THE STABILIZATION AND
RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ

Hearing Before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

May 22, 2003

OPENING STATEMENT OF

RICHARD G. LUGAR
A Senator from Indiana,
and Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

LUGAR: The hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is called to order.

It is a great, great personal privilege to welcome today Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace.

We've been looking forward to your testimony and to our discussion of the status, policies and plans for Iraqi stabilization and reconstruction.

This is the first of several hearings over the next few weeks that our committee will hold on Iraq stabilization and reconstruction issues. These hearings are intended to help the committee perform its oversight function and to inform the American people whose support is necessary for the United States' efforts in Iraq. The United States military and coalition forces, and the president and his team, including our witnesses today, deserve high praise for execution of a brilliant war plan that brought the combat phase of conflict in Iraq to a decisive and speedy conclusion.

We mourn those who lost their lives in this conflict. We recognize the extraordinary care given to prevent such loss. In fact, the comprehensive planning that went into the military campaign that ousted Saddam Hussein's regime was evident in every aspect of the resounding military victory declared by President Bush on May the 1st.

This military success, however, was only the first step in winning the war in Iraq. The victory is at risk unless we ensure that effective post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Iraq succeed over the long term.

The measure of success in Iraq that matters most is what kind of country and institutions we leave behind. Iraq has important ingredients for success: an educated population and tradition of trade and industry, large reserves of oil to benefit its people.

The achievement of stability and democracy in Iraq present an opportunity to catalyze change in the region that can greatly improve United States national security. Stabilizing and reconstructing Iraq are a key to success in this larger context of the Middle East region and in the global war on terrorism.

Given these stakes, the Untied States must make a long-term commitment to achieving our objectives in Iraq. A sustained American commitment would heavily influence the political dynamics of the region and reinforce the credibility of United States diplomacy around the world.

I'm concerned that the administration's initial stabilization and reconstruction efforts have been inadequate.

The planning for peace was much less developed than the planning for war. Moreover, the administration has not sufficiently involved Congress and the American people in its plans regarding the costs, the methods and the goals of reconstructing Iraq.

Congress has already voted $2.5 billion toward the rebuilding effort in Iraq, but we've heard estimates before this committee that the final bill may be over $100 billion.

Now, I believe the process could take at least five years. There is little understanding of the administration's short- and mid-term plans and priorities to address increasingly urgent issues, such as providing food, water, electricity and fuel.

The United States and coalition forces are struggling to create a secure environment to allow civil engineers and humanitarian assistance workers to do their jobs.

But there seem to be insufficient military and police forces to establish this security. Given these circumstances, talk of a reduction in force by year's end is premature.

To restore law and order we may need to put more soldiers and Marines into Iraq, rather than draw them down. There also is uncertainty about the long-term plans for the transition from military to civilian authority in Iraq, and increasing fear that vacuums of authority will lead to sustained internal conflicts in Iraq, and greater instability throughout the region.

We should not underestimate the ethnic and religious rivalries of a long-repressed people. These challenges should be met by a unified command structure that clearly articulates objectives and shares transparent plans for political transition.

And this committee is hopeful that the recent appointment of Ambassador Bremer as the civil administrator of the Department of Defense Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance is the first step in a carefully coordinated, integrated plan for dealing with Iraq.

In addition, our plans must be clear about the roles of all forces, agencies and organizations involved in the stabilization and reconstruction process.

The specific responsibilities to the Department of Defense, Department of State and other agencies must be more clearly delineated.

We also want to hear about the administration's plans for generating alliance contributions that will reduce long-term American burdens. Can NATO play a peacekeeping role in Iraq that would allow for the replacement of United States units?

The main criteria for involvement of allies and international organizations beyond the coalition must be their ability to make contributions that will advance our goals in Iraq.

Secretary Wolfowitz and General Pace, we look forward to your testimony today to give us confidence that comprehensive planning is occurring, that our strategy in Iraq is designed to be a springboard to greater regional stability and wider peace in the region.

Achieving such ambitious goals will not be easy, quick or cheap, and we are engaged in nation building in Iraq because it's in our national interest. This is a complicated and uncertain business that requires both a sense of urgency now and patience over the long run.

Before I ask our distinguished witnesses to testify -- and I would like to add that the Honorable Alan Larson and the Honor Wendy Chamberlain (ph) are at the table, and they may be of benefit and of counsel throughout the hearing today, but it's at the specific request of Secretary Wolfowitz that we wanted to make certain that all those who might have information today that would be supplemental were on hand, and we appreciate your presence.

I'd like to call now upon the distinguished ranking member of our committee, Senator Joe Biden.

OPENING STATEMENT OF

JOSEPH BIDEN,
A Senator from Delaware,
and Ranking Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

BIDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, General Pace, Secretary Larson (inaudible) I welcome you all. Let me take this opportunity to publicly state in front of you, General Pace, and others, what you already know and what the whole country has attested to, and that is how brilliantly our military forces performed.

Their success is a tribute to the skill and courage and the commitment of the administrations, the last two administrations, in ensuring that our fighting men and women are the best trained and the best equipped in the world.

Mr. Secretary, I think it's not an understatement to say that no other member of the administration has been more identified with the effort to change the regime in Iraq than you have. You've been a passionate and articulate spokesman for the view that ending Saddam's regime was a moral, as well as a strategic imperative.

And the mass graves discovered since Iraq's liberation are a terrible testament to the uniquely barbaric nature of the former regime and how right you were about the moral imperative.

It is my hope that the Iraqi people will never again have to endure such brutality, and they can soon, with God willing, enjoy the liberties that so many of us take for granted.

But it also is my hope that the administration recognizes that the reaping of strategic dividends of Iraqi's liberation, Iraq's liberation, from sending a message to reluctant states such as Syria, which you've done well to spreading democracy in the Middle East, which is a task undertaken, to shifting the balance in the region away from radicalism all depends on winning the peace.

So does helping the Iraqi people build the kind of future they deserve.

This commitment has focused on the need to win the peace. And we have as a committee focused on one point in this effort, that we have under both chairmanships sometimes been, not criticized for, but we've been questioned why we focus so much on it, and that was how to win the peace. For the last 10 months it's been the subject of this committee, ever since the hearings last summer.

We've made the simple point repeatedly about Afghanistan. But sometimes I fear that it's fallen on deaf ears.

What we saw in Afghanistan and what, unfortunately, we may be seeing again in Iraq, is that for all our success in projecting power, we are less adept at staying power. We know how to win wars, Mr. Secretary, with all due respect. So far we haven't gotten to as stellar a start, in my view, in winning the peace.

We can't afford to defeat rogue states -- and I'm sure we all agree with this -- to allow them to become failed states, which become breeding grounds for terrorism and instability.

I'd like to read from an article in Monday's Washington Post, which I'm sure you've seen and probably already been questioned on. And of course, the press is always interested in the dogs that bark more than the dogs that don't. But this is not an isolated account.

Virtually every major news outlet has published similar reports, and your opening statement, Mr. Secretary, which I've had a chance to read, which you've been kind enough to submit it to us, in part makes reference to this and takes it on.

And The Washington Post article I'm about to read from reflects the views of many so-called experts who have made the same point.

But let me quote from The Post.

"Military officers, other administration officials and defense experts said the Pentagon ignored lessons from the decade of peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Somalia and the Balkans and Afghanistan."

Continuing to quote, "It also badly underestimated the potential for looting and lawlessness after the collapse of the Iraqi government, lacking forces capable of securing the streets of Baghdad in the transition from combat to post-war reconstruction."

Continuing to quote, "Only in the past week did administration officials begin to acknowledge publicly these miscalculations. They describe continued lawlessness as a serious problem in Baghdad and call for more U.S. forces on the ground to quell the wave of violence that has kept American officials from assuring the Iraqi that order would soon be restored."

"How and why senior military and civilian leaders were caught unaware of the need to quickly make the transition from war fighting to stability operations with adequate forces mystifies military officers, administration officials and defense experts with peacekeeping experience in the '90s."

Continuing to quote, "Defense experts inside and outside the Pentagon say military planners are clearly influenced by the Pentagon's belief, expressed by Deputy Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and other senior leaders, that U.S. forces would be welcomed as liberators. They also point to the Bush administration's professed antipathy to military peacekeeping and nation building as articulated by the president during the 2000 campaign when he charged the Clinton administration with overextending the armed forces with such missions.

Defense experts and some military forces also cited the Pentagon's determination to fight the war and maintain the peace with as small a force as possible, noting it reflected Rumsfeld's determination to use the war in Iraq to support his vision for transforming the military by showing that smaller and lighter Army that's supported by special forces and air power, could prevail on the 21st century battlefield."

Later the article says, "Officials inside and outside the administration say the shift in mission should not have been a surprise. In January, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, published an action strategy for Iraq that recommended that the Pentagon plan as diligently for the post-war period as for the war.

"To avoid a dangerous security vacuum, it is imperative to organize, train and equip for post-conflict security missions in conjunction with planning for combat," the document states.

In February, an official from the U.S. Institute of Peace briefed the Defense Policy Board, an influential advisory panel on a $628 million developed by the institute and based on peacekeeping experiences in Kosovo.

It called for bringing 6,000 civilian police officers, 200 lawyers, judges, court administrators and corrections officers into Iraq as soon as the fighting stops.

Both proposals according to senior administration officials were matched by databases inside the government, but the Pentagon had no plan for civilian policing assistance in place, and almost no military police on-hand when the fighting stopped in early April.

Last paragraph. Before the war began, General Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, told Congress that the, quote, "Several hundred thousand," end of quote, forces would be necessary to stabilize Iraq after the war.

Several days later Wolfowitz told another congressional committee that far fewer troops would be needed than Shinseki's estimate. Quote, "Way off the mark," end of quote.

Now, this is the first time we're hearing this. This isn't the first time we're hearing this kind of thing. The points highlighted in this story were raised during the hearings that the chairman and I have held since last July, and it's no surprise, the secretary, I am sure, will have an answer for this, but I'm confident you have come prepared today to address and rebut several of these items mentioned in the story.

And there's no doubt that we are seeing positive changes in Iraq, that we're making progress, especially outside of Baghdad. But the overall impression has begun to take hold, and justifiably, in my view, that there was either a lack of planning or overly optimistic assumptions or both.

I mean, we were honestly surprised by the rise of the Shiites and the resurgence if fundamentalism. Did you plan for that? Were we honestly surprised by the lawlessness that plagues Baghdad?

And I have to say, Mr. Secretary, in my view there's a real danger that if we do not recover quickly the damage may be irreparable. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan was a sobering lesson to the people willing to pay almost any price for the basic sense of security.

And the longer it takes us to restore law and order the more likely it is the Iraqis will turn to extremist solutions, in my view. Just as many in Iraq and the region invented the conspiracy theory of the United States wanted Saddam to remain in power, they will now begin to believe that we want to see Iraqis remain in the state of anarchy so that we can control their riches.

We have two competing pressures, I acknowledge. One is the understandable desire to leave as soon as possible and not become occupiers.

The other is to stay as long as necessary to make sure that Iraq can stay together and function on its own without descending into chaos. It is still my view, it has not changed, that only if we satisfy both these demands are we going to be all right.

It would seem to me that the common sense solutions remains invite in NATO, involve our European allies, involve friendly nations in the Arab and Muslim world -- the good start today with the Security Council resolution and its changed emphasis. Only then will we lighten our burden on our forces, spread the risk and prevent us from being seen as occupiers and vastly improves our chances of success.

And, yes, getting endorsement of the much maligned United Nations will make it easier I believe for those governments whose people opposed the war in the beginning and still oppose it to contribute to the building of the peace. And as I said, I'm pleased that the president has made significant progress at the U.N. today, and that NATO has said yes to Poland's request for assistance in the managing, in managing it's sector.

Now if we could show a little magnanimity in victory instead of talking about retaliation and limiting contracts with countries that were not with us in the war, maybe we can get even more friends in on the peace. I don't believe Iraq is some kind of prize.

Iraq, just as Afghanistan -- and I can't say I've seen it yet -- but I think Iraq, just as Afghanistan, the single most important issue, as you all would agree, I suspect is security. And if people are afraid for their lives, if they won't go to work or to school, if shooting and lawlessness reign, engineers, builders and technicians won't be able to make the repairs needed to get the economy going, the oil flowing, civil servants will stay away from their offices and doctors from their hospitals, and the people who drive the buses, run the power plants and pick up the garbage aren't going to do their job.

As good as our solders are, most of them are not trained to be police, to control crowds, to capture common criminals. Where are the military police, the gendarmes? Who is going to do this job?

How could we have failed to learn from the Balkans about the need to bolster our soldier-peacekeepers with properly trained peacekeepers.

So, Mr. Secretary, I read your prepared remarks. I have a number of questions I want to ask you. I've already taken longer than I usually do in an opening statement. But I believe if we had more police, our soldiers would have more flexibility to perform other critical tasks that we've fallen short of the mark on, like security nuclear facilities where we've seen looting.

No one is talking about 100,000 police, as you claim in your statement. We're talking about 10,000. Actually the report suggested to you is 6,000.

And we should have planned for it. And if the security situation is still too dicey for even heavily armed gendarmes, then we need more troops, maybe even several hundred thousand, as General Shinseki had indicated earlier on.

Indeed, I find it a little ironic that you're quoted today as saying that one of the lessons of the Balkans in terms of post- conflict situation is to have forces, quote, "So big and so strong that anybody, that nobody would pick a fight with us," end of quote.

By your own testimony, you say that you're still, that they're still picking fights with us in Iraq, and our land commander, General McKiernan (ph) complained a week ago that he can't stabilize a country the size of California with only 150,000 troops.

So I'm anxious to hear what we're going to do from this point on. I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, that the rest of my statement be placed in the record as if read.

LUGAR: The statement will be placed in the record in full. I thank the senator. Likewise, senators who have initial statements, all those statements will be placed in the record in full immediately following the two statements that have just occurred.

Let me indicate that Secretary Wolfowitz will present his statement. My understanding is that General Pace's first statement will be included in the record in full, and then we will commence questioning by the senators at that point.

Let me just say as a point of personal privilege that Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is a friend, he has been not only an able American public servant, but one who's certainly guided my understanding of the Philippines during 1985 and 1986, and his own service in Indonesia it was my privilege to visit with him and to understand that country through his eyes and through his witness.

I appreciate very much his service for the country now, and it's a real privilege to have him before our committee today. I call upon you, Mr. Secretary, for your testimony.

STATEMENT OF

PAUL WOLFOWITZ
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thinking back on your visit to Indonesia it seems like aeons ago, it was a very different time in the Muslim world, and that biggest Muslim country in the Muslim world.

A lot has changed, not all of it by any means for the better, that's for sure.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, your example has consistently demonstrated that America's security concerns transcend party or politics. On behalf of the men and women who serve our country so faithfully and so well, we are grateful for the support of you and your colleagues in both Houses of Congress.

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you today the critical task of stabilization and reconstruction in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, we are committed to helping Iraqis build what could be and should be a model for the Middle East, with a government that protects the rights of its citizens, that represents all ethnic and religious groups and that will help bring Iraq into the international community of peace-seeking nations.

Now that this goal is within sight, Iraq represents one of the first and best opportunities to build what President Bush has referred to in his State of the Union message last year as, quote, "a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror."

I would note, too, Mr. Chairman, I have heard the president refer privately to the fact that the challenge of winning the peace in Iraq is even greater than the challenge of winning the war, and I think he would share the sentiments that you've expressed in that regard and as your distinguished ranking members has expressed in that regard.

Mr. Chairman, Saddam Hussein was a danger to his people and a support to terrorists and an encouragement to terrorist regimes. His removal from power opens opportunities to strengthen governments and institutions in the Muslim world that respect fundamental human dignity and protect freedom, that abhor the killing of innocents as an instrument of national policy.

Success in Iraq will continue to demoralize those who preach doctrines of hatred and oppression and subjugation. It will encourage those who dream the ancient dream of freedom.

In the last half century those ideals of freedom and self- government have been the most powerful engines of change in the world. They give us hope for further development in the Muslim world, a develop that will benefit every nation throughout the world and bring us important allies in the war against terror.

We cannot afford to fail. We cannot afford to allow Iraq to revert to the remnants of the Baathist regime that now reigns throughout their country in a desperate bid for influence and power or to see that country become vulnerable to other extremist elements.

As the distinguished chairman of this committee said recently, as recently as Sunday at Notre Dame, I quote, "Iraq must not become a failed state and a potential incubator for terrorist cells."

We cannot and will not allow such a threat to rise again. Nor can we dash the hopes of the Iraqi people.

Make no mistake, recent efforts to destabilize Iraq in large measure represent the death rattle of a dying regime. We can defeat them, and we will.

As presidential envoy, Paul Bremer, told me recently in a telephone conversation, if the Baathists have any staying power, let there be no doubt, we have more. We will not stop our efforts until that regime is dead.

Rebuilding Iraq will require similar time and commitment.

Mr. Chairman, I've just returned from a visit to Bosnia and Kosovo and Macedonia. Our main purpose in those first two countries was to thank American troops for their dedication and commitment and to assure the authorities in the region that the United States will see our task through to completion.

To those who question American resolve and determination, I would remind them that we are still playing our crucial role in Bosnia eight years after the Dayton Accord, many years after some predicted we would be gone. And we continue to be the key to stability in Macedonia and Kosovo.

The stakes in Iraq are even greater than in the Balkans -- far greater. And if the stakes are huge in Iraq, there's no question that our commitment to secure a peaceful Iraq is at least equal to those stakes.

Mr. Chairman, I've noted with strong agreement your statements about the need for America to stay the course in Iraq. I applaud your determination and appreciate your support and the support of this committee in helping the American people to understand the stakes that we have and success and what we must do to achieve it.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to point that today is only 67 days since our Marines and Army forces first crossed the Kuwaiti border into Iraq. It is only three weeks since President Bush announced the end of major combat operations. I underscore that word "major." Because I will explain at greater length later smaller combat operations in Iraq still continue on a daily basis.

