American Enterprise Institute

September 6, 2007

[Edited transcript from audio tapes]

2:25 p.m.	Registration
2:35	Presentation:	The Honorable Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senate
3:25	Panelists:	Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution
		Frederick W. Kagan, AEI
		General Jack Keane, U.S. Army (retired)
	Moderator:	Danielle Pletka, AEI
4:50	Panelists:	Frederick W. Kagan, AEI
		James Miller, Center for a New American Security
	Moderator:	Gary J. Schmitt, AEI
6:00		Adjournment

Proceedings:

[Panel 1: Presentation of Senator Lindsey Graham]

Danielle Pletka:  Good afternoon everybody.  Thank you for joining us here at the American Enterprise Institute.  I’m Danielle Pletka, vice president for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies here at AEI. 

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome Senator Lindsey Graham to this panel this afternoon.  Senator Graham is the senior senator from South Carolina; he has served in the Senate since January of 2003.  He is, I believe, one of the Senate’s most respected voices on Iraq as well as on other military and defense issues.  He sits on five Senate committees:  the Armed Services Committee, Judiciary, Budget, Veterans’ Affairs, and Agriculture. 

Prior to being in the Senate, he logged more than six years of active duty as an Air Force lawyer from 1982 to 1989 and served in the Air National Guard until his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1995.  Since ‘95, he has continued to serve his country in the United States Air Force Reserves and is the only U.S. senator currently serving in the Guard or the Reserves.  He is a colonel and is assigned as a senior instructor to the Air Force JAG School. 

Senator Graham recently returned from two weeks of Reserve duty in Iraq.  He also served a brief Reserve duty in April and is the only member of the Senate to have served in Iraq.  A member of the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps, he worked primarily on detainee and rule of law issues while serving in Iraq.  In addition, he has visited Iraq six times as a member of congressional delegations.  During the first Gulf War, he was called to active duty and served state-side at the McEntire Air National Guard Base as a Staff Judge Advocate where he prepared members for deployment to the Gulf region.  For that service, he received a commendation. 

It is a huge pleasure for me to have him here and for us to welcome a serious, thoughtful voice at a time of important considerations, both military and political on the question of Iraq.  Senator Graham, thank you.

 Lindsey Graham:  I hate it when the introduction is so much better than the speech.  Serious and thoughtful - those are damning words in this town.  I really do appreciate that very much.  I’m from the Federal Government and I’m here to help you -- glad you laughed.  I want to congratulate everyone for having a job where you can get away at 3:00 or 2:00 and hear me talk.  So that is a compliment to each of you.  Now, my goal is try to keep it lively, keep you awake, and be as honest and candid as I can without overselling my -- we are one lawyer short of winning the war.  I tried to provide that lawyer but I would just like to comment about the war and where we stand in terms of troop level -- troop commitment. 

The one thing that struck me the most about this last trip is morale is sky-high.  I mean, it is through the roof, noticeably different, better, sky high.  Why?  Well, I kept asking myself why.  Then a sergeant helped me figure that out, which sergeants are known to do.  Right, general?  When you got a real hard problem, ask an NCO and they will usually give you the answer.  About a year ago, I was in Iraq at lunch in one of the cafeterias, and I asked a sergeant, “How is it going?”  He said, “Sir, I feel like I’m riding around waiting to get shot.”  Not the best feeling in the world.  This last time, not long ago, I asked a sergeant - basically the same unit, different person - “How is it going, sergeant?”  “Sir, I feel like we are kicking their blank.” 

Now, from the military point of view, that is telling because the people in Iraq are doing the fighting and the dying and doing the sacrificing that is required of the surge, feel like they are engaging the enemy on new terms with a successful outcome.  There is life before the surge and there is life after the surge, politically, economically, and militarily.  I will admit to misunderstanding and making some serious mistakes about how hard it would be to go from a democracy -- from a dictatorship.  After the fall of Baghdad, I find myself overly enthusiastic about how the transition would occur.  Remember when the young man was riding the statute of Saddam?  Very grateful people?  Well, I did not understand as much as I should have about how raped the country had been economically by Saddam Hussein, how battered the people were and about the intrinsic problems that exist in Iraq. 

After about six months, the second or third trip back, maybe within the first year, it was abundantly clear to me things were not going well.  Do we have enough troops?  Yes, we do.  Is everything going to be okay?  Yes, the insurgency is in its last throes.  You name the rhetoric we heard.  Well, what I was told and what I saw about for three years did not match up and people asked, “Does it help to go?  Do you get a dog and pony show when you go?”  Well, I would argue that if you go enough, no matter what you are told, you will be able to evaluate the situation for yourself better than if you never go. 

And here was the big 30,000 view of things.  The first time I went shortly after the fall of Baghdad, we went downtown and we went shopping.  The fourth time I went, we were on a tank.  This is not getting better.  The ability to move throughout the country, the ability to engage the Iraqi people from a politician’s point of view was greatly diminished.  You did not have to be a General Patton to figure out that this is not working; that the insurgency is getting stronger, not weaker. 

So after a while we start hearing from the sergeants and the colonels and people retired: We got the wrong formula in place.  And after about three years, it finally dawned on us all that we are going nowhere quickly.  So the two gentlemen in front of us come up with an idea with their partners throughout the Department of Defense - retired folks, people on active duty - that we need to do something differently if we want to win in Iraq.  Bill Clinton said, “Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.”  It was insane to me after a while to keep the troop levels at where they were at and expect a different outcome because, literally, every time you went back it got worse.  Anbar was declared lost about six months ago -- eight months ago, whenever it was, that the intelligence report came back from the Marine Corp that Anbar province is lost. Well, the idea of adding more troops made sense to me. 

Now, I’m a military lawyer so I do not know much at all about military tactics.  If you want to get court martialed, call me and I could help you.  I was a defense attorney and a lot of my clients are in jail, so they may not vouch for me.  But I was also a prosecutor; a lot of those guys are in jail, too.  But the bottom line was good old common sense.  Interacting with the troops, looking at things a bit distant, taking the briefing and comparing notes with what you hear in the chow hall convinced me it was time for a change. 

And the change made perfect sense to me.  More troops in the right areas will create a better outcome if you use them differently.  And that is the key: Doing something different with more people is better than doing the same with more people.  The reason I wanted to advocate more people going is I thought they had a different purpose when they got there; that they were going after the enemy; they were getting at the heart of the problem.  So we send more people - over 30,000.  Well, is that a lot?  Yeah, that is a lot.  It gives you one more combat person than you had before the surge.  It doubled the combat power. 

So what have I learned?  I have learned that if you put more people on the ground and give them a new purpose, things can change.  What is the biggest change?  The Iraqi people decided they are tired of Al-Qaeda in Anbar and that had somewhat to do with us but mostly to do with Al-Qaeda.  So there is a magic meeting of the moment here.  You had Al-Qaeda in charge for a period of time and they were absolutely horribly brutal to the people under their control.  They overplayed their hand and we cannot take credit for that; that just happened.

But here is what we can take credit for.  At the time they overplayed their hand, we created a new military model, a political, economic, and military model that seized the moment.  The battle space in Anbar had changed politically because the people who had lived in that province had experienced a taste of Al-Qaeda life and they said, “No, thanks.”  It ranged from incredibly brutal behavior toward people cooperating with us, literally burning children in front of parents to banning smoking, which, if you know anything about Iraq, was a dumb move.  So the people in Anbar were ready for the taking. 

Along comes General Petraeus - more troops.  The colonel -- was it McFarlane?  [Cross-talking]  There is a colonel over there that went to a sheikh and the sheikh said, “We have had it.  Will you help us?”  The colonel on his own said, “I will have a tank in front of your house tomorrow.”  That started what is now the Anbar awakening - a colonel seized the moment, had the capacity to deliver and the Iraqi people, the Sunni Arabs in Anbar, understood that we meant it.  And here is the bottom line for me:  If the enemy thinks you do not mean it, we are going to lose.  If the enemy understands that we mean it, and the people of Iraq understand that we mean it when we say we are going to win, we will win. 

Now, one voice can interject themselves in this whole experiment in Iraq to send the wrong message.  Here, this is September; the only way we can undercut the surge is by Washington sending the wrong message.  We have turned a corner but we are not out of the wilderness yet.  The only way the enemy, in my opinion, given the dynamics that exist in Iraq, can be reenergized is from action by Washington politicians that will change the political dynamic, and that is not going to happen.  The votes are not there.  Not only has there been a surge militarily that led to success in areas of Iraq previously not known; there has been a surge here at home among Republicans to hold the line.  And here is what I think will happen sooner rather than later, depending on how Petraeus and Crocker perform.  There will be some reevaluation of Democrats who are up for election in ’08 and just Democrats in general to take a second look at Iraq. 

So what you have accomplished, gentlemen, is that you have given a chance for the Iraqi people to make a better choice.  Without our additional combat power the ability to say no to Al-Qaeda would have been difficult, if not impossible.  With the ability -- combat capability provided to the Iraqi people in Anbar, they successively said no to an extremist group that is in our national security interest to defeat. 

So the big question going into September:  Is this an isolated war front that is doing more harm to the war on terror than it is doing good, or is it the central battle front in a global struggle?  If you believe as I do, this is a war that we cannot lose globally and the first test of wills is in Iraq, then you would do what I’m going to do in September:  Fight like hell to make sure that we do not back off, in the opposite direction pour it on.  So the debate on the floor of the Senate is going to be around that central question. 

