American Enterprise Institute

July 9, 2007

[Edited transcript from audio tapes]

1:45 p.m.	Registration
2:00	Panelists:	Frederick W. Kagan, AEI
		General Jack Keane, U.S. Army (retired)
		James Miller, Center for a New American Security
	Moderator:	Danielle Pletka, AEI
3:30	Adjournment

Proceedings:

Daniella Pletka:  We heard that the strategy had failed, that in fact, the surge was not working.  That we need to embrace the reality of the situation on the ground and that we need to consider how it is that we can exit as quickly as possible from the scene in Iraq.  That, apparently, being the solution to the problem of the failed strategy, we are going to take a step back from that assessed failure today and try and have a look at the reality on the ground in Iraq, whether in fact the strategy articulated by General Petraeus being put into motion even as we speak has potential for success.  What are the fruits on the ground?  Are there any to look for?  Will the United States manage a victory abroad and failure at home?  Always a possibility.

 Notwithstanding the facts on the ground, we have seen in the last week several defections among senior Republican leaders who have joined the calls for yet another re-assessment of the situation on the ground.  They have not done so with benefit of travel to Iraq or consultation with our military leaders.  So we will, today, try and afford ourselves the luxury of that sort of a conversation and assessment of actual military operations from several people who have been on the ground in Iraq as recently as weeks ago, with people who intend to go back in the coming weeks. 

Today on our panel we have three distinguished panelists.  I’m going to go in alphabetical order, if I may.  Frederick W. Kagan, who is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies here at the American Enterprise Institute.  He’s the author of several works on Iraq, and recently returned from Iraq and is off again, Fred, in a week?

Frederick W. Kagan:  Two.

Daniella Pletka:  In two weeks.  He has been there twice in the last several months, and his work with our own Iraq

Planning Group laid a lot of the important groundwork for understanding how to go forward with a new strategy this year.

General Jack Keane, who has been with us many times, also been in Iraq repeatedly over the last six to eight months, planning on going back, I think, in a few weeks as well.  Jack Keane is the senior managing director and co-founder of Keane Advisers, which is a private equity and consulting firm.  He was the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and acting Chief of Staff of the Army. 

Jim Miller is the senior vice-president and director of studies at the New Center for a New American Security and the author most recently of Phased Transition: A Responsible Way Forward and Out of Iraq.

The way we are going to go forward this afternoon is we are going to lead off with Jack Keane; Jim will then take the floor, and Fred will wrap up.  We will then take questions from the audience.  Thank you.  If you I could ask you to start, Jack.  

Jack Keane:  Okay.  Thank you.  Good afternoon everyone and welcome to a hot day in the summer in Washington, and a warm day in AEI as well due to the lights. 

Yes, I have been to Iraq couple of times in the last few months on extended visits, all around most of Baghdad and the Belt area, pretty much the major contested areas that the current operation is involved in.  And I’m going to talk a little bit about an assessment from that.

But before I do that, you have to understand the current reality that has taken place in ’07 in Iraq if you look at it in the backdrop of ’06.  In ’06, the enemy launched an offensive to destabilize the fledgling Iraqi government that had just been duly-elected in December.  The enemy had strategic meetings in January, which led to the February mosque bombing that is in Samarra, in which precipitated what they wanted, which was an overreaction by the Shi’a militia, raising the level of violence in Baghdad to unprecedented stages and, certainly, forcing the government into a corner, in a sense, that it was not able to provide services, was not able to provide security.  And life in Baghdad at that time and in areas around it -- the people were afraid to go out; the markets were empty.  The schools were closed.  The institutions of government were not administering to the people. 

And remember, Iraq is a centralized government without local states or provinces that provide many services to the people, so education and health, transportation, things like that, are all provided from a centralized federal government.  And none of those services were working.  They were pushing those government institutions to fracture, certainly so that the civil war and strife would break out and lead to a failed state. 

Looking at that, in what took place by the spring and the summer of ’06, it was obvious that our current strategy, both political and military in Iraq, had failed.  That was the harsh reality of it.  I think that it was the consensus here about that and as a result of that, the President made a number of personnel changes, and equally significant he made a strategy change for the first time to try to put in place a counter-insurgency strategy, which would protect the people and bring down the level of violence.

 There were two overwhelming conclusions, I think, as a result of that offense of the enemy launched on us that pushed us back on our heels.  One is that we have always underestimated this enemy in Iraq since its inception when we took down the regime in ’03.  And second thing, we failed to recognize that security is a necessary pre-condition to political progress, economic development, and also social progress. 

With those understandings, a new operation was conceived, and so a new general was put in place to do that.  The character of this operation has always been a military operation designed to stabilize and secure the contested areas in Iraq to permit political progress and economic development.  That has been the purpose of this operation.  And so when people say, “You cannot solve this problem militarily,” the necessary main ingredient to the operation was a recognition of that.  This cannot be solved militarily, certainly.  But security is a pre-condition upon which to base political reconciliation.  And that is a reality that this operation is very much a part of. 

The military operation itself was different than anything we had done in the past, because its principle means to get security was to protect the people.  And remember, we had chosen ourselves, the United States military, not to protect the people as a military strategy in the past.  We had chosen not to defeat the insurgency as a military policy in the past.  And we had chosen to put that burden on the back of the Iraqi security forces so that they, eventually when they reach capacity, would do that. 

The next part of this operation was designed to buy time for the Iraqi security forces, and also to increase their capacity, because in ’06 it was evident, to everybody who was there, that the Iraqis could not handle the situation.  So we chose not to protect the people Iraqi forces could not, and that resulted in Baghdad being on fire in ’06.  And then this operation began with brigades being mobilized to join other units that were in Iraq at some 30,000 troops, with a total posture of about 157 to 160,000 troops is what we currently have. 

The nature of the operation itself is very different on the ground.  And if some of you have been there and have seen it, our troops are living [sounds like] in the neighborhoods 24/7; eating in those neighborhoods, sleeping in those neighborhoods, patrolling with Iraqis in those neighborhoods, mostly on foot as opposed to in vehicles as in the past.  And all of that gain -- with the principal purpose to gain the trust of the people, gain their confidence, which leads to them providing us the necessary information we need to quell the threat that is in those areas.

Now, when you look at this situation that we have, the surge operation, as Danielle mentioned, has just begun some three weeks ago.  But even with the fact that it has just begun some three weeks ago, when I was there in February for almost two weeks on the ground moving through most of the neighborhoods in Baghdad and in the Belt and coming back in May and going back to the same areas, every single community that I was in had gone through some kind of improvement. 

Now, they were relative because some communities were Al-Qaeda strongholds with lots of challenges; in East Rashid, Mansur and Amaria, and others were more stable neighborhoods.  But in all of those neighborhoods, whether it was a much more contested neighborhood or one that is relatively stable, there have been significant improvements in every single place.  And all the Iraqis who I spoke to, numbering in hundreds, all believe that the security situation is improving over what it had had been certainly in ’06, which was the backdrop for the beginning of this operation. 

And this operation, the word “surge” has always been inappropriate.  It is not a military term.  An appropriate term would be a “counter-offensive.”  It means you counter the enemy’s offensive.  We did this in Korea at Inchon.  We did this with the invasion of Normandy to counter the enemy, and we did it a number of times in Vietnam.  That is the appropriate military term, but we are where we are.  We will accept the lexicon that we have.

The reason I mentioned that is that with a counter-offensive that you are going to do against an enemy, it brings casualties because you have to gain control.  You have to commit forces in places that they have not been before, and that is the case here.  And you have to commit them in strengths that they have not been before so they can be on the offensive themselves.  Can you imagine in the Normandy invasion -- after we got on the beaches and before we broke out of St. Lo -- because the casualties went up, people were saying, “Well, let’s throw the towel because casualties are going up.” 

I mean, this is a military operation that is designed to gain initiative of momentum and wrest it away from the enemy that had that initiative of momentum in ’06.  And by everything that I have seen in my two visits in the last few months, even while that pre-dated the complete arrival of our forces, one, we do have the initiative and we certainly have the momentum on our side.  And in those communities, schools are functioning, people are on the streets, market places are teeming with people, commerce is taking place, the government is administering its services again in ’07, admittedly uneven, admittedly inefficient, and at sometimes given what ministry it is, it could be quite ineffective.

But nonetheless, there is a completely different contrast in terms of the government services in ’07 compared to what it was in ’06.  And Anbar province, which is finally starting to get reported on most recently as Sunday in The New York Times, it was good to see an authoritative person go out and take a look at an area and start to comment on it.  But that has been a major turnaround.  That is the area just a little over a year ago where a report leaked out that said Anbar is lost.  The military commanders were expressing that view in a report to their chain of command and in less than in that time, Anbar has completely made a turnaround, initially because of the military intervention to go on in the offensive in Ramadi, which gave the sheikhs and the tribal leaders encouragement, and certainly because the Al-Qaeda had literally over-played their hand. 

Their barbarism, the stranglehold that they have on their people, their mores, their norms, their cultures are significant.  When they go into a neighborhood in the city or a town or a village, they immediately impose their norms, mores, and laws on the people.  Of course, they terrorize, intimidate, kill to gain control, and then that control manifests itself in no smoking, no drinking, beards for men, costumes for women --they change the curriculum in the school system and it is a very heavy-handed approach.  They even tell the people what their diet should be.