Even though the war has not completely ended, we are already started on the process of rebuilding that country. Several months before the war even began we established the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in order to be able to address the post- war tasks.

As the title of that office implies, much of its early planning and focus was aimed at two disasters that fortunately did not happen. One was to relieve what was anticipated to be a massive humanitarian crisis, and the second to halt the environmental damage that was anticipated from large-scale destruction of the Iraqi oil fields.

Thanks, I think in large measure, to the speedy success of the military operation, the task we face has turned out to be very different. There is no humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

However, a great deal of other work remains to be done, most of it anticipated in ORHA's planning and staffing, work such as restoring rapidly the functioning of the electric power in that country and restoring essential medical services.

Most of these problems are not primarily a result of the war, but rather the result of decades of tyrannical neglect and misrule, where the wealth and treasure of the country was poured into creating palaces, building tanks and procuring weapons of mass destruction instead of caring for the Iraqi people.

That damage has been compounded by widespread looting in the aftermath of the Saddam regime, some of it clearly conducted by surviving elements of the regime for political purposes.

The task before us is more about construction than reconstruction, the building of a society that was allowed to rot for more than three decades by one of the world's worst tyrants.

There is some good news in all of that. The good news is that the Iraqi people will be able to notice improvements in their normal lives long before we have reached the full potential of that country, one of the most important in the Arab world.

Just a few examples, Mr. Chairman. Before the war, large numbers, estimates range from 20 to 50 percent of Iraq's children under the age of 5 suffered from malnutrition. Only 60 percent of the Iraqi people had access to safe drinking water. Ten of Basra's 21 potable water treatment facilities were not functional (inaudible) needed repair. And according to UNICEF, some half a million metric tons of raw or partially treated sewage was dumped in the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, Iraq's main source of water.

Eighty percent of Iraq's 25,000 schools were in poor condition, with an average of one book per six students, while I would note at the same time in every one of the first 100 or so schools we inspected in southern Iraq, every one of them had been used as a military command post and an arms storage site.

Iraq's electrical power system operated at half its capacity before the war, Iraq's agriculture production had dropped significantly, and Iraq's oil infrastructure was badly neglected.

It will take time to reverse the effects of persistent, systematic neglect and misallocation of resources. But if the task is enormous, even at this very early stage there are grounds for optimism.

I talked this morning on secure telephone with Lieutenant General John Abizaid, the deputy commander of Central Command, one of our most distinguished Army leaders.

He also commanded U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia and in Kosovo, and he reported after his very recent visit to Baghdad that in Iraq we are already way ahead of where we were in either Bosnia or Kosovo at a comparable stage in those deployments.

Despite claims that there were no plans for peace operations in the wake of military operations, Presidential Envoy Bremer and Jay Garner are implementing plans drawn up long before the war to strengthen and rebuild the country.

Assertions that we are already failing, detailed at some length in the Washington Post article that the ranking member read from, assertions that remind me of similar assertions that the military campaign had taken us into a quagmire just one week into the war, reflect in my view an incomplete understanding of the situation in Iraq as it existed before the war, and an unreasonable expectation of where we should be now.

Security is our number one priority, and our most urgent task in the post-Saddam Hussein era is to establish secure and stable conditions throughout the country.

Secretary Rumsfeld reiterated recently, and I quote, "Security remains a number one priority in Iraq, precisely because security and stability are the fundamental prerequisites for everything else we need to accomplish, essential for providing the basics of normal life and services and beyond that to create a climate," and this is important, "where people for the first time in their history can express political views in an atmosphere free of fear and intimidation."

Much of what I read on this subject suggests what I believe is the fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the security problem in Iraq, and consequently a failure to appreciate that a regime which had tens of thousands of thugs and war criminals on its payroll does not vanish overnight.

The people who created the mass graves that are now being uncovered in Iraq still represent a threat to security, to stability that was not eliminated automatically when the statues came tumbling down in Baghdad.

I read recently in that same article that unnamed officials and experts say that the Pentagon ignored lessons from a decade of peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Somalia, the Balkans and Afghanistan. It seems to me that those anonymous sources ignore the difference between normal peacekeeping operations and the kind of situation we are in now, which is a combination of peacekeeping and low-level combat.

In just the last 24 hours alone -- I emphasis, this is just the report that came in this morning -- in Baghdad the 3rd Infantry Division raided a Baath Party meeting and obtained nine Baathists in Fulajah (ph), which continues to be a hotbed of Baathist activity, some of it with connections to foreign extremists, possibly Al Qaida. An Iraqi vehicle attacked a checkpoint in the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, two enemy were killed and one detained.

In the same area, in the same 24-hour period, three Iraqi snipers engaged U.S. troops. And in the third incident in the Fulajah (ph) area, a Bradley was disabled by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a mosque.

In Baqubah, anther town in north central Iraq, again in the just last 24 hours, the 4th Infantry Division conducted a raid and captured seven Iraqis and seized 15 million dinars.

In Al Kut, a patrol of the 1st Marine Division engaged 20 enemy, killed two, wounded one and captured 11. Fortunately, in this 24-hour period there were no U.S. casualties. But that level of activity illustrates the continued hostile activity that we encounter, much of it apparently associated with elements of the old regime.

To give you some statistics, in the last two weeks there have been 50 hostile incidents, 37 of them initiated against our troops. We've had 17 wounded in action and one killed, and it's since the end of major combat activity.

In short, while major combat operations have ended, American soldiers continue to be shot at almost daily. While we have made substantial progress in catching the people on the black list, there's still additional work that needs to be done.

We face in Iraq a situation where a substantially defeated enemy is still working hard to kill Americans and to kill Iraqis who are trying to build a new and free Iraq, because they want to prevent Iraqi society from stabilizing and recovering. Bizarre as it may sound, it would appear that their goal is to create nostalgia for Saddam Hussein.

We cannot allow them to succeed. We need to recognize that this situation is completely different from Haiti or Bosnia or Kosovo, where opposition ceased very soon after our peacekeeping troops arrived.

We do not have the choice in Iraq of avoiding confrontation with these repressive elements of the old regime. We have to eliminate them, and we will do so, but it will take time.

This task requires more than just military policemen. There's a very difficult balance to be struck, particularly in Baghdad, between providing ordinary civil order forces on the streets, which we are doing, and being prepared to deal with sniper....xxxxxxx... more than just military policemen. There is a very difficult balance to be struck, particularly in Baghdad, between providing ordinary civil order forces on the streets, which we are doing, and being prepared to deal with snipers and armed bands.

CENTCOM is making that transition. There are now 45,000 coalition military personnel in the Baghdad area, approximately 21,000 of whom are actively involved in security operations.

In just the last 24 hours alone, the 3rd Infantry Division has conducted nearly 600 patrols, secured 200 fixed sites and manned 85 check points.

Again, General Abizaid reports from his recent visit that we are already seeing much more commerce, many more people on the street and much shorter gas lines.

I think of importance, in Sauder City (ph), the notorious Shi'a slum in Baghdad of more than 1 million people that used to be known as Saddam City, the people are already reporting that their conditions are better than they were before the war. Of course that's not hard to do in that part of town.

We are making progress. In my most recent conversation with Presidential Envoy Bremer, he reports that while the security situation is serious, and unfortunately still imposes very severe restrictions on the ability of U.S. personnel to move freely, and that is a restraint on our reconstruction efforts. Baghdad more generally is not a city in anarchy. Shops are open and the city is bustling with traffic.

We have gotten some 7,000 Iraqi police on duty in Baghdad and reports of looting and curfew violations and gunfire are decreasing.

But one of our principal challenges is that we have been able to make much less use of the old Iraqi police force than we had planned. It turns out that their leadership was hopelessly corrupted by the old regime and that the policemen themselves seem to have been better trained to raid people's homes at night than to patrol the streets.

It's important to distinguish the security situation also in different parts of the country. Most of the attention, appropriately enough, is on Baghdad, and there's no question that the capital is one of the keys to the future of the country. But we would make a mistake if we saw it as the only one.

Conditions in other parts of the country are generally better. For example, in the south, the second-largest city in the country, Basra, with a population of almost 1.3 million people, most of them Shi'a, are overwhelmingly grateful to be free of Saddam's tyranny, and the city is largely stable.

In Nasiriyah, local police are now armed and the force has grown to over 600.

In Diwaniyah, nearly 300 Iraqi police officers have been hired and the coalition is installing two 911 emergency phone lines.

In northern Iraq, the two large cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, with a combined population of more than 2.5 million, are largely stable thanks to the successful efforts of Major General Dave Petrayas (ph) and the 101st Air Assault Division.

There remain some problems in those two cities, most significantly problems arising out of the property disputes created by Saddam's policy of Arabization, a kind of slow motion ethnic cleansing.

But we are taking political and legal measures to try to address those problems. We sent a study team led by former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq William Eagleton that included distinguished experts from Poland, the Czech Republic and Bosnia, countries that have had experience with these kinds of property restitution problems in the past, and they will come up with some recommendations of how we can address those problems by legal means and discourage the use of force.

Finally, if you'd indulge me, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to give a little detail about what I think is potentially a very important success story in the somewhat smaller city -- although it's still a city of half a million -- Karbala.

Karbala's significance far exceeds its size, because as one of the two holy cities of Shi'a Islam, it has enormous potential to point the direction for Iraqi society, or at least for the Shi'a segment of Iraqi society.

There, the 3rd Battalion of the 7th Marines has worked effectively with local officials to create what are reportedly excellent conditions of law and order in that town. A political official from our embassy in Kuwait visited Karabala recently and he reported that, and I quote, "With support from U.S. military forces, moderate reformers are engaged in an audacious experiment aimed at building democratic rule in one of Shiism's two holiest cities.

In cooperation with civil affairs teams from 3rd Battalion 7th Marines, they have achieved notable successes.

That report goes on to note that the infrastructure in Karbala is largely functioning, electricity service has returned to pre-war levels and almost all homes have running water. The three local hospitals are open, although they admittedly lack basic medicines. U.S. Marine engineers are repairing local schools, hospitals and the water plant.

Most significantly, in addition to fostering the re-establishment of basic public services -- and this I think is particularly important -- the Marines have supported the emergence of a functional, competent provisional government in Karbala province that advocates -- remember this is in the heart of Shi'a Iraq -- that advocates a secular democratic future for that country.

Significantly, the leadership of this new secular and democratic local government is a religious figure, Sheik Ali Abdul Hassan Khamuna (ph). He's not only a Saeed (ph), which means a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, and a member of a prominent local tribal clan, but apparently no contradiction, he is also a member of the secular intellgencia.

The council elites contain other senior tribal figures, including five other Saeeds (ph), but also representatives of the secular intelligentsia and business world, including a university professor, a civil engineer, a merchant, a retired army colonel, several lawyers, sociologists and opthamologists.

I'm going to ask if there are any women among them, because that would be a good sign of progress. But I think that's pretty impressive by itself.

The religious intelligentsia is represented by a sheik who endured 12 years in Saddam's prisons for his part in the 1991 uprisings.

The fact that a new day has dawned in Iraq, as no where so evident as in the recent Abrahim (ph) pilgrimage in the cities of Karbala and Najaf. For the first time in 26 years more than 1 million Shi'a pilgrims walked to those holy cities without fear and without violence.

In judging the success or failure of the military plan for dealing with the aftermath of the collapse of the regime, one cannot judge it against a standard of unachievable perfection. There is no plan that could have achieved all the extraordinary speed of this one, and at the same time been able to flood the country with military policemen. Choices had to be made.

I think we made the right choices, choices that saved both American and Iraqi lives and prevented damage to the environment and to the resources of the Iraqi people.

WOLFOWITZ: Let me just say a little bit about those plans. Staring in January of this year, we recruited Jay Garner to stand up the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

To my knowledge, this is the first time we have created an office for post-war administration before a conflict had even started. It was obviously a sensitive matter, because we did not want to do anything that would undercut the efforts to reach a diplomatic resolution to the crisis presented by Iraq's defiance of Resolution 1441.

For that reason also, we did not brief key members of Congress perhaps in as much detail as we would have liked. We should certainly have ensured that Jay Garner briefed you before he left for the theater.

We will work hard to do our best to remedy those errors, including arranging secure video teleconferences with Envoy Bremer and Mr. Garner, as appropriate.

Having said that, let me also say we picked Jay Garner because he had demonstrated at other times in his career, most significantly when he was commander, when he was a commander in the extraordinarily successful operation in northern Iraq in 1991.

A capacity for putting organizations together quickly and energizing them and focusing them on getting practical tasks accomplished.

Fortunately, as I noted earlier, a great deal of our pre-war planning turned out not to be needed because there were no massive food shortages, there was no massive destruction of oil wells or gas platforms.

And I believe in large measure that is attributable to the success of the military plan.

I'd like to briefly mention some of the features of that plan that I think contributed to that success.

At the heart of the military plan was the imperative to defeat Iraq's major combat forces. The emphasis was on speed. We consciously chose to keep our force size relatively small, limiting the amount of people and material deployed on the initial thrust into Iraq.

WOLFOWITZ: This plan gave great flexibility. Those forces quickly plunged deep into Iraq, bypassing a good portion of the country in a push to Baghdad. We recognize with the choice that we were leaving problems in our rear.

Despite the fact that Saddam's regime had strategic warning of an impending attack, because of our speed, coalition forces were able to achieve substantial tactical surprise.

In short, we began the war with a time table the regime did not expect, and we combined it with a speed that made it difficult for the regime to react and regroup. The enemy was never able to mount a coherent defense, nor was it able to blow up dams, bridges and critical infrastructure or use weapons of mass terror, perhaps because it was caught so completely off guard.

As a result, in less than three weeks we were in Baghdad, and with the toppling of Saddam's statute, history's annals tallied another victory for freedom akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall and liberation of Paris.

Our plan worked even better than we could have hoped.

For example, in Baghdad we tried a few armored raids to probe and shock the Iraqi army. We had not expected to see resistance collapse completely as a result.

When those armored raids actually caused the collapse of Iraqi resistance, we capitalized on our success and moved into the heart of Baghdad -- a decision that testifies to the flexibility of the war plan as well as its speed.

Mr. Chairman, not only did this plan achieve its military objectives, this plan saved lives, American lives and Iraqi lives. The unprecedented use of precision not only destroyed the intended military targets but protected innocent lives and key infrastructure.

And the Iraqi people stayed home. They understood our military actions were directed against Saddam and his regime, not against them.

As a result, there is a list of crises we have averted, successes that are measured as much by what didn't happen as what did.

There's no food crisis in Iraqi. There have been no major epidemics. There was not the refugee crisis that many predicted would destabilize the region.

There was no wholesale destruction of oil wells or other critical infrastructure after the war began. And the regime did not use weapons of mass destruction.

WOLFOWITZ: Mr. Chairman, let me say a few words about costs, but more importantly about how we're going to pay for them.

The costs are difficult, of reconstruction, are difficult to estimate since many of the problems we face resulted from decades of neglect and corruption.

But there are a number of funding sources that can help Iraq. First, there is $1.7 billion in formerly frozen Iraqi government assets in the U.S., that the U.S. government vested by presidential order.

Second, there is about $700 million -- and the number grows almost daily -- in state- or regime-owned cash that has so far been seized and brought under our control and is available to be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

Third, once Iraqi oil exports resume, and with the passage of the U.N. Security Council resolution today, they can resume immediately, the proceeds from those sales will be devoted entirely to the benefit of the Iraqi people, except for a 5 percent fund that the U.N. is setting aside for reparations and from past conflicts.

Under the terms of the proposed U.N., under the terms of the recently passed U.N. Security Council resolution, assets from two additional sources would be placed in the Iraqi Assistance Fund, and there have been public pledges from the international community for more than $600 million under the U.N. appeal, and nearly $1.3 billion in other offers of assistance for food, health, agriculture and security sectors.

Indeed, I believe the passage of the resolution today is an important watershed in making it possible to get contributions on both military assistance for stability operations, and on the non-military side for reconstruction from many countries around the world.

Mr. Chairman, just a few words about the political side, which in the long run will turn out to be the most important, although it is not at the moment our most urgent task.

But we continue to work toward the establishment of an Iraqi interim administration, which will assume increasingly greater responsibilities for the administration of Iraq.

The IIA will draw from all of Iraq's religious and ethnic groups and provide a way for Iraqis to begin to direct the economic and political reconstruction of their country.

But the interim administration's most important responsibility will be to set in motion a process leading to the creation of a new Iraqi government, for example, by setting up local elections, drafting a new constitution and new laws.

WOLFOWITZ: This is a process that foreigners cannot direct. It must be a process owned by Iraqis.

In the final phase of our plan, an Iraqi government would assume full sovereignty on the basis of elections in accordance with a new Constitution.

Our intention is to leave Iraq in the hands of Iraqis themselves, and to do so as soon as we can. As President Bush has said, the United States intends to stay in Iraq as long as necessary, but not a day longer.

To those who fear that Baathists and Iranians may intervene when we have left, our message is simple. While we intend withdraw as rapidly as possible from Iraqi political life and day-to-day decisions, we will remain there as an essential security force for as long as we are needed. I would also caution that this process will take time, and it is necessary to get it right.

Mr. Chairman, currently 24 coalition countries are providing military support, some of that publicly, some of it is still private. Thirty eight nations have offered financial assistance, totaling now $1.8 billion. And very importantly, a number of countries have made commitments to providing brigade-size and larger forces to stability operations once the U.N. Security Council resolution is passed, as has just happened.

I would just like, before I conclude, to note that there have been very significant successes already as a result of the efforts of ORHA and our pre-war planning.

Some Iraqis today have more electric service than the past 12 years. For the first time since 1991, the people in Basra have electricity 24 hours a day. When the national grid backbone is operational later this month, Baghdad will be able to receive excess power from the north and the south.

