September 10, 2007
Liveblogging The House Iraq Report Hearing
[Senate Foreign Relations hearing] [Senate Armed Services hearing]
6:45. It's over, it's really over. Tomorrow, on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Petraeus and Crocker are due back on the Hill at 9:30 EDT to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate hearing will be shorter than today's (mercifully), and as we said earlier might be a little more uncomfortable for Crocker and Petraeus thanks to the presidential aspirations of Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama, who sit on the committee. We'll be following the proceedings. See you tomorrow.
6:42. Calif. Democrat Loretta Sanchez also accuses Petraeus of cherrypicking. Were they saving the hostile committee members for last?
Sanchez does get to a very good question, though: If life is improving in Iraq, why are Iraqis so miserable? She points to a new poll on Iraqis' attitudes, which shows most of them are miserable, frightened and deeply pessimistic about their future. Crocker, whose central thesis is that Iraqis are far too traumatized and so new to democracy that nation-building will be a protracted and messy affair, says he hasn't seen the poll, and doesn't have much of an answer beyond that.
6:31. The blame-the-Iraqis tack some U.S. pols have adopted in recent months has always seemed a little too convenient. Crocker appears to agree. Missouri Republican Todd Akin asks why Petraeus and Crocker haven't been harder on Iraqi politicians today, and Crocker's measured response is among the more credible arguments for keeping the surge going. "A tremendous amount has happened in a very short time," he says of improvements in some provinces. Crocker adds that in some of the newly stabilized regions, Iraqi leaders are working on restoring law and order. More important, they know that their funding comes from Baghdad, and are showing cooperation with the central government as a result, he says.
6:19. The rift between Sunni and Shia is so dramatic that some political scientists have questioned whether a federalist government is workable in Iraq. Crocker says he sees dialogue on the ground on how to translate "federalism down to a practical level." He acknowledges that geographic divisions on sectarian lines are under way, but adds that Baghdad province is still mixed. In other words, a premature U.S.pullout would almost definitely ensure a mass-casualty powergrab in and around the Iraqi capital.
6:04. Gunny Hartman he is not. Petraeus doesn't so much as flicker a brow as Wexler asks "how many more men and women" will be sacrificed for a war that was declared on false pretenses. Petraeus sticks by his data, noting that the General Accounting Office inspectors stopped collecting data five weeks prior to today. He and Crocker have described the turnabout in Anbar as very fast and recent.
As for the "cherrypicking" accusation, Petraeus does an ace job of suppressing any offense taken at being called a liar. "No one is more conscious of the loss of life than the commander of the forces. That is something I take and feel very deeply," he tells Wexler. "If I did not think this was a hugely important endeavor, and if I did not think it was an endeavor that could succeed, I would not have testified as I did here today."
5:56. Spoke too soon. Representing MoveOn here is Robert Wexler, D-Fla. He's practically yelling at the general.
5:52. Arkansas Democrat Vic Snyder: "You all are the all-star team."
The House tends to be more radicalized than the Senate on the war, but Petraeus and Crocker are being received with respect and admiration across the board here. That means the Senate panel could actually be harder on these two, owing of course to the three Foreign Relations Committee members who are running for president.
5:30. Crocker says that coalition assistance of Iraqi fighting units is not necessarily a bad sign. It "makes for a tremendous unity of effort. It's actually a force multiplier to have them together," he says, adding that the U.S. is "seeking to replicate the embedded concept for almost all of the PRTs."
According to yesterday's blockbuster Times article, though, there aren't enough PRTs, or provincial reconstruction teams, to go around. In January, when Bush announced he was finally changing course in Iraq, military experts fretted that the "surge" ought to be bigger. So if the surge isn't working, is it because it isn't surge-y enough?
Last week, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee was told that "the idea of PRTs in Iraq is probably too late to be of much value." Who's right? Will we ever know? Another reason otherwise well-meaning people would sooner take an ice pick to the brain stem than give one more second of thought to this war.
5:18. "None of us want to stay in Iraq forever. We all want to come home, we all have days of frustration," Petraeus says. "But what we want to do is come home the right way."
5:12. Is the military broken? Petraeus responds that military enlistments and re-enlistments are up, and insists it's not because of the hiked-up signing bonuses. The general guesses that most of his troops are, like him, realists about the situation on the ground. One soldier The Gate talks to, whose third deployment is next month, says, "The insurgents are not going to walk south to the Persian Gulf and proceed to swim to America. What motivates me is to be there for my soldiers. It's hard to explain, the sense of duty definitely is there." Of course, they don't all feel that way -- three in his unit are currently AWOL. But the sentiment appears to be the dominant one.
5:09. Momentary delay, as Crocker appears to have gone missing. He's back.
5:03. Hey, it's former Pa. Sen. Rick Santorum on FOX!