After four years of this, people are fed up with it.  They are fed up with it.  And their sheikhs and tribal leaders had felt this revulsion from among their people and that gave them the strength and the courage to move forward at the same time the military commanders, particularly in Ramadi, were smacking the Al Qaeda very hard, which gave them the encouragement to move towards the U.S. and towards the U.S. commanders to seek a partnership, which took place in Anbar province at large.  And it is a remarkable turn-around, and it may portend what the future is for Iraq, because what that represents is the people themselves with their leaders try and take control of their destiny.  They are fed up with this barbarism and four years of war that were inflicted on them. 

Now, they realize how misguided it was to align themselves with the Al Qaeda, because they know full well the Al Qaeda is not interested in a greater Iraq, and they are certainly not interested in them as a people, and that is the reality of it.  So you have this bottom up political movement taking place where the sheikhs and tribal leaders are seeking a reconciliation with this Shi’a dominated government, and many of those insurgent leaders of significant insurgent groups are talking to us in a way that they had not before about political reconciliation.  That is significant.  Both of those events that I just mentioned are very significant events. 

And the second one is not understood in terms of its significance, and that is one of the things you have to do to defeat an insurgency is to convince the insurgents, in this case the Sunni insurgent leaders, that they cannot win.  In ’04, we knew that they -- in talking to each other believed they were winning and would win.  In ’05, they believed the same thing, and in parts of ’06 that started to change and then manifested itself in ’07.  That is a very positive turnaround militarily when the insurgent leaders begin to believe that they cannot win and then they have two choices: leave the battlefield or try to work out a political reconciliation.  And that is what they are attempting to do right now, although some of them are still fighting most certainly because that is their leverage with us and there are certain things that they want from the government itself. 

In terms of the Al Qaeda, one of our defense intelligence analysts, who will remain silent in non-attribution basis for this session, is absolutely convinced that when we look back on ’07 we will see it as a beginning of the defeat of the Al Qaeda.  Now, why is that?  Because they are losing their Sunni insurgent infrastructure support.  They no longer have a sanctuary in Anbar.  They have been thrown out mostly by the people with our assistance.  We had taken away from them Diyala by force.  But there is also movement in Diyala province among Sunni insurgents who were supporting us and providing us fighters to fight the Al Qaeda.  There is movement in nearby provinces as well as Salahiddin.  So it is not just located to the very homogenous Sunni groups that live in Anbar province.  This is moving in other areas of Iraq, which is significant in of itself, and it portends a downward trend in terms of the Al Qaeda. 

Now, Al Qaeda is a dangerous organization still.  They have the capacity to kill innocent people and children in, certainly, towns that are unprotected or even to penetrate certain communities that are protected to demonstrate the fact that the government cannot protect its people and the United States’ effort is futile.  If we are going to let suicide bombers drive us out of Iraq, we have got real problems as a country and as a world of ours out there because this is a weapon that is very difficult to stop and you have to stop what the foundation is to be able to stop that weapon itself.  And certainly, peoples all over the world are vulnerable to it and we do not need to back away from it; we need to stand up to it. 

The fact is that Al Qaeda is in a very vulnerable stage because they are losing their support infrastructure, and that is the reality on the ground.  Yes, they are dangerous and, yes, they will still be able to kill to be sure, but they are not the same organization that we were dealing with in ’06, and that is the reality of it. 

The Sunni insurgents are considerably weaker when they were fractured from the Al Qaeda to be sure, and the surge operation has had considerable impact on them, and certainly what the Shi’a militia did to them in ’06 has also had an impact.

The Shi’a militias themselves, what is instructive about what is happening with the Shi’a militias?  Despite the Al Qaeda’s continuous attempt to derail this military operation, leading to political reconciliation and as latest this last weekend, the Shi’a militias have not responded the way they did in ’06.  In ’06, when the Al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents went out and killed massive amounts of Shi’a, the Shi’a militias came out from behind those barricades by the tens of thousands  and killed thousands of Sunnis, cleansed them.  That was the harsh reality of ’06. 

By and large that is has not happened in ’07, despite the Al Qaeda’s provocation.  Now, why is that?  Why are they not doing that if they did it in ’06?  Well, first of all, to go to those Sunni neighborhoods, to inflict that level of violence has a counter-weight to what is being imposed on them.  They have to go through who -- they have to go through us.  We are protecting the people; we were not protecting those people in ’06 and the Iraqis could not.  That is the number one issue for them as well.  And also, the second issue is they know for a fact that we are protecting hundreds of thousands of Shi’a.  Despite the fact that some of them are still being killed by the Al-Qaeda, they know that day in and day out, Americans and Iraqi security forces are giving their lives to protect Shi’a as well, and that is not lost on them. 

Now, I'm not suggesting that there are no other motivations here among the Shi’a militia; there certainly are.  As a matter of fact, certain special groups are killing us because they want to drive us out of Iraq and they are a force to be reckoned with.  Some of these groups are aided and abetted by Iran as you well know, and they are using more sophisticated weapons against us, and they receive rocket and mortar training by the Iranians and that has had some effect as well.  But they are a fragmented group; they are not a homogenous group.  And we have learned a lot about the Shi’a militia groups since the time we have been in Iraq.  Al-Sadr is probably our number one political enemy in Iraq, and I’ll let Fred Kagan talk a little bit more about that.

The U.S. casualties in Iraq itself, in terms of some of the metrics here, those casualties we expected as we went on this counter-offensive that they would, in fact, go up.  And they have, in an aggregate sense.  And eventually, they will come down, but as you are conducting this offensive, if you are going into areas that you have never been before, if you are going into areas at a greater strength against the enemy in those areas, you are going to take more casualties.  If you are taking the fight to the enemy as we are on an offensive operation which this is, then the increased risk is there. 

And I will say the soldiers have not batted an eye when the President changed the policy and asked to go on a counter-offensive.  This may be the most idealistic military we have ever had on the battlefield since the Revolutionary War, in my view.  They are extraordinary in terms of their discipline, their motivation, their dedication to get the job done with the rear view mirror telling them that a number -- the majority of the American people do not agree with the war effort as do maybe a majority of some of our political leaders in Washington, particularly in the Congress.  Despite that, the Commander-in-Chief asked them to take more risks which meant more casualties, and they went after it.  And they also, I think, feel free in a sense that they are on the offensive and they are taking the fight to the enemy and they can measure their results a lot more.

June represents a one-year low in sectarian deaths and there has been some horrible misrepresentation of what sectarian deaths have been in Iraq, some of it, I think, provided by questionable sources in the Ministry of Health.  But in General Petraeus’ mind that certainly is the case.  And up until this weekend, we have had a -- these suicide bombings have been going down in numbers, and I do not know where the bombings now this weekend fit in terms of what has been taking place in the past. 

I will say this about suicide bombing, we will never be able to stop it entirely; that is impossible and other countries have found the same reality.  I do think we should be expected to bring down the frequency of these attacks by the effort that we are taking against the Al-Qaeda.  Remember, the suicide bombings are exclusively by Al-Qaeda, and the bombers themselves are usually foreign fighters.

The political situation in Iraq - and we will leave most of that to Fred to talk from - in my judgment, the security situation is making steady, deliberate progress and it will continue to make progress as we go on through the rest of the summer and into the fall.  In my own view, the operation has to go into ’08 if we want the desired military results.  The thought of pulling out now or pulling out in a couple of months makes no sense militarily in terms of what we are trying to achieve, and that is providing security and stability for Iraq so that we can make some political progress.

If we pull out premature, the Iraqis themselves who we talk to, whether they are Sunni and Shi’a, will tell you what will happen: we will go back to the ’06 level of violence.  The Shi’a militia who were not storming outside their barricades to kill Sunnis despite the fact that they are being killed by the Al-Qaeda, with no one to protect those Sunnis they will do that.  Once we pull away, then they will go after those Sunnis because of the Al-Qaeda and the Sunni provocation of them.  What took place in ’06 will reoccur again in ’07 or ’08 if we pull out prematurely.  In other words, Baghdad will be on fire again and its violence will rise.  I mean, this notion that somehow we can pull back out of the city with regards to the people we are protecting and go to bases somehow and the security situation will not return to ’06 is just foolishness.  It shows a lack of military understanding on what the situation is in Iraq.

The military operation in Iraq is protecting the people; that is what the operation is.  That is why our soldiers are living in among them.  If we pull back to secure bases for ourselves, those people will be vulnerable and the level of violence will return to what it is, to what it was in ’06 or maybe even worse than that because of the sense of hopelessness that people will feel that the United States is walking out the door, so to speak.

Yes, this is a weak government; make no mistake about it.  Yes, it is fragile to be sure.  Yes, it needs to be strengthened, and I think over time it will eventually.  But that level of violence and instability by a precipitous withdrawal, what that will get is pushing this government to being fractured and to getting to an all-out civil war.  And believe me, you will know it when you see it; you will not have to debate whether it is a civil war or not.  And certainly that is not the case we find ourselves in now, but it would be the case without the United States and the Iraqis’ capacity to protect the people. 

Also, in my judgment, it demonstrates a lack of character on the part of the United States.  Regardless of how you feel about the invasion in Iraq, the fact is we changed the regime and we rushed to put in a government that does not have the political maturity to deal with representative democracy.  Those were our choices and we should be able to deal with the results of those choices and find the character it takes to deal with that.  There are millions of people in Iraq who are dependent on us, and I would suggest even more in the region if this country is destabilized and the spillover effect we would get of a civil war in the region, not to speak of other allies whose situation is tenuous to look at us and watch us back away from a new sovereign state that we insisted on developing and back away from them in their moment of peril. 