And with removal of U.N. sanctions, we will have the ability to start exporting, we will now be able to use Iraqi natural gas to produce another 700 megawatts of power.

Primary schools throughout Iraq opened on May 4th. Jay Garner is hopeful that secondary schools and universities will open soon.

We have started emergency payments to civil servants, to more than 1 million of them. Privately hired stevedores have begun all floating operations and put rice directly on trucks; currently over 1,500 tons per day are all floated.

And I could go on with more and more. A great deal is happening. More is happening every day.

Let me just conclude by mentioning the important subject of the energy infrastructure.

WOLFOWITZ: Obviously, one of the keys to getting Iraq up and running as a country is to restore its primary source of revenue: its oil infrastructure. As with many other facets of life in Iraqi, this infrastructure had been allowed to decay to a surprising degree.

Fortunately, we averted the destruction of almost all of the Iraqi oil wells, and a great deal of repair work is under way to ensure that operations can safely resume.

While the coalition will be involved at the outset, the goal is to have production and marketing responsibility in the hands of a stable Iraqi authority as soon as possible.

The lifting of the U.N. sanctions, which is something we've been working hard to achieve, the lifting of those sanctions today not only represents an opportunity for Iraq to start earning the oil revenues that can help rebuild that country, it also allows us to relieve shortages of gasoline and cooking fuel, since the absence of any available storage capacity had meant the refineries could no longer operate.

Mr. Chairman, let me close by thanking you for holding his hearing and thanking all the members of Congress for the outstanding bipartisan support that we've had since the beginning of this war, indeed, since the beginning of the war on terror.

As I noted in my statement, we are still fighting at the same time that we're trying to win the peace. And as you noted in your article today, transforming Iraq will be quick or easy.

Our victory will be based, as you put it so well, on the kind of country we leave behind. The stakes for our country and for the world are enormous, and the continued commitment of Congress and the American people is essential.

I appeal to you and your colleagues for your continued support and your leadership in this historic effort.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Well, thank you very much, Secretary Wolfowitz. The committee will have seven minutes for a member question period at this point. And I'll ask the time keeper to start the seven minutes on my questions.

But I want to start, really, with some comments.

I appreciate very much the testimony you have just given. As you would confirm, we visited two weeks or so ago, and my plea to you was to come before the committee, as you have today, with a comprehensive statement.

LUGAR: To my knowledge, this is the first time at least I've been privy to an all-points view of what is going on in the country, and the American people, I think, will benefit from the fact you've given us some good news. There have been remarkable achievements that by and large are unrecognized.

Likewise, I appreciate very much the thought that, whether it be through secure television, there could be regular reports to this committee, but for that matter to other senators, too. We had the benefit, and we appreciate that, from the Department of Defense daily up in S407, progress reports on the war. And most of us were there at 8:00 in the morning, as you were and those of the military who came over. Tremendously important in terms of the confidence of all of us in what was occurring and the support.

And I would just simply say, that's tremendously important in all this period.

You could say, well, this is going to go on for a long time, daily briefings, and we understand that. It has to be a reasonable situation. But there have to be some ways in which the good news is conveyed, in addition to things that you have to say, by some of us, even with our own interpretations.

Tom Friedman, New York Times, has written about the fact, as you've suggested today, we've discovered the Iraqi people were really beaten down. This is a situation which was not hopeful and prosperous about anybody except for the regime. And here you have people who, as you pointed out, haven't had electric power, some of it historically ever; a lot of them not for quite a long while. A really beaten-down situation.

Not only that, but in terms of morale of the people. These are folks that are not just leaping to take advantage of political action, volunteering to run in the next election or to take part in the council.

A good number of them, obviously, and unfortunately most of the middle class, as I've observed it, hanging back, wondering if Saddam is going to return, but if not Saddam, the Baathist Party types. who you have had to battle sort of day by day, are not going to do them in. This is still a repressive situation in the perception of many people.

So they have not only inconveniences of lack of power or lack of security, but they're really still not sure who's in charge, and they're not sure about our staying power to make sure that the bad people don't finally overcome.

LUGAR: And that can be changed by the president saying, as he said to many members of Congress today, Stay the course. We are going to be there as long as we need to be.

And when that assurance comes, and you've given it to us again and with a lot of supporting detail, that's tremendously important.

Now, likewise, the perception by Mr. Bremer that the Baathists people are not the ones that are going to restore democracy or even bring about any vestige of it, and that they are the enemy. And there are people I know within our own government who have been sort of battling back and forth on terms of freedom of speech and freedom of all this, and I understand that. It's an honest philosophical (inaudible).

But here we've got people who are cowed in the country by recognition as the same types that's still around. But then how do you develop others? Very tough job on the political side, quite apart from the security arrangements. Once again, the right kind of personnel to be there to do these things.

So you have recognized these things, and I won't reiterate them because I appreciate the comprehensive statement you have made, which I hope all of us will study.

Let me just say that the oil situation that began to find some clarification with the Security Council and Secretary Powell is certainly to be complimented on the remarkable work he has done, and he has been supported by you and the Department of Defense, obviously the White House. But collectively that was a very important victory in a short period of time for everybody who were the naysayers to come around and say sanctions will be lifted. The United States, Britain and those who fought the war are in charge. We'll review it in due course. Experts can happen.

Those are very big things. For those that are always diminishing American diplomacy, you know, I hope they take notice. Remarkable change.

However, having said that. If you were chief executive of Iraq oil today, the problem still is -- and you may clarify this a little bit more for us -- somebody has to deposit the money, somebody has to disperse the money, make decisions as to who it goes to. And you've set aside 5 percent for reparations and past wars, and 95 percent is out there.

LUGAR: The transparency of all of that is obviously important.

And overhanging this is the debt situation.

As you take a look, if you're a chief executive of this, how much do you put in repair of that which is there, and it's been in disrepair even before damage and looting?

How much do you put in new investment? And how much do you allocate to debt?

Now, I had a meeting yesterday with a gentleman who's been an adviser to Russian rulers, as they come and go, and his suggestion was, as perhaps Secretary Powell found, the Russians were deeply interested in contracts.

And when it comes to debt, that's maybe something else, a lot of experience with both, they would like a lot of their debt forgiven, so would a lot of other nations that are involved in this.

But with that overhanging problem there, somebody has to be in charge, just simply of the fiscal situation of the country. And the allocation of resources, the business management of it.

And there can't be temporizing, in my judgment, about that, that this is a very serious thing right now in terms of the confidence level that this is going to come out.

Now, in doing that the papers today point out the Kurds in the north, very worried about allocation of these oil resources for, say, relief of all of the country.

They would say, this is ours.

Well, once again, we're back into what does it mean to be an Iraqi? Is there a sense that Iraqis want to be Iraqis?

Most would say, sure, and the testimony we've had is, that there's a very cultivated sense of that over decades, but still the ability to come together and make compromises, to begin to think, as we would like, for Iraqis to think of themselves as a cohesive society and country, that are prepared to have great diversity in one government, as opposed to a theological tyranny.

Now, all of these things you've thought of, and you have to every day. But specifically, on the question of the oil money and the management resource.

LUGAR: That's not the only revenue, as you pointed out to some others. But I'm not sure how many taxes are being collected of any sort.

On the fiscal side, on the income side, what we can expect and how people manage that, in the absence of a legislature, a congress or a president, will we make those decisions? Are they being made? Or is there planning in a fiscal sense for the country presently?

WOLFOWITZ: If I could say first of all just very briefly, your suggestion of having if not daily at least regular briefings up here I think is an excellent one. I am impressed. The lady is sitting behind me with OSD representative. It's a daily one we had during the war, and it did seem to really establish a good pattern of communication.

And maybe daily is too often, but let's work together and figure out what is the right schedule...

LUGAR: Appreciate that.

WOLFOWITZ: ... because it helps us. And it isn't just to transmit good news. There's plenty of bad news too, and we can use help (inaudible) where we need the help most of all.

(CROSSTALK)

LUGAR: ... prepared to share as opposed to being ultra-critical, prepared to be supportive.

WOLFOWITZ: And I think it's very important -- I noticed this on a trans-Atlantic meeting in Europe over the weekend -- that a lot of our allies are reassured when they hear that, in fact, we intend to stay the course.

I don't know why, after what we've done in Bosnia, they doubt it. But at any rate we need to say it, there's an opportunity to do it, and I appreciate that.

And I think you were correct in signaling out Envoy Bremer's decree on de-Baathication. We are hearing already that just the mere declaration has had a big political impact.

On the key questions you brought up about these decisions about -- and there are many decisions. One, there are decisions about how you get to the oil sector up and running and how you invest to repair it. And I am pleasantly surprised to discover that we've found an Iraqi -- his name I mentioned in my testimony, yes, Tamir Godbond (ph) -- and I am told that he had a senior position in the oil ministry despite his refusal to join the Baath party.

It's pretty remarkable. It also says he must be extremely competent because they didn't tolerate that in other people.

But he will be running it. We have an advisory board and an American adviser who will help him make decisions and give us some guidance as to whether we think those are the right decisions. Ultimately, for the time being, he is under the authority of the coalition provisional administrator, who is Ambassador Bremer.

The issues about how the revenues get spent and invested are, again, under the authority of the coalition provisional administration. The key individual under Ambassador Bremer is a very distinguished American official, the former deputy secretary of the Treasury, Peter McPherson, who was the president -- still is, I guess, he's on leave from Michigan State University.

We have had some extraordinary Americans volunteer to help us out there. A former commissioner of the New York police is going to help us with the police job.

WOLFOWITZ: Peter McPherson, I guess, for the time being is the de facto finance economics minister for the provisional authority.

But I would also emphasize, we're looking for help everywhere we can get it. And ORHA right now the current staffing is 617 U.S. and 471 coalition, about 1,000 people and about 40 percent non-Americans. And I'm pleased at that 40 percent number.

I've been pushing particularly hard to tap into the expertise, which I think is substantial, of our friends in Poland and other Central European countries who've had to undertake this kind of tricky economic transition themselves and have a better sense of the trade- offs than we have with our experience of running a functioning economy.

But it's a big effort. There are a lot of decisions to be made.

What I tried to describe, maybe too briefly, in my statement is, there are two things that have to happen, and they need to happen in parallel. On the one hand, we need to make sure that the country runs. And it's not that we want this responsibility, but we know that if we don't take it on and with some unity of command and some ability to make decisions, things will limp.

On the other hand, there needs to be a political process that eventually produces a legitimate government. And in that process, I think our main function is just to make sure that it can take place under secure conditions, which is a long way from where we are now.

Your point about people being afraid is, I think -- I mean, if members of ORHA have to worry about traveling in the streets, the ministries, imagine what somebody has to think about not if they're going to the shops in Baghdad -- people are doing that on a daily basis -- but if they want to speak up in support of the coalition, they may get killed. It's still a problem.

So creating secure conditions and I think also setting the boundary lines. I think we can say that people who show that they're not willing to play by democratic rules are not included in this process. But inside the process, I think we need to let Iraqis make decisions.

LUGAR: Thank you.

Senator Biden?

BIDEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

Let me begin by saying that, in a sense, you're the wrong guy for me to be questioning. And what I mean by that is, I have known you for 30 years. One of the things that I am absolutely convinced about is your absolute conviction that we have to be build a stable country there as long as it takes.

I remember sitting at a couple of conferences on whither NATO and what about Bosnia. And I remember you being critical of the candidate for president then, saying we had to get out of Bosnia and we had to get out of the Balkans during the last campaign.

BIDEN: And so...

WOLFOWITZ: Excuse me. The candidate was not saying that.

BIDEN: Well...

WOLFOWITZ: Sorry. Let's not go into that.

BIDEN: Well, it's important to go into it for this reason. One of the things I'd like to know is, when is the president going to tell the American people that we're likely to be in the country of Iraq for three, four, five, six, eight, 10 years, with thousands of forces, and spending billions of dollars?

Because it's not been told to them yet. They have not been told. They were not told before we went in, and you knew we were going to have to stay there and he knew. It's not been told to them since then.

And we are facing a $400 billion deficit and we're going to be left holding the bag here a year from now, when the military needs and the administration needs considerable input in dollars in Iraq, and the American people aren't going to understand why we're not spending it on education, and instead we're voting to spend it, as I will vote to spend it, on Iraq.

And that's the reason why I raise the question. You seem to want it both ways. You point out that, Why would anyone doubt our resolve? We've been in Bosnia for eight years. And the problem is a lot less significant and less difficult in Bosnia than it is in Iraq.

That would seem to compute that we're likely to be Iraq for a long time -- a long time. If the problems are so much more complicated, which they are, in, as you point out, in Iraq than Bosnia, then we're going to be around a long time.

I don't know about you, but my home constituency doesn't understand that. They think Johnny and Jane are going to come marching home pretty soon. Nobody in this country thinks we're going to be there for the next four, five, six, 10 or eight years, like in Bosnia.

And so I would hope the president at some point will make our job easier continuing to support him, which I have done on every single step of the way in his effort here, and tell the American people. When are you going to say that?

Aren't we likely to be -- I'm asking you -- are we likely to be in Iraq for at least the next four years and in significant numbers with significant monetary commitment? Is that likely?

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, the problem is it is very difficult to predict. It is possible, and it's possible that things will go faster.

BIDEN: Is it possible at all, Mr. Secretary, to be out of there in the next two years?

WOLFOWITZ: Not necessarily out of there, but I don't know how many forces we're going to need in the next two years. Things are going to be very different two years from now than they are now. As a matter of fact, things are very, very different in Bosnia now than they were eight years ago.

WOLFOWITZ: And let me be clear: I didn't say that this is more complicated than Bosnia. I said the stakes are much higher than Bosnia.

In some respects, it's less complicated. It was a functioning country, and in important respects it has enormous resources which...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: With nothing functioning now, you point out that it's much more devastated than we thought it was going to be? There is little infrastructure yet?

WOLFOWITZ: There is huge problems, but there are huge resources.

BIDEN: What are the -- I just attended a meeting with oil experts, with Mr. Larson (ph) present and with Ms. Chamberlain present, where the following numbers were -- to get it -- for us just to get to the point where we're talking about increasing to one million barrels per day export, there's going to be a need for a $5 billion investment in the oil fields to get to that point. To get to the point where you'll build up production to 5.5 million barrels per day, it is estimated by the folks testifying today -- and I ask either of your colleagues if they disagree with it -- seven to 10 years and an investment of $30 to $40 billion in the fields.

Now nobody I know in the oil business is suggesting that there are going to be revenues that remotely cover the cost of rebuilding Iraq coming from those oil fields in the next three years. I've not heard anybody.

For the record, I'd love you to submit -- take as much time as you want -- any evidence to suggest that a significant part of the reconstruction of Iraq required in the next three years will come out of oil revenues from Iraqi oil.

Would you be willing to do that for the record?

WOLFOWITZ: Be happy to do it for the record.

BIDEN: OK. Because I've not heard a single person suggest that yet. Not one.

And I just wonder when we're going to start leveling.

Look, you want us to continue to support you. You wonder why our European friends say, how they could doubt our staying power. Every European I've met with for the last year, including as recently as two days ago.

Look at Afghanistan. Look at Afghanistan. You make this case that somehow this is so fundamentally different that Bosnia.

BIDEN: Well, how about Afghanistan? American soldiers are still being shot at. Al Qaida's still alive and well. The Taliban didn't go anywhere. Those 60,000 forces we talked about, I'm told that they're now living in mud huts all throughout there. They're not all in Pakistan or into Iran. They are still there. And it's a shambles.

WOLFOWITZ: I wouldn't agree that it's a shambles.

The problem, if you want to shift to Afghanistan for a...

BIDEN: No, no. I want to shift to the comparisons. Tell me how you're using -- you're suggesting that the reason why you can't bring in large numbers of police and why you didn't plan on doing that is because, it's implicitly incompatible with the environment that they're in. What we really need are soldiers there, not police there. And I'm suggesting to you the same situation exists...

(CROSSTALK)

WOLFOWITZ: ... yes, three months from now it may be very different. Three months from now it will be very different.

BIDEN: Well, tell me the plans you have that so if it is different in three months you'll able to drop in 6,000 police officers. Do you have a plan?

WOLFOWITZ: I point you to an example of Karbala. There are about 1,000 Marines in that city of half a million, and there is effective law and order in Karbala. So that is one example of how it might work.

I might ask General Pace to address the issue of where we might be three months from now in terms of...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: With all due respect, I respect the general. But his judgment about where we're three months from now is going to be better than most, but still it's going to be a guess where we're going to be three months, and I want to know where we are today. That's what I'm worried about. I'm not worried about anybody being able to predict three months from now.

What I'm concerned about is that -- look, I met with the British defense minister. What's different in the city that you acknowledge is the most stable, what are they doing differently there than we're doing in Baghdad?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, they've been there a lot longer. They're dealing with the population...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: ... you mean, a longer? How much longer have they been there, a week, two, three?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, I think it's closer to a month.

But they're dealing with a city which is very different in its composition, which is much less friendly to the kind of Baathists elements we're having trouble with. It's actually -- Basra is probably comparable to Zarda (ph) City, the large neighborhood in Baghdad, roughly in population, roughly in ethnic composition. And General Abasaid (ph) reports that Zarda (ph) City is largely stable.

We are dealing particularly in central and north-central Iraq with armed opposition by there's some 30,000 -- I don't know the exact number -- but it's several tens of thousands of people who were in the four major security organizations that kept an eye on one another and kept an eye on the Iraqi people.

WOLFOWITZ: They're murderers, they're torturers, their goal is to destabilize the country. We don't -- those people have been largely eliminated in Basra.

At some point they will be eliminated even in Baghdad and then the numbers required to do this kind of work will be a lot smaller. But it is not a simple police function, it is something closer to light infantry.

