforts to build trust among the Iraqi people.

Mr. Chairman, like Ambassador Bremer, who I believe briefed you in closed session; like John Hamre, who we sent over to do a survey for us, and came back with an excellent report, I, too, observed that there's an enormous need in Iraq for basic services to be restored, for jobs to be restored. I think everywhere I went I heard the plea for more electricity. I also heard everywhere I went expressions of gratitude for being liberated from one of the worst tyrants in modern history.

But what I also heard were continued expressions of fear; fear that has not yet left the Iraqi people; fear that verges on paranoia. In speaking with the city council in the holy city of Najaf, one of the two most important cities for Shi'a Islam, one of the members of the city council, an educated professional -- I think he was either an engineer or a lawyer -- asked me what to Americans might seem an incredible question. He said, "Are you Americans holding Saddam Hussein as a trump card over our heads?" It is paranoid, and I was categorical in saying to him that no one would like to get Saddam Hussein more than we would. But after what they've been through, after the way he's terrorized them, and after the experiences of 1991, they are paranoid.

And so, I came away with two very important conclusions that I'd like to share with this committee about the linkages that confront us in dealing with the problems of Iraq. We cannot take these problems in piecemeal, we have to take them on simultaneously.

The first linkage is the connection between the past and the present. You cannot separate what seems to be history in Iraq from what goes on today. The people who suffered those tortures, the people whose relatives are buried in those mass graves, are not going to come forward willingly with information until they're absolutely convinced that Saddam and his clique are gone and that we are staying until the place is secure. And it's connected also, I might add, to the issue of looking for information about weapons of mass destruction. We've only just recently learned that there leaflets circulating in Baghdad warning Iraqis that anyone who provides information about weapons of mass destruction programs to the coalition will suffer the penalty of death. I take it whoever circulated those leaflets believe there were such programs, by the way.

The second connection is the crucial connection between security and reconstruction. In fact, let me qualify the word. What Iraq needs is not reconstruction, which implies repairing wartime damage; that has largely been done with the important still-remaining work to do on the telecommunications system. What Iraq needs is rehabilitation from 35 years of deliberate misuse of Iraqi resources. You see palace after palace. We were in the mere guest house of a (near?) palace. The luxury is appalling. The marble layers are appalling. It's palaces, and tanks, and artillery pieces, and weapons of mass destruction, and prisons and torture chambers that Saddam invested the resources of his people in. And to the extent he paid any attention to the basic infrastructure, there was a kind of punitive policy, at least since 1991, that particularly affected those areas of the south and north that he regarded as particularly disloyal.

That rehabilitation effort cannot take place without security. And security cannot progress without rehabilitation. Let me illustrate it in simple terms.

Part of our security problem is getting those young men back at work or at work for the first time, in many cases. That means getting the economy going, that means getting electricity up and working. To get electricity up and working, however, we've got to do something about the deliberate sabotage that is bringing down long-distance power lines. We can tell the difference between random theft, where the thieves are very careful to take all the copper away from them, and the increasing incidents of clear and deliberate sabotage, where all that is done is destruction. Indeed, the more we succeed, the more the Ba'athists and the terrorists who are working with them will target our success, but they won't win.

Mr. Chairman, for many years, the classic study of Saddam's tyranny is a book called "Republic of Fear," originally published under a pseudonym because he feared for his life, by a very brave Iraqi named Kanan Makiya, and in that book, he quotes a letter from a former agent in the Iraqi secret police. "Confronting an experienced criminal regime," that former member of the regime said, "such as the present one in Baghdad can be done only with truths that strip off its many masks, bringing its demise closer."

Traveling through Iraq last week, we heard many accounts of unspeakable brutality on a scale Americans cannot imagine. We saw truths that are stripping away masks of legitimacy that regime dead-enders may have clinged (sic) to. And while these truths may be unpleasant to face, doing so will help hasten the demise once and for all of a truly criminal regime.

We visited a small village in southern Iraq near the Iranian border called Al Turaba, where we met remnants of one of the regime's most horrific brutalities, the Marsh Arabs. These are people for whom liberation came just barely in time to save a fragment of a civilization that goes back several millennia.

But for the Marsh Arabs, the marshes are no more. For 10 years Saddam drained their ancestral lands. Where there was once a lush landscape of productive fresh-water marshes the size of the state of New Jersey, there is now a vast, nearly lifeless void which one reporter with us likened to the surface of the moon.

