Let me welcome Mr. Secretary Wolfowitz and General Pace back to this committee. We appreciate your being before us and your testimony.

SKELTON: Mr. Chairman, recent revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the continued attacks of insurgents against our forces, as well as the questions of how well the new interim Iraqi government will be able to govern all highlight the difficult and dangerous and uncertain situation in that country.

What is paramount now is that we need to have a concrete plan to ensure success in Iraq. And I'm not sure today we see such a plan. We broke it; we must do our best to fix it.

Last July, the department came up with what amounted to a strategic plan for Iraq. The four pillars of this plan were: establishing security, restoring essential services, creating conditions for economic development, and enabling the transition to democratic governance.

It's clear that these goals have not been achieved, at least not to the extent that we had hoped, largely because we haven't established security, and rebuilding Iraq requires a stable security environment.

It seems to me that there's some steps that the United States needs to take so that the world can have some confidence that the way ahead holds some prospect for ultimate success.

First, we have to do a better job of internationalizing the situation in Iraq, so it's just not the face of U.S. military that's primarily occupying that country.

The administration should also specify the steps that will be taken to train the Iraqi army, police and civil defense forces so that we can accelerate their ability to provide security and so that we can be assured that we won't see a reoccurrence of the problems those forces have experienced in the past.

SKELTON: I know General Petraeus is doing his best. And by the way, I think he's an outstanding American leader. But I think it would inspire confidence if more specifics about his efforts were widely known.

In my view, we should also have an understanding now about what happens if the new sovereign government seeks to dictate our military operations in Iraq.

I don't think the Iraqi government should be able to limit what our forces can do to hunt terrorists or to protect themselves. Conversely, I would have real concern if the Iraqi government were to ask our forces to enforce that government's imposition of martial law, which the new interim prime minister is presently considering.

I've been saying for some time we need to have some kind of status of forces arrangement which will be binding upon the new government, and I'm not convinced that existing authorities are adequate.

You'll recall a status of forces agreement was to have been had by March the 31st, but that date came and went.

And finally, I think we need a comprehensive public investigation into prisoner abuses. America's world image has been tarnished and we need to prove to other nations, as well as to the Iraqi people, that the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison are not standard operating procedure for our military and do not reflect the values we stand for as a nation.

Looking longer term and in a broader sense, I see at least four potential strategic approaches that can be had to the Iraqi situation.

First, we can stay the current course. We can continue in the present vein trying to provide security, rebuild infrastructure and trying to create the conditions under which a new representative government may flourish. However, this approach brings with it the certainty of continued violence against our forces, as well as the new government, and it will slow down the reconstruction process.

Second, we could cut and run. We could begin a relatively rapid withdrawal of our forces upon the appointment of the interim government and leave it to the U.N., NATO or Iraqis to provide security and stability to Iraq. This approach could result in Iraq descending into ethnic or religious squabbling or both, and national and regional instability, and the prospect that Iraq will become a terrorist haven.

Third, we could increase our military presence, as well as that of other nations, and induce NATO into a significant military and political role until the United Nations can assume more responsibility and until security and stability ensue.

SKELTON: Under this proposal, the number of the U.S. forces in Iraq would increase at least until after the elections and a more permanent new government may be installed.

Obviously, though, if we assign more forces to Iraq, there's the possibility that we will suffer more casualties.

Realistically, we will not be able to increase our force level in Iraq by very much over the short term, frankly, just because we don't have the troops.

And fourth, we can embark on a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces over time and we can maintain a less visible presence in the interim. Our forces could withdraw from any urban places and cease aggressive patrolling in favor of safeguarding Iraqi infrastructure and securing the border against foreign incursions.

At first, the model the Marines used in Fallujah seemed promising. Our recent experience suggests their approach may not hold promise for use in other urban areas.

Some national security experts have even suggested setting a date certain by which our forces would ultimately withdraw from Iraq. I think there's value in deadlines and perhaps a deadline for the withdrawal of our forces could foster stability and give the Iraqi confidence that we do not intend to occupy their country for an indefinite period.

I suggest these various approaches to the way forward in Iraq only because I'm not aware of any specific plan that the administration has for long-term success and for an ultimate end to our military presence in Iraq.

That's the question I get when I go home: "How much longer are we going to be there?"

What puzzles me is that just a year ago the administration was talking about reducing our forces in Iraq. Now, unfortunately, we've still got 138,000 troops in Iraq and I see no end in sight.

So, Mr. Secretary, do you see an end in sight?

I do see the transition date of June 30 as a new opportunity. It gives us a potential fresh start toward a better Iraq. But if that goal is to be reached, the administration will have to do things better.

There will have to be better planning for how to rebuild Iraq and how to provide a stable government once elections are held. There will have to be more and better international participation than we've had. We in Congress will need better information about the cost of the war, the status of our forces and about the prisoner abuse situation, as well as the kind of equipment the troops do and don't have.

We need to perform able oversight so we can be confident that your actions are wise to our country's needs.

SKELTON: Mr. Secretary, I don't think anyone here questions your resolve or questions the resolve of the president to succeed in Iraq, but there's a difference between a resolve on the one hand and competence on the other. I think the American people need to understand that.

Regrettably, what's happened in Iraq so far, aside from the outstanding performance of our troops in the field -- and I must say they're outstanding -- persuades me that we've gotten the situation into a security quagmire.

Mr. Secretary, I welcome your thoughts about the way ahead in a strategic sense, and I'm also interested in what the department is doing to ensure our forces have the operational flexibility they need to remedy the damage to our international standing caused by the prisoner abuse scandal.

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Secretary, with that optimistic send-off, thank you for being with us today, and we appreciate your coming to report to us on the status of this transition.

The floor is yours, sir.

ABERCROMBIE: Mr. Chairman, before we begin, Mr. Chairman, I notice that the statement here from Mr. Wolfowitz is 25 pages long. Is it your intention to have all 25 pages read or are we going to get a summary, perhaps under the five-minute rule so that we can move on to the questions?

HUNTER: Mr. Abercrombie, both statements, as always, will be taken to the record, and the witnesses are allowed to proceed in the manner they best see fit. And so we'll leave that to the discretion of Mr. Wolfowitz and General Pace.

Mr. Secretary?

WOLFOWITZ: I hope I'm not disappointing, Mr. Abercrombie. I know I'll please Mr. Skelton. I'm not planning to read the statement at all. I'll put it in the record.

I'd like to just make some...

HUNTER: Without objection.

WOLFOWITZ: ... observations about my recent trip. And your comment on the perspective in Washington versus the perspective out in the field brings to mind the fact that we were standing around in northern Iraq talking to a couple of sergeants who were taking a few days of well-earned leave from very, very tough duty in the Baathist town of Uija (ph) in central Iraq. And they said, "People back home just don't seem to see what we see out here. We're making enormous progress in this town that used to be a stronghold for Saddam Hussein."

WOLFOWITZ: These are just two sergeants standing by the pool volunteering, and it's something we heard almost everywhere from Iraqis, from Americans, from a British general down in Basra.

Doesn't mean that things are -- there aren't serious problems in Iraq. We all know about the problems. But I think what doesn't get through in all the reporting on problems is there's also been enormous progress.

I visited, Mr. Chairman, all five U.S. divisions, visited the British division down in Basra and visited with the Polish commander of the Multinational Division Central South.

It's inspiring to talk to our troops from the PFCs on up to the generals. They're doing a magnificent job. They do it with enormous courage. They do it with enormous skill. And I think they really believe that they're making substantial progress, and I think they are.

In fact, I think we're at a point now of a change that is properly described as historic.

For the first time in almost half a century, Iraq is about to have a sovereign government that is committed to the rule of law, to the values of freedom and democracy; a sovereign government that is committed to undoing the enormous abuse and damage that has been inflicted on that country by Saddam Hussein.

With all respect to the ranking member, we didn't break Iraq; Saddam Hussein broke Iraq -- broke it in a vicious, horrible way almost beyond imagining.

It is going to be a big job to repair it, but I feel much more confident than before this trip, after spending many hours with the new prime minister and members of his government, that there is an Iraqi team ready to take charge on July 1st and committed to fixing that damage.

We spent almost eight hours in discussions over the course of three days with Prime Minister Allawi and his national security team, including his new defense minister, his new minister of the interior and his national security adviser.

WOLFOWITZ: I also had meetings with the new president of Iraq, with the deputy prime minister of Iraq.

When I say "we," it was a multinational team. I was accompanied on the American side by our vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, General George Casey -- whose nomination, as you know, is now before the Senate to become commander of Multinational Force-Iraq -- and by the current deputy chief of mission in Iraq, Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, who will take over on July 1st as the DCM to our new ambassador, John Negroponte.

We were also accompanied by representatives of the British government and the Polish government. The talks were wide-ranging.

I think one of things that's very impressive: There was no question who was in charge in those talks. It was the Iraqi prime minister. He spoke forcefully for his delegation and he laid out his plans, which are ambitious plans, for an Iraqi national security strategy that will confront what he correctly describes as an evil enemy, and build up Iraqi security forces to deal with that challenge.

I would confess, going into those discussions there was some concern on our side that his plans might be too grandiose, it might be more idea than substance, that they might reject the considerable progress that we believe we've made already in our own efforts to build Iraqi security forces.

I'm happy to report that the conclusion of our discussions I think was a very realistic meshing of our existing plans with his adjusted plans and his somewhat more ambitious plans.

General Petraeus, whom you mentioned earlier, commented that building Iraqi security forces has to be approached as steering a large supertanker not a high-speed power boat. It can't turn on a dime.

Prime Minister Allawi does not plan to turn it on a dime. He plans to turn it in a reasonable way with, in my view, a very clear sense of priorities.

One of his recurrent themes was the Iraqi army as a symbol of national strength. He continues to say that he believes it was a mistake to have disbanded the old army. And it would not surprise me if, at least as a symbolic move, he were to undo that order when he becomes prime minister.

WOLFOWITZ: But he's interested in something much more than symbolic gestures. He's interested in constructing an Iraqi army that reports to Iraqi officers through an Iraqi chain of command that is responsible to a sovereign Iraqi government.

I think we put in place some important building blocks that he can do that with. One of the building blocks is an organization that we've been working on called the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. We talked about this a lot, because to the Iraqis the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps has a lot of problems, starting with its name. As translated into Arabic at least, it sounds more like a branch of the fire department than a branch of the army.

I think also its performance around the country has been mixed and very disappointing in some areas, including areas I think the prime minister was most familiar with.

Significantly, it has performed extremely well in two parts of the country, in the far north in the city of Mosul where General Petraeus is, in fact, responsible for organizing. He introduced some concepts that were unique to that area, but I think are now going to be applied throughout the country; much more effective ways of organizing the Civil Defense Corps than was done in most other places.

And that Civil Defense Corps up in Mosul performed outstandingly on the night of April 9th, when the enemy attacked the government house in Mosul. The governor of the province, who was a Sunni Arab by the way, stayed in the government house all night while it was under attack. While the Iraqi police initially refused to come on duty, and I think one might forgive them because they were definitely out-gunned by the enemy, the Civil Defense Corps and the facilities protection service people stood their ground, beat off the enemy attack, and eventually the police came back.

I think it's significant, also, that General Carter Ham of the 2nd Infantry Division in charge up in Mosul, General Petraeus' successor, made sure that the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps knew throughout the night that if they got into really deep trouble, U.S. forces were there to help out.

That is what General Petraeus described as embracing Iraqi security forces, letting them do the job as much as they possibly can but making sure that they have the courage that comes from knowing that there is a backup.

WOLFOWITZ: I think that's a model for the future. The more rapidly we can move to that model, the more rapidly we can not only bring our numbers down but, I think more importantly, bring our people off the front lines. That is good for us and it's good for the Iraqis.

The prime minister is also organizing a new unit called the Iraqi intervention force, which will basically be a division created out of the army structures that we were training, but oriented toward urban security. That, in fact, is his first priority.

And I would emphasize here one of the things that was also impressive, as we talked about funding requirements, is this is a man who understands that you need to have a sense of priority; that some of his requirements may exceed what is currently available, or at least what is currently available in our supplemental funding.

There is Iraqi funding -- by the way, I would point out there is some $20 billion of Iraqi funds, both oil-for-food and oil revenues that have already put into the Iraqi budget since the liberation of Baghdad, and more on the way. But those funds have many demands on them.

One of the things we hope to get from the international community is more support for training and equipping Iraqi security forces.

His first priority, as I mentioned, is his Iraqi intervention force.

His second priority is something they call the Iraq special operations force, that will consist of a counterterrorist force similar to what we could call a SWAT team with some 760 troops, and a supporting commando battalion that's similar to a ranger battalion of slightly over 800.

The third priority is this new Iraqi national guard, which as I said, is built on the old civil defense corps, but with, if I might call it, the Petraeus concept of organization and very importantly, from Prime Minister Allawi's point of view, with a much stronger officer structure.

It would be organized into 50-plus battalions organized into 18 brigades; that makes one brigade for each province. Organized in turn into six division headquarters, which turns out to be one division headquarters for each multinational division that's in Iraq.

Each of these headquarters presents both a requirement and, I think from the prime minister's point of view, an opportunity to bring back officers from the old Iraqi army who are clean and who are committed to a new Iraq. I believe he sees that important not only in terms of building capable security forces and restoring Iraqi pride in their army, but also in reducing potential sources of dissatisfaction among the former officers that the enemy can feed off of.

His fourth priority is to continue the development of two divisions of the regular army: troop strength of some 27,000. He's also interested in adding two more divisions, as well as potentially three corps headquarters to the national guard. But they agreed that both of those are lower priorities that can be deferred until we get first things first and second things second.

WOLFOWITZ: This is definitely further down the list.

General Petraeus will be leading the effort in Baghdad to determine the resource implications of these enhancements and to make allocations among them.

As I said, there may be requirements that go beyond what's currently budgeted in our supplemental. We will look to Iraqi resources, we'll look to the international contributions and we'll see as we go. But there is a great deal that can be accomplished already within the present framework.

We also had a lot of discussion about command-and-control arrangements. The Iraqis proposed and we accepted the creation of a joint operations center at the national level, as well as joint coordinating centers at the regional and local levels.

These centers will perform two functions: first of all, making sure that the operations of our forces and Iraqi forces are well- coordinated and well-integrated; but also it helps -- until they've filled in the gaps in their own chain of command and communications, it enables them to have effective chain of command by working in parallel with us.

We committed ourselves in the letter that Secretary Powell sent to the United Nations in parallel to the letter that Prime Minister Allawi sent tot he United Nations to have close coordination and consultation with the Iraqis on sensitive security issues, including the initiation of sensitive offensive operations.

We committed, again, in these meetings that those consultations will be serious consultations. It's a process that one might say started with our visit, but I think will be carried forward on an almost daily basis by Ambassador Negroponte and General Casey when they arrive.

Finally, the Iraqis also expressed an interest in getting support from the international community and are particularly eager to support our requests to get international troop contributions to support the United Nations' presence in Iraq and additional functions the United Nations may take on such as supervising the elections.

There's much more that we can discuss in the course of questions, Mr. Chairman, but I think -- I just like to summarize by saying what an impressive group of people we were dealing with. They are intelligent. They know their country in a way that no American can every expect to know their country. That kind of knowledge is, obviously, essential in making the kinds of decisions that confront them and us going forward. And they are clearly people who have prepared to step up to making tough decisions.

In fact, I'd like to just conclude finally, I opened by commenting on the bravery of our forces; I'd like to comment on the bravery of Iraqis.

We visited Fallujah, were the U.S. Marines have just awarded Navy commendation medals and Navy achievement medals to five Iraqi Civil Defense Corps members who rescued and saved the life of a Marine private first class under enemy fire at the risk of their own lives.

During that visit, we met with the new head of the Iraqi intelligence service who lost three of his sons to Saddam's executioners.

Up north, our interpreter was an incredibly engaging young Kurdish woman whose sister had recently been assassinated because she was working with our forces.

WOLFOWITZ: And when we asked her, "Why do you continue working when it is so dangerous?" She said, "Because my father told me after the assassination, 'You must never retreat in the face of evil.'"

We met with the deputy prime minister, Barham Sali, who many of us had known for a long time, who was a target of an assassination attempt by Al Qaida elements back in 2002 that were supported in northern Iraq by the Saddam regime.

We met with the president, Sheik Ghazi al-Yawer, who became the acting president of the interim governing council because his predecessor was assassinated in a car bomb that exploded right outside of the so-called Green Zone.

And, of course, the prime minister himself was a target of an assassination attempt by Saddam's thugs in London in 1979, nearly chopped in two and just barely realized the attack in time to get out -- get his head out of the way of the axe. He was hospitalized for a year. His wife suffered a permanent nervous breakdown. He was pursued by Saddam's killers for years after that.

He knows that he is now number one on the enemy target list. There is no one they would like to assassinate more than Iyad Allawi. He is doing this because he's a patriot. He is doing this because he knows what his country has been through.

We have Iraqis by the thousands who are signing up to fight for their country. More than 400 by our own count -- and General Petraeus thinks the real number is twice that -- more than 400 have died in the line of duty since May 1st of last year.

We have courageous Iraqis who have prepared to take on this fight for their country. The key to success, the key to victory, I think the answer to most of Mr. Skelton's questions lies in Iraqi self- government and Iraqi self-defense.

We've met this new government. They're prepared to step up to their responsibilities, and I think we owe them all the support we can give them.

Thank you.

HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Second, to once again thank the families of the incredible folks we have serving our country overseas. Their sustained support makes all the difference in the world to those who are wearing the uniform. And in the case of the Guard and Reserve, to thank their employers for their patience, understanding and support.