BIDEN: I don't know why we can't walk and chew gum at the same time, have police in the city and forces ...

WOLFOWITZ: Well, we are. I can go back and read you the statistics I read about how many people are in Baghdad today, how many of our forces are there, I think and it's 21,000 that are doing patrolling duties, and the number of patrols ...

BIDEN: They're not trained to be police.

WOLFOWITZ: They are trained to do this kind. This is not police work; this is something closer to urban combat, and they are trained for that. General Pace?

BIDEN: Looting is not urban combat, but I'll come back to that later.

PACE: Sir, I would say it is certainly not time driven, it's event driven. We've been in Basra longer than Baghdad, we've been in Mosul shorter than Baghdad.

Both Basra and Mosul are in better conditions security wise than is Baghdad. Baghdad has, in addition to all of its major city problems, about 20,000 prisoners who are in -- criminal prisoners -- who were in jail, who were released during the course of the war, who have concentrated a lot of their activities.

Just last night, just the patrols last night ...

BIDEN: But they're thugs, they're not Baathist.

PACE: They are thugs, and they need to be policed up, and about 104 were policed up last night.

So it's a combination of military and police. The police forces are being recruited, they are being trained, and it was a judgment going into Baghdad as to whether or not you waited outside the city to have enough forces that when you went in you could have complete control of the city, and then potentially have the fortress Baghdad fight that none of us wanted, or to take advantage of the opportunity of the speed and precision that we had to get in there quickly, take it down quickly, not destroy a city with 5 million people in it, and accept the problem of having a less secure environment than we'd like to have.

So on balance, I'd much rather be where I am today at the two- month mark worrying about police action than at the two-month mark still pounding away at a city because we waited too long.

BIDEN: In the second round, I'll point out why I don't believe they are incompatible.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Biden.

Senator Hagel?

HAGEL (R-NE): Mr. Chairman, thank you.

To our distinguished witnesses, thank you for coming today, and congratulations on the good work that you and your colleagues have accomplished so far.

Mr. Secretary, General, give our best wishes and our congratulations and thanks to our armed forces...

PACE: Thank you, sir.

HAGEL: ... our men and women who have achieved a spectacular victory.

To our State Department representatives, you had a big day today at the United Nations, and give Secretary Powell our best and our congratulations.

As Chairman Lugar pointed out, this was important for America today and important for Iraq -- and, quite frankly, important for the United Nations, as we rebuild alliances that were fractured as a result of Iraq and strengthen these institutions that I believe will be critically important to the outcome in Iraq, as Secretary Wolfowitz has talked about today.

Mr. Secretary, you went into some detail in the last part of your testimony about the political situation in the future of Iraq, and I paraphrase your comment, I believe you said something to the effect that that may be overall the most important dynamic as you stabilize Iraq and do the things that you are doing to secure Iraq, because it will be the political process, as you note, that determines what kind of Iraq we have, and that will ripple across the region.

Today's front page of The Washington Post, which you've seen, let me quote just quickly a paragraph to set the question: "Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. civilian in Iraq, said today that the selection of an interim Iraqi government is at least seven weeks away, prompting aspiring leaders from Kurdish and returned exile groups to warn that Iraqis are tiring of the six-week-old U.S. occupation and they want swift movement toward self-rule."

Yesterday's headlines in The New York Times: "Iraqi Political Leaders Warn of Rising Hostility if Allies Don't Support an Interim Government."

Would you share with the committee what we are doing to get to that end? I recognize, we all do, it's imperfect, it's difficult, for all the reasons you mentioned and others.

HAGEL: But I think this is a pretty serious statement coming from serious allies of ours. The two main Kurdish leaders, whom Senator Biden and I met with in December when we were in Iraq, they are critical to the future of Iraq. You all know that.

Some of the exile leaders who you have strongly supported, Mr. Chalabi and others, obviously are a bit nervous about this.

Can you tell us how we are going to get there?

WOLFOWITZ: First of all, let me point out that as important as that parts is, the most urgent requirement remains the creation of stable and secure conditions. And in fact, while it may be the case that some Iraqis, and certainly the gentleman you quoted, are impatient, or at least they want to say they're impatient, I think on the whole we hear more from Iraqis who are impatient to make sure that we're doing something about providing security and providing basic services, and there is a tension between those Iraqis who want us to be in charge and who frankly are used to the government taking care of things for them and those Iraqis who are impatient to be able to run their own affairs.

I don't think it's an accident that the ones who are most impatient on the latter point are the ones who've had the experience of 12 years of pretty free conditions in northern Iraq.

I know Ambassador Bremer went out there -- at the time he went out we had, as I think also noted in that article, an expectation that we might be able to stand up an interim administration as early as the beginning of next month. He went out there with explicit authority to make his own judgments about how right the situation was and how prepared conditions were.

And I think his overall judgment, partly based on the need to focus on this restoration of security and services, but I believe also his sense that we still didn't have a good enough feel for who were the appropriate people who could be brought into a group that would adequately represent the Iraqi people, I think is his reason for taking a little more time.

That's not a lot of time.

And you asked about the process. The process has in fact in some considerable measure focused on intensive consultations, which he's been conducting now with the senior leadership council that was formed in northern Iraq just before the war, including the two principal Kurdish leaders, Talabani and Barzani, including Mr. Chalabi and Mr. Allwi and two Sunni leaders who were -- -- I'm sorry: Mr. Allawi is one of the Sunnis.

WOLFOWITZ: Yes, Baqir al-Hakim from SCIRI, who initially opted not to participate and has since decided he will participate, and we are looking closely to make sure that his participation remains within the bounds of legitimate political activity and doesn't include the importation of his Badr Corps armed people from Iran. And finally, Mr. Pachachi.

That was the core six, and Ambassador Bremer is consulting with those people about how to expand their numbers to -- and we don't have a particular figure in mind -- but to a larger council that would be more adequately representative of the larger population. And then the question will be how to get from there to an interim administration.

But let me emphasize that word "interim." It is really important. There's no way in present conditions to have an Iraqi administration that derives its legitimacy from Iraqi political processes. There are none. Its legitimacy really comes from its interim character and the fact that it is a bridge paving the way to something that will provide legitimacy.

So the more challenging tasks will be writing a constitution, which you can take your guess as good as mine, it sounds to me like that's a six- to 12-month process; and getting elections organized, and there's going to be some discussion, I'm sure, about whether you'd start them at a national level or -- I'll give my bias -- start working from local level up.

I mean, if you have a situation like the one I described in Karbala, then that's a wonderful opportunity to experiment with how Iraqis can handle the political process. Obviously, most areas of Baghdad aren't ready for that sort of thing yet.

So I think some local experimentation, I believe, will be a part of getting there.

It'll take some time, but I think the ingredients for success are -- though they've never done it before, so this is a guess -- but I think the ingredients success are very good. An educated population. We can argue about how soon those resources will be available, but one of the richest natural resource producers in the world.

WOLFOWITZ: And finally, I think this important in things that didn't happen. Unlike Bosnia, while there's been horrible killing, it's been the regime killing everybody. It's not one ethnic group killing another ethnic group. A lot people expected Sunni on Shi'a violence, I think they were wrong to expect that. A lot of us were afraid that there would be Kurdish on Turkish on Kurdish on Arab violence in the north. And while there have been isolated and tragic incidents and that sort of thing, it has not happened on a large scale.

So Iraq starts, I believe, with more good will among the elements of population toward one another than we ever had in the Balkans. That's a plus.

HAGEL: I'll follow up on some of those on the second round.

Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Hagel.

Senator Sarbanes?

SARBANES (D-MD): Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Well, first, I want to commend Chairman Lugar for scheduling this hearing. In view of the confusions, the ambiguities and contradictions that exist with respect to our policy in Iraq, I think this hearing was certainly needed. I hope it'll be the first in a series of hearings. I think that may be the intention. When it comes to this nation's foreign policy, the executive and legislative branches play complementary roles and neither can properly fulfill its responsibilities when acting entirely on its own.

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for your tenacity in insisting on the importance of what you have called interbranch partnership on the question of Iraq. As you've written in the op-ed piece, which appeared in today's Washington Post, I quote, "Transforming Iraq will not be easy, quick or cheap. Clearly, the administration's planning for the post-conflict phase in Iraq was inadequate. I am concerned that the Bush administration and Congress had not yet faced up to the true size of the task that lies ahead or prepared the American people for it."

Which was, of course, also a point that Senator Biden made just earlier in this hearing.

And you went on to say, "The public and Congress need to know what we're getting into." And I fully agree with that.

Now, Secretary Wolfowitz, before I turn to Iraq, I want to divert for just a moment.

SARBANES: The Economist, on May 10th -- and the Economist has by and large been very supportive of the administration's foreign policy -- has an article on Guantanamo, in the course of which they say, "America's handling of the prisoners at Guantanamo is wrong in principle, and a tactical error in its broader fight against terrorism."

And they go on to question the continued holding of these troops: "After 16 months, none of those detained at the camp has been charged. The claim that America's free to do whatever it wishes with the Guantanamo prisoners is unworthy of a nation which has cherished the rule of law from its very birth, and represents a more extreme approach than the U.S. has taken even during periods of all-out war. It has alienated many other governments at a time when the efforts to defeat terrorism require more international cooperation in law enforcement than ever before."

What are the -- I gather Guantanamo is under the supervision and jurisdiction of the Defense Department.

WOLFOWITZ: That's right.

SARBANES: What are your plans with respect to that situation?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, we continue, we pay a lot of attention to it, we are looking at that, frankly, we would like to reduce the population there as much as possible. And we made some releases.

It's not an easy process. I recall a few weeks ago when we were on the verge of sending some detainees back to their home country, and the FBI came up with some information that suggested these people would be dangerous to release, and we had to hold it up.

We are working with a number of countries to get agreements so that if there are dangerous characters that need to be detained, they can at least be detained in their own home countries.

WOLFOWITZ: I think it's essential to point out that many of these people have very important information that can help us to prevent other terrorist attacks.

And we're trying to manage the whole process in such a way that they cooperate with us and tell us what they know about their planning that they were involved in and other terrorists who are still at large.

These people are enemy prisoners of war. And prisoners of war in a war that was conducted by the most vicious means and in violation of all the rules of war. It's a war that's not over. If anyone has any doubt about that, we got a reminder a few days ago. And we need to treat them in that way.

We treat them fairly. We treat them humanely. If it turns out that they, in fact, are harmless, they are released rather quickly. If it turns that they are of no intelligence value, but they remain somewhat dangerous, we try to find circumstances to detain them longer.

And I will take a look at that Economist article. I agree with you that it is a matter of concern if our European allies feel that we are violating basic standards of fairness, and we need to perhaps do a better job of explaining what we're about.

But I think the American people would have a hard time understanding why we would release people who've been involved in terrorist plot against the United States.

SARBANES: Well, if in fact that's the case, I don't know that I'd quarrel with that statement. But is that the case?

WOLFOWITZ: It's the case. We're not holding them because we enjoy it, Senator. We really try to prune that population down and we continue to work at it. Where there are people who, in fact, are appropriate to be brought to some kind of trail, we're looking at military commissions for that purpose.

SARBANES: Well, this article says after 16 months none of those detained at the camp has been charged. They also make the point that we've been receiving a lot of complaints from many of the 42 nations, including some of America's closet allies, whose citizens are being held at Guantanamo.

I gather they're, in effect, held incommunicado. They can't communicate either with counselor officials from their countries or with lawyers; is that correct?

WOLFOWITZ: They don't have access to lawyers. They do have access to officials from their home countries. I think in every case -- not consular officials, they don't have consular privileges -- but in every case where a country has citizens there and they want access to them, we provided them access.

SARBANES: Well, I'll send this article to you, and I'd be interested, if you want to send us up a written response.

And I note again in citing it that the Economist generally has been very supportive of your position, so it's not as though this is coming from a source which has been critical of the administration.

How many U.S. troops are in Iraq now?

PACE: 145,000, sir.

SARBANES: And are we expecting to increase that number?

PACE: The number is being increased as we speak, sir, by about 18,000 with the arrival of the 1st Armored Division. And then beyond that, there are no current projected deployments.

SARBANES: So we're going to go up to over 160,000?

PACE: Potentially, sir. Although some of the troops that are there now, the ones who did all the fighting early, as General Franks sees the opportunity, when the security environment allows, he will bring those home that got there first.

SARBANES: Well, General Franks is stepping down. Is that right?

PACE: Sir, General Franks's time as commander there would normally end around the first of July. I believe the secretary of defense and the president are still discussion how long his tour will be and who will replace him.

SARBANES: I gather he's retiring. There's a story on the CNN to that effect. Is that correct?

PACE: Sir, that's likely, but again it's not confirmed. The president and the secretary, to my knowledge, have not made a decision nor have they discussed the final outcome with Tom, that I know of.

That is a likely outcome, sir, but it is not a decision.

SARBANES: All right. Just to be clear, I'm looking at an Associated Press dispatch here: "U.S. Army General Tommy Franks who planned and commanded the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has decided to retire, Defense officials said Thursday."

PACE: Sir, I'm not trying to be cute at all, sir. The fact of the matter is that before he...

SARBANES: I wasn't suggesting...

(CROSSTALK)

PACE: Before he can retired he has to ask for and the Senate of the United States has to say yes, he may, neither of which has happened.

PACE: And then the president and the secretary of defense need to decide who's going to replace him. And to my knowledge, they haven't decided that. So I'm just trying to be accurate, sir.

SARBANES: My time's up, but I want to just pursue this point quickly. Being over 160,000 troops, Secretary Wolfowitz, I'd ask you whether you think it was fair to label General Shinseki's remarks back in February that we would need roughly several hundred thousand troops in post-war Iraq as an estimate wildly off the mark.

WOLFOWITZ: I would say several hundred thousand is 300,000 or more, and I don't think we're close to that.

SARBANES: You would say what?

WOLFOWITZ: Several hundred thousand to me means 300,000 or more, and I don't think we're close to that.

SARBANES: If it means 200,000, which is how I would read it, would you say we're close to that?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, several to me -- we are close to 200,000, but the other point -- there are a couple other points, Senator, which are important to make.

We are looking, particularly now that the U.N. resolution has passed, at having some substantial contributions from other NATO allies and indeed from other countries around the world.

SARBANES: How many?

WOLFOWITZ: We're just starting. There are countries that have said, Come talk to us after U.N. resolution, we're going to be doing that.

And the issue, too, is one number today, another number a year from now, another number two years from now. I think if you look at the experience in the Balkans, where we drew down from 60,000 NATO forces in Bosnia eight years ago to 12,000 today, you can see a pretty sharp downward trend.

What concerns me most about that very large number being out there -- and I think most people take "several" to be 3 or more -- is the implication that we were going to treat Iraq like Japan or Germany and occupy it indefinitely, and that, frankly, is what a lot of our enemies in the Arab world were trying to say about us, and I thought it was very harmful. Otherwise, I would have preferred not to have commented on the whole subject.

SARBANES: How many British troops are there?

WOLFOWITZ: About 20,000.

SARBANES: Twenty?

WOLFOWITZ: Yes.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Sarbanes.

Let me just announce that there is a supposition that there will be roll call votes starting at about 4:15. They may run back to back.

What I would propose is that we proceed with the questioning, because our witnesses' time is very valuable, as is the time of senators.

LUGAR: I will recognize Senator Chafee, I will proceed to vote on anticipation that vote can be cast swiftly and returned. In the event I have not, Senator Chafee you are in charge until I return, and then you may proceed to vote, and we'll try to expedite that.

Senator Chafee.

CHAFEE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the distinguished panel.

It seems to me that we've thrown a rock into the pool that is the Middle East, and just for the sake of my question, if all goes well with restoring order in Iraq, what is their strategic vision of the ripples that now are going out from this rock?

What is their strategic vision in the Middle East now?

WOLFOWITZ: I'd say several things. I think some of them hopefully will happen even perhaps before some of the other results are achieved inside Iraq.

I think one of the ripples is a positive impact on the Arab- Israeli peace process, and clearly we need it, we need to move that process forward.

I think we have credibility, enormous credibility, not that we didn't have it before, we have it even more than we did before. I think the removal of Saddam Hussein as somebody who was providing $25,000 to every terrorist family, there's already signs that that is having a positive impact.

I think a less direct but maybe even more important impact is that I think the defeat of Saddam Hussein has improved the strategic position of Saudi Arabia, and the events of the terrorist attack of 10 days ago demonstrate that they need an improved strategic position.

What do I mean by an improved strategic position? I mean, number one, that the Saudis don't have to worry about a hostile regime to their north that was actively interested in undermining them.

But secondly, and maybe even more important, because of the successful operation in Iraq, Secretary Rumsfeld and his Saudi counterpart two or three weeks ago now were able to agree that most U.S. forces could come out of Saudi Arabia.

That gives the government of Saudi Arabia some freedom it hasn't had for 12 years to not be constantly subject to the charge leveled by Osama bin Laden that they're basing so-called crusader forces on Arab territory.

WOLFOWITZ: And hopefully, that also rebounds back into the peace process because, I think, one of the things that was missing in the Camp David and Taba negotiations in 2000 and early 2001 was that the Saudis and the Egyptians didn't step up to the plate. So those are big effects.

But finally, I think if we could get to the point where Iraq can be a model of free representative democratic government by an Arab standard, not -- I mean, Japan's democracy is different from ours, it's different from England's. Iraq's democracy will be different from Poland and different from Romania's. But if Iraq can present an example to the Arab world that is a positive example, I think just as we've seen the power of example operate in East Asia or in Europe, I think it can operate in the Middle East and the Muslim world.

It's hard to say exactly how. It's not a domino affect. It's not Iraq affects the country next door which affects -- it's not a physical thing. It's a physiological and political and sort of morale impact, which can be large.