According to one estimate, the population of the Marsh Arabs in 1991 stood at half a million. But after Saddam's humanitarian and environmental crimes, it is believed that there are at most 200,000 left, and less than 40,000 of those still in Iraq. But at least there is still a Marsh Arab civilization capable of being preserved and, hopefully, restored. It is not likely that it would have lasted another two or three years, much less another 12. The children in Al-Turaba mobbed us, greeted us with loud applause and cheers of "Salam, Bush" and "Down with Saddam". But their first request was not for candy or for toys, it was just a single word: water.

In the case of the many tens of thousands who were killed at the mass graves in Al Hillah or the prison of Abu Gharib, liberation did not come in time. We heard stories about buses full of people that villagers would watch pass by headed for a once-public field that had been closed by the government. They reported hearing gunshots, assuming that the people were celebrating, as is sometimes customary. When the buses would pass by the villagers on the return trip completely -- with the buses completely empty, people began to suspect that something was terribly wrong. Of course, we know now that thousands of women and children were brought to places like the killing fields in Hillah, gunned down and buried, dead or alive. Today some of their bodies have been retrieved from the earth. They now lay wrapped in plastic bags in neat rows on the dirt. They wait for someone to claim them.

The graveyard in Hillah is just one of dozens that have been discovered to date in Iraq. Indeed, while were in the north with the 101st Air Assault Division, General Petraeus told us that they had temporarily stopped the excavation of a newly discovered mass grave site after unearthing 80 remains, mostly women and children, some still with little dresses and toys.

At the prison at Abu Gharib we saw the torture chamber and an industrial-style gallows that conducted group executions regularly twice a week. We were told that 30,000 people and perhaps as many as 100,000 were killed there over the years. Mr. Chairman, I don't recite these in order to go over history. I recite them because one of my strongest impressions is that the fear of the old regime is still pervasive throughout Iraq. A smothering blanket of apprehension and dread woven by 35 years of repression where even the smallest mistake, the smallest whisper to a friend could bring imprisonment or torture or death: that won't be cast off in a week's time. Iraqis are understandably cautious. And until they are convinced that every remnant of Saddam's old regime is being removed and until a long and ghastly part of their history is put to rest, that fear will remain. So the history of atrocities and the punishment of those responsible are directly linked to our success in helping the Iraqi people build a free, secure and democratic future -- and, I might add, to our search for the weapons of mass destruction programs.

In that light, what happened to the miserable Hussein brothers last week is an important step in making Iraqis feel more secure that the Ba'athist tyranny will not return, an important step in our efforts to restore order, to give freedom a chance, and to make our own troops more secure. Even in Baghdad, far from the Shi'a and Kurdish areas that we commonly associate with Saddam's genocidal murders, enthusiastic and prolonged celebrations over the news of their deaths erupting -- erupted all at -- almost at once.

Suggesting something else that we observed, Mr. Chairman, Saddam and his sons were equal opportunity oppressors. His victims included Sunni as well as Shi'a, Arabs as well as Kurds, Muslims as well as Christians. And, in fact, the Turkish foreign minister, who was here last week, asked us to please stop referring to it as the Sunni triangle; the Sunnis were victims as well.

The same day that Uday and Qusay were killed, we also captured number 11 on the list: the commander of the Special Republican Guard. That's the unit whose job was to spy on the Republican Guard. The purpose of the Republican Guard was to ensure the loyalty of the regular army. And, of course, there was something called the Special Security Organization that kept an eye on the Special Republican Guard. That was the system of checks and balances in Saddam's Iraq.

So the roots of that regime go deep, burrowing into precincts and neighborhoods like a huge gang of organized criminals. And it is the coalition's intensified efforts on finding and capturing mid-level Ba'athists that we believe will yield increasing results in apprehending the contract killers and dead-enders who are now target our soldiers and targeting our success.

Major General Ray Ordierno, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, told us that tips are on the rise, and that was even before the deaths of Uday and Qusay. The number of Iraqis providing information to our troops have been increasing over the last couple of weeks. Those tips have led to significant seizures of weapons, including a week ago, over the course of a week, some 660 surface-to-air missiles. It is important to remember that the people who want the return of the old regime are just a tiny fraction of the Iraqi people. But even if it's only one in a thousands, that's still 20,000, and it's not a small number.

I think it's also important to note that this low-intensity conflict may be the first in history where contract killing has been the principal tactic of the so-called guerrillas. In Nasiriyah, for example, Iraqis have told us about offers of $200 to attack a power line, and $500 to attack an American. Of course, that makes the point, too, that dealing with unemployment is part of dealing with security.

