Hunter Opening Statement Prepared Opening Statement -

Franks Statement Prepared Testimony -

Full Transcript

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

Hearing Before the
House Armed Services Committee

July 10, 2003

 

OPENING STATEMENT OF

DUNCAN HUNTER
A Representative from California, and
Chairman, House Armed Services Committee

 

REP. HUNTER: The committee will come to order. And today the committee will continue its review of the lessons learned from the Operation Iraqi Freedom. And we're very fortunate to have as our witness General Tommy Franks, former commander, United States Central Command.

General, on behalf of the committee, thank you for the years of distinguished service to our country and for leading our young men and women in what can only be judged as a brilliant military campaign.

It's only been a few days since your change of command ceremony, and I'm sure you're busy preparing for your next career, so we appreciate your ability to make time for us today. We'll need your perspective to help sort through the multiple reports, studies and presentations that are going to be prepared on Operation Iraqi Freedom. Defense analysts and special interests are already drawing the battle lines over how to interpret Operation Iraqi Freedom in the debate on military transformation. Advocates of transformation in Iraq is a validation of every transformational idea that's ever been proposed, and view it as a model for all future operations. Others note that legacy forces and capabilities largely won the war, and argue that the military isn't broken and doesn't need fixing. Ultimately, Operation Iraqi Freedom will reveal many lessons about warfare that lie somewhere between the two camps. No one should deny the transformation technologies and capabilities made Operation Iraqi Freedom more decisive and less costly than it might have been, nor should we forget that victory still required American boots on the ground, armed with the best and most survivable equipment the American people can provide. And I might add, General, I think we saw soldiers, and marines, and sailors, and airmen who performed with all of the talent and courage and tenacity of any American soldiers in this century, and I think that was -- that was inspiring to all Americans. The question that Mitchner asked in his book, "The Bridges of Toko-Ri" -- where does America get these people? -- I think can still be answered in that they come from all walks of life, all parts of our country --

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. HUNTER: -- and to the credit of our country, and to our benefit, they're still coming.

So, General, your thoughts are going to be vitally important in helping us sort through all these competing perspective on this war.

And at this time, I'd like to turn to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton, who has his own way of helping us put these things into context, and who has spent a lot of time, I might say, in not only working on the issues of -- that directly affect the war-fighting, but also focusing long before the war on what he viewed to be a major issue, and that was after war, the post-war Iraq and how he would manage this handoff to a country with benign intentions toward the United States with a decent economy and with an enduring freedom. So, at this point, let me ask Mr. Skelton for any remarks he might want to make.

REP. IKE SKELTON (D-MO): Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very much for this hearing, for calling it, and a special welcome, Mr. Chairman, to our friend, General Tommy Franks. It's an absolute pleasure to have you. This is an opportunity to thank you for your service. General, you are remarkable, and we thank you for what you have done for our army, for our military, and for our country. It's good for you to be with us today.

You achieved military successes in Afghanistan and in Iraq. You led the Central Command through a very extraordinary era of challenge. And there's no doubt that success under your leadership is due in no small measure to the quality of our military leadership. It's my view that this was also a testament to the quality of our officers and the war colleges that enable them to plan, under your guidance, and the excellence and the caliber of our young people and the training that they've had. As a result, they enabled you to have success on both fields.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. SKELTON: I must draw attention, as the chairman mentioned, to post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. We are all concerned about what is going on there. And in my opinion, there appears to be a lack of planning for reconstruction, and it seems to be a day-by-day, catch as you can situation, and I pointed out the early need for a comprehensive post- war planning in letters I've sent to the president and others in both September and March, both of which were before the conflict started.

I have a fear that the pattern that we see now, if left unchecked, we may find ourselves, General, in the throws of guerrilla warfare for years. I hope that doesn't come to pass.

I raise this because members on both sides of the aisle want to be helpful and we want to be constructive. We cannot leave Iraq. This has to be a success. It it's not a success, the credibility of the United States of America as the leader in this free world will hit rock bottom. We cannot allow that. And that's why we want to provide all we can to Ambassador Bremer and his team. We understand the nature of what we face, and no doubt many of those who are attacking us do so because of the previous regime or growing frustration for not being in control of their own future. Reconstruction is a lengthy process. It's one that demands planning, and building, and it has to come to pass successfully, no question about that. And I think every member of this committee and every member of Congress understands and wishes that to be so.

I have urged both Secretary Wolfowitz and Ambassador Bremer to give us milestones on the ways to stability and a new government in Iraq, and I hope that they can provide that with us within the foreseeable future.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I again thank the general for being with us, for his success, for being, Mr. Chairman, the role model for Americans in uniform. Thank you.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. And once again, General Franks, thank you for your service to the United States. And your, without objection, your entire written statement will be taken into the record. And the floor is yours.

 

STATEMENT OF

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS,
Former Commander , U.S. Central Command

 

GEN. FRANKS: Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton, members, in fact I'm honored to be here to appear before the committee today. I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, that you will enter my remarks in the record. I'll shorten them, and provide verbally some of my thoughts on the key issues this morning.

Since we last met in this room, a great deal has happened in the Central Command area of responsibility. A brutal regime, as this committee knows, has been removed from Iraq. And actually the people in that country have started to build toward their own future.

Our forces have continued to help Afghanistan. Afghanistan continues to make strides toward independence, and the Afghan people continue to develop their nation, while our forces, as coalition lead, continue to seek out and destroy terrorists and their networks all across the central region.

I look forward to discussing these points as the committee may wish in the time ahead. But let me at this point bring you a message from some 280,000 American men and women who wear the uniform and serve in the central region, those I have been privileged to command, and that message, Mr. Chairman, is thank you -- to this committee, to this body, to the Congress. Throughout both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, our forces in the field have been blessed to serve civilian leadership who has set very clear military objectives and a leadership which has provided our men and women the tools they need to win. On their behalf, I'll simply say thank you for what you do for our troops.

As you know, earlier this week, General John Abizaid took the reins of command down in Tampa. He's a principled leader, a soldier, a man I've known for a long time, tested under fire. And all of us can be very confident of the future of this very important command.

I'd like to begin, Mr. Chairman, by recognizing coalition nations, whose contributions of forces, equipment, economic support, has signaled worldwide commitment to eradicate terrorism. Over the past year, the coalition has been steadfast. As we speak today, some 63 nations are represented at Central Command's headquarters in Tampa. A force has been built in the central region to help achieve our objectives, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Those objectives including the denial of freedom of operation to terrorists, to deny terrorist the potential use of weapons of mass destruction, to bring terrorists to justice, to dismantle their networks.

And in the process of doing that, Mr. Chairman, we have also established a joint task force that is today conducting operations and providing presence, sharing training expertise and working with the nations in the Horn of Africa. The purpose is the same, to combat terrorism and promote stability. Work in the region is underway, but I'll discuss a bit -- in a bit greater detail in a minute the environment within the region remains challenging. Securing our interests and working toward regional stability will involve risks in the future, as we have accepted risk in the past, and will also require continuing commitment of our resources.

You will remember, Mr. Chairman, that the central region is an area of about 6.4 million square miles. It runs from Egypt and Jordan to the Horn of Africa, includes the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan down in South Asia, and up to the north through Central Asia as far north as Kazakhstan -- some 25 nations -- including the waters of the Red Sea, the northern Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the key maritime choke points of Suez, Bab el Mandeb, and the Straits of Hormuz. The area is home to about a half a billion people. They represent all of the world's major religions and almost 20 major ethnic groups.

The national economies in this region vary greatly, from annual per capita incomes as low as a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. The area includes dictatorships, absolute monarchies, failed states, democracies, and governments in transition toward to democracy. The humanitarian crises, resource depletion, overuse, environmental issues, religious and ethnic conflict, demographic challenges, and military power imbalances in the region create social, economic, and military volatility.

These factors are particularly significant, given the geographical and economic importance of the region, where natural resources provide extraordinary economic opportunities. However, these same resources also give rise to a range of problems and rivalries. Some states have compensated by the industry of their people, other states have not.

And in the past two years, CENTCOM has been at the leading edge of the global war on terrorism. The command is engaged with U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq today, and our commitment remains as strong today as it was when we started. Our troopers are working to bring security to the region, and they'll continue to do so.

Sir, on the ground today in Iraq, our troops are conducting ongoing offensive operations, combining civil military work with direct military action to seek out and bring to justice the leaders of this fallen regime. Our priorities include forming and training police forces, security forces, a new Iraqi army, improving the infrastructure of that country, supporting the establishment of both local and national government, providing emergency medical care and other humanitarian assistance with which the committee would be familiar. Much dangerous work remains to be done. The media reminds us of that fact every day. But you know, millions of Iraqis have freedoms today which they only dreamed of a year ago, and the regime of Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.

As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, our troops work daily very closely with Ambassador Jerry Bremer and the entirety of the civilian team, and provide direct support and the tools that he needs in order to be successful. Progress is being made, and our country is justifiably proud, as Congressman Skelton said, by what's been done by young men and women in uniform -- American, and the other nations of the coalition.

Let me talk briefly about lessons learned up to this point, and then I'll entertain the questions that the committee may have and go into detail as you may wish, Mr. Chairman.