To me, that is a lack of character, and we should find the courage in our political system that reflects some measure of the courage that our soldiers are displaying on a daily basis.  Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  Jim, let me just fully pronounce the name of your organization which I garbled three times while introducing you, which is the Center for a New American Security.  I apologize.  Thank you, Jim.

James Miller:  Thank you, Danielle.  Thank you, General Keane and Fred, for participating today as well.  As Danielle noted, I'm the co-author of a report on Phased Transition for Iraq that proposes an approach very different from continuing the surge indefinitely.  We recommend a phased transition that would involve going from today’s level of about 160,000 American troops in Iraq to about 60,000 or so by the end of the Bush administration.  At the same time, we recommend a significant national effort to ramp up our advisory capacity in Iraq.  The numbers are currently at about 6,000 today and ramp that up to something like 20,000 by the end of the Bush administration.  These numbers are provisional; we recommend that the Bush administration immediately begin planning in consultations to make this kind of a transition.

A lot of our report focuses on the question of how to do an advisory mission more effectively than it was in Iraq.  But then it was done in Iraq in the past, and I agree with General Keane’s critique of that, as well as his critique of the early stages of the Iraq war.  It is available for those who are interested.  Multiple copies are out on the table, and I would be happy to dive into details when we get in the Q&A session.  Because of the recommendations we have made in somewhat of a different analysis than what I think we will hear from Fred Kagan, and in some ways not that different from General Keane in terms of what has happened in the past, I think I am the designated skunk at this AEI surge garden party, and I’ll do my best to fulfill that role. 

That said, I do want to say directly, I hope that the surge, for as long as it continues, is as successful as it might possibly be in all of the dimensions.  We all should hope that.  My expectations are not as positive as General Keane’s, and the reminder of this presentation I’ll go through the rationale for that.

The surge had two stated aims as was indicated.  The first was to reduce the overall level of violence in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, and the second was to facilitate political reconciliation by the Iraqi political leadership.  I’ll address those two issues first and then hit five additional points.  For those who are keeping score, that makes seven in total.  I’ll go through each pretty quickly.

What we have seen from the start of the surge in January to today and understanding that, it is really at its peak levels for just a very short period.  It is very much a mixed picture and it depends on what statistics you use.  I have decided not to throw out a bunch of conflicting numbers.  And if Fred would like to dive into those details, we can debate numbers at that point.  But I think it is mixed -- it is relatively clear there has been a reduction in Baghdad in June of sectarian violence.  And although the numbers are not yet certain, and probably never will be, it really should come as no great surprise if we put 30,000 additional troops in and the violence goes down in the places where we put those troops in, at least temporarily. 

However, what we can expect to see on a “go forward” basis, and we may have seen some of this over the weekend with roughly 60 killed in Baghdad and 144 killed near Kirkuk late last week, is an escalation of the violence as the United States moves forward to its discussions and intense debates in September.  We can expect Al-Qaeda and insurgents to pick up the pace of the attacks and to try to target Americans and each other in order to make it look worse than it otherwise would, and in order to directly affect the U.S. political debate.

Issue number two -- political progress by the Iraqi Government.  I’ll do this very quickly.  It is clear that there has been essentially none.  The cabinet passed for the second time a law on oil revenues.  It did so without the support of the Sunnis and it is pretty clear that even if it were approved by the Parliament, which is highly uncertain, it is unlikely to be implemented anytime soon. 

There are additional 17 or so benchmarks that were put into law by Congress, many based on what the Maliki government said it would do, and there has been relatively little progress, perhaps no progress on any of them.  And the prospects for the next months are exceedingly dim in this regard.  Seventy-four of the 275 members of Parliament are currently boycotting as are some 12 of the 38 members of the Maliki cabinet.  The Iraqi parliament is taking a month off in August, and that is less than some had feared but a month off in this context is really a troubling sign.

The bottom line is that the surge to date has not helped the Iraqis resolve their political issues.  In my judgment it is unlikely to do so by September.  General Keane said early next year.  The people I have talked to who are experts and have taken a different view from his, and that is that it is unlikely by early next year.  It is likely to be a matter of many, many months, more likely years to resolve these issues.  And if you look at the history of terrorist movements like Al-Qaeda, not that there has not been what exactly like Al-Qaeda but of terrorist movements, of civil wars, and insurgencies, they typically take many years to resolve.

The third issue I wanted to talk about - and that is consistent with what General Keane said - there has been some real progress in Al-Anbar province, and that has occurred concurrent with the surge.  It is important to note that it did not start with the surge.  A group of tribal leaders in Al-Anbar got together late last fall and with U.S. assistance began to go after Al-Qaeda.  I got up at 5:45 this morning; the sun rose at 5:51.  I do not think that the sun rose because I got up.  At the same time, I do not believe that the surge was fundamental to the progress in Al-Anbar province.  I think that U.S. involvement was very important.  It was not principally a matter of numbers but a matter of a limited number of people taking a smart approach and taking some risks both to themselves and with respect to the stated U.S. policy.  That meant working with people who were formerly Sunni insurgents and whom we may have to realize could be Sunni insurgents again. 

If we want to build on the Al-Anbar experience, and a great credit goes to General Petraeus for beginning to do so in Diyala province and elsewhere, it is going to require a national level approach; it is going to require working with Iraqis, more aiding and assisting them than it is going to be providing security within Baghdad.

Number four, also concurrent with the surge, something not quite so positive, and that is increased tensions, and indeed, some conflict in Kurdistan which is heretofore been the most stable part of Iraq.  There are, within the last week, reports of Turkey planning for major military intervention.  I hope and expect U.S. diplomats, Ambassador Crocker and others are busily talking to the Turks about this and discouraging that.  But with this, the situation in Kurdistan and in Al-Anbar suggested that there is a lot more to Iraq than Baghdad, and that our strategy needs to deal with each of these different areas.

The problem with focusing on Baghdad principally in the belt as General Keane talked about is that Al-Qaeda and the insurgency have brains and they have feet.  They have adapted and they have moved and they will continue to do so.  This is a fundamental problem with the surge in terms of a strategy, not in terms of as a short-term measure and which, as I said, I hope it will be useful, but in some terms of a longer term strategy.  The enemy is smart; the enemy will adapt; the enemy will move and take the fight elsewhere.  If we are unable to provide security elsewhere, the Iraqis have to, and therefore, we need to begin in earnest and much more than we had today working with the Iraqis, working with the Kurds, working with the Sunnis, and working with the Shi’a to provide security in the respective areas of Iraq.

We are into the mess in Iraq.  We are in today in part because the Pentagon and Secretary Rumsfeld did not provide enough resources initially.  If the surge had been undertaken several years ago, it is very likely it would not be where we are today; we would be in a much better position.  We should not make the same mistake of under-resourcing the strategy.  I’ll say more about what it might take to fully resource a surge approach across Iraq later.  In general terms, people have talked about additional 100,000 or more troops from where we are today.  If we cannot get the resources necessary for the long term, we need to think about changing the strategy.  And I hope in our Q&A, we will have a chance to talk about the timing of that, because my guess is that both Fred and Jack would believe that at some point there has to be transition from U.S.-led to Iraqi-led operations, and that that is going to be a priority relatively soon, most likely within 2008.

Number five, what has not happened as the surge has been underway, the U.S. has not given top priority or even a near-top priority to develop in a cadre of advisers who have the capabilities to go into Iraq and to help develop the capacities of both the Iraqi army and the local police forces in the different regions and provinces.  The numbers have gone up from 2,000 to 6,000 in terms of overall advisers in Iraq, including those with the Iraqi army and those with the police forces, but it is clearly well short of what is required and, equally importantly, the quality of the training or the personnel involved is well below what it needs to be successful - too few linguists, too few experts with respect to Iraqi culture, and too few with direct experience in what they are trying to train the Iraqis to do.

Building the advisory capacity, we need to affect the transition from where we are today to where we need to be in the future is going to require a lot of work.  It is going to have to be a presidential prerogative, and in addition, it is going to specifically require some of the people, the officers and non-commissioned officers in particular who would otherwise be going to the surge and lead in operations at the brigade, battalion, and company level.  Preparing for a transition to Iraqi-led is going to require ramping down on the surge and some of the same people will have to be put into an all-out effort to develop an advisory capacity.

Number six, another thing that has not happened during the surge and is not attributable to the military in any way is there has not been a surge of diplomacies called for by the Baker-Hamilton Commission.  The Bush administration’s diplomatic efforts to date have been extremely limited.  And it appears to me that despite some claims to the contrary, that there is still a preoccupation among some in the administration to think of this as a military operation, to think of this as something that is going to have a military solution.  And I am sorry to say that the title of the last report, Choosing Victory, is something that may have fueled this fire.

Number seven, and finally in terms of the points I would like to make, as is evident to everybody in the room, over the past several months and particularly over the past several weeks, there has been an incredible erosion of congressional support for the surge.  Most importantly from the administration’s perspective and from the nation’s perspective is a number of Republican senators who have made it clear that they think that the days for the surge should be numbered.  It includes Senator Lugar, Senator Voinovich, and Senator Domenici, but the list goes on.  I think we will get some signs this week as the Defense Authorization Bill is debated at just how far and how deep that goes.  It looks to me that this erosion of support for the surge is pretty deep and that is likely to continue.  While we will see how it place out of the coming weeks and several months, it makes it even more urgent to begin planning for a transition out of Iraq. 