Let me say a little bit about what we learned region by region, and I'll try to summarize what's in the written testimony. I think, Mr. Chairman, and you and Senator Hagel and Senator Biden can attest to the fact that there's more good news in Iraq than is routinely reported. We saw quite a bit of that. Significantly, the military commanders that I talked to who have had experience in the Balkans all said that in Iraq we are far ahead of where we were in Bosnia or Kosovo at comparable times, and in some cases, even ahead of where we are today. Lieutenant General Rick Sanchez, the outstanding new commander of Joint Task Force 7, responsible for all of Iraq, is a Kosovo veteran. He was there during the first year. And during one of our briefings he commented that things are happening in Iraq after three months that didn't happen after 12 months in Kosovo. I asked him to elaborate, and just off the top of his head he jotted down a list of 10 things, which I have provided in my written testimony, including the fact that the judicial system if functioning, the fact that 90 percent of major cities have city councils. I believe, unless I misread his handwriting, he said the police force is at about 80 percent of the requirement. I think that's a little high, but it's definitely moving in that direction -- that schools were immediately back up, that media are available across the country. I would note that not the media we'd most like to see, but there is a free press in Iraq for the first time in decades. Public services are nearly up to pre-war levels. I'm again quoting from his note. And again, let me emphasize that pre-war levels are nowhere near adequate, and we have to do a lot better. And in Baghdad we're still not at pre-war levels on electricity. But that's real progress. And number 10 on his list, and in my view, most important -- and I want to come back to this later -- recruiting for the new Iraqi army has started, with training to begin in a couple of weeks.

In fact, the entire north and south are impressively stable, and the center is improving daily. The public food distribution is up and running. We'd planned for a food crisis, but there isn't one.

Hospitals nationwide are open. Doctors and nurses are at work. Medical supply convoys are escorted to and from the warehouses. We planned for a health crisis, but there isn't one.

Oil production has continued to increase and for about the last week has averaged 1.1 million barrels per day. And as Senator Biden noted, it did not cost $5 billion to get there. We planned for the possibility of massive destruction of this resource of the Iraqi people, but our military plan, I believe, helped to preserve the oil fields for the Iraqis.

The school year has been salvaged. There are local town councils in most major cities and most major districts of Baghdad. There is no humanitarian crisis. There is no refugee crisis. There is no health crisis. There has been minimal damage, wartime damage, to infrastructure. And there has been no -- there has not been the anticipated and much feared environmental catastrophe, either from oil-well fires or from dam breaks.

However, as I related in May, and as I related earlier, Saddam's legacy of destruction and decay is another story entirely, and that gives us major work to do.

We were particularly impressed in the south by the work of our coalition partners, led by the British, in the Basra area and in the Shi'a heartland with the two Shi'a holy cities of Najaf and Karbala by U.S. Marines. Our Army Civil Affairs teams are equally impressive in that effort. They have created functioning local governing councils free from Ba'athist influence. I would note we have one Harvard- trained lawyer, an enlisted woman in the Army Reserves, who is now trying the previous governor of Karbala, whom we mistakenly appointed and is now in jail on corruption charges. The present governor -- excuse me; that's in Najaf.

The governor of Karbala captured the development best when he told us -- and I'm quoting from him now -- "We Shi'a have theological ties to Iran, but we refuse to be followers of any country outside of Iraq. I want to stress," this governor said, "we aspire to independence and democracy. We want to heal the wounds from the past regime's atrocities. We want to build factories, bring in the Internet, practice our religious rites in freedom, have good relations with our neighbors in the world. The Marines in Karbala," he said, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lopez -- that's Lieutenant Colonel Matt Lopez, for his parents -- "worked day and night with our governing council to provide security and services." End quote.

I asked him if he'd like to visit the United States, and he beamed. He said, "I have not been allowed to leave Iraq for 35 years. I would love to visit your country."

Mr. Chairman, in the north we saw another success story, led by General David Petraeus and his troops of the 101st Air Assault Division, who arrived in Mosul on the 22nd of April, I would note, after liberating Najaf and Karbala in the south. Over the next 30 days, they put together an impressive list of accomplishments. In my written testimony, I have some 20 of them. I won't take your time; you can read them.