Decisive combat operations in Iraq saw a maturing first of joint force operations. Some capabilities reached new performance levels. From a joint integration perspective, our experience in Operation Southern Watch and Northern Watch, where over the course of 10 years we flew 180,000 missions over Iraq. Our troopers were shot at 1,700 times during that 10 years, and responded kinetically on more than 450 occasions. That background provided tools that enabled us to understand joint operations in this area of responsibility and should be counted as one of the major factors that led to military success in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

These operations also helped improve our join interoperability, combined interoperability, working with the Brits, to be sure, and working with neighbors in the Gulf region. During this time, our command, control, computer, communications and intelligence architectures were dramatically improved, and the synergy of those operations was taken to new levels of sophistication. Our forces were able to achieve their operational objectives during the military beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom by integrating ground maneuver, special operations forces, precision lethal fires, and non-precision fires.

We saw for the first time the integration of forces rather than the deconfliction of forces, a very substantial point. In my experience, which spans some 38 years in uniform, I have seen -- I have seen the operations of services and nations deconflicted. This is the first joint and combined operations I've witnessed during my time in the service. This integration enabled conventional -- that being air, ground and sea forces -- to use and to leverage special operations forces capabilities to deal with asymmetric threats and enable precision targeting simultaneously on the same battlefield. Likewise, special operations forces were able to use conventional forces to enhance and enable special missions. Operational fires provided from the air spearheaded ground maneuver and supported special operations forces. We saw jointness, we saw precision fires, command and control technologies, equipment readiness, the state of training of our troops, and coalition support as very clear, above the line winners in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

That said, we also identified a number of areas which require additional work today, tomorrow, and in the budgets ahead. Fratricide prevention is one area where we need work, as we suffered from a lack of standardized combat identification of the systems and the people, between nations and between the services on the battlefield. Similarly, deployment planning and deployment execution were cumbersome -- much more closely akin to those required during the Cold War than being relevant to forces which will be required to support this nation in the 21st century. And coalition information-sharing also must be improved at all levels. Human intelligence and communications bandwidth are also areas which will require continuing focus in the days, months and years ahead.

Mr. Chairman, let me talk for just a minute about the current status of operations in Iraq.

Although security continues to improve, portions of Iraq are now and will remain for some time dangerous. Do you want to flip that map over for me?

A quick look at this map of Iraq describes what we think -- what we think we see today. The brown part of the map, in the center, represents what we call the Sunni Triangle. It is the place where the Ba'ath Party was most seriously invested in that country, and it represents where we see more than 90 percent of the difficulties that we see reflected every day in our ongoing operations in Iraq. The lightly shaded areas -- it appears to be yellow from where I'm sitting -- represent areas where we see less difficulty, but where we also see difficulty, be it from Fedayeen Saddam residual elements, be it from Ba'athist residual elements, or from cells of terrorists which came into Iraq during the course of this conflict. But Mr. Chairman, this is what we look at today.

I think it's very important for us all to remember and continue to remind ourselves that the term "stability operations," which is what we're doing right now, does not infer that combat operations have ended. It does infer that major combat operations against enemy formations have ended. Military forces are still required to set conditions that will enable the evolution of Iraq, as Congressman Skelton just described it.

Factors that will influence our force mix in the days ahead -- that is, how many Americans to be invested in Iraq for how long -- will be subject to conditions that we see on the ground. One of those conditions will be coalition force contributions, how much international interest are we able to generate? What types and how many international forces will we be able to invest in this country? How quickly will we bring along Iraqi police forces and security forces to guard key infrastructure in that country? And how long will it take us to move forward and establish a new Iraqi army?

All these issues are underway as we speak. Ambassador Jerry Bremer is working very, very hard to balance three key points. One is the establishment of governance -- that is to put an Iraqi face on what we see in Iraq. Another is to move the economy forward, and the third is to improve security in the areas that I've indicated on this -- on this map graphic.

Sir, integration of coalition forces is a major near-term effort. The United Kingdom and Poland are already committed to lead divisions in Southern Iraq, and many partner nations, many of them from NATO, have offered forces to fill those units. Deployment of those forces has already begun. We continue discussions today with India and Pakistan. At this moment, 19 coalition partners are on the ground in support of military operations in Iraq. Nineteen additional countries are preparing forces to be deployed to Iraq, and an additional 11 nations are conducting military-to-military discussions here in Washington and at my headquarters in Tampa.

At this point, about 35,000 Iraqi police have been raised, and that is about 55 or so percent of an anticipated Iraqi police requirement of about 61,000 nationwide. Throughout the country, many of these law enforcement officers are currently conducting joint patrols with U.S. military forces, and we will ultimately transition responsibility for security and stability to the Iraqis. In the near --

REP. HUNTER: General Franks?

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. HUNTER: About how much longer do you have with -- in your opening statement?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, maybe two minutes.

REP. HUNTER: Maybe two. I tell you what -- we've got, I think, about five minutes left in this vote. I think this is a -- it's very important that the committee have an opportunity to hear your entire statement.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. HUNTER: Believe me, other witnesses, the committee is eager to leave early, but in this case, I think they want to hear everything you've said. Let's take a break right now --

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. HUNTER: -- and we'll vote. We'll be back in a few minutes and we'll keep on trucking.

GEN. FRANKS: All right, sir.

(RECESS)

REP. HUNTER: General, we just went over and voted on approving the journal. And I insisted that every member read it before they vote. So thank you for interrupting your statement, and please proceed.

GEN. FRANKS: Mr. Chairman, thank you. Sir, with respect to what we see in Iraq today, I was describing what I believe to be a building momentum. The creation of a new Iraqi army is, in fact, also moving forward. We'll begin recruiting in the next few days.

The plan envisions placing three divisions initially -- one in Mosul, one in Baghdad, and one down in the south in Basra -- in order to provide territorial defense and to help conduct stability operations. And during the first year, which is beginning now, we believe that we'll field approximately nine battalions of the Iraqi army, the new Iraqi army.

And these forces will work initially to help secure infrastructure, to help protect fixed sites, and on border control. As it develops, the force will also be working with coalition forces in order to make the Iraqi contribution to security of their own country.

Underlying all security functions is the need to continue to conduct humanitarian assistance and the conduct of civil military operations, which we have been doing and will continue to do in order to improve the quality of life of the Iraqi people. It's possible to say that there will be no growth in the economy and that the Iraqi people will not improve until their condition -- until security improves.

It's also possible to say that until the Iraqi people are able to see some tangible benefit of their liberation, that security will not improve. And so what we recognize is that we must move forward together in order to put an Iraqi face on the building of governance in Iraq, in order to stimulate and grow the economy so that the average Iraqi can see the benefit of his or her liberation, and continue to work with Iraqis and within the coalition in order to improve security.

Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by saying our part in the global war on terrorism continues. It's ongoing. The precision, the determination, the expertise of our young men and women who wear the uniform, and of our coalition partners, has brought about the liberation of Afghanistan, it's brought about the liberation of Iraq, both in lightning speed in the sweep of history, with minimum bloodshed.

These two nations have taken only their first steps, however, in moving toward freedom, liberty. And our country and our coalition partners must be there to support the whole journey. As Congressman Skelton said, there is no option. We will be there to support the journey, and these missions will succeed.

We've accomplished a lot, but the potential for terrorist acts, for setbacks, for continued difficulty, remains very real. Afghanistan has a new government, a new army, and, with coalition support, the nation is making strides toward long-term stability.

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein's regime is gone. His supporters are being rooted out. It will take time. Our forces and Jerry Bremer will stay after it. Our focus in Iraq has, in fact, changed from one of military destruction of a regime to one of providing security and humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people while helping establish a representative form of government. Decisive combat operations have been completed, but much work remains.

I, I think, as well as you, are very proud of each and every one of the men and women who have continued to serve selflessly and tirelessly in the execution of our mission in the central region from Egypt to Kazakhstan, from the Suez Canal to Pakistan, regardless of the uniform of service these people wear or the nation they represent.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the Congress, this body and this committee, as well as the American people, those who wave the flag while many in uniform salute the flag, for your tremendous support, the support you've given and will continue to give.

Mr. Chairman, I'd be pleased to take your questions.

REP. HUNTER: General, thank you, and thanks for a very complete statement. Let me start off by asking you for your thoughts about where your service, the U.S. Army, should go. We've had lots of talk about transformation, about being able to get places quicker with more lethality, and we've seen the discussion and proposals for new systems, and in many cases that involves getting rid of old systems.

And yet we saw in the operation where you drove the tip of the armored spear at extreme speeds, taking a lot of key points -- bridges, oil fields, et cetera -- before they could be blown by the enemy. We saw a validation in some of what I would call some of the old -- that is, heavy armor.

We also saw validation with respect to some of the new -- precision munitions that paved the way, that knocked out armor when you forced it to mass with your ground forces, to oppose the ground forces. In fact, we saw, I think, an integration of the old -- that is, the armored forces -- with the new, the new technologies of precision, in a very effective way that produced a lot of lethality.

So amid this hubbub of discussion as to how the Army should transform, what are your thoughts with respect to the major components of this important war-fighting force and where we should go from here?

GEN. FRANKS: Mr. Chairman, with respect to just the Army, I probably won't give you as complete an answer as you want. Let me, if you will, talk about it from a joint --

REP. HUNTER: That's a better question. Thank you.

GEN. FRANKS: There is no question that America's military of the future will have certain defining characteristics. The force needs to be lethal so that our country can remain credible, backed by credible military force. So lethality for the future, 20 years to 50 years, will remain terribly important.