4:58. Another 5-minute break.
4:39. This entire argument over how long we stay and at what cost boils down to the classic glass half full. Our objectives in Iraq are all achievable, Petraeus and Crocker appear to be saying, because in some cases they have been achieved. The performance of Iraq's elite military forces has been "exceptionally good." It's possible, then, that the rest of Iraq's military and National Police could follow suit. Anbar is resembling something close to stability. So progress there could conceivably spread to the rest of Iraq. As long as these objectives remain achievable, we owe it to Iraq and to U.S. forces to hang in and try.
Americans' problem with this line of argument, of course, is that the war's backers keep changing the game on them. At first, they thought it was about WMD. Then, it was about al-Qaida. Now, it's about Iran and Syria and WWIII in the Middle East. The public is being asked to hang in there and believe, but to many -- possibly too many -- it's similar to asking them to believe in the tooth fairy.
4:34. While Edward Royce, R-Calif., slogs through this very long question, check out this debate on Petraeus and that MoveOn ad between Hugh Hewitt and Doug Bandow in the Los Angeles Times.
4:29. We almost missed the irony of a power outage holding up this hearing on Iraq earlier today. Almost. Thanks, Geoff Davis, R-Ky.
4:23. Another money question, courtesy of the gentleman from American Samoa, Eni Faleomavaega: How much more can the U.S. Armed Forces take?
Petraeus says that the strain on the military and military families was "one of the factors that informed" his drawdown plan. He hesitates to go further, since his command is limited to Iraq, but says that "in a general sense I understand there is very little else out there" in the way of resources.
In our inbox at 3:59. DOD announces the deaths of four Marines during combat operations in Anbar province. At 3:27, DOD announced the deaths of three Army soldiers in Mosul.
4:02. At last, the $1.2 trillion question, courtesy of N.Y. Democrat Gary Ackerman: Is it worth it?
No one in the hearing thus far has tied Iraq into "the international war on terror," he observes, and if the two are related, the end of sectarian violence can't be the ultimate goal of U.S. operations in Iraq. "How could anyone suggest that we have a drawdown until we kill each and every one of [the terrorists]?" Ackerman asks. "That should be the argument you're making, and you're not."
"It seems to me that we're trying to be in the middle of a dysfunctional, violent family," he continues, before asking if it's worth the near-daily deaths of Iraqis and U.S. troops.
Petraeus has been measured and steady throughout the hearing, and he appears to lose his bearings a bit here. Earlier, the general did not see much chance that al-Qaida, whose fighters comprise about 2-3 percent of total insurgent fighters, could overtake Iraq. His argument is based on Sunnis turning against al-Qaida in Iraq, but in response to Ackerman's question, he says al-Qaida is still "the fuel" fanning the Sunni insurgency.
"Then how can you suggest that we leave after the sectarian violence stops?" Ackerman asks.
3:50. It's Christopher Smith's (R-N.J.) turn: Were the benchmarks Congress set the best/most reasonable possible? It's a very good question.
"There's nothing inherently wrong with the benchmarks. It's just that... conditions are not yet in place for achievement of some of these more complex benchmarks," Crocker says. His solution is to get "more creative."
3:41. Poor Ike Skelton.
Jim Saxton is the next Republican to weigh in on that MoveOn ad, and as he's about to wrap up, some more Code Pink protesters make a ruckus. Obviously, there's no guarding against this sort of thing -- it's the people's House, the hearings are supposed to be open to the public, etc. But that doesn't mean members can't be visibly annoyed.
3:38. Once again, the words of Colin Powell come back to haunt us. "Looking at it in time, the violence that has been done in Iraq, that has deepened divisions and fears, goes back to 1968 when the Ba'aths took power," Crocker says. "Obviously, it didn't end in 2003. There is significant psychic damage that has been done here."
Leaving the Prozac jokes to Jon Stewart, Crocker lays out why the stability in the Sunni Triangle isn't a totally dishonest example of the surge strategy's progress. He readily admits that Anbar province is almost completely void of Shiites, but is hopeful that Anbar Sunnis' efforts to become fully integrated Iraqis will be reciprocated by al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government. Of national reconciliation, Crocker says, "I think we can see it because I think we are seeing it." He admits, though, that we have yet to see when or how that bottom-up reconciliation actually makes it all the way up to the Green Zone.
3:26. And we're back.
3:23. Per C-SPAN: All the Code Pink protesters have been charged with disorderly conduct except for one who was charged with assaulting a Capitol PD officer.
3:13. Hurray, 5-minute recess.
