DUNCAN HUNTER,
A Representitive from California, and
Chairman, House Armed Services Commitee

HUNTER: This morning the committee continues its examination of Operation Iraqi Freedom by focusing on an issue of great interest to the committee and the American public in general: the training of Iraqi security forces.

In less than two weeks, Iraqi people will assume responsibility for their government. While they no longer suffer from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, there is yet much work to be done to achieve democracy and prosperity. Securing Iraq is the first step on this path.

Today Iraq has over 225,000 security forces personnel on duty and in training, just some 35,000 short of its requirement. This number includes Iraqi police, border enforcers, a Civil Defense Corps, the Facilities Protection Services and a small armed forces.

So far the results are positive. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, for example, is conducting joint patrols in

Iraq with other coalition forces and Iraqi police forces. Soon the ICDC will be equipped with additional vehicles, body armor, uniforms, radios, weapons, ammunition, night vision and binoculars.

Through this on-the-job training and equipment upgrades, Iraqis will be able to assume more and more security responsibilities on the ground.

Tangible results may already be in the making. For instance, the Department of Defense tells us that Fallujah has remained quiet with no violations of the cease-fire since May 3rd and that confrontations with Al Sadr's militia have decline recently.

To get greater detail about the training of Iraq's security forces, our witnesses this morning are from Iraq, via videoteleconference, Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, commander, Office of Security Transition; and before us, Brigadier General Kevin J. Bergner, deputy director for Politico Military Affairs in the Middle East from the Joint Staff.

Now, due to technical limitations, we only have the videoteleconference link for one hour and we're going to try to make the best of that.

Welcome to the committee, gentlemen. We look forward to your testimony. We appreciate your appearance of virtual and real before the committee this morning.

Before we fire up here, General Petraeus, let me ask my partner, the committee's ranking Democrat, Mr. Skelton, for any remarks he'd like to make.

IKE SKELTON,
A Representitive from Missouri, and
Ranking Member, House Armed Services Commitee

Tell us how it's going over there.

PETRAEUS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Skelton. It really is a pleasure to be with you. I'm glad that the powers that be let this go ahead.

Sir, overall the roller coaster that is Iraq is descending, although there clearly are bumps in the tracks on a daily basis as the daily sensationalist act seems to take place.

I've been back here about two weeks now. Took over the day after I got back. And the security transition piece in Iraq, with the ministry of defense, the ministry of interior (inaudible) the army and the police and all the other elements that you mentioned, the hugely complex task -- there's no easy solution -- but the investments that have been made and the enormous investment, the efforts that have been put in are now starting to pay dividends, and I believe that they will do so over the coming year.

Just today, in fact, I was down at the Kirkush military training base northeast of Baghdad, and at the Taji base north of Baghdad -- great activities out there. Some 400 new NCOs were graduated today at the military training base over in Jordan today. Some 800 officers graduated from the Jordanian air force's military academy, and that provides us the remaining officers out of that academy, for example, for the rest of the army divisions.

In general, sir, I think you could say that the investments and the efforts over the past year, particularly in recent months, are about to reach a critical mass where I'm very hopeful that there will be a chain reaction where we will see the acceleration and the development of Iraqi security forces that we've all been looking forward to.

As I mentioned, the training bases have now been well- established, the infrastructure is generally built. And we'll be working very hard over coming months to start setting up the forces that are to be deployed for success. The initial of those will be the initial battalion of the Iraqi National Task Force, a division within the army that is established, trained and equipped for urban counterinsurgency operations.

Prime Minister Allawi and the minister of defense, in one of their early decisions in the security arena, directed the deployment of that element to southeast Baghdad at the end of this month when it completes its training.

There are also, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, numerous ICDC units, police units, border police and others who are doing a good job. But as you also noted, there are number of areas where we've got to improve. We clearly took a lot of lessons after the experiences in early April when there were some forces that refused to fight and others that did not do well, in the north, in Basra and Illa (ph) and other places. They did indeed equip themselves quite well.

Sir, this is all playing out in an environment that is producing a degree of guarded optimism fostered by the interim Iraqi government leaders who are very much demonstrating leadership already. I heard guidance from Prime Minister Allawi yesterday. In fact, we have to go back to him tomorrow with a coalition-Iraqi recommendation to him on how to incorporate these ICDC battalions, these 45 battalions that have been organized, equipped and trained by the divisions of the coalition forces, how to connect them to the emerging Iraqi national command authority in the form of the ministry of defense and the joint headquarters.

I might add that the commander of the army was with me today when we visited those two bases, as one of the four-star senior advisers to the minister of defense, who happens to be a former Peshmerga commander from the north. We knew him there. The commander of the armed forces is a former military officer assuming -- who never joined the Baath Party.

The minister of defense and the minister of interior have been in their jobs about two days longer than I have. They are growing into their jobs, getting a handle on the complexities, their respective positions.

They are already making decisions, as I mentioned, the minister of defense's decision with the prime minister to commit the initial elements of the Iraq National Task Force to southeast Baghdad. In addition to that, they are also directing the employment of Iraqi Civil Defense Corps units in Baghdad to help the 1st Cav Division secure the road to the airport.

They are courageous individuals, sir. In many cases, their safety is in jeopardy. But they are not flinching even as there are nearly daily attacks against their peers by those who don't want the new Iraq to succeed.

As I mentioned to you on the phone the other day, Mr. Chairman, we have a plan to obligate approximately $3 billion of the development fund, Iraq money, that's about a billion dollars, and then of the $2.5 billion or so additional that was in the supplemental.

So in other words, we will commit the billion of DFI and about two of the $2.5 billion of the supplemental Iraqi reconstruction funds by the end of June. A lot of this has already been obligated; virtually all the rest has been committed.

The contracting process here now -- which you'll recall when Congressman Skelton visited the north, we were all hoping would get in high gear. It's very much into high gear. In fact, it's in overdrive.

Brigadier General Steve See (ph) of the Army contracting community and a great team have really helped that process, and it is working very, very well.

I do think it's important in these days, sir, even as the daily sensational attack goes off, to keep our eyes on the horizon and to remain, if you will, determined and steadfast. Because, as I mentioned, we are climbing, the roller coaster is descending.

This is a bit like a super-tanker and what we're trying to do is gather momentum. We now have, as I mentioned, the Iraqi interim government that is just tweaking the course, but generally continuing to plan. Although, again, Prime Minister Allawi has some very good ideas about how to connect the ICDC battalions and incorporate them into the army by recreating some headquarter structures and so forth. But we will give them options on that tomorrow. It would be premature to go into too much more on that.

Sir, as I mentioned, I just got back from Taji and Kirkush. Again, 463 Iraqi NCOs that's the fourth class to graduate from the NCO academy there. Again, that's also a terrific piece of infrastructure that's been built over the last year.

We have 843 officers graduating in Jordan today. Those are company-grade officers, lieutenants and captains. And then also field-grade staff officers and also future battalion brigade commanders.

We also have 54 Iraqis just graduate from the dignitary- protection service training that's going on; 50 more in class, 300 more by the end of the summer, will likely grow into the number of 900.

A lot of great things going on out in the major subordinate commands where the ICDC context was changed as a result of the experiences in April at a conference on 4 May when I was back here doing an assessment for General Abizaid.

Regional training academies have been instituted, standardized programs of instruction.

Very close relationships between the coalition forces and the ICDC units. We saw that the other day in all places, Saddam's former hometown, Tikrit, where we watched the PLDC, a primary leader- development class of sergeants, 240 of them, graduate. Again, we had the leadership of the Iraqi armed forces with us.

We do have on the police side the international police trainers and the international police advisers. A number of them on station now, 287 police advisers in Iraq. That will go to 500 this summer.

There are 63 police trainers in Iraq. That will go to over 200.

And there are some 326 police trainers in Jordan from 15 different countries where they are running a police academy that, together with the police academy from Baghdad as they are expanded, by the mid-fall will be producing some 5,000 trained police officers every 10 weeks.

PETRAEUS: Sir, to give you a quick snapshot on the military side: The Iraq National Task Force, as I mentioned the initial battalion of that will be ready by the end of the June. It will deploy into Baghdad.

The first brigade, all three battalions, will be ready by the end of July.

