Crocker and Petraeus Testify Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq

SEN. JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., D-DEL. CHAIRMAN : The committee will come to order. The hearing will come to order.

Six years ago this morning, agents of Al Qaida attacked the United States of America and murdered 2,998 American people. So I'd like you all to please join me at the beginning of this hearing for a moment of silence for the victims of 9/11.

Thank you.

Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, welcome. We've been seeing a lot of one another.

And I want to thank Ambassador Crocker for his hospitality to me last week in both Ramadi and in Baghdad.

And I'm glad to see you again, General. Welcome home, as brief as this stay may be.

You're here today to give the American people a progress report on the war in Iraq and on the president's decision in January to surge more forces into Iraq.

Americans are hearing a lot about this surge, and they want to know whether it's succeeding, whether the violence in Iraq is going up or down, and what impact that has on the future of Iraq and, most importantly from their perspective, the future of our men and women in uniform that are there as well as the civilians we have stationed there.

General Petraeus, you say the numbers show that violence is decreasing. Others, including the independent Government Accounting Office, have different figures and contrary conclusions.

But in my view, this debate in a sense misses the point.

The one thing virtually everyone now agrees on is that there is no purely military solution in Iraq that lasting stability requires a political settlement among the Sunnis, the Shias and the Kurds.

In announcing the surge, President Bush said his primary purpose was just that: to buy time for a political settlement to emerge in Baghdad.

And so, from my perspective, the most important questions we have to ask are these: Are we any closer to a lasting political settlement in Iraq at the national level today than we were when the surge began eight months ago?

BIDEN: And if we continue to surge for another six months, is there any evidence that the Sunnis, the Shias and the Kurds will stop killing each other and start governing together?

In my judgment, I must tell you, based on my experience and my observation here, as well as in-country, the answer to both those questions is no.

First, are we any closer to a political settlement?

According to you, General Petraeus, in a letter to U.S. forces and civilians in Iraq last Friday, you wrote -- and I appreciate your candor -- you said, Many of us had hoped this summer would be a time for tangible political progress at the national level. It has not worked out as we had hoped, end of quote.

Not according to the administration's own report card has it worked out either. As of July, Iraq's government had failed to make satisfactory progress in five of the eight political benchmarks. The Government Accounting Office gives the Iraq government even lower grades.

And not according to the Iraqi people, apparently, have things gotten a lot better. They're voting on the surge with their feet. When the surge began, about 50,000 Iraqis a month were fleeing their homes for fear of sectarian violence and today they're leaving their homes at a rate as high as 100,000 a month since the surge.

Simply put, Iraqis, both Sunnis and Shiites, still live every day in deadly fear of each other. And until their leaders agree on some way to share power peacefully, that fear is not going to go away and Iraq will not find stability.

Of course, when we surge American troops on a neighborhood, they do a remarkable job of stopping violence and protecting the people. I know it sounds trite to say, but I -- every one of my trips I am more impressed with the raw, sheer bravery -- I don't use the word lightly -- bravery of your troops who get in those up-armored Humvees, ride down those roads, move through those neighborhoods. It just is absolutely stunning that they do it.

But the fact is that the surge of our troops in the neighborhoods, although it has some salutary impact, when we leave, absent a political settlement, every one of the troops I spoke to believe those destructive forces are going to return.

BIDEN: Your troops. Whether I'm talking to a private or a lance corporal or a general, I've not found anybody who doesn't think that unless there's a significant political settlement, once they leave, the troops, that chaos will return.

In Anbar province, which I just visited with the ambassador, we've had success in turning Iraqi Sunni tribes against Sunni jihadists. But that's not particularly relevant to the central problem, and that is the sectarian violence of Sunnis killing Shias.

In my discussion with both the tribal leaders as well as Sunni leaders, I didn't detect any sense of any greater trust or willingness to trust or cooperate with the Shia -- the Shia government in Baghdad.

If we killed or captured every jihadist in Iraq tomorrow, we would still face a major sectarian war that is pitting Iraqis' future against our interest. The fact of the matter is that American lives remain in jeopardy and, as I said, if every single jihadi in the world was killed tomorrow, we'd still have a major, major war on our hands.

Second, in continuing the surge of forces for another six months, is that likely to change that reality? The conclusion I've reached is no. The surge, for whatever tactical or temporary security gains it might achieve, is at the service of a fundamentally flawed strategy.

And that strategy is the administration continues to believe that we can achieve political progress in Iraq by building a strong national unity government in Baghdad that secures the trust of the Iraqi people.

In my view, gentlemen, I don't think that's going to happen in the lifetime of any of us. There is no trust within that central government in Baghdad, no trust in the government by the people, and no capacity of that government to deliver security and services.

And absent an occupation we cannot sustain or a return of a dictator we cannot want, Iraq, in my view, cannot be governed from the center at this point in history.

So, without a settlement, the surge is the best a stopgap that delays, but will not prevent, chaos. Its net effect will be to put more American lives at risk, in my view, with very little prospect of success. And I don't think that is conscionable.

The majority of senators believe the time is now to start drawing down U.S. forces, not just to pre-surge levels but beyond them, and to limit the mission of those remaining to fight Al Qaida, train Iraqis and help protect the borders.

But while starting to leave Iraq is necessary, it's not enough. We also have to -- we also have to shape what we leave behind, so that we do not trade a dictator for chaos.

A number of us have offered alternatives. One of the possibilities I've offered is not a guarantee for stability of Iraq if we leave -- is to, in fact, beef up the federal concept that exists in their constitution. It's based on the reality that Sunni, Shia and Kurds are not ready to entrust their fate to one another.

Instead, we have to give the Iraqi warring faction a breathing room in regions with local control over the fabric of their daily lives -- police, education, jobs, marriage, religion, as, I might add, the Iraqi constitution calls for.

A limited central government would be in charge of common concerns, including distributing Iraqis' oil revenues. A federal decentralized Iraq, in my view, is our last, best hope for a stable Iraq.

And we should refocus our efforts on making federalism work for all Iraqis. At least that is the view that I strongly -- that I strongly hold.

I would initiate a diplomatic surge, not a military surge, to do just that: bringing in the United Nations, major countries, and Iraq's neighbors to help implement and oversee the political settlement that I'm proposing.

No one, as I said, with the ambassador kind enough to allow me to be with him at this conference -- this reconstruction conference in Ramadi, as I said to the Iraqis assembled around the table, we cannot possibly want peace and security in Iraq more than the Iraqi people want it. It is up to them. We can help them get there by bringing power and responsibility down to the local level and by taking fear out of Iraq's future, but that fear will only come out when there's a political settlement.

Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, the American military, as you know better than I do, cannot sustain a war in Iraq with no end in sight at the levels we're there now. And the American people will not support an infinite war whose sole remaining purpose is to prevent the situation in Iraq from becoming worse than it is today.

It's time to turn the corner, in my view, gentlemen. We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home. We should end a political strategy in Iraq that cannot succeed and begin one that can.

I believe if we make this change -- these changes, we can still leave Iraq without leaving behind a civil war that turns into a regional war, endangering America's interest not for a year or two but for a generation.

So, gentlemen, I'm anxious to hear your testimony, and I'm anxious to be able to get to answer you specific -- to ask you specific questions about the overall strategy of the administration and this surge in particular.

I now yield to the senator from Indiana, Chairman Lugar.

SEN. RICHARD G. LUGAR, R-IND. RANKING MEMBER : Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I join you in welcoming General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker to our committee.

Their report is essential for Congress and the American people to evaluate the complex circumstances and policy options we face with respect to the United States involvement in Iraq.

Our national debate has framed two interdependent steps of the current surge strategy. We're attempting, first, to reduce the violence in Iraq to application of additional American troops, better training of Iraqis and tactics aimed at sustaining stability in key neighborhoods. Second, we are hoping to use the breathing space created by improved security to induce Iraqi political leaders to conclude meaningful compromises on governmental and power sharing.

Now, our last hearing on Iraq featuring the GAO report on benchmarks, I expressed skepticism at success or failure of the benchmarks to be determinative in Iraq. Benchmarks are an important starting point for debate, but they do not answer many questions, including the most fundamental question pertaining to Iraq, namely, do Iraqis want to be Iraqis?

By this, I mean are the Iraqi people, most of whom are now organized according to sectarian and tribal loyalties, willing to sacrifice their own pursuit of national or regional hegemony by granting their sectarian rivals political and economic power?

Can a unified society be achieved despite the extreme sectarian fears and resentments incubated during the oppressive reign of Saddam and intensified during the recent period of sectarian bloodletting?

LUGAR: Is there sufficient room for a national reconciliation when many Sunnis continue to see their political pre-eminence as a birthright and most Shiites believe that their numerical superiority and their oppression they suffered under Saddam Hussein give them the right to dominate the new Iraq?

And even if polling indicates that many Iraqis do want to live in a unified Iraq, how does this theoretical bloc acquire the political power and courage needed to stare down militia leaders, sectarian strongmen, criminal gangs who routinely employ violence for their own tribal and personal ends?

I frame the question in these stark terms because it underscores that achieving benchmarks, which have been a very difficult process up to this point, may be the least of the challenges ahead of us.

Benchmarks measure only the official actions of the Iraqi leaders and the current status of Iraq's political and economic rebuilding effort.

They do not measure the degree to which Iraqis intend to pursue tribal or sectarian agendas over the long term, irrespective of the decisions in Baghdad. They do not measure the impact of regional players, who may choose to support or subvert stability in Iraq. They also do not measure the degree to which progress is dependent on current American military operations which cannot be sustained indefinitely.

Thus, the most uncertain step in the path to a unified, functioning Iraqi society is likely to be when benchmark successes would have been preserved and translated into sustainable national reconciliation. That reconciliation would have to be resilient enough to withstand blood feuds, government corruption, brain drain, calculated terrorist acts, external interference that will challenge social order.

One can debate, as many will do this week, whether progress in Iraq has been sufficient to justify continuing American sacrifices. But the greatest risk for United States policy is not that we are incapable of making progress but that this progress may be largely beside the point, given the divisions that now afflict Iraqi society.

The risk is that our efforts are comparable to a farmer expending his resources and efforts to plant a crop on a floodplain without factoring in the probability the waters may rise.

In my judgment, some type of success in Iraq is possible. But as policy-makers, we should acknowledge that we are facing extraordinarily narrow margins for achieving our goals.

Our preoccupation with benchmarks is typical of one-step-at-a- time perspective related to Iraq in which the political horizon is limited to the next major event.

Now, in mid-September 2007, we have arrived at such a milestone today: the delivery of the Petraeus-Crocker reports.

The conventional wisdom is that the administration will cite enough progress to challenge calls for withdrawal as lacking resolve, but not enough progress to alter the basic faultlines of the Iraq debate.

This debate over progress may be less illuminating than determining whether the administration is finally defining a clear political-military strategy, planning for follow-up contingencies and engaging in robust regional diplomacy. Each of these elements is essential if we are to expand our chances for success.