And although this particular hearing is about Iraq, on Friday this week, on the 25th of June, the great Americans who have been serving our country in Haiti will complete their mission and turn over to a U.N. force led by Brazil. But the folks who have been serving our country in Haiti, along with some terrific partners in French forces that are there, Canadian forces and Chilean forces, have done this hemisphere and the people of Haiti a great service.

PACE: And I wanted to thank them publicly on the record.

With that, sir, we'll take questions.

HUNTER: Thank you, General.

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for I think a very good summary.

Let's talk about the security apparatus for this fledgling government that is standing up. Obviously they are targets. There have been assassinations. There have been lots of attempts. And one thing that General Petraeus talked about in his remote hearing last week was the standing up of Iraqi security forces for the protection of government to make sure that we could -- this new government has a shield behind which they can operate.

From your discussions, just give us a little insight from your discussions with this new leadership, Iraqi leadership. What is the threat doing to these folks?

Are they -- you said they're standing up to it, but are they -- in your estimation, is the apparatus that we're training right now, the military forces who will be charged with defending the government, just keeping this government, do you think it's moving along well? Do you think it's adequate?

WOLFOWITZ: It's an excellent question.

In fact, our people told us that their first priority, in fact, is protection of the new government. They're going to depend on us to a considerable degree for a certain period of time.

We want to, for a lot of reasons, as rapidly as possible give them their own capacity, especially for close-in protection. There are a lot of reasons why that's a better way to proceed.

But we're not going to take any chances. Until they're fully ready to deal with their own personal security, they'll have all the support they need from us. And I think that's probably all I ought to say in a open session.

But you're absolutely right, it's a matter of utmost importance.

And we also ought to recognize that there are no guarantees out there. It's a dangerous place. Those of you who have tried to get us to arrange visits understand how dangerous it is; there are real problems. Although we continue to try -- we think it's very important for members of Congress to visit. We try to arrange that.

And as I say, none of these very brave men are under any illusions that there are guarantees to their safety, but we need to do everything we possibly can to ensure it.

I might say in that regard, Mr. Chairman, it would help a great deal I think if we had more flexibility in how we define force protection when it comes to the use of our own funds.

WOLFOWITZ: We've been at this subject several times. We have a request up here for $500 million of authority to use DOD funds to train and equip Iraqi forces.

I think that needs to be understood as every bit as important as body armor and up-armored Humvees. It is part of force protection. And I think this committee understands that. And I hope we will get the support we need for that request.

Similarly, I think this committee, particularly those of you who have visited Iraq, have come to understand how important it is to support the CERP program -- the Commanders' Emergency Response Program -- which pays for things like rehabilitating schools and hospitals, which may not seem initially like force protection, but our troops understand it is exactly that because it helps to improve significantly their relationship with the population.

Why do I mention all of this? Because in this visit, I learned about one other thing which is in this boundary line of who has the authority, who has the responsibility. That is the question of creating some kind of biometric identity card that could not be forged.

It's apparently fallen between the cracks of whether it's a CPA authority or a CENTCOM authority. But when I think about how to protect the new Iraqi government, I can think of very few things that would do more than to develop a reliable means of identifying people throughout the country.

So I don't have a specific proposal here, but I'd like to be able to work with this committee to figure out ways in which we can get the flexibility and funding to make those kinds of things possible.

HUNTER: Thanks, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. Secretary, as we hand this thing over, you're going to have -- we will have many instances where the Iraqi government -- at least I would think we would -- where the Iraqi government would request American forces to move to certain locations to undertake certain missions to do things that they think are important to their survival and to the maintenance of this government.

In some cases, we're going to be able to say yes. In other cases, we're going to be able to say no.

I think it's very important that we've got a lock on this process, that we know exactly how we move it and that we don't have American military commanders who feel that they're compelled to do certain things because there are Iraqi requests to do it. But rather they are in fact, clearly vetted with our diplomatic leadership, but also that they have a veto in cases where they think that American force protection is going to be degraded substantially.

HUNTER: And I've seen operations over the years -- thinking of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the first question I asked Colonel Garrety (ph) was why he was down in the low country there taking those incoming artillery shells, and he said, "State mandated our location down here rather than up there in the high country."

You're going to have many instances where the call's going to be between Iraqi requests and American interests. You'll have Ambassador Negroponte in place. You'll have General Sanchez and General Casey. Are you satisfied that the process for making the decisions on these requests is well in place and is well scrubbed?

WOLFOWITZ: I think it's well-designed, Mr. Chairman. Until it's actually in place, the ambassador's there and the new multinational force commander -- assuming Senate approves them -- General Casey is there -- you only know when you exercise it.

But we have actually been exercising a very similar mechanism for over two years now in Afghanistan with exactly those kinds of issues that your raise.

Not infrequently, the Karzai government has asked us to do things on its behalf, and we've questioned whether they really know what they're doing and whether we should get in the business of enforcing the edicts of the government. We've tried to make sure they understand realistically that they should relate their own desire to direct things relate it realistically to their capacity to enforce their will.

And I think over time it's worked about very well. And there's no question Afghanistan -- there will be no question in Iraq -- that American forces report through their commander to the president of the United States. We'll be getting input from all directions, including from our good ambassador, including from the Iraqi political authorities. But the ultimate responsibility for the safety of our forces rests with their commander and with their commander in chief.

HUNTER: OK. And lastly, Mr. Secretary, we've had, in some cases, offerings from other states in the neighborhood of sending forces in. And it's clear, whether it's the Egyptians or the Turks, the Saudis, you have resources in the neighborhood and military resources that could be utilized, and in some cases could be utilized to displace American forces.

To date, our understanding is that this has been strongly resisted by the Iraqi leadership, the idea of having a contingent from Egypt come in, for example, military forces, Saudi, Turkey, other locations.

HUNTER: Do you think it's wise to continue to basically go along with this resistance and for the Iraqi government itself to resist this help from neighboring states, which could provide very substantial forces and obviously have logistical lines that would be much shorter than those -- than the ones that are currently being exercised with this coalition of some near 20,000 forces from around the world?

What do you think about this? Are we going to see any change here? And is there any other more diplomatic way to invite this participation?

WOLFOWITZ: We talked about this specifically, and the prime minister is quite prepared to join us in requesting other countries to participate, with the important exception that they do not want any troops from neighboring countries because that raises large political issues. And I think if you -- one neighbor doesn't raise all the issues it opens it up to other neighbors.

But beyond that, including Egypt, specifically, they are quite prepared to work with us to encourage international contributions. They understand its importance. At the same time...

HUNTER: Saying they will entertain contributions but not personnel?

WOLFOWITZ: No, no. Contributions of forces...

HUNTER: OK.

WOLFOWITZ: ... absolutely. No, contributions of forces.

But they would also say the highest priority is standing up our own people, getting them equipped and establishing Iraqi pride that they can defend their own country. Those are not mutually exclusive objectives, and I think we'll get help in bringing in -- certainly this new Iraqi government will do everything it can to encourage other countries to contribute forces, particularly for the U.N. protection missions and those missions associated with the United Nations.

HUNTER: Thank you.

Gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton?

SKELTON: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

Mr. Secretary, you have mentioned a number of positive accomplishments in your opening statement, and I agree there certainly have been a number of good things that have happened in Iraq this last year.

SKELTON: The deficiencies seem to be centered at one, and that is the security quagmire that we find ourselves in.

I think that prevents so much of continued good things. For instance, the $18 billion that we appropriated for reconstruction, only $3.7 billion has been spent because of the security situation that's there.

I see, Mr. Secretary, two Iraqs. One is the optimistic Iraq that you describe, and we thank you for your testimony; and the other Iraq is the one that I see every morning, with the violence, the deaths of soldiers and Marines. I must tell you it breaks my heart a little bit more every day.

You used the phrase "the face of evil, it is there." The security situation is a Damocles sword that hangs over this entire positive work that you and our country are trying to achieve there.

It seems to me that because of this and allowing it to get started has caused us to fall short.

Mr. Secretary, Ambassador Bremer commented in this last Sunday's Washington Post on mistakes he thought he had made as the CPA leader relative to what was happening in Iraq.

May I ask you from your perspective, as one of the architects of this engagement, what are the lessons that you have learned in the last 15 months? Or what should have been done better? What should have been done differently?

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Skelton, let me start by -- you said I presented an optimistic picture. Maybe it's optimistic compared to the total gloom and doom that one otherwise hears, but I in no way mean to minimize the security problem.

I agree with you: It is the obstacle to all the other progress that's being made. It is incredibly serious.

I gave you a recital of every Iraqi we met with is under some degree of death threat. We know about the horrible killing and wounding of our wonderful Americans. And there's no way to adequately describe how violent the situation is there and how threatening it is.

I think it's also, though, important to stop and think about the nature of the enemy.

The enemy consists primarily of two groups. One are the people who kept Saddam Hussein in power for 35 years. He did not kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and torture even more singlehandedly; he had some thousands of people in his so-called Mukhabarat, the so- called intelligence service, which is probably best described as the modern-day equivalent of the Nazi Gestapo.

He had other even more horrendous killers in something called the Fedayeen Saddam, which I guess is like the Hitler Youth, or like the S.S. perhaps.

This was a regime that depended for its survival on absolute terror, and it had thousands...

SKELTON: Mr. Secretary, let me interrupt if I may. I understand, but my question is what lessons we have learned, you have learned the last 15 months?

WOLFOWITZ: But I'm trying -- this is part of the lesson, if I may.

SKELTON: Please.

WOLFOWITZ: It was a regime that survived with thousands of killers and it was a regime that began making alliance with another group of killers, those people associated with bin Laden and particularly this man named Zarqawi, who has now emerged as probably the most significant author of suicide bombings in Iraq today.

WOLFOWITZ: That's the enemy we're fighting. It is a truly evil enemy. And if you want to say what might have been underestimated, it was probably too great a willingness to believe once we got the 55 people on the black list, the rest of those killers would stop fighting.

The key to defeating them, I believe, before the war, I believe now, the key to defeating them all along has been getting Iraqis trained and equipped and capable of fighting them as quickly as possible.

In fact, we went through some of this argument before the war about whether it was necessary or not to train free Iraqi forces. As you may recall, we did, in fact, set up a base in Hungary to do it. There was so much resistance to the idea within our government that by the time it -- the war began, we had only trained a total of 71 people. It could have been much more. We could have started on that whole project earlier.

But we're on that project. It is the key to success. Getting Iraqi forces up and fighting for their country is the answer. There are plenty of them who want to do it. And if you have any doubt about it being the answer, then go and read the letter that Zarqawi sent to bin Laden in Afghanistan, in which he says explicitly that, "It will be suffocation for us" -- "suffocation" is the word he uses -- "when we are fighting Iraqis who are fighting for their own country and their own brothers."

SKELTON: Were there other mistakes besides thinking that if you got the 55 people that would put an end to the violence -- other mistakes that or things that you would have done differently...

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Skelton, there's a litany of things of might- have-beens...

SKELTON: ... over the last 15 months?

WOLFOWITZ: You know, there's a list of might-have-beens, and all these lists of might-have-beens and reasons why we're having trouble, I've never heard anyone mention the name of Abu Ibrahim.

Abu Ibrahim is a leader of the so-called May 15th Organization. It's a Palestinian professional killer group that's been harbored by Saddam for 25 years in Baghdad. He is one of the world's masters in plastic explosives, and he's still out there making bombs today to kill Americans.

That has got much more to do with why we're having trouble than with whether or not there were enough State Department people in the CPA headquarters in Baghdad.

WOLFOWITZ: And by the way, there were plenty.

The fact is you can second-guess a lot of decisions. There were some that we might have done differently. There were some that were done brilliantly.

Let me talk about one in particular. I hear constant comment that we didn't have enough troops. I'll say two things about that.

First of all, there was a very deliberate decision -- and I believe it was the correct decision. And I think General Franks was probably the key author of it and deserve credit for what I think was a brilliant plan, a plan that moved in so quickly that Saddam did not have time to explode -- to burn the oil fields. He did not have time to organize massive killing fields in Iraqi cities.

I think we have achieved a substantial degree of surprise and saved a lot of American lives and Iraqi lives in the process.

If we had waited for a much longer, much bigger build-up that might not have been necessary, I think we would have given him time to prepare some terrible things.

We'll never know for sure. But it was a conscious decision. I think it was the correct decision.

I'm not sure how having any more troops would have helped us to root out these elements of the old intelligence service once they had scattered out to cities like Fallujah. They are killers. Let's recognize that they are instead of trying to figure out where we did something wrong to create them. We didn't.

We've got to get them. This new government understands we've got to get them. And we understand the way to get about doing it.

I can tell you another mistake. Another mistake was not giving our people the funding flexibility to field Iraqi security forces faster. It's disappointing to me that it's taken so long to get equipment into their hands. It's finally arriving. It's arriving in large quantities.

But if we had been a little less fussy about competitive contracting and a little more eager to get guns and radios in the hands of Iraqi police, it could have been done faster.

SKELTON: From your description, Mr. Secretary, I don't see an end in sight. We're stuck.

WOLFOWITZ: We're not stuck, Mr. Skelton.

SKELTON: Tell us what your measurement is for success, for Americans to say "We've succeeded," and to bring the troops home. At what point?

People ask me this. I have no answer.

WOLFOWITZ: When it becomes an Iraqi fight and the Iraqis are prepared to take on the fight, they're prepared to join their security forces. We are prepared to arm and equip them to do it. I can't tell you how long that's going to take. It's dangerous.

WOLFOWITZ: I remember when people were up here eight years ago, saying we'd be in Bosnia only for a year. We are finally about to end the Bosnian mission -- what is it? -- eight years later.

This is a vastly more important mission for our national security, and it's important to stay and finish it. But there is an end. The end is when Iraqis are governing their own country.

And the great advantage we have is that, while those killers are incredibly evil and incredibly ruthless and generate enormous terror, by their very nature they're not people that appeal to a broad population.

The overwhelming number of Iraqis want success in this venture. You're absolutely right in your earlier comment: What scares them most is the lack of security. But I think they can provide their own security and I think that is the key to success.

SKELTON: Is it your testimony you think we might be there then a good number of years?

WOLFOWITZ: I think it's entirely possible.

But what I think is also nearly certain is the more they step up -- and they will be doing so more and more each month -- the less and less we will have to do. We will begin to -- as they take over more responsibility, we will be able to let them be in the front lines and us being in a supporting position.

That example I gave from the April 9th attack in Mosul, where the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps was able by itself to defend the governor and the government house, because he knew that American forces were there, that's a success story. If American forces, simply by being there and without having to enter the combat, can enable Iraqi forces to succeed, that will be huge progress.

SKELTON: Switching to the present investigation, the Army has decided to appoint General Paul Kern, four-star general, to oversee all the investigation. Was this an Army decision?

WOLFOWITZ: I've been away. To the best of my knowledge, it is an Army decision.

Do you know, General Pace?

PACE: Sir, General Sanchez asked General Abizaid to ask the Army to appoint another officer to oversee Major General Fay's investigation, because General Sanchez felt that he needed to be part of the answers to the questions that needed to be asked.

So it was an Army request up the Army chain, and an Army decision. Specifically, Acting Secretary Brownlee appointed General Kern.

SKELTON: Will he have the ability to question civilians within the chain of command regarding this investigation?

PACE: Sir, I do not know the answer to that question. I'll find out.

SKELTON: Would you?

I'm concerned, Mr. Secretary -- I mentioned it a few moments ago -- about the prime minister's announcement that he was considering the imposition of martial law after June 30th. And there we have our troops over there, and who's going to enforce it but our troops? And, of course, that flies in the face of American common sense.

I ask whether we would be ever in a position of enforcing Iraqi martial law.

WOLFOWITZ: I think we would have to know what he means by that.

As I recall, the statement he made actually was in selected areas and I think it would depend on what areas. It might actually be something that we might mutually agree was necessary to bring order in a particularly difficult place.

But as in Afghanistan, we are certainly under no obligation to enforce edicts or decrees of the Iraqi government that we don't agree with. I think that's why it's so important to have these consultative mechanisms that have been agreed on. Most of the emphasis in talking about them has been to give the Iraqis an input to things we might do that might cause problems for their government. But equally, it's a mechanism for us warning them about things they may do that we would not be in a position to support.

At the end of the day, we have complete control over our forces and our forces will not do anything that their commanders and their commander in chief do not believe is appropriate.

SKELTON: My last question, Mr. Secretary: Ahmed Chalabi has been all over the news recently, and we paid him and his National Congress millions of dollars. Is that correct?

WOLFOWITZ: Yes.

SKELTON: I think it would be a good idea to seek an accounting of where that money was spent, in light of the fact that we've cut him off and that we assisted in the raiding of his quarters and, obviously, he has been discredited.

Could you provide us with an accounting, either classified or unclassified, as to how that money was spent?

WOLFOWITZ: Sir, we can provide a classified one.

I would point out that there's a mixed picture there. And we know from our commanders that some of the intelligence that his organization has provided us has saved American lives and enabled us to capture some key enemy targets.

So it is not black and white. Nothing in Iraq is black and white. I don't think I know of any figure we're dealing with who hasn't had in one way or another to compromise with the incredibly difficult circumstances of the last 35 years of that country's history.

Let's bear in mind there was a long period of time, right up until the Gulf War, when it was U.S. government policy that we weren't allowed to talk to members of the Iraqi opposition. I guess that was because of the Iran-Iraq war.

It's not surprising that many of them -- and Chalabi's not the only one -- made contacts with countries like Iran or Syria or others.

We deal with a lot of people. Contrary to what I see over and over again in newspapers, Chalabi was not a favorite of the Pentagon. We do not believe in having favorites. We believe the Iraqi people have got to choose their own leaders, and that means Americans shouldn't have favorites.

I am surprised that he seems to be the target, for many years, of particular animus from some parts of this government. But on the other hand, there are aspects of his recent behavior that are puzzling to me.