I just met with the foreign minister of Morocco, who was very emphatic about what a positive effect the demise of the Saddam Hussein regime had on the Arab world. And Morocco is one of those countries that's making some of the most courageous steps to try to expand the realm of political freedom and democracy in that country.

CHAFEE: Could you elaborate please on how you see this affecting progress between the Palestinians and the Israelis?

WOLFOWITZ: Well, as I said, it removes a factor that was deeply opposed to progress. In fact, it's not at all insignificant that when the Arab League organized against Anwar Sadat's peace efforts 20 years ago, it was led by Saddam Hussein, and it was known as the Baghdad summit.

He'd clearly been openly and probably less openly on a larger scale, financing and supporting terrorism among the Palestinians. And I suspect also outlining with those people -- and this is important -- who -- one of the biggest obstacles to peace is not just the terrorism against Israelis, but the threats that arise against those Palestinians who want to make progress.

WOLFOWITZ: So I think that's a help.

I think, as I said, the ability now of the moderate Arab countries to step up to the plate more easily is a help.

But without any question, the commitment of the United States, the commitment of this president, the understanding that we have a major role to play, and I think we have credibility in playing it that we didn't have before.

The problem is incredibly difficult. Let's not underestimate it. But I think the stakes are also huge.

If two years from now, three years from now we could have the dual victories of a successful, prospering, free and democratic Iraq on the one hand and a peace between Israelis and Palestinians on the other, those will be massive victories in the war against terrorism.

CHAFEE: Yes, I couldn't agree more. And seeing as how my light's still green, could we just reaffirm the president's commitment to the road map in these very, very difficult times, as it would more than ever, with increased terrorist acts, the pressure to cease the settlements and to get the parties back talking about adhering to a road map.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator Chafee, you've heard him say it in public. I've heard him say it in private and in circumstances where there was no need to affirm his commitment. He, I believe, has understood from the beginning that it's got to be a major initiative coming off of a successful war in Iraq.

CHAFEE: And my last question would be, there are those that question that commitment. And I suppose they want to see something accomplished on the settlement issue. What could you propose on that?

WOLFOWITZ: I think I'll turn to my colleagues in the State Department. It is a very tough problem.

But I heard Henry Kissinger put it in a way that I thought captured the issue rather well. The Palestinians fear that Sharon is only prepared to grant them a shrunken kind of Bantustan sort of entity that would not be a state.

WOLFOWITZ: The Israelis fear that the Palestinians want a state only as a cease-fire and a stepping stone to the destruction of Israel, and I think both sides need some reassurance.

The Palestinians need some reassurance, which I think needs to come from us that, in fact, the outcome is going to be a viable Palestinian state, and that obviously means the elimination of large areas of Israeli settlement activity, or at least a complete change in their status.

At the same time, I think Israel needs the reassurance that this really will be peace and not just a step on the way to something worse. And, as I said in this meeting with Europeans on the weekend, I think Europe needs to step up to the plate in terms of reassuring Israel.

Both sides need reassurance and outside parties, I think, have a big role to play now.

And finally, and I come back to my point about the Saudis, the Saudis in particular, but modern Arab states in general, Egypt's important, could play a big role in part of that reassurance effort, and also in, I think, encouraging the Palestinians to be reasonable on some of the more difficult issues.

CHAFEE: Yes, I'll make the one comment that from visits that I get from Arab emissaries, they represent that it's just going to be physically impossible in not too long a time to have the president's vision of a Palestinian state on the West Bank as the settlements continue, it's just going to be physically impossible to have that happen.

But, now, since the chairman given me the authority, I turn to Senator Dodd.

DODD (D-CT): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

How do you like the sound of that word, Mr. Chairman?

CHAFEE: Love it.

DODD: Thank you very much. Let me thank our witnesses, and I apologize for arriving a little bit late. Let me ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, that some opening comments be included in the record in an appropriate place.

I'm sorry I wasn't at Bildeberg this week, and I gather from our colleague from New Jersey there was a rather lively discussion, Mr. Secretary. So I'll leave it at that.

Let me, I don't know if time will permit me to follow two lines of questioning, but let me proceed if I can. I'd like to ask you to comment on the role of international inspectors, and let me preface the question with this, if I may.

Generally, we've asked the United States, we've called on the IAEA, as I understand it, to play a more of a leading role in condemning Iran for its alleged nuclear weapons program.

DODD: And I think that's the appropriate and proper thing to do. Yet we appear almost simultaneously, at least it does appear this way, to undercut the IAEA's credibility with Iraq.

And let me tell you why I say that.

The IAEA, as you know, was responsible for carrying out the U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq under Resolution 1441. Its inspectors, I think most would agree, have some pretty solid knowledge, information of sites, suspected links to nuclear weapons programs, along with detailed inventories of existing Iraqi inventories of low enriched uranium and spent fuel stored under IAEA physical safeguards.

Since the end of the war, the United States has refused to allow the IAEA inspectors to return to Iraq to verify that no tampering with the safeguards have occurred.

At the same time we've barred UNMOVIC -- if that's how you pronounce that -- teams headed by Hans Blix from Iraq. And this week, after Mohammed ElBaradei issued an anonymous warning that looted radioactive materials may create him, to quote him, "humanitarian nightmare," Secretary Rumsfeld expressed some flexibility on the possible return of IAEA inspectors.

I wonder if you might describe the current state of discussions for us between our government and the IAEA and a possible return to Iraq.

And secondly, what may be behind this month-long delay in starting these talks with the IAEA? At the very least, we could have exchanged some notes, I think, on their detailed knowledge: pre-Iraqi stocks, the low enriched uranium spent fuel cells and the like.

So would you comment generally where we are with this?

And if you disagree with any characterization I've made about this, certainly feel free to respond to that as well.

WOLFOWITZ: I honestly don't have the sort of detailed track record on who said what to whom over the last few weeks.

What I do know now is that -- and by the way, I'm making the assumption -- I know how difficult it's been just to get civilians into Baghdad for the reconstruction effort. I mean, every single new job that we had, especially if it involves protecting civilians, is another burden on CENTCOM, and that's come up over and over again, and a whole bunch of issues that have no political overtone to them whatsoever.

WOLFOWITZ: In any case, where we are today is that we are -- and the U.N. resolution obviously helps also to eliminate some of the possible barriers. We're happy to have them come. And we're, I believe, in discussions with them about who would come and for what purposes.

But there's no desire to keep them away and I think they do have something useful to contribute.

DODD: Do you have any idea when that may occur, when we're going to try to facilitate their return?

And tell me about this latest report that was described as a humanitarian nightmare, that we've actually lost materials. What can you tell us about that?

WOLFOWITZ: I've seen the same reports that there has been some looting of sites where people may have picked up radioactive material. I'm not sure who did it or therefore why they might have done it. If they didn't know what they were doing, obviously they could have caused themselves a lot of trouble.

General Pace, can you comment on how many of the sites are currently secured?

PACE: Sir, there are 22 known sites, and they are all secure right now. But I'm not 100 percent sure of the details on the health hazards, Senator. But I do know that there were some containers that holding yellow cake that were taken by local people. The yellow cake was dumped out of it and the containers are being used to hold water, which, of course, creates a radiological hazard for the people who are drinking that water.

The containers have all been recovered. And there are medical teams on site trying to assist with determining what, if any, contamination the local people contracted.

DODD: Well, I thank you for that. And any more information on that, I'm sure the Armed Services Committee would be interested and we would be as well, I think, on this committee.

One of the major rationale or one of the major rationales for taking military action in Iraq was obviously the weapons of mass destruction. And so, I appreciate the news there allowing them to come back in or dealing with it. But it seems to me it should have been a higher priority to some degree, given the knowledge and the possible loss of some of these materials to terrorist states or terrorist organizations and groups is disturbing. But I'm heartened to know that they're moving back in.

Quickly, again, I don't know how much time we have here. But I'd like to as you as well about this looting that's going on. And what was going to be anticipated here? Obviously, we've all read the stories about the archaeological losses, the museums, the libraries. In fact, I'm told that the destruction as a result of looting exceeds the destruction that was caused by the bombing during the phase of the war.

DODD: And I wonder if, one, did we anticipate that this might be a problem following the collapse of the regime? I'm told there were warnings that we received from archaeologists and others that this might occur prior to the actual commencement of hostilities.

And if there were warnings, why weren't they heeded, or at least apparently not heeded?

And I wonder if you might share with us whatever discussion might have taken place, now that it's after the fact, in planning for this to the extent we thought this might be a problem and what steps we were going to take to address it.

WOLFOWITZ: Let me speak specifically to the museum and ask General Pace to speak to the larger issue of how the military planning anticipated this issue.

We had a lot of information from archaeologists about cultural sites in Iraq which was, frankly, best of my knowledge, fed in primarily to our people doing targeting to make sure that we didn't damage those sites mistakenly.

The museum is still a little bit of a mystery, and I don't think we've gotten to the bottom of it yet. But one member of a foreign embassy in Baghdad who tried to visit the museum some three weeks before the war was told that the museum was closed and most of the artifacts had been put into storage. And looking through the doors of the museum it looked to him as though most stuff had been put away, which would suggest that whatever happened to it afterwards was something other than a straightforward looting job.

The good news is that through a combination of rewards and border controls and just straightforward cooperation from Iraqi people, I am told we've now recovered all but 38 of the objects, which is a pretty good record, and obviously we'd still like to get the rest of them.

But the museum story got understandably a special amount of attention. I think, like some of the other -- not saying there isn't a great deal of random looting. Clearly, in the initial days some of the looting was by people who were just furious at the regime and it was a chance to strike back at the regime.

The disturbing point, which I make in my testimony, is I think today there is clear evidence that some of the looting is aimed deliberately at sabotaging reconstruction efforts, that it has no economic purpose, but it looks to be organized by Baathist elements supporting the old regime.

General Pace, do you want to comment on the military planning?

DODD: Yes, was this anticipated in any way, General?

PACE: Sir, this was, and it was a, in combination with many things that we tried to plan for -- looting was one, Shia versus Shia, Shia versus Sunni, Sunni versus Sunni, killings was another -- the oil fields being destroyed and how to avoid that was another, the weapons of mass destruction was still another. So at the end of the day, when General Franks made his recommendations to the secretary and to the president, he had to balance between a force size that he was comfortable was sufficient to complete the military campaign, but one that may not have been sufficient to completely pulse the entire nation at one time, as far as stability was concerned.

But on balance, the fact the speed of the assault and the accuracy, the precision of the bombing, on balance the fact that you did not have the oil fields destroyed, you did not have weapons shot at neighboring countries, the fact you were able to quickly get into Baghdad, that we did not have to bomb Baghdad mercilessly for days on end because we were able to get in quickly with a relatively small force, that outweighed the concerns of not having initially enough forces on the ground to prevent things like looting.

DODD: My time is up, but what I'm hearing you saying, in other words, that there was an argument being made as proposals put on the table that this debate that we all read about at the time, the argument over a larger or a smaller force, that in fact the argument for a larger force would have been we'd be better able to deal with after-conflict consequences such as this.

But a decision was made for the smaller force, recognizing that as a result of that we probably wouldn't be in a position then to deal with some of the anticipated problems that we saw.

PACE: That was to my knowledge, that was all part or the fabric of the discussion, and we could still be right now adding forces into Kuwait waiting for the attack if we wanted to have enough forces to be able to do everything that we thought we might have to do.

Fortunately, we did not have to do a lot of the things we thought we might have to do, we ended up having to do the piece with looting. But on balance, militarily, the amount of death and destruction that was caused by going early was so much less than what we would be doing now had we gone in with a larger force.

PACE: And had we given him time to think through his defenses -- we moved so quickly that he never was able to react, and because of that we saved a lot of lives on both sides.

DODD: Thank you, sir.

LUGAR: Senator Allen.

ALLEN (R-VA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to congratulate the general, the secretary, and obviously our men and women in uniform for a magnificently well-done job as far as the military use of technology, precision-guided missiles.

And while there may be some who might be Monday morning quarterbacking, what could have been done and so forth, I think it's one of the most historic changes in warfare.

And what you were talking, Mr. Secretary, about, and the president has as well, about in previous wars you'd pummel the population until your combatant would just give up, and that has not been the case here.

Now in light of the United Nations' resolution success today, one of the previous questions raised the point of the cost associated with long-term reconstruction or rebuilding or formation of some sort of a government, whether it's a federation, confederation, local-up, which makes sense. That's the way our country was founded, was first the states that then formed the union, from a confederation then to our Constitution.

Are we now exploring the option of including willing allies more actively in mitigating the cost to the United States taxpayers in this effort of constituting a new government and bringing the basics to Iraq?

WOLFOWITZ: Yes, Senator. We've actually been doing it even before the U.N. resolution. And I'll maybe ask Al Larson to provide more detail. But it was -- I think the different forms of assistance that were pledge was already beginning to approach $2 billion.

The passage of the U.N. resolution also should give us -- rather, give the Iraqis access to frozen assets in a number of countries.

There's some $12 billion in an escrow account in Paris under Oil for Food, which has got to now be reviewed by the secretary-general to see. I imagine he will find that some of those dollars were committed to contracts to buy what were trucks to transport tanks and luxury Mercedes for Baath Party officials. So I think there's some reallocation that can take place there.

But I think most importantly, the U.N. resolution opens the opportunity for much larger-scale support, including from the World Bank.

But Secretary Larson, do you want to comment?

UNDERSECRETARY ALAN P. LARSON, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: Thank you very much.

As Secretary Wolfowitz said, we've been in active consultation for several weeks now with coalition members, but a number of non- coalition members, about the importance of supporting the Iraqi people and reclaiming their country.

LARSON: There has already been a very active international support for humanitarian relief. There's been very active support on the part of some countries where other elements of the program.

At this stage, I think we really have cleared the decks to make a concerted effort internationally. The World Bank and the United Nations Development Program can be part of that by setting out a needs assessment that can be part of the benchmark of needs that can contribute to what Ambassador Bremer and the team on the ground is sizing up the important develop needs.

We would intend to go forward very, very quickly now in assembling the international community to discuss those needs and to solicit contributions in cash and in-kind.

ALLEN: Could you, very shortly, because I want to get on to another point. What percentage do you think the United States will be contributing to this and what will other nation's percentage be? If you don't feel comfortable saying it, say so because...

WOLFOWITZ: I really don't. In a couple of months we might have a better fix on it.

ALLEN: OK, fair enough. We'll follow up on that.

WOLFOWITZ: Really trying to make the last dollar come from the U.S. taxpayer rather than the first. That's the principle.

ALLEN: As long as you have that good guiding principle.

And I very much appreciate, Secretary Wolfowitz, the details of the lay of the land right now, some of the challenges and so forth.

Here's where I think we need to go -- and I think the president, President Bush, laid out the guiding principles in his speech earlier this year at VMI when he was talking about Afghanistan. And here should be, I think, our guiding principles in Iraq, as well.

He was talking about ensuring that people live in dignity to create and build and own property to raise their children in peace and security.

The president went on to say that dignity requires the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, which is more of an issue in Afghanistan than necessarily Iraq, but still important in both countries, private property, equal justice and religious tolerance.

Those are the foundational principles of individual rights.

And to the extent that we could get in -- and one of those individual rights is religious beliefs, peaceful expression, private property, and then a rule of law where you get fair adjudication of disputes where property and other God-given rights of individuals are protected.

ALLEN: And to the extent that we can bring out that idea, capitalism, you may say this is on the model, for example, of the Alaska Permanent Fund or the concepts that Hernando de Soto talks about of capitalism, private ownership of property, where people care more about their property, title to it, and the country.

When Secretary Powell was here recently I asked him about these sort of concepts as far as oil is concerned, that maybe it's not exactly like the Alaska Permanent Fund, but as oil in the fields were protected, as oil starts being produced, the concept of allowing the people to have a small dividend -- it may be $50, $100, whatever it may be -- to show that it is an asset of the people of Iraq.

Have these concepts been contemplated and are they being formulated? Because when one looks at a Marshall Plan, whether it was in Europe or whether what General MacArthur was able to do in Japan, those would be, to me, the models that we ought to be looking at, and a lot of those are based on those fundamental principles of private property rights and having the people actually own their government and some of the resources, obviously the biggest asset being oil?

WOLFOWITZ: We agree with you that those are some of the most fundamental decisions that have to be taken. I'm not sure if you were here when I mentioned easier that Peter McPherson, who's a former deputy secretary of the Treasury, president of Michigan State University, has taken a leave of several months to go out there to be the organizer of that whole effort.

And it's huge. I mean, it requires rethinking the whole property basis of a state that was national socialist, I suppose, in the fascist model.

And also, I mean, we talk often about the advantage of Iraq's oil resources, and the advantages are huge, but in many ways oil is a curse as well because it discourages sometimes the development of other economic activity which has got to be the real long-term health of the country.

So they're big issues, they're huge issues. I can't say they're sorted out yet. And ultimately, to some extent, they need to be Iraqi decisions.

But we'd like to make sure that while we're there and before we leave that we've got it on the right course, because I agree with you, you can't divorce those issues from the other fundamental issues of political freedom.

I might just say on that point, by the way, you mentioned religious differences.

WOLFOWITZ: I was very heartened a couple weeks ago, I met with a group of U.S. Shi'a, several Iraqi-Americans, looking like Shi'a clerics from Najaf or Karbala. One of them is the representative in North America of Ayatollah Sistani. Uniformly from all of them the message was, We as Shi'a do not believe in religion interfering in the state; what we want is freedom to practice our religion in Iraq the way we practice it here. And I must say, I found them very sincere in the way they spoke.

ALLEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I look forward to working with you in constructing those sort of ideas and the best you can implement them there. And it seems like some of those Jeffersonian principles at least have taken root here and hopefully can take root there in Iraq.

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you.

ALLEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAFEE: Thank you, Senator Allen.

Senator Nelson?

NELSON (D-FL): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, General, Ambassadors.