There are people who say we took our eye off the ball and we let Al-Qaeda reemerge.  I would argue quite differently.  Al-Qaeda has their eye on the ball.  Where is the ball?  The ball is in Iraq.  We are all over the world militarily.  They came to Iraq because we were there?  No.  They came to Iraq - Al-Qaeda did - because of what the Iraqi people were trying to do.  What the Iraqi people are trying to accomplish is a chilling nightmare scenario for Al-Qaeda international.  If we can successfully allow moderation to trump extremism in Iraq, a woman could have a say about her child in terms of Iraqi future.  It is a nightmare to Al-Qaeda.  They came to Iraq, in my opinion, not because we were there but because of what the Iraqi people were trying to do. 

Now, they have been diminished militarily; they have been rejected by the people in Anbar.  That is not the story of the surge to me.  That is positive news but here is the story of the surge for me.  Not only did the people in Anbar turn against Al-Qaeda and join forces with us; they have done something that will allow the success to be sustained.  Twelve thousand people have joined the police in Anbar province in ’07, and all of ’06, 1,000.  They are making a commitment to their long-term security that will allow the successes against Al-Qaeda to be sustained. 

What is next to follow?  Will they view Baghdad as part of the problem or part of the solution?  Make a prediction.  Within the next weeks, not months, there will be a major breakthrough on the benchmarks regarding political reconciliation.  Now, after the last two weeks of being a reservist, you could see Sunnis and Shias and Kurds taking a second look at Iraq.  The Sunnis are there for the taking politically.  If there were local elections this time around, unlike ’05, they would vote in droves.  They are willing now to go to the polls and elect their local leaders but, more importantly, I think they are willing to reach across the aisle, as we would say here, to form a government where they will be a significant voice as a minority in a democracy.  They are beginning to get the idea that as a minority in a democracy, you can have substantial say about your family’s future. 

The Shias are very divided.  The Shia politician that can figure out the way to sustain power is to get goodwill from the Sunni community and the Kurdish community is going to be the dominant force in Iraq for a long time to come.  Whether it is Maliki or someone else, here is what awaits politicians in Baghdad sooner rather than later:  The people are war weary;  they are tired of the killing, general.  I went all over that country talking to judges and lawyers, county officials, mayors.  Local reconciliation, ladies and gentlemen, is going on at breakneck speed and is made possible by better security.  Better security is breeding better choices and people who have experienced the fear of sending their kid to school not knowing if the child is going to come back are beginning to stand up and speak.  The awakening is not just in Anbar; it is all over the country. 

Now is the time for the United States government - its Congress - to reinforce this surge.  Not only do we need a political reconciliation in Baghdad; we need one in Washington.  We need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that whether we should have gone or not, we are there now and we cannot afford to lose. 

Now, the test for my Democratic friends is what you said in April - some of you - about the war being lost and the surge failing.  Will that define you for the rest of the time that we deal with this problem?  Are you going to let those statements haunt you to the point that you cannot sit down and listen?  Now, I have been there.  I made statements after the fall of Baghdad and I was completely wrong.  Over time, it was clear to me that I was wrong.  One thing I ask of my colleagues in the Senate, regardless of what side of the aisle you are on - listen, not based on what is going to happen in 2008 or anything you have said in the past but listen based on what is best on our country for years to come.  One thing that Petraeus and Crocker deserve is to be listened to.  Whether you believe we should have been there or not as I said is a moot question.  To deny success is to deny the obvious.  To not talk about the challenges would be a fraud on the American people.  Let’s talk about the challenges.  Let’s celebrate the successes and let’s listen. 

The surge has worked.  Political reconciliation will come.  There is a lag time between better security and politicians sitting down and working out their problems.  It is going to be shorter than you think. 

One final thought:  Being a politician, they say awful, bad things about you in this business, sometimes deserved.  I have been a judge; I have been a prosecutor, defense attorney; I have been involved in the legal system most of my life.  It is hard to lose and you get disappointed when your case falls apart or you get beat in court.  In Iraq, if you just step out and try to participate in the rule of law, they will try to kill your family.  If you want to be political leader in Iraq, they will try to kill your family.  The people involved in trying to pull this off are imperfect.  Maliki is not going to go down as George Washington.  I’m not here defending the lack of political progress; I’m here to try to put it in context.  None of us can even imagine what it is like living in that country where the insurgency was so out of control.  Why can we not do immigration?  I have got my brains beat out trying to do immigration.  Medicare, Social Security -- the politics of reaching across the aisle are difficult when political ads are being run.  They are even more difficult when the bullets fly. 

So now, because of a lot of brave young men and women, the environment is the best it has been since the fall of Baghdad for people to sit down at a table and work through their problems without constant fear.  That is what the surge has provided.  Will the Iraqi people pull it off and step up to the plate and seize the moment?  Will their politicians deliver?  They will.  Not because Senator Clinton said they should or Senator Graham said they should; because the people who live in Iraq are going to insist they will.  To the authors of the surge, to the people who advocated the surge, in spite of the political polling, I think history will judge you well.  To the politicians who have said some things about the surge prematurely, history will judge you well if you will give it a second chance.  God bless, and I will take any questions you got.

 Danielle Pletka:  The senator has agreed to take some questions.  If I can just ask everybody to abide by AEI’s rules, that is, to raise your hand; I will call on you.  And if you would be kind enough to wait for the microphone there is young man who is going to bring it to you.  Identify yourself and make your brief, one-sentence statement in the form of a question.  Thank you very much.  Questions? 

 Lindsey Graham:  I will believe this when I see it, okay?

 Danielle Pletka:  Sorry -- right in front, please.

 Bill Laker:   Hi.  Thank you.  I’m Bill Laker.  I’m concerned that the United States military is confronting elements of the Iranian Guards, the QODs in Iraq.  Is this true?  Have there been military battles between U.S. and Iranian military?

 Lindsey Graham:  It is overwhelmingly true more now than any time that I have been to Iran -- agents of the Iranian government, the QODs Force in particular, are really accelerating their efforts to destabilize Iraq and they are accelerating their efforts to arm the militia.  And the question is why.  Well, they are not stupid.  They know what is going to happen in September.  Who is the enemy in Iraq?  I think there are three enemies.  There are sectarian groups who wish to control the country from a sectarian point of view, and they are a minority within the Iraqi people; they have to be dealt with one way.  There is Al-Qaeda, an obvious enemy to us and anybody who believes in freedom; they have to be dealt with not through negotiation but through annihilation and marginalization. 

Then there is Iran, a much more sophisticated enemy but, nonetheless, an enemy of the Iraqi people and the American people.  The evidence is overwhelming.  The Karbala Case where there were five Americans kidnapped and assassinated -- I have had the chance to review that case as a military lawyer.  The evidence is overwhelming of Iranian QODs Force connections.  The EFPs -- I can give you a long list - I’m sure Petraeus and Crocker will give a better list than I can provide - of Iranian involvement.  And the question is why; there is a why to everything. 

I think the answer, to me, is obvious.  If you are an Iranian theocracy trying to hang on to power through a certain model, your worst nightmare would be to have a neighbor that uses a different model that may spur your people on to think twice about the way you are doing business.  Iran is trying to destabilize Iraq because in their long term self-interest, it would be a nightmare to have a representative government on their border.  Now, the president of Iran has done a lot of things and said a lot of things.  And about a week ago he said something I thought was chilling and I want to publicly thank him for it.  He said, “We stand ready to fill the vacuum.”  The question for America is do we stand ready to allow the vacuum to be created?  Now that is the question of our time. 

So how do you confront these people?  You fight them within Iran; you try to get the International Community to sit down with Iran and say, “Knock it off.”  And here is what they are betting on:  If they can affect the outcome here in September, if we can get a large vote to begin to withdraw, then we are in a weakened condition when it comes to negotiating with Iran.  What if this happened?  What if there was a surge of political support for the surge here in Washington and the International Community, all at the same time, reengage Iran from a position of strength?  I think that is the correct model in terms of dealing with Iranians’ effort to destabilize Iraq. 

The Gulf Arab States, they will tell you privately how afraid they are of Iran and they will say we have to do something about it.  And my response is, “‘We’ means more than me.  We need a surge from the international community, sir.  Gulf Arab States need to reopen their embassies. It is something tangible.  It would be a statement by them that they see things getting better in Iraq.  The money dedicated to help reconstruct Iraq by the Gulf Arab State neighbors needs to be delivered upon.” 

The French are talking about coming in.  You do not have to send troops to help Iraq; there are many things you can do.  And the more the International Community will help Iraq, the weaker Iran becomes in its efforts to destabilize Iraq.  We need a surge of international, regional support for the Iraqi people.  The main goal is not only to stabilize Iraq but to contain Iran and that is the best way to do it.

 Barry Schweid:  Supposing you are correct -- 

Danielle Pletka:  Identify yourself...

 Barry Schweid:  Oh, Barry Schweid of AP.  I’m trying to look further down the road.

 Lindsey Graham:  Yes, sir.

 Barry Schweid:  Supposing you are correct - there is reconciliation; presumably, you need fewer troops.  Then what happens to Iraq?  What is Iraq’s road?  Do you remember the original idea that everybody -- a lot of people ridiculed?  That Iraq could be the inspiration for democracy in the Middle East?  That was the original idea.