You certainly deserve, as best we can, an accounting of what's happened with our money. I would point out, too, he is by no means the only person that we've been paying for intelligence. And I assume you'd be disappointed if we weren't going to all possible sources.

SKELTON: We would appreciate the classified information that you said you would furnish.

PACE: Mr. Skelton, if I may, sir, just clarify a bit more my answer to your question about General Kern.

General Sanchez was the officer who was the convening authority for Major General Fay's investigation. General Sanchez asked to be replaced as the convening authority of his chain of command.

Secretary Brownlee appointed General Kern to be the new convening authority. That does not mean that he would be the person conducting the investigation. He will work with General Fay to determine whether or not General Fay has the authority or if he needs to appoint someone else new.

I will get the information for you about civilians, sir.

HUNTER: I thank the gentlemen.

One thing, Mr. Secretary: When we've discussed these fora that we're going to have to make sure that when requests come from the Iraqi government, as they came from the government of Afghanistan, as to how -- whether we respond, decide to undertake missions in their behalf or not undertake them, and we have these forums put together where we work together with the Iraqi military, how quickly will those things move to a head and a decision at a higher level when they appear to be very close questions?

HUNTER: You understand what I'm talking about? I mean, we may have some tough ones that need to go up and be resolved at the top very quickly. How will those proceed?

WOLFOWITZ: I hope they will proceed quickly. I mean, one of the things sometimes is that, you encounter this in government at all levels, people, sort of, feel it's their obligation to try to work out an agreement instead of elevating the disagreement and getting a decision.

I know Secretary Rumsfeld and the president both encourage people to bring them decisions. They're not afraid to make them.

And I think your point, implication of our question is a very good one, that we're not looking necessarily for compromise, we're looking for clarity. And sometimes that clarity needs to happen very quickly.

You want to add anything, General Pace?

PACE: Sir, from the commanders' standpoint on the ground, the connectivity, both by secure telephone and secure VTC, with General Abizaid, General Sanchez, if confirmed, General Casey, General Metz and all the division commanders, is very quick, very rapid. And we use it daily for very sensitive targeting, for example.

So I am very confident that if the commanders in the field need to bring questions up the chain of command they will be able to do so very quickly.

HUNTER: OK.

ABERCROMBIE (?): Mr. Chairman, would you yield for a moment?

HUNTER: Certainly. Certainly.

ABERCROMBIE (?): Thank you.

General Pace, the question that the chairman's asking, however, refers to page 16-plus in Mr. Wolfowitz's testimony. This is not a question about what you're doing now. You have the joint operating centers. What the chairman's asking is, how was the joint operating center going to operate? Who's in charge?

PACE: Sir, U.S. commanders are and will remain in charge of U.S. troops. The joint operation centers are being discussed with our Iraqi counterparts right now, and we will find a way to move forward on that that works for the Iraqis and for ourselves. But we will cede no authority nor responsibility to anyone other than U.S. commanders.

ABERCROMBIE (?): So the answer to the chairman's question is you haven't arrived at a modus operandi between the Iraqi sovereign government and yourselves as to how you're going to conduct military operations, nothing exists and we're turning it over on the 30th?

PACE: I would not say it that way, sir.

ABERCROMBIE (?): You don't have to say it that way; I just said it. Is that correct or not?

WOLFOWITZ: No, it's not correct.

When they operate in joint operations, they are under the command of the multinational force commander, which means the American commander.

Joint operations center is to coordinate so that the forces operate together in a coherent way.

ABERCROMBIE (?): Who's in charge of the center?

WOLFOWITZ: The center is not in charge of anything. It's a coordination center. It is the American commander that is in charge of the troops.

ABERCROMBIE (?): So the Iraqis aren't in charge of their own operations?

WOLFOWITZ: If they go into a joint operation with us, they are committing their forces to a unified command just as the Poles are or the British if it's a joint operation. They have the authority...

ABERCROMBIE (?): Who's in charge of the unified command? All you got to do is answer the question.

WOLFOWITZ: The multinational force commander, who is an American general, at the moment.

ABERCROMBIE (?): So the Americans are still in charge, that's the answer?

WOLFOWITZ: The multinational force sanctioned by the United Nations with a U.S. commander is in charge. It is actually a United Nations-sanctioned force.

HUNTER: The key question here was simply as this walks up, some of these questions are going to be very tough and they need to get up to the top quickly to Ambassador Negroponte and General Sanchez, soon to be General Casey. And that's the question, Mr. Secretary.

But I think that's been well answered, that that's going to move -- those questions will move quickly to the top when they have to.

ABERCROMBIE (?): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: Is that your understanding?

Thank the gentleman.

But that is my understanding, that those questions will move very quickly when the circumstances compel it.

PACE: Yes, sir.

WOLFOWITZ: That's right.

HUNTER: OK. Thank you.

The gentlemen from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon?

WELDON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, General, thank you for being here.

I'm not going to try to second-guess our actions in Iraq, because I've been supportive of them and I am very proud that our troops and their leaders have done.

Having visited the theater, I am continually impressed with the quality of leadership that has been provided.

WELDON: However, this hearing regards the future of Iraq, and the topic that I think will have the most bearing on the long-term success of Iraq has not been discussed -- and I raised this issue last week with the State Department and I will continue to raise this issue because I think it's at the heart of the problem we're experiencing right now -- and that's Iran.

The problem, in my opinion, with our instability in Iraq, is being caused by the Khamenei regime in Iran. Over 15 months ago, we started providing information to the intelligence community that the Iranians were, in fact, under Khamenei, setting up a separate entity, separate from the legitimate government.

In fact, the first $70 million of funding to Sadr occurred eight months ago before anyone knew Sadr's name. We knew that was the case, or at least the intelligence community did.

If we look at what's happening in Iran right now, only 9 percent of their population came out to vote in elections this year. It's not a problem with the Iranian people. It's a problem with Khamenei's regime.

Khamenei's seeing on one side Afghanistan stabilizing; on the other side, Iraq about to be stabilized. And then we see right down the road Colonel Gadhafi giving up his weapons of mass destruction without us firing a single shot.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that Khamenei understands his days are numbered. If Iraq, in fact, is successful in controlling their own country, and in securing their own borders and securing their own civilization, then eventually the Khamenei regime will fall.

Just recently, in fact last month, the Revolutionary Guard took over an airport outside of Tehran -- a brand new airport that the government of Iran had actually contracted Turkish authorities to run. The Revolutionary Guard took over that airport and in a statement they issued said it would be a bad signal for Iran to allow a Turkish entity to come in and operate that airport.

We saw Khamenei last month put several dozen legislators, all members of the Revolutionary Guard, into their parliament as an effort to destabilize and have significant influence in the parliament. We have seen significant efforts at developing a crash program on a nuclear weapon -- in fact I'll tell you where the work's being done. It's being done at Isfahan.

There are 17 enrichment operations under way right now in Isfahan. Their goal is to have a nuclear bomb within six months.

Now, I'm not giving classified information, Mr. Wolfowitz because I gave this information to the Intelligence Committee in a document that thick including our own Intelligence Committees over the past 15 months.

In my opinion, we are not putting enough focus on Iran. In fact, there was just a meeting of Khamenei's separate entity that he's established, separate from the government, just last week, where the head of the terrorist action in Iraq informed Khamenei that during 10 days 12 suicidal attacks were carried out inside of Iraq and he was congratulated by Khamenei.

WELDON: So, in my opinion, the bulk of what we're seeing in terms of unrest in Iraq is being carried out both by Iranians, by those groups being supported by Iran's money and by those organizations that are determined not to have Iraq be a stable nation. In fact, most recently, Khamanei has announced $3 billion for an internal program inside of Iran to control his population by using mosques.

And so my question is the same one I posed to the State Department: What is our plan to deal with Iran, because we don't want another Vietnam where neighboring countries, when we are finished and have done our job -- and I think done it quite well -- then have the constant barrage of impact by a neighbor that sees the long-term success of Iraq directly jeopardizing the capability of Khamanei's regime to stay in power?

That's where I think the problem is. And so my question to you -- and I realize this is really a State Department issue, but obviously it has to have your input -- what are we doing about Iran? And what are we doing about Khamanei's activities in fomenting so much unrest?

In fact, right now, the major goal of Khamanei's regime is to increase the price of oil to $50 a barrel. He has said it privately to his own people, $50 a barrel, because he thinks that's the greatest way to invoke unrest in America and the West.

Now, if these factors are, in fact, true and taking place -- in at least five of the major suggestions provided to me by these people have all come true, including their crash program on a nuclear weapon -- what is our plan to deal with Iran? Because, I think in the long term, that's going to be the ultimate determination of the success that we'll have in Iraq.

WOLFOWITZ: I think I'll take your invitation, Mr. Weldon, and say it's a State Department issue.

But it is only -- it is a big issue. Everywhere we went in Iraq we heard strong expressions of concern about destabilizing activities by several of their neighbors, particularly Syria and Iran. And there's no question in their minds -- and I think you're right -- that neither of those countries want to see success in Iraq. They're, in many ways, terrified of it. And I think part of an effective strategy has to be to figure out dealing with those two neighbors in particular.

I think it's important to recognize that this whole problem is a multi-faceted problem. I agree with you, Iran is important. I wouldn't say it's the key to everything. I think Iraq is important. I wouldn't say it's the key to everything.

Saudi Arabia is incredibly important.

WOLFOWITZ: It is under assault right now, probably by some of those same people who want to get $50 a barrel for oil. Syria's part of the problem. The Arab-Israeli issue is part of the problem. Afghanistan we know is part of the problem. Pakistan and potential instability there is part of the problem.

We are facing an unholy alliance of killers and terrorists who want to take the Arab and Muslim world backwards as far as they can take it, and want to bring us down in the process.

And I think we sometimes make a mistake of thinking we can split hairs and say, "This group is against us but that group isn't really," or, "Zarqawi is against us in Iraq but he isn't really a member of Al Qaida."

These groups work with one another and I think the president has been right since he first said that we need to deal with terrorism systematically, with all the global terrorist networks and all the state sponsors of terrorism. And clearly Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, and we're seeing some of that effect today.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt?

SPRATT: Mr. Secretary, General Petraeus told us last week that the Iraqi army that he's training will number around 35,000. And this is, obviously, insufficient to hold this violent, fractious country together. And you have to be struck by the contrast: We maintain 140,000 troops, they have 35,000 troops; a fourth our troop level.

I know they have other forces, but General Petraeus also told us, for example, with respect to the border police -- I can do the math, I know the number of kilometers of border here, and I know the number of border police forces, and I just don't see them able to do that mission.

Let me ask you several questions in that regard. Does the small size of the Iraqi army, relatively small, require the United States to have a sizable deployment in Iraq for some years to come?

Secondly, given the necessity of the army in making this country more stable and more secure, why is its training lagging behind the training of the other security forces?

And then, finally, if we have to maintain substantial troops there for some years to come, are you concerned about our forces, and in particular about our Reserve and Guard components? We have 168,000 on active duty now, we're implementing stop-loss orders, we're extending tours. Are you worried about the effects on our all- volunteer forces, if we're there for some period of time to come?

WOLFOWITZ: Let me just ask one thing. Did you say, why is the army being trained relatively slowly compared to the other forces?

SPRATT: As I understand, there are about 9,000 trained military. If you look at the other security force components, they're much more fully trained and sooner than any of the others. Now, I know it takes awhile to get the army up and trained, but nevertheless we've been there more than a year.

Are we concerned that if we build up a strong army that it might take advantage of the unstable situation and a strong man and authoritarian figure might seize control again?

WOLFOWITZ: Those are all very good questions. Let me try to start with an answer and you can ask some more.

First of all, on that specific question, the army, as designed by us, at least, takes longer to train because it was in a force oriented toward external defense, whereas the civil defense corps is basically, sort of, an initial three-week training and the rest is on-the-job training.

I think we had the wrong design for the army, myself. And I think the prime minister is changing that orientation. With the kind of international presence that's in Iraq today, he doesn't need to worry about external defense. And it's in our interest to have them concentrate on dealing with a real enemy, which is this internal one.

I think for that, the Iraqi army doesn't need to be as elaborately equipped or as elaborately trained. And I think we can probably stand up capable army units for the internal defense...

SPRATT: Surely you don't think 35,000 troops is sufficient to hold this country together...

WOLFOWITZ: No, I don't.

SPRATT: ... ourselves deemed that 140,000 to be pushing the envelope itself.

WOLFOWITZ: I don't, Mr. Spratt, and I don't think that 75,000, which would be the 35,000 plus the 40,000 in the national guard, are enough.

In fact, I've been asking questions for a long time about what is the right number and keep being defeated by people who say, "Well, we aren't at the 35,000 yet. We aren't at the 40,000 yet. Wait until we get there."

I think we will find, and I hope sooner rather than later, that we get there and we need more.

And let me say there is no shortage of Iraqis to serve in those armed forces. The shortage is going to be equipping them. And I don't think that should be beyond capacity to handle. The Iraqis have funds.

WOLFOWITZ: We're spending $4 billion a month, as you know very well, on our own forces. It would be a huge saving to be able to substitute Iraqi forces, which are much cheaper. And our European allies and rich Gulf countries I think have some obligations to step up and help supply that.

So I think I'm, kind of, with the premise of your question: 35,000 plus 40,000 may well not be enough. I'd say it probably isn't enough.

SPRATT: Well, then the question becomes do we take up the slack? Or if not, what do we do?

WOLFOWITZ: I think we should -- they are capable of fielding much more than is our plan, and if more is needed, we should make plans to do more. That's my view.

I accept the point that first things first and you need to start along the path we're on. But I think we should be prepared to expand beyond it.

I do not believe it makes any sense to have Americans defending Iraq when Iraqis are prepared to step up and do the job.

The border enforcement issue which you raised is -- I mean, in the long term it's their problem, and there is a question whether any country can provide the sort of security to stop anyone from coming across the border. You can make it more difficult, but you also have to keep in mind I think the greatest border problem still today is the ability of people to come legally through border crossings.

And that's one of the reasons why the initiative I mentioned earlier to have some kind of biometric identity card so that people can't hide so easily once they're in the country, would be a very important step forward; probably as important as border enforcement.

But again, to come back to the basic point of your question and to come to your point about what we can sustain in the long term, the key to reducing our presence in Iraq is getting Iraqis to step up. They are ready to step up in enormous numbers. I don't think there's a shortage of manpower. I don't think there's a shortage of willingness to risk your life and die. We see that in large numbers.

There is, unfortunately, a shortage of funding to equip them. And I hope if we find that we don't have enough of them, we aren't going to find another shortage in funding.

That's one of the reasons why we asked for this $500 million in authority -- not funding, but just authority -- to go into DOD funds to train and equip Iraqi armed forces.

And I think we still encounter a, sort of, old Cold War mentality that somehow security assistance should be a State Department function; it isn't.

SPRATT: Could I ask a last question? The light is red.

But you said one of your concerns is foreign infiltration. It's a concern we all have. It changes the nature of the conflict there. But isn't one solution to go ahead and strengthen the border patrol so that you can make the borders less porous, less penetrable by these foreign elements?

WOLFOWITZ: Absolutely.

But recognize what kind of borders we're talking about.

WOLFOWITZ: Especially on the Iranian border, you're talking about miles and miles of mountainous terrain. There's no way you can seal off that kind of a border. You can make it more difficult. And the border enforcement, the border police force should be strengthened.

But I come back to my other point. The best way to control borders is on either side. Congressman Weldon's point, the Iranians and the Syrians could do a lot to control the borders if they felt it was in their interest or we compelled them to think it was in their interest.

And the Iraqis could do a lot more to control infiltration on their side if they had a way of tracking who is legitimately where they are and who is not. Everywhere I've talked to Iraqis and to American security people, they all agree that some kind of nonforgeable identity card would be a huge step forward in that regard.

So you need to look at border security, I think, in a broad way. I'm not arguing about better security on the borders themselves, but it's not the main part of the answer.

SPRATT: We have some questions about the budget which we'll submit for the record. We appreciate your answers. Thank you, sir.

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you, Mr. Spratt.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Saxton?

SAXTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, Secretary, General, thank you for being here today and being so frank with us.

Over the past year and a half or so, we have had many discussions about progress and the kind of progress that we'd like to see in Iraq. We've seen progress to a degree in rebuilding infrastructure, and we know how important it is to rebuild the oil infrastructure in particular.

We've seen progress in Iraqi society, particularly in schools opening and schools being rebuilt, health care institutions being reopened and equipped and put into operation.

We've seen the economy -- just last week Petraeus was here via satellite and he talked about plants opening. And he was particularly proud of one asphalt plant that had been opened up in the northern part of the country.

And we've seen progress in standing up governments as well. The first time I visited Iraq last November, again General Petraeus hosted us in Mosul. And we saw local people for the first time in decades taking part in their local government and in security for the northern part of the country.

In spite of the fact that we have seen progress in all of these areas, the nature of the questioning this morning strongly suggests that we'd like to see more. And that depends, we think, on more success, more progress in terms of the security that we're able to provide there.

SAXTON: So my question is this: Knowing that this has been a particularly difficult time in terms of violence in Iraq because people were trying to stop the Iraqi people from standing up to their own government, and recognizing as well that it's unrealistic for us to expect the violence to subside after June the 30th for some period of time, what do you see in terms of the progress over let's say the next six months in terms of security forces, in terms of what we might expect to see, in terms of the Iraqi people being able to provide the kinds of security that will really make a difference, not only on security side, but on the infrastructure rebuilding side, on the Iraqi society side as well as the economy and success of the government?

WOLFOWITZ: I know General Pace has something to say, and I will turn to him in just a minute.

But I think Mr. Skelton's point earlier that all the progress that we made on a whole range of things on the civilian side is fundamentally threatened by the lack of security. In fact, I think most Iraqis would say the lack of security is their greatest personal concern.