If this CNN report is true that General Franks is retiring, he is certainly retiring after two enormously successful military campaigns. So he has served us very well, and he happens to reside in Tampa, Florida.

WOLFOWITZ: And he's a great leader.

NELSON: Mr. Secretary, tell us, what is all the flap as to why General Garner is gone.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, he isn't gone.

NELSON: You know what I mean.

WOLFOWITZ: Well, I do. Let me say this. When we first approached Jay Garner in January to organize this office of reconstruction and humanitarian affairs, it wasn't even necessarily with a notion that he, himself, would go to Iraq, but from the beginning we said, There's a function we'd you to perform, which is getting a team up and organized to make sure that the ministries can run properly and the basic services can be delivered, but there's going to be a senior civilian in charge of the whole operation, and particularly with a focus on the political side of the process.

WOLFOWITZ: That was envisioned from the beginning, and so we didn't appoint Ambassador Bremer because of any dissatisfaction with Jay Garner. He's been doing a magnificent job, and we hope he'll stay for some time more.

NELSON: Would you like to inform the committee of anything that you might know in the hunt for Captain Scott Speicher?

WOLFOWITZ: He's one of the important priorities. We're searching for information about him. I wish I could tell you that we've found a lot. We've had one trace here and another trace there, but that seems to be the extent of it so far.

We are deploying. I think, General Pace, is it right now or is it shortly, something we call the Iraq Survey Group, which is a team led by Major General Daydon (ph), of some 1,500 people focused on searching for information about weapons of mass destruction, information about terrorists, documentation of war crimes and specifically looking for Commander Speicher.

So we'll keep, I think the key to finding almost all of this stuff is going to be finding Iraqis who will talk to us, and creating the conditions under which they have the right incentives to talk.

NELSON: Prior to the deployment of this team that you're talking about, how many people are searching for Speicher?

PACE: Sir, I might be able to help on that. Captain Speicher's whereabouts was a top priority from day one. We have chased down every lead we have gotten; it is one of the things that we are interrogating our detainees and our prisoners about.

So it's not the number of teams, sir, it's just that every time we get a bit of information, General Franks and his folks on the ground send a team to wherever it is that, to find out.

So we're doing it as quickly, it's not a matter of manpower, sir, it's a matter of leads, and we are, the interrogation teams have that as one of their prime objectives when they're questioning people.

NELSON: General, I might offer for you and the secretary to consider, it's been, as you said, a couple of months, I don't know how many days you said since we've been in there.

NELSON: And what might be helpful is you -- and I know exactly how many people that we have in there and I'm concerned that we don't have enough. I do know that it was clearly a priority for General Franks, and I have thanked him personally for that.

But I think what you have is some people that have been detailed that you might want to get some higher visibility leaderships specifically tasked with regard to Captain Speicher.

Needless to say, you know, it's a downer every day that we don't get any information. And I'm hoping that that cell where they found his initials is going to render some kind of forensic evidence.

Mr. Secretary, how many of the 55 top leaders have we now in custody?

WOLFOWITZ: I think the number just went up to 25 or 26.

PACE: Yes, sir. Twenty five alive, one confirmed dead.

NELSON: So 26 of the 55 we've accounted for.

Can you explain to the committee what it is, the conditions that would allow the remaining 29 to be at large, Mr. Secretary?

WOLFOWITZ: I think that it's the same conditions that allowed armed groups to Baathists to continue sabotaging key facilities, attacking our people. I assume these folks are hiding in neighborhoods or areas for one reason or another the local residents are prepared to protect them and shelter them, either out of sympathy or out of fear or maybe some combination of both.

In a county that large -- I mean, Baghdad is a city the size of Los Angeles. And to me it's not surprising to take some time to root them out.

I hope that success builds on success. And as more of these people are detained and as the population begins to recognize that the Baathists are being brought under control, that the fear factor will start to eliminate, and then we will have people turning these folks in.

NELSON: Including Saddam Hussein?

WOLFOWITZ: If he's alive. We don't know.

NELSON: Would you -- what would you characterize as the level of cooperation with the president of Syria and the government of Syria?

WOLFOWITZ: I think I should leave that to the State Department.

But let me put it this way: The most destabilizing activity that Syria was engaged in in Iraqi a few weeks ago have stopped.

Beyond that -- Al, do you want to...

LARSON: I just make the very simple statement, Senator, that when Secretary Powell was there, he had a very, very explicit conversation about the way in which the world in the region had changed and the importance of the leadership there in recognizing that change and making the right choices. And it was not a general conversation; it was very specific about a number of areas where we have concerns.

At this stage, I think we are in the let's wait and see exactly how they respond to that message.

PACE: Senator, we're out of time here, and I apologize, but I'd be remiss as a military man if I didn't thank you for what you're doing to try to find Kevin Speicher, and your very intense, sustained interest in his case, sir. And all of us in uniform appreciate the fact that you're not giving up, and neither are we, sir.

NELSON: And I thank you. The family of course is from Jacksonville, and you can imagine what the family has been going through, not just recently, but for over 12 years.

And of course, one of the greatest military principles that you have as a commander is that you don't leave a downed pilot. You go and try to get him. And through a series of mistakes, we left a downed pilot.

And then when we asked for prisoners of war, we didn't even ask for him. They asked for remains. And of course, Iraq didn't have remains; they had the prisoner.

And so through one series of mistakes after another, we are where we are. And that's why I think it's an important principle to follow.

Thank you, General.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Nelson.

I think you too, General Pace, for commending our colleague. It's certainly important.

I'm going to recognize Senator Feingold in a moment.

LUGAR: Let me try to explain to the remaining senators and those of you who are with us that, some compromises were made, some rollcall votes have been foregone, but one is in process now that was unavoidable. And we really do not know what the prospects are for the future, but nevertheless we will have a hiatus, I think, of that type of activity and our colleagues will return.

But I believe Senator Feingold has voted, as I have. And so, we are here and I will recognize my colleague, Senator Feingold.

FEINGOLD (D-WI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.

And I want to thank Secretary Wolfowitz and everybody for staying here.

Let me first return to a comment that Senator Biden made when he started his questions, where he talked about the Bosnia commitment. I remember it well. I voted against the Bosnia action because I didn't believe this idea that the American people were promised that we'd be there for one year. And it's really quite something to hear the fact that we've been there for eight years cited as a plus.

I understand why you say it. But the problem is, that mission was sold to the American people on the basis that those men and women would be home by the Christmas of 1996. I knew it wouldn't happen that. And funny how these things just sort of get lost in the mist of time.

Now, I give you credit, you didn't give a specific time commitment with regard to Iraq. But the problem is that the American people, I think, were led to believe that it wouldn't be a terribly long time commitment.

I'm suspicious as Senator Biden is that this may, in fact, be a very, very long commitment. And I agree with him that our constituents weren't really prepared for that. And that's how it was sold in part to the American people.

Speaking of how things are sold, I'm struck by the fact that after two hours, well over two hours of a hearing that's about stabilizing and reconstructing Iraq -- we heard quite a bit about reconstruction. And I do agree with the chairman, you did give an all points view of the reconstruction. But for over two hours until Senator Dodd apparently mentioned weapons of mass destruction, there was no conversation about stabilizing that aspect of Iraq.

And that's why I say this is about speaking of how things are sold, because there can be no doubt that the preeminent reason why this Congress voted to invade Iraq was in order to make sure that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were disarmed and that that country was stabilized from the point of view of weapons of mass destruction more than anything else.

So I do think that it matters whether or not we find WMD in Iraq.

FEINGOLD: Most importantly it matters because if those materials were in the country in the first place and we cannot find them now, that's a security problem.

Where did they go? Whose hands are they in?

So I want to explore some of our efforts to date in this regard. Just last week The New York Times reported that the nuclear expert for the Army's mobile exploitation team Alpha was unaware of any U.S. policy as to how to handle radioactive material that may be found in Iraq, material that could be used to make dirty bomb.

Does such a policy exist, and has it been disseminated to the troops on the ground, Mr. Secretary?

WOLFOWITZ: Sir, the inspection teams that we have had on the ground are specifically trained to find chemical, biological and nuclear, and they know that what they find is to be handled with the sensitivity that that kind of a potential weapon has, so it is not to be transported, it is to be kept where it is until it's determined exactly what it is as best we can.

And then as we determine what it is, we'll determine how then to proceed with its destruction or its transfer somewhere else.

So there are rules that have been given to those who are searching on what to do when they find something.

FEINGOLD: Are you saying this report is wrong, then? The New York Times is wrong that when they reported that the Army's mobile exploitation team Alpha expert that there was no U.S. policy how to handle radioactive material?

WOLFOWITZ: Sir, I'm not going to...

FEINGOLD: Is there a policy?

WOLFOWITZ: Sir, I'm not familiar with that report, and I'm not sure how you're using the word "policy." What I'm saying is that military commanders on the ground have told their military folks who are doing the inspections what they are to do when they find materials that they suspect of being chemical, biological or radiological.

FEINGOLD: Let me try to follow up with you in subsequent questions. Let me move on to, on May 11th, The Washington Post reported that the group directing the U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is, quote, "Winding down operations," unquote, after a host of fruitless missions.

A more recent article reported that three of four mobile exploitation teams have stopped hunting for WMD, and that all the site survey teams have stopped hunting for WMD and that all of the site survey teams are dedicating more and more time to work not related to the search for WMD.

FEINGOLD: I'd like to know, Secretary Wolfowitz, if this is accurate, why are some of the teams wrapping up, given the fact that we have actually found very little of the material that has been catalogued as unaccounted for for many months.

WOLFOWITZ: Senator, we're not wrapping up the effort. In fact, we're stepping it up. We're deploying something much larger called the Iraq Survey Group, which, as I mentioned earlier, some 1,500 people specifically organized for this task.

I think the mobile teams -- and I'll ask General Pace to correct me if I'm wrong -- I think the mobile teams are to some extent going to be folded into that effort. But it's going to be organized and directed at a much more senior level by Major General Keith Dayton (ph), and we are not dropping the effort, if anything we're intensifying it.

But I think the important point to emphasize too is that at the end of the day I believe the way we're going to have to get on this stuff is through information provided to us by people who know about it. That is probably going to be more fruitful than any number of sites that we can go through and dig up.

I think someone asked earlier how is it possible for some of these senior Iraqi leaders to still be hiding, and the answer is it's a big country and there's a lot of places to hide, and in the case of the weapons of mass destruction there's been 12 years of conscious, deliberate effort to hide the program, as indicated, for example, in the mobile trailers that we have discovered that Secretary Powell spoke about at the United Nations.

That's why from the beginning of the U.N. effort we put so much emphasis on giving the inspectors unprecedented authority to take Iraqi scientists and other knowledge people out of the country, with their families, so they could be interviewed in circumstances that were free from intimidation.

And I think it's going to remain the key to finding out what's happened to Saddam's chemical and biological weapons and his nuclear program, to having people who know about it tell us about it.

FEINGOLD: Does each team that's doing this have at least one Arabic speaker so that the team can read the documents and signs and understand what they're looking at?

WOLFOWITZ: Obviously, linguists are one of the very important elements of the Iraq Survey Group.

WOLFOWITZ: I can give you for the record the exact numbers. We've also been making serious effort to recruit through contractors and other sources, Iraqi Americans, of whom quite a few hundred are prepared to go out to the region and help us in a variety of task. And one of those that they could obviously be very helpful on is translating documents and scanning through the large mass of documents.

Part of our problem is just the sheer volume of what we're collecting. Some of it's valuable and some of it's junk.

FEINGOLD: It's good you're making those efforts, but I would like to know -- perhaps you have to tell me subsequently -- is at this point is there an Arabic speaker with each of these teams?

I guess my time's up, but I'll submit it for the record, Mr. Secretary. I'd like to know what was the plan for securing the top 19 weapons of mass destruction sites identified by Central Command and why were these sites not protected from looting?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Feingold.

Senator Brownback?

BROWNBACK (R-KS): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to thank the panel for hanging in here in a long afternoon. I appreciate it. Well, some of you haven't been working as hard as others, but I appreciate very much your being here.

Let me also say at the outset, as several others have said, fantastic plan and job. I realize you're still in a very difficult part of working with Iraq. But the military campaign, it appeared to me not one schooled in military arts, but appeared to me from the outside, you were incredibly successful.

I can pass on to you from Jacob Butler's family, his father, he was a soldier from Kansas that died in action and -- I visited with his family several times -- how proud they were of him and what the country has done. And that they wanted me to pass that along personally to the president. And that's a family that's given the ultimate in it in a soldier that was lost, but in a wonderful cause.

And I think you also provide the images that we all yearn to see, and that is of the face of freedom. And that face of freedom in Baghdad is the same as it is anywhere else in the world, and it's a beautiful face.

Obviously, we have plenty of difficulties. I've been in communication with people on the ground in Iraq.

BROWNBACK: I know some of the difficulties that you're confronting, and I know you'll work through those as well, although I think it's going to be -- I think it's going to be a difficult time, as we're getting from this hearing.

If I could, Secretary Wolfowitz, yet again call on you in the questioning. And I apologize that I've been in and out some. But I wanted to focus on Iran and a statement you're got in your testimony that's been troubling me in the meetings that I've been having with different individuals.

You note on page 10 of your testimony that Baathist remnants in Iranian-oriented theocratic groups constitute at present our main concern with respect to the political reconstruction of Iraq, is what you state.

And I've been deeply concerned about what's taking place in Iran, of the push, the difficulty that they're creating for us in Iraq. I don't know the degree in Afghanistan. I understand from Pakistani officials that the Iranian-backed groups continue to cause them concern in Pakistan. We had two newspaper reports of Al Qaida operatives, or headquarter-type figures in Al Qaida operating out of Iran.

And I'd like to hear your thoughts and comments about are we going to be able to stabilize the region and move forward this much broader, grander vision of the spread of democracy i the region with the difficulty we continue to confront from the dictatorial regime that's in Iran? '

And what's your -- if you can give us any thinking about that, the problems it poses to us.

WOLFOWITZ: Well, as I did indicate in my statement, I think that is one of the threats to building the kind of stable and free and democratic Iraq that we would like to see.

I think kind of Iraq poses a special challenge to the regime in Iran in two important respects, and it's the reason why I think it's an opportunity for us.

I think, first of all, just the example of a free and democratic country next door is one that's likely to inspire the Iranian people, 75 percent of whom voted for opposition figures some five years ago, but the country's still run by the people who lost the election. That's part of the problem.

WOLFOWITZ: I think also it's important and it's an opportunity if we're right in thinking that a significant portion of the Shia population of Iraq do not welcome the idea of theocratic rule, and if this is the case, Iraqi is really the heartland of Shia Islam, then that will be a challenge even to the theological basis of the Iranian regime.

I think for both those reasons they're not only ambitious about Iraq, they're kind of fearful about Iraq, and whichever the motive, we've seen evidence of a willingness to interfere, and that simply can't be tolerated.

We will do everything we can to prevent it.

And the one good thing in all of this is my sense is the Iraqi people do not want to be governed from Tehran or told what to do by some Persian ayatollahs when they think as the Arab Shia they are the ones who really ought to be the authorities.

So I think we have a certain fundamental political sympathy on our side, and I think we will have to make sure that the Iranians don't use other means to try to destabilize the situation.

BROWNBACK: I really applaud your grand vision and work in the region, that the road to peace is not through dictatorships, but it's through democracy and the spread of that.

And I think for the first time in 50 years we're on a path where you could actually see us moving forward to true peace in the region, that we've had conflict for an enormous period of time.

It is a really tough path, but it's the one that actually can work. I applaud that. I've put forward a bill that we have a number of Democrat and Republican co-sponsors called the Iran Democracy Act, and it states that it's U.S. policy to support democracy in Iran and authorizes the use of funds for outside groups outside of Iran to broadcast into Iran, these private groups, in broadcasting messages of freedom and liberty.

Because it appears to me from what I'm reading in the information we're getting is that there's enormous push from inside Iran for democracy, for a true government that represents them and for a referendum supervised from outside Iran for a change of regime, for a change of government there.

Not suggesting at all a military campaign, but really more of a campaign to help the people that are inside, that already want to push toward a democratic form of governance.

It seems to me we're going to have trouble stabilizing in the region if we're always going to have an irritant in the form of Iran, given the nature of this regime that's lead sponsor of terrorism in the world today.

WOLFOWITZ: I find myself in great agreement, and I think the important point is that Iranian regime that is the threat, not the Iranian people.

They are a great people who deserve a better government, and I think most of them recognize that what they got out of that revolution 20 years ago is a failed situation.

BROWNBACK: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Brownback.

We will have further questioning by members who wish to, to a question. I will ask just two or three items and then yield to the distinguished senator from Delaware.

Secretary Wolfowitz, you mentioned the need for linguists, and this is a part of my general question. You've mentioned Iraqi- Americans that might be enlisted.

To what extent do we have personnel in the Department of Defense, Department of State or even elsewhere in our government who are prepared really for administrative situations, non-military, but technical services that are probably going to be required either on the financial/fiscal level or the democracy-building, the governmental side, and probably in fair numbers and with a certain degree of linguistic ability, so that they are effective.

One critique of the current situation has been that there are not enough people, at least with language skills. I'm not in a position to know among the thousand administration -- you mentioned 617 from our government and 400 and some from others -- what kinds of talents are encompassed by that group, which is a pretty extensive group already.

But can you characterize either what is there or what kind of training or what kind of resource is already in this country?

Because it's a different function done in training people we get from the military academy or even foreign service situation, although perhaps both are helpful in this respect. In sort of this nation- building business we're involved in, there are a lot of technical aspects, particularly if we're to be successful, to round it out that seem to be required. And I'm simply curious as to what kind of planning or thought has gone into personnel.