 Senator Graham:  Yes, sir.

 Barry Schweid:  What is your prognosis?  What happens if there is reconciliation?  American troops leave - what happens to Iraq?

 Lindsey Graham:  Okay.

 Barry Schweid:  Can it survive?

 Lindsey Graham:  Well, can Iraq survive?  The question is can we allow it to fail?  The difference between a dysfunctional government and a failed state are enormously different.  We have a dysfunctional government.  Can we create a mechanism for it to become stable?  And your question is if you succeed, what does it mean?  I think it is enormous.  I think the dividends to a functioning government in Iraq that is tolerant of its different populations that would allow representative democracy to flourish is enormous. 

Qadafi gave up his weapons.  Why?  He thought he would be next, right?  I think that is the generally-held view that the fall of Saddam had a ripple effect in a positive way.  O-five was a great year - you had elections in Egypt; you had Syria being kicked out of Lebanon.  O-six was a disaster.  Why?  Because you have a thinking enemy; that enemy is Iran.  The gains in Lebanon had been rolled back because what did Hezbollah do?  At a moment in time when Iran was being pressed by the UN, they created another front; they created a war between Hezbollah and Israel. 

So this I a chess game and the outcome -- I cannot promise you that I know the future of the Middle East but I can promise you this, that if we can get a foothold on a stable government in Iraq, it is the best way to contain Iran.  If it can be a functioning stable government that will allow its people to live in peace and prosperity, the benefits to the region are enormous.  It means Al-Qaeda is not coming back.  It means that Iran is not going to be the puppet -- be the owner of a puppet state in the south. 

Can it be sustained?  The answer is yes, and it goes back to the people.  Once you have tasted peace and prosperity, once you have had a break from the killing and once you feel like your children are going to have a better life, I would not want to be the person to try to take that away from you.  So the ultimate answer to your question is will the Iraqi people fight to maintain the gains they have achieved?  I have been there enough to believe that they will.  It is up to them.

 Howard LaFrankie:  Howard LaFrankie with the Christian Science Monitor.  Thank you, Senator.  You said that you expect to see in weeks, not in the next week, not months, progress on benchmarks in terms of political reconciliation.  You talked a lot about sheiks and local populations coming around, but I’m wondering what you saw in the government that leads you to say that and what progress you would expect to see and what issues --?

 Lindsey Graham:  I saw a lot of scared politicians and I have been there; I have been there.  The best thing that happened is for those folks to get out of Baghdad in August.  Now, I thought at the time that was a dumb thing; they need to keep slogging through it and push hard and not go home.  Well, some of them went home and they got an earful. 

What happened a week ago, Sunday, was very important.  The five major players recommitted themselves to creating a process that would lead to reconciliation.  They agreed on a document that would allow them to go forward.  I think you will have a deBaathification [sounds like] law passed sooner rather later.  I think you will have local elections sooner rather than later. But the thing that encouraged me the most was the prison visit.  I went to the central Baghdad prison as Colonel Graham and we invited Vice President Hashemi, the Sunni Vice President, to come and also a Shia Vice President, Al-Mahdi, the SCIRI representative. 

You think immigration’s tough?  Trust me, it is.  Trust me -- trust me, it is tough.  Imagine being a politician in Iraq where 85 percent of the people in jail are your constituents.  Imagine having a state where most of the people in jail are Republicans and you are a Republican.  This detention issue - prison issue - is incredibly volatile.  Ripe for demagoguery, right?  I mean, it is the ultimate issue to tee up; it is sort of their immigration. 

We invited them to tour the jail because we are proud of the efforts we had been making to train the Iraqi prison guards.  We are increasing capacity for the judges; we have built them a court room.  We built a secure facility where the judges and their families could live.  We built a prison inside that compound.  It is called the Rule of Law or Green Zone and we wanted the Iraqi politicians to see it because it is now theirs.  And I would have bet everything I own they would not have come. 

When I’m in a photo with Ted Kennedy, it haunts me for weeks, months, because of the nature of politics here at home.  So when Senator Kennedy and I sat down to try to work on immigration, well, that is tough politics because there are people in my side do not like him and there are probably people on his side do not care much for me.  But we said, “Okay, we are not going to play that game here; we are going to try to solve this problem.”  When those two Vice Presidents agreed to be filmed together, that was a significant event and I walked around with them.  And the Sunni Vice President was held as a hero because he was coming to the jail and he was looking at the problems his people faced.  The Shia Vice President was respected by coming. 

When they toured the jail, they sat down in front of the judge and they started giving the judge a hard time about the slow progress of getting people out of jail into the court.  I thought I was in South Carolina where you had two politicians beating on a bureaucrat.  And the judge was saying, “My God, guys, if you gave me more I could do more.”  And both politicians turned to each other and said, “Yeah, okay.  Let’s do it.” 

The press release from the Vice President Hashemi complained about how long it took to get to court, not the outcome.  He did not accuse the judges of giving sectarian verdicts.  He said, “We need more capacity.”  The Shia politician said, “We have had too many people in jail under too tough circumstances.  We need a better process to get some of these people out of jail.”  For them to have said that convinced me beyond any other event I have seen since I have been going to Iraq the people are thinking about coming together, not staying apart. 

From a Shia point of view, if you could show the Sunnis that you have some sympathy for a big issue facing them, then your stock goes up.  From a Sunni perspective, if you are willing to throw a bone to the government that at least you are trying -- that told me all I needed to know about what is going to come.  Based on that one visit I’m standing up here with the cameras rolling predicting that that attitude of making gestures in a positive way to each other is going to lead to reconciliation.  And I asked the Shia Vice President, “Why did you say that?”  And here is what he said: “In the ‘60s, I was in jail for two years under Saddam.  It made a man out of me but it killed my family.  I know what these families are going through.  We cannot let that happen to Iraq.”  Pretty telling; that is why we are going to have reconciliation.  Anything else?  One last question.  I will let smart people talk after this.

 Ketil Raknes [phonetic]:  Yeah, I’m Ketil Raknes.  I’m a Norwegian journalist.  You said that morale in Iraq is sky high and going through the roof.  How do you substantiate that claim?  I mean, from -- I have not been to Iraq so my impression is that --

 Lindsey Graham:  Going eight times, knowing the difference, sitting there for 11 days, eating three meals a day with them, going all over the country, hearing what they tell you, seeing it in their face.  One thing I have learned about being in the military -- you can tell when the troops feel like they are going forward and when they are going backward.  Reenlistments are sky-high.  Those who have served in Iraq are reenlisting at the largest numbers of anybody in the military.  The Army met its recruiting goal.  The one thing I would tell my colleagues in the Senate:  Go to Iraq.  The more you go, the more you will learn. 

And as to the troops, one caution to my colleagues here in Washington:  The only way we are going to break this army is to take away from them the chance to win.  The Army is strained; the Marine Corps is pushed to the limits.  But if you want to break them, deny them the chance to win.  They will do everything asked to win and then some.  My last visit convinced me more than anything else that the biggest benefit from the surge is to take the men and women on the front lines and change their attitude about their mission.  They have gone from riding around waiting to be shot to feel like they are kicking their ass.  God Bless.

 Danielle Pletka:  Thank you very much, Senator.

 Lindsey Graham:  Thank you very much.

 Danielle Pletka:  Five minutes.  Five minutes to our next panel.

[First Panel]

Danielle Pletka:  Ladies and gentlemen, I think we are going to go ahead with our panel.  Thank you.  I’m happy to encourage people to move -- some of you to move forward a little bit if you would like.  I only need some reserved seats.

 Again, welcome back.  I’m Danielle Pletka.  I’m the Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies here at AEI.  This is our first panel in our conference on the question of a middle way on Iraq.  I’m proud to be joined by a colleague and two very, very good friends here on the dais.

Next to me is General Jack Keane.  General Keane is a career paratrooper -- I ought to be able to do this from memory by now.  General Keane is a career paratrooper, combat veteran of Vietnam.  He is a four-star general and he completed 37 years in public service in December of 2003, culminating as acting Chief-of-Staff and Vice-Chief-of-Staff of the US Army.  He is a member of the Secretary of Defense’s Policy Board.  He is now the senior managing director and co-founder of Keane Advisors, which is a private equity and consulting firm.  We are lucky to have him today.  He was testifying this morning on Capitol Hill on the question of Iraq.  He has traveled there frequently this year but also in the years past as a consultant to the Defense Department.  We certainly value his help and work here at the American Enterprise Institute.

 Next down on my right is Michael O’Hanlon who is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, and also a veteran Iraq traveler.  He is a specialist on US Defense Strategy and the use of military force, Homeland Security and American Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution.  He is also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University.  He has written frequently on the Op-ed pages and in monographs on the question of Iraq.  And I’m very grateful to Michael that he was willing to be here today.

 Last but not least, Frederick Kagan who had to be here today and is the reason that we are all here today to discuss a report that has been issued by AEI that we will cover a little bit more fully in our second panel this afternoon, that is, “No Middle Way” report on Iraq.  Fred has been at AEI for several years.  He joined us from West Point.  He has been to Iraq three times this year and has been writing copiously, if I may say so, on the question of US troops in Iraq.