In summary, there is virtually no chance that the Iraqis will settle their political differences in the next few months or within the early part of next year, surge or no surge.

There is no chance at all that the coalition and Iraqi government will have a victory over Al-Qaeda or the insurgency over the next few months, or that the civil war will end within the next few months or by the middle of next year or by the end of next year. 

That is true, surge or no surge.  If we continue to focus on Baghdad as many are, and I want to say as clear from General Keane’s comments that he is not one of them that would be this limited, but if we continue to focus there, we are likely to see problems continue to grow in the rest of Iraq and we are likely to have significant problems, potentially in Kurdistan, in the south of Iraq, and, of course, in Al-Anbar as well. 

So, if you really want to – if you wanted to play out this surge strategy, if you wanted to have the counter-offensive be the approach, not just to turn the tide and to allow a transition but to be the approach to take us to victory, what you will be looking at is increase in the level of the surge, as I have said, by roughly -- the figures differ – I would defer to General Keane.  On this regard, the military pioneers I have talked to say in the order of 100,000, I have heard 70,000, I have heard 150,000.  If you want to play out this surge as a strategy as opposed to a stop-gap measure for the near term, then you are looking at that kind of increase and you are looking at that increase sustained for a number of years. 

If we were at the front end of the Bush administration, if we were at the beginning of the war, and if we had any degree of public support and congressional support was not falling dramatically, that sort of approach might be possible.  That is just not where we are.  That is not where we are today.  And with public opinion against the current strategy, continuing the surge indefinitely, continuing it long term, is going to make it incredibly likely that the next president will get elected on a get-of-out-Iraq-now strategy. 

In my view, precipitous withdrawal is the worst possible option.  I agree with General Keane that the option of buttoning up in Iraq is not a good one.  By the way, it is not what we recommend; we recommend moving towards an advisory approach.  But precipitous withdrawal is the worst option. 

There are two ways to do it.  One would be for the Bush administration to choose it.  We all know that is not going to happen.  The other would be for the Bush administration to choose to prolong the surge until the end of its administration, and then it would virtually guarantee that there would be a precipitous withdrawal afterwards, and it would virtually guarantee that the preparations would not have been undertaken for a more orderly –- not a very orderly transition; I do not think that is likely, but a more orderly transition that would protect US vital interest, including avoiding Al-Qaeda safe havens, including avoiding regional war, and finally, including avoiding genocide.

 The Bush administration should begin planning in consultation now for phase transition of US forces from Iraq and, in my view, it should begin implementation sooner rather than later.  [Cell Phone Ringing] See if it is a “yes” from the Whitehouse.

 Male voice:  I’m sorry.

 James Miller:  Let’s wait and see.  I have -- I said I did not have a lot of hope but I have some hope.  In any case, planning now for a phase transition, beginning the planning in consultation, intending to begin implementation in consultation with Congress and with the Iraqis sooner rather than later is, in my view, a far better option than attempting to continue the surge indefinitely.  And it will greatly reduce the risks of strategic exhaustion of the United States.  It will reduce the incredible burdens that have been placed on our military which adds risks to other areas of potential operations around the world, and it will greatly reduce the risk of a precipitous withdrawal which would be almost certainly an incredible disaster for Iraq and ultimately for the United States as well. 

Our phase transition report, again, available right outside the doors, is available for those interested.  I would be happy to provide details during the Q&A session.  Thank you.

 Danielle Pletka:  Thank you very much, Jim.  I do have to say, Jim, that I am a little bit struck.  I know you worked on Capitol Hill.  I spent 10 years on the Hill.  I’m a little bit struck by the irony of a Congress who certainly not in my memory has not passed 13 appropriations bills consistent with its constitutional obligations before October 1st of any given year legislating that another country’s legislature that was just created needs to pass a particular law.  Then again, of course, I think they should also offer to give up August recess in return for the Iraqi August recess [audio glitch]. 

Let me now turn to our own Fred Kagan, author of -- as Jim very graciously noted, Choosing Victory.  Maybe you can comment on the opposing plan which we can entitle, Choosing Defeat.

 Frederick Kagan:  Well, I’m very grateful to Jim for coming here into the lair of the dragon as it were, and presenting his report to us.  I think it is very important that we have a reasonable discussion about the alternatives, and I commend him for actually putting a detailed alternative plan on the table in contrast to much of the fairly vapid carping that has characterized a lot of this debate on both sides.  And I’m not going to abuse my position speaking after him to go point for point with all of the things that I disagree within what he said.  I will confine myself to a few.

 First of all, I would like to note that Iraq is not an infinitely large country.  And as we talk about terrorists moving hither and yon and we are just pushing the bubble around, it is worth noting that it is actually a fairly confined area that Al-Qaeda can effectively operate in Iraq, and the surge and the Baghdad Belts actually comprise a much larger part of that area than most people seem to imagine.  What you are talking about is Anbar, Baghdad, Babil, Diyala, and Salahuddin provinces, Nineveh province as well, and into Kirkuk as an area that Al-Qaeda can reasonably hope to have some sort of -- did I mention Diyala?  Diyala -- can reasonably hope to have some sort of bases based on local support. 

Al-Qaeda operatives trying to move into the Shi’a south will not have very long life expectancies.  They are going to have a very, very hard time, to put it mildly, establishing bases much to the south of northern Babil province.  As they get into Kurdistan, there are some pros -- some of them will succeed, probably locally, but you are not going to have a large-scale Al-Qaeda base in Kurdistan either. 

Now, the current Baghdad security plan, called the Baghdad Security Plan, addresses the Baghdad Belts.  It reaches through the Sunni areas of north Babil and into the mixed Sunni Shi’a area of north Babil.  It reaches into Anbar where significant reinforcements went.  It reaches into southern Salahuddin province and, with Special Forces, into the northern portion of that province, and it operates extensively, especially in southwestern Diyala province.  The only province that it really is not operating in on a large scale is Nineveh province, where there has in the past been Al-Qaeda bases, notably in Tal Afar before it was cleared out in September 2005 where there is the danger of Al-Qaeda migration.  And of course, it is worrisome because Mosul, a city of 1.8 million, is the capital of Nineveh province and a significant potential threat. 

It is interesting to note that for all of that and for all of the squeezing the toothpaste tube that we are supposedly doing in Baghdad, actually the situation in Nineveh province has not deteriorated markedly.  Will it in the future?  I do not know, but it is instructive to ask why has it not yet collapsed, and the answer has been a combination of several things.  There are 18,000 Iraqi army troops in Nineveh province and 20,000 Iraqi police buttressed by a bit more than a brigades’ worth of US combat power which is not a whole a lot, and a very active use of American Special Forces targeting Al-Qaeda leadership cells and so forth throughout the province. 

So far, despite known efforts by Al-Qaeda to move into that area and re-establish bases, it does not appear that Al-Qaeda has been successful.  Will it be?  I do not know.  It is certainly possible that the situation will deteriorate there or that Al-Qaeda will be successful in hitting Kirkuk or establishing some sort of base there.  But that is really the area that we are talking about outside the area that is affected by the surge.  It is a relatively small area.  It is an area that I would expect frankly to see follow-on operations after the Baghdad Security Plan in, but it is not a limitless space.  And so, the task of dealing with Al-Qaeda militants squeezed out of the Al-Qaeda toothpaste tube is a limited one when we are conducting an operation around Baghdad on this scale. 

The question of what is going on in Anbar, I think, is a very important question.  Did the surge cause the shift in Anbar?  No, of course not.  The shift in Anbar began in 2006 before anyone was even talking about the surge.  Did the surge assist in the shift in Anbar?  Yes, absolutely.  And if you look at the chronology of events and if you look at how that movement developed and when it really began to accelerate.  And one of the ways to measure that is when did recruits -- when did Anbar recruits really start to show up in large numbers at recruiting stations for the Iraqi army, the Iraqi police, and the special units that have been set up under their [indiscernible]?  The answer is, well, after the surge began, you started to see them a little bit in January, some in February, lots in April and May, and moving forward. 

You know what, that in my view, has something to do with the surge.  Is it entirely causal?  No, but it does reflect to believe that the Americans were going to continue to play the very positive role that they are playing Anbar which is a role, in my view, that serves as the bridge between the Sunni Arab community in Anbar and the Shi’a government that does not trust it and which it does not trust.  And this is the situation that we got into -- really actually, going back to 2003, this was the origin of the Sunni Arab insurgency, was a mistrust between these two communities.  Right now, the interesting thing is that both of these communities seem to trust us and seem to be walking out slowly across this bridge. 

Now, the question about Anbar is what happens if we pull the bridge away before we have actually allowed these two sides to link hands and form their own structure?  I think the answer is pretty clear.  I do not see the movement in Anbar continuing once we pull out and make it clear that the Anbaris are going to be at the mercy of whatever Shi’a militias remain that we have not yet fully taken down.  And I do not see the Shi’a government reaching out and making these desired concessions when the extremists in the government will fear -- continue to fear Sunni attacks. 