WOLFOWITZ: Certainly, I can say anecdotally that we have some extremely talented officers and enlisted people. I've encountered them in Afghanistan, encountered them in northern Iraq 10 years ago, more recently in Bosnia, where the division that's carrying out our responsibility in SFOR today is the National Guard division mostly from Kansas and Kentucky.

And it's interesting that for the jobs that are needed in Bosnia, Lieutenant General Kip Ward, who is the active duty three-star in charge, says the National Guard people bring some real advantages because they transfer skills from civilian life into the military situation.

WOLFOWITZ: I do think that one shouldn't make the mistake of assuming all of these tasks need to be done, however, by people in uniform. And in fact, one of the things that we're trying to accomplish -- and we have a major initiative here before the Congress now -- to be able to change the military, the DOD civilian personnel system, so that some 300,000 or so jobs that are currently performed by people in uniform could be performed by civilians.

Part of that is making it easier to hire civilians into the Civil Service.

And I encountered this recently when I made a major effort to recruit Iraqi-Americans to help us in Iraq.

And I'm happy to say the good news is we've been successful in getting some 150 people, including a guy who was a medical school professor at the University of South Florida, and another fellow who's an engineer with Pfizer -- very impressive people who have taken leaves or left their jobs to go and help out in Iraq.

But it was too difficult to hire them in the Civil Service, so they're hired as contractors. And we do an enormous amount of those work-arounds because we don't have the flexibility to hire that I think would be helpful.

I think this challenge of having people who are not only bilingual but bicultural is enormous. I mean, it's great to train native-born Americans in these difficult languages, and we need to do more of it. But we have these huge resources here in the United States of Iraqi-Americans, Afghan-Americans, you-name-it-Americans, who are more than willing to help out.

And we're trying to expand those opportunities. I wish we had somewhat more flexible personnel system, because it would be easier.

I can get you, for the record, some of the numbers and some of where we'd like to get to.

LUGAR: Well, that's important. And let me just -- and I want to hear from you, Mr. Chairman, but we also, just for the record, maybe even suggest some legislative language that's going to expedite this. This is really a major national security problem as opposed to simply a humdrum personnel thing that in the due course of time we work out.

And I think your idea is inspired. If there are that number of Iraqi-Americans who already have the language skills, the cultural background, but also have expertise that is going to help democracy, or is going to help the waterworks run or all the rest of it, we really need to lay hands on these.

LUGAR: And I sympathize with you tremendously, that our own bureaucracy, in its own humdrum way, even while the world is falling apart, is still working out this and that.

So I hope, you know, we can be of some help, because I'm sure this committee, it may not be our jurisdiction, but we certainly will pile in behind you to try to get something done, and it's very urgent.

Ms. Chamberlin (ph).

CHAMBERLIN (ph): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I know Senator Brownback would like me to do a little bit of work this afternoon, so perhaps I can help a bit here with this answer.

We, of course with AID, are members of ORHA. In fact, our USAID mission director is double-hatted as the USAID mission director but also as the director of ORHA, the pillar of reconstruction. He is an Arabic speaker. He had been a mission director in Jordan at one time, and that's why we recruited him.

But that's not how AID has tried to address this problem of how do we reach out for both Americans and people in the region and Iraqis who have a lot to contribute to the efforts that we are dedicated to, and in this case it's in the sectors of health, education, reconstruction and local government.

We have a mechanism where we reach out to the American private sector. It's a group that we haven't really talked about very much, but that plays an enormously important role in ORHA to deliver some of the objectives of ORHA.

We do it through our contracting method. We're quite proud of it. But we reach out to the American private sector, and they in turn subcontract to Iraqi-American NGOs; we have several of them that are participating in this effort. And we have, through our contracting -- through the American private sector -- they are hiring at this count about, well, several thousand Iraqi citizens in our effort in several of these sectors.

So we are able to expand the pie.

LUGAR: Thank you very much. That's very helpful information.

I just want to conclude by saying I appreciated General Pace's facts that as many as 18,000 additional military personnel might join the 145,000 who are there.

Likewise, he added that there will be some troops withdrawn among those that were involved in the battles early on, and for that matter a lot of rotation, I would guess, given the Reserves, the large dependence on that.

LUGAR: But that fact alone demonstrates, I think, something that most Americans don't realize, including myself, that, in fact, additional people are, I mean, in the military, going to Iraq presently.

There is the general view that a whole rush of people are coming out, that it's simply a one-way stream, which is totally inaccurate, but, you know, until you've told us this, maybe others have picked it up somewhere else, we really did not know.

And so I emphasize again our appreciation to you for sharing this information with us and with others, really, through this hearing. Senator Biden.

BIDEN: Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman.

Along those lines, I'd like to request, if you think it's appropriate, I think it's in order, that Secretary Wolfowitz, in addition to making briefings available to us in a timely way, which you've committed to and you have done in the past, and I'm confident you'll do in the future, whether or not you could in classified forum and/or in open forum, in writing, give us your best estimates, because I know Secretary Larson was at this meeting today, another sort of either myth or truth that there's so much potential revenue, oil revenue, out there that we're really not going to have to take a lot out of our pocket in order to get whatever has to be done done.

I'd like to have the administration's -- and I'm confident you have it -- best estimate of what the schedule for oil production is, you timetable, your best estimate.

That is, what will we have up and running in the next month, what do we expect to have up and running, what's our goal in the next year, what's our goal the next three years, how much investment required to get us there, and how much revenue we think will be produced for the Iraqi people.

It would be very important to know that, because the vice president, a guy named Mr. Mackenzie, from BP/Amoco today said, cited the numbers I gave earlier, that sum total it's $30 to $40 billion direct investment, people aren't going to invest if there's not security, et cetera.

I don't who's correct. I don't know what the rule, but I'm just confident I would be dumbfounded if you haven't gamed that out already and given your best estimates.

For the record, if you would submit that I'd appreciate it.

WOLFOWITZ: No, we would be happy to do our best to submit something of that sort.

What I did want to just say very briefly, give a flavor of it, is that I think you had quoted a representative from BP as talking about the amount of investment that would be required to get up to 1 million barrels per day of export ...

BIDEN: And then up to five.

WOLFOWITZ: Yes. On the first part of that, of course, Iraq was exporting at various times in the last couple of years a million barrels a day.

In fact, we'd go through a little crisis every now and then when Saddam Hussein would hold his breath and say he was going to cut us off, so our expectations subject to further examinations by the Army Corps of Engineers, and the technicians, the Iraqi technicians, is that it is not necessarily going to take a long time or cost a lot of money to get up to 1 million barrels a day, or more.

BIDEN: Well, that's very useful, because I may have misunderstood, but he said today that also Mr. Yergin (ph) and Mr. Mackenzie agree, and I may have misheard it, misunderstood him, but he said to get to there would require an investment of over $1 billion.

Now, to get to where they were at a million barrels a day. Now, that may not be correct. If you guys don't know these numbers, we're really in trouble, we really have a problem.

So I'm confident you've got to have a good estimate.

And secondly, in two to three years we're talking about trying to get to 3.5 million barrels a day, I'm told, and I'm told that would, a minimum requirement to get there would be a $5 billion out-of-pocket investment by a consortia or, doesn't have to be by us, but someone's got to invest up to $5 billion.

And then they both said, different organizations, that the objective of getting to 5.5 million barrels per day, which they have not been, but have the capacity to, would be a $30 to $40 billion investment.

I am not an oil man. I have no idea whether those figures are accurate.

BIDEN: But it's very important, we know that, because most of our colleagues think -- I actually have colleagues approach me on the floor and say, Look, Joe, you guys in Foreign Relations keep saying we're going to have to put a lot of money into Iraq. Dammit, why don't we just take the money, pay for our own troops, too, by the way. Not only do we rebuild Iraq; there's enough money to pay for our troops.

So in case you all don't know it, not only the American public, but a lot of our colleagues think that once they turn the spigot on -- and we're going to be able to do it pretty soon, they think -- that, man, we don't have much of a problem.

That is the furthest thing from the truth that is based on the people I've gone to and asked independently.

Before this morning's meeting that, Wendy, you and I attended, not one person who has any knowledge of the oil business, that I'm aware of, indicated that's true.

So I'd like to know what you all think, because you have to have planned this. You went -- your Marines and your military guys did something no one thought they could do. They secured those fields. They didn't get blown up. They're there. You did your job, old buddy. Now the question is: Can we do the rest of the job? And if we do it, what is it?

It's very important for our planning. Since my time's going to be up, and you don't know the answer, I'm not going to ask you to comment any more.

But the second thing I want to ask before my time goes by is could you also provide for the record what the plan is for plussing up, training, if at all, police forces.

Not when we're going to need them. But at some point we're going to need them. Now it may be a week, it may be a month, it may be a year, it may be two years.

If this were a military operation, you'd clearly have and train how you were going to get that number of military forces whenever you needed them.

I'd like to know what the game plan is; what's your projections are; how -- who you're training; who you're going to; whether you're training indigenous forces; how long it will take; whether you are looking for our allies and friends who have offered, I am told, carabinieri and others, to participate; what you project; when you draw down, or when you think it's appropriate, General, for police presence to be there, what numbers are you looking at?

What is the game plan? There's an old song that goes, What's the plan, Stan? What are you looking to, because we have to be looking to what kind of money we are going to be being asked to appropriate down the road here.

BIDEN: And the third thing I'd like to know for the record, what is your expectation, because you've obviously, understandably, it's not a criticism, had to recalibrate this.

I remember speaking to the vice president and speaking to the secretary in closed hearing and in open hearing, with the secretary, about the expectation, a reasonable one, not a criticism, that there would be an infrastructure left, once we decapitated the Baath Party operatives, within the police force and within the military to stand up an indigenous Iraqi capability.

I'd like to know what the assessment is now of that possibility, what the time frame is, your best guess. We understand no one knows for certain, but you have to have a plan.

I'd like you to be willing to do what you at the outset I thought at least indirectly acknowledged, and you gave us a good reason, Mr. Secretary, you said, We didn't tell you our plans and we didn't begin until January to make any, because we didn't want anyone to think that we had prejudged that we would go independently absent the U.N. participation.

I think that's kind of thin, but I'll accept it.

You then told us that General Garner didn't come to us when we asked him to come to us to give us a sense because you thought it was not appropriate at that time and events overtook us, and that you want to rectify that.

I, for one, don't want to be in the other side of that glass looking in after the fact being told that our requirements are something no one told me about.

And I will end by saying, there is a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll which goes to the very first point I raised, because we're going to have a hard time. I don't know whether this is going to cost us sum total $1 billion, $20 billion, $60 billion, $100 billion, more, I don't know. But in the poll done by NBC/Wall Street Journal, support or oppose, the U.S. spending up to $60 billion over the next three years -- that's $20 billion a year over the next three years to rebuild Iraq, support/oppose, 37 support, 57 oppose.

I'm confident if we told the American people now what it takes, they would be prepared to do whatever it takes. Which means me to the concluding point.

I would also think it's useful if you would for the record state -- and I won't ask you to do it now unless you want to -- what are the stakes in Iraq?

BIDEN: I have a clear view what the stakes are in Iraq if we don't get it right. The chairman, and we've both written about, my good friend from Nebraska has a clear notion of what he thinks the stakes are.

I'd like to know what the president and the administration thinks the stakes are for failure?

What is it? Now, we're not going to fail, but why, in order for me to convince my constituency to continue to spend this money, I have got to, we have to say to them, if we do not succeed this is what will happen.

This is what will happen. So you've stated several times, you must have a notion of what you think is at stake. What is at stake here? I'd like that in writing, for the record, what is at stake.

And so there are my four requests. The oil projections, police training, if any, the schedule for, plus standing up any indigenous Iraqi in any of these requirements, and what's at stake.

And I won't try to take any more of the committee's time. I thank the chair. If we had time I'd ask you to answer them now, but we don't.

LUGAR: I thank the senator, I want to recognize Senator Corzine, who has not had an opportunity on the first round.

CORZINE (D-NJ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate very much you holding this hearing. I think the demystification of this whole discussion on stabilization and reconstruction is something that needs to be vetted to the American public.

It's certainly a question I get in New Jersey from my constituents regularly, and what we're doing is basically reading The New York Times or The Washington Post for information.

I think this has been very helpful in addressing some of the questions. I also want to join my colleagues in congratulating the military and defense and others for the successful prosecution of liberating the people of Iraq.

I think it is a real testimony to our armed forces, and I am particularly happy today to see the settlement, or the agreement, with the U.N., which I hope will open many doors for shared responsibility with regard to the issues that we're talking about today.

CORZINE: I wanted to go to a question that's often framed in a political context with regard to the rationale of why we went to this war, but this morning I read the headline in The New York Times, "Prewar Views of Iraq Threat Are Under Review by the CIA." And I guess the gist of this is is that intelligence presented one view, and is that really the view we're discovering on the ground?

And my question, as it relates to weapons of mass destruction, is not really whether they were there or we have a smoking gun or any of those issues, but really goes to what is a deeper concern on my part, and I think a lot of folks, is the proliferation of these weapons.

I heard some of this in the question that Senator Dodd raised with respect to the raids or dissemination of the nuclear materials, but might be even more threatening in the context of biological and chemical weapons.

I'm more concerned, do we feel like we are in a position to say that we've contained what we expected to see in Iraq, or has it already proliferated, which is a real question in my mind and a concern.

I'm less interested -- I'm convinced that there's reason to believe that those weapons were there or those efforts were there in place to develop them, but I think it raises a more serious question, Where are they, and what do we think will happen along those lines? That's the first question.

The second one is really, is the -- which really relates to this U.N. agreement today -- and I'm pleased to hear that it opens the door to the World Bank and U.N. Development Corporation and other elements: How about opening the door to the discussions on NATO, not unlike what we've seen in Afghanistan?

I guess I'd stop there. It's probably enough.

WOLFOWITZ: OK. I might just say briefly, even before the U.N. resolution, NATO voted to provide planning support and other support -- mainly planning support for the Polish division that's going to be part of the stabilization force.

CORZINE: I was thinking more in the analogy of what is anticipated in Afghanistan this summer as more of a long-term...

WOLFOWITZ: I think the door is open to that. I mean, I was in NATO in December of last year, and listed four tasks, which then we expanded to six, where NATO could help in either the war or the post- war. And the post-war was, frankly, highest on my list of both priorities and expectations. And there are NATO assets, alliance assets, that could be provided.

But I think most importantly that decision to provide the Poles with support they need I think is a very strong political signal to other countries that may participate, either under NATO umbrella or simply as coalition partners.

On your other question -- which is obviously a very important question -- it's very hard to answer what's going on in those things that we still don't know about. I know it's stating the obviously, but we don't know what we don't know. We are going to have to get more information from people who are involved in these programs than we have elicited so far.

I do think that we have cauterized, if that's the right term, we've stopped one major potential source of chemical or biological weapons, and that is this poison labs it was called up in northeastern Iraq. It was the under the protection of an outfit called Anser Al Islam, which seems to be an Al Qaida branch organization. And it was connected to a gentleman named Zarqawi, who is still at large, but who was responsible for the assassination of Mr. Foley in Jordan, who is apparently the man in charge of the networks that were -- I don't know if they're fully detained, but that have been rolled up in London and Paris and in Milan. He continued to be out there.

We captured one of his lieutenants in Baghdad and that production facility in northern Iraq is under our control. I think most of it was bombed into beyond recognition. And a couple of hundred of Anser Al Islam people were killed and a few were captured.

WOLFOWITZ: We don't know what's happened to the weapons of mass destruction, so I can't sit here and guarantee you that it hasn't slipped out somewhere, or that even that it might not be stored in some other country.

There were reports that that kind of thing was going on before, as well, but we believe it is very important to track this stuff down for just the reason you say, and try to get it under control so it doesn't end up in the wrong hands.

CORZINE: Another question. Let me, again, this demystification, I think this one of the great reasons for this hearings, Mr. Chairman, is we hear much of a word that I hardly know how to pronounce or spell, de-Baathification, that we get news media reports that the coalition is working with some who may have been supervising the Abu Ghurayb prison.

I think the leadership of Baghdad University has also been, at least asserted in the press, to have Baath Party leadership associated with it. Sort of in conflict with what we hear is policy.

And there are other instances of this, or is it the intent that we will look at each situation in its specific, or is there a real attempt to change the nature of that some 30,000 folks that I hear mentioned in the leadership that might be in important positions of society?

WOLFOWITZ: I think the reason Ambassador Bremer issued this very tough and very clear decree, that is really almost his first action shortly after coming to Iraq, was the feeling that it's very important to get clarity on just those situations you describe.

I think the situation in the university and some of the ministries took place before he got there, before the decree was issued, and there -- I think there has been some understandable tension between the desire to maintain efficient functioning of institutions and the recognition of the need to root out members of the old regime.

WOLFOWITZ: And bearing in mind that a lot of people joined this party fairly innocently, and probably mostly because they were given no choice.

But what his decree singles out are the so-called full members of the Baath Party, which even have very specific ranks associated with them. And that's where the 30,000 estimate is, as opposed to 1 million regular party members. And those are the people that it focuses on.

And I think we may have to look at further steps, particularly with respect to those people who are actually guilty of war crimes.

CORZINE: The two specific instances, do you unnecessarily know whether there's been a reversal of...

WOLFOWITZ: I think they were both reversed, and there have been some other reversals that I've heard about in recent days.

That decree of his or order, whatever it's called, clearly gave a lot of encouragement, and it's exactly what we hoped it would do, to local people to say, Wait a minute, this is going on, the Americans don't want it, so let's tell the Americans about it and get it fixed.

CORZINE: (OFF-MIKE) Mr. Secretary.

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Corzine.

Senator Hagel?

HAGEL: Mr. Chairman, thank you.

We all are grateful that you are willing to stay a couple of extra minutes, that this will be soon complete and you will escape. So thank you.

General, I want to go back to just see if I can get a clarification on troop strength. I was here when you answered the questions about the rotation, a recent question here about that issue. I read your testimony.