Light will become ever more important. We see a move toward lightness in the U.S. Army now. The desire is to maintain the ability in our platforms for ground systems to protect the people inside and to be very lethal, while at the same time being light enough to be transported much more quickly than we're able to transport them now. So the mark on the wall for the future will be light, good force protection, and it will remain lethal.

So we've learned in both Afghanistan and Iraq that precision munitions will also be a part of the transformed military force in the years ahead. One can say that more precision is better. And I believe each of the services is moving in that direction.

I remember some of the early reports that we took out of Afghanistan, whereas during the first Gulf War or 1991, we saw that it took several aircraft delivering dumb munitions in order to destroy each target. We saw in Afghanistan and we saw later in Iraq that we had, in fact, flipped that, and it was taking one airplane to destroy several targets. That appears to all of us as being a very desirable characteristic of future force.

Mobility will also be a need for the future force. The ability to get the sorts of platforms, combat platforms we want, and move them long distances in a hurry, whether it is in the air or whether it is at sea, will be also something that we're going to want to see in the future force. Our ability to connect with allies -- command, control, computers, communications -- will also be a part of the transformational mix.

Mr. Chairman, I think in the future -- I think what we do not yet know is what the force footprint, what the size of the various services should be. And I'll not tread there. I'll leave that to each of the services, because when one decides, given precision, given speed, given lethality, how much of the force structure can be traded off, sir, I am not in a position to be able to offer an opinion.

Now, let me, sir, connect perhaps the present to the future. What I tried to describe is what I think the future force would want to look like. But in reality, we have today the force we have today. We have some precision. We have some mobility. We have some force protection in our armor systems. We have lethality.

We do not, however, match all the desired transformational characteristics that I described. And so, sir, the work that must be done in the department and in each of the services is to figure the bridge from where we sit with the systems we have today to where we want to be 10 years, 20 years or 50 years into the future. So that's the issue, in my view, with legacy systems.

We found that the armor punch that we were able to deliver in Iraq was very, very powerful. We also found that even absent armor, the use of special operations forces in Afghanistan, leveraging air power and precision, was also a very, very powerful use of legacy capability -- legacy forces and legacy equipment.

And so exactly how much we trade off of which type force in order to move, sir, from where we are today to the force we desire in the future is going to be work that I think the secretary characterizes as transformation. And it is within that construct of transformation that the retention of legacy systems is going to have to be addressed.

I'm sorry, sir, for the long answer, but that is the best I can do.

REP. HUNTER: Thank you, General. Mr. Skelton.

REP. SKELTON: General, thank you again for your testimony and for your service. It appears to me that we find that America is quite good, thanks to the reasons I mentioned earlier, at winning on the battlefield, and that we have a lot to learn to bring stability to a dangerous country. Am I correct?

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, sir, you are correct.

REP. SKELTON: A few moments ago, you -- and I hope I wrote this correctly -- you said the conditions now remain dangerous in Iraq. Is that correct?

GEN. FRANKS: That is correct.

REP. SKELTON: Major General, retired, Bob Scales likened the condition in Iraq today as thuggery. As opposed to guerrilla warfare, and however you determine, there were still nine serious attacks yesterday. Am I correct?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, the -- on a given day -- I didn't look at yesterday, but on a given day there will be somewhere between ten and 25 violent incidents in the area that I've indicated on this map.

REP. SKELTON: General, were you surprised at the end of our initial victory, military victory over the forces of Iraq, were you surprised at the continued military opposition that our troops are receiving?

GEN. FRANKS: Congressman Skelton, I was not surprised because I had not developed an expectation that hope could become a method. I had hoped that we would see the total collapse of all resistance and that there would be no fractious behavior, but I had never believed that that hope could be a reality. And Congressman Skelton, that's why our troops train so vigorously at 29 Palms out in California at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana, at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin California, to be able to operate in this sort of a stability environment.

REP. SKELTON: Now, we have as I understand around 150,000 American troops in Iraq --

GEN. FRANKS: 148 --

REP. SKELTON: -- is that --

GEN. FRANKS: 148, sir. That's correct.

REP. SKELTON: According to the news media, and which quotes the Department of Defense, requests for congressional appropriations and states that the Department of Defense now assumes the ground naval force in theater today will likely remain at that level through the end of fiscal 2003 and begin to demobilize in fiscal 2004. Do you anticipate that to come to pass?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, I think, anticipate? Yes I do. I do anticipate that that'll come to pass. No hedge on my -- on my comment, and -- but I'll give the following caveats: Since the height of our footprint in the region for Operation Iraqi Freedom, we have already removed 141,000 people. That includes some 47,000 marines. The remaining footprint at 148 is what I believe General John Abizaid and I and probably our subordinate commanders would say represents the desirable footprint for the near term. The caveat is to my answer to your question, sir -- so, I don't know if that's through the end of December or whether that's January or February, and sir, here's why: We need to not develop an expectation that all of the difficulties we see identified on this map will go away within one month or two months or three months because there are too many variables. One of the variables is how many coalition forces will we wind up putting in. And you know, sir, that we intend to have perhaps 30,000 or so coalition forces in Iraq by the end of summer.

Also we don't know what our contracting -- how good our contracting is going to be for Iraqi security forces to provide security to infrastructure and fixed sites. We're not exactly sure how long it will take us to generate and vet and be satisfied with all of the Iraqi police forces, and so, sir, with that long answer I'll stop. But I do generally agree with the proposition that we may see next year a reduction in forces. What we see right now for the foreseeable future is that the footprint appears to be okay. But there is a lot of uncertainty.

REP. SKELTON: My last question: Do you have a judgment as to how long American forces will be in Iraq to help stabilize that country before the Iraqis will be able to assume their own leadership?

GEN. FRANKS: Congressman, I honestly do not. My view is that we want to be there as long as it takes, an expression the president has used, and an expression that my boss has used. We want to be there for as long as it takes to have the Iraqis being able to operate with a form of governance that respects human rights as well as neighbors. But we don't want to be there a day longer than that. And so, sir, I anticipate that we will be involved in Iraq in the future, and sir, I don't know whether that means two years or four years. I just don't know.

REP. SKELTON: Thank you.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, sir.

REP. HUNTER: Thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Hefley.

REP. JOEL HEFLEY (R-CO): Thank you for being here, General Franks, and thank you for the marvelous way that you led our efforts here. We're very very proud of you.

From the map, you indicate that triangle is kind of the problem area. My sense is from what I've been told is that most of the country and most of the people are very supportive of us. I'd like for you to speak to that. And also, I get some reports that much of the attacks on us are being committed by -- they're actually terrorist attacks being committed by people who may have come in from other countries to keep this thing going. Are these two things true? And secondly, how long and how much effort do you think is going to be necessary to put this down? If these are the -- if this is the last gasp of the Ba'ath Party, that's one thing. If it's outside terrorists, it's another. And we have to deal with it differently.

GEN. FRANKS: Congressman, two good questions. The first on the view of the Iraqi people: If one looks across the population in Iraq, in Baghdad or in Tikrit, Mosul or down in Basra, today, one can find Iraqis in two groups. One group that is either very pro-coalition, or is neutral. That means they're waiting to see does economic benefit derive from everything that's happened. The other group is disenfranchised Ba'athists. It is jihadists, which sir I include the terrorists you mentioned in this category. And, sir, I will tell you that in my view the population of the first group is factors larger than the population of the second group, which stirs up all the violence.

Sir, there's another reason that we see constant violence, and as I mentioned to Congressman Skelton, between ten and 25 incidents a day. And part of the reason for that is that we go out looking for it. We are, as I mentioned in my statement, conducting offensive operations. We have our people everyday not sitting in base camps but rather out looking to find the Ba'athists, looking to find the jihadis, looking to find these people who cross the border from Syria and are hell-bent on creating difficulty.

With respect to the overall view of the Iraqi people, it's hard to put percentages on it, but I captured a fact that I think is rather interesting last night. Right now there are about 200 radio broadcast outlets in Iraq, about 200. Run by Iraqis and broadcasting to a hundred percent of the Iraqi population. These people are much more inclined to listen to radio, and they do it 24 hours a day, than they are to watch television. You know, we talk about some of the Arab media, al Jazeera and so forth, and the impact that they have in the region. But most Iraqis are in fact influenced by what they hear on the radio more than they of what they see on a television. There are about 200 outlets. Out of the 200 outlets, pro coalition and neutral broadcasts comprise 81 percent of what we monitor on these 200 stations.

So, what the Iraqi people are hearing is either neutral or pro coalition, 81 percent of the time. Nineteen percent is anti coalition. Just a second on Jerry Bremer, Ambassador Jerry Bremer, who has done a wonderful job. In fact, does have a plan. In fact, is working very hard on the three points that I mentioned earlier: Governance, economy and security.

His work is being favorably received by the Iraqi people. And so, sir, my view is that we will continue to see violence until our operations root out the Ba'athists, the jihadis, that that rooting out will continue. And if we're able to bring the economy and governance along in parallel fashion, that the outcome will be sooner rather than later, very positive. If the reverse happens, that we're not able to bring along governance and economy quickly, it will take longer, but sir, the outcome will be the same, because the Iraqi people are waiting to see the benefit, and that's why I retain a very positive attitude about Iraq.

REP. HEFLEY: What is your best guess about Saddam? Did we kill him, or is he still alive? And would that be an enormous help to quelling the unrest if we actually knew we had gotten him one way or another?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, no doubt about it. I do not know -- I have thought in the quietude of, you know, my own -- my own office on and off that he's alive or he's not alive or whatever, and actually we don't know whether he and the sons are alive or not.