The commander of the army and I met with the leadership of these organizations today. They've been in training in for months.

We also met with the adviser support teams that are with them, coalition members. They (inaudible) that they will be ready. We'll obviously do all that we can to set them up for success in terms of training, preparation, equipping and so forth.

We're literally hardening their vehicles, just as we harden coalition vehicles, putting on machine-gun mounts in the back and so forth and so on. And we will in fact do a crawl-walk-run approach with them when they enter their area of responsibility in the 1st Cav area at the direction of the prime minister.

Iraq armed forces, there will be two divisions, six brigades, 18 battalions. We'll see the first battalion of that by July. All the rest of the 18 will be done by about February of next year. We split the final two to make way for a new initiative by the minister of interior which we think is very important and that's creating a high- end element in the police force called the Civil Intervention Force, and I'll talk a bit about that in a moment.

Sir, there's also a small Iraqi special operations force that is already operating now with our Special Forces. We're going to add to that a ranger-like or commando-like battalion perhaps built on the 36 ICDC battalions, which you will recall did in fact fight in Fallujah where it lost two of its soldiers and had 16 wounded, including its deputy commander.

Back on the ICDC, sir, it's our expectation that the 45 battalions that are in the field right now, organized -- some going through initial training; a number of others already operating at full strength and very effectively, as you mentioned -- (inaudible) and the 101st, as Congressman Skelton saw when he was up there, they took over from us, for example, the security of the five ammo dumps. The border police up there had already taken over the security of the border in that particular area, which was bermed up as well, and that's something we need to do for the whole country.

We believe the ICDC may expand somewhat, may go as high as 51 battalions. That's with the major subordinate commands would like, and I think that that will be the direction we'll head it.

And as I mentioned, Prime Minister Allawi coordinated U.S.-Iraqi positions on how to link these battalions that have been built at the bottom to the structure that is being built at the top so that as it comes down, there is in fact a command-and-control linkage that is effective and under Iraqis.

Sir, switching to the police, as you mentioned a large number of them on duty, and the truth is, there's too many of them on duty. They're authorized at about 90,000; they've got 120,000 on the payroll. Obviously need to trim that. And we're going to in fact do that.

Prime Minister Allawi supports the use of Development Fund Iraq money for that from $60 million most likely as a seven-phase concept, and also probably going a bit farther than that to create the headroom for the additional police officers that are coming out of the academies now.

The Civil Intervention Force I mentioned a second ago, sir, high- end police, going to form two battalions of public order, a carabinieri- or gendarmerie-type force, and three battalions of riot control growing to nine over time.

We're going to actually use military bases to train these because we have the infrastructure there now. We have a number of large military bases that are either completed or nearing completion throughout the country that provides us a degree of flexibility in the training arena, and that will help in that regard.

Border police is an area of concern. There are 18,000 in the directorate of border enforcement now, not all border police. We're taking a very hard look at this function the same way that we did at the ICDC. We need to really look hard at the strategy, do some simple things like berming up the border and then do some more complicated things like getting technology and maybe official border crossings so that we can X-ray vehicles that come in, smell gunpowder that's on there and identify it, identify fraudulent documents, having watch lists and so forth, and have (inaudible) activity between the border- crossing locations and the provinces and then Baghdad.

The Facility Protection Security Forces, another very large organization, sir. There's some 70,000 of them. They do not include the oil-infrastructure police or the electrical police. But we did learn some lessons there in early April.

We need to keep province-level brigade commanders with a small headquarters training base. And they essentially need to act as if they're the corporate headquarters for these ministry activities to essentially hire these guards from them. And although the ministries pay their salaries, we need these brigade commanders to just be constantly going around their location all day, every day, essentially spin in place, as we call it, ensuring standards are enforced, ensuring there's adequate force protection and so forth.

Sir, we're also working hard in terms of merely just building Iraqi security institutions. A lot of what I've talked about has been done at the bottom -- been done by either of the major subordinate commands of the coalition force or by coalition trainers -- are now increasingly by Iraqi. And what we've got to do now is to sift off some of the establishment of the institutions that will control these forces.

The ministry of defense is now in its headquarters. It was refurbished. It's right near the inside of the edge of the green zone. There is a joint headquarters that is forming. As I mentioned, there is a commander of that force. The staff is getting in place. They're building operation centers and so forth.

We're also going to assist, along with a number of civilian members of the organization here, in the process of their developing a national security strategy, a joint U.S.-U.K. coalition effort. That will also help as they come to grips with roles and missions of the various elements of the Iraqi security forces, and of considerable importance, determine how the coordinating mechanisms and change of command of the relative forces should be established and should function.

Sir, the equipment is flowing. It's not flowing fast enough yet, but it is starting to come in. We are all ready, for example, able -- in the case of Najaf last week when it was clear that we needed to shore them up somewhat, although they actually are -- we see that as a successful endeavor right now. We sent them in one night alone 591 flack vests, 41 vehicles, 24,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,900 batons, 545 holsters, hundreds of uniforms. And then the 1st Armored Division added heavy machine guns and RPGs.

We are working very hard to ensure that the security forces do have the equipment they need and that they're not out-gunned by the bad guys.

Sir, we're also working hard, frankly, to identify emerging requirements. There are some of these coming along. The militia integration announcement the other day identified some areas that we may well need some additional resources.

The divisional brigade headquarters for the ICDC are something that were not in the original plan.

I mentioned the director of border enforcement and border issues that we'll need to take a very hard look at. There are probably some additional infrastructure issues that are going to come out of this desire by Prime Minister Allawi and the minister of defense to be able to move their forces around.

Right now, this is the force -- all of these forces, you'd love, frankly, your committee, because you've never seen an army or a police force with a higher tooth-to-tail ratio. These are all folks with rifles and bayonets in their hands, for the most part. It's only now that we're building the headquarters, the support structures and the so-called combat multipliers. And as we do that, as that process carries on, we are indeed identifying some additional requirements.

We're also working hard with the Iraqis to determine their ability to fund their own budget beyond salaries. That's an effort between the two ministries to which we give the most attention and the ministry of defense. Right now it looks like half of their money alone is going to go to salaries, so we'll have to see what they're able to do in terms of capital investment as we go along.

So let me just sum up by saying that, again, this is an enormously complex endeavor. It's a supertanker, not a speedboat. We think that it is about to get a course charting that the new government buys into and in fact has had considerable input on.

As I mentioned, Prime Minister Allawi laid out a very clearly articulated and concise statement of his desires in the security-force arena yesterday when he met with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, Mr. Kidwitz (ph) from the U.K., a Polish representative and others.

We are working hard to try to protect Iraq leaders. That's a very, very tall order beyond the immediate principals. There is undoubtedly going to be continued violence and a continuation of sensational attacks. Although paradoxically right now, or at least in recent weeks, the number of attacks on coalition forces has decreased noticeably.

Again, sir, we've got to just keep our eye on the horizon and keep our shoulder to the wheel and keep pushing, because it is a long, hard slog. But again, I think that we're about to see the chain reaction begin that is going to help with the development of Iraqi security forces in the coming months.

Sir, that concludes the opening comments and I now welcome the opportunity to address any questions that you all have.

HUNTER: General Petraeus, thank you for an excellent overview.

Let me just ask one brief question and then move to Mr. Skelton.

The cornerstone of this new Iraqi military is going to be the leadership capabilities of your NCO and your officer corps. You've mentioned the graduations that are taking place, some today and some in the near future, in the academies for both officers and enlisted personnel.

Are you personally satisfied with the quality of the training for the NCOs and for the officers? Could you comment on that?

PETRAEUS: Sir, the answer to your question is yes.

We obviously are not conducting as lengthy and as comprehensive training as we would in the United States. What we are doing is trying to do as much as we can and yet still get security forces to the field as quick as we can.

So there are these two tensions: There's one that's pulling us to accelerate all that we're doing, there's another that says don't rush to failure, and we're trying to find the right approach in there. I think that we have that.

One of the techniques that we use is when we in fact put forces in the field, to employ them in situations where they can get operations under their belt early, develop confidence, experience and competence before they have to go into something that is really high- end.

Were you able to hear that, sir?

HUNTER: Yes, thank you very much.

Mr. Skelton?