Electricity's starting to be fixed. Health care is 30 times higher expenditures than it was under Saddam. Schools are being fixed.

By the way, significantly, a lot of that work is being done with Iraqi money. Some $800 million of Iraqi money has gone to our commanders and to local governments to fix school and to fix hospitals. That's just one example.

But as long as the security situation remains as bad as it is there's enormous anxiety. And moreover the enemy is targeting a lot of that progress. It's not an accident. It's harder to hit Americans, so they go after electricity, they go after the oil infrastructure.

I think -- I'll let General Pace speak now, but I think it would be wrong to suggest that the violence is going to suddenly subside after June 30th. I think the enemy is going to be targeting this process all the way through elections. And elections, of course, create another opportunity for intimidation and terror, which this enemy will work at.

WOLFOWITZ: But I think as we go forward, we may not see a reduction in enemy activity, but I think we will see a steady increase in Iraqi capacity.

General Pace?

PACE: Yes, sir.

I would echo that, Mr. Saxton.

First of all, as you know, sir, about 250,000 Iraqis are required, by our estimates, for their own security, and about 226,000 of those are on duty now in one capacity or another. Many of them need further training.

Examples: the police force. We're training about 1,000 police a month in Jordan -- the Jordanians are. That's going to increase about to 1,500 a month. There are police academies inside of Iraq that are producing about 500 a month now and will increase to about 1,000.

They're looking to countries -- NATO countries, for example, there's a NATO summit the end of this month, we're hoping that more countries outside of Iraq will offer to help train. So as we focus on number one priority, which is to make the Iraqi security forces of all flavors more capable, I think you will see a sustained increase in that capacity.

I would also -- and what I really wanted to say most was that we should expect more violence, not less, in the immediate weeks ahead, as our enemies understand that the Iraqi people are about to do what our enemies most fear, which is to take control of their own government and start making representative decision about the future of their own country. And this is a great threat to our enemies, and we can expect that they will try to disrupt that in any way they can.

SAXTON: If I can just have one quick follow-up question, you know, it's very difficult for us, from our vantage point here in the U.S., to gauge progress in these areas, because, quite frankly, you know, it seems to be the tendency to report on bad news rather than good news, for whatever reasons.

And I'm wondering if, Mr. Secretary, any thought has been given to how we can convey the true nature of progress in Iraq that the American people have been unable to gauge for themselves because of access to that information.

WOLFOWITZ: It's a constant challenge to us, and I wish I knew a silver-bullet answer.

WOLFOWITZ: It certainly makes a difference when members of Congress visit. I think they bring back a firsthand perspective that is invaluable. And often you can bring some press along with you, that I think help also. Because frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors. And rumors are plentiful.

I think, as our soldiers come back and they get an opportunity to get around the country and tell their own stories, that may help.

But we are up against some heavy competition. The Arab media, like Al Jazeera, have no interest in telling the story straight. And I think our own media have some responsibility to try to present a balanced picture, instead of always gravitating for the sensational. And the violent is admittedly sensational.

SAXTON: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

SKELTON: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder?

SNYDER: Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Abercrombie was in the room -- I think he did get in the room.

Am I right, Neil?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

SKELTON: We'll take the gentleman's word for it.

The gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie?

ABERCROMBIE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Wolfowitz, you've indicated -- one of the things you've said was, "We shouldn't have favorites." And I have read your testimony. One of the things you have on page four is that you call the supporters of the cleric Sadr "gnats." The Coalition Provisional Authority...

WOLFOWITZ: That's a typo, Mr. Abercrombie. It should be "gangs."

ABERCROMBIE: OK, "gangs."

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you for catching it.

(LAUGHTER)

It may have been a Freudian typo, but...

ABERCROMBIE: I really read your testimony. I can do proofreading, apparently.

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you.

ABERCROMBIE: Let's say "gangs." I'm not sure that that improves the problem you have there.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has done polling recently. I mentioned in the last hearing, Sadr right now is second only to Sistani in terms of favorability throughout Iraq: 67 percent favorability.

At the same time, you say on page three, and extend on into 15, 16, "full partnership." Now, I'm going to go back over the questions that I've raised in previous sessions with you because I still don't have an answer and I believe the chairman's question has not been answered yet.

Who exactly is going to be in charge after June 30? If we have this full partnership and we're not picking favorites, who is going to be in charge? Whether it's the prisons, trials, prosecutions, Iraqi army actions, border patrol activity, the special operations that are supposed to -- the Iraqi intervention forces that are supposed to be operating in the urban areas -- who is going to be in charge of issuing the orders with respect to attacks or responses to the violence that General Pace says is bound to increase?

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Abercrombie, I think it might help to think about the fact that in a country like Korea even today we have a clearly sovereign government with enormously capable armed forces...

ABERCROMBIE: None of which -- excuse me Mr. Wolfowitz -- the time is short. I'm not interested in Korea because it's not a parallel situation. South Korea does not have the same elements that we're talking about here. What I'm trying to get...

WOLFOWITZ: In the event of a war, it would have very much the same elements, and Korean armed forces would be under U.S. command as U.S. forces are both in peacetime and in wartime.

And it is the tension between a sovereign country that is sovereign in its own country and it depends on the United States and the international community for critical security support that they can't provide for themselves.

And the only way -- there's not a formula for working it out. It has to be worked out in partnership. But I'd say two principles of the partnership are that our forces...

ABERCROMBIE: Right now, Mr. Wolfowitz, is it being worked out?

WOLFOWITZ: I can...

HUNTER: Mr. Abercrombie...

WOLFOWITZ: I can explain at great length that it's being worked out.

HUNTER: Mr. Abercrombie, Mr. Wolfowitz, suspend for second.

WOLFOWITZ: Our forces are...

HUNTER: Mr. Wolfowitz, would you suspend for just a second?

Mr. Abercrombie, you're asking good questions. They're somewhat complex questions. You got to let the witness be able to answer the questions. If you don't get him more than two or three seconds to start his answers, we're not going to be able to have a good, constructive dialogue.

ABERCROMBIE: I don't want the answers to get started. I just want the answers.

HUNTER: And I think it's a...

ABERCROMBIE: Chairman, either we are having this process completed before June 30th or we don't. If we don't, the answer is that we don't have it done.

HUNTER: Well, Mr. Abercrombie, you can dictate your questions. You can't dictate his answers. And you have to give him an opportunity to give his answers. And we're going to give him plenty of time.

ABERCROMBIE: All right.

HUNTER: Let's let him answer fully.

WOLFOWITZ: After June 30th, all operations of U.S. forces and the multinational forces, part of the MNF, will be under U.S. command -- clear U.S. command, reporting ultimately to the president of the United States.

Iraqi forces that are committed to joint operations will be under the same command, that is a joint command headed by the multinational force commander.

Iraqi forces, if they choose to undertake independent operations, are free to do so. It is a sovereign government. Although they are obliged under the terms of these letters to coordinate with the multinational force commander, and where there are sensitive issues of policy, we are committed to reaching agreement on what to do.

Similarly, where we planned to undertake sensitive offensive operations that cause issues for the Iraqi government, we are committed to consulting with them on matters of policy to reach some common understanding.

I think that's a very clear arrangement. It's as clear as it's possible to be. It's going to depend on circumstances and on concrete cases that I would say based on just a few weeks' experience of working with this new government even before they're sovereign, I'm quite confident the mechanisms will work.

ABERCROMBIE: So if the troops that you outline in your testimony here about, for example, the border police, 20,000 by July, fully equipped by September; the other forces -- facility protection service, 74,000 are on duty, final number to be determined, but fully equipped by September; the Iraqi army, 35,000 soldiers and 27 battalions trained and on duty by October, et cetera; then you should have some idea about when we can expect this to end for us.

I'm not asking you for a specific date, but I'm saying -- I'm asking you when can we expect this fully trained and equipped elements, from special operation forces to border police, to be able to assume authority in Iraq and begin the process of withdrawing troops, particularly those in the Guard and Reserve, back to the United States?

ABERCROMBIE: Where's the end in sight?

Because -- and I'm not trying -- I want you -- I'm not asking for a specific date, but if all of this is taking place and you made testimony, as you do every time here, that everything is moving along and if not right on schedule, almost on schedule, surely we can have some understanding of then when our obligations are going to be taking another level.

WOLFOWITZ: We can do our best, Mr. Abercrombie, but let's think about Bosnia, which is a vastly simpler case. Nobody was shooting at us, and yet, eight years ago people said we'll be out in a year, and I don't think anyone would have been able to tell you in eight years we will be out, which is where we're about to be...

ABERCROMBIE: But we had, if you're going to use...

WOLFOWITZ: This is a war. This is a war. We're fighting an enemy, which is a very determined enemy, which is determined to try to upset this process, and I think is going to make a particularly determined effort over the next six months or so because once there's an elected government I think they're going to face a very, very serious defeat, which they're trying to prevent.

ABERCROMBIE: You continually use Bosnia as an example, but you don't represent it accurately.

On the contrary, where Bosnia's concerned we had specific times of draw-downs, which we have met. We've gone from thousands of troops with specific numbers of troops being drawn down at specific times, and all that has worked because we had the infrastructure there in place.

I suggest to you that what you're proposing here is virtually schizophrenic. On the one hand, "You're saying everything is working according to the plans that we have, if not exactly on time almost on time," and yet when it comes to the United States being able to extract itself in an honorable fashion and in an orderly fashion it suddenly disappears.

If you're going to use Bosnia as an analogy rather than a parallel, then it seems to me that you should stick with is as an analogy, and this is the draw-down parallel.

(UNKNOWN): Will the gentleman yield? Will the gentleman yield?

ABERCROMBIE: Certainly.

(UNKNOWN): My good friend and colleague, I just have to state for the record, I can fully remember, because I've given the speech probably 30 times, the president of the United States telling us we'd be out of Bosnia by Christmas of 1998; emphatically, end of the record, that was what he told us, Christmas of 1998. This is June of 2004, and we're still in Bosnia.

ABERCROMBIE: Reclaiming my time...

HUNTER: Let the chair reclaim time for just a second.

I'd say to my good friend from Hawaii, we've got about 30 folks here that need to ask questions. The gentleman's had a pretty good run at the secretary, and I'd like to recognize...

WOLFOWITZ: I did not claim Bosnia as...

HUNTER: Let the secretary answer.

WOLFOWITZ: ... an analogy. I said Bosnia is vastly simpler because there wasn't an enemy trying to defeat us.

WOLFOWITZ: And it's the enemy in Iraq that makes things unpredictable.

And I also didn't say that everything's going swimmingly on schedule. I said our equipping of Iraqi security forces is sadly behind schedule, partly because of our cumbersome contracting procedures.

I think it is finally on schedule. I am hopeful. But I think we are reasonably confident, reasonably confident about the numbers we'd given you about what we expect they'll be capable of feeling by the end of this year. And that should make a significant difference.

I can't tell you how big a difference, and I am with Mr. Spratt in saying I'm not convinced that it's enough. But it will get us substantially improved over where we are today.

And I think there's no question in my mind that at some point, a relative handful of killers, no matter how ruthless they are, can be defeated by an Iraqi people that in the vast majority does not want to see a return to the old horrors.

ABERCROMBIE: Well, I'll conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying that does not answer the question with respect to the responsibility of the United States, then, to keep on providing military forces when we don't have them, when we continue to have stop losses for Guard and Reserve and when we do not have a clear understanding of what our deployment schedules are going to be or requirements are going to be. And this committee is going to have to deal with that. Thank you.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman for a very fulsome question.

And the gentleman from New York, Mr. McHugh?

MCHUGH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, welcome.

I'm tempted to ask to demand what our exit strategy is from Germany, seeing as how we're still there half a century later.

I can't help but express my frustration when I hear members of this committee demand an exit strategy when we'll be done but don't need a date to tell us that.

I think the strategy has been outlined. I suggest perhaps our debate should be focused upon the fact of whether or not the strategy will work. I don't think any of us know the answer to that at the moment.

But having said all of that, Mr. Secretary, I want to go back to your opening comments. People like to say what mistakes were made. I happen to believe a mistake is something that you know should not be done, that all evidence suggests if you do it, you're stupid, but you do it anyway.

I think there have, rather than mistakes been made, lessons to be learned. As we look back, I can't imagine a military engagement of this or any other side that suggest after the fact that had you known then what you hold in your intelligence now, you would be doing some things differently.

MCHUGH: I think the disbandment of the Iraqi army in its totality was probably something, as a lessons learned, we might have done differently.

You commented that you believed or suggest the possibility that Prime Minister Allawi may, in fact, issue a recision of that order. Given where we are today I'm not sure now that that's the right thing to do. I'm not sure that it's not.

But could you tell me from your perspective what the political reaction of that would be amongst Muqtada Al-Sadr and his supporters, particularly the Shia population, Ali Sistani, the grand ayatollah, and others to the reconfiguration of that army that, by and large, was a Sunni instrument of suppression?

WOLFOWITZ: You've just described the very dilemma that led Ambassador Bremer to decide to dissolve the army, which, by the way, had largely gone home anyway. It was a conscript army and heavily overweighted with officers, which is where the issue arises. But most of that army were getting $2 a month, and they had no interest in coming back on duty.

But the issue has to do -- and it's a legitimate issue -- as to whether or not that order may have alienated some significant number of army officers who otherwise would have been cooperative.

But again let's be under no illusions: It had nothing to do with the fact that the members of the old Gestapo -- and I don't know a better word for it, because if you say Mukhabarat it doesn't mean that much; maybe Gestapo doesn't mean that much anymore to people who don't know their history -- but those people didn't decide to fight us because we disbanded the army.

They'd been -- Saddam Hussein was out there funding fights against us until December. He didn't make that decision because of our decision on the army. So let's be clear: The core of the enemy are the hard core killers, and they've been there since the beginning.

This issue about the army has to do with whether some officers who otherwise are decent people might have provided some at least passive support to the enemy because they were disillusioned. And I think prime minister's trying to pull those people back and at the same time do it without his -- as your question properly suggests --, providing ammunition for somebody else, Sadr or maybe a more reasonable person, to say, "This government's bringing back the old regime."

I am absolutely certain this government has no intention of bringing back the whole regime. I gave you a recital earlier of how Allawi, himself, suffered from the old regime. I was very struck, in fact, when General Latif, who was the initial man in charge of the Fallujah Brigade, who's an army veteran himself, spoke with eloquence, not too far along the lines of Mr. Weldon, that, "Our neighbors do not want us to succeed in this (inaudible), because they know that a free and democratic Iraq is going to be a threat to them," and he clearly meant particularly I think Syria and Iran.

He believes in it. He doesn't want to go back. But after what Iraq has been through there are a lot of people who will be fearful that bringing back old army officers might represent a return to the past.

The prime minister has a challenge. It's much better that this challenge be faced by an Iraqi than by an American administrator. I'll imagine he'll make mistakes, or at least he'll make errors of judgment, that he'll go in one direction and the political process will scream and say, "You've gone too far." I think he's a smart enough man to tack and change a little.

I think that's what democratic process is about is the ability to correct mistakes through a process of public debate and transparency, and I see Iraq heading into that era, and it needs it because this issue of how do you handle people who served their country honorably but under a totally dishonorable regime, how do you treat them appropriately, it's a big challenge, and I'm glad there'll be an Iraqi government to make those judgments.

MCHUGH: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

PACE: Sir, if I might add, with regard to timing, I can't give you a precise timeline. But I do know the things that must happen.

First of all, we must have a well-trained, competent Iraqi security force. That will take time. We are behind for the reasons that have been stated. But that needs to happen.

When they are well-trained and competent, then they need to take, for example, Baghdad, where they should be -- Iraqis should be standing the police beat downtown Baghdad. They should be doing the patrolling downtown Baghdad.

And we should initially move back from the center of the city to the outside of the city so that if they get in trouble that they can't handle, we are in close proximity to respond and support. And as they become more capable and they take over the outer cordon as well and we move back even further. And then as they become totally capable and competent, then we can leave the country.

But this should be event-driven not calendar-driven.

MCHUGH: Mr. Chairman, if I might -- I couldn't agree with you more, General, and that was my point about cannot establish dates.

But I would just say to my colleagues, if there's any doubt in any of our minds that the key to the success here lies in the Iraqi people and the standing up of these various security forces, just look at where more and more of the bombings are occurring. They are occurring in army recruitment centers. They are occurring at police stations where Iraqis are on duty.

I think the enemy and those who wish this fledgling democracy ill understand that as well.

So I would suggest, as I started to say earlier, the strategy is what should be debated here. And at least our enemies, in part, feel this strategy is very achievable.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

And now the gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder?

SNYDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Mr. Secretary and General Pace, for being here.

Mr. Secretary, do we have a parts problem in Iraq?

Just in the last 30 minutes, I got an e-mail from someone I know over there. And their platoon has three of their six dozers down because of equipment and maintenance problems. Two of their front-end loaders are down because of parts and maintenance problems. And these are machines that are used for filling in containers and proving protection from blasts.

Do we continue to have a parts and maintenance problem on our vehicles?

PACE: Sir, there may be spot problems for specific units getting resources down to them. I'm not aware of those. But I do know that this Congress has provided sufficient resources for us to have all the spare parts we need to continue this mission.

If you could give me off-line the name of the units so I can you specificity on why that particular problem exists.

SNYDER: You think it's rare and spotty problem, not a systemic problem we're having with equipment and vehicles, maintenance and parts.

PACE: I do believe that, yes, sir.

SNYDER: Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask you about this issue of the equipping of the Iraqi army. We've had ongoing discussions about these troops. And for the -- I don't know -- six or eight months or so, Secretary Rumsfeld has said multiple times when he would list the coalition forces the numbers of troops that he would add in -- and they were impressive looking numbers.

But then today, both in your oral statement but also in your written statement, you spend quite a bit of time talking about the equipping.