At this stage of the conflict, with our military strained by Iraq deployments, our global advantages being diminished by the weight of our burden in Iraq, it is not enough for the administration to counsel patience until the next milestone or the next report. We need to see a strategy for how our troops and other resources in Iraq might be employed to fundamentally change the equation.

For example, are we going to attempt the sophisticated task of leveraging our new relationships with Sunni forces into a rough balance of power with the Shiites?

Are we going to build bridges between our new friends in the Sunni community and Shia elements?

How will we maintain any enthusiasm among Shiite leaders for our goals if they perceive we are strengthening Sunni rivals?

Even as the administration defines its current strategy, its vital that it plan for a range of post-September contingencies. The surge must not be an excuse for failure to prepare for the next phase of our involvement, whether that is a partial withdraw, a gradual redeployment or some other option.

We saw in 2003, after the initial invasion of Iraq, disastrous results of failing to plan adequately for contingencies. Currently, because of the politically charged nature of the debate, military planning and diplomacy related to any so-called plan B are constrained by concerns that either would be perceived as evidence of the lack of confidence in the president's surge strategy. We need to lay the groundwork for sustainable alternatives so that, as the president and Congress move to a new plan, it can be implemented effectively and rapidly.

Finally, the pace and intensity of American regional diplomacy to Iraq has failed to match the urgency and magnitude of the problem. Although, Secretary Rice and her team have made some inroads with Gulf nations and other players, we still lack a forum in which to engage Iraq's neighbors on a constant basis. We're allowing conditions in which miscalculations can thrive.

Every nation surrounding Iraq has intense interest in what is happening there. Yet the three Iraq regional working groups establish at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference in early May have met only once since then. Broader regional conferences, such as the one that took place in Baghdad this past weekend, also have convened so infrequently they've had little positive impact on Iraq's status.

An expanded ministerial meeting of Iraq's neighbors is scheduled to occur in Istanbul next month. This is positive, but it's not a substitute for a continuous visible forum in which we insure the transparency of national interests and actions.

Bold and creative regional diplomacy is not just an accompaniment to our efforts in Iraq. It is a precondition for the success of any policy.

We cannot sustain a successful policy in Iraq unless we repair alliances, recruit more international participants in Iraq, anticipate refugee flows, prevent regional aggression, generate new basing options and otherwise prepare for future developments.

If we have not made substantial diplomatic progress by the time a post-surge policy is implemented, our options will be severely constrained and we will be guessing at a viable course in a rapidly evolving environment.

I thank the chairman for calling this hearing and look forward to the testimony of our witnesses.

BIDEN: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Crocker?

U.S. AMBASSADOR RYAN CROCKER : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have submitted a statement for the record that I assume has been distributed to the committee. With your permission, I'd like to summarize that statement now.

BIDEN: Without objection, the entire statement will be placed in the record.

CROCKER: Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, thank you for the opportunity to address this committee this morning.

My intention today is to give you an assessment of political, economic and diplomatic developments in Iraq. In doing so, I will not minimize the enormity of the challenges faced by Iraqis nor the complexity of the situation. Yet at the same time, I intend to demonstrate that it is possible for the United States to see its goals realized in Iraq and that Iraqis are capable of tackling and addressing the problems confronting them today.

In my view, a secure, stable, democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors is attainable. In my judgment, the cumulative trajectory of political, economic and other developments in Iraq is upwards, although the slope of that line is not steep.

The process will not be quick. It will be uneven, punctuated by setbacks, as well as achievements, and it will require substantial U.S. resolve and commitment.

There will be no single moment at which we can claim victory. Any turning point will likely only be recognized in retrospect.

This is a sober assessment, but it should not be a disheartening one. Iraq is experiencing a revolution, not just regime change. It is only by understanding this that we can appreciate what is happening in Iraq and what Iraqis have achieved as well as maintain a sense of realism about the challenges that remain.

Evaluating where Iraqis are today only makes sense in the context of where they have been.

Any Iraqi under 40 years of age -- and that is the overwhelming majority of the population -- would have known nothing but the rule of the Baath Party before liberation four and a half years ago.

Those 35 years were filled with crimes against humanity on every scale. Saddam Hussein ruled without mercy, not hesitating to use lethal force and torture against even those in his inner circle. His genocidal campaign against the Kurds and savagery toward southern Shia are well-known.

But he also used violence and intimidation as tools in the complete deconstruction of Iraqi society. No organization or institution survived that was not linked in some way to regime protection.

He created a pervasive climate of fear in which even family members were afraid to talk to one another.

This is the legacy that Iraqis had as their history when Saddam's statue came down on April 9, 2003.

No Nelson Mandela existed to emerge on the national political scene. Anyone with his leadership talents would not have survived.

A new Iraq had to be built almost literally from scratch, and the builders, in most cases, were themselves reduced to their most basic identity, ethnic or sectarian.

Much progress has been made, particularly in building an institutional framework where there was none before. But rather than being a period in which old animosities and suspicions were overcome, the past 18 months in particular have further strained Iraqi society.

The sectarian violence of 2006 and early 2007 had its seeds in Saddam's social deconstruction, and it had dire consequences for the people of Iraq, as well as its politics.

Extensive displacement and widespread sectarian killings by Al Qaida and other extremist groups have gnawed away at the already- frayed fabric of Iraqi society and politics. It is no exaggeration to say that Iraq is and will remain for some time a traumatized society.

It is against this backdrop that developments in Iraqi national politics must be seen.

Iraqis are facing some of the most profound political, economic and security challenges imaginable. They are not simply grappling with the issue of who rules Iraq, but they are asking what kind of country Iraq will be, how it will be governed, and how Iraqis will share power and resources among each other.

The constitution approved in the 2005 referendum answered some of these questions in theory, but much remains uncertain in both law and practice.

Some of the more promising political developments at the national level are neither measured in benchmarks nor visible to those far from Baghdad.

For instance, there is a budding debate about federalism among Iraq's leaders and, most importantly perhaps, within the Sunni community. Those living in places like Anbar and Salahuddin are beginning to realize how localities having more of the say in daily decision-making will empower their communities. No longer is an all- powerful Baghdad seen as the panacea to Iraq's problems.

We are also seeing Iraqis come to terms with complex issues, not by first constructing a national framework, but by tackling immediate problems.

One such example is how the central government has accepted over 1,700 young men from the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad, including former members of insurgent groups to be part of the Iraqi security forces.

Another is how the government, without much public fanfare, has contacted thousands of members of the former Iraqi army, offering them retirement, return to the military, or public sector employment.

So, without the proclamation of a general amnesty, we see amnesty being granted on the ground, and we are seeing de-Baathification reform, in the case of military officers with Baath Party linkages, in advance of national legislation.

In both instances, the seeds of reconciliation are being planted.

In some respects, the debates in Iraq on issues such as de- Baathification and provincial powers are akin to those that surrounded our civil rights movement and our own debate on states' rights.

With de-Baathification, Iraqis are struggling to come to terms with a vicious past. They are trying to balance fear that the Baath Party would one day return to power with the recognition that many former members of the party are guilty of no crime and joined the organization not to repress others but for personal survival.

With provincial powers, Iraqis are grappling with very serious questions about the right balance between the center and the periphery in Iraq. Many, mainly Shia and Kurds, see the devolution of power to regions and provinces as being the best insurance against the rise of a future tyrannical figure in Baghdad. Others, mainly Sunnis, see Iraq with its complex demographics as in need of a strong central authority.

I do believe that Iraq's leaders have the will to tackle the country's pressing problems, although it will take longer than we originally anticipated because of the environment and the gravity of the issues before them.

An important part of my judgment in this regard was the effort made by Iraqi leaders this past summer. After weeks of preparatory work and many days of intensive meetings, Iraq's five most prominent national leaders from the three main communities issued a communique on August 26th that noted agreement on draft legislation dealing with de-Baathification and provincial powers.

This agreement by no means solves all of Iraq's problems. But the commitment of its leaders to work together on hard issues is encouraging. Perhaps most significantly, these five Iraqi leaders together decided to publicly express their joint desire to develop a long-term relationship with the United States.

At the provincial level, political gains have been more pronounced, particularly in the north and west of Iraq, where the security improvements have been, in some places, dramatic. These have opened the door for meaningful politics.

In Anbar, as we know, security progress has been extraordinary. Al Qaida overplayed its hand. Recognizing that the coalition could help eject Al Qaida, the tribes began to fight with us, not against us, and the landscape in Anbar is dramatically different, as a result.

Tribal representatives are now on the provincial council, which is meeting regularly to find ways of restoring services, developing the economy and executing a development budget.

Shia extremists are also facing rejection. Recent attacks by the Iranian-backed Jaish Al-Mahdi on worshipers in the holy city of Karbala have provoked backlash amongst moderate Shia, and triggered a call by Muqtada Al-Sadr for Jaish Al-Mahdi to cease attacks against Iraqis and coalition forces.

One of the key challenges for Iraqis now is to link these positive developments in the provinces to the central government in Baghdad.

Unlike our states, Iraqi provinces have little ability to generate funds through taxation, making them dependent on the central government for resources. The growing ability of provinces to design and execute budgets and the readiness of the central government to resource them are success stories.

Mr. Chairman, you and I saw one element of that on September 6th, when representatives of Iraq's senior federal leadership traveled to Anbar and announced a 70 percent increase in the 2007 provincial capital budget, as well as $50 million from the central budget to compensate Anbaris for losses suffered in the fight against Al Qaida.

In the economy, Iraq is starting to make some gains. The IMF estimates that economic growth will exceed 6 percent for 2007. Budget execution has improved substantially.

Latest data shows that ministries and provincial councils have committed these funds at more than twice the rate of last year and much of this success, the high performers and the budget picture, are in the provinces.

So, while there are signs of improvement, it is also true that the Iraqi economy is performing significantly under potential.

Insecurity in the countryside raises transport costs and especially affects manufacturing and agriculture.

Electricity supply has improved in many parts of the country but it is still woefully inadequate in Baghdad. Many neighborhoods in the city receive two hours a day or less from the national grid although power supplies for essential services, such as water, pumping stations or hospitals, are much better.

At the regional and international level, there is expanding engagement with Iraq. In August, the U.N. Security Council, at Iraq's invitation, provided the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, UNAMI, with an expanded mandate through UNSCR 1770. The work of the international compact with Iraq moves forward, jointly chaired by Iraq and the United Nations.

Seventy-four countries pledged support for Iraq's economic reform efforts at a ministerial conference in May. The U.N. has reporting progress in 75 percent of the 400 areas Iraq has identified for action.

Later this month, the Iraqi prime minister and the U.N. secretary general will chair a ministerial-level meeting in New York to discuss further progress under the compact and how UNSCR 1770 can be most effectively implemented.