SKELTON: Mr. Chairman, let me pass at this moment and I will come back at a later time and ask my questions.

HUNTER: The gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder?

SNYDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, General Petraeus for being with us this morning.

SNYDER: I was struck by the poll results that came out a few days ago and the question that was asked to Iraqis was, "Do you think it is likely that the Iraqi police and army will maintain security without the presence of coalition forces?" The answer on this poll was that 62 percent said very likely and 29 percent said somewhat likely.

And so if my math is right, about 87 percent of the Iraqi people believe that the Iraqi police and army will be able to maintain security without the presence of coalition forces, which seems like a great opportunity, as you're describing it. I was struck by what you just said in response to the chairman's question, that you want to be very carefully about, in your words, a rush to failure because this opportunity could go -- I mean, public opinion, when it comes to security, can change pretty rapidly.

Do you have any comments on this kind of opportunity? I know you were reported the other day as saying, "It's not important that Iraqis love America; it's important that they love the new Iraq."

PETRAEUS: Sir, that is right, in fact.

Iraqis do have an enormous national feeling, pride, in their army, the institution of the army as it existed, which they see as having saved them during the Iran-Iraq war, which suffered terrible casualties at a variety of times during that particular war.

The police, again, a source of pride for the Iraqi people.

And there certainly is a sense of national pride that, frankly, surprised all of us when we came in here back in the very beginning. As you'll recall, when I was up in the north, for example, I was surprised how proud they were of their country despite the fact that it had endured 35 years of Saddam Hussein, and in a sense they had put up with this.

They also do believe that they ought to be the Middle Eastern version of Japan. They're keenly aware of the incredible resources they have not only in oil but also in water, in sulfur and even, frankly, in human capital.

So there is an optimism to Iraq, although there's also a tremendous impatience in their culture that is also at play.

I do think, Dr. Snyder, that it is an opportunity that's one that we have to make the most of. And, again, we have to balance these conflicting desires between getting out there right away -- the enormous enthusiasm for doing something right now, like the capability to do additional some things is a bit limited.

And so what we've got to do, again, is do what we can with those forces that we have; employ the additional forces as they come on line; strengthen those that are out there, as we did, for example, with the Najaf police the other night; keep the police advisers; keep the very close links with the coalition; but also, frankly, sir, increasingly deferring to the Iraqis, because they are actually taking charge. Make no mistake about it.

The other thing is, sir, you know, it's not -- I never thought it would be a light switch; it certainly is not.

You know, again, in various places in the country we transitioned various security tasks long ago. The fact that the 101st Airborne Division was replaced by a force less than one-third its size just meant that Iraqi security forces had to pick up the slack, and some 20,000 of them up there that were trained by our forces indeed did just that.

So we're aware of this public support for them, sir, this optimism about what Iraqis can do. And, again, what we need to do is play on it, build on it, but set Iraqis up for success as much as we can. And we think that the increasing flow of equipment that is starting to come in now is going to help us do just that.

SNYDER: General, I wanted to ask two specific questions and one of them is with regard to equipment. This committee has been frustrated over the last year with hearing from constituents that have troops overseas and their difficulty in both active and reserve components getting the equipment they need.

It's a bit discouraging to hear that you're still having problems at this stage with getting the kinds of equipment that you need for putting these Iraqi troops and police in the field.

My specific question is: What went wrong? Why are you still -- I suspect this must be frustrating to you, that you're still dealing with this flow of equipment at this stage. My specific question is: What went wrong? And is there anything the Congress needs to do to help you correct it?

My second question is: One of my Arkansas constituents, Lieutenant General Crocker I think is involved in training as a contractor. What role are contractors playing in this training? And how are you maintaining accountability over their work product and the amount of money that's going into contractors? He's a great man.

Thank you, General.

PETRAEUS: Let me start off with the great George Crocker, because I was a brigade commander for him in the 82nd Airborne Division when he was All-American Six (ph), the commander of that great organization. In fact, I was just out at the base where he is, or was, because he is about to leave. And again, that's the sign of the time.

Vinnell Corporation, which he headed the element out here, did a tremendous amount, set up the Kirkush military training base to establish the infrastructure, the facility, literally the training ranges, the courses, the programs of instruction, the rights of doctrine and all the rest of that. And they have just handed her off. They are drawing down right now, and I think he leaves in another day or two.

We have contracting officer representatives and the usual oversight mechanisms for them, sir. By all accounts they did a great job out there and under pretty austere circumstances early on. Last year when they were out there it was a very, very long hot summer for General Crocker and his comrades.

Sir, let me go back to the equipment. We were all frustrated about that. Of course, we were sitting up in the north. Thank you for providing the CERP funds that you did, when you did, because those are the critical bridge to us -- remember, the Commanders Emergency Reconstruction Program money that allows commanders to fund things on the spot. There was oversight for that, there were good mechanisms and double checks. But that helped enormously.

And that's how we in fact did equip the Iraqi security forces early on and still in large measure in the case of the ICDC and to a lesser degree the police.

I honestly don't know what went wrong, Congressman, other than that the capacity of the contracting operation here certainly was not what it needed to be.

As I mentioned during the opening statement, though, that is absolutely in high gear right now. And, again, the secretary of the Army deserves a great deal of credit for essentially volunteering to take that mission on. He took an existing organization, the Army Contracting Agency, essentially threw it at the mission, and (inaudible) professional Brigadier General Steve See (ph) is working around the clock with his team, and they are obligating money at an incredible rate right now.

As I mentioned, really in just the last several months, by the end of June, we will have obligated nearly $3 billion for Iraq security force training, equipment and infrastructure.

I think that probably answers that, sir.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Hefley?

HEFLEY: Thank you very much.

And thank you, General, for being with us.

The training, the equipment all of course is very crucial and very important to secure our Iraqi security forces. But it appears to me that maybe even a bigger problem is the cultural change that you must bring about. The police and maybe to a lesser extent the army, I would think, have their instruments of suppression, instruments of Saddam Hussein's control of the country.

Do you find this in the officer corps and in the noncommissioned officers and those that you're training in leadership positions that they still have some of that old negative culture? Or are you able to teach them that they need to have the proper attitudes towards their role and towards the people, that their job is not to suppress, that they're servants of those people and that their job is to keep them safe and secure?

Can you speak to that at all?

PETRAEUS: I can.

I have to say, you know, when we came in, when we were up in the north and we tried to stand the police back up, it was a real revelation the day that we realized that these individuals were not, in the past, conducting Western policing, if you will, that they played a very minor role. The heavy lifting was done by thugs -- the Baath militia, the Fedayeen, the secret police and so forth -- and that there was a tremendous amount of corruption in the system because the pay was minuscule and they augmented it in a variety of different ways.

Based on that recognition, sir, I think that, to be honest, some of this is going to take generational change, although the idea by Prime Minister Allawi to thank a number of the police that are serving now, particularly at the upper ranks, for their service, to give them a severance arrangement and offer them the opportunity to return home will help in that regard while retaining some of those who are (inaudible) as good leaders that are needed for this force.

There are leaders like that out there. It took us three tries, but we got one up in the north, Police Chief Mohammed Barhari (ph). I think he's now survived about eight assassination attempts. In one of those, he took three rounds through the leg, lost two of his bodyguards and his aide was wounded. I personally presented the Nineveh purple heart to him. He was the first man in the province to receive it.

Since then we returned there a couple of times for memorial services at which the real martyrs of Iraq -- and those are the security forces who are dying for the country, not the people blowing themselves up -- the real martyrs were honored.

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but in our area up in the north I can tell you that the final few months that we were up there prior to mid-February that the police and Iraqi security forces were taking more casualties than we were. They were out front, they were getting shot at, they were shooting back.

Nonetheless, there is a culture, as you noticed, Congressman, that has to be changed. That's why we're putting so much emphasis on the academies, on finding the good leadership. It is not easy. And it's something, again, that we've just got to keep our nose to the grindstone on and continue to pursue.

The police advisers do help a great deal, especially now that the security environment generally allows them to get to the stations, which was not the case in a number of places in the country in the early April to probably early May time frame.

HEFLEY: Thank you very much.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor?

TAYLOR: Good morning, General, thank you very much for your valuable time and what you do for our country.