There still are Al-Qaeda attacks ongoing and this, of course, gets to the heart of the issue.  Why have we not seen political progress yet?  Well, first of all, I think we have seen political progress and I’ll talk about that.  I do not think we have seen it in accord with benchmarks.  I was opposed to the benchmarks the President announced at the beginning of this.  I’m opposed to the benchmarks that Congress put in the bill.  I think the notion that you can order -- I mean, it is a really interesting question anyway to imagine that one sovereign state can instruct another sovereign state in precisely what laws it must pass on precisely what timetable.  And it is interesting for all of the neo-imperialist rhetoric that is hurled periodically at AEI and organizations that advocate interventionism in the world. 

There is actually very little more neo-imperialistic than instructing a sovereign legislature to pass certain kinds of legislations on a certain timeline. [Applause]  Thanks.  And so, I was never in support of that; I do not support it.  But I do think, nevertheless, that there has been progress in this arena which we need to discuss.  But as we made clear in our report, Choosing Victory, and as General Petraeus has made clear all along, I do not -- I never thought and I do not think that political progress will proceed in parallel without the establishment of security.

One of the major reasons why you do not have progress and have not had political progress in Iraq is because of the mistrust between two communities that through the end of 2006 were at war.  What needs to happen is that we need to bring a basic level of security to the country so that both sides can make concessions to one another without feeling that they thereby take on existential threats.  That political reform, that political process will be a trailing indicator of success.  It does not happen.  As violence is ongoing, it does not happen as the surge operation begins to move in to its full form.  It happens after the level of violence has actually gone down to a point where the Sunni community feels that it can make concessions without opening itself up to genocide, and the Shi’a community feels that it can make concessions without opening itself up to a Sunni coup. 

But those are trailing indicators, and I do not believe -- I think September is an unreasonable deadline.  And by the way, there is another question that you might want to ask yourself, especially those of you who were familiar with how things work in congress.  It is often the case in legislatures, especially ours, also the Iraqi, that you can choose to have a bill sooner that is a bad bill or you can choose to have a bill later that is a good bill. 

Right now, we are on track with a unanimous demand that the Iraqis pass a bill, whatever it might be in order to meet the timeline.  I think that is a mistake.  I frankly think that apart from the fact that it is desirable to let the Iraqis work their political process with a little bit more freedom than we seem willing to give them, we might also want to contemplate the possibility that as violence is still percolating and, indeed, rising in some areas as we are moving into former insurgent safe havens, this is not the moment when you are going to get the best bill.  And so, demanding to have it right now is equivalent to demanding a worse bill than you could have if you were a little bit more patient. 

Now, one thing is very clear from my perspective and I find it a little bit odd about this entire discussion.  The current strategy has not failed.  The current strategy -- the major operation that is the centerpiece of the current strategy began on June 15.  What you saw prior to that was the deployment and preparation phase to make possible Operation Phantom Thunder and the other operations that are going forward today since then.  In other words, it has been operative for less than a month and it is a vast operation.  It involves hundreds of thousands of troops, American and Iraqi, a wide area across the country.  It is frequently discussed as though it is only occurring in Baghdad, and I guess I just fed that a little bit at the beginning of this answer unintentionally. 

Iraqi troops, as I have said, are operating in Nineveh; they are also operating aggressively against Jaysh Al Mahdi in Diwaniya.  They have been operating further south in Nassriyah.  British troops are engaged in operations in Basrah.  All of these things are going on.  We have got Georgian troops coming in to address the infiltration of Iranian weapons along the line of communications that runs through Kut.  We have the Polish Brigade that has been assisting the Iraqi 8th Army Division in Diwaniya to undertake clearing operations in that city -- clearing operations that are Shi’a unit operating Shi’a militias.  There is more going on than just ‘let’s clear Baghdad and we will see.’ 

But that having been said, it makes no sense to stand a month into -- less than a month into a major operation and say, “It has failed.”  Certainly, not one where the worst that can be said of it on this panel anyway is that the results are mixed.  I frankly think the results are less mixed than Jim does.  That is fine; we can argue about statistics at the end of the day.  That is not – those arguments are not going to get us anywhere right now.  There is general agreement that sectarian murders are down dramatically in June from what they had been.  There is general agreement that violence overall, in fact, is down.  Number of car bomb attacks has been going down so forth.  The precise numbers are not significant in my view because we are not going to get anywhere arguing about that. [Cell phone ringing] Boy, it is cell phone central today.

But whatever you can say about the current strategy, it has not failed.  It may fail.  Any military operation can fail.  Any political operation can fail.  Any military political operation can fail.  It may, but it has not yet.  It is moving now into the main effort of this operation.  So I really think we need to step back for a minute and ask ourselves the question, “Why would we want to stop this now?  Why are we actually having this discussion?” 

It seems to me that there are three main reasons why we might want to be having a discussion about pulling the plug on the current operation.  One, because we think of something better, which is I think what Jim’s answer would be that there is a better solution to our problem in Iraq than what we are doing right now, a better alternative that we should go to, and we can discuss that.  Two, because we are convinced that the current operation cannot succeed and we can talk about that.  That argument is a little bit hard to make in a certain sense, because war is an amazingly unpredictable thing. 

And just to step back, military historian that I am, and refer to a historical analogy here. If you would look at the polling data, if you look at the evidence in early 1864, popular attitudes toward the Civil War and the likely victor in the 1864 election and what his platform was, you would have put -- and this is after Gettysburg and Vicksburg –- you would have put your money on a two-state solution in North America.  And you would bet that Bush would now have to deal with Atlanta via an ambassador in Richmond.  That is how bad the polling numbers show in 1864 even after those successes before the victory in Atlanta. 

Will there be an Atlanta in this war?  I do not know.  Will it be sufficient to turn the tide?  I do not know.  But standing in the middle of a war when things are going badly but there are some signs one way and another and saying, “We can tell for sure that this is not going to work” is not generally a fruitful exercise, unless it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is a serious danger that we run here. 

The last reason for stopping now is one that I find the weakest but I fear is actually the strongest right now, which is we do not feel like trying.  And that is the basic argument that says there is no political will for this.  That troubles me a fair bit because I always thought, naive guy that I am, that the role of political leaders is to lead and not simply slavishly follow whatever public opinion polls there might be in a given subject.  And that the role of leaders in a party is to lead their party. 

And I hear calls for the President to make concessions to Republicans who are no longer happy with how things are going, which I read, frankly, primarily as calls to save them from having to cast votes that they will find unpleasant.  And I hear calls from responsible Democrats who say, “We really do not want to pull out.  We think precipitous withdrawal would be a disaster but the party is driving that way.  Therefore, the President needs to make accommodations because the leaders in the party who are against precipitous withdrawal will not or cannot lead their party in a different direction.”  That troubles me greatly. 

If we actually think that there is a chance of success in the surge, if we actually think that this is the best strategy to pursue and hope that it works, and our main argument is that we lack the political will to do it, then I think there are more answers to look for than how do we wind this up and do something else.  So the most valid argument I think we can actually have is, “Is there something better to do than what we are doing?” 

And here, unfortunately, I do not see the case.  What is very clear is that the Iraqi security forces now are not capable of establishing and maintaining order in their country.  The reason we know that is because that was the stated strategy and actively pursued strategy of the U.S. military and the U.S. administration since late 2003 to January 2007.  That is what we were trying to do.  It was supposed to be primarily an advisory effort. 

We were drawn into combat operations periodically when we saw that the insurgence had gotten hold of key terrain that we could not give them, but we never tried to secure the population.  We never tried large scale clear and hold.  The point was always put the Iraqis in the lead.  Train and transition and move on as rapidly as possible with the light footprint.  That is what our strategy was through January 2007.  And as Jack pointed out, it led us almost directly to very near defeat at the end of 2006. 

Why do we think that it will work better if we implement it now?  This is a challenge I think that this argument needs to take on very seriously.  The situation certainly has changed.  We have improved security.  We have improved the quality of Iraqis security forces.  They are better than they were.  My analysis and the analysis of everyone I’m aware of who has looked at this is they are still nowhere near where they need to be. 

If you go to training and you stop providing security, violence will increase and the problem is that the Iraqi army is drawn from Iraqi society.  The more you have widespread ethno- sectarian violence, the more it infects the army, the less effective the army becomes, and the harder it is for them to get this under control.  I simply do not see a successful model here for a train and transition approach that does not lead us back to what I think will be worse than 2006 precisely because, as Jack said, all hope in Iraq will be gone.  So I, well, we could talk about other alternatives in question and answer. 

I promised to talk about the political situation but I need to wrap it up before Danni starts throwing pencils at me.  Speaking briefly about the political situation, I do not agree that there has been no progress.  There has been significant progress within the Sunni Arab community which must be reckoned with, even though it was none in benchmarks.  It was not in benchmarks because it was not foreseen because no one in late 2006 and early 2007 recognized the significance of the Anbar awakening movement and the shadow movements of similar of sort that would crop up in Babil, Diyala, Salahuddin, and even in Baghdad.  This is a low -- this is an attempt by Iraqis to solve local problems locally.  It is not a solution to all of the problems in Iraq. 

A major challenge that we face is how do we get the Iraqi government to capitalize on the progress that local Iraqi solutions have been making here, none of which is part of the benchmarks.  But to exclude this enormous political progress, which we had just taken a province where we thought that we had lost and turned it into one of the safer places in Iraq simply because we did not have any list of benchmarks makes no sense.  That is significant political progress. 