Many of Iraq's neighbors recognize that they have a stake in the outcome of the current conflict in Iraq and are engaging with Iraq in a constructive way. A neighbors ministerial in May, also attended by the P-5 and the G-8, has been followed by meetings of working groups on border security, refugees and energy.

An ambassadorial-level meeting just took place in Baghdad, and another neighbors ministerial will be held in Istanbul at the end of October, as Senator Lugar notes.

And it is also worth noting that at that ambassadorial meeting just two days ago, one of the items under discussion was the establishment of a permanent standing secretariat for the neighbors to allow precisely the kind of continuity that I think you were referring to, sir.

Iraq is now exporting oil through its neighbor, Turkey, as well as through the Gulf. Iraq and Kuwait are nearing conclusion on a commercial deal for Kuwait to supply its northern neighbor with critically needed diesel.

Jordan recently issued a statement welcoming the recent leaders' communique and supporting Iraqi efforts at reconciliation. And Saudi Arabia is planning on opening an embassy in Baghdad, its first since the fall of Saddam.

Syria's role has been more problematic.

On one hand, Syria hosts over a million Iraqi refugees and hosted the border security working group meeting last month. Syria has also interdicted some foreign terrorists seeking to transit to Iraq.

On the other hand, suicide bombers continue to cross the border from Syria to murder Iraqi civilians.

Iran has actively undermined Iraqi stability by providing funding, training and munitions to extremist militias that attack Iraqis as well as coalition forces.

Whether Iraq reaches its potential is, of course, ultimately the product of Iraqi actions.

But the changes in our strategy last January, the surge, have helped change the dynamics in Iraq for the better.

The involvement and support of the United States will continue to be hugely important in shaping a positive outcome. Our country has given a great deal in blood and treasure to stabilize the situation in Iraq and help Iraqis build institutions for a united democratic country governed under the rule of law. They have not yet realized this vision, and to do so will take more time and patience on the part of the United States.

I cannot guarantee success in Iraq. The challenges, as I have stated, are immense. I do believe, as I have described, that success is attainable. I am certain that abandoning or drastically curtailing our efforts will bring failure and the consequences of such a failure must be clearly understood.

An Iraq that falls into chaos or civil war will mean massive human suffering well beyond what is already occurred within Iraq's borders. It could well invite the intervention of regional states, all of which see their future connected to Iraq's in some fundamental way.

Undoubtedly, Iran would be a winner in such a scenario, consolidating its influence over Iraqi resources and possibly territory. The Iranian president has already announced that Iran will fill any vacuum in Iraq.

In such an environment, the gains made against Al Qaida and other extremist groups could easily evaporate, and they could establish strongholds to be used as safe havens for regional and international operations.

Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse.

Every strategy requires constant recalibration. This is particularly true in an environment like Iraq, where change is a daily occurrence.

As chief of mission in Iraq, I am constantly assessing our efforts in seeking to ensure that they are coordinated with and complementary to the efforts of our military.

I believe that, thanks to the support of Congress, we have an appropriate civilian posture in Iraq. Over the coming year, we will continue to increase our civilian efforts outside of Baghdad and the International Zone. In the course of 2007, we have increased the number of our provincial reconstruction teams, for example, from 10 to 25.

This presence has allowed us to focus on capacity building, especially in the provinces, and the provinces are likely to grow in influence as more power devolves from Baghdad.

We will continue our efforts to assist Iraqis in the pursuit of national reconciliation while recognizing that progress on this front may come in many forms and must ultimately be done by Iraqis themselves.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BIDEN: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.

General?

PROTESTER: (OFF-MIKE)

BIDEN: The committee will -- the police will clear the protesters.

PROTESTER: (OFF-MIKE) the war in Iraq three and a half years ago, and it's no better.

BIDEN: General?

GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS: Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide my assessment of the security situation in Iraq and to discuss the recommendations I have provided to my chain of command for the way forward.

As I stated in testimony to the two House committees yesterday, this is my testimony. Although I have a briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this myself and did not clear it with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or Congress.

Today, I will provide a summary of the full written testimony I have provided to each of you, and for the record.

As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met. In recent months, in the face of tough enemies and the brutal summer heat of Iraq, coalition and Iraqi security forces have achieved progress in the security arena.

Though improvements have been uneven across Iraq, the overall number of security incidents in Iraq, for example, has declined in eight of the past 12 weeks.

During this time, ethno-sectarian violence has also been reduced and the number of overall civilian deaths has declined, though both are clearly still at troubling levels.

The progress is a result of many factors.

Coalition and Iraqi forces have dealt significant blows to Al Qaida-Iraq and have disrupted Shia militia extremists.

Additionally, in a very significant development, we and our Iraqi partners are being assisted by tribes and local citizens who are rejecting extremism and choosing to help secure Iraq.

Iraqi security forces have also continued to grow and to shoulder more of the load, albeit slowly and amid continuing concerns about the sectarian tendencies of some elements in their ranks.

Based on all this and on the further progress we believe we can achieve over the next few months, I believe that we will be able to reduce our forces to the pre-surge level of brigade combat teams by next summer, withdrawing one-quarter of our combat brigades by that time without jeopardizing in the security gains that we have fought so hard to achieve.

Beyond that, while noting that the situation in Iraq remains complex, difficult and sometimes downright frustrating, I also believe that it is possible for us to achieve our objectives in Iraq over time, though doing so will be neither quick nor easy.

Having provided that summary, I would like to review briefly the nature of the conflict in Iraq, recall the situation before the surge, describe the current situation and explain the recommendations I have provided to my chain of command.

The fundamental source of the conflict in Iraq is competition among ethnic and sectarian communities for power and resources. This competition will take place. The question is whether it is resolved more or less violently.

This chart shows the security challenges in Iraq. And you have charts in front of you as well.

Foreign and homegrown terrorists, insurgents, militia extremists and criminals all pushed the ethno-sectarian competition toward violence. Malign actions by Syria and especially by Iran fuel that violence. And lack of adequate governmental capacity, lingering sectarian mistrust and various forms of corruption add to the challenges.

In January 2007, in response to the horrific ethno-sectarian violence that spiraled out of control in 2006, and to an assessment in December 2006 that we were failing to achieve our objectives, a surge of forces began flowing into Iraq, focusing on protecting the population and reducing sectarian violence, especially in Baghdad.

In so doing, these forces have employed counterinsurgency practices, such as a living among the people they are securing.

In mid-June, with all the surge brigades in place, we launched a series of offensive operations in partnership with Iraqi security forces. These operations focused on expanding the gains achieved in the preceding months in Anbar province, pursuing Al Qaida in the Diyala river valley and several other areas, and clearing Baqouba, several key Baghdad neighborhoods, the remaining sanctuaries in Anbar province and important areas around Baghdad.

And with coalition and Iraqi forces located among the populations they are securing, we have sought to keep areas clear and to help Iraqis in rebuilding them.

All the while, we have engaged in dialogue with insurgent groups and tribes, leading to additional elements standing up to oppose Al Qaida and other extremists.

The progress our forces have achieved with our Iraqi counterparts has, as I noted at the outset, been substantial. While there have been setbacks as well as successes and tough losses along the way, over all, our tactical commanders see improvements in the security environment.

We do not, however, just rely on gut feel or personal observations to gauge progress and to determine trends. We also conduct rigorous consistent data collection and analysis. In fact, two U.S. intelligence agencies recently reviewed our methodology and concluded that the data we produce is the most accurate and authoritative in Iraq.

As I mentioned up front, and as of the chart before you reflects, the level of security incidents has decreased significantly since the start of the surge of offensive operations in-mid June, declining in eight of the past 12 weeks, with the level of incidence in the past two weeks, the lowest since June 2006.

Civilian deaths of all categories, less natural causes, have also declined considerably: by over 45 percent Iraq-wide since the height of the sectarian violence in December. This is shown by the top line on this next chart. And the decline by some 70 percent in Baghdad is shown by the bottom line.

Periodic mass-casualty attacks, car bombings, by Al Qaida, have tragically added to the numbers outside Baghdad in particular. Even without the sensational attacks, however, the level of civilian deaths is of serious concern.

As the next chart shows, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths, an important subset of the overall casualty figures, has also declined significantly since the height of the sectarian violence in December.

Iraq-wide, as shown by the top line on this chart, ethno- sectarian deaths have come down by over 55 percent. In Baghdad, as the bottom line shows, ethno-sectarian deaths have declined by some 80 percent since December.

This chart also displays the density of sectarian incidents in various Baghdad neighborhoods. And it both reflects the progress made in reducing ethno-sectarian violence and identifies the areas where more work must be done.

As we have gone on the offensive in former Al Qaida and insurgent sanctuaries, and as locals have increasingly supported our efforts, we have found a substantially increased number of arms, ammunition and explosive caches.

As this next chart shows, we have so far this year already found and cleared over of 4,400 catches nearly 1,700 more than we discovered in all of last year.

This may be a factor in the reduction in the overall improvised explosive device attacks in recent months, which, as this next chart shows, has declined sharply, by about one-third, since June.

The change in the security situation in Anbar province has, of course, been particularly dramatic. As this next chart shows, monthly attack levels in Anbar have declined from some 1,350 in October 2006 to a bit over 200 in August of this year.

This a dramatic decrease reflects the significance of the local rejection of Al Qaida and the newfound willingness of local Anbaris to volunteer to serve in the Iraqi army and Iraqi police services.

To be sure, trends have not been uniformly positive across Iraq, as is shown by this next chart depicting violence levels in several key Iraqi provinces.

The trend in Nineveh province, for example, has been much more up and down until a recent decline. And the same has been true in Salahuddin province, though recent trends there and in Baghdad, as shown, have been in the right direction.

In any event, the overall trajectory in Iraq, a steady decline of incidents in the past three months, is still quite significant.

The number of car bombings and suicide attacks has also declined in each of the past five months, from a high of some 175 in March, as this next chart shows, to about 90 this past month.

While this trend has been heartening, the number of high-profile attacks is clearly still too high, and we continue to work hard to destroy the networks with our Iraqi counterparts that carry out these barbaric attacks.

Our operations have produced substantial progress against Al Qaida in Iraq.

As this next chart shows, in the past eight months we have considerably reduced the areas in which Al Qaida enjoyed sanctuary. We have also neutralized five important media cells, detained the senior Iraqi leader of Al Qaida-Iraq, and killed or captured nearly 100 other key leaders and some 2,500 rank-and-file fighters.

Al Qaida-Iraq is certainly not defeated. However, it is off balance and we are pursuing its leaders and operators aggressively.

Of note, these gains against Al Qaida are a result of the synergy of actions by conventional forces, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, and special operations elements. A combination of these assets is necessary to conduct effective operations against terrorist elements.

In the past six months we have also targeted Shia militia extremists, killing or capturing over 1,400 rank-and-file and senior leaders.

It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps Quds Force, seeks to turn these Shia militia extremists into a Hezbollah- like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.

PROTESTER: (OFF-MIKE)

BIDEN: We will clear the room.