But I can comment to your question. There is no -- there is no doubt that confirmation of killing or capturing Saddam will have a very positive affect on operations and stability inside Iraq. Sir, there is no question of that. And for that reason, we have an organization that is -- that is devoted to that task, very sophisticated. It's an interagency group. We call it Task Force 20, and it is doing very good work. Witness the fact that out of the top, I guess, 52 or 55, the number now stands at about 35 either captured or dead. And so our forces in fact are doing a good job, and sir, it's a matter of time.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt.

REP. JOHN SPRATT (D-SC): General Franks, congratulations on a masterful performance -- by yourself as the commander, and also by all the forces under your command.

Based on the intelligence that you had going into this, what sort of surprises did you encounter? I recall one of your ground commanders, a general officer, said "This is not the Iraqi troops that we were told that we'd be fighting," at a point in time when they were fighting harder. Did you expect for example, to find them equipped in the field with chemical weapons and therefore that you expected a chemical weapon counter-attack?

GEN. FRANKS: Congressman Spratt, I did -- I did expect to see them equipped, on the battlefield, with chemical weapons, based on human intelligence, based on the verbal commitment that we've had over the course of some 10 years by the regime to use or to pursue weapons of mass destruction, and the view that that regime has of our country, and in fact of the West. The intelligence indicated to all of us that we should be prepared for the use of weapons of mass destruction against our troops. And I don't know that I would characterize it as surprise that it was not used. Perhaps, rather, I viewed it as a blessing that it was not used. But we were fully prepared, and the troops on the ground were fully prepared for -- to have to fight in -- excuse me -- in a WMD environment.

REP. SPRATT: How do you account for the fact that they weren't used? And is this an intelligence lapse, or is this unexplained element of that tactical planning?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, another good question. I -- I actually -- I believe that of some almost a thousand sites where we -- where we thought, based on intelligence, we might find weapons, we had an expectation that we would go into all 1,000 of those sites. That work is not completed. And so I believe that we will either find the weapons, or we will find evidence of the weapons of mass destruction. And I believe, sir, that will vindicate the intelligence that we received. Intelligence was not perfect; it never will be. But I believe that the intelligence was worked hard, it was worked honestly, and our troops believed, as I believed, that we had better be prepared for the use of WMD on this battlefield.

REP. SPRATT: In terms of an exit strategy, what do you think needs to be accomplished before you can even start thinking about demobilizing and withdrawing troops?

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. SPRATT: What are -- what are the key criteria for us before we can pull out?

GEN. FRANKS: As Congressman Skelton said, sir, absolute success. We have to have an Iraqi face on governance in that country so that we assure ourselves that another -- that another safe harbor for terrorism and for the export of WMD is not created.

REP. SPRATT: Does that mean you would have to have elections and elect a government like that before we could leave?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, that's my view, yes. I believe that economy has to be running and there has to be security in the country, although I believe that much of that security will be provided by the Iraqis themselves, keeping in mind the media situation that I mentioned a minute ago, with 200 radio stations and the way the police are being recruited, and the building of an Iraqi national army. I believe it will come along, but that also, sir, would be the end state before exit.

REP. SPRATT: We've spent the morning talking about Iraq for good reason, but there's another place that is a matter of concern, and that's Afghanistan. Has it suffered from a lack of attention or a lack of emphasis during the time we put so much emphasis on Iraq?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, actually -- actually, it hasn't. The coalition and U.S. commitment to Afghanistan have remained constant. And I'll give you a very simple reason for that, sir. When we were doing our planning in the Defense Department for potential operations in Iraq, we believed that Afghanistan would be a strategic flank for our operations in Iraq. And so every one from secretary -- from the president, to Secretary Rumsfeld, right through me, were very sensitive to be sure that our operations moved ahead in Afghanistan in parallel with what we were doing in Iraq. And just one single metric that I used to just gauge that is the footprint, the force level, the structure level in Afghanistan has remained constant between nine and ten thousand now for over a year. And so, no sir, we did not suffer as a result.

REP. SPRATT: Thank you very much.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon.

REP. CURT WELDON (R-PA): I thank the chairman. General, thank you for being here, and thank you for your outstanding service to the country.

General, you're the individual that was on the spot guaranteeing the safety of the lives of our military personnel while the armchair quarterbacks back here in our country were taking potshots, saying the plan wasn't properly thought through, it didn't anticipate what we would find. And I think in the end you proved everyone wrong, and you did a masterful job, and we're all proud of you.

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. WELDON: I can tell you that without a doubt.

You had to make the ultimate decision, I guess, along with the president and the chairman of the joint chiefs to move forward. Do you feel, hindsight now after it's all over, that somehow the threat was enhanced over overstated as a justification for us to take military action in Iraq?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, I do not believe that at all. I do not believe the threat was overstated. I believe the threat was accurately -- was accurately stated.

REP. WELDON: Thank you, General. General, one of my concerns before the war and after is the economic restructuring of the country and the stability that needs to be provided. There have been several Iraqi reconstruction conferences that I've spoken at, and back in March I challenged the energy sector worldwide to come up with a broad-based, multinational council to assist us. I agree with you that I think Ambassador Bremer is doing a good job. But in the three items that you outlined, government, the economy and security -- governance, economy and security -- I think there's an effort that we can explore, and I wanted to get your assessment if you think we're moving in that direction quickly enough to allow the interconnection of those three.

Even though many of us were upset that France and Germany and Russia did not immediately come on board with us, and still harbor some concerns about that lack of support, the fact is that they were involved prior to the war, and some of their companies have excellent expertise and have an on-site capability to work with the Iraqi people and therefore I think there needs to be an international role, not just a U.S. role, for the rebuilding of the country.

For instance, I have in the room today -- I introduced you to the leader of the largest energy infrastructure company from Russia, Mr. Bokanovsky (ph), who is -- who had a major presence in Iraq, he's sitting over here. And in meeting with me today, he said, "We're willing to put our own investment in. We have relationships with the Iraqi people."

Do you think it can be helpful that these companies that were in Iraq and have the ongoing presence by getting them to come back in and putting their own private sector in, creating new job opportunities, that they can actually assist in both the security and the governance role that we have to play to get the Iraqi -- the Iraq country back on a solid footing again?

And if you agree with that, I would hope that you would continue a role beyond your military career in a very up-front, positive way, so that we can benefit from the experience that you've had, not just in the military but in your experience in bringing us to the point where we're at in rebuilding a new Iraq.

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, I believe, without talking specifically to the business sector, I believe that it is important to internationalize what we are seeing in Iraq in terms of reconstruction across all three of the points Jerry Bremer talks about, in governance, and I think we're seeing some evidence of that in the rebuilding of the economy, which would certainly address the point, sir, that you made, as well as the internationalization of the force to provide security.

REP. WELDON: And just one final point, General, and I don't mean to put you on the spot and I'm not looking to, but there's going to be a major energy, international energy reconstruction conference in Washington on July 24th, and you may not be available, but if you would be, I know they'd love to have you as a keynote speaker, where there will be leaders from 35 nations, CEOs of all the major energy companies coming to this city to talk about an advisory council and assisting the U.S. in a constructive way. And I know certainly on behalf of that group, the would welcome your involvement. And I don't expect answer, but I just wanted to call that to your attention. Thank you again for your service.

And Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the great role you played during this entire conflict. You led us -- the committee was supportive. And I want to say on behalf of our colleagues on both sides that we appreciate the role that you played in this entire Iraqi effort.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman -- and I'm not retiring.

REP. WELDON: No. I know.

REP. HUNTER: But -- doggone it. But I -- but I thank my old friend. And Mr. Ortiz, great gentleman from Texas.

REP. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ (D-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And general, thank you so much. And from one Texan to another, you've done a great job.

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. ORTIZ: Now, the Third Infantry Division, was it -- did they were the first division that went into Iraq, and are they still there?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, they were the first division that went in, and yes sir, they are still there. Most of them still there.

REP. ORTIZ: We seem to be getting a lot of mail from wives, families, of the army troops who are there. They tell us the Air Force has gone back. The Marines have gone back. The Navy has gone back.

GEN. FRANKS: Right.

REP. ORTIZ: But our soldiers have not been rotated. And they see the graphic scenes on TV of the war that is going on, and they worry so much about -- that it might be their relatives who might be killed. What measures have been put in place to achieve a better force protection for our troops? Now, I see that map, and I see that it is a big country. When we move either soldiers to one area or another, or we move equipment, are they protected? What measures have been taken?

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, sir. Congressman, your point is well-taken. Let me first say that I am so proud of the rock of the modern division, the Third Infantry. As the first Army unit and the principal axis of advance unit that moved in historically unprecedented time to isolate Baghdad and to drop the regime of Saddam Hussein.

That great division, sir, one of the brigades -- there are three brigades in that division, and one of them is beginning its redeployment now, Congressman Ortiz. The second will begin its redeployment next month, and the third and final brigade of Third Infantry will be out of Iraq in September.

With respect to force protection, I think, sir, there are two ingredients that we want to be absolutely certain are in place. And one is, wherever we establish our enclaves or our operating bases, we want to be sure that the force protection in the vicinity of those bases is very good, is solid security.

The second ingredient is that we want to conduct offensive operations. We do not want in Iraq to accept a defensive posture where we sit and wait. I believe that our forces are doing that.