I have been concerned for some time about the enemy's use of improvised explosive devices and unfortunately their success at using those devices. Again, I'm sitting here in Washington, D.C., so my information is pretty well limited to what I read in the press.

But I was wondering: How are we doing on our efforts to implement more electronic jammers and countermeasures to take away some of the successes our enemies have had with that?

PETRAEUS: Sir, there's a huge effort ongoing in that regard. And by the way, it's great to see you again, sir, as well as appreciate your visit to our soldiers before.

Sir, in fact our soldiers and the coalition forces, through a combination of better force protection at base camps, through better use of technology, although there's a still a way to go in that regard -- certainly the enemy has a vote in this as well, so as we get jammers he goes back to just using good old wires or something else like that, or now increasingly, as you have seen, is just flat blowing himself up.

But through force protection, also training, our soldiers are finding a good number of the IEDs, and also, frankly, they're still getting intelligence from the population, and that varies by place to place, but is a very good indicator of the number of locations.

The challenge right now, sir, is the suicide bombers who are literally just blowing themselves up on the streets. As you may heard, there was an explosion today outside the Baghdad recruiting station for the army. It's a place that was hit some months back, as you may recall, with horrific results, blowing up dozens, I think close to 100 recruits. It was one of the worst bombing episodes during the time that we've been here.

Huge force protection measures were instituted since then. And in fact today I believe, although I don't have all the details yet, I believe that there were none of the recruits actually there, unless they were folks just trying to still get in. We take a hundred a day there, and there are some turned away. I think sadly that it hit just as a bus was passing, or something, but that there were between 30 and 40 Iraqis killed in that particular episode.

That is a very, very challenging -- again, the action to prevent, it involves, as you well know, starting by getting control of the borders, which is why I mentioned earlier the urgent need to have a better border strategy that's much more comprehensive (inaudible) individuals on that last night.

PETRAEUS: And then working the rat lines, if you will -- the lines by which these suicide bombers are able to come into the country, to bring explosives into the country, money and sometimes expertise -- to find the safe houses, of course that's very heavily intelligence-driven, intelligence-based, and then to get them, to disrupt them as quickly as we can before they can carry out such attacks.

There's been varying levels of success with that. You may recall at various times that the operations in Mosul one time we did 35 sites simultaneously at 2 o'clock in the morning with only one shot fired.

But that depends, again, on building these intelligence networks. It dies down after something like that. But gradually then they will build it back. Because there are some extraordinarily determined enemies who do not want the new Iraq to succeed.

You know, it's not just about the coalition failing, sir. It's about the new Iraq not succeeding. The former regime elements obviously don't want the new Iraq to succeed or they're finished forever. The extremists don't want the new Iraq as it's currently conceived to succeed because they have a different conception of what the country should be. And then the elements that's always been there, the criminals who were let out of jail by Saddam, murderers, already showed a willingness to use weapons and to kill people and have some expertise at it, they were remain willing guns for hire because they, frankly, need the money and don't have jobs.

So it's a very volatile combination and it's going to take a comprehensive strategy to reduce it, disrupt it and eventually eliminate it.

TAYLOR: General, in yesterday's paper there were reports that the interim Iraqi government is asking to re-occupy the green zone, that they would like that to govern from.

My first reaction is, that's probably a good idea, but I would like to hear your thoughts on that. I realize it's going to create some logistical problems. But, again, if the purpose of all of this is to hand the government back to the Iraqis, I think that might be a great symbolic move.

But I would like to hear your thoughts on what kind of problems that might present.

PETRAEUS: Sir, I assume you're asking my professional opinion, because, again, this is not really an area that I'm in, in truth...

TAYLOR: I'm asking your professional opinion.

PETRAEUS: ... but I will tell you that I fully recognize -- you know, I haven't been here now...

(CROSSTALK)

PETRAEUS: ... but having been here well over a year, the psychological impact of us staying in these palaces -- and I can tell you that they are efforts ongoing in a variety of places in the country to indeed build base camps away from those locations.

The challenge is, though, that for some of the really big headquarters and the really big organizations like the U.S. Embassy to be in some other outfit. To achieve the standoff that you want so that you're just not getting RPGs on a regular basis, or mortar on a regularly basis, or very accurate rocket fire, these complexes that are the palaces are extraordinarily useful.

So I think everybody has taken a very hard look that. I know General Sanchez mentioned it to the staff yesterday morning because they heard -- they did in fact hear President Sheikh Ghazi raise that, others have raised it as well. And clearly, over time we're going to figure out how we can relocate to some place that can still provide the force protection and the standoff that has taken really months to achieve here.

TAYLOR: Thank you, General. Thank you for what you're doing.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Saxton.

SAXTON: General, good to see you. It's been six months or so since we had the opportunity to spend time together in Mosul. I just would like to point out, I see a new set of stars on your collar since I last saw you, so congratulations.

PETRAEUS: Thank you very much. You met the folks up there that are responsible...

(CROSSTALK)

SAXTON: Yes, sir.

General, we're doing something that we've not done before, and that is to stand up a new government in a Middle Eastern country where the culture is so different, and it's proving to be a difficult task. So for the successes that we've had, we should make note of them and congratulate ourselves, yourselves, for the successes we've had.

The American people and members of Congress are now contemplating how U.S. forces will -- how coalition forces, I should say, will hand off the job of providing security to the forces that you're now standing up.

Can you give us a look into your crystal ball and tell us how you see this process going, how will the American and coalition forces move out perhaps their current positions and move the Iraqi forces in? How long will this take and what will the process look like?

PETRAEUS: Congressman, it's good to see you again as well, and thank you, as well, for visiting our soldiers last year.

Sir, I think actually we have seen the process. I mean, the process has been ongoing in the country and what we will do is to continue that process. Again, it's not like -- which is probably more of a rheostat or a sliding bar.

But there has been transfer of security responsibilities for a variety of tasks in the country. Again, I point to Nineveh Province, which, again, not just Kurds; it was in fact Sunni majority with a Kurdish minority and really right on the ethnic fault lines.

But as you recall up there, you told the Iraq Civil Defense Corps soldiers -- we were right, when you visited, in the process of transitioning -- literally we did formal ceremonies, transfer of authority for security of each of the ammo dumps in that area up there. They have now secured those dumps. In fact, the force that replaced us, as I mentioned less than one-third our size, could not have done that without Iraqis doing it.

The border police, several battalions out there also trained. Again, formal transfer of authority ceremony for them to take over responsibility for that border, on either side of the official crossing they will be -- up in the northwest part of Iraq with Syria.

In some other areas, frankly, we transitioned responsibility and it backfired, and that's where we have to learn lessons and do it better next time.

But that's what I see as the process, Congressman, conditions- based process.

There is in fact a time line. We do know where we want to go. We know that we want to have, for example, 29 battalions of the army by the early part of next year. We want to have reduced the number in the police but increase the quality. We're keenly aware that it's quality, not quantity, when it comes to police. And it's people, not technology, though obviously we would like to have as many really good people we can enabled by the best technology we can.

But as conditions are met, as we bring forces on line, we will literally transition authority for certain tasks and certain areas to them. And that really, again, has happened throughout the country in countless cases, and it's going to continue to happen.

The challenge is, in a place like Baghdad, where the security threats remain very substantial and where the impact of these sensational attacks psychologically is very, very important, that we're going to have to continue to focus a big effort here, and that's clearly going to take some time before Iraqi security forces can be truly trained and equipped and enabled and operating successfully to try to deal with that.

There's another element that's related to all of this, Congressman, that I didn't talk about in the opening statement. There are probably two or three other elements actually.

One is the intelligence structure. The Iraqi National Intelligence Service is very much an early work in progress. As I mentioned earlier, the way that we have to get at the suicide bombers and the terrorists is to get at the safe houses, to get at the rat line, to get the individuals who are carrying in the explosives, the suicide bombers and so forth.

It's all intelligence-based, and we have a lot of work to do there. That's being done largely right now by the Multinational Force-Iraqi G-2 section and by other governmental agencies, the CIA. And that's going to take a considerable amount of effort in a country where there's so much distrust and where they've got to build trust in one another if they're going to build a new (inaudible).