Are we saying -- and realizing this is fluid, and I understand that -- that we now, I think you said, have around 145,000 American troops in Iraq. I believe you said we're bringing in 18,000 additional troops coming from the 1st Armored Division. Is that right so far? That would put us over 160,000.

Then you mentioned that there may be some rotation, I suspect from the troops, divisions, units that did the heavy initial fighting, 3rd Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne, so on, rotating out.

Now, does that mean that you think we'll be at a peak at about 163,000? If you're going to put 18,000 in, rotate some out, where are we? Can you clarify that for the committee?

PACE: I'll try to, sir. Thank you.

The 145,000 is the number on the ground today. There are 18,000 flowing into theater, and I will have to get for the record of how many of those have already gotten in theater and are already counted in the 145,000. So a portion of the 1st Armored Division has already moved into Iraq and is probably already in that 145,000. So I need to come back to the record with precise numbers.

Their intent, when they were ordered forward, the intent for them was that they were going to replace the 3rd Infantry Division and the 3rd Infantry Division would come home on their arrival.

PACE: Because of the situation, General Franks and his commanders have made the decision: No, 3rd Infantry Division will not leave yet; the 1st Armored Division will be added to the forces in the theater. And when we -- meaning them -- on the ground are comfortable that we've got the right security situation, then we'll rotate home some of 3rd ID.

So at the highest number, even if none of the 1st AD is counted in the 145, then you're upper are on 163. But I think it's probably not that high, sir. Maybe 160, 155, as a guesstimate.

What has also happened is when the war began, there were about 300,000, 310,000 U.S. in the theater. That's about the total number in the theater right now. About 66,000 Navy, Air Force, primarily, have come home. And 4th Infantry Division and 1st Armored Division have been added.

So although the total number of U.S. in-theater has remained about the same, the mix of ground-to-air and ground-to-sea has shifted significantly, but in-country, in Iraq.

And now the number in Iraq has gone from 120,000 ground troops when we started the ground campaign, to about 145,000 today, with an additional, guessing, 10,000 out of the 18,000 who are not yet counted.

HAGEL: So is it correct to say, when that is fulfilled, we're at about 150,000?

PACE: About that, sir, yes.

HAGEL: In-country. Do you anticipate more than 150,000 in- country in the next 90 days, if they are needed.

PACE: There are no other troops on orders to the theater right now to be added to that pile, sir. That does not mean that they could not be, and the secretary has stated many times that if needed -- if the commanders on the ground, if General Franks asks for more, they'll be provided. But he has not asked for more. And in fact, he has said as early this morning, he is comfortable with what he has right now as far as ground troops.

HAGEL: So that means you do not anticipate additional troops in Iraq.

PACE: Do not anticipate in Iraq additional troops...

HAGEL: From the U.S.

PACE: We do anticipate that the U.K. division that is being generated through force generation conference that they held about two weeks ago, and the Polish division that is being generated as we speak, will be added to the forces in Iraq.

PACE: And again, when they arrive, it will depend on the situation on the ground whether they are additive or they replace somebody.

HAGEL: Thank you.

May I go back to Secretary Wolfowitz on a question I had asked earlier when I quoted from The Washington Post? And if I might just take a moment to share with you continuation of this article, because I wanted to come back on this. And it is this, it's about the fifth paragraph into the story, talks about what we were talking about, Bremer's comments about selection of interim Iraqi government seven weeks away at least, so on and so on.

About the fifth paragraph down it says, "Moreover, the interim government's responsibilities are still the subject of a disagreement between U.S. officials and their increasingly dissatisfied Iraqi allies."

Is there disagreement within the administration on this issue?

WOLFOWITZ: Not that I'm aware of. I mean, I think any one of us can argue round or flat on this one. There are considerations for moving quicker and there are considerations for taking more time. And that's why the president and the secretary gave Ambassador Bremer full authority to get on the ground and make his own judgments about what the situation was there.

I think really important to stress that there are just enormous limits on what any of us can -- judgments can pass sitting here, I don't know, 8,000 miles away, and much further distance in terms of knowledge and information about a very complex society. And that's why...

HAGEL: But you would disagree with this story that there's any disagreement? There is no disagreement within the administration on this issue that you're aware of?

WOLFOWITZ: I'm sure you can find different views. My view, which I think is the correct view, is that there is an extraordinarily capable individual who's been put in charge to make those judgments, and that's how it should be done.

HAGEL: Well, does that then lead to some understanding, better understanding, as to why Ambassador Bremer got there? Was he in the original planning mix? You went into some detail in your testimony about how much planning was involved, post-Saddam planning, and all of a sudden Ambassador Bremer shows up -- maybe that wasn't all of a sudden, maybe that was in your plans back in January, and Ambassador Bodine comes home, other people come home.

It appeared, at least to this senator, it was a rather abrupt switch, change. That's not the case? Or maybe you could help us understand or help me understand.

WOLFOWITZ: It's not. And if I could clarify something, too, that I think was not clear in my statement for Senator Biden.

WOLFOWITZ: We didn't start the planning in January, we started January setting up ORHA. My recollection is planning particularly on dealing with possible humanitarian crisis and dealing with possible destruction of oil fields.

Sorry, I can't give you an exact date. My recollection is July or August. And one of the outgrowths of that planning was we're going to need some kind of civilian organization paralleling the military to do this kind of work and to get AID involved and do contracting and so forth.

And that's what led to the creation of ORHA in January.

And I think I mentioned, maybe when you weren't here, that when we approached Jay Garner about it, we already had in mind, and told him we had in mind, a senior civilian administrator over the whole operation who would, Garner would not actually not Garner, because at that point Garner was setting up the office, it wasn't even clear that he was going to deploy, and that that senior civilian would also be the person managing our end of the political process.

HAGEL: But Bremer was in the mix early on?

WOLFOWITZ: Not by name, but by position.

HAGEL: So essentially what happened there that appeared to be rather abrupt was all planned?

WOLFOWITZ: It was planned in the effort to, which was quite a systematic one, to think about, I mean, the secretary put together a list of criteria and then listed some 50 candidates, and narrowed it down and then consulted with Secretary Powell and Condi Rice and George Tenet.

They all thought Bremer was a great choice, took it to the president, I mean, all of that was a two or three ...

HAGEL: But there were other people shifted out of there, I've got some of the names in front of me, but you had planned to shift all of those, some of those people out, too?

WOLFOWITZ: I have no idea. You mentioned Ambassador Bodine, I have no idea. My understanding is that the State Department wanted to reassign her to other things, but here's, I mean one of the things Ambassador Bremer has got to do is both grow and prune that office.

I gave you the numbers, and there are some 1,000 people there U.S. and coalition. I imagine some of them probably aren't needed or aren't appropriate, and on the other hand, we probably need more people for other functions.

HAGEL: Although they weren't there that long? But my time's up, so thank you.

WOLFOWITZ: But we learned an enormous amount each day that we didn't know before about the situation on the ground. You know, the standard comment in the military is no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Well, believe me, no plan at all could possibly survive first contact with a complex civilian society like the one we see in Iraq.

WOLFOWITZ: So things are going to change. And it may look abrupt, but it is a conscious notion that we need -- I might get myself in trouble with this description -- but a senior quarterback out there to call audibles, because there are going to be a lot of them, and that's Bremer's job.

LUGAR: Thank you, Senator Hagel.

Senator Chafee?

CHAFEE (R-RI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank the panel again for their patience.

Mr. Secretary, you've said in the first round of questionings that Iraq could be a model of democracy in the Middle East, and it might be fair to say that in 1979 in Iran there was a democratic revolution that brought in a virulent anti-American government.

What would be our position if the Iraqi people wanted to elect not only an anti-American government, but a government that was opposed to our friend and ally Israel?

WOLFOWITZ: I wouldn't -- I mean, what took place in Iran 20 years ago was popular, and if you accept that as democratic then you're in a realm of democratic that I don't mean and I don't accept. I mean, I think...

(CROSSTALK)

WOLFOWITZ: This is important. I think we have said repeatedly...

CHAFEE: Etymology of democracy...

WOLFOWITZ: No, it's more than etymology.

CHAFEE: "Demo" means people, I believe, in Greek.

WOLFOWITZ: No, I know, that's why I constantly say a free and democratic country.

We view, I think correctly in this country, that democracy is a means to an end, and that end is individual liberty, individual freedom. And that's why we don't think of democracy as just elections, not even -- you know, it's more than even just -- it's not enough to have one man, one vote, one time. It's not acceptable to have a majority tyrannizing a minority, even if they do it by vote.

So there are institutions, there are standards, there are rules. And I think that if we can create the conditions where Iraqis really can express their views freely, I think partly because of the enormous diversity of that society and partly because it's hard for me to imagine that the 50 percent of the society that are women, many of whom are relatively educated by standards of developing countries, are going to accept any kind of theocratic tyranny or that the Kurds or the Turkomans or for that matter the Sunni Arabs are going to want to accept a Shi'a theocratic state.

WOLFOWITZ: There's a lot of pluralism built into that country. And as I think we've seen in our country, if it's structured properly, pluralism is a great force for liberty.

So I think it may take some time. But I don't think one should anticipate the Iranian result in Iraq.

And frankly, the Iranian model is a model of failure at this point. So I don't think it inspires anybody.

CHAFEE: So you would say that if there were free elections and a theocratic government, we would oppose -- there are conditions on our vision of democracy. Is that what you're saying?

WOLFOWITZ: I think there are standards, are people who participate in this political process need to meet. They need to be committed to protecting the basic rights of Iraqi people, they need to be committed to the principle of equal justice under law.

If they're held to those commitments, then I think they will set up institutions that have a reasonable chance of success.

There's no guarantee in this world. At some point there going to be on their own, and people could abuse things.

But I think we have a better chance here than we've had anywhere in the Arab world for decades. And I think a lot of Arabs -- I mentioned the Moroccan foreign minister. I think there's a long list especially of non-ruling Arabs who hope that this will be a successful model.

CHAFEE: Thank you.

HAGEL: Thank you very much, Senator Chafee.

Senator Biden.

BIDEN: Just to follow up on the point that Senator Hagel was making.

The reason why some of us are confused is that 17:00 hours, 11 April 2003, General Garner's staff briefed my staff and other staffs here and presented us with a chart, a flowchart of authority. And there's no place on here, not only for Bremer, for any Bremer-like person.

Asked specifically who was going to be over -- and I'll be happy to submit the chart to you -- over General Garner as director, he said it was going to be McKiernan, the guy on the ground who's responsible to Franks, and Franks.

And so that's the reason for our confusion. We're not making this up. That's why it looked to us like maybe you guys knew it -- if you were a little bit of, you know, pea-in-a-shell game with us, because this is what was submitted by Garner's staff to our staff in an official briefing as to what the command flow would be.

BIDEN: And so I would hope we don't have that kind of confusion again as to what you're going to do from this point on. Because that was officially given to us, and I will, I won't take it down to you now, but give you a copy of it and have a copy for the record as to what it was.

So that's why we're a little confused, that's why it looks like a little bit of revisionist history to us.

I'm sure you're telling the truth, but understand why we're not just looking to pick a fight, it looks like revisionist history based on not what we just thought, but what we were told as of that day.

And I remember we had Secretary Powell before us and I showed him that chart. I had to leave, the senator from Connecticut, I gave him the chart, he asked a question on my behalf and on his part, and the response from the secretary of state was this is news to me, I'm paraphrasing, but if this is what is intended it won't stand.

And we didn't hear anything since then. And then Garner was out there, and then, quote, from our perspective, all of a sudden there was this new organizational head, which I think is a very good idea.

But I don't want the press or the public listening or any of you to think we're kind of looking for a fight; it's a genuine confusion on our part caused by, as they say in Southern drawl, by y'all, caused by you guys, and what we ask from the administration, and what we were given, at least speaking for myself, what I was given, that's the only reason I state it, because hopefully we won't go through this from this point on.

PACE: Senator, I can help with just a small piece of it, if I may?

BIDEN: Sure, please. Thank you.

PACE: Just a small piece of it, because you're correct, if you didn't have the entire picture you did not have the entire picture, and what you see is what you get handed to you.

I can tell you for a fact that the entire time that this organization was being talked about, starting back in July or August, and certainly in the January time frame, when Jay Garner came on board, that all of us, in uniform and out, inside the department understood that the plan was that there would be a senior civilian who would be picked because it was important to not have a general in command in Iraq very long.

So clearly for all of us in the building we knew that that was the next preordained step, the fact that you did not know is a bust on us, sir, and we need to go found out how that happened.

BIDEN: The reason I mention it is I hope it won't happen, I mean this is important stuff. And again there's not a member, I mean, the three of us sitting here I don't think there's a single, solitary time publicly we have been anything other than supportive, myself included, of what you have undertaken before and after in Iraq.

And it just makes it difficult.

The second question I have, and if you don't want to answer it now, answer it for the record. There's an awful lot of speculation, and I think it's just that, that possibly weapons of mass destruction, at least some biological weapons, from looted departments within Baghdad and Iraq generally, may have gotten in the hands -- it got in the hands of looters, and may or may not have gotten in the hands of terrorists.

BIDEN: Let me be specific.

In -- excuse my pronunciation if I mispronounce it -- in the Tuwaithan nuclear site, which was looted, there were deadly materials, I'm told, that were taken from that site. And with our focus on WMD, when the military -- and I don't to embarrass or will not mention his name -- when the military guy on-site was asked why he didn't stop the looting by an ABC news crew, he said that he did not have it on his list as a place that warranted being guarded.

Now this is a site that the U.N. had investigated. And our intelligence, I believe, had given the U.N. as well a number of times as a place where there was -- this is Iraqi's sort of CDC.

And allegedly what was in there -- the looters entered and took live HIV virus, live black fever virus. And as I said, the young Marine lieutenant in charge who I believe told ABC he was never briefed on what was the building, which is why he didn't try to prevent the looting.

And so the two questions I have -- either now or for the record, classified or unclassified -- will be, A, was this on the list? Because you said earlier, Mr. Secretary, there was a list. Everybody knew. The military personnel going into Baghdad knew the places. They may not have had the ability, understandably, to guard everyone, but they knew. It wasn't a surprise.

So was it on the list, number one?

Number two, if it was not on the list, what else wasn't on the list that got looted that we're worried about?

And number three, what is your classified or unclassified assessment of what was taken and whether there has been any success in tracking down who took, if it's true, HIV virus and live black fever virus from that facility?

And again, it's how do we -- excuse. There's two different places. The one place is the equivalent of the CDC in Iraq, which is the place from which the HIV and black fever virus was taken.

BIDEN: And the other place was the Tuwaitha nuclear site, which was allegedly looted of deadly materials. I don't have a listing of what the alleged materials that were taken from that site, radiological material taken from that site.

And so there are two different sites. The CDC, the young lieutenant said, wasn't on the list. Was Tuwaitha on the list? And what was taken, to the best of our knowledge? And what kind of danger does what's taken pose, if anything was taken?

And again, you may want to do that in a classified forum -- which is fine, Mr. Chairman, I believe, by the committee, if you'd submit that to the committee.

And I have several other questions. I'll not take the time. I'll submit it in writing if I may, Mr. Chairman.

And close by saying that afterwards, if maybe you, General, could hang for just a second, I don't want to give the location, but Mr. Mohammed, the young man, lawyer, who is in the country now, who is credited with saving Private Lynch, I met with, he came to my home state, spent a little time with him.

I presumed to ask him how his family members were. I received a call today saying that he had been in contact with them, they're in a certain particular place in Iraq, and his father has a serious heart artery condition and needs some help.

And I have a location where he is. So I would like to pass it on to you, and I'm sure you'll do the right thing and know what to do, because I don't, for certain.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Biden. Let me just say, benefit of all members of the committee, that the record will remain open until the close of business tomorrow for members' statements and questions, and we will deeply appreciate responses by those who are testifying today or those who are helpful to you in responding to questions that have been raised publicly, as well as those that members may submit.

BIDEN: Mr. Chairman, could I ask unanimous consent that, with regard to the question I asked, a statement I made to the secretary early on about the candidate Bush saying we should get out of Bosnia, I submit for the record the newspaper report -- it was on October 25, 2000 -- quoting Dr. Rice, who was then his chief foreign policy adviser, and another insert of October 27, in the Plain Dealer, responding to that.

LUGAR: Those will be made a part of the record.

I don't want to constrain members from more questions if you are prepared to ask them, but I think in fairness to our witnesses, who have been very, very generous of their time, that we will call the hearing to conclusion with, once again, great appreciation to all four of you.

We thank you especially, Secretary Wolfowitz, for a very comprehensive and well-prepared, well-researched statement, which all of us need to study and think through.

We've read it and we appreciate having the testimony before we came today, but it's been fleshed out a lot more in our understanding.

We thank you, General Pace for your testimony, and likewise Mr. Larson, Ms. Chamberlain (ph) for the contributions which you have made, which have been substantial to this hearing.

And we will be hearing more from the State Department in subsequent hearings, and we look forward to that testimony. And as I've already announced, that we will have a number of hearings on Iraq.

But we will try to work with you, Secretary Wolfowitz, on briefings or methods of bringing information to us that are useful, as far as you're concerned, and not unduly onerous, and we will try to think through on our part the dissemination of that material, so that it is as useful and widespread to senators and their staffs, and therefore to their constituents, as possible.

We thank you very much, the hearing is adjourned.

BIDEN: Thank you very much, folks, appreciate it very much.

WOLFOWITZ: Thank you, if I might just thank you for holding this hearing and repeat what I said at the beginning of how much we appreciate the support the Congress has given us since the beginning of the war on terrorism, and including the war in Iraq, and as all three, all four of you have said in different ways quite eloquently, this is, the stakes are enormous, our commitment is large, and we look forward to working with you to sustain the support of the American people.

Thank you.

LUGAR: Thank you.