3:08. Petraeus sees little chance that al-Qaida in Iraq fighters will take over the country. Does this mean the White House will drop its language on terrorists in Iraq following U.S. troops home? Another example of how dicey the work of securing and unifying Iraq is: Crocker thanks anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for his recent pledge to lay down arms, while acknowledging that not all factions of his militia are doing so. Certainly, the U.S. could use al-Sadr's cooperation, even as soldiers try to rout his militia's fighters.
3:02. Here's that MoveOn ad again....
Ros-Lehtinen: Mr. Chairman, everyone here should disavow that despicable ad.Unidentified member: Mr. Chairman, no one here is associated with that ad, so we shouldn't have to disavow it.
Ros-Lehtinen: [making a face] Take it easy, jeez.
2:49. Crocker earlier complained about interference from Iran in the ethnosectarian violence in Iraq. Asked by Lantos why the U.S. hasn't brought Tehran in more, Crocker responds, "The Iranians were interested in simply the appearance of discussions.... rather than serious business."
The White House has conditioned diplomatic talks on Tehran staunching the flow of arms into Iraq. In the meantime, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to have delighted in photo ops meant to concern or even tick off Washington. Critics wonder why the White House doesn't reach out to Tehran more, but it's not clear how much Shiite-dominated Iran is actually interested in a stabilized, pro-Western Iraq.
Crocker said the U.S. was taking a we'll-believe-it-when-we-see-it approach. "As a first step, the Iranians taking some measures on the ground to qualitatively improve Iraqi security, which they say is in their own interests.... If they are willing to do that, then we're willing to discuss other areas of cooperation."
2:44. We're on to the Q&A portion of the program. Lantos asks why other commanders in the region want a speedier drawdown of forces. Petraeus says he doesn't know what Lantos is talking about. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and CentCom commander Admiral William Fallon have all signed off on his recommendations, Petraeus says.
2:40. Crocker: You're frustrated, I'm frustrated, we're all frustrated. He insists the Iraqis are serious about making political progress -- a counter to the way the Iraqi Parliament was mocked and ridiculed for taking that month-long break this summer. Crocker concedes that few of the legislative benchmarks established by Congress have been hit, but insists that it "does not mean there has been no progress toward reconciliation."
2:33. Crocker just answered our earlier question. The U.S. government will continue to pursue a functional, centralized government in Iraq "while recognizing that progress on this front may come in many forms and is up to the Iraqis themselves." In other words, if we never see a parliamentary democracy in a unified Iraq, that's not necessarily a failure. If they can't get along, if they spread out into different states, so be it. Not what Bush initially envisioned, to be sure, but it may have to do.
2:20. Of the two, Crocker has a tougher road to hoe here. Provincial governments are seeing some degree of success, but the "key challenge for Iraqis now is to link the progress" there "to the central government in Baghdad." Iraq's dysfunctional central government is proving to be the Chinese box of this entire debate. Two reasons to hope, Crocker says: that Iraqis have "overwhelmingly rejected" rule by al-Qaida, and the tentative political accord reached in August.
2:06. Crocker seems to be addressing his opening statement to Americans who get worked up about why Iraqis appear to have abdicated control and responsibility for their country to the U.S. "Evaluating any Iraqi today only makes sense in a historical context," he says. Describing Iraqi society as "traumatized" by decades of dictatorship, he calls for patience on the political front.
2:00. Skelton is threatening to prosecute the screaming Code Pink ladies. We feel pretty confident in positing that these protesters will never, ever change their minds about this war. Does that level of obstinacy have any place in a debate? [2:28. One of the Gaters says this is an unfair statement. Agreed; we meant to question the usefulness of obstinacy, which is in the eye of the beholder. Scratch that statement.]
2:00. What did we say about the funny hats???
1:53. OK, feeling the need to use exclamation marks. Petraeus has just laid out an exit strategy complete with calendar markers, sort of, which few people were expecting to be proffered in detail. A Marine expeditionary unit scheduled to withdraw this month will not be replaced, then a brigade combat team will rotate out in mid-December, followed by others in the first seven months of 2008 until the U.S. presence is back down to pre-surge levels of 15 combat teams in the summer. He foresees being able to further reduce troops then, but says laying out a plan for that at this moment would be "premature."
1:38. Petraeus is defending himself against that MoveOn ad. "We conduct considerable data collection [in the] coalition and Iraqi operations centers," he says, after declaring he and other commanders do not base their assessments on "gut feel." He insists that DOD's data "is conducted with rigor and consistency."
Casualties are down, but some experts believe that is due to ethnosectarian segregation, which yesterday's New York Times front page story characterized as the disappearance of mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods. We know that Shiites are being purged out of Sunni-dominated neighborhoods and vice-versa, and some experts contend that the decrease in bodies found around neighborhoods is due to those purges being all but complete. (See the charts on p. 34 of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces in Iraq [PDF] report.) So here's a question: Has the coalition given up on peaceful, mixed ethnic neighborhoods in Iraq? Is it settling for a de facto divvying up of Iraq?