Congressman, I will tell you, however, that we will continue to have these groups -- Fedayeen Saddam, the jihadists who came in from Syria, some of the Ba'athists -- they are going to continue to seek out the vulnerabilities that we have as we move our convoys, and we will have to continue to be sure that these convoys are protected and armed. And, sir, we will do that.

REP. ORTIZ: One last question. You know, there's talk about sending our troops to Liberia now. What kind of impact is this going to have as far as being able to rotate our troops because of the many deployments that we have throughout?

GEN. FRANKS: Congressman, I don't know, because I have not been part of any of the considerations that have gone into that. My understanding, from talking to Secretary Rumsfeld yesterday, was that no decision had been taken to do that; rather, an assessment to develop a view of what is going on in that country would be dispatched. And then all of the pros and cons would certainly be discussed, and then a decision made by the president. And, sir, that's the best I can do on that one.

REP. ORTIZ: Again, thank you for a great job. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman from Texas. Just, General, before going to the next question, Mr. Spratt asked you if you thought you'd had bad intelligence, misinterpreted intelligence, with respect to weapons of mass destruction. You put out -- a number of alerts were put out to our forces, as they advanced on Baghdad, to the effect that communications had been intercepted indicating from the Iraqi officers themselves that they intended to use special weapons or weapons of mass destruction --

GEN. FRANKS: Mr. Chairman, that's correct.

REP. HUNTER: -- on our troops. Would you describe that or just talk about that for a second?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir --

REP. HUNTER: That was direct evidence that we basically heard with our electronic capability.

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, that's absolutely correct. Intelligence from a variety of sources is available on the battlefield. One of the sources is human intelligence. And, of course, we had -- and it's been well-reported -- we had some elements on the ground in contact with Iraqis prior to the onset or prior to the 19th of March.

Additionally, we have technical means to be able to take communications, some of which are encrypted, other not. And the take, if you will, from communications as well as human sources, in a given 24-hour period of time, is enormous. It is enormous. Very large groups of analysts work this information very hard and then, I would say, connect the dots.

And when the dots were connected on several occasions in a way that indicated to us that we might be closing in on the use of specifically chemical munitions, in fact, we alerted our forces several times, Mr. Chairman, that is correct, based on information that we received from human intelligence and from radio communications intercept.

REP. HUNTER: So when you told your troops to put their gas masks on --

GEN. FRANKS: That's correct.

REP. HUNTER: -- and their gas suits, that was right judgment, in your view.

GEN. FRANKS: Absolutely. I would do the same thing again tomorrow, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: And if you looked at the same intelligence today, you'd still do it.

GEN. FRANKS: Without a doubt.

REP. HUNTER: Thank you. Mr. Schrock.

REP. HUNTER: Mr. Chairman, let me just add one additional thing to that. I found it especially interesting, one of the blessings of technology is video teleconferencing. And beyond anything that we've ever had in our military before was our ability to video teleconference at very high levels of classification with all of my commanders and with my staff, with all of their staffs, on a 24-hour- a-day basis.

I think perhaps more than 140 boards, bureaus and commissions met between the continental United States, Tampa, and our various headquarters in the region, each 24-hour period of time during this.

It was very interesting to me that on a number of occasions, one or more of my subordinate commanders would be conducting video teleconferencing with me wearing gas masks, because they had received information that would indicate to them that they should be at a very high state of alert for the use of chemicals. And this was not uncommon at all.

And, in fact, Mr. Chairman, I believe, if you think back at some of the embedded reporting that went on during the course of this, there were actually reporters in several of the places where this happened. And I think it was captured for the world to see.

REP. HUNTER: Thank you. Mr. Schrock.

REP. ED SCHROCK (R-VA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, thank you and your wife for 36 really wonderful years.

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. SCHROCK: Kind of a follow-on to what my friend Mr. Ortiz mentioned. Do you think that -- I'd like to know your opinion of whether you think our troops are overextended. Are we in too many places in the world? Are we stretched too thin? I know you wear the uniform of the Army, but if you have an opinion on where you think we are, because it seems like Liberia today; tomorrow. I mean, what next? And I'm just curious what your spin is on that.

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, it's difficult for me, in my joint position or in my previous position, to do a great deal more than speculate. I believe that we have Army troops, for example, in some 370 different locations around the world right now.

On the other hand, I remember, on the 11th of September, 2001, the way I felt and the way America felt, when we realized our own vulnerability in this country as we watched the strike on the Pentagon, the field in Pennsylvania and the World Trade Center come down, and recognized the loss of some 3,000 people as a result of our own vulnerability -- and our president said at that time that a heavy load is going to reside on the shoulders of America's military.

So, sir, none of us should be surprised, in fact, that our military forces are out and about this planet today waging a war on terrorism. How much could we do, given our current force levels? Congressman, I can't give you, sir, a good answer to that, but I do believe that all of us recognize the obligation and the responsibility to do whatever our president calls on us to do as part of the global war on terrorism.

And I apologize for the answer, but, sir, that's what I believe. I do believe, because I know Don Rumsfeld very well, and I believe that on the day that that secretary becomes convinced that our structure is not sufficient to be able to accomplish the tasks given him by the commander-in-chief, this committee will know about it, sir.

REP. SCHROCK: Okay, thank you. Let me just say that I just hope you and your wife have a wonderful rest of your life and success and happiness, because, believe me, the two of you deserve it.

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. SCHROCK: Thank you very much.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Mr. Taylor.

REP. GENE TAYLOR (D-MS): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And General, along with every other American, I want to thank you for the great job --

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. TAYLOR: -- that you and those forces who were on the ground with you did.

I want to follow up on what my colleague from Texas had to say. In the many briefings I had in Bosnia, the point was made very well to me that for every troop that we had in Bosnia, we were really tying up three -- training one to go there, we had one there, then we're retraining the one that just came home from Bosnia to do his regular MOS.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, sir.

REP. TAYLOR: Given that scenario -- and I don't think that rule has changed much with a 480,000-man and woman Army, if you've got 150,000 in Bosnia, that would lead me to believe you're training 150,000, and at some point you're going to be retraining 150,000, which pretty well ties up your entire force. What units have been notified in our training to go to Iraq?

And at what point -- given that at some point our nation came to the realization that we were wearing out our active-duty forces and we had to throw the Guard and Reserve into that mix, one of the things that made that work so well was the 49th, the Marylanders and the Mississippians who were given sufficient time to train for the mission, sufficient time to get their own houses in order, and actually sufficient time, I believe, to man that force with all volunteers.

Given that this is going to be an ongoing thing, every one of our efforts in the past 13 years has taken longer than we thought, not less time, given that that's now the rule of thumb, what steps are in place for that?

And let me follow up. I also noticed that the men and women in the Bosnia mission, their morale shot up dramatically as their housing got better, as they went from tents to C-huts. My colleague, Mr. Abercrombie, tells me on his brief trip there that we still had soldiers sleeping in trucks. We had soldiers sleeping in bombed-out buildings and bombed-out palaces. At what point do you get the contractors or the Navy construction battalions in there to build some C-huts to get these guys into some decent housing?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, great questions. The former in Iraq question of 150,000 total, I'm not sure today what the mix of active component to reserve component is in that 140,000. But your point is correct; it is about three for one, for the reasons that you described -- one committed, one regrouping and one preparing to go.

Sir, the call for us in the future will be what the active and reserve component mix will be as we continue our operations in Iraq and what the footprint will look like in six months or within a year.

When I left Central Command, to get to your first question, a number of brigades were being requested to be placed on what we call prepare-to-deploy in order to begin the cycling of forces, this three for one that you talked about. And there was discussion at CENTCOM headquarters of one additional division to continue the cycling.

I don't know, sir, the bumper numbers of those divisions, but that is the consideration that's ongoing right now. And I know for a fact that the secretary told me yesterday that he is meeting today or tomorrow with the military leadership, the joint staff as well as Central Command, to make some decisions on what those bumper numbers will look like and what the rotation will be for forces that are currently located in Iraq.

So, sir, your point has been taken and the department is working it now.

REP. TAYLOR: May I interrupt briefly?

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, sir.

REP. TAYLOR: What is the designed length of the rotation?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, that's what he is going to decide either today or tomorrow. And let me, so that I don't just foist that off on him -- here's the issue. We, because of the way some of our forces are structured, the differences between Army forces that include active and reserve, naval forces and air forces, I'm not sure that the cycling of forces into Iraq will be exactly the same.

In other words, it may be that you'll see part of the force that cycles every four months, part of the force that cycles every six months. And that is what the secretary is working right now with the joint chiefs and his staff.

Let me talk for just a second about quality of life. I was -- my last trip in Iraq was, I guess, maybe two weeks ago. And as I stood in Baghdad and talked to a lot of people, I started -- not started, but I sort of probed on the quality-of-life issue to figure out where exactly are we today in terms of quality of life for the troops that are committed on the ground in Iraq.

We are not where we want to be. That is a fact. It should not take 14 to 21 days for mail to transit, for example. And so, for the past two weeks, people have been working mail, a non-trivial sort of a matter, as well as the establishment of e-mail links that permit families to maintain better contact with one another.

Right now the food cycle for the troops in Iraq is one hot meal a day and two MREs a day. Within the next number of weeks, that will change to two hot meals a day and one meal ready to eat a day. Additionally, some Harvest Falcon force provider sort of air- conditioned tentage is being taken into Iraq. All of this in recognition of the valuable point that you made; if we're going to be invested, then what we want to do is increase both the force protection, as we discussed earlier, and the quality of life for the people on the ground there. And so work to be done there, sir.