It think it is safe to say that all three of the gentlemen sitting to my right here today have been hard-nosed and thoughtful observers of the situation on the ground inside Iraq.  They have been honest in calling the shots as they see them and now is a perfect opportunity for us to hear from them.

So General Keane if you would start today.  Thank you.

 Jack Keane:  I’m sorry, I got the mechanics down.  Thanks for the invitation.  I’m glad to be back and as well as sitting on this distinguished panel here with Fred and Mike, both great guys.  I just returned from Iraq, spent two weeks there in August.  I have been taking a 90-day snapshot every 90 days starting in February, normally, about two weeks.  I do the normal Iraqi and US government official and military briefings but I focus my visit on the street.

 I grew up on the streets of New York and maybe that is why I’m comfortable but that is where I spend a lot of my time because I think the rhythm and patterns of life are very important and they truly - when you are dealing with people - reflect what is happening in the country and particularly what is happening to them.  After all, it is all about the Iraqi people.  That was the basis for my visit.

Zero-six was a horrific year, remember?  This government was moving towards a cliff; Baghdad was literally on fire.  We conducted two operations to try to regain security.  Together forward, one and two, we failed.  Even to the casual observer, we realize that we had a failed strategy.  I had supported that strategy from ’03 to August of ’06 and then I realized it had failed.

After that, I felt we needed a new strategy.  The only alternative that was left to us was to increase the force level and regain security so that we could make some progress economically and politically.  I took that message to Secretary Rumsfeld and to General Pace.  I worked a weekend here with Fred and his great guys on the specifics of that strategy and wound up in the Oval Office in December, talking about the specifics of it.  It became known as the surge; truth be known, militarily it is a counter-offensive.  That is what it really is.

It is important to remember the purpose is to establish security as a precondition for economic development and political progress; to buy time for that and to buy time for the development of the Iraqi security forces.  It was always intended to be temporary; twelve to eighteen months is what its intention has been and still is to this day.

In my judgment, where are we now?  In an overview, we have made remarkable progress.  Some of it is quite unforeseen and we have had some disappointments to be sure.  We have got plenty of challenges remaining.  I want to make six points to you before I give you a conclusion.

One is security.  The security has dramatically improved.  The trends are all moving in the right direction.  The number of attacks is down.  Sectarian killings are dramatically down 75 percent from a year ago.  Suicide car bombs are down.  US casualties are now coming down.  We knew US casualties would go up initially because you are conducting a counter-offensive.  It was true with the Normandy invasion, which was a counter-offensive; it was true in Inchon, which was a counter-offensive; the Marines island-hopping in the Pacific was a counter-offensive, and we did a couple in Vietnam which were as well.  Hopefully, this trend in casualties starting to come down that has been going on for two months will continue.  But what you really see what is happening -- you get away from the briefing and you get on to the street and it becomes very obvious to you of the dramatic changes unfolding in Iraq, particularly when you take 90-day snapshots, and neighborhoods in Iraq are very different.

So I have been down to all of those neighborhoods in Baghdad and in the suburbs - an American term - around Baghdad.  There is progress being made in all of them despite some of the challenges in some of them, and that is very obvious.  Schools are open and they were closed in ’06.  Markets are all teeming with people; some are operating full capacity and some are still trying to get to full capacity, particularly the ones in the Sunni neighborhoods which have been on a diet in terms of services and other things.  But when I take a 90-day snapshot, it improves 10 or 20 percent each time I come back.  Clinics are operating; hospitals are operating; merchants are selling goods.

There is obviously a very vast difference between a Shia middle-class neighborhood, which looks much like any middle-class neighborhood in terms of goods that are being sold and even comparable to what you would see in America, to a Sunni neighborhood where it does not have that range or goods and the socio-economic factors are different.  But nonetheless, goods are being sold; merchants are selling them; markets are open; people are there in very large numbers.

This is important data because the rhythm and patterns of life - of sending children to school, unescorted, having them come home, walking the streets, seeing people in cafes at pool halls at night in their casual leisure time when the heat is going down in the country - is an important footnote to what has happened in the lives of the Iraqis.  When you talk to them and they are very willing to talk to you, whether they be Sunni, Shia or whatever, the point is that they believe things are improving.  It is almost to a person. 

They have frustrations about essential services not coming fast enough.  Some of them do not like these barricades up because [indiscernible] the flow of people, et cetera.  But nonetheless, when you draw back from it and listen to what they are saying, one, security is improved: “We are glad the Americans are here.”  Many of them have confidence also in Iraqi security forces -- not all of them.  Second point:  Al Qaeda is seriously hurt and they are on the defensive.  They have lost Anbar Province, literally kicked out of there by the Sunni people, literally and so many are aided and assisted by Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] and Colonel Charlton -- is that his name?  I mentioned those names because they are Army guys.  No, they worked on Ramadi.  The Marines are also doing their part there.  It has been tremendous work that the military has done. 

But the catalyst for it - let’s give credit where credit is due - is truly the Sunni people in Anbar Province themselves.  I do not want to repeat what Senator Graham said; they deserve the credit.  But we drove them out of Diyala Province, which was a stronghold that they established in the provincial capital called Baqubah.  We just did that in the end of July and it was a remarkable operation.  They are gone from Baqubah and the people are returning to normalcy.

The Sunnis are isolating the al Qaeda and this is very important because I am convinced in my own mind, dealing with the larger issue of extremists, radical Islamists - al Qaeda in Iraq - you put them all in the same bag and you are not going to destroy them by killing them and capturing them alone.  You have to hold their behavior liable to be sure.  But the moderates will defeat them because they will isolate them.  That is what defeats radical Islam in my view and also what defeats the Al Qaeda in Iraq.  The fact that the Sunnis are isolating them is very important.  We have been killing and capturing these guys for years by the thousands, to be quite frank about it, and they have been able to regenerate.  But the fact that the Sunnis are isolating them and they have no place to go and they cannot get their foothold in is very significant.

They are up in the Diyala River Valley right now; this is where some of them fled from Baqubah.  We are now conducting a very aggressive and, I may say, a very successful operation against them in that Diyala River Valley because we want to stay on the offensive, stay aggressive.  We do not want them to be able to reset.  This all about the momentum that this military operation has and it is very important.

The other footnote about Al Qaeda is they have tried all throughout ’07 to provoke the Shia response that they got in ’06 which put Baghdad on fire and nearly pushed the country off the cliff.  The Shias have not responded.  They have absolutely failed despite numerous provocations and their exclusive killing of Shias and most of them innocent people and those horrific car bombings.  They have not provoked the Shia response that we had in ’06.

Third point:  In my judgment, the Sunni insurgency is rapidly fading away.  It is remarkable what has taken place.  This is probably - and I agree with Senator Graham - the most dramatic change since the invasion.  It is going to have profound impact.  What has happened?  There has been a tribal revolt against the al Qaeda and it has led to a Sunni insurgent conversion from fighting us to helping us.  It is fundamentally a political movement and a social phenomenon that is changing the security and political landscape of Iraq.

Tribes are part of the fabric of Iraqi society.  Almost everybody in Iraq belongs to a tribe and they have greater allegiance to that than they have to the religious sect, have greater allegiance to it than they have to any provincial government and, certainly, greater allegiance to it than they have to any central government.  So the significance of this is very important in terms of what it portends for the future in Iraq, given the breadth and depth of the movement itself.  It started in Anbar as the Senator pointed out.  But listen to me;  this is now in four other provinces and this is spreading faster than we can keep up with it.  It is in Ninawa province, in Northern Babil province; it is in Diyala province as well, and it is in Salah ad-Din and it is also in the capital city of Baghdad.  It is now touching about 40 percent of Iraq and almost all of the contested areas where the fighting has been going on.  Interesting enough, as an editorial comment, it is spreading to Shia tribes, as well, where they are rejecting the Shia militia, not on anything like the scale of the Sunnis but, nonetheless, that is beginning to happen.

As I went around the country and talked to the commanders, it was just so dramatic to see since May the difference that I was encountering in August.  My back-of-the-envelope addition counted 30,000 people who are now working for us who weeks and months ago were fighting us.  I spoke to some of them and some of their leaders that brought them in to do it; that was remarkable in and of itself - males in their 20s, early 30s; all of them, to a person, insurgent fighters.  Some are even describing to me where they fought a battle against our forces just a matter of weeks ago.  This is a very dramatic thing that is taking place in Iraq - the Sunni insurgent conversion that is unfolding before our eyes.

What is really happening with this, in my view, is at the tactical level -- and I apologize for using military terms.  The issue at the tactical level is security and it is anti-Al Qaeda in nature; that was the catalyst for it because of the repressiveness of the al Qaeda themselves.  They do not want to live under that brutality.  But there is also a strategic aspect of this, which is very important because it is a political movement.  They are recognizing that they cannot win in Iraq.

Their original goals were to regain the regime, to drive the Shia-dominated government out.  They are exhausted by this war and the fact of the matter is that they were fighting us, U.S.; they were fighting Iraqi security forces; they were fighting Shia militia in a very heavy way in ’06 and now, they are fighting the al Qaeda and they cannot handle all of that.  They cannot get to the political objectives they want using the means that they had, which was armed violence.  So the strategic nature of this is very important.  Also at the strategic level, what they are doing is trying to leverage the United States - the United States military, the United States government in the sense of Ambassador Crocker to leverage the Shia-dominated government so that they can gain political influence and get material gains from that.