General?

PETRAEUS: The most significant development in the past six months likely has been the increasing emergence of tribes and local citizens rejecting Al Qaida and other extremists. The success in Anbar is an example of what can happen when local Iraqis decide to oppose Al Qaida and reject its Taliban-like ideology and indiscriminate violence.

While Anbar's model cannot be replicated everywhere in Iraq, it does demonstrate the dramatic change in security that is possible with the support and participation of local citizens.

As this next chart shows, other tribes have been inspired by the actions of those in Anbar and have volunteered to fight extremists as well.

Over 20,000 such individuals are already being hired for the Iraqi national police -- or the Iraqi police service, thousands of others are being assimilated into the Iraqi army, and thousands more are vying for a spot in Iraq's security forces.

As I noted earlier, Iraqi security forces have continued to grow, to develop their capabilities and to shoulder more of the burden of providing security for their country.

Despite concerns about sectarian influence, inadequate logistics and supporting institutions, and an insufficient number of qualified commissioned and noncommissioned officers, Iraqi units are engaged around the country.

As this next chart shows, there are now nearly 140 Iraqi army, national police and special operations forces battalions in the fight, with about 95 of those capable of taking the lead in operations as judged by the operational readiness assessments, albeit with some coalition support.

Although their qualitative development has not always kept pace with their quantitative growth, all of Iraq's battalions have been heavily involved in combat operations that often result in a loss of leaders, soldiers and equipment. Despite the losses, a number of Iraqi units across Iraq now operate with minimal coalition assistance.

In order to take over the security of their country, the Iraqis are rapidly expanding their security forces. In fact, they now have some 445,000 assigned to the Ministries of Interior and Defense forces, and we believe they will be close to 480,000 by year's end.

Significantly, in 2007 Iraq will, as in 2006, spend more on its security forces then it will receive in security assistance from the United States. In fact, Iraq is becoming one of the United States' larger foreign military sales customers, committing some $1.6 billion to FMS already, with the possibility of up to $1.8 billion more being committed before the end of this year. And I appreciate the attention that some members of Congress have recently given to speeding up the FMS process for Iraq.

To summarize, the security situation in Iraq is improving, and Iraqi elements are slowly taking on more of the responsibility for protecting their citizens. Innumerable challenges lie ahead, however, coalition and Iraqi security forces have made progress toward achieving sustainable security. As a result, the United States will be in a position to reduce its forces in Iraq in the months ahead.

Two weeks ago, I provided recommendations for the way ahead in Iraq to the members of my chain of command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The essence of the approach I recommended is captured in its title: Security While Transitioning: From Leading to Partnering to Overwatch.

This approach seeks to build on the security improvements our troopers and our Iraqi counterparts have achieved in recent months. It reflects recognition of the importance of securing the population and the imperative of transitioning responsibilities to Iraqi institutions and Iraqi forces as quickly as possible, but without rushing to failure. It includes substantial support for the continuing development of Iraqi security forces. It also stresses the need to continue the counterinsurgency strategy that we have been employing, but with Iraqis gradually shouldering more of the load. And it highlights the importance of regional and global diplomatic approaches.

Finally, in recognition of the fact that this war is not only being fought on the ground in Iraq but also in cyberspace, it also notes the need to contest the enemies growing use of that important medium to spread extremism.

The recommendations I provided were informed by operational and strategic considerations.

The operational considerations include recognition that military aspects of the surge have achieved progress and generated momentum. Iraqi security forces have slowly been shouldering more of the security burden. A mission focus on either population, security or transition alone will not be adequate to achieve our objectives.

Success against Al Qaida-Iraq and Iranian-supported militia extremists requires conventional forces, as well as special operations forces. And the security and local political situations will enable us to draw down the surge forces.

My recommendations also took into account a number of strategic considerations.

Political progress will only take place if sufficient security exists.

Long-term U.S. ground force viability will benefit from force reductions, as the surge runs its course.

Regional, global and cyberspace initiatives are critical to success.

And Iraqi leaders, understandably, want to assume greater sovereignty in their country. Although, as the recently announced, they do desire a continued presence of coalition forces in Iraq in 2008, under a new U.N. Security Council resolution, and following that they want to negotiate a long-term security agreement with the United States and other nations.

Based on these considerations, and having worked the battlefield geometry with the Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, commander of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, to ensure that retain and build on the gains for which our trooper have fought, I have recommended a drawdown of the surge forces from Iraq.

In fact, later this month, the Marine expeditionary unit deployed as part of the surge will depart Iraq.

Beyond that, if my recommendations are approved, this will be followed by the withdrawal of a brigade combat team without replacement in mid-December, and the further redeployment without replacement of four additional brigade combat teams and two Marine battalions in the first seven months of 2008, until we reach the pre- surge level of 15 brigade combat teams by mid-July 2008.

Force reductions will continue beyond the pre-surge levels of brigade combat teams that we will reach by mid-July 2008. In my professional judgment, however, it would be premature to make recommendations on the pace of such reductions at this time. In fact, our experience in Iraq has repeatedly shown that projecting too far into the future is not just difficult, it can be misleading and even hazardous.

In view of this, I do not believe it is reasonable to have an adequate appreciation for the pace of further reductions and mission adjustments beyond the summer of 2008 until about mid-March of next year.

We will no later than that time consider factors similar to those on which I based the current recommendations, having by then, of course, a better feel for the security situation, the improvements in the capabilities of our Iraqi counterparts and the enemy situation.

This final chart captures the recommendations I have described, showing the recommended reduction of brigade combat teams and illustrating the concept of our units adjusting their missions and transitioning responsibilities to Iraqis as the situation and Iraqi capabilities permit.

It also reflects the no-later-than date for recommendations on force adjustments beyond next summer and provides a possible approach we have considered for the future force structure and mission set in Iraq.

In describing the recommendations I have made, I should note again that, like Ambassador Crocker, I believe Iraq's problems will require a long-term effort.

There are no easy answers or quick solutions. And though we both believe this effort can succeed, it will take time. Our assessments underscore, in fact, the importance of recognizing that a premature drawdown of our forces would likely have devastating consequences.

That assessment is supported by the findings of a 16 August Defense Intelligence Agency report on the implications of a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Summarizing it in an unclassified fashion, it concludes that a rapid withdrawal would result in the further release of the strong centrifugal forces in Iraq and produce a number of dangerous results, including a high risk of disintegration of the Iraqi security forces, rapid deterioration of local security initiatives, Al Qaida-Iraq regaining lost ground and freedom of maneuver, a marked increase in violence and further ethno-sectarian displacement and refugee flows, alliances of convenience by Iraqi groups with internal and external forces to gain advantages over their rivals, and excerbation of already challenging regional dynamics, especially with respect to Iran.

Lieutenant General Odierno and I share this assessment and believe that the best way to secure our national interests and avoid an unfavorable outcome in Iraq is to continue to focus our operations on securing the Iraqi people, while targeting terrorist groups and militia extremists and, as quickly as conditions are met, transitioning security tasks to Iraqi elements.

Before closing, I want to thank you and your colleagues for your support of our men and women in uniform in Iraq. The soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen with whom I'm honored to serve are the best equipped and very likely the most professional force in our nation's history.

All of us appreciate what you have done to ensure that these great troopers have had what they've needed to accomplish their mission, just as we appreciate what you have done to take care of their families as they, too, have made significant sacrifices in recent years.

The advances you have underwritten in weapon systems and individual equipment, in munitions and command, control and communication systems, in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, and vehicles and counter-IED systems and programs, and in manned and unmanned aircraft have proven invaluable in Iraq.

Additionally, your funding of the Commander's Emergency Response Program has given our leaders a critical tool with which to prosecute the counterinsurgency campaign.

Finally, we appreciate, as well, your funding of our new detention programs and rule-of-law initiatives.

In closing, it remains an enormous privilege to soldier again in Iraq with America's new greatest generation. Our country's men and women in uniform have done a magnificent job in the most complex and challenging environment imaginable. All Americans should be very proud of their sons and daughters serving in Iraq today.

Thank you very much.

BIDEN: Thank you, General.

Mr. Chairman, we go to seven-minute rounds, I think.

To say to my colleagues, obviously, our witnesses -- not obviously -- our witnesses have to be at the Armed Services Committee this afternoon, so we're going to hold this to seven-minute rounds. And that will just, I think, get us under the wire, everybody being able to ask their question, OK?

But I'm going to hold it strictly to seven minutes, in fact, if you don't mind.

General, as you know, there are independent studies, such as the General Accounting Office report, that disputes your statistics. But let me not get into that debate let me just ask you a question.

Can a Sunni Arab travel safely to a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad today, without fear of being kidnapped or killed?

PETRAEUS: First of all, Mr. Chairman, if I could just make one comment about the GAO report, because one of the reasons for difference, frankly, is that they did have an earlier data cutoff. It's at least five weeks prior to our data cutoff, which runs until this past Friday. And the trends that have developed, in fact, have been, in many respects, confirmed by the data since that time. In some cases, there were earlier data cutoffs.

BIDEN: You're saying the five-week trends -- the five-week difference, confirms your data being correct. Is that what you're saying?

What I'm saying, Mr. Chairman, is that the additional five weeks of data -- their data is our data. I mean, everyone generally uses the same database.

And they just, because of the requirement to submit their report, to get back here and to write it and so forth, they had a data cutoff that was about five weeks before the data that I just showed you. And that does have quite a significant difference because, again, the trend of a 12-week trend the final five weeks have been pretty important.

In some cases, we think the data cut-off may have been even earlier in their particular report.

BIDEN: Well, again, I don't want to get in an argument about that but if you look at your own chart, there have been at least four other occasions where there have been significant decreases in violence over a three-month period and then it shot back up.

Five weeks in Iraq is a moment, as you know better than I do, General.

PETRAEUS: But this is three months, of course.

BIDEN: I understand that.

PETRAEUS: And, again, we are certainly watching it to see and we're fighting, obviously, to try and keep it down.

BIDEN: We're still talking about 1,000 -- over 1,000 weekly attacks -- 1,000. And we're calling that success. Granted it is down from 1,680 or there abouts, but 1,000 a week.

But let me get directly my question and that is can -- can a Sunni Arab travel safely from a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad to a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad?

PETRAEUS: It depends on the neighborhood, frankly, sir.

There's no question but that travel of Sunni Arabs in a number of Shia neighborhoods in Baghdad is still hazardous. And as I mentioned...

BIDEN: Is there any neighborhood in Baghdad that a Shia can safely travel -- that a Sunni can travel that's a Shia neighborhood? Is there any one?

PETRAEUS: Well, there are still substantial mixed neighborhoods, certainly, in the southeastern part of Baghdad in particular, in which that is possible. Yes, sir.