What I would like to mention, though, is just one example of the kind of imagination and ingenuity that his troops are doing. We took a walking tour of the center of Mosul with an Army company responsible for security in that area. And security is a serious business. They, a few weeks ago, captured seven terrorists, I believe mostly foreigners, holed up in an apartment in the town square. Since getting rid of those people, it's been stable. But they go around in full body armor and guns at the ready.

But as we were passing a line of butcher shops, the company commander, Captain Paul Stanton (sp), told me a fascinating story about how they had dealt with a problem involving the town's meat cutters. It seems that the butchers were slaughtering their animals on the streets and dumping the carcasses in front of their shops. To get this rather unsanitary problem under control, our soldiers organized a civic association of butchers so that they would have an authoritative institution with which they could deal. This was something unheard of in prewar Iraq. In the old regime, organized associations weren't allowed. For this purpose, they weren't necessary. If there was a problem dumping carcasses in the street, you simply shot a few butchers and the rest got the point.

We deal differently. And when I heard this imaginative solution, I jokingly asked Captain Stanton (sp) if they taught him that at West Point, and of course he said no.

He said they'd had to figure that out as they went along. But of course, that something that Americans, including our wonderful soldiers, have in their fingertips is something that they bring from the civic culture in this country to help build a civic culture in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, the 4th Infantry Division in what I will now stop calling the Sunni triangle, but is the Ba'athist triangle, the Saddamist triangle, the 4th Infantry Division has a tougher task, because the security problem is much more severe. General Ray Odierno and his troops have done an impressive job in confronting that challenge. He briefed us on Operation Peninsula Strike, Operation Sidewinder, Operation Soda Mountain. Each in succession have been effectively rooting out mid-level Ba'athists, some senior Ba'athists, capturing surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and other horrendous devices. He said that as we continue to capture or kill the foot soldiers, it's becoming increasingly more difficult for the mid-level Ba'athist financiers to organize, recruit and maintain their force of hired killers. And they are also very good after any operation, going into the villages where they've been and handing out chickens and soccer balls and making amends for any damage they may have done.

General Odierno's troops are also responsible for the city of Kirkuk, which is a much more stable area; in fact, one of the most stable in the country, I think. There, an interim Governing Council has been established whose members are working together. It's a very multi-ethnic group, including Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Shi'a Arabs, Sunni Turks, Sunni Kurds, Christians, including three women.

My meeting with that council was one of the most heartening of all on our trip. Many of the 18 members spoke of their gratitude to President Bush and to Prime Minister Blair and to the coalition troops for their liberation. The word "liberation" was used repeatedly. Most stunningly, an old Arab member of the council spoke eloquently about the need to return Kurdish property to its rightful owners. "All Iraqis were victims of the last regime," he said.

One member of the council said, "Please tell President Bush thank you for his courageous decision to liberate Iraq. Many American soldiers have volunteered their lives for our liberation." Another member commended the tireless efforts of General Odierno and his army. And finally, one, speaking in English, asked me when the U.S. government was going to, quote, "confront Arab television for their incitement to kill Americans." Obviously, he pointed to another challenge that we face.

Mr. Chairman, you recently said that our victory in Iraq will be based on the kind of country we leave behind. Just 89 days after the end of major combat operations, our forces and their coalition partners are making significant progress in helping Iraqis build the kind of country that will reflect their enormous talents and resources and that they can be proud of one day.

Getting rid of the Hussein regime for good is not only in the interest of the Iraqi people, it enhances the security of Americans and of people throughout the Middle East. To those who question American resolve and determination, I would remind them that we are still playing our crucial role in Bosnia, eight years after the Dayton Accord, long after some predicted we would be gone. And we continue to be the key to stability in Kosovo and in Macedonia. But the stakes in Iraq for us are even greater than they are in the Balkans.

Mr. Chairman, the military and rehabilitation efforts now underway in Iraq are an essential part of the war on terror. In fact, the battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terror. General Abizaid met with some reporters over lunch with us (while ?) during our visit, and he said something that I believe is quite profound and I'd like to quote it. And I'd like to note that General Abizaid is not only an outstanding commander and a great soldier, he's a real expert on the Middle East. He's fluent in Arabic. He served in Lebanon. He commanded a battalion in northern Iraq in Operation Provide Comfort.

He speaks from deep experience.

And this is what he said. He said, "We all make mistakes by wanting to only examine Iraq or only examine Afghanistan or only examine the Palestinian-Israeli theater. We look at things through a soda straw, and we seem to think, 'Well, if we just focus our particular energies and efforts on dealing with problems in Iraq, you know, we'll solve the Iraq problem.'"