What do they want?  Initially what they want is participation in the Iraqi security forces because they want security for their communities.  They want essential resources and services and they need money to get all of that.  The challenge facing Maliki and us is to take this incredible movement that is growing faster than we could ever imagine and connect it to the Maliki government in some coherent meaningful way.

Is Maliki doing anything about it?  Here Maliki deserves some credit.  Maliki has been a challenge, for sure, as presiding over a dysfunctional government, but here is what he has done.  He has been at Anbar three times.  He just provided $107 million to Ramadi to provide for reconstruction.  That is real money in a major city in the capital city of the province.  When he goes out there and has visits, he sits down in a room with the sheiks and tribal leaders and, believe me, he knows that these guys were trying to overthrow his regime and they were using violent means to do it.  But he is making accommodations to them because he understands the significance of it.

In Anbar province alone, there are 18,000 people who were former Sunni insurgents on the payroll - 18,000; most of them in the police, some of them in the army.  Now, we have photographed them; the Iraqi military has done it.  They photographed them, they have fingerprinted them and they have retina-scanned them.  So now, we have a databank.  This is important to understand - they are not asking for authorization to have a separate Sunni militia.  They are asking to participate in Iraqi security forces, which is very meaningful because they are becoming part of the fabric of the Shia-dominated government.  I think that is a huge stretch.

We just finished the military operation of Baqubah at the end of July.  Maliki was in there within about a week to 10 days meeting again with sheiks and tribal leaders.  He has put $38 million in Baqubah and has touched over 70 percent of the people.  This is real money and when they are moving money around Iraq, they move it in a military convoy and they carry it in bags in a truck and they start handing them out upon arrival.  This is a completely different operation than what you are used to.  There is no wire transfer here, all right?  This is cash upfront; very meaningful; people walk away and it is having positive impact.  560 tons of wheat arrived about 10 to 12 days ago in 21 trucks in Baqubah and there is a flour mill operating.  I mention this because the Maliki government is involved in this linkage.  If this thing is going to be successful, one, the Maliki government has to be sensitive to it and, two, they have to start doing something about it.

Now we would want this to continue.  We would want his involvement to grow, certainly.  Now let’s face facts here.  There are elements in the Maliki government that are very concerned about this.  They have understandable paranoia and fears that these are Baathists and all this is a strategic pause so they can regain the initiative after they regrow themselves and they are coming after the regime again.  That could be true; that is possible.  And you can understand that kind of paranoia.  But, also, as a political leader responsible for your people and security, it would be certainly irresponsible to not take the deal and to not cease the opportunity.  It appears to me that they are seizing the opportunity.  They are going to get all the encouragement they could possibly stand, certainly from Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus in this view.

This is a very significant development that is taking place in Iraq.  In my own mind, it is so powerful that it is going to have profound impact on the national government.  I agree completely with what the Senator said:  It is going to move them towards national reconciliation in some form or matter; maybe not in a way that we browbeat them to achieve, but in some form. Now, already, they are doing some forms of it because, look, the De-Baathification law that we are trying to get passed, we want to bring people, particularly Sunnis, into the government and get them into the Iraqi security forces which they have been kept out of particularly in the police.  That is already happening; Maliki is making that decision.  He is already sharing revenues without the Oil Law.  I mean, the Oil Law will be certainly more comprehensive but the fact he is sharing revenues already is a good sign that could maybe lead to that reconciliation at the national level.

Third thing:  Amnesty and immunity -- de facto, he is doing it.  If there are 30,000 people out there running around with weapons fighting on our side versus their side, there is something happening there, de facto, in terms of immunity and amnesty.  Could that change in a few years?  Certainly it could, but the fact of the matter is he is doing it.

Fourth point:  The Shia militia is still a problem.  They are fragmented, to be sure; they are killing US forces and the numbers of that is certainly of concern.  The sectarian influence in the police -- less in the army and in the government as a result of the Shia militia.  And there is certainly Iranian influence and that is a problem and also a challenge for us.  Nonetheless, there is some positive movement in this area as well but still a lot of concern in this area.

In my own mind, as the Sunni development continues to take hold and as the al Qaeda continues to be weakened, the very justification for the bad militia, so to speak -- not the good militia; the bad militia starts to evaporate and more political pressure can be applied against it.  I think Sadr’s behavior is being influenced to some degree by Sustani and possibly also by Iran in terms of what he is doing right now in calling for the ceasefire.  By the way, he has broken five ceasefires in the past and I’m sure this one will be broken as well.  But Shia militias are still a problem and so is sectarian influence.

Iraqi security forces -- point number five:  The Iraqi army is improving in its capability.  It is already in the lead in northern Iraq.  It has taken over the lead in southern Iraq despite some of the problems down there.  It will eventually take over the lead in western Iraq as we pull out of Anbar province.  Gradually over time, little by little, starting in ’08, they will start to take over certain neighborhoods in certain towns in certain districts in Baghdad and in the suburbs around it.

So this is a good story.  The national police are fundamentally broke.  Nine brigades that General Hussein -- and I spent some time with; he fired all nine brigade commanders, 17 of his 24 battalion commanders, and they are still broke.  I have run out of patience with it; I told the Generals, “Disband it.”  They do not want to do that and I can understand why.  They want to get them out of Baghdad, get them up in the provinces and still work it because they have invested a lot in it.  There are nine brigades; there are a lot of people; there are some leaders there that they think are of value and they do not want to give up on it yet.  They are as frustrated as anybody else is, certainly, but they do not want to give up on it.

The local police or the Iraqi police are mixed results, that is to be sure.  Some of them have sectarian influence and some of them are not very good and some of them are okay.  The thing I will say about police -- just remember when you are dealing with a counter insurgency, police are always the last thing to get fixed.  It is no exception here in Iraq; it is going to take some time and it is not going to happen overnight.  That is the reality of it.

The political progress in Iraq is my sixth point.  It is what it is.  At the national level, it has not met some of the expectations people had but I think those expectations have been, quite frankly, so unrealistic.  To think that we could get that done within about 90 days of being in full stride with our military operation which came to full stride at the end of June, and here we are expecting all of these national benchmarks or at least some of them to have been achieved.  Now, maybe if one or two of them had been achieved, everyone would feel better about it.  But I do think that the fact that they are moving in that direction, we should judge that as progress.  The fact that they have not achieved these benchmarks, we should not consider that as failure, which people are doing.

The national benchmarks in the United States of America -- they are like those old vinyl records we used to have.  Remember they would get stuck in a groove there?  This thing is stuck in a groove called national benchmarks and we cannot see beyond it.  So what else has happened in Iraq?  That is the reality of it.  Particularly, the political movement that is coming from the local level and the provincial level is very significant and this will have some overwhelming effect on the national leadership.

One thing about this Crocker team that is there -- I have been very critical of the embassy in the past.  Ambassador Crocker and the team that he has just put together in the last 69 days is absolutely first-rate.  These people are committed; they are passionate; they want to win; they are willing to take some personal risks to get out there to do this.  They are on top of this thing.  I am convinced to put this team with that weak, at-times-dysfunctional Maliki government, they are going to make some progress here and much more so than what we have had in the past.

We got this real security progress that is taking place.  There is some economic assistance finally happening but not to the degree we would like it to happen.  The Iraqi army is making some improvements to the point where they are going to be able to transition with us.  We still have some disappointments and I mentioned some of those, and we have some challenges.  Certainly, in my view those disappointments and the challenges that we have should not be able to trump the success that we have achieved and squander the gains that our soldiers have made through their sacrifice.  That makes absolutely no sense and, certainly, people are suggesting that we do that very thing.

What we have to do is continue this military operation.  Let it buy time for the Maliki government to make some improvement.  Let’s continue the economic assistance.  And I could not agree more because I said it this morning in testimony with Senator Graham that now is the time for the Congress of the United States, both Democrats and Republicans, to strike a deal, to come together in a bipartisan fashion, to support this progress that has been achieved and carry it forward into ’08.  We will reduce our forces in ’08, probably, to pre-surge levels.  We said from the outset that it was always going to be temporary and that is within the margin of acceptable risk.  What it would look like beyond ’08 I think is too far away to tell.  Hopefully, we would be able to reduce our forces further in ’09, but I do not think anybody can make an accurate assessment on what that would be.  It has to be condition-based; you have heard that term before - it is a military term.  It has to be based on the conditions which are, one, the security in the area and two, the capacity of the Iraqi security forces to take over responsibilities from us.  Thank you.

Michael O’Hanlon: 

Thank you, Danielle.  It is an honor to be here and to speak after General Keane and to be part of this important conversation.  I want to agree very much with almost all of what he said.  I want to take a little bit different tack, though, and express a bit more concern about the state of Iraqi politics.  That is going to lead me to in the second part of my, hopefully, brief presentation say a couple of words about middle ways if there are any other ones besides the ones that I think Fred Kagan and others will discuss thereafter in the rest of the afternoon.

Before I do that I want to talk a little bit about the battlefield realities where I do agree very much with General Keane.  I would like to, frankly, take advantage of this moment because he has done such a nice job laying out the basic argument to actually take on the GAO a little bit because I know that these questions are on your mind.  I, hopefully, will do this in a collegial spirit towards the GAO, an organization that I have a lot of respect for.  But frankly, right now, there is a certain amount of debate, to put it mildly, about whether there is military momentum in Iraq, whether there is battlefield progress.  I think we have to establish that.