1:32. Petraeus: We can reduce troops to pre-surge levels by next summer without jeopardizing the gains we are about to achieve. That's the big news everyone's been waiting for.
1:29. And we're back. Petraeus is delivering his opening statement, which he wrote himself and did not submit to the Pentagon or White House for vetting, he says.
1:25. Still in recess. Those of you watching on cable might have missed this testy exchange. Republican Dan Burton, who sits on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, waved down Skelton to ask him to get the protesters out of there. Skelton shot back that he didn't "need a lecture."
Later, Burton walked up to Skelton to whisper that he wasn't lecturing. Skelton discreetly shot back, "The hell you weren't!" Ah, microphones.
1:23. Skelton admits defeat to technical problems. Five-minute recess.
1:21. Ugh, more protesters. Can't the Capitol Police tell by their funny hats? "That really pisses me off," Hunter Skelton says. We can hear him and Hunter strategizing about how to get the protesters out of there before they can cause a disturbance. Hopefully this isn't the only display of bipartisanship we see today.
1:17. Uh-oh, mic troubles. Typical.
1:10. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., is also unhappy with the MoveOn ad, calling it "outrageous and deplorable." She states that it is too early to assess the overall success of the surge, which may be correct -- the final brigade arrived in June, and the surge brigades are going to rotate out beginning in the spring. "We have a long way to go on this difficult road," she says. "Our own history reminds us of how difficult this road is and also of how worthy is the goal."
1:04. Republican Duncan Hunter is clearly not happy with the fait accompli tone of this hearing so far. "We have spent the last week preparing the battlefield," he says, referring to the war over the war. And he's the first to call out the full-page MoveOn ad in the New York Times today that derisively refers to Petraeus as "General Betray Us." When he's done, Skelton (?) states once again that Petraeus is the right man for the job and should not be blamed for the failings of the war.
12:56. Lantos to Nouri al-Maliki: "The free ride is over." Impatience is hardly a good reason to end a war. The lack of cooperation from Iraq's leaders is.
As long as U.S. troops remain on the ground in large numbers, Lantos says, "There is no reason, none at all, for the Iraqis themselves to step up. It is their country and it is their turn."
Most Americans, and even Iraqis, agree. As for Petraeus' indication that he can live with a tiny drawdown of about 4,000 troops early next year: "Removing a brigade is nothing but a political whisper."
12:50. Tom Lantos is up, and with a nearly foolproof argument against the "surge" strategy at that.
The California rep knows that Petraeus will argue that the surge is working and that military operations in Iraq should continue, and Lantos counters, "The current escalation in our military presence in Iraq may have resulted in technical successes, but strategically the escalation has failed." His reason: There is no political progress, and political progress was the point. Petraeus has acknowledged as much, and yet he is expected to argue that current operations should continue. We're about to see how he goes about doing this.
12:42. Republicans are making a big to-do that anti-war Democrats are tempering their calls for a withdrawal, but it might be more accurate to characterize this shift as a reluctant and cautious nod to reality. "The surge is just the latest in a series of tactical operations," Skelton says. "This is Iraq, and nothing has been easy there."
This next bit is pretty telling: "Petraeus is almost certainly the right man for the job in Iraq. But he's the right person three years too late." It's not that U.S. troops shouldn't be there or should never have gone there, necessarily. It's that the war was badly managed from the beginning, and the damage is irreversible. Are anti-war Democrats "defeatists" for coming to this conclusion about the war? Not when they have President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to shoulder the blame.
12:35. "We have the pleasure to welcome two of America's finest," Skelton says. "Let me remind members that we are receiving the best judgment of these fine leaders." A necessary message for some of his fellow Democratic members, who seem to have already decided they know what Petraeus and Crocker are going to report today.
12:33. OK, protesters already. Chairman Ike Skelton speedily orders them escorted out. "No disturbances will be tolerated." Got that, Code Pink?
12:29. Welcome to The Gate's liveblog coverage of Gen. David Petraeus' and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Petraeus, as most of you well know, is the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Crocker is the U.S. ambassador there. FOX News is threatening to cut into its coverage with the Phil Specter murder trial verdict (really?) so we're watching C-SPAN 3's webcast.
So far, lots of handshaking and hugs as Petraeus and Crocker make their way through the hearing room. It's easy to forget in the heated frenzy of the war debate how highly respected these men are. That said, the overall negativity of independent assessments of the war released last week is fueling skepticism about the new "surge" strategy. For both these men, this hearing will be no cakewalk.
Posted at 6:56 PM
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Al-Qaida, Bush Administration, Congress, David Petraeus, House, Iran, Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Middle East, Military, President Bush, Syria, Terrorism
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