Beyond that, sir, there are also other security forces that are outside the ministry of interior and the ministry of defense that are critically important to the country. Among these are those that secure the oil infrastructure, much of which is contracted out actually, and that's the way that has been handed off. Clearly there's going to have be some review of that because in both the north and the south there have been serious attacks in the past week or so.

And then the electrical police security service as well, as with the railway police service, again, is going to need some bolstering, and it may be that we have to get into that arena and assist them substantially too.

SAXTON: General, just one quick follow-up: As you pointed out, the transition started many months ago as we began to stand up Iraqi security forces. So when we get to June 30th, so that nobody's disappointed, this process that has been gradually started at least six months ago and that we're well into, that process we can expect to see continue, but we won't see any real radical change for quite some time -- is that a fair statement?

PETRAEUS: Sir, it is indeed. It's a very, very accurate depiction of the situation that we expect to see in early July and frankly through probably the early fall to mid-fall.

We very much have our eye on the time frame at the end of the year when the first step in the election process will be held. That's a very important event and we do want to have as many capable Iraqi security forces as we can on duty at that time. It may be the next really volatile period, if you will, once we're through the transition process.

And, again, we're pointing toward that very directly.

But you're absolutely right that on 1 July you're not going to see a switch-flip that will transition from coalition to Iraqi security forces throughout the country (inaudible).

SAXTON: Thank you, General, and congratulations on a great job.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Reyes?

REYES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, good to see you again and congratulations as well.

I have just a couple of areas that I wanted to ask questions about.

The first one is, after June 30th, how do you envision the Iraqi Survey Group and their work to be affected by the transition -- that's number one.

Number two, what kind of work is being done on the ground to ensure that in this transition, as the Iraqis assume more responsibility for their security and operations, and the U.S. forces, as we have been told, are more in a back-up mode, what kind of discussions have gone on to settle things like potential conflicts in terms of operational disagreements?

In other words, should there be disagreements between the commander of the Iraqi forces versus the commander of the U.S. forces acting in a back-up mode, what kind of resolution will be in place?

And then another important thing is: We have been paying the civilian community for any damages that have been inadvertently caused as a result of our operations. Are those restitutions going to continue? And is it still going to become our responsibility?

I'll just hear your response. Again, thank you for your service, General. It's good to see you and I hope to see you there in a couple of weeks.

Thanks.

PETRAEUS: Thank you, Congressman Reyes, and good to see you again, sir.

Sir, on the ISG, that's what I honestly just don't know. That one is beyond me. I'm not in that arena right now and I need to defer that one, I'm afraid.

Sir, on the decision-making process, that is an area that in fact is getting a lot of attention right now, as you might imagine. There is a structure that has been created, if you will, at the top level that includes the prime minister, right now Ambassador Bremer, presumably will be the U.S. ambassador, U.K. ambassador and others and the Multinational Force-Iraq commander.

And then there are other structures that are being established, literally that will stretch all the way down to the province level, both for the Iraqis and in a sense to connect activities of coalition forces at each level.

PETRAEUS: The truth is that at the province level, that already functions pretty well. In fact, in some places those province governments have been in position well over a year, they're quite well established, and they have very close relationships with coalition forces, as do typically the province police chief, the ICDC brigade commanders, the border police and the FDSF chiefs.

The issue, in a sense, how to connect them again to Baghdad on the Iraqi side in the same way that we have with the very good chain of command on the coalition side, again, that process -- that determining process, if you will, is actually ongoing right now to determine what should be specially below what's called the -- the ministerial-level body at the top, the deputies' committee that's below that, and then there's a commander's of council, below the commander's council and so forth.

On the restitution, sir, I can really only tell you -- I guess, again, I'll give my professional opinion because I'm not right out there in the field right now.

I do know that, again, CERP has been used for a lot of that because it's typically not a great deal of money. And there's a legal basis for that, our lawyers found a way of doing that. And I am certain that that's going to continue because commanders will feel an obligation to do that, and I would if I were still out there commanding the 101st in northern Iraq.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon?

WELDON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, let me add my thanks to you for your work and for the work of all of our troops.

The bulk of this committee has been over to Iraq and Afghanistan on at least one occasion over the past several months. And I would say to you -- and I know I speak for all my colleagues -- when it's appropriate for you, we'll bring another delegation over and pay our personal not just thanks to our troops but the new Iraqi military and police that you're standing up. But we won't do it in a way that disrupts your very important activities. But when you're prepared, you let Chairman Hunter know and Ike Skelton and I know, they'll put together a bipartisan delegation and a lot of us will join with that.

A lot of us are concerned about Iran's involvement in fomenting unrest in Iraq. I personally think that Khameni and the Iranians are a large part of what's funding everyone from Sadr to the local groups that are taking hostages.

As a part of the overall comprehensive strategy, we're pressing the State Department. In fact, I met with Ambassador Negroponte this morning about the issue of having a strategy to deal with Iran's involvement, which complements the other areas that you focused on.

My questions to you refer to two areas.

One is our concern about having clear and well-defined rules of engagement so that our troops do not caught without having the ability to defend themselves and their fellow troops. So if you could give us an understanding of the rules of engagement that are being developed and that will be in place when we transition the control within the next several weeks.

The second issue is: We've been trying to give you the best technology that we can to assist in dealing with these terrorist attacks. And some of that technology is very sophisticated and involves unmanned aerial vehicles and other types of technologies.

Will the new Iraq military have access to some of those technologies that we're giving to our military so that they have the same capability to understand the threat environment? In particular, will we be transitioning technologies like UAVs, to the new Iraq military?

PETRAEUS: Congressman, we do look forward to seeing you. It actually will be very important to be able to introduce the Iraq ministry of defense and military leadership to you. I think when we've had those visits and we've been able to introduce our members of Congress, the province governor was always frankly quite grateful to talk to those from Washington.

Sir, on the Iranian influence, it is one of those areas, again, that has to be part of the border strategy. There has been some attention given to that. Certainly some border crossing sites, for example, are closed. There are some good procedures. The truth is that I think we've got to check very hard on whether or not the procedures are being enforced or not.

This is very complicated because of the religious tourism issue. As you know, the most holy shrines for the Shia, which is the predominant sect in Iran, are in Nasaf and Karbala. There are literally waves of religious tourists that go and visit.

And it's very important for the economies of Najaf and Karbala. Najaf in particular was very downtrodden under Saddam. It received absolutely no love whatsoever from about '92 or '93 when he put down a revolt down there and eventually even, as you'll recall, drained the marshes farther southeast and so forth.

So this is, again, another one of those where there are conflicting tensions and we've got to get the right procedures and then enforce those procedures.

Sir, on the (inaudible) issue, I can assure you that we'll never put American soldiers in a position where they're not allowed to protect themselves. As you know, even peacetime rules of engagement allow you to do that. So I would not be concerned in that regard.

I am not personally aware -- again, I'm not on the Multinational Force-Iraq side, or a multinational corps on this one -- but I am not aware of any substantial revisions to the rules of engagement as far as the transition.

On the issue of technology, we're trying to get reasonable technology for the Iraqi armed forces. In fact, today I saw the display of the package that in fact you all have funded for the Iraq army: a dozen (inaudible), even including PVS-7 night vision goggles. There are two Seeker aircraft. It's a small not a UAV but a piloted reconnaissance aircraft that will come on line in early July. It was just funded.

This is very important because we believe it can help run the lines up in the vicinity of Kirkuk to Baji, that lines have been attacked repeatedly, and clearly has some very tough enemy up there that continue to blow up that very, very critical line that leads from the Kirkuk oil fields to the massive refinery in Baji.

To the more advanced stuff, sir -- you know, $3 billion is a heck of a lot of money, but as you all know better than anybody else, to go really high-end, it starts to add up considerably.

Just a simple piece of equipment like shifting from the AK-47, or that family of weaponry, to the M-16, for example, the cost would go up, like, several orders of magnitude and know that's something that they'd sort of like to do because, again, there's a little symbolism to the AK. It's just not something that they can tackle right now, given the resources available to them.

WELDON: Thank you.

Do you have enough in the way of resources? Or do we need to look at providing you additional monies?

PETRAEUS: Sir, we're going through the process of determining that right now.