Coming off my brief trip to Iraq and more importantly perhaps, or, at least, more sweepingly over the years -- many years of study of this problem, to me that is the central reality we do have to agree on because I think it is a reality; it is factual.  There is plenty of room for debate about everything else in my judgment, about whether the military progress is sufficient to warrant the continued expenditure of American lives and treasure, about the opportunity cost that we have in Iraq that we could be using, frankly, our foreign policy muscle, the time of our leaders, our image, our reputation around the world and other enterprises.  In the end, I support the Surge but I think there is a serious argument that one can make that even with the military momentum that is real it is still not enough to justify continuation of this. 

But let’s begin with a real solid foundation in the facts.  There is military momentum.  Let me say a few more words about why and therefore a few more words about why I must respectfully but strongly disagree with the GAO.  The GAO spent a lot of time on the 18 famous benchmarks.  I’m not going to talk about that, except to make a comment in passing that perhaps there is a standard of success the GAO is measuring against that was unrealistically high.  It should have been looking more for progress towards that standard instead of attainment of that standard.  That is a reasonable point to disagree about.  What I do not think the GAO did very well or responsibly was in its presentation of information about the security environment in Iraq. 

To put it a little more specifically, if you look at the GAO report, they talk here and there about not being able to document any improvement whatsoever in the environment.  I think that is just wrong.  In fact, I think what the GAO did was to look at different parts of our government, different databases and say, “You know what?  Different organizations define sectarian violence in various ways.  Their own internal measures may vary from one month to another.  There is imprecision in all the data and therefore we are going to throw the whole thing out,” and basically say, “Since we cannot document anything according to the standards of rigor that we would like, we are going to make the assertion that we cannot see any progress whatsoever.” 

On the one hand, if you are trying to protect yourself from saying something wrong, that is a very smart way to go.  On the other hand, if you are trying to take in a situation that is inherently messy and inherently imprecise -- it is a war zone for heaven’s sake and perhaps, some of the US government agencies have not done a good enough job identifying standards they can use consistently.  Nonetheless, it is a war zone; you are not going to get precise data.  You have to, at some point, use your best judgment.  The GAO, in my opinion, did not do that.

If you take your best judgment, if you look at DOD data, if you look at the National Intelligence Community’s information as reflected in their recent National Intelligence estimate, people agree.  People who are on the ground collecting data agree there is an improvement.  The Iraq Body Count Project, which is an NGO in England - it does very good work on this - they have also documented a decrease.  There is plenty of room for disagreement about how much and I would be the first to acknowledge it has not yet been anywhere near what it needs to be.  We have probably taken violence back down to 2004 levels in Iraq.  That is huge progress relative to 2006 but it still leaves Iraq as by far the bloodiest country in the region, still very much a nation at war.  One does not have to sugar-coat but nonetheless there has been, by any metric I have been able to look at and study and by virtually any data source that I have been able to identify, real progress.

On this point, I think today’s Washington Post story was not very careful either, to be blunt.  I think they took some indicators of uncertainty in the measurements, some concern that there had not yet been a sufficient standardization of categories and they then said, “Okay, we cannot document any improvement whatsoever.”  That is just not, in my judgment, the most careful way to do this kind of business.  At some point you have to recognize the inherent nature of the data you are dealing with.  People who are on the ground - again I’ll cite them - DOD, national intelligence organizations, Iraqi Ministry of Health, Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, Iraq Body Count - all agree that there have been trend lines in the favorable direction, reductions in violence over the course of this year by almost any category.

Now Petraeus is going to talk about extrajudicial killings, sectarian murders; that may be a category where we have seen a steeper drop.  Obviously in August, we did not see a drop in car bomb deaths for that month because of the tragedy on August 14th in the North.  If you look at overall trend lines over the course of this year, by virtually any definition of violence you want to take in Iraq, by virtually any data source that is doing work on the ground, there has been an improvement.  It is probably anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent or even maybe 75 percent, depending on which subcategory you look at and which source you believe.  Let’s not disagree about this reality.  I do not think there is room for serious disagreement.  I just needed to be blunt on this point because I know it is on a lot of people’s minds and I do think the GAO, in an effort to do a serious study, nonetheless made a big mistake.

That is my first point.  I’m just going to make one other broad set of comments or set of points and then be done.  I look forward to Fred’s thoughts.  It is the question of whether there is a middle way, a third way, and I wind up fairly sympathetic to, I think, the argument that Fred’s about to make although I should not assume I know what it is exactly.  But I do think it is going to be hard to think of such another path besides the logic of the surge in the short term.  Let me walk through very quickly -- just a couple of what the natural alternatives might be leaving the issue of the CNAS study, the Baker Hamilton logic, the train and equip concept more for Fred’s remarks.  But I want to think about a couple of others.

One of them, which is my favorite -- I wrote a paper on it in June with Ed Joseph, The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq:  The Bosnia Model -- create three autonomous zones -- there already is one.  The constitution already allows more and allows people to relocate voluntarily if they wish, build up regional governance and regional security forces.  Instead of having so much be done through Baghdad, insist on some kind of a resource allocation scheme that is fair to all.  I like this idea; others on this panel may not as well.  I bet you Danielle does not, for example.  But let me say one thing where I bet most of this category -- right now, the Iraqis do not want it or at least they are not going to do it.  Now, I would say Shia public opinion, Kurd public opinion is moving in this direction but that is not the same thing as saying that Iraqi political leaders are going to make this kind of a deal now. 

By the way, even if they did, you would still need US troops at very large numbers there for a couple-of-year transition period.  Then you get a mission that looks like a large-scale Bosnia mission thereafter.

So I think you have a 150,000 US forces for the first year and a half and then 50,000 to 100,000 for the next few years, even if you could negotiate a soft partition that allows for creation of Sunnistan and Shiastan, if you will, in addition to Kurdistan.  So soft partition, whether you like it or not, is probably not going to happen.  Even if it did, it would not allow us to reduce forces quickly.  Just thinking broadly -- what about the Musharaf option, the strong-man option?  Or the Ataturk [phonetic] option, if you want to think regionally?

Of course, I could think of some people who I would not mind seeing in charge of Iraq in that kind of a way, a strong man, a benign autocrat.  But of course the Iraqis may not agree with me and they are more important in this decision than I am.  How are you going to create a strong man?  Even if you had such a person in position, and you suspended democracy for six or eight years and implement it by dictat [sounds like], some of these ideas that we commonly believe to be necessary for long-term reconciliation, like fair oil-sharing or reform de-Baathification, how are you going to choose that right person and get the security forces to obey that person’s commands?

The strong-man option is nice in theory.  If an Ataturk showed up in Iraq tomorrow, I would not be writing.  I will promise right now, go on the record, I’m not going to write any op-eds opposing that person.  I will be delighted to see that person able to successfully rule in an autocratic fashion.  But it is not going to happen; there is no such person and the security forces would not listen to him even if he existed.  So I do not believe that option to be viable at this time.

My co-author from the July 30th  New York Times op-ed that I recently wrote, Ken Pollack, is increasingly in favor of new elections in Iraq and a new electoral system that would give more power to the geographic zones and less to the parties as a way to try to weaken the sectarian-oriented political parties in Iraq.  I think it is a great idea but as a practical matter - I hope Ken continues to push it; Charles Krauthammer has recently done so as well - I hope this movement grows.  But even if you imagine it growing, you are going to need to take probably 12 to 18 months just to get to the point where any such new election system could be set up and elections held.  Then you are going to need some time for the new government to prove itself and create the kind of spirit of reconciliation that we know is necessary to reduce the sectarian tension.  So you are talking about a two to three-year project even for that sort of thing to change the dynamics very much from where they are right now.  I tend to be favorably inclined towards it but I do not really see how you can do it quickly which means, again, I wind up more in the Fred Kagan camp or the General Keane camp or the David Petraeus camp.  We are going to have to sustain substantial forces for quite some time with a logic similar to the surge.

One very last quick thought on another possible option -- it is often proposed and my boss at Brookings, Carlos Pascual, has suggested among others an international conference, a peace conference, if you will -- diagnose Iraq to be in a state of civil war and therefore do not think about building reconciliation through peaceful democratic institutions but rather through a negotiation among warring factions with the regional players being brought in as well, pressured, cajoled and otherwise engaged to try to create a new dynamic.

This may be a good idea.  In fact, I’m inclined to think it is a good idea as perhaps a way to move towards soft partition or a new election system or something else.  But an international peace conference by itself or a peace process by itself does not get you to a different outcome right away.  It simply improves the odds of getting a better political dynamic somewhere down the road -- hopefully, not too far down the road.  So once again, you are brought back to the reality that for the next one or two or three years, it is pretty hard to change the trajectory that we are on.

So what I have tried to do, Fred, in these remarks is to hopefully simplify your job.  I think you already have one particular model in mind that you are going to be looking at.  I tried to take on a couple of others and think through whether we do have middle options or middle ways.  I think we have to think outside the box, in conclusion.  I’m a little less optimistic than General Keane about the Iraqi political situation and it is not so much a question of blaming the Iraqis for failing to deliver; the bottom line is we need them to deliver.  Whatever is realistic I think we need them to deliver because their country is still in a state of low-grade civil war and this is preventing us from making the kinds of progress we need.