REP. TAYLOR: Do you have a time line?

GEN. FRANKS: I'm sorry, sir? It varies -- the mail, I suspect, it will probably take about two weeks in order to make robust increase. I think e-mail will probably be much better in a period of two or three weeks.

REP. TAYLOR: Is there a time line for getting that force of 150,000 into a C-hut equivalent --

GEN. FRANKS: No, sir, not that I know of. C-hut equivalent? No, sir, not that I know of. I suspect that our troops in Iraq will continue to be in a mixture of un-air-conditioned expeditionary living conditions, air-conditioned expeditionary living conditions, and in some cases living in hard sites. And we do that in a great many places in Iraq right now.

But this is going to be something that we're going to be focusing attention on probably over the next three to six months.

REP. TAYLOR: Thank you.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, sir.

REP. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Mr. Akin.

REP. AKIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The task of trying to rebuild -- it seems to me there are a couple of components that maybe you're facing. First of all, you've got these organized people who are systematically trying to shoot you when you're in a convoy or whatever, and those are people that are essentially terrorists or whatever, guerrillas, whatever you want to call them.

There's another component of rebuilding a civilization, it seems to me, and I'm just wondering how significant this is, and that is, there are a lot of things that we in America take just for granted. When we go to a food service, we line up in a line. There's a lot of sort of just basic behavior that we've inherited as part of our culture.

Some Third World countries do not have some of those same kinds of ways of doing things, sanitary things and all sorts of things like that. How much is that just going to take a lot of time, and how much is that a factor, and how much is it more just the terrorist side that we're dealing with?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, that's a great question. If you look at Iraq historically -- and by historically, I don't mean the last 30 years under this regime, but just historically -- and you consider the (curbs?), you consider the rivalries between Sunni and Shi'a, you consider the rivalries within the Shi'a sect, then you consider the rivalries between tribal elements and the general overall culture, you've described it correctly. It is not a standing-in-line sort of culture. And that is a part of the issue.

On the other hand, sir, our people who work civil military operations and civil affairs and so forth will not work to install America in Iraq. And so it actually does tie together with the business of putting an Iraqi face on this, because Iraqi policemen, Iraqis working in the ministry of education, will have different tolerances for these sorts of behavior than westerners would have.

And one of the things one has to be careful of is while we impose our will as the coalition provisional authority in that country, we do not want to alienate the society in such a way that makes it take twice as long to get rebuilt.

You mentioned cultural differences. There are also, sir, some cultural similarities. Very interesting; Jerry Bremer was telling me two or three weeks ago about sports pride with the Iraqis' soccer teams and a true Olympic committee. And actually, the Iraqis are working now to put their sports program in shape, and that's -- I don't think I've seen anyone report that, nor have I seen anyone report that after 30 years, during which time orchestras were banned, we recently saw the reformation of an orchestra where men had not played their instruments in 30 years and instruments had been placed in basements and in back rooms and had been locked. And we actually had a performance of the Iraqi national orchestra recently. And so there are some dissimilarities and there are some similarities, sir.

REP. HUNTER: The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Reyes.

REP. SILVESTRE REYES (D-TX): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And like my colleagues, thank you very much, General, for your service. I was doing some calculations. If my -- (inaudible) -- math holds up, you've been in 36 years, so you came in about 1967.

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, I actually have been in 38 years because I was a private soldier for two years before I became an officer.

REP. REYES: Well, thank you so much for your service. And we pass on our best to your lovely wife as well.

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. REYES: We know how difficult things have been. And the calculation I made is because I wanted you to comment, being a veteran with service in Vietnam, to draw a comparison for us between what we're seeing today in Iraq and what you saw initially as an enlisted person for two years and then as an officer.

But before I do that, I wanted to ask you, because this has been something that was asked of me last week when I was in my district, and it all brought back or jelled in my mind yesterday when I saw this picture in the New York Times of the soldiers that had just been informed that they were going to -- these were soldiers from the Third Infantry Division, and they were going to be extended in Iraq at least for the foreseeable future.

If I understood you correctly, when Congressman Ortiz asked you, these soldiers, particularly of the Third Infantry Division, will all have been rotated out by September. Is that correct?

GEN. FRANKS: By the end of September. That's correct, sir.

REP. REYES: Okay. And that is great news, and I know will be great news to the parents, some of which talked to me in El Paso, and even a couple in Phoenix, where I was at in the early part of the week. And one of them made mention that their son had said that the officers were getting rotated back much quicker than the enlisted personnel.

And then in this week's Army Times, I've got an article here that is highlighted where it deals with change-of-command ceremonies and changing out the officer personnel. I think it would be very useful for you to comment on that for the many parents that are out there thinking that officers are coming back and enlisted personnel are remaining in theater much longer, number one.

And number two, if you would kind of compare to us -- and the reason I'm asking you to compare is because when I look at that map, General, and I think of Iraq being 25 percent larger than Vietnam, and when you factor in the fact that we were only in half of Vietnam during that era, it's twice as big a country easily as we had to deal with in Vietnam. And then you have the Sunni triangle and then the yellow or light green areas there that you pointed out where attacks are occurring or conflicts, however you want to call it.

It brings to my mind the similarity with Vietnam. And those attacks are going on where our troops are. And so if you would first cover the enlisted versus officer and then give us your evaluation of how this compares to Vietnam. Thank you.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, sir. You will not see officers rotated before enlisted, with the exception of things like you mentioned where we see a change of command. And I think those will be minimized. There for sure will be some people on an individual basis who will rotate rather than being a part of a unit rotation. But Congressman, that will be the exception rather than the rule. I think everyone recognizes the importance of maintaining unit integrity while we do these things.

The fact is that these young people, to include the officers, have served us very, very well. And we ought to be about the business of trying to protect all of their interests as individuals. And I have a great deal of confidence that our subordinate leaders will be trying to do that.

Now, that does not minimize or does not deprecate a comment by young troops who will be quick to point out that, you know, "Someone left, by golly, and I'm being forced to stay." And so the leaders will have that very much in mind as they go forward.

Let me talk for a second to your second notion, or your second observation, about rotation policy in general. In World War II, people got on the ship and they went away for the duration. And some of the same ones who went away for the duration were the ones, toward the end, who fought the Battle of the Bulge, and then they all came home after three or four years' worth of constant combat.

In my experience in Vietnam, I went away for a year. We went away for a year at a time. So, we don't yet have anybody who has been in combat in Iraq for a year.

In terms of responding to a question about the similarities between Vietnam and what we see right now, actually, sir, I don't -- I don't see them. I don't see it at all.

This country is larger than Vietnam to be sure, but in Vietnam one was just as likely to encounter a rocket-propelled grenade attack at one -- at some point as he was at any other point in Vietnam. And the green part of that map that I displayed is an area where we don't see much bad news. What we see is Iraqis working hard, turning over the Ba'athists to us. It is only in the yellow splotches and in that brown area where we see most of the difficulty -- and as you can see that is, that's perhaps 10 percent, 15 percent of this country.

Now, one of the beauties about our current force structure, Congressman Reyes, is that when we -- what happens is it's -- when we apply pressure, military offensive pressure to one part of that country, it sort of oozes, and the problem will move around to a different -- to a different part. And actually, that connects to the Third Infantry Division and why the Third Infantry Division is where they are.

When we got into and isolated Baghdad and saw the problems out to the West of Baghdad in al-Fallujah and Ar Ramadi, the Third Infantry Division wound up being -- being told, "Wait a minute, we're going to go out and clear this corridor of al-Fallujah and Ar Ramadi, and it's going to cost us a month." And so the Third Infantry Division in fact was retained longer than we thought we probably would want to retain them, and that can never be good from the perspective of the trooper.

But what I described and what I answered in response to your question, sir, is true, that is we have a third of that outfit getting ready to come home now, another third August, another third in September. We should feel good about that, but we should also recognize that those people have been on the line working very, very hard, in a hard environment, now in some cases back to last November, December. And so we do feel that we have an obligation to do that.

But sir, I don't see much similarity between -- between what we're doing in Iraq and what we saw in Vietnam.

REP. REYES: Thank you, General.

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. REYES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Forbes.

REP. RANDY FORBES (R-VA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And General, you've heard most of the members of this committee express their appreciation --

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. FORBES: -- but I would be remiss if I didn't thank you on behalf of all my constituents who are very appreciative. Of course, we all know you had a great deal of help and support from all the --

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. FORBES: -- TV experts, but we certainly appreciate you staying focused an on mission.

And General, a lot of times when we are analyzing a conflict like this we talk a lot about the weapons systems and some of the conflicts, but I'm always impressed with the logistical support that's required for a major military conflict like this. I have a special place in my heart for Fort Lee and their contribution in matters like this. And my question for you is were you pleased with the handling of water, petroleum and food distribution? Did you find any surprises and did we learn any lessons from this conflict that we can perhaps adapt and apply to other situations?

GEN. FRANKS: Congressman, surprises, actually no. Lessons, yes sir, we did, we learned some. The degree of being impressed with our logistics and support and sustainment architecture, my respect for that enormous, absolutely enormous. We have not had supply lines or lines of communication like this to support in a long, long time.