As I mentioned in the opening statement, there are emergent requirements that are a result of either new initiatives that are very commendable by the Iraqis -- for example, the Civil Intervention Force. I think we're going to be able to fund that with the existing money. But some of the additional base camp structure that may have to go into place. There's a list that we're developing and then we're going to try to scrunch it down as much as we can, see if we can fit it in the existing resources.

But at some point we owe in fact to the department a report on that.

The unknown that we're grappling with, sir, as well is that the Iraqis themselves are really struggling with this, as you might imagine. I mean, they just stood up the ministry of defense (OFF- MIKE) there's not an elaborate PA&E structure there by any means. I mean, they're literally about one deep. Everybody goes to the minister for everything right now.

And the only thing that we're really confident that they are probably budgeted for with the ministry of finance we think is personnel. But we've really got to get a handle on how much will be allowed to them for operation and maintenance costs.

And to be fair to the ministry of finance, their challenge is trying to develop realistic assumptions about how much they're going to get out of the export of oil, most particularly, as you know, it's -- I forget how many tens of billion dollars a day go out -- or tens of millions of dollars a day go out through the southern oil terminal when its operating.

And so, again, it both highlights the importance of keeping that line open and also, again, of getting the ministry of finance to identify how much they're going to fund above and beyond salaries for the defense and the interior ministries.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Larsen?

LARSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, General, for taking some time with us this morning for us, I guess, later in the day for you.

I was pleased to certainly hear you recognize the problem of connecting the command and control at the top with all the development that's taken place already that's been put forth by U.S. and the coalition forces to develop security forces for Iraq.

Just going down the list of what we've developed here: a police force, a border force, the ICDC, the Iraqi army, the Facility Protection Service. Today you mentioned the Iraqi National Task Force, a new Civil Intervention Force. You also let us know that the FPS doesn't include oil security or electricity police, that's separate, that's outside.

Certainly have an organizational challenge on your hands, and I have some questions related to that.

The first question is: Generally, how do you propose to get a handle on all these various elements and make them connect? But more in particular, exactly what is the CIF, the Civil Intervention Force? How does it differ from the police? What is its exact role? What is -- I think you said it would be either the prime minister or the president has proposed this -- what is the Iraqi vision for the CIF?

And also, what's the difference between the ICDC and the Iraqi National Task Force? Why are we recruiting for the Iraqi National Task Force and why was it created as opposed to maintaining the current focus with ICDC and the army?

And you mentioned yet with regards to security the militias, and the prime minister I think announced a ban on all militias. How can we expect that ban to be any more successful than the previous announcement that the CPA made about banning all militias?

And what role does the Peshmerga play in security arrangements in Iraq in the future? Is it considered a militia that will be banned? Or is it in fact going to be operating in the north as a part of security forces?

That's a lot of questions, but hopefully I've organized them in order where you can get them answered.

Thank you.

PETRAEUS: Sir, that's a good number of questions, and I think I got them.

By the way, you left out the air force, the coastal defense force and the (inaudible) police, Congressman.

By the way, the coastal defense force we actually turned over to them. That was another somewhat -- you know, just right on and was not remarked on too much. But we formally turned over to them five patrol boats last week. Big ceremony. The First Sea Lord of the United Kingdom was in for that.

They are down in Basra and a very good base. Yet another piece of infrastructure that's been built. And they should be operational fully by the mid-fall. They're doing a good job.

The air force as well, we actually have air force officers in the Iraq armed forces that are training in Jordan on an early model C-130 and on Huey helicopters. And I've already mentioned the purchase of the two Seeker reconnaissance aircraft.

The (inaudible) police are being trained down in the Basra area. They also are doing a good job. The U.K. is training them with Royal Marine commandos.

Sir, the truth is that on the ministry of interior side, the connectivity is not too bad. The structure that leads to this, although, candidly, they can't always get a phone call through or get somebody to answer it, and so we're going through a process.

We also have a substantial command-and-control program that you all funded that is part of this $3 billions that will enable them to connect from an operation center in Baghdad through the joint coordination centers that are established in each province, or are being established, and then on down to the precincts, or the subordinate cities, if you will.

That's pretty straightforward on the ministry of the interior side.

The Civil Intervention Force probably will be controlled out of Baghdad. Again, it's a new initiative for which we're just hosting a recruiting conference this Friday to discuss how to recruit.

Again, it will be two battalions of a gendarmerie-type force, perhaps lightly armored wheeled vehicles.

We believe we can plug this, by the way, sir, again, with that $3 billion.

And then it will be about three battalions initially growing to nine battalions that will be trained and equipped in riot control.

PETRAEUS: And, again, their purpose is to take over where the police don't have the capacity to retake a police station, for example, if the enemy throws the police out or something like that.

Sir, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps was generally regionally recruited and trained and performs regional security functions that are not performed by the police. So they often are outside cities, again, guarding infrastructure, conducting (inaudible) security, performing checkpoint duties and the like, and also conducting offensive operations along with coalition forces.

The Iraq National Task Force on the other hand was developed after early April as an Iraqi initiative, their desire to have an army division that was explicitly recruited, equipped and trained, and the emphasis on recruited to conduct urban counterinsurgency operations.

As you may recall, there was the failure in April when a battalion was to be sent down to Fallujah and essentially -- it's a little bit more complex than it's been depicted. They actually did start, they got ambushed, they had a firefight, they had to pull back up to Haji, and then that's where the discussion ensued that -- well, they reminded people that they had been hired -- which is correct -- with the idea that the army was to do what it used to do: defend the country from external invaders.

The Iraqi leadership said, "Fine. We will explicitly recruit" -- they generally recruited from existing army units, took good people out of those, signed on the dotted line that they were ready to fight some of the Iraqis. And it is those forces that are now coming on line.

And the recruiting was done by the Iraqi generals. In fact, the commander of the army himself went out and talked to each battalion and to others.

Sir, as to the militias, I do think that this one will be more successful than any other previous endeavor, because, first of all, in general, there is buy-in by the political leadership of these militias.

Second, the armed forces, the security services, are in fact able to absorb a reasonable number of them. And in fact, we've had recently, for example, Bar (ph) Corps Day, various, Peshmerga Day, Iraqi Communist Party Day, Iraqi Islamic Party Day at various recruiting stations throughout the country. And so they are getting their opportunity to sign up for the army and for other security services.

Sir, the Peshmerga have for a long time been being incorporated into Iraq Civil Defense Corps units. We've in fact have a number of their units up in the north. There were some that were in the Iraqi- Kurdish area that were predominantly Kurdish. And then those that were in the Nineveh Province, for example, tended to be minorities within units that were typically majority Sunni-Arab in that particular area, although they also included Yezidies, Turkomen, Christians and others.

The transitional administrative law allows the Iraqi-Kurdish area to retain internal security forces. So in addition to those Peshmerga that are absorbed into the army, absorbed into the ICDC, the police and the other security services writ large Iraqi-wide, they will also be able to retain internal security forces and absorb a number of these former Peshmerga.

And they are envisioning, for example, the mountain battalions. We have already built border police battalions out there, too, up in our area while we there because we had all three of the Kurdish provinces in the 101st Airborne area.

They will also have some others. They had forestry police and a couple of other varieties of security services.

And in fact, that is another emergent task that jumped out at us after we started doing the mission analysis, if you will, after that militia agreement was announced, that we may indeed have to assist them in some of the organizing, training and equipping of those internal security forces, just as we are for all of Iraq's security forces.

LARSEN: Thank you, General. That's a very complete answer to my long question. I appreciate it.

I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons?

GIBBONS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

General Petraeus, thank you for your service to our country. We're very proud of you and the service of you and your fellow soldiers have done for us over there.

I guess my question is one which deals with the issue of intelligence.

If you're talking about security and establishing a security force, the number one issue would be intelligence. What are we doing to establish an intelligence agency in Iraq that's going to be effective, be controllable, be able to process intelligence, share it both ways, both pre- and post-June 30th?

Then finally, if you get through that, give us a brief update on what Muqtada Sadr is up to today and what do we know about him?

Thank you.

PETRAEUS: Sir, I'm not the expert on the intelligence services. It's something that we're clearly going to have to get into. Since getting back I've been focusing on the security forces that are essentially overseen by the Office of Security Transition.