BIDEN: The ambassador and I went to this reconstruction conference. The leaders from Baghdad -- the Kurdish deputy prime minister, the Shia vice president, the Sunni vice president -- we were all -- I was supposed to fly back and meet with Maliki. The helicopter was grounded because of a wind storm. We all sat there for three hours because no one dared leave that city in a vehicle.

Now, I found that kind of interesting, that if -- we would have stayed there the whole night. I don't think there's any possibility, had that sand storm kept up, would anybody -- those guys gotten in a vehicle and traveled back to Baghdad.

Maybe I'm mistaken. Was there any possibility that likely to happen?

CROCKER: Yes, sir. We tried to keep some of the commotion behind the scenes and out of your view, but one of the alternatives we were actively working on it was a road movement all the way back to Baghdad if we couldn't get the helicopter.

BIDEN: And that road movement would have been highly secured, would it not?

CROCKER: Well, for the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yes, sir.

BIDEN: Oh, I love you. I love you.

(LAUGHTER)

Would have been also for the Kurdish deputy prime minister. He would not be riding back and getting in his diplomatic automobile and driving back.

Let's be straight, guys. You know, the idea that I could have walked outside or we could have walked outside that city and just toured the outside of the city, you guys would have had a apoplectic fit were that to occur and no one would have stepped outside the city.

Let's assume you're right, that there's a reduction. It's a difference, in my view, without a distinction.

But let me get to my next question.

Mr. Ambassador, you indicated that progress will not be quick. In non-diplomatic speak, what does that mean? Should we be telling the American people that we're there for another three, four, five, six, seven, 10 years in relatively large numbers? What do you mean by It will not be quick ?

CROCKER: I think in the past we have set some expectations that simply couldn't be met.

And I'm trying not to do that.

BIDEN: I'm trying to get an accurate estimate.

CROCKER: In terms of concrete things like force levels, as General Petraeus said, neither of us believe we can see beyond next summer. It would be...

BIDEN: But you are seeing beyond next summer. You're saying the process will not be quick. Are you talking about not quick meaning a time frame of a year, or are you talking not quick being well beyond the end of next summer?

CROCKER: It could be well beyond the end of next summer. It certainly will be well beyond the end of next summer before Iraq can achieve the end state I've laid out. There's no question.

What that implies for our presence, levels and so forth, that I can't judge at this point.

BIDEN: Well, I have a minute and 16 seconds left.

Let me suggest that the administration's policy from the outset has been to set up a democratic central government in Iraq that is trusted by the Iraqi people, that we will stand up an Iraqi army so our men and women can stand down and come home, and that the security forces that were added in this tactical ramp-up were designed in order to provide for the government to have breathing room to reach a political reconciliation.

Is it not true that the fundamental purpose of the surge, the primary purpose, a political settlement, has not been met at this point?

CROCKER: Sir, clearly, we do not have a national-level political settlement. It also, I think, is in no way reasonable to expect that a surge that reached its full strength just in the middle of June...

BIDEN: Well, that's what you asserted, though. The administration asserted that's what they'd need.

Let me ask a concluding question in my 19 seconds here.

If, in fact, the circumstances on the ground are exactly what they are today in March of next year, will you recommend the continuation of somewhere between 130,000 and 160,000 American troops being shot at, killed and maimed every day there?

PETRAEUS: Mr. Chairman, I -- that's a pretty big hypothetical.

BIDEN: Well, I don't think it's hypothetical -- if they're the same.

PETRAEUS: I would be very hard-pressed to recommend that at that point in time.

BIDEN: I would pray you would be wise enough not to recommend it and start to listen to General Jones and others who talk about a fundamental redeployment of our force, a fundamental change in our footprint in the region, and a fundamental alteration of our objective in moving toward a federal system.

But my time is up. I yield to Senator Lugar.

LUGAR: Mr. Chairman, I express the regrets of Senator Voinovich for being unable to attend the hearing. He's attending the funeral of Congressman Paul Gillmor in Ohio.

He sends his best to both of you gentlemen. He appreciates your attendance and asks that questions we might ask might follow his return.

BIDEN: Without objection.

LUGAR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Petraeus, in the current Newsweek magazine, there's a description of a strategy building in Iraq. The article is called Brainiac Brigade, and it discusses and compliments the officers that you have gathered around you who, at least beginning in meetings in March and perhaps thereafter, defined a possible strategy of beefing up the local people.

You have both mentioned this today that essentially you try to find pockets of stability, or near stability, where ethnic cleansing has ceased, where, at least, violence appears to be lower or can be contained, and there appear to be responsible persons at the local or the provincial level who are prepared to take some responsibility.

And at least according to the Newsweek article, this strategy won out over, at least, an argument that simply counterinsurgency of every insurgent everywhere be pursued, which is less practical than the one you apparently adopted.

Now, building on that, essentially, David Brooks in the New York Times today, responding to the testimony of both of you gentlemen yesterday, indicates that this strategy of attempting to build the locals, at least, is making some headway, and even if the central government is not able to reconcile Shiites and Sunnis or various divisions even among Shiites and so forth, locals are doing better at this.

He also, of course, mentions that, in part, one reason for the decline in killings in Baghdad and in those areas that were illustrated on the charts is that as many as 35,000 Sunni families have fled Baghdad this year, a good number of neighborhoods are more and more depleted of Sunnis, some of your troops have built walls around various neighborhoods -- this has been reported for several months -- so that people could not kill each other as readily.

And the question, obviously, is raised, what if you raise the problems of our enforcement before people have come to either a total cleansing of the situation or some reconciliation, which does not appear to be occurring in Baghdad? And the point is made the president in his trip went to Anbar, not to Baghdad essentially Anbar being perhaps a signal victory for localism.

Now, what I want to ask you, I suppose, Ambassador Crocker, just from the diplomatic standpoint, as you take a look at all of this, over the course of time, potentially, this is a strategy. It is clearly not one that (inaudible) would have founded at the beginning of this situation, but perhaps one in which a good number of people are able to live and let live and govern themselves.

We note the Kurds yesterday were dealing with the Hunt oil company. The Hunts are not drilling for oil yet, but nevertheless they left well beyond the oil law, although they promised to distribute the money if any comes to it.

In other words, are there possibilities in which you have these local situations that, sort of, contribute in a united way to the central government, feeble as it may be, inept and so forth, either for purposes of distribution or some sense of unity, or perhaps what some people have called is this going to be, sort of, soft partition not the three parts that were often mentioned, but multiple parts, all sorts of parts, as a matter of fact?

And if so, can this be protected, then, by the diplomacy which you mentioned may be instituted more forcefully with a regular secretariat meeting all the time, people rubbing shoulders rather than wondering who they're talking to, something so there are not misapprehensions or miscalculations?

The transparency at least of what is occurring might prevent invasions of others with at least a minimal number of American troops there to keep the peace, generally, to be a general referee of the process as Iraqis work things out.

Can you make any comment about this, sort of, general view of things?

CROCKER: Thank you, sir. I'd make two general comments.

First, on what is going on or what may go on in Iraq, I would agree completely that we have to maintain an open mind, a minimum of preconceptions, an absence of U.S. models for what Iraq should be, and an awareness and readiness to respond to what may actually be happening on the ground that can take Iraq in a positive direction, whatever that may be.

The Iraq of the future will definitely not resemble the Iraq of 2003, and it may differ greatly from Iraq today.

There is decentralization going on there's no question. The role and power of governors and provincial councils, although not yet fully defined, is far in excess of what it ever has been. And I think that is a good thing.

So, the Iraqis, again, are going to need to debate these things for themselves at every level. And there have to be connections between the levels.

And that's what I was referring to in my statement when I noted that we're starting to see a more robust debate on what the nature of federalism is. And we're starting to see it among the Sunnis, which I think is a positive sign.

So I think things can very well move in that direction. And if and as they do, we need to be there to encourage positive direction.

With respect, again, to the neighbors and others, that is exactly our intent: to have a more intensive, more positive, more regulated engagement between Iraq and its neighbors.

I think, for example, that it would be a very good thing if some of Iraq's Arab neighbors themselves decided to support economic development, say, in Anbar, now that you have a security environment that permits that.

I also think the United Nations is now positioned to play a more active and involved role.

As you know, the new mandate for UNAMI contains a number of additional areas, including those you touch on. They now have a mandate to support national dialogue and political reconciliation, to resolve disputed boundaries within Iraq, to promote regional dialogue, all with, of course, the permission of the Iraqi government at the request of the Iraqi government.

So I think, again, you have an Iraqi internal process -- or in reality processes -- that we have to be attuned to and encourage them to move on, but then a number of opportunities to support that, regionally, bilaterally, regionally internationally, and internationally with the U.N. mission in Iraq. So I think all of these come into play.

LUGAR: Thank you very much.

I thank both of you for your service. America is fortunate to have such extraordinary leadership at this point.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BIDEN: Thank you.

Senator Dodd?

DODD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding our longer statements will have to be included in the record.

BIDEN: Yes. Any opening statement that anyone would want to make will be placed in the record before the question.

DODD: I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll ask that be done.

Let me join with the chairman and you, General Petraeus, in, of course, expressing our deep appreciation for the men and women under your command. I don't -- whatever disagreements we have here about policy, I don't think you'll find any member of this committee or any member of this Congress, in fact, the constituents we represent, while there disagreements and serious ones over policy issues, there is a deep and profound respect for the men and women who are serving in a very, very difficult set of circumstances.

I wouldn't want to begin any comments here without expressing that view. It's important I think they understand that, that while we debate about policy questions, there's no debate about the admiration that we have for the courage their showing in these circumstances.

There's a lot of debate, obviously there have been reports about the data and methods used for securing the number of statistics we're going to deal with here -- dealing with here regarding the level of violence in the area. I noted on the chart, General, that you showed -- I think it was one of the first page I want to ask you to put it back up -- but it shows the chart of the violence.

I'm just curious. It shows here, actually, the surge begins, really, about February 1st of '07, on the chart. And the numbers seem to come down -- are already down from the high mark earlier. Am I misreading that?

PETRAEUS: No, that is absolutely correct. In fact, there was actually quite a substantial drop in the month of February just with the announcement of the Baghdad security plan.

In fact, a number of, we think, Shia militia elements took a knee for a while to, sort of, sort out. I think, they did not realize that we did not have more than just the initial brigade on the ground.

But there's no question that the ethno-sectarian violence had crested really in December and was headed down at that time, although still at very, very high levels.

DODD: OK, well, again, I don't want to -- because we can go around and debate the statistics hear back and forth. The GAO, obviously, has a different set of conclusions, and others who argue about how well the surge is working, in terms of the level of violence.

But the whole purpose of it, of course, as you have been stating, and the ambassador has, is creating that space for the political process to move forward.

Now, we've lost some 700 troops, another 4,400, I think, have been injured in the time frame we've been there, in this past eight or nine -- eight months or so.

I was at Walter Reed recently, talking to a young man from Connecticut who lost his eye in Iraq. Would go back, by the way, this afternoon not an uncommon reaction from people serving.