I remember as we were planning this, at one point we said, "You know what -- if we're going to move food, fuel, water and sustainment stocks, we had better preposition a lot of trucks in Iraq. And so before this operation ever started, because of the excellence of people at Fort Lee and a number of other places, we positioned 27 truck companies in Iraq in order to be able to maintain this line of communication all the way to Baghdad. Any time that you have a long line of a communication, and you have even very small groups of snipers -- enemy snipers -- which operate along those routes, very, very difficult. I have not seen the report on the maintenance that was so badly torn up, but I read some news accounts of it to include one this morning, and I think, sir, that that talks to the difficulty that our logisticians have when they're out on the battlefield, moving everything from food, fuel, water, cooks, mechanics, along these lines to be able to maintain contact and support -- and support the combat troops. So, I have enormous respect for what they did.

Surprises, actually not -- not surprised. But the lessons that have to do with mobility -- we need to take a look at the way we structure our combat service support to be sure that we have all of it located in exactly the right place. The fuel was an enormous success in this operation. Some months before the combat began, fuel lines were laid all the way across Kuwait, mobile -- portable fuel lines laid all the way across Kuwait. And then once the war started, the fuel lines continued to be laid all the way up to the north of Tallil, by some incredible petroleum engineers and people in the logistics support side of this. They have a great deal to be proud of. They were genuine heroes. And the things that we learned, the ones that I described -- mobility, positioning, structure -- we'll have to review those in the future.

REP. FORBES: Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Dr. Snyder.

REP. VIC SNYDER (D-AR): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for having this hearing today with General Franks. It's good to see you again. General --

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. SNYDER: -- a lot of us get a lot of our information from retired high-ranking officers, and I hope you will be available afterwards. Or maybe, Mr. Chairman, we could have General Franks come back in his retirement years and give us updates --

GEN. FRANKS: I'd be delighted.

REP. SNYDER: -- as the weeks and months go by. You were talking about surprises. I read parts of the transcript of your and Secretary Rumsfeld's testimony yesterday before the Senate, and I was surprised by something Secretary Rumsfeld said. And at one point he was asked about whether he was aware of any approaches that had been made to France or Germany about helping. He said he did not know. There was apparently a vote. He came back after the break, and this was the exchange.

This is Secretary Rumsfeld, in this transcript. "The answer to the question as to whether or not we made a specific request to NATO to assist in Iraq, the answer is we did. Secretary Wolfowitz was sent over there in December of last year. He did make a specific request. I'm sure there were other specific requests that I'm not aware of either."

And Senator Levin said, "None since the war?" And this is where I was surprised, General Franks. Secretary Rumsfeld says "I have no idea. I'd be happy to run around and try to find out the answer to that."

Well, I don't -- who should know that? I mean, who should know whether there has been contact made between the United States government and NATO about assisting this, or with the French, or with the Germans? I mean, I agree with all the statements that have been made there about a lot of our troops want to come home, they feel like they've done their job and their families want them to come home. You talk about all these green areas. Those look like perfect areas to give the French a sector, to give NATO a sector and say "Here, it's your sector. You're part of the action now." I -- whose job is it? Are you aware of any contacts that have been made since the war to try to get NATO involved in a major way, or to get the French involved in a major way where they would have a sector?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, that -- having been in the hearing with the other body yesterday, I'm familiar with the statement that you read from. Actually, maybe I can help a little bit. I actually agree with the comment Secretary Rumsfeld made when he said, "I don't know, but I'll run around and try to find out." And let me -- let me try to provide some context around that.

We have in Tampa, as I mentioned, 63 nations. Among those nations, actually are Russia, Germany and France, and they have been there with us since the very beginning. I deal with them every day. We talk to them about potential force contributions. About 10 days ago, I was in London and had a session with Prime Minister Tony Blair and we talked about the force -- the force composition in the Polish division. I have people who have been to Pakistan and are in contact with India, making arrangements now to see what force structure we can, you know, provide internationally.

And so when the secretary says maybe someone has talked to 'em and I'll try to find out, what he meant was he has -- he has Dr. Paul Wolfowitz in fact who works it, he has his policy shop with Doug Feith who works it, the State Department in fact has -- Secretary Powell has worked, I think, 70 or 80 nations. He has me working it from the tactical operational level in contact with these nations. And so I believe he provided an honest answer when he said "I don't know if someone has done this."

REP. SNYDER: Well, General Franks, I'm running out of time. I understand that. It just seems to me that our alliance with NATO and the French is such a strong one, and the French have such peacekeeping experience that some how I would have thought that that would have been a high priority to at least -- that we would have known if we'd had contacts.

I wanted to ask about Afghanistan. On page 10 of your written statement you say the average Afghan now enjoys basic freedoms, a higher quality of life, and prospects for a better future. And I think everyone would agree with that, but that was a very ominous story in, I guess it was today's Washington Post, about the opium trade and that we are at risk of having a country controlled not just by warlords but by drug money fed warlords, which to me sounds -- if a drug mafia of some kind can thrive, so can terrorism again.

GEN. FRANKS: Congressman, I absolutely agree with you. And I think the issue that all of us in the international community has to work with the Afghans, because the poppy production is tremendous and the drug trade is tremendous. But what has to be worked is who is going to solve that problem. And obviously all of us -- you, I, the American people -- would like to have the Afghans solve this problem for themselves. The issue for us is to judge whether they have the capacity, given their current governance, to be able to adequately address it, or whether they're going to require international help beyond what they're already receiving. So, sir, no disagreement. It is an issue. It is a problem. And I think internationally we're going to have to be players as we decide how to handle the problem.

REP. SNYDER: I'm out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Mr. Wilson.

REP. JOE WILSON (R-SC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And General Franks, I want to particularly thank you and join with my colleague John Spratt from South Carolina, and this is truly bipartisan that we feel like what you've done, what the troops have done have been a masterful performance --

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, sir.

REP. WILSON: -- and that it reflects so well on our country, and it's so reassuring in the war against terrorism, which is going to be a long-term conflict, but certainly things have turned around so well in Afghanistan and also in Iraq.

And I particularly am appreciative of what you have done, the troops have done, because as I mentioned to you earlier, I'm completing 30 years of service myself in the Army National Guard this month, but I've very proud that I've got three sons continuing the tradition. My oldest son Alan has just been promoted to captain in the field artillery of Army National Guard, and my third son, Julian, is Army ROTC at Fort Lewis right now being trained. And I'm even proud of my Navy son, who is an ensign in the Navy, third year in medical school.

GEN. FRANKS: I'm proud of him too, sir. (Laughter.)

REP. WILSON: And so -- and I have a fourth one that I'm going to get into it some way. But I share the concerns of Congressman Ortiz and Congressman Reyes and that is that service families are under stress now, and they've been supportive, and it's just wonderful. And you've addressed a lot of concerns today about quality of life, the mail, the food, the prospects of housing. Additionally, though, about additional security for our troops, the Washington Post yesterday indicated that the attack level is increasing. What is the additional security that you see being provided that could be reassuring to families?

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, as I mentioned, there are two pieces of it. One is we want leadership at ever level to ensure that no complacency forms. We want to be sure that where we have enclaves of our troops that sufficient standoff is built from that, that we -- that we are outside the wire, so to speak. We want to be sure that our people -- that our people are properly armed. And actually, even though in a combat zone, we want to be sure that we maintain training of people because of alert levels, avoid complacency, achieve standoff and awareness, and at the same time, sir, we do that, what we want to do beyond that is we want to continue offensive operations so that in every occasions where we have a contact -- a contact with the enemy, and these are small groups, one, two, three people -- that we maintain contact until that small group is killed or captured. Our people, sir, are doing a very good job of that because it's a metric that we watch.

And so they must never get complacent. There will be no -- there will be no silver bullet that will solve the security issue for us. We have to remember that we are at war, and we have to continue to be offensive in spirit.

REP. WILSON: And on the level of violence, this morning, Congressman John Kline arranged for many of us to hear General Mike Hagee the commandant of the Marine Corps, and he gave them an extraordinary report of the comparison of violence in comparable American cities to the level of violence in terms of population of cities in Iraq. And it was very revealing that there is a level of violence --

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir.

REP. WILSON: -- but that actually in the American cities it may even be higher. And that's not necessarily totally reassuring -- (laughter) -- but this message needs to get out, that our people are in harm's way, but that they could be in harm's way other places too.

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, that is true.

REP. WILSON: And so I hope this -- the positive side comes out, as you've stated. And in particular I think the way the oilfields have been preserved is just amazing. And so any comment on the level of violence?

GEN. FRANKS: Yes sir. You know, the regime of Saddam Hussein actually used looting as a tool for years in order to punish certain segments of the Iraqi society. And so one of the difficulties that we see, as part of the lawlessness that we see, is a continuation of a pattern that has been in existence in Iraq for more than 30 years. They simply -- they punish people by looting things.

It's -- there are so many miles of oil infrastructure in Iraq, just to use one example -- the same with power lines, the same with water aqueducting. But there are so many miles of this that those who would punish either coalition forces or punish the Iraqi people, will seek to shoot holes in infrastructure and create problems. And so once again, the way we avoid -- or the way -- the way we have to handle that problem is we have to go after the people who do it at the same time that we secure, for example, in the case of oil infrastructure, there are 20 to 25 key sites and we -- and we have to provide security for those sites.

Now, what we want to do is we want to put an Iraqi face on this site security as quickly as we can for two reasons. One is because we'd like to get our forces relieved of some of that responsibility, but secondly, we would like to take some of this large number of Iraqi -- previous Iraqi military who were not Ba'athists -- they may have been private soldiers, or sergeants, or whatever, and bring them on board to put an Iraqi face and get them hired off of the street to be able to provide for some of their own security. And Jerry Bremer is working that very hard now as well.