The CIA and the G-2, the Multinational Force-Iraq, have been working with the INIS, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service. It has in fact developed some pretty good intelligence. When I was here before, we used a fair amount of that, but there's still an enormous amount of work that has to go forward, frankly, to achieve the level of sophistication that you're talking about.

There are still barriers that have to be broken down. There's still trust that has to be developed among individuals from different backgrounds. And, again, some of this is going to take quite some time, I think.

There is an issue that we're grappling with with the sharing of intelligence. We are working hard to be able to get the right classification that allows us to share with our Iraqi partners right now. It's literally about the "for official use only."

That is not as big a deal as you might think because we're already sharing with a pretty broad variety of coalition partners, include the officers organization that I head, which is really a command. We are well over 2,000 in terms of advisers, contract trainers, police trainers, the people in uniform, the support teams and all the rest of that. And it's really a multinational security transition command. We have I think seven or eight different countries represented. So we've already grappled with some of that.

But, again, as we get into the more sensitive intelligence, we're going to have to really work hard to seed that process, if you will, of laundering intelligence from the very sensitive-compartment arena into something that can be handed with a tier-line, if you will, to our Iraqi partners.

Sir, on Muqtada al-Sadr, the latest signs are encouraging that he has given direction to his militia members, the Mahdi Army, to withdraw from Najaf and Karbala unless that's where they live. The police chief in Najaf and the governor there have been gaining confidence over recent weeks considerably. There was a patrol that was done jointly by the 1st Armored Division forces. And there are actually a 2nd Armored Cav Regiment forces under 1st Armored Division.

And by the way, sir, you talk about folks that have done a magnificent job, soldiers, and that is that 1st Armored Division element that was on the verge of going home and then was told that they had to stay on longer into the long hot summer.

And as you're thanking individuals, I know it sometimes tough to get into theater, but it might not be as tough to get into Germany when they're back there to thank maybe General Monte Dempsey and his tremendous team. Because the way they have shouldered the additional burden and just put that rucksack back on and went back to it is really admirable. There's nothing harder than telling soldiers they're going to have to stay longer, unless it's telling their family. And the leadership of that organization, the officers and noncommissioned officers and troopers, have all done magnificently.

Sir, it's a long run with Sadr. There's also a lot of Iraqi work going on. As you know, there are Iraqi charges brought against him so there's a legal issue there. And, again, that's going to be one that the new Iraqi interim government is going to deal with, and I think it's one they already are dealing with, frankly, to figure out if they can in a sense bring some of those people at least into the legitimate political process. Others, General Torrelli (ph), working in Sadr City where he is literally about launch it's a huge avalanche of programs as his contracting process has really begun to snowball.

Hopefully we can literally employ them right out from under Sadr because an awful lot of it is about unemployed young men without hope, and they're very vulnerable to the kind of persuasion of someone like Sadr and all of a sudden they're in the back of the pickup truck with the AK-47 controlling the proceeds of some of these religious shrines.

So, again, I think it will be a many-pronged effort to try to both track some of his supporters. Perhaps the Iraqis will try to incorporate him into the political process. In the meantime, we want to continue to shore up the police forces, particularly in those sensitive areas, Najaf and then over east to Kufa and north to Karbala.

GIBBONS: Thank you very much, General, and Godspeed to you and all your forces.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Davis, is recognized.

S. DAVIS: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, General Petraeus, for your extraordinary service.

I wonder if we could go back for just a bit. I'm sorry I had to leave the room and perhaps my colleagues have already asked about this. But if we go back and think about, it was, quote, you know, that the army was disbanded. I know that there are many different takes on whether or not that was truly disbanded or not. But I'm just wondering about the lessons learned from that now.

As you look at the individuals who are engaged in leadership in the Iraqi army or even in law enforcement, where are those people coming from? Is it coming from those ranks? Have you been able to recoup a lot of the people who have skills and were making a contribution? The talent, where is that coming from?

PETRAEUS: Well, Congressman, an awful lot of the new Iraqi army officers, the vast majority of them are former soldiers, many of them in fact are former officers, and/or they are former Peshmerga, because, remember, we're also hiring Kurds, recruiting Kurds for the army. In fact, when we were up there today asking down the ranks, "How many years did you have in the army," and so forth, a number of them had over 10 years in the army.

So there's been a great deal of recruiting of former soldiers who wanted to be part of this professional force and who also met the criteria. That is part of the challenge, is that there is a physical requirement and there's an educational requirement for some of those positions in the army. And that includes some of those who were conscripts in the old army.

I think that we will see Prime Minister Allawi sorting out, again, options as to how he can both engage in and perhaps use some of the former leaders at various levels.

I think that this connection process that we talked about where we assist the Iraqis in the establishment of additional brigades for their ICDC, probably going from the six-brigade structure that is this (ph) right now to as many as 18 brigade headquarters for what may be as high 51 battalions. It's 45 right now.

So those structures are legitimate, given, again, the supervisory numbers.

And then probably a number of divisional headquarters on top of that.

In fact, we owe to Prime Minister Allawi tomorrow a coordinated Iraqi military/coalition military and ministry set of options that he charged us with developing yesterday when he met with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. And he gave, as I mentioned earlier, some pretty clear and concise and coherent guidance as to some of his objectives.

And I think that we can in a sense help him achieve his objectives and, again, engage and even employ some of these former soldiers in a way that is very much needed right now, in fact, to create a chain of command for the ICDC, and yet not do away will all of the work that's been done in creating the ICDC, their infrastructure, their regional academies and so forth.

S. DAVIS: As you look back...

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PETRAEUS: ... of the ICDC still...

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PETRAEUS: ... and we've got to address those as well.

S. DAVIS: Thank you, General.

As you look back on that decision, what are your thoughts? Was it necessary to have a strong break? Or would there have been another way to have done that?

PETRAEUS: Well, again, it would have to be my professional military advice.

I mean, it would have had to start with the decision way back before probably we crossed the berm -- if they could perhaps communicated very effectively early on, and I just don't know if that was possible. I know there were Peshmerga do that. We were told about a number of those targeted individual units. And frankly, they did not do what they were asked to do early on, and that has (inaudible).

The truth is, by the time that decision was made, frankly by the time Baghdad fell, but certainly by the time that we had pushed all the way from Baghdad to the north, there was no army, there was no infrastructure, there were no ammo dumps left, no barracks, no vehicles, no fighting systems. And so I guess there were people out there and they might have had AK-47s at their home. But as to coherent structures, again, not that much out there.

And then the other question you have to ask is: Did you want to bring that back? Did you want an extraordinarily top-heavy military? In Mosul alone, you know, there are 1,100 generals just in Mosul, a city of 1.7 million people. I've heard reports about over 10,000 in Iraq at large.

And so you get into all of those kinds of issues. Is that what you want to bring back?

And, again, there's a variety of different things that certainly folks may look back on and perhaps say, "This might go on a little faster here or there," or something like that. But that hindsight might be clear right now and I don't think it was sure was at the time.

S. DAVIS: Thank you.

Just one additional question: Are you seeing many incidents of individuals who are being trained and then deserting and perhaps bringing that power against us? How prevalent do you think that is?

PETRAEUS: I don't have the figures on the ICDC, which would be the one where that might be more prevalent.

We clearly had to go through a rebuilding process, Congresswoman, after the early April period for a number of the ICDC battalions.

The army has been pretty stable since late April. I think the increases in pay, essentially the hostile-fire pay that they get now as well, the equipping, the better leadership, the better facilities, really the better food, the better treatment and all the rest of that has made a substantial difference.

We frankly tried to adopt the same approach on the ICDC side. I don't know if you were in there earlier when I explained the various changes that were made in the ICDC based on the lessons learned out of early April. But those are being applied now.

As I mentioned, it was really heartening to take one of the Iraqi army generals up to Tikrit, Saddam's former hometown, with a Big Red One, the first infantry division. Their ICDC regional training academy graduated 240 sergeants, and they just flat looked good and you just felt good about them.

So I think that there's been a lot of progress in there since early April based on the lessons we learned. What we've got to do is continue that progress and that focus.

We're even going now to the point that we're helping them build technical vehicles, you know, pickup trucks with machine guns on the back. We're even giving really anti-aircraft artillery weapons, or at least large-caliber machine guns, to some of the police.