And he said the following to me. And I'm almost quoting him for you, General.

I asked him about the surge and how it was working. He said to me -- he said, Senator, we'll spend a month, month and a half to clean out an area. He said, An hour and a half -- and I'm quoting him exactly here -- An hour and a half after we leave -- it may be an exaggeration, obviously -- after we leave, things are right back where they were before.

He went on to say, Look, the civilian population -- and, again, I'm quoting him. He said, They know where the IEDs are. They know where the ammo dumps are. They won't share that information with us here.

I'm looking at statistics this morning here, when asking, Do you think the increase in U.S. forces in Baghdad and surrounding provinces in the past months has made security better? 70 percent say, worse in the deployment areas 68 percent elsewhere in Iraq draw the same conclusions.

Another recent poll had 68 percent of Iraqis believed that the surge has hampered conditions for political reconciliation. Seventy percent believe the security has deteriorated as a result of this. Ninety-three percent of all Iraqi Sunnis think it's justifiable to kill Americans.

How do we justify this continuation?

And what makes us believe, given the failure over the past number of months on a number of key issues -- which Senator Lugar raised, Senator has Biden has raised -- the benchmarks that they set for themselves, completing a constitutional review, implementing laws to roll back the de- Baathification, enacting legislation related to oil revenue-sharing, amnesty, and outlawing and disarming militias all of those benchmarks, they've set for themselves, and yet we're seeing nothing getting better here at all.

And as General Jones recently pointed out in his own testimony, talking here, he said that, Long-term security advances in Iraq are impossible without political reconciliation, again, something both of you recognize here.

DODD: And yet, I don't seem to get any indication, don't get a feeling here that there's any real opportunity or optimism that this is going to get better.

All of the effort that's been made over the years, before the surge, how many conversations did President Bush have with the leadership in Iraq, Vice President Cheney, congressional leaders going over there?

We have been begging that leadership for the past 4.5 years to get their act together, begging them to do it, understanding that only they can do it.

And yet, you come here again this morning, four and a half years later, even after the surge -- we can argue about statistics, but no real indication that we're getting any closer to that.

What makes you possibly believe that anything further like this is going to produce the results that everyone else has failed to produce over the previous four and a half years?

PETRAEUS: What I draw some encouragement from, Senator, is, again, the activity that is ongoing, actually in the absence of legislation. There is, for example, no oil revenue sharing law that has been agreed. It's been proposed, but certainly not passed by the Council of Representatives.

But Iraq is actually sharing oil revenue, in fact, very similar to what is likely to happen if that -- the bill that's currently envisioned is passed.

In fact, as, when the ambassador was out in Anbar province, they increase the budget of Anbar province, a Sunni Arab province, a Shia government, Shia-majority government did that.

There is no general amnesty law. There is, actually, though, conditional immunity. That's the only description of what happens when former insurgents from a place like Abu Ghraib -- Sunni Arab, but right next to a Sunni-Shia faultline -- are allowed to attend the Iraqi police academy where they will graduate, some number of them, on the 10th of this month -- and others from another location.

That's a very significant step. And, candidly, that is what gives some encouragement. There are a number of examples of this where the big law, the national reconciliation has not taken place, but there are steps just happening. There are actions being taken that give you hope that they can indeed reconcile with one another, accommodate one another, and so forth.

We have worked very hard with the local piece. That is now supported by the Iraqis. We have a senior diplomat, a two-start British general, on the force reconciliation -- or the engagement cell, and Prime Minister Maliki has formed a national reconciliation committee that works with that cell to try to connect the national level actions, to move, for example, local volunteers onto the roles of the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense forces.

So they're paid nationally then. As you know, there's no local funding for police. And that has happened. That's what happened in Anbar province. And that's what gives some confidence that these tribes -- you know, certainly we applauded when they turned their weapons instead of on us on Al Qaida.

We have not armed them, by the way. We have not -- we don't have weapons to give to tribes or something like that. We have funded some of them for periods and then they've been moved onto the roles of these national ministries. That means that they're in a chain of command that extends to the top. It means that the budget is paid by the center. And in this case, a Sunni Arab minister of defense, but a Shia minister of interior has hired now, again, over some 20,000 or so police in Anbar province alone.

That's the type of activity that gives me some encouragement, even though, as the chairman correctly quoted from my letter to the troops, they have not met -- it is not worked out the way we had hoped with respect to the national legislation. But there have been these other activities that have given us some cause for hope.

DODD: Can I just quickly ask you, that young soldier at Walter Reed, is his views commonly held about the cooperation from the Iraqi population?

PETRAEUS: Sir, it -- I mean, there's 165,000 different views on the ground.

And if you go to Anbar province right now, they feel as if, you know, they're in the loving arms or their Sunni Arab citizens who shot at them, you know, six, eight months ago.

And it does change there's no question about it. And you can walk around the map and you could say, looking at it, literally: This is where they'll help you this is where they won't.

The fact is that we are getting a lot more help. I mean, that's the only explanation for the fact that we now have 4,400 weapons caches. We may have actually doubled the number that we got all of last year. And they're pretty substantial ones. And quite a few of them, in fact, are materials that would have been put into car bombs and so forth.

Thank you, sir.

BIDEN: Senator Hagel?

HAGEL: Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Gentlemen, welcome.

As Senator Dodd and others have noted this morning, every American is proud of the service of our American military and those who are serving in what ever capacity in a very difficult situation in Iraq. And we should not, at all, confuse the sense of support and the gratitude that all Americans have for your leadership and your service.

That said, we, just as you, each have responsibilities. We are elected by the people of our states. To question strategy is not unpatriotic.

Now, with that said, Ambassador, General, when you look at, and I know you have, the preceding reports that we have talked about today -- and you have added to with information numbers, General Jones' report, the General Accountability report.

I spent some time with Stuart Bowen, the I.G. for Iraq reconstruction. Of the latest national intelligence estimates, Anthony Cordesman's latest report. Thread throughout those reports, and then listening carefully to what the two of you said this morning, are some very bright line contradictions.

Now, let's start with one that almost everyone that I am aware of has said the core issue is, the most important issue, and that is political reconciliation.

And I have quotes from you, General Petraeus, and you, Ambassador Crocker, from the president, every senior member of our government, involved in our policy and our strategy in Iraq -- all agree, as you said, General Petraeus, that there will be no military solution in Iraq.

HAGEL: Now, when you look at the reports, let's start with the question I asked the comptroller general last week when I asked him his analysis of the current Iraqi government: Is it a functioning government? And his response to me was: At best, it is dysfunctional. You may disagree with that.

But when you take the sum total analysis of these reports that we've look at, they lead us to a pretty clear conclusion, that, in fact, this government in Iraq is dysfunctional.

And when you add further to what the chief of staff of the United States Army had to say, General Casey, about tactical effects of surges and how minimal they are, and how they will, as Admiral Fallon has said, quote, No amount of time or troops will make much difference, unless there is a political reconciliation, I doubt if either or you disagree with that analysis. If you do, please tell the committee why.

The other part of this is that it seems to me logical that when you flood a zone with more troops, when you put more troops in Baghdad or Anbar province, you're going to see some consequence to that, you're going to see some result.

So I don't think that's particularly news, that where we have inserted more American troops, costing more American lives, we've seen some differences.

But just as one of the most flawed dynamics of our policy invading Iraq four and a half years ago is we never had enough troops, we still don't have enough troops, so it seems to be logical that it would follow.

But when you look at the southern part of Iraq, which I noted that neither one of you noted today, one of the senior members of General Jones' task force said to me when he returned, We've probably lost southern Iraq.

I said, You must be kidding.

He said, No. He said the four provinces of southern Iraq are gone. They are lawless. There is no Iraqi national army down there. The police are corrupt, as indicated in General Jones' report, incidentally, as well as others.

The British used to have 40,000 troops in Iraq. As you well know, they are at about 5,000. They're huddled in the airport in Basra.

What I was told by not just this individual from General Jones' group, but other reports, intelligence reports and other reports I get, actually in the newspaper, is lawless gangs of marauders, of Shia militia, are in charge in Basra and those four provinces.

As you both know, two governors have been assassinated in the last two months. I was told by one individual who has been down there recently that we are actually essentially paying tribute to these people to keep open the port.

HAGEL: Now, the contradictions, in my mind, Ambassador and General, as much as you want to put a good picture on this, and that's partly, I understand, your job. And I understand it's your responsibility. And I don't question that you believe exactly what you have come before this committee to say.

But I have to ask this question: Where is this going?

Now, let's don't get down into the underbrush of the 18 benchmarks -- and by the way, let's clear some of the record on that -- those 18 benchmarks didn't come from the Congress of the United States. Those benchmarks came from the Iraqi government and this administration.

Somehow it's the Congress dictated these benchmarks. Well, we didn't. We didn't.

Well, let's not argue about who's got better numbers or better numbers in the context of more frequent numbers. Let's get above the underbrush and look at the strategic context, which, essentially, we have never done.

It's not your fault, General. It's not Ambassador Crocker's fault. It's this administration's fault. We have never, ever looked at Iraq from the larger strategic context, of not Iraq only but Iran, Syria, and the Middle East.

Now, where is this going to go?

Because the question that is going to continue to be asked -- and you all know it and you have to live with it -- and when you ask questions, as we all do, about is it worth it, the continued investment of American blood and treasure, when Senator Dodd presents to do the evaluation of one lonely enlisted man -- and by the way, I assume you read the New York Times piece two weeks ago -- seven NCOs in Iraq, today, finishing up 15 month commitments.

Are we going to dismiss those seven NCOs? Are they ignorant?

They laid out a pretty different scenario, General, Ambassador, from what you're laying out today.

Senator Biden said to me once -- I think it was on our first trip to Iraq. He turned around and I was gone. He said: Where did Senator Hagel go?

He found me out talking to the guys in the jeep, the corporals and the sergeants who have to do the dying and the fighting.

I've always found that, if you want an honest evaluation, and not through charts, not through the White House evaluations, you ask a sergeant or a corporal what they think.

I'll bet on them every time, as I know you will, General. I know you will.

HAGEL: Now, where is this going?

We have got too many disconnects here, General -- way too many disconnects.

Are we going to dismiss the five reports that I just noted?

I would say to you, Ambassador, one of your quotes: If we don't be careful we are going to see Iraq devolve into a civil war.

Come on. Our national intelligence report, earlier this year, said we're in a civil war. It is sectarian violence.

But yet you said that in your testimony this morning. You give us a great inventory of what a brutal, bloody dictator Saddam was. Well, we know that. That is not the issue here.

Are we going to continue to invest American blood and treasure at the same rate we are doing now, for what? The president said let's buy time. Buy time? For what?

Every report I've seen, and I assume both of you agree with this, there's been, really, very little, if any, political process that is the ultimate core issue, political reconciliation in Iraq.

I know my time is up, but I would appreciate, Mr. Chairman, if I could get an answer from these two gentlemen on that question. Thank you.