And on page 21 of your statement you say that, "Iraqi security forces need more and better equipment. We had not planned for them to be fully equipped at this point."

SNYDER: But candidly, Mr. Secretary, when you had listed these charts in the last six, eight months that would list those troops, I think most of us assumed that if they were on the list and they were considered part of the coalition, that they had been properly equipped.

You go into detail now about getting these troops equipped. Are we on track now to have this equipment? Who is responsible for what went wrong that they were not equipped at this point in time?

WOLFOWITZ: We'd have to look at particular numbers -- I've tried always to be careful about saying, for example, we have large numbers of police but the great majority of them are not well-trained. And the big challenge has been, and it remains, to get police training up and also equipping.

I think -- and this is something we're monitoring closely, and having General Petraeus there is a key factor. But I was told just this past week that large quantities of equipment are now arriving under...

SNYDER: He told us last week that though. He says the contracting process, in his words, is "up and in high gear"; that there was originally a problem, he thought, on his end of things in Iraq with the contracting process. And you know you talk about what might-have-beens we're trying to learn from this, we had problems with SAPI plates, we had trouble with up-armored Humvees, I'm hearing from folks in Iraq we have parts and maintenance problems with vehicles.

And then your statement says we're behind in our equipping of Iraqi troops. And you made reference to the Congress being at error, but I read General Petraeus' statement to say that the contracting is up and running. And perhaps this is an area where advance planning could have foreseen that we were going to need so many troops or we want to have Iraqi troops well-equipped.

Another question...

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Snyder, what I think is important -- advance planning is great, but when you're in a war, flexibility is also essential. And the Congress has given us a lot of flexibility on things like up-armored Humvees and SAPI plates. I think we were able to move about $2.5 billion, thanks to the flexibility you've given us, against those force protection needs.

As I think you know -- and it's not only on this end of Pennsylvania Avenue; there are jurisdictional arguments on the other end -- but this issue of whether equipping security forces as a military mission or is foreign affairs mission, I think has gotten us hung up unnecessarily and deprived us of some flexibility that would have allowed us to fill in where the plan ran into a problem.

In the case of the supplemental, the plan ran into a problem because the fairly cumbersome requirements for competitive bidding I don't think were appropriate for this particular piece of the supplemental.

SNYDER: Well, that's why I've got it confused, because General Petraeus says the contracting process is, in his words, is "up and in high gear," and I don't understand why...

WOLFOWITZ: It is now. But it took six months.

SNYDER: ... why we've gotten so behind. Because clearly in anyone's plan a year and a half ago or two years ago would have been that we're going to have an Iraqi army that needs to be able to defend the country.

The issue of the prisoner detainees -- and to me the allegations that have been made and the pictures we've seen, to me this is an issue about protecting troops, protecting our troops; that anything that the world perceives as our mistreatment of our prisoner detainees, the signal will go out, "It is OK to treat Americans that way."

And so I had hoped when we first heard about these allegations that, in the words of General Myers, sitting right there at that table saying, "We need to get everything out on the table to resolve it, to lance it like a boil." Those are my words, I guess from my medical background.

We get it out all out on the table. The sooner we can resolve this, find out who's responsible, take appropriate action, we will regain the moral authority.

The problem is it does not seem to me that you all are interested in getting things out on the table. Mr. Skelton has made multiple requests for information and documents that have not been forthcoming. I don't think any member of this committee has been able to review the ICRC report that Ms. Tauscher has been trying to get access to. Either we're interested in getting it out on the table or we're not.

I'd asked General Myers a question about General Mahoosh (ph). It was just a very simple question. There had been a press release put out by someone that he had died. There was no reference to any allegation of mistreatment. Then some reports got leaked from the Pentagon. The Denver Post did a story on it.

My question was, "Did anyone ever do an updated press release?" Last night or this morning, I got a response back to my question but did not answer the question. It just gave me the status of the case but did not indicate whether it had ever been a correction of the first press release that came out.

That to me is not putting everything out on the table so that the Congress, working with you, both as representatives of the American people, can regain the moral authority on this issue with the ultimate goal being protecting U.S. troops.

Am I missing something here on why...

WOLFOWITZ: Well, I think we are determined to get everything out on the table.

The ICRC presents a special dilemma because that organization depends on confidentiality to function. And it functions effectively in a great many countries around the world where its activity could be seriously jeopardized by this issue.

WOLFOWITZ: We're trying to work with the Congress to find a way to get the Congress fully informed while respecting the concerns of the ICRC.

On many of the issues that we're dealing with, we're trying to get the facts up. It's not a matter of hiding facts but a matter of multiple investigations that are under way to try to find out what really happened and what were the causes of things...

SNYDER: No, ICRC...

WOLFOWITZ: ... I must say, I'd like -- since this subject has come up, I'd like to at least clarify one thing that has been seriously misreported for almost the last 24 hours by CNN claiming that Secretary Rumsfeld authorized some kind of extreme interrogation method in Guantanamo that I think they describe as water torture.

That is wrong. CNN was told yesterday that it was wrong. They have continued running the story until I'm told, finally, this morning that at 8:30 they published a correction.

I was in discussions with Secretary Rumsfeld where he specifically ruled out the use of that kind of technique.

I agree with you that how we treat people is important. I think it's particularly important with respect to the fact that we stand for something very different from the governments in that part of that world.

I do have to tell you, though, what concerns Iraqis is winning this battle against this enemy. I was struck at how little this issue ever came up in my discussions with Iraqis when I was out there. Doesn't mean it's not a serious issue.

SNYDER: What concerns Americans is not only winning the battle but protecting our own troops and having -- regaining the moral authority on this issue is crucial to that.

I want just a clarification. You're not saying, are you, that ICRC has told you they do not want Mr. Hunter or Mr. Skelton to see the ICRC report? You're not saying that to us today, are you?

WOLFOWITZ: I've been away. I'm not certain of the exact state of the discussions.

I know the ICRC has concerns about sharing information with this Congress that could cause precedents that create problems for them with other countries where the situation is more tenuous. And we're trying to work through it. We have no desire to hide the reports.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Simmons?

SIMMONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony.

As I've listened this morning, it, kind of, takes me back a little bit to my own service in Vietnam, the difficulties we had in that country, but in particular as a soldier, the difficulty I had in observing the dissension and criticism of the war that came from my own representatives back in State-side and how difficult and demoralizing it was.

SIMMONS: I also think of my kids playing video games, many of which have to do with somewhat violent activities. But, you know, when the day is over, you turn the game off.

And what comes to mind to me is the larger question as to whether the United States of America as a nation and as a culture has the willpower to muster the energy to win against religious fanatics using suicide tactics. Do we have the staying power?

Certainly in Korea we had the staying power; we still have troops in Korea. In Germany we had the staying power; we still have troops in Germany. Bosnia, which doesn't hold a candle to the war on Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, we still have people there.

It seems like the pressure is on to get out quickly and dirty, and it doesn't really matter what the consequences of getting out quick and dirty are.

Do we have the willpower? Does this nation have the cultural resources to proceed against this kind of opponent?

PACE: Sir, your troops certainly have the willpower. And we do not mind criticism. In fact, lessons learned is what we're about as we do things. And in fact, we have our lessons learned teams with us so we can learn and do better the next time.

But I agree with you, it would be nice if, in addition to the criticism, the vast majority of wonderful things that your troops do every day got public recognition. They are doing this government and this country a wonderful service. And they will stay at it and they will not blink, and they just need to know that we appreciate what they're doing, sir.

WOLFOWITZ: And I would say I also think you've got to look at lessons learned and where you can improve. And criticism is not only an essential feature of a democratic system, I think it's an essential feature of success.

I do think it's important for the troops to hear that we are committed as a country to winning, and I think we have to be committed as a country to winning.

We have an opportunity in Iraq, in fact -- and that's what all this discussion about equipping Iraqi security forces is about -- to enlisting tens of millions of Arab Muslims in this fight against a coalition of terrorist killers that have their eye on much more than just defeating us in Iraq; although defeating us in Iraq is clearly the main agenda of those people who are there.

But look what's going on next door in Saudi Arabia. I mean, they're out to bring down the government of the world's biggest oil producer, and it's not to do anything nice for us.

WOLFOWITZ: Look at what they're trying to do in Pakistan, where they've made two or three assassination attempts at President Musharraf.

As I said earlier, it's an unholy alliance of different groups who are committed to taking the Arab and Muslim world backwards and hurting us disastrously in the process.

And they understand that this battle in Iraq is crucial to their success, and I think we have to show that we equally understand that it's crucial and we're going to win it.

And we have the great majority of the Iraqi people on our side to win it. And I think that is one of our biggest strategic assets, that and the fact that we have the best young men and women in uniform any country could ever have.

SIMMONS: I thank the gentlemen for their response.

I guess I'll simply conclude by saying that I will do my best under Article 1, Section 8 to provide you with the resources you need.

I appreciate this oversight hearing, but I'm mindful of the fact that there cannot be 535 secretaries of defense. There cannot be 535 commanders in the field; that we have to take some of what you have to say on faith because that's part of the division of powers that our forefathers and foremothers established for us. And I will do my best to provide you with the support you need.

I thank the chair.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Tauscher?

TAUSCHER: Mr. Secretary, General Pace, thank you for being here.

Mr. Secretary, for a long time, you and the rest of the administration have talked about turning Iraq into a democratic or at least functioning state that will serve as a model for the region. And I don't disagree with that.

But I'm deeply concerned about a precipitous withdrawal of troops, for whatever reason, in the short term if we don't achieve a political end stance that is satisfactory to the American people. If we cut and run in the next few months, none of this will work for the long-term stability of the region and certainly not for the people in the United States.

So I want to talk to you about those metrics of success that General Pace so articulately talked about. And I actually think that there are more that we can expand upon.

But what specifically are you going to ensure that we achieve before we leave, in terms of security, governance, elections, reconstruction and economic growth?

Assuming that there is no additional assistance coming from NATO -- and I've gone to many NATO meetings recently, and I can tell you there are no fresh troops on the horizons from NATO -- how long do you think our troops are going to need to stay?

TAUSCHER: You've used the Bosnia analogy in a tortured way, in my opinion. Frankly, we have withdrawn troops on a steady basis. We are about to withdraw most of our troops, I would say. But you also said that, you know, it's a much easier situation in Bosnia.

We've been there for eight years. Are you suggesting that we're going to be in Iraq for longer than eight years? And what does it mean that you think things are going easier somehow and why?

WOLFOWITZ: I don't think I said they're going easier. I think I've tried to say over and over again I think the next six months are going to be particularly difficult, particularly dangerous, because I think what terrifies the enemy the most is the prospect of an elected Iraqi government, which is -- I mean, let me go through the five steps of the president's plan.

It starts with having this interim government established on July 1st. It includes, secondly, training, equipping Iraqi security forces, which we've talked about at some length now. It includes moving toward an elected government at the end of this year, the beginning of next year. It includes bringing in additional international forces.

And I agree with you, they're not going to come in huge numbers. And it's not because of an absence of U.N. resolutions. We've now had the fourth U.N. resolution. The problem is most of these countries don't have forces.

We're having difficulty getting the NATO countries to provide the things they've committed to in Afghanistan. They have hollowed out their military over the last 10 years. I suppose it's not dangerous if you think the threats have gone away but the threats haven't gone away.

And finally -- and this is the end of next year -- the plan is for there to be a constitution adopted by the Iraqi people and an elected government under that constitution.

It seems to me that implies, at least through the end of that time period, some substantial requirements for the Iraqi security forces to need support from us. I can't tell you how much.

I think General Pace has outlined the kinds of events we would look for to gradually reduce our numbers and also reduce our direct involvement in combat, which I think is at least as important as reducing our numbers.

You say my bringing up Bosnia is tortured. I brought it up to say that even a simple case like Bosnia has taken seven years longer than was initially predicted. And I guess I would also say even a case like Bosnia, where the U.S. national interest was fairly minimal, and it was a largely humanitarian action -- although I happen to believe it was the correct action -- it was worth sticking it out for eight years. Other members of this committee have mentioned that we're still sticking it out in Korea, still sticking it out in Germany.

This is part of fighting an enemy that has made it clear it's determination to attack the United States, its determination to take down the world's oil supplies, its determination to take down every moderate government in the Arab world, its determination to oppose the advance in the Muslim world, which I think is the key to defeating this terrorist threat.

TAUSCHER: But, Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, aren't you determining...

WOLFOWITZ: So I guess I'm saying a little patience wouldn't be bad.

And patience, Mrs. Tauscher, if I might say, the more the enemy senses the American people to be patient, the more discouraged they will become and the less eager they will be to join this fight. The more they sense that we're impatient and that may be a few more car bombs, and we'll go the way of Beirut, the more car bombs there will be.

TAUSCHER: But the truth is that we're not in Germany in a postwar effort. We're there because of the Cold War and because of our ability, because of our cooperation through NATO and other reasons to station our troops there. We're not in South Korea because of the post-Cold War effort or because of the post-Korean conflict. We're there because we happen to have a strategic reason for being there.

WOLFOWITZ: No, we're there because of a North Korean threat to South Korea, just as we are in Iraq because of a threat to the new Iraqi government.

And the fact is, if you recall the Marshall Plan was laid out in 1948 because it was viewed that the occupation of Germany, the occupation of Western Europe was going so disastrously bad we had to come in with a major bailout. That was three years after the end of World War II. These things take time.

TAUSCHER: But what will happen, Mr. Secretary, if the elections are not able to be achieved in Iraq in December, as you have laid out?

WOLFOWITZ: It is possible. The enemy is going to try to make it as difficult as possible to hold elections. When you have a plan -- I mean, I think that's the saying in the Pentagon, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Any plan that depends on absolute rigid following of the plan isn't a very good plan.

So it's a very important target, and we're going to work very, very hard to meet it. And if it turns out that the enemy has made it too difficult, we'll have to figure out what is the way to adapt to that. But there is no question that elections are the goal.

Look, we've had -- we encountered that in Afghanistan. There was a plan for elections. I'm sorry, I've been in Iraq too long, and I've forgotten my Afghan timetables, but you know we've just had to slip the Afghan elections by some three months because the U.N. was way behind in registering people.

Was that a deviation from plan? Yes. Was it a setback? Well, it was a minor one. Was it a defeat? No. I mean, we're still on track to have elections in Afghanistan. They'll be a little later than originally planned, but it makes a big difference to the Afghan people that they see a way ahead. And I think it makes a big difference to the Iraqi people now that they see a way ahead.

One local official, I think he was a mayor of a town near Fallujah, said to General Maddis, "In my heart, I want you to leave tomorrow. In my head, I know we need you quite a bit longer." Iraqis are wrestling with this dilemma of resenting being occupied, wanting to govern themselves, and knowing they don't yet have the capacity to do it.

There's no magic moment when you can suddenly flip a switch and go from one to the other. That's why you need a process. You need a way ahead. I think the plan the president laid out, which takes us, hopefully, through the end to next year and a constitution, is a very a good way ahead that tells Iraqis, "You have a country that's worth fighting for," and I think they will do so in large numbers.

TAUSCHER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: I thank the gentlelady.

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Schrock?

SCHROCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, Mr. Secretary and General Pace, thank you for being here.

I hope all of you heard what Mr. McHugh said and Mr. Weldon said and then my colleague from Connecticut, Mr. Simmons. I identify myself with every bit of that.

As far as an exit strategy is concerned, I lived in Vietnam for two years, so I know how difficult it is. And, frankly, we're in Germany and Korea because of a variety of complex circumstances. You know, make it in the best interest of the United States to do so, both in terms of sending signals to our enemies and our friends, and a continued presence certainly has its advantages.

SCHROCK: And I think the same thing will remain true for Iraq as well.

If we had the blueprints from what the enemy is doing now and was going to do, then we might be able to have an exit strategy. We don't have that, so we play it a day at a time. Nothing in war is certain, and an exit is certainly one of those that is uncertain.

I'm sorry I heard one of the responses earlier this morning and the opening statements that said that they believe the Pentagon lacks the resolve but questioned the competence. I don't believe that for a minute.

Some of the people who were at the top levels of the Pentagon now were my colleagues when I was still active duty, and I know what great people they are. So to question the competence of any civilian or anybody in uniform I think is untrue and I'm sorry that was said.

It seems like "blame America first" seems to be the pattern right now and I'm really tired of that. You know, there is so many optimistic and wonderful things going on in Iraq right now. As the troops are saying, "Why don't we understand that? Why doesn't the media present that?" Because good news is no news, and negativism seems to play better than the optimistic type things.

And we're seeing that in the campaigns this year. You know, one candidate is very optimistic about our country and where it's going and one is not. And frankly, the optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole.

I'd rather see the doughnut, because I think a lot of wonderful things are being done by you and by the men and women you have -- we have put in Iraq. And I think we're blessed by that and I think everything's going to turn out just great in the end, but it takes time. It just takes a lot of time.

Let me ask a couple questions.

The Iraqi prime minister has raised the prospect of implementing martial law in various parts of the country. Who's going to enforce such an edict and will that edict fall to the coalition forces or the Iraqi forces?

PACE: Sir, any edict like that by the Iraqi government would be backed up by their own security forces.

We would, obviously, have consultations with them if they were to decide that that was the path to take. We would want to discuss with them ahead of time their capacity to enforce that kind of edict.

But at the end of the day, the U.S. forces will be executing missions that are given to us by our secretary and our president.

WOLFOWITZ: By the way, we'd also discuss with them the wisdom or lack of wisdom of doing it, and I think they'd be listening to us, just as President Karzai listens to us about edicts that he proposes.

SCHROCK: Well, let me do a follow up on that then.

Will coalition forces be obligated to carry out the edicts of the interim government? And if that's the case, how will we avoid the perception that the interim government is truly not sovereign, is not truly sovereign?