Sorry for the long, answer, sir.

REP. WILSON: No, no. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Ms. Sanchez.

REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chair -- thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, General Franks, for being before us. I too would like to say what a great job our troops have been doing, and we're really glad to have you there leading them.

I want to talk a little bit about -- I have a lot of questions, I'll submit them for the record, I have two I hope to get to. The first one has to do with guerrilla warfare. And I think, you know, terms are important. They're very important because it shapes the understanding of the facts on the ground, and they shape the understanding of, for soldiers who are under fire, for commanders, for staffs all the way from the Pentagon to Baghdad, for congress people, for presidents, for citizens and for Iraqis. All of these people will find it harder to understand what is happening on the ground if the terms are being manipulated by the secretary of defense. If our understanding is skewed, our policy response will be less effective. And secondly, term manipulation erodes trust. This administration is already suspected of manipulating intelligence to trump up a case for war. And now the long-term success and the popularity of this war is at risk, and so they're busy manipulating public perception of the situation in Iraq in order to sustain public commitment. But the public senses a vague dissonance between the spin and the daily reality of death on the ground.

So, I want to ask you, after reading about Lieutenant General Sanchez -- who, by the way, is no relation, but if you want to give him a fourth star, I'd be very happy about that -- commander of the ground forces in Iraq.

GEN. FRANKS: He may well deserve one. He's quite a guy.

REP. SANCHEZ: He is. He recently noted that there have been an average of 13 attacks per day on U.S. forces in Iraq since 1 May, totaling more than 600 attacks, and that these have resulted in 32 combat deaths and numerous wounded soldiers just as of yesterday. General Sanchez also observed that these enemy operations are increasing in frequency, in sophistication, and in coordination, and that these attacks appear to be carried out by trained soldiers using the unconventional and covert methods typical of guerrilla warfare, as defined by the U.S. and NATO in the Joint Operational Terms and Graphics Manual, which I'm sure you're well aware of. Sounds like guerrilla warfare to me.

And yet Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers and others continue to stay away from that word. I'm thinking of, for example, the accurate mortar attack that we saw this past week. That would fall under trained, sophistication, army, et cetera.

Now, the Army has a long history of good men who tell us the truth. I'm thinking of General Shinseki, for example, who I think history will treat very well when we get through all of this.

GEN. FRANKS: He's a good friend. He's a good man.

REP. SANCHEZ: You are well-known and rightly praised as being a plainspoken soldier's general. Would you call this a guerrilla war? And, if so, why are we playing word games when our troops are facing a determined and trained enemy every day on the ground in Iraq? And shouldn't we be more forthright with the American people about the nature and the scope of the threat to our troops who are fighting on our behalf? That would be the first question.

GEN. FRANKS: Thank you, ma'am. I think, actually, I think General Rick Sanchez described very clearly what we see and what he, as the ground commander, sees. And actually, I think people should call it whatever they want to call it. And I suspect Secretary Rumsfeld would probably say the same thing.

I mean, if people want to refer to what we see as guerrilla effort, then that's okay. I personally would not refer to it that way for one very simple reason. It has two parts. One, guerrilla and insurgency operations are supported by the people. And I've demonstrated to my own satisfaction that the people of Iraq do not support the violence that we're seeing right now. So that's one reason I wouldn't do it, but it's okay for someone else to do it.

The second reason is that while we see increasing sophistication and we see the use of mortars and so forth, what I have not yet seen is the networking of these capabilities in a way that creates -- in a way where these assets are commanded and controlled, if you will. That does not mean that it does not bother me if someone refers to this as guerrilla or insurgency or whatever. We've seen such things all over the world. It's just -- I mean, it doesn't fit my own personal definition, if that helps.

REP. SANCHEZ: Well, I would just say to you, General, that we see guerrilla warfare in Colombia. And I'm sure that if you ask the general population of Colombia, they would not say that they are backing that type of guerrilla warfare.

And to your second statement, we also have historical precedents as to guerrilla warfare happening that isn't necessarily nationally networked. So, you know, we can go back and look at Nicaragua, other places in Central America, where we have used that term. I'm just referring to the fact that the secretary of Defense has somehow alluded to the fact that these might be -- that these are criminals who were let out by Saddam the day before the war started.

And I think we need to start getting serious in this committee and serious in this Congress, serious in this country, in understanding what we are facing. And as these attacks are more coordinated and more sophisticated -- and shooting an accurate mortar is not something that a criminal who's been seven years sentenced by Saddam, let out of prison the day before, would be able to do.

So, you know, I'm not questioning what you said. I'm just saying that we have certainly many instances of guerrilla warfare, and it's about time this country called what is happening in Iraq what is happening correctly. It's guerrilla warfare, in my opinion, and we need to address it, because you use different resources and different methods to handle that type of warfare.

GEN. FRANKS: Well, ma'am, if I could offer, I would say, if there is utility in terms of either force protection or offensive operations in defining this as guerrilla, then it's worth discussing. If there are other motivations, then perhaps it isn't worth discussing. And in my personal view, we will find a combination of criminals, a combination of jihadists, a combination of Ba'ath remnants. And none of us yet see any sense of coordinated activity between those groups that Rick Sanchez is facing on the battlefield every day.

REP. SANCHEZ: I think we do need to have this discussion. I would love to be in that discussion group, because, as I said, I think we have a whole different set of problems on our hands than publicly we are acknowledging. And I see that my time is up, unfortunately. I had another good question, though, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General.

GEN. FRANKS: Sure.

REP. HUNTER: If the gentlelady has a follow-up on that question, go ahead, if you didn't get all your questions in.

REP. SANCHEZ: (Off mike.)

REP. HUNTER: Sure, sure. If you make a quick one --

REP. SANCHEZ: You love me today. I love it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Okay. My second one -- (laughs) -- General, has to deal with -- I did not vote to go to war, because I believed that this whole issue with Iraq would really give us two things, a short-term operational success, which you have proven me correct on that; but the second problem I had was the long-term strategic disaster of doing what we did in Iraq. And unfortunately, I'm seeing my worst fears beginning to happen.

You know, the policy questions for a Congress person, I believe, with respect to this whole issue of Iraq, should always have been and continues to be, "Does this war materially enhance our security, United States security, at an acceptable cost?"

As a combatant commander and a frontline leader in the global war on terror, you have been in a select group of strategic leaders in our response to the events of 9/11. Let me ask you to offer your thoughts on one of the broader questions of the national priorities in the future war on terror and on our strategic goal of securing America from terrorist attack. I ask this because I sit not only on this committee but also on Homeland Security.

Yesterday Mr. Rumsfeld testified that the cost of the military operation in Iraq is currently $3.9 billion a month and the cost for Afghanistan is nearly $1 billion monthly. My concern is that the war in Iraq has cost us and is costing us a disproportionate share of resources as we continue to fight the global war on terror and we seek to protect our homeland.

REP. HUNTER: Does the gentlelady have a question?

REP. SANCHEZ: Yes, it's coming.

REP. HUNTER: Okay.

REP. SANCHEZ: For example, the current federal budget allocation for first responders provides only $5.5 billion annually, or less than half a billion dollars per month. The ratio, I believe, from $5 billion a month for Iraq and Afghanistan versus half a billion here on the homeland is out of whack. A recent Council of Foreign Relations study -- Warren Rudman, General Vessey, Admiral Paul, all these others -- concluded that our responders here are drastically underfunded and dangerously unprepared.

What could you tell us about bringing down the cost of what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is there any way? And can you talk specifically if we can get international troops to help us with that?

GEN. FRANKS: Yes, ma'am.

REP. SANCHEZ: Because I don't believe that we can sustain for a long time our needs on homeland, which are underfunded, and the amount of monies that we're seeing being spent overseas on defense.

REP. HUNTER: Did you get that question, General?

GEN. FRANKS: I did, sir.

REP. HUNTER: Okay.

GEN. FRANKS: Sir, and ma'am, I would say, with 19 nations currently committed, 19 more prepared to be committed by the end of summer, and ongoing negotiations with 11 more, we're moving in the direction of internationalizing the force. Whether that gives us a bit of fiscal relief or not, I'm not sure, because in some cases, where we deploy international forces, we also provide some support, financial support, to those forces.

And so the specific dollar issue is difficult for me, ma'am, to talk to you about in terms of the overall cost of $3.9 billion a month in Iraq. And I think it was $900 million per month in Afghanistan.

But I'll offer a personal view, just because you've given me license to do it, and that is that in the case of the global war on terrorism, my personal view is that offense is the best defense. I believe that Fortress America will not be, in and of itself, sufficient to protect the American people.

REP. HUNTER: I thank the gentlelady.

REP. SANCHEZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: Mr. Hayes.

REP. ROBIN HAYES (R-NC): General Franks, let me add my thanks to those of others here. My question is going to be to you about if and when you think the U.N. will enter into this picture. The U.N. chose to take themselves out of the picture early on, which was regrettable.

To frame the question, I had a humanitarian observer who was in Iraq from the very beginning and just left a week ago. I think the public and the record should show that this NGO person said that what the military did in terms of avoiding civilian targets, avoiding civilian casualties, was incredible. This person was extremely complimentary of the precision with which the military carried this out. People need to know that.

Having said that, a point that this person made was that a major U.N. pre