CROCKER: Thank you, Senator. I'll just touch very briefly on the key and critical points you raise here.

There is an enormous amount of dysfunctionality in Iraq. That is beyond question. The government, in many respects, is dysfunctional, and members of the government know it. There is a lot of discontent about that in and out of government. And, if you will, that is some qualified good news.

People who previously espoused a strict sectarian or ethnic line in how positions were apportioned, for example, are now saying: This isn't working. That is part of the debate in Iraq and a fairly common part of the debate. The application is going to be a lot more difficult, but Iraqis are talking about, precisely, that kind of dysfunctionality.

A second point I would make is on security and violence.

Iraq, in my judgment, almost completely unraveled in 2006, and the very beginning of 2007, as sectarian violence after February '06 just spiraled up.

Under those conditions, it is extremely difficult -- it is impossible to proceed with effective governance or an effective process of national reconciliation. It is just in the last couple of months that those levels of violence have come down in a measurable way.

And we can have lots of debate about what measure is used, but the one that as a foreign service officer that I take the most seriously is the perception among Iraq's leaders, all the main communities, that the security situation has improved.

That gives you an environment when you can start working on meaningful national reconciliation. And that's why I placed an emphasis in my statement on the need for Iraqis to work out these fundamental questions that are as yet unresolved. What is the state going to look like? What is the relation between the provinces and the center, and the provinces and each other?

That's still unresolved. Now they've got -- they're starting to get the space to work on it.

What I do point to as a moderately encouraging factor is that when security does improve, as we saw in Anbar, political life starts up again. For example, in Anbar now, every significant town has a municipal council, has an elected mayor. That was not the case six months ago.

We have also seen provinces and the center connecting to each other. And if there is one thing where the government is showing some functionality on, in marked difference to last year, is distributing revenues. Provincial budgets are being funded and are being funded in a reasonably equitable way. We do not hear from the Sunnis that they're getting shortchanged, for example.

So that suggests to me that, at a minimum now, we've got an environment developing, not fully developed, but developing with violence at low enough levels where a meaningful discussion on national reconciliation can take place. That's now what needs to happen.

PETRAEUS: Senator, first of all, with respect, my responsibility as I see it is not to give a good picture, it's to give an accurate picture, as forthright a picture as I can provide, and that is what I've tried to do.

Second, we certainly will not be at the same rate of forces. If the recommendations are approved, as I mentioned, the Marine expeditionary unit, 2,000-plus, will be coming out this month, and we'll then draw down one-quarter of our ground combat brigades and two additional Marine battalions.

BIDEN: General, point of clarification. Excuse me. Was that expeditionary force, they were scheduled to come out anyway, right?

PETRAEUS: Sir, they're scheduled to come out, but I could have easily requested an extension of them. And, in fact, we were -- I considered that. We did request an extension earlier, and that was granted. And, in fact, so we are now allowing them to go home.

BIDEN: Excuse me, again. You extended them to 15 months?

PETRAEUS: No, sir. This is a MEU that was a float MEU, came ashore a couple of months ago, was extended on the ground just to continue the work.

They're working north of Fallujah cleaning up a pocket of Al Qaida, allow the Iraqi army to go in there and to replace them in that area, and they will now go home without replacement. The key is, without replacement, actually.

The MEU is scheduled to rotate out, and that was going to happen, but we're not asking for the Central Command strategic reserve. Again, that's the point.

BIDEN: Thank you for your clarification.

PETRAEUS: And then, as I mentioned, the other forces. Another important point, Senator, is that many of the positive developments have not just been a result of additional forces. In some cases, they have. There's neighborhoods in Baghdad where we are sitting on a sectarian fault line trying to stabilize it, stop the (inaudible) that continues. It literally -- just this sectarian violence that never stops until the area is stabilized.

And there are some neighborhoods where we are, indeed, trying to do that. The seven sergeants are in one such neighborhood.

But in a number of cases, the progress is not just because of more forces sitting on a problem it's the result of a fundamental change on the ground. Nowhere is that more visible, obviously, than Anbar province where -- and this bears out the whole idea that it is about political change.

What happened in Anbar is politics. It was the result of tribes, sheikhs saying no more to Al Qaida. That's a political decision, to oppose an organization with which they were, at least tacitly, in league, and, perhaps, supporting. And that has happened in other areas now, as well.

In Diyala province, a very, very challenging area, mixed ethnic -- in fact, Sunni, Shiite and Kurd -- the sheiks have come together there and said, We reject extremism of any form, including, therefore, Shia militia extremism.

PETRAEUS: And the government, and we, are trying to help them build on that, how to use that to augment, to reinforce, build on the success that our soldiers and Iraqi forces achieved in clearing Baqouba of Al Qaida, to then hold it and continue that effort with the support, again, of the tribes. And that is hugely important because that is a shift.

Sunni Arabs, by and large, in Iraq for a number of years were supportive, at the least -- at least tacitly, again -- to Al Qaida because of their feelings of dispossession, disrespect, unemployment and a variety of other reasons. And that is an important development. That is an important phenomenon that we obviously want to work very hard to reinforce while ensuring that we still tie it into the center sufficiently so that it does not create additional problems down the road.

We are talking about really, sort of, finding who are the irreconcilables and trying to isolate them and then to help the Iraqi government to bring the reconcilables to become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

And that is what has happened, again, most notably in Anbar but it is applicable to some degree in other areas, as well.

Thank you, sir.

BIDEN: Senator Kerry?

SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS: Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, thank you very, very much for being here today. And, more importantly, thank you both and thank all of the diplomatic service and the troops for their remarkable sacrifices on our behalf. We are enormously grateful -- and respectful, may I add.

I want to ask a couple of questions of you, General, and also a couple of you, Ambassador Crocker. And it's difficult in the timeframes to do it so let me try to frame them, put them in a context and them let you answer.

First of all, let me say that this is a historic moment.

Not since the country heard from General Westmoreland almost 40 years ago has an active duty general played such an important role in a national debate with respect to security strategy.

So this is different and significant.

But I want to remind you and those who are following this that almost half the names that found their way to the Vietnam Wall after that testimony found their way there when our leaders had acknowledged, in retrospect, that they knew the policy was not working, and would not work.

And all you have to do is go back and read Defense Secretary McNamara's books and other histories of that period.

So obviously we dare not repeat those mistakes here, and that's why these judgments are really so critical. Our troops are owed a policy that is worthy of their sacrifice. And our country is owed a policy that meets our needs -- our national interest -- and that can ultimately get the job done.

What I fear, as I hear this analysis, is that we are passing by the sort of strategic, larger issue here and finding ourselves dealing with statistics and analysis that may have meaning as to one location or another, but doesn't have meaning as to the larger question of the strategic reconciliation necessary here, the political decision- making.

For all of your efforts, General, for all of the efforts of our troops, they can't make the Iraqis make the decisions they have to make.

So one question is: Is it acceptable that young Americans are dying and being grievously wounded while Iraqi politicians delay and delay and delay meeting their own standards?

Secondly, in the south, as Senator Hagel has mentioned, is it acceptable that the British redeploy to an airbase and leave four southeastern provinces where 30 percent of the Iraqi population is and 80 percent of the oil revenues and leave it to local militia to fundamentally fight it out under Iranian influence?

If that is acceptable, then why is it not acceptable to other parts of the country? And if it's not acceptable, what are we going to do about it?

Third question, Ambassador Crocker, with respect to the reconciliation and diplomacy. It really has to be emphasized that 15 months after the Maliki government has come to power their own commitments are not being met. This is not something Congress put forward, it's not something the administration dreamt up. They said to us: Measure us by these benchmarks.

And here we are now, after the escalation of forces, making that measurement. Why is it not appropriate that they should be held to their own standards. And isn't it, in fact, moving goal posts to suggest, well, we're not really going to look at the benchmark itself, we're going to look at the activity underneath and find out whether or not that is adequate?

It clearly is not adequate when the fundamental issue is, how long can you continue to ask our troops to make these kinds of sacrifices where you don't have the fundamentals of the political reconciliation necessary.

Now, you've pointed to Anbar province. Anbar province, you have to show us how that is relevant to the reconciliation nationally, because every indicator is those sheiks decided they were tired of having their daughters raped and their sons beheaded and their towns blown up by Al Qaida, and they've made an accommodation with us, not with the national reconciliation, in order to avoid that from happening. That makes sense.

But in the end, if we've armed them and trained them and there is no national reconciliation, have we simply made more complicated the question of how you resolve the civil war that is ongoing?

The only way this is resolved is through that reconciliation. When the war started, Baghdad was 65 percent Sunni. Today Baghdad is 75 or so percent Shia.

And one of the reasons the violence is down is because there's been this enormous dislocation of the population. The middle class has left. And you have, you know, a, sort of, soft, if you will -- some have called it -- kind of partition already taking place.

So, help us, please, Mr. Ambassador, to understand, why are you not moving the goalposts?

Why should we not hold the Iraqi government itself accountable to its own standards?

And why is there any indication of that reconciliation that will now, effectively, take place when you said you're going to leave 130,000 troops, which is where we were last year when Iraq almost fell apart.

That's what you're telling the American people will be there next year and next summer. And having told that to the Iraqis, what's the leverage to make them make the decisions they've been unwilling to make to this moment?

Three questions.

CROCKER: If I could start -- again, I think we all agree we clearly agree that the essence of the issue here is national reconciliation, political reconciliation.

I think, at the same time, we've got to acknowledge the clear linkage between security conditions, levels of violence said, and the capacity of people in an environment to move meaningfully toward reconciliation.

Those security conditions, those necessary security preconditions, simply have not existed over the last year and a half.

I agree completely. The country almost came apart, completely, in the course of 2006.

KERRY: With 130,000 troops there.

CROCKER: And that process is what led to the recommendations of our predecessors that we needed to assume a role of population security, and that is what we are now doing. And it is making a difference.

But it is going to take time. It is not just a switch that you flip, that as the surge starts to make a real difference, at the beginning of the summer, then everyone is prepared to sit down and make historic compromises. That is going to take time and effort. Will it succeed, how fast will it succeed, in what form will it succeed? I do not know.

I do agree very much with Senator Lugar on this issue of benchmarks. The benchmarks are important and they are Iraqi. But, at the same time, we got to maintain enough strategic and tactical flexibility here, I think, to recognize when things are happening that may be moving toward reconciliation, that does not line up exactly with a benchmark, which is why I talked, as did General Petraeus, about the things going on with amnesty, with de facto de- Baathification reform, some of the other issues related to benchmarks.

We got to find ways to identify and encourage those things.

So, again, it is not simply an issue of a government and a leadership that is dithering, incapable, unwilling. It is a set of circumstances that, for the last year and a half, had made meaningful reconciliation somewhere between very hard and outright impossible.