WOLFOWITZ: We are not obligated to carry out their edicts. That doesn't make them unsovereign.

They can carry out whatever edicts or decisions they make if they have the capacity to do so, but we're not under an obligation to enforce decisions they make if we think it's either not our role or we think it's the wrong thing to do.

If we think it's the wrong thing to do, I would hope we could actually come to some agreement with them that neither of us should do it. But at the end of the day, there are judgment calls here and if they make a judgment call one way and we choose to separate ourselves from them, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

SCHROCK: Now, Mr. Secretary, the prisoners issue: Will the prisoners that are currently detained be handed over to the interim government and what obligations will the Iraqi interim government have to treat them in a humane fashion as we had done and hope to continue to do?

WOLFOWITZ: We would certainly expect anyone we hand over to be treated humanely, and obviously that's more than just a matter of verbal assurances.

I think it's a very complicated question, and in part involves their current, very limited capacity to manage detainees themselves. It involves the fact that we have certain legal authorities, which are exactly quite broad under the U.N. resolution. They don't have those legal authorities; they have their own law to work with.

What is clear to both of us is that this is an issue that's critical for us to handle effectively together. And for that reason, we've agreed with the prime minister to set up a joint detainee committee that would include representatives from those countries holding detainees, which at the moment is ourselves and the United Kingdom, and representatives of the Iraqi government. Because there are a lot of case-by-case decisions that are going to have be made.

SCHROCK: Mr. Chairman, I see my time is up.

Again, thank you. A week from today is going to be a fascinating day, and I just hope, you know -- patience is a virtue, and I'm one who doesn't have patience, I can assure you of it. But we're going to have to be in this case and just take it a day at a time. It's going to work.

But we just have to cut down on some of the rhetoric we've heard and get behind the folks that are trying to make this work, to make sure the enemy is not emboldened by some of the things that we might say up here, to make them think if they hold up for one more hour, one more day, that we'll cave in. Because we won't cave in. Our men and women won't tolerate that. Nor will you, nor will we.

Thank you.

SKELTON: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Hill?

HILL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here this morning.

Mr. Secretary, you have advocated for a long time, many years, a preemptive strike against Iraq, correct?

WOLFOWITZ: No, that's not correct.

HILL: Set the record straight then.

WOLFOWITZ: I believed for a long time that -- basically from the end of the Gulf War on -- that we should have more actively supported the Iraqi opposition in efforts to overthrow the Saddam regime.

And I still think we missed quite a few opportunities, including at the end of the war and throughout the 1990s, to enable Iraqis to take their fate in their own hands and what might have spared us this situation today.

For me everything changed after September 11th. And the problem of state sponsors of terrorism, and particularly a state that had continued to harbor a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a state that had contacts of a murky but ominous sort with Al Qaida -- Al Qaida was not the sort of organization you approach to do joint humanitarian projects. It's exclusively a terrorist organization. The mere fact of contact is disturbing. All of that said to me we were in a different era, and we had to think about the Iraqi problem in a different way.

And by the way, I don't believe the action the president took can be called preemption. It was after -- what? -- 17 U.N. resolutions, 12 years of a failing containment policy, a constant, virtually daily bombing of Iraq, large American military presence in Saudi Arabia to support that containment that was destabilizing the Saudi government. It certainly wasn't preemptive.

HILL: Did you make this decision to remove Saddam Hussein based upon intelligence from Chalabi?

WOLFOWITZ: First of all, I didn't make the decision. Secondly...

HILL: I'm not -- the decision...

WOLFOWITZ: ... the intelligence that I relied on and the intelligence the president...

HILL: Let me restate the question. Did you arrive at a conclusion that Saddam Hussein had to be removed because of information that you had received from Mr. Chalabi?

WOLFOWITZ: No. I relied on intelligence that I got from our intelligence community. I relied on certain things that are open facts, like the fact that Saddam was harboring the bomber from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; I didn't need Mr. Chalabi to tell me that.

If Chalabi's intelligence was part of what we were getting from the intelligence community, you'd have to ask the intelligence community about that.

In fact, I recall one memo from the intelligence community that I read in the year 2002 that analyzed a grand total of five sources they claim that they had gotten from the Iraqi National Congress and basically dismissed all but one of them. So I don't believe it was an important part of our intelligence.

HILL: Well, why were we paying him $1,000 a month then?

WOLFOWITZ: We have gotten some very valuable intelligence since the war from his organization about the location of key enemies. It's helped us to capture, for example, I believe the number is six of the people who were identified in the documents that were captured with Saddam Hussein.

One of our division commanders has said it saved American lives.

We pay a lot of people for intelligence. We're paying a lot of people quite a bit more than that. You have to go into a classified hearing to assess whether it's worth it or not.

This was not, by the way, it was funded -- was a use of money that Congress appropriated under the Iraq Liberation Act.

WOLFOWITZ: I don't know if you remember it. At the time in 1998, I think it was some $97 million. Some of it was devoted to this operation by the Iraqi National Congress called the Information Collection Program. It was funded out of the State Department until whatever time in the year 2002, I believe, when State said, "This is essentially an intelligence operation, we shouldn't be funding it."

There was a general judgment that it was bringing in potentially information of value. So since we have with the Defense Intelligence Agency a mechanism for collecting intelligence, the funding was channeled through us.

HILL: Mr. Secretary, I think the evidence is overwhelming that you and Mr. Perle and others decided a long time ago that Saddam Hussein had to be removed prior to September the 11th. I think that you're somehow trying to connect in ways that I don't understand September the 11th and Iraq. I don't think there is a connection. I think the evidence is overwhelming.

But we are where we are today based upon decisions that had been made that have been influenced by your assessment of what we should be doing with Iraq many years ago. And so we're dealing with the problem as we're dealing with it now.

Could you tell me what your vision is five years from now, best case scenario, worst case scenario, of what the Middle East should look like?

WOLFOWITZ: Congressman, my record is very clear and it's right out in the open and I just repeated it to you. I favored enabling Iraqis to overthrow Saddam Hussein up until 2001. And I repeat I think there is some missed opportunities that would have spared the whole world a great deal of trouble.

The issue isn't whether Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11th. The issue is whether Saddam Hussein, among other things, was a state supporter of terrorism, which he was. The issue is whether Saddam Hussein was involved with bombers from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; he was harboring the one fugitive still at large.

The issue is Saddam Hussein's contacts with Al Qaida and support for Al Qaida. If you go and look at the sealed indictment that was issued against Osama bin Laden in February of 1998 -- this is not me, this is the U.S. Justice Department during the Clinton administration -- said that in 1992 and 1993 Saddam and Al Qaida came to an understanding not to attack one another and to provide mutual support.

I don't need proof of involvement in September 11th to be concerned that Saddam Hussein is providing mutual support to Al Qaida. It seems to me it's like saying if someone breeds Rotweilers and leaves the gate open but doesn't tell the dog who to attack that he's not operationally involved in the thing.

This is a man who funded terrorists, supported terrorists. We know he had weapons of mass destruction programs. What exactly the status of those programs was we don't know.

But let's look at something else: At the end of the day, we staked everything on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441. We said if Saddam will finally at last comply with his obligation to accept U.N. inspectors, we will essentially -- weren't quite the words -- but effectively we're saying we'll wipe the slate clean or at least we'll start fresh on all these other issues.

We had issues about how he abused his people.

WOLFOWITZ: We had issues about his support for terrorism. We said, "Let's focus on this one key issue, weapons of mass destruction. And let's set the standard that he has to fully disclose what he has and he has to comply with U.N. inspectors."

People seem to have forgotten that standard. David Kay has testified that Saddam was in blatant violation of Resolution 1441. He was not disclosing everything and he was obstructing inspectors at every turn.

And then suddenly, the bar is raised and we're saying, "But where are the stockpiles?" U.N. Resolution 1441 didn't talk about stockpiles, it talked about compliance with a resolution.

We talk about Saddam Hussein's association with Al Qaida and suddenly raise the bar and say, "Yes, but where's the proof he was involved in 9/11?"

I don't think he has to have been involved in 9/11. To be involved with Al Qaida strikes me as sufficiently disturbing to want to think, after September 11th, that maybe we need to do something serious.

HILL: I could engage in an argument about what you just said, Mr. Secretary, but I don't have time -- my red light is on.

But would you please answer my question about what your vision is for the Middle East five years from now?

WOLFOWITZ: The best I can say is I think I would go back to -- that's a very...

HUNTER: Mr. Secretary, before you answer that question, let me just remind the committee we've got the secretary until about 15 after the hour. We still have about 25 members who want to ask questions. So if you can move that answer along fairly rapidly, that would be good for us.

WOLFOWITZ: I would hope that five years from now we see an Iraq that has more or less effectively defeated this enemy -- doesn't mean that terrorism will be gone; terrorists in small numbers can do damage -- but that it will be a functioning country -- that it will not be our model of a perfect democracy, let's be clear about that, but that it will be developing, emerging democracy like the countries that have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe from decades of actually milder dictatorship; that it will be a force for stability in the Middle East instead of instability.

I also hope that five years from now, the Saudis, with all their admitted faults, will have succeeded in defeating an enemy that's far worse than anything we criticize the Saudi government for being. Let's remember there's a serious battle on there.

I would hope that five years from now the Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories would have gone way beyond just Gaza, and in fact we will be able to realize what the president has said as, I think, the only solution to that problem and that is two states living side by side.

WOLFOWITZ: And I guess if I want to get really hopeful, I guess I would say that I hope that the people who say that Bashar Asad is really -- would like to see a Syria that behaves differently, that if that's the case that he will have been able to assert himself and that we will see a Syria that stops destabilizing Iraq and moves to peace with its neighbors.

I think it's possible. I think it's essential to move in that direction because the alternative is a continuation of the last 20 years that have produced murderers and killers by the thousands aimed at us.

We can't -- the notion that this was, quote, "a war of choice", that we could just sit there and live with the Middle East and status quo after 9/11, I think is wrong.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman, and I would just remind my colleague that Mr. Wolfowitz did not pass a resolution to take military action against Iraq. This Congress -- Democrat, Republican, including the vast majority of members on this committee -- voted to take military action to Iraq.

HILL: Mr. Chairman, may I respond to that?

I voted for that resolution. And I voted on it based upon a briefing that I had at the Pentagon where drone airplanes were displayed as a security threat to the -- in the interest of the United States; proved that that was a fabricated story, not true.

HUNTER: Well, I would just say to my colleague that we all took votes on that resolution, and this committee, in fact, had several briefings not conducted by members of the administration but conducted by intelligence agencies, offering both sides of a number of questions with respect to arms stockpiles in Iraq and arms programs in Iraq.

In fact, we endeavored to have -- we invited every single member of the House on multiple occasions to come to these meetings and to ask any question they wanted to of our intelligence agencies, which a majority of the members of the House undertook. Not in the Pentagon but over here, in which both sides of a number of contentious questions were addressed by the agencies. And every member of Congress had every right to stay as long as he wanted and ask all the question she wanted.

The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson?

J. WILSON: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

And, General Pace and Secretary Wolfowitz, in lieu of a question, I'd just like to give a report.

I had the extraordinary opportunity of spending the last three days with Pete Hoekstra, Congressman Hoekstra of Michigan, touring and visiting with our troops in Iraq.

J. WILSON: It was an extraordinary opportunity and I can tell you firsthand that the testimony you're providing today, the statements you're providing today -- I have seen firsthand within the last 24 hours that indeed you're correct and we are indeed in a global war on terrorism.

While we were there, we, of course, saw television and read local newspapers from the Middle East about the success of the killing of the Al Qaida leader in Saudi Arabia, the killing of the Al Qaida leader in Algeria. There were arrests of cells in Turkey, in Pakistan, in Jordan just in the past 72 hours, 96 hours.

There is progress being made.

Additionally, I had the opportunity to visit with the Iraqi police being trained. In an impromptu manner, we met with them through an interpreter and they expressed their dedication to work for a democratic Iraq, a civil society in the Middle East.

Additionally, we met with -- at the training facility of the new Iraqi national army. And again, I'm very encouraged by the people that we met training and also the new officers who are leading the forces.

But I share with you the concern that we need to emphasize more equipment for them, more training, speed it up in whatever method could be done.

Additionally, I'm really reassured -- we met with General Sanchez, General Petraeus, General Conway.

I want to reiterate what Congressman Schrock has already stated: I have faith in the competence of the American military. I have that faith as a member of Congress, a veteran of 31 years service in the National Guard, additionally as the father of a son who's serving in Iraq just as our chairman, Duncan Hunter, has a son in Iraq. We have faith in the American military and the success that's being made.

Additionally, I'd like to point out that the highlight was indeed meeting the troops: the Marines we met, the Army troops that we met, the Navy personnel that we met. Their morale is high. It was exciting to meet some of the coalition forces. I met troops from Latvia. And, of course, there are 31 countries that have 23,000 troops that are very much appreciated in Iraq.

Additionally, I had the opportunity within the last 24 hours to have met President al-Yawer, Prime Minister Allawi, the deputy prime minister representing the Kurdish population. Their optimism is very high. Their courage is very high.

J. WILSON: And I can see that they will be prepared to work for a civil and democratic society.

Also we met with the health minister who had previously been the education minister. And he told us of how there had been the refurbishing of thousands of schools, that 65 million textbooks have been distributed to the students of Iraq, that there are 5 million to 6 million students in Iraq -- this is unprecedented the number of textbooks -- that there are 293,000 teachers teaching in Iraq, developing a civil society, that nearly 90 percent of the students that qualify are going to school.

Even in the turmoil of April, the children were going to school. Their parents were taking them to school.

And so a civil society which is not reflected very much in the media, is actually taking place.

And again, I want to thank you. Again, give you a firsthand report of what I saw. I am very optimistic.

This is long term. You know, we talk about troops in Korea. We talk about troops in Germany. We have troops in Japan. And so this is to be understood that as we protect the American people -- and that's what this is all about.

There were people who said we couldn't defeat communism too, but we did. And I'm confident that we can defeat terrorism with the confidence of the people, as you here today.

God bless our troops. And I'm not going to forget September the 11th.

Thank you.

PACE: Yes, sir

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The ranking member had something he wanted to get in the record here.

SKELTON: Thank you very much.

Mr. Spratt and I are submitting questions for the record about the cost of deployment in Iraq. So I'll pass and prospective. And I respectfully ask if these answers could come in by the end of next week. And I'll submit them for the record right now. Thank you.

HUNTER: OK. Why don't you put them in and hopefully if they're not too complex they can get a response out fairly quickly?

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Davis?

S. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, Mr. Secretary, General Pace, thank you for being here.

I know that we all share your tremendous respect for the professionalism of the troops, as well as the Iraqi people who are working so hard.

But I think that we also want to try and understand better some of the lessons we have to learn and what it is about the planning that has caused some of the problems that our troops face today.

S. DAVIS: Because I think in many ways we've made it tougher for them than perhaps it had to be.

Could you talk a little bit about one of the issues that you mentioned regarding lessons learned that we underestimated the insurgency? And I'm wondering if you could give me more on why did we do that. On what was that based?

PACE: Let me start, if I may, and then the secretary can speak what he wants to say.

I think that the hope -- which is not a plan, but the hope -- that the Iraqi people, upon our having Saddam deposed, would step forward enthusiastically and embrace this new opportunity turned out to be more optimistic than it should have been.

I did not realize the power of the fear that still resides in their minds over there. And I guess after them living decades under that kind of tyranny, it shouldn't come as a surprise.

But it was disappointing that, from their perspective, that they did not see what we thought we were bringing to them early on, which is an opportunity to step forward and take control of their own lives; that they were still very much fearful of the thugs and the gangs.

So that, I think, has led to an opportunity for the terrorists then to be able to operate without fear of being exposed by the population. Once the Iraqi people get it in their minds that this is their country, that they in fact do have the freedom of choice, and that they can in fact make a huge difference in their own security by turning over those in our midst, then I think that the kinds of terrorism we see will dissipate relatively quickly.

S. DAVIS: General Pace, may I ask you then, I mean, was that based on a kind of theory that the Iraqis would step up or, I mean, something specific that we could base that on?

WOLFOWITZ: Congresswoman Davis, if I might say, I mean, I don't think there's any question the Iraqi people welcome the end of the Saddam regime and welcome what we had to offer.

In fact, I'm just looking here at some headlines from April 10th of last year, "Hussein's Baghdad Falls; U.S. Forces Move Triumphantly Through Capital Cheered by Crowds Jubilant at End of Repressive Regime." I don't think we were wrong in thinking the Iraqis wanted something different.

I think what may have been a little too hopeful was the idea that once Saddam was defeated, that he would stop fighting -- it turns out he didn't -- that if we identified 55 members of the black list, that 56 and above would see that they had a stake in not fighting.

WOLFOWITZ: You know, as I've said before, we're dealing with several thousand people who are as bad or worse than the Nazi Gestapo. And maybe we were a little too hopeful that they would accept defeat and at least not fight, and they've gone on to do that.

And that then brings in play the intimidation and the fear that General Pace referred to.

S. DAVIS: I wonder if I...

WOLFOWITZ: There are different judgments on that score, and I feel compelled at a personal level to say, I felt before the war that there would be a continuing need for reliable Iraqi security forces afterwards, and that that was a reason why I thought we ought to do more to train them before. I think some people were more hopeful that the old army would be there and would be effective.

Someone referred earlier to always looking to blame us for our mistakes. I mean, let's also blame us for our great successes. There was no Fortress Baghdad, there was no torching of oil fields, there was no ethnic conflict, there was no massive flow of refugees. The problem could have been a lot worse than it is.

S. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

I can appreciate that but I also -- in your response, and I know we're all limited here in terms of time -- one thing you haven't mentioned today, I haven't heard much of it, are the reconstruction efforts. And I'm wondering to what extent you see that that was a problem.