But I think even more directly within the Iraqi government we can see right now some very early signs of potential progress.  There were early signs.  They may not pan out and I do not know.  It is interesting that there has been an announcement of the potential formation of a coalition of the Dawah and SCIRI and independent elements of the United Islamic Alliance against the Sadrists with the Kurds.  That would give the Maliki government a majority in a council to representatives.  They would be safe from votes of no confidence even if the Sunnis and the Sadrists vote together against them, and it excludes Sadr.  That would be a tremendously positive development. 

Sadr has been playing a very negative role.  He continues to play a very negative role not just because of his militia but also in the political progress.  He has tried to subvert all real efforts of reconciliation even as he has tried to pose as a reconciler.  In making Maliki independent of Sadr politically would be a tremendous step forward.  Will it happen?  We will see.  If negotiations are on the way, that is very positive. 

One sign that Maliki believes in it anyway is that Maliki has recently unleashed a torrent of vitriol against Sadr of a sort that we have not seen before.  Maliki has denounced Sadr for maintaining a militia, has called directly on Sadr to disarm the Jaysh Al Mahdi, and furthermore has been supporting for months now our active operations to disarm the Jaysh Al Mahdi in a variety of ways. 

That is a significant step forward.  It is political progress.  Does it get a law passed?  I do not know.  Does it get a good law passed soon?  I really do not know.  But it is political progress if what you were seeing is the potential reshaping of the Iraqi council of representatives from a body that was log jammed into a body that might be able to function more effectively. 

In a short term, it may set back the timeline for getting the deals done that we wanted to get done.  In the long term, it may set a stage for actually getting them done and getting them done well.  Are we so impatient, or do we think the stakes are so low?  Or have we simply decided because it is easier, that this is a failure and there is no point?  That we will not wait to see this game played out over the next few months and suspend judgment until the current military operation has had a chance to run its course and we see where that brings us, and the current political negotiations have had the chance to move forward and we see what the prospects look like. 

I have never believed that Petraeus would come back in September with anything other than a report on progress in security and prospects for the political process.  I still think that is what he will come back with, and I honestly think that it would be a good idea for us to wait and see what the situation actually is then before trying to decide how we will react.  Thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  If I could ask everybody not to clap again until the end of the event even when an answer is really great. 

We are going to go to the questions and answers.  If I can just remind everybody of our ground rules, if you would be kind enough to raise your hand, I will call on you.  Wait for the microphone.  Please.  When you receive it please identify yourself and put your statement in a form of question.  Make it brief and only one question per person at this time.  Thank you.  This gentleman right here.

Frank Fletcher:  Thank you.  My name is Frank Fletcher.  I

have a question for the panelists.  My impression is that the evidence that Iran is intervening in Iraq is significant and credible.  What can be done about this intervention beyond dealing with Iranians that are in Iraq, and what are the implications for the plan we have in its success if we are not able to deter or decrease Iranian intervention?

Frederick Kagan:  Well, I would like to say that I think it would be a good idea to start as the command has done by actually going after the Iranians who are in Iraq, which is actually something we have not been doing very aggressively prior to the current commander.  And if you take a look at the lines of communication that run from Iran that bring fighters and weapons to Shi’a militias and also, by the way, to Al-Qaeda fighters, you will see that until very recently we had virtually no forces on those lines of communication, and we have not actually been going after the secret cell leaders, some of whom are Kurds’ force members and advisers. 

So I think there has been, there is a lot that we can do within Iraq that we have not been doing yet.  We have started to do now and I would kind of like to see this play out before we start to decide whether there are additional measures that we would have to undertake beyond that.

Jack Keane:  Well, certainly there is a lot of

mischief in Iraq by its neighbors, Turkey to some degree and Syria to a much larger degree, Sunni Arabs in terms of politically cheerleading the insurgency and some of them probably under the table funding it, and the Iranians themselves.  It is interesting the Iranians are so fundamentally interested in removing United States from Iraq that they are sustaining all of our opponents.  Obviously, the Shi’a militia but also the Sunni insurgents and also the Al-Qaeda.  That has been under reported certainly, but it is in fact the case. 

It is instructive because our number one regional enemy certainly is Iran in that region of the world and they see our presence in Iraq, particularly with establishing a stable government that has United States as its ally, as a significant threat to their regional objectives.  But we do not approach it with near the degree of intensity I think it deserves, and that is probably behind your question.  Well, as I agree with Fred completely that we have to be very aggressive with the advisers and the tangible assistance has taken place inside Iraq itself. 

We know for a fact that Iraqis have been brought to Iran and they have been trained to administer Dizenhans [phonetic] projectiles.  Also, they have received rocket and mortar training.  All of that has impacted directly on the loss of American lives.  And there are advisers that are inside Iraq that we are in pursuit of, and some of those, as you well know, we have captured.  It is interesting the Iranians are up to mischief in Afghanistan as well, doing much the same thing in aiding and abetting the insurgence there with technical advice, with enhanced weaponry, et cetera. 

It would seem to me that we have much larger NATO footprint in Afghanistan.  The Iranians are up to serious mischief for the same reason in Afghanistan that they have in Iraq to enhance their regional objectives and lead to a much larger Iranian hegemony, or that is the case the EU has a stake in Afghanistan, the troops are there.  There is much that we could do with them to strangle Iraq now economically for the things that they are up, and then we certainly should put on the table realistic options dealing with the training bases that are in Iran in terms of what we would do with those if they continue to use those bases to facilitate operations against the United States in Iraq and against NATO and United States being a part of it in Afghanistan.

James Miller:  If I could just add very briefly, when

Secretary Baker, Jim Baker talked about diplomacy with respect to Iran and others in taking the kind of their interest, I think anyone who has ever dealt with Secretary Baker either in any of his past roles knows that he is not talking about accommodation in all regards in doing exactly what the Iranians want.  Some hard-nosed tough negotiation with the Iranians and with others in the region who are intervening is going to be absolutely critical.  They will to continue to have strong interest.  They will continue to intervene, and the shape of that we can affect somewhat by what we do in Iraq but we got to have to deal with them over the near term and the long term in the neighborhood.

Danielle Pletka:  This gentleman back here.

Collin Coff [phonetic]:  I’m Collin Coff from

Georgetown University.  It might me worth noting in passing that perhaps the only thing that is more intrusive than calling on political conditions on a state that we support is perhaps advocating the overthrow of the sovereign government, not that anybody --

Danielle Pletka:  Do you have a question, sir?

 Collin Coff:  I would.

 Danielle Pletka:  Okay.  Could you ask it please?

Collin Coff:  The surge ends in spring of 2008.  That is when the units there are due to rotate out.  Unless we lengthen the tours from 15 to 18 months, that is going to happen or we remobilize the guard in reserve.  Neither one of those seems politically possible.  So in a political universe in which the surge does not last past the spring of 2008, I was wondering from General Keane and from Fred Kagan what your idea of a post surge world looks like and how early we should start planning for that transition?

General Jack Keane:  Yes, I want to agree with you that the surge operation always was intended to be temporary.  It was looked at the barometer in many people’s mind was a year to 18 months, somewhere in that timeframe.  I think what you would see, we have neighborhoods and places in Iraq right now that we could begin the transition to the Iraqis.  We are not doing that because we want to cement the gains that have been made and strengthen that situation.  I would cement that by the spring of 08, the commanders themselves knowing which neighborhoods and which towns or villages we would be able to start making some transition to the Iraqis.  They would develop detailed plans to do that.  I’m sure they are doing that.  But the transition should be deliberate.  It should have a method and conditions associated with it.  It should not be driven by political realities in the United States that do not have any basis for military application. 

I think if we left it to the commanders to work this, you would see us beginning to return to pre-surge numbers in ’08, but do it on a case by case basis, neighborhood by neighborhood, district by district, town and village, and let the commanders decide how to do that so that we are not going to lose what he have fought so hard to gain, and that is increased stability and increased security.

Frederick Kagan:  First of all, the AEI report is very clear.  We never tried to hide the cause of this and we believe that we would have to mobilize National Guard units for service that are already served, and it may be necessary to do that in a conditions base way to extend the surge past April, I do not know.  I think this is something.  Setting our arbitrary timelines in war is not a good plan in general if you actually want to succeed, so I think that is something that we need to be open to. 

That having been said, the overall strategy that we enunciated was recently repeated.  I forget if it was Col. Wayne Grigsby or Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch over there who said that- you reduce the level of violence while simultaneously increasing the capability of Iraqi security forces.  We spent the period from 2003 to 2007 trying to improve the capacity of Iraqi security forces and as that capacity went up, and it did, the level of violence went up even faster to the point where the ISF could not catch it.  The idea here is that as you bring up the level and quality of the ISF which is going on everyday, you also bring down the level of violence to a point where those lines actually cross and then you can start to do the transition. 

When will that happen exactly?  I would expect it to happen some time in 2008 if things go well.  I do not think it is dependent on the passage of Hydrocarbons Legislation or de-Baathification or anything like that.  I think it is dependent on some kind of political progress defined a little bit more vaguely than that.  But I do see it happening in 2008.  That is the plan.  It has always been the lynchpin of the plan that we advocated and I believe that it is the lynchpin of the plan that is being executed.