Those conditions are changing. Now, they are going to have to move ahead to take advantage of the time and the space, but the time and the space is really just -- it's really just starting in the course of this summer. It's not something they have been squandering over the last year or more.

In terms of Anbar, and not to overemphasize this one particular province, but there are things there that are of broader significance, and I think it is important to understand them.

It isn't at all only about us and the Anbaris. That has been a key element of our focus since the beginning of this process, to ensure that what happens in Anbar is linked to the center in ways that are agreeable to both the center and the province.

That's why the 21,000 young Anbaris who have come aboard as police officers and who graduated, I guess, yesterday, that's why that's important. The central government has them on the central government's payroll to maintain security in their own province. That's why the readiness of the government, the central government, to provide additional resources to the province to meet its reconstruction needs and to pay compensation is also important.

So you're seeing a process working in Anbar that obviously is important in and of itself, but it's also important in the way the two entities, the province and the center, have managed to establish some working linkages.

Can that be replicated?

CROCKER: No, it can't be done so in a cookie-cutter fashion, but in Diyala, a much more complex situation, Kurd, Shia, Sunni, all intermingled there, we're seeing some of the same phenomenon. A rejection of radicals, a desire to get on with reconstruction and development and expectation of the central government to support that.

So that, to me, is the stage for, at least, a reconciliation process that may actually mean something, and I think we've got to follow it and encourage it.

PETRAEUS: Senator, I won't repeat what the ambassador just said, but I do want to talk about the south. First, with respect to this local accommodation that is taking place, really, conditional immunity again, we are seeing that even in Baghdad neighborhoods. For example, Ghazaliya, Amiriya and Adhamiya all were Al Qaida strongholds as little as just a few months ago. Adhamiya has just begun turning in the last month or so, but already local volunteers are coming forward.

And, again, the key with that is to make sure that it is tied into the central government through the national reconciliation committee that they had set up, so that they become legitimate security force members and not the fixed site security elements that we have literally hired them to be in the interim to help maintain the momentum against Al Qaida in those areas. Because those have changed completely, those particular areas.

KERRY: I know my time is up, and I don't want to abuse it. But if I could just say, General, the issue has never been Iraqi versus Al Qaida, because everybody has always had confidence they didn't want foreign jihadists and they'll kick them out one time or another.

The issue is this reconciliation. And the question is -- they're really too different, fundamental...

PETRAEUS: Well, again, the local accommodation that is represented by the Iraqi government, a Shia majority government, Prime Minister Maliki's office reconciliation committee enabling these individuals to be hired -- to be trained and hired in the Ministry of Interior, for example -- that's what I'm really getting at. And that is reconciliation. It may not be the reconciliation law. Candidly, that is what gives me, again, some hope.

BIDEN: General, isn't it the truth, though -- let's get this fact out about reconciliation -- isn't it true that the reason why you got this deal is the Anbaris weren't going to allow any national police in their streets?

What you did is you made a deal. They're paying for their own cops. It wasn't until you guys said, You can hire your own. Go out there, tribal chiefs, tell your sons to join. We'll guarantee only -- only -- Sunnis will be there in your neighborhood. Isn't that what happened?

PETRAEUS: Well, Senator, again, the idea here is that local police should be local. There were not local police in the past because they didn't have the courage to raise their hands.

We had to close the police academy in Anbar province over two years ago, and just reopened it about two months ago. There were no volunteers. It didn't matter what you said. We wanted volunteers for the Iraqi army and the local police in Anbar.

And they stopped raising their hand about two years ago when so many of them had their families killed, kidnapped, tortured, and so forth, and they themselves were treated the same way.

So, it took, really, sort of a critical mass of tribal leaders joining with our forces that were augmented at that time to clear a place like Ramadi. Ramadi was not going to be cleared by tribes alone. It took hard combat fighting, in cities, urban combat. And it was tough.

But it is now clear, and they are now very much invested in keeping it clear.

And, again, having local police is a concept that we had tried to do for years in Iraq but were unsuccessful because we couldn't get Sunni Arabs to stay in the force.

Now, with respect to solutions in the Shia south, there are four provinces in Multi-National Division-Southeast. Two of those are doing fine, frankly. Muthanna province, even though the governor was assassinated, we're pretty certain by militia extremists, continues to stay fine. They will have a new governor. They'll work out OK. And there are no coalition forces whatsoever in Muthanna province. It went to provincial Iraqi control last year.

That has the capital Samawah (ph).

Dhi Qar province, which has Nasiriyah, there have been efforts by militia extremists to take on the legitimate -- and, by the way, again, in Muthanna it's legitimate Iraqi security forces, army elements and police that are providing the security there. Very, very low level of violence until this recent assassination of the governor.

In Dhi Qar province, the capital of Nasiriyah, we have a single U.S. special forces team, there's an Australian battalion focused primarily on civil military operations. And, again, that province doing really quite well.

And those forces there led by -- you know, again, this comes down to leadership, and when you find a good Iraqi leader, Colonel Abu Lika (ph), who has been wounded a couple of times, but his forces have stood up very much to the militia extremists and even pursued them beyond Nasiriyah to neighboring cities.

And then they all -- then the tribes get together and there's some negotiations. But that is -- that's OK. That is an Iraqi solution that works in the Shia south.

These solutions are not necessarily transferable, however, to mixed areas or others.

With respect to another province down there, Maysan province, that's the marsh Arabs, Maysan province has never been controlled by any Iraqi government. It's not been controlled in the past few years really.

I mean, again, the marsh Arabs are going to do what the marsh Arabs are going to do. And that's really what they have been doing, provincial Iraqi control a few months ago, and they'll come to their Iraqi solutions.

Basra province, very, very important to Iraq, of course, the ports, the oil, and all the rest of that all flows through there. The British did a good hand-off to a force that was trained and equipped and certified to hand off the palace. They had earlier handed off the logistical base and other bases, consolidating at the airport.

PETRAEUS: They have a number of important tasks. In fact, I will go home -- or it is home now Iraq -- I'll go back to Iraq through London and talk to them with the Ministry of Defense and the prime minister to discuss the tasks and make sure we have a common sight picture on that.

Beyond that, Prime Minister Maliki put a pretty strong -- a very strong four-star general down there as the Basra operations command commander several months ago. That has already had a salutary effect. There is no question but that there is a competition down there between the Fadila (ph) Party, the supreme council, the Badr corps, and certainly Sadr's party and militia.

Interestingly, there have been deals there recently and the violence level has just flat plummeted. It's included some release of some Jaish al-Mahdi figures, again, accommodations between all of them.

Again, for the Shia south, that's probably OK. These are Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems. The problem is that that does not necessarily transfer to a province that has mixed ethno-sectarian identities such as Diyala, Baghdad, or some of the others.

BIDEN: Thank you, Gentlemen.

PETRAEUS: Thank you, sir.

BIDEN: Senator Coleman?

SEN. NORM COLEMAN, R-MINN. : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, first thank you for your extraordinary service. General, I will say to you that I found the attacks on your credibility, personal attacks, by moveon.org to be really despicable and I would hope that it would be roundly rejected and we need to put the politics aside in this issue, if we can, listen to your troops on the ground, try to figure out the way forward.

I had a chance when I was in Ramadi, about nine days ago, to listen to some of those troops on the ground, one of them was a Captain Marcus Maines (ph), he was at the Joint Security Station (inaudible) right in Ramadi. Marines are good, not just at killing foreign fighters and Al Qaida, but he was rebuilding a town. Had bulletin boards in the neighborhoods.

And he had a loudspeaker system to, at times, play the Iraqi national anthem. He was rebuilding a city. As a former mayor, I understood what he was trying to do.

I met with the mayor of Ramadi, who was talking about -- they've got Lake Habaniyah there, and he was talking about, you know, a resort area.

Well, every one of his buildings are filled with bullet holes. That's a long-term vision. And that's my -- I appreciate the hope, but here's the concern.

Ambassador Crocker, you talk about it's going to take time it's going to take time. Between now and next March or April, there are going to be ups and downs in Iraq.

There -- you know, maybe more folks will pull out of the government. I suspect we'll see efforts by Al Qaida. And they have the ability to commit massive violence, massive violence.

They may be on the run, but they're clearly not out. And so, as we listen to the American people on this issue, what I think we do need, what we don't even have now, in spite of this testimony, is, Ambassador, objective measures of progress.

It's one thing to say that, well, benchmarks aren't an end to themselves, but can you offer us -- can we lay on the table something, so that when we have the next downturn and we have the next pullout, when we have the next, you know, fissure between Sunni and Shia, that we at least have some objectives measures to say that we are on a path to progress.

This is about -- we talk about reconciliation. It's about power- sharing. It's power-sharing. It's reconciliation, perhaps, between Sunni and Shia. It's power -- in Baghdad. It's power-sharing between central government in Baghdad and Anbar. And it's power-sharing in the southern provinces between Shia and Shia.

So that's there. So, for you, my question would be, can you offer us -- can we put on the table objective measures that we can then look at and come back to, when things get shaky, to determine if we're on a course to success.

And, General, for you, it would be perhaps the same thing. Americans want to see light at the end of the tunnel.

COLEMAN: And it's one thing to say, and I applaud the troop drawdown this year. I applaud the fact we'll be at pre-surge levels next year.

But, again, because there are going to be these attacks, there are going to be these things that clearly undermine American confidence that we are in fact continuing with progress, we need to see some plan out there.

The Peace Institute had a -- which was composed of many of the folks involved in the Iraqi Study Group, they came out with something the other day that said we could get down to half the number of troops we have now in three years, a total turning over of bases five years.

They don't say it, but I suspect you'd have to have the U.N. in there, We're going to be in Iraq a long time, but, much as we're in Kosovo, it doesn't have to be America fighting the fight, but the Iraqis.

So, General, is it -- for you, can we get a longer term vision? Can we get a longer term plan? Can we say that, yes, we can be down to half our troops in three years? We can get to five years we can be turning over the bases and some other paradigm?

But I think that we need something a little more than say give us more time to come back again in the fall.

So, Ambassador, if you could respond.

And, General, if you could respond.

CROCKER: Thank you, Senator.

What I look to are the continuation or initiation of processes, again, more than fixed decisions. Benchmarks go two ways, in my view, as a potential misleading indicator. And one of them is I believe Iraqis could hit all of the benchmarks and still not achieve national reconciliation.

So how can we better define what national reconciliation looks like if it is there or if it's not there?

I think we've already got processes out there that we can keep an eye on and see if the Iraqis are able to further expand them in the months ahead. The association, again, between the central government and the provinces -- is the central government able to increase its ability to support provincial efforts at reconstruction and rebuilding? And are the provinces, if they get resources, able to execute budgets on behalf of their citizenry?

Because an awful lot of this is about resources, services, equitable distributions. So that's one. That presupposes -- and this, I think, is crucial, that levels of violence stay down and go down further. As General Petraeus said in his opening remarks, this has been and ethno-sectarian competition for power and resources.

The question now -- the critical question for Ira