"But the truth of the matter is," he said, "that this whole difficulty in the global war on terrorism is that it is a phenomenon that is without borders. And the heart of the problem is in this particular region" -- i.e., the Middle East
-- "and the heart of the region happens to be Iraq."

"And so," he said, "it's not just a matter of somehow or other fighting a global war on terrorism with Special Operations forces. It's a matter of having a policy that aims to bring a certain liberalization in the way that people look at the world. And if we're successful here in Iraq, I believe it's a unique opportunity for the whole region."

"I think I'm pretty inarticulate on it," he said. I would disagree with that one part of his statement. He's very articulate, and I agree with him strongly. "But I guess it's to say you can't separate the global war on terrorism from what's happening here in Iraq, and you can't separate the struggle against Ba'athists from the global war on terrorism."

"And if we can't be successful here," he said, "we won't be successful in the global war on terrorism. And that means" -- and this is important -- "and that means," he said, "it's going to be long, and it's going to be hard, and it's going to be sometimes bloody. But it is the chance, when you combine it with initiatives in the Arab-Israeli theater and initiatives elsewhere -- is the chance to make life better, to bring peace to an area where people are very, very talented and resources are abundant, especially here in Iraq."

"So I think the opportunity that is before us is quite, I think," he said, "incredible."

Mr. Chairman, what that statement says -- and it says it quite eloquently -- is that the war on terrorism is a global war, and it is a two-front war. One front is killing and capturing terrorists. The other front is building a better future, particularly for the people of the Middle East.

So the stakes in Iraq are huge, and there's no question that our commitment must be equal to the stakes.

Last week President Bush said that our nation will give those who wear its uniform all the tools and support they need to complete their mission. Mr. Chairman, I applaud the determined dedication of this committee -- and of you personally -- in helping the American people understand the stakes that we have in securing success in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, in my written statement, I go on at some length about the question of how many troops we need. We can [get] into that in questions.

But I would like to say something that's very important here, because the most
-- we don't need more American troops. At least our commanders don't think we do. What we need most of all -- we need international troops, yes. We need actionable intelligence, yes. But what we need most of all are Iraqis fighting with us. The Iraqi people are part of this coalition, and they need to be armed and trained to participate.

We've begun recruiting and training Iraqis for a national army and are about to begin recruiting for a civilian defense force. That force could take over some important tasks from our troops, such as guarding fixed sites and power lines. There is no reason that Iraqis could not be guarding the hospital from which someone threw a grenade last week that killed three of our Marines.

Mr. Chairman, your colleagues in the Senate and the House can help. To accelerate this process, we urgently request that you support the Armed Services Committee in restoring in conference the $200 million in authority that we requested from the Congress in our budget this year -- authority to equip and train indigenous forces fighting with Americans in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere. It was dropped, apparently, because the Congress did not believe it was necessary. I hope it is clear now that it is necessary.

It is much better to have Iraqis fighting and dying for their country than to have Americans doing the job all by themselves.

And there is no shortage of Iraqis who are willing to help us. If there are 20,000 committed Ba'athists targeting our success, there are 19 million or more Iraqis who hate those people and would like to help us. We should not find that we are held back by a shortage of authority or money to give them the proper training and equipment do the job.

One reason our commanders don't want more troops, Mr. Chairman, is that the function of American troops is to go after an enemy that had been identified through actionable intelligence. When it comes to patrolling the streets of Iraqi cities, it's a disadvantage to have Americans. It means that our people are colliding with ordinary Iraqis trying to go about their day-to-day business. We want to get out of that posture as quickly as possible. In fact, in Kirkuk, the 4th Infantry Division has already managed to turn the entire policing job of a multi-ethnic city in which many predicted there would be widespread ethnic conflict -- and there has not been -- to an Iraqi police force.

As we place our investments in a larger context, we must realize that greater stability in this critical region will save U.S. resources in the long run. And I agree strongly with what I heard Senator Biden saying and others have said: investments now that can deal with problems on an urgent basis while the window of opportunity is open, however long that may be -- and I can't predict how long it may be, but we have a time now when investments that might seem inefficient to someone trying to design the perfect scheme for standing up power or the perfect scheme for training an army, doing things rapidly will have big payoffs.