Anthony Senerd [phonetic]:  My name is Anthony Senerd.  I spent roughly a couple of years in Iraq so far and I’m leaving there for later this week, sir.  I wanted to just ask about the larger political situation just very briefly.  Then given the inspiration of faith that the local leaders have exhibited because of the counter-offensive in Baghdad and the success that has been had in undermining their support structure locally, and this is how it has to be broken down it seems, is there then -- would the panel speculate as to what gains might be had in further engagement with Syria in order to undermine the influence that Iran seems to have there?

Danielle Pletka:  Jim, you are a believer in engagement.  Why do you not take this one up?

James Miller:  First, thank you for your service and wish you best of luck as you deploy again.  I infer that the question is can we find a cleavage between Syria and Iran, and I think part of the negotiating strategy that we pursue should in fact try to do that.  A lot of the work that needs to be done over the coming years is likely to be in something analogous to a contact group of all the involved states.  But as you know is that when undertaken, there are side negotiations; there are one-offs. 

Do I have a lot of hope that we are going to have a cozy relationship with Syria?  No, not at all.  So I’m not trying to indicate that at all.  Is it possible that we can work some arrangements with Syria over time that will make it less likely that they are tightly aligned with Iran?  That is possible, but I think that is some thing that you will not know for some time to come, and my guess is it will depend on part how things go on the ground and whether it looks like there is a relatively stable situation that is emerging.  If there is not a relatively stable situation, you can expect the Syrians to be in, I think, very heavy handily.

Sharon Behn:  Sharon Behn, The Washington Times.  Could you please give us more details on the pursuit of the Iranians that you mentioned?  Who is pursuing them and what area?  Are they government officials or they all Kurds who happened to be in Iraq?  Could you give us more details on that please?

General Jack Keane:  well, I do not think any of us had the details on it because of the nature of those operations and the forces that we are using to pursue anybody that is from Iran that is assisting the Iraqis.  All I can tell you is we are considerably more aggressive about this than we have been in the past because the facts were on the table in terms of their direct assistance to the three groups that I mentioned, and their immediate objective is to cause United States to fail.  So I can not give you the details.  I do not know the details nor should I, but the fact is it is much more aggressive than what was has been in the past and you can imagine that are classified forces are the ones that are doing it.

Danielle Pletka:  Against the wall, orange tie.

William Mas [phonetic]:  William Mas, Turkish newspaper, Star.  I have a quick question.  Richard Perle and Michael Rubin supported Turkey’s interventions to -- the military interventions of Iraq, so they mentioned these couple of times.  Do you think Turkey’s intervention or military intervention in Iraq will have some kind of effect on surge policy in Iraq?

Danielle Pletka:  Let me just rephrase the question so everybody could hear you without reference to what other people think about this.  Turkish troops massing on the border, what do we think about the implications for our military operations in Iraq of a possible Turkish intervention remembering, of course, that there are significant numbers of Turkish troops already in Iraq, of course.  Anyone of our panelists?

General Jack Keane:  Well, certainly, in my own mind, if we continue to stabilize the situation in Iraq and continue what we are doing, I do not think you will see any more mischief than what we have currently seen by the Turks in trying to undermine some of the situations in the area that they are most interested in where the Kurds are.  I do believe that if the situation destabilizes and we begin to return the ’06 level of violence and there is a breakdown in the government’s capacity to control, then you are inviting other participants to seek their own national interest in Iraq and to pursue those objectives. 

So if we continue what we are doing, continue to improve the security situation, I think that is a checkmate to any intervention from the Turks.

James Miller:  If I could add very briefly.  As I have said for the other countries, certainly, Turkey has legitimate interest in what is going on in the border and has real interest and I think the right in making incursions across the border if it has to do so forth on security dealing with the PKK.  U.S. forces operating and helping the Iraqi forces to go after the PKK and helping that those Kurdistan who want to do that will help reduce the likelihood of war.  Diplomacy has got to be the number one element of this, however, and the US working with Turkey, as well as with the Central Iraqi Government, as well as with the Kurds ought to be a real priority for this administration and it has got to be a priority right now.

Danielle Pletka:  Of course, the big problem is not diplomacy but the Kurds’ willingness to continue to host and allow free reign of the PKK, which is what is actually causing the Turks some angst.  I think that our willingness to allow that to happen has not been sufficiently dealt with.  We need to assure that the PKK has been dealt with so that the Turks do not feel the need to come in.  Would you not agree, Jim?

James Miller:  I would agree.  We need to work with those the vast majority of the Kurds who are not supporting the PKK and who would like to see them, who are not supporting their tactics in particular, and who would, whether they believe on a larger Kurdistan or not, which as you know many, many do, we need to work with those who see the proper channel for that being through diplomacy, not through terrorism.

Danielle Pletka:  Okay.  I think everybody on the panel agrees that the purpose of our surge is not to provide sufficient security for the Kurds to articulate their own national security needs however they see fit.  Let’s take another question, this gentleman right here.

Tom Constantino:  I am Tom Constantino just back from Baghdad where I was the plans chief for Minstiki [sound like].  I directed to Jim because the Democrats control the House panels.  We came back and we worked a miracle.  We unified Democrats and Republicans by saying that we think that we need to triple the amount of money spent on building Iraqi security forces, and we were basically kicked off the Hill when we said that.  How can we seriously take any kind of transition plan if we cannot get any long-range security commitment out of Congress to fund building Iraqi Security Forces?

James Miller:  Tom, thank you also for your service and that is a great question.  I think this administration has to push hard for Congress to pony up the resources and it has to do the things necessary in the Pentagon and in other agencies ¬to provide the people who are able to serve on the military’s transition teams, as well as on the police’s transition teams.  It is not going to come quickly.  It is going to take a year, 18 months, to build up that capacity.  But you are right, if it is not made a priority by the administration, if it is not made a priority on the Hill, it certainly is not going to happen.

Frederick W. Kagan:  I would like just to make a point, a larger point, about the transition teams, which is often lost in the discussion.  If you are talking about a mid-team, you are talking about usually a colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, few captains, the senior NCOs, all of whom at this point have to have significant combat experience if they are going to be taken seriously by Iraqis who have been out on the field.  You have just described the command team of a brigade.  With all respect, I do not know how you find 14,000 more people like that without basically stripping bare the ranks from colonel to captain of combat vets, and I think the strain that you are talking about imposing on those people for a very long time is a major issue. 

Yes, I have read the report.  I do not agree.  I think this is a major problem.  I think it really needs to be addressed very, very seriously.  And I think this is -- not in this report but elsewhere, there is a lot of hand-waving on this subject, and I think it is something that needs to be looked into in a great deal of detail.

James Miller:  If I could just reply.  I absolutely agree that it needs to be the product of detailed military planning and it is a shame that that has not happened to date, irrespective of a one’s view on the surge.  We have a specific proposal and it was taken from an active duty Lieutenant Colonel who rode up -- who is actually leading the training of teams.  And so it may not be the right answer for every occasion, but it is a starting point for beginning a plan that we think really needs to begin to take place. 

And if you look at the structure the team has proposed, again, on average, not every team will be the same.  If you look at the structure of that team, it does require senior leadership  but it also would include, in our case, essentially an infantry platoon as that is going to provide security in other functions.  [Audio skips]

Finally, that tension that you described, Fred, is exactly why it is going to be extraordinarily difficult to ramp up the advisory capacity to make the transition.  You have to -- even if your surge succeeds in the middle of next year, it is going to be extraordinarily difficult to do that without bringing down the surge at the same time because the same people who would have deployed as leadership for the transition teams will be the same people that you would see in multiple levels at brigade battalion and company level.

Jack Keane:  Those advisory teams are crucial to the success of the Iraqi Security Forces and they have proven enviable.  I mean, we have had problems in the past with their education and preparation.  We have had problems with their selection.  And a lot of this only has to do with the stress and the strain that has already on the United States Army and the Marine Corps, literally the size of both of those forces.  Certainly, the President’s decision back in December ’06 to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps is the step on the right direction, a belated step but a step in the right direction. 

However, the best experience the Iraqi Security Forces to date have had is a byproduct of this counter-offense that we call the surge.  Because every single day, they are operating with US forces side by side, and they are seeing a standard and there is a relationship there that is strengthening the quality of their performance by those combined operations that are done at platoon company battalion level every single day around Iraq, which was not on that scale in the past, and that is raising the quality of the performance of this force.  I do not want to overstate it.  There are sectarian issues inside that force; there is incompetence in that force; there are, at times, uneven performance in that force, but there is some steady improvement on that force as well.

Danielle Pletka:  This young lady back here.

Amy Moran:  Hi, Amy Moran with US News.  You guys all brought up the topic of Anbar province, and I’m just wondering if you could discuss a little bit on to what extent what is going on in Anbar is replicable in the rest of the country, maybe particularly given it is Sunni majority there.

Jack Keane:  I would love to jump on that.  Anbar p¬rovince certainly is  considerably more of a homogenous area than other provinces in Iraq because it is largely and wholly Sunni enclave.  So, you could say that this is just an attempt from the Sunnis to leverage the government to get the best deal they possibly can, and I think that is a good thing.  Certainly, that is going on.  But the commanders, as well as the Maliki government, General Odierno and General Petraeus both recognize and recognized early on when they understood the significance and the magnitude of the seat change that took place in Anbar that this did have application in the greater Iraq and what could they do to facilitate that success in other provinces. 