However, if you think through your various options, they are going to take time to develop and, unfortunately, in the short term, therefore, we are going to have to keep up very large numbers of American forces providing security not just in the perimeter, not just in the green zone, not just training Iraqi forces but in the streets where the sectarian tensions are the most acute.  Thanks.

Frederick W. Kagan: 

Thank you, Michael, Jack.  Thank you, Dany.  I will keep my remarks brief because we are going to lock the doors at the end of this panel and require you to stay to the next one where I will have plenty of opportunity to bend your ear on my opinion about Iraq.  One of the real and very few, I might add, joys of having been engaged in this policy debate over the past year has been the opportunity to have very serious thoughtful discussions about the situation in Iraq and how best to deal with it across party lines, across ideological lines and even with people where we come to different conclusions about things. 

I want to take this opportunity to praise Michael O’Hanlon and thank him for coming here and also Ken Pollack and a few others for a real intellectual honesty, rigor, providing very thoughtful reports, exploring options even when they come to the conclusion that those are not necessarily the best options to pursue, but exploring seriously other options to the current policy and then being able to sit down in civil discourse even in the midst of all of the partisan polemic that has been going on.  I think I can echo without much hope the calls of Senator Graham and others that we try to move beyond the partisanship of this and address the realities but I am afraid the political discourse does not seem to be moving that way. 

Michael’s first point is a key point; Senator Graham alluded to it; General Keane alluded to it.  I have been in Iraq three times; I was there in early April; I was there in early May; I was there at the end of July, about a week each trip and I went around.  I was also there with Jack Keane in May.  I also went around.  I saw the street, saw the captains, saw the generals, did the deal.  The change is remarkable from April to July.  The only way to imagine that there has not been improvement in the security situation in Iraq is not to go there, not to pay any attention to any of the people who have been there and what they come back and tell you.  It is very, very obvious if you are walking around or driving around Baghdad that there has been tremendous improvement in security over the past several months and that the improvement is due to the increase of the forces and the change in strategy.  As Senator Graham mentioned, both were key.  Adding more forces to a failed strategy would not have produced success.  Changing the strategy without adding the necessary forces would not have produced success.  Both were necessary. 

Let me just remind you - because in Washington so many things happen in a day that it is hard to remember more than a few days ago what things were like - of what the purpose of the surge strategy was and what was expected of it when it was launched.  We at AEI -- General Keane and I and a few others proposed sending five additional army brigades and two additional marine regiments into Iraq for 12 - we thought maybe 18 to 24 months from January at that time.  So through 2008 - for the purpose of establishing security in key neighborhoods in Baghdad and holding on to whatever we could in Anbar because in November and December of 2006, no one had the expectation that we would be able to establish security in Baghdad and deal with Anbar at the same time with any reasonable force estimate. 

We identified the single point of failure in Iraq at that time to be Baghdad, especially the mixed neighborhoods.  We said that if we cannot get security in central Baghdad in the mixed areas, there is no prospect; this is going to cycle hopelessly out of control.  We need to try and that was the plan.  We had no notion that we were going to succeed in Anbar.  In fact, if you go back and look at our original plan, Anbar was a subsequent operation that was planned that we thought would require pretty major expenditure of resources.  Then we knew that we would have to go into Diyala and so we had what they call in the military “sequels” planned for that also.  We thought we would have to conduct multiple successive operations on a large scale in Iraq in order to move beyond securing mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad.  That was what our plan said. 

When the President announced the strategy and General Petraeus launched it, it was called the Baghdad Security Plan.  From the outset, the objective was to stabilize Baghdad and attempt to stabilize Anbar; it was intended that the surge would be temporary - that is why it is called the surge.  But that was the goal.  What we have found is that we have been able to do much more than that.  The amazing thing is that the military operations, combined with the change in heart in the Sunni population that the military operations supported, have put us in a point where we are now working on stabilizing all of central Iraq.  We now have forces that have cleared Al Qaeda out of every single one of its urban strongholds.  I would not have expected that in January. 

A reporter-friend of mine recently said she went to Ramadi, to Anbar, walked around, looked and it was very peaceful.  It is amazing, frankly, to walk through the market in Ramadi without body armor and with a handful of soldiers around you.  Not everyone smiles at you, by the way; it is not as though the Sunni are not all standing around and say, “Hey, yay, Americans.”  Some of them give you pretty dour looks, which I think is fine.  I would be more worried about it if they were trying to convince us that they were actually thrilled about this.  They know they have been beaten.  They are not necessarily thrilled about it but they understand the situation. 

It is amazing to walk around, but she thought, “Okay, this is fine but it is not very interesting.  I will go up to Baquba,” which from a war journalist’s standpoint, that was always good for some combat footage because Baquba since the middle of last year has been hell; it has been absolute unmitigated hell.  Al Qaeda owned half of it.  The JAM fighters owned the other parts of it.  You had the al Qaeda killing us, JAM killing us, al Qaeda killing JAM, JAM killing al Qaeda, everyone killing the locals.  It was really the 9th ring of hell.  So as a journalist you could be pretty confident if you go to Baquba, you will get shot at and you will get some good stories and good footage; it would be interesting.  She got up there and she said, “It was the same thing as Ramadi; it was boring.” 

There is nothing going on in Baquba.  We have cleared Baquba.  There is virtually no al Qaeda left there.  As General Keane pointed out, in contrast with previous operations when we cleared the enemy out of an area, they flew out of Baquba and they tried to roll up the Diyala River Valley.  We are chasing them and we are hurting them.  We are not allowing them to establish new safe havens anywhere.  We are following them everywhere they go.  We have never done that before.  They were taken a little bit by surprise; as General Petraeus likes to say, “Al Qaeda is a little bit off plan.”  Things are not working out for them very well. 

I would never have expected in January that this is where we would be in September.  The plan did not call for it and no estimates that we looked at suggested that it was likely.  It is very important to understand that.  People are going to talk a lot about Bush moving the goal posts and talking about local progress and not talking about the benchmarks and all like that to.  The general retort to that is, “Look, you can do two things in war.  You can decide in advance that you have a certain set of objectives and certain ways of pursuing them and pursue the same objectives consistently with the same methods, regardless of the situation; that is called losing.  Or you can decide that you are going to look at the situation as it changes and develops and understand that you need to evaluate it on its own terms and react accordingly.  That is called winning.” 

Changing the way that you look at the situation is a normal part of war.  Not changing is a normal part of defeat.  It is natural for the President at this stage to say, “This is the real situation as it is.  These are the things that we think matter now.  This is the progress that we see and this is the basis for making decisions.”  What is not natural is to say, “We have got this list of benchmarks that we drew up in the middle of last year because most of these benchmarks date from 2006 before any of these happened, when the situation was in the 9th ring of hell.  We were not meeting those so the heck with it.”  That makes no sense at all. 

But as we talk about moving the goal post, one thing that we need to keep in mind is that we have moved the goal post in another way because now we are really playing for all the marbles.  We are trying to accomplish and we are accomplishing a lot more than we ever thought would be possible.  I will put it to you in another way:  When you used to do a threat analysis particularly of al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency, you identified four areas that you needed to deal with - the upper Euphrates River Valley which runs into Anbar, the upper Tigris River Valley which runs through Salahadin and to Ninewa, and the Diyala which runs through Diyala province near Baquba and Baghdad.  We have run the enemy, Al Qaeda, out of its strongholds in Baghdad and to the South and in the belts.  We and the Anbaris have cleared the upper Euphrates which is what we all thought would be the hardest thing to do.  We and the Iraqis have just completed clearing the Diyala. 

Now, we are conducting follow-on operations to work in the upper Tigris.  That is an amazing story in eight months, considering where we started because where we started in January 2007, all four of those areas were insurgents’ strongholds.  As Mike said, “The military success here is unequivocal, unambiguous and unquestionable.”  Now, will it lead naturally of itself to political progress?  I do not know. 

I think the points that General Keane made are spot-on.  Again, if you stepped back from the benchmarks and say, “Why were we trying to do each one of these things,” you can see that in most cases what we were trying to do is actually already happening without the legislation.  It would be nice to have the legislation, too, but we are already making this progress.  Will it continue?  Well, I will tell you one thing that is for sure.  If we stop what we are doing now and abandon Iraqi people to their fate, it will not continue because one thing that is clear from all of the reports - it is clear from the Jones report, it is clear from our own evaluations, you will see it on our study - is that the Iraqi security forces are not yet capable of maintaining this level of security on their own without our significant support including support in a combat role.  That is a fact.  If you abandon them, they will fail and everything that we have accomplished this year will be lost and the prospects for political reconciliation will probably drop to about zero.  The options that Mike and Ken Pollack have looked at - soft partition or trying to hold the line, trying to prevent regional overspill - are going to start to look like really good options.  Whereas now, I think Mike would -- I do not know how you would describe yours; Ken describes his as the least worst option.  They are not, of course, good options.  They involve deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.  They involve mass migrations and they involve destabilization and they are very unlikely to involve anything that we want to call success. 

So as I will tell you more -- I promised to keep this brief and then I did not.  I am sorry.  As I will tell you more in the next panel, I would agree strongly with Mike.  I do not think there is a middle way.  I think the choice before us is stark and I think given the obvious progress that we are making and the obvious trend lines, choice is also obvious.