So we have got to make sure that the security forces are not outgunned by the bad guys. We're also giving them RPGs and other weapons as well.

S. DAVIS: Thank you very much.

HUNTER: I thank the gentlelady.

The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson?

WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, thank you very much for your leadership. I had the opportunity to visit with you last September in Mosul, and I was so impressed by what you were doing, I was so impressed by our troops. It just was so heart-warming.

In particularly, while we were there, you were making an emphasis on the civil action projects. I only regret that, indeed, these are not given media coverage because this means so much to individual citizens of Iraq. I know it means a lot to the American and coalition troops that are working to build a civil society.

Additionally, I have a perspective too. I appreciate your leadership, General Sanchez. I have a son serving in Iraq, as the chairman has a son serving in Iraq. In fact, I've been in touch with him twice today by a Blackberry. And so as a parent, it's very reassuring to know the quality of the leadership. These young people are in touch with us around the clock, and it means a lot.

Additionally, I'm grateful to hear of your close working relationship with Prime Minister Allawi. I was very honored last Thursday in a bipartisan delegation to meet with Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer. President al-Yawer, who is a graduate of George Washington University, was very clear in his optimism for the future of Iraq, obviously with extraordinary difficulties, but his optimism was just infectious. I'm really so pleased with so much that's being done.

And then specifically, in April I had the opportunity to visit the police academy in Amman, Jordan, and we met with some of the recruits there. They had been in fact part of the Iraqi army and they were selected at random very spontaneously, but indicated a dedication to building a civil society.

I also had the opportunity to helicopter in April to Kirkush and meet with some of the 30th Infantry Division troops who told of working with the Iraqi security forces.

A sad testimonial as to the success of the security forces is that they are under such attack. The attack today on the recruits, the attack on the stations is an indication of the effectiveness of what you're putting together and I want to thank you.

A concern I have, though, is that in October 2002 Saddam Hussein released all the persons from prisons in Iraq, and obviously many of us were happy these were political prisoners. But at least half were violent criminals. And I know that the Iraqi Survey Group has made tremendous progress in recreating the arrest records.

But what's being done to pick up violent criminals? I know that in any American community, if all the violent criminals were back on the street, it would just be catastrophic. So what's being done about the violent criminals?

PETRAEUS: First of all, Congressman, it's good to see you again as well. I don't know if you were in there earlier when I mentioned that the asphalt refinery I think we told you about, which hadn't operated for 18 years down in Qayara, south of Mosul, despite having a workforce of 450 Iraqis during that entire time. It's now producing 200 tons of asphalt a day and may be the biggest in the region at some point.

And by the way, Sheikh Ghazi is from Mosul as well, sir, and it was great to see him the other day.

Sir, the young recruits are indeed impressive. And, again, that underscores once again the importance of using some of the DFI money that Prime Minister Allawi approved to in fact thank some of the very, very senior police and to offer early retirement schemes for some of them.

As you noted, sir, in fact the ISF, the Iraqi security forces, have been the targets of an awful lot of attacks. It's not just because they are in a sense softer targets; it's because they are in fact making a difference. And those that don't want the new Iraq to succeed are certainly going to go after the Iraqi security forces, just as they went after us and still go after us.

Sir, the criminals are a very, very big element.

I don't know if you were in there earlier when I mentioned there's really probably three large categories of bad guys.

The former Baathists obviously don't want the real regime insiders to have money, to have expertise. Some of it's still stashed away outside the country. They certainly don't want the new Iraq to succeed or they are finally out in the cold.

The extremists -- some inside the country, some from outside the country -- that do not want this new Iraq to succeed because it threatens their conception of what it should be.

And then finally these violent criminals. They are the ready guns for hire in the communities. They were an enormous source of problems to us in Mosul, and the same is true throughout the country.

I can tell you that what we were doing -- I don't know what's being done about them nationwide. In fact, frankly, sir, I wrote a note down here that that's one to discuss with the Iraqi leaders, and perhaps their approach might be refined a bit when they take over.

We were in fact -- we had recreated the records in Mosul. The judges had found records. They knew who some of these criminals were, quite a few of them. And there was an attempt to arrest them on new charges where that was possible because there had been an amnesty actually.

So, again, I made a note there and that's a great one to jog us on. That could make a big difference actually if some of these could be picked up in great numbers. Thank you, sir.

WILSON: Thank you very much for your service, and God bless our troops, and we will remember September 11th.

I yield the balance of my time.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Meek?

MEEK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Petraeus, thank you for your service, sir.

I know that you have a very difficult job in training the new security forces there in Iraq. There was a report earlier this morning that six insurgents who tried to fire upon U.S. troops were actually Iraqi security forces. I know that there are ongoing investigations of trying to locate and weed out these individuals.

I just wanted to ask: Is there a new vetting process of trying to figure out who are the bad guys and who are the good people?

Two, has there been an assessment of the quality of recruitment? I heard you say earlier that you had at least a hundred individuals that walk through the recruitment station every day. I know that this is a very difficult thing to do. But I think at the same time the integrity of what we're doing is at stake.

So could you explain to us that process, number one, assessing the recruitment quality.

And also what's going on as it relates to some of these individuals that are caught with either uniform stuff in the car because they were able to get into certain areas because they were security forces, or ID? What's actually happening with those individuals now?

PETRAEUS: Congressman, I don't have the details back from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. That took place out in Ramadi, I believe. And in fact, I just heard about that in the morning update this morning. We're trying to get the details on that.

It's not the first time it's happened, though. And sadly it likely will not be the last.

Vetting has been a challenge all along. We've tried hard to construct a variety of lists from various old records and so forth.

But in fact, you put on your finger on something that Prime Minister Allawi raised yesterday, frankly the same concern. It's something that there is apparently a CPA contract, or CPA effort, to provide to him in the form of a database that they can then take over and really do it themselves. Because obviously they can vet a lot better than we can. They understand the culture, the ways, the names and just a whole host of other nuances that are tougher for those on our side and the counterintelligence world doing the vetting.

There's a couple of pieces to the recruitment quality issue that you raised, Congressman. One of them is just basic requirements. They actually do have a medical exam and a physical exam that are tougher, frankly, than they used to be, clearly because quite a few former soldiers regrettably don't meet those requirements -- and an education requirement.

And then there is a vetting process that does go through -- again, a challenge, because, again, if they're not on some record from the past, we're not going to pick them up. And an awful lot of these folks are young people without a track record, that were not in some things, and some either took a uniform from someone else or just (inaudible) and took an action against the coalition.

MEEK: Like I said earlier, I know that's a very difficult to do right now when you don't have the kind of information that you need to be able to figure out who's doing what.

General, do you know what's actually happening with these individuals that we have trained that are firing upon U.S. troops? I know that it's a small number. But are the Iraqis dealing with it in a way, as we're dealing with our courts-martial, dealing with the criminal aspect of that to deter other individuals that may think about firing upon U.S. troops, that there is a level of punishment, and in a very public way to try to deter that?

What kind of efforts are taking place in that area? For those individuals that are still alive, do we take those individuals within our system? And do we have them detained at this time? I guess eventually they'll be turned over the Iraqis for prosecution.

PETRAEUS: Sir, as a general rule -- I mean, the first thing is if they shoot at us, we're going to try to shoot back and kill them, or capture them.

But if they in fact surrender, if they're captured, typically they are going into the coalition incarceration system, if you will, like the civil system.

There are some people who commit criminal acts that are not directed against the coalition that our soldiers might catch someone doing -- particularly when we have larger numbers of MPs out there, for example, doing joint patrols with the police at a variety of locations -- who will then be put into the civil system.

And a great deal of work has gone into standing back up the judicial system.

Before we left Mosul, I might add, we had a very, very big effort there to try to stand up the Nineveh Province judicial system. All the courthouses were rebuilt. The main judicial center, which had I think five or seven courtrooms, and a number of other facilities was rebuilt.

They had a 43 percent conviction rate up there, Congressman, which I think actually is pretty reasonable by our terms as well.

But those that are in fact are soldiers, first of all, again, are in jeopardy of being shot back and then certainly captured and put into our detention facility.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

We've got four more colleagues who need to ask questions and hopefully we can get this in before we lose our air time.

The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Co