So, General Odierno, with General Petraeus’ guidance, has put together a major reconciliation effort where all of his commanders are very sensitive to this and working with local leaders and the other provinces to facilitate that momentum.  And that is one of the reasons, it is not the only reason, but it is one of the reasons that this momentum has been carried in to those other provinces that Fred mentioned, specifically, about five other provinces beginning to see some of this success taking place in terms of a bottom-up [sounds like] political movement.  It is also having some impact on Shi’a leaders in some of these other provinces as well. 

Now, this is non-exclusively U.S.  And talking to General Petraeus recently, he said the Maliki government is very much involved in this and supporting the establishment of reconciliation councils out in those towns and cities and those provinces to facilitate this that has national government backing. 

And he wants it to be a linkage - and this is important - a linkage between the national government and what it is doing overall and this bottom-up political movement that is now starting to take place in the other provinces.  And without that linkage, it begs the question whether it would truly succeed or not.  So the Maliki government has got to be involved, and the fact that they are supporting those reconciliation councils with economic assistance and another aids and assistance is a huge step in the right direction.

Frederick W. Kagan:  I would like to add that I agree; everything that Jack said is right, I think, and it was heartening to see actually an Iraqi army convoy roll into Ramadi over the past few days and start doling out humanitarian assistance.  We need to see that sort of thing happening more, and hopefully we will, but that was a very good positive constructive sign. 

But the Anbar awakening is a very complicated movement and I think that it is sometimes oversimplified.  There is the aspect of tribal sheiks, negotiating with tribal sheiks to do business, which is something you can do in Anbar.  You really cannot do it in Baghdad where you do not have a tribal structure in the same way.  It is more complicated to do it elsewhere where you have mixed tribes. 

It is spreadable.  When we were down in the south, we spoke with one public affairs officer who said he took like 12 calls in one day from local tribes who wanted to talk to him about how to do local awakening movement there.  So, it is not a U.S. driven thing; it is a local-driven thing, and there is a sense on the part of Iraqis that they want to replicate what is going on, but replicated always in the unique way for their environment. 

But the other aspect that was going on in Anbar that is important is the actual negotiations with former insurgents.  And we have started to see even hard cores Sunni, Baathist and insurgent groups like the 1920s brigades.  And just as a parenthesis, these guys were such hard core Baathists that I thought going into this, this is exactly -- these are the guys that you end up having to capture or kill.  These are the guys that you never end up negotiating with because these are hard-over extremists and like that.  It turns out that they are less extreme than Al-Qaeda and that makes a difference, because even these guys have been reaching out to us and breaking ceasefire agreements with us, whereby that allowed them to go after Al-Qaeda. 

That has also been part of the Anbar movement and that has spread, and that spread into Diyala and it has spread into Baghdad, where in Baghdad we even saw the local population in Amariyah rise up on its own, attacked the Al-Qaeda in its midst, then asked for our assistance, and we ended up working together with some of the 1920s brigades there to go after what had been one of the strongest Al-Qaeda bastions in Baghdad. 

So, this is not something where you take the Anbar movement and map it anywhere else in Iraq.  It is something where local groups and the U.S. command and the Iraqi government are all working to find elements that are appropriate for each individual area and making it work as is right for those circumstances.

James Miller:  If I could very briefly –- I’m very pleased to say this is an area where we agree across the board on the approach.  I do not want to risk that, but I’ll say the transition from this policy in Anbar and elsewhere will be tricky because there is an element of the enemy of my enemy is my friend going on in Anbar and elsewhere as they side up with U.S. Forces.  That said, I’m very pleased to have agreement on this point.  I think it is perhaps the most important phenomenon for Iraqi’s security going on in the country today.

Howard LaFranchi:  Howard LaFranchi with the Christian Science Monitor.  This question is for Mr. Miller.  I’m wondering if you could address this criticism that what you are advocating, the ramping up of the advisory role, is merely a return to what we tried in the past.

James Miller:  Sure, I would be happy to.  And again, I will refer to our report which has a chapter on that very question.  Let me hit a couple of points.  Number one, the size of the advisory teams.  Again, average size, you want to tailor them to the task and to the area in which they are going to employ.  Currently, average is about 10 to 12 per military transition team; a similar number for the police transition teams.  We would more than double that, again on average, to get a larger team that is more able to get down to conducting operations with Iraqi police and military and better able to do self-defense as well. 

Number two, we call for a national priority, a top priority of the nation.  That means a presidential priority with all due respect to General [indiscernible] and others who are involved and in presence.  This is what we are going to have to do and if he says it, it will occur in November or January or it will be conditions based whatever language he wishes to use.  He needs to make it a priority and make sure that the Army makes it a priority in particular.  The rest of the military has to as well, including particularly the Marine Corps, but other agencies just to certain extent given the need for capabilities that are not currently in the Army in terms of logistics and police forces in sufficient numbers. 

And the third element is to take advantage of, if you want to put it that way, the reduction that will take place as you bring force on the surge.  And instead of having those forces go back or having the new forces deploy into a structure where they are the lead for security operations, spend the time in advance to get them trained up in terms of the capacity to act as advisors. 

This is not a fail-safe plan by any stretch.  But our view is that it is required -- my view is that it is required at some point to follow the surge whether it is in September, December, or thereafter.

Danielle Pletka:  We have one here and that will be our last question.  Right here.

Aaron Freedman:  Hi, Aaron Freedman.  I have a question for Mr. Miller.  It is not clear to me whether you are saying that Al-Qaeda cannot be defeated by any surge or just that this surge does not have enough troops and that we have to send in more troops.  And if you think that Al-Qaeda can be defeated, then why not send in more troops as opposed to drawing down?  Are you just saying that, basically, it is politically impossible to send in more troops so, therefore, we do not have a choice?  Is transition to training a better strategy than a surge that has enough troops, or you are just saying that that is necessary because it is preordained that no surge will work by the end of 2008 and that the next president, if a training program has not been put in place, will draw it down to zero and zero is the worst possible alternative?

Danielle Pletka:  Got it.  Thank you.

James Miller:  I’m saying that a transition that involves significant increase in American advisors, both the military transition team and the police transition teams, is necessary whenever the surge ramps down.  It will be essential to effect in that transition at the local provincial levels as well as at the national levels.  And my view is sooner is better than later because in part of the domestic politics, but also because it is going to be a long-term struggle overall and we are, as a nation, nearing the point of the strategic exhaustion.  That is not just Capitol Hill.  It is just not the public.  It is significant strains on the military.

The question of Al-Qaeda being defeated, some of the administrations at least have come to take in the conflict with Al-Qaeda.  I’ll call it the long war.  I think there is good reason for that, and that is it will be a long-term struggle in Iraq.  It will be a long-term struggle globally with Al-Qaeda and affiliates.  And the idea that it will be extinguished by military operations in any finite duration, I think is a fantasy.

Danielle Pletka:  Last question, right with this gentleman.

Mardi Solomon:  Jim, I thought it was an excellent assessment that you did.  And, Fred, I think that --

Danielle Pletka:  Could you identify yourself?

Mardi Solomon:  Pardon me?

Danielle Pletka:  Could you identify yourself?

Mardi Solomon:  I’m sorry.  Mardi Solomon of Commonwealth Consulting.  Fred, I think that your comments particularly about political will are extremely germane here.  But given the fact that -- I think Jim is correct.  There will not be a change in the Bush administration’s policy and political will will continue to crumble.

Jim, I do not think that your rate of change on the ramp down from 160,000 to 60,000 troops and then advisors is going to hold fast.  And, therefore, I think that you are going to be looking at plan B or plan C.

Danielle Pletka:  Is there a question here, sir?

Mardi Solomon:  Yes, I have got one.

Danielle Pletka:  Got it.  Let’s get it to it.

Mardi Solomon:  Jim, what is the most critical American interest that we have to look out for in that case of a contested withdrawal?

James Miller:  Thanks for the question.  Mardi refers to plan B and plan C in our report, which are our fallback options and we recommend the administration conduct planning around those possibilities in the event that wherever things go with respect to an advisory capacity, wherever things go with respect to the surge in the event that things really go off the rails.

We identified in our report three critical interests.  And there are broader interests in the United States but, number one, avoiding Al-Qaeda’s safe havens; not that Al-Qaeda will be extinguished in Iraq, but that it will not be a base for their activity and outward deployments in the way that Afghanistan was on September 10th.  Number two, avoiding regional war.  And if people are concerned about incursions of the Turks in the North or incursions of the Iranians, a regional war that could pit Sunnis against Shi’a across the Middle East would be another order of magnitude and these things are possible. 

And third, and to some people controversially, we have asserted that that preventing or if necessarily stopping genocide is a vital interest.  However, whatever the level of our force deployments and however that changes over time, that is a possibility and the United States ought to have a plan to deal with it.  They ought to be implementing some elements of it today.  And after starting this war, the idea of walking off and allowing genocide to happen is unthinkable.  It will be unforgivable.

Danielle Pletka:  I hope everybody has noticed today how [audio skips] discussion has been dominated by the questions of politics of whether we have political will to win, of whether we have the votes to keep the troops, of how we are going to manage the transition for the next administration, and how are we not talking about national security, the threat of terrorism, or fear of Al-Qaeda.  That is an interesting transition that we have made in this country and one that I think we are going through.

Let me thank our audience for an excellent set of questions, our panelists, but especially Jim, who did very graciously agree to come here into our little home.  To Jack, who is always so gracious and generous with his time, and to our own, Fred Kagan, who lives here after all.  Thank you all very much for that report.

[End of File]

[End of Transcript]