Danielle Pletka:  Very good.  Thank you everybody for three fantastic presentations.  I have to tell you further to the conspiracy of AEI and Brookings that I want to be broadcast immediately out that AEI -- one of our scholars, in particular Michael Rubin, worked very assiduously prior to the decision by the UN for this proportional representation system to try and persuade the UN and the United States and the Iraqis that, in fact, a regional representation system was a far better idea, far more stabilizing and they did not decide to adopt it because, of course, they were wrong-headed about it.  But I could not agree with you more about that. 

Let us turn to our audience for questions - and I see you - and if everybody would be kind enough to abide by the rules as I said it before:  Wait for the mic, say who you are, put your statement in a form of a question.  Phil, back there.  Let’s make our interns get a little exercise.  Thank you, guys.  Right, keep your hand up.  If you do have a particular person you are directing your question at, do let us know.

Phil Dine:  Phil Dine, St. Louis Post Dispatch.  You all talked about politics.  I would like to ask you about American politics.  At this point, most Americans are against the war and it seems they have pretty much tuned out the administration; they do not really believe what it is likely to say about progress even if progress is taking place.  Several of you talked about failed strategies that we put in place.  Does not the administration, if it is going to turn this around, need to acknowledge, not that it has made a mistake here or there but that it basically went to war with a flawed strategy that put us in the position we are in now?  But that now, we may have a way to turn this around if we all get behind it instead of Cheney and Bush continually talk about cut-and-run Democrats and people they do not think as a threat out there as if that is really the reason we are in this problem?

Michael O’Hanlon:  Phil, while I may agree with some of your points about the need for improved rhetoric especially right now on both sides, I do not think that revisiting the history endlessly is really the key to the solution.  I think the key to the solution is showing results on the battlefield and in the parliament in Iraq.  I think that while you are right and certainly, we all are aware that Americans are very frustrated and sad about this war, we also know Americans hate to lose.  Americans do not like the idea either in any poll I have seen or in what I know of Americans as a people of deciding to simply abandon this kind of an effort because it has not gone the way we hoped.  I think Americans are open to pragmatic modifications to our strategy but as much as they hate this war, they would also hate the idea of just accepting complete and outright and unmitigated defeat in going home.  That is a reality that both sides are going to have bear in mind as we shape up options for the future.  But the key point is what matters a lot more than apologies about the past, even though I might welcome one myself as a Democrat who has been critical of some of what they have done before, is strategies for the future and delivering results.  That is where people should keep the eyeballs focus.

Danielle Pletka:  Also, Phil, Public Opinion Strategies just came out with a poll that suggested that almost 60 percent of Americans believe that Iraq is a key part of the global war on terror.  I am not sure that your numbers remain as true as they were, perhaps, two months ago when things were going less well.  All right.

Phil Dine:  Right.

Jerry Schwartz:  It is clear you all agree --

Danielle Pletka:  Jerry Schwartz from AP.

Jerry Schwartz:  Jerry Schwartz of AP.  You all agree that troops should stay.  You all think that things are looking up but you all also agree that there has been good reason and...recent facts that things are looking up is that the strategy has been changing.  What you have not said and what -- particularly, Mr. Kagan I would like to hear discuss -- what would you recommend for the future now for Iraq other than stay the course, keep the troops there?  Things are looking good.  Some dispute among people in town about whether Maliki deserves support or not and how much -- but what strategic -- O’Hanlon touched on a little bit -- what strategic changes would help accelerate what you think is a positive process?  What would you do?

Frederick W. Kagan:  Look, our commanders on the field have been changing their approach on a regular basis in accord with the changing situation on the ground.  I commend them for that.  They have recognized that they have done tremendous damage to al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgency and they have now turned their attention to Iranian-back secret cells and the [indiscernible] militia which I think is the right thing to do.  I am heartily in favor of that.  They have taken steps that we have never before taken to interdict Iranian support within Iraq for violence in Iraq, which I think is critically important.  They have been working very actively to disaggregate the military arm of Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, particularly the part that is supported by the Iranians, and I think that is right.  They have been doing general damage in a variety of ways to Muqtada al-Sadr’s political movement, which is also very important, all the while working very hard to bring local Sunni into, first, neighborhood watch or concerned citizens groups, and then ultimately, through appropriate process into the Iraqi Security Forces. 

None of this was foreseen in January.  None of this was part of the surge plan.  This is all, in my view, correct adaptation to circumstance.  It is what you are going to see in the coming weeks and I think it is the right thing to do.  We have just begun most of these initiatives and we are going to have to let them play out in the coming week and see where we get to and see how everyone reacts because war is a continual interaction of opposing forces.  We will have to see how the Iranians respond, how does Muqtada al-Sadr respond, how goals are programmed of finishing off AQI and so forth, and what sort of political progress do we see.  How much will the Maliki government do in terms of incorporating the concerned citizens groups into the ISF?  Where does that head?   We are going to have to evaluate that and then we are going to see where the security goes. 

My expectation is that if things stay on course -- and it is always very dangerous to say that in war because you would have a thinking enemy who is going to try to win, and in this case, we have several.  My expectation would be that in 2008, it would be possible to start drawing down American forces and turning over to local Iraqi groups and growing Iraqi Security Forces.  That would be my hope and expectation but I guess my short answer is we have already changed.  We are again in the process of changing right now.  I am sure that will continue to develop but it has to be conditions-driven.

Ibrahim Fuqara:  Thank you.  Abrahim Fuqara from al-Jazeera.  General Keane, the implications for the neighbors of Iraq if the surge succeeds and if the surge fails, how do you see those implications?  I have one for Michael O’Hanlon.  You said that you are not particularly adverse to having a strong man in Iraq.  Does your predilection lie with a Sunni strong man or a Shia strong man, and does that mean that you have reservations on that basis about the execution of Saddam Hussein?  Thank you.

Jack Keane:  First of all, none of the neighbors of Iraq, including Iran -- certainly, it is in their interest to have a failed state in Iraq, and in my judgment the actions that we are taking in ’07 have really turned that from happening.  That is good news and has to have positive effect on those neighbors.  We know, for a fact, that the Sunni Arabs at a minimum have been cheerleading the Sunni insurgency as well as in some cases certainly funding it and facilitating it directly from the Syrian government’s perspective.  But other governments also have had their hands in some funding activities. 

This insurgency as I said is going away.  I would imagine that the concern Sunni Arab states would have is will the Maliki Shia-dominated government bring them in and participate holistically in the political fabric of Iraq.  Equally important is will the Sunni population afford them the kind of security that they need to have a normal quality of life experience.  The early indications of that are positive.  It remains to be played out in ’08 and in ’09 as it pertains to Iran, certainly.  In my judgment Iran declared war on us back in the ‘80s and it has been a tough time for us to fathom this.  But they believe that; I believe that they believe it and their primary objective in Iraq right now is to cause the United States to fail so they can have influence over this Shia-dominated government and enlarge what they believe is rightfully theirs - Iranian hegemony in the region.  This movement that is taking place in Iraq with some form of representative democracy is clearly the best bell weather against that kind of influence. 

Obviously, there is an association with the Shias across transnational lines.  But the fact of the matter is a representative democracy in Iraq allied with the United States of America is not in Iran’s interest.  It will help us deal with Iran in other areas.  I completely agree with Senator Graham; we are making progress with Iran.  When we thought things were going better in Iraq back in the ’03, these people were listening.  When things started to go south in Iraq, the Iranian leadership was speaking vociferously and very antagonistically towards United States.  If this movement plays out the way we believe it will, it will help considerably in dealing with Iran in the future.  I have gone on too long so I will not deal with Turkey.

Michael O’Hanlon:  I will be brief on this theoretical option because I think that is all it is.  I do not think that it is realistic to think there is any viable strong man because the Iraqi security forces are too fractured along sectarian lines or, at least, could become so if there was this kind of a scenario.  How are you going to decide who the person would be?  It will be very difficult.  But just to play up the theoretical idea a little further, I think you would need to have a situation where Iraq’s current government basically recognized that it failed, and as part of some international peace process [indiscernible] essentially could be convinced to turn over control to a temporary leadership which would probably have to have a pro Sunni/Shia at the top, I am guessing.  And it would probably have to have some kind of a small junta or ruling coalition that would be a little bit like Iraq’s presidential council today in terms of representation.  But you can see how far I am getting down the theoretical path.  I would be very inclined to say, “This is fine,” if it were really doable.  I just do not see how it is doable.

Danielle Pletka:  I know just who sees himself in that job.  This gentleman right here.

Paolo:  Thank you.  Paolo [indiscernible].  Just following up a little bit on the previous question in terms of the influence of Iran, I think it is established based on all the facts on the ground that there has been a great deal of progress about Al Qaeda in Iraq; that is established.  But is this our primary target or is it the pacification of an ethnic strife?  And if it is so, indeed, the role of Iran, how can we diminish it?  How can we intervene in a practical, constructive way to detach the Shia militias from Iran and create, therefore, the foundations in the future for - if I can use this word – a secular government in Iraq that is not tied to the mullahs in Iran and, therefore, the majority of Shias do not become an appendix of Iran?  It seems to me that strategically this is what matters, notwithstanding the very important successes in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq.

Michael O’Hanlon:  First of all, you cannot distinguish the issue of the ethno-sectarian conflict from the issue of fighting Al Qaeda.  The fundamental mistake that is made in this discussion in this town is that