I know there was the sense that somehow, "Gee, if Americans could invade and occupy, why can't they fix the electricity?"

As a member who travelled -- and most of us did -- have travelled to Iraq -- we know how important the reconstructions dollars were to getting things together so that people were employed. And yet I know that very few dollars that we committed to reconstruction have actually been spent. In fact, I think it's a very small amount of the $18.4 billion that we supported.

You mentioned earlier that we need to have -- you know, Iraqis know their country well, and yet there are 15,000 Iraqis, it's my understanding, have been employed.

Where has that piece, I guess, been uprooted? Certainly the security issues, we know that people can't work on projects if they're not secure, but how do you see this moving? Could you give me a sense now that sovereignty in the next two weeks -- what will happen to the projects? Will there be any difference in the way those are governed? And what can we expect, say, in the next six months, in terms of those appropriation dollars getting on-line?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, actually, the $18 billion, and I'd, rather than doing it off my head, get you the numbers -- but there is a significant increase in the expenditure rate and the project management people say this is a, sort of -- they say a typical S curve, where it takes a little while to get started, and then you have a very high rate of expenditure and then it flattens out.

There was a start-up delay. There was a large amount of money, in the several billions, and multiple billions, of both U.S. funds and Iraqi funds put into reconstruction prior to the supplemental. Currently, the report from Baghdad is that $10.9 billion of the supplemental has been apportioned.

WOLFOWITZ: $7.6 billion of that has been committed: $4 billion to construction contract and $3 billion to non-construction contracts. And of that $7.6 billion, $3.6 billion has been obligated.

I think the difference is committed means it's dedicated to a particular project. Obligated means there's a signed contract. Once it's committed you're well on the way to a signed contract, so this money is flowing rapidly. And, in fact, what we want to make sure is -- this is partial to answer your question -- that there's enough still unallocated that Ambassador Negroponte, when he gets there, he will be in charge of this program. It remains U.S. taxpayer money. It remains under U.S. control. And Ambassador Negroponte will have the principal say in how that's allocated. That is very important, I think...

S. DAVIS: Do you have any idea...

WOLFOWITZ: ... to give him leverage with the new government.

S. DAVIS: ... the percentage of the money that was allocated that is now going to security so that, in fact, there may be a number of projects that we can't do because we're spending that on security?

And I, also, just wanted to follow up real briefly in terms of the -- what we anticipate in terms of the growing percentage of Iraqis that hopefully will be employed in these projects.

WOLFOWITZ: We're still working within the original budget allocation, which I believe -- what was the number on security? -- was $3.2 billion for security.

As I think you know, the Congress gave us some flexibility to move between accounts. And if we need it, we will come and ask for it.

But the estimate we have currently is that 10 to 15 percent of project costs are now a kind of security tax to provide security for contractors. It's a serious issue, but it's not stopping things from going forward.

And we are -- I think, one of the very important things that's happening, and we were briefed in this on some detail by General Correlli (ph), who's the commander of the Baghdad sector with the 1st Calvary Division, something they call the Seven Cities Program to take more of that heavy construction money that goes into long-term infrastructure with less employment effect and let division commanders use it on smaller-scale projects that can put Iraqis to work more quickly. I think that makes a lot of sense.

S. DAVIS: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: I think the gentlelady.

Dr. Gingrey?

GINGREY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Mr. Secretary and General Pace, for being with us this morning.

I want to make a brief statement, and then I'm going to ask a couple of seemingly tongue-in-cheek questions, but I think they cut right to the chase.

I think we're dangerously overfocusing on the prisoner abuse issue. I think members of Congress, indeed some members of this committee, and certainly the media, is myopic on this issue.

I want my colleague to especially keep in mind that we did have the, quote, "moral authority," unquote, when the four security contractors were ambushed, burned, their bodies dragged through the streets of Fallujah and the carcasses then hung from telephone poles for public display.

GINGREY: All of this prior to any public reports of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

I don't know if any of you had an opportunity to see the CNN program yesterday broadcast live over the noon hour, where the CNN anchor had the Arab media, including Al Jazeera, and the anchor essentially said the same thing that I've heard mentioned here this morning, "We broke it -- we the United States -- and now have the responsibility to fix it." And then stood back and let the Arab media attack us without any fair and balanced coverage. And I for one am getting sick and tired of this.

Now, here are my two questions.

Saddam attempted to assassinate President George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush 41, in Kuwait in the early '90s. Did he, Saddam, miraculously change his animosity and hatred for us after that aborted attempt and just give up on inflicting any harm to the United States? That's question number one.

Question number two: Al Qaida, including Osama bin Laden himself, met with Iraqi officials in the Sudan in 1994. In fact, there were several meetings. What were they discussing? Were they planning a Nineveh class reunion with a boat trip down the Euphrates River or what?

WOLFOWITZ: I don't know if you wanted an answer but I made this point earlier, you know, even when people meet with Hezbollah, they can at least pretend maybe that they are there to discuss charitable works because Hezbollah keeps up a front. Al Qaida makes no pretense of being anything other than a terrorist organization. And we know of numerous contacts Iraqis had with that organization. And I suspect they made a great effort to hide what contact they had. So I would assume we don't know everything.

If I could take advantage of your tongue-in-cheek questions to say one thing in response to Mr. Hill, because he used the word "fabrication" and that's a pretty strong word. I don't think any intelligence we ever presented to you was known by us to be fabricated. And if you were briefed on Iraqi RPVs about which people had differing judgments, they had differing judgments.

It remains a fact that that is one of the areas in which Saddam was found to be in violation of the various range limits that were imposed and that were part of the reason for David Kay saying that he was in violation of 1441.

WOLFOWITZ: So it's -- look, intelligence is a murky business. We rely on a very big intelligence community to make assessments of those questions, and we did the best we could. I don't think, Mr. Hill, that anybody was fabricating.

PACE: Sir, from a purely military standpoint, a threat is analyzed from, one, capabilities and, two, intent. And clearly Saddam's regime, with chemicals and death squads and all the means that he used to suppress his people, had capabilities. And I believed that tied to his intent of harm against the United States that he posed a threat.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from New York, Mr. Israel?

ISRAEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, before I ask the secretary my question, I just -- I can't help but state that when we sit at hearings like this and hear from some of our colleague that our constitutional oversight authority should be minimized to a debate between optimists and pessimists, that we're doing a disservice to the Constitution and to this committee and to this Congress and to our troops. We are here because we do have a constitutional oversight authority, and it should not be reduced to rhetoric between optimists and pessimists.

Wars are not won by optimism. And now I'd like to segue into my question. Perhaps the secretary will agree or disagree with me. But I don't know -- I'm a new member of this committee, but I can't think of a single war in world history that was won by optimism alone. My understanding is that they're won with planning and with human intelligence and with supplies and training, personnel and resources.

There are plenty of troops in Iraq right now and Afghanistan who will appreciate our optimism, but they would probably prefer to have up-armored Humvees. And they know that we all have faith in them, but they probably prefer some more Kevlar for their vests.

Now, Mr. Secretary, I supported the use of force...

WOLFOWITZ: Just on that point...

ISRAEL: ... in Iraq...

WOLFOWITZ: ... Mr. Israel, because it's a very important point. There's 138,000 troops in-country. We have 260,000 -- that's almost twice as many -- Kevlar vests as the troops in-country. And I don't want people watching this telecast because you have cases, literally, of mothers and father going out and buying body armor for their kids because they hear that they don't have them. There is a body armor set for every single troop in Iraq and every single civil servant; almost times two.

HUNTER: And there 7,113 armored Humvees, either up-armored in manufacture or with add-on kits. We're working to get the rest of them. But that is -- that's the case right now.

Thank the gentleman for letting me interject there.

ISRAEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In last Sunday's New York Times there was a paragraph that read as follows: "On April 4th around 6 p.m. a call came in that a sister unit, Company C, had been ambushed in Sadr City. Soldiers jumped into whatever vehicle was available including Humvees with no doors and open-sided trucks and rushed to the rescue."

My question, Mr. Secretary, is: As one who supported the use of force in Iraq, at the time I expressed the concern that I didn't believe that many of the civilians in the Pentagon were engaging in straight talk. There was a lot of optimism and a lot of wishful thinking.

On March 27th, you testified to the House Budget Committee as follows: "I'm reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators and that will help us to keep requirements down -- keep requirements down."

In the same testimony, you said: "Some of the higher-end predictions that we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark."

And third, you state in the same testimony: "It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post- Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine."

My question, Mr. Secretary, is very simple: You said in response to Congresswoman Davis' questioning that maybe we were too hopeful in the past. Was your testimony on March 27th too hopeful? Was it too optimistic? Would you take it back if you could?

WOLFOWITZ: My testimony then reflected not just my personal judgment, it was the judgment of our commanders, it was judgment of the CENTCOM staff. And I think it remains the fact today that we don't have 300,000 troops in Iraq and none of our commanders think we would be well off if we had had them before or even them now.

So I think those particular statements happen to still be true.

The fact that this war went on longer than simply the capture of Baghdad is one of those uncertainties of war, just as the fact that there was no major torching of oil fields, there was no major combat in cities, is also one of those unpredictable facts of war.

WOLFOWITZ: Nobody, I believe, tried to say that we knew for certain what a war would be like. But those estimates of troop requirements I think were off the mark, remain off the mark.

And in any case, I think it's important to say, they were not the estimates of the combatant commander, they were not the estimates of joint chiefs of staff.

Isn't that correct, General Pace?

PACE: That's correct, sir.

ISRAEL: Mr. Secretary, just responding to the chairman's point, this story in the New York Times, why are our personnel continuing to jump into Humvees with no doors and open-sided trucks in order to rush to a rescue? Or is this article not accurate?

PACE: Sorry, I don't know about the article, but I do know for a fact that there is not an up-armored Humvee for every single soldier in Iraq -- there is body armor -- nor should there be an up-armored Humvee for every soldier in Iraq, nor should there be a tank for every soldier, not should there be an APC or Bradley.

What we need to do as commanders is design the force in a way that you have the proper mobility and the proper protection. But also you need foot soldiers to do the job.

The specifics of that I don't know, sir, but it's not because of a lack of types of equipment that you should end up in a situation like that.

ISRAEL: General, I'd like to submit this article for the record -- if I may, Mr. Chairman -- and ask if you would respond to the specifics that it raises. And I don't want to take up any more time, I know there are others. But I'm particularly interested in understanding how the decision is made to up-armor certain Humvees, and where those Humvees are.

In this case, obviously, the decision did not work. And I think rather than talking about being optimistic and exhibiting our faith in our troops, we'd do a lot better to make sure that these policies work for our troops. That would protect them far more than our optimism would.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

PACE: I would like to thank the Congress, because you have provided all the resources we have asked for for up-armored Humvees. You have taken us from 2,000 to over 4,000, headed to 7,000. You have given us the additional protective applique armor that we asked for. You have provided hundreds of millions of dollars for things like the insert body armor.

So everything we have asked the Congress for with regard to force protection you have provided, and we thank you for that.

ISRAEL: Well, this unit doesn't have what they need, evidently.

General, thank you.

PACE: Sure we'll find out.

SKELTON: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hayes?

HAYES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thanks to the witnesses today.

I think it would be helpful for me, although this discussion has deteriorated somewhat, to refocus on the fact that our goal is to help the Iraqi people establish their own democratically elected government and to win the war on terrorism.

And I'd like to identify myself with Mr. Schrock's remark and express my disappointment that politics has been injected in this discussion today.

HAYES: We've got an election going on and that's important. But winning the war and protecting our troops, I think, should take precedence over this.

It says on my schedule that we're going to talk about the progress in Iraq. And I think that's important for Iraq thereof. And we've been off that mark and I'm sorry for that.

My question for you has to do with the progress in contracting in Iraq. I think it's very important as we look at June the 30th and beyond, how well, Mr. Secretary and General Pace, do you think we are doing transitioning to the Iraqi ministers? And how well -- I know there've been a lot of problems in the contracting process -- you alluded to it earlier, where we are doing a pretty fair job of training various Iraqi forces, but my understanding is we're not getting the equipment to them because of contracting and some conflicts between State and DOD.

Would you just update us on that? I think that's crucial as we go forward.

WOLFOWITZ: I think that your question refers to, I think, two different issues. And with respect to the main contracting, which is the $3.2 billion in the supplemental that's allocated to security forces, it hasn't been any interagency issues. It's just simply a matter that we have federal acquisition regulations to go through.

We had a major problem because one of the contracts was bid and competed and then the award was challenged. And we had to go through challenge procedures. And basically the lawyers said there was no way around going through yet another couple of months or six weeks of rebidding.

I think all of those problems are now behind us. We have, I think, most of that $3 billion is in fact committed and quite a bit of it is obligated and large quantities of equipment are flowing in.

The extent to which there's any jurisdictional argument -- and I don't think there is one between us and the State Department, but I think there may be a little bit between committees up here -- is to what extent there should be authority within the DOD budget to pay for equipping Iraqi security forces.

And we've been arguing that having that kind of flexibility would have been very helpful in the early part of this year when the other funding mechanisms weren't moving; could again be valuable if, let's say, those funding mechanisms turn out to be inadequate.

Having the flexibility to go into DOD funds to equip Iraqi security forces I think is, in my view, in the same category as the flexibility to buy extra up-armored Humvees or the ability to buy extra body armor. The more Iraqis that are out there fighting, the safer Americans will be. And so I hope the Congress can give us that flexibility that we've asked for.

HAYES: Do you think that process is getting more smooth as we go forward? Are we making progress there?

WOLFOWITZ: We are and definitely with respect to the big supplemental, a lot of the bugs are out of the system. The contracting officers are in place in Iraq. There's a good mechanism back here to support them. Some people even worry the money is going to start flowing too fast and it'll all be gone too soon. It's feast or famine, I suppose.

But there are always unpredictables and having some flexibility to deal with the unpredictables would be valuable.

PACE: A little out of my lane, but you asked about ministries, sir. My understanding is that by the end of this week, all Iraqi ministries will be led by Iraqis.

HAYES: Thank you.

I think it's important again to note that we are making tremendous progress in Iraqi sovereignty. And that's what June 30th is all about. And our continued resolve and public show of resolve to see this thing through is vitally important to protect our soldiers and also to get the job done.

As we become an embassy function, General Pace, as opposed to what we are now, describe how that's going to affect the military.

And let me quickly say that the earlier question about who's in charge -- it was very clear to me that the Iraqis will have sovereignty. They will be in charge. But Americans will be in charge of our own troops when they're asked to do something. That's pretty dag-gone straightforward and common sense.

So again, talk about how this embassy concept will work with the military as we move forward in the process.

PACE: Yes, sir. The chain of command will not change. It'll be the commander in chief to the secretary of defense to General Abizaid to General Casey, if he's confirmed. And that chain of command will stay as it is today.

With Ambassador Negroponte becoming the ambassador to the country, there will be the normal linkages that take place and a very special bond between General Casey and Ambassador Negroponte. They'll be discussing things on a daily basis. There will be military officers on the ambassador's staff, in his embassy, and there will be discussions in collaboration.

If there are disagreements between General Casey and Ambassador Negroponte, they'd be sent back here to Washington for the secretary of state and the secretary of defense to work through. But I would imagine those would far and few between. These two gentlemen are already working, talking with each other, not in anticipation or presumption of confirmation on the part of General Casey, but should Senate approve his confirmation later this week, so they're working to have a proper relationship down the road.

So I see a very, very healthy relationship between those two gentlemen.

HAYES: Thanks again to both of you. And special thanks to our troops for their courage, commitment and success.

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you, Mr. Hayes.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cooper?

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Mr. Secretary and General. We appreciate your service to our nation.

Mr. Secretary, on page two of your testimony, you write the following sentence: "The $25 billion budget amendment that this committee authorized will ensure that our forces continue to have the full resources necessary to complete their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan."

We all know that $25 billion is a lot of money, but do you think that's an accurate statement?

WOLFOWITZ: It's -- yes, if we -- the $25 billion, as we've explained, is a, kind of, a bridge to take us into the first quarter of next year when we'll have a much better fix on what the full requirement is for next year.

It should in no way be taken as implying that $25 billion is what we need for FY '05. In fact, the number could very easily be twice that, and it's just, it's hard to predict. It could be more than twice that. It's certainly not going to be less than that.

And what that allows us to do -- and I don't know if you've explained this for this committee or not -- it allows us to get into the second quarter of the fiscal year, the first quarter of the calendar year, when we should have a very good fix on what the expenditure rates are for the full year and come up to the Congress with a full supplemental request for FY '05. This is a, kind of, bridging request.

COOPER: Well, as I understand it, the $25 billion would fund about four, maybe five, months of activity.

WOLFOWITZ: At current expenditure rates, that's right.

COOPER: So I think you're giving this committee and this Congress far too much credit when you say that somehow "This expenditure enables us to have the full resources necessary to complete our missions in Iraq and Afghanistan."

WOLFOWITZ: I'm sorry if the sentence read that way. It's bad language.

It gives us the funds we need to get us safely into the first quarter of next calendar year when we will be back here with a much bigger request for funding. And we've been very clear on that in all of our testimony. I'm sorry if that sentence was in any way misleading.

COOPER: I wanted to give you the chance to correct your statement, because we have been worried about, you know, that we want to have a clear fix on what the expectations are. Do you have any idea what the funding expectations are likely to be next year?

WOLFOWITZ: And I'll repeat what we've said in other testimony: We don't know, and we -- at this stage any prediction we make is likely to be wrong, either too high or too low.

If you do a, sort of, monthly calculation, you can easily come to the $50 billion or $60 billion figure. It could be more than that and it could be less.

COOPER: Mr. Secretary, I want to focus on the money and the money it takes us to win in Iraq. Why shouldn't this Congress have gone ahead and, say, looked at $50 billion for our troops to give them staying power, not for four or five months, but maybe eight or 10 months? Wouldn't that have shown a greater commitment?