But let's put it in some context. According to some estimates, it cost us slightly over $30 billion to maintain the so-called containment of Saddam Hussein for the last 12 years. And it cost us far more than money. The containment policy cost us American lives: lives lost in Khobar Towers, on the USS Cole, it routinely put Americans in danger in enforcing the no-fly zones, and it cost us in an even larger way as well. The American presence in the holy land of Saudi Arabia and the sustained American bombing of Iraq, which were a part of that containment policy, were principal grievances, THE principal grievances cited in Osama bin Laden's notorious 1998 fatwa that called for the killing of Americans. So we should consider what we might spend in reconstruction in Iraq against the billions that we've already spent elsewhere, or against the consequences if we fail to win this global war on terror. We cannot fail. But Iraq can contribute to its reconstruction and ! its rehabilitation. It is already doing so, and its share will increase as oil production increases and the Iraqi economy recovers. At this stage, it is impossible to estimate what recover action will cost. What we do know is the resources will come from a variety of resources and the costs of recovery in Iraq need to be shared widely. The international community has a vital interest in successful recovery in Iraq and should share responsibility for it.

The international community has recognized its responsibility to assist us in peacekeeping efforts. Nineteen nations are now providing more than 13,000 troops on the ground, and more are on the way, and we are in active discussions with a number of very important countries, including Turkey and Pakistan, about further possibilities.

Mr. Chairman, when President Bush spoke in the Rose Garden with Ambassador Bremer at his side, he said our military forces are on the offensive. Indeed, they are, and they are doing an incredible job. Everywhere I went I found troops with heartwarming stories about the reception they've received from Iraqis. They expressed some bewilderment about the news coverage they see. One soldier asked, "Don't the folks back home get it?" They understand that helping Iraqis build a free and democratic society will make our children and grandchildren safer.

Our troops are brave when they have to fight -- and they still have to fight; and they are caring and clever, extraordinarily ingenious when they deal with humanitarian and political and civil military challenges. Their relations with non-governmental organizations, from one meeting I held with those groups, are going extremely well. And I believe the Iraqi people understand that we are there to help.

Mr. Chairman, the mayor of Karbala said we want to establish a national government and maintain relations with America. The people of northern Iraq, free from Saddam's tyranny for the last 10 years, 12 years, have demonstrated to a remarkable degree what Iraqis can do with freedom. And my meetings with newly freed Iraqis tell me they are looking to do the same thing. The mayor of Mosul, who is a Sunni Arab and a former army commander who spent a year in prison because his brother, who was executed, had been suspected of coup plotting, said that life under the old regime -- this is a Sunni, I remind you, Sunni Arab -- was like living in a prison. He described that regime as a ruthless gang that mistreated all Iraqis.

His top priorities are investment in jobs. But he said to do that, we need security. He credited the wisdom of General Petraeus in improving the security situation, and he added that jobs and investment will follow.

I asked the mayor if ethnic differences will prevent people from working together, and the Turkoman assistant mayor immediately said, "What caused this great ethnic gap here was Saddam. Throughout our history, we had no problems" -- a slight exaggeration, but not too far. "This has happened only in our recent history. We consider ourselves," this Turk said, "one garden with many flowers of different colors."

So even though the enemy targets our success, we will win the peace. But we won't win it alone. We don't need American troops to guard every mile of electrical cable. The real center of gravity will come from the Iraqi people themselves. They know who and where the criminals are, and they have the most at stake; namely, their future.

When we've shown them that we mean to stay until the old regime is crushed and its criminals punished, and that we are equally determined then to give their country back to them, they will know they can truly begin to build a society and a government that is of, by and for the Iraqi people. In many ways they are like people who have been prisoners who have endured many years of solitary confinement, without light, without peace, without much knowledge of the outside world. They have just emerged into the bright light of hope and the fresh air of freedom. It may take a while for them to adjust to this new landscape free of torture trees, but they are.

Last week, the president told us why it is so crucial that we succeed in Iraq. He said, and I quote, "A free, democratic, peaceful Iraq will not threaten America or friends with illegal weapons. A free Iraq will not be a training ground for terrorists or a funnel of money to terrorists or provide weapons to terrorists who would be willing to use them to strike our country or our allies. A free Iraq will not destabilize the Middle East. A free Iraq can set a hopeful example to the entire region and lead other nations to choose freedom. And as the pursuits of freedom replace hatred and resentment and terror in the Middle East," the president said, "the American people will be more secure."

Make no mistake, our efforts to help build a peaceful Iraq will be equal to the stakes. We look forward to doing our part to work with you, Mr. Chairman, members of your committee and the other members of the Congress, to help make America and her people more secure.

Thank you for giving me so much time.

(end transcript)

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