Almost everybody in this Congress, Democrat and Republican, already voted in our respective budgets to set aside $50 billion to take care of this need. And yet the only money we're coming up with is $25 billion. Why wouldn't it have been better and more accurate and a more sustainable show of strength to come up with $50 billion instead of $25 billion?

WOLFOWITZ: I think you can argue it different ways. I think the judgment was made that it is better to work ourselves into the first quarter of next year and then proceed on a much more precise estimate of what we're going to need.

There is a little bit of a danger when you get too much contingency funding without specified requirements, that you suddenly find yourself using it in an undisciplined manner. And I think there's a little bit of discipline in the way this request has been put forward.

COOPER: But surely we don't anticipate funding this war three or four months at a time.

WOLFOWITZ: No, and we've made it very clear, we will be up here in the first quarter of next year with a full-year supplemental request that will be substantially larger than that $25 billion.

COOPER: Secretary, last year you testified that Iraq would basically be so oil-rich that they would have money to, quote, "really finance it's own reconstruction and relatively soon."

You also said that the oil revenues of Iraq could bring in between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. We're not seeing those sorts of revenues being produced, are we?

WOLFOWITZ: I think we actually are, and the numbers that I have most recently are some $20 billion -- $20 billion of Iraqi funds. About half of that is from oil-for-food and about half of that is from oil revenues that have gone into the Development Fund of Iraq. That finances the government operations, it finances reconstruction.

And an additional $8 billion are projected to be produced from oil revenues by the end of next year, assuming -- and it's a big assumption -- that the enemy isn't successful at disrupting oil production. That's a big uncertainty.

But that money has paid the salaries of 350,000 teachers and professors, it's paid the salaries of 100,000 doctors and health workers, it's paid for $1.2 billion -- this is Iraqi funds -- $1.2 billion of Iraqi funds for improvements to electricity infrastructure, $300 million for water, sewage and irrigation, $660 million to sustain and expand oil production.

I think I mentioned earlier there's some $800 million in Iraqi funds that's gone into the CERP program, which is our Commanders' Emergency Reserve Program, or a similar program by local Iraqi government.

Go back, that statement that I keep seeing quoted back over and over again was made after the war began. It was prefaced by saying very carefully -- because we had no idea at the time that there would be so little war damage to the infrastructure -- that we had no idea what the reconstruction bill would be.

But that unlike Afghanistan or, for that matter, Bosnia or Kosovo, which have no resources of their own, and which are permanent wards of the international community, probably, Iraq has substantial resources of its own and it is contributing substantial resources.

We are having to as well, and I never meant to imply we wouldn't. But this is a country that has a lot to contribute to its own reconstruction and it's doing so already.

COOPER: How much has the war so far cost the American taxpayer?

WOLFOWITZ: I'd have to do the numbers in my head; I'd rather not do that. You know it's a lot of money.

COOPER: Can you give us a ballpark estimate?

WOLFOWITZ: (OFF-MIKE)

COOPER: How about in terms of American life?

WOLFOWITZ: Over 800 Americans killed. And every one of those hurts.

As I think I said earlier also, a lot of Iraqis are dying for this cause. And we estimate some 400 of them have died and that General Petraeus thinks it may very well be twice that number.

We are up against a very vicious enemy, there's no question about it.

The totals shown here for military -- I can give you the sheet. And this number shows, enacted for Iraq so far in the military and reconstruction side together is $119 billion, of which $20 billion is reconstruction; and obligated so far is $72 billion, of which $6 billion is reconstruction.

COOPER: The total as we see it, is about $150 billion all in all, and that's not counting the next $25 billion and then the supplemental request that we'll get at the beginning of the next year.

WOLFOWITZ: I'd be happy to compare our number with yours and figure out where the difference is, but...

COOPER: It's getting to be in the neighborhood of $200 billion.

COOPER: Is that right?

WOLFOWITZ: I'm telling you what I'm given here by our comptroller says $119 billion enacted so far by the Congress for military and reconstruction expenditures in Iraq, of which $65.8 billion has been obligated for the military and $6.1 billion for reconstruction.

COOPER: And our allies have contributed $1 billion?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, they support their own forces, which is not insignificant. Contributions to reconstruction -- again, I'd want -- there's quite substantial amounts pledged by the international community at the Madrid conference...

COOPER: $13 billion pledged, $1 billion delivered.

WOLFOWITZ: So far, correct.

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Miller?

J. MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I hope my colleague who just asked the question of the secretary before about the resources that have been committed by the Iraqi people, if he would provide me the copy of the notes that he took while Secretary Wolfowitz was telling about all of the dollars that the people of Iraq have spent and the lives that have been lost as well.

I want to thank both of you for staying so long today, providing very clear testimony, very frank testimony, but I also would like to for the record, one more time, Mr. Secretary, if you would, we've heard a lot of people ask deadlines and when certain things are going to happen.

And in your written comments, you talked about it being inadvisable to set a hard deadline for the multinational forces mandate in Iraq. In fact, I think you said that it would put at risk the significant gains that have already been made by the people that are rebuilding their nation in Iraq and it would endanger the lives of American soldiers.

And I would like, as we come close to drawing this hearing to a close, for you to expound on that again, why we don't need to set artificial deadlines out there at this point.

WOLFOWITZ: I guess I'd say two things.

First of all, they are artificial. And there's no way to know -- even in a peacekeeping circumstance like Bosnia, but especially in a war, which is what we're still in in Iraq, there's no way to know how things will proceed. You can make plans. You can even be reasonably successful in carrying out your plans. And the enemy may have a different plan and disrupt it.

I just mentioned earlier the problem with oil revenues. We can make projections of oil revenues, but it's a major enemy target.

I think the more important point, and I think it's the premise of your question, there's a perverse, inverse relationship between our setting deadlines and our ability to achieve them.

The more the enemy believes that we lack patience, the more they'll sustain their efforts. The more they think that we're there for the long haul, the more they'll start -- especially the less committed of them -- to start thinking, "Well, maybe it's time to make peace with this new situation and become part of the new Iraq."

The same thing, by the way, goes for those people that have to step forward and defend this new country. And they do so, as we've said over and over again today, at the risk of their own lives.

WOLFOWITZ: It makes a big difference for them to believe that we and the rest of the world are committed to their success, because they're taking enormous risks in stepping up to do this.

So I think there are times when it may make sense to put pressure on countries. We've done this, in my experience, many times to say, "You need to step up to your responsibilities. And one way to get that to happen is we're going to start reducing ours."

I think in this particular circumstance, particularly because we have an enemy that thinks we lack resolve, it's very important not to suggest to that enemy that they can just outwait us.

HUNTER: I think the gentleman.

We're pretty close, Mr. Secretary, to your hard stop. And I know you've got an important activity you've got to go to -- a secure activity here fairly shortly.

Mr. Meek will be our final question. And I'll work with the ranking member, and members that didn't get their questions in will at our next activity, our next hearing, be given priority.

So the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Meek?

MEEK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Secretary Wolfowitz...

HUNTER: Oh, excuse me, Mr. Meek, could you hold on for one minute? I think the ranking member had a comment on that.

SKELTON: Yes, I think it's important that everyone here have the opportunity to ask questions of the secretary. Could he come back at some opportune time for at least an hour? I think an hour would probably get it done.

HUNTER: We'll sure work on that.

Mr. Secretary, we thank you first for coming to us very quickly after you got back from Iraq. But can we get together here in the near future and...

WOLFOWITZ: I'll try to work it out.

HUNTER: I appreciate that.

The gentleman from Florida is recognized.

MEEK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Secretary, General Pace.

Mr. Secretary, I will tell you that if I was feeling as good as some folks are feeling in this room as it relates to the war and as it relates to the management of the war, I feel that our troops will fight for 20 years if this country asked them to fight for 20 years. They'll do it. They're dedicated. They are patriots. And we honor and respect their commitment and their families' commitment.

Some things that are very troubling: Every time we mention Abu Ghraib, folks start talking about, "We need to talk about something else, not that." And I will tell you with the 250 troops that have lost their lives since this story has broken and the increase in individuals being taken hostage, either be Americans or coalition forces, civilian workers, every day there are new individuals getting their heads chopped off -- things of that nature.

We have the U.N. that's now, the Security Council, fighting against the United States from receiving the waiver not to go before an international criminal court that may seem to fall under the category of Abu Ghraib issue. We have countries like China that's bringing into question United States resolve to human rights. I mean, this is really something that I didn't think that will ever happen.

But I am very, very concerned, sir, of the direction not only of how the Iraqi people feel about the United States and our occupation or our efforts in Iraq but also feel about how Americans feel.

In being a member of the American Congress, I will tell you that when we have 76 percent of Americans feel that our image has been damaged in this process, and seven out of 10 Americans now feel that the casualty count is unacceptable, you know, that brings into question not only what people say here in the Congress or how the secretary is editorialized for chastising anyone that may say anything about Abu Ghraib.

MEEK: Now, another big question that comes in, Mr. Secretary, is, from your level and from Secretary Rumsfeld's level, do we really want to get to the top of the matter, because the top may be dealing with both of you or a few other people that are surrounding this issue of prisoner abuse?

This goes toward force protection as far as I'm concerned. You mentioned the training of Iraqi army or civil defense or whatever we're calling them now, going toward force protection. I would also say getting to the top of what happened with the prisoner abuse issue is important too.

I traveled to Guantanamo. What I saw there at Guantanamo when Mr. Gingrey and I went there, I came back and defended the administration and anyone else that made decisions of what's presently going on in Guantanamo Bay -- I was very pleased with, glad to see the training, glad to see the M.P.s that have experience in corrections there.

But I would also have just as much as resolve in saying that I have a problem when the Defense Department, either it be Secretary Brownlee in the Army, appoints a two-star to investigate what happened in that prison after the Taguba report came out.

And if we want to talk about Taguba, I mean, goodness gracious, the chairman challenged members of the committee to read the report. I read the -- which you may say the beginning of it, but I went back and read it again, some of the things that Taguba is talking about, the general, in his report, hiding of prisoners, he said, was very dishonorable. And that's something that we've admitted along with the CIA that we've done from the Red Cross.

So who's looking into what's going on at the top of the Defense Department, including yourself, including Mr. Rumsfeld's involvement and this whole scenario that we have right now in investigating this issue in Abu Ghraib? Who is doing it? Is it supposed to be the Congress? Or is it another group out there looking at this? And does this four-star have the autonomy to be able to question decisions that you've made or the secretary has made?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, first of all, let me say, Secretary Rumsfeld has correctly described Abu Ghraib as a body blow. The damage is enormous.

At the same time, I don't think we should say that this justifies the kind of hypocrisy that you cited the Chinese or other people invoking. And I don't think we should say it has anything to do with terrorists beheading their victims and claiming that this is something the Americans do.

A sense of proportion I think is important. And I must tell you the Iraqis with whom I met are focused far, far more on how to defeat this enemy than on the issue of Abu Ghraib. I don't mean to minimize Abu Ghraib, but when they're out there on the front line being assassinated every day, they know where their priorities are.

There are multiple investigations going on, as I think you know. Overall, the Schlesinger commission, which includes among others, a distinguished former member of this body, Congresswoman Fowler, have complete authority to investigate anything or to look at the reports of all investigations or to ask for any new ones.

I believe that General Kern has authority to investigate everything involved.

Let's be clear to the American people and the whole world: The reason we know about this is because the Army investigated itself. General Taguba was appointed to dig into this, to get the facts up. The facts have led us to ask more questions and make more investigations.

WOLFOWITZ: As shameful as this whole episode is, we deal with this kind of abuse in a way that is unknown in most of the world.

And I hope when the chapter is finally closed -- and it's going to take some time -- the Iraqi people will see that this country doesn't tolerate abuse, that it punishes abuse, that it hold people accountable for abuse that takes place under their authority.

MEEK: You know, Mr. Secretary, one of the things -- and I would hope that at the end of what I'm saying here that the chairman will ask for information that I asked for 35-plus days ago.

I received a call from the Pentagon yesterday after, in two open hearings, asking for information as it relates to the investigations that are ongoing within the DOD as it relates to prisoner abuse, need it be in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I think it goes toward troop protection.

If we're looking for elections in December -- which I believe will not happen, sitting right here, because they haven't happened in Afghanistan. If it's the U.N. registration or it's something that we've done, it's just not going to happen in the realistically thinking.

If we want to win the hearts of the Iraqi people, if we want to have the American people backing the management of this war -- oh, they back the troops. Oh, there's no question about that. Anyone that sits here or stands here -- and one thing about being a second generation member of Congress, I've learned and been taught to tolerate other statements that other members make. They're in their right prerogative to make it.

But what I'm saying and the reality of the situation that we have to think realistically, and we're not thinking realistically now.

When we have the secretary of defense chastising anyone that has anything to say about Abu Ghraib, whichever way you want to call it, that's not democracy in my opinion.

Now, right now we're going to have a four-star -- what I'm hearing in the press -- going to this hearing of this court-martial. And the fact that from the beginning, I think the deck was set never to rise to the top. The cream was never supposed to rise to the top. But I believe it will eventually because as my chairman said once before, "Mr. Meek, be patient and watch military justice play its role, because once things start coming out, the truth will rise to the top." And I will tell you, when it rises to the top, it may be too late as it relates to many of our troops that are in harm's way.

So that's my motivation. It's not political in anyway. Because I believe the American people are going to do what they feel they need to do come this November. And if we're in the middle of a war or not, there will be a change at the Pentagon.

And I've asked the secretary that he may want to consider just thinking maybe he's taken us as far as he can take us at this particular time, because every time he says something or do something, it's not like they're shaking in their boots saying, "Donald Rumsfeld's going to get us." It's recruiting other individuals to be insurgents against our troops.

And I will tell you that's honestly how I feel. And I hope there's a rethinking of how we deal with this prisoner abuse issue at the Pentagon.

Once again, General Pace, I'm sorry for your loss of your four Marines that are out there. There are many individuals that have lost their lives.

Secretary Wolfowitz, I want to thank you for coming before the committee.

MEEK: But we have to hear the good and bad and ugly. And I think you accept that when you come before the Congress. But I will tell you right now that we have to rethink how we do things. And I think we do need a change in leadership and I think it should be voluntary.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

WOLFOWITZ: Let me just say, I feel as terribly as you do about the four Marines that were killed and the 800-plus Americans that have been killed. I don't think those four Marines being killed had anything to do with Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib is a terrible thing, and we need to get to the bottom of it, but let's not lay every problem we have off on Abu Ghraib. I think it's a disservice. And I think it's harmful.

MEEK: We're not saying that, Mr. Secretary, respectfully. We're just saying that it has something to do with the insurgents and the recruitment of new insurgents in Iraq, respectfully.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman for his question.

And, Mr. Secretary, thank you for remaining with us.

And since Mr. Meek offered his opinion of Abu Ghraib, my opinion is that when the secretary of defense called Mr. Rather, when those pictures were to be made available to the world, and told him that we had Americans who were hostages at that time and we had sensitive military operations and it would accrue to the detriment of our troops to have those pictures go out, and Dan Rather hesitated but in the end said he might get scooped and put those pictures out to the world, I think that that injured American interests.

And I note that statements of both groups who beheaded Americans talked about those pictures and stated -- their statement was that that was retaliation for those pictures. I think it was a mistake for Mr. Rather to have released them and that that ultimately hurt American troops.

And the vast amount of disinformation that's been put out about this situation, the false impressions that have been given, the impression that it's an official policy of the United States to torture people, which is absolutely wrong but has been embedded in many, many news stories throughout the world, has been very detrimental to the forces. And it's also been an absolute lie.

So I think it's sad that this issue, which has political ramifications as well as substantive ramifications, continues to play out when we have so very many very important issues to work on with respect to this transition, this handover, both militarily and political.

HUNTER: Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us today.

And I think the key here is to stay steady. You're going to have lots of criticism in the coming weeks. We're going to have lots of folks who have ideas on how we should make this transition, both militarily and political.

But the transition is taking place. It's tough, it's hard. I don't think you've said anything other than that. It's going to be a difficult thing. Nonetheless, it's taking place.

We have good talent in country, and I think that's been manifested in the hearings that we've had with General Petraeus and many other people in this room.

So thank you for your appearance today.

SKELTON: Mr. Chairman...

HUNTER: Let's keep working these issues.

And I'll recognize the gentlemen in just a second.

Let's keep working these issues. So force protection, we're going to need to have I think a classified hearing with respect to the intelligence -- the interaction of our intelligence capability with our line units in-country and also a classified hearing with respect to this relationship against the backdrop of a sovereign Iraq. We're going to need to continue to work that.

And on Thursday, we're going to try to get up a hearing, with the cooperation of the ranking member, on Iran. I think that's going to be necessarily classified, but I think it's a very major part of this picture.

Thank you for being with us today.

And the gentleman from Missouri is recognized.

SKELTON: Let me also say thank you, Mr. Secretary and General, for being with us. I hope that those who have not had the opportunity to ask questions could have an hour of your time, and I think the chairman will probably work toward that.

Let me also add, if I might, I've been on this committee a good number of years and I've enjoyed every minute of it. Through the years, regardless of the administration, we have asked tough questions of those who testified. That's our job in oversight, because it's up to us under the Constitution to provide, maintain and do the oversight work.

And we will continue to do that regardless of who sits in the chair and regardless of who's up on this dais as time goes on. That's the constitutional duty of this Congress.

We thank you for participating in it. These have been tough questions, but they need to be asked. And we'll continue to do our very best job under the Constitution and as strong Americans.

And thank you very much for being with us.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.

And perhaps now, Mr. Secretary, after these questions you're anxious to get back to Iraq where it's much more secure.

WOLFOWITZ: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNTER: The hearing